August 12.
We steam up to the dock in Chester, PA in the early afternoon. The same dock I left from a couple months ago. I present myself to the border cop in his little guard shack. I’m expecting to get the third-degree. I mean, who shows up alone on a freight ship in Chester, PA with a road bike slung over his shoulder if not someone who poses a risk to the national security of the United States of America? But the border cop just gives my passport a quick glance and waves me through.
Mike and Ted are waiting for me out on the street beyond the chainlink fence that surrounds the port. They’re sitting on the hood of Ted’s car like in a scene at the beginning of a movie where an ex-con is getting sprung from The Joint and his criminal friends are there to meet him with a criminal proposition.
“Want to go rollerskating?” Ted asks.
Next thing I know, we’re driving over the bridge to New Jersey and heading for Ted’s favorite roller rink in the whole world: The Holiday Skating and Fun Center in Delanco. A little piece of the year 1971 that got snagged somehow in the suburbs of Philadelphia then held fast as the decades rushed by it. Inside, old folks are skating in slow motion circles while a guy behind a big plate glass window plays golden oldies on a Wurlitzer organ.
At the skate rental desk, you have a choice between rollerblades and quads (i.e., classic roller-skates), but its pretty clear that wearing anything but quads would be a major faux pas in a place like this.
While I lace up, I remember the last time I went to a roller rink. It was our 5th grade end-of-the-year party at the Skate Ranch in Lubbock, Texas. I got hypnotized by the disco ball and lost my balance and fell on my head. As I lay there immobile on the polished wooden floor, some of my classmates skated over and stared down at me, looking solemn and astonished. They were 5th graders, so death still seemed far away and abstract, but now here it was, sprawled on the floor at the Skate Ranch. Then Ms. Geiger the P.E. coach walked over and shoved a couple fingers in my face.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked me.
“Two,” I said.
“Get up, you’re fine,” she said. Then she walked away.
Today we’re lucky because Papa John is in the house. Papa John is 92 years old and Ted says he’s a local legend. Along with his skating partner, a guy who’s maybe twenty years younger than him, they call themselves The Flea Hoppers. They wear matching shirts with a cartoon flea embroidered on the back and matching string bow ties like the kind Colonel Sanders wears. The Flea Hoppers are synchronized skaters. They mirror each other’s moves with supernatural precision while flying around the rink, legs flashing like scissor blades, shoulders shrugging. Every so often, possessed by some demonic spirit that inhabits the Holiday Skating Center, they let out a piercing whistle. Sometimes, a wannabe or two will fall into formation with the Flea Hoppers, but not for long. No one can keep up. After each song, everybody in the roller rink applauds the guys. They’re that good. Rollerskating as poetry.