Clay's Way Read Online Free PDF Page A

do, and I want to see you wearing it.”
                    I examine the helmet, acting like I’m checking it out and that I like it and all that.  The gift   tag’s   on the inside.  It reads 808 Skate.  This has to be a sign. 
                    She’s fulfilling my destiny without even knowing it. 
                    I picture her buying the helmet from Clay.  Terror rushes through my chest.  Did she talk to him?  I don’t want him to know I have such an idiot mom.
                    Dad gets up and goes into the garage, probably to polish up his golf clubs.
                    Mom clears the table.  “I’ll put this in the refrigerator.  It’ll be great cold, for later.  Don’t forget the card.”  She hands me the yellow envelope.
                    “Thanks Mom.  I love you.” 
    For giving me an excuse to see Clay.  You did something a hell of a lot cooler than you think you did.
                    A crackle of lightning shoots through the sky followed by booming thunder with a slight electric roughness at the end.  I can see rain coming out over the jagged   Koolaus .  A heavy shower sweeps in and pounds the house with huge raindrops.  Maybe the streets will flood and turn into rivers.  Clay could paddle in and save me.
    I go into my room and set the new skateboard on the floor and step up onto my top bunk.  I stand on the edge of the mattress and aim for the center of the board.  I jump.  I land right in the middle, but it flies out from under me and slams into my closet door.  It breaks a couple louvers near the bottom.  I fall on my ass, making a loud thud on the floor.  The rain’s pretty loud, so maybe they didn’t hear.  I roll the board to the center of the room and jump up and down on it.  I sneak out to the garage with the board under my arm.
    As soon as the door closes behind me, my mom opens it again, pops her head out, and sees me opening the garage door.  It’s pouring outside.
    “Where are you going?  You’ll fall and break something.”
                    “I’m just   gonna   try it out.  Is Dad gone?”
                    “Yeah, he went to the golf course to wait out the rain.”  Her head pops back into the door and it closes.
                    I look through my dad’s toolboxes.    There’s   lots of wrenches and hammers and a whole bunch of other weird shit. 
                    I set the board down, wheels facing up, in a big iron vice grip thing and turn the knob till it’s held in tight.  I grab a huge rusty plumber’s wrench and hit the back truck and wheels as hard as I can.  They snap off.  A wheel goes bouncing around the cement floor.  The wood splinters, revealing the white inner layers of the deck’s construction.  It looks sort of realistic, I think, though I’ve never skated hard enough or weighed enough to really break a board.

Chapter 4
     
    Reflections off
    Waves he rides
    The one I love
                   
    I ride my bike through the pouring rain, holding the fucked-up board under my arm.  Giant drops pelt my face so it’s hard to see. My backpack is getting soaked, probably ruining my cigarettes.  Halfway down my street, the rain stops—the sky turns clear and blue and the pavement is dry and hot.  I look back to where it’s raining.  Fifty feet behind me, it’s cloudy and gray.  The road steams as water evaporates off the pavement. 
                    A perfect rainbow crosses the sky, which makes me feel lame, like I’m on the front of a greeting card.    I love you, son.  You’re my world.    Fuck.  I forgot to open my mom’s card.             
    I’m soaking wet, but I ride all the way to 808 Skate before I stop.  I park my bike at the far end of the parking lot, because it’s a lame kid’s bike that I’m still riding since the