Saint Joseph School

Tony was hanging onto an extended eggplant in the new kidney pool when he caught sight of Sam entering the park on her skateboard. He managed a quick wave before disappearing into the depression and blasting out the opposite side in a neat cabalerno and vanishing again. He popped out on the near side to the deck and glided toward her. The boy was almost unrecognizable in full pads and a pair of faded black hipster jeans. He unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet, grinning, as he approached.

Sam popped her skateboard into her free hand. "I was looking for your hair." Her fading Memphis accent was cute. She was cute in an army green tank and track jacket, too, her straight hair windblown from the ride over.

Tony chuckled, wiping sweat from his nose on the neckband of his over-washed Invader Zim T-shirt. "You don't wanna see it right now, trust me." He sat his hands on his hips and breathed the crisp autumn air as he looked her over, glad she came, glad he'd had some time to warm up. "Did you get enough sleep last night?"

"Yeah, slept like a log. You? Sorry I kept you up so late jawing."

"Naw! It was a blast. I'll be fine." Tony popped a manual, idly. "So, what's the plan today, chica?"

Sam unshouldered her duffel bag with a thud and bent to retie a rogue shoelace. "Well, on account of you promised to teach me how to grind without landing on my tail, we can start with that."

"That I did." He nodded. "And I brought my skateboard, too, so we can all have a laugh." He waved toward the center of the park where a few skateboarders roamed. "Those kids are hardcore. Thank God no one recognizes me."

They flopped onto the benches and Sam started strapping on her armor while Tony rehydrated.

"Hey, lemme see a skate."

Sam handed over a scuffed Rollerblade Lightning--a fitness skate. He turned it over in his hands, squishing the boot, checking the wear, spinning the wheels, a line forming between his brows. "You been keeping these in a box in your garage or something?"

She reddened and punched him "lightly" in the shoulder. "No fair! I told you I hardly skate. I mean, I skate, it's just I don't skate-skate--not on skates."

Tony cracked a grin. "Just teasing! Jeez! You're gonna kill me some day. Here." He double-checked the size of her boot and fished around in his own bag. The tools and loose parts clinked as he pulled out an old, battered pair of K2 Fatties conjoined at the laces. "These should be small enough..." He looked them over and, on a whim, stuck his nose in one. Half laughing and half coughing, he handed them over to Sam. "Yeah, they're all yours. You brought extra socks, right?"

"Yup." She took the skates, almost a little reverently, and set about putting on a pair of hockey socks and lacing in.

"Yeah, I got those when I was twelve." Tony paused, compulsively twisting his nose stud in contemplation. "So I figure, once you get your feet under you with those, we'll warm up and hit the long grindbox over there and see where you're at. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," Sam replied looking up with a warm smile before going back to concentrating on the laces and ankle buckles. She wasn't just mouthing off--she remembered he was an amazing skater, and it was good to find someone to knock around the park with. Sure there were guys there she was used to seeing, but it was all superficial. Having a school buddy to hit it with would be awesome. Besides, she knew it was tough leaving home and coming to a new school where you didn't know anyone, she remembered it well. When they put in the skate park, it was almost as if a bit of home came to Paragon. It was like chicken soup for homesickness. Tony was still pretty new to the school, and sometimes guys were funny about that, admitting they missed home, or missed being "normal." Tony had been through a lot recently, moving, the 'accident,' rumors flying around school, the wings. If nothing else, she figured he could use the distraction.

With the hockey socks, the skates were near a perfect fit--much more support than what she was used to. Even battered up they were leaps and bounds above the ones she owned, but Tony wasn't the sort to look down on that. He seemed to be into skating for the sake of skating, like her. The feeling you'd get when you finally landed something you'd been working on or the way the ground felt when you didn't. And so what if this was blading and not boarding? So what if Corey or Kaleb or Jimmy would likely give her hell about it? They were still good guys, like Tony.

She felt silly wearing the knee and elbow pads, but not everyone who used the park had the freak gene or knew enough hocus pocus to heal themselves up. Until something happened, there was really no way of telling who could and who just said they could so they wouldn't have to armor up, so it was a blanket rule. She made sure to quickly slick back her hair before dropping her helmet into place, tapping a skate against the ground to indicate she was ready.

"All set?" he asked, offering her a hand to stand up.

She took it for a second just to get her skating legs. The wheels were smaller than she was used to, but rolled much smoother.

"Just like the board. Bend your knees a bit, find your center of gravity." He let go and rolled backwards effortlessly.

