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Amy 28: Flying Amy Bean Attack Copyright 2014 by Amy Komori The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2014 Amy Komori. All rights reserved. Chapter One: I'm Gonna Eat Jelly Beans So being with someone as a girl had one thing in common with being with someone as a guy as far as I could tell. And that was the nervous uncertainty that comes at the start. Tamara and I had kissed on Halloween night, and I considered that my first kiss. My first real kiss anyways. Whatever earlier ones I may or may not have received were quickly edited out of the personal narrative I had running in the back of my mind. And I didn't mean the one she planted on me just to see what I'd do. That one was kind of special because it was the first time my lips met hers and there was that whole electrical "What the fuck?" feeling about it, a sense of surprise. No, my real first kiss, the one I'd tell my grandchildren about if I ever had any and if I lived long enough to become a grandmother was the the one I gave her immediately afterward. The one I instigated. The one where we explored each other's mouths with our tongues in what seemed like an endless moment of soft wetness that still ended way too soon. The thought of it, the way she tasted and smelled (actually, kind of like the Mexican food we'd all eaten earlier that night), the fact that she was dressed like the Bride of Frankenstein and I was dressed like Mia Wallace after her heroin overdose. Only the blood on my costume was real, and it was from my nose. That didn't stop me from enjoying the moment, though. And waking up sore all over the next day didn't stop me from slipping into little frenzies of ecstasy whenever I thought about it and what it possibly meant. Someone I liked and I had kissed. Even if we weren't officially a couple, it wasn't just my wishful thinking. It was real. It was true. It was beautiful. And so I started acting... well, kind of weird. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to linger in that emotional state forever because even if it was uncertain and confusing, it was still bliss. Ecstasy. You know, for the thing that might be, or even probably was happening. And none of that stopped me from having to go to school November 1st. "Oh my god," my friend Sarah said when she first saw me that morning. "Are... are you okay?" I had to admit I was walking a little funny. That had nothing to do with falling in love or first kisses. It had more to do with just falling. My mom told me at breakfast what I had was a condition known as being "stove up," which happened when your body took a hard tumble into something even harder than the fall. In my case, a concrete sidewalk. It had happened before at the skatepark. Girl meets world. World consists of the smooth wooden bottom of a vert. Or the asphalt of what used to be a parking lot. I was pretty used to bruises and abrasions and scabs and all kinds of fun things. I'd seen dudes break bones right there in front of me, too. But I'd never had a fall as painful as this one while skating. That's what came from having a teensy-tiny, fragile, slender-boned body, the kind the catalogs called "petite." And from having said body lifted high into the air and slammed down by a piece of shit frat guy with arms thicker than my waist. Gravity was bad enough without an assist from steroid-abusing fuckheads. Whatever his name was, he'd really put a hurting on me. My excitement over seeing post-kiss Tamara kept me going, though. "I'm fine," I lied to Sarah. You had to lie to her sometimes. She took all our troubles for her own. "Y-you look kinda..." she said, and her voice trailed off. She didn't know what I looked like. Well, I looked like a slower me, and I felt like a little old lady. I moved like one, too. Everyone thought it was so funny until they started figuring out I wasn't play acting. After that, a few kids were like, "What happened?" and Sarah and Gina filled them in. I mostly kept my mouth shut because I was embarrassed about it. People wanted to know if the guys were in jail or something, too, but I honestly didn't know. I kind of felt like they should be on one hand, and then on the other, I didn't really give a shit. What mattered most to me was Tamara was a big hero. My big hero. I mean, I got credit for being hardcore or whatever, but Tamara, tall, gorgeous Tamara, who was already becoming super popular with everyone because was just so fucking cool and couldn't help it, was Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Supergirl combined, swooping in to my rescue. At least that's how the story was told by Sarah and Gina. Tamara certainly looked every inch the wonder woman at her locker. I hobbled up to her, almost afraid to look, as if she were a small sun in the hallway and she might blind me. "Hey, Amy," she greeted me. She seemed cheerful. Her hair was back to its usual state, no more Bride streaks. Just a cloud of black. The morning light lit the rim of her cheeks like the glow along the curve of the earth seen from orbit in some of those NASA photos. "Hey..." I said, kind of