caught the duck by surprise. The poor bird never
knew what hit him. The last image the duck's brain
registered was a piece of wood with four wheels.
By now the plane was a long way from the small
boy on his skateboard, but the scenery below was
still American.
The pilot and his co-pilot were suddenly startled.
A silhouette appeared and rose into the air in front
of the plane. As the airplane flew toward the shape
it started to take form, and the pilots were able to
distinguish a man... No, it couldn't be... But it
was...It was a man holding...a skateboard!
The pilot looked at the co-pilot.
The co-pilot looked at the pilot.
They both looked at the skateboarder.
He held his position in the air for a brief moment
and then disappeared downward towards the earth.
The co-pilot looked at his superior for an
explanation.
"There must be one hell of a goddamn half-pipe
down there." declared the pilot.
[Fiction]
A FINAL CHAPTER IN
THE NEWTRON
CHRONICLES
By Scobey, the latest in his series of short stories con-
cerning the mental and emotional affairs in a skater's
life. Scobey roams the streets of Northern California
in search of plots and skate spots.
"Put that fork back on the table this instant, young
man!" scolded the woman that Cameron called
mother. "Can't you even wait till we all sit down
before you start eating?"
She turned and attempted to justify her outburst
in front of the new boyfriend she had brought home.
"Your children aren't so rude as that, are they Mr.
Huffenhagel?" She shot another piercing glance in
Cameron's direction, collected herself and returned.
to Mr. Huffenhagel.
Eventually, after a couple more scoldings, dinner
began.
Then, somewhere between the salad and the
broiled steak, Cameron started whistling. You see,
Cameron had a rather odd habit of whistling old
cowboy tunes at the dinner table, and just about
everywhere else for that matter.
"Control yourself!" she hissed under her breath.
Cameron found this exceedingly difficult to do.
"My god, boy, stop that foul whistling!" she
repudiated. Cameron's inability to comply with this
order earned him the exclusive privilege of dining
out on the back porch. Except for the faithful com-
panionship of his dog, Weederman, Cameron was
quite alone. He finished his meal most directly with
the help of Weederman. He then got to his feet,
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walked back in the house and into the kitchen,
deposited his dirty dishes in the sink and walked out
without saying a word. As he exited the room, the
woman yelled to him, "Go to your room! I don't want
you riding that stupid toy of yours this late. It'll be
dark soon."
And so it would.
Cameron picked up his skateboard and held it close
to his chest as he went outside. He rolled along the
side of the house to the top of a steep driveway where
the woman's brand new BMW 750 il was parked.
With a beaming smile on his face, Cameron opened
the door on the driver's side, set the gearshift in
neutral and casually released the emergency brake.
The car rolled, slowly at first, down the driveway
and into the street. It gained momentum as it plum-
meted. front end first, and slammed into a tree on
the opposite side of the street. Cameron lit up with
contentedness as the last shards of glass tinkled to
the pavement. A vengeful look of satisfaction settled
gently across his face as he set down his skateboard
and rolled off into the sunset, whistling, feeling that
he would never die.
[Fantasy/Reality]
RADICALLY RURAL
by D. Nye P.I. (Potential Invalid) from Thorndike,
Maine. Doug resides in a wooded retreat where he
ponders the significance of the written word and
practices primal therapy.
Spring had thrown herself upon us like eight
boneheads launching onto the first ply of a yet un-
finished half. The Maine winter had been what's call-
ed an open winter, with no great accumulations of
snow, consequentially limiting any decent snowboar-
ding. Brother Bruce (affectionately referred to as
Sluice) and I rummaged through the shed trying to
locate our skate gear which had been tossed aside
late last fall when the sharp bite of skin slapping ply
became too much for our already abused frames.
Bones properly mended and only slight vestiges
of scar tissue evident on our most prominent appen-
dages, Sluice and I gathered our tattered gear and
sat down to assess the current situation. Mad boy
Stump's mini's had long ago gone their way at the
hands of redneck vandals who even took the handles.
Shoddy construction, parental pickiness, the ravages
of a liability conscious society and the tarless, con-
creteless nature of our rural setting had combined
to leave us virtually terrainless. We had no outlet to
expel the psycho-physical energy we had been ac-
cumulating from our long wintered yearnings for the
rickety tickety tick of wheel meeting ply. Hot to trot
and no place to pace!
"I've had it with this shit," Sluice muttered under
his breath as he stormed out of the shed. "Go get
the chainsaw and axe. We're going back to nature
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