Three houses down from ours, I dropped my board and skated. Night skating is one of the coolest things to do in the world. With everything still and quiet but for your wheels rolling on the pavement, it’s like skating in a dream. The glow cast from streetlights and the emptiness of the city either freak you out or make you feel like the pavement and rails and sets were made just for you. I wished Indy was with me. We’d snuck out a few times to carve the bowls Under the Bridge on midnight prowls. The clattering echo of our boards ratcheting under the open cavern of concrete, along with the occasional late-night traveler rolling on the freeway above, was peaceful. Under the Bridge would be ours on those nights, and those were the times having a bro was the best. I skated downtown, past the school and the park and further, until I reached Second Avenue. Five blocks west of the school and set in an old industrial-storage area, the warehouse sat brooding like a dark beast, its huge roll-up doors closed and locked and the upper-story office windows dark and foreboding.
