The Less Miserables Lose the Park (2)

That night, Dusty made a list.

He sat at his desk, the same desk where he'd made lists for the ramp project and Haley's lunches and all the other things he'd learned to organize instead of forget. The surface was cluttered with papers—homework he hadn't finished, bills his mom had asked him to sort, a permission slip for one of Haley's field trips that needed a signature. He pushed it all aside and pulled out a fresh sheet.

At the top of the page, he wrote:

Things I can't control:
- Construction schedule
- Weather
- Water damage
- City budget
- Other people's choices
- How long this takes

Below it:

Things I can control:
- Whether I show up
- Whether I organize meetups
- How I respond to setbacks
- Whether the crew stays connected
- My own attitude

He looked at the two lists. The first one was longer, full of frustrations and unfairness and things that made him want to scream. The second one was shorter, but it was the only one that mattered. Because those were the things he could actually do something about.

He pulled out another piece of paper. Started writing:

Weekly meetup schedule:
Monday - Library parking lot (Nova's spot)
Wednesday - Drainage ditch (Zara/Hector)
Friday - Loading docks (Tanner)
Saturday - Rotating location

Below it:

Monthly events:
- Video night at someone's house (411VM, Thrasher tapes)
- Group trip to Winston-Salem park
- Cookout when weather's good

It wasn't Deadwood. Nothing would be Deadwood until Deadwood came back. But it was something. A structure. A way to keep people connected even when the thing that had connected them was behind a chain-link fence.

He spent an hour on the phone that night, calling everyone, explaining the plan. The cord stretched across the kitchen, and Haley watched from the couch with curious eyes, not quite understanding what her brother was doing but sensing it was important.

Most of them sounded relieved—they'd been drifting, feeling the same isolation Dusty had felt, not knowing how to fix it.

"Monday at the library," he told Nova.

"I'll be there," she said. "I've been skating alone too much. It's weird."

"Wednesday at the ditch," he told Zara.

"Finally," she said. "I've been skating alone like a loser. Hector too, but he doesn't count because he never talks anyway."

"Friday at the docks," he told Tanner.

"Hell yeah," Tanner said, his voice crackling over the line. "I've been working on something. This gap between the platforms—you're going to want to see it. I almost died twice."

"Please don't die."

"No promises."

By the time he hung up the last call, it was almost midnight. His mom had come home an hour ago, fallen asleep on the couch, her work shoes still on. Dusty had covered her with a blanket and turned off the TV. He was exhausted.

But something had shifted—the weight on his chest had lifted slightly, replaced by something that felt almost like purpose.

He couldn't control when the park opened. But he could control whether the crew fell apart while they waited.

That was enough.

---

The weekly meetups became a ritual.

Monday at the library was mellow—flat ground practice, trick tips, the kind of low-key session that let people ease into the week. The concrete behind the building wasn't perfect—it had cracks, and the surface was rougher than Deadwood's had been, small pebbles that liked to catch in your wheels—but it was theirs. The librarians knew them by now, waved through the windows sometimes, didn't complain as long as they stayed behind the building and kept the noise down.

Nova brought her sketchbook and drew diagrams of tricks people were working on, the same way she'd done at Deadwood. Quinn kept his practice notebook open, tracking attempts like Hector had taught him. The routine felt familiar even in the unfamiliar space.

"This feels weird," Quinn admitted one Monday, after landing his cleanest kickflip ever on the library concrete. "Like, good weird. But weird."

"What kind of weird?" Nova asked.

"Like... we're still us. Even without the park." He struggled to articulate it, his words coming slowly. "I thought everything would fall apart. But it didn't. We're still doing this. We're still showing up."

Dusty listened from a few feet away, where he was waxing a ledge they'd discovered along the building's side. Quinn was right. They were still them. The location had changed, but something essential hadn't.

Wednesday at the ditch was more intense. The makeshift half-pipe was rough and dangerous, full of cracks and debris that made every run an adventure. Someone had built it years ago—no one knew who—and left it to decay in the drainage channel where the city never looked. Water collected at the bottom after rain, and the transitions were uneven, and the whole thing felt like it might collapse at any moment.

But it was also exhilarating—the kind of skating that demanded focus, that left no room for anything except the moment. Zara thrived there, her aggressive style perfectly suited to the unpredictable surface. Hector used it to practice things he'd never try at a real park, because if he failed here, at least he'd learned something about his limits.

"This is terrifying," Garrett said after his first run, his voice shaky but his face split by a grin. "I love it. Why do I love it?"

"Because it's real," Zara said. "No safety net. No perfect concrete. Just you and the ditch."

Friday at the docks was pure chaos. Tanner had discovered a gap between two loading platforms that was exactly the right width for skating—about five feet across, with a six-foot drop to the concrete below. He'd been building increasingly elaborate lines around it, using the platforms as transitions, the gap as a centerpiece.

The security guards had chased them off twice, which only made it more exciting.

