I’m not giving up any spots. I think this is from San Diego.
I actually don’t have a lot of time this morning. Work, and planning for more work. The winter work famine might just be giving way to, yeah, work. the VOLVO continues to run great, knock on wood, I’m waiting to see if my daughter will kindly format my “Swamis” so I can do something with it, I’m moving ahead, slowly, on getting songs and poems and essays and artwork together for “Love Songs for Cynics,” and… surfwise; with a few notable exceptions, the surf doldrums continue.”
I’ve been doing a virtual dawn patrol lately. No, I’m always checking the buoys (taking advantage before they disappear in a whiff of doge-shit). What I don’t check is the forecast sites. Perhaps it is nice to have Surfline to blame for your latest trip by ferry, and across bridges, and through a few stoplights and past some downed trees on long and winding roads to end up with you, speeding from known spot to known spot, to be skunked. That with the added bonus of hanging out, at length, or hiking in, watching a lack of rideable waves for a number of hours, hoping, waiting, and then considering the miles and bridges and ferry wait times between there and home.
Still, I believe, anticipation doesn’t just ebb and flow; we store it up, tighten that spring, until…
Until. Hopefully, until, for you, is now. Or soon. I have my big, gnarled and thrashed board on my car, I have buoys on my phone, and… I’m ready. See you.
OH, yeah, on an I’m-not-political side note, I am not ready to go commie. Now, or ever. And… I’m not sure even red state, all-in Magamaniacs are really, really ready to go that red. Meanwhile, for book banning enthusiasts, a must-ban is “The Manchurian Candidate,” and any other book that even hints at… whatever that book hints at.
There are some surf windows that become legendary; December of 1969 and August of 1975, California swells, one north, one south; epic enough to get a mention in *MATT WARSHAW’S “Encyclopedia of Surfing,” and extremely memorable to me because I was out for both of them; the first at Swamis, the second at Upper Trestles.
And then there are the legendary sessions we miss. Waves are breaking, brown-green slop to sparkling barrels, all over the world; and it is easy to believe even the most fickle spot gets something rideable to all time, some time. Rather than tales told in parking lots and over coffee or beer, or perhaps, in the bread section of a grocery store, YouTube and Instagram pushes almost-live images that are so much easier to find than the waves themselves. Trip to Bali because you saw something? Hawaii? Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can hit something all time in Australia or France. Gee, Mundaka and Uluwatu look fun. Malibu? Sure, and maybe a few leg burners at Rincon or Jeffry’s Bay. It would be so awesome to hit Cloudbreak on, you know, an almost survivable size. Yeah!
Maybe. Time and money and, even if you study the forecasts and hack Kelly Slater’s schedule, luck. The WSL’s version of a Pipeline contest has been on hold for… a while; one day’s competition in self-admitted beachbreak-like conditions. Still, it’ll get better. Hopefully.
Getting back to me; it’s not like I dominated SWAMIS in ’69, with overhead waves as barreling, offshore winds as strong as I ever experienced there, and with a certain amount of pre-internet hype and publicity adding to the crowd of takers and watchers. No on the domination. Swamis was, for the time, extra crowded, this exacerbated by the fact that when the surf gets big, the places one can reasonably surf in San DIego County gets reduced to Swamis, Cardiff, Windansea, Sunset Cliffs, maybe that non-surf spot, La Jolla Cove. Remember, I did say ‘reasonably;’ as in get out, catch more than one wave. Undergunned on the first day of a five or six day run, I did better as the waves evened out and the crowds diminished. A week or two later, the surf was just as big, less hype, less crowded. I went out, feeling lucky.
TRESTLES: Warshaw quoted MICKY MUNOZ as saying the south swell in August 1975 was as clean as any he remembered. Mr. Munoz was the first person I saw when I paddled out on my round-nosed, small wave board at Upper Trestles. I, admittedly, shoulder-hopped the first few waves, my fin just vibrating. Still, I made a few waves. I feel, this many years on, so lucky that I had the opportunity to work up the hill from a classic spot, park on the beach, and surf it, from barely breaking on, with what would seem an absurdly small crowd.
LOCAL OR LUCKY, it’s a term that comes up often out here on the fickle-as-shit Olympic Peninsula. The sessions worth remembering do happen. As they do everywhere. Maybe not as often. It’s probably acceptable to savor, or even recount the magic of the best sessions while waiting for the next one. I mean, not like bragging. It just seems like bragging.
Okay, maybe it is bragging, but, hey, you have stories I might not totally believe. Tell me those next time I run into you at Costco or Fast Taco or… wherever.
*Port Townsend Librarian Keith Darrock would love to get (now)Seattle-based surf historian/writer for the next OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA EVENT. Not the only reason he is mentioned here.
I’m working on my collection of songs and (I always kind of chuckle when I say this) poetry, and used some of my winter down time to do a potential cover. I should apologize here for posting “If It’s Over” twice. So… Sorry. If you stick with me, we’ll get to “I Guess I’m Lucky.”
I’m not (all that) political, but I do pay attention.
I would have done it in color, but that might make me seem… political.
I GUESS I’M LUCKY, because I never get the blues; Oh, yes, I’m quite lucky, because I never get the blues; Now I might get suspicious, and sometimes I’m anxious, too; I might even get desperate and tear up a thing or two; But I count myself lucky because I never get the blues.
Please don’t tell me your problems, and think that I can relate; I don’t harbor jealousy and I won’t subsidize hate; If you want to complain, you can just go to Helen Waite; Don’t be telling me gossip and acting as if it’s news, ‘Cause I can’t share your problems, and I want no part of your blues.
Dream of tomorrow, you sacrifice all your todays; You’re so busy workin’, you haven’t got time just to play; But you still have to crawl on your knees to pick up your pay; Though I’m selling my blood just to pay up my Union dues; I still count myself lucky because I never get the blues.
My old truck’s still running, my dog didn’t die; not in love with a woman who told me goodbye; And my Mama still talks of her baby with pride, and I can’t remember the last time I cried.
But then… I’m lucky, because I never get the blues; oh yes, I’m quite lucky, Because I never get the blues; Sure, sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I’m hurtin’ too; I might even get lonely, but not like most people do; Then again, I’m just lucky; yes, I count myself lucky; Hell yes, I’m quite lucky… because I… never get… the blues.
PHOTO voluntarily REMOVED.
All original work on realsusrfers.net, unless otherwise attributed, is covered by copyright protections, all rights reserved by the author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
YOU WON’T get lucky without trying. Find some surf, get on it! MORE stuff on Sunday, and yes, I’m, like, 170 pages out of 214 or so on my latest rewrite of “Swamis,” suddenly concerned that I did not, perhaps, put in enough description of the characters. You know, like, “Roger and Gary were both blonde, both assumed a stance that said, ‘casual,’ both with expressions that said, ‘cool.’ For the most part they maintained the image.” I have been, so far, realizing it’s almost a requirement for a novel, resisted describing the breasts of the women in the novel. So far.
If I say I’m easily distracted, it would be… wait a minute… What? Oh. Yeah, so I was trying to get a painting job done in the few hours in which it is reasonable to do so, when this guy walks by, notices I’m wearing a HOBIE hoodie that I shouldn’t have been wearing, one that already had too much paint on it, and asks if it’s, like, old. “A couple of years. Why?” “Oh. I used to have a Hobie.” “Uh huh.” NOW, I am always ready to make connections between people I’m talking with and surfing, so I go into a spiel about how I currently ride a Hobie, and my first board, actually my sister, Suellen’s, board, was a Hobie. 9’4″ stock model, purchased in 1964 from John Amsterdam and… I could go on, though I really had to get bak to work.
It turns out the man is JOHN HOLM. He asked me if I went to the most recent SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT. *”Yeah. I was one of the organizers. I did the poster.” It turns out that John had artwork on display and may or may not have given a presentation that I must have missed. “Did you get a lanyard?” “I did.” “My daughter made those.” “Oh.” I asked him if he remembered another older surfer, TIM NOLAN. “Yeah, the guy in the movie.” “No, that was me.” “Oh. Okay. You’re Erwin.” “Yes.” “I bought one of your t shirts, an Original Erwin.” “Thank you, John.”
