The Ride of My Life (24 page)

I used a Polaroid camera to photograph handrails before I slid them, and then laid the shot at the bottom of the stairs in case I got knocked out. Low-tech anti-amnesia devices.

The other pain was the promoter of the event. He’d stiffed me the last time I was flown over to England to do a demo, and he fed me the same “I’ll mail your check” promise this time. I told him I needed cash before I got on the plane, or I wasn’t leaving. “There are no ATMs at this airport,” he pleaded, trying to brush me off. I got very firm with the guy and informed him I would be staying at his house, on his couch, eating his food, and using his telephone until I was paid my $1,500. That did the trick. I got my money and hopped my flight with a throbbing arm. On the eight-hour flight over the Atlantic, I was bored and sitting by myself in coach class. I put on the headphones as they started the in-flight TV service, and a documentary film came on called
High Five
. I vaguely recognized the host, and while I tried to figure out where I’d seen the guy before …
shit
… video footage from the Ninja Ramp flashed across the TV screen, and I did a stretched no-handed air. The thirty-minute documentary was about
me
. I eased down low in my seat and peeked around to check the other passengers watching TV. Nobody knew, noticed, or cared that I was sitting there in seat 43A. I stayed ducked down and watched the film with mix of mild embarrassment (hoping nobody recognized me] and a stoked sort of fascination.

After such a strange and taxing trip, it felt good to be back home and in Jaci’s waiting arms. My schedule didn’t allow us much time together, though; I was booked to do another European demo with Dennis, this time in Germany. I couldn’t cancel it, because I needed the money to pay for my shoulder surgery. I rigged up an arm brace, bags were packed, and a few days later I met Dennis in Munster. We were the half-time entertainment for the Eleventh Annual Munster Monster Mastership, one of the biggest and longest-running skateboarding contests in the world. Nearly all the top contenders in skateboarding were on hand, and I was looking forward to showing them how bike riding had progressed since my demo there the previous year. The halfpipe was insanely great, one of the smoothest and fastest ramps I’d ever ridden. It had been varnished
with some supersmooth, superstinky toxic lacquer, which made the arena smell like nail salon fumes. It gave you a headache just being in the building. The promoter wanted to make sure we didn’t gouge up the vert ramp before the skateboarding championship contest, so Dennis and I were told to do a demo on the street course. There were several thousand people watching us. Since backflips were still pretty new, I wanted to bust a few in our demo, including my newest invention, a tailwhip backflip. I saved the tailwhip flip for the finale. Dennis and I decided to launch from the box jump in 1-2 formation and both pull flips. We raced across the arena toward the box and hit the lip. I spun my tailwhip flip and Dennis did a regular flip. We landed to the sound of thousands of people totally losing it. It sounded like a riot in progress. The halfpipe decks were packed with skaters and spectators, who began pounding boards and fists, and stomping their feet on the plywood. Without warning, the entire halfpipe collapsed from the stress of the stomping. One second it was there, the next instant it had imploded in a cloud of screams and splintered wood. I saw some guy leap off the back of the deck and grab a World Industries banner that was suspended from the ceiling, and swing to safety holding on, like Tarzan. The fire marshal of Munster showed up and declared the area a disaster zone. Fourteen people were sent to the hospital with broken bones, cuts, and bruises, and the vert contest was canceled.

Munster is an awesome city for bike rides—they’ve built mini freeway systems with twin lanes and overpasses specially for bicycles. Dennis and I took advantage of it and went out street riding all night, so we could board our plane the next day and sleep through the entire flight home. We rode, explored, and sessioned Munster after midnight. Around four in the morning it started raining, so we took shelter in a covered bus stop. The morning newspapers had just been delivered, and we sat down on a stack to rest our bones and discuss the wild events of the demo. “Do you think they’ll invite us back to another one of these contests?” I wondered aloud. Dennis pointed to the front page of the newspapers—the bold headline said stuff in German, with the word “HALF PIPE.” We could make out our names. There was a photo of a bloody fan being hauled out of the skate contest arena on a stretcher. Whoops.

