HARDCORE
A
small crowd of people are gathered around a truck. A
lowered Datsun, complete with all the trimmings. Center-
lines, Alpine stereo, flares, tinted windows, you name it.
this truck had it.
The object of excitement that they'd all stopped to
watch was the bed of the truck. It was equipped with hyd-
raulics. It tilted side to side, and back like a dump truck. The truck owner
sat inside his pride and joy, demonstrating its unique and wonderful fea-
tures to the onlookers. They stared in awe as he began to operate the bed.
A young man on a skateboard pushed his way through the crowd to see
what all the commotion was about. This particular youth wasn't wearing a
shirt, and you could see he had a large tatoo on one arm. The Misfits skull
leered proudly on his toned bicep.
Six gold loops gleamed from one ear, and a strand of bleached hair par-
tially masked his face. He wore a pair of VERY tight blue cotton pants,
with hundreds of skulls and bones sprinkled across the surface. On his
wrist he wore several silver bracelets, with a short length of fine chain
woven through them. He had stolen the chain from a toilet tank in a Bob's
Big Boy somewhere while on tour last year.
He was a sponsored skater, so he had shared his knowledge with many
people in many states. His tool was under his feet: 7 plys of maple, coned
wheels with new bearings, new front trucks, old back trucks, and several
stickers slapped across the bottom. His riser pads were caked with the
scum from a thousand ramps. His wheels had rolled over millions of
sidewalk cracks. He was a hardcore skater to the bone.
He pulled out a clove cigarette and lit up. He was almost through the
crowd, and he could hear the sound of hydraulics in motion. He took a hit
from his Djarum. The smoke was like candy to him. The bed of the truck
tilted, and the crowd reacted accordingly.
"Ooh, yeah! That's so bitchen'!"
"I'm gonna do that to my truck when I get the money."
"That's COOL..."
"How does he make it do that??"
By now the skater had rolled up to the center of attention. He had an un-
excited look on his face. The cig burned on in his hand. He watched the
bed of the truck move from side to side. It almost seemed to rock to the
music that pumped from the six 200 watt speakers in the cab of the ve-
hicle. This particular Datsun was worth at least twenty thousand.
Suddenly, a look of disappointment spread across the skater's face, and
he turned to another young man standing beside him.
"Why?" asked the skater with a truly perplexed look on his face. Before
the young man could answer him, the skater rolled off through the crowd,
followed only by his smoke.
From a skater's point of view, maybe you'd say "why?" too. But if you
owned the truck, and saw that skater, wouldn't you say the same? It
doesn't matter who's right, as long as you're into it.
Skate and Detonate
deWbag
Marina Del Ray, CA
BOOKS
OPEN
wall
JOHNNY CAT'S LAST RIDE
J
ohnny Cat was in a hurry on this particular day. He weaved his
car in and out of the post-rush hour traffic and wondered if he had
enough time to skáte a little before it got too dark. He felt like he
would die if he didn't get on his board soon. Earlier in the day, at
work, Johnny Cat wondered what he would do if he didn't skate.
"Probably die," he thought to himself. It was the only thing that
gave him a reason to carry on. He hated his job, but kept working, 'cuz he
knew he would skate after work.
He stopped thinking about the day as soon as he pulled up in front of his
house on a street in a city a lot like your own. He jumped out, ran in the
house and into his room where his board stood in the corner. A smile cros-
sed his face as he grabbed his skate and ran out of the house.
He stopped at the curb for a traffic check then crossed the street and
skated around behind a group of buildings where his secret spot was. A
small bank, about four feet high with a nice lip for harsh grinds; it wasn't
quite vert, but it was enough to be a man on. There was just enought time
for the Cat to get in a session before night fell. He set his board down,
pushed off towards the bank and lost himself in his skating....
It grew too dark to skate and John set out for home. He had ripped so
hard that he was beside himself. In his mind, he was re-playing his last
snap-back grinder as he crossed the street. What he failed to notice was the
middle-aged man in a large blue cur bearing down on him around 47
m.p.h-he looked up but it was too late. The middle-aged man in the
large blue car ran him all the way over. As John was flying through the air,
as birds often do, in that instant just before death, with the re-play of the
snap-back grinder still playing in his soon to be defunct mind, he knew he
had bought it, but he didn't particularly care. At least he got to skate. The
middle-aged man was terrified. He got out of his large blue car and ran to-
wards Johnny screaming, "I'm sorry!! I'm sorry." But John couldn't hear
him. He was dead. The middle-aged man stood over Johnny Cat's lifeless
body, sobbing hysterically. Then he noticed a message in ink written on
the back of the young boy's blood stained shirt. It read "Skate and then
die," and as the man continued to sob, sirens wailed off in the distance. It
was too dark to skate.
Billy Runaway
ANOTHER SKATE RELATED DEATH
A
fter a couple of wall walks, a J Walk and a few bumper
boneless' the perpetrator was apprehended and "taught a
lesson." Swung by cuffs on cold hands, he was hurled,
running, tripping, no arms for balance, or to hault the im-
pact. Upon connection, his mind raced free. He remem-
bered the Gyro Bowl and Lex's Ramp, his first McTwist.
Night skating at Terror Skate Park, then the beef he took going for double
axle grinds in that % capsule...and having to be heli-rescued one time
after shooting Deadman's Mountain when some drunk hicks ran him off
the edge. Would have made it too, if it wasn't fucking dirt... He opened
one eye, he began to feel pain now. A shower of blood flowed over the
other eye and down onto his Alva shirt. His memories faded into oblivion.
All he heard were some hollow echos as he died....
"Them there skatenthings shure is danjures, ain't they sherriff?"
Tomas Barack
Talahassee, FL
ぐ
THRASHER