Narrative

Narrative

Skateboarding was my life and love in high school. I loved to ride around town

and look for peaceful spots to skate it up. My favorite part of it all was when I went to Santa Cruz, California, for a competition. In California, there was no place I couldn’t skate. Back home, the board often took me places I wasn’t legally supposed to be. This got me in trouble with the law a few times, but that couldn’t stop me.

One of my favorite spots to skate in my home-town was this abandoned parking tower downtown. It was seven stories tall, filled with obstacles, and perfect for when I just wanted to get away from the loud lights and sounds of the city. It seemed like I was safe there for some reason. I knew that parking tower like the back of my hand, so I thought it was necessary to pass down this knowledge to my colleagues, or fellow skaters.

I knew it was on private property, and so did Sheldon, but we grabbed our boards without hesitation and took off towards downtown. It was the middle of the summer, day after my birthday, about four P.M. when we got to the tower. Sheldon and I climbed to the top and sat up there for a few minutes because after climbing seven stories we were a little tired. After the brief rest, we both got up knowing what was on each other’s minds.

We took off at the same time, racing down the ramps, not paying attention to anything but our next moves. When we got to the fourth floor, I looked back, Sheldon fell hard. I did not stop because I knew he knew how to take care of himself. I stopped on the third floor to wait for him and to catch my breath.

All of a sudden I heard a siren, which was unusual because I had never heard sirens from inside the tower before. I hear Sheldon scream out with all of his breath, ‘‘Cop!’’ I froze. I knew this parking tower so well but I also knew that there was only one exit. The sirens stopped. I peeked over the ledge to make sure, and the cop pointed straight at me and yelled ‘‘Hey you!’’ I picked Sheldon to come with me on this trip because he and I always had a plan for this kind of situation, just in case.

Sheldon and I started walking down towards the cop, not talking to each other, just trying to be calm. When we got to the ground level, the cop was surprised that we did not try to run away. He told Sheldon to go stand by the police car while he talked to me.

The cop questioned me with the usual, ‘‘What were you guys doing?’’ and of course ‘‘Did ya’ll know that you were on private property?’’ I just played stupid for a while, I look over at Sheldon, luckily he didn’t take our boards away, and we were too young to go to jail so he didn’t handcuff us. I gave Sheldon the nod and