Under the Heat of a Relentless Noonday Sun

image by Fabian Catoni at Life of Pix

“He never speaks to anyone.” Claudia dangled her bronze legs over the edge of the half-pipe and tried to shield her black spiked hair from the relentless sun. Beside her, her friend Nicole tinkered with the trucks on her board. The rest of their friends hadn’t shown; it was too hot to skate. Still, the one guy was there, doing the same railslide as always. The two girls watched him. He executed the trick perfectly, then circled round to do it again. This time, when he skated past, Nicole tried to get his attention.

“Hey, the half pipe’s open!” The guy kicked into another railslide as if they never existed. “He must be retarded.” Nicole returned to fine tuning her board, even though Claudia knew the board didn’t need any more adjustments. 

She continued to watch the guy. He’d taken his shirt off and she saw how tight his shoulders were, the way he kept his head tucked between them. Like a turtle, she thought. He whizzed by them and Claudia tried to meet his eyes, but they were too fixed on the ground. Sweat gleamed on his brown skin, and it dripped off his chin. He ground another perfect railslide and continued on his eternal orbit. 

Claudia lifted her legs and hugged them tight. The cement was burning her skin. Nicole was staring down at her board, shoulders slumped. They never talked about things, but Claudia knew. She knew by the way Nicole’s boyfriend had dumped her out of the blue, the way Nicole had gone to the doctor with a mysterious illness and how she insisted she was fine now even though there was something still missing in her eyes. That’s why Claudia had shown up, in the heat of noon; why they both sat in the middle of the skate park together. Claudia knew what it was like to be caught in a nightmare alone. 

The skater passed them by again and at the same moment Nicole shot to her feet. Her orange hair caught the glare of the sun as it flowed down her back. With her crop top and tattered shorts, she looked like an angry freckled goddess. They heard the guy’s board grind across the rail. “I’m doing the half-pipe once then I’m out of here.” Nicole readied her board on the lip of the bowl, but she waited. Only when she saw the guy circle around toward them again did she go. 

Rocketing down the steep half-pipe her hair streamed behind her like a flippant banner. She was up the other side now, above the lip, above the world; two, three, four feet of air. She raced across the pipe again and landed right where she’d begun. Claudia noticed how she glanced first at the guy. He was still on his course, head down, eyes refusing to look.

“Who cares what he thinks?”

Nicole wrung her hair. “Not me.” But her spirit was dulled. She bit her lip, then scooped up her board and ran out of the park. 

The guy landed another railslide and pushed off to continue his worn-out path. Stop it! Claudia wanted to scream at him; You think you’re above us? You think you’re any better!? She would make him crash, run out in front of him. She didn’t care if he got hurt. He circled past her and she saw his dark shoulders shaking. In the glare of the noon sun, she saw sweat streaming down his cheeks.