Ten girls were on the oval track and moving fast. They all wore aliases proudly- self-chosen handles like Rhonda Razor, Shirley hit-em-in-the Temple, and Drugs, Sex, and Roxie Roll. Theirs were the names of feminine warriors, dressed in styles that combined punk, camp, and sexuality. They were roller-dolls and their love for their chosen sport was obvious in their enthusiasm.

It was exciting to watch them move. Girls in fishnets and bootie shorts, skating hard, unafraid to go toe-to-toe with their enemies.

My best friend, Die-inna Fire, was lead jammer, racking up the points.

The crowd cheered her as she wove around the other players. Girls that outweighed her one-hundred-eighteen pounds by fifty pounds or more, attempted time and again to stop her, using their bodies as wrecking balls, but she skated around them with ease. One fell in her wake and slid along the floor, scrambling to regain her footing.

It was a shock when she went down by herself, sprawling to the floor.

It’d be the first of many.