In other ORDS
by Bettina Bones
Oh God. It is absolutely freezing. I pull my thin wool
coat tighter around me in a fruitless effort to get warmer.
The icy wind rips through this bare field I'm standing in.
Even the ground is dead; feeling like solid ice beneath
my feet. Arms folded tightly, I hop up and down in
another attempt to stay warm. I hear laughter from be-
hind me. It is a girl I conned into making this trip with
me into this Arctic-like region. She is here to watch her
brother.
"Torie," she shivers, "give it up! It's too cold to even
try."
I turn around and walk over to her. She's leaning
against a broken-down and rusted old car which sits on
the solid ground with four flat tires.
"Pat," comment from between clenched teeth, "Why
the hell are we here?"
She shrugs, reflecting my attitude at this point.
From the massive plywood covered structure ten feet
in front of us we hear a familiar tune: drop, whirr, si-
lence, whirr, silence; yells from the platform up above,
the sound of pads sliding across a flat surface and the
slapping noise of a skateboard landing someplace it
shouldn't.
The person I am here to see drops in without so much
as a glance around to see if anyone else is planning to
do the same. I see that his friends are used to this kind
of behavior-the names of various reptiles are yelled at
him. Pat's brother chimes in with "Lizard king snakin'
another run..." A definite sense of competition here,
but the hard edge has been taken off. Hardly anyone
refrains from the joking and harassment. They're all
friends. I can see that.
"Pat," I nudge her. Arms folded, her face is buried in
the collar of a light golf-jacket. "Let's take some of these
coats."
A smiling face emerges from the collar and we go
about trying on the various garments that have been
dropped to the ground. Pat finds a heavy cardigan
sweater and an army-type coat, as well as a pair of thick
but amazingly ugly gloves. I spy my loved one's ski
jacket and another pair of gloves. At first, we go about
this pillaging in a rather sneaky manner before realizing
that we could perform a strip-tease at the bottom of the
ramp and those young men standing on the platform
wouldn't notice. They are in their own world.
My thoughts wander back to the car ride on the way
down. "Yes, of course we'll go out afterwards," he said.
"We'll go out to dinner, someplace nice, okay?"
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Yeah, I wonder, will you be wearing your sweatpants
with Bermuda shorts over them and your ratty, taped-up
Vans while holding my hand and sipping red wine by
candlelight??? Hmmm... It looks like another night of
"I've got to take a shower..." "Yes, I know, dear." "It's
kinda late, isn't it?" "Yes it is." "Sorry we stayed so long
at the ramp." "That's okay, I'm tired anyway."
You get the idea. No red wine, no candlelight.
I think that I have been referred to as a "cool" girl-
friend. Yep, I'm supposedly the one who doesn't make
him choose between the skate and me. I know what riser
pads are and where they go. I got him the best trucks for
Christmas. He went to Del Mar for a week and a half dur-
ing the only vacation we both had at the same time,
that's okay. If forced at gunpoint, I could assemble a
skate...but when one is standing in the middle of a bar-
ren field waiting for someone to take their final run,
somehow all this "cool" wears off.
A few hours later, happiness enters the heart of two
shivering girls. A sweaty bunch of skaters slowly filter
down from the platform and make their way to an assort-
ment of parked cars across the field and by the side of
the road.
Plans are made through open car windows. The ver-
dict: Pat's brother will host the whole crew to another
mini-session at his ramp, conveniently situated in his
backyard some thirty miles away. Are we girls stoked?
We sure are, because waiting at Pat's house is also a
woodburning stove, hot tea and a kitchen window
through which we can observe.
After an hour or so, the sun goes down and a spotlight
comes out. Twilight skating ensues for the following
hour, after which Loved One makes an appearance in
the kitchen doorway.
"Ready to go?" he queries.
Pat does her best to hold back laughter. "Sure!" is my
reply. We load up into the car and I say my good-byes.
Yes, Pat, I'll stay in touch. Yes, I think you should keep
the gloves too. Until next time.
And once again, the "cool" girlfriend is Loved One's
focus of attention.
"I got pretty high air today."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"I've got to take a shower."
"Yes, I know, dear."
"It's kind of late, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"Sorry we stayed so long at the ramp."
"That's okay, I'm tired anyway."
MOFO
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