Three Pool Rhumba

I Didn't Say Run

The second he hung it on the fence, I knew it was a Vermillion Sands – dark black deck, black trucks, and mutant black wheels that absorbed the light like a distant black hole.

His name was Lance. An eighth grader. He tried to hang with us surfers and skaters but his red hair was too short and he came to school on the bus. Last year, he'd skipped into my Spanish class because he could talk Mexican. I sat behind him and told him he'd better let me copy his tests, which worked until Ms. Gutierrez caught me. But I really didn't know him and now here he was with that Vermillion and two kids that didn't go to school with us.

I flicked my cigarette at the fence and nodded at Tim. He smiled, dropped in, and skated up the ditch, carving a nice line. I heard a couple of cars speed by on the freeway behind us.

“Hey Tim. Bradley,” Lance said. “Ditch looks pretty clean.”

“Yeah,” I went.

“You guys at the contest?” He asked.

I shook my head as Tim came up going, “Contests are lame.”

I got ready to drop in, put my own stick on the top of the ditch. Chunks of bamboo and grip tape were missing from where I'd crashed it. I glanced over at his deck and wondered how he got it. They were pretty rare and only kids with coin had them. I didn't think of Lance that way, but like I said, I didn't know him, and even though he was wearing a black t-shirt, a pair of red jeans and some worn out Vans, he had that Vermillion. I rode down the wall, climbed up opposite side, kickturned and rolled to the bottom, where I stopped.

Lance dropped in behind me, gained speed and climbed the wall. He crouched low into a stylish lay back, rolled across the top––almost sliding into those pointy green plants which you break and are all full of water––then rolled back in. ollied off the top, and landed on the flat with a loud thud.

I climbed back to the top of the ditch and watched his friend, a dork with short black hair, drop in and lose his balance on the transition. He'd barely made it halfway up the wall before losing his balance and falling on his ass. He got up, sprinted toward his board and caught it right before it fell into the drop.

Tom went, “Shouldn't skate here if you don't know how to ride.”

“It's OK,” Lance answered for the Dork. “These guys are still learning. I'm helpin' them.”

The Dork smiled big and went, “Yeah.” He walked down the side of the ditch and put his skateboard at the bottom, pushed off and barely rolled up the side before he jumped off. Why would Lance help him?

The other one, smaller and younger, just stood there in front of the fence, leaning on his board, watching us. He had one of those brand new Augmented decks with a black and white picture of some bloodsucking insect looking like it was floating off the bottom of his board. I'd wanted a board like that for Christmas but my dad had just left my mom and it wasn't the greatest holiday ever.

“Where'd you get that?” Tim asked, nodding at Lance's board.

“Christmas,” Lance said. He dropped in again and skated up and down the ditch walls doing ollies, mini-airs, then powersliding to a stop right before the drop. As he skated back, I wondered how it was that I didn't know that he could skate, really skate. He was always hanging around, but no one knew anything about him.

Tim went, “Hey Lance try your board?”

“Sure,” Lance said. He handed the black Vermillion over to Tim.

Tim rode the board up the ditch toward where we never skate because of the freeway traffic, then turned and started skating toward us. He rode up the wall, gained speed and wobbled as he hit the bottom but then he climbed and carved and slid, held the board and did it again. I swear he was going faster.