5. Pepper Ketchup & Ice Cream
Pepper Ketchup & Ice Cream
After a particularly busy Friday working in the woodshop, Gus slept through his alarm the next morning when he was supposed to meet Bridger at the skatepark. When Gus did arrive, lots of other neighborhood kids had already shown up. Bridger was skating by himself.
“Sorry I’m late,” Gus huffed as he jogged up.
“It’s fine, dude.” Bridger smiled. “Let’s get at it!”
Bridger wasted no time demonstrating a kickflip to Gus as an advanced flatground trick to try.
Gus attempted it a few times but kept losing the board in the air after popping it off the ground.
Trying to jump, kick, and land on the narrow board with his balance intact started to seem more a mental feat than a physical challenge by his tenth screw-up. He was losing confidence quickly.
Bridger came over and adjusted Gus’s stance and foot position, stepping in close behind Gus’s back. Very close.
“One more time,” Bridger breathed quietly near Gus’s ear. “I know you have it.”
Gus’s face blushed before he could do anything about it. Luckily, his friend didn’t see anything. Bridger stepped away as Gus readied himself for the kickflip. He focused only on the concrete before him.
“Bridger! Where the hell you been?” a voice bellowed out. “You gonna skate with us or what?”
Gus and Bridger turned to see Max, along with Bridger’s whole skate crew, arriving at the other end of the park. Boards in hand, the boys eyed Bridger and Gus with confused curiosity.
“Yeah. Hang on!” Bridger called back.
Gus’s shoulders dropped as he watched Bridger pick up his board, so quick to leave their practice session.
If Bridger noticed Gus’s shift in demeanor, he didn’t show it—he was still all smiles. “C’mon. Wanna meet my crew?”
Gus glanced at the other boys. They all stared him down like he was a loose fifth wheel on their boards. Gus breathed in and shook his head.
“Oh, uh. Not yet. I’ll just practice solo. I’m not good at making new friends,” Gus admitted.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe next time?” Bridger suggested.
Gus looked down at his feet, unsure what to say.
Bridger finally caught on that Gus’s energy seemed off, but didn’t pry further. Instead he asked, “Wanna go get lunch later? I can meet you at Mark’s?”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah! Sure!” Gus said, brightening instantly with surprise.
Bridger’s face also lit up as he hopped onto his board.
“Great. Smell ya later,” he joked as he pushed off across the waxy concrete to go skate with his other friends.
Gus’s grin faded as he watched Bridger go. He was alone again. He looked out to where Bridger and his crew convened. They dapped and cracked jokes and nailed tricks he couldn’t remotely understand.
A little girl no more than nine years old sporting oversized knee pads and a loose helmet zoomed past Gus and up the side of the bowl.
She aired out, landed on the flat ledge at the other end, and finished with a kickflip.
Even she was better at skating than him.
Gus felt the sudden, burning urge to run back to his car and drive home.
But he was tired of that feeling, tired of being afraid.
He was determined to stay and skate like everyone else.
As Gus turned to face the bowl again, he remembered Bridger’s lessons.
Stay loose, accept any danger, adjust to whatever sensations happened beneath his feet.
Gus gritted his teeth as he pushed off. He shot forward, rolling down the small slope in front of him.
When the ground leveled out, he jumped up while kicking the tail of his board behind him so it did a 180 under his feet.
He landed back on the board with a shaky finish, but he had finally completed a pop shuvit.
“Yes!” Gus exclaimed under his breath, glancing around excitedly, wondering if anyone caught him ace the landing. Maybe Bridger had seen it.
But he hadn’t. No one had. Other kids just zoomed around Gus, ignoring him. To them, his big move was nothing special.
Gus peered over at the group of older skate guys at the edge of the park. Bridger was laughing and goofing off with them all. Gus watched them and kicked up his board, trying to muster some confidence.
I can just walk over there. Bridger said I could. He invited me.
Digging his fingernails into his homemade board, Gus took a few steps forward.
But, almost as if sensing Gus’s intentions, Max glanced over from his skate posse and glared right at him.
Gus quickly averted his gaze and stopped walking.
With a prolonged sigh, he turned to leave, hurrying back to his car where the comfort of his sketchbook waited.
Afternoon finally hit, and Gus drove to Mark’s In & Out a few blocks away.
A bright orange neon sign spelled out BEEFBURGERS in big bubble letters above the restaurant window.
It always reminded Gus of diners from the old artsy films he used to watch with his mom during late Sunday nights, cuddled up under blankets while sipping hot cocoa.