John Holm was in advertising in Los Angeles, and did have a humorous story of how he had an filmed commercial he wanted to sell to an ad agency. “It’s called a ‘reel.'” NOW, there was, about this time, a famous porn star named JOHNNY ‘THE WAD’ HOLMES, and when John Holmes went to the agency, he wondered what the response was when it was announced that he was there to show them his reel.
*The quotes are more like paraphrasing. Obviously it’s difficult for people in their seventies to remember things exactly. I did remember that I always forget to take photos.
THERE MAY exist, somewhere, a photo of the house I grew up in on DEBBY STREET in Fallbrook, California, 20 miles as the road bends, to the nearest surf. The photo has most if not all of the 13 surfboards I and my family owned at one time.
Because I was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist, surfing on the Sabbath was kind of a sin. Too much fun, perhaps. SO, ONE SATURDAY, my father and I had to go home to, I don’t remember, pick up a side dish for a potluck or something, and there were two JEHOVAH WITNESS dudes, young guys on their mission, dressed, oddly, similarly to my dad and I, white shirts, ties, no coats. “Not interested.” “Oh. Okay. You have a lot of boards.” “Want to buy one?”
Five minutes later they were tying a well-thrashed board to the top of their car. It would have been pretty hypocritical of us to criticize the missionaries when we were selling a board on the Sabbath. Then again, one person’t hypocrisy is another’s fifteen bucks. Maybe more. I don’t remember, AND I didn’t get the money.
f you don’t have space on your living room walls to hang some classic surfboards, decorating your compound seems like a reasonable alternative. This is a friend of mine’s gated, protected version. I can speak from experience, BEWARE OF THE DOGS!
THIS IS ADAM WIPEOUT JAMES and JEN (Adam didn’t want to use her last name without her permission) at a secret surf adjacent campground near Neah Bay. There was a WARM CURRENT retreat last weekend, and because Jen is a dog groomer, people call her with dogs ready to be rescued. She tries to find homes for the obviously delightful and loveable furballs.
ADAM WIPEOUT with his new adorable and loveable furball. The dog’s name, in the language of the MAKAH tribe, evidently means ‘cow.’ Not sure why, but the dog’s nicckname, one that will probably stick, is PEACHES.
Adam is shown in his normal position, on the phone. In this case, over at my house in an attempt to save my VOLVO after it overheated, Adam is wrapping up a convo (note the hip talk) on another Oyster farmer’s problems. This knowledge and willingness to share his expertise is, no doubt, a part of the reason for the success of my neighbors down the Hood Canal, the HAMA HAMA OYSTER COMPANY.
As far as whether going through the steps to use BLUE DEVIL have been successful… I’ll get back to you on that. The oil, which was the color of chocolate milk with a lot of milk, after the process of draining it, changing the filter, adding the Blue Devil, running the car for an hour, changing the oil again running it some more, changing it a third time, is the proper color. STILL, with the engine not overheating, not using water, the oil staying the proper color, but with some steam still happening, we might do another runthrough.
AGAIN, THANKS ADAM.
Next time you’re cruising SURF ROUTE 101, stop in at Hama Hama. Maybe you’ll get some fresh seafood or some delicious soup from another surfer, ‘SOUPY DAN.’
BECAUSE I’m pushing my song/poetry writing, here is another one; MAY AS WELL RAIN.
The winds that move the clouds just keep on blowing, and the temperature keeps falling by degrees, it takes everything I’ve got to keep on going, and I’s swaying like a poplar in the breeze, and the wind can chill the blood right in your veins; it may as well rain, it may as well rain, it may as well rain.
It’s been forty days and forty nights I’ve wandered, and I’ve gone from place to place and town to town, I keep thinking ’bout the love she and I squandered, as I pick my lead feet up and lay them down, and I feel like I’ve been circling the drain; it may as well rain, it may as well rain, it may as well rain.
Now the thunder claps and rolls it’s getting nearer, all the power lines are hanging by a thread, and I thought that in the distance I could hear her, no, it’s the echo of the last words that she said; lightning strikes a twisting, turning weathervane; it may as well rain, it may as well rain, it may as well rain.
Let the heavens rip wide open and the rain come pouring down, thunder fills the streets and alleys of this wicked little town, and I’m clinging to a lamppost that’s cememted in the ground; and if I stay here much longer I know I will surely drown.
If it rains it might blow over by the morning; there’ll be rainbows and the sun just peeking through; I let this whole storm kind of hit me without warning; it takes more than sun to cure these kind of blues; water’s not enough to wash away these blues; it may as well rain, it may as well rain, it may as well rain.
As always, thanks for checking out realsurfers. As always, hoping you get some waves. And, yes, everything in today’s post is protected by copyright. All rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
NOTE: I went to see “A COMPLETE UNKNOWN” with my daughter Dru the other day. SInce everyone else has reviewed the movie, some even more DYLAN fanatics/followers than I am, I’m going to voice my opinion on WEDNESDAY. Plus, hopefully, some good news on the VOLVO and on “SWAMIS.”
Fast EDDIE ROTHMAN giving a gnarled finger welcome to all the North Shore visitors.
THE TIME DIFFERENCE between the Olympic Peninsula’s North Shore and Hawaii’s gave me a couple of extra opportunities to watch the 2025 DA HUI BACKDOOR SHOOTOUT. YouTube gave ma a chance to watch all the best rides without having to listen to the commentary, though the upside of long heats with few waves ridden was the chance to mind surf a few. “No, double-up closeout; I’d have…”
The truth is I wouldn’t have even attempted the paddle out on most, okay, any of the days (maybe the first day with the SUPers). I got home on the last day of the contest just in time to watch, with some of cleanest conditions and the most waves ridden per heat, Fast Eddie Rothman chat it up about… okay, rant it up about how the indigenous Hawaiians (not that he is actually one of these) can’t afford the $5,000 a month rent, and how the ruling gentry have done whatever they could to keep the DaHui contest from happening. And Fast Eddie had other complaints, all delivered with a growl and the kind of tough, thugish, grammatically strained manner that would give him the part in any prison yard scene, movie version, and, I would guess, real life version. I have every reason to believe he’s as tough as he seems. Legendary.
The Eddie remarks came after two of the contest commentators explained how the ‘BLACK SHORTS’ group of lineup regulators came to be, why localism, keeping crowds of disrespecting interlopers at bay (rather than in the way, dropping in, being kooky) is, if not, you know, good; it is necessary to allow those lucky enough to be locals, skilled enough to drop in under the lip… Shit; I just wanted to see some surfing.
Result-wise, Eddie’s middle son, KOA, whose “THIS IS LIVIN'” Videos I do, generally, watch, is this year’s individual winner. I’m not arguing. I might have gone CLAY MARZO, whether or not he completed all of the crazy in-the-barrel moves, or, really, anyone who competed.
It isn’t fear, exactly, that has kept me from going to Hawaii. Fear of disappointment, perhaps, after a lifetime of imagining; BUT, if I do go, I’m thinking I should buy some DaHui black trunks, a Florence rashguard (with hood), the most fucked-up looking car and board I can find, and, of course, show so much respect to the locals that someone might just…
Speaking of imagining… I have been working on my epic novel, “SWAMIS” for a long time. If surfing has always been the ‘other woman’ in my relationship with TRISH, my obsession with the manuscript, and with my other writing and drawing projects is the ‘other other woman.’ I am supposed to be working on what I can’t call remodeling our house; it’s more like saving it. Time and money. “When I sell my novel,” I say. Trish, with an annoying habit of being honest, said, “Yeah; we’ll be burying you with that —-ping novel.” She was laughing when she said it, and I only bleeped the adjective out because I wouldn’t want you thinking she ever fucking talks that way, And, anyway, if she does, on rare occasion, she will say she learned it from me. TRUE.
