“I don’t know” he would answer with an amused smirk, “What are you doing on the ground?” He had become the Cheshire Cat with an XL t-shirt and rosary necklaces. I went back to the picnic tables to get a hot dog. Geoff and Liz were enjoying some fresh carne tacos. They were chatting with Brian about using Andy’s new truck to go on some kind of camping trip, and I talked with Matt about finding an artist for the Phish article he wants to write. In the midst of conversation, we began to hear strange muffled shouts over the grinding dubstep emanating from the back. Was it part of the music? Maybe. No, wait, there was too much inconsistency. “Does someone have a microphone back there?” Liz asked. We went inside to find almost everybody (mostly the females) standing at the bottom of the deck and looking up at the grind box. Matt, Russell, Birthday-Boy Carlson and some guy I didn’t know were all standing on the top deck, shirtless and sweating buckets.
Obviously an impromptu blade contest had started and all the young girls had come in to giggle and stare at the shirtless older guys. It turned out the voice on the microphone was Louie. Doing his best Mark Shays impression, he ohhhhhhhed over the crowd, shouting trick names and 3-2-1 countdowns. Suddenly, there was a commotion at the door and I
heard someone falling over. It was Julian, who had seen the ‘contest’ starting up, put on his rainbow colored skates and was determined to join them. He tore off his shirt and whizzed past us, this time with a vision of pure manic energy shooting out of his eyes. Uh-oh. Louie announced him coming up the ramp, even though it was indecipherable over the grating dubstep. Julian had his tongue out and ran up clapping his hands, obviously enjoying the attention but not