She stood up taking a few bunny steps, then smirked as she crossed over to duck walk backwards next to him, resting her hands in the pockets of her track jacket.

"Faker!" he kidded, tapping her arm and half cabbing to full speed. He hit the grind the length of the box in a fluid motion. Sam pulled into a powerslide stop just to watch.

"I can't grind one of those," she explained with a shrug. "That was what, a sidewalk?"

"Close. Sideswipe. It all depends on which edges you ride."

"Which edges you ride," she quipped with a smile. "With me? One foot will go one way, one foot will go another, and sure you make it look easy, but I'll be sitting on my tail."

He laughed again and skated back over. "Don't sweat it. We'll start you on something easier, like a soul slide, okay?" She nodded." "Alright, 101 time." He grabbed onto her elbow pad to steady her while motioning for her to give him her foot. He rested the skate against his arm, leaving his other hand free. "This is your soul plate. What you're going to want to do is..."

Tony explained the entire grind, taking the time to answer any questions she had along the way, usually with a smile and a nod of his head. "Remember," he finished as he released her skate, still holding on to her arm to help keep her balance during the transition. "Keep your knees bent, and shift your weight forward a bit when you lock in. Luckily, the park's empty enough for you to practice locking in a few times first to get the feel of it. Like this." He rolled back to the box, pointed to where he wanted to land on his skate, then hopped up and held himself in place.

He made it look so easy.

"Once you get the hang of that, we'll throw it in motion. Okay, chica?" he said waving her over. "Give it a shot."

"Nothing to lose." She nodded with a smile before looking around and lowering her voice. "It's not like it'll hurt, plus I figure I'll fall a lot, so I left my pride back in the dorms."

Her first attempts could be described politely as uncoordinated at best. She had the mechanics in her head, but getting them to translate to her feet was proving to be a challenge. Either she'd overshoot, undershoot or just plain be off balance. Tony would always follow up, showing her the same move, emphasizing what went wrong.

"You're thinking too much." He finally told her as she picked herself up once again. "Don't think, just skate. It'll click."

"Sad state of affairs when I'm thinking too much, bud," she joked, taking his hand up. But the advice worked; somehow he was right. The next try, her right foot did what it was supposed to and the left followed suit, her balance was spot on. "Tony! You are a genius!"

Genius? Tony reddened beyond his cold-flushed cheeks and mumbled, "Hardly..." He hit the grind box one last time with a freestyle soul slide, his free foot hanging effortlessly in the air to balance him, his expression contemplative. After landing, he half-cabbed to talk back at Sam. "Yeah, so now that you've got that, you can makio on anything--uh, that's a plain old soul slide." He then jumped into an alley-oop makio on the next rail and looped back around to rocket makio on the box. "See? It's all just a basic grind on your soul plate, like we've been doing."

Sam seemed to repeat the words to herself before shaking her head and laughing. "When you make it look so easy, I almost believe you."

Tony chuckled a bit himself and skated back to where she was standing and crabbed around her to burn off speed. "Sorry. But I remember what it was like to start out. Everything's big and sharp-looking and you don't even feel at home on your wheels." He scratched at his upper arm. "I mean, hell, you're doing great, borrowed skates and everything.."

Sam glanced down, surprised to see the laces still tied. "Jeez, you don't have to be nice. I really appreciate the help, but I reckon you're bored out of your mind on account of you're taking time to coach me when you could be doin'...whatever it is you do when you're already good at it."

"Nah, it's cool." He couldn't really think of anything to say after that and wedged his hands into his snug back pockets.

For a while now Tony had been clinging to the idea that Sam had been looking forward to seeing him skate full-out. She knew about the first California Roll--that had been in a vert competition he would have otherwise placed last in. But where he really shone was in the park with his creative misuse of obstacles. While Tony normally wasn't big-headed or elitist about being a more technical skater, still he conceded to himself that he was a professional, so it wasn't like he was the only one who thought he was any good. Sam made him feel both show-offy and humble at the same time, though, and he wasn't quite sure what to do about that. So...why not ask?

"Dunno..." He shrugged a little shyly. "Anything y'wanna see?"

"Yep." She said, locking in one final time as she internally chose her words. Her arms windmilled a bit and she shifted her balance twice, but she managed to stick with it, feeling just about as good as when she'd watch the football sail through the goal posts. She jumped back down and around, pushing off on one skate as if she was on her skateboard. "But it's gonna sound all corny or fan girl."

