The Less Miserables Land a Gap (3)

(Cont.)

 

Day Three

Nova stood at the edge of the flatground area, board under her arm, watching Tanner set up something he was calling "The Gauntlet."

Four cracks in a row, each one a little wider than the last. The first was barely visible—just a dark line in the asphalt. The last was three inches wide, tar bubbling up from the heat, a gap that looked bigger than it was.

"Okay, okay, so—" Tanner was pacing, explaining the rules to a kid Nova hadn't seen before. Younger than all of them, baby-faced, braces, riding a board way too big for him. "You gotta clear all four. No stepping off. Clean. If you bail even once, you start over from the beginning."

"I've been trying for an hour," the kid—Quinn, Tanner had called him—said. "This is impossible."

"It's not impossible. Hector did it. Garrett did it. Even Zara did it and she was hung over."

"I wasn't hung over." Zara was sitting on the bowl's coping, Slurpee in hand, watching. "I was tired. There's a difference."

"Whatever. Point is, it's possible. You just gotta commit."

Nova watched Quinn try. He made it over the first crack, the second, wobbled on the third, bailed on the fourth. His board shot out and he caught himself on his hands, new scrapes joining old ones.

"You're leaning back," Hector said. He was sitting in the shade of the fence, eating a gas station hot dog that looked like it had been rotating for days. "On the fourth one. You get scared and you lean back."

"I'm not scared."

"Then stop leaning back."

Quinn tried again. Same result. And again. And again.

Garrett pulled up in his burgundy Civic, bass thumping. He got out with a Gatorade in each hand, tossed one to Hector. "What's the score?"

"Quinn's 0 for twenty-something. Nova hasn't tried yet."

Nova's stomach tightened. She'd been hoping they wouldn't notice her, hoping she could just watch, figure out the lines, try when no one was looking.

"You should go," Zara said. "Get it over with."

"I've only been skating for three weeks."

"So? Quinn's been skating six months and he can't do it either." Zara slurped her drink. "At least you've got an excuse."

Tanner was already gesturing her over. "Come on, come on. New blood. Let's see what you got."

She walked to the starting line. The first crack looked small from here. The fourth looked like a canyon.

"Same rules," Tanner said. "All four. Clean. No stepping off."

"What do I get if I make it?"

Tanner grinned. "You're in."

"In what?"

"You'll see."

She set her board down. Positioned her feet. The concrete was hot through her shoes, the sun directly overhead, beating down on the back of her neck. She could feel everyone watching—Hector in the shade, Zara on the coping, Garrett by his car, Tanner bouncing on his heels, Quinn nursing his scraped palms.

She pushed off. First crack approaching. Don't think. Just pop.

Pop. Land. Clean.

Second crack. Wider. She was building speed now, the new wheels humming on the rough asphalt.

Pop. Land. Wobble—but she held it.

Third crack. The tar was soft from the heat, the edges crumbling. She crouched deeper than she needed to, put too much into the pop—

Landed it. Barely. Her back wheels caught the far edge and she had to throw her arms out to balance, but she stayed on.

Fourth crack. The canyon. Three inches wide, gaping in front of her.

The burnout's voice in her head: Girls don't got the leg strength.

Hector's voice: Don't think. Just pop.

She didn't think. She popped.

For a moment she was in the air, longer than any ollie before, the board beneath her feet, the crack passing below, the sky bright and white and endless above—

She landed. Hard. Her knees buckled and she almost went down but she didn't, she stayed on, she rolled away clean, and behind her she heard Tanner scream like she'd just won the lottery.

"YES! Oh s***! Did you see that?"

She turned around. They were all staring at her—Quinn with his mouth open, Garrett nodding slowly, Hector with something like a smile, Zara with her Slurpee raised in a mock toast.

"Not bad," Zara said. "Not bad at all."

Nova kicked her board up into her hands, breathing hard. Her heart was slamming against her ribs. Her legs were shaking. But she'd done it. Four cracks. Clean.

"Okay." Tanner was walking toward her, hand extended for a high-five she didn't quite know how to accept. "You're in."

"In what?"

"The Less Miserables." He said it like she should know. "That's us. It's a thing."

"I didn't come up with it," Garrett said. "I just read a—never mind. It's what we call ourselves."

"Less Miserables," Nova repeated. "Like the musical?"

"Yeah, but less." Zara was walking over now, that almost-smile on her face again. "Not not-miserable. Just less than completely f***ed. That's the vibe."

Nova looked at them—Tanner with his chipped tooth and too-big jersey, Garrett with his clean sneakers and worried expression, Zara with her safety-pin piercing and hard eyes, Hector quiet beside his board, Quinn still staring like he'd witnessed something impossible. Beyond them, the bowl with its rusted coping. The snake run choked with weeds. The DIY ramp warped from rain. The Quik-Mart with its broken sign. The dead factory with its broken windows. The whole broken beautiful place.

"Less Miserables," she said again.

"Less Miserables," Zara confirmed. "Welcome to the crew."

---

That night, Nova sat on her bed with her sketchbook open. She'd drawn all of them—rough sketches, barely more than shapes, but she'd add details later. Tanner's too-big jersey. Garrett's Half Cabs. Zara's beanie. Hector's backwards cap. Quinn's braces.

At the bottom of the page, she wrote:

May 25, 1995

Cleared all four cracks. Clean.

I'm in.

Tomorrow: learn kickflips?

She looked at the drawing. Five shapes that would become five people. Six, if she added herself. She picked up her pencil, drew a sixth figure at the edge of the group—smaller, glasses, board under her arm.

It didn't feel real yet. Being part of something. Having a crew, a place to go, people who expected her to show up. For three weeks she'd been a ghost at that park, failing alone, invisible except when someone wanted to tell her she didn't belong.

Now she had a name to write down. A group to draw. A feeling in her legs that hadn't been there before.

She wrote the name at the bottom of the page, testing how it looked.

The Less Miserables.

It felt like something. Like a door opening wider. Like a house she was just starting to learn her way around.

She closed the sketchbook, set it on her nightstand, and turned off the lamp. The water stain on her ceiling was dark now, just a shadow. She'd never noticed it shaped like a skateboard before, but now she couldn't unsee it.

Tomorrow she'd go back. She'd try something harder. She'd fall and fall and fall until she didn't.

That was how it worked. Repetitions. Stacking them up. Believing you could before you actually did.

The burnout had said she'd quit. Given her a month.

She wasn't going to quit.

She fell asleep thinking about kickflips, her hands still raw, her legs still sore, her heart still beating faster than it should have been for someone lying still in the dark.

---

End.