In honor of the Dust Devil being just one week away, I present my first installment of “The Author’s Cut” – passages from Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track that were edited from the manuscript by my super kickass Simon & Schuster editor. I agreed with her recommendation to slice these bits from the book – and I’m happy to share them with you now.

For your reading pleasure: the account of my first misadventures in Tucson at the Dust Devil 2006, at which the Texas Rollergirls became the Flat Track Champions.

---

The Author’s Cut: Dust Devil 2006

D the B and I have been a goofy-in-love couple for a decade and a half, so we have lots of experience traveling together. Lucky for us, we like most of the same things. Airplanes are for reading, not talking. Vacations usually begin with a nap. Funky hotels – with a fair number of assorted colorful characters – trump homogenized chain accommodations. That’s why we were booked at the Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson, instead of a cheap, but frigidly air conditioned, Econo-Six-Days-Lodge.

The gangster John Dillinger spent his last few days as a free man at the Hotel Congress in the 1930s. The lobby is a mix of retro fixtures and hipster touches: a dark wood counter with a switchboard from the thirties faces the neon-lit entrance to the Tap Room, a dive bar consistently voted as having the Best Jukebox in town. (It spins honest-to-Elvis vinyl 45s from Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey, ZZ Top, Violent Femmes, Velvet Underground, The Clash.)

A wide, curving staircase leads to the guest rooms on the second floor, all tidily appointed with vintage radios, chenille bedspreads, antique iron beds, and compact tiled bathrooms. Hallways are barely lit by fringed lamps that cast eerie reflections in the heavy vintage mirrors along the walls. Floorboards creak under the Oriental rugs, which only make the stories about the place being haunted seem more plausible. I’m not too proud to admit it: when I walked the hall alone, I did it with purpose, lest a phantom materialize by my side. I was charmed. I wanted to photograph every nook and cubby. I plotted to sell my house and move permanently into a Hotel Congress room, like Hemingway in Cuba, clacking away on my typewriter, a heavy-bottomed glass of Jim Beam within easy reach.

Until the next morning.

Dave is 6’5”; beds from the thirties are not. His feet dangled over the edge of the mattress, tempting the demons that hid underneath. Sleeping on the too-soft mattress, any movement sent both of us rolling into its center, a tangle of damp sheets (no air conditioning) and damp limbs.

In the morning, I cracked my elbow twice on the sink as I used the commode. I have no idea how Dave managed the Lilliputian bathroom. When I tried to use my hair dryer in the bathroom, the ancient electrical system shorted it out. As I dressed in black pleated mini skirt, black fishnets, black boots, and black Texas Rollergirls logo T (the poster girl for team support), I realized the chenille bedspread was not only authentic, but annoying. Every inch of me was coated in tacky white fuzz.

Lint brush. Reminder that we were on vacation. Attitude adjustment. And I was ready to meet my roller sisters in the lobby. Dave, always my Sir Galahad, navigated the bustling breakfasters in the lobby cafe to score me a cup of coffee. In the first surprise of the day, the van that was taking us to Bladeworld for the Tournament was on time.

We met Electra Blu, Dirty Deeds, Muffin Tumble, Sedonya Face, and Felicia Graham (friend of roller derby, talented photographer) at the overstuffed couches in the lobby. The clamor of six Rollergirls talking at once was shrill for 8:00 a.m. We hugged. We milled about. We finally straggled out the front door to the parking lot. Coffee in my left hand, purse in my right, I walked with D the B as questions buzzed the air:

“Who has the directions?”... “What time do our girls start?”...”Did you talk to Barbarella last night? Is she excited?”

I walked between the van and the car parked next to it and turned to wave to Dirty Deeds and Sedonya Face as they split off toward their car. Then a bunch of seemingly unrelated things happened all at once. Muffin Tumble gasped. Dave’s face creased with worry. From far away, I felt my boot thud against the concrete tire stop at the head of the parking space. Yellow paint lines rushed toward my face and suddenly, I was tumbling, coffee and purse thrust in front of me as if they might cushion the blow of the asphalt that streaked toward me.

I landed like a tripod in a Twister game: left hand coffee cup, left knee tire stop, right hand purse. I was in a vacuum; there was no sound or motion as six Rollergirls, two boyfriends, and a handful of strangers at the windows of the Cup Cafe gawked at me.

Mustering what little dignity I had left, I righted myself, made sure my (short, short) skirt covered my butt, and assessed the damage. I’d neither spilled my coffee nor torn my hose, but my knee was skinned and bleeding. It hurt like a mother. The expression on my face warned everyone to proceed with caution, so I was spared too much fussing. We loaded in the van. I drank my coffee and sulked.

Later, at lunch, when my scraped knee and pierced pride had scabbed over – and the margaritas had kicked in – Muffin Tumble said, gravely serious, “Mel, really are you OK?”When I said yes, she could barely get out the words through her guffaws, “Good… ‘cause that was… so funny! You took such… a header! And you… didn’t… even… spill… your… coffee!”

When I ran into my teammate Tomcat for the first time that weekend, she greeted me with, “Hey! Are you OK? I heard you fell!”

Like I said, news travels fast in the underground.

I had the dubious distinction of the being the first Texas Rollergirl, neither on skates nor intoxicated, to wipe out in the great state of Arizona.

Yee-f*cking-ha.