this was a little coda that originally followed the treefort (slight return) section of flotation device 12. when i first wrote it, it seemed logical to include it. it flowed with the rest of that junior high section, but when i read it once all of the pieces were put in order, it seemed to kinda just sit there.
We had a brilliant idea too. David and I or Luke and I or all of us. On the west side of the subdivision beyond the pond and on the other side of all the fences beyond the last recently sodded lawns of the new houses there was a field. A cornfield old and unused derelict and filled with dead cornstalks and grass. In our explorations seeking out new places to explore and new places to walk we came across a cement platform. It must have been the floor to a storage shed. We said it was an old barn. It was divided into a few different levels and the cement was fairly smooth in some spots.
As we sat out there under the summer sun blue sky and white clouds hoping that the men in the pick up trucks that seemed to occasionally patrol the fields didn’t come, we had a brilliant thought. Let’s turn this into a skate park. We could build a half pipe out here and some mini ramps. We could use the multi levels for a kick ass street area. It’s out of the way and no one would bother us. Genius.
Jeremy could help. His dad had built an amazingly professional quarter pipe that they kept in his garage. It was on wheels and they would wheel it out to skate it in the driveway. It terrified me with its perfect curvature smooth wood and vert at the top and its five foot height. Jeremy could help us. Luke could help us, having built that half pipe in his basement. He also helped me build a launch ramp that we kept in my garage that had a nice curve that Luke got from wetting the wood with a hose and bending the wood back while standing on it. We could get wood and nails and pvc coping from the dumpsters. That’s where we always went for supplies for treeforts or bike ramps skate ramps or whatever we were building. Often the dumpster raids also included clandestine exploration of the skeletal frames of houses after hours when the workers had left for the day. Climbing in through the sunken basement windows. Climbing up the skeletal stairs. Walking through skeletal walls. Climbing on skeletal beams. And carefully walking over skeletal floors.
We could do it. We could build our own private skate park out here in this field. Sun pouring down. Browned yellowed dead corn stalks. Blue blue sky. Possibility in the air. Dreams dreamed. A shared fantasy. The sound of skateboard wheels on cement on wood in our minds. We could do it. But we didn’t.