Leland Quarterly | Winter 2021
Crunch
Peter Caroline
I pushed uphill after the dark shape of the neighborhood kids. I remember trying to scooter uphill; it’s like running, but with one leg. I stamped furiously at the road, with a sharp flick of the sole behind me and fighting gravity, my purple Razor scooter crawled up. I was the only kid who didn’t have a bike, so I was perpetually at the end of the pack, sometimes minutes behind. But I didn’t mind, the stilted bursts of movement which pushed me over asphalt weathered a divot in my sneakers and a blister on my toe that hurt like a friend socking you in the arm. Sometimes I’d detour, taking the long way to jump over curbs and picnic table seats. Best of all was going downhill. Already out of sight of my whooping and noisy friends, with worn wheels and shit brakes, I’d fall to the earth cutting the wind. Steering then was useless, so I often just closed my eyes until I felt the ground beneath me even out and I had to push again. Every afternoon, we rolled up the hill to the CVS pharmacy at the top. Our mecca squatted on the outskirts of The Hills’ dingy apartments and we loitered religiously, sometimes muscling a football through the air or just sitting on the curb in sweaty silence. Now and then someone would have money. Kids our age didn’t have jobs, and parents in The Hills were the type to think two meals a day and a roof to worry under were allowance enough. But we had good eyes and fast hands. Though pilfered change only bought so much. My dad was never home, so on rainy days we sat on the floor around the television pretending it made the day go by faster. We saw this one movie, Dead Presidents, where a bunch of people tried robbing an armored truck. They hid in the shadows of a dark street wearing face paint and dark clothes, then ambushed the police. Everyone died or went to jail at the
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