Somehow I had made my way to the fourth floor of a library. It was dark and seemingly forgotten. All of the books were old and worn out and everything was dusty. I grabbed a book that simply said “Thurman” on it. It was a book about skateboarding, about a culture of people that lived by merely having fun on a skateboard. I had heard things about them but didn’t know if they really existed. I then heard gunshots and yelling outside on the street, and looked out of the foggy window to see armed military guys running down the sidewalk, questioning everyone, obviously looking for someone. Suddenly a young girl came around the corner of a bookshelf, stopped, and while pointing at me said, “Hey, you’re one of them.” I said, “Who?” She said, “A Thurman, you’re a Thurman!” and ran away yelling that she had “found one.” I didn’t know what to make of it, of what was going on, until the young girls voice came back saying, “He’s over here, I’m sure he’s a Thurman.” I made a run for the door on the opposite side of the room. There were five military men chasing after me on the lead of the little girl, all were in black and had M16’s. Lunging for the door, I tripped and fell. Gunshots shouted obscenities as their bullets sprayed the wall and floor around me. I thought about surrendering when a voice came from the vent on the floor behind a bookshelf - “Mr. Lewis, down here”. I quickly slid into the vent and followed the voice through the tunnel down and around what seemed like 6 flights of stairs. I came out of the vents into a warehouse. It was an underground skatepark. I turned from looking at the ramps and rails and ledges and noticed I was at the front of a meeting with hundreds of skaters. “What’s the news, Mr. Lewis?” someone asked. I didn’t know what he meant until I said, “They’ve caught up to us, they’re after our souls. But we won’t give in. We’ll fight. With guns and fists and skateboards. We are Thurman Lewis.”
Varial Heelflip! Sidewalk gap! HCMC, MPLS! Dan Jackson! (photo Joe Blum)