What's the word? Bird is the word.

Andre Churchwell II Tuesday, October 21, 2008

English Nonfiction Literature

A man and his used rental skates (that aren’t really his)

Skill is involved. A sense of balance and being in touch with one’s own body. A grace of a lake-bird landing on the water bed with nary a splash.

I can’t skate worth a damn so all the descriptors usually fit for the act of skating need not apply to me.

Someone such as I would stay the hell out of Skate-parks, skate-rinks, and open roads as much as feasible. What would surprise you is to find that I love skating-rinks and will defy death to ensure they stay open.

What is the Super Bowl without fanfare and enthralling commercials? If I may answer a question with a question: What is a Skate Center without an arcade and skeet booth? Vacant, in my mind at the age of ten, was the only answer. These are the attractions. These are the teacup and rollercoaster rides. The actual skating was the walking around and buying plush dolls of animated movie character. I’m sure someone enjoys those aspects but they certainly would not be the reasons for me to come to the state fair again.

The actual skate center looked dark and ominous. The interior itself could give me enough of an explanation as to why I still scream for adult supervision when someone walks up behind me and catches me unawares.

What habits could I have, indeed, learn from such an establishment other than what I was supposed to learn, ice skating (of the land variety)? Well, this was housing many a suburbanite so I can play “My First Befriending of a Minority”. You need a partner for this. Not just any partner, you need one of these wide-eyed hopeful children of doctors/lawyers/sellers of ocean liners private school attending part of the majority. You know and upper-middle class lefty who, even though we were born and raised in the south, when Civil War class starts would often be heard saying “they” in reference to the south and “us” in reference to the north. (I found it reasonable to assume that current generations of southerners were in fact more tolerate than previous generations but ridiculous to ignore said generations and pretend there is no connection to them) The game usually involves me playing an arcade game with a new “buddy”. One who stays in the game with me longer than most would and in the process using and exorbitant amount of quarters. This can also entail following me around to the next mode of entertainment, whether it was skeet ball or Street Fighter (bonus points if he makes solely positive comments about every black character that shows up during play) Just generally going out of his way to prove to himself “I’m one of the nice ones. Anyone can see now that I CAN talk with a black person.” I need remind you, most of these encounters were not with fully form adults but with kids in lower school and middle school.

I had no interest in skates nor in skate rinks; it just happened to turned out that most of my classmates, that had birthday parties, do.