TRISHA’S and my older son, older. JAMES JOSEPH MICHAEL DENCE had a birthday yesterday. His caption, texted with the photo, is “Forty-eight never looked so good.” J.J. when he was young, JAYMZ as a stage name, he has been in Moscow, Idaho since college, working and playing guitar with the FABULOUS KINGPINS, all the while leading his own bands, the current version being SOLID GHOST.

SIDENOTE- I just received (yesterday) a reasonably priced front zip wetsuit, replacing the one I’ve thrashed and patched, the one famously (locally) for having the hole in a most inopportune place for someone knee paddling in a crowded lineup. The suit is from NRS, which, I discovered, stands for NORTHWEST RIVER SUPPLY, and, surprise, they are located in MOSCOW, IDAHO. James said he almost went to work for them, a small outfit then, but now worldwide, but “They still pay Idaho wages.” Yeah, well… in this case, I appreciate it.

ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES, obvious animal lover, worldwide local, and HAMA HAMA OYSTERS ambassador, is having a birthday TODAY. 47, and choosing which locals are ready to welcome into which lineup. Adam put the ‘local’ in ‘local or lucky,’ (I do take credit for the phrase) seeming to arrive at locations on days that turn out to be EPIC. Example- Cape Kiwanda, the pullback capitol of the world, with the point actually acting like a point break. Almost guaranteed today will be awesome and barrelling. At least, using a phrase often used by Adam, there’ll be a few butt barrels.

SEQUIM VORTEX STORIES-

I’m checking out at Costco. The checkout guy, possibly trying to impress the young woman assisting, says, “Pop a wheelie. On, like, a BMX bike. You’re too young for that one. This guy probably gets it.” “Yeah, I am, but, you know, there’s never a mention of mama wheelie.” “Oh. Is that a thing?” “Probably not.”

I’m headed from Home Depot (for stain) to Walmart (for bird food, mostly, assuming I need a decent excuse for going to either big box, right-wing owned store), and I see this guy at the light with a sign that says, “Looking for human kindness.” I change lanes to avoid eye contact (because I’m a hypocritical liberal who already voted, solid blue, but one who is still working at 73), and because I run a constant stream of ‘what if’ scenarios through my mind, I wonder what reaction I would get from the man if I came back and gave him the gallon of milk from Costco. It might be, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.” Or not.

I’ll skip the in-depth ‘Previously’ for “Swamis” again, but this chapter mostly takes place at GRANDVIEW, JOEY and a guy from Fallbrook High racing over after school. If you’re figuring out that the story is almost more about the relationship between Joey and JULIE COLE… yeah.

CHAPTER SEVEN- FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969

Fallbrook Union High School was letting out. Gary and Roger and I were standing in the big dirt parking lot behind the band room. Johnny Dale, in his daddy’s restored 1957 Chevy Nomad station wagon, two girls in the front seat with him, slowed down, then popped the clutch, and spun out directly in front of us. Gary, then Roger, flipped Johnny off, both called him an asshole. Both looked at me when I didn’t participate.

“Witnesses,” I said.

“You?” Gary asked. “No,” they both said. The next two cars that passed got three sets of double eagles, my gesture only waist high, almost happily returned by the car’s occupants.

…

“Friday, March 14,” I said, writing the date into a page about a third of the way through a red notebook sitting on the hood of a yellow 1968 Super Beetle with two surfboards, side by side on the Aloha racks; my bruised and patched nine-six pintail and a brand-new Hansen ten-two. “Finally enough light after school for going. Gary and Roger bailed.”

Roger said, “We’re not bailing, Joey; we have dates.”

Gary mouthed, “Dates” while running his hand along the rail of the board on the driver’s side, adding, “With girls. And it’s fuckin’ Friday! And, anyway, Joey, where’s your date, Doublewide Doug?”

“Doug-L-ass has… art seventh period,” Roger said. I nodded, looked at my watch, wrote a sentence in the notebook without saying it out loud.

“Why is it,” Gary asked, “That Dingleberry Doug has a new fucking car and a new fucking surfboard?”

“Why is it, Gary, that Joey is such a whore that he’ll ride with Dipshit Doug?”

“Why is it, Joey, that everyone’s getting shorter boards, but your buddy, Dipsy doodle Doug, is going full-on aircraft carrier?”

I looked around the lot. “Because, gentlemen, Doug’s… working; one, and his father’s running irrigation for all the new… ranchettes; two, and three, I’m a whore for the surf, and three, again… gas money.” I stepped back from my friends. Both were wearing Levis, Ked’s boat shoes, J.C. Penny’s white t shirts, and nylon windbreakers. As was I. “Why is it that we all don’t have… matching windbreakers like we’re on the Dork Neck Dreever Surf Team?” Both gave me ‘fuck you’ looks. “You guys, with the blonde hair and all. Uninformed people might believe you surf better than I do.”

