SECOND WRITING PRIZE WINNER –
WINTER 2019 – 2020
is JUANITA KIRTON, PhD
of EAST STROUDSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA – USA
FALL SKATES
By Juanita Kirton, PhD
Bedford Stuyvesant in the 1950s was full of huge brownstone houses, where families with West Indian dialects of all types could be heard. For at least 3 seasons of the year bicycles and skates ruled the sidewalks. Not just any old skates, but big heavy metal skates with a key that you could tighten up the toe and put the key on a string and wear around your neck.
I had the baddest skates on the block and always enjoyed skating up and down on my side to the street, down to my tree boundary and back. Skating on Brooklyn sidewalks was always a challenge. Cracks, uneven pavements, bumps, and roots were there to trip you up. The trick is to memorize your skate area, or if you were big, skate in the street. I was not big.
One day while sitting on my stoop inside the gate, taking a rest and admiring my skates and skating ability. A big boy from down the block came past my gate. He spoke, kinda’ friendly-like. I barely looked for it was forbidden to talk to strangers. But I did manage to grunt, “Hi”, to my horror, he stopped and asked to see my skates. I slowly took my skate key from around my neck, unscrewed my skates and handed him my skates. He just walked away. I sat frozen behind the gate. As my skates disappeared down the street.
Tears of anger and disbelief flooded my eyes.
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I don’t know how long I sat on my stoop, but soon grandpa came home and opened the gate and sat next to me. Somehow through my tears, he listened to my story. My crying ceased as grandpa gathered me in his arms. It felt reassuring to know that he cared about my skates, just as much as me. He began to walk around the neighborhood looking for my skates. He never found them; my wheels forever gone.
The next day as I sat on that very same stoop. Inside the same gate. Waiting for grandpa, I saw him come lumbering down the street with big heavy shinning new metal skates and a skate key hanging around his neck. That fall I didn’t remove my skates from my shoes. If someone wanted to see or touch them, they had to take my feet too.
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About the author:
Dr. Juanita Kirton earned MFA from Goddard College and was the recipient of the Goddard College Spirit Scholarship. She is a member of Women Who Write, Inc. and Women Reading Aloud. Juanita served on the editorial staff at Clockhouse Literary Journal and is published in several anthologies; recently, Alexandria Publication Online Portfolio, Nasty Women Poets Anthology, Persimmon Tree, Pink Panther Magazine, Stone Canoe, Rat’s Ass Online Journal, Umbrella Factory Magazine, and Veterans Voice Magazine. Juanita won the 2019 Baker Veterans Writing Scholarship for the Longleaf Writers Conference in Seaside, Florida. Her chapbook, “Letters to my Father” published by Finishing Line Press, 2019 (released 2020).
Dr. Kirton works for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, a US Army Veteran and resides with her spouse in Northeast, PA. Besides writing, Juanita enjoys touring the country on her motorcycle.