ANOTHER FULL MOON. That’s Archie Endo’s board stuck in the blackberries. Yes, I borrowed the fin. Small waves and big rocks.
In my continuing effort to establish myself as a lyricist (wow, sounds as pretentious as poet or songwriter), I am spending too much of the time I could be doing home repair writing new materiall and organizing some of the pieces I’ve written, the net result to be, eventually, a book, with illustrations. And, yes, it might be available before “Swamis.”
It was a PRIVATE CONVERSATION, words I was not yet meant to hear; thought I’d surprise you at the station, couldn’t have know that I was near,
Your words and tears shared with a stranger, someone you’ve met along the line; I should have know this was the dTanger, if I did not, the fault is mine.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I don’t know what to say.
“Time apart,” you said, “Brings sorrow,” now, I could barely hear your voice, you said that “Love’s something we borrow,” and “Freedom’s such a frightening choice,
You spoke of hopes and disappointments, small victories, great tragedies; in all the time we’ve been together, you’ve never disappointed me.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry; I don’t know what to say.
I saw the touch, but at a distance; saw how your fingers were entwined; you didn’t put up much resistance, offered a kiss you did decline.
And, yes, I ran out of the station; this is my last apology; you should need no more explanation, perhaps we’ve set each other free.
But that’s another conversation, a very frightening conversation; A PRIVATE CONVERSATION.
I am trying to keep track of the songs/poems I’ve posted on realsurfers. If this is a rerun; I’m sorry. SO, COPYRIGHT-wise, the photo of Fast Eddie seems to have several source credits. It’s not mine. The other stuff is. All rights reserved. Thanks, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
AS ALWAYS, thanks for checking out realsurfers. Good luck finding some uncrowded and awesome waves. SUNDAY, yeah, more; probably not before 10am
credit for photo- the “Guardian” Mark Edward Harriss/ZUMA/Press Wire/REX/shutterstock
Everyone who grew up in California is familiar with the Santa Ana or Santana winds. Hot and dry, they are associated with clear conditions, generally offshore, sometimes beneficial. A wind that starts out straight offshore can bend, through a day, into one that is too north, chopping most breaks into oblivion. Some of the most blown out conditions I’ve experienced were not from the dreaded south winds, but from the Santanas. If they are not Devil Winds, once the spark get going, it isn’t too difficult for even non-believers to imagine the Devil being, somehow, involved.
The devastation still going on in Los Angeles is, like so many things happening in the world, surprisingly bad, but not necessarily shocking. There is a pattern, and this part of the drought, wind, fire, rain, flooding, mudslides, rebuilding cycle is the latest… and the worst of my lifetime.
Hopes and prayers and all that; as someone who had a house burn down, I am aware of the trauma, the hopelessness, the lingering effects of losing so much. Not that it is any way soothing, but I have also felt what it is to realize that possessions are only worth so many tears. Trish saved our ten day old daughter from our second floor bedroom. I saved jackets from an antique coat rack because it was cold outside when I could have saved the rack. I took what I could outside where neighbors helped get possessions out of the way and volunteer firefighters scrambled to do something when nothing much could be done.
I joined the Quilcene Fire Department shortly after, possibly hoping to save something more than someone else’s foundation.
The hottest spot in the fire that destroyed my house was under the stairway. That’s where I had my little writing area. Almost everything I had written or painted or drawn up to the age of 29 was gone. Some of it might have been good.
Doesn’t matter; gone in the firestorm; another wave gone. We fucking move on.
I hadn’t planned on even thinking about this today.
That’s my thumb as I was trying to catch a shot of a friend’s pre-kickstall on a post-shaker smoothie in a short-fetch Santana wind situation at a California spot that was not quite around-the-corner enough. It is good to remember that waves are created by wind; Angel Winds, Devil Winds, energy goes somewhere.
Possibly related to the photo- Back when I worked on Camp Pendleton (1975-ish), up the hill from Lower Trestles, I often tried to beat the more northerly Santanas by going to Church; figuring the wind might be more favorable. It wasn’t. Or it wasn’t that much more offshore. Somehow I discovered what I should have already known: The lighting looking toward the shore of a west facing beach on a sunny afternoon is similar to the lighting when looking west in the morning. It might be that I remember thinking this on one of several attempts because the surf just didn’t work. If it was something more cosmic, I would say it was because I was at Church. Further off the point; when I switched from riding surf mats to boards (1965), it was at Pre-harbor-expansion Doheny that I discovered one sometimes has to paddle a board to catch waves. No, neither of these were eureka moments facilitated or enhanced by any kind of drugs.
Here is another song; possibly appropriate to these, or any, times:
Give me some GOOD NEWS, please, no more bad, You know I’m crazy, But I’m not mad; Guess disappointed’s the word I’d choose, I think you can give me some good news, Something that might shake away these blues.
We need some laughter, Don’t want to cry, From here on after, It’s you and I, And no more running, It’s time to cruise, I hope you can give me some good news, Something that might shake away these blues.
We need some romance, Get you alone, No more long distance, No telephone, You know you want this, You can’t refuse, I know you can give me some good news, Something that might shake away these blues.
Gimme now, gimme now, gimme now, you know what I need, I’ll give it back, give it back, give it back, I don’t want to plead; You know and I know, and we know and they know, The world has blown a fuse; and God ain’t grantin’ no more interviews;
Some come now and give me… Something that might shake away, something that might take away, I know we can break away from these blues; If only you would give me, gimme, gimme, gimme; I know you can give me… some… good news.
As always, thanks for checking out realsurfers. And, yes, I am still working on “SWAMIS,” more on that on WEDNESDAY. Meanwhile, cherish what is important in your life.
“SOME GOOD NEWS,” from “Love Songs for Cynics,” copyright Erwin A. Dence, Jr. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
… Oh, and all respect to Bethany Hamilton. Posting this was delayed a bit because I HAD to watch the highlights from the first day of the DA HUI BACKDOOR SHOOTOUT. I also had to have the live stream on the big screen all day yesterday. Ten plus minutes and pretty much every wave actually ridden was on the video.
It is pretty easy to criticize surfers for not catching more, or any, waves, but if you really put yourself in the water… Really? Almost every wave coming in, this visible from every camera angle, was a double-up, one swell overtaking another; and this isn’t factoring in backwash. So, couch hero, if you make the beyond vertical takeoff, get through a spitting barrel, you’re almost certainly facing a killer closeout section at mach speed.
But yes, I did question how much time I was spending watching, hoping someone would just GO! Someone who did was BETHANY HAMILTON! We’ve all followed her since her shark attack, a teenage girl with a bit of a lisp, almost worn out by the attention and constant press coverage before I ever saw an interview. Then the movie and the books and, wait, four kids. Four kids? So, proper respect.
NOTE to self: Never allow yourself to be photographed with two skinny guys. RANDALL, fat and old painter obviously hiding something under his sweatshirt, and QUINN.
Here’s the story of why I’m willing to post this now: I emailed holiday (Dead zone for painters) greetings/reminders that I’m still alive and working to my clients, and sent texts to all the surfers on my stealth phone contact list. I do appreciate all the responses, and, oddly, I didn’t get any snarky ones. Quinn, a reformed (as in former, as in non-practicing) Attorney, sent this one: “Back at you– many curves on the page and carves on the sea.”
NOW, I am as competitive as anyone, cleverness-wise, but I couldn’t come up with anything to compete, EXCEPT that, in conversations with Quinn, I did ask him why he no longer practices law. His explanation is that attorneys are, basically, agents, and agents are… “Oh, I get it, like, you know, gophers.” “Yes.” “Or maybe, to be crass…” “Yes.”
I did tell Quinn, as a “Swamis” update, that I sent submissions to a group of agents in December, and was hoping for a Christmas, then New Year’s miracle, a positive respose. My text, “Waiting.” Quinn’s, “Maybe you’ll get it for epiphany.”
