“One...Two...Threeee!” Wheels screeched and arms pumped back and forth on the wheel handles of my navy blue wheelchair. My little heart thudded, my facial muscles (zygomaticus major) were sore from smiling and my small laugh licked the air. I wasn’t winning...sadly. My pasta thin self couldn’t keep up with my mom’s strong nursing muscles that she got from throwing old people around all day. Tyler and my mom passed the two pillars that marked the end of the race. They tied. Ty,  returned the wheelchairs to the other nine in the corner of the dusty room of the warehouse. He was my mom’s boyfriend at the time.

As I strapped my skates back on I paused for second thinking. “Wait, aren’t those someone’s,” I asked sheepishly nudging my head toward the wheelchairs. I hoped that I hadn’t done something wrong. Tyler knew what I was inferring. He looked at me with furrowed brows trying to find the right words to paint the picture.

“Well, sometimes it’s okay to draw outside of the lines of what is ‘right’. We are just having fun and we aren’t hurting anyone. Do you get what I’m saying?” he asked. I did get it.

Tyler wasn’t like most adults in the sense that he never lost that effervescent, creative spirit. He didn’t need alcohol to have a good time with his friends and he was happy that way. He didn’t live in shadows because he was the one making them. As people in this society, we are told to make a plan, stick to the pattern and memorize someone else’s steps to a “happy” life. That phenomenon was injected into us as soon as we were ejected from our mothers. I’m glad I had a role model that showed me I didn’t have to conform to what was “normal”; I could make my own path.  

I thought back to earlier that day in Ty’s house. The three of us were in the kitchen as usual. I was flipping through the pages of a National Geographic I grabbed from the shelf. My mom was chatting with Tyler about her day.
“I have to drop a few things off at the warehouse. If you guys want to join you’re welcome to. We’ll make it fun. It’s a cool place,” Tyler announced as he grabbed his jingling keys.

“Why not? We’ll check it out. I haven’t been there yet, have I?” my mom asked.

“I don’t think so.” He paused before continuing, “you know what I have been waiting to do with you two? Roller skating inside,” Tyler replied.

“Yes! Yes!” I squealed with my excited eight year-old voice. My mom had no choice but to agree. Why wouldn’t she want to go anyway?

I was wiggling with excitement; I loved rollerskating. Tyler had spent several hours teaching me the ropes about a year before. I had the coolest skates then. They were Brat Doll themed sneakers with a little lever that would pop out the wheels only when I wanted them. And yes, I definitely skated through the halls of my elementary school a couple times with those darn things. I was such a rebel, I know.

Tyler owned a business with Peter, his friend. They rented a studio in the warehouse. The men built stone walls, brick walls, bridges, fireplaces, sculptures, stone furniture, chimneys and much more. The sculptures were pretty neat, but my favorite things they crafted were these transparent tables. Trapped inside were matches, coffee beans and other strange things. Once I counted every single match in one. That particular table imprisoned 287. Why did eight year-old me chose to spend her time doing that? I’m not quite sure. Maybe I got bored of playing Sorry by myself. They actually built the stone wall downtown across the street from the fire department.

We walked into the warehouse. It was dark and empty, like the spirit of someone just realizing that twinkies do, infact, expire. I loved the rich, echoey click my red velcro shoes made on the concrete. I still remember it. That warehouse must have been the exact set for at least five horror films. The void of color and light was somewhat nice though, calming. Even to someone my age who enjoyed coloring life with vivacious-shades-of-crayola. There were hefty iron doors every few feet leading to different studios with who knows what inside.

It was just going to be a boring day, but then again, boring days didn’t exist with Tyler. I had high hopes. We had plans to make dinner later, but that was many hours away. We were going to make spaghetti with salad and apple sausage. I know the apple sausage sounds funky but trust me, it is the best. It has the perfect ratio of sweet and savory.

He unlocked the gate to his studio to drop off some of his belongings. I linked my tiny fingers with my mother’s and we followed Tyler inside. Then is was time for business!

