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West Lafayette, Indiana

SCHMIDTY’S RAMP & CAMP

---

Schmidty’s is the kind of place I felt like I should whisper about. The
address isn’t posted online anywhere, and if you search for Schmidty’s
on Google Maps, you’ll end up at a gas station in rural Ohio, in the exact
opposite direction of where you need to be. Not that Google Maps would
help you. You’d be better off getting the exact coordinates from a skater
in the know.
It was my first time going to the rollerblade haven that is Schmidty’s,
and after winding around the looping roads outside of the Purdue
University campus, I saw a sign spray-painted with “R&C” and an arrow.
Turning onto the dirt driveway, I saw a wide grassy field ahead packed full
of cars, tents, and firepits.
Ramp & Camp is exactly what it sounds like: a place where one comes
to skate ramps and camp on the property. Both ramp and camp areas
border a tranquil lake, over which geese and herons fly—even a bald
eagle every now and then. The shimmering lake is in view from the top
of every part of the ramp. It’s not uncommon for the especially talented
rollerbladers to get so much air that it looks as though they might fly over
the rails and plop right into the water.

***

I became acquainted with the ramps and my campsite before I met the
eponymous Schmidty. When I asked around for Tim Schmidt, I was told,
unhelpfully, “You’ll know him when you see him.”
But it didn’t take long to spot the tall, lanky Tim. Two braids hung
from either side of his helmet down to his waist, and he has so many laugh
lines that he appeared to be smiling even when he wasn’t. Yet from what I
could see that weekend, he was always smiling. When I spotted Tim, he
had a leaf blower backpack and was making sure the ramps were free of tree
debris. Depending on the size of your wheels, the steepness of the ramp,
and your speed and experience, even a leaf has the ability to take you down.
Each skate park has its nuances, its tricky spots, its weird little quirks
that take a while to master and only a moment to wipe you out. I eyed
the spine between the two half-pipes, which is unusual in that it’s one big
hunk of pipe instead of two smaller bars of coping back-to-back, when I
spied my friend Siobhan, a rollerblader from Columbus.
“Watch out for that spine,” she said, lifting her helmet to reveal a red
gash across her forehead. “It’s slicker than you think.” I noticed the bruise
on her eyelid, the bright purple of a grape juice stain.

***
During the competition portion of the weekend at Schmidty’s,
one competitor, Eddie Chun, fell and popped his shoulder out of socket.
It appeared to all who witnessed it—an audible ooooof rose up from the
audience when it happened—that he would be out of commission. But a
few minutes later, he popped his shoulder back into place and was able to
get in a few more runs before his heat was over.
It’s that kind of singular focus, eye-on-the-prize, do-it-anyway
attitude that made Ramp & Camp possible. Tim grew up on the property
that houses the skate park, which spans several acres and includes the
mobile home park his parents own, where he works. He has lived there his
whole life. Long before he built the skate ramps, he was just a kid running
around the field, flipping his motorcycle off a hill.

***
One of the best aggressive quad skaters in the game right now,
Bambi Bloodlust, was there, and although we all knew she would win,
the rest of us didn’t back down from the challenge. And there was
money on the line. A guy hollered that he would give fifty dollars to
whoever jumped from the handrail around the top of the ramp down
to the incline, a space about three feet high and three feet out. Beyond
that gap, the ramp itself is roughly five feet tall, so it would have been
a three-foot free-fall onto a five-foot slide, totaling an eight-foot drop.
Eight feet may not sound like a big deal, but only a cocky nonskater, an
extremely skilled skater, or a completely reckless skater would tell you it’s
an easy trick.
Because Bambi was the most skilled among us, we all looked to her,
trying not to pressure her but desperately wanting to see her do it. Not
only to nail the trick, but to stick it to this guy who offered the fifty
dollars, probably thinking none of us could actually do it. I wanted Bambi
to prove him wrong. We all did.
The competition continued on with quad skaters doing jumps, spins,
handstands, and cartwheels on the transition—gymnastic moves that the
best rollerbladers incorporate into their own runs and, by extension, are
forced to respect. As the minutes passed, the guy who had offered fifty
dollars got impatient.
“I’ll give one hundred dollars to whoever jumps off the handrail!” he
yelled.
More time passed, and just when the crowd thought no one would take
the triple-dog-darer’s challenge, Bambi climbed the wooden handrail.
She’s an impossibly small woman with a mane of dark brown hair down
to her waist like a pony. She balanced the handrail between the front
and back wheels on each of her skates, raised herself to a tentative stand,
balanced for a split second, and jumped. I let out an involuntary gasp. Her
wheels hit the incline and when I blinked, she was back up the other side
of the ramp, propelled by the speed from the jump. The crowd erupted
into screaming cheers.

