Last Man Out by Mike Lupica

garage.
    â€œYeah,” Mike said. “We’re going to Wirth Park.”
    Tommy actually knew about Wirth Park, even though he’d never been there, because his dad had told him a little about it. It had been the first skateboard destination in Boston, and his dad used to go there when he was a kid with his buddies and their old boards with their clunky wheels. The city had built a basic bowl, with ramps and jumps and even some stairs. But even by the time his dad was Tommy’s age, skateboarding hadn’t been very popular in their town. Still wasn’t.
    â€œIt felt like a fad around here,” his dad had told him one time, “like hula hoops.”
    Before long hardly anybody was going to Wirth Park for skateboarding, the bowl tucked back into a far corner of the property. Most people just went to Wirth Park to hike the hills and trails of what had been a fort during the Revolutionary War days.
    When they stopped their bikes at the top of the hill overlooking the empty skateboard bowl, Mike reached into the basket behind him and pulled out a fancy-looking board that had “Warrior” written on top.
    Tommy looked at it and said, “No way.”
    â€œWay,” Mike said. “
My
way.”
    â€œNever had any interest, even though my dad did it a littlewhen he was a kid,” Tommy said. “My dad said it was like snowboarding in the winter, just with much harder landings.”
    â€œThat’s only if you don’t know how,” Mike said.
    â€œI
don’t
know how.”
    â€œAnd you’re telling me you never wanted to learn?”
    â€œI’ve never really known anyone who skateboards,” Tommy said. “So I never had much interest.”
    â€œWell,” Mike said, “now you’ve got a friend who does. Give it a shot?”
    Tommy looked at the red board, then down at the bowl, and then back at Mike.
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œC’mon, it’ll be fun,” Mike said. “I’ll teach you.”
    â€œHow about this?” Tommy said. “I’ll
watch
you.”
    Mike ignored him, and just started walking down the hill.
    â€œFollow me,” he said.
    Tommy didn’t see as how he had any choice. So he did as he was told and followed Mike down the hill and into the old bowl. They were down in its lowest point, the walls looking even steeper down here than they had from up at the top of the hill. Like they were closing in on Tommy Gallagher.
    All he’d wanted to do this afternoon was the same thing he always did on Sundays during the season: watch football. But before long he was watching Mike do crazy things on his board, launching himself in the air, twisting his body around the way daredevils did on their snowboards in the Winter Olympics, sometimes yelling his head off as he did. Tommy kept expecting Miketo go one way and his board to go another. It never happened. Every time he’d land, Tommy found himself holding his breath. But Mike nailed every single one, like it was as easy as breathing.
    Mike was showing off for an audience of one, they both knew it, but he was having mad fun, too. Tommy couldn’t believe the way he was able to control his board and his body.
    â€œSo,” Mike said when he finished, not even sweating, “what’d you think?”
    â€œThat you’re insane?”
    Mike grinned, and then handed the board to Tommy. “Now it’s your turn,” he said.
    Tommy shook his head. But Mike was nodding his at the same time.
    â€œYou’re gonna love it.”
    â€œWatching is enough for me.”
    Mike tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. “You’re not afraid, are you?” he said. He was still grinning as he said it, but to Tommy it came out sounding like a challenge.
    That was all it took. Mike knew exactly what he was doing.
    â€œI’m not afraid of anything,” Patrick Gallagher’s son said.

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