Iyam what
Iyam
knew Ben the dude, they
also knew the darker shade
of his personality dubbed
"Animal."
When the duty sergeant
By Brian Brannon strolled by to find Ben
Animal Ben wasn't your typical jarhead. Sure, daydreaming, he immed
his nauseous green camouflage could cover the skate
scars of many an intense backyard bowl raid, but it
couldn't conceal his crazy and suspicious eyes. Not
even jet black aviator sunshades could hide Ben's
probing, anarchistic, store.
Ben's latest misadventures began when he first
enlisted in Uncle Sam's army. Even the recruiter, Staff
Sergeant Horace Frack, could sense something was
up. The lad seemed loose and unruly. A troublemaker
with an irreverent, sarcastic badittude and a misde-
meanor demeanor. Of course, Frack couldn't prove
anything. If he was right, the army would either make
Ben or break him.
That first balmy El Paso day seemed like years ago
now. Ben was in the army, flunking boot camp and
standing guard at the entrance to the officer's latrine.
He recalled his last days as a civilian, when his com-
padres, the fellow members of Los Vatos Grim had
seen him off with a bang. They knew he'd miss skating
more than anything during his hitch. They not only
lately told the misplaced
rebel to drop to the dirt
and deliver eighty push-
ups. Had he noticed the
buck private salute his
commander with a
thoroughly extended mid-
dle finger, Ben's military
career would have surely ended then and there.
The army should have known it couldn't tame Ben.
There wasn't any amount of indoctrination that could
impress him. Many things helped make him imper-
vious. For starters, Ben was a skater. That should
have disqualified him right there. He was also a born
Hades-raiser, a coping cracker, a tile shredder, an air
monger, a balls-to-the-wall rock and roller and a
serious party-dredging machine. His irreverent wild
abandon was what had earned him the tog "Animal,"
and to see his fast, furious struggle against the very
harshest vertical was to understand.
Ben's specialty was
pools, more specifically,
empties. When he was
free, nothing could stand
in between him and the
scene of his dream; not old
bird, nor dirty pig, nor
robid dog. Whatever it
took to get there was ex-
actly what "Animal" had
to do.
As luck would have it,
Ben couldn't do anything
now, he was in the army,
doing so many pushups
that he lost count. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a rough
authoritative voice obliterated Ben's cool thoughts of
roving with his bros. "Listen private, that's enough.
Who do you think you are, Bruce Jenner?"
Private Ben glanced up to see Sergeant Kawasaki's
razor red glare. He was tempted to crack a dirty Polish
joke, but rather than disgrace the sarge's sister or
wife, he ceased and stood at attention.
Kawasaski instantly launched into a stern and heart-
felt lecture just an inch-and-a-half away from Ben's
unshaven face. Droplets of spit splattered onto his
eyes, nose, lips, chin and forehead, but not once did
Ben flinch. Like everything else, the private took it
on his feet, sporting a stone cold poker face a bat-
talion of howitzers couldn't begin to chisel.
Somewhere around the comment, "You sniveling
disgrace to the sands of Iwo Jima...." Ben's thoughts
began to wander. He remembered the bowl called
Angel's. It had sat for years collecting the nastiest
brown muck, a potpourri of discarded junk, thickly
decaying gunk and a few trickles of rainwater. Ben
recalled the day Los Vatos Grim had cleaned it out,
and the pool was again open for business.
Few cement ponds sport the diamond-shaped design
Angel's enjoys. With a diving board at the tip and
steps at the bottom, two prime corners and four
straight walls remained to be pumped for joy. Ben
had carved those puppies with a passion, and he could
clearly hear his friends shouting their approval.
"Private! Private! Attention! I gave you a direct
order and you still haven't carried it out. If you were
a corporal, you'd have just lost a stripe. You're going
to spend the next week in the brig, under solitary
confinement!"
Ben noticed then that the sergeant was good and
worked up. The veins on his forehead throbbed and
Left: Laid back and in your face at the same time,
Christian slashes the Sycamore Pool. Above: Pool jewel
Dave Reul in mid-layback air. Photos: Chris Ortiz.
he panted slow and hard. From behind his enraged
red eyes, Sergeant Kawasaski could see only blurs.
The MPs came and marched the prisoner to the
stockade with high, syncopated steps. Ben walked
on blankly without any trouble. This was disappoint-
ing to them. As members of the world's largest nation-
alist skinhead gang, these army cats were just itching
to pull some merciless skull-bashing, rib-cracking cheap
shots on such a poor, helpless, hand-cuffed target.
