by Casey Hagen
“You’re going to give him a stroke.”
“Nah, as long as I don’t resurrect the purple mohawk, he’ll be fine. I’ll sneak him a cigar when my grandma’s not looking to make it up to him. Anyway, enough about me, what took you so long to get your ass over here? I heard you were back in town almost a week ago.”
“People didn’t waste time talking about it.”
“They never do…especially when it comes to you.” He poured a couple cups of coffee and glanced over his shoulder. “Hell, what did you expect when the first thing you did was sniff around the derby team?”
“No sniffing, just observing,” I said, trying to sound bored with the mutterings around town, despite the spike in my blood pressure from his question.
“You never just observe derby,” he said, letting out a snort. “Any chance you’ll make your stay permanent?”
“I wouldn’t do that to the town.” Or my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. I stepped up and took the cup he offered. I considered grabbing the cream, but decided against it.
Today was a black-like-my-soul kind of day. Might as well be festive.
“I don’t know, the town could use some shaking up. Besides, the ladies are starting to outnumber us around here. It’s getting scary.”
“Only if you don’t understand them. Maybe you should work on that, man.”
“Careful, I’ll think my mom sent you.”
“How’s business?” I glanced around the room, really looked at it, and noticed the modern touches. The six metal filing cabinets along the wall, all gone now. In their place a workbench with skate hardware, plates, nuts and washers, bearings, toe stops, wheels of all colors, sizes, and styles. He even had an array of toe caps in a dozen or so colors and an endless variety of laces in varying lengths, colors, and material. Hanging on a pegboard next to the bench, multiple skate tools to change out parts.
The days of the classic high-top quad skates were over. At least here.
On another wall ran a series of monitors mounted along the edge of the ceiling, no doubt overlooking the rink and now the laser tag area. It sure as hell beat the glitchy black-and-white box that used to sit back here, flickering endlessly with a grainy view of the locker section.
Jackson’s touches were everywhere, some obvious, some not so obvious, all of them full of pride and dedication.
I underestimated him.
“It’s good. Real good actually. Instead of limping along, breaking even, we’re finally putting some solid money into the business. No loan on the addition. All profits. My father isn’t sure how he feels about it just yet, but more dollar signs will help that along eventually.”
“Pissed off you were right and he was wrong no doubt.” I noticed a calendar on a hook, clearly covering another, and flicked the edge to spy what he was hiding.
His gruff laugh filled the room. “You thought you were going to find a set of titties back there, didn’t you?”
Fucking Mandalorian.
“With you one never knows. Could have just as easily been The Golden Girls.” Because he was a seriously weird dude who got off on watching repeats of the eighties sitcom when he wasn’t causing trouble on skates.
“That’s the desk calendar,” Jackson said, nodding toward the one piece of furniture that didn’t change over the years and the flat calendar spread over the top.
Probably because no one could lift it.
“As for my father, my being right definitely chafed his ass, but I ignored it. When that didn’t piss me off the way he hoped, he jumped up my colon about there being no point if I don’t settle down and have kids to take over the business.”
“Any chance that’s on the radar?”
“Don’t see why not. I like kids. I love women. But I sure as hell won’t be settling for whatever comes along to make my dad happy. Fuck that. Besides, I’m consistent. Consistently disappointing him. I guess I’d ask you the same on the settling down front, but word is you popped bone for Maisy Flynn.”
Of course it was. Fucking wonderful.
“I hope they aren’t saying it like that. Pretty sure I haven’t ‘popped bone’ since I was fifteen.” I took a sip of coffee, the biting flavor punishment on my tongue.
“Well, yeah, you are kind of getting old. Takes more work for the pop, huh?”
“You’re a month older than me, Stone.”
“Yeah, but poppin’ all the damn time.”
“I’m not sure I’d be bragging about that. Somehow the only thing the town stoner, mid-thirties, running a roller rink, sporting unpredictable wood has child molester vibes written all over it.”
He snorted. “Former stoner. I gave that shit up.”
“Really? Now that’s news in a town where nothing ever changes.”
“Yeah, it’s not as fun when your dad decides he wants to get high with you. I’m pretty sure I only did it to piss him off and the day he asked to light one up with me, he sucked every last shred of joy from it.”
“You still skate?”
“Fuck yeah, I do,” he said, tilting his head. “You?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“So that’s the tension rolling off you.”
Glancing out at the empty rink, I avoided his comment.
I sucked in a deep breath, memories when I first started skating here with my grandparents, mom, sister, and brother colliding with what came after.
Just after.
When I broke away from my siblings, anger took over as the Devil sitting on my shoulder while I raced around the rink. No matter what I did, how fast I went, my gaze always going to my mother’s favorite corner table.
One now used by another family, another smiling mother.
Every pass, that spot a cutting reminder that she’d never sit there again. I’d never see her smile, hear her laugh, or breathe her in when I hugged her.
She’d never again reassure me everything was going to be okay.
Each glance at the corner carving out the good in my heart, leaving gaping holes for the rot to seep in and fill me up from the inside out.