***

Because male rollerbladers outnumber female and nonbinary
rollerbladers, events tend to have a cultivated machismo. Rollerbladers,
especially when there’s a competition, will egg each other on to “get
upside down!” and “the crowd’s getting bored, so if you’ve been saving
your big tricks now’s the time!” and “do a backflip!” But I learned that
those challenges are less about goading each other and more about
issuing a friendly challenge. Whether or not the blader actually heeds the
command doesn’t matter. If they don’t, cool. No one boos. No one is really
disappointed. But if they do get upside down and do a backflip, that’s
when the performances get really fun.

---

---

Author’s Note

---

In conducting interviews for this book, I sought to cast  a wide net. The
skaters  in t hese pages  are Black, white, Hispanic, Latinx,  and Asian.
They’re  many letters in the  LGBTQ+ acronym.They are hes and shes,
theydies and  gentlethems.  They’re  abled  and  disabled.  They’re  plus-size
and   straight-size.  They’re  amateur  and   pro.  They’re   in  big   cities  and
small  towns. They’re  skaters, skate makers, skate  shop  owners,  and skate
product creators. They skate private skate parks, city skate parks, and  their
own secret DIY spots. They  ride  skateboards,  roller  skates,  roller  blades,
unicycles,  and wheelchairs.  Some of  them  have  been  skating for decades
and others for  only a  year  or  two.  Some  skate  competitively,  others  are
enthusiastic   hobbyists.  They   are,  like  the  Midwest  itself,  more  diverse
than they get credit for.

                                                      ***

    Midwest  Shreds is a look at skating in a  particular  time and a particular
place. New skaters are born and  made every day, and new parks  are  being
built   every  year.  Likewise,   every  day,  someone  gives   up  skating,   and
beloved skate  spots  are  demolished  or  fall  into  disrepair.  But  overall,  I
believe  the sport and its culture are evolving in a way that can permanently
sustain its life.  Skating  isn’t going anywhere in the  Midwest,  or  anywhere
else for that matter.



                                                   *******

Columbus, Ohio

SKATE NAKED

---

                                                        ***

    Jeff   Trasin  and  Jon  Hammond,  the  owners  of  Skate Naked, had   the
vision  to  see  what the old  warehouse  could  be, an indoor  skate park  the
city  so  desperately  needed.  What was first the Buckeye Potato Chip  plant
in  the  1950s,  then   later a golf  cart  showroom  and  then  a  window   and
siding shop, was transformed by their hands.
    “When  we  first  saw  it,  it   was   empty.  Nobody   else   would’ve  looked
at this place and  thought  it  was  awesome,”  Jon  said, speaking of  his  gut
feeling that this was where they should be.
    “I  was   like,   we   can   do  this,  we  just  need   to paint   it,”  Jeff  added,
laughing, knowing there was so  much more work ahead of them than  that.
    On     the   whole,    midwesterners    are   practical   people,   dedicated  to
function   and    resourcefulness.  Aesthetics   are   secondary,  and  in  Skate
Naked’s case, they’re hardly   considered  at   all.  With  the  exception  of   a
spray-painted  mural   above  the  big  bowl,  the   park  is  gritty, both in the
literal and figurative sense. The walls are painted black, and in some places,
they’re  built  from black painted plywood.  On one particular roll-in, you’re
liable  to  get  a  splinter  if you fall. The  roof  above  both bowls  leaks,  and
you  have  to  carve  fast on your feet to avoid wiping out on a rainy day. The



sheets of  coating over the wood ramps are  often flaking, and  woe  be  unto
you if you’re  the  unlucky soul whose wheels   add  just   the   right   amount
of pressure to break through  to  the   other  side.  I’m   always  surprised  by
the creative places patrons find to make  DIY  trash   cans—behind  a  ramp,
inside a wall where a piece of plywood has come loose,  or just  the  edges of
any old  platform—and I never leave without a  deep coating of black  grime
under my fingernails.
    And I love it. There’s no place I’d rather be.

