Album: The Shuffleboard Queens

The King Of The Rollerama

At twelve my friends read Teenbeat and wrote to Peter Frampton
Hung staple-scarred Leif Garret posters by their beds
It all seemed rather shallow, (my love was more mature)
It was the kind that ripped an adolescent heart to shreds
All week I'd dream about him in science and in math class
I couldn't eat I couldn't sleep ‘til Saturday arrived
Then I'd don my macramà vest, a sprits of Jean Natae
And I would go down to the rink so I could watch him roll on by

He was a real live eight-wheeled Mercury
Skating backwards to Take a Chance on Me
And I'm surprised I didn't just die from such a preteen drama
In his non-rent skates he was six feet tall!
Underneath that pulsing disco ball
His friends called him 'Wheels' he was
King of the Rollerama
(Well, he wasn't actually a king, he was a rink guard,
but to an adolescent on the verge of womanhood,
There Is no difference.)

He had a pretty girlfriend (they'd neck in his Baretta)
Sometimes she wore a poncho, she was so way cool
She hung out at the Snack Bar 'til they called couples only
And every time they took the rink, I'd blubber like a fool
I'll not forget that session during crack the whip once
Woah! I lost my balance and I fell off to the side
Oh, here comes my darling hero, too fast for him to stop
He skated over all my fingers and it didn't break his stride!!!
I didn't wash that cast for a month!

He was too much for girls like me to take
Leaving Old Spice breezes in his wake
And I'm surprised I didn't just die from such a preteen drama
It was there I learned what true love means
As he breezed by me in Jordache jeans
His real name was Mike, he was
King of the Rollerama

One day, the comb wedged in the back pocket of his
tight designer jeans defied all natural laws of surface
physics and fell out onto the rink. I clasped the relic to
my breast with trembling hands and all afternoon practiced
the words that would fall from my lips to his strong, manly ears.
Finally, as he was slipping a quarter into a game of Asteroids,
I made my move, skated up to him and I go,
Um, you dropped this.
And he's like, Thanks.
And as he grabbed for the comb HIS FINGERS
BRUSHED MINE and I remember thinking with a
clarity far beyond my years, that no event of my
life would ever equal that moment of perfect ecstasy.
And to be honest, nothing really ever has.

Oh, somewhere in this town tonight
Some paunchy guy clutches a silver whistle tight
Puts on his old blue satin jacket and relives the drama
Cause when you're rink guard in a one-mall town
Well, there's nowhere you can go but down but
You were a star!
King of the Rollerama.

The rumor that this is an accurate, first-person account
of my adolescence is a fallacy. I never wore Jean Natae.
I was always the Sweet Honesty type. ~D.F.