Scott Nadelson ~ Ride It Out

The girl showed up every day that spring. Black pony­tail under a back­wards black cap, car­go cut-offs to her shins, worn-out com­bat boots she swapped for Vans yanked out of an over­stuffed back­pack. Her board was old and beat to shit, but she was obvi­ous­ly new to rid­ing it, which meant it was prob­a­bly a hand-me-down from an old­er broth­er. That’s what the boys at the skate park guessed while they watched her ride the bowl, knees bent the way she must have seen in some instruc­tion­al video, arms spread wide, a fierce look on her sharp features—a dare for any­one to come over and give her a point­er, so she could tell him where to shove it.

Instead they gave her space, impressed by her ded­i­ca­tion if not her skill. She fell a lot, brushed off her scrapes, fell some more. She wasn’t inter­est­ed in ollies or grinds or slides, just want­ed to make smooth turns at the top of the bowl and rip through as fast as she could. She didn’t talk to any of them, just raised a chin in greet­ing, a fin­ger in thanks if some­one cleared out to give her room to maneu­ver. When they made sure no cops were around and passed a lit bowl in the shape of Bart Simpson’s head, they waved her over, and she took a hit with­out hes­i­ta­tion and gave them a smile so sur­pris­ing it made them sweat.

After a week, the bold­est of them took a squat beside her while she changed her shoes. He was also the best skater in the park and had thick shag­gy hair the rest of them envied. I’m Devon, he said, and held out a fist for her to bump. Good for you, she answered, and kicked the fist with a foot bare between boot and sneak­er. Then she laughed in a way that opened up her whole face, and all the boys decid­ed she was fuck­ing beau­ti­ful, some­one to dream about in their beds every night, star­ing at cur­tains their moms had picked out and Fugazi posters they’d hung with tacks on the suf­fo­cat­ing walls of child­hood rooms they couldn’t wait to get away from, though imag­in­ing sleep­ing some­where else brought a pang they’d now always asso­ciate with the girl’s stun­ning smile.

It took a lit­tle while, but even­tu­al­ly they learned: her name was Teri, short for Teresa. She went to Lakewood High, a sopho­more, but she hat­ed it over in Lakewood. Too many fuck­ing Ricans, she said. It turned out she was Rican, too, or at least her dad was. And what she real­ly hat­ed was that every­one expect­ed her to speak Spanish because her last name was Mendez, but she didn’t, not a word of it. What about taco? Devon asked. What the fuck’s a taco? she answered. The only lan­guage she spoke oth­er than English was Hebrew, at least enough to mouth her way through Friday night ser­vices. She was Jewrican, she told them, bat mitz­va­hed and every­thing, and any­way, she hadn’t seen her dad in like two, three years.

Even then they guessed there were oth­er rea­sons she took the bus to Chatwin every day after school, and ear­ly on Saturday and Sunday. The skate park in Lakewood was new­er and bet­ter designed, with a smoother bowl and more skills sta­tions, but she suf­fered the smelly Number 12 sev­en miles down Route 10, walked past the vagrants in the bus mall who’d whis­tle at her or beg for change, just so she could ride with them? Hanging with you losers is just col­lat­er­al dam­age, she said, suck­ing on the end of Bart Simpson’s nose and laugh­ing her gor­geous laugh.

She got bet­ter quick­ly in any case. She pushed her­self hard­er than any of them, made her­self so sweaty her shirt stuck to her skin and showed them the out­line of a bra cov­er­ing her not-quite-flat chest. They were all so smit­ten they stopped talk­ing about her, at least with each oth­er. Their thoughts were too pre­cious to speak out loud. Devon, of course, was the first to make a move, let­ting that sandy shag fall in front of his eyes, ask­ing if she want­ed to hang at his place some night, or go see a flick—the Victory showed sec­ond-run hor­ror and had the cheap­est pop­corn around. Smooth approach, dude, she said, and that she smiled while turn­ing him down cut deep­er than if she’d winced with dis­gust. Another of them lost his mind and tried to kiss her, and she punched him hard in the armpit.

