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April 2008

Paranoid Park
by Blake Nelson

I tried to eat. I had hardly eaten anything since Saturday. I still thought constantly about calling the police. I had this daydream of walking into a police station and turning myself in. How dramatic it would be. Everyone would say how brave and honest I was. And of course they would be totally nice to me, like in the movies. The kindly old sergeant would get me a Coke and sit me down with the lady counselor would say, "It’s completely normal that you were afraid to tell us. That’s what usually happens in cases like this – the person comes in days later. Don’t worry, you did the right thing – it was an accident. That security guard endangered your life. We have lots of reports of him harassing innocent skateboarders like yourself …"

At the same time, I had another dream, a nightmare really; of being bullied and pushed around, of hard adult faces turning on you like they do. Male faces, turning ugly and grabbing you and handcuffing you and not telling the truth about things. And then some politician using you: telling everyone how evil teenagers were, skateboarders especially, and they had to be stopped! We’re going to make you an example! That stuff happened, too. I had seen it. Every skateboarder had.

The unnamed sixteen-year-old skateboarder was in complete turmoil and confusion. He simply could not get his unbelievable situation out of his mind. It was all a terrible and tragic accident. He was catching a late night hop on a train, when the railroad security guard saw him and they got into a major tussle. The security guard was wielding his nightstick with bone-crushing force. It was by sheer luck that he wasn’t severely injured by the enraged security guard. Defending himself, he whacked the security guard with his skateboard. He had no intention of killing the guy. The security guard lost his footing, stumbled backwards and was horribly crushed by the train. But would anyone believe him? There was nobody around to corroborate his story. Over and over, two thoughts kept coming back to him: should he confess or could he get away with it?

This synopsis was written by a San José Public Library librarian.

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