Short Story

Fransisco Von Tarklantern

I wrote this


     The town of Jefferson, Pennsylvania is in a massive crisis. Ten years ago, an ill-advised plan to make Jefferson home to the worlds largest football stadium ended predictably disastrous, as it literally had no purpose. The town has been broke or close to it since then, yet it just reached the breaking point. When the Yummy in my Tummy smoothie company (which was Jefferson's biggest source of money and jobs), decided to take the company elsewhere 3 weeks ago, Jefferson was done. There was no money in the town, and they needed an absolute miracle to save it.
     Enter Jerry Borginson, a 55, fat, bald, man who tries to not associate himself with anything that the youth like. He hates flat hats, skinny jeans, the word swag, Monster energy drinks, and especially skateboarding. So basically everything that the super-cool kids in Jefferson like. Yet he had a brilliant idea to save the town. His brother, Harris, runs the Tony Hawk Foundation, which is Tony's big charity, and is very close to him. Jerry knows that he can get Tony in town for an event, and he also knows that would bring in lots of money for the town. But why stop there, Jerry thought. Why not get another skateboarder, who will almost certainly compete if they know Tony Hawk is, and gather up some of the best kids in town to all compete in a massive tournament? After all, Jefferson is absolutely crazy for skateboarding, so they should easily be able to gather up kids for the tournament.
     First, Jerry proposed the idea to some higher ranking officials in town. They immediately jumped on board, desperate for money to keep the town afloat. Once they were on, they spread the word throughout the elite of Jefferson, and soon, Jerry's idea was in motion. Once a skateboard competition was arranged for the towns youth, it was announced that the two finalists would get to compete in a tournament with two professional skateboarders. Everything was looking up for Jefferson, and it was all due to the brilliance of Jerry.
     Meanwhile, Jerry was having trouble convincing Harris to get Tony to do it. Harris kept saying that Tony felt that as a professional skateboarder, he had to remain sophisticated and classy, and associating with a town like Jefferson wouldn't do that.
 Without Tony on board, it looked like Jefferson would just have to keep digging for ideas to generate money, despite this being the best one yet.
     Even more unfortunate, as the town didn't actually have any professional skateboarder skating in the tournament, they still hadn't announced who they would be to the kids. As there was no cash prize for the kids tournament, there was no real incentive for anyone to do it, and with two days to go before it only one kid had signed up. At this point, everyone was frantically trying to get Jerry to contact Tony. And with Harris remaining stubborn, it looked like the whole thing would fall apart. So Jerry decided to take action himself.
      "Listen, Harris, if you don't get me through to Tony right this instance I will literally bomb your house and kill you, your wife, and your three children. You know I'm capable of this (Jerry got suspended in middle school for making a tiny bomb and planting in the wildlife preserve. It killed three deers)." Harris immediately gave in and connected him to Tony.
     "Yo what up homie, dis be Tony Hawk, your main man. How's it hangin' broskie?" Confused by 3/4 of his language, Jerry just told him his plan for the skateboarding competition.
     "O.K, Tony, let me just be straightforward with you. My town is broke. We have been for almost ten years, and the one thing keeping us afloat was a smoothie company, called Yummy in my Tummy, and they just changed locations. I came up with the idea to have you, another skateboarder, and some local kids who win a competition all go into a skateboarding tournament. We would charge twenty dollars for tickets, and hopefully we get lots of people from out of town to come. Our town is crazy for skateboarding, and the whole thing would be a massive hit. It's the only thing that can save our town, and we need you aboard. We will pay you 5,000 dollars upfront, and I know that's not that much to you, at all, but we really need you. It will only take two days from your life. Plus, the winner gets an extra 20,000. Please."
     "Alright." Tony said, after pondering for awhile  "I'll do it, just promise me I can compete on a nice skatepark. I am atrocious if I play on anything other than grade A quality."
     "Oh, sure, we have the greatest skatepark ever! You'll love it! I'll have Harris send you the rest of the info, alright?"
In case you've never seen Jefferson's skatepark, it is terrible. There is enough room for one person to skate at a time, if they do no tricks, and it also happens to be the home of the towns raccoon population. This is also why all the youth skate in the streets, which drives anyone over the age of 45 insane.
     Once Tony was on board, Monster Mike, the other professional, was easy to get. When it was announced that they were the two professionals, youngsters flooded the competition, and over 100 people joined. All were charged five dollars, and in the end, two kids, Freddie and Carl, won the competition, earning the right to skate with Monster Mike and Tony Hawk. Now the problem was the skatepark. With the 500 dollars they got from the youth competition, plus 20,000 dollars that they got from stealing from some company a couple of towns over (the towns government was extremely sleazy and corrupt. Whenever there was a budget crisis, they would free criminals from the town jail, on the condition that they could steal a certain amount of money from another town). 10,000 of the stolen money was going to the pros as their compensation for competing, and the other ten thousand went to the renovation. Within a week, they had a skatepark that could rival any in Pennsylvania. With the tournament starting in a week, they now needed to publicize the competition. With a couple of death threats from Jerry, they managed to get free advertising in the New York Times and the Post. Jefferson became flooded with ticket requests, yet it seemed they wouldn't be able to hold everyone. It was the first good problem the town had experienced in years.
