Meeting Mernina
The short story about how my friends and I met a strange woman who stole cigarettes, cleaned wounds with contact solution, and made us laugh.
Now, I’m not actually sure if that’s how her name is spelled. I could say Mernina’s name correctly though if I had to. We only met from the right place right time kind of scenario. I had been skating with Neff, Alex, Justin, Jacob, and Zach for most of the day already, got kicked out of the first spot we went to, and then made a stop at Publix for food and bev. We all met up at the last spot of the day after.
It’s the white dome roof on St. Pete Beach with a metal box that sits on top for you to grind, manual, or, in Justin’s case, gap over. At the bottom lays crusty with two good-sized holes right where you would begin to roll away.
Ain’t no stoppin on the way down though. The surface is a slick sheet of smooth, painted concrete. You really pick up speed and power sliding won’t help you any.
Justin sent the ollie over and raced down to the bottom.
The spoils.
Justin was rolling over the two holes when he got pitched. As unforgiving as the ground was, it let Justin leave with cut-up hands, shoulder, and hip with bruises included. He lay for a while on the ground while we all made sure he was going to be good.
He got up and that’s when we met this random woman. She came up from nowhere and walked straight to Justin asking for cigarettes. This was before he had even pulled one out for himself. Somehow she seemed to know who she needed to talk to because he obliged to give her one. She took two. After some back and forth she gave one back. Justin lit them both and that seemed to start something in her.
The woman talked to us about Alcatraz and rehab among other things, but those two topics stuck out to me and were most frequent. I couldn’t totally understand her though. She had an accent when she spoke and we asked where she’s from. I thought maybe France, but she said Yugoslavia. Her English was decent and she said she even spoke 7 other languages.
She left after a little bit but returned just a while later with some granola bars and crackers for Justin. He took the snacks and continued talking with her. Jacob was going to give her another cig for the care package, but then she said he looked like Hitler because of his mustache. He almost didn’t give it to her because of that but did in the end. She left, only to return again.
This time she has napkins and contact solution. She told Justin he can use the contact solution to clean his cuts because it cleans anything and gave us a small demonstration by rubbing some on her arm. She quickly squirted some into his hands and he took the napkins to clean it all up. She stayed with us up until we left.
Before we all parted our separate ways I asked her name. The stranger who gave us snacks, contact solution, and some laughs was named Mernina. I asked if I could take a couple of photos of her before we left and she was happy to. However, when I showed her the photos, Mernina said I didn’t know how to take her photo right. She ended up having Zach take her picture. She wasn’t going to let us off the hook without a group photo either.