Smoker lined the board up at the top of the hill, watching a handful of vehicles stack up at the stoplight and the few cars sliding past behind us. He checked over his shoulder, watching a pickup truck make its way through the light, its backend rattling with loose tools over the transition to fresh asphalt. Smoker swept his hair back, watching traffic down the line.
Once a year, right before tourist season, the city repaved a certain stretch of hill that dropped down a long, soft, sweeping arch towards Highway 101, and a couple miles south, the city of Encinitas proper. The fresh coat of asphalt was an endless black tongue, rolling downwards, glistening with the fine reflective powder left by the freshly painted traffic lines; an empty page glimmering in the streetlamps and headlights like a gossamer negative. It was traditional amongst the local skaters to bomb it for a few weeks, generally in the middle of the night when the traffic was light.
Smoker got my ass drunk, handed me a long board carve stick, and dragged my ass to the top of the hill, probably just to watch me eat shit and lose my teeth on a slab of concrete halfway down the track. “Keep your weight back and your knees bent. If you start to lose yer shit, aim for a bush or a lawn or something.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Of course it isn’t, Nandy; it’s a great idea.” He glanced over his shoulder at the traffic light. “Get ready,” the last car approached the light, gunning it through the yellow. “Alright, go.” I kicked once or twice and aimed the deathstick at an angle down the freshly paved boulevard. Smoker kicked hard a few times to pick up some speed. He took the lead, carving a line for me, blazing a path down the hill he swayed gently on his carve stick, swinging across the empty street in wide sweeping arcs. He said he’d tighten my trucks and wheels to slow my roll, so it was no surprise that he took off easy and left me lagging.
His turns were deep and tight, crouching down over his board as he carved, perched lightly and casually, grinning as he called out to me: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties!” He was hard to hear over the dull thrumming of the wheels over the fresh asphalt. He cut hard left again, carving around, “In form and moving, how admirable. In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god!”
Tightened wheels and trucks my ass, I was careening. I leaned into my turns, but I couldn’t roll as deep and I followed, not far behind. He howled and threw his hair back, hands flung out to embrace the empty space opening before him; gravity, inertia, and grace enveloping him as he gained momentum. “The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!” He swung a wide circle, swinging up and around me, rolling easily as a fighter pilot swinging around an amateur opponent. His body slacked and loosened; arms hanging from his frame as if he were a marionette unstrung. “And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” He asked solemnly, some Buster Keaton look of maudlin dripping from his cheeks as he sailed past again.
I rolled faster yet, trying to focus on the asphalt ahead, ignoring Smoker’s stolen soliloquy. “Are you fucking kidding me!?”
He grinned and chuckled, flip-kicked his deck up to rail slide the sidewalk for a few feet, slowing his descent slightly. He tossed his hair back again as he straightened up. “It’s Hamlet, Dude.” Meanwhile, I’m sure I’m looking at a skull fracture or compound fracture of some sort as this punk is schooling me on the classics. He looped around me again, making my panic look petty. “It was in a skate commercial.” As he hit the straight stretch down towards the first intersection, he straightened out his trajectory and, laying his arms back like folded wings, he ducked into his drop, deadheading it straight down the asphalt at full speed, leaving me behind. “Catch up, Nandy.” He kicked once, twice, and then tucked in, a missile picking up speed, a few hundred yards from ground zero.
Andrew Tomacelli 