shyly for me. "What are you up to Friday?" Tam asked. A photo flashbulb went off inside me. So fast. "N-nothing," I answered, feeling like a complete fucking idiot. Then Tam got all coy and cute. Big grin, head dancing from side to side on her long super beautiful neck. "I just thought we could hang out. Or do something." I nodded very enthusiastically, like Sarah might. "You want to?" Tam asked. "Yeah!" I peeped. Then, calmer, "I mean, yeah." "Are there any shows or anything?" "Probably. We can check the paper. There are like tons of them wherever downtown." "Can you get in?" "You mean like into venues or something?" "Yeah." I shrugged. I leaned against the lockers and thought about it. Maybe we could. Tam could pass for older. We could tell people I was her adopted daughter. She could hide me in her backpack. "I guess... I mean, we could try..." "You don't sound too sure." Laughing, I admitted I wasn't. Not at all. "Michelle could probably talk us in. We could invite her," I suggested. Tam gave me this weird smile that told me that wasn't such a good idea. Her eyes flicked to one side and she muttered something, but I couldn't quite make it out. "Could you repeat that?" I asked her. She looked around, then leaned in close and said in this really small, high voice full of her minty toothpaste breath, "I want you all to myself. Sorry, I'm selfish that way." To be totally honest, my response was not my finest hour, nor my coolest. In fact, I melted. I may or may not have emitted a certain high-pitched noise that bats probably heard for miles around, and if so, they must have congregated inside my stomach because I could feel their wings flapping around inside. My muscles went really slack and despite my body's soreness, I managed to float off down the hall in a state of bliss. The day passed dreamily and when Tam joined us at our table for lunch I couldn't take my eyes off her. I sat with my head balanced on one fist and just kind of smiled and gave everyone soft voiced answers. I felt like a different person. I felt like an angel. Chapter Two: You're Gonna Eat Cherry Drops "I have an announcement to make," Lena told us at Silly Monkey practice that afternoon. "We have a show," Gina blurted. Lena gave her a look, then said, "You guessed it. If you guys want, we can play an early show at the Mixer the weekend after Thanksgiving." "Two shows in the same year," I said. "Oh fuck, we're on tour." Only Sarah looked pale and forlorn, standing by the microphone. She probably wished she could hide behind it and disappear. I looked at her. "It's okay, right? You're in, right?" Sarah nodded, but it was more like the nod of a reluctant skydiver at the airplane door than a sign of complete and confident agreement. Lena told us we had a lot of work to do. She wanted more songs and she wanted better musicianship. The Mixer was a club, not some charity center or birthday party. We'd be opening for some band I'd never heard of, the Leland Palmers. They were actually newer than we were, but the girls in it had played in bands that were popular on the local scene. So it was kind of a super group, in a way. Lena told us there wouldn't be any alcohol sold or anything like that, so it was cool we were underage. Or, if not cool, at least not an issue. The age thing plus our general shittiness were really holding us back. No progress had been made on the fake ID front as yet, and even that wouldn't guarantee we could trick clubs and stuff into letting us play on their stages. "The main thing is," Lena concluded, "they don't give a shit if we suck or not. They're really chill." "I know Dana," Gina said. "You do? Since when?" "Her old band. I talked to her after a show. She was really cool." Dana was their drummer. Rumor around town had it she was the best drummer in the city. The asshole playing drums for Cream Corned Superstar didn't want to hear that, though. I didn't know if she was or not and it didn't really matter to me. I just thought her band rocked. So Gina and I were obviously excited, and I thought maybe even reluctant Sarah might have a little bit of positive energy towards performing with the Leland Palmers. She liked the bands its members had been in. We all did. The Almanac Sunrise. Unlisted Sister. Tony Orlando and Dawn Patrol. The weird thing was Dawn Patrol seemed the one most likely to break big. They put out an EP and had like actual rock stars as fans. For all of one month. Then they just stopped. It was as if they didn't want to go that route, like they weren't interested. Intrigued, my mind occupied by thoughts of my night with Tamara and all the local band politics and speculation and face it, my outright hero worship of the girls in the Leland Palmers, I played especially poorly all through practice. I missed notes, lagged behind Gina's beat, dropped my pick (I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to use just my fingers) and stopped songs dead in their tracks with general incompetence. It was like I was regressing. "Holy fuck, Claudia," Lena said as we packed everything up after we'd run things through enough times even she was sick of hearing