The fence, graffiti, ramps and staircases remind me vaguely of a Sesame Street set. I realize this is not the look they were going for, but the urban edge feels constructed, assembled from pieces of West Side Story and Romper Room. I feel out of place. It is not my age, there are plenty of other adults sprawled on mismatched upholstery and folding chairs. It is not my Capri pants or jaunty barrette. It is not even my intent cluelessness as I try to discern what is going on. It is the deep awareness that even if I were young, decorated in skulls and roses and cheering in the right places, I would still be utterly, irreversibly and to the core . . . not cool.  

I am at a skateboarding tournament. My nephew is competing and as visiting aunt it seemed right to go. Besides, I was curious. My nephew is thirteen. He has a freckled pixie face and with a different haircut and dungarees could play Beaver or Opie in a 1950’s sitcom revival. Instead he wears a stocking cap pulled low over long, dyed-black hair, skinny jeans and a billowing t-shirt. He is not a tough kid, not troubled or surly. He carries himself with nonchalant confidence, shrugging through conversations with an attitude at once bored and intense. He skateboards for hours every day, spending most of his time in a parallel world that seems to operate with its own center of gravity. His grandfather says he is very good but I am dubious of my father’s objectivity.

I learn quickly that the competitors are divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. They are all boys, spanning ages five to seventeen years old and the divisions are loosely but not exclusively determined by age. My nephew is intermediate. Each level is given a certain amount of time to move around the space and do whatever they want, any number of jumps, tricks, flips, in any combination. There is a laconic commentator and the judges are indistinguishable from the participants. After the free-for-all, the judges determine the top three, who then compete again for final placement. When watching their peers, the boys are riveted, following every movement. In between rounds they leap on their boards to practice. It is chaotic and yet everyone seems to know exactly what to do next.

It is this consistency that fascinates me. Beyond all wearing variations on the same outfit, there are also patterns of behavior repeated over and over. Board down, poise foot, hike up jeans, push off, attempt a trick, succeed or fail, stop, look around, hike up jeans again. The most surprising thing is the falling. Four out of five attempts end in a crash. Sometimes a simple stumble and step over, then a whole body flies up and slams to the ground. The board spins and they don’t, the board goes up and they go down, the board races forward and they are left behind. Occasionally something sticks and the crowd rustles in approval. Either way, they get up and keep going. Good, bad or catastrophic; a grimace, squint and then back to the board. The kid that wins the advanced level falls so hard and so many times he limps to a chair after his round. Apparently the more complicated the attempt, the more risk there is of disaster and the more points if successful.  

As I watch this scene progress – from the gritty, under-the-viaduct backdrop to the shoestring belts to the wiry, anti-hero resilience – every teen book/movie cliché flips through my memory. It is a situation begging for narrative projections. Misunderstood youth banding together, finding a place to be themselves, each with Ponyboy’s notebook and story to tell. My drift towards romanticism is interrupted as another kid hurls into the chain link barrier. He recovers and chases his board as it skids away in the opposite direction. I sigh and let go of my stories, my labels, my grand schemes of them and me, hip or not. In the end they fall, get up and try again. In this we are the same ageless, genderless, cultureless creatures vying for a free skateboard. I see their lives spool out before them and wonder if this adolescent rehearsal isn’t better than most. I think about my last week or this week or the week after next: board down, poise foot, hike up jeans, push off, attempt a trick, succeed or fail, stop, look around, hike up jeans again.

My nephew comes in second. Grandpa is right, he is very good.