Something was wrong with my skateboard. It rode crooked even though the sidewalk was flat. Every couple of squares, I’d have to take a break from my lumbersome, dredging pushes to reach down and straighten out my board by hand. When I jumped, expecting it to follow suit, it just camped out on the ground until I came back to earth. It didn’t work.
However, I was sufficiently entertained with my laborious venture of trying to push down the sidewalk. I thought about a picture I’d seen on the back of a box of Reese’s Puffs. There was a graphic illustration of a big bowl of cereal, filled to the brim with milk and those delicious puffs of peanut buttery splendor. Above the cartoonish bowl, was a super-imposed photo of a fully padded kid blasting a frontside air. He had some neon graphics on his griptape and a crushing expression on his face with his tongue out. ‘Holy Shit!’, I thought. ‘I want to skate a bowl of cereal, too.’ I’d fantasize about splashing into my breakfast after getting big air. That was my inspiration as I took timid, tippy-toed pushes down the sidewalk.
My neighborhood buddy, Jaquia, must have seen the kid on the Reese’s box as well, because he soon joined my pushing experiment. He could push just about as badly as I could. Shortly after he joined me, we found ourselves butt-boarding in his driveway, dodging cracks and working his dog into a frenzy with our cries of laughter. I can’t remember if his dad came home from work to find us there, or if he came out of the house to investigate our ruckus, but I distinctly recall the blue Best Buy polo shirt he wore.
He found us in his driveway using my board as a street luge. The sequence of events leading up to it is a little fuzzy, but the moment is still visceral. He was standing on my board, stationary, framed by the blue trim on the garage door behind him (to match his polo). He wasn’t a very tall guy, so so his black pair of K-Swiss and khaki cargo shorts looked too big on him.
[Keep in mind, my only exposure to skateboarding at that point had been a kid on a cereal box.]
So my friend’s dad was standing on my skateboard, or crouching rather, and he busts out a tre flip first try. With that swift movement, he set out the course of my life. He opened my mind, widened my eyes, and dropped my jaw all at once. I demanded more. One dazzling maneuver was not enough. He whipped out a second. And, like they say, the third time’s the charm. As he landed, his behemoth pair of K-Swiss went through my board to the pavement, leaving it in two splintered halves. This was more amazing to me than the first two he got away with. I had never witnessed skateboarding before in real life, let alone a board-busting tre bomb. I picked up the two pieces, held them in front of me, and probably praised him. Because of the fascination, I don’t remember how he reacted. How could he have reacted? He’d just broken the neighbor kid’s skateboard.
At least it was a shitty skateboard. And an easily replaced one. Jaquia’s dad went out that night to get me a new one. He probably paid twenty bucks for it at Kmart. That orange/purple graphic caught his eye from the bottom shelf. It said “(something) Zone” on it. Action Zone? Critical Zone? Definitely something generic to fit the theme of the board. Something to accompany those hideous black plastic trucks. That’s the board I’d learn to ollie on a few years later. I suppose I owe a big Thank You to that guy.
Thanks Jaquia’s dad, whatever your real name is.
-Dylan Luloff
-Dylan Luloff
