The Long Drumroll
Ian
So, this is it.
I rode down with Rob, Nick, and Marci, Nick’s new girlfriend.
Nobody said a word the entire ride.
Rob knows how big a deal this is. I’m not sure that Nick has the whole story, and I’ve certainly never gone too in-depth with him about what’s going on with my mom, but he knows enough that neither he, nor Marci broke the silence on the way here.
Now, I’m all signed in, checked in, registered, whatever, and I have a couple of hours to kill before things are going to get started.
I usually like to show up right before a competition, so I don’t have time to mindfuck everything, but today, I wanted to get as many practice runs in on the vert ramp as possible.
After my near-second performance in the street competition, I’m even going to break down and take a couple practice runs there, too.
The last one was to prove to myself I could actually survive a vert competition. This time, I need to win.
Not only do I need to win vert, but I need to win everything.
As much as I’ve liked to console myself with the possibility that I’d make a solid enough second or third-place showing to convince the sponsors to pick me up as well as whoever actually wins the thing, but that’s just a pipe dream.
If this is going to pay off the way I need it to pay off, I can’t come in second. I need this to be a sure thing.
I visited my mom today, long before we were getting ready to come down to the competition. She wasn’t having one of her better days.
In the back of my head, I think I was hoping for some indication that she’d be well enough to come, but that was just a pipe dream, too. I actually feel pretty stupid about that one.
I’m here, though, and whether mom is or not, this is still for her and about her.
I just wish I knew they weren’t opening up the venue, even for practice runs, for another few hours.
Signing in was easy enough—I just found somebody with a clipboard—but having to stand out here in the parking lot as the first few spectators start to arrive, bragging about that time they saw Ryan Sheckler at Dunkin’ Donuts or Mike Vallely getting into an argument with one of the guys at a record store, and it’s really not helping me focus.
“What do we do now?” Marci asks and both Rob and Nick gasp.
“It’s fine,” I tell them, waving off their shock that Marci would be so careless as to say something when I’m trying to get in the right headspace for the competition. “I guess we just hang out and try to pass the time until they open the doors.”
“I’m going to go see when they’re going to open it up so you can get in there and practice,” Nick says, still giving Marci the stink eye for breaking the no-talking-before-a-competition rule.
To be honest, the only reason I ever instituted this particular rule is because I started getting sick of Rob blathering on about the last time he got faced every time we got in the car to head to a competition.
Nick starts walking and Marci goes with him. Rob looks at me, even lifts his hand to about the level of his eyes and opens his mouth, but only ends up telling me that he’s going to go with Nick.
As soon as their backs are turned, my hand goes into my pocket and I pull up Mia’s number. My thumb hovers over the send key, but I just end up turning the screen off again and replacing the phone in my pocket.
I apologized, but that hadn’t reversed anything.
The fact of the matter is that I was really shitty to Mia and she absolutely didn’t deserve it.
Thinking back on the expression on her face, how the corners of her eyes and the corners of her lips were pulled back as she grinned, the perky enthusiasm of her voice and then the way those eyes went wide and that mouth came open when I started going off on her right in front of about two dozen strangers, and those are just the people who I’m absolutely sure could hear every stupid, fucked up word out of my mouth.
I don’t blame her for a damn thing.
Still, it’d be nice if she was here.
I pull my phone back out, but it’s in my pocket again just as quickly.
What exactly am I supposed to say to her? “Hey, I know I was a jerk to you last time we were at one of these things, but you should come down here so I can feel better about everything?”
It doesn’t seem like the classiest move.
I try to get my mind off of Mia and back on the competition, but every time I visualize myself on the vert ramp, even though I haven’t come off my board again since that last run at the Richfield Community Skate and Ride, I’m falling off, crashing to the ground and seeing any hope I had of making a living at this go right into someone else’s hands.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to relax and focus, but no matter what I do, in my head, I’m crashing every time.
Rob, Nick and Marci come back over, saying that the park course and the vert ramp will be available for pre-competition practice in about an hour, leaving about another two hours before the competition actually begins.
I tell them thanks for checking on that, and add that I’m just going to skate around to clear my head for a while.
Nobody objects. Nobody really says anything.
Of the few people that are waiting in line to get in, as far as I can tell, I’m the only competitor here. There are a few people tooling around on board in the parking lot, but none of them seem that advanced with it.
I’ve been to the park before, but only once a few years ago, and that was before they had the vert ramp inside the repurposed warehouse that is the venue. It wasn’t a competition, just me and a couple of buddies wanted to see if it was really as nice as everyone said it was. It’s funny how much easier everything seemed back then.
My mom had already been diagnosed, but I was starting to really distinguish myself on the board. I knew there was a long way left to go, but I was making progress and, before I knew it—or so I told myself—I’d be in a position to take the turn and go pro.
Well, that’s today, and it doesn’t seem like much time has passed at all right now as I skate around, feeling more unsure of myself now than I did back then.
When I get to the end of the parking lot, I look both ways down the street and just keep going. It’s not like I’m going to be late if I take a little detour and explore the area.
They say that forward motion, whether it’s walking or riding a bike or driving or skating or whatever, helps the mind work through things, but all I can see is Mia’s face after I climbed off of that stupid fucking vert ramp.
Forward motion isn’t helping my mind work through shit.
Nevertheless, I just keep going.
The town of Greenville doesn’t really have much to boast about other than the skate park. It’s a small town, less than 10,000 residents, and the most interesting thing I’ve found on its streets so far are the bronze statues of horses every fifty feet or so along the main drive, painted in various ways, some as advertisements while some are painted to look like normal horses.
I get a few blocks away from the skate park and take a right, going from the road to the sidewalk to let people past as they walk. Another couple of blocks and I turn again to head back.
