Not just a diary

Wonderful. Now I was probably going to get jumped by all his buddies. This was not a good idea.

“All right come on and we’ll go over to my place to grab you a board n stuff.”
I turned leaving the door wide open and went to slip on my huge flat typical skater shoes and turn off the TV, chucking the remote across the room.
As I shut the door behind me TK shot me a side glance, “Don’t you gotta tell your folks where you’re going?”
“I…uh…nahh…”
“Um… Okay…”
We started walking.
“Where you from anyway?” He asked.
“uhh… L.A.”
“You don’t sound like it…where were you before that?”
“Technically New York… but the answer you’re on the search for is Australia.”
“Ahh, just making sure. Why’d you come to New Mex?”
“I, uh… to live with me dad.”
“Oh, well welcome to Valley Grande… where the Drunks are always stubborn and the crack houses are always partying.”
“Nice… how long you been here?”
“About a year.”
“And, er, the lass, Lauryn is your sister, right?”
TK shot me a suspicious glance, “Yeah, that’s her…”
“Where’s she from…?”
“L.A.”
“Before that?”
“Technically Miami… but the answer you’re looking for is London.”
“Heh…”
“I just got her about a week ago.”
I looked up at him, “What do you mean by that?”
“She and my real mom came from London about a week ago. I hadn’t met her until then.”
“Whoa…”
“Yeah it was pretty cool.”
He sped up ahead of me to ollie off a speed bump, and I stuck my hands in my pockets.

Finally we came to his apartment, not to far to the right of the bus stop. He opened the door and led me in, throwing his board off to the side. To my surprise his apartment wasn’t some neat little place with a mother in a white apron baking cookies in the kitchen. It was pretty messy like mine. On the couch sat a plump little boy with black hair and many freckles. He looked up at me with his beady blue eyes and stared. As I walked behind the couch to a hallway I stared back at him until he quickly averted his eyes. His hallway had three doors leading from it, and we headed into the last one.

TK’s room was surrounded with yellow and black crime scene tape labeled “CAUTION DO NOT ENTER” and in the far left corner was a bunk bed. There were CDs and boxes all over the floor. TK didn’t seem to mind. He headed to his closet on the far right and started digging and throwing stuff out from balls to socks. Some heavy metal music was playing in the background from what I saw was a pretty nice stereo system setup.
A whiny squeaky voice sounded from the den, probably the plump little boy, “Luke close your door!!!!”
TK poked his head out of the closet, “Oh, will you get the door…?”
“Then where am I supposed to go?”
TK looked and saw my dilemma. His floor was covered in a bunch of curious boxes and CDs.
“Clear a path of CDs to my bed and sit on that.” He said.
I made way over and dove onto the bottom bunk. It was a very tall bunk bed and I studied the bottom of the upper bed as I sat on it waiting for him. There was a very detailed mural drawn on the bottom. It was of some sort of land. There was a castle, a dragon, and the sky was black. Bright yellow lightning surrounded it and there were other things as well. A strand of music notes floated around this land and there were no people or creatures on it besides the dragon. It looked pretty dark and I also noticed some red clawed hands gripping the side of the picture.
Suddenly the whole top of the bed shook as somebody dropped down from the top bunk. It was so unexpected that I yelled, which made TK scream as well.

Lauryn stared at us wide-eyed, “Umm… I’m sorry?” and she truly did look it.
We cracked up and that eased her face of guilt.
“No it’s okay you just scared the crap out of me.” TK laughed.

“Oh, many apologies. I guess I fell asleep.”
“Heh… no problem. Lodi have you seen my other skateboard?”
“I believe it’s under your bed.”
“Oh yeah! Duh!” He reached under his bed, grabbed a board and headed out, “Lets go.” I followed.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh we’re going to the skate park do you want to come?”
She smiled, “I think I’ll let you guys go this time.”
“You sure?” I said.
“Yeah I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Later,” and we were soon out the door again.
He handed me a ZERO skateboard and started riding right again.
I got on mine, “Isn’t the road the other way?”
“Yeah we’re going to the Laundromat.”
I laughed, but he didn’t.
“No I’m not kidding! That’s where we got to stop first.”
“Um… okay…”
We went down the street, still within the apartment property to a building in the middle. TK first hopped his board onto a handrail of a ramp leading up to the old battered door and landed perfectly, then taking out a key and unlocking the door before sliding on in as if he had done this a million times.

