The photos don’t do the board justice. I mean, if I do say so myself. The board will be on display at the THIRD OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT, this Friday, June 30, Port Townsend Library, 6pm.

                        CHAPTER TWO- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1968

My nine-six Surfboards Hawaii pintail was on the Falcon’s factory racks. I was headed along Neptune, from Grandview, toward Moonlight Beach. The bluff side of Neptune was either garage or gate and fence, or hedge, tight to the road. There were few views of the water. I was, no doubt, smiling, remembering something from that morning’s session.

There had been six surfers out at the preferred lineup for righthanders. They all knew each other. If one of them didn’t know me, the asshole detective’s son, others would clue him in. There was no way the local crew and acceptable friends would allow me to catch a set wave; maybe a wave all of them missed or none of them wanted. No. One of the surfers would act as if he was going to take off on some smaller waves, just to keep me off them.  

As the first one in the water, I had surfed the peak, had selected the wave I thought might be the best of a set. Three other surfers came out. Okay. Three more surfers came out. Sid was one of them. A set wave came in. I had been waiting. I was in position. It was my wave. I took off.  Sid took off in front of me, ten yards over. I said something like, “Hey!”

Rather than speed down the line or pull out, Sid stalled. It was either hit him or bail. I bailed. Sid said “Hey!” Louder. He looked at me, cranked a turn at the last moment. He made the wave. I swam.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, back at the lineup. The four other surfers there were laughing with Sid.

“Wrong, Junior; you broke the locals rule.” Sid pointed to the lefts, the waves perceived as not being as good, on the other side of a real or imagined channel. “Local’s rule. Get it?” Trying to ignore the taunts of the others, I caught an insider and moved over.

After three lefts, surfed, I believed, with a certain urgency and a definite aggression, I paddled back, staying prone on my board, tacking back and forth. A wave was approaching, a decently sized set wave. I wanted it. 

“Outside!” I yelled, as loud as I could; loud enough that four of them, including Sid, started paddling for the horizon. I paddled at an angle, forty-five degrees from straight out, lined up the wave at the peak. Though the takeoff was late, I made the drop, rode the wave into the closeout section, pulling off the highest roller coaster I had ever even attempted.

There had been no outside set. I kept my back turned to the water as I exited, not daring to look up at the surfers on the bluff, hooting and pointing. Maybe I looked up for a moment as I grabbed my towel, my keys and wallet and cigarettes rolled up in it, tromped up the washout to Neptune Avenue, trying not to smile.   

Just before Moonlight Beach, a late fifties model Volkswagen bus, two-tone, white over gray, was almost blocking the southbound lane. Smoke was coming out of the open engine compartment. Black smoke. Three teenagers were standing behind the bus, two young men, Duncan Burgess and Rincon Ronny, on the right side, one young woman, Monica, on the left. 

There was more room on the northbound side. I pulled over, squeezed out between the door and someone’s bougainvillea hedge, and walked into the middle of the street, fifteen feet behind the van. “Can I help?” 

Duncan, Ronny, and Monica were dressed as if they had surfed but were going to check somewhere else. Those three were wearing nylon windbreakers, towels around their waists. Duncan’s and Monica’s were different, but both were red with white, horizontal stripes that differed in number and thickness. Ronny was wearing a dark blue windbreaker with white, vertical strip, a “Yater” patch sewn on. Each of the three looked at me, and looked back at each other, then at the smoking engine. The movement of their heads said, “No.”

Someone stepped out of an opening in the hedge on the bluff side of the road, pretty much even with me. I was startled. I almost fell back. Three steps before I regained my balance. I stared.

Julia Cole. She was wearing an oversized V-neck sweater, beige boys’ nylon trunks, bare legs, and huarache sandals. She looked upset, more angry than sad. But then… she almost laughed. I managed a smile.

“It’s you,” she said. It was. Me. “Are you a mechanic?” I shook my head, took a step toward the middle of the road, away from her. “An Angel?” Another head shake, another step. She took two more steps, forty-five degrees from straight, toward me. We were close. She seemed to be studying me, moving her head and eyes as if she might learn more from an only slightly different angle. I couldn’t continue to study Julia Cole. I looked past her. Her friends looked at her, then looked at each other, then looked, again, at the subsiding smoke and the growing pool of oil on the pavement. “We saw what you did,” she said. I took a sideways step, my eyes back on her. She smiled. “From the bluff.” Her voice was a whisper when she added, “Outside,” the fingers of her right hand out, but twisting, pulling into her palm, little finger first, as her hand itself twisted. “Outside,” she said again, slightly louder.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

By the time I shifted my focus from Julia Cole’s face to her right hand, it had become a fist, soft rather than tight. She moved her arm slowly across her body, stopping for a moment just under the parts of her sweater dampened by her bathing suit top. Breasts. I looked back into her eyes for the next moment. Green. Translucent. She moved her hand, just away from her body, up. She cupped her chin, thumb on one cheek, fingers lifting, pointer finger first, drumming, pinkie finger first. Three times. She pulled her hand away from her face, reaching toward me. Her hand stopped. She was about to say something.  

“Julie!” It was Duncan. Julie, Julia Cole didn’t look around. She lowered her hand and took another step closer to me. We were very close.

“If you were an… attorney. I could… use an attorney.”

“Oh. No.” I leaned back before I stepped back. “Not yet.”

“Okay, then. You can’t help.” Julia Cole loosened the tie holding her hair. Sun-bleached at the ends, no darker than dirty blonde at the roots. She used the fingers of both hands to straighten it.

“I can… give you a ride.”

“Look, Fallbrook…” It was Duncan. Again. He walked toward us, toward Julia Cole and me. “We’re fine.” He extended a hand toward Julia. She did a half-turn, sidestep. Fluid. Duncan kept looking at me. Not in a friendly way. He put his right hand on Julia Cole’s left shoulder.

Julia Cole was still smiling when I asked, “Phone booth? There’s one at… I’m heading for Swamis.”

            A car come up behind me. I wasn’t aware. Rincon Ronny and Monica watched it. Duncan backed toward the shoulder. Julia and I looked at each other for another moment. “You really should get out of the street… Junior.”

            “Joey,” I said. “Joey.”

            She could have said, “Julie.” Or “Julia.” She said neither.     

No one got a ride. I checked out several spots, didn’t surf. The VW bus was gone when I drove back by. Dirt from under someone’s hedge was scattered over the oil, some of it seeping through.

“Swamis,” copyright 2020, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.