us, "You are like right on the edge of having your bass privileges revoked." "No!" I shouted. It really upset me, even though a second later I realized from Lena's expression she'd just been joking. I calmed a little and said, "Don't tease me like that, dude." "I'm sorry. But you really stunk today. More than usual, even." "I know. I'm kinda... distracted." "She has plans Friday," Sarah said, then blushed because I was giving her a look that was pure murderous intent. "Plans?" Gina asked. "Did you get a new Alloy catalog or something?" We all gaped at her. I squinted my eyes and asked, "What the fuck are you talking about, dumbass?" Gina's face darkened, her freckles winking like stars. "I meant... like... you got an Alloy catalog and you were gonna... you know... like a guy." "What? Masturbate? To an Alloy catalog?" Gina couldn't look at us. I wanted to laugh. She was so cute when she was dying inside from shame. She finally admitted it. "Yeah..." I shook my head. Unbelievable. "Okay, Gina's lost her speaking privileges until after our show." Gina's eyes went wide and she zeroed in on mine. "Oh, fuck you, Claudia!" "Don't call me Claudia, you fucking asshole!" I yelled back at her. "CLAUDIA CLAUDIA TRAITOR WE HATE 'ER!" Gina screamed, paraphrasing something from a Baby-sitters Club book. "SHUT YOUR FUCKING FACE, YOU FUCKING FRECKLED FREAK!" I bellowed with my eyes shut, head back. "FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" "ASSHOLE!" But we couldn't keep it up. Sarah was begging us to stop, and both Gina and I were laughing so hard, we were crying. And my throat hurt, too. Gina's mom came pulling her car into the driveway at that moment and so we all said our goodbyes and I hurried home to revel in all the goodness heading our way. Our various ways. Even my hobbled body didn't seem like such a burden. Chapter Three: When It Gets Dangerous Well, the big date turned out to be just Tam and me walking around downtown and hanging outside the Lava Lamp listening to bands that sucked too bad for us to pay to go in but weren't so awful they drove us away. Well, Tam walked and I kind of limped because I was still a little sore. I'd woken up that morning feeling all bright and optimistic, but as soon as I tumbled out of bed I realized I wasn't quite over Halloween's mishap. I didn't let it wreck my day, but classes were wasted on me. I couldn't have told anyone what we'd studied that day even if they'd threatened me with a laser. Each time I saw Tam that day, my face felt hotter and hotter, like perpetual sunburn. I was a lovesick kitten. If my friends teased me about it at lunch I didn't seem to hear them. I didn't wear a dress or anything like that for the date, but I did end up wearing some makeup. Like nothing too complicated. Just some mascara and lip gloss. Even when I made myself up I rarely bothered with foundation or concealer or blush or any of that stuff anyways. Usually I just moisturized. My skin was usually pretty nice. I guessed I was lucky that way. Sometimes I popped a zit, but at the moment I was clean and clear and felt super pretty. As far as my amazing romantic outfit went, it consisted just of this green t-shirt with a black longsleeve tee under it and jeans. And a red hoodie. Sneakers on my feet. Oh... and a plastic pink barrette in my hair. And my usual beaded bracelets. I didn't want to look too much like a guy for my first gay outting. "You look adorable," Mom said as she dropped me off downtown. Yeah, my mom drove me. I blushed. "Thanks," I told her. I meant it sincerely, but at the same time I wanted to throw myself under our car. Mom told me not to stay out too late and to call if I needed a ride home, but I told her I thought we could figure out how to get back on our own. She also told me to have fun and then some cars behind her started to honk and she realized she needed to drive on before she embarrassed me some more. I was happy she was gone by the time Tam came up. And it was just about the time I started shivering either from the cold or just plain nerves. Tamara was in a sensibly warm powder blue quilted jacket in nylon and jeans, her hands jammed in the jacket's slash pockets. She hadn't glammed up or anything, either. I felt strangely relieved by that, and then Tam saw me and beamed this toothy grin at me and I died of happiness. Oh fuck, I told myself, here we go! The very first thing Tam and I did was eat burritos at El Banditos and then there was this kind of weird moment where neither of us knew which one of us was supposed to pay, so I paid for mine and she paid for hers. "Haven't you ever been out with a girl before?" Tam asked me as we went out into the chilly night. "No," I said. At least I hadn't in my new configuration. "Have you?" Tam just smiled, her eyes twinkling. Or maybe it was from the headlights from all the traffic passing by. "Not like a date." "This is a date?" "I thought that went without saying. I mean, after the kissing and whatnot. I was kinda hoping this was going to count as our first date or something. And furthermore, I was really hoping it was obvious." "Well, I was kinda feeling the same, but