Miami @ 3a.m.

“What the fuck’s his deal?” I asked myself while catching my breath.

The breeze hit my face and arms and my feet vibrated as I rolled across the ground, eyes stinging from the sweat.

Mist clouds slithered around neon-lit buildings, up alleys, and out onto Biscayne Blvd., as fog filled the city. I know Downtown Miami at 3:00 a.m. isn’t the friendliest place. I grew up skating DTM.

I wasn’t out to bother anyone though, just skating the marble planters at Bayside, high off shrooms and Cuban Coffee.

My blurry, nearsighted, vision spotted a silhouette lurking. He was in the darkness, under the trees, and headed straight ahead of me, toward the marble planter I was skating.

As he came into the light by the planter, he made a ninety-degree turn straight at me, and I saw he had the hood to his windbreaker pulled tight around his face. He was tall, wearing aviator shades and boots, and I could see the white hair of his goatee. He looked like an artist’s rendition of the Unabomber, and he looked like he wanted to fight.
It was possible that I disturbed his nighttime serenade of exhaust fumes, horn honks, people-mover trams, and hard blowing wind. I was skating a marble planter, by the fountain. 100 yards from Biscayne Blvd. I wasn’t even swearing.

And fuck it if I was, does he have more of a right to the park?

I wanted to skate, not watch my back.

As he approached, I picked up my board, ready to smash the tail into his face.