At Skates 280

Skates 280 is this rollerskating rink off the highway with a dirty sign and a dark parking lot; a popular place for drug deals and elementary-school birthday parties. On a Friday night, it's full of people: little kids whose skates are too heavy for their skinny ankles; inexperienced skaters with one hand on the wall for support; show-offy almost-middle-aged men skating too fast or backward.

When it gets too hot to skate and my hair starts sticking to my neck, I usually go stand outside the rink, amongst the beeping, blinking arcade games that are lined up against the wall, and watch. It's interesting, observing the constant stream of people, coursing in circles, around and around and around under disco balls and smoke machines and spinning colored lights.

I was at Skates 280 a couple of weeks ago, and there was a group of boys--almost men--gathered in the center of the rink. It was five or six black boys: skin like night, shaved heads or cornrows, long sinewy muscles. They were performing all these crazy stunts like you'd never seen before--handsprings and backflips and all of that, fancy dance moves that not many people can pull off--but all on roller skates. They were graceful and dangerous, strong and a little beautiful. Funnily enough--they all looked more like the kind of thugs that you see standing on the street corner before you cross to the other side, all in their baggy jeans with chains and basketball jerseys to their knees, their heavy silvery jewelry, their do-rags and sideways caps. Stereotyping: it's bad--I know it and you know it--but everybody does it. We all feel guilty afterward, but we do it all the same. All of us. That's not really the point here, but it's interesting nonetheless.

I would have liked to go up to these boys, ask them to teach me something about grace and strength and acrobatics and general coolness, or maybe just tell them I was impressed--but I didn't do that. I couldn't do that. It would be against the rules. I'm only observing, remember?