E.Z. RIDING
By Billy Runaway
It's common knowledge that lack of a place to skate can push even
the sanest of skaters to the edge, but having a place to skate and not
being able to skate it has pushed men over the edge, into the area
known as the "lunatic fringe." Aided by a constant intake of California
coolers and urging from fellow skate aficionados, I achieved the
aforementioned "Fringe" state of mind in the midst of a rather
skateless predicament that our crew was experiencing.
Now to violate a man's private domain and ride his pool is very
risky business, particularly when the man in question here rides a
Harley Davidson, dresses in chains, and has friends with intimate
knowledge of prison walls. Fate had apparently dealt us a bad hand,
since the only skateable pool for miles around happened to be the
property of one Mr. E.Z. Rider.
Dire situations call for dire tactics, so in my "Lunatic Fringe" state
of mind, I decided to approach Mr. E.Z. and ask him straight out if I
could skate his pool. I was hoping he would be impressed with my
balls-out attitude, since all outward appearances indicated that E.Z.
was a pretty balls-out type of guy. I put on my best hell-bent-for-leather
imitation and approached E.Z.'s house. Upon setting foot on his
property, noticed him spit-shining the muffler on his Harley, I was
impressed. He obviously wasn't. I strode across the yard in his general
direction, trying to avoid his glare while looking impressed with his
bike. It didn't work. "Wadda ya want?" he said, the man had all the
charm of a rabid dog. Being face to face with a man who could have
a serious effect on my skate future and also my physical health if he
so desired, I decided to get to the point and then run if necessary. "Me
and my friends want to skate your pool;" his reply nearly caused me
to go under cardiovascular arrest. In short, he told me that if we
cleaned it, we could ride it, since they were tearing the whole place
down in 6 days to build a parking lot.
We coughed up some money for a pump and returned within the
hour. What Mr. E.Z. failed to point out was that the pool also
contained about 6 inches of sludge in addition to the dirty water,
making it a haven for mosquitoes and other insect life. Cleaning it out
was hell, but between one guy "bucketing muck," one guy "shoveling
shit," and one guy (me, of course) running the pump, we had the pool
in skateable order by the end of the day. The bowl was smooth and
carveable, but way too tight for a back and forth line. Built in extras
such as steps and a shallow end love seat boosted the fun potential
substantially. The 4 (1) feet of vert in the deep end (11'), along with
the tight radius and lack of a drain cover made any move other than
carves a do-it-right-or-die situation. Since no backyard pool is perfect
(adapting is half the fun) and seeing as how we had been dry on vert
for quite a while, we commenced with a no holds barred session to
christen the place. Mr. E.Z. took a break from working on his chopper
to check out the action and seemed to be reasonably impressed. He
recited his complete knowledge of skating, which took about 30
seconds total, and then topped it off by asking us why we couldn't do
"double flips and handstands" yet.
We chalked it up to inhaling too much chopper smoke, gave him a
polite answer and kept skating. By this time Jollmer, the guy who was
"bucketing muck" earlier on, was getting full edgers over the steps and
into the shallow end wired. The love seat also became the focus of
intense sessioning. A speedy carve carried up onto the love seat could
produce a coperless 50/50 or grind the full length of the seat.
Daily sessions increased in intensity as D-Day approached. Alas, as
scheduled on the 6th and final day of bliss the dozer and crew showed
up to their job. We paid our last respects to the coping and love seat
until darkness set it. We thanked Mr. E.Z. who was moving the last of
his bikes to his new place, and left for home. I went by the place the
next day just to make sure and found no recognizable trace of anything
that resembled a pool or a house. As I glanced at the piles of rubble,
something caught my eye that was symbolic of our whole experience
there, sticking out from underneath a piece of pool coping was a shiny
piece of metal, it looked an awful lot like a motorcycle muffler....
100 miles in any direction to the nearest vertical. As is to be
expected, Max is slightly bent these days. He just can't get no
satisfaction. Not in his work-manufacturing ads for the yellow
pages, "the worst are the Nazi gun shop ads offering machine guns,
silencers, and exotic weapons systems for the serious sportsman."
How could anyone find satisfaction in that? Max fantasizes about
working swastikas into those ads subliminally and otherwise sabotag-
ing the ads. There is definitely something repellent about talking Fred
Consumer into buying something he doesn't want or need. Max thinks
advertising is one of the major evils of the twentieth century. He finds
it amazing people fall for the empty promises and stylish packaging.
How could anyone buy that shit? How can Max continue in a line that
so obviously repels him?
The ditch kept Max sane-it was on his way to work so, a few runs
in the morning and a couple of hours after made the work day easier
to face. But now it's wet and won't dry. It rains every couple of days.
Work gets harder and harder. Max's brain blackens at the edges. His
head fills with homicidal fantasies and his frustration drives red hot
spikes into his soul. Max has to run or somebody's going to get hurt.
So he runs, 100 miles to the south. Two hours alone in a car with
no radio can do strange things to a person. Destructive fantasies
return, this time in the form of driving head on into the oncoming
traffic and surprising the hell out of the jr. execs in their self-satisfied
fuel-injected bavarian-imported oblivia. A twist of the wheel is all that
it would take...
Into a town remarkably like most of southern California-complete
with long-haired young things in designer wet-dream wear and
short-haired young things in trendily defaced $200 leather jackets, and
where everyone has a skateboard, because everyone has a
skateboard-Max drives and notices the signs of wealth and clean
living, and a remarkably shabby skate ramp. Dirt man's ramp was t
good for a few laughs. It was interesting to ride out the kinks wonder-
ing when the thing was going to come crashing down on top of
whatever skater happened to be in the way. The decay of a ramp is
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