“Fine with me, Joey. Gary? You?”

“Yeah. Fine, but… Hey, Joey; here comes your date now!”

Doug, varsity offensive lineman, was on the sidewalk, still a distance away, slow running toward us. He had a cardboard art portfolio under his right arm, his left arm out and ready to straight arm anyone in his path.

“Joey DeFreines, surf slut,” Gary said, kissing his right hand, then using a big arm movement to simulate throwing the kiss toward Doug. Roger ran out, putting both hands out as if he might catch this pass.

Doug only saw the last part before Roger bumped into him and bounced away. Doug dropped Roger with his left arm. “Incomplete,” he said, leaning over to help Roger back up.  

Gary’s mom’s Corvair pulled in beside Gary and me, trailed by its usual puffs of black smoke. The Princess was driving. There was another girl in the front seat, two more in the back. Sophomore girls. Giggling. The Princess peeled out just as Gary went around the back of the car.

“Better remember to put some oil in it, Princess,” Gary said, pointing to the hood. “One quart ought to do it.”

 The Princess popped the clutch, honked as she cut another car off, and pulled out and onto the side road in a cloud of black smoke.

Doug touched his car and leaned against it, breathing heavily. “Made it!” He opened his portfolio, pulled out a piece of drawing paper and laid it on the hood. “Check this shit out!” It was a drawing, pastels, of cartoonish people and cars on the side of a road. A red light was glowing from beyond and below the cars and people. “Pulled over” was written in the same red as a sort of caption.  

“It’s from… last week’s Free Press,” I said.

“Where’d you get it, Doublewide Dave?”

” Well… Roger, someone in my art class wanted me to scotch tape it on…” He pointed toward me. “Jody’s locker.”

“Grant Murdoch.”

“Grant fucking Murdoch.”

“Bingo! I told him to fuck himself, Jody, you and I are surfin’ buddies.”

“Surfin’ buddies, Doug-l-as,” Gary said, extending the ‘ass’ part, “Don’t wear that fucking letterman jacket to the beach. Joey wants all the hodads to think he’s from somewhere else.”

“Laguna… specifically,” I said as I rolled up the drawing, using the scotch tape at the corners to secure the roll. “Or San Clemente. Santa Cruz. Just… not… Fallbrook.”

Douglas took a folded piece of paper out of a pocket, the Warrior’s jacket off and tossed it, inside-out, onto the hood of his car.

“Oh, and fuck Grant Murdoch,” Gary said as he and Roger turned and headed toward an almost new Ford Mustang, two girls standing beside it.

Doug looked that way as he unlocked the driver’s door. “Roger’s stepfather’s car, Doug.”

“Yeah, I know, but, Jody, that one girl; I think she’s, maybe, a… sophomore.”

I stepped in front of Doug, blocking his view. “Maybe.” I shaded my eyes and looked toward the sun.

“Maybe she flunked third grade or something. We… You ready?”

I half-danced around the front of the car, grabbing my books and notebooks. “Maybe.”

When I got in the super beetle, Doug slid the paper across the dashboard. “Murdoch. Wanted me to give it to you…” I didn’t unfold it. “Personally. I didn’t look at it.”

I placed the unopened paper into the side pocket of my PeeChee folder. “We going?”

…

Doug was driving. I had a book open, its paper bag cover with unreadably psychedelic pencil lettering. “Civics” and “Grandview” and “JOEY DeFreines.”

“Shit, Jody, I could just cheat off of you.”

“Or… you could… study. I’ll just give you the… shit I think’ll be on the test.” 

“Close your eyes, Jody.” Doug pushed the book back toward my face.

I knew exactly where we were; three big corners west of the village of Bonsall, on the last straightaway before the sharp left and the narrow bridge across the wide valley that held the thin line of the San Luis Rey River. I looked over the book and Doug just in time to see the construction site, an elongated building framed up, level with and parallel to the highway on an artificial peninsula of fill.

“Building it quick, Jody.”

“Yes. Quickly.’

“Um, uh, Jody; you know, my sister… she taught me how to drive. She said, if there’s a truck or something coming… on the bridge… she just closes her eyes.”

“Uh, Doug… no. Eyes open. Please.”

We made it across, no vehicles coming our way. A choice had to be made. It was a soft right-hand turn or a steep hill.

“Oceanside’s probably faster,” Doug said. “Cut over at El Camino Real.”

