Rollerdrome
The Rollerdrome in Lewiston is a roller-skating rink that becomes the stage for two of the most revealing sexual encounters in the novel, both involving Sandra Cross. It is a place of loud music, live bands on Saturday nights, and a clientele that includes Harlow and Lewiston boys prone to violent arguments. The Rollerdrome's back area, with its piled boxes, crates, and trashcans full of Coke bottles, provides a semi-private space for the second encounter, while the faint sound of the band from inside creates a distant, dreamlike soundtrack. The Rollerdrome is not merely a location; it is the crucible in which Sandra's search for authentic feeling and Ted Jones's carefully constructed public image are both shattered.
Ted Jones's Date and the Rollerdrome Fight
Sandra's first significant visit to the Rollerdrome is with Ted Jones, whom she had previously dated several times. On this occasion, a large fight breaks out on the rink floor between Harlow and Lewiston boys, with some fighting on skates and others barefoot. As the jukebox blares Rolling Stones music, a boy in a black jacket skates by, laughs, waves at Ted, and yells, "Fuck her, buddy, I did!" Ted reacts by reaching out and hitting the boy upside the head, sending him skating into the middle of the rink where he trips and falls on his head. Ted then walks across the rink, grabs the boy by the back of his jacket, and yanks him back and forth until the jacket rips down the middle. After the boy threatens to kill him for ruining his jacket, Ted hits him again, throws the torn piece of jacket on top of him, and returns to Sandra. They leave immediately, driving to a gravel pit on the road to Lost Valley, where they have sex in the back seat of Ted's car. Ted does not use a condom as he had said he would, but Sandra does not become pregnant.
The Anonymous Encounter and Its Aftermath
Later, Sandra returns to the Rollerdrome alone, wearing her shortest skirt and a thin blouse, and allows an anonymous boy to pick her up. She is excited by the danger, thinking he might be a sex maniac, have a knife, make her take dope, or that she might get pregnant. She feels alive. They go out back, where the band's music is faint. He is rough, not polite, and his mouth is greasy, as if he has been eating pizza. He smudges pizza on her blouse. She pulls her skirt up for him. Before he can even penetrate her, she experiences an orgasm from his manual stimulation, a feeling so good and so real that she remembers everything—the music, his smile, the sound of his zipper. He accuses her of doing it on purpose. For Sandra, this encounter, with its risk and lack of politeness, feels more real than her experience with Ted. She later tells the class that the hostage crisis itself has been even better than that encounter.
Narrative Role and Significance
The Rollerdrome episodes serve as a crucial turning point in the novel's central hostage crisis. Sandra's public confession of her sexual experiences, including the details of her encounter with Ted, exposes his hypocrisy and cruelty, shattering his carefully maintained image as a golden boy. The revelation that Ted had sex with Sandra in a gravel pit after a violent outburst, and that he lied about using protection, strips him of his moral authority. This confession, delivered in the dim light of Room 16, directly precipitates the classmates' collective psychological and physical attack on Ted, as they turn on him with a fury that mirrors the violence he displayed at the Rollerdrome. The Rollerdrome thus becomes the symbolic origin of the mob violence that concludes the hostage crisis, a place where the veneer of civility was first torn away, revealing the raw, violent, and desperate impulses beneath.
