Luc, one of my friends, and I crossed the street, and started walking up the stairs towards the Skate City’s double doors. “Dang, there’s a lot of people here tonight, I’ve never seen the parking lot this full, they must be packed.” he says as he holds the door open for me. I step out of the cold and into the warm sweaty air of Aurora’s Skate City. I look around me and feel as if I’ve stepped back a few decades, the rink looks like it came straight out of the disco era, neon lights, disco ball, the works; the only difference is people are skating to the rhythm of Young Joc spilling out of the speakers rather than ABBA.
We walk in and towards the Deejay booth, Luc introduces me to Bobby, a stout 30-something year old in a red shirt and a shiny gangster-like medallion around his neck, and Kevin, a tall broad-shouldered guy in an orange flannel shirt. Bobby nods at me and continues to go about his business while Kevin shakes my hand inviting me to come sit in the Deejay booth so I can ask him questions. He has a very welcoming and charming air about him.
This winter has been especially frigid, seven storms in seven weeks means excellent business for the owner’s of the skating rink. I talk to Bobby, one of the two Deejays working, just as Luc predicted, tonight’s been one of their busiest nights ever, and he’s right, its very busy. The rink is packed, a full house of 230 people, just one person short of their all-time record high. I learn they have adult skating sessions, for people 21 years old and up, every Sunday night from 6:30 to 9:30, which usually average about 180 people.
Sitting in the Deejay booth I feel awfully important, I do have the best seat in the house after all. The people flying by create a cool breeze, a nice refresher from Skate City’s thick musky air. From my throne I can see everyone skating by ever so gracefully, as if floating on air. Couples skate by, holding each other close, dancing to the slow romantic songs. Packs of people skate by, bobbing, bouncing and kicking, all on the same beats, all together, perfectly synchronized. In the middle of the rink there are a few skaters standing in a circle, they are the “best of the best”, they show off their moves, and learn new ones. They move with such fluidity; twirling, hopping, and kicking their skates out like it’s what they were born to do. As I watch them, a smaller guy steps into the circle, he starts off slow and eventually gets more into it, all of a sudden he stops dancing and throws his body into the air, tucks in while doing a 360 degree flip, and lands, perfectly. He just did a standing back tuck, on skates. The rink breaks out in applause. I am shocked. I can do a back tuck; I used to be a gymnast, but not a standing back tuck, and definitely not a standing back tuck on wheels.
The people at skate city are much unlike the image I was expecting, that is, one of bunches of children awkwardly trekking by, falling over every few strides. Not here though, everyone knows what they’re doing, according to Bobby, “You don’t show up if you don’t know what you’re doing.” I can definitely see why, this would be extremely intimidating to a new skater such as myself.
“ I could never skate here.” I said to Kevin, the other Deejay. “Nah, you’d be fine. We’re like a big family here, most of the people have been coming for so long that we all know each other, I look around and I don’t think there’s a single person in this rink I don’t know. We have people of all ages, all professions, and from all sorts of different backgrounds,” he said pointing to Mike. Mike, a frail bald old man, is their oldest regular. At a whopping 61 years old, Mike has been Skating for over 30 years and is still very much capable of keeping up with the skaters half his age.
As Kevin and Mike started reminiscing about the good old days with Skate City, a girl fell skating on the rink, instantly sending people jumping out of her way. Many stopped to help her up, and even more skated by her, checking to see if she was ok. Kevin looked at me and said, “ I started organized adult and hip hop skating in Denver about 20 years ago when I moved from Kansas City, we started out in Littleton, but the community didn’t want us there, so we got shut down. It attracted a lot of black people and we were in a predominantly white neighborhood. I can understand why they were worried, but we take a lot of security measures, we have police officers patrolling the area and two or three officers on weekend inside the rink.”
The sense of community is obvious; it’s all around. Everyone seems to know everyone. Numerous people also pick up on the fact that I’m an outsider, they skate up to me and ask why I’m not skating. I try to explain that not only am I incapable of skating in the first place, but am also sore and aching from the car accident I was just in. Kevin shoos the people trying to flirt with me away, “They all use the same lines, I don’t know why they can’t be a little more creative.” He explains apologetically.
Kevin spins the tunes for adult skating every Sunday night; he is occasionally relieved by Bobby to hit the rink. When he does it’s amazing, he stands tall at 6-foot-4 with his skates on, the grace with which he moves seems surprisingly out of place in relation to the hard-core gangster rap he’s skating to. Luc leans over and says, “It’s like a gangster rap ballet isn’t it?” I pause for a moment and realize that’s exactly what it is, it’s something that’s happening all over the country, it’s beautiful, graceful, creative and in everyway unique.
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