OKAY. So, Trish and I both googled epiphany- The religious celebration “Commemorates the manifistation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi,” is held, probably, today, officially, tomorrow. Hopefully, no one draws some comparison with anything political. No. Don’t.
The other definition is: “A moment of sudden realization or insight.”
HERE’S MINE, something that came to me when, after another series of dreams, little movies, I woke up an hour before I intended to: People have stories. People want to tell their stories. IF someone is willing to tell me a story that is important to them, I should be willing to listen. AND, people don’t always believe this; I do.
THIS FAR OUT
This far out, the sky, horizon to horizon, Can be one otherwise colorless shade of metallic grey, Platinum or pewter or steel or chrome or lead, Polished or pitted, from almost white to darkest black.
This far out, the wind-scarred dome can be broken, lightning torn, Here thunder cracks and rolls, cold laughter, This far out I can’t recall what it was that I was after.
This far out, I’ve heard stories, Of a light so bright that the blind can see, Of a sight in the sky like glass on fire, Of a tearing of the shroud, A glimpse of heaven reserved, we’re told, for the drowning and the dying. Some claim to have survived, returned, changed, no doubt, And some were, clearly, lying, Adrift, alone, I’m wondering How I got here, this far out.
This far out, the sea and sky can merge, Indistinguishable, A swirling battlefield, force against force, chaos Seeking direction to some stony, high-cliffed shore, Some distant, secret harbor.
This far out it makes no difference, If I scream or cry or wail, The only echoes are the questions, Accusations whispered by the waves, Waves that whish or scrape or crack or roar, Or scream out threats and curses, “What are you looking for?”
Even in the calmest seas, the skies almost transparent, Colors blended by the smooth, broad strokes of the cleanest brush, There’s a constant sound, subtle, in the silence, Bubbling from the deep, exploding on the surface, Mistaken, easily, for laughter, This far out I can’t recall what it was that I was after.
I am trying to add more poetry to my portfolio, which includes a collection of songs and poem I copyrighted a few years ago under the title, “LOVE SONGS FOR CYNICS.” As part of this plan, I am working on doing an illustration for each selected piece. If I do them in black and white; less expensive. This is the illustration for this poem, my most recent. I worked on it, writing, saving, rewriting, repeating the procedure. I made changes from what I thought was a complete version. I do not promise to not make further changes.
All original works on realsurfers.net are protected by copyright. Thank you for respecting that.
It isn’t some kind of trick. I erased some good stuff; epic stuff. It is not unlike the sessions we miss; always chest to head high, bigger on the sets; the only wind the gentle offshores that groomed the empty A frames and barely makable walls; the lineup made up of best friends willing to give up a bomb for another bomb. Yeah, just like that.
Part of the reason I had to delete some images is the DE FACTO RESTRICTIONS I produce realsurfers under. There are, of course, no actual rules covering what spot I can name, and therefore, because of my influence with my tens of real and possibly real surfers in my worldwide audience, blow up; and only a few people have told me I cannot ever, ever say there are waves, ever, ever on the Strait of Juan de Fuca; BUT it is in my best interest to self monitor.
I have been mulling over, if not considering, if not laser focusing on the ALMOST OFFICIAL RULES OF SURFING, none of them passed by any legislative body other than self appointed regulators and wave counters. Although I hate, or at least hesitate to start any sentence with ‘Back in the day,’ back when BIG DAVE RING was surfing, he would often, without any substantiating evidence, say, “The wave counters on the beach say you’ve had enough; better go in.” And I would say, “Who?”
Here, if my copy and paste works, is where I’ve gotten to so far:
The Freedom Trap- Preamble
It’s lovely to say that surfing represents freedom, and it does. It can be a very liberating experience. It should be that riding the visible, moving, tangible manifestation of energy, waves; wind born in chaos, smoothed and groomed by the miles traveled, shaped by underwater canyons and mountains, reefs and rocks, and delivered to a beach near you. For free.
By some real or imagined extension, surfers are free; free-thinking, free of the conventions and rules put up as roadblocks by those without the courage to throw away their inhibitions and crash into the wild, lawless surf.
Free. Undaunted. Unrestrained. ETC…
This photo of SMILING DAN is a replacement for one that MIGHT have some sleuthing surf dick saying, “OH, I recognize that parking lot. It’s that new place down by Westport. ‘Country Clubs’ I believe the locals call it. Rabid bunch of surfers/golfers/rockhounds/dog walkers; no bags- watch your step if you go down there- yeah, and… I’m going to zoom in on his watch; see if I can get the time and date. And, anyway, he’s smiling; that there’s a clue.”
Okay, that is correct. Smiling Dan is, despite repeated warnings, smiling.
WHAT I DO LOVE, though not as much as surfing, is the gossip and chatter between surfers; in the parking lots, in the lineup, on the beach, in the comment section of every YouTube video. The sarcastic ones are the best. OKAY, I went back and re-found this one, commentary of a wicked day at BIG ROCK. I did, back in the day (sorry) live nearby, did surf Windansea, never attempted that crazy slab. So: “This wave looks soooo fun! I’m a low intermediate adut-learner and just got a new CI mid length. I’ll be out there the next big swell. If you see me in my white Sprinter van, stop byy and say hello.” @jakemarlow8998.
Perfect. Other worthwhile comments judged a dude harshly for dropping in, twice, at Lunada Bay (never surfed there), celebrating the justice delivered when his board broke. Blowing up spots and just how many surfers were out at, say, SWAMIS, were subjects prominently discussed. “Eighty-seven people out and five surfers getting all the decent rides” is a paraphrase of one I didn’t go back to give accreditation. I agree.
Do surfers JUDGE? NO, except constantly. You should assume that you are presumed to be a kook until you prove otherwise, and then you’re no more than another surfer, like, not as good as the surfer judging your surfing, until you get a great ride; and even then you can be demoted with one blown takeoff. One accidental drop in can get you pegged as a shoulder hopper, one accidental drift can get you labeled a backpaddler. Too many waves while the people in the channel get a smaller share… wave hog.
I’m not making accusations. As with a meaty-but-scary barrel opportunity, I’m dodging.
RIPPERS AND CHARGERS- Here’s the discussion. ONE, can you fit your surfing into one of these categories? TWO, which is better? COUGAR KEITH said he’s happy being a charger if being a ripper goes along with unnecessarily exaggerated arm movements. SHORTBOARD AARON, undisputedly a ripper, says a ripper can choose to charge, whereas a charger… Yeah, yeah, I get it.
I AM, of course, still, still working on perfecting (it was just polishing) my manuscript, “SWAMIS,” the fictional story centered in 1969, or ‘back in the day’ to some.
Sorry for blowing up Country Clubs. Happy Almost New Year!
“Dark Cutback”- Pen and Ink, “Come In”- Pencil, pen and ink
Meanwhile, on a Strait Far Away…
It was the day before Christmas and all along the Strait, Surfers were sick of the Eddie Swell wait,
And the planning and loading in the dark of the night, All frothed-up and hoping you’d hit it just right,
Get through holiday traffic and ferry lines long, Just to find out the forecasters got it all wrong,
No six to eight-foot faces, with stiff offshore winds, But side chop and flatness, too many surf friends,
All those kooks who got wetsuits and leashes as gifts, And promised pure awesomeness, maybe, when the tide shifts,
Or the currents reset, or the stars realign, Which they haven’t done yet, so you’ll have to resign Yourself to some chilling with the parking lot crew, Having artisan breakfasts and customized brew,
With the burnouts and geezers who still dream of the past, With retired accountants who’ve heard surfing’s a blast, With newbies who ruled in the surf camp’s real water lessons, Who count the wave pool rides as real surfing sessions,
With the hodads and show dads and their sons and their daughters, Influencers and surf tourists who don’t get in the waters,
Cell phones at the ready, all waiting for action, They’ll be hooting and filming, with a deep satisfaction,
Witness to butt-hurt back-paddlers, shoulder-hoppers, and snakers, Heroes and villains, GoPro-ers and fakers, Buzzed-out dudes blowing takeoffs, laughing, pearling and falling, Occasional barrels and turns worth recalling.
