felt death nipping at my heels. My pace was slower and my walk
clumsier. I wished I were back at the ramp skating with the guys.
I wished I were in the city where there was noise, instead of here
in this hard, cold hell. I started mumbling to myself and the other
imaginary people walking with me. They all listened attentively as
my words scrambled and echoed along the dunes. I saw the sun rising
like a hot air balloon. Once I saw a great white dragon and ran to
hide, but I regained my senses and realized it was just a cloud. I
tried to find balance where there was none. My board fell from my
hand, and I collapsed with it.
form of language seeped into my unconscious brain-words
I had heard before, but never in such abundance. "Da no local
voice, "Sheet, mon, dats a bad steek. Where da bro skate?" "Don
no. Bailed on da flats, one gnarly Charley wit da barley, he skate
wit da moves, no!"
There was laughing and I realized I wasn't dreaming. I was no
longer under the scorching sun, I was in some sort of room. "Taco
scoped da dude on da shred side. Go jive da man wit da plan." I
remembered where I had been and what I was doing. Then it finally
hit me: these guys were the Eillos. They must have found me on
the dunes. I was now fully conscious, but I kept my eyes closed. I
could hear lots of other Eillos outside. Some were skating and some
were talking their slang American jive talk, or whatever it was. I
laughed to myself and thought how funny it would be if another out-
sider like me who didn't skate met up with these Eillos. I was happy
and quite curious. Would they accept me? The talk of sessions gone
by from some Eillos in the corner had stopped and there was a great
silence in the room. Then an older voice spoke, "Dis da dude, man.
He skates, but no loco. Check the threads man, dis dude flow with
a style we never seen. The man's got some tales to tell. Dis boy a gem."
Lying there made me feel like a lab specimen. I heard Eillos come
in and check me out, then leave. There were women and kids too.
The little Eillos were great. I knew they were only about three and
were already ripping. When all was quiet and not an Eillo could be
heard, I took a look at what was around me. I opened my eyes slowly
and saw one Eillo waxing his stick with a candle in the corner. So
that was how they stayed on. He seemed to be in his late 20s. His
hair was bleached blond, almost white, and knotted like a rope. He
was brown skinned and had a ring through his ear. He wore an odd
necklace on his bare chest. He was humming something like reg-
gae. All around the dark room were paintings, hand made posters,
weird stickers, thrashed decks-it looked like a primitive version of
a typical skater's room. I felt at home looking at all the stuff; it was
like my room. This is his place, I thought, rolling over to look at
him again. He was deeply into waxing that skateboard. It was like
me setting up a new board or something-complete possession.
he candle's flame cast dancing shadows on the smooth
round walls. I looked over to the corner and there, to my
back at me. We were both astonished. His blue eyes stared at me
and his mouth was stone still. I sat up and looked around, then tried
to think of what to say to the frozen skater in the corner. I tried to
act calm, like I didn't care, but I did. Here I was, sitting in some kind
of desert igloo with a native that probably thought I was a god or
a demon or something. How had I gotten into this? There was thick
silence. All I heard was my heart and the breathing of the scared
one in the corner. My body was covered with cold sweat. What was
I going to say? I didn't want to startle the dude; I wanted to relate
with him and show that I was his friend, his brother. I looked at my
deck which had been laying beside me, picked it up from my side.
and showed it to him. My words came out and I waited for their
impact. "Let's session da skate brada." I let out a goofy smile, and
slowly but surely he did too.
After talking to Chace (that was his name) for at least five hours,
I began to get the hang of things around there. He showed me all
his stuff, trying hard to impress me, which he did. In the light of
the candle he showed me the boards and wheels he had made and
I showed him my stuff, which I had bought. He was most interested
in the shiny metal between my wheels. He called my wheels fruity,
just bulged. It was as if he was a baby with a new toy. Chace ran
off into the dark with the bearing. "Later days bra, hang ten soon."
He had probably run off to show others. I looked at his stuff again.
The trucks were carved rock, they must have taken weeks to make.
They turned with the utmost ease. The wheels were made of some
clay material. Instead of bearings there was just a hole with wax
in the middle. They spun forever and were very strong. I realized
that I was in a skater's paradise; these people skated every day, their
schools taught only skating, their elders told of it, their society lived
it. The beauty of it was that they were all so happy. There was no
need to fight or grow up and get a job; you just skated, and that
was all. It was a little boy's dream-or a big boy's dream, for that
matter. Then and there I decided to stay. I would not return to the
society where there were rules and regulations. In this realm a skater
cities and stupid laws of industrial man. I would not go back to al
was thought of as a god, an individual, an artist with a story to tell
and a trick to teach. He was skater in a skater's land.
C
hace and I skated around to all the sights of his village.
The whole tribe lived a good fifty feet under the desert.
Candles and torches illuminated everything. The amount
of work it must have taken to build all this was incredible. Not only
were the Eillos master skaters, they were also master craftsmen and
architects. Chace introduced me to the best skaters in the clan, who
were obviously the best in the world. I met his girlfriend, who skated.
and parents and uncles, who, of course, also skated. Chace continued
to amaze me with his abilities. He could ollie his own height and
go as fast as a car. But I amazed him also. My tricks were much
punier, but still different. I guess that's what that older Eillo had meant
when he said. "This boy flow with a style we never seen." I felt proud
to be a skater and to be accepted. I learned more and more each
minute and loved every second.
The Eillos made new skateable terrain every day in their
underground world; they were always expanding, always skating.
They hunted on the dunes, skating faster than their prey. They had
contests every Friday, though time was something they thought little
about. The contests were more like giant parties or feasts. They never
this was the only clue they had about other skateboarders. How they
found this information was beyond me. Maybe one of the tribe had
visited the cities or possibly an explorer had told the Eillos just before
he was killed. At any rate. I didn't have the heart to tell them that
Del Mar was no more.
One day I heard about a newly finished section, a three-year project
that everyone was skating. It was a giant tunnel (Continued on page 116)
UCKB
SUZUKI
SOPE
22
Rider: Keith "Duck Boy" Wallace
Photo: Trevor Graves
1988 U.S. Open
Stratton Mtn.,
Vermont
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