Shoot the Moon

It was a Tuesday night. On the lobby wall, two-dimensional children in roller skates and blue jeans frolicked amid neon-green palm trees and smiling dinosaurs. Stars and swirly confetti twists glowed orange, yellow, and red on faded blue carpeting. Above the glass ticket window, a large sign offered these instructions: “Conduct yourself as a lady or gentleman”; “Be neatly groomed and clean”; and, “Hold down the noise when leaving.” For six dollars, a set of industrial doors opened to reveal the trippy time warp of Adult Skate Night at St. Louis Park’s Roller Garden.

Throbbing rock music pumped from the speakers of an elevated DJ booth, and a deserted snack bar advertised cotton candy, hot dogs, and strawberry shortcake. The walls were lined with pink “Treasure House” vending machines (stocked with gaudy jewelry and zebra-striped watches) that glowed eerily in the dim light, and everything smelled faintly of … well, roller rink. It was an unmistakable scent, the mélange of musty leather, stale popcorn, and sweaty palms.

Beneath a giant silver disco ball, fifty skaters swept effortlessly around an open arena. They skated alone and in pairs, dipping, twirling, spinning. Their hips rocked, their limbs extended, and some of their wheels lit up like firecrackers.

Who were these people, and how did they get so good?

“I’ve been coming here since I was seventeen—that’s twenty-five years,” boasted Jim, a squat baby boomer in a black beret and stonewashed jeans. The tongues of his skates hung fashionably over his laces. “I skate four times a week.” He held up three fingers. “It’s wild.”

Two months ago, twenty-six-year-old Andy Sturdevant began attending adult skate nights regularly. “It’s this pop-culture equalizer—some new amazing roller-derby continuum. The late seventies, the eighties, the nineties—it’s all here; Backstreet Boys and Grandmaster Flash. Cyndi Lauper. The Cars.”

According to Sturdevant, adult skaters fall into one of four major categories: “First you’ve got your roller dads.” Sturdevant nodded toward the middle of the rink, where Jim and two other balding men were showing off some incredible footwork. “These guys have been doing this for, like, thirty years. They’re middle aged; they have potbellies and moustaches, and anywhere else, they’re just regular guys. But here—” He glanced again at the freestylers. “They’re gods.”

Three twenty-something young women sauntered toward the locker area. They wore ponytails, tall socks, short pants, and baby tees. Each woman carried a shiny skate case in her left hand: red case, yellow case, blue case. Their makeup was impeccable.

“Roller-derby girls.” Sturdevant smiled knowingly.

Category two. The Minnesota RollerGirls league rolled into town in 2004, and, well, you know ‘em when you see ‘em. Especially when you see them skate.

“It all comes back,” explained Rusty Sahly, whose aunt and uncle have owned the Roller Garden since 1969. “In the mid-seventies, it was boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Now it’s jam skating, dance skating, floppin’ around on the floor. It’s the next generation, that’s what it is.” Sahly’s eyes shifted and he smiled ruefully. “I love adult nights out here—it’s adults re-living their childhood.”

Sturdevant’s third category of adult skater consists of “Your standard teenagers—post-teenagers. Whatever. The social thing is pretty much the same as high school.”

“I used to live and die roller skating, you know?” panted Brian, a skinny young guy in jeans and a green camouflage jacket. “Mankato, Rochester, Cambridge, St. Cloud—we’d just go, you know? Every weekend.”

“It kept a lot of us off the streets.” With his black Mohawk and pointy devilish goatee, Jeff’s brown eyes were surprisingly soft. “We’d get on these buses to Wooddale or wherever—five hundred kids some days.” He paused, thoughtful. “It just becomes a part of you, something you do. And if you’re good at it, you keep doing it.”

In his brown Dickies, beige button-down shirt, and black 1950s-era glasses, Sturdevant himself fell into category four: the disaffected hipster. When asked to sum up the adult-skate community, he smiled, shook his head, and gestured toward the skating floor. “It’s a demographic mess. Or Utopia.” —Julie Bates


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