BooksBarbecue
Back Bruised
Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  4. Prologue
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Chapter Forty-One
  46. Chapter Forty-Two
  47. ROLLER DERBY: A VERY BRIEF OVERVIEW
  48. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  49. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After school, I reviewed the directions Bee had given me. Apparently, the place she and Yolanda were taking me to didn’t really have a name and the street numbers weren’t easy to see. “You gotta look for the roller skates hanging from the telephone pole,” Bee had said.

Really? Like for drug deals? I’d thought, but added this to the directions anyway, doing my best to trust these two feisty ladies and their superior wisdom even if my natural tendency was to close myself off to most other people’s input. Besides, I needed these damn skates and I was determined to get them tonight so I could start practicing as soon as possible.

I hopped on a bus heading vaguely in the right direction. It took me close enough to where I thought I was going, and I walked the rest. Bee had told me to look for a skate park first, then the dubious hanging roller skates. The days were definitely getting shorter, and by the time I got to the park, the light had begun to dim.

A smattering of skaters glided and flipped across the curbs and ramps, looking indifferent. I wished I had my board with me. I could use a good bail right now. But then I remembered that even a good bail on my board wasn’t doing it for me anymore.

Just as Bee had said, two white skates with neon-pink wheels dangled from a telephone pole next to the park. Just behind the skates was a property bordered by a picket fence on the edge of a cul-de-sac. From the lawn in front of the house grew an assortment of shrubs, all embellished with ornaments made of old roller-skate wheels. A two-car garage neighbored the house, its frame fringed with multicolored twinkle lights, its doors a flamboyant lime color. What the shit was this place and why hadn’t Bee just told me to look for the weird bushes and lime doors? Maybe to her and Yolanda, this was normal.

I walked up to the gate entrance. On it, a sign said, ROLL ING, DANCING, LOVING SINCE 1978. According to Bee’s instructions, this was the place. She’d said that if she and Yolanda weren’t outside waiting, I should just march right on up to that door and ding that donger! so that was what I did.