Lesbian, they all guessed, with a cer­tain mea­sure of relief. Soon they said as much to each oth­er, adding, That’s cool, and, If I were a chick, I’d be a les­bian, too, and, I wouldn’t mind watch­ing her get with anoth­er girl.

But then she start­ed hang­ing with Germ. If he had any oth­er name, they didn’t know it. He didn’t go to Chatwin High either, or Lenape, where some of the rich­er kids among them went, the ones who had new boards every year and got rides to the park in Lexus SUVs. Union Knoll, they heard, but by then it was already June, and he was about to grad­u­ate any­way, a few of them were, and they had to get jobs for the sum­mer, and maybe they wouldn’t be at the park every day any­more. It was time to grow up now, leave their high school lives behind, and maybe they could final­ly for­get about Teri and her heart­break­ing smile, the wedge of per­fect calf between the end of cut-off car­gos and the top of ankle socks.

Germ didn’t skate much any­more. He’d blown out his knee not this last fall but the one before. He’d wheel around a few min­utes, but most­ly he’d sit on the bench­es and watch. None of the oth­er boys liked him much, or maybe they just didn’t get him. He was short and skin­ny and mean-look­ing, in a den­im jack­et and T‑shirts with the names of bands they’d nev­er heard of, and they didn’t know why he hung around when he hard­ly rode or spoke to any of them. They guessed it was because he could sell a few quar­ter bags every week, and it was true they bought from him because his weed was bet­ter and cheap­er than what they copped from kids at their own schools. Plus he’d occa­sion­al­ly throw in a Percocet, which a doc­tor pre­scribed for his knee. He wouldn’t sell those, just give them away as a lit­tle bonus for repeat cus­tomers, which they sup­posed was gen­er­ous, though he was nev­er nice about it, just gruff and busi­ness-like, and the music leak­ing from his head­phones was weird and dron­ing and not at all to their taste.

They didn’t under­stand why Teri would hang with him, and it drove them a lit­tle crazy when they saw her get into his car, a lit­tle red hatch­back that once had stick­ers all over the back but now just the left­over glue from those he’d scraped off, black­ened with grime. One of them spot­ted her with him at the Victory, for a show­ing of Halloween 4, and yeah, they were fuck­ing hold­ing hands, and dur­ing the cred­its she leaned over and kissed him with those juicy lips they all dreamed about. If it’d been anoth­er girl, they could’ve han­dled it, they all agreed. But fuck­ing Germ?

She couldn’t be into him, not gen­uine­ly, they told them­selves. It was just the good weed he had access to that kept her com­ing back. Probably gave her whole bot­tles of Percs, too. And they thought they noticed she was a lit­tle slow­er in the bowl, a lit­tle drowsy-look­ing. The ass­hole had got­ten her hooked, they guessed, and said some­one ought to tell him to lay off. But they all want­ed his quar­ter bags, so they left it alone and watched her turns go lazy. What did they care if she couldn’t be both­ered to work as hard and get so sweaty now that it was sum­mer and heat made the air wavy over the black­top? Most of them had got­ten jobs that kept them away dur­ing the week, except the rich Lenape kids who just swam and sunned them­selves at the pri­vate lake with a lit­tle beach and float­ing dock, an ice cream stand and gig­gling girls in biki­nis who were eas­i­er to get with even if they didn’t know how to ride a board or smile half as sweet­ly and sen­su­ous­ly as Teri.

The few who were left stopped pay­ing much atten­tion to her, or pre­tend­ed to stop, espe­cial­ly now that she and Germ would make out right there on the bench beside the bowl, and some­times they’d fight there, too, in whis­pers too low to dis­tin­guish any words, leav­ing them to read body lan­guage instead, Germ mak­ing plead­ing ges­tures with his hands, Teri turn­ing away. They wrote her off then, or would have, except one after­noon when she fell, her tank top pulled up to reveal bruis­es on her bel­ly and up her ribs, some fresh and dark pur­ple, oth­ers going yel­low at the edges. They couldn’t keep them­selves from gawk­ing. She yanked the fab­ric down, grabbed her board and back­pack, and hur­ried away with­out chang­ing back into her boots. Germ called after her, said he’d give her a ride, but she just kept on in the direc­tion of the bus mall with­out turn­ing back.