I let that anguish rule my decisions. I let grief push me to run away.
From my grandparents, from the pain, from feeling adrift in a world I’d always thought would hold me to it with unwavering gravity.
Heartbreak and desperation fucked with my head, leading me to manipulate my brother and sister into leaving the security with our grandparents on the farm to go live with our dad.
The price of my disastrous decision was never paid in full.
The balance destined to hang over my head for a lifetime.
What the hell was I doing here?
What business did I have getting involved with anyone, carrying my stains into their lives, making them bear the cost of my mistakes?
This was why I avoided this town. Why I limited myself to brief visits lasting only a handful of days. I could get in and out before my past could be picked apart, before self-torment could take hold. I never had to worry about running into Lana’s parents, my presence drawing slivers of resentment to the surface only to spill over, becoming one more thing for Lana to handle.
The weeks to come loomed before me and if I didn’t find something to sink my energy into, some sort of purpose, everything I’d done, the wrongs I couldn’t right, would swallow me whole.
I glanced down at my hands, the way my fists clenched tight, the edge of my fingernails digging into my skin, the only outward sign of the storm brewing in me. Muscles rigid, gut churning, the pressure built, the desire to rage out of control terrifying after the years I’d spent learning control.
Words I might have said turned to ash in my mouth. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I wanted to burn up every last bit of energy I had, leaving exhaustion so heavy I couldn’t muster the strength to agonize over the gossip, the town, my mistakes, or the way I could still feel Mayhem’s heat which had somehow burrowed in a dangerously vulnerable place inside me that had been cold for more than half of my
life.
And I didn’t want to do it alone.
God, that sucked to acknowledge because needing someone meant I’d get close. Getting close meant someone would get hurt. But damn, I wanted a friend alongside me.
“Want to tear up the floor with me for a while?” I said, my throat thick, my voice almost rusty with disuse despite the conversation between us—the timbre exposing just how shredded my spirit was inside me.
“With you, Bishop? Anytime,” Jackson said, clapping my shoulder with a reassuring smile. “Let’s do this shit.”
I jogged out to my truck and grabbed my skates, the relief beginning to push against the anger brewing in my heart.
We laced up and Jackson flicked on the lights suspended over the rink, sending rainbow beams of light—another new addition instead of the standard white—dancing over the gleaming wood. Plugging in his phone to a state-of-the-art sound system way better than the muffled shit from our teen years, he resurrected our youth with a playlist full of angst and grit from the very first beat.
The song vibrated in my chest, rattling me from the inside out. I pushed off, the easy glide of my wheels sweet relief in a fucking abrasive world. My muscles warmed with every glide. The old moves came back as natural as walking.
Moves that had always been a core part of who I was.
The ones my mother taught me.
Jackson kept pace, matching his motions to mine. The tempo commanded our feet. With every move we reawakened the familiar kinship from endless afternoons jam skating as teenagers.
Song after song we skated in tandem. Moisture broke out over my skin and my heart pumped blood so hard and heavy through my veins it echoed in my ears.
On what had to be the twentieth pass, I shed my flannel shirt, balled it up, and ditched it over the wall.
Spins, slides, crazy legs, snake walks, splits, jumps, nothing was off-limits as I pushed physical boundaries, my body occasionally pushing back, reminding me I wasn’t sixteen anymore.
I’d feel it by tonight. I might not be able to walk by morning.
And still I pushed faster.
I didn’t look at the corner. Couldn’t look at the corner. My demons lurked there, waiting for me to falter. Waiting for me to succumb.
I kicked harder, my slides longer and on my heels now, as jam skating mixed with skate park moves. My momentum careened me dangerously close to the wall, but I didn’t care.
I stopped or I didn’t.
I’d break or I wouldn’t.
And if my recklessness brought me pain, I welcomed it.
The laser lights blurred, the music grew muffled, and the shouts from Mayhem’s bout crept into my head. The hungry look in her eyes. The quick shift of her gaze finding tiny gaps. Her body low, tight, and powerful as she exploded through barriers with unrelenting force beyond the physical propelling her.
The air tore from my lungs. I lunged harder, faster, memories taunting me.
Tempting me.
A memory—fuzzy at the edges—but the central scene unfolding with devastating clarity scrubbed Mayhem away and now Lana burst around a corner, heading to the outside to zip past the pack as lead jammer. One point, two points, then a third. A shoulder from out of nowhere lifting her clean off the floor, suspending her in air, before sending her sliding into the wall.
The impossible angle of her head as she took the brunt of the collision at the base of her neck.
Her still body in a heap. Gasps of onlookers filling the air.
My own whispered prayer when I didn’t even realize I knew how to pray anymore.
When I was sure because of my past sins, God had stopped listening.
Another slide, the drag of my wheels and the force of my body putting impossible pressure on my ankles. Sweat running down my forehead into my eyes.
My brother’s angry voice, the word traitor on the tip of his tongue before he slammed the door and went with our father.
Barreling across the floor again, my vision blurring, my gut squeezing bile into my throat, the screams of my sister when the police showed up at our apartment and told us our father and brother were gone.
