I just and finally got this Wheelie, and, I know, it’s kind of cheating, but, if you’re riding an e-bike down the trail, or a regular bike, um, yeah, I’ll cheat… a bit. OH, yeah, I agree that riding an SUP is cheating. So… don’t.

I was the only one checking for surf after a very dark and very night. Me and this seagull. All I had was a banana. One-third for me, two thirds for… this guy.

When I have some free time, I sometimes do some drawing. the excerpt from “Swamis,” chapter nine, has Joey going to a clinical psychologist, court-mandated after he had an incident in which he ended up with his foot on another student’s neck. ANYWAY, you don’t have to psychoanalyze me because I can’t seem to not go a bit too psychedelic.

            CHAPTER NINE- MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1969

 I was driving my mother’s 1964 Volvo four-door. Because I never told the DMV I had a history of seizures, I did get a license, I did drive. Because my mother believed I was getting better, she allowed me to drive. Still, she looked in my direction frequently. Because my father believed I was getting better, he taught me. If I did, indeed, have some kind of brain damage, I could force myself, will myself to control the freezes my father called ‘lapses,’ and the outbursts he called ‘mistakes.’

There are stories for each sport I was pushed to try, each team I did not become a part of. Each story involved my lack of attention at some point of time critical to practice or a game. More often, I was asked to leave because, while I had not been what my father called ‘fully committed,’ I had committed violent, unsportsmanlike attacks on an opponent. Or a teammate.

I was, initially, pushed toward surfing. My father’s answer to my fears was, “If you have a lapse, you will drown. So… don’t.” It was the same with driving. “Concentrate. You’re always thinking behind. You have to think ahead. Got that, Jody?”

My mom and I were heading down the grade and into La Jolla. “Favorite part of the trip, Mom; the ocean’s just spread out… so far.”

“Eyes on the road, please.” I glanced past her, quickly, hoping to see some sign of waves around the point. She gave me her fiercest look. I laughed, looked at the road, but looked down and out again on a curve. Scripps’s Pier. Waves. “Are they testing you again, this time?”

“I don’t think so. The new doctor. Peters. She’ll, I guess, analyze whatever they found out last time with the wires and the fancy equipment.” I looked over at my mother as we dropped down through the eucalyptus trees at the wide sweeping right-hand curve that matches the curve of La Jolla Cove. “So, maybe we’ll find out; either I’m crazy or brain damaged.”

“Eyes on the road, please.”

…

I was in the office, standing under a round ceiling light installed a few inches off center. I had two PeeChee folders, three notebooks in each, set on a long, thin, empty walnut table. I opened the blue notebook in the top folder, wrote something I had just remembered, and closed it and the folder. I moved my pencil between my fingers until I dropped it.  

The cabinets on two of the walls were cherry. A tile countertop featured a double sink. Porcelain. This was a rented space, easily converted. The six windows on the south wall extended from about a foot-and-a-half from the floor to eight inches from the ceiling. Four of the windows offered a view of tropical plants up against a mildewed redwood fence, eight foot high, no more than three feet away. The light that could make it through the space between the eves and the fence hit several, evenly spaced, colored glass and driftwood windchimes. The sound would be muted, nowhere near tinkly. 

The fourth wall had a door, hollow core, cheap Luan mahogany. Several white lab coats were hanging on it. There was an added-on closet, painted white, with another mahogany door, this one rough at the hinge side. Cut down and re-used. There were, on one wall, six framed copies of diplomas or certificates. Three doctors, two universities. Two unmatched wingback chairs, each with an ottoman, were canted toward each other, facing the window wall.

The mahogany door opened. Dr. Peters entered, carrying a large stack of folders, most tan, several in a gray-blue. She kicked the door closed, dropped the stack on the table. She removed her white lab coat, hung it on the door, turned and pointed, with both hands, at the Gordon and Smith logo on the t shirt she was wearing.

“More of a San Diego… city thing, Dr. Peters.”

“Susan. I met Mike Hynson once,” she said. “He was in ‘Endless Summer.’ I figured you’d be either put at ease or impressed.”

“Once? Mike Hynson? Professionally?”

She shuffled through the stack, breaking it into thirds. Roughly. “Funny.”

“Is it?”

“No. It’s… funny you should come back with… that. If he was a… client, I couldn’t say so. I nodded. “So… I’m not saying.”

“No.”

 Dr. Peters shook her head. “I went to his shop. Really cool. It’s not like I surf. I am petrified of the ocean.” She pulled out a folder from what had been the bottom third of the stack. “You?”

“Sure. There’s… fear, and there’s respect. A four-foot wave can kill you.” She may or may not have been listening.  “Is that my… permanent record?” Dr. Peters laughed as if the remark was clever or funny; it wasn’t either. I didn’t laugh. She let her laugh die out.

She pointed toward the wing chairs. I shook my head. “Okay.” She pulled an adjustable stool, stainless steel, on rollers, from the corner on the far side of the closet. She motioned toward it. An invitation. “Or… we can both stand.”

