Category Archives: surf novels

Recap of “Swamis” plus Ch.6,Part One, plus More

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, aggressive surfers, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, hipster surfers, northwest surfing, old surfers, Original Erwin t-shirts, surf culture, surf fiction, surf novels, surf sessions, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

This drawing will, of course, have to be reversed, white-to-black, to go on (future) t-shirts. There are some new hoodies and long-sleeved shirts ready at D&L LOGOS on Monday. I’m pretty excited, as is TRISH. She special ordered one for her, “cost just a little bit more… honey.” “Sure.”

This design, a little larger than the practice ones I had printed. I have to figure out how much they’re costing me, and then… some will be available. I got one xxl, for me, but I may have already sold it.

OKAY, a lot of stuff this week. If your time is limited, SKIP the story. Not classic, all time. Next time… Do read the “Swamis” chapter. Thanks.

IN the ‘every session’s a story’ catagory… I had to go surfing the other day, last chance before my third eye surgery. I was aware, because, despite the rules, news of waves breaking and being ridden spreads, and I missed opportunities because my once-repaired but re-damaged fin box on my beloved but abused HOBIE needed repair, and I was focused on working and trying to buy another board. BUT, the dude with a board within reasonable driving distance wanted too much (as in, it’s listed for $500, out there for 8 weeks, and he won’t take less) for a board that is actually heavier than mine. SO, I purchase resin, hot cure catalyst, and some glass, cut the box loose, fill the hole with glass and resin, slam it back in, half-glass the whole unit in, fin and all. Foolish, knowing how the small waves and big rocks on the STRAIT eat fins.

I did all this on a painting job, the board on the rack of my VOLVO. It dried, I retied it to the rack AND I was ready for the next day’s pre-dawn takeoff. Enroute, I passed an accident on 112, almost to Joyce, a car on its top in the ditch, and it had been there long enough that there were cones and people with signs, and a lit-up display that read, “Accident Ahead.” It turns out three people, none wearing seatbelts, were hurt, two flown out. SO, maybe I should slow down.

AND I DID, but… you know how straps can be noisy? Mine were, increasingly so. It was a while after I arrived at my destinatiion, three people in the water, that I noticed my board was… Ever see people driving down the road with mattresses poorly tied to the roof? YEAH. But I was lucky. And the waves were what we… okay me, what I call FUN. I knew most of the dawn patrollers, met Ian’s wife (forgot her name- sorry; four syllables- don’t want to guess), and KEVIN, a Port Townsend surfer I had heard about. Iron man, stayed out about four hours straight.

SINCE, evidently, surfing is more dangerous after eye surgery than heavy lifting, I can hold on to memories of a decent session until… next time.

BECAUSE IT IS DIFFICULT to go back and pick up the earlier chapters, I am going to provide a recap of “SWAMIS.” Yes, even the ‘catchup’ is a lot of reading.

“Swamis” Recap

CHAPTER ONE -Monday, Nov 13, 1968-

Seventeen-year-old JOEY DeFREINES is talking with his court appointed psychologist, DR. SUSAN PETERS. Joey’s father, San Diego County Sheriff’s Office DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT JOSEPH DE FREINES made the deal following an afterschool incident at Fallbrook Union High School during which Joey put his foot on GRANT MURDOCH’s neck. Dr. Peters asks if, once bullied, Joey has become a bully.

TWO- Saturday, August 14, 1965-

13-year-old Joey tries surfing at PIPES. JULIA COLE is out, already accomplished. She says boy surfers are assholes, surfing is hard, and she stays away from cops and cop’s kids.

THREE- Sunday, September 15, 1968-

Joey tricks SID and other locals in the lineup at GRANDVIEW, gets a set wave. Sid burns Joey and tells him he broke the ‘locals rule,’ that being that locals rule.

Joey, driving his FALCON station wagon, comes upon a VW VAN. Locals DUNCAN, MONICA, AND RINCON RONNY are looking at the smoking engine. They are unresponsive if not hostile to Joey, but Julie (to her friends) asks Joey if he’s a mechanic or an attorney. “Not yet,” he says. There is an attraction between Julie and Joey that seems irritating to, in particular, Duncan.