nope. It wasn't obvious. How was I supposed to know it was a date?" I was being really obtuse on purpose because I wanted her to say more. "No, not the date. Obvious that..." She stopped, all coy and thrilling, her eyes almost closed, her grin widening. She had the most perfect teeth. She was blushing. It was fucking killing me. "Obvious what?" I asked. My heart was jumping with anticipation. "That I'm interested in you." Oh fuck yeah. That was the confirmation I'd wanted so badly. I'd won! But I had to act cool about it even though inner-me was dancing around like Snoopy on Linus' piano-top. I raised my eyebrows and said, "Interested." "Yeah." She nodded. I could tell she was super-embarrassed. "Why?" I wanted to know. The bluntness of my question kind of took Tam aback. Her head jerked and she smiled again, then frowned, then smiled. "Why me?" I persisted. "Fuck, dude, if you don't know why, I'm not going to be able to explain," Tam said. "That's no answer." "Did I not tell you you're gorgeous?" "Once, maybe. It's not true, but it's sure nice to hear sometimes." "Don't be all modest. It doesn't suit you." I shrugged as if I didn't care, but I was tingling all over. This was the third time Tam and I had a conversation along these lines. The first time she told me I was unique, and the second time she did indeed use the g-word. It was totally flattering and even exciting to have someone talk to me that way. Someone I felt the same way about, anyways. It was a lot better hearing Tam say it to me openly than to have Dallas paint me naked to express the same general idea. And while I was mostly creeped out and embarrassed by people like Dallas or Patrick or Willis being into me, having Tam do it was like drinking a fizzy soda with a sugar and caffeine kick afterwards. Outside the Lava Lamp, we could have been just anybody. I recognized some people from different parties I'd been to with my friends, mostly older people. Like townies and college students. None of them remembered me, or if they did, they didn't want to be seen talking to a kid. Tam got a few glances. I couldn't help but notice that. After all, she was really beautiful that night. She always was, but for some reason being out around people meant she was really in her element, her face aglow in the neon signs in the bar windows (which we also had no way of getting into, even though they seemed packed and dark and like places we could be alone in the crowd and get kind of... intimate... with each other). She was still a stranger in town, but she fell into conversations with all kinds of people and it was really incredible to watch her go. Then she'd look back at me and there was an entire conversation in her eyes. She could look at me just right and it was like she was commenting somehow on every little thing that happened, through mental telepathy or shared experience or commonality. It reminded me I was with her and each time it quickened my heartbeat and made my palms sweaty. I wiped them on my pants or hid them in my hoodie pockets. Fortunately for my damp palms we didn't hold hands or anything like that. For one thing, that seemed cheesy to me. Maybe when I was a guy all those years before I might have wanted it but the way I was now, the person I was, I didn't. Yeah, I wanted to touch Tam and I wanted her to touch me, but that was just for the two of us, thoughts and feelings like that. Not for strangers and complete dumbasses to look at us. But after we took another taxi back to my house, on the porch with the light on and everything, Tam backed me up against the wall next to the front door. "Oh wow," I said in a whispery voice, which was all I could muster. A faint trace of a smile seemed to flutter Tam's lips, then she ptu her hands on my cheeks, leaned her beautiful sculptural face down towards my own dumb-looking one and our lips met, opened and our tongues rolled over and over each other wet and warm and tasting of burrito and maybe even love. A silver strand of saliva glinted between us as we broke the kiss and we both ended up having to slurp. I wondered if what I swallowed was hers mixed with mine. It made me tremble ever so slightly. "That was... wetter than I expected," I said. Tam wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve and we both snickered at each other. "Try again," Tam said. We actually made out for a bit but I think we both ended up feeling really self-conscious about the neighbors possibly seeing, or my mom maybe being awake and catching a glimpse. Not that she would have minded, but there was just something wrong about letting your mom see you tongue deep in your girlfriend's mouth. And even more wrong giving a bunch of goofballs a free show. My body didn't want to quit, and I was pretty sure Tam's didn't either, but we had to. The ghost of our kisses lingered on my lips and inside my mouth. I could taste her, burritos and all, but also simply Tamara. We said our goodbyes and I watched her slink off down the street back to her own house, then I let myself in and drifted in a haze through the living room. I felt like I was strung from wet spaghetti and I