"Naw." He smiled back. "Besides, with an intro like that? Now you have to tell me."

She took a quick glance around the park, recognizing one or two helmets. The sun was warm for the time of year, but the park was still empty compared to the summer. In the summer there was always a bunch of kids, some there to practice or pick up more tricks, some showing off to play to the crowd, and some were like her- they skated to skate. Tony... Tony was hard core. Pro circuit and everything. Kaleb would say Tony was a sell-out, but really that's only on account of Kaleb was all bitter that he wasn't good enough for a sponsor to ever pick him up. He didn't have it in him. She didn't either, but then again, that's not why she skated. And if her neighbor would have given her a hand-me-down pair of skates rather than a board years ago, who knew, she might have been into that instead. She grinned a bit, tilting her head to the side.

"Well, when I skate? You know, skate-skate, not with skates, keep in mind that none of my buddies back home were in-liners, and if you look around here, there's you, and even though this place is way more crowded in the summer, I've only seen like two... you know." She pointed to her feet. "So me asking for anything specific is gonna sound like I just wanted to come to hang out with some big time skater. Which really, I appreciate you taking the time out to show me some stuff, but for the most part, I'd love to see you skate. I mean, I come here to hit the vert, drop in on my board some, to have fun, to skate somewhere without someone coming out with a cell phone threatening to call the cops, you know... to just... skate." She smiled a bit more, catching herself mid-ramble as she also near fell off balance. "That's the corny part."

He grinned wryly and nodded, beginning to roll backwards. "I think I get it." He curled four of his fingers motioning for her to follow.

Sam cracked open a bottle of water and angled her ankles outward to keep her from moving as Tony started his run. She'd half expected him to hit the verts, but as he explained- he might have wings, but air wasn't his thing. He was a street skater at heart, and he proved it. The course was normally broken in halves, but being off season, the barriers were removed making one really big section that Tony took full advantage of. He stood at the top of one of the higher ramps, showboating a little before he started. He licked his index finger and held it in the air, as if checking the wind direction, causing her to chuckle at his antics. He looked over the course, let all of the air out of his lungs in a deep breath, then kicked off.

Sam near choked on a sip of water watching as he made his first run. She expected him to be good, but good didn't even begin to describe him. It was as if he was sucked out of Paragon and dropped in his element. It was cliche sounding, but he owned the park. She lost count of the tricks after a while, but paid special attention to the grinds. She clapped at a particularly impressive blindside into a fast slide, her enthusiasm attracting a few other local boarders who also stopped to watch. Tony seemed to play to each and every one of them, it was almost as if he knew what they'd find impressive. He picked up speed and increased the intensity of his tricks. Even Jimmy left his booth at entrance to come watch.

Soon Tony had a sizable crowd cheering him on, the sound of "whoa!" being echoed each time it seemed like he'd crash and burn. And each time Tony managed to pull off the trick, usually with a smile on his face. Sam saw it each time he'd pass where she stood, and she beamed as he'd make a motion for her to watch what was coming next or indicated that one was for her. Each trick was more impressive than the last. Kaleb dropped his jaw with at one point and asked Sam "Who is this guy?" after Tony pulled off a pretty spectacular acid drop.

"That's my buddy, Tony." She replied with a smile full of pride. "He's an amazing skater."

ishbone, wondergrind, berani flip, citric acid, brainless, anything he could think of. Tony didn't even name the tricks, just did what felt natural. As the crowd gathered, so did his momentum. He pulled out everything that at least looked impressive--from the few dropped jaws, he guess these guys had never seen aggressive inline done properly before.

Slowly he was getting a feel for the flow of the park. The boxes, ramps, and rails directed a skater's momentum into small eddies where you could get a rhythm going or split away and follow the current to another section. More he was getting a feel for how to break that.

The viking flip almost killed him but he saved it, landing low, actually surprised to pull it off, the first time since the addition of the built-in wind resistance on his back. But unlike SoCal, these guys didn't care about that. He obviously wasn't "cheating." He was just a kid in a skatepark again.

He locked into a backside savanna and switched it up twice before the rail ended. Yeah, that was for Sam. The small crowd wanted air and wanted it bad.

He sprinted up for a wall ride and kicked off early in a flip, his knees screaming as he hit the cement, but he stayed up, and by the other end of the park he was fine again, tingly and high on the attention. In a showy series of inverts, he eyed that chunk of quarter pipe, its hip angled toward the combination bowl. He'd been planning the trick for week... And the weather was perfect...