FOUR- Wednesday, December 23, 1968-

Joey has a front row spot at SWAMIS. He has already surfed and is studying, notebooks on the hood of the Falcon. Arriving out of town surfers want the spot. Joey, hassled by one of them, informs BRIAN that he has a history of striking out violently when threatened, and says he’s on probation. Joey has an episode remembering past encounters, witnessed by the out-of-town surfers and Rincon Ronny, who seems impressed and says those kooks won’t bother Joey in the water. “Someone will,” Joey says, “It’s Swamis.”

FIVE- Thursday, February 27ut-

At breakfast at home in Fallbrook, Joseph DeFreines confronts his son (who he calls JODY) about an acceptance letter from Stanford University Joey hid. Joey’s father is also upset with his wife, RUTH, for some reason, and leaves in a huff, saying he’ll take care of it.

Joey and his younger brother, FREDDY, get a ride home from surf friend, GARY, and Gary’s sister, THE PRINCESS. Ruth is loading the Falcon, says she spoke on the phone with DETECTIVE SERGEANT LARRY WENDALL, and says she will, as always, be back. Freddy blames Joey. Their father calls as their mother pulls away. Joey, looking for the keys to his mother’s VOLVO, speaks briefly, somewhat rudely, with his father. Freddy says he’ll wait for their father. The phone rings. It’s ‘uncle’ Larry. Joey runs toward the Volvo.

SIX- Tuesday, March 4, 1968. PART ONE-

There is a post-funeral wake/memorial/potluck at the DeFreines house. Joey, avoiding the guests, is standing in the big west-facing window. MISTER DEWEY, a teacher at Fallbrook High, says he is surprised that Joey’s ex-Marine, ‘practically a John Bircher,’ father is married to a Japanese woman. “Traditional,” Joey says, “Kill the men, take the women.” Mister Dewey expresses interest in the property Joey’s father never had the time to work on.

A delivery van from ‘Flowers by Hayes’ comes up the driveway, guarded, for the wake, by DEPUTY SCOTT WILSON. The driver of the van is CHULO, a surfer several years older than Joey. Chulo was arrested along with JUMPER HAYES for stealing avocados. Chulo was crippled during the arrest, went to work camp, became a beach evangelist.

Joey has an episode, during which he replays the accident in which, while driving the Volvo, he follows the Falcon and another car around the smoking JESUS SAVES BUS. Joey’s father, in an unmarked car, passes very close to him and pulls off the highway at high speed. JeJ

Chulo was driving the Jesus Saves bus.

Detective Wendall and DETECTIVE SERGEANT DANIEL DICKSON are at a makeshift bar in the living room. ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE DETECTIVE LIEUTENANT BRICE LANGDON, dressed in a just out of fashion Nehru jacket and rat-stabber shoes, isn’t popular with the two remaining detectives from the VISTA SUBSTATION, or with the other civilians and deputies from the San Diego Sheriff’s Office.

THERESA WENDALL, putting out food, tries to talk to her husband. He avoids her. Their two boys are running through playing cowboys-and-Indians as Langdon seems to corner Chulo.

CHAPTER SIX- TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1969  

It was still early afternoon. I was in the living room, ignoring everything behind me, facing but not really seeing anything out the west-facing window. A Santa Ana condition had broken down, and a thousand-foot-high wall of fog had pushed its way up the valleys. The house was situated high enough that the cloud would occasionally clear away, the sun brighter than ever. The heat and humidity, raised by the number of people in our house, caused a fog of condensation on the plate glass.

Below me, cars were parked in a mostly random way in the area between the house and the separate and unfinished garage, and the corral. Continued use had created a de facto circular driveway up the slight rise from the worn and pitted gravel driveway, across the struggling lawn, and up to the concrete pad at the foot of the wooden steps and front porch.

A bright yellow 1964 Cadillac Coupe De Ville convertible, black top up, was parked closest to the door.  Other vehicles were arranged on the clumpy grass that filled in areas of ignored earth. Later arrivals parked on the lower area. The Falcon was parked close to the county road in keeping with my parking obsession; with getting in, getting out, getting away.

