Sliding Along

I grew up in a small town on the west coast of Canada. It rains so much there that people don’t wait for breaks in the weather to get outside, they put on a raincoat and go anyway.

Our options for fun were limited, often on rainy nights my friends and I would go down to the waterfront and slide down the wooden ramps that fed onto the docks. At low tide the ramps were steep and the planks were worn and slippery, greased with years of fish tailings.

Years later when I was 21, my hometown friend Jared and I were traveling in Europe. While in Barcelona we went to a nightclub, one of those huge caves packed with tons of kids.

We left the club an hour or so before dawn and began the long walk to our car — which was both our transportation and our hotel. We soon got semi-lost, but the difference between lost and fun was almost indiscernible on this trip.

It was late and the streets were quiet. Our car was parked on the waterfront. We walked back alleys following a gentle downhill grade to the water, hoping we’d find our mobile hostel.

After several silent blocks, we heard the noise of trucks barking up a deserted alley towards us. In the distance we saw workers dressed in green coveralls. The noise grew louder as we got closer.

We arrived at the entrance of one of the well-trodden squares off the popular tourist street Las Ramblas. We stepped into the square and in front of us was a hive of trucks and pressure washers and men shouting back and forth washing away yesterday’s grime.

The wet green tile of the square shone under the streetlights and it triggered something from our water-drenched past.

I’m not sure who ran first, me or Jared, but as soon as we’d taken stock of the scene one of us took off sprinting across the square and the other followed. Just when we hit maximum speed, we locked up our legs and slid across the wet surface. The green tiles in the square were awesomely slippery — exhaust residue and blotches of fat from dropped ice cream cones lathered our shoes as we skimmed at high speed around the square.

We ran back and forth until we’d had our fill, trying to outdistance one another in the proving grounds of the green tiled square. The men went about their work and their shouting; maybe some was directed our way, but we didn’t understand and none of them tried to stop us.

We found the car shortly after and fell asleep exhausted in the front seats as the sun came up, water still dripping off our pants and onto the floor mats.