2007-04-25

Ode to the Rollerdrome @ 12:31 a.m.

Yes, I was a rink rat, after a fashion. Started going to the Wade Hampton Rollerdrome on Saturdays with my church crowd when I was, what, 9 or 10? Saturday afternoons when it was "Family Skate". That's when they'd do stuff like the limbo, the hokey-pokey and whatnot. Then someone let on that Wednesday nights during the summer were "Soul Night". Like, "where are you on Wednesdays, I never see you here then?" Probably that skinny white boy Shane who had a crush on me. What would they call that today? "Urban Skate"? "Hip-Hop Night"? Whatever you wanted to call it, it was when all the brown folk would show up and get the fuck down. All the house lights would be down and the club lights up. The flashing multi-colored star lights on the walls. The disco ball strobing. And the deejay pumping serious funk. "Double Dutch Bus". SOS Band, "Just Be Good To Me". The GAP Band. The Time's "Gigolos Get Lonely, Too" for the couples skate. Little did my folks know when I innocently asked to be dropped off there while they went to prayer meeting at church. "Please don't pick me up before 10, please!"

Around and round. Skate, roll, bounce. I'd never go somewhere I didn't know anyone now, but the lure of skating and shaking it didn't deter me then. Because you could skate alone. Didn't need a partner to work it out. One of my crushes from church (he later turned out to be a very distant cousin, by marriage) would be there. I thought Sean was the S-H-I-T. Tall. At least a good four years older than me. So light he made me look like I was from the motherland. He once passed me one of those line cards in Sunday School that said "you have a great ass!" with his phone number on the back of it in fne, even print. He'd break out his own pair of skates, the black low tops that looked like they fit like a second skin and roll with it, rock with it and then bust out with the fancy footwork. You know, the kind where it looked like their ankles just went all to rubber. And then he'd take me into one of those dark corners and...mm-hmm. Yes. You know. And then back out onto the floor to work up another sweat.

I'd sing to myself as I'd whirl around, feelin' the funk. People would hear me and shout out. White boot skates with red wheels. Fuck the pom-poms; they just got in the way, those were for the little white girls that showed up on Saturday mornings. Every now and then you'd get tangled up in a clutch and fall or nearly fall, but it weren't no thang, you just laughed, rolled to the side, got up and went back to it. And maybe got to cop a feel out of it. Or maybe you took a break to get a long draught at the water fountain. Or zip into the bathroom to wipe away sweat. Or to the canteen to grab some nachos, a nasty cheeseburger (why did they taste like that? they don't have that weird taste anywhere else) or a soda...that maybe a boy would buy you. What did LL say?

With your rayon, silk or maybe even denim
It really doesn't matter as long as you're in them
You can break hearts and manipulate minds
Or surrender act tender be gentle and kind...

Baby hair pumping, lip gloss is shining...

Yeah, like that. And then I caught the eye of the deejay, Tony. Don't know why, don't know how. Just know that one night I saw his hooded eyes fixed on me, and he invited me up into the booth after I requested a song, hell that was how I learned to DJ myself. The man was far too old for me, like legally. But did I care? No, ma'am, I was high on the power I flexed in my tight assed herringbone pinstripe capri denim jeans and C cups. Goin' places I shouldn't. Doin' things I had no business doin'. But all those things have made me, me. Sometimes I got to stay until close, then burst out into the night (which was almost always much cooler than it was inside the rink) and try to get to my dad's car in the crush of traffic before anyone could see that it was my dad that was picking me up. Worked that one out by telling him to meet me down the street so we wouldn't get caught in traffic in the narrow parking lot. Man, I had it all worked out, didn't I?

Get me anywhere near a rink even years later and I could still work it out after a stretch and a turn or two off in a corner by myself. But I haven't found myself in a rink for decades now. I miss the feeling.

Flashlight...spot light...neon light...Everybody's got a little light under the sun...