I was vaguely aware of the music coming from the turntable built into the Danish modern console in the living room. Stereo. Big speakers in opposite corners of the room, the volume where my father had set it, too low to compete with the conversations among the increasing crowd, the little groups spread around the room. Some were louder than others. Praise and sympathy, laughs cut short out of respect. Decorum.

Someone had put on a record of piano music; Liberace, or someone. My father’s choice would have been from the cowboy side of country/western; high octave voices capable of yodeling, lonesome trails and tumbling tumbleweeds, the occasional polka. My mother preferred show tunes with duets and ballads by men with deep, resonant voices, voices like her husband’s, Joseph Jeremiah DeFreines.

 These would not have been my father’s choice of mourners. “Funerals,” he would say, “Are better than weddings.” He would pause, appropriately, before adding, “You don’t need an invite or a gift.”

Someone behind me repeated that line, mistiming the pause, his voice scratchy and high. I turned around. It was Mister Dewey. A high school social studies teacher, he sold insurance policies out of his rented house on Alvarado. His right hand was out. I didn’t believe shaking hands was expected of me on this day.

“You know my daughter, Penelope,” he said, dropping his hand.

“Penny,” I said. “Yes, since… third grade.” Penny, in a black dress, was beside Mr. Dewey, her awkwardness so much more obvious than that of the other mourners. I did shake her hand. “Penny, thanks for coming.” I did try to smile, politely. Penny tried not to. Braces.

 I looked at Mr. Dewey too closely, for too long, trying to determine if he and I were remembering the same incident I was. His expression said he was.

When I refocused, Mister Dewey and the two people he had been talking with previously, a man and Mrs. Dewey, were several feet over from where they had been. I half-smiled at the woman. She half-smiled and turned away. She wasn’t the first to react this way. If I didn’t know how to look at the mourners, many of them did not know how to look at me, troubled son of the deceased detective.

If I was troubled, I wasn’t trying too hard to hide it. I was trying to maintain control. “Don’t spaz out,” I whispered, to myself. It wasn’t a time to retreat into memory, not at the memorial for my father. The wake.

Too late.

“Bleeding heart liberal, that Mister Dewey,” my father was telling my mother, ten-thirty on a school night, me still studying at the dinette table. “He figures we should teach sex education. I told him that we don’t teach swimming in school, and that, for most people, sex… comes… naturally. That didn’t get much of a laugh at the school board meeting.”

“Teenage pregnancies, Joe.”

“Yes, Ruth.” My father touched his wife on the cheek. “Those… happen.”

“Freddy and I both took swimming lessons at Potter Junior High, Dad. Not part of the curriculum, but…”

“Save it for college debate class, Jody. We grownups… aren’t talking about swimming.”

  Taking a deep breath, my hope was that the mourners might think it was grief rather than some affliction. Out the big window, a San Diego Sheriff’s Office patrol car was parked near where our driveway hit the county road. The uniformed Deputy, still called “New Guy,” assigned to stand there, motioned a car in. He looked around, went to the downhill side of his patrol car. He opened both side doors and, it had to be, took a leak between them. Practical.

The next vehicle, thirty seconds later, was a delivery van painted a brighter yellow than the Hayes’ Cadillac. Deputy New Guy waved it through. I noticed two fat, early sixties popout surfboards on the roof, nine-foot-six or longer, skegs in the outdated ‘d’ style. One was an ugly green, fading, the other, once a bright red, was almost pink. Decorations, obviously, they appeared to be permanently attached to a bolted-on rack. The van was halfway to the house before I got a chance to read the side. “Flowers by Hayes brighten your days.” Leucadia phone number.

Hayes, as in Gustavo and Consuela Hayes. As in Jumper Hayes.

A man got out of the van’s driver’s seat, almost directly below me. Chulo. I knew him from the beach. Surfer. Jumper’s partner in ‘the great avocado robbery’ that sent them both away, Chulo returning, reborn, evangelizing on the beach, with a permanent limp.

