Can It All Be So Simple

The Method. Staten Island (1995).

1996 exoticness.

Five teenage boys gathered for afternoon worship along the curb in the parking lot behind the local Gas ‘N Go. They had their skateboards and some newly purchased snacks and beverages. Bobby brought his boom box and had the soundtrack to their skate session queued. This was their church.

It was closing in on four o’clock, and they calculated another couple hours of late summer daylight. “A yo, where’s Mike?” one of the teens, Rick, asked the group. A couple guys shrugged, not sure where Mike was and not worried about it. Nate checked his G-Shock. “For living so close, he shouldn’t be this late.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Rick picked his skateboard up off the ground and ran one end of it along the curb in front of him. “He wanted us to meet here because he loves this stupid little curb, and he’s got all the damn wax, too.”

“Looks like you won’t be hitting those backside noseslides ’til Mike gets here,” Jack, another skater friend, said, giving Rick a rough smack on his butt as he skated by him. Frustrated by the wax-free situation and his friend mocking him, Rick took a wild swing at Jack and missed him by a half mile. Everyone laughed, even Rick.

“That’s not all I’ve got,” Rick tried to sound convincing, but his friends knew better.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you, Rick,” Nate reassured his friend. “It’s just that we’ve only ever seen you bust that one trick out, man. You’re a one trick-”

“There he is,” another shrug boy, Xander, shouted, interrupting Nate and saving Rick from unwanted attention. Xander was pointing across the street at a subdivision of homes. Someone was coming down one of the inlet streets. It was Mike, riding his skateboard, frantically pushing. He flew along Maplewood Street towards the Gas ‘N Go, yelling incoherently, wearing a look of true terror on his face.

“He’s in a hurry,” Xander noticed the effort Mike was giving and noted the obvious.

“Good,” Rick said without looking. He was thinking about which line of tricks he would like to pull off first, reevaluating whether or not he wanted to include a noseslide, but he gave Mike his full attention when the group began laughing hysterically.

“Oh shit,” Jack yelled loud enough that Mike later claimed he’d heard him from across the street, and it made him freak out more. The boys saw what had Jack riled up. Three dogs, two German Shepherds and a Dachshund trailing a good fifteen yards behind them, were chasing Mike. The boys were cracking up, cackling and yelling at Mike. He reached the entrance to the subdivision and didn’t even attempt to slow down. He blew right through, missing certain death by mere feet as a car zoomed by him.

A “vicious” Dachshund brought to you by Dog-Learn.com

The dogs, running off a strong desire to bite Mike’s ass, followed him through the intersection without hesitating. They came out the other side unharmed, but that much couldn’t be said about the driver of a Honda hatchback who swerved to miss the lagging Dachshund and hit a light pole. This sent the boys into a frenzy of laughs and awe-inspired cursing.

“No way, man!” Jack had both his hands pressed against his head, stunned at what he’d witnessed. Nate and Xander were on the ground laughing, Bobby was trying to “C Walk” while “Who Am I (What’s My Name?)” thumped from his boom box, as if the spirit of Snoop Dogg could be called upon to intervene in this rabid dog situation.

Didn’t work.

Mike ollied onto the sidewalk from the street, popped his board up into his hands so he could run across the grass into the Gas ‘N Go parking lot, and nimbly jumped back onto his skateboard as soon as he hit the asphalt.

“Mike’s headed this way,” again, Xander with the obvious. The guys were gearing up to give Mike high fives for evading a brutal death, but Mike shot past them and straight for the parking lot’s exit onto First Avenue. That’s when the rest of the guys realized they were now in danger. “So are those damn dogs!” Rick yelled.

Five screeching teenage boys sprinted around the back of Gas ‘N Go towards the gas pumps and building entrance. Rick, Bobby, and Jack ran inside the store, closing the door behind them just as one of the German Shepherds pressed its snarling jowls against the glass.

The other German Shepherd chased after Nate and Xander, across First, into the parking lot of Flap Jackie’s Super-Mart. The two split up once they’d skated halfway across the lot, but Xander thought that if he stopped skating and hid behind a car, the dog would keep running after Nate.

Nope.

The German Shepherd saw Xander skid to a stop and slip between a truck and an SUV. It came around the truck’s bumper in time to catch Xander’s left foot. He’d nearly made it under the SUV before the dog had a mouthful of his new Etnies, gripping the shoe’s heel. Xander was on his belly, letting off a barrage of “fucks”, blindly kicking at the German Shepherd’s snout.

Nate heard Xander, but figured it was best for “authorities” to handle the situation. He skated right into the supermarket, yelling for someone to call 9–1–1. “My friend is being mauled to death outside!”

Back at the Gas ‘N Go, Rick, Bobby, and Jack stood near the door and watched the German Shepherd bark at them.

“That dog wants to fuck us up,” Jack said as Rick grabbed a Slim Jim off a rack near the cash register. He then pushed the door open, hitting the dog, and stunning it for a second. With those few seconds, Rick flung the Slim Jim into the parking lot. “Step into that shit,” he yelled at the dog as it ran after the treat.

“Now’s our chance!” Rick told his friends as he jumped onto his skateboard and skated away from the Gas ‘N Go. Bobby and Nate followed him out to the street.

As they kick/pushed along First Avenue, they saw Mike, still on his skateboard with the Dachshund chasing him down the block. A police car was hauling ass up the avenue, passing them on its way to Flap Jackie’s, to save Xander and his Etnies.

“Friendly and local, Flap Jackies!”