Free Day One by Bill Cameron

the guys know me, nod when I show up to stand at the fence and watch the action. Some only offer the barest acknowledgment, letting me know we got nothing in common, but we got no beef either.
    There’s not a whole lot of action when I arrive this morning. A dozen guys, a few girls, standing board-ready at the top of the banks or staring through the chain-link fence on the north side of park. Only a few are skating. I take up a spot behind the street-side bank and watch the skaters work their lines. My usual habit. After a few minutes a fellow I know skates up the ramp and skids to a stop, stares down at me. He’s tall and thin, buzzed hair under an orange knit skullcap. No clue if he’s fifteen or twenty-five, if he has a job or a home or a just cardboard box to sleep in. But he’s always here and he talks to me. Goes by Push.
    “You’re looking more raggedy than usual, old man.” He taps his neck with the first two fingers of his right hand. His knuckles are tattooed with little red stars.
    “Your mother name you Push, or is that what she wants to do when she runs into you on a busy street corner?”
    “I hatched from an egg, man.” He grins and kicks off the bank, rides across to the big hip opposite and performs a perfect, unconscious ollie, then swerves back among other skaters and rejoins me. Can’t stand still for long.
    “So what’s the word?”
    “No word. Just need a laugh and thought I’d come watch you amateurs fall on your asses for a while.”
    “If you weren’t such a pussy, I’d let you give my board a try. But I hate to see someone’s granny cry.”
    I chuckle and he starts to kick off again. “Hey, you seen Eager Gillespie lately?”
    Push’s smirk is made sinister by a pattern of black filigree tattooed around his eyes and across his cheekbones. “He steal your social security check?”
    “Something like that.”
    He tugs at his cap, thinks for a moment. “Ain’t seen Eager in I don’t know how long. I heard he moved.”
    “He’s back. You know anyone he hangs out with, maybe someone who knows where he’s staying?”
    “You should ask Jase.”
    “Jase Bronstein? Is he here?”
    Push laughs now, picking up on my obvious interest. He points toward the fence opening where a clump of skaters are smoking and jawing. Among them I see Jase’s beefy figure. “Maybe you catch him, he don’t see you coming first.” Then he rolls off.
    I move along the back of the bank, head down. Push skates over to a group sitting at the top of the bridge wall bank. After a moment they all hop onto their boards and skate in different directions. I don’t know why he’s giving me cover. Maybe he likes the fact I’m an old guy who doesn’t mind being fucked with. I round the bridgesupport at the northeast corner of the park, my footsteps masked by the skirr of wheels echoing under the bridge. Jase stands with his back to me, hands waving as he talks to some other kids. His plaid boxers bulge with ass between his sagging pants and a black Raider’s jacket at least one size too small. I hunch my shoulders and move along like I have no interest in anything, just a fellow walking from here to there, maybe a guy heading to work at Pacific Fruit the next block up. No one pays me any mind until I’m standing behind the cluster of boys.
    “Jason.” He turns his head my way, but doesn’t respond. Then his eyes pop. He starts to back away and I raise my hands, palms out. “No one is with me, no cops, nothing. No one knows I’m even here.”
    “Fuck off.”
    “Not until we have a chat.”
    His friends have already scattered. He turns, ready to bolt, then sees Push at the top of the bank above us. Push stands with his arms folded across his chest, chin down. He shakes his head and Jase surrenders. He drops his board. It rolls to a forlorn stop against the park wall. “What do you want?” Over Jase’s shoulder, I see Eager’s tag on the wall, an EG® the size of my palm, faded and partly obscured