“Meet me back at your trailer later?”
With the warm Southern California too-hot-for-riding-gear August sun beating down on me, I raise an eyebrow at the ProHo in front of me. She watches, waiting for my answer. At first, I ignore her and dump an entire bottle of water on my head.
Do I want to take her back to the trailer later? While I could certainly use some emotionless pussy, she is not and will never be the purple I crave. My tired eyes move over her bony physique. I weigh my options. I glance over my shoulder at the merchandise trailer for Jett Industries, where Amberly would usually be, but isn’t tonight. If I let this girl come back to the trailer, she could at least get my mind Amberly, couldn’t she?
Freestyle riders are all rock stars at these events. Shade, he’s on a different level. People go crazy when they see him. It’s his baby blue eyes, the way his face is plastered everywhere from clothing ads to fucking cologne and sunglasses to the sick ink. All of that exposure has created a god-like status for him at any event.
But still, women seek me out first sometimes, and more so since Scarlet became attached to his side at these events. With me, they want the bad, the evil, the forbidden passion they’re not getting either at home, or ever. They want to know what it’s like to hear me moan their name and fuck them like I mean it. Do they usually get that from me? I’d say it’s 50/50 chance.
“Find me later,” I tell her, walking away, my helmet in hand. My bike’s in line. I’m qualifying after Parker O’Neil, but before Shade, which means my tricks have to be tight and there’s no room for error.
To say I suffer from anxiety before a run is a massive understatement, but it’s the judges who catch my attention. They’re never the same, spineless bastards who think they know what they’re doing.
My eyes narrow on one in particular.
My continued presence at the events sure piss off Amberly’s dad, Doug, though. And I love it. He can’t disqualify me either. As long as my bike passes inspection, he can’t and doesn’t have a say. He couldn’t stop me from taking a sharpie and writing “Fuck you, poser,” on my bike or dressing up like Prince and competing. Which I did. Once or twice.
I did. All of the above, just for the reaction I got out of everyone and the crowd.
What should have been career suicide is suddenly beloved by the crowd, and that drew them to the events. I didn’t care. I craved that, and I remained true to free riding and why it was invented in the first place.
The officials, the sponsors, they wanted the bad boy without having to deal with him. They wanted me to pretend to be a bad boy with the image, like Shade, but on race day, I was supposed to conform.
No, thanks. If they wanted the bad boy, they were gonna fucking get it all the time. Though I had a reputation for being able to perform despite the occasional psychotic episode, I’m surprised I was even asked on the tour. Most of the time spent on these tours I’m on a rock-star-style binge. I party and generally am a narcissistic fool.
So some would even venture to ask, if you hate it so much, then why even do it? Self-destructive by nature, I’m cursed with an addictive personality. The freestyle motocross world is a fairly gnarly place too. Most riders are into drugs or generally risky behavior, but then you have a few straight-laced ones. The gnarly ones, that’s who attracts the crowds and give it that extreme they thrive for.
For me, it’d be hard to explain the feeling of exhilaration freestyle competition gives me. I’m invincible on a bike. You’re rolling your eyes, aren’t you? If you understood the thrill of riding outweighed the risk, you’d understand being invincible. You’d understand the noise, the dirt, the speed, the feeling of flying, it creates. I’d risk the fall to know what it feels like to fly.
At competitions like After Dark, there are five judges to critique your every move. They’re sometimes ex-riders but they don’t have to be. Despite the panel of judges, freestyle competition is about throwing the best trick and getting the crowd pumped. Something I’m pretty fucking good at. Defying the laws of gravity only to land a trick no one else has, and even for a second, my mind is finally at peace. I don’t think about anything. Nothing at all. And it remains the only time in my entire life I feel at peace with myself. That’s why I do it.
At After Dark, you have ten tricks to perform with a potential score of 10 on each trick and a cumulative score of a 100. The rider with the highest score at the end wins.
The freestyle competitions are set up a little differently from, let’s say, motocross where you have heats, qualifiers, and main events. At freestyle events, there’s a lot of downtime and shit talking going on.
We’re checking out the course in the waiting zone (a section of the course riders wait in for the run). The course is built in the streets where they bring in ramps and landing pads and basically created a jump-show in the middle of the city. On the other side of the seventy-five-foot ramp, there’s access to the stands where you can ride up the stairs and then down the backside of it because it’s basically a slide. The layout got Shade and me talking.
Hanging his goggles on his bars, he nods to the stands. “Think you could roll up that and down the backside?”
“I can. You couldn’t.”
He cocks his head to the side, offended. “Why can’t I do it?”
“You’d piss off your sponsors. Crowd endangerment.”
Shade thinks about it. He overanalyzes everything before he hurls himself through the air on a bike, let go of it midair in hopes he’ll be able to find it again, and land the bike without killing himself. He wants to know what’s the risk?
Life or death, that’s not a metaphor for freestyle riders. It’s a situation we put ourselves in constantly, and we do it because we want to. That’s the crazy part about it. And when I do, it’s unlike anything I can accurately describe.
“You’re right. Not worth it. You’d never get away with it,” he finally says, shifting on his bike as he rides away.
I’m just going to point this out for you now. You heard that conversation, right? You should blame Shade for what happens on my run.
Rolling into the launching zone, Parker rides past me, gives me a nod and then I’m staring at the flag marshal, waiting for my turn. I’m nervous and quite possibly reckless before every run. That’s just me. While Roan is the levelheaded of the three Sawyer brothers and Shade’s the show, I’m the unpredictable one. Even I don’t know what I’m going to do until I do it.
