The night that I fell in love with a roller derby queen, round and round, a-round and round.
The biggest hunk a woman that anybody ever seeeeeeeeeeeeeen...
DOWN in the arena, she was five foot six, two fifteen a bleached blonde mama with a streak of mean...
She knew how to hustle and she knew how to tussle and fight.

Leggs didn't look like Jim Croce's girl and didn't seem to have a streak of mean. What she did in her normal life was a mystery. All that she revealed were long legs under sheer black nylons, a low cut mini dress, a long brunette pony tail and a helmet. She could be a yuppie or an artist. Wall Street or a teacher. I didn't know. All I knew was I needed to meet her.

Ginger was back from having set something up on the other side of the arena.

"So Ginger, what did you say and what did she say?"

"I said, 'are you single?'" Ginger said, smiling. There are few things sexier than the Junior high school courtship through the best friend. "And she said, 'Yeah...well...yeah."

"Okay that's not good."

"I think she just broke up with a guy. A professional skateboarder." Okay, so Leggs was actually still in high school. I mean she looked young but I figured 25, 26. Oh well.

"No, she works at BAM. She's an adult, Eric."

"I know, I'm just kidding. SO then what?"

"Then I said, 'well there's this guy who's a friend of Bob and Susan's who likes you and he's sitting over there...' and that's when you waved."

"Okay, good."

"And she said, 'well I don't quite know how to take that. Tell him to introduce himself to me at the after party'"

"Okay, so there's a chance."

"Yeah. You should go to the after party and say hi."

"Where is it?"

"At this bar on Avenue A and Houston. The Double Down."

"Okay, great. Thank you so much. You're very sweet for helping."

So it was on. And then she had done the little wave so I felt like there might be a real chance of something good happening. But now she and everyone else was all business as the game was about to start.

Hundreds of people filled both sides of the bleachers and stomped their feet in unison creating an earthquake rumble as Leggs' team from Brooklyn, and the ladies from Manhattan took their places on the flat, metallic blue oval. White snake lights like on a runway bordered the makeshift rink and I was sitting two feet from one of the curves which was apparently a "danger zone" as girls frequently got blocked into your lap, crashing onto you. Bob turned to me, "Which one would you take. Catching a foul ball at Shea or having Leggs crash onto your lap..."

"As much as I must obtain Leggs, I'd take the foul ball. I can catch Leggs somewhere else." Bob smiled. The whistle blew as the crowd crescendoed and the girls were off on their first "jam." That's when the girls start skating, five per side. One girl from each team starts farther behind the "pack" which is comprised of the other eight girls. The two lone "jammers" have to make their way through the blockade of women trying to stop them from breaking free and passing them. Once the jammers inevitably do pass the pack, they become scoring machines, able to garner points by lapping the opposing team's girls. They fly around the track as the pack lingers, jockeying for position awaiting them. When the jammers reach them, they attempt to lap them. A good hip check or well placed illegal elbow will send the smaller, more agile jammers into the front row of spectators. Leggs is Brooklyn's best jammer. I of course, being from Manhattan would have been routing for my home team, but I became a shameless turncoat the instant I saw that Leggs was dawning the blue and white stripes of the Brooklyn side and I even made an impromptu sign on the back of the orange Manhattan sign I had hitherto commandeered which read, "I heart Leggs Luthor." I held it up proudly when the Bombshell cheerleaders would lead us in a cheer. I only really held the sign up once. I'm not a total geek.

So the first half was pretty even. The two teams jockeyed back and fourth. Each jam lasted a couple minutes and each team had two or three jammers who would alternate jams. The half ended in a virtual tie after thirty minutes of rough skating. Leggs hadn't looked at me once but I gave her a flier since she was navigating 200 pound girls parries designed to knock her into the third row and while not negotiating that danger, she was intently cheering on her teammates, which I understood and respected. There would be time for romance after the game... if she thought I was cute. The jury was still way out based on her little wave and smile. That was still all I had to go on. And the cryptic, "Yeah... well... yeah" when asked if she was single.

In the second half, the Bombshells, lead by my girl's skilled and graceful dominance, began to take control frustrating the lesser opponent. They grabbed a seemingly insurmountable 63-51 lead. But there was still lots of time left. Since the game seemed in the bag, I was left to start imagining my life with Leggs. How long would her derby career last? Would our kids be derby girls? Would I be scared for my girls' safety as a "derby dad?" What a cool couple we would make. She accompanying me to my film premiers, me cheering her on rink side as she sexily slithered through morasses of large women, catapulting her team to league championships... I was lost in a reverie of wonderful images when I was suddenly jolted back into the present by a thunderous roar. "Roxy," one of Manhattan's best jammers had just scored an unprecedented NINE points on one jam! It was sick. She had lapped my girls TWICE in what seemed a nightmarishly endless jam. With our meager 2 points scored that put the Mayhem right back in the game and they now had all the momentum... and they seized it.

In the subsequent jams, they outscored Leggs, bottling her and the other Bombshell jammers up and frustrating them to take a 70-67 lead.

There was only 45 seconds left. Time for one last very short jam. There might not even be time enough for our jammer to break free from the pack and lap them, which was the only way to score the necessary 4 points to win. As luck and the magic of serendipity would have it, like a movie, of course, Leggs was the final jammer for Brooklyn. It was do or die.

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 7:00 AM

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