…and when, perhaps, men are going to catch up or on. If ever.
When I started board surfing in 1965, almost fourteen-years-old, there were girls and women who surfed. Not that many, and those who were good at it were known by name. In San Diego’s North County, Barbie Barron from Oceanside, and Margo Godfrey were the main contenders.
It would be totally wrong if I didn’t mention that my older sister, Suellen, got me into board surfing. If Suellen had romantic notions about what surfing is, and she did, and we all do, the truth is that sometimes surfing lives up to those notions.
Trish went to Junior High with Barbie and was a member of an upstart Oceanside Girls Surfing Club before Trisha’s father got transferred to Philadelphia. I would run into Barbie frequently when I got out of High School, 1969, and did a lot of pre-work, dawn patrol surfing at the short jetty south of Oceanside harbor. Trish, who came back west in 1968 with a lot of east coast sophistication and a touch of the vibe (so alluring to a rube from Fallbrook), would ask if I actually spoke to her. No. Barbie did own the Offshore Surf Shop in Carlsbad for years. I reached out shortly after she retired. So, still no.
My only live almost interaction with Margo Godfrey was a big-but-blown out afternoon at Swamis, Scott Sutton, Jeff Officer, and I stuck with that situation because we had to wait for Scott’s father to do whatever he had to do that was more important than taking kids surfing. Margo and Cheer Critchlow were walking out, so casually, hitting the outside lineup, while we were going for the insiders.
I did write about my one interaction with the most famous woman surfer of that generation, Joyce Hoffman, from Christmas of 1970, the piece entitled “Joyce Hoffman’s Bra.” It is Google-able. I checked.
Oh, and I threw in a shot of Silvana Lima to represent women surfers who rip but don’t, perhaps, fit into the ‘image’ that sponsors are looking for. The image issue is, to a lesser extent, perhaps, also true on the men’s competitive side.
This is probably the right time to apologize for my attitude toward women. I love women, and my realization that boys and men treat women, um, rudely, and artists, trying to capture something of the beauty and wonder of women are insensitive if not clueless. So, yeah, one of those “I didn’t know, I don’t know, I’m working on it” kind of man-pologies.
Here’s how this post happened: I wanted to write about women who surf. Not finding anything I was stoked on in a quick web image search, I decided to check out my own media library. These are images that have appeared on this site. Some of the silk screen images are from the 1980s when I thought it was completely a good thing to do nudes. You know, like, tasteful.
Because of the way I put this post together, the writing is as disjointed as the images. Still:
Margo Godfrey, Santa Cruz, Oct 1969from pinteresttaken from Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing
The second from the bottom drawing was done by my youngest sister, Melissa. She died of metastatic breast cancer a few years ago. She did surf. She was so committed to producing high quality, high emotion images. I endeavor to live up to her standards, knowing I have a long way to go.
The last image is of my favorite surfer girl, Trish.
All original art works are protected by copyright, all rights reserved. Thanks for respecting that. AND… I have more to say about macho-ness and all that. Quick shout out to WARM CURRENTS. Check them out.
Now that I am committed to putting out a new round of ORIGINAL ERWIN t-shirts, I’m going through my past drawings AND doing some new ones. I scanned these two on my printer AND I have two more illustrations that I have to take to a print shop. AS ALWAYS, attempting to go simpler, I fail.
LET’S DISCUSS THE SURF SITUATION on the Olympic Peninsula and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. NOT GOOD. Now, if you’re almost anywhere SOUTH of here, you should be scoring. AND the forecast is not too… thrilling. BUT I do have my HOBIE patched up and I’ve done some work on the MANTA. I’m ready to leap into some wind chop when it… let me check the forecast. Yeah, wind chop. That’s official.
As far as “Swamis” goes, I am committed to what JUST HAS TO BE a final draft before the ridiculously scary act of trying to actually sell the novel. I moved the former first chapter to the end, and though I am dying to write about what fictionally happened to the fictional characters between 1969 and now, I’m going to NOT… not yet.
My hope is that, now that I’ve completely mind-surfed the hell out of plot and characters, I might be able to cut the length down from the current 104,000 thousand words. HERE IS the new prologue and a bit more:
“SWAMIS” A novel by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
PROLOGUE
Some events, terror and bliss, mostly, which occurred in seconds, in moments; those almost nothing in the expanse of time; expand, over time, into placemarks; a corner turned, a road taken, a life changed. Magic.