When Ben and company finally did arrive at the
stone stockade, the MPs hurled him in and slammed
the cast iron door shut. Ben could hear the deep bay
of a hound dog way off in the distance. Its moanful
howls transported him back to "The (Barking) Dog
Bowl" and a day with his friends. It was a great
afternoon, but that pool was a heavy bummer. What
an utter shame that its square shape was matched
by transitions quite nearly as square. Even worse,
two separate tethered canines yelped continuously at
any skaters who treaded the exceedingly harsh terrain.
Ben's vert vision collapsed as the cell door crashed
open and a chubby, ugly, barf-breath corporal sneered
down at him. "Here's your chow, pal." He threw Ben
a bowl of pungent once-baked beans and thrust forth
a rusty canteen of algae green scum juice. Typical
army grub.
But, "Animal" wasn't hungry, and he surely didn't
dig life in captivity. For him, the Army was confine-
ment enough. Nonetheless, Ben figured sooner or later
he would need his strength, so he tried to force down
a few beans. After a few tense minutes, his bowl was
almost empty. Miraculously, Ben had made it down
to the last solitary bean without puking. He stared
at the crusty legume impaled on his dirty tin fork.
It had mostly fine transitions with only a few ig-
norable kinks and a large, open shallow end.
Ben pictured himself catching a double-axle carve
grind in the deep, then shooting over for a high, toed
frontside in the pocket.
When he saw other skate
rats pulling lapovers and
rock 'n rolls, Ben chomped
that last garbanzo and
washed it away with bug
swill. It wasn't that he was
antisocial, he just didn't
want anybody invading his
sessions and taking his
lines, even if it was only
in his imagination. After
all, until the day of his
discharge, honorable or
otherwise, pretend pools
were the only good things
he had left. O
Legalize
freedom
A.
Free
by Brian Brannon
twenty-foot tall chain-link fence topped with grin-
slicing razor wire enclosed the bowl in question. It clear
ly exposed any invading skaters to the right and righteous
neighbors who populated the surrounding vicinity.
Though this barrier was high and formidable, the local
pool mongers finally turned the tables on the nearby
nares: They went under.
Now the only problem was
staying hidden from
haphazard pedestrians and
motorists while cavorting
upon the fine, wide, white
walls. In this case, the best
time to go was early in the
morning when visions of
sugar plums danced through
potential tattlers' heads.
On that day, however, our
heroes had slept unusually
late. This meant more traf-
fic and a higher bust pro-
bability. These cats knew
both the need and the
greed, so the quantity of
quality vert made their
preferred risk worthwhile.
Above: Justin Gerard licks the lip with a wicked
sweeper. Photo: Bryce Kanights. Below Left: Jack
Copenhaver's long board provides leverage for an ex-
tra sick deathbox defying Smith grind in La Mesa Pool.
Photo: Joel Cherry.
Scurrying speedily underneath, three stealthy skaters
discovered maintenance man Peter the Great emptying
down the last few bucketfuls of the previous nights rain.
Happily for them, he was finishing up as they arrived.
Only for a moment did they eye the bowl's spacious
grandeur, reflect on it's beauty, then they immediately
tore the sucker dean apart. She was a huge right-hand
kidney with plenty of wall all around and three olympic
length racing stripes running down her middle. She was
smooth, she was big. She was nice.
Tommy carved a backside grinder before the light in
the deep wall, then followed it with a backside thrust
on the sidewall into the shallow. He shredded roughly
with the grace of sincerity and the aggression of hunger.
Jaime came straight on in and pegged his own front-
side grinds imposingly over Tom's goofy-foot lines. He
rolled purposefully and with the smooth confidence of
control. As an old hand at this particular pool, Jaime
carried the mojo trump.
The visiting Bobo swung his frontside carves with velo-
city, curving around in a figure eight that sent him fly-
ing back to the side with a backside grind. In the mean-
time, Peter followed through with the lines that pushed
ever higher across the face wall.
They rode for a perilously long time, successfully duck-
ing danger and savoring the sweetness of the bowl. Life
on the edge is always a little spicier. Bootleg whiskey
always tastes a little smoother. Maybe gambling against
the powers-that-be helps to heighten the thrill. Then
again, maybe nowadays they just outlaw everything
that threatens to liberate the soul. O
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