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The No Coast Derby Girls skate at Pershing Auditorium in downtown Lincoln, fifteen hundred miles from the Pacific, eleven hundred from the Atlantic, and two blocks from the Nebraska State Capitol, a domed sandstone tower locals call, with a mixture of affection and scorn, "The Penis of the Plains." The building dominates the landscape like something out of The Lord of the Rings, but in lieu of a lidless all-seeing eye there's a red pulsing light that warns away low-flying planes. That light flashes between the legs of the Sower, a nineteen-foot statue bestriding the Capitol's dome, frozen in the act of scooping seed from his massive groin-level pouch. Inside, the walls gleam with mosaic murals portraying bullnecked Teutonic farmers harvesting golden fields, their sturdy wives and grim children pitching in. Manifest Destiny is taken seriously around here. Everything is goldenrod and indigo, vermillion and emerald, and the figures in their fertile landscapes hang foreshortened and humorless above the viewer like Titans. The style might best be described as Übermensch Socialist Agrarian. In fact, one of Hitler's intrabunker memos detailed his plan to move the capital of the Nazi empire to Lincoln after conquering the United States and to rule the world from its Capitol, under the aegis of the virile Sower.
Once inside the arena at Pershing Auditorium, the first thing you see is a wide burgundy velvet curtain hung from the rafters, which looks like an oversized version of something Vincent Price would have draped over his parlor windows. The plush seats are of identical color and fabric. The air is close, the smell musty: it's the like the biggest, emptiest attic in the world. On the other side of the curtain is the roller derby loop, about a quarter the size of an outdoor track, and behind it is a deep wooden stage with three raised curtains - red, white, and blue.
From 7:20 to 7:45, two dozen women emerge from behind the velvet curtain. The youngest are college-aged, the oldest in their early forties. It's a Monday night in late August, a few weeks before the NCDG championship bout, warm enough for them to arrive in the miniskirts, tank tops, bike shorts, and leggings they practice in. Shambling across the track,...