Half a century after the events, I started writing “Swamis,” as memoir. It no longer is that. This is my fourth full rewrite, with so many discarded words, deleted chapters, all in attempting to turn notes and dreams, images and remembered dialogue, into a story. I have tried to do justice to the various people, characters here, but real people with real lives, who changed mine. There are people who have come into my life, changed it in some way, and gone out. Somewhere. For the most part I do not know where they went, but I do wonder. Wonder.
The story centers on a very specific time, 1969, in a very specific place, North San Diego County. I was turning eighteen, in love, and the world I wanted swirled and revolved around surfing, and surfing revolved around Swamis.
My apologies for my writing style. Years of writing briefs, documents. Dry, perhaps, but thorough. A friend’s review of an earlier draft concluded I went for detail and clarity rather than flash and description.
“I don’t use a lot of adjectives in regular speech,” I countered.
“But this is writing,” she said, “The prologue shouldn’t be an apology.”
“Honest.”
“Sure, and it is… your own voice. Yes, it is that, and, as your mother said, ‘the mind fills in the colors.’ Different thing, I know. Photos, stories; it still applies.”
“Not arguing.”
“Not yet. But… ambiguity and bullshit aside, you don’t exactly nail down who the killer was. Or killers were. Some detective novel, Atsushi.”
“It’s in there. And… doesn’t that explain the need for detail and clarity? And, more importantly, I never said it was that… A detective novel. Trueheart.”
“There’s no such thing as a seventeen-year-old detective. Not in real life.”
“It’s in there; that quote; in the text. And… as far as real life goes…”
“From your particular viewpoint.”
“That’s all any of us have.”
“But… Joey… you called me a friend. ‘A friend’s review.’”
“Just another draft, Julie; I can… change it.”
“To what?”
“Keep reading. It’s in there.”
CHAPTER ONE- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2023
“The allure of waves was too much, I’m told, for an almost three-year-old, running, naked into them. If I say I remember how the light shone through the shorebreak waves, the streaks of foam sucked into them; if I remember the shock of cold water and the force with which the third wave knocked me down, the pressure that held me down, my struggle for air; if I say I remember anything other than my mother clutching me out and into the glare by one arm… Well, that would be, this all happening before the accident; that would be… me… creating a story from fragments. Wouldn’t it, Doctor?”
“Memories. Dreams. We can’t know how much of life is created from… fragments. But, please, Joey; the basketball practice story; I didn’t get a chance to write it down. So, the guy…”
“Locker room. After. I’m not here because of that… offense.”
“I am aware. Just… humor me.”
“He said I had a pretty big… dick… for a Jap. I said, ‘Thank you.’ All the Varsity players came in. Most stood behind him. He said, ‘Oh, that’s right; your daddy the cop, he’s all dick.’ Big laugh.”
“Detective,” I said. “Sorry about your brother at the water fountain, but I’m on probation already… and I don’t want to cut my hand… on your front teeth.’”
“Whoa! Did that end it? Joey. Joey, are you… You’re remembering the incident.”
“I tried to walk away. He… Basketball. I never had a shot. Good passer, great hip chuck.”
“All right. So, let’s talk about the incident for which you are here.”
ALL RIGHTS to all ORIGINAL WORK by Erwin A. Dence, Jr. are reserved by the author/illustrator. THANK YOU for respecting these rights, AND, AS ALWAYS, for checking out realsurfers.net
I haven’t done any t shirts in a while. There has been a lot of interest and I have done other drawings that are not included here because… I haven’t scanned them yet. I am trying to make my illustrations simpler, but, somewhere in the process, they all go a bit psychedelic.
All the shirts I’ve done and sold or given away (Trisha’s idea, to her friends, some to clients) are gone, and, as mine are, probably wearing out. If you have one, hold on to it. It’s not just my ego saying this. Okay, mostly that, but they are all truly limited editions.
Limited by my having to put out the money all at once, the return coming in… slower.
But, I do have some limited backing, have discussed some potential local outlets, and I am ready to go!
The three toward the bottom are designs I’ve done. I will probably not do the one immediately below, and, as far as color, it’s way more expensive unless I go with a sort of modern day version of iron on, and then… I’m obviously not someone who deals in percentages and wholesale/retail, nor do I really want to be. I just want to keep drawing simple little pen and ink illustrations and… I WILL HAVE a few more examples next time. WEDNESDAY.
OH, I am going to do the one below the “Locals” one first; white on black. It seems kind of, you know, graphic and only semi-psychedelic.
All images are copyright protected and are the sole property of Erwin A. Dence, Jr. All rights reserved.
