From Question Girl:
Kim and I glide down McDonald Avenue on our worn rollerblades. The hill on Avenue H is steep and we try to dodge the traffic and the parked trucks unloading wholesale. The loud grumbling of the F train overhead makes the descent, and the blood in our veins, speed up, faster, faster, faster. And then just when my heart feels as if it’s about to burst out of my rib cage, the rush begins to wear away as the hill levels off into Avenue F. We make our way to F Park’s crowded fountain and wait for the kids to finish filling up their balloons, their guns, and their stomachs. Our own thirst relieved, we head out. Wait, the rink’s empty.
The gate to enter is locked; this rink is meant to be rented out to the hockey equivalent of baseball’s Little League. But we know that if we squeeze behind the fence near the handball courts, past the broken beer bottles, the piles of clothing stacked by the homeless, and the foul smell, there’s a hole large enough for us to fit through and trespass.
We lay in the rink, dead center, where the puck would be dropped at the beginning of a game. We close our eyes, fighting the rays that found their way through each hole in the elevated track and into our eyes. And we sweat, and listen to our hearts, still thumping—interrupted by another F train, Coney Island bound.
The F-line and this avenue know, and keep, my secrets safe. They watched me hold my parents’ hands as we walked with pride into our first one bedroom, pre-war apartment in the United States. They watched Kate and Josh being born and brought home from Maimonedes Hospital, how ecstatic I was to finally have someone to play with. They remember the time I lied and said my favorite apple color was yellow because it was Ms. M’s, but really my favorite are the sour, green ones, sliced by Mama. They know how bored I was every time our teachers decided it was time to go to the aquarium, again. [REMOVED FOR PRIVACY] They understood how painful the iodine felt as I tried to cure, wrap, and hide my wounds, afraid my parents would never let me rollerblade again. The F cradled me every morning on my way to high school, lullaby-ing me to sleep when I didn’t the night before because I had a paper to write, or I was IMing with my friends, or both. She gave me time to finish unfinished calculus homework that was due first period, and just as much time to eat a bagel-egg-and-cheese and drink coffee with Julia instead of going to first-period calculus.