                                                      ***

    Skating  is  inherently  rebellious.  It’s  against  authority  because we  say
fuck  private property  and  skate  there  anyway.  It’s against  infrastructure
because if  you don’t build us a skate park, we’ll make our own and terrorize
the  sidewalks  in the meantime. It’s against corporate  sensibilities because
indie  brands—whether  it’s  clothing,   shoes,  or   the  wheels  themselves—
rule  the  scene. It’s against  convention and sometimes even against society
at large because even though skating has its  communities,  it is notably not
a team sport.  Skating is  my  way of rebelling  against  diet  culture,  against
#thinspiration, and  against whatever  the  latest  shame-based  weight-loss
cult  du  jour  says. It’s  the only  way I’ve found  to move  my body in  a way
that doesn’t push me somewhere I don’t need to go.
    I  don’t  know  that  I  would  have  discovered my love of  skate parks  if  I
lived anywhere outside the Midwest, and  Columbus  in  particular. You can
be  a  beginner here. Columbus is constantly reinventing itself, and over the
last few decades, it has gone from  farm town  to corporate  business  haven
to  one  of  the fastest  growing  cities  in the  country.  It’s a city  beloved  by
people  as  disparate  as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Saeed  Jones, and  the late
Aaron  Carter—none  of  whom  are  from  here  originally but  who  all have
made the city a second home.

---

---

The New Life

Because there is nothing
more beautiful than my son running
shirtless in the yard, pink chalk
streaking his chest,
wildflowers squeezed
in his sweaty palms—

And because he’s impatient for more
cherry blossoms
to rain down on his head,
he walks over to the tree,
flings his arms around it,
and shakes—

And because that doesn’t work,
he waves me over and says,
Make it rain—

And because, I explain to him,
the blossoms will only fall
when they’re ready,
a wind catches, as if it knew—

And because it’s now drizzling
ripe cherry blossoms
sideways, across my son’s face,
his father comes out the side door—

And because his father
makes me feel blossomed
and possible, I believe for a moment



this is the new life
and I can trust it not to hurt me.

---

---

Aftern Newtown

Think of the baby
C-curved
around your body

in the dark
bedroom.

His breath.
His hair.
Don’t think

of the other rooms—
clementines

rotting on the sill,
the slowly dying
marigolds.

Don’t think
of the boy,

once a baby,
walking into a room
full of children.

See only this:
the baby’s hands

crisscrossed
in front of his eyes,
bones hollow



as a bird’s,
little fists jerking

on instinct.
Love him.
It’s dangerous

to be a baby, a child
in this world.

Glory
to the goddamn
peach fuzz on his head.

---

---

Shedding

Today I stood under the kitchen
archway and stepped into
my new body. Pasta was on the stove,
a cold Tupperware of string beans
on the counter. But I knew.
I knew I would never be the same—
the way I’m certain the magnolia
down the block has lost
all its petals. I haven’t checked
in days, but I’m convinced
tomorrow when I take my son
to the bus stop, I’ll see them
splashed on the sidewalk.
What I’m trying to say is
sometimes your old skin
falls breathlessly off your body
in late April, as you slice
a cucumber into half moons
for your child,
and you just stand there
and let it.

---

---

Content Warning: infant death

Milk

We sit on the bed.
She lifts her shirt,
skin ashen and damp,
stomach concave.
She hasn’t eaten in days.
But there’s milk.
She squeezes it out
like I showed her
when her daughter was alive.
Fat, glistening drops.
Am I doing it right? she asks.
If milk is coming out,
you’re doing it right.
It’s what I said
when her daughter was here,
her warm, sleepy cheek
against her mother’s breasts
while we hand-
expressed
milk
into her tiny mouth.
As I’m leaving,
she fingers the red threads
of an Elmo doll
lying on the coffee table
among baby pictures
and glasses of water.
I tell her I remember
that her daughter loved Elmo.
She asks if I would like a sandwich.
She says, We have so much food.

