night skating

I'm working late. I'm always working late these days. A lot of the time I am here alone. South Lake Union, in addition to having an attitude problem, is also very quiet at night. No one lives around here, so it feels rather like a ghost town after 7pm.

One evening last week, on a particularly dark evening, I had company. It was around 10pm, and the XXX video store across the street was not even getting much traffic. Out of my peripheral vision though, I kept seeing movement on the other side of the street. Fast moving shapes, going out of my view before I could get a good look. I sat up and stared out until I saw what was going on. There were two guys, in white t-shirts and skinny jeans, taking turns skateboarding. They would walk about 75 yards up the street. No cars were parked in the parking lane, which allowed them to take off sprinting as fast as they could, skateboard in hand, in the street. They would drop their boards onto the road, jump onto them with one foot and continue to build speed with long pushes using their other foot. Taking advantage of the smooth asphalt, they would gather tremendous speed and hop up the curb onto the sidewalk. At the end of the sidewalk, they had discovered a little spot where the pavement was sloped up to meet a high curb, which made a slight ramp. Each of them would go shooting off the ramp and catch about 4' of air under their boards and land with a crash into the cross street.

A third friend, which I could only see at first because of the little light on his video camera, was taking footage of his buddies as they jumped, from a low angle that probably made them look higher. One after the other, they repeated this for almost an hour. I had a hard time focusing on my work. Each time they landed in the street and fell to a stop, I cringed and readied myself to call 911 when I saw white bones reflecting in the light of the camera. It was incredible. I think these are the same dudes that I have seen eating lunch outside of an old RV in a nearby parking lot, which they presumably live in. They also have been seen riding little BMX bikes around in a pack.

After they wore themselves out, they sat on a wheelstop next to their ramp and had a smoke. It was all I could do to not run out, congratulate them on living epic lives and ask for the YouTube address so I could see their videos. I didn't want to ruin their moment though, so I stayed inside and adjusted some hatch patterns. I hope they come back again soon.