“If it’s… okay with you, Ma’am. Dr. Peters.”

“Susan. What do your… friends call you?”

“Trick question?”

“Maybe. Okay. Yes.” We both shrugged. “And the answer is?”

“Surf friends. A couple.” Her reaction was more like curiosity than disbelief. “Friends call me Joey. So… Joey, Dr. Peters. I… I’m not… accustomed to calling my superiors or my elders by their first names. Respect.”

She leaned in toward me. “I’m fucking thirty… thirty-one. Joey. Young for a clinical psychologist. So?”

“Now I am impressed, and at ease. So… okay.” The Doctor squinted. “But, uh, Dr. Peters; you’re now, I’m guessing, my court mandated doctor of record?”

Dr. Peters restacked the folders. “Your father… and you… agreed to that.”

“Negotiated. Grant’s dad’s an… attorney.”

“Your father’s… was… a detective. Couldn’t he have…?”

“Never. My fault. Best he could do, with me too close to turning eighteen, is… this. A… choice, an option. We… discussed it. But… question; you’ve already suggested I might be a bully; how do you feel about… another smart ass trying to get off easy?”

“Most of the smartasses I deal with aren’t so… smart.”

“And the bullies?”

“That… urge; it shows weakness; I’m sure you agree.”

“That I’m weak? I agree. My dad’s take: I either don’t think or I take too long thinking.”

“Thanks, Joey.” Dr. Peters wrote something down. “Now, your dad didn’t want to go with… what he called ‘Psycho drugs.’” She moved from the stool to the larger of the two wing chairs. She sat down and used one foot to pull the ottoman into position. She put both feet up on it. She looked at the other chair, then at me. Another invitation. I remained standing.

“How long since you had an episode? Full?” I glanced at her folders. “Okay; three years ago, lunchtime, evidently out on the square at Fallbrook High School.  Embarrassing?” I must have smiled. “Okay. Different subject. Grant Murdoch, your foot on his throat.”

“Weak… moment. But, previous topic… subject… The drugs, never were an option.”

“No. Of course not. But… Grant Murdoch, his faking a seizure caused you to…?”

“He wouldn’t have done it if he’s known I… I never went to Friday night football… activities. My surf friends… persuaded me… to.”

“Had Grant done this prank… before?”

“You mean, did my friends know he might?” I shook my head. “I haven’t asked.”

“So, this time, the prank, you acted… hastily?”

“Prank? Yes, I did.” I closed my eyes, envisioned the episode. Ten seconds, max. I  pulled the metal stool over, sat it, spinning around several times. “He was… really good at it. Foaming at the mouth and everything. I was… Doctor Samuels, your electrode man. Spike. Do you have any… results?”

“Inconclusive.”

“You’re… disappointed?”

“No; but skipping over how you, just now, called another doctor, a grownup, by his first name… the tests; it was… bad timing.”

“Because I didn’t have a seizure, or even a… spell? And… Spike is a nickname. If you have a nickname… that you‘re willing to share.” She smiled. “By inconclusive, Dr. Susan Peters, do you mean… normal?”

“Pretty much, Mr. DeFreines.”

“That is… disappointing. The doctor, two doctors back…” I pointed to the files again. “He insisted I was just faking it.”

“Are you?”

“Inconclusive.”

“You didn’t have a… you know about the most common seizure, right?”

“Petit’ mal. Absence. Thousand-yard stare. Yes.”

Dr. Peters smacked the top of my stack of folders. “You study… everything.”

“Some things. Only.”

Dr. Peters looked toward her stack of files. She took a breath, looked at the plants outside the windows, at the chime swaying slightly and silently, then back at me. “You went back into… regular, public school, in the third grade. Tell me about that.”

“One of the… teachers… decided I might not be a brain-damaged… retard; maybe I’m… a genius.” I waited for her reaction. Her expression was hard to read. Blank. I danced the stool around until I faced the windows and the plants and the mildewed fence. “I’m not.”

“That’s why you turned down the scholarship?”

I made the half spin back toward the Doctor, waited for her to explain how she knew that. “School records came with a note.”

 “Vice Principal Greenwald. Sure.” I spun around one more time and stood up, spinning my body a bit, unable to not smile. “I turned down Stanford because I am a faker, a phony. I… memorize.” I gave the seat of the stool a spin. Clockwise. It moved up about three inches. “I wouldn’t be able to compete with people with… real brains.”

Dr. Peters leaned forward, then threw herself back in the chair. “Okay. We’ll… forget about the competition aspect… for now. This… memorization. Yes. In medical school, I had to… so much is repetition, rote, little mnemonics, other… tricks. My roommate called me… don’t use it. Re-Peters.”

“I won’t… repeat it.” I swept one hand back toward the table. “Sorry. Too easy to be… clever. Or funny.” Dr. Peters shrugged. “So… Tricks. Files. Pictures. Little… movies.  I… wouldn’t it be great if we could…?” I walked closer. Dr. Peters pulled her feet from the ottoman. She leaned toward me. “There are the things we miss. They go by… too quickly. If we could go back, just a few seconds, review… See what we missed.”