didn't bother to brush my teeth because I wanted to wake up with Tam still inside me. I washed my face and got into my pajamas but couldn't sleep. So I called Sarah on the phone and we ended up talking about the whole thing until almost 3am. Chapter Four: Call Out For a Rescue The next morning, or actually, later that morning, it was like a dream. After my shower (and a regretful brushing of my teeth) as I played with my hair and tried to decide what to do with it that day-at its current length, I could comb it and pin it any number of ways and look really girly, or I could kind of brush it to the side and look like a boy with five piercings in his ear-I kept hearing Tam's voice in my head. My face in the damp mirror certainly didn't seem gorgeous. It was just my face. I knew I had glossy black hair, pretty eyes and what I was convinced now was the nicest skin in town next to Tam's. Even my mom told me that shit all the time, and Sarah, too. It was difficult seeing myself the way Tam saw me. How did she see me, really? How far were we going to go in this relationship? I needed Sarah's advice again. But I couldn't let myself call her that early after having kept her up all night. Maybe we could talk again when we met for practice. Sarah was way more experienced than I was, and she was almost genius smart to boot. She could seem completely out of it at times, but she was a person who knew things. And she wouldn't make fun of me before we got to the helpful stuff the way Emily or Michelle would. I decided girly was the way to go. I put a butterfly shaped clip in my hair and I slipped into a very casual dress, the one I could have worn on the date. And probably should have. Plaid, buttons up the front, about knee length. I put on my red hoodie, too, because it was getting cooler all the time, and my black Vans sneakers. I spent way too much time checking out how I looked and moved in it. Not that dresses were so alien to me anymore. It's just that I didn't often wear one. Then again, I didn't often feel this menstrual. In fact, I felt like a total girl. And it was good. "Oh my fucking god, look at you!" Gina crowed once I reached her house. I bristled. But Sarah was practically lit from within. She told me how cute I looked and I even blushed. "God, I'm never wearing a dress ever again," I said, but inwardly I was really enjoying the attention. I felt really light and happy. Even while we practiced and Lena kept bouncing over to put my fingers in the correct position on the fretboard, I couldn't stop smiling. Sometimes I even bounced, and then I'd fuck up and have to deal with Lena again. But Miss Perfectionist couldn't get me down. My cheeks started hurting from grinning so much, and sometimes I just had to close my eyes and soar away on the feeling. "You seem in such a good mood today," Sarah said when we were sitting in chairs around Gina's pool on our break. I nodded. "I am." "Care to fill the rest of us in?" Lena asked. "You're interested?" I asked her back. "I mean, there's not a treble clef in it or an eight note or anything." "She's been bitten," Gina guessed. "The love bug." "The one that's about six feet tall and made of milk chocolate?" Lena asked. "She's not six feet tall, guys," Sarah said. "She's more like 5'10", right?" "Fucker," I gasped. Betrayed by Sarah. "I was right!" Lena squealed. "Oh my fucking god, our little girl is growing up!" "Shut up!" I shouted. "God, I'm quitting the band and possibly even school if everyone's going to gang up on me." I started to get up but Lena grabbed my wrist and pulled me back down. I almost flipped over backwards. "Changing the topic," she said. "I was just wondering if any more progress had been made on the bass front." I folded my lips inside my mouth and mushed them down together with my teeth. "I thought as much," Lena said. "Look," I told her, "You're music girl. Can't you talk to someone and see if they want to sell one cheap?" "I have been." "Oh." "And so far, no luck." "Double oh." "Don't sweat it, Amy. I'm not nagging you. Just asking." "Okay, since you're not nagging me, I might as well be honest and tell you I haven't exactly been working on it, either. There's just so much going on right now." "Okay, I said don't sweat it." But I felt like I should be sweating it. Fuck, Lena. When we went back to practice, my mood was slightly dampened. I mean, I was still pretty happy about Tam and all and looking forward to our show, but even if Lena said she wasn't nagging, she really was nagging. When practice resumed, her bass, with the chunk out of it, hung around my neck with added weight. So I bore down a bit and tried my hardest not to make so many mistakes. I managed to keep them to the minimum for the rest of practice, but playing the right notes meant I wasn't playing with as much verve or something. It didn't feel right. Luckily, no one seemed to notice. When I got home and looked at myself in the mirror, I decided wearing a dress had been a stupid idea. I took it off and put it in the clothes hamper in the bathroom. Then I put on a tee and some pajama bottoms and went to our computer and started looking