After five o’clock on Friday the place was ours. Or at least that’s how we saw it. Through a long process of cat and mouse, the campus police and we had seemed to reach an unspoken agreement. As long as we were not visible at a time when anyone of importance would complain, we were left alone.
During the week we tended to sequester ourselves in the narrow streets and patchy parking lots of the Vine neighborhood. They were spaces that fell between the cracks of people’s ability to care. The traffic that was slowed or diverted by our street performance was definitely put out. But schedule and gradual acceptance kept them from making any real fuss. Really though, we were just bidding our time until we could reach what we considered a legitimate spot.
For the purposes of skateboarding, the campus of Western Michigan University was a guarded fortress. Each time I was able to slip in and out without detection, liberating the grounds for more glorious purposes, felt like a victory. Going to class during the day, being a student and pedestrian, I could fit in perfectly. The slow pace of putting one foot in front of the other was a compliant acceptance of the intended scale of the space.
But stepping onto a skateboard changed the entire equation. The quickening rhythm of the sidewalk cracks against urethane could send a sensation that I was experiencing these paved paths in a drastically different way than I had hours before walking with a backpack on. With new speed, sound, vibrations I became a giant. It was a transformation in body and mind. It didn’t exist simply as a theory; instead, the idea of it was born only under the conditions of what happened all around me.
When my mates were skating with me there was a camaraderie I easily let myself get wrapped up in. In the most basic sense I was experiencing the same sense of belonging that any member of a sports team or street gang has privilege to. But it was my own, and campus was ripe for the taking.
Each minute accomplishment was another step towards that victory. Landing a solid backside-tail-slide across the planter ledge at Kohrman Hall became a little piece of magic I won back from the tyranny of the University, which guarded and hoarded these spaces. In this feeling was the implication that we had a right to them. This wasn’t because we owned them, or even because of the thousands of tuition dollars that I had thrown their way, but because of what we did with it. The potential of that foyer and promenade was electric.
In the hustle and bustle of a school day, the campus hummed with a dignified rhythm. Books and people moved across the infrastructure in an appropriate and highly efficient manner. But in the stillness that was left when that tapered off, we knew what the grounds were capable of, what it yearned for. That uncovered rumble and rhythm was always in my mind and I had to have it.
My strategy to accomplish this transformation was to arrive at a low-profile entry point. I boarded the Lovell bus a few mere steps from my front door because I knew exactly where it would drop me. I would be placed on a sidewalk that ideally ran between Rood and Haenicke halls. The path in between these two structures took on a slight downward grade and would shoot me with ease down into the valley that held the foyer of Kohrman Hall. This was my destination. I pictured it in my mind as I sat against the blue plastic molded bus seat and absently watched the world whirl by through the smokey-tinted glass. The thin foil that buffered the sun was pealed in spots where natural light was leaking in.
Earlier that day I had taken this same ride, idling to class, I had lumbered off the bus to my obligation. But now I sat with my skateboard in hand and I thought about jumping out of the bus and taking that first push. My legs twitched with anticipation. Inside myself was the unignorable restlessness that only the desire to ride a skateboard can stir up. It only grew as the bus shot me closer and closer to campus.
Finally I heard the hiss of brakes and the doors fold open. I jumped off the last step. My hand dropped the board to the ground where it met the sole of my shoe. In the first two pushes my legs unfolded. My push leg propelled me forward into those hallowed grounds. When it whipped back and my body moved ahead, my leg was a hundred feet long. My eyes darted forward and my leg swung back into open air. I was galloping. The clicks in the sidewalk cracks reached a fury. They were designed for easements against the repeated freeze and thaw of harsh Michigan winters. The wide slabs would jut and crack without those nurturing synapses. But at that moment they were my rhythm section, and the wind whistled a tune into my ear. The sunlight that fell off the tops of the halls was glowing and mystical. In that light I felt every autumn I’ve lived before. I felt autumn it as it has always 4been in Michigan: crisp, clean, and thoughtful.
The downward cut of the path began to move me without pushing. Fifty yards ahead of me I could see where the sidewalk dropped below the horizon and out of sight. This put a sense of urgency in me to reach that brink, so I threw down one more good push. I was moving parallel to Haenicke hall now. The wall of the building slid by only a few feet from my body. I put my palms out flat and let them run over the surface with only an inch or two between them. If I were to have leaned in just a little farther we would touch. But I kept that small bit of distance and for just that short moment I lived in it.
The sleek glass and steel of the modern building had a large opening in its center that allowed a wide pathway to cut through it. It was a giant rectangular archway. I got to the center of the building and the open air of the throughway was in front of me. The overhanging portion of the building was a transparent glass framework. The dusk light poured in from the west, through the clear facade, and spilled out onto the grass and trees of the open landscape behind me. The whole scene shifted as I moved.
In the five seconds it took me to pass the open corridor I was locked in symmetry with the shape of the building and the path to the heart of campus. I swung from sight line to sight line. All of the distance I had traveled narrowed in perspective behind me. My body mass pushed me down the path with considerable speed. The far side of the building ended and I emerged from its eclipse and shot around with excitement into the foyer.
My speed put me on the brink of uneasiness and I was tempted to put my foot down. But I held back and veered right down a side path that crossed the north side of Kohrman. The grade flattened out and I slowed naturally. The bumps and contours of the ground were familiar to me. Over the course of countless hours I learned what it felt like under my feet.
Still clipping along, I sidled up next to a long ledge on the far edge of the property. It stood level with my knees. I pushed down my back foot on the tail, followed by my front foot lifting and leading the board. I rose and reached the edge of the ledge, landing into a backside 50/50. The rounded edges of the blackened concrete met the metal of my trucks and coughed out a familiar raspy, grinding sound. The sensation of metal on concrete shot up and I smiled with tactile pleasure. My frame straightened and stretched upward.
A skateboard yawn. My body was waking up to the space. I knew I should stop and intentionally stretch, but the excitement was too much. I kept moving. The air was moving in and out of my lungs now. The ground thundered through my body as it met my wheels and charted the surface. Each divot and dent was noted.
I wanted it all, every ledge and step. I wanted to go faster and faster until I could ollie the whole building and land in a dream. I was feeling the sensation of a hungry skateboard dream where I could stretch farther and farther across campus and breath into each corner of my body and the space simultaneously. The physics of daily life became miniscule. I was a giant and getting bigger.
I charged back around and made a sharp carve toward the front steps of the building. These front steps of Kohrman hall are surrounded by a promenade of jumbled cobblestone bricks. I had to storm it, charging over the rough ground. I ollied and pulled my feet up over top of the three steps. The corner of the building jutted out at me and I darted left. The opposite side of the stairs quickly neared and I ollied down. The architecture became alive and moved with me. It was not just still, serving a daily function. I wanted more still, to ollie Sprau Tower and grind Miller auditorium, to melt and pulse through ethereal rivers of concrete.
