“Grumpy”

Grumpy is my cousin and she is a spaz. She has just little too much junk in her trunk and wears her jeans so tight you know she has to lie down to zip. She is a tragedy waiting to happen. She has been skating since she was a kid. Every Saturday, she takes the morning lessons and skates the afternoon skates. Her mom says it is good exercise. My mom started me skating because of Grumpy. My moms says letting me spend my Saturdays at the skating rink is a nice way to get me out of her hair for the day. Like most of us, Grumpy has no-where else to go: No friends, no brothers, no sisters, only me, her younger cousin. She has a dad, but he is never around.

Nobody really liked her until a really fine guy started showing up on Saturday afternoons with his little brothers and sisters. We had seen his picture in the papers- he was some sort of basketball hero. He was so fine, when Grumpy first saw him she couldn’t stop staring and skated into the wall. Dude musta felt sorry for her banging against the wall so he asked her to skate couples.

Grumpy freaked and hid in the bathroom, crying that she had never held hands with a boy before. Everyone cracked up. But Happy felt sorry for her and said she had to do something. Happy always claimed with a little hairspray she could transform anyone, anyone. So she dragged Grumpy out of the stall, told her to quit crying and not move while she sprayed up her bangs proper.

After Grumpy came out of the bathroom, the situation became only more pathetic. Turns out dude didn’t speak much English. We could hear Grumpy repeating the same thing each time she skated by us- “Yo tengo un gato el se llama ‘Merlin’ el es blanco, negro, y muy gordo.” Of course we never saw the boy or his family again. And that was that.

But because of their bonding over a can of hairspray, Grumpy became friends with Happy, which made her cool with the rest of the Shorties.

“She has the best hair,” Happy said. “She doesn’t even need a pick to keep it up.”

When her mom finally allowed her to go to the Friday and Saturday night skates, Grumpy officially became a Shortie, and was given her name, “Grumpy,” the Seventh Shortie. Yeah. She thought the name Grumpy gave her an edge, thought they were giving her props, but girl couldn’t stare down a Care-Bear much less kick her way out of a wet paper bag. Grumpy was the only name left- the one none of us wanted- what guy would wanna get sprung on a chick named Grumpy? Even Sneezy was better.

Once she was a Shortie, everyone thought Grumpy was ok. The only downer about night-skates for Grumpy is me. My mission is to skate in the line and pick up on older guys by pretending I am fifteen. Though army guys are horn-dogs and easy targets, most don’t buy my hustle, at least not yet. One army dude told me that he had seen mosquito bites that were bigger than my tits, and little girls like me should stay home. But Grumpy’s mom, my aunt, won’t let her come to the night skates alone. So she drags me with her, only to ditch me. If I don’t leave her alone, she calls me “mosquito bite”.

I have to give Grumpy credit, she does try, but she can’t help looking like a freak. Her mom won’t allow her to have a job- it will take away from her schoolwork- and girl thinks “stealing was wrong.” So she has to beg and beg for jeans straight from the clearance rack that are just wrong, straight funky, not enough zippers, or too much neon paisley and plaid. She carries a Liz Claiborne, like the rest of us, but it too is from the clearance rack and was green instead of tan. Making things worse, Grumpy stuffs her pick in her purse instead of her back pocket because she is scared it will make her butt look funny. That pick along with her can of Aqua Net, gum, and a brush with a handle covered in scrunchies, pokes its sorry yellow head from a sorry small hole, like it is gasping for air or something.

Her pick, her purse, her jeans and her ass are all sorry. Grumpy is sorry. But in that line with the Shorties, she is different. She is cool. They make her cool.

Every Friday and Saturday night the Seven Shorties ruled the rink. They never skated unless it was a good song. When the bass started bumping, they did their thing, rocking the floor in line with the Shortie in front of them. Get in their way and they were Rocka-bye baby. BOMPA BOMP BOMP. Just skate to the side, give props and stare. They looked good and they knew it. The Seven Shorties rockin’ that bass, aqua-net and ass.

Except for Grumpy, they were all of their names: Doc was going to be a senior and knew things so she was Doc. Happy was the state freestyle champion who could get mad height on her jumps and was pure genius with a curling iron and a can of hairspray, and was well, Happy with the loudest lamest laugh you ever heard. Bashful you never heard, but we learned everything we needed to know about makeup from Bashful. Sleepy was hecka chill and never got up before noon. We all know what Dopey was, and why, but she had a thing going with the floor-guard, Miguel, so it was cool (even though he was a 19 year old army guy, with a wife and kid back in Brooklyn). Sneezy had asthma real bad but she had been skating since she was old enough to walk and wore 32DD bra-size. Dudes never cared about her wheezing.