They’ll soon be Youtubing a post of their Christmas surf strike, So hit the “subscribe” button, comment, and like,
And save it, repost it, it is something to share, When you watch it again, it’s as if you were there.
Yes, I hope you got waves, I did, too, and in the best Christmas spirit, If you have a great story, I would so love to hear it,
The next time we’re together, facing a skunking, so tragic, You can tell me the tale of your holiday magic.
“You should have been there, Dude; you would have loved it.” “You could have called me.” “You should have known. Are you angry?” “No. It’s just surfing, man; almost all of the magic is… well, you know.”
Color versions, and I slipped in a couple of photos from an ultra fickle spot where rideable waves are mostly imagined. Yes, that’s pretty much every spot on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
I HAVE HEARD a couple of stories of the usual situations that occur with too many surfers and not enough waves; confrontations that went way farther than they should have. They are not my stories, and, although I LOVE to hear them, AND retell them, if they’re good enough, you will hear them eventually. Maybe from me, but not here. What I will say is, “That wave is gone.”
NEXT.
This is as true when the story is of epic, magical, all-time, best-ever stories. Your joyful stories, perfect moments in an imperfect world; the ones that make you smile; those are the ones to to savor; those are the images to save, to replay.
The illustrations are protected by copyright, all rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
OH, AND I am, of course, still polishing my novel, “Swamis,” and I’m working on a piece for SUNDAY on the LAWS OF ETIQUETTE. Look for it. In the meanwhile, there are a lot of YouTube videos of super crowds at Swamis and elsewhere. Yeah, crowds.
CHRIS EARDLEY texted me this photo with the caption, “Is this Reggie on my bag of Inca Corn Snacks?” “Definitely Reggie, switch stance.” It does resemble REGGIE SMART on the bag of hipster-friendly chips (available on Amazon and I don’t know where else. Co-Op, maybe). Reggie, in addition to being a licensed painting contractor, has rented a space in Port Townsend and is available for your tattooing needs. I know he’s on social media.
CHRISTMAS is coming, and I did my yearly assist in decorating DRU’S house in Port Gamble. Because the town is so, let’s say, quaint, decorating for the various seasons and for whatever other reasons is sort of mandatory. Dru works part time at WISH, a wonderful card and gift shop over by the haunted house and the other vintage attractions. Check it out on your way to or from the Hood Canal Bridge or the Kingston Ferry.
It’s a joke between TRISH and Dru and I that, in movies, when there’s a moon, “It’s always a full moon.” I took this shot over my house last night. Trees could have been in the photo, but were not. In the ‘should have taken a photo’ category- After midnight, when the moon was scientifically at it’s fullest, I looked up in the living room skylight, and the moon was visible through the bare branches of a vine maple. I opened my wallet and did the pagan chant that, once I started doing it, has become as mandatory as any ritual, and as such, must be followed religiously. “Oh moon, beautiful moon; fill ‘er up, fill ‘er up, fill ‘er up. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” MAYBE the ‘er part is some American-ish bastardization, but, hey, that’s how I leart it.
SWAMIS TO “SWAMIS”- While I am waiting for responses from literary agents, I have decided that I should submit something to “SURFER’S JOURNAL.” Before it all hits the big time, my favorite surviving surf-centric magazine could have something on my struggle to capture the magic of a particular time and place through fiction so cutting edge that… Yeah, and art-wise, my stuff, I can hopefully convince them, should grace the magazine’s slick pages.
To that end, I am super editing my submission; as in, I’ve already cut out more than I’m keeping in. OH AND I’m going through my final final version of the manuscript. One more time. A POLISH as they say in the biz. Shit, I want it ready to be glassed and polished.
MEANWHILE, because it’s off off season for painters and the darkest time of the year, I’ve been sleeping more, which mean dreaming more. Not all are worth keeping track of or even attempting to remember, even fewer worthy of trying to figure out some sort of meaning. SO, Here’s:
A Series of Dreams before Christmas
Second dream first- I was surfing, dropping into a left, turning hard off the bottom, going down the line. You know the angle; mine; close to the wall, the creases of the wave threatening, folding; and I’m climbing, too high, dropping, side-slipping, redirecting, racing into the glare.
Suddenly, dream time wise, I’m trying to get dressed, hurriedly, because I’m supposed to be somewhere, somewhere else. I pull on a t shirt with some sort of logo on it. I say, “I don’t work there.” I may add, “Anymore.” Dream talk. I put the shirt on anyway and look down several wide marble stairs. Almost landings. And, yes, marble, everything is marble, white with a very light green tinge. Or the greenness could be because there’s glass to the right, water behind it. An aquarium, perhaps, and possibly connected to a wave pool. Makes sense. Dream sense. Another view of surfers and waves. No, I didn’t see dolphins pressing close to the glass. I can imagine them, but I won’t add them as if they were there.
There is a woman sort of sprawled on the lowest stair, long black hair disappearing in all black clothing. All I can really see is her right hand and her face, in profile, very white, as I drop down and closer. Her reflection is on the glass and the walls between us. The walls, perhaps, are tiles, shiny, like the tile work in the Paris subways, but rectangular, horizontal.
“Did you see my ride?” Because the woman doesn’t answer I add, “I thought it was pretty good. My bottom turn was…” No answer. Her head turns a bit more toward me. “I figured, you probably don’t surf, so you might be…”
“Why do you think I don’t surf?”
“You’re very white.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, the sun isn’t… always…”
“Healthy? No. Not always.” The woman turns back toward the glass.
I notice there’s an above and a below the waterline. The last push of a wave hits the glass, pushing up above our ceiling. The woman seems to smile as she watches the bubbles rising and dissipating into an unseen sky, some of the greenness transferred to her face.
“I did see your ride. It was… from the perspective of a very white non-surfer, not as good as you probably thought, but… if you’re happy with it…” She turned toward me again. “Do you work there?”
I looked down at the shirt. “No.”
Different scene, same dream- It’s still very bright, but I’m driving in some flat, open country. Big windshield. Truck, I’m dream thinking. And I’m late. Probably the surfing. I hard turn into a driveway. No grass, no trees. A house. Covered porch all the way across the front. Imagine Australian Outback. Dust flies as I jump out of the vehicle. Trish appears at the front door, her hands on the opposite arms.
“I’m late,” I say, breathlessly.
“Oh?”
Oh? I feel in my back right pocket. I pull out a cell phone. “Oh.”
“If I were worried, I’d have called you. You know that, right?”
“Right.”
“Where’d you get that shirt?”
GOOD LUCK on finding and surfing some memorable waves. STAY WARM! Remember all original material in realsurfers.net is protected by copyright. All rights reserved by someone, my stuff by me, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
I know, I know; I’ve been working on the novel for soooooo long. I’ve put a lot of it on this site. Most or all of that has been changed. More like all of it except the baseline story; one which I have had a hard time (changed this from ‘fuck of a time’) reducing to a tagline.
There’s a procedure in selling books to major publishers, of course; daunting enough to dissuade even the most confident writers. AND, and, and we are all supposed to be capable of writing a story; and we all have stories. AND, believing that somewhere in all my millions of words written and changed, pages deleted, there’s a story, I have gotten to the point where I am leaping off some cliff and submitting “Swamis” to, today, seven agents.
Submission; even the word speaks of uncertainty, of decisions by others; SUBJECTIVE DECISIONS with the first round of decision-makers being the folks whose job it is to cut the volume of could-be-somethings down to those deemed worthy, or worthy-er.
Having something out there and out of our control is not that dissimilar to waiting for waves. Check the forecasts all we want, we can’t wish or hope waves into showing up. Yet, we try.
OH, AND if any of you are actual literary agents and believe you can sell “Swamis,” let me know. I’d certainly prefer a real surfer in my corner.
