Bums and Big Air
Crews: Consecutive Substack Story 1197
Colston Witz cracked his knuckles like they were a joint symphony just warming up.
Of course, of course, of course they hadn’t been skating the abandoned Wharton Mall parking structure for ten minutes when the fresh blood weaknik noob Paint Morelli brought called one of the wine posse a bum.
Diego Villalobos was filming the sesh with his drone, landed it because something was off, and one of the North Corner Homies, The Wine Posse, The Elders, went to check out the little flying machine. He bent at the knee to touch a propellor
The noob screeched at him to stay away from it, referring to the guy as a “bum.”
Colston had a whole speech for the kid boiling in his head but the old guy who drank with his buddies in the structure started talking first.
“Bum? Listen tinywhitehomie. You can’t be talking to me. I am the head mental astronaut.”
Colston knew by the pitchy, rhythmic voice it was either Beau or 6 Mile George. Colston got the two men mixed up.
“You’re crazy,” the noob kid said and Colston barked “Silence noob!”
The kid looked over and blushed hard. Colston Witz was the best skater and best soccer player in Conner Station. If there was a show, he ran it. He was perched. Elevated.
“No mouth gape trip, Grade 1. Respect the elders.”
Grade 1 was a power slur in Conner Station. Grade 1 was nearly unredeemable, hopeless.
The kid stared at the ground and mumbled “Fuggeraint a astronaut.”
Paint was pissed. He vouched that the kid was okay.
“I am a mental astronaut,” the North Corner Homie said. “You cannot dispute that.”
The kid looked up. He didn’t really sneer, but he kind of couldn’t help sneering and Colston stepped forward seriously considering hitting the kid in the mouth with his Pushead deck.
Some of the other North Corner Elders stepped over to see what was going on.
The man stepped closer to the noob, ignoring Diego’s drone.
“I am Beauregard Thurgood James Brooks.”
Colston promised himself he would remember Beau and not get him confused with 6 Mile George ever again.
Beau put his arm around the new kid, who was trembling now.
Solid Grade 1.
Paint could only shake his head and spit some of the Tic Tacs he always had in his mouth when he skated.
Beau guided the kid to the east wall of the structure, waist high, overlooking the massive empty building that was once a bustling mall. The kid didn’t fully resist but his feet were leaden as he walked with Beau.
The Ringworm Skate Crew had never had any kind of violent confrontation with the Elders, though they had seen the men fight drunkenly among themselves.
Paint decided that if Greg Wymore, the noob kid, resisted Beau that he would beat him up. But he also wouldn’t let Beau throw the kid off the third floor of the structure either.
Colston was having a similar thought. Though he would never call one of the Elders a bum, it didn’t seem worth killing the kid over.
Beau got the kid to the wall of the old structure, tagged with a BVIS, a shoddy Powell Peralta skull logo and an illegible name IZ GODD.
Beau pointed to the sky.
“Erryday, young homie, I pick a star up in that bitch. I name it after myself, because I discovered it in my eyesight that day. And then I sit back and imagine what it would be like to travel to that star, what that star would provide when I arrived, what types of exotic fruits and other whatnots and how you be’s it would have for me. I am not a bum. I am a mental astronaut, the head mental astronaut here, as we speak.”
The noob kid nodded. His facial expression made Colston want to hit him less.
Beau lifted his arm from the kid’s shoulder.
He pointed at some of the other elders.
6 Mile George, now that Colston could tell the difference, wasn’t there, but Bull was, Theo, and another guy who Colston had met but forgot his name.
“Some of these other gentlemen might be bums. I cannot say for sure.”
That set off a wave of barks and shouts, mostly the Elders telling Beau in various ways, to shutup.
The kid grabbed his deck and tried to skate away.
Colston grabbed him.
“You’re lucky he didn’t throw you off the structure,” he told the kid.
Beau shook his head. “Nahhh, no throwin. Jus’ teaching.”
***
Greg Wymore got air and grinded the third story rail of the Wharton Mall structure.
Theo from the North Corner Elders, The Wine Posse, The Mental Astronaut Crew, was showing some of the noob kids his new prosthetic leg he got from the VA.
6 Mile George had invented a new dice game and he was trying to teach the rules to some new elders , who were passing two bottles of Boone’s between five guys.Greg Wymore was having trouble remembering their names.
Amado Villalobos was flying a drone so that it almost rubbed the ceiling, trying to capture a noob who was repeatedly bailing a one wheel.
Diego Villalobos was in Aspen with Colston Witz, who had made the X Games for Halfpipe.
Paint Morelli had a broken wrist and was in charge of monitoring any glimpse of Halfpipe comp on his phone.
He got a text from Diego that read CW kickin it wit Jenna Zezi.
Twenty minutes later ESPN teased an interview with Colston.
Paint yelled, almost everyone grabbed their phone.
Paint held up his phone so 6 Mile George and Beau and a young Elder named Face could see it.
Within minutes dime and half Jenna Zezi was onscreen with Colston, who had dyed one of his locks green at the request of his SportQuaff sponsor.
“Your first X Coco Puff, what’s the mental prep like to compete with guys like Tater, VanGogh and Dip ?
Colston cracked his left knuckles with his right and said “I just like, pick a star in the sky and imagine what it would be like to travel to that star, what that star has to offer me. Like a mental astronaut.”
“That’s poetry CoCo. Good luck this afternoon.”
As Jenna pulled the mic away, Colston yelled “Big Love to Ringworm and The Elder Posse.”
Beau said “Ain’t that a bitch? Our boy just co-adopted my shit on international TV. That crazy nigga a bum.”
***
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I was a terrible skateboarder but I hung out with some good ones.
Like the story? Like that there’s someone willing to write a new story and publish it every day?
Please keep me going at buymeacoffee.com/JimmyDoom or Venmo James-Graham-80
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That's a great job of world-building. I feel like I'm on the streets with those guys, right there in the moment. Impressive tale, Jimmy.
Pretty damned happy that my current teaching gig has enough space in it to read that. Nothing better than steering kids toward mental aeronautics. Beautiful. Skateboards still had clay wheels back when I was teening, so I was not so inclined. Way later, I had a long hangout in Venice, was torn between watching sunset on the beach or skaters in the park. While watching the sun w my wife, we heard a tsunami wave of horror waft out of the skateboal, learned that a newb had cut-off an iconic elder, sending him to the floor. Rescue squad took an hour trying to figure out how to get him out of the bowl. I dont think I've ever seen anything more unifying than the horrible accident that drew every skater in LA to the site, sending love, hope. Even so, I dont think it turned out well.