There was a rhythm to it now. A guard would spot them, start walking over with that particular stride that meant business, and someone would yell "SCATTER!" They'd grab their boards and run in different directions—Tanner toward the trees, Zara toward the fence, everyone else wherever they could fit—regrouping ten minutes later at the designated meeting spot behind the Chinese restaurant, breathless and laughing and already planning the next approach.

"This is definitely illegal," Garrett said one Friday, crouched behind the dumpster with the others.

"Probably," Dusty agreed.

"I don't care. This is the most fun I've had in weeks."

It felt like being outlaws. Like the skating mattered more because someone was trying to stop them.

Saturday was for exploring. They'd pile into Garrett's dad's car—borrowed, with permission now, after Garrett had finally gotten his license—and drive to other parks, other spots, other cities. The drives themselves became part of the ritual: windows down, music loud, the highway stretching out in front of them like a promise.

Winston-Salem had a real skate park, maintained and everything, with smooth concrete and proper lighting and no chain-link fences or construction signs. It was strange, skating somewhere official, somewhere sanctioned. They felt like tourists in their own hobby.

Raleigh had street spots that made Deadwood look tame—banks and ledges and gaps that seemed designed for skating, even though they'd been designed for something else entirely. The downtown area was a playground if you knew where to look, and Garrett somehow always knew where to look. He'd mapped the spots on a piece of paper, keeping notes like a general planning a campaign.

Once, they drove all the way to Charlotte just to session a famous handrail they'd seen in a video. It took four hours each way, and they only got to skate for two hours before security ran them off, but it was worth it. Tanner almost landed a fifty-fifty that would have been legendary. Almost.

"We're building a map," Nova said one Saturday, spreading out her drawings on the hood of Garrett's dad's car. She'd sketched every spot they'd visited—the library, the ditch, the docks, the parks in other cities. "A map of everywhere we've been."

"That's actually cool," Quinn said, leaning in to look. "Like a treasure map. But for skating."

"More like a memory map. So we don't forget."

Dusty looked at the drawings—the accumulated record of three months without Deadwood—and realized they'd created something new. Not a replacement for what they'd lost, but an addition. An expansion. The crew's territory had grown because they'd been forced to grow with it.

"I've never been to Charlotte before," Haley said one Saturday, when Dusty had to bring her along because his mom was working a double. She sat in the backseat between Wesley and Zara, watching the highway roll by with wide eyes, the farms and trees giving way to suburbs giving way to city.

"First time for everything," Dusty said.

He'd worried about bringing her—she wasn't a skater, didn't fit the crew dynamic, might feel left out or bored. But the others had welcomed her without question. Nova taught her how to draw a kickflip diagram. Tanner let her pick the radio station, even when she picked pop stations that made everyone groan. Even Zara, who didn't like anyone, had shown her how to stand on a skateboard without falling off.

"Your sister's cool," Zara told Dusty later, while Haley was attempting to roll in a straight line on borrowed equipment. "Don't tell her I said that."

"I won't."

"And don't make it weird."

"I won't."

But he was smiling. They both were.

---

The construction delays kept coming.

April turned to May. The one-month estimate became two, then three. The foundation work was finished, but now there were permitting issues—something about inspections and sign-offs and bureaucratic tangles that nobody fully understood. Then supply chain problems—the coping they'd ordered was back-ordered, wouldn't arrive for three more weeks. Then a dispute with the contractor that resulted in a complete work stoppage for almost a week.

Each delay felt like a punch to the gut. Dusty would hear the news—from Vernon, or from Officer Daniels, or from whoever had the latest update—and feel the frustration rise up like bile in his throat.

But he'd learned something over those weeks. The frustration was real, but it wasn't useful. It didn't change anything, didn't speed up the construction, didn't solve the permitting issues. All it did was make him miserable.

So he started practicing something different. When the bad news came, he'd let himself feel it—really feel it, not push it down or pretend it wasn't there. The anger, the disappointment, the unfairness of it all. He'd give himself five minutes to wallow in it.

And then he'd ask himself: What can I actually do about this?

Usually the answer was nothing. And that was okay. Because nothing was a valid response to things you couldn't control.

What he could do was show up for the crew. Keep organizing meetups. Make sure nobody drifted too far away. Those were the things within his power, and he poured his energy into them instead of into anger.

"You're different," Zara observed one Wednesday, after a session at the ditch. They were sitting on the bank, catching their breath, the summer heat pressing down on them like a weight. "Calmer or something."

"I'm still stressed," Dusty admitted. "But I'm stressed about different things."

"Like what?"

"Like whether you're going to land that frontside air before you break your neck."

"I'm not going to break my neck."

"You almost broke your neck twice today."

"Almost doesn't count." But she was smiling. "Seriously though. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it. You're easier to be around."

Dusty thought about Wesley's words. About accepting what you couldn't change and having the courage to change what you could. About focusing on the right things.

"I'm trying," he said.

"That's all any of us can do."

 

Next Part:
The Less Miserables Lose the Park (3) | ABCtales