NOW, I did write an earlier query letter, and I did post it here. I also convinced several people to read it and give me feedback. So, thanks to KEITH DARROCK, DRUCILLA DENCE, ANDY and IZZY ROSANE. And then, of course, I rewrote the query. So, more thanks.
UPDATE ON MY SUPER FUN CAR- It was the in-line (as in, on a hose) heater control valve that broke on my thirty-year-old Volvo. Frustrated by my on line searching, I stopped by an auto parts store and tried to explain the whole thing. Kook-like. “It’s, like, kinda like a thermostat-looking thing, and it’s on this hose, and…” The already-flustered counter guy kept some appearance of patience, and found the part. “We’d have to order it.” Yeah. Then, knowing what I need, I went to YouTube to see if I can do the repair. Yes, pretty sure. Then, because it’s YouTube, on to brain surgery. No, probably not.
Query- “Swamis.” Fiction by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
Marijuana, murder, surf, romance, and magic in a Southern California beach town in 1969.
Dear real surfers,
That my 92,000-word novel “Swamis” has become as much love story as murder mystery is a surprise to me. Almost. The action centers around the surf culture at Swamis Point in North San Diego County. It is 1969. An evolutionary/revolutionary period in surfing and beyond, to those who have only known crowds, this was a magical era.
Very close to turning 18, the narrator, Joseph Atsushi DeFreines, Jr., nicknamed Jody, has a history that includes a serious injury, time in a ‘special’ school, and violent outbursts. A top-level student and compulsive note taker, Joey is a socially awkward outsider who refuses to give oral reports. His two closest friends are other ‘inland cowboy’ surfers. Surf Friends. Joey wants to be accepted on the beach and in the lineup as a ‘local.’
Joey is desperately attracted to Julie Cole, one of a few girl surfers in the beach towns along Highway 101. Nicknamed Julia ‘Cold,’ just-turned-18-year-old Julie appears to be a spoiled, standoffish surfer chick, rabidly protected by her small group of friends. She is almost secretly brilliant and driven. Julie, like Joey, has personal trauma in her past.
Joey is the son of a Japanese ‘war bride’ and an ex-Marine. County Sheriff’s Office detective Joseph DeFreines, who says, “The world works on an acceptable level of corruption” is trying and failing to maintain that level. Marijuana is becoming a leading cash crop in his rural and small town jurisdiction. The completion of I-5 is supercharging population growth.
Julie’s father, David Cole, is a certified public accountant who may, with help from outwardly upright citizens, be laundering increasing amounts of drug money. Julie’s mother, Judith, moves from fixer-upper to fixer-upper in a housing market about to explode. She may also be the head of a group growing, packaging, transporting, and selling marijuana. Once grown in orchards and sold to friends of friends, the product is moved through Orange County middlemen to a larger, more profitable, and more dangerous market, Los Angeles.
Joey and Julie, concentrating on studying and surfing, had been rather blissfully unaware of what was going on around them. Joey’s father’s death, for which Joey may be responsible, has connections to the murder of Chulo, a beach evangelist and drug dealer set alight next to the white, pristine, gold lotus-adorned walls of a religious compound that gives Swamis its name.
Finding Chulo’s murderer, with those on all sides believing Joey has inside information, pushes Joey and Julie together.
There is an interconnectedness between all the supporting characters, each with a story, each as real as I can render them.
“Swamis” was never intended to be an easy beach read. And it isn’t.
I am of this period and place, with brothers and friends who were very involved in the marijuana/drug culture, both sides. I was not. It is very convenient that a Swami, like a detective, like many of the characters in the novel, is a ‘seeker of truth.’
I have written articles, poems, short stories, screenplays, and two other novels, some moving to the ‘almost’ sold category. I had a column “So, Anyway…” in the “Port Townsend Leader” for ten years, I’ve written, illustrated, and self-published several books of local northwest interest. I started a surf-centric website (blog) in 2013: realsurfers.net.
After many, many edits and complete rewrites, I believe the manuscript is ready for the next step. Thank you for your time and consideration, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. (360) 774-6354
Illustrations for “SWAMIS” by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
“SWAMIS” A novel by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
The surf, the murder and the mystery, all the other stories; “Swamis” was always going to be about Julie. And me. Julie and me. And… Magic.
CHAPTER ONE- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1969
“Notes. I take a lot of… notes, but… your stack is bigger. Is that my permanent record?”
“Not sure why you take notes. You seem to remember, like, everything. Records. Records are for… later, for someone else.”
“As are notes. And maybe, some time I… won’t remember.”
“You brought them in; so, can I assume that your mother…”
“Yeah. Snoopy. Detective’s wife. We took the Falcon. I drove, my mother…”
“Snooped. Sure. Would you read me something from one of your notebooks? Your choice. Maybe something about… surfing.”
“Kind of boring, but… give me a second. Okay. ‘The allure of waves was too much, I’m told, for an almost three-year-old, running, naked, into them. I remember how the light shone through the shorebreak waves; the streaks of foam sucked into them. 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, my mother clutching me out and into the glare by one arm.’”
“Impressive. When did you write this? You had most of it memorized.”
“Some. But, if I wrote it recently, Doctor Peters. This all happening before the… accident; that would be me… creating a story from fragments. Wouldn’t it?”
“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…”
“I’m not here because of that… offense.”
“I am aware. Just… humor me.”
“Basketball. Freshman team. Locker room. They staggered practice. I was… slow… getting dressed. Bus schedules. He… FFA guy… Future Farmers. JV. Tall, skinny, naked, foot up on a bench; he said I had a pretty big… dick… for a Jap. I said, ‘Thank you.’ just as the Varsity players came in. Most stood behind him. He said, ‘Oh, that’s right; your daddy; he’s all dick.’ Big laugh.”
“’Detective,’ I said. ‘And, Rusty, I am sorry about your brother at the water fountain. I’m on probation already… and I’m off the wrestling team, and…’ I talk really fast when I’m… forced to… talk. I’m sure you’ve made note. I said, ‘I don’t want to cut my hand… on your big buck teeth.’ Bigger laugh. Varsity guys were going, ‘Whoa!’ Rusty was… embarrassed. His brother… That incident’s in the records. Fourth grade. Three broken teeth. Year after I… came back. That’s why the buck teeth thing… Not funny. Joke.”
“Joey. You’re picturing it… the incident. You are.”
“No. I… Yes. I quite vividly picture, or imagine, perhaps… incidents. In both of those cases, I tried to do what my father taught me; tried and failed. ‘Walking away is not backing down,’ he said. Anyway. Basketball. I never had a shot. Good passer, great hip check.”
“Rusty… He charged at you?”
“He closed his eyes. I didn’t. Another thing I got from my father. ‘Eyes open, Jody!’”
“All right. So, so, so… Let’s talk about the incident for which you are here. You had a foot on… a student’s throat. Yes? Yes. He was, as you confirm, already on the ground… faking having a seizure. He wasn’t a threat to you; wasn’t charging at you. Have you considered…?”
“The bullied becomes the bully? It’s… easy, simple, logical… not new; and I have… considered it. Let’s just say it’s true. I am… this is my story… trying to mend my ways. Look, Grant’s dad alleges… assault. I’m… I get it; I’m almost eighteen. Grant claims he and his buddies were just… fooling around; adolescent… fun; I can, conceivably… claim, and I have, the same.”
“But it wasn’t… fun… for you?”
“It… kind of… was. Time’s up. My mom’s… waiting.”
“Joey… I am, can be… the bully here. So… sit the fuck back down!”
CHAPTER TWO- SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1965
My mother took my younger brother, Freddy, and me to the beach at what became the San Elijo campground. Almost or just opened, it runs along the bluff from Pipes to Cardiff Reef. We were at the third stairway from the north end. I was attempting to surf; Freddy was playing in the sand. My mother was collecting driftwood for a fire. The waves were small. Pushing my way out, walking, jumping over the lines, I was turning and throwing my board into the soup, standing up, awkwardly, and riding straight in; butt out, hands out, stupidest grin on my face. “Surfin’!”
