"YOUTH IN REVOLT" Part two: To risk it all

Only those who will risk going to far can possibly find out how far one can go

- T. S. Elliot

The Aggressive Skate Park was a place of sin and debauchery. It was a dust ridden warehouse-turned-skate utopia in the middle of the broken class town of Deer Park: A place where afterschool specials morality did not exist—Only sweat and blood, teenage love, pent up aggression, naïve cigarette smoking and flask pulls took place. It was the fifteen-year-old heaven and a winos’ sanctuary rolled into one. In those days we did not live for chemistry or algebra II, we lived for three-sixty kickflipping a seven stair or nose grinding waxed eroded handrails. We did not discuss Voltaire, Newton’s law (however prevalent it surrounded us), or man-to-man defense. Instead, in between trick lines and epic wipeouts, we boasted about making it to second base, how we tried our father’s scotch, or stole from the quick ‘n’ go. We reveled in talk of such disorder and misguidance, not because we thought we were above the rest of the kids are age, but we loved this idea of risk. None of us wanted to wallow away our “innocent” adolescence with arduous “yes sirs.” We wanted to experience. We wanted to feel what hurt really was, what love really was, what guilt really was, and what happiness really was; not just told by the older generation. The only way to do this was through risk and that was what attracted the likes of us to skateboarding, to that park, to everything, because a snap of a finger we could define ourselves through triumph or utter chaos. We were all looking for something to move us in one direction or the other, and we only knew this through the gamble of emotions or our righteousness. Risk is what enticed us and it was what we wanted to define us.

There was a time when a kid named Mark hovered over the twelve foot half-pipe, speculating whether his name would be forever engraved in the young minds the surrounded him or on a cold tombstone in the cemetery a block away. He sat up there for an hour, foot on the tail of his board while the rest of it bobbed up and down from the treacherous momentum. It didn’t take long for us other punks to take notice, and needless to say, pressure swarmed over him as the waves of chanting crashed over again and again. The fact of the matter was Mark was not an experience rider. I’ve seen him wipe out time and time again on much less strenuous feats, and the persona he gave off was that of a timid pushover. There were countless times where older skate cronies cornered him for money for the vending machine. He’d give in with a wry laugh, masking it off as playful banter and maybe that is why he went up there, to prove the irrelevant. It didn’t matter, because soon he would choose his fate as the calling out continued. I watched in astonishment, but more like intrigue, as the look of fear wiped from his face and a smirk of “what if” empowered him. In that split second, he threw his hands high in the air like some sort of glorified “fuck it” and dropped in, embarking on the risk we were all continually in search of.

Mark “came to” when the paramedics arrived ten minutes later with the help of some sniffing salt. He barley made it down six inches of the vertical ramp before bailing out into a belly flop twelve feet below. His face ricocheted off the plywood and his body went limp and a most delectable acute blood spatter outlined where his body once was. As he was wheeled out of there in a post-concussed state, I could only imagine the way he felt. Numerous skaters of all ages halted mid-stride and tapped the noses of their boards on the ground, belting his name, having it echoed throughout the cement atrium. In all honesty, I was secretly envious and extremely copasetic because that day, he tested risk and came out on top.