for a bass again. More and more Tamara invaded my thoughts and finally, I was just sitting in the computer chair daydreaming about her when Mom knocked on the door even though it was open. She came in and sat on the day bed. "Are you hungry?" "I guess," I told her. Actually, food and eating had been the last things on my mind. "You never told me how your outing with the new girl went." "Tamara." "Yeah, Tamara. How was it?" "It was great," I told her. I wanted to gush about it the same way I did with Sarah, but this was my mom, so I wasn't about to. But I didn't want to shut her down completely because I owed her my entire life, so I smiled and said, "Okay, it was better than great." She grinned at me. Then she said, "Don't worry, Amy. I'm not going to pry." I bit my lower lip and did this shy look, but it was totally involuntary. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Just... bass shopping. If I can save up enough money, I want to buy my own bass." She nodded. "Okay. Hey, you want to go out for dinner tonight?" "Where?" "Anywhere." Anywhere turned out to be pizza. And eating pizza with her, I let my guard down and told her all about Tamara, leaving out the wet parts. Mom was really cool about it. Better than cool, actually. She didn't offer any advice, didn't say anything embarrassing. She just smiled and nodded a lot and let me do the talking. Chapter Five: Somebody Might Hear You Calling "So you guys got a show?" Michelle asked. We were on top of the vert at the skatepark and it was this brilliantly sunny Sunday, with a little chilly wind blowing. I squinted at her shiny face. "Yeah, a real show." "That's awesome." "Uh huh." All around us came the noisy clatter of boys at play. Skate wheels rolling on wood, people farting and all kinds of smack talk and the usual nonsense. It was more or less background noise now that Patrick wasn't part of it. Michelle and I barely knew any of the other skateboard crowd and we didn't really care to. Not that we were aloof or anything. Okay, we were aloof. We were being aloof in a very hardcore aloof kind of way of aloofness. But there was a reason. The big thing all day had been grinding this handrail down some concrete steps to the sidewalk. Almost all the guys had done it, but hardly anyone successfully. And the guys who hadn't tried were labeled pussies and girls and things like that, right in front of Michelle and me, with lots of fun little looks back at us as we watched and laughed along with everyone until those particular words kept popping up. Pussy didn't hurt. I mean, we said that a lot ourselves even though we were totally aware of the connotations. Calling someone a girl because he wouldn't do something idiotic seemed really a dumbfuck thing to say for a number of reasons and it irked me. It irked me a lot. It also made me feel kind of singled out in a way, especially the "Oh shit" looks that were playful and mean at the same time. Guys and their fucking superior attitudes, like the whole world revolved around them and the things they did and Michelle and I were just passengers while they drove the car or flew the plane or whatever it was they did. These things happened pretty often in our lives, at school and especially at the skatepark, which was a major testosterone zone even on its best days. The few girls we saw came, skated and then departed never to return. Michelle and I didn't blame them. We understood why, but we wished they'd start showing up in bigger numbers and maybe things could balance out. We didn't mind that they were woodpushers, either. We just kind of wanted them there. We stuck it out, though, with this unspoken agreement we weren't going to let anyone push us out of something we wanted to do. Even though we were wearing our skates instead of pushing them around on a deck. That made things harder to deal with sometimes, but ultimately, that just gave us more resolve to show up and be ourselves. Sometimes that meant just tuning out the dumbasses. Michelle was always like, "I don't want them to ruin our good times," and I had to agree. And at least I could toss in my famous flatspin every so often and shut people up. Anyways, grinding was going on and a lot of skaters that day were wearing bright red rashes on their hands and arms and legs. One guy had even gone home crying because his skateboard went out from under him and he straddled the rail so hard even Michelle and I felt it. "Fuck, dude," Michelle said, turning to me with this mixed look of ick and wonder. "There goes his line of descendants," I said. "Unless he adopts or something." "You're fuckin' mean," Michelle said, slapping my arm. "Dude, that must have hurt like a motherfucker. Remember that time I kicked Tony? The one I told you about?" I shuddered involuntarily. And of course I was mean about it. Somewhere in the back of my mind, where I kept all that useless Martin info, there was probably an incident where he'd been smacked in the nads or hit them on something. Stomach- curdling sensation, even now, reaching through the darkness in between the shadows of my old life and the sunshine of my new one. Guys were