Over the next month Blazin' and I had been hanging tough, almost every day after school and on the weekends too; we had been figuring out break dance moves, acrobatic and gymnastic combinations, and the like. We had both only seen break dancing on TV a couple of times, at the rink last month with Miguel and Gio, and a random kid or two at school, who had rocked out some breakin’ moves in the mornings, just before first bell. So we were really just making up our own stuff at first.
Blazin’ lived across the way from this cornfield that was in-between our houses. The quickest way to Blazin's house was to cut through my neighbor Miranda’s yard that lived directly behind the cornfield. But check this shiznit out, Mirandas dad bought this humungous solar paneled contraption that was smack dab in the middle of their roof. It was the size of an eighteen wheeler parked right on the top of their roof; I swear you could have seen it from an airplane, something right out of the space age. But any given night that I walked home from Brocks, through the cornfield, all I had to do was look for the space aged contraption to navigate my way through the tall corn stalks; it was my cynosure. The Solar panels on her roof had nothing to do with anything but when I pictured myself walking to and from Brocks house, that’s what I pictured and I wanted you to feel like you were there with me, you dig?
This one night, I hopped Mirandas fence and made haste to Brocks crib. I was still in the cornfield but I was close enough to Blazin's crib that I could see him already working on his moves in the garage. He looked like a shadow in the twilight of his well lit garage, he was working on this move that he had told me about over the phone, just a few minutes beforehand. With each step I took and with each swallow the horizon took of the sun, Blazin' had become more defined as the garage light had put him on showcase.
It was a killer night as all heck with the wind pushing the clouds passed the reddened moon and the smell of burning leaves coming from the backyard of the Lipps house, which had made my cornfield romp feel eerie. The Lipps burned leaves almost every night during the fall, so I knew it was their leaves I smelt.
I could see Blazin's old man’s second car in the garage, which Blazin' told me, would be his car once he got his driver’s license in a couple of years. It was a 1967 big red boat of a car, Ford something or other. I can’t tell you much more, since I’m not really a car buff but I really liked breakin’ next to that big ‘ol boat of a car though, it added some atmosphere, if you know what I mean?
Blazin' was straight up diving onto the floor and then attempting to bounce right back up. Over the phone Blazin' was calling this move, “The beach ball.” The closer I got to Brock’s garage, I could see that he was diving to the ground into an immediate spinning movement on his back, and then trying to spring right back up to his feet like a beach ball being spun down onto the ground and then bouncing right back up, hence the name, “beach ball.”
“Yo Blazin' Sup my brother from a different mother,” I said when I was near his house.
“Sup Swift?” Blazin' excitedly requited.
Brock Blazin' had a huge cardboard box from a refrigerator his P’s just bought that was taped onto the cemented garage floor to hide the oil stains from our breakin’ bodies. “I see that you have finally duct taped the cardboard to the floor … last time I was over, we were swishing, slipping ,and sliding that big piece of cardboard all over the place,” I said.
“Yeah, I got tired of the cardboard moving all over the joint,” Brock said.
“I’ve got something to show ya,” I said with pride.
“Wazup Swifty?” he said.
I didn’t tell Blazin' over the phone I had finally figured out helicopters in my basement the night before. I figured I’d bust out with copters right in front of him, right on the cardboard, next to the big red 67 muscle car. I wanted to surprise him.
I started scampering about with top rocks while playfully looking at Blazin' to make sure I had his attention. Then I started dealing, I just straight up started dizz-ealing. I swiftly twisted and turned some radical revolutions on the fridge box floor while, “The message” by Grand Master Flash and Melle Mel was playing in the background from the boom box. By the way: Top Rockin’ kind of looks like tap dancing but more jaunty and playful.
Truth be told about the copters, they started a little clunky and ended a little abrupt and rough but Blazin' exclaimed, “Yeah Swift, You got ‘em buddy, you got ‘em, right on man!” He was all pumped, he didn’t really care that my intro and exit were a little choppy; after all, I did just figure the things out not even 12 hours ago. All in all it took me a month to get them down. But I finally could rock windmills.
Then Blazin' started playfully top-rockin’ around the garage and told me, “Watch this Swift!” He didn’t know that I could see him beach balling most of the while I was trekking to his crib through the cornfield. He dove to the ground in a spinning twisting motion, hitting the ground spinning on his back and within a quick second, he propelled back to his feet and landed it.
“Yo dude, that is killa for rilla my nilla,” I said. I really was quite amazed, it was like lightning; one quick spinning bounce movement, “Rock those beach balls bro,” I added.
Blazin' smiled with fervor at my compliment but he was also excited about what he was going to tell me next, he practically drooled all over the place. He sucked back in the spit that was hanging from his lips, caught his breath, and said, “Yo Phil man, Big Burger is having a break dance contest in Westmont; you know the Burger joint on Cass Ave?” he asked.
“I’m hip bro, I’m hip! I know where you’re talking about,” I told him as I started to Top Rock dance around.
“Dude, they are having a break dance contest up there – we can come up with some routines, we’ll get some matching uniforms, we’ll straight up rock the joint, you know Swift, you know?” he said as he looked at me big teethed and wide eyed. He practically made me agree with him by the way he kept histrionically shaking his head up and down, until I conceded. Even though I would have agreed with him anyway but I still had no choice. Blazin' was just that passionate and persuasive.
