My friend and I smoke Buddha, get zen, wait half an hour for the F, take it to Rockefeller Center, and skate uptown. Below monoliths, on stone sidewalks, Paine Webber benches a bust tonight. Last resort: the CBS Building. The back plaza Security rarely checks. Half the lamps dying. A homeless man on the corner edge of the granite block. Not moving. A pack of four, hoods up and pants low, flipping tricks under what’s left of the bright lights.
They see us. A static charge hangs in the air so tactile I almost want to reach out. Burst it in a photo flash. We keep our distance. Skate the dark. Two against one. Dead silence in the city of noise. Watching us sweat it out. Then one of them gets back on his board and the rest follow suit.
They land their tricks. My friend and I hold our own. Takes minutes. Not a word spoken and we’re stomping the nose ends of our boards into the sidewalk at every make. Clapping has never been cold enough for people like us.
Quarter of an hour later. The one of the four with the tightest pants and nattiest hair starts to eye the handrail. The rest of us form two lines along the sides of his roll-up. Wait for this to go down.
He rides up to the nine-stair set a few times. Checks his angles. Begins throwing himself out to the middle of the bar, sliding his back truck down the top of it. Crazy fuck’s locking in switch fives. Coming up backside and fast. Committing blind. Balls out. It’s steep. Throws him into the ground hard.
Fifteen tries pass. He’s fighting himself to the top of the stairs like he’s scaling a vertical cliff. Our eyes catch. He 
stops. His pupils are a black thicker than ice. He turns. Slams the metal truck of his board into the rail. It shudders. Rings and rings and rings and I look away. Rock dust settles on the ledges we just thrashed. Blood drips from our palms. My friend next to me has a mind so loud he has to drop Xanax just to get out of his room. Can’t even piss unless he’s on some. Guy on the stairs saw something that startled even him. There’s little warmth left in my eyes.
We stay until Security kicks us out. Pushing us into the empty morning street. When I wake five hours from now, my body will crack in ten places. Loud enough to wake the girl next to me, who I tell I love. Been putting my head to the flames for so long now it’s ready to boil over. Old as I am, still fucking up everything I touch.
The train back to Brooklyn. Noticing the size of my friend’s arms. So thin now. They’re just sticks. Fifteen pounds and three thousand dollars. How much more to be subtracted before he disappears?
“That one guy was sick,” my friend says to me and I look down. His blood drying on my hands instead of my own. I haven’t been listening for years. But I know now. Hear what he really means.
If Mulholland Books were a crime novel, Wes Miller would be its PI—the stalwart presence resolving its issues, making sure at the end of the day, justice gets served and good prevails—at least until tomorrow comes. He defected to Mulholland after a few years at a variety of different literary agencies. His favorite authors include Stephen King, Charlie Huston, Walter Mosley, Lee Child, Joe R. Lansdale, and John Ajvide Lindqvist. He still skates.
So punchy! So beautifully ensconced in its lingo. So concise–and such pathos in the fates of these quixotic gladiators of unseen tricks. Very cool twist at the end–to the importance of hearing.
Smashing flash!
Terrific stuff.