It’s Wednesday. Swamis day. ON FRIDAY, June 23, I will be on the radio. KPTZ, 91.9 fm, Port Townsend, Washington, Barney Burke’s Blues show, 8 to 10 pm. You can stream it if you’re out of range. I will be talking about the upcoming SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT and, maybe, possibly, be reciting some lyrics to blues songs I have written, possibly playing some harmonica. It can’t possibly be as cool as I imagine it could be, but… tune in.

I did a bit of a stall on my second wave. I rode the third wave into the shallows, moved up to the nose, attempted a Hawaiian pullout in the little reform. Copying, emulating; it’s part of learning, of getting better.

Though I claimed I had no surf heroes, Jumper Hayes and Chulo Lopez had been two of mine when I made the switch from Styrofoam surfies and canvas surf mats. June, 1965, just out of Junior High, begging my mom to take me to Tamarack. Jumper and Chulo Lopez were three years older, and were, as expected, not welcoming of even casual contact or communication with kooks.

Sid was outright hostile. Two years older than me, Sid was thousands of waves behind Chulo and Jumper, thousands ahead of me. There were “Watch out for that guy” comments on the beach, everyone watching him when he took off. Sid, obviously proud of his reputation as an asshole, had some undeniably good moves. He had moved up in the local hierarchy when Chulo and Jumper dropped off the scene. Trouble with the law. Stolen avocados. My father was involved. Detective. He did not share details. Unprofessional.

Chulo had come back with a love for Jesus and a definite limp. Now Jumper, as rumored, was back. Damaged.  

The sun was clearing the hill behind Swamis, and the trees on the bluff, and was hitting the horizon. The bluff would be a shadow on the waves for several hours. Surfers, checking the waves from the parking lot or the top of the stairs, were silhouettes, backlit. I counted the individuals. Six. Now seven. I looked at the stairs. In the deep shadow, Sid was two stairs ahead of Jumper, almost to the platform. A surfer coming down the stairs stopped.  

Or Sid stopped him. The stairs were too far away for me to hear words or see clearly. Body language. Jumper’s head was down. My guess was the other surfer wanted to say something to Jumper, or, at least, some sort of acknowledgement. Sid pushed him aside. Sid and Jumper continued up the stairs. The other surfer went down two steps, turned, raised his free hand in the air, a full-on flipping of the bird. “Eagle.” If he comboed the gesture with a “Fuck you,” it wouldn’t have been loud enough for Jumper or Sid to hear.  

…

The shower seemed a bit warmer than the ocean. Still wet, I put my windbreaker on and zipped it up. I put my keys and wallet in an outside pocket. I tucked my board under my arm, flopped my towel and t shirt over it. I looked back at the water as I went up. There were five surfers at the inside peak, six on the outside. I stopped at the landing to zip the jacket down enough to allow me to dig my dad’s lighter and my Marlboros from the inside pocket. I leaned my board against the ‘old men stop here’ rail and lit up. I wasn’t old.  

Exactly halfway up the top set of stairs, I could feel the vibration. More surfers. I didn’t look up. I moved to my left. I looked at the bluff, various shades of tan, shadows in the creases on the last of Swamis Point, the calved-off rocks and decomposed sandstone in a pile on the beach. I inhaled. When the vibration became a rocking motion, I turned and blew the smoke toward the middle of the stairway. Dick move.

There were two of them, each carrying a surfboard, but side-by-side, three steps up. Both stopped and let the smoke dissipate. Both looked down at me, my mouth open, lips in an ‘o’ shape. Oh.

I nodded. Neither returned the nod.

We did know each other; Duncan Burgess and Julia Cole, longtime locals, my age. Class of sixty-nine. San Dieguito for them, Fallbrook for me. That my mother and brother and I had just moved to Leucadia did not make me an instantly accepted local.

Julia Cole had her new pink board, almost matching her oversized sweater, under her right arm. There was a strap, something like a guitar strap, beaded, several colors in a Southwest native design, over her left shoulder and attached to her large gray bag. It was almost large enough to carry laundry or sports equipment, but of a heavier material. Leather. Worn and dirtied. She jumped the bag from step to step.

“Julie,” I said. “Duncan.” Neither answered. The silent equivalent of a put-down, loud and shared.

They kept coming down, side-by-side, Julia Cole closer to me, Duncan Burgess on the other rail. I squeezed closer to the outside rail. I had to look at Julie. I wanted to believe she would turn toward me, if only just enough to have me in her peripheral vision. If she did look at me, she would not look away until I did. Not her. Not Julia Cole. They were three steps below me when I said, “Jumper was out.” They kept walking.

