A Night at the Roller Derby
by Alicia
"Dressed me up in women's clothes
Messed around with gender roles
Dye my eyes and call me pretty"
-- Laid, James
These lines, along with my adventures at the Roller Derby last weekend, are the inspiration for today's story. Sunday was a lesson in Derby etiquette, white trash, and gender roles.
I purchased a ticket to the Roller Derby from a friend on Saturday night at a party. The ticket-bearer, Sara, is actually a Roller Derby girl herself; her "character" is SaraCidal. She is a big girl with a lot of spark and fire to her personality. I anticipated that Sunday night's Roller Derby would be a bloody sight to behold.
I arrived at the Stillwater Fairgrounds a few minutes after the Derby had started. Due to a nasty hangover, I didn't stop to think about my wardrobe selection before I left the house and showed up to Derby in a Ralph Lauren sweater, brown pants, and Adidas. Thankfully, I was not mauled at first sight by the Derby-goers, who were all dressed in gothy, punky, or just trashy outfits. Suspecting that the Derbyers would only hassle me if I failed to blend in behaviorally, I found my group of friends, who were punked out, and managed to yell and hoot to divert the Derbyers' attention from my wardrobe faux pas.
The first half of the Derby went by in a blur; I was too busy people-watching and had no clue what the girls were doing, except that we all yelled like gorillas when one of the big girls would bump the skinny ones off the track and send them flying into a row full of metal chairs and Derby patrons. At half-time, Sara's boyfriend Don explained Derby rules to me, so by the start of the second half, I was ready to watch the carnage unfold.
The skinny girls, who were the fastest skaters, wore stars on their helmets and are called Jammers. Sounds like Dr. Seuss's Sneetches, doesn't it? And the big girls who can slam your ass to the ground are called Pivots. Pivots pretty much try to bump the skinny girls off the track, so they can't score as many points, and try to block the Pivots from the other team to keep them from creaming their skinny little Jammer.
As Derby progressed, I noticed two little ruffians frolicking near the bleachers next to my row of seats; both were dressed in scruffy camouflage cargo pants and dirty shoes and had those choppy, poorly groomed haircuts that only poor people seem to have. I tried to pick out which redneck was their mother, and that's when I saw her. The woman was standing near my row, munching on nachos saturated in cheap, flourescent orange cheese. She was ignoring both of her hellspawn and sporting bags under her eyes that only a 70 year old woman who survived the Great Depression should have. I made another quick glance in her direction and noticed she was wearing men's tennis shoes. I let my eyes linger a little longer and discovered a significant gap between her heels and the backs of the shoes; they were at least two sizes too big. I couldn't help but wonder if she had paid $10 per family member to get into the Derby...a fee that would have easily allowed her to purchase a decent pair of women's shoes. Her appearance was enough to kickstart another internal dialogue about the importance of obtaining my PhD in a timely manner, lest I end up in oversized men's shoes myself someday.
After the self-lecture, I turned my attention back to the Derby. As I watched the male referees skate around the track, I noticed that the tallest ref was wearing his black and white-striped shirt and a black mini-skirt with white lacy fishnet stockings. How I missed this before, I have no idea. But there he was, right in front of me in his skirt and thigh-highs. In the middle of the rink, the Master of Ceremonies was dressed in a black t-shirt, a green kilt, and heavy, black boots. The other male referee was more on the butchy side in his Vans skates and camouflage cargo shorts. Seated in front of me was a skinny girl no older than twenty in boys' jeans, black, chunky boots, and a goth band t-shirt. The chain on her wallet kept clanging against the metal, folding chair every time she stood up to cheer.
Again, the Derby girls rolled by, and I noticed that even the chunky girls were sporting really tight mini-skirts and lacy, transparent thigh-high stockings. Other girls in the audience were also in revealing garments or clothing that looked like lingerie from the local porn store. It was like Halloween at a biker bar. It occurred to me that Derbyers, by bending society's rules on appropriate dress for their gender, were flaunting that they are all comfortable enough with their sexuality to "switch it up" a bit in their Derby attire.
In the last two minutes of Derby, my friend Sara and a girl from the opposing team Cell Block 9 started trash-talking each other. By the time they got to my end of the track, Cell Block 9 girl bumped Sara aggressively, and Sara responded by wrapping an arm around her throat and dragging her to the ground. As soon as one lost her balance, they both fell in a pile of skates in the middle of the track and started throwing punches. Right at that moment, the rest of the two teams came flying around the track and tripped over Sara and the girl, and suddenly everyone was skidding off the track into the fans and stands. As Sara and the girl continued to duke it out on the floor of the track, a slew of beefy guys and referees came running up, separated the two, and peeled them off the track. They both got ejected from the game.
I don't know what I learned from Derby. One thing is that I have the primal desire in me to destroy something, or at least watch it being destroyed, just like every other savage American. Also, I learned that Derby-goers are accepting of all kinds: young and old, gay and straight, punky and preppy. My coworker Leesa suggested that I walk into a country club wearing what the Derbyers wear and see if they treat me with the same respect/disinterest that the Derbyers did, but something tells me I would be pummeled with shrimp and shiny forks if I tried this. The Roller Derby is just a special place where people from all backgrounds can come together and watch a bunch of girls on roller skates beat the shit out of each other. To love thy Derby is to love thy neighbor...