“And you can?”

“Can’t you? Don’t you… you take notes, you… Do you… rerun conversations in your mind, try to see where you were… awkward; where you… didn’t get the joke?”

“I do. I try not to. I’m more of a… casual observer.”

“That’s me, Dr. Susan Peters; Casual.”

“Observant.” Dr. Peters stood up. The ottoman was between us, but she was close. Too close. She was about my height. Her eyes were what people call hazel. More to the gray/green color used in camouflage. “Tell me…” she said, quite possibly making some decision on the color of my eyes, “I’m trying to determine if there’s a trigger, a mechanism. Tell me what you remember about… the accident?”

“The… accident?”

“When you were five.”

“I don’t… remember that one. I was… five.”

“No, Joey, I believe you do remember… that one.”

…

This wasn’t a brief remembrance of past events, this was a spell I couldn’t avoid, couldn’t think or will myself out of, and couldn’t stop. I stepped back, turned away. I shook my head. I tried to concentrate on… plants, the ones outside the window. Ivy, ferns, the mildew, the grain of the wood… “Like Gauguin,” I told myself, “Like Rousseau,” I said, out loud. “There’s a lion in there… somewhere.”

“Can you tell me what you remember, what you… see?”

I could not. The Doctor stepped between me and the window. She started to say something but stopped. She looked almost frightened. The image of the Doctor faded until it was gone. I was gone.

…

Everything I could remember, what I could see, was from my point of view.

I pulled down my father’s uniform jacket that been covering my face. I was in my father’s patrol car. Front seat. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and put it on my left shoulder.

“Our secret, Jody boy. Couldn’t put you in the back like a prisoner.” I didn’t answer. “Too many of you Korean War babies. I can’t believe… if they’re gonna have half-day kindergarten, they should have… busses both ways.” No answer. “Best argument for your mother getting her license.” No answer. “When I get on the school board…”

The light coming through the windshield and the windows was overwhelmingly bright. There was nothing but the light outside.

My father yelled something, two syllables. “Hold on!” His hand came across my face and dropped, out of my sight, to my chest.

His arm wasn’t enough to keep me from lurching forward. Blackness. I bounced back, then forward again, and down. Everything was up, streams of light from all four sides, a dark ceiling. My father was looking at me. His shadow, really, looking over and down. “You’re all right. You’re… fine.” He couldn’t reach me. The crushed door and steering wheel had him trapped. His right hand seemed to be hanging, his fingers twitching. He groaned as he forced his arm back toward his body. “We’re… fine.”

There were three taps on the window beyond my father. “Stay down,” he said. I could see my father’s eyes in the shadow. He looked, only for a second, at his gun belt, on the seat, coiled, the holster and the black handle of his pistol on top.

“You took… everything!” The voice was coming from the glare. “Everything!”

The man came closer. The details of his face were almost clear, then were lost again to the glare, like a ghost, when he leaned back.

“If we could just…” my father said as the suddenly recognizable shape of a rifle barrel moved toward us. Three more taps on the window. “If we could… relax.”

I could hear a siren. Closer. I tried to climb up, over, behind my father’s shadow.

“Everything!”

“No!”

The first gunshot, my father screaming the shattering of glass in front of and behind me were all one sound. The pieces of glass that didn’t hit my father blew over me, seemingly in slow motion. A wave. Diamonds. My father’s left hand was up, out. A bit of the light shone through the hole. I could hear the siren. I could see a red light, faint, throbbing, pulsing. The loudness of the siren and the rate of the light were increasing. I could see the man’s face, just beyond my father’s hand. His eyes were glistening with tears, but wide. Open. His left cheek was throbbing. I could see the rifle barrel again. It was black, shiny. It was moving. It stopped, pointed directly at me.  

My father twisted his bloody hand and grabbed for the barrel. Again.

I could see the man’s face. Clearly. His eyes were on me. Bang. The second gunshot. The man looked surprised. He blinked. He fell back. Not quickly. He was a ghost in the glare, almost smiling as he faded and disappeared.

Tires slid across gravel. The siren stopped. The engine noise was all that was remaining, that and something like groaning; my father, me, the guy outside. Mr. Baker. Tom Baker.

“Gunny?” It was a different voice.

“I’m fine.” It was my father’s voice, but at a slower speed.

“Bastard!” It was the new voice, followed by a third gunshot.

Dr. Susan Peters came back into focus. She looked quite pleased.  

I HAVE COMPLETED my many-ist rewrite of “Swamis.” AFTER chatting for an hour on the phone with the head of a publishing outfit, I am now looking for an agent. I’ll get into this next time. THIS time, thanks for reading. Remember that original stuff on realsurfers is protected by copyright, all rights reserved. Thanks for respecting this.

AS FAR AS WAVES, best of luck; if I don’t see you on the water, maybe I’ll see you on a trail. WHEELIE!