Each of them rocked black satin jackets with a white skate and their names stitched in red on the back: Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy, and Grumpy. The Seven Shorties.

Really, they all of could be called Dopey, except for Happy- she thought it was ‘gross’- and, of course, Grumpy. Grumpy never fooled with it, wouldn’t even try and left when we smoked in the parking lot because she feared getting contact high. Never mind that we were outdoors. Shit, Grumpy left even when we snuck wine coolers in the bathroom. She claimed she couldn’t even have a just a sip because of an accident she had on her ten speed in middle school.

“I had a head injury and the doctors told me that if I ever drink I could end up in fetal rat position like this,” she would say, curling up her hands under her chin like they were little paws.

On the Friday night skate of Labor Day Weekend, the floor is shining with fresh wax but the rink is silent, stinking of new carpet, and so empty it is hollow. Everything smells like new carpet instead of old skates. Everything is too shiny, too clean.

“This is bunk,” Dopey says.

“What about Miguel?” Grumpy asks.

“What about him? “ Dopey shrugs. “It’s not as if he is the only reason I come here.”

Sneezy coughs.

The skating rink had shut down for the entire month of August to remodel, dumping us all with nowhere to go. Grumpy spent most of the summer at home anyway, recovering from a bad sunburn. She looked like that dude from the movie “The Fly”. Her shit was red, puffy and flaking. She had been using a zit cream and didn’t believe the label when it said, “no sun exposure.”

Lame. Gave new meaning to the word.

The rest of the Shorties were almost as lost. Dopey disappeared, no one knew where until later, when it all went down. Doc worked more hours at her job. Sleepy started waking up early and got into soap operas, until Sneezy got her driver’s license and they started cruising. According to Sleepy, Bashful spent most of the time on the phone with some ridiculously fine army guy, talking about what she didn’t know because girl never talked.

Grumpy doesn’t hang around to listen about Dopey’s latest beef with Miguel and races to put on her skates.

Her skin is still red and flaking. All night she has been complaining that her braces are too tight.

“I FEEL THE NEED FOR SPEED!” she screams.

I am the only one to follow her.

“What the fuck?” Sneezy says. “Does she think she’s in Top Gun or something?”

“Hurry up!” Grumpy shouts. “Put on your skates! The floor is so smooth its like skating on butter!”

“What a spaz,” Doc says.

“A total spaz,” I say, as Grumpy skates around the floor alone, rockin’ out without any music.

I follow Grumpy onto the floor, laughing to myself how she doesn’t even seem to notice the way things have changed. The rink has finally fixed the marquise so it no longer said, “Del Monte Gard s.” The floor is still a giant wood rectangle, but it is polished, too polished. To the right of the entrance is still the the trophy window and photos of skaters, the skate shop, the rental skate booth, the lockers, the bathrooms. Alongside the photos of skaters, are still the autographed pictures of Laverne and Shirley and The Fonz, all on skates, and the sign, “Skating is Fun,” with a Coppertone blonde in a blue skating dress. But the carpet is too new, too fluffy.

Grumpy continues to speed around the freshly waxed floor, shouting at the rest of the Shorties to join her. The dj must have been feeling Grumpy’s elation, because all of a sudden L’Trimm’s “Cars that Go Boom” starts blasting. Grumpy claps, squeals a cheer, and, I’m sad to say, jumps a little hop. So, I clap, squeal a cheer, and jump. Grumpy just ignores me and starts to Cabbage Patch, her fists jiggling with the beat. So, I begin to Cabbage Patch.

“Get lost mosquito bite!” she screams over her shoulder. “It’s the Seven Shorties, not eight!”

“You guys, get out here!” she shouts. “The floor is like butter! Mosquito bite- scram!”

She skates off the floor screaming, her hair flying, her hands waving, “Come on you guys!”

“We like the cars, the cars that go BOOM!” she sings.

I trail behind her and then stop. Normally, we roll off the floor onto the carpet no problem, never had to slow down because the carpet was so old. But the new carpet is fat, I mean, fat, F-A-T. Just as Grumpy says “BOOM” her wheels hit the carpet and she straight launches horizontally into the air three feet, her arms out like Superman. Her bangs are like a tidal wave of hair sprayed into a horn charging towards the rest of the Shorites, and then BOO-YAH.

Splat.

Absolutely fucking beautiful.

