Jan 25 2011
Roller DJ & Other Wheeled Tales
The roller rink we’ve been going to every Sunday isn’t really the greatest. It’s small, kind of out of the way, severely lacking in hot pants and has a cramped snack room with unfriendly attendants (according to Henry, anyway).
But it does have Roller DJ. And he is pretty fucking awesome. I’m not sure why I feel this way, and I know Henry has no idea why I feel this way. (“You’re so weird,” he mumbles, every time I walk away in a giggle fit from a Roller DJ run-in.) Last week, we were still sitting in the car when I saw him rolling his rotund self out of the driver side of some down-trodden green Blazer-type vehicle. His hair looked like the follicular version of a mushroom cloud and his lower half was stepped into baggy, worn flannel pj bottoms.
“Wow,” Henry and I murmured in tandem. Except mine had an “I love that guy” tacked on to the end.
The back of his dusty car boasts a magnetic advertisement for some herbal miracle weight loss drink. Nothing like a good, hearty swig of irony. Kim told me that he gave her a bottle of it last week, but after Googling it, she’s too scared to try it. I suggested she just give it to me. I’m not scared of ingesting illegal and harmful potions in the name of weight loss. If not for Henry, I’d have about 12 tapeworms in me right now.
This past Sunday, Roller DJ’s hair was noticeably less swollen. Kim immediately accused him of being the victim of a hair cut, which made him defensive.
He insisted, “I did not! It’s just wet.” And to me, he said, “Touch my hair.”
And I did. Having too much pity on my fingertips to force them all the way to Roller DJ’s scalp, I stopped halfway, quickly rubbing between the pads of my thumb and pointer a curl-i-que slick and moist with what I hoped was water and not natural scalp juices and molten filth.
“Yeah,” I said around a gulp. “It’s wet.”
As soon as he walked away, I said in a hysteric voice to no one and everyone at once, “I can’t believe I just did that!”
Henry and Kim looked horror-stricken, and expressed in unison that they too could not believe I touched his hair. I mean, it’s not the velvety locks of Justin Bieber, for shit-packing Christ’s sake. It’s goddamn Roller DJ. Who knows what he rubs in those black pube-like tufts.
When I was telling my co-workers about it yesterday (yes, it was that big of a deal to me), Barb asked, “And if he asked you to touch his penis, would you have touched that too?”
I can’t answer that without knowing more of the situation.
***
Elsewhere at the rink, Henry’s mom and sister Kelly joined us. Kelly brought her youngest, Zac, and her second-oldest daughter, Ashley. Like Chooch, Zac is not yet able to skate on his own, so Ashley chaperoned him as he edged along the wall.
Meanwhile, my lazy/spoiled son was being pulled around the rink in a leisurely manner by his new professional handler, Chris.
The scene would have been much more complete had Chris been holding a parasol above Chooch’s head. I caught Chooch laughing and pointing as he rolled past Zac, who was lying on the floor in a small heap, post-wipeout.
“At least he’s TRYING!” I shouted to Chooch. Jesus Christ, that kid.
It’s surpising he didn’t stretch out on a lawnchair first, daiquiri in hand, and have Chris roll him under.
Last week, I skated into some man, stopping only after I splayed my hands against his Steelers-jersied chest. He was there again this week, in the same Mendenhall shirt (hate that I know who that is) and I immediately taunted Henry with little songs about how my boyfriend was back. During Backward Skate, which Kim made me stay on the rink for but I ducked off after two revolutions when she wasn’t looking, my boyfriend looked over his shoulder just in time to avoid crashing into me.
“I’m not very good at this!” I laughed.
“Either am I!” he shouted over whatever Longest Song in the History of Music that was playing over this week’s Backward Skate. (I should start jotting these down.) “Just sort of let yourself cruise!”
I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny at all, and couldn’t wait to rub it in Henry’s face. Apparently, it worked, because that combined with the fact that I absentmindedly missed Ladies’ Choice had him feeling really neglected. He told me later that night that he was sitting on the bench with his mom and sister, waiting for me to come and claim him, but I just kept skating past without looking at him. Which is confusing considering last week I had to knock people out of my way to chase him around the rink and claim him.
I do sort of have a crush on Rollerskating Henry.
Don’t tell anyone.
By the time we left, Roller DJ’s hair was the slightest bit poufier. Oh my god, why did I touch his hair?
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WHY oh why did you touch his hair? I would’ve been to scared to! I wish we had a roller rink by us. I used to love roller skating!