---

---

Solstice

My mother was born
on the first day of summer, 1948.
Her mother labored alone.
Ivy flared against the window
shot through with lemon light.
That night, the moon was full
as it is tonight. In the waiting room,
her father sat in his gray clothes
holding his son, Raphael,
the angel. When the moon
dropped, the nurse let them in.
My mother’s eyes were root black,
still adjusting to the light.
Raphael named her Black-Eyed Susan.
This was the beginning. Later,
the steady unraveling of a family—
the way a girl’s hair unbraids in her sleep,
end of summer, her pillow damp.
Tonight I’m not interested
in that story. My hair is down.
Summer’s just begun. I want
only this: to see my mother born.

---

---

Cosmopolitan Skylines

There’s something about a shot of Jose Cuervo
that says you’re a city girl now, sophisticated,
lime smile with salt on your tongue. Not

a redneck with a farmer’s tan from,
wouldn’t you know it, farming, long jeans
covering the fire ant bites on your calves.

Your clothes are clean and starched,
fitted to your body,
no illustrated marlin

leaping from the Atlantic
imprinted on threadbare fabric
hanging from your shoulders.

You ran a toothpick under your short nails,
dug out lines of dirt, plucked splinters
and eyebrows alike.

Scrubbed the earth from your knuckles,
the leaves from your hair, the smell of moss
flushed from your skin.



A cigarette in your left hand,
a martini in your right—
even though you hate olives

—so metropolitan. As long
as you don’t let slip out a y’all,
how would anyone know

you’re daydreaming about log cabins
so deep in the woods
the light pollution can’t reach?

All those adolescent years wishing
you’d make it out of the country,
and now all you want

is to return.
This time on your own terms.
This time you won’t be chased

down your street by your neighbors
for being the wrong race, the wrong sexuality,
the wrong kind of not-girl, pick one—

—these lies you tell yourself, painting
over years of terror and a revolver
tucked in your waistband for protection



with a fresh coat of foundation,
concealer, staining your lips
shiny and pink. A city girl

has no need for pocketknives
and snake bite kits. You can be
out here, and no one cares. But god,

if only you could get back to those trees,
clear, cold rivers with muddy banks,
night birds piercing through your walls.

---

---

Final Rites

my faith evaporated with the steam rising out
from the lake at dawn when I touched the shell
of my mother and there was nothing left of her.
That morning, I learned prayers don’t go past
the ceiling: they fall back into the maggots

suffocating in the coffin beside my mother.
wood, flesh, fly husks, her cotton floral
dress churns back into the earth, and
bubbles up as grass, wildflowers,
nitrogen in the soil singing rebirth

until the sun engorges herself and
swallows our little blue home,
until we join the chorus of stars
becoming and unbecoming,
our traumas compressed

so deep down anyone
could mistake us
for black holes
who were
never
here
at all.

---

---

You Cannot Serve God and Mammon

Mammon being the things of this world, the things
that hold you back from God’s will
to become a godly preacher’s wife
and produce many zealous, Christian soldiers.

(a girl you like tries to give you her number
and you run away, terrified
of your own wild animal desire)

You spend three years at the Bible college
in your church’s back lot, striving
for a more perfect understanding, praying
for the strength to resist all temptation.

(you cannot let anyone know
you have been dreaming of your mouth
on another woman’s soft belly)

In Japan you help a missionary family
with their struggling church.
The wife tells you God only called her
to marry a man, and it is enough.

(she never smiles when she laughs,
and her husband confesses on the train to Nagoya
he has never been more depressed)



You see how powerless your God is
in this country where no one gives a fuck about
White American Jesus. The hellfire street
sermons can’t get a rise out of stoic passerby.

(secretly you pray the Buddhists are right
and that you will be reborn
as anything besides a Baptist)

A girl your age comes to church
for the free English lessons
and leans against your shoulder
while playing clips on her flip phone.

(she stops by on her way to the summer festival
while you’re stuck inside folding gospel tracts
just to show you her pink and yellow yukata)

You go back to the States with
a thousand paper cranes she made for you,
her fingers folding hard creases in flower prints,
gold and silver foils, candy wrappers,

(flattening the tiny birds with her palms,
gently pulling their wings with her thumbs
and breathing life into their hollow bodies.)

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