“Faster then, Doug.”

Doug downshifted, made the soft right-hand turn. Thirty seconds later Doug said, “Um, you know; Gary and Roger call you Joey.” I didn’t look over the Civics book. “I’ll call you that if you call me…”

“Dangerous Doug? Or… your choice. Sure.”

“And you can tell Gary and Roger that I’m, you know, really good, surfing-wise. Joey.”

I lifted the book back up to my face. “Or… I can give you a dollar for gas… Doug-ie.”

“Oh. No. That’s all right… Jo-ey.”

…

Doug cut off an oncoming pickup truck as he made the thirty-five-degree turn onto the El Camino Real cutoff, southwest, up and out of the valley, We hit highway 78 on the other side, merged onto I-5, got off at Tamarack Avenue. High tide. Shorebreak. We didn’t even drop into the lower parking lot. Doug missed the turn for Grandview. So, Beacons. Doug pulled in next to a green-gray VW bus with a white roof.

“Last chance, Doug. Sun’s down in… forty minutes.”

 The tide was dropping. There were five surfers out, two of them girls. Young women. One of the young women was Julia Cole. There were four guys in street clothes on the beach. Two were watching the young women, one was looking at the flotsam along the tide line, one was doing some sort of surf pantomime, a beer bottle in each hand. He was the one who looked up the bluff at Doug and me.

“Jerks,” I said.

“Fucking Hodads,” Doug said as he opened the trunk on the front of his super beetle. That one in the blazer and wingtips, guaranteed not from around here.”

I moved to the bluff, wrapping Doug’s extra towel around me. A set was coming in and Julia Cole was on the second wave. I turned my shortjohn wetsuit back to outside out, peeled off my Levis and boxers, pulled the wetsuit up partway, wrapped the clothes in the towel, pulled the sleeveless suit up the rest of the way. Right arm through, I connected the stainless-steel turnbuckle at the left shoulder.

“My first wetsuit, Doug, December of 1965, made by a sailmaker at Oceanside Harbor, cost fifteen dollars. Christmas present. This one… seventeen-fifty, plus tax. But they were custom, two weeks from measuring to pick up.”

“Val’s,” Doug said as he unstrapped the boards, “my dad… up in LA.”

“Val’s is… valley, as in… valley cowboy.”

“Not trying to hide it.”

“Good. Noble. I am.” I pulled a cigarette out of the pack, showed it to Doug. He shook his head. I lit the Marlboro with three paper matches. Throwing my clothes into the trunk, I stashed my wallet, cigarettes, and matches in one shoe, stuffed the other shoe inside that one, slid the shoes under my clothes.

“Yes, Jo… Joey; I will lock the car.”

Halfway down the first section of the path, I saw that Julia Cole and her friend were out of the water. The three other Jerks followed the pantomimer toward them. “Monica,” the pantomimer, the Head Jerk, said. Loudly. His crew laughed. He repeated the word, stretching it to, “Mon-ee-ca. We have some be-er, San-ta Mon-e’-ca.” 

            Monica, her head down, made it to the bottom of the trail. The Head Jerk, walking backwards toward the bluff in front of Julia Cole, blocked the trail access. Julia Cole stopped; her face was very close to the Head Jerk’s. She said something. He put his free hand over his crotch, hopped backwards, throwing his hands out and up, beer sloshing onto his madras shirt.

Julia Cole was ten steps up the trail when he said, “Juuu-li-a. Juuuu-lee-ya; you are so cold. Soooo coooold. Ju’-li-a cold.”

Doug and I, boards under our arms, made the turn at the trail’s upper switchback.

The Head Jerk took several steps up the trail, turned back to his crew. “Come on up, you pussies!” Raising the volume, he added, “Surf broads. You jagoffs liking Monica’a ass better… or Juuu-lie’s?”

If any of the Jagoffs responded, it was more like growling or laughing than discernible words. “Brrrrrrrr,” the Head Jagoff said, Julie fifty feet up the trail, “Is the water cold, Juu-lie? And… I’m wondering if you’ve got anything on under that wetsuit. I saw… skin.” 

More laughter. One of the members of the Jagoff Crew said, “Come on, dude; cool it.”

Head Jerk moved both beer bottles to his left hand and shot his right hand out. Pleased that the subordinate flinched, Head Jagoff said, “And don’t fuckin’ call me dude… dude.” He started up the trail. His cohorts hung back, possibly because they saw me, looking quite displeased, and the much bigger Doug, behind me, also displeased.