Chulo’s long black hair was pulled back and tied; his beard tied with a piece of leather. He was wearing black jeans, sandals, and a day-glow, almost chartreuse t-shirt with “Flowers by Hayes” in white. Chulo looked up at the window, just for a moment, before reaching back into the front seat, pulling out an artist’s style smock in a softer yellow. He pulled it over his head, looked up for another moment before limping toward the back of the van.

The immediate image I pulled from my mental file was of Chulo on the beach, dressed in his Jesus Saves attire: The dirty robe, rope belt, oversized wooden cross around his neck. Same sandals. No socks.

Looking into the glare, I closed my eyes. Though I was in the window with forty-six people behind me, I was gone. Elsewhere.

…

I was tapping on the steering wheel of my mother’s gray Volvo, two cars behind my Falcon, four cars behind a converted school bus with “Follow me” painted in rough letters on the diesel smoke stained back. The Jesus Saves bus was heading into a setting sun, white smoke coming out of the tailpipes. Our caravan was just east of the Bonsall Bridge, the bus to the right of the lane, moving slowly.

My mother, in the Falcon, followed another car around the bus. Another car followed her, all of them disappearing into the glare. I gunned it.

I was in the glare. There was a red light, pulsating, coming straight at me. There was a sound, a siren, blaring. I was floating. My father’s face was to my left, looking at me. Jesus was to my right, pointing forward.

This wasn’t real. I had to pull out of this. I couldn’t.

The Jesus Saves bus stopped on the side of the road, front tires in the ditch. The Volvo was stopped at a crazy angle in front of the bus. I was frantic, confused. I heard honking. Chulo, ion the Jesus Saves bus. He gave me a signal to go. Go. I backed the Volvo up, spun a turn toward the highway. I looked for my father’s car. I didn’t see it. The traffic was stopped. I was in trouble. My mother, in the Falcon, was still ahead of me. She didn’t know. I pulled into the westbound lane, into the glare, and gunned it.

When I opened my eyes, a loose section of the fog was like a gauze over the sun. I knew where I was. I knew Chulo, the Jesus Saves bus’s driver, delivering flowers for my father’s memorial, knew the truth.

…

Various accounts of the accident had appeared in both San Diego papers and Oceanside’s Blade Tribune. The Fallbrook Enterprise wouldn’t have its version until the next day, Wednesday, as would the North County Free Press. All the papers had or would have the basic truth of what happened. What was unknown was who was driving the car that Detective Lieutenant Joseph Jeremiah DeFreines avoided. “A gray sedan, possibly European” seemed to be the description the papers used.

”The San Diego Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol share jurisdiction over this part of the highway. Detective Lieutenant Brice Langdon of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is acting as a liaison with the Highway Patrol in investigating the fatal incident.”   

Despite the distractions, what I was thinking was that Chulo knew the truth.

Chulo would be depositing the four new bouquets in the foyer, flowers already filling one wall. I looked in that direction, panning across the mourners. The groups in the living room were almost all men. Most were drinking rather than eating. Most of the groups of women were gathered in the kitchen.

A woman wearing a white apron over a black dress brought out a side dish of, my guess, some sort of yam/sweet potato thing. Because I was looking at her, she looked at the dish and looked at me, her combination of expression and gesture inviting me to “try some.” There was, I believed, an “It’s delicious” in there. Orange and dark green things, drowning in a white sauce.

“Looks delicious, Mrs. Wendall.”

Two kids, around ten and twelve, both out of breath, suddenly appeared at the big table, both grabbing cookies, the elder sibling tossing a powdered sugar-covered brownie, whole, into his mouth, the younger brother giving a cross-eyed assessment of his mother’s casserole.  

“Larry Junior,” Mrs. Wendall half-whispered as she shooed her sons out the door. She looked at her husband, leaning against a sideboard serving as a bar. He followed his boys out the door with the drink in his hand, half-smiled at his wife, as if children running through a wake is normal; and was no reason to break from chatting with the other detective at the Vista substation, Daniel Dickson, and one of the ‘College Joe’ detectives from Downtown. War stories, shop talk. Enjoyable. Ties were loosened and coats unbuttoned, the straps for shoulder holsters occasionally visible.

