Could write a short story about a pro skater trying to get their ender for a massively hyped part (they have the last section in a big shoe vid, their late-career “comeback” after years of injury/outside issues) and folk are going bananas in anticipation. The story would be called “NBD”.
This pro has the perfect final trick in mind for a brand new spot that the filmer has tipped him off to. The pro checks out this spot and it’s absolutely perfect. It’s a bit of a trek to get to (4 hours in traffic both ways), but worth it, and after a few warm-up tricks on the first visit he gets dead close.
He goes back home and practices the trick on a smaller obstacle in his back garden, and manages to get to a point where he’s landing it almost every try.
He starts off being super secretive about the spot+trick (in a wink-wink playful way, coyly denying rumours at the bar when team-mates ask about his ender), but after the 4th midnight trip to the same spot with no luck it all slides into something darker…
He swears both the photographer and filmer to secrecy. First as a half-jokey verbal promise, but later when they’re all drinking at the bar (to get their spirits up after the 7th failed trip), he tries to get them to cut their hands with a smashed beer bottle and do a “blood brothers”-style oath. They settle for a Bart Simpson spit+handshake instead.
As the deadline approaches for the video premiere, the pro calls a meeting with the company CEO and manages to wangle a one-month extension (arguing that the younger lads on the team need more time to find their feet and get clips worthy of the brand)
The pro goes back again and again to the same secret spot for this fucking trick and begins to lose his mind. He worries that other skaters (young up and comers…) are going to steal his spot! To steal his trick!
He starts turning off his smartphone as soon as he gets into the car, making sure he can’t be tracked by GPS. He starts to ask that the photographer and filmer do the same.
They only pretend to do so, and when he sees the filmer texting someone during the warm-up he “accidentally” shoots his board up into the filmer’s hand, smashing his smartphone…
The filmer says “that’s ok, it was only an accident”, but is quiet for the rest of the session and they drive back from the spot in silence.
In the daytime the pro goes to a hardware shop and buys chains, a padlock and “keep out”/“beware of dog” signs.
A week later and the pro is now publicly claiming he’s already done the trick! He calls Thrasher for an interview just to be able to claim it as done. They don’t want to run the interview without proof, so now he’s trying to convince the photographer to send them a bailed shot for the cover.
But the photographer refuses…
At this point, the filmer and photographer are really starting to get more reticent and evasive about joining these sessions. They understand the importance of this pro’s part and this trick (he’s nearly landed it so many times! and the spot is so photogenic!)
The pro is now having paranoid fantasies about the photographer and filmer going off to shoot the trick behind his back (with a younger am from the same shoe team!)
He needs to push the deadline back anyway, so at a company promo photoshoot decides to spike the punchbowl so all the team get dysentery and the premiere gets postponed again.
Not only this, but he’s poisoned the filmer and photographer as well.
Scared that they might already be wise to him, the pro skater goes to pay them a visit as they’re laid-up in bed. He brings them both chocolates laced with arsenic.
He calls on other filmers but noone is picking up. He sends DMs to photographers and everyone is blanking him. He checks ukskateforum+SLAP and rumours are spreading. But thank God no-one has mentioned the location of the spot yet!!!
1 week later and no-one from his team will come to pick him up in their car. He has to get the bus and then walk 1hr each way. He throws out his phone so he can’t be tracked. He stops receiving gear from first the shoe company, then his board company, then his sunglasses and watch companies.
For 5 months he goes back to this spot every night, almost landing the trick so many times!
He’s skating the same set-up and its getting wrecked. He has to go to the local skatepark and steal a 12-year old’s board when they’re not looking. The board is quite wide (not what he’s used to) but that’s ok.
Now he’s so low on money (sleeps during the day) he can’t take the bus anymore and his rent is 3months in arrears. He gets chucked out of his house and decides to walk all the way to his spot. It’s raining and his suitcases are heavy so he leaves them by the side of the motorway. Fuck it. Just needs to bring his go-pro bag and hide the board under his tshirt so the bearings don’t get too wet.
Early the next morning, as the sun is rising, he arrives at his spot. He wrangles with his ring of keys to unlock the 14 padlocks on the makeshift gate he’s constructed.
Propping-up his go-pro on some bricks as the first rays of morning light hit the ledge (his ledge!), he feels strangely hopeful, peaceful even. He presses “record”.
The pro closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and taps his tail 3 times on the ground (a little “good luck” ritual he does).
He rides up to the ledge at speed…
flips
grinds
and rides away clean into a new day.
He checks the footage. It looks magnificent (career-defining!).
Flashing lights and the stretched wail of sirens approach as he plays the footage back in slow-mo.
What a way to end a part.
[The twist: it turns out the trick was a lazer-flip to willy-grind.]