super vulnerable down there and it didn't take having once had balls or whatever to know that. Or one of Michelle's stories about all the pain she and her brother inflicted on each other. But then, so were we, even though in my relative inexperience I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to take a shot to my girl stuff at all. I didn't want to. So far in my life of being a girl I'd taken blows almost everywhere else, but I'd been injury free down there and I totally wanted to keep it that way. "New topic," I said, coming back from a cold, distant place I didn't want to be, while the guy in question hobbled off with his hands between his legs. His misfortune kind of ended the grind session for the most part, but every so often someone else would take off and we'd watch as he splatted on the concrete, either right there on the steps, or pitching into the brick wall and down the grassy, gravely slope on the other side, or directly onto the sidewalk itself, startling passersby like a meat missile. A human-shaped bomb. By the time we'd mostly forgotten the least fortunate guy of the day, we'd been skating all morning and afternoon and even with the fall breeze and everything, we'd worked up a sweat. My body was working perfectly at last and I'd been feeling like the vert queen as long as I was rolling. Now we were cooling down, taking up space because fuck everyone else, and just chatting away. She wanted to know all about the show, so I told her who we were opening for and the charity aspect, that we weren't getting any money but we were excited about it because of who we'd meet and the cause and any number of things. No, we didn't talk at all about Tamara, but I thought about her in the breaks between outbursts. A shadow fell over us. We looked up and there were these guys, just some regulars. I had the feeling one guy's name was Bones, but it might have been Jones for all I knew. He was the freckly, red-haired dude with pink lips. He looked like a chewed up bubblegum version of Sarah, if she'd been born a dork with a dick. There was this black guy and then the guy talking, who had mousy brown hair in his eyes. He kind of reminded me of Patrick in a way, the way I'd thought about him when we first met. I decided his name would be Mousy. "Hey," Mousy said. "S'up?" I said back. "So you're all into inline?" he asked. I looked down at my skates and then back at him, shielding my eyes from the sun with one hand. "Yeah, I think so." Michelle and I traded looks. More harassment, but Mousy didn't look like he'd be too difficult to handle. "You grind?" he asked then. "Do I what?" "Do you GRIND?" "Not as much as you spit when you talk." Everyone, even Mousy's posse, kind of snickered at that. Mousy pointed across the open asphalt space that used to be some kind of parking lot or something to the ominous steps and handrail. Mousy said, "Think you could grind that?" I shrugged. I seriously doubted it. The day's still frame images of different spills ran like a slideshow inside my brain. Click. Yellow t- shirt takes a dive. Click. Arms flailing, he meets his death. Click. The guy with the bloody forearm grins insipidly. Click. The soles of black Vans suspended. Click. You cannot defeat gravity. Mousy did this little laugh grunt thing. He turned to walk away and said, "What I thought." Bones/Jones and the black guy were giving me these little apologetic smiles and I was starting to get the feeling they were actually okay (just unfortunate in picking their third friend) but Mousy had been talking shit about us where we couldn't hear, and this was the end result. This kind of stupid, pathetic challenge thing. Neither Michelle nor I was sure if this was from insecurity on the guy's part or whatever, but every so often someone had to get a serious bug up his ass about our being girls and inline skaters in what they felt was an all-boy zone strictly for woodpushers. Maybe in Mousy's case, having seen his friend practically neuter himself made him super boy-junk conscious and he had to take it out on me. This had been the undercurrent of the day, after all. Every so often, Michelle or I would rise to the challenge, or we'd ignore them. After everything else that had been said that day, and considering how solid I'd been on the vert and pain-free, I was feeling more or less in a rising state. I looked at the railing. It was scuffed and brown. Maybe it had once been painted, maybe not. When we walked up the steps, we could see the weld points and all that stuff we generally took for granted. Who cared, really? It was just something functional the foolish turned into a method for knocking their brains out whenever the testosterone became too much for them to handle. Michelle was shaking her head no. I grinned at her. "Hey, kid," I called to Mousy. He turned around and there was a flash of anger on his face which gave me an inner thrill, but then he smiled this total shit-eater's grin. The black guy put a hand on Mousy's shoulder to urge him to give it up, but in the end, they all came walking back over to us. "How much will you give me if I grind that rail?" I asked. "Give