MEANWHILE, I just (as in yesterday) had a bit of a fall; ladder slipped, I started falling, grabbed onto ladder with one hand, slowing my descent, hit metal railing with my back, landed on stairway and two open paint cans, totally destroying them and cutting and bruising the shit out of the back of both legs, and spilling the two colors I’m using on a Victorian I have the least of. SO, rather like any fall you see on any skateboarding video. I ALSO destroyed my work cellphone, its screen already cracked. SO, that’s not good. Trying to figure out what to do about that. SWAP sim card with new phone like they do in every spy movie? Meanwhile, the message says I’ll get back to you and… Yeah, Ibuprofen.
“And when he gets to the end, he wants to start all over again.” From “Stagefright,” lyrics by Robbie Robertson. Originally performed by The Band.
“I’d rather be clever than funny.” From “Swamis,” spoken by narrator, Joseph Atsushi DeFreines.
Throughout my third (or fourth) total rewrite of my novel I have been thinking that, when I get to THE END, an ending that was vague and unclear as I wrote; knowing that the denouement (I could just say finale) had to be unexpected, clever, AND another character had to die; I also believed that the changes I was making in an attempt to tighten the scope of the story, to focus on fewer characters in a shorter span; all this would tell me how to end “Swamis.”
And, last night, I got to THE END. Again.
EXCEPT, cleverness and conceit and the desire to produce a novel I can unreservedly be proud of continue to collide. IT’S FIXABLE. It just takes more work. Writing this piece this morning is my way of outlining where I have to go. ISSUES:
The events in CHAPTER ONE occur AFTER the timeline of the novel. Prologue that could be epilogue. Perhaps should be. EXPLANATION- I wanted the story to begin with surfing, with establishing JUMPER HAYES as a suspect in the murder of CHULO. I wanted to establish the narrator, JOEY/JODY/ATSUSHI as a non-local outsider longing to be in whatever culture there is in and around Swamis. I wanted to show that Joey had a romantic relationship with JULIA “Julie” COLE, and that the relationship was strained because of something Joey had done. BUT there was hope.
I have been rather insistent that the novel is told from Joey’s PERSPECTIVE, in his voice. It is not my voice. If “Swamis” is memoir, rather than being overly descriptive, Joey insists on clarity.
MY CONCEIT is that, because obsessive note taker Joey has chased down and documented leads, and has discovered who, from street level dealers to wholesalers to money launderers to detectives, was involved in the growth of marijuana as a cash crop in late 60s Southern California; and we, as readers, have the opportunity to be aware of the clues he has collected; when we get to the end, there is no need to further explain. DROP THE FILES and someone else works it out.
NOT THAT SIMPLE.
If I had intended the novel to be more surf/coming-of-age than mystery or ROMANCE, I have not, probably, succeeded. The love between Joey and Julie is the thread that goes outside the other boundaries of “Swamis.”
Speaking of BOUNDARIES; If 100,000 words is my projected boundary, and I kept track along the way, and I have already cut and moved a couple of novel’s worth of chapters and pages, most recently the PROLOGUE- good stuff; I am not ashamed of it, not sure where to put it.
It would definitely be easier to have thought of “Swamis” as two 65,000 word novels. While I am already considering a sequel, possible title, “BEACONS,” I must now see what must be done with CHAPTER ONE. So… Work.
THANKS FOR sticking with me, and… meanwhile, It may or may not be related to all the drawing I have been doing recently, my GORILLA HANDS clutching skinny ass pens and pencils, but I am dealing with this excruciating pain in my right hand that feels like, if I am clutching anything, all the blood in my body is focused on my thumb, and, if I poked, say, the end of it… Yeah; I can imagine how jokes could so easily be made of this. “Too bad it’s your thumb,” “Clutching, you say,” etc.
To provide more opportunity for humor, when I self-diagnosed with the help of the always-reliable internet, it seems the malady is nicknamed “Mommy thumb.” No, it’s because moms seem to suffer with similar symptoms from holding newborns. And no, I don’t see how that compares to my holding cell phones and writing implements. It is, essentially, tendonitis, and yes, when the swelling finally goes down… relief.
ANYway, since I have some actual painting projects coming up, with rest and Ibuprofen and a splint (which, happily, doesn’t seem necessary when typing), my hand’s condition will improve further by the time some actual waves find their way my way. I do hope you are getting the benefits of the atmospheric river.
