The Taqwacores by Michael Knight

Hellenic glory of marble columns and statues stood at the end of maybe forty steps with a long narrow railing
right down the middle. The bottom of the steps met a circular drive, in the middle of which loomed a massive naked and bearded Greek astride a wild stallion, one arm wrapped around its neck and the other wielding a bow. The place supplied a variety of ledges and surfaces for a litany of maneuvers, all to be categorized within a sophisticated jargon of skater-speak that excluded outsiders such as myself. Jehangir’s boom box sat on the roof of his car playing Agnostic Front’s “Skate Rock.” He put one foot on his board and with the other pushed himself forward. Fasiq followed and soon they both sailed passively by the products of their mass and velocity, side by side, a pair of cartoon haircuts backdropped by the museum. I imagined myself the uncool sidekick for just standing around dopey holding a camera instead of flipping and falling and flying with the men of action. But after a while of watching them experiment with physics—especially Jehangir, who could manage to fall charismatically if such a thing were possible—I realized that I was just as vital. For every culture-hero living out his myth, there must be a witness willing to pass the story on.
    Then Jehangir removed all doubt. He looked romantically to the museum’s columns atop a ziggurat-like eighty or so stone steps, picked up his board, tapped the long narrow railing once for luck and jogged up to the end. He skated around a little to gain momentum. Fasiq stopped to watch. I zoomed in on Abu and Ummi’s Eid camera.
    The U.S. Bombs’ “Ballad of Sid” came on Jehangir’s CD player. Though he couldn’t have heard it up there, the song and moment seemed to coincide as though all prearranged by Rabbil-Alameen. With aggressive steps off the marble floor Jehangir gained speed. He ollied up to meet the railing and rode it all the way down—on the board itself, not the wheels, with feet working it like a delicate see-saw and arms extended like a rawk American Christ. He kept going and going, sure to eventually miscalculate
his balance and fall off either right or left or slip off the board and break his neck or testicles on the rail but it never happened, he just kept going, down and down the rail perhaps even to the very bottom of the steps. I zoomed out to show more of the railing. Jehangir accelerated beyond all control and lunged off the railing’s curled end as though driving off a cliff. Looked like it might have scraped a layer of skin off his hands but he was too stunned from what he just did to even care. Called a railslide or boardslide in skater circles, the trick amounts to essentially supernatural degrees of balance. I wished those poser kids had stayed to see it.
    Fasiq and I ran over to him as though he had just won the World Series. With a smile of exhausted disbelief Jehangir just sat staring at his wheels-up board as though asking it for confirmation of their shared experience.
    “Are you okay?” asked Fasiq with an ecstatic voice-crack, grabbing Jehangir’s wrist to examine his palm.
    “Al-hamdulilah,” Jehangir replied.
    “That was insane,” I said as we helped him up.
    “It was weird,” said Jehangir. “The railing was so long it was like I had time to stop being nervous. I was just like, fuck, I’ve been up here awhile, wonder when I’m going to fall.”
    We huddled around my camera rewinding and re-rewinding to watch the little screen.
    “I can’t believe you didn’t break your face,” said Fasiq.
    “I think I’m calling it a day,” Jehangir replied. “I feel like trying anything else would be asking Allah for paralysis.”
    “You should send that shit in,” said Fasiq. “Get in a skateboard video.” We threw the skateboards and boom box and digital camcorder in the back seat. Fasiq gave me shotgun this time. Sitting behind the wheel Jehangir said his whole body was trembling, holding up his right