A girl, about my age, was riding waves. Not awkwardly. Smoothly. Not straight, but across. She wouldn’t have wiped out on the third ride I witnessed if I hadn’t been in her way, almost frozen, surprised by a wave face so thin and clean I still swear I could see through it.
I let my board go, upside down, broach to the waves, and chased down hers. When I pushed it back toward her, she said, “It’s you.”
“Me?” I had to look at her and reimagine the moments immediately before she spoke. She was wading toward me. She pushed the hair away from both sides of her face. She looked toward the beach. She looked back. Her eyes were green and seemed, somehow, as transparent as I had imagined the waves to be. “It’s you.”
“No. No, I’m… not… Who are you?”
“Someone who stays away from cops… And their kids.” She wasn’t going to thank me for grabbing her board. “Surfing isn’t easy, you know. All the real surfer guys are assholes.” She turned, threw herself onto her board, and started paddling. “I’d give it up If I were you.”
“Assholes,” I said as I retrieved my board. “I’m a well-known asshole.” I walked and pushed and paddled and made my way out to where the girl was sitting. She looked out to sea. She looked toward the shore. It was a lull, too long for her not to turn toward me as I attempted to knee paddle.
“We can’t be friends, Junior,” she said.
“No? What about when I… get to the point where I surf way better than you? Still, no?”
The girl turned away again. Not as long this time. “You coming back tomorrow?”
“No. Sunday. Church. My mom… We… Church.”
“Church,” she said. “My mom and I… Well, me; I… surf.”
The girl paddled over and pushed me off my board. The first wave of a set took it in. She turned and caught the next wave. I watched her from behind it. Graceful. “Julia Cole,” I said, loud enough for her to hear. “Your friends call you Julie.” I said that to myself.
CHAPTER THREE- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1968
My nine-six Surfboards Hawaii pintail was on the Falcon’s rust and chrome factory racks. I was headed along Neptune, from Grandview to 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, including me, at the outside lineup, the preferred takeoff spot. They all knew each other. If one of them hadn’t known about the asshole detective’s son, others had clued him in. There was no way the local crew and acceptable friends would allow me to catch a set wave. No; maybe a wave all of them missed or none of them wanted. Or one would act as if he was going to take off any wave I wanted, just to keep me off it.
As the first one in the water, before dawn, I had surfed the peak, selecting the wave I thought might be the best of a set. Two other surfers came out. Okay. Three more surfers came out. One of them, Sid, paddled past me, making him the farthest one out in a triangular cluster that matched the peak of waves approaching. I knew who Sid was. By reputation. A set wave came in. I had been waiting. It was my wave. I paddled past Sid, paddled and took off. Sid dropped in on me. 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, approaching the lineup. The four other surfers held their laughter until Sid maneuvered his board around, laughed and said, “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 prone-paddled back to the rights, tacking back and forth. A wave was approaching, a decently sized set wave. I wanted it.
“Outside!” I yelled, loud enough that five surfers, including Sid, started paddling for the horizon. I paddled at an angle, 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. I dropped to my board and proned in. I kept my back to the water as I exited, not daring to look back or to look up at the surfers on the bluff, hooting and pointing.
I did look up for a moment as I grabbed my towel where it was stashed, visible from the water, on the low part of the bluff, my keys and wallet and cigarettes rolled up in it. Tromping up the washout to Neptune Avenue, I tried not to smile.
Driving my 1964 Falcon station wagon, almost to Moonlight Beach, a late fifties model Volkswagen camper van, two-tone, white over gray, was blocking the southbound lane. Black smoke was coming out of the open engine compartment. Three teenagers, locals, my age, were standing behind the bus: Two young men, Duncan Burgess and Rincon Ronny, on the right side, one young woman, Monica, on the left. Locals.
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: Nylon windbreakers, towels around their waists. Duncan’s and Monica’s jackets were red with white, horizontal stripes that differed in number and thickness. Ronny was wearing a dark blue windbreaker with a 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 took three sideways steps before I regained my balance.
Julia Cole. Perfectly balanced. She was wearing an oversized V-neck sweater that almost covered boys’ nylon trunks. Her legs were bare, tan, her feet undersized for the huarache sandals she was wearing. She looked upset, but 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 another step toward the middle of the road, away from her. “An Angel?” Another head shake, another step. She took two more steps 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 turned toward her. “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. Yes. It… worked.”
“Once. Maybe Sid… appreciated it.” She shook her head. “No.”
I shook my head. “Once.” I couldn’t help focusing on Julia Cole’s eyes. “I had to do it.”
“Of course.” 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. “Challenge the… hierarchy.”
I had no response. Julia Cole 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 right hand, just away from her body and 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. In a ridiculous overreaction, I jerked away from her.
“I was going to say, Junior…” Julia was smiling. I may have grinned. Another uncontrolled reaction. “I could… probably use… If you were an… attorney.”
“I’m not… Not… yet.”
Julia Cole loosened the tie holding her hair. Sun-bleached at the ends, dirty blonde at the roots. She used the fingers of both hands to straighten it.
“I can… give you a ride… Julie, I mean… Julia… Cole.”
“Look, Fallbrook…” It was Duncan. Again. He walked toward us, 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 allowed it. She was still smiling, still studying me. “Phone booth?” I asked.. “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. She could have said, “Joey.”
No one got a ride. I checked out Beacons and Stone Steps and Swamis. 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.
CHAPTER FOUR- WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1968
Christmas vacation. I had surfed, but I wanted a few more rides. Or many more. I had the time, and I had the second-best parking spot in the full lot at Swamis- front row, two cars off center. It was cool but sunny. I was standing, dead center, in front of the Falcon, leaning over the hood. I checked my diver’s watch. It was fogged up. I shook my wrist, removed the watch, set it on the part of the Falcon’s hood my spread-out beach towel didn’t cover; directly over the radiator, the face of the watch facing the ocean and the sun.
Spread out on the towel was a quart of chocolate milk in a waxed cardboard container, the spout open; a lunch sack, light blue, open; an apple; a partial pack of Marlboros, hard pack, open, a book of paper matches inside; three Pee-Chee folders. One of the folders was open. A red notebook, writing on both sides of most pages, was open, five or six pages from the back.
A car stopped immediately behind the Falcon. Three doors slammed. Three teenagers, a year or so younger than me, ran down the left side of my car and to the bluff. Jumping and gesturing, each shouted assessments of the conditions. “Epic!” and “So… bitchin’!”
They looked at each other. They looked over me and at their car, idling in the lane. They looked at me. The tallest of the three, with a bad complexion, his hair parted in the middle, shirtless, with three strands of love beads around his neck, took a step toward me. “Hey, man.” He lifted two of the strands. “Going out or been out?”
“Both. Man.”
“Both?” Love Beads guy moved closer, patting the beads. “Both. Uh huh.”
“Good spot,” the driver, with bottle bleached hair, a striped Beach Boys shirt, and khaki pants, said. I nodded. Politely. I smiled, politely, and looked back and down at my notebooks. He asked, “You a local?”
I shifted the notebooks, took out the one on the bottom, light blue, opened it, turned, half sat on my car, and looked out at the lineup, half hoping my non-answer was enough for the obvious non-locals.
A car honked behind us. Love Beads raised his voice enough to say, “At least go get the boards, Shorty.” The Driver ran toward his car. As Shorty reluctantly walked away from the bluff, Love Beads gave him a shove, pushing him into me.
Shorty threw both hands out to signal it wasn’t his fault. Behind him, Love Beads Guy said, “You fuckers down here are fuckin’ greedy.”
“Fuck you, Brian,” Shorty said before running out and into the lane.
Love Beads Guy, Brian, moved directly in front of me. He puffed out his chest a bit. He looked a bit fierce. Or he attempted to. “You sure you’re not leaving?”