These are some recent works I didn’t think I had scanned. OR I believed they were scanned as PDFs, something I couldn’t transfer. I SHOULD, perhaps keep the line drawings for some possible future edition of a realsurfers/original Erwin coloring book, particularly since I may tend to over-color drawings that were, possibly, overdrawn in the first place.
MEANWHILE, I got some bad news on an art project I have been working on; basically, that the process was not set up correctly, paperwork-wise, and when I sent a bill for services (and illustrations) rendered, there were issues.
ISSUES. I HATE ISSUES. If I say getting paid is the reward for my labors; contemplating, sketching, drawing, revising, redrawing; and is temporarily gratifying, the money just a part of a cache and mostly spoken-for dollars, having issues in collecting the reward substantially reduces the JOY.
NOT THAT I don’t enjoy the prospect and the actual work of doing an illustration for some amount of cash. I DO, even as I realize I can make substantially more money per hour scraping and priming and painting someone’s house. AND I do factor in that it is not painting season.
THIS SETBACK has given me pause to consider (not for the first time) why the hell I insist on pursuing some life outside of the scraping and priming and painting.
SO, I DID what I do; I wrote about it. Not all vitriol and grievance; rather I wrote a piece on how most folks who attempt to be artists want to please an audience.
AS DO I. Though I do want to please myself, with varying degrees of success, AND I have, indeed, accused other writer’s works (well, one writer, I confess) as being masturbatory; everything I write or draw or paint (including houses) is meant to be seen by, and, bottom line, to please the client and potential clients. I must add to this that a job isn’t finished until it is. I throw away so many more drawings than I display, I edit the shit out of things I write, and I go around and around any painting project doing what I call the “Tighten up.”
I realize that sounds, even as I write it, kind of queazy-ness inducing if not outright creepy. This isn’t me VIRTUE-SIGNALLING. No, I would love to be anything close to successful at writing and/or drawing, two things that have been part of my life, on and off, mostly off, almost all my life.
SO, I wrote the not-quite screed, but deciding to listen to Trish, I will wait and see what happens with the project with the issues. Meanwhile, I have other exciting projects/prospects on the ‘possibly fantastic,’ probably not’ scale. I should mention that I am really bad at waiting. If you’ve seen me in the water, you might agree.
BUT NOW, since I’m all calm and resolved, I’ll hit “Save” for the whole thing, stash it away for future check out if not use. Then, I will highlight this part and put it on my (yeah I’m resigned to calling my ‘site’ this) blog.
As my projects get sorted out, I’ll, of course, write about it… here.
AS ALWAYS, thanks for checking this out, and for respecting the copyright ISSUES with any original stuff. Whether I make any money or not from my work, I do reserve all rights to it.
AS FAR AS WAVES on or around the Strait of Juan de Fuca, your guess is as good as mine.
I’ve been busy drawing. I have several reasons for doing so. New designs for t shirts, some work for the PORT TOWNSEND PUBLIC LIBRARY’s upcoming SUMMER READ, and, just because I enjoy it.
SO, LET’S SEE HOW MY LATEST scans look on the screen:
THERE ARE MORE, but should save some copyrighted original stuff for next time. WEDNESDAY… MORE! (sorry about the explanation point; not that a show of enthusiasm isn’t appropriate. MEANWHILE, thanks, as always, for checking out realsurfers. See you out on Surf Route 101.
IF I HAVE TO BLAME something for the prolific-ness, it’s the recent far-eeez-ing weather. AND I have been sa-soww-ly getting cal-lose-er finishing my novel, “Swamis.”
Because it’s been preternaturally cold (I looked it up; it could mean ‘extraordinarily’ f’ing cold, as in, yeah, it’s been this cold before… in, like, Canada, Siberia, anywhere east of the Cascade mountains, just not lately), I have had some time, afraid, perhaps, to risk the icy roads (“I’ve heard of Quilcene,” the Facebook site our daughter, Dru, started, and Trish helps monitor; had reports of multiple cars in the ditch… and, perhaps, you remember I totaled a car against a tree in black ice two years ago, and, since, have become, I admit, less willing to assert my mastery over slippery roadways), and, anyway, someone has to run around and make sure no more pipes freeze up; BECAUSE OF ALL THAT, and the fact that folks don’t really think about house painting when it’s like this…
…I have had some time to work on my ART, on my NOVEL, on REALSURFERS.NET, what others always refer to as a BLOG. “I call it a WEBSITE.” “Yeah, you would.” “Yeah, and I do, and what I want to present to the tens of people who see it, is CONTENT.” “Oh. Sure. Content. What do you have?”