No way she got those from falling off her board, they all agreed, and that was enough. Now they had no choice but to con­front Germ, cheap quar­ter bags or not. He was alone the next day, and Devon was the one to sneak up behind him and pin his arms behind his back, while anoth­er boy grabbed the neck of his shirt and twist­ed. You like to beat up girls? a third said. Get her drugged and slap her around? Devon yanked hard on his shoul­ders, gave them a wrench that made him cry out, and that was sat­is­fy­ing to all of them, this son-of-a-bitch who not only scored the girl of their dreams and flaunt­ed it in their faces but treat­ed her like garbage, too, which meant he treat­ed their dreams like garbage, mak­ing them feel even small­er and less sig­nif­i­cant than they already did now that they’d grad­u­at­ed high school and had no idea what their futures would look like, even those who were head­ing off to col­lege in anoth­er month.

But they were con­fused when tears sprang to his eyes. He start­ed straight-up weep­ing in front of them, blub­ber­ing so they could hard­ly under­stand him. Then they just let him go, and he slumped onto the bench, held his head in his hands. They expect­ed a con­fes­sion, or maybe some beg­ging for for­give­ness, but what he said instead made them wish they’d just mind­ed their own business.

I tried man, he said. I want­ed her to get away from there. But she’s afraid she’ll get stuck in fos­ter care. Says she’s too close to being free now, just wants to ride it out till she’s eigh­teen, but that’s like anoth­er two years, and I’m afraid he’s gonna fuckin kill her before that.

Who? they asked, but it didn’t real­ly mat­ter by then, because they all had the same feel­ing: that they didn’t under­stand shit, that the world was so much more fucked up than they’d ever real­ized, that they’d be bet­ter off with their eyes closed or star­ing at the flo­ral cur­tains in their child­hood bedrooms.

Stepdad, he said. Mom’s boyfriend, real­ly. They aren’t mar­ried. But he’s been there for years. I known her almost all my life, he said. We went to Hebrew school togeth­er when we were kids. Hadn’t seen her for a few years till she showed up here. Didn’t expect her to remem­ber me at all. Felt like a gift when she put her arm around me. I know she doesn’t love me or any­thing, but I’d do any­thing for her. Offered to take her with me when I go to Philly in the fall. Or fuck col­lege and get a job to sup­port her. Whatever she wants. But she says she’ll just ride it out, last cou­ple years in that dump, and she doesn’t need me or any­one else to take care of her.

Then the boys didn’t know what else to say or do but buy one of Germ’s quar­ter bags, smoke some of it from Bart Simpson’s face, and skate until their clothes were soaked through. They went home and sat in their back­yards in the humid July air, wait­ing for­ev­er for the sun to go down. And then it didn’t get any cool­er, but the fire­flies came out, and they watched the mys­te­ri­ous mov­ing lights against the dark shapes of shrubs and wood­en fences and thought they were lucky not to have fall­en for her, not in a big way, at least, lucky they could keep a lit­tle dis­tance from all that pain. But they’d be extra cool to her next time they saw her, give her the whole bowl to ride on her own if she want­ed the space, and cool to Germ, too, even if the kid lis­tened to freaky music and had a squin­ty expres­sion and fun­ny-look­ing bristly hair. There was some­thing about him. Teri had seen it, and now they saw it too.

But Teri didn’t show up at the park after that, and Germ came only once or twice. Said she was skat­ing in Lakewood now, peo­ple there knew too much about her, talked all kinds of shit to her, but none paid atten­tion to her bruis­es. Said she was flu­ent in Spanish, too, always had been, and she kept a Puerto Rican flag on her wall even if her dad was a dick who’d aban­doned her when her mom took up with some­one else. Said he was start­ing art school in Philly in a few weeks, and from there he couldn’t do any­thing for her. Said he was gear­ing up to let her go.

Maybe he’d draw designs for their boards while he was there, Devon suggested.

I’m done with skat­ing, Germ said. Don’t want any­thing to do with it. Not ever again.

~

Scott Nadelson is the author of nine books, most recent­ly the nov­el Trust Me, win­ner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish fic­tion. He teach­es at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University.