The door slammed behind me and I looked around. Surprisingly there was nobody doing laundry, but there were about four kids each sitting on laundry machines, some drinking a soda from the coca-cola machine in the lobby. There was also a snack machine and a round card table. When they saw TK a couple hopped down and smacked his hand with that universal handshake that all the young people seemed to know.

Then they saw me. Some were shocked, and they looked at each other questioningly when TK wasn’t looking, but none said anything. They were small talking and the circle gathered.
“Oh Jessin this is Michael…” TK said, pointing to a tall Hispanic kid carrying a Element brand board who said ‘hey’.
“Casey…” A kid with highlighted spiked hair and a very beat up board.
“Leon…” a white boy with black hair who gave a heads up toward me.
“And Dominic…” Dominic had red hair and light brown freakles.
He held out his hand for the once again shake, “Sup”
“Everybody this is Jessin, yeah okay that’s great lets go.”
“All right.”
We skated down the street and I noticed they were all pretty good, but still the same level as me. We grinded everything we could and laughed when one of them fell on their ass messing up, just making small talk. When we got to the skate park things weren’t so dense. They acted like I had always known them and I maintained my composure.

We ragged the skatepark well that day. We grinded all the poles, jumped all the verts, and skidded up over the rims of the pool all day until all of us were badly bruised and sweating like pigs. We had gone as kids, but left as brothers… very bruised up brothers. As we walked home we didn’t even skate we were so sore.
“… oh and remember when Dominic ran into that guy in mid air?!”
“Yeah that was great Dom!”
“Well it wasn’t so great for me!” He laughed.
“Hey Jessin that was some air you were getting on that half pipe!”
“Yeah and it was great when you missed it that one time and rolled down the side!”
We laughed. I didn’t show it but it was the best time I had had in years. We ended up back at the Laundromat sitting on washing machines and chugging cokes, still laughing and having a good time.

The door unlocked and in stepped Lodi, she looked around at us shyly as she closed the door, then smiled as they welcomed her.
“Hey so you finally came to see us…”
“Yeah I got lonely.”
TK shrugged, “Well I told you, you could come with me.”
Michael laughed, “Hey you should come with us next time.” He had a Spanish accent. Come to think of it a lot of the people here did. TK too.
“Well maybe I will next time!”
“k.”
“Cool.”
We laughed and hung out some more and then went outside and sat in the cool summer night’s breeze and hung out some more on the curb. A successful day.
Hey, we should go to the mall tomorrow,” Leon sprang up. He seemed to always be full of energy. “We could go to Shredd and chill there too.”
“Ah, me brother works there,” I said.
They all immediately stared at me. I didn’t expect to get a response like that.
“Whoa…”
“Does he really?!”
“Uh… Yeah…” I said.
TK shot up, “Sweeet!!”
“Hey do you get free stuff from there?” asked Dom.
“He gets credits for how well he works and spends credits on stuff in the store. I be getting a free deck next week.” I said.
“Whoa that’s tight! You are sooo damn lucky…!” Casey said before taking the last of his coke and chucking the can in the bush behind him.

We talked about that and chilled some more for a while. I noticed Lodi stayed pretty quiet for most of the time. When she spoke it was just to one of the guys or TK. She wasn’t loud like the guys. They all seemed to like her a lot. I didn’t blame them, how could they not? She was pretty, shy, quiet, smooth… and they were all sweet on her.

After I went home I lied in bed for a while thinking. A very successful day it had been. I had a feeling I had found my home, and who I belonged with. I fit right in. I also had found a girl I liked and a skate park that was pretty tight too. Summer break was just around the corner, and it excited me to think that I had had so much fun and it was just beginning. It didn’t even bother me that I was too sore to move for all of Sunday.

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