“For show bro, fow show, we’ll show what we know, you know. I am in like Flynn. I am so in, it’s a sin,” I said as Blazin' continued to shake his head vigorously with joy and a grin.
Blazin' and I took turns diving onto the cardboard as the mood struck us. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to give that Big Burger break dance battle a chance.
I randomly remarked, “Yo Blazin' let’s do this thing! Let’s enter that Break dance battle!” I pronounced boldly again, which spawned Blazin' into grins and top rocks that led to up rocks against each other. If you don’t know what “Up Rockin’” is, I’ll tell you. It almost looks like two karate students fighting each other, yet dancing at the same time. But with reciprocal movements … well, something like that.
Out of the blue, Blazin' asked me, “Did you pick up those zipper pants yet? … The ones that Harry the rink guard was rockin’?”
“I had totally forgotten about those,” I said. This was his way of asking me if I wanted to go to the mall on the weekend.
“Yep, their sweet dude, straight up sharp,” he said as he pounced the ground with a beach ball.
“I haven’t been up to the mall in a minute and I’ve been so consumed with breakin’ every day -after school in my basement and here, that I haven’t even bothered to go up to the mall lately. But now that you refreshed my memory about those super sweet swaggerlisious pants, we’ve got to head up to the mall this weekend,” I told Brock.
“Yay, we’ll go, bro, no worries,” he said.
“We’ll check out Chess King and see what kinda clothes they’ve got on the racks,” I said.
Blazin' quipped, “Yay dude, we’ve got to go to the mall so we can check out the RACKS,” he said as he tossed me a salacious smile and confirmed, “Yep, we’ll go up together and see what’s going on!”
“Call me on the weekend and we’ll go,” I said.
“Yeah dude … no worries,” he said.
We spent the next hour developing B-boy routines for the competition at Big Burger, which consisted of synchronized robotic dance moves in between our individual break maneuvers, just to kind of make it all flow together better. We wanted to make our routine flow instead of just randomly taking turns breakin’.
According to my clear swatch watch, it wasn’t all that late yet but Blazin' abruptly said, “All right bro, I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” I mean out of nowhere, he was ready to pack it in for the night. In my mind we were just getting started but that’s Blazin' for ya, he was always in a big hurry to go nowhere. That boy can be rather mercurial sometimes. But it’s all good in the hood. I just would have hung out a little longer on the fridge box, that’s all I’m saying.
“Peace out my brother from another mother, I’ll catch you on the flipside. Hit me up about the mall,” I told Blazin' as I slowly exited the garage and into the reddish-orange moonlit night.
Blazin' hastily replied, “I will Swift, later!”
I yelled back at Blazin' as he was closing his big overhead garage door, “Yo Blazin'? When’s the break dance contest?”
“In 2 weeks! … Later,” Blazin' said as he slammed the garage door down.
I walked home in the burning leaf air. It was the kind of night where you were almost listening for wolves or coyotes howling in the background. Not that they were indigenous to our neck of the woods or anything; It was just that kind of fall night with the burnt orange moon, the strong smell of burning leaves, and the darkness of the night and all.
When I wasn’t at school or at Brocks, I practiced my breakin’ in my basement. My basement was a dark and dingy dungeon that I suppose is another way of saying it was an unfinished basement without furniture and dozens of spider webs adorning most of the corners. However, I liked it, it was my studio, it was the place where I had learned to be a bad to the bone breaker for the last five weeks or whatever it was. And before that, it was a spaghetti legs makeshift practice rink.
I started working on new moves in my dungeon the day after I learned about the break dance contest at the Big Burger. A couple of guys at school, Hazy and Dustin were showing me break moves in the hallway before school one morning. Well, it was mainly Hazy, he was showing me “crabwalks” and some other move that was called “flares,” that reminded me of a gymnastic move.
As I was in my basement, I kept trying to walk on my hands in circles or “crabwalks” as Hazy called them. My boom box was jamming, “Jam on it” by Newcleus that sent echoes and tinny tingly vibration noises throughout the aluminum air ducts that were hanging above the entire basement ceiling. I laugh when I think about it because I used to hang out in a dark gray dungeon with creepy crawlies and strange noises that were emitting from the furnace but I loved it. There were creaking wood planks from above which kept cricking and cracking as the P’s walked about upstairs. It used to spook me when I was younger, yet now, I found that place to be a step away from bliss; what a difference a year can make.
Over the next few days I practiced my, “crabwalks” like a madman. Or I suppose I should say I was practicing them like a mad crab. I worked on making my legs into a perfect, “V” shape, while attempting to walk in 360’s on my two hands as fast as I could without any part of my body touching the floor - except my hands. I actually started to get the move down pretty good and darn quick too, as I said; I was practicing like a mad crab.
With basement practice sessions, breakin’ at Brocks, and hanging with the other breakers at school in the “hip hop hallway,” I was really starting to feel like I belonged. I was feeling like I belonged to this thing called breakin’. And life has never been the same ever since.