I HAD PLANNED to post images of recent illustrations, but, even after Dru switched the images of drawings from PDF to JPEG, they came out looking as if someone had placed a piece of frosted glass over them. SO, nope, I’ll get the originals back and rescanned. AND, though I wrote two pieces I might have used in today’s posting, AND wrote them in Microsoft Word rather than, kinda like LIVE, on the Word Press site, I, in the extended darkness of mid-winter night, under a thick pile of sheets and blankets, the heater set at “Roast,” decided they just weren’t good enough to share with you. WHY? CONTENT.
A drawing I didn’t think good enough to use on a t shirt, but, now that I see it after some time has passed; hmmm… maybe put a border on parts, and… yeah, that might be better.
WE, as consumers of ENTERTAINMENT, are constantly looking for BETTER CONTENT. If a TV channel doesn’t provide it… NOPE. We can scroll through the available options on ROKU, Prime, Netflix, whatever you or I have. NOPE; though I spent too many of my cabin fever hours watching one of those binge-worthy (the producers hoped) series(es?), the ending so rediculus (shit- Word has spell-fix, Word Press doesn’t), that I wanted my time back. I could have been doing something useful, like CONTENT.
YouTube; yeah, I’m a bit of an addict; surfing (I am caught up on Nathan Florence exploits, now fast forward paddling out sequences), politics (some I have watched LIVE, like Hunter showing up for sham committee and MTG acting… trashy, and when NSNBC stopped showing it, I, YES, watched some more on, yes, C-SPAN), some historical stuff that looks interesting (Bigfoot- not historical); OH, and I just discovered that, on my tablet (never on the laptop, but some surf stuff has been moved to the BIG TV), if I watch one of those quickies, I can scroll down and watch another, and then… another..
AND eventually, bored or fed up (which typically suggests some sort of anger), or SATIATED (seems more positive), or just OUT OF TIME, we… quit.
NOW, I do PROMISE new illustrations, several I’m really pleased with, and properly scanned, will be posted on WEDNESDAY. Meanwhile, the polishing of my manuscript continues. And, NOTE; I didn’t stop posting excerpts because they weren’t good enough, it was because the content is still changing. Of all the things I am involved in, in all aspects of life (other than surfing, where, still enjoying the hell out of it, I may have peaked a while back), what I’m striving for is to be… BETTER.
SO, other than all of the above (and Microsoft Word would give me a word count), no real posting today. STAY WARM, find some SURF. Oh, and, as always, thanks for checking out realsurfers..net
SO, JACOB WHYTE is the son of a cousin of JIM HAMILTON, a very interesting individual (timber-frame house builder/ski patrol/world traveler/more) who lives off Center (Road) and close to SURF ROUTE 101 in Quilcene. Jacob also has an interesting story. He has returned to Forks, Washington after an extended stay in California, Ventura area, during which he worked doing ding repair, most notably (to name droppers) for Channel Islands Surfboards, living frugally (growing his own food, that kind of thing), always, he says, planning to move back home to Washington State’s WEST END.
Now, the PEASANT thing: Jim, in asking (more like hiring/bribing) me to do some artsy stuff for Jacob, pondered the name. “Oh,” I must have said, “Maybe it’s like, you know, peasants, serfs, vassals, that kind of thing; I mean, like an allusion to… that.” “That would be… yeah, maybe that’s it.”
“It isn’t,” Jacob said when I actually got in phone contact, he at a far northwest secret surf location, me in the depths of a housing tract in East Bremerton. Didn’t matter, so much, I’d already done a drawing, black and white, printed a copy and colored it, either suitable as a flyer, or, reduced in size, a too-busy business card. “Yeah, Erwin, maybe the ‘serfboard’ thing is expecting too much of… surfers.” “Okay, how about the ‘serving the West End and the Olympic Peninsula’ part?” “Yeah. Sure.”
I ran a couple of other ideas past Jacob. Mostly about t-shirts; what would be appropriate, assuming surfers on the West End are not necessarily trying to invite more surfers over. I have ideas. LATER. It’s not like I can’t keep a secret.
IN MY CONTINUED attempts to produce a decent drawing of the fictional JULIA COLE, or, actually, a portrait of any woman, I came up with this. Attempts and failures. I should throw away the versions that got me to this one, possibly more useful to depict Julia’s mother, and stick this in some file with the other failed illustrations. BUT, wait, maybe if I just… Yeah, I have some ideas. ALWAYS. And I always want to get… better.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN- MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1969- PART FOUR
The two carpenters were carefully walking between the Karmann Ghia and the edge of the bank. Lee Anne turned toward them. “Joey, this is Monty, lead carpenter on the project.” Monty was sunburned, with a receding hairline and an almost orange Fu Manchu mustache. Early thirties.
