Totally Choice
Connor Wright
We were just hanging out when he showed up. Eddie was stretched out on one of the picnic tables, his head hanging off the end; Chris and Than were busily texting; and I was looking at a sequence of pictures in my favorite skate magazine, trying to figure out the trick before I got to the caption.
“Hey,” he said, and I dragged my gaze up along his sensibly baggy pants, over the scarred belly of his deck and the blue hoodie-covered arm it was tucked under, up past a tiny slice of tanned skin showing over the collar of his shirt, and blinked. His face was fuckin’ smokin’, even though he had a beanie pulled down over his eyebrows and his hood up so I couldn’t see much of it.
“Hey,” Eddie said, waving. Chris and Than nodded at him and said, “Hey,” too.
“Yo,” I said, just to be different.
“So... Is it open slather?” he asked, nodding at the empty little park behind us.
“What?” Than asked.
“Can I have a go? Or are you yobbos keeping the hoons out?” He looked a little annoyed, and I was chewing my lip to keep from grinning at him like the idiot I am—I have this thing for guys with accents.
“You wanna skate?” Chris asked. “‘Cause if that’s what you’re askin’, then go for it. Otherwise, you’re gonna have to try again.”
“Yeah, I wanna skate,” he said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “‘S why I brought my board, innit?” He walked around Eddie’s table to the edge of the concrete and dropped his board in the grass, then shoved his hood back. It’s a Quiksilver hoodie, which makes sense with his accent. The thought of this guy being a surfer too nearly made my eyes cross. It definitely got my dick twitching, and once again I was grateful that I’m into something where overly large pants are the norm.
So he unzipped his hoodie and wadded it up, leaving it on the end of the bench beside Than. His shirt looked like it was an old favorite, the logo involving four Xs all faded and worn. I stuffed my magazine into my bag and got up, then stepped on the tail of my board and caught the nose of it in my hand, carrying it over to the bench. Part of me wanted a better look at him, and part of me wanted to see what kind of moves he had.
He looked kind of uncomfortable when he glanced back at us, but Eddie’s eyes were closed, Than and Chris were busy with their phones, and I wasn’t trying to be intimidating. I made a little go-ahead flip with my hand and he nodded at me. Awesome. The hair that stuck out from under his beanie was blond, but it looked like a chemically-induced color rather than natural. His eyes and lashes were dark, from what I could tell, not that I had much time to look.
He nudged his board forward with his left foot and I watched it bump up onto the floor of the park. His shoes were seriously ugly, bright purple with neon-green laces; they looked brand new. He stepped up onto his board with his left foot and I said, “You ride goofy?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at me again. “Rules against it?”
“No,” I said. “Just wondering. Not something you see every day.”
“Right,” he said, and pushed off. He angled toward the quarter-pipe corner, gathering speed as he went. When he got to it, he sailed right up and shifted his weight and momentum into a nosegrind on the coping that carried him into the heart of the corner, at which point he slid back to the flat, riding fakie. He swung around on a manny and pushed toward the line of curbs set up in the middle of the far end. When he got to them, he popped an ollie that looked damn near perfect and I finally let myself smile.
“Sweet ollie, dude,” I called, and kicked myself toward the combination half-pipe and nine-set. I’ve always liked vert; there’s something about the back-and-forth that’s soothing, almost hypnotic. Street’s okay; I joke about how I totally suck as a skater ‘cause I’m not hooked on the rush of trying to kill myself with curbs and walls and shit. I decided, though, that there was no way I was gonna pussy out and stick with my little grabs and handplants. Not today, and not unless he went first, anyhow.
“Thanks,” he said, as I rolled past. I just ducked my head and went on, like I was totally cool, and like I wasn’t hoping he’d actually get in the pipe and try a handplant so I could have a look at him with his shirt falling down around his pits. I hopped my board over the lip of the pipe and start working my way back and forth, gaining speed. Yeah, I could have just walked up to the top of the nine-set and its rails, but that would’ve been hella boring. Also, it gave me an excuse to be on the pipe when I’d already decided I wasn’t gonna do any vert.
So I finally got going, up and over the coping and then another quick jump and I ended up on the handrail for the stairs in a five-oh grind. I started rethinking my decision to stay out of the pipe as I hit the middle of the rail and my balance shifted; for a long horrible second I thought my board was going to slip out from under my feet. I held my breath and tried correcting myself by leaning forward a little, which seemed to work. By the time I got to the bottom, I was actually breathing again, and when I landed (with only the mildest of wobbles), I was grinning again.
“Onya,” the guy said, lifting his chin at the rail I’d just come down. “You street or vert?”
I leaned over and circled back toward him, coming to a stop a couple of feet away. “Some of both,” I said. “Vert’s cool.”
“Yeah?” He smiled and I forgot what we were talking about. “I met Jake Brown, once. Got to see Millar and Pappas, too, but never spoke to ‘em.”
“Awesome,” I said. Then my brain shorted out or something and I went a little closer, sticking my hand out. “Will,” I said.
“Levi,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m more of a vert guy. Wish the pipe was bigger.” He tilted his head back toward the structure in question and I tried not to stare at his neck.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the ass,” I said. “But it’s better than nothing.”
“This isn’t the only place to skate here, is it?” he asked, looking around. “It’s cool, but...”
I nodded at him. “Yeah, I know, it’s tiny. There’s Templeton’s House Of Skate over on the east side of town, but you gotta pay to get in and they’ve got rules about clothes and gear,” I said. “They’ve got the Monstrosity, though, and it’s bigger’n what they use at contests, so it’s worth it.”
“Choice,” Levi said, picking up his deck and heading for the pipe. “I’m gonna work on my McTwist over here, cool?”
“Totally cool,” I said, tagging along. “If you don’t mind company.”
“Not at all!”
***
So that was meeting Levi. Over the next six months or so, I learned that he’s from Narrabundah, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory; his family had moved here ‘cause his dad’s some kind of tech guy; he was hoping to get into the local university, though there was some question about transferring credits; and that he was basically just another one of the guys except for his accent and some of his slang. Any time someone asked him if he was a surfer, he denied it, making up a different reason every time. (The truth? Canberra’s a hundred miles inland.) He and I actually got to be pretty good friends,
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