James Solomon Gershowitz

17

Male

Skaters

Bisexual, but don’t tell anyone he said that.

To put it gently, Sol is kind of a beanpole — tall and skinny with long, spindly limbs that are surprisingly graceful when it comes to skating. Off the board, however, Sol is a mess. Bumping into people, knocking over stuff, even tripping over his own feet; it’s really quite a miracle how he hasn’t managed to kill himself yet. His brothers love to joke about how he walks around like a baby deer trying to figure out the correct way to use its new legs, but hey, he’s the one with a good five inches on everyone else in the family, so who’s laughing now?

Sol has a tawny, sun-tanned complexion, courtesy of the countless hours he spends at the local skatepark. His curly black hair is usually sort of greasy, and often tangled in impossible knots. Pretty much the only time he puts in the effort to look presentable is when his mom yells at him, but even that’s not a given. On the left side of his nose, a little ways above his mouth, there’s a noticeable mole present. It’s the first thing most people notice about him, and while he’s certainly grown tired of your typical smartass pointing it out to him for like, the millionth time, Sol almost thinks of it as his good luck charm.

When it comes to clothing, Sol couldn’t care less. As long as he can do a kickflip in it, he’s happy. That said, he dresses exactly the way you’d expect him to — that is, a lot of t-shirts, hoodies, and jeans. Most of it hails from Goodwill, or the bottom of the bargain bin at Target, though he does have a few band tees he’s quite fond of. His pride and joy – and you’ll see him wearing this a lot – is an old army jacket adorned with an assortment of patches that he’s gathered over the years. It should also be noted that Sol has been wearing the same shoes for the past three years, though to anyone with a working pair of eyeballs, it isn’t exactly hard to tell. What used to be a pair of black Converse have since faded into a sickly grey-green, the soles superglued back on.

Sol has never met anyone that he didn’t, at first glance, consider a friend. The first thing most people see when meeting him is his spirit, and the wide, toothy grin that tips closer to psychotic than welcoming. He’s always been an energetic one, full of life and personality, almost to a fault. If he likes something, chances are he’ll let you know it, and if he doesn’t — well, he’s never been shy about voicing his opinion in that matter either. Try as he might, he’s never really had the best poker face in the world, and it tends to give him away more than not. His sense of humor, however snarky and crude, will never fail to bring a smile to people’s faces, and even if that doesn’t work, his laugh is deathly infectious. Sol is one of those guys you hate to love, and he knows it well.

At the very core of his personality, he’s kind of a bleeding heart, and often puts the needs of others above his own. It is his belief that when you’re good to people, people are good in return; what you put out is hopefully equal to what you get back from the world. If he’s bored enough, he’ll do anything for anyone. An incurable optimist, Sol has a tendency to see the glass as half full. Apart from that, loyalty is another one of Sol’s defining traits; once you give him a good reason to trust you, he’ll always have your back, even when he knows you’re in the wrong.

While Sol generally makes it a point to avoid confrontation – and believe me, he’s very hard to anger – he can get a little snappy when people start poking into his personal affairs. He hates being treated like a child, which unfortunately, as the youngest of the Gershowitz clan, is something he’s still unable to avoid. One of his biggest pet peeves is people helping him when he doesn’t need it. As with everything else, the majority of his teenage angst manifests in the form of caustic sarcasm. He’s the type of guy whose bark is greater than his bite, though he does have a penchant for pissing people off with his bluntness. Still, he’s never purposefully malicious, he just doesn’t like feeling vulnerable.

Sol has an unhealthy obsession with The Strokes, and often jokes that he wants to be Julian Casablancas when he grows up. Also, he’s allergic to peanuts.

Sol had a pleasant, if rather unremarkable upbringing. As the youngest of four children, he’s always been treated with a certain degree of preciousness, though his parents were careful not to spoil him. Together, the family of six lived in a nice house in the suburbs, complete with a white picket fence, a crisp, green yard, and a yapping black labrador. Sol’s father, Lev Gershowitz, was chief rabbi at Vinehurst’s very own synagogue. Mrs Gershowitz, on the other hand, taught social studies at a local elementary school. Suffice to say, he never wanted for anything. Every year, along with a sickeningly sweet birthday cake, he would get a nice present wrapped in garish colors, usually some kind of video game.

As luck would have it, on his ninth birthday, Sol found himself captured by one game in particular — Tony Hawk: Shred. He couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he first tore the package from its cocoon of wrapping paper. The game came with a motion-controlled board you could actually ride on. To Sol’s young, nine-year-old mind, it might as well have been magic. That summer, he and his brothers spent far too much of their time on that game, though as is typical of children, they soon grew tired of it. Eventually, his brothers moved on to other things, but for Sol, the seeds of interest had been sown. It wasn’t easy, but he persisted; begging, wheedling, pestering his parents until they finally gave in and got him a skateboard the very next year.

His parents thought it would be nothing more than a passing fancy, but Sol proved to be surprisingly dedicated. Everyday after school, he would run off to the skatepark, watching bigger kids do tricks that he would then attempt himself. He didn’t always succeed, of course, but he never failed to pick himself up and try again. Even on the day of his Bar Mitzvah, he could barely stay in his seat. All Sol wanted was to get out there and skate with his friends again, and he ended up rushing through his reading of the Haftarah like he was spitting bullets. Needless to say, his father wasn’t very happy about the whole affair.

When Sol finally got to high school, he quickly realised that his life motto of ‘skate is life’ wasn’t going to work out. All of a sudden, he found himself having to prepare for SATs, college, blah blah blah. His parents even made him get a part-time job at the local smoothie place to teach him ‘the value of hard work’. Nowadays, what little time he has to spare is spent skating, hanging out with friends, and smoking the occasional bowl under the bleachers.

Hey, he’s seventeen, alright? When else is he going to have the chance to get up some good-old fashioned teenage rebellion?

_{“Just chillin’.”}

• Rolls her eyes when annoyed (which is pretty much like blinking to her)
• Only hangs out with Punks, Sceners or Gamers.
• Has a tendency to impulsively say whatever she feels like without really considering the consequences.
• Indulges in a weed and pizza night every weekend.
• Has a very colorful sailor's mouth.

• Playing Video Games
• Watching movies or anime
• Drawing
• Playing paintball
• Skating

• Pizza (every kind is beautiful in its own way)
• Her stepfather and older sister
• Indie and Rock Music
• Horror Movies
• Video Games!!!
• Concerts and Rock Shows
• Anime & Manga
• Paintball
• Swearing
• Thrills
• Sex (and lots of it ;D)
• The occasional Mary Jane

• Romantic Movies
• Pastel Colors
• Snobs and Attention-Whores
• Being the center of attention
• Game Lags ("Especially when I'm fucking winning the damn game!")
• Dumb drama
• Cowards
• Being told what to do
• Following the masses

• Losing her sister or her stepfather.
• Not being able to join the military.
• Falling in love.