Monty stepped in front of Lee Anne’s car, put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. Black, muscular, no older than eighteen or nineteen. “And this is…”
“Not a carpenter. Yet. Helper. Nickname… Digger.” Monty had only left room for his helper to stand on the very edge of the bank.
Lee Anne looked at Digger, shook her head, looked at Monty, and back at Digger. “No. Unacceptable. You have to… insist… on a different nickname.”
“Temporary,” Digger said. “Thought I’d be something like ‘Hammer.’ Nope. Got to earn your nickname ‘round here.” Digger slapped at a pair of gloves folded over his belt. He held out his hands, palms toward me, rubbed two fingers of his left hand across the palm of his right. He slapped his hands together. “Could’a been callin’ me ‘Blisters.’”
Lee Anne extended her right hand but didn’t accept Digger’s. “Blisters,” she said. “Not good, but… better.”
Monty gave Lee Anne a sideways nod and said, “Blisters, then.”
The younger carpenter had been rather boldly checking Lee Anne Ransom out. She looked him off with a quick widening of her eyes and a very stern expression. “Real name, please, for the record.”
Blisters backed up, put his hands out and up, his arms closer to his body. If he was impressed with Lee Anne’s response, he wasn’t apologizing. “Greg,” he said. “Or Gregory.”
“Gregory, then.” She turned back to Monty. “Or Greg?”
“Greg, then,” Monty said. He pointed to the parking lot. “We heard the cop car, didn’t see it ‘til it tried to turn in. It wasn’t the brakes. It was… the gravel. New, like b-bs; no way he wasn’t gonna slide.” He turned toward me before he added, “No way.”
…
The San Luis Rey Riverbed was probably half a mile wide. I had never seen the water more than a stream, a creek, even. The ground Monty and Gregory and Lee Anne and I were standing on was gravel and round river rock, with the usual scrub, some still green but rapidly fading grasses and weeds, and a few stunted trees. Taller trees in the center of the valley were mostly dead. Ghosts. Killed in the cycles of flood and drought. More likely flood. Drowned.
Monty pointed to the stump in the river bottom, probably fifty feet from the base of the fill. “The concrete had been poured. The leftover rebar should’ve been fuckin’ gone.” Though no one asked, he added. “Contractors. Separate. Not our job.”
Lee Anne said, “Separate. Not your job.” She attached a telephoto lens to her camera, aimed it at the road on the east side of the valley, focused it, snapped a photo, and handed the camera to me. “So, after your dad’s accident; the traffic was rerouted… over there. Correct?”
The lens was out of focus for my eyes. I twisted the ring at the base of the lens as Lee Anne had. “Correct.” I turned the camera past the carpenters and toward the journalist. Distorted. Out of focus. I snapped a photo. “Accident.”
Lee Anne took the camera and advanced the film.
…
Gregory and Monty and Lee Anne and I were standing next to the concrete box. There was a galvanized pipe in, another, perpendicular, out. Gregory, now gloved, had a shovel, upright, in his left hand. “You see, all the rebar got pushed out the way by the car… except for one piece. Jammed against the… stump.” He looked at me. “You get me?” I nodded. “They cut it. The… stump. Little later. Fire department.” I nodded. “Like a bullet, it was. Through the door and right through the guy. I seen him, right after. He was alive and all, like he was trying to pull the rebar out. No fuckin’ way.”
“My father… the guy.”
“Yeah.” The shovel handle fell against Gregory as he moved his hands into a prayer position and raised them to his eyes. “Sorry, man. No disrespect.”
Monty stepped between his helper and the stump. “We were trying to get it loose. No way. I’m smacking the stump with a framing hammer, trying to get the rebar loose. Or, even, pull it through the stump. Something.”
“Then this other cop; tall guy, he showed up, slides down the bank, lights up a cigarette. He was laughing, says, ‘Shit, Gunny, your car’s still on its wheels.’”
Monty turned to me. “Wendall. He stops laughing when he comes around, sees the rebar and the… blood. Not that much. Me and… Wendall, second later; we’re at the door. Your dad says, ‘Larry; could you tell Ruth…’ That’s all I got, ‘cause just then this Japanese lady, your mom, she shows up in…” Monty pointed to the Falcon before moving his finger toward the incline from the parking lot. “She slips as she comes off of the grade.”