“Just like on TV” my father would have said. “Ridiculous.”

Freddy, out of breath, came out of the kitchen, weaving through the wives and daughters who were busily bussing and washing and making plates and silverware available for new guests. I handed him two cookies before he grabbed them. He grabbed two more.

“They went thataway, Freddy,” Detective Dickson said, pointing to the foyer.

Freddy pushed the screen door open, sidestepped Chulo, and leapt, shoeless, from the porch to what passed for our lawn, Bermuda grass taking a better hold in our decomposed granite than the Kentucky bluegrass and the failing dichondra.

Chulo, holding a metal five-gallon bucket in each hand, walked through the open door and into the foyer. He was greeted by a thin man in a black suit coat worn over a black shirt with a Nehru collar. The man had light brown hair, slicked back, and no facial hair. He was wearing shoes my father would refer to as, “Italian rat-stabbers.” Showy. Pretentious. Expensive fashion investments that needed to be worn to get one’s money’s worth.

Chulo had looked at me, looked at the man, and lowered his head. The man looked at me. I didn’t lower my gaze. I tried to give him the same expression he’d given me. Not acknowledgement. Questioning, perhaps.

Langdon. He must have been at the funeral, but I hadn’t felt obligated to look any of the attendees in the eye. “Langdon,” one of the non-cop people from the Downtown Sheriff’s Office, records clerks and such, whispered. “Brice Langdon. DeFreines called anyone from Orange County ‘Disneycops.’” Chuckles. “They put people in ‘Disney jail’,” another non-deputy said.

“Joint investigation guy,” one of the background voices said. “Joint,” another one added. Three people chuckled. Glasses tinkled.  Someone scraped someone else’s serving spatula over another someone else’s special event side dish. Probably not the yams.

Chulo took the arrangements out of the buckets and rearranged the vases against the wall and those narrowing the opening to the living room. He plucked some dead leaves and flowers, tossed them in one of the buckets, backed out onto the porch, closed the door. I became aware that I had looked in that direction for too long. Self-consciousness or not, people were, indeed, looking at me. Most looked away when I made eye contact.

“If you have to look at people, look them straight in the eye,” my father told me, “Nothing scares people more than that.”

Langdon looked away first, turning toward the two remaining detectives at the Vista substation, Wendall and Dickson, Larry and Dan. They both looked at Langdon, critically assessing the Orange County detective’s fashion choices. I didn’t see Langdon’s reaction.  

My father’s partners had changed out of the dress uniforms they had worn at the funeral and into suits reserved for public speaking events and promotions, dark-but-not-black. Both wore black ties, thinner or wider, a year or two behind whatever the trend was. Both had cop haircuts, sideburns a little longer over time. Both had cop mustaches, cropped at the corners of their mouths, and bellies reflecting their age and their relative status. Both had changed out of the dress uniforms they’d worn at the funeral

 Wendall was, in some slight apology for his height, hunched over a bit, still standing next to the sideboard that usually held my mother’s collection of display items; photos and not-to-be-eaten-off-of dishes. Dickson was acting as official bartender. The hard stuff, some wine, borrowed glasses. The beer was in the back yard.

Langdon had brought his own bottle. Fancy label, obviously expensive wine, cork removed, a third of it gone. Langdon’s thin fingers around the bottle’s neck, he offered it to Dickson. Smiling, politely, Dickson took a slug and reoffered it to Langdon. Langdon declined. Dickson pushed the bottle into a forest of hard liquor and Ernest and Julio’s finest. Langdon shrugged and looked around the room. Dickson displayed the smirk he’d saved, caught by Wendall and me.

Langdon saw my expression and turned back toward Dickson. The smirk had disappeared. Langdon walked toward me. He smiled; so, I smiled.

“I’ve heard about you,” he said. The reaction I had prepared and practiced disappeared. I was pretty much just frozen. “I see you know…” He nodded toward the foyer. “…Julio Lopez.” Langdon didn’t wait for a response. “From the beach?” No response. “Surfers.” No response. “You and I will