You’re the oldest, son. It’s your job to protect them when you go.
He’s our father and you’re a traitor.
Our daughter will never walk again and it’s all your fault.
Voices filled with venom and despair reverberating through my skull snatching the thread of peace I’d struggled so hard to hold on to.
I can’t protect anyone.
“Hey, watch out!”
The crack of wood echoed through the air. My thighs burned with the force stopping my lower body dead. My upper body kept going, the benches on the other side of the wall a flash of color as I flipped over the side and landed flat on my back on an unforgiving commercial carpet, the only thing between me and the concrete underneath. My teeth rattled in my skull. A pulsating throb took root inside me as I struggled to suck air into my lungs.
“Fuckin’ A, dude. Are you okay?”
I grabbed my chest, still working on moving air. “Shit, that hurt a lot less when we were sixteen,” I gasped out.
Jackson barked out a laugh as he yanked the frame of the wall back and forth. “Everything hurt less when we were sixteen.”
I craned my neck to look up at him, grateful that I could still move it. “I’ll cover the damage. Is it bad?”
“Nah, you’re probably lucky it was already loose after some troublemakers rammed one of their buddies into it last week. Already have it scheduled to get fixed after Christmas.”
“So you’re saying the leeway softened the blow?” Because it sure as hell felt like I hit concrete before I definitely landed on concrete.
“Something like that.”
I pushed up onto my elbows and took a deep breath of commercial carpet that no longer smelled like shampoo now that I’d decided to bump and grind against it. “Doesn't feel like it.”
Jackson reached out a hand and helped hoist me up. “Dude, whatever you were outrunning, did you win?”
“I never do.”
8
“I don’t wanna roller-skate,” Leo said as he dragged his feet from the van all the way to the door of Rockabilly’s. I had to give it to the little dude, his defiance game was strong.
“You know the deal. You and Noah picked last week, now the girls get to pick this week. And they picked skating.”
I’d only said this about five times so far on the six-mile drive here. Each time I managed to keep my voice upbeat while I explained it again, Wes winked at me in the rearview. The father of three’s version of, “Stay strong, kid” thus indoctrinating me into an honorary responsible adult club where it was us against them, we were outnumbered, and the power could shift at any minute.
Two against five and if the boys had their way, they’d revolt and get all Lord of the Flies up in this shit.
Over roller skates.
Roller skates, for fuck’s sake.
But if I handed them skateboards, they’d be all over that shit. I couldn’t roll my eyes hard enough at the irony.
I probably owed Milton and Gerald thank-yous for all the involuntary training. They’d been preparing me for this day for six years.
Tonight, I’d reward myself with peppermint schnapps, a deep, warm bath, and a dark and dirty romance. The kind of book you needed to be in the mood to read if you know what I mean.
“So they picked, doesn’t mean we have to get on skates though,” Noah chimed in, his voice starting out strong and full of conviction, until he saw the look in my eye. Like a week-old balloon finally being shown mercy with a needle, his attitude deflated, his words sliding from defiance to a dull whine.
“And how fun would it have been to play laser tag if the girls sat out last week?” I asked, hoping that maybe I could spark some empathy in the boy.
But he was eight. His empathy bank was like an underdeveloped, featherless bird.
He only cared how his teenage cousin told him
roller-skating was for girls.
I wish I’d known that nugget of bullshit before our season was over so I could have made arrangements to squash that notion right out of Noah’s head. He’d be surprised what girls did on roller skates.
So would his butthead of a cousin.
Boys could be such little pricks.
The cousin I mean—technically the jury was still out on Leo and Noah—plus, I sort of adored them even though they weren’t living their finest moment.
Well, I had no intentions of going anywhere. Between me and the rest of my team who all volunteered with the Crossroads Youth Center, we’d make sure they didn’t become delinquent burdens on society.
No way would I let his cousin win. Not even today when he’d gone and pissed on what was supposed to be a pretty damn awesome day.
Finally, an activity where I could share more of myself. Not derby me, but the fun memories I had before my mom died. My mother loved skating and I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t have me on skates right alongside her.
This was one of those moments I had to remind myself I was an adult because I was not feeling very adult when it came to Noah’s cousin.
Nope, I felt my full-on inner thug coming out. And it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Not when I’m derby and he’s a sixteen-year-old twerp. A twerp who kept hovering near the youth center with stolen cigarettes he’d offer to little kids when he thought no one was looking.
If it weren’t an assault charge, I’d have him on his ass before he could suck in a breath.
Thanks to his shitty influence, I had a decision to make. Do battle with Leo and Noah and possibly eat into Ellie, Addison, and Rylee’s time on the rink, or let it go and let Wes sit with them while they sulked.
One thing was for sure, Noah and Leo had two choices, skate or sit. Laser tag in every way, shape, or form was off the table.
I didn’t even want to hear the words slip from their lips.
Oh, and those video games along the wall? Also off the table.
I really hated that they made me have to be a hard-ass here. This wasn’t just their playtime; in a way it was mine too. My time with them not only filled their well, but it filled mine.