“I ran over, helped her up.”
“You did, Digger; yes. Greg. Me and Wendall, Greg, too; we tried to keep her back, but she pushes between us, gets in the car on the passenger side. She seemed pretty… calm. Wendall wasn’t. Your dad says, ‘it’s fine, Larry.’ Wendall grabs the shovel.” Monty grabbed the shovel from Greg, thrusting it downward, hard, several times, into the stump until it stuck.
Monty was gasping for breath. “By this time, there’s so many cars, people, up, up on the highway. More sirens. I look in the car. The siren was off, but the light… it had popped off the roof, wire and all. It was still spinning; the engine was still… running. The, uh, your dad, he looks over at me, like maybe he knows me. He don’t.” Monty was breathing in gulps. “He looks at your mom. He says, ‘I always believed I rescued you.’ She reaches over, turns off the, the key, twists around, puts her arm, the same arm… around… him. And your mom kisses him, and she’s got blood… on her.”
Monty caught his breath. Most of it. “Then he, Wendall; he pulls me away from the window, pushes me back. He has this look in his eyes; it’s like he’s shaking his head, but he’s not. It’s just his eyes saying, you know, that it was over.”
The stump, somewhere around fourteen inches in diameter, had been cleanly cut with a chain saw. The part that had been removed was only a few feet away, visible in the heavy-bladed grass in a patch of green that surrounded the concrete box.
I looked at the slide marks and the crushed plants, the track we had come down. I imagined my mother coming down the bank, slipping, having to be helped back up. I imagined her in my father’s patrol car, reaching over, turning the key. I extended my right arm, moved it up until my hand was pointing up and at the highway. I moved my arm to the left, to where my father’s car slipped, sideways, on the new gravel. My flat hand represented the car as it slid, still sideways, to the bottom of the grade, plowing into the ancient river bottom, hitting the pile of rebar, one piece jammed into the stump, penetrating the door and my father like a bullet. I looked into the sun hanging just above the parking lot. I cupped my right hand, moved it, and then the left, above my eyes.
The shadow, the darkness, lasted but a moment. Another blinding light, and the spinning red light, and a vision of my father’s face as I passed him took over. Everything else was gone.
…
I was in shadow when the vision faded. I was on my knees. Gregory was directly in front of me. Monty was gone. I looked up toward the highway. Lee Anne Ransom, still in the light, had her camera aimed at Gregory and me. She waved. Gregory waved back as the reporter got into the Karmann Ghia and pulled away.
Gregory offered his ungloved right hand. I took it with both of mine. “Blisters,” I said as I stood up. “They turn into… callouses.”
“Not soon enough.”
“Gregory. How long?”
“How long you out for? Hmmm. ‘Bout a minute, I’d guess.”
I tried to remember what I had seen, or what I had imagined. Nothing. I remembered nothing. Not at that time. “Was I… shaking. I mean…”
“No, man; it was… weird; you were… it was like you was really… still. Like… church.”
“Did I… say anything?”
Gregory shook his head. I looked at him long enough that the motion turned into a nod. “You said ‘sorry’ a couple a times. Pretty much it. Hey, you good to… drive? I live in Oceanside, but I could…”
I followed Gregory to the corner between the parking lot’s fill and the established fill along the highway. Half-way up, he asked, “Who is… is there a… Julie?” My left foot slipped on the gravel. I caught my balance and continued up to the highway.
THANKS FOR READING. “Swamis” is copyrighted material, All changes are also protected. All rights are reserved for the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. THANKS for respecting that.
GOOD LUCK in finding the spot, the time, the right wave. More non-Swamis stuff on Sunday.
We have to, occasionally, scroll. My fault. I haven’t figured out how to tighten the borders on Drucilla’s Mac.
BY WAY OF EXPLANATION:
The ORIGINAL ERWIN LOGO thing came from trying to simplify my drawing style, such as, I’m often afraid, it is. Yes, I am planning on doing some more t-shirts as soon as I pay my taxes. I tried to make both sides of the wave match, then went to THE PRINTERY in Port Townsend, had Steven do the reversal/blue thing. I was so excited that I didn’t really perfectly align the reflection part. Close.
BECAUSE the SAILBOAT RACING THE SQUALL drawing was already being copied, a version came out blue (and reversed).
