Saints North

It started well enough. The craze for roller-skating was in full swing when I was a XX- year-old. I started wobbly, like everyone else, and got up to speed. Except I have this psychological flaw.
I love music. Music reaches a part of my soul that’s directly wired in to my body. Music gets exciting; I jazz up and get moving. Music slows and I sway. I am not Fred Astair. I’m not even Fred’s accountant. If I needed to dance to save my life, maybe I could escape during the helpless laughter. Anyway, roller-skating…

So if you don’t remember roller-rinks, there were three main “skates”. “Open:” Open skates were for all of us, the sick, lame and stupid could skate along side the Fred & Gingers of the roller-skating world. Then there was the “Couples’ Only” skate. This was to show off those who had reached a certain level of sexual sophistication-and those who wanted to meet girls/boys/geeks could ask a girl/boy/geek to skate with them-and then, the super-duper couples skate, “The Snowball.”

If there was ever proof needed that there is a Caste system of childhood, The Snowball is it. This wasn’t just any Couples’ Skate; this was one you had to be actually picked for. I can still see the Teenagers doing their skate-while-fused-together thing. Some of ‘em were joined at a hip; some of them skated and danced with one partner-usually the girl- skating backwards. The key was wearing tight white clothing. That way, the UV light would cause you to glow in the dark and show off the fact that you had secondary sexual characteristics. You also had to know what you were doing. Dynamic Fusion on the floor. There were different forms of dynamic fusion: Face to Face, in which Rich and Shelly would gracefully circle the rink in waltzing poses. Then there was the Hip-to-Hip in which Ronnie would skate with Natalie with their leg fused to the other one-apparently one being with two genders, three legs and millions of pheromones. Then there was the Woven Few: Billy and Laurie would somehow manage to orbit with their arms around each other and legs between one another’s. You knew damn well that they did this without skates or much else upon occasion, the bastards.

So after the strains of some interminable love song died away, the permanently jacked DJ would announce “OOOoooKaaay Let’s get everybody out on the floor and speed things back up with…The Who!” and you’d joyously leap to your feet and slide stumble or crawl to the rink and gradually sweep out into the mass of puberty winging around the center island. I’d resented watching the couples stuff-mostly because I was terrified of girls, and come to think of it, boys, and probably trees rocks and small birds. The frustration would get to my feet about the time the Who stopped playing and there’d be this insistent drum beat…”You ready Steve?” “Uh-Huh!” “Andy?” “Yeah!” “Mick?!” “Okay!” “Alrighht Fellas, Lets Gooooooo!” (The guitar yanks you up to speed)”Oh it’s been getting’ so hard, livin’ with the things you do to me, uh huh why things are getting so strange, I’d like to tell you everything I see, whoa yeah!”

I’m doing 80 mph. Taking corners like lightning with a bug up its ass. Then nothing but these explosions of white light like being inside a firecracker.

Saints North. Roller skating rink. The robin’s egg blue floor, the red cinderblock walls. Bright glittery disco ball. Elton John is playing in the background. Yup, I’d lived. Now, why was I laying in the snack bar?
A wheel on my left skate had come off at some point. This of course was not a good thing. I was told later that I’d done what was then called an aerial and then a forward roll over the wall and onto the floor. That explained the snack bar. I was hoping that the liquid I could feel on my chest was blood, and that I was mortally wounded so that I wouldn’t have to get up. Well, it was red but in an artificial black cherry sort of way. And the cardboard cup was there crushed under my elbow. Ice too. “Damn it! I’m going to live.” So to the strains of “Brown Sugar” I get pulled to my feet. “That must have been the table I slid across.” I thought to myself-there were two people in white polyester looking angrily at me over a suspiciously clean table. After the manager stopped yelling at me, I slowly pulled off my skates, comforted by thoughts of people suddenly dropping dead for no reason after having accidents that only seemed to cause minor injuries. Ronnie, Billy and Rich were amusing their disco chick dates with a reenactment of the Flight of the Geek, which was getting the crowd roaring. I pulled on my all-stars and looked at the new rip in my burgundy corduroys. A cherry stained flannel shirt stuck to my chest, and somehow, miraculously, my bifocals were intact. Well, thank you Jesus. At least I still look like a bug-eyed freak. I couldn’t hear the music, just the crowd noise, and the laughter as I slowly wound my way outside.

It’s blessedly quiet in parking lots. You can hear yourself scream internally. I decided I would call home, and get picked up. As I walked back into the building, my friend Tracy asked if I’m okay. “What would you think?” “I think you scared me.” “Huh?” Her eyes were really blue behind her glasses, and wet too. “I heard you land, and it sounded like crushing Styrofoam, I thought you broke something.” I blinked. “I did; a cup, it was Styrofoam.” We looked at each other for a moment then broke into howls of laughter.
“Wanna skip out and go to the library?” We both said it simultaneously.

Okay, maybe the next time the Snowball happened… I’d ask Tracy to have a Coke with me.