Grumpy lays spread-eagled, face down on the red and blue swirls of the carpet. The music stops playing.

“Is she alive?” Sleepy asks.

The Shorties all roll over to her. I want to laugh but my cousin appears lifeless so all I can do is wait in anticipation with my fingers in my mouth.

None of us can move.

“It’s like skating on butter”, Grumpy whimpers, her face still down in the carpet.

We can’t move. We can’t speak. We can’t get the image of Grumpy flying out of our heads.

Grumpy never notices anything. Just like she doesn’t notice how all of the Shorties are upset. How and why Sneezy’s Uncle is not around tonight.

Sometimes Sneezy’s Uncle works as a rental skate guy, though he is not in the army. He says he likes us because we made him feel young. He is twenty-nine going on thirty. Turning thirty makes him feel old he says. Doc is seventeen. Sneezy, Happy, Bashful, and Sleepy are sixteen. Dopey and Grumpy are fifteen. I am thirteen.

He is old, we say.

We loved the attention he gave us. We thought he loved us. He knew Siouxsie Sioux back in the day, and even showed us the record she had signed for him. He always said Happy was so beautiful, and gave her a little teddy bear on Valentine’s Day when the guy she had been hanging out with dumped her. He said Grumpy would be pretty if she lost weight.

Grumpy’s mother refused to let her go to the beach when he took everyone, even though my mother let me go. His brother and sister-in-law, Sneezy’s dad and step-mom, had their wedding at the rink. My mom said he was safe, after all we knew his family, and Sneezy was our age. My aunt said he reminded her far too much of the Pied Piper.

That August, when the rink was closed, Dopey started hanging out at his apartment. At first we didn’t understand. But then we found out she was pregnant, and her mom had kicked her out of the house. Sneezy’s Uncle said it was cool to stay with him. He said we could all hang out. His apartment became party central. None of us knew that he and Dopey had also been doing speed. What did it matter? We all drank and smoked at the rink anyway. He was the one who always bought us wine coolers and kicked us down weed. What difference did it make that we were at his apartment? He was pretty much family. It was cool.

Except one night, at his apartment, Happy got too drunk and she semi-blacked out. He put her into his bed, and later, we found out, he had sex with her. She had been a virgin. She told him no the entire time. She didn’t like him like that, she told us. She didn’t think of him that way. She had thought of him like a dorky uncle. She thought he was safe.

He always greeted us with long hugs. Whenever he hugged me I could feel the “T” shape of his torso under his shirt.

“You have a bangin‘ body,” I told him. “Too bad it’s attached to your head.”

Another night at his apartment he let me touch his cock through his pants. It was disappointingly small. We all felt sorry for Happy because it was her first time, and he was so pathetic. Afterwards he cried and tried to blame it on the drugs and the booze. We agreed to not tell anyone. Not our moms, not our other friends, and especially not Grumpy.

Grumpy is still laying face down on the carpet. We still can’t move. We still can’t speak. We still can’t stop seeing Grumpy soaring through the air.

“Did you see the height she got on that jump?” Happy finally says.

“Damn,” Dopey says.

“It’s like skating on butter,” Grumpy says again into the carpet.

“Can you move?” Happy asks.

“Like butter,” Grumpy says.

“Help her,” Happy says.

Doc and I each take one of her arms and pulled her up.

Grumpy screams.

“What?” Happy asks. “Are you in pain? Did you break something?”

“My jeans!” she cries.

Her black jeans, one of the few pairs she has in a normal color, are split in two at the zipper.

We can not stop laughing.

“Just wear your shirt tucked out,” Happy says. “No-one will notice.”

“I’m leaving in ten if no-one shows,” Dopey says in between laughs.

The Shorties all skate out onto the floor. The rink is empty, silent. The dj has left his booth. They get in line anyway.

I trail behind them, flipping up Grumpy’s shirt whenever I have the chance, trying to make everyone laugh, but I can’t see anyone’s face. I am in the back of the line. Grumpy keeps slapping my hand away. Dopey has her hands in her sleeves, Happy’s shoulders are stiff, Bashful is playing with her hair, Sleepy keeps skating off to the left, and Sneezy keeps skating off to the right. Only Doc, in the front, holds her head up, nodding ever so slightly. The joke is not funny anymore.

The dj gets back into his booth, starts playing “Cindy” by the Armani Crew.

“This girl,” the Armani Crew sings. “She pulled up her skirt and said slap me ’til it hurts.”

It is a good song with a good beat, so we begin to dance.