Tony looped around the crowd again, building speed, and made eye contact with Sam, pointing at the obstacle, a wide, reckless grin across his face.

She had to know what he he was thinking as she looked a little worried, but nonetheless enthusiastic. "Go for it, bud!"

Tony licked his lips, sprinting up to top speed. It was going to be rough. He rolled up the first section of quater pipe, coming parallel to the coping, riding just below the vert to keep momentum. The first shallow elbow pressed in, channeling his speed into a ninety degree turn. The second forced him into a crouch--he hadn't realized how tired he was getting.

The loop of ramps shot him back in the direction he came, ending abruptly in a gently sloping hip. In the last moment he decided he was going a little too fast, launching into a loose back flip as the ramp dropped away beneath him and he stared down into the most acidic drop he'd ever seen from the first person.

First try, he'd somehow managed to time it just right, slowing in the air and under-rotating to come down inside of the deep bowl with the speed of six extra feet of free fall behind him--more than he'd ever seen anyone get out of the bowl before. The g-force pressed in hard as he rounded the bottom of the bowl. There was barely time for him to wind for the trick.

Tony blasted into a huge flatspin. Just amazed to have made it, he had no clue how many rotations he pulled. With the the wind and the weightlessness, the world flying around in the crazy angle of his spin, he didn't care about the crowd or the probably incoming crash. He had nailed it. It felt good.

And after eight feet of euphoric sky, here came the bowl again to make him pay the equally hardcore price. He stuck the landing somehow, shakily, but at that speed he flew over the transition to the shallow bowl and his streak ended when he landed on the drain, tumbling shoulder-first into the wall of the bowl with a crack of helmet, pads, and bones.

Faces appeared over the lip of the bowl, back-lit by the sun. Sam hopped over the tiles and slid down to him on her kneepads and bootlaces.

"Tony! Tony? You okay? Can you hear me?"

"Do I need to call an ambulance?" Jimmy called from above.

Tony rolled onto his back, grimaced, and managed to wheeze out a, "No." His shoulder was crumpled strangely, though, the collar of his shirt growing dark and wet. A few tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. "Sam...set that for me?"

"Are you bleeding?" She asked in a worried tone. She'd seen more than enough injuries and worse in all her heroing and fighting in the war, but this was somehow brutal in its mundaneness.

"It'll be fine. Just needs to be set." He replied through clenched teeth.

"Like, pull it?"

Tony nodded stiffly. Sam took a hold of his upper arm and, checking her strength, gave it a quick yank. Almost immediately the bones fell into place again and he clutched the arm to his stomach in a delayed yelp, though the pain was already fading from his features.

"You're the best, chica."

He moved to scrape himself from the floor of the bowl and Sam helped him up by the other arm. A couple of the onlookers clapped.

"I'm the best? Holy cow, Tony, that was amazing!"

"Nine-hundred, little dude! Fuckin' rock!" One of the skaters gave them a hand out of the bowl and Tony shot him a winning grin.

Jimmy gave them an incredulous big brother look. "You sure you're okay?"

Tony gave his shoulder a roll and tried not to wince. "Good as new." He turned to Sam. "Just the same, I think I'm done for the day."

"Me too." she nodded as they headed back to the benches, the group dispersing for drinks and more skateboarding. She studied him closely for a moment, her worried look diminishing as he flashed an impish smile and a wink to let her know he was in fact okay. She relaxed and smiled in response, dropping next to him at the bench. "Before I forget to say it? Thanks so much for showing me the grind stuff. And the run. Boy... I tried not to worry on account of the healing thing, and you know what you're doing, but I reckon it hurts just the same to bail like that."

"Nah." Tony dropped his helmet into the duffel bag and began peeling off pads. "It's been really fun. And besides, falling epically is what I do best." He smirked and bent to wipe his face on the hem of his shirt.

Sam unlaced the K2s and handed them back.

"Hang onto 'em. My feet aren't gonna shrink any time soon."

"Okay, well don't blame me if they show up on eBay when you're a bigger celebrity," she joked, smiling, and packed the skates into her own bag, changed socks, and pulled her shoes back on.

"Aww, I treat my friends better than that, chica. If I'm ever a celebrity, consider yourself to have free Coke and gear for life." He heaved the duffel onto his good shoulder as Sam touched the nose of her skateboard to the cement, ready to go. "C'mon, I'll skate you back to campus."