The three of us plopped on to the floor and started lacing up our rollerskates. Mine were white with bright red wheels. They used to be my mom’s when she was young. I used the wall to help myself up to a more vertical stance. I was legitimately taller with the skates on. I felt like giant Alice after she ate the “EAT ME” cake. I was only eight but I was damn good at roller skating, not to brag or anything, so I had no trouble keeping up with the grown ups.

The buzz of our roller skates gliding through the endless warehouse was almost like music. We passed giant rolls of paper wider than I was, with heights that reached the ceiling. We were going so fast in the dark that objects would only start to reveal what they were when they arrived a few feet away. We could have really gotten hurt. I loved it though, feeling unattached and that tingle of adrenaline. Any second an object could emerge right in front of us. We were vulnerable to circumstance and luck. I’m surprised that I never actually rammed face first into anything.

*****

I went back to the warehouse with Tyler about a month later. I couldn’t stay away from all of the possible fun to be had there. Once again my shoes were clicking against the concrete floor of the warehouse and my imagination was building strange fantasy worlds behind the closed iron doors.

I sat waiting in the studio. Tyler was sweeping. Through the gate, there was the most random array of junk. Boxes and boxes of packaged cheap peanut butter were neatly stacked on top of each other, reaching my chest. Farther down were packages of hot chocolate mix and beside that, tires. Five old, achy bowling pins rested against a hoard of light bulbs. There must have been enough fricking light bulbs to light up all of New York City. Oh and Ramen, there were cartons and cartons of Ramen. I wasn’t allowed to have Ramen because of all the chemicals in it. I tried it once though; it had eggs in it.

I absolutely hated eggs, everything about them. The oozy, gooey texture and tastes like wet, sad, wanna-be cheese. They were the ONLY things I wouldn’t toss in my mouth for a meal. I ate sushi. I ate spinach. I ate avocados. I ate cottage cheese. I even liked snails for God’s sake, excuse me, escargot. I couldn’t wrap my head around eating eggs though. It had been about a year of this no-egg nonsense.

That made it especially confusing when I started burping strong gusts of putrid, boiled egg smell while I was waiting for Tyler that day. What! No, this is not okay! I followed all of the precautions. Nonetheless it was happening. With each belch my hatred for the seed grew...and so did my nausea. I was getting worried. This was not normal, nor healthy.

Tyler noticed right away. It was hard not to.

“Woah, my god! Did you just fart?” he said with his signature chuckle. He rested the broom against the wall gate. I trusted him more than any other adult. He was the same man that taught me how to buckle my seatbelt, and that hoola hooping, isn’t the most socially appropriate activity during dinner. He wasn’t worried, so I didn’t have to be either. He shifted it into a joke.

“No...It was a burp!” I giggled.

“Holy hell, there is definitely something wrong with you. You’re probably going to die,” he said nodding and patting my back playfully with his sausage fingers. That would be incredibly inappropriate to say to most eight year-olds, but I had fallen in love with his cynical humor over the years. I toppled over laughing and burping, and then laughing again. I fell into a toxic loop of grossness.

“I have an idea,” he said. Tyler fiddled with his phone for a second before revealing the screen. It was a timer. He pressed the start button and we began counting the seconds between the burps. I was burping or farting every thirty seconds and snickering the whole way through. Tyler was laughing right along with me.

I never thought of Tyler as another father. He was more like a friend. I wanted to be like him. I aimed to make the most out of every situation. He helped me grow into a confident person who knows who I am. I saw him in little quirks I had and things I would say.

He somehow made everything fun. Even goddamn torturous sulfur burps. We looked it up when we got home on his big Mac Book that contained many, many pictures of our funny faces. There was an article about an unfortunate forty year-old man who had suffered from sulfer burps his entire life. Needless to say, he was a professional single pringle. The information we found basically just said that they last for a couple hours (unless you’re...that guy) and the next day would be super fun and full of diarrhea. To put the cherry on top of the sundae I had school the next day. Yay, me!

*****
As we drive by the warehouse I can’t help but smile. I remember all of the fun days. I see the stacks of peanut butter jars. I hear the humm of skates. I smell eggs. I watch the screeching wheelchairs roll by. I see Tyler. I hear our shrieks. “One… Two… Threeee!”