Waiting for Lightning Page #5

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his older brother,

and he pretty much

would do anything...

or try to do anything

his older brother did.

We were skateboarding

Vista high. It was me and Damon.

This jackass rolls up

and just cold-cocked Damon.

And Damon fell down,

hit his head on the curb.

There was, like,

a little bit of a scuffle.

Then it kind of just died down.

It wasn't that big a deal.

We skated

for a little bit longer,

and then I took him home.

On the way home,

his head's, like...

"I got a headache," as you would

when you get punched in the face,

so it didn't alarm me.

I had gone to work.

Danny called me

and said,

"Mom, Damon's eyeballs

are in the back of his head".

And I hurried home,

and Damon was

in full-blown

epileptic seizures.

When we arrived

at Tri-City hospital,

the doctor said,

"Give or take 15 minutes,

we're gonna lose him".

His whole left side

had been paralyzed.

When Damon was

going through that injury,

I just remember Danny just being

really focused on skateboarding.

He was just ripping

harder than ever.

It's almost like he put

all his pain

or whatever he was going through

100% into skateboarding.

Danny was on a mission

to turn pro

for the both of them.

When I first

got introduced to Danny,

it was through

a friend of mine.

He goes, "There's this

little ripper kid

"named Danny Way,

and he should be on Hosoi.

"He's got guts

and he's just crazy.

He just goes for it". And I was

like, "Really? All right".

And then I meet him,

and he's this little blond kid

with braces

and, like, freckles,

and a little guy, and I'm like,

"This kid's crazy?"

You know what I mean? Looking at

him, you would never think...

You know, he looked like

Dennis the menace.

Next thing you know, we're

going to this demo in Arizona,

and we go to this hotel,

and he just... boom!

Front-flips off the bed

onto the ground.

I was like,

"This kid's crazy.

What can he do

on a skateboard?"

I was skating some miniramp

by myself or something.

My brother comes up,

and he's like, "Yo!

Danny Way is here!"

I had my idea

of what skateboarding could be

and how far a kid like myself

could take it at that age.

That whole perception

just got shattered on the spot.

When I think of a trick

and I'm sitting at my house,

I come down here

and learn it.

He would

just think about tricks,

and then he would

go out and do them.

Between 11 to 13 was

like a game changer.

I remember seeing Danny doing stuff

that doesn't even have names.

Just a clickety-clack blunt this

to board to shuffle to revert.

I don't think there's

ever been a 13-year-old kid

that would go after

the tricks

and just skating in general

the way Danny did.

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