The diner itself had this weirdly abstract shape, and as Gus walked up to it, he realized he had never drawn it before.
So, sketchbook in hand and backpack slung over one shoulder, he found a vacant red picnic table in the tiny diner’s parking lot, took a seat, and pulled out a charcoal pencil.
He had a rough, half-finished sketch of the building by the time he saw Bridger skating up the road. Gus closed his sketchbook hurriedly and stuffed it into his backpack as Bridger kicked up his board and jogged over.
“I know. I’m late,” Bridger apologized as he leaned his board up against the table’s edge where red paint chips were peeling away from the wood.
“No, not at all.” Gus smiled. “Let’s eat.”
Gus and Bridger went to order food from the diner’s front window.
Their orders came quickly, and the boys sat down across from each other and wasted no time diving in.
Juice dripped down Bridger’s hand as he took huge bites of his Pizza Burger while Gus sipped politely from his cream soda.
Gus brought up his successful pop shuvit off the bank from that morning, and Bridger hyped him up with proud glee, demanding to see the move next time they practiced while marinara leaked from his lips.
He didn’t even bother cleaning his mouth until Gus pointed out the smudge of red on his lips.
Bridger laughed, stuck out his tongue, and licked the sauce away.
Gus had to admire him—the boy never lost his smile, even if things got messy.
Bridger had scarfed his french fries but was now squeezing ketchup packet after ketchup packet onto a paper plate.
He added way too many forceful shakes of black pepper on top of the red mound to the point that there was almost more pepper than there was ketchup.
Bridger stole one of Gus’s fries and dipped it into the concoction.
“Hey!” Gus laughed.
“What? I’m out… and you’re too slow,” Bridger retorted, inhaling the fry.
“That’s a lot of pepper,” Gus commented.
“Yeah, it’s dank. There’s never too much,” Bridger said, stealing another fry from Gus, dipping it into the pepper ketchup, and offering it across the table with an assured grin. “Just try it.”
“No way!”
“Gus.” Bridger nudged it closer and closer to Gus’s mouth. “Try it!”
Gus snatched the fry and rolled his eyes. Bridger laughed.
There was so much black pepper on the end of the fry that the ketchup was gray. Begrudgingly, Gus bit into the concoction, fighting off a grimace as it hit his tongue.
Ugh! Way too much.
“It’s actually good,” Gus lied with a smiling shrug.
Bridger nodded with pride. “Hell yeah, it is!”
He turned around to look back up at the menu board, debating if he needed to order seconds. Gus quickly spat out the pepper-coated fry into a napkin and hid it under the table, shuddering. Bridger turned back to look at Gus.
“I knew you’d like it,” Bridger said with a wink.
A wink? Why’d he do that?
As the pair shared his remaining fries, Gus now found himself peeking for too long at Bridger’s deep brown eyes, sharp dimples, swooping hair, and constantly moving lips.
He liked the shape of all of Bridger’s features.
He’d be perfect for sketching. Gus watched Bridger’s face tilt on an angle, lost in the sight of him as he peered to Gus’s left.
“What’s that?” Bridger asked, pointing to the sketchbook sitting in Gus’s open backpack.
“What?” Gus hesitated. “Oh. Nothing.”
Bridger stood up, leaned over, and grabbed the book out of the open zipper before Gus could close it.
“No! Hey!” Gus protested. “It’s just drawing practice for school. I didn’t say you could—”
As Gus reached to take back the journal, Bridger blocked his hands playfully and opened it.
“Let me look. You can trust me,” Bridger said, laughing.
Gus sighed, stopped resisting, and sat back down.
He couldn’t help but lean over the table awkwardly as Bridger opened the artbook, anxious about his personal drawings being observed.
Bridger thumbed through the pages, amazed by all the unfamiliar Minnesota nature scenes and the random people in Gus’s ongoing sketches from the months before this summer.
Soon, Bridger found the familiar branches of Montana trees and the unmistakable mountains that rose above his small town as he reached Gus’s more recent sketches. He nodded his head, awestruck.
“Damn! These are incredible,” Bridger exclaimed. “No wonder you got into that fancy art school.”
“Um. I’m not that great. I’ve seen work by their graduates. It’s way better than what I do,” Gus said modestly.
“Not for long. These pages just keep getting better and better,” Bridger remarked.
Bridger flipped the book to a clean page and placed it down in front of Gus. He swiped a pack of colored pencils peeking out from Gus’s backpack and handed all the vibrantly shaded tools to him.
“Draw me!” Bridger smirked, tapping the new sheet of paper. “Make it good.”