Skating Out as a Gay Dad
Fruitbooters, skateboards, and love
My lover and I rollerbladed down the empty rink chest to chest, faster and faster as music pumped, hands clenched together sweating as we thrust our hips to the beat. He pushed and sent me flying backwards so fast all I could see was a blur. I hooked one blade at an angle and let momentum fling me into tight circles.
I counted beats.
One, two, three, four …
And toes!
I lifted my heels and threw all my weight forward, then shifted to balance on my right toe only.
Pop! And spin!
I slowly lifted my arms over my head, spinning tighter and faster as 14-year-old Brent up in the DJ booth blurred out of recognition.
A little bit of Monica in my life A little bit of Erica by my side A little bit of Rita is all I need A little bit of Tina is what I see A little bit of Sandra in the sun A little bit of Mary all night long A little bit of Jessica, … ¹
As I lowered my arms and spread them to come out of the spin, Jason hooked my elbow with his and we skated off together, smiling as our feet tapped a tribute to Lou Bega’s cheerful if sexist Mambo №5.
Two high-pitched voices interrupted the end of our number.
“Wooooo, go guys!” screamed Brent. Then he laughed. “Don’t fall on your ass again, Jim!”
“Nice work, boys!” shouted Tricia. “Shush, Brent. Don’t jinx em.”
Once Brent (our kid) killed the music, I skated over to Tricia (our choreographer) and lifted her into a hug. “We did it! We REALLY did it! I can’t believe it.”
She skated backwards holding onto my hands, grinning at me. “I told you, great dress rehearsal! You just needed to believe in yourself.”
Jason skated up to match our pace, eyes darting around to check if anybody other than Brent was watching, then bent down and kissed me on the lips.
Jump up and down and move it all around Shake your head to the sound Put your hands on the ground Take one step left and one step right One to the front and one to the side Clap your hands once and clap your hands twice And if it looks like this, then you’re doin’ it right ¹
I never imagined I’d become a gay dad
Fatherhood was even MORE improbable to me than the wildly improbable fact that I’d become an in-line skater good enough to need a choreographer. Yet the stories intertwine into a knot I could never unthread.
Skating didn’t JUST bring Jason and me joy, exercise, and artistic fulfillment. Our shared passion made us each a father, helped each of us live out and proud every day of our lives, and MAYBE, just maybe, softened a few hearts and minds.
My stomach clenches at the top of the 12-foot halfpipe. I’m scared of heights. Jason squeezes my shoulder (he knows!) and bends down to adjust his aggressive skates, the heavy kind we use for this scary shit, not the sleek ones we dance in out on the rink.
A teasing voice interrupts my quest to bail. “Hey, fruit booter! Watch this! Watch me do it!” A little kid clutching a skateboard taps Jason’s arm then drops in. He makes it down the vert and halfway up the other side before he wipes out.
I’ve seen him around for a few weeks, hanging in the aggressive side of the park, working on tricks he mostly can’t land. He’s always alone, I never see him with anybody.
“Fuck!” he shouts as he slides down the pipe and scrambles back up toward us. “Crisse de câlisse de TABERNAK!”
I can’t help but laugh at the sight of a kid who looks maybe 11 beating his fists and swearing like a drunken marin. That string of French curses is more offensive than fuck.
“Watch me, kid!” says Jason, dropping in with slick grace despite his 220 pounds and six feet. He scrunches down tight as a ball with wheels, shoots down one side, explodes off the top clutching his skates, then somersaults and slides down and right back up to us.
“Not bad for a fruit booter, huh?”
The kid rolls his eyes and picks up his board. “No fair! I messed up last time. Watch me again? I can do it!”
“Maybe you should give him a few pointers,” I suggest, eying the exit.
Jason grabs my arm and laughs. “Oh, no you don’t. This is YOUR lesson, Slick.” He turns to the kid. “What’s your name, bud?”
“Brent. Hey, watch me real quick. Please? I won’t mess up this time.”
He doesn’t. He drops in and wobbles a little, but he makes it down the vert and all the way back up without falling off his board. He doesn’t flip or somersault or anything fancy, but he drops right back in and makes it back up without a hitch.
“Cool, dude,” says my boyfriend, reaching out and fist bumping. “Name’s Jason. This is Jim.”
That day at the skatepark is my first solid memory of Brent, the boy who became our son
Why he decided he liked Jason enough to risk bugging him, I’ve never figured out. He steered clear of most everybody else. Tricia and Jean-Paul knew who he was, though. They were the husband and wife who ran the place, her a retired ballet dancer from Vancouver, him a retired Montreal circus artist, both ridiculously trim and healthy for their ages, which I’m not revealing lest Tricia kill me.
I was in Downward Dog on a yoga matt beside her one day when she brought it up. “Keep an eye on that Brent kid, please? He’s older than he looks and he’s a bad influence on the little ones. Sometimes he runs out to the alley and comes back stinking of weed. We can’t afford a reputation.”
Tricia was already coaching me, and yoga was part of the deal. “You have to learn how to STRETCH and STAND before you learn how to move,” she always said.
Jason and I adopted Tricia and Jean-Paul as friends long before we adopted Brent in our hearts. Jason and I were in love but new to Montreal. Part of my heart was still beating out grief back in New York City, and he was so homesick for Australia that I could feel his hurt from across the room.
He was a fantastic skater, so one of the first things we did when we adopted our new city was search for half pipes and a rink. We found everything he needed, plus a great pair of friends and eventually much more.
