Pipe dreams

Rent-a-cop runs but has all the odds against him as W pushes off for extra speed, then pops his tail and plants his skateboard on the handrail. Backside smithgrind, slightly tweaked. Rent-a-cop sees a combination of private and public transgressions. W thanks his predecessors for sanding off the skatestoppers. As the board slides, the trucks grind and sends up a beat. Too bad there’s no fisheye to capture this. Sponsors pay good money for close encounters.

Curve corner, clear gap and he’s back on track. Some claimed that his reputation as a skateboarder would flip into a disadvantage in the field. But group dynamics are tricky to ride. You need image of self, or at least a cloke.

Youth roams storefronts like creatures of circumstance. To keep them from gathering and doing their dance of boredom, curfews are set in place and little square cages mounted to the walls, carrying mechanical mosquito’s tuned to noise levels and programmed to emit a nerve-cringing twitter somehow attuned to the frequency of the teenage brain. So they communicate with clothing styles and instant text. Reading inner city culture is like watching a fashion-fueled version of Lord of the Flies. A generation raised by peers not parents. Self-sufficient. Self-organized. Self-medicated.

The scene is one of broken breezer bottles and prefab joints. Scooters vibrate. Nikes flash in unison as they practise dance moves that look like Riverdance. They have somehow canceled out all of societies calls for order. No high school or bootcamp. No support system but a handful of Ritalin, which they crush and snort through gutted bic ballpens. W observes as the police arrives and upload their ID’s. The youth grind their teeth at the officers citing fines. W pulls out his cell and calls the office.