A Reason to Exist

Chapter 52

The American filmmaker was tall and thin. He had dark hair, blue eyes and a three-day growth on his chin. I placed him in his early thirties. His skate wear was top shelf, the cost of his shoes could feed a small village.

'Oh man, I'm so glad to meet you,' he shook Tucker's hand. 'You have knees of rubber. I've never seen anything like it.'

He turned my way and Tucker introduced me, 'Macy.'

'Lichten,' he said, shaking my hand. 'This is Forbes, he's our location scout, and Johnny is our cameraman. Take a seat.' His accent was totally American and totally likeable.

We sat on stools at a tall wooden table, 9.30am, in a busy café in St Kilda. A waitress took our order, three coffees for them, a hot chocolate for me and an iced chocolate for Tucker.

'We're going to start off at the St Kilda skate park this morning and let you settle in. It's like home for you, I bet?' Lichten said. 'How's that view, hey? Must be in the top 20 skate parks in the world with a view like that. Iconic.'

'It's a bit like Venice Beach in California,' Forbes said, knowingly.

'After that, we've lined up some shoots that are less predictable. That's what Forbes does. He scouts for places that haven't been seen before. We've got an abandoned art deco swimming pool for you. You think you'll be able to do something with it?' He got out his phone and showed Tucker some pictures.

'Whoa,' Tucker said, 'That's crazy. Yeah, sure. I could maybe use that shed roof to jump from.'

'That's what we were thinking. We've seen that petrol station you jumped off, that was sick man,' Forbes said.

'So how do you do it, like?' Lichten asked. 'You on painkillers? Something to block out the pain?'

'Huh?'

'Weed? Some other substance?'

'Nah, nothing. It's just what I do.'

'It's like you bounce. What you do is impossible for the human body to endure. That's why you're so watchable.'

'Don't know. It's just something I've always done.' Tucker was sitting up straighter and coming across as more serious than his usual self. I could tell that all this attention was making him nervous. He was feeling the pressure of performing well for these three Americans in designer skate wear.

'Last year we were filming Az Shark for Thrasher, you heard of him?'

'Of course. He's like my idol.'

'Well get this, kid. He'd seen your petrol station roof trick and it was him that showed us.'

'Get the hell out.'

'Nup. We're not kidding. We knew then we had to track you down. And here we are in Melbourne doing a shoot for Oakley, so we thought, what the hell, let's find you.'

Tucker had just been given one of the highest compliments of all time; one of his idols taking notice of him. I reached over and squeezed his hand and he grinned.

'Where was that train station where you jumped down the stairs in one of your vids? Kind of Art Deco style?' Forbes asked.

'That's Flinders Street station. Central Melbourne.'

'Cool. We'd like to get some footage there too. And we're looking for a massive set of steps. Someone suggested the Shrine of Remembrance,' Forbes pulled out his phone and showed us the Shrine building. 'You ever been there?'

'Yeah, I've been,' Tucker said. 'On a school excursion. But I haven't skated there.'

'How many steps do you think you could do?'

'Don't know,' Tucker said. 'The second set maybe? If I'm lucky.'

'Excellent. Let's give it a go,' Lichten said. 'We've got today and tomorrow and, if need be, Monday. Any chance you could skip school Monday?'

'Sure,' Tucker agreed.

'Cool. People are going to love you kid. We'll also go back to that place where you were jumping from the rafters into that bowl. We saw some vid someone posted on YouTube. This time we'll see if you can land it properly. We'll get this into production as soon as we can and it should be up on the site in two months. Then boom. You're not going to know yourself.'

Boom, my heart exploded. I love Tucker just as he is. I don't want anything changing.