Since I’ve started skating pretty much 24/7 I’ve had a million exciting little adventures around town, things I never want to forget, and so it’s time to record some of them. While I may not remember that date, the time, or even the day, I remember what happened and where.Carpenter’s Home Church (Without Walls) – It was about 10PM and the Wednesday Night Mass had just exited the two story church notorious for its sick stair sets. It’s been featured in many pro videos, and no wonder why, there’s an 8 stair, two seven stairs, two fives, a four, and a three, not to mention a ton of handrails, ledges, and hills.
My friends and I, on a normal night of skating, usually hit up the church at least once or twice, but because it’s illegal to skate there we don’t go until about midnight, after the 5-0 have left. But for some odd reason we decided to go early that Wednesday night. There were about five or ten people left in the whole building, and we were drenched in sweat from the 20 minute cruise over there. Thankfully they let us inside to get some water, not so unusual. And then the first “sign” hit us. We found a party-sized back of Mike and Ikes on the way out and nicked it for ourselves, a sign that somebody must want us to skate there, somebody wants us to have the energy to skate that night.
As the night went on we went back and forth through the building and all the surrounding spots, waiting for the church to clear out. Nearly an hour into skating we were all tired again, and the front door had been left open. One by one we filed into the building, most of the lights were out by now and there were only two people left inside, not including ourselves.
Hoping to stay inside and skate the massive, carpeted, untouched stairs, we ducked into a little broom closet and turned off the lights, hiding like little children in a game of hide and go seek. All together there were five of us (Me, Bryan, Tyler, Billy, and Spencer), three inside the closet, one crouched behind the main fountain, and the final crawling slowly up the stairs. We could see the lights in the auditorium flicker off and in an exhibition of panic and quick nerves we took off to some unknown destination. All the other doors were now locked and the final staff member was now leaving the auditorium.
Some quick thinking on Bryan’s part and 20 seconds later we were all crammed inside the elevator, riding it slowly to the second story. It was like something straight out of a James Bond movie. Before I knew it there were two more staff members in the building and we were down on our stomachs, crawling around the second story like the worms we were. Luckily we hadn’t been seen, at least not until Spencer panicked and stood up, running towards the nearest door. They spotted us, it was all over now, and we all knew what was coming. We dashed to the elevator and arrived downstairs in no time at all. With the coast clear and not a singe soul in our way we did a 180 and attempted to exit through the side doors, only to be shoved back inside by the bouncer-esque man who greeted us with an angered “Not so fast guys, get back in there!”
As we sat down on the fountain ledge the man dialed the police on his cell phone, and about ten minutes later we were filling out our trespassing warrants, not uncommon to skaters. I’m not exactly sure when this was, but at the time is was extremely fun and very exciting, and I’d do it again if I wasn’t banned from the church now. Now that I think of it, we should have just knocked the bouncer looking guy out of the way. I mean, come on, five kids with large pieces of wood and metal against a muscular bald guy? We could’ve taken him.
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