you?" "Yeah, give me. If I grind the rail, what will you give me?" "Fuck, Amy," Michelle said in a low voice. "Respect," Mousy said. "I saw 'Jurassic Park,' too," I told him. I gave him a half-lidded look down the length of my nose, like he was a butler I needed to order to wash the windows or maybe a bug I was going to squash or something. Then I dismissed him. But he wouldn't stay dismissed. "Five bucks," he offered, just a touch desperately. "Oh," I said in this tragic tone. "I thought you were serious." I turned my back on him. At that point, I could have declared victory. At least I thought so. In the next second, Mousy did something that surprised me. Mousy took a deep breath and he and his pals conferred for a few moments. Then they came back with an offer of twenty five dollars and fifty two cents. Everyone who heard them laughed and Mousy's face reddened but I was thinking twenty five dollars and fifty two cents was my going price for grinding rails. After all, I reasoned, what was the worst thing that could happen? For whatever reason, I dismissed things that would truly be the worst, like doing a split and kissing the rail with my labia. Or pulling a Patrick and landing face-first and knocking out all my teeth. Instead, I focused on the less painful options. Like the most optimistic form of suicide. The way my brain processed it at the moment was I might fall or whatever, but it wasn't that huge a drop. Nothing like having a frat guy lift you over his head and slam you down, and I'd survived that. Maybe I'd walk like a little old lady again for a few days. Maybe Tam would kiss away the ache. "Okay, twenty five fifty-two for even trying it," I said firmly. "You are officially stupid," Michelle said. "You're going to wreck yourself because a bunch of dickheads made you feel bad." I punched her arm. That it was hard enough she kind of gasped and rubbed it made me feel even more confident. "Up front," I added. The guys went into their pockets and I stood up and held out my hand. Michelle got up beside me and made one last effort to talk me out of it, but it was way too late. I was already taking their money and shoving it down in my own pockets. We had an audience now. I got down off the vert and skated around the parking lot for a little bit thinking about my approach. I could do it fakey, but then I thought no, just go for it the usual way. You have their money, don't get fancy. You're not going to be able to do it anyways. The best thing is just to go for it and hop off if you feel you can't make it. "Go for it!" someone shouted. That got my heart beating faster. I took off across the parking lot and at just the right moment, I leaped. My wheels seemed to poise over the rail perfectly and for a moment, all time stopped. At that point, I thought I had it licked. Oh my fucking god, I'm going to grind the rail. And then my front skate was crossing the rail and I was falling backwards. Luck, if you could call it that, was on my side just a bit, or else she handed me this one little boon because she felt guilty about abandoning me. My skates were kind of together, so I came down almost sideways onto the rail. I felt that mostly on my hip bone, but my fear hurt a lot worse than that relatively padded impact. Plus I was sliding down the rail none too steadily on my hip instead of grinding it. That didn't feel so good, either. When I reached the bottom I flopped off like a kid at the end of a sliding board ride. But not into soft sand. Onto the concrete sidewalk. Second time in a week! Except this go-around wasn't much like what had happened on Halloween. On Halloween, I'd barely been aware of even being airborne until I hit the ground. That's what saved me from major injury. This time, though, I was falling in complete awareness of what was happening to me, so I put out my right arm. My hand met concrete first and rasped off skin... which felt like fire... then my weight ever so briefly rested entirely on my all-too-slender wrist which made a very loud popping sound followed by the rest of my body crashing into the hardness below. Okay, for a moment I didn't feel anything. Then I felt a huge stabbing pain there that was barfably bad, but now I had like an acetylene torched point of agony in my wrist and its not-so-baby sister on the palm of my hand. And a lot of other dull aches and pains from the whole landing thing. This loud gasp came floating up from behind me, the collective horror of everyone who had been watching. I wrapped my good arm around my midsection and curled up like a dying bug while holding my hurt arm up in the air. I breathed rapidly, mostly sucking in air, as if that would make the pain go away. It didn't. But maybe, magically, it brought help. People came running from all directions. Skaters, Michelle, passersby. "Are you... are you okay?" someone asked. "No," I managed to say. My eyes filled with water but I was too hurt to cry. "Call a fucking ambulance!" Michelle shrieked. But instead of that, some old guy lifted me up like I was a child and he and his wife put me in their car along with Michelle and off we went to the nearest ER.