 Monica and I met at the lower switchback. I stopped. Doug stopped. I stood my board up, holding it with my left hand, and moved to the uphill side.  Doug did the same. Monica nodded, quickly, but looked down as she passed. Julia Cole had an expression as much determined as pissed-off. Defiant. Looking at me, she didn’t seem to adjust her expression one way or the other. I did notice the chrome turnbuckle on one side of her wetsuit was undone and her bare shoulder was exposed. Skin. She noticed I noticed. Another asshole. Another jerk. Her lower lip seemed to pull in, her upper lip seemed to curl. Disappointment. Or anger. Julia blinked. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Julia Cole passed me and then Doug. “Joey’ll get ‘em,” Doug said.

“No,” she said. “Not… no.”  

I may have been replaying Julia Cole’s expression for the third or fourth time when Head Jagoff approached the tight angle at the switchback. I may have missed the first few words he kind of spit at me.

I replayed his words. “What’s the deal, asshole? Huh? You some sort of fuckin’ retard?”

“Possibly, Dude,” I said. “I do believe, Dude, you owe Julia Cole and Monica… don’t know her last name… a sincere apology.”

“You do,” Doug said. “And… don’t know where you’re from, Jagoff; somewhere east coast; but we don’t fuckin’ call our chicks ‘broads’ around here.” Doug looked at me.

“I believe,” I said, “The Jerk prefers being called Dude… over Jagoff.”

“No, Jagoff seems apropos. That, Jagoff, means ‘appropriate.’ It’s French. Jagoff, which, I might be wrong, has something to do with… you know, whacking the… willy.”

Jagoff looked at Dangerous Doug in his new Val wetsuit, his un-dinged Hansen leaning against his left shoulder, his spotless white towel over his right shoulder. Jagoff looked back down the trail. His cohorts hadn’t moved. “Come on up. We have us a fuckin’ farm boy and some sort of retard Gook.”

“Oh, no. Jody; Willy Whacker called you a Gook.”

“Common mistake.”

“Step aside, fuckers!” Neither Doug nor I moved. “Jody,” Jagoff said, leaning in way too close to my face. “Girl’s name. Well. Fuck Monica! Fuck Julie fuckin’ Cole. And… fuck you, Jo-dee… And your fat-ass friend.”

Doug turned toward me. “I meant… Joey, but. Joey, I don’t think an apology is, you know, forthcoming.”

I let go of my board and extended my right hand, palm up, toward Jagoff. My board fell against the bank. He looked at my hand. He made a sound as if he was hawking up a loogie. I kept my hand out. He spit near but not on my hand.

Doug laid his board, carefully, uphill, against the scrub and ice plant on the bluff. He wrapped his towel around his neck and pointed at each member of the Jagoff Crew, now partway up the lower portion of the trail. “Hey, assholes, come on up and help out your friend. But, warning, Joey’s a, for real, fucking, by-God, Devil Dog!”

Jagoff shook his head. “Devil Dog?” It didn’t register. He looked up toward the parking lot, sneering. He put one of the beer bottles in his other hand. Holding the bottles by the necks, he smashed them against each other. The open one shattered, the remaining beer running down his arm. He held the raw edges against the palm of my right hand. He was smiling. “Fuck you, Gook!”

I closed my eyes. I imagined an eleven-year-old kid. My opponent. He had padded fabric head gear and a heavy pad on his body, a padded pugil stick in his hands. He was sneering. Other voices were cheering. I could hear myself crying. Big sobs, inhaling between each one. My father’s voice said, “Eyes open, Jody! Open!” The kid in the head gear, still sneering, was about to hit me again, this time with the right-hand end of the stick. I could also see the Jagoff, his beer bottle weapon pulled back. My father’s voice screamed, “Get in there! Jody!” I did. I saw my pugil stick connect, saw the opponent fall back. His sneer gone.

 As was Jagoff’s.

Both beer bottles were on the path, both now broken. It would be a moment before Jerk/Dude/Jagoff reached for his nose; before the blood started flowing from there and his upper lip. It would be another few moments before the three Jagoffs, frozen near the top of the bluff, continued scrambling for the top.

“Devil Dog,” Dangerous Doug said.

“Devil Pup,” I said, keeping my eyes on my opponent. “Marines, Dude… may I call you Dude? There were tears in Dude’s eyes, blood seeping between his fingers. “Or… your name? No? Well, Dude, Devil pups; it’s kind of like… summer camp… on the Marine base, with hand-to-hand combat.”

Doug pulled his towel from his shoulders and handed it to Dude. “Apology, then, Dude?”

Fluffy towel to his face, Dude nodded. “Not to us,” I said. He nodded again. “Promise?” Third nod. “Okay. And, if you would… pick up the glass. It dangerous. Huh, Doug?”