After a moment of following them, I looked up the stairs, squinting into the sun. There was someone at the top of the stairs, parking lot level. I lost focus. Rather, I replayed the moments it had taken for Julia Cole to pass. Julie. Her right arm had been around her board, a reddish-brown towel draped and balanced on the board’s rail. The bag, hanging from her left shoulder, had pulled at the neckline of her sweater. She had allowed the bag to rest for a split second on a stair as the cigarette smoke clouded the space between us. She had blinked. She had looked at me. A look of contempt. Or hurt. Serious. Cold. As if I had betrayed her.

I had. In this vision, or version of a vision, I seemed to zoom in on her eyes. Translucent. So green.

I blinked. I shook my head. I had seen Julie’s green eyes before. This was another little mind movie, other images to be stored away. Not too deep.

Julie and Duncan stopped for a moment at the landing. They looked at the lineup. Julie said something to Duncan. Duncan looked around and up the stairs. At me. I inhaled. Heavily. I held the smoke as long as I could and exhaled as hard as I could. With the air as dead as it ever was, in that brief period between the offshore breeze and the onshore updrafts, the cloud hung in the air, as much of it spreading down as up or out. I crushed the cherry between my thumb and pointer finger, flicked it as hard as I could with the use of my middle finger. Julie and Duncan watched the last of the flight of the cigarette butt, down and into the groundcover plants inadequately covering the sandstone, down the steeper drop to the scrub brush above the beach.

Julie and Duncan looked at me, then beyond me, higher up the stairs. I had to look. Again. I squinted against the sun. Again. Someone was sitting, three steps down from the parking lot. The sun, just clearing the trees, was still behind him. He was looking at me, elbows on his knees, a hand on each side of his face. Jumper Hayes. Though his face was in shadow, I still believe he was smiling. He would wait. 

I closed my eyes and ran a thousand chaotic scenes, faces and phrases, black and white photographs, red lights and sirens and gunshots, before I stepped away from the railing and started up the upper stairs. “Redemption day, Jody,” Jumper had said, “You’re going with me.”

…

Jumper Hayes, dressed in white pants and a yellow t shirt with “Flowers by Hayes” in semi-psychedelic letters, stood when I got to the stair tread two below him.

“Redemption day?”

“Yes, Jody.” Jumper moved to one side, motioning me to pass by. “I hear you’re going by Joey now.” I may have chuckled. Jumper did chuckle. “I figure we have three possible… suspects… left. Joey.”

Jumper Hayes followed me to the Falcon. Optimum spot. Sid’s van was gone. The pickup was gone. A bright yellow van with two old longboards on top and “Flowers by Hayes” painted on the side was in its place. I set my board on the Falcon’s racks, my towel on the hood. I took the keys out of my windbreaker, unlocked the tailgate, and cranked the window down.

Jumper Hayes walked between my car and the Flowers by Hayes van. He opened the back doors, walked back, pulled my board from the Falcon’s rack. He walked, with a noticeable limp, between our vehicles, with my board over his head. I cranked the back window back up, locked the tailgate, unlocked the driver’s door, and opened it.

I was lighting up a Marlboro when Jumper returned. “I figure… four… Jumper.”

Jumper smiled, leaned close to my face, leaned back, snatched the cigarette from my mouth. “I was told you quit.”

If I was ready to strike, Jumper was ready to defend. He smiled first.

“I did.” I held out the Zippo lighter with the Sheriff’s Office logo for a moment. Jumper nodded. I opened the door, set it on the seat. “But then…” I looked around the Swamis parking lot, stopping for a moment on a 1969 Jeep Wagoneer with fake wood paneling.

“You were brave, Jody.”

“I was a fool, Jumper. Nothing changed.”

“Bravery, foolishness… yeah; but things did. You and Julie, that’s…”

Jumper had an annoyingly sympathetic expression when I spun around. He didn’t drop it. I looked at the two popout surfboards on top of his family business’s van. “You have a… real board… inside?”

“Real in 1967. Before the revolution. Before… Well, since I’m still a Jarhead, technically… guess a Marine doesn’t need a spleen…” Jumper’s laugh was almost apologetic. My smile, in return, went from probably weak to possibly surprised, something short of shocked, before I turned away. Jumper laughed again. He wasn’t apologetic. “I can get us on base. Maybe we can get a few waves at Trestles on the way back home. Hmm?”

“Trestles, huh?”

“San Onofre… at least.”

“San Onofre’s… fine.”

“Fine, then. Illegal to surf Trestles anyway.” Jumper Hayes laughed, pointed at his bright yellow t shirt, pointed at me. I shook my head. He nodded, laughed, and headed toward the van.

Thanks for reading, “SWAMIS,” copyright Erwin A. Dence, Jr. All rights reserved.