This isn’t helping, and the fact that it’s not helping is actually serving to frustrate me more. I’ll be stupefied if I end up making any kind of a decent showing in the competition.
I’m trying to meter my breathing and just tune into the feel of the board beneath my feet, but it’s all I can do not to hyperventilate.
I was afraid of this.
Given any opportunity to think, I can generally figure out a couple dozen unique ways to poke holes in anything, and I’m having a really difficult time seeing any way that I’m going to come through this with a smile on my face.
I take that final right turn and it takes me back to the edge of the parking lot.
It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes since I skated out of here, but the crowd seems to have at least tripled in size.
So recently on the verge of hyperventilation, it’s all I can do right now to breathe at all as I see the first of my competitors in the crowd, chatting. It’s Mike Onomato.
Mike, now Mike’s a nice guy, but he’s one of those people whose parents wanted him to be the Mozart of skating, so they spared no expense on instructors, mentors, ramp construction, and on, and on. It’s always been a source of pride for me that I can beat his ass in street comps, but I’ve seen him on the vert and he’s no slouch.
Still, I don’t want to be rude, so I skate over to him to say hello.
“Ian Zavala,” Mike says over the head of a short, teenage girl for whom he’s signing an autograph. Seriously, where does this guy get his PR? “Glad you could make it,” he says. “It never feels like a real street x when you’re not around.”
“Hey, somebody’s got to come and knock you off the top of the mountain,” I tell him. “I’m just doing my public duty.”
He smiles and combs his hair back with his fingers before taking another photo from a fan and signing it.
“Heard you started competing in vert,” he says. “Think it’s going to be enough?”
“You heard about that, huh?” I ask.
I might be out of this thing before it even starts.
“Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. When I did my first vert competition, they could barely fit me at the bottom of the scoreboard I did so badly.”
He doesn’t bother mentioning that was when he was twelve.
I’ve always wondered why it’s taken Mike so long to go pro. For a while, we were skating in different places, different competitions. I knew who he was, though I doubt he could say the same about me.
Everyone told me he was the guy to beat in the park.
Ha, ha.
“Any tips to help me wipe the floor with you?” I ask.
“Just keep low on the drop in and the ride up,” he says. “You’re fine standing on the flat, but even there, I’d recommend at least a little knee-flex.”
“You were there,” I say, simply stating the obvious.
“Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to see how worried I need to be about today. I knew you were going to be here, but I’d never seen you on the ramp.”
“Got to be feeling pretty confident right about now, huh?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and I’m sure he’s about to offer me some sort of consolation, but a new group of teenage girls spots Mike and descends upon him.
“I should probably leave you to your adoring fans,” I tell him.
“Zavala,” Mike says before I go.
“Yeah?”
“Just relax,” he says. “If there’s one big difference between what I’ve seen you do in the park and what I saw you do on the ramp, it was that you’re more relaxed in the park. On the ramp, you were fine and everything, but you just need to loosen up, man,” he says. “Do that, and I’m sure I’ll be competing with you for number one.”
“Yeah,” I respond. “Thanks.”
I push off and start heading back toward where I last saw Rob and them, but just as soon as I’ve caught sight of Nick’s bright pink t-shirt, my board stops beneath me and inertia throws me off the front.
I’m on my feet when I land, but I’m really not in the mood, as I look back to find that someone had kicked a board in front of mine.
“What the fuck?!” I shout, turning around and startling most everybody in the general area.
“Hey, Ian,” a familiar voice says, though I can’t place it until I see Mia’s friend Abby—Abs, whatever—lift a hand and wave at me.
“Oh,” I say with a sheepish laugh. “Sorry about that. What’s up?”
“Have you seen Mia?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “She’s here?”
“I know she was going back and forth on it,” Abby says. “I don’t know what she ended up deciding.”
“Got ya,” I tell her. “I haven’t seen her. It’s still pretty early, though.”
“Yeah,” Abby says and starts twirling a finger through her hair. “Anyway,” she says, “I was really sad to hear about what happened with the two of you. It’s really very tragic.”
“Yeah,” I respond, looking past her. “Thanks.”
“Mia’s kind of like that, though,” she says. “She never really knows what she wants, so she goes for whatever she thinks she can’t get. Unfortunately,” Abby says, letting her hand fall back to her side, “once she gets something, she doesn’t want it anymore.”
“There might have been a bit of that,” I tell Abby, “but this last thing was my fault. I really screwed up.”
“Yeah,” Abby says, sighing. “I just hate seeing good guys get hurt, but with her, that’s what always seems to happen.”
“Aren’t the two of you friends?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It almost seems like you’re… never mind.”
“I just don’t think she really appreciates a good man when she’s found one,” Abby says, adjusting her bra while I try to pretend this isn’t just about the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been talking to someone. “Some women never do.”
“Look, Abby,” I start, “I think I see where this is going, and I don’t think it would be right.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, blinking at a prodigious rate and placing her open hand over the top of her shirt. “I just saw you and wanted to say hi.”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Well, it’s good to see you. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other—”
Abby grabs the back of my head and kisses me hard. It happens so fast I don’t even process what’s happening for a few seconds, but when I do, I manage to pull back and escape her grip.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She’s not looking at me, though.
Abby’s looking past me on my right side with half a smile on her face, and she lifts her chin in a reverse-nod.
I turn around and there, about twenty feet away, but facing in this direction like she was walking over here, is Mia.
“Wait!” I shout, but she’s already turned around and she’s walking away.
There still aren’t all that many people hanging around up here near the building, but those who are all seem to be between Mia and me as I try to catch up with her, to explain what happened.
I don’t give a shit, though. I’m not giving up.