Fruitbooter is an insult
Skateboarders use it to make fun of in-line skaters. As in, “You rollerbladers are a little fruity. A little suspect. Possibly GAY.”
Aggressive skateboarding and skating share the same pipes, ramps, and spines, but that doesn’t mean everybody gets along.
Skateboarders see themselves as more macho, more tough, and more straight. Pain is part of the sport, accepted in a toxic masculine way that can lead to sexism and homophobia.
I’m not saying aggressive skaters are any better, but skateboarders have a worse rep. So Jason and I had a problem.
We really were gay.
We really did like to rip our aggressive skates off and shake our booties in stylish fruit boots as we danced to bubblegum pop.
It was all Tricia’s idea, but I was her willing partner in crime. “Jim,” she said to me one day over a lunch of fermented yeast and seaweed, “Why don’t you and Jason join our exhibition team?”
“Who, me? Jason’s pretty good in a pipe, but I’m a klutz! And scared of heights!”
“Pish,” she said as she toyed with her soy milk. “Fear is the mind killer. But that’s not what I mean. I think you’re ready to learn how to move.”
I laughed. “I’ve been moving all on my own since I was 18 months old!”
“No seriously,” she said. “I’m a pretty good choreographer, and I need a pair of victims.”
I spent months learning how to move. Tricia was right. I had no idea what I was doing. While Jason worked the pipes and spines in the back, I wore myself out in the rink skating the basics.
I did so many figure 8’s, forwards and backwards, that I dreamed them at night, waking Jason as I shouted the commands Tricia barked at me in our drills.
Ballet dancers are tough!
“Doesn’t Jason need to learn how to move too?” I asked her once.
“He already knows,” she said, toying with her perfect hair.
I mouthed a word that started with B.
“Love you too, sweety darling,” Tricia said while Brent laughed.
By then, he was firmly part of our skating lives, running up and attaching himself to Jason and me the moment we walked in. Tricia still sniffed at him suspiciously, but we’d managed to convince him that toking was a terrible idea for a 13 year old, especially if he didn’t want to get banned from the park.
Tricia was right. Brent didn’t look much older than 10 or 11, but he’d be 14 soon. She was also right that he was “trouble.” We knew nothing about his home life, but rumors were dark.
He came in with bruises on his face sometimes but wouldn’t explain them. He’d blink away tears if we pushed. I think that’s when Tricia finally accepted him. She started packing him macrobiotic snacks, “just in case he’s hungry.” He never ate them (who would?) but he was careful not to let her see him throw them away.
Jason kept him well stocked with pizza and fries, because he really was hungry.
By the time Tricia was ready to choreograph our dance, Brent insisted on working the DJ booth. He wrinkled his nose at the music but stayed every night after the doors closed to watch us skate.
That’s when things got tricky for Jason
We weren’t the only ones who stayed late. Several pro skaters and promising regulars worked out at night so they’d have easier access to equipment.
The doors were locked to the public, but they weren’t locked to gossip.
One night Jason was working on a lift with me (talk about scary!) when we heard a catcall. “Lookit them fruit booters fruit it up!”
If you ever followed pro skateboarding, you know his name. He wasn’t world famous yet, but he was on his way. He made sloppy kissing sounds and called friends over to watch.
Tricia laid into them in bad French with ballet-master body language they couldn’t misunderstand, but the damage was done. Jason turned purple and Brent’s face up in the booth went cherry red.
Years later, Brent told us that it was that night he decided he could trust us. He walked over in tears. Angry tears. Enraged tears. “What are we gonna do now?” he choked out. “They’ll make fun of us if we ever go back in there.”
“Follow me,” Jason said.
He ran to a bench and wrestled on his clunky Roces Majestic aggressive skates. He pointed at me and Brent. “You too. Let’s go. Right now.”
Tricia whistled and looked a little awed for the first time since I met her. She sprint-skated to her office, calling out “Wait for me!” By the time I was booted up, Tricia skated out in her own aggressives, grind plates gleaming.
“Let’s do this, boys!” she growled.
We OWNED the 12 foot vert that night. The four of us landed every trick we tried, even if we had to try over and over. I bruised the hell out of my hips, but every time the fear grabbed me at the top of the pipe, I swallowed and dropped in anyway, thinking of Jason and Brent.
Mr. Famous Skateboarder watched, shaking his head, but pretty soon he got back to work, even sharing the vert with us a couple time, polite as pie. He never bothered us again.
A month later, Jason and I performed our first exhibition dance in public. I fell a couple times, and we dropped a few beats, but we had so much fun, and I think at least some people cheered for real.
My heart was finally all the way home, in Montreal with my new family.
I guess I skipped that part.
Two weeks before that first performance and just after Brent’s 14th birthday, he came to live with us. He was supposed to stay “just a few days,” just until his social worker found a placement.
But he never left. We got official custody and he stayed on until long after his 18th birthday. He didn’t stay a loner for long. He made friends, and showed off his dads to them, especially Jason.
He never called me “Dad,” said the word was too hurtful. He did call me “fruitbooter” every once in a while, though, as long as he had a clear escape route. He knew I loved it.
Oh, and Tricia? I hear she’s into flavored algae and hot yoga.
More about life with Jason and Brent —
James Finn is a long-time LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Act Up NYC, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].
¹ Lyrics to Mambo №5, written by Lou Bega and recorded in 1999. Music derived from riffs first composed by Cuban musician Dámaso Pérez Prado in 1949 and released the next year.