Skateboarding is Not a Crime

We promised the skater boys we’d take them somewhere this summer.  They wanted to go to Canada.  We went to California.  They wanted to take Charlie’s V-10 Magnum luxury fat-ass truck.  We took their Honda: we’re paying for gas.   We’re paying for everything, which is why we decided on Cali in the first place.  We have relatives in the Bay Area with big houses and full pantries.  We don’t know anyone in Canada.

We did this trip last year on Spring break.  We squished the skater boys in the back of the Jeep and bounced them all the way down I-5.  We stopped at a skate park when they’d start to complain.  It’s amazing how many skateparks you can find within a few blocks from the freeway and a few more blocks from a Starbucks.  We’d all get back in the Jeep and bump along again, all of us completely satisfied for a few more hours.

Last year Charlie and I ran everywhere.  This year we brought bikes.  “Better find some good places to skate,” we told the skateboarders.  “You’ll be on your own.  We’ve got a bridge to cross.”

We’d wake up early and drive into San Francisco with the skateboarders asleep in the back.  As soon as we’d pass the city limits, we’d hear, “Turn left next chance you get.”

When did they wake up?  When did they figure out where we were?  San Francisco is a big city and they knew this city better than me, and I lived here once.  They’ve been here once.  Only once.

“Now turn left again.  There’s a school on this street somewhere,” one of them said.  “That’s the spot.” 

They’d get out, run with their skateboards to a stairset or a rail or ledge and forget everything else.  They’d sprint, jump on their boards, do a trick, and fall.  They’d get up and do it again.  They landed on their hands, their faces, everywhere.  They’d get up bloody and bruised.  They’d go again and again and again.  We’d ride our bikes for hours, come back and they were still at it, covered with sweat and blood.  Then we’d get back in the car and do it again somewhere else.

Once they found a walkway ramp by a loading dock.  “This is it,” they said.  “I can’t believe we found this place.  It’s in our videos.”  We looked out the window, saw several homeless people sleeping in front of about ten skateboarders jumping and flying around next to them on the sidewalk.

We rode our bikes around sunny Potrero Hill, stopping more than once at the Thinker’s Café for better-than-Starbucks lattes, while they skated.  We’d come back hours later, the homeless people still sleeping, the skateboarders still skating, all of them a lot sweatier. 

“People here are so friendly,” the skateboarders said when they got back in the car.  “When you’d lose your board, someone would bring it back to you.  When you’d get in someone’s way, they’d apologize.  You said people in San Francisco aren’t polite.  They’re nicer than at home.  Nobody does that stuff at home.”

Another time, they found a skateboarding spot on an old Farmer’s Market site.  The lack of bathrooms at any of the sites didn’t bother the boys, but it did bother me.  “We gotta go because I gotta go,” I told them.  “I gotta go, too,” the modest skateboarder said.

“Go behind the office building,” Charlie said.  “I just did.  Nobody will see you.”

The modest skateboarder walked around the building slowly.  A minute later he returned, obviously relieved.

 “It’s pretty crazy,” he said.  “The only thing between me and a huge freeway was a scraggly little bush.”

When I went around the building to survey the facilities, I was much more hesitant.  “None of these bushes are fluffy enough,” I said.  “I need more privacy.”  Still, I was preparing myself.  The alternative was worse.

That’s when a security guard pulled up.  “Would you like me to open up the restroom for you?” he said.  I said, “Sure,” but didn’t look at him directly.  He and I both new I was seconds away from squatting in front of a huge traffic jam.

Both the skateboarders broke two decks each.  One of them cracked his trucks, too, so we had to find a skate shop.  We’d run out of equipment.

We found a shop in my sister’s suburban bubble.  My soccer-Mom sister, her three blonde Catholic kids and Charlie and I walked in and filled the little shop.  The people behind the skate shop counter stared at us like they’d just seen Jesus.  When the two skateboarders walked in behind us, the skate shop clerks visibly exhaled.  Who knows what they were thinking?

The skater boys and I walked right up to the counter and started talking to the clerks as if we knew them.  Skateboarders are all alike, if you ask me.  Easy-going is too harsh of a word.

Charlie walked up to the girl with spiked green and black hair, wearing clothes just like his own punk pregnant daughter back home.  “Do you skate?” he asked.

“Yeah, pretty much yeah,” she said, talking like a cross between mullet-head and Valley girl.  “I broke my wrist.” 

She held her left arm up high and let it hang there for Charlie to see.  Sticking out of her wrist joint was a big, gnarled unnatural lump.  His eyes widened when he saw it.  “Wow,” he said.  She smiled.

“That doesn’t look like much fun.”

She stood there nodding her head.

The walls of the shop were covered with broken, autographed skateboards.  My sister’s youngest kid, her only boy, moved away from the rest of his family and took a spot between the skater boys.  “Are any of them famous?” he asked, pointing to the broken boards. 

“No, they’re just local kids,” the clerk said.  “Some of them are pretty good, though.”

“They might be famous one day,” I said.

“No doubt.”

I noticed then that my soccer-Mom sister and her two older, blonder perfect daughters were still standing frozen by the door.  When the wildest thing your daughters ever do is not clean up their room the first time they’re asked, this place might be a bit of a culture shock.

I looked over at my sister’s youngest son.  He had a grin on his face and was talking a mile a minute, still standing between the two skateboarders.  I wonder if he’d ever seen face jewelry before.

I thought about saying something, but what could I say?  When you have teenagers, you can either start sniffing for dope odor or you can learn the language.  You’ll probably be able to find residual pot smells, and if you say anything you’ll just alienate your teenager.  Better to appreciate that your kid has a hobby at all and didn’t just go straight for the dope as a way to pass time.  Besides, you can’t skate well if you’re high.  I’ve learned that in shops like this. 

“My Dad says girls can’t skateboard,” I hear my younger niece telling the green and black-haired girl with the lumpy wrist.  “We’ve never tried it.”

I can’t guess what my soccer-Mom sister is thinking.  Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what she’d be thinking if she saw the places where these skateboards will be used.  I’ll bet her kids don’t share sidewalks with homeless people.

A little help? [] 11:24:55 PM