“Dangerous,” Doug said. “Keep the towel, Dude. Souvenir.”

Looking from Doug to me, Dude pulled the towel away, blood seeping through it. “You don’t know Julia Cole. What she’s really like. You defending her, it’s like…”

“You’re right. I don’t know her.”

“’Cause we’re from Newport, Dude. Huh, Joey?”

Dude was staring at me. His eyes narrowed, then widened. Whether or not this meant he recognized me, I smiled. “Newport… yeah.”

Doug blinked and mouthed, “Laguna.”

…

When Doug and I got to the beach, Dude was still at the same spot, placing pieces of broken glass into Doug’s towel. His friends were in the parking lot, three vehicles over from the VW camper bus. There was a flash of light off glass. Julia Cole was behind the passenger side door. I couldn’t see her expression. I could remember it from earlier.

“Sorry, Doug. You know I’m trying to be all ‘peace and love,’ and not…”

“You shittin’ me, Joey? You’re a fuckin’, by-God Devil Dog!”

When we were knee deep in the water, Doug jumping onto his board early, too far back, too much of his board’s nose out of the water, I said, “Maybe we can keep this little incident to ourselves.”

Doug laughed. “How good am I doing, Joey?”

I jumped over a line of soup and onto my board. “You’re fuckin’ ripping, Dangerous Doug!”

…

            I left my wetsuit and my shoes on the porch, stacked my books on the dinette table, and looked back into the living room, all the lights except a lamp by the console off. My mother was on the couch. A World War II era record was playing, a woman singing wistfully about lost love. Seventy-eight rpm. The wedding photo was leaning against the console. The song ended and another record, 33 and 1/3 rpm, dropped onto the turn table. “South Pacific,” original Broadway cast.

            My mother got up, adjusted the record speed, and walked into the kitchen. I followed.

            “The surfing?”

            “Good. Doug is just learning, and…”

            “Doug. Who are Doug’s… people?” She turned off the oven and pulled out a foil covered plate, set it on the cast iron trivet on the kitchen table. “Would you like milk?”

            “I’ll get it. Doug’s father has the irrigation company. Football player. That Doug.”

            “Irrigation. Football. Doug. You and he are… friends… now?”

            “Now? I guess so. Surf friends, Mom; it’s… different.”

“Still, it is nice that you have… friends.”

            “It’s just… it’s not… Surfing’s cool. I surf. It doesn’t make me cool.” My mother gave me a look I had to answer with, “Yes, mother; friends are… nice to have.” She nodded and walked through the formal dining room and into the living room.

            I pulled the paper Doug had given me out of the PeeChee and unfolded it. “It was a drawing of me, from this week’s Free Press. Me in the window, looking out. The pen and ink drawing wasn’t quite a rendering, not quite a cartoon, with un-erased pencil lines. “Grant,” a signature at the bottom, was not finished in ink.

I tried to figure what Grant’s motives were. Intentions. I allowed water trapped in my sinuses to drain from my nose, not wiping at them with a paper napkin for a moment, then blowing as much water as I could into the napkin.

Freddy ran into the kitchen from the hallway, half pushed me against the counter. “She called,” he said. “The reporter. Asked for you… after I told her mom wasn’t here. Are you crying?”

            “No. No.” I refolded the drawing. “Who? Lee Ransom?”

            “Yeah. Her. Mom was here. Outside, grooming Tallulah.”

             “Okay.”

            “I told her…” Freddy switched to a whisper. “I told her what you told me to say.” I nodded, tried to push past my brother. He put a hand to my chest. “She asked what kind of car mom drives.” I did one of those ‘and?’ kind of shrugs. “She said she asked one of the detectives, and he pointed to a different car than the one someone else pointed to… not the Volvo.”

            “Which one?”

            “Which car?”

            “Which detective?”

            “Boys!” I looked around Freddy. Our mother was in the dining room. I couldn’t tell from her expression how much she had heard. I had to assume too much. 

“SWAMIS’ is copyrighted material, all rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

And, in the RELUCTANTLY POLITICAL catagory, please vote the reasoned choice; BLUE. There is no other America to save America from going the way of many another country. There is no reasonable reason to vote for a disgusting example of a human being and wannabe dictator. If you claim some sort of Christian stance, ‘he is redeemable’ kind of bullshit argument, you must not believe Jesus when he said about those who speak the way the orange candidate does, that “the truth is not in them.” Or, perhaps, you put little value in the last book of the BIBLE. Cons con. Liars lie. Grifters grift.

New material on Sunday.