A/N: I don't own Lords of Dogtown, or any of the Z-Boys.

There weren't any words that could truly do Dog-Town justice, it was dirty and run-down, but god, it was the most amazing place I'd even known. The people were something else too, man, I'd never met a more colorful batch of people in my life, and there was so much character. Maybe it had something to do with the whole 'ghetto by the beach' thing but whatever.

I lived in a small apartment off of Main Street with my older sister, Kathy. Our parents were out of the picture for some reason or another, it wasn't because they didn't want us or anything sad like that, it was because we didn't want them. Besides, living on the coast was way better than living in the middle of fucking nowhere in Arizona. Kathy worked at some clothing store at the Santa Monica Mall or something like that, I'd taken a job up at the local surf shop- Zephyr.

School had let out about a week ago and I'd spent my whole time alternating between bumming around with everyone at the beach and handling things at work. There really wasn't much of anything to around the shop anyway, usually I was stuck picking up stray bottles and cigarette butts, or talking to whoever was there, except Chino, he kind of freaked me out to tell you the truth.

I'd lived in Dog-Town for a total of a year and a half, and let me tell you, it had been the craziest fucking year of my life. It had been difficult adjusting to everything at first, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, people here were just so territorial, they had this whole 'Locals Only' philosophy working for them.

I'd met Peggy Oki first out of everyone, I think we'd had a class together or something like that, I can't really remember, all I knew was that we had the same taste in music, and she was about the only girl that hadn't given me the stink eye, and that was good enough in my book. She eventually invited me to hang around, seeing as I didn't know anything about anywhere or anyone, and it was then that I first came to know the Z-Boys.

I'd developed an okay relationship with most of the boys, I mean, I guess they all had their own thing going for them, but there were three boys in particular that were unavoidable.

There was Stacy Peralta, he was different from the rest of the guys, he has his own manner to him, and he was one of the sweetest guys I'd ever met, and it really did help that he had manners, something that was severely lacking in the Dog-Town community; but you shouldn't mistake his kindness for his weakness. Tony Alva, was another case entirely, there's really no good way to put it; he was a cocky son-of-a-bitch. I mean, really, he always wanted to be better than you at everything, but he did have that whole charming Mexican (Puerto Rican, really, but whatever) thing going for him. Then there was Jay Adams, what can I tell you about Jay Adams, he was a fucking asshole more than half the time, and I'm pretty sure the thing he thought of more than skating was fucking chicks, but god, he could skate like I had never seen anyone skate before in my life, and he had this persona that I just couldn't figure out, it was like he didn't give a shit about anything at one moment and then the next there he was being this wonderful kid to his mother.

I spent my time alternating between hating the living shit out of Dog-Town and being too attached to not want to let it go. I, Donna Reeds, did not do confused.

This chapter was sort of a pre-cursor to the actual story, an introduction to her life at the current moment.