I twisted my left arm behind my back and set the notebook down and picked up my watch. When I brought my arm back around, very quickly, Brian twitched. I smiled. I held my watch by the band, close to its face. I shook it. Hard. Three quick strokes, then tapped it, three times, with the pointer finger of my right hand. “The joke, you see, Brian, is that, once it gets filled up with water, no more can get in. Hence, Waterproof.” I put the watch on. “Nope, don’t have to leave yet… Brian.”
Brian was glowering, tensed-up. “Brian,” Shorty said as he carried two boards over to the bluff and set them down, “You could, you know, help.”
Brian raised his right hand, threw it out to his left and swung it back. I took the gesture to mean ‘shut up and keep walking.’ I chuckled. Brian moved his right hand closer to my face, pointer finger up.
I moved my face closer to his hand, then leaned back, feigning an inability to focus. “Brian,” I said, “I have a history…” Brian smirked. “I used to… strike out, and quite violently… when I felt threatened.” I blinked. “Brian.”
Brian looked around as if Shorty, packing the third board past us, might back him up. “Quite violently?”
“Used to… Brian. Suddenly and… violently.” I nodded and rolled my eyes. I moved closer to his face. “But now… My father taught me there are times to react and times to… take a moment, assess the situation, but… watch, and be ready. It’s like… gunfights, in the movies. If someone… is ready to… strike, I strike first. I mean, I can. Because… I’m ready.” I moved my face back from Brian’s and smiled. “Everyone… people are hoping the surfing is… helping. I am not… sure. I’m on… probation, currently; I get to go to La Jolla every Monday, talk to a… shrink. Court ordered. So…” I took a deep breath, gave Brian a peace sign.
“Brian,” Beach Boy, at the driver’s door of his parent’s car said, “we’ll get a spot.”
“Wind’s coming up, Brian,” I said, pointing to the boards. “Better get on it.”
“Oh, I have your permission. No! Fuck you, Jap!” Brian moved back and into some version of a fighting stance as he said it.
“Brian. I’m, uh, assessing.” I folded my hands across my chest.
Brian may have said more. He moved even closer, his mouth moving, his face out of focus; background, overlapped by, superimposed with, a succession of bullies with faces too close to mine; kids from school, third grade to high school. I couldn’t hear them, either. Taunts. I knew the words: “Retard!” “Idiot!” “What’s wrong with you?”
My father’s voice cut through the others. “They don’t know you, Jody. It’s all a joke. Laugh.” In this vision, or spell, or episode, each of my alleged tormentors, all of them boys, fell away. Each face was bracketed by and punctuated with a blink of a red light. Every three seconds. Approximately.
One face belonged to a nine-year-old boy, a look of shock that would become pain on his face. He was falling back and down, blood coming out of his mouth. Red light. I looked at the school drinking fountain. A bit of blood. Red light. I saw more faces. The red lights became weaker, and with them, the images.
The lighting changed. More silver than blue. Cold light. I saw my father’s face, and mine, in the bathroom mirror. Faces; his short, almost blond hair, almost curly, eyes impossibly blue; my hair straight and black, my eyes almost black. “Jody, just… smile.” I did. Big smile. “No, son; not that smile.”
I smiled. That smile.
Brian’s face came back into focus. I looked past him, out to the kelp beds and beyond. “Wind’s picking up.” I paused. “Wait. Did I already say that… Brian?”
I turned toward the Falcon, closed the blue notebook, set it on one side of the open Pee-Chee, picked up the red notebook from the other side. There were crude sketches of dark waves and cartoonish surfers on the cover. I opened it and started writing.
“Wind is picking up.” I may have spun around a bit quickly, hands in a pre-fight position. It was Rincon Ronny in a shortjohn wetsuit, a board under his arm. Ronny nodded toward the stairs. “Fun guys.” He leaned away and laughed. I relaxed my hands and my stance. “The one dude, with the Hippie beads. Shirtless.”
“Brian. Shirtless.”
“Don’t want to know his name.” There was a delay. “Fuck, man; he was scared shitless.”
“It’ll wear off.” I held the notebook up, showed Ronny the page with ‘Brian and friends’ written in larger-than-necessary block letters, scratched out ‘Brian,’ and closed the notebook. “By the time they get back to wherever they’re from, unnamed dude would’ve kicked my ass.” I looked around to see if any of Ronny’s friends were with him. “I was… polite, Rincon Ronny.”
“Polite. Yeah. From what I saw. Yeah. And… it’s just… Ronny. Now.”
I had to think about what Ronny might have seen, how long I was in whatever state I was in. Out. I started gathering my belongings, pulling up the edges of my towel. “I just didn’t want to give my spot to… fuckers. Where are you… parked?”
“I… walked.”
I had to smile and nod. “You… walked.”
Ronny nodded and looked at my shortjohn wetsuit, laid out over my board. “Custom. Impressive.” I nodded and smiled. “One thing, Junior; those… fuckers, they won’t fuck with you in the water.”
“Joey,” I said. “I mean, not that you want to know, and… Ronny, someone will.”
Ronny mouthed, “Joey,” and did a combination blink/nod. “Yeah. It’s… Swamis. Joey.”
Ronny looked at the waves, back at me. A gust of west wind blew the cover of my green notebook open. “Julie” was written in almost unreadably psychedelic letters across pages eight and nine. “Julie.” Hopefully unreadable.
I repeated Ronny’s words mentally, careful not to mouth them. “From what I saw. Joey.”
CHAPTER FIVE- THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1969
Our house in the hills between Fallbrook and Bonsall was a split level, stucco house, aluminum sash windows, composite roof. Someone else had started building from some plans purchased from a catalog. My parents could save money, they were told, by finishing the lower level and the garage. They could replace the plywood shed at the edge of a corral with a small barn that would provide room for a horse, a side area for hay and tack. New fencing. More trees. A garden. A covered patio off the kitchen, or, perhaps, a bay window.
Almost none of this ever happened. My father promised the patio, and then the bay window. He was working on it, but he was working. Working. There was, outside the sliding door, a concrete slab, with paving stones leading around the corner and down to the driveway. The two-story portion of the house featured a plate glass window, four foot high and eight feet wide, in total, with crank out, aluminum sash windows on either side. This window offered a view to the west, over scrubby trees and deep arroyos, of the hills, some rounded, others more jagged, with ancient boulders visible on all of them. Mission Avenue was hidden below and between. Mission, the road that linked Fallbrook with Bonsall, Vista, Oceanside, everywhere west, everywhere worth going to.
Looking out this window, I felt almost level with those hills. Morning light, descending, brought out the details of the ribs and rocks. Afternoon shadows crept from it until the hills once again became a blank shape. There were waves of hills in irregular lines between my hills and the unseen ocean. I had spent time looking away from my studies, imagining the hills in timelapse, the sun setting at one place in winter, another in summer, lines off clouds held back at the ridgeline, breaking over the top; torn, scattering. I had imagined the block as transparent, the ocean visible, late afternoon sunlight reflected off the water and into the empty skies.
…
The light outside was still neutral when I moved to the dinette table in the kitchen, a bowl of oatmeal, a tab of butter on top of it, in front of me. There was a glass pitcher of milk between my setting and the other two. There were four lunch sacks on the counter. Two were a light blue, one was a shade more orange than pink, the fourth was the standard lunch sack brown. My mother, already dressed and ready for work, took a carton of Lucky Strikes from a cupboard and put a pack into the brown lunch sack.
She looked out the window over the sink. She sniffled.
My father, in one of his everyday detective suits; coat unbuttoned, tie untied; leaned over from the head of the table. “Go get it, Jody.” The ‘now’ part of the command was unspoken. His voice was calm. Almost always. I didn’t move. I didn’t look up from my oatmeal. “Stanford, Jody; you didn’t think they’d send a copy to the school?”
My father’s questions demanded an answer or a response. Crying or lying were not acceptable options. “I did… consider the possibility.”
“Of course. Now, Jody, consider everything you have to do to be ready. Got it?”
Making eye contact was critical in these situations. Required, if for no other reason than to show I was sorry, remorseful. I wasn’t crying.
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