     In order to fix their seating problem, the town built a massive bleacher section, capable of holding 15,000 people. You might be asking if that was making the same exact mistake as earlier, building a massive facility for something that will only be used once. And it is the same exact thing as earlier. In case you haven't noticed, their government is rather incompetent. Take this conversation for example between Jerry and the Mayor, a man named Alfredo Burns: "Hey, Alfredo, I was wondering if you made sure the cops and firefighters are scheduled to be at the event. I heard that you hadn't got them booked yet. Can you do it?"
"Let's be real, Jerry. That would me a waste of time. Why waste time, am I right? It's not like anything will happen."
"Do we have any doctors?"
"What do you think, man? Nothing will happen."
Jerry thought this was the worst thing he's ever heard, yet he couldn't bad mouth the mayor, so he just kept his mouth shut.
     It is one hour before the event, and things are looking good. Taking a second to take his wondrous creation all in, Jerry just thinks about how well everything is going. The bleachers are packed, the brand new skatepark looks fantastic, and Tony Hawk and Monster Mike have arrived on time. Freddie and Carl are loving the spotlight and the pro skateboarding association brought a few members to check out Freddie and Carl's skills. If they both did well, they could very well be launched into a career as skateboarders. And who knows, the event could even become a yearly thing with a TV deal! The thought excited Jerry, and despite being confused by this entire culture, he was starting to realize the money possible in skateboarding. For an unmarried man whose best friend was his cat Chunky, this was all very exciting and new. With a town that is absolutely mad for the sport, and apparently with lots of talent, Jefferson could become a hotbed for skateboarding. The possibilities where endless! Trying not to get carried away with his ideas, Jerry decided to strike up a conversation with Freddie and Carl. Although they where loving the spotlight, they where clearly nervous and frightened as well. "Hey guys! What are you thinking of this whole thing so far?" Jerry said, trying to sound relatively cool.
"This is pretty gnarly, bro. Way to renovate these halfpipes." Freddy said. Not understanding a word, Jerry turned the conversation to Carl.
"So, Carl, do you agree with Freddy about the halfpipes?"
"For sure, dude. These look as swag as COD tournament between Red Bull Ryan and Ryan Skechler!"
Carl and Freddy seemed extremely entertained by the idea of this fictional tournament and Jerry officially was done with the kids and their skinny jeans and flat hats.
"So, um, bye kids! Good luck in the tournament." Jerry muttered while walking away.
     The tournament is about to begin. The crowd is excited for some skating, and they are about to get some. Each skater would do a solo skate for 3 minutes, and then at the end they would get a score from 3 judges. This would be repeated 5 times from each skater, and whoever had the highest combined score would win. Simple enough, thought Jerry. Monster Mike went first. He started off with three mctwists in a row, which got a massive applause from the crowd. Then, he went up for a 720 spin. However, mid way through, disaster struck. Monster lost control of his skateboard, and from thirty five feet up he plummeted to the ground with an alarming velocity. The crowd was stunned. Any second Monster Mike would hit the ground, and the results would be nasty. Also, Monster, who liked to live on the edge, never wore a helmet. He preached this message throughout his life, and it would come back to haunt him. He hit the ground head first, and the instant he did everyone in attendance knew that he was dead. "Where are the doctors!" Jerry screamed. "Where are the doctors!" No doctor stepped forward. That instant Jerry was hit with the nauseating thought of his conversation with the mayor. Somehow, he had completely forgotten about it. They where not prepared for any emergency, and now that one had happened, there was nothing to do about it. Within seconds, people had flooded around Monster Mike, yet they realized that no doctor would have saved him. Still, the alarming lack of preparation was troubling to Jerry. Instantly, rioting started. The unruly crowd had somehow started a fire, and five minutes later, it was spreading. Jerry knew that there were no policeman or firemen on duty, and he also knew that more would be joining the death toll along with Monster Mike.
     Five days later, the town was a complete disaster. Fires where everywhere, and pretty much everything within a mile radius of the event got burned to the ground. The firefighters were all off duty when it begun, so it was hard to slow it down once it began. The total amount of recorded deaths was 47, yet that could be way off, for all anyone knows. Among those dead where Tony Hawk, Freddy, and Carl. In the end, the disastrous and incompetent government, once again, doomed the town.