THE SALISH C tugboat illustration is the subtle color version, the colors all the more subtle(ized) by the vagaries of multiple copiers and printers and computer screens. Subtle and Simple are so fucking hard (I can say fucking because, so far, no one has told me not to. Still, I’m fucking cutting back… damn it).
THE YOUNG WOMAN illustration is another attempt to draw women without overdrawing. It is another possible cover or title page for “SWAMIS.” I have Dru working on adding some perfect non-hand-drawn lettering. She has, but, because I don’t know how to sign in to her acrobat account, it is unopen-able on her computer. It would be able to be opened on the laptop Trish is hanging on to, but then I would probably have to fucking (sorry) find it. AND YES, I’m so so close to finishing the final go through on the manuscript, trying so hard to keep it around 95,000 words.
FANTASY POINT. Here’s the point: Two local artists, JESSE JOSHUA WATSON (I insist on calling him Jesse Merle Watson- easier for me to remember) and STEPHEN R. DAVIS have done paintings of fantasy point breaks. I’m competitive.
I would put Jesse’s version up, but I would have to contact him and… and, anyway, no one wants anyone to believe any rendering or abstraction of lineups that don’t actually exist (yeah, maybe Indonesia or Surfer’s Journal) might be real. BUT, both Stephen and Jesse surf, so we do share similar inspirations. Maybe… okay, I’ll call someone who might have Jesse’s number. Meanwhile, google him. I DIDN”T SAY my interpretation is better. To quote another surfer/writer: “I wouldn’t say ‘better,’ I would say ‘different.’ ” I will gladly accept DIFFERENT.
PLEASE REMEMBER, all the rights to all original works on realsurfers.net are owned by someone.
This is my first time attempting to use my (suspect, quality wise) printer/scanner with my borrowed (thanks, Dru) Mac computer. I managed to get these without calling my daughter, but with some YouTube help. Please excuse the sometimes unfortunately placed bits of crap from, I don’t know, somewhere, and the wasted white space because I haven’t mastered the sizing part of all this. I could comment, at length, on each of my latest attempts at… whatever it was I am trying for. I will try not to.
Top to bottom:
“Racing the squall line.” Because I am involved, trying to assist Port Townsend librarian and fully-frothed surfer Keith Darrock in putting together an event, tentatively titled “Inspired by the Salish Sea,” I used the view from Port Townsend. I am inspired to do at least one more with the view surfers on the always languid Strait of Juan de Fuca, desperately looking to the west for any sign of an approaching swell more frequently get, an incoming squall. Worse, another shit weather front.
“The Salish Sea.” Possible title with info for the event or events on the rest of the page.
“Quilcene.” The Quilcene Village Store, quite the hip place nowadays, has several of my drawings in the sort of sitting/coffee area. They have been having a sort of contest to come up with postcards representing the area along Surf Route 101. This is my entry. When I showed it to Trish, she said, “Uh huh… it’s… okay.” This is after she poo-pooed the earlier version with a similar background (Mount Walker), but with a person in the foreground to add more, you know, like, interest. “Creepy,” she said. “Looks like a killer.” Okay, I rubbed him out. Metaphorically.
“Untitled Woman’s Face.” Trish told me I should draw some of the characters for my still-almost-finished novel, “Swamis.” I said, something she already knows, that I have trouble drawing women’s faces. I actually kind of cheated on this one. Googled “How to draw women’s faces.”Some… tracing was involved, just for stuff like, getting the eyes kind of lined up. Guaranteed, the drawing looks very little like the one I tried to copy.
“Inspired by the Salish Sea.” Definitely redrawing this one. The blank space is to allow room for the dates and times and the various speakers. “What I was going for,” every artist or writer (or surfer who just blew ten attempts at a floater) says, was a sort of Victorian, possibly Art Nouveau look. No where close. But… next time…
“Real surfers froth.” Yeah, it’s kind of like post-psychedelic graffiti, totally unreadable. A series of mistakes began when I didn’t allow enough room for the T in FROTH. I thought I kind of fixed that with the overlap. No. Then, when I took the original to the Printery to get reduced, part of the F and part of the H were cut out. Okay. So, maybe some color would help with that. Not really. Still, someday, this will be on some highest bidder’s wall, and when visitors ask about it, he or she will say, “I believe what Original Erwin was going for here was…”
Better. Always.
SWAMIS Note. Adam Wipeout and his family are down there. It is close to Legoland. I got a nice image the other day. Almost no one out, perfect conditions, and… yeah, I’m fine with it. Totally one hundred percent… fine.
Real Surfers 