My blood rages in my veins, adrenaline spiking. Breathing heavily, I look down at the tape on my handle bars outlining my list of tricks. I’m going for a no-handed double backflip to start with. Reaching forward, I adjust my steering stabilizer before I take off.
Taking a deep breath, I shift into first, rev the bike and then ease off the clutch rolling onto the track. I don’t particularly like doing double backflips but FMX has reached a level where a double backflip is standard. If you don’t do it, there’s no chance at a podium finish. And while I still don’t want to be on the tour, I still have the edge to win inside of me.
I land the double backflip, move onto a backflip seat grab, a 360 nac nac and a bunch of others. I end with another combo backflip to no-hander landing over the ninety-foot gap and then ride up into the stands. Because I feel like it. If they’re going to make me do this show, I’m going to do it how I want.
The drunken crowd amped of theatrical adrenaline loves it, and then they start fighting with one another over who gets my jersey I rip off and hand to them. Sliding down the backside of the stands with a one-handed front endo.
You’re probably wondering what the point of that was? I prefer interjecting orchestrated rowdiness into everything I do.
And your conclusion here is probably, wow, he has a lot of repressed anger and hate in him. Or stupidity.
There’s really no explanation I’m going to give you.
I’m heading back to the staging area, removing my goggles and hanging them on my handlebars when I see Doug Johnson, FIM (Freestyle International Motorcycling Federation) race director waiting for me in the rider paddock.
“You’re disqualified,” he yells at me, his hands on his hips sternly suggesting he’s in charge.
I smile, but I don’t say anything. I leave my helmet on, for a few reasons, which I’ll get to later. Have I mentioned Doug is Amberly’s dad? If I haven’t, it’s because I don’t care. He hates my guts for no particular reason at all, if you ask me, but it might have something to do with I’m his worst nightmare. I’m that rider who’s always pushing the limits and as a race director, those are the riders you can’t stand.
“Why is he disqualified?” Ricky asks, standing next to me with Greg, my bike mechanic. Another official, or rather a group of officials including Rod and a representative from ESPN approach us.
“He endangered the crowd,” Rod suggests, staring me and Ricky down. “The FMNR clearly states patron endangerment is an automatic rider disqualification.”
Doug threatens me with fines for what I did with veins bulging from his neck, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Do you think this is funny? You could have seriously hurt someone,” he says, acting like I nearly killed someone. At best, they would have gotten their foot rolled over or a burn from my exhaust. Hardly life-threatening.
“I think it’s funny.”
“It’s not.”
“Relax, Dougy.” I pause, still smiling. “No one was hurt and look at that fuckin’ crowd.” I gesture to them still chanting my name and raise my arms. “They look pretty fuckin’ happy to me, don’t ya think?”
Check out Doug’s face. Do you think he likes being called Dougy? Nope. Not one bit. Fuck this motherfucker. He looks like his head’s going to explode. Reaching forward, he grabs me by the front of my helmet and yanks my face to his. “You and I both know what you’re trying to prove here!”
I keep my head, surprisingly, but I jerk my face out of his hands. “Yeah? What’s that?”
My score’s announced over the PA system. 87.9 cumulative score, but disqualified.
What a bunch of cunts.
Satisfied, Doug smiles. “If you want to destroy your career, be my guest. But do it someplace else.”
Is that what I’m doing? Destroying me career? Here I thought I was proving a point. Hmmm.
It’s a known fact, I’m not wanted here and I know that, and maybe that’s why I agreed to do the tour. I’m not sure what my mindset was when I signed the contract. I was high. I can tell you now, it holds another meaning. “Oh, fuck off.” I laugh. Reaching forward, Ricky shuts my bike off. Probably for the better. Throwing my leg over my bike, I stand in front of Doug, my three-inch height difference on him causing him to look up at me, something he’s never usually done in my presence. “You should be kissing my ass. If it wasn’t for stunts like that, freestyle is a fuckin’ puppet sport. Why are you yelling at me when this is really what you want? You expect this out of me. Don’t act surprised when I deliver.”
That doesn’t go over well and Doug and the official start to yell at me. I lose interest and Ricky takes over, constantly having to clean my messes up for me.
Shade and Camden approach, Shade’s all grins and high-fiving me. I won, but after being disqualified, he pulled of the win for the night. “Nice, bro.”
I nod, but say nothing. It’s Camden I’m watching. He looks. . . confused?
“What’s wrong, Cam-Man?”
“There’s a girl who asked for my number?” Camden says, looking to me for advice. “She looks like she’s sixteen.”
Removing my helmet, I pat his head, smiling. “Bag it up.”
His brows pull together. “What does that mean?”
“If you don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t be getting her number?”
“But she asked for mine.”
Shade grabs him by the neck. “Don’t listen to him.” He pulls him away. “Show me this chick.”
They leave and I’m left with Scarlet. She hands me a bottle of water and I dump it over my face.
“What was that about?” Scarlet stares my face, searching for me inside my hollow eyes. She won’t find me. I’m long gone.
I don’t reply, at least not to her question.
That ho from earlier approaches, giving me a look that says, I’ll suck your dick in front of everyone. And though it’s tempting, I wave to Scarlet. “Get rid of her.”
I lock myself in the trailer, my body trembling as I crash against the cabinets. With my head in my hands, I allow myself a moment to calm down. I swallow over the lump in my throat, trying not to vomit. My nerves fray, the building anxiety overruling the rational thoughts, and it all comes back to one girl. The one I’ll never be enough for.
But for me there’s something deeper to why I hold onto her. It’s rooted inside me and I can’t shake it. It’s craving something more, something that might control the soulless fuck I am.