I used a Polaroid camera to photograph handrails before I slid them, and then laid the shot at the bottom of the stairs in case I got knocked out. Low-tech anti-amnesia devices.

I returned home and gave Jaci a sore-shouldered hug, and a couple days later went in to have my rotator cuff repaired and my bank account cleaned out.

I think the Munster event started a streak of German voodoo, because I began to have bad luck whenever I was in the country. A few months after Munster, I returned to Germany for a demo at an event called Sub Culture. I thought it would be an in-and-out show. The ramp had different ideas. I fell during practice the day before the demo, and my weakened postsurgery shoulder dislocated (the first of what would become many times). I wound up in a German hospital, alone and unable to sprechen sie Deutsch. I knew it was out of the socket and kept asking them to put it back in for me. They x-rayed it and discussed the problem in German, and I kept trying to communicate with them to just help me get it back in the socket. It was like a game of pain charades with Dr. Dieter and Nurse Nein. I sat there holding my throbbing arm for another two hours. A nurse came in and stuck an IV drip in my wrist, and I started to panic—I told them I didn’t need an IV or surgery, I just needed… I don’t even remember being put to sleep. I woke up around five the next morning with my arm strapped to my body in a room full of other patients. It appeared they hadn’t operated on me. I got dressed one-handed without waking anyone and slipped into the hallway to find an exit while dodging swing shift doctors. I snuck out of Das Hospital and walked back to the Sub Culture event site. I waited until the promoters showed up with my bike, and later that day I rode in the demo. I needed to get paid like Ruben Kincaid. I couldn’t even bunnyhop my bike up over the coping to roll in, so I had to footplant in every run. I ended up getting a camera strapped to my body, and used the thumb-activated shutter cable to shoot a two-page spread for Freedom magazine of an aerial from my perspective. I had a feeling once I got back to the States, I’d be spending my demo money on surgery, again.

The first time I dislocated my shoulder I was in Germany. I snuck out of the hospital to do a demo, and could barely ride. I had to because I needed the money. That day they rigged up a camera on a harness system so I could take this photo.

Jaci and I on our wedding day.

In the summer of 1993, I was in New Mexico riding in the state fair shows with the Sprocket Jockeys. While we were on our bikes during the shows, we were having a grand time. At the end of the day, once we were back in our hotel room, our jolly group of Jockeys morphed into a bunch of semimiserable schmoes. We each took turns racking up enormous phone charges calling our girlfriends and getting in long, drawn-out “I miss you” type conversations or silly arguments, magnified by distance. I was on the phone with Jaci and we were both bummed, missing each other, and frustrated. “You know what? We should just get married, “I said to Jaci. It wasn’t a proposal, it was a call to action. Probably the lamest way to propose, ever. Jaci felt the same way I did: We were meant for each other, so what were we doing dating? It had been two years since our first date. I knew she was my wife, and I was her husband. We just needed to make it official. I had a couple days off, and I flew Jaci down to meet me at the fair. I made her ride the Zipper, one of the scarier, shakier carnival rides on the midway, to seal the deal. After the fair shows were over, Jaci drove with me back to Oklahoma City, and our first stop was at Braum’s to celebrate. We got banana splits.

On December 30, 1993, Jaci and I exchanged our vows. I gave her my only treasure in life, my mom’s wedding band. We had a simple, beautiful ceremony. Jaci’s friend Marcus, her ballet company’s costume designer and resident drama-magnet, made Jaci’s gown and the dresses for the bridal party. As the ceremony started, Marcus was following behind the procession with a needle and thread making the final stitches as we tied the knot. The day started in slow motion, turned into a heart-stopping rush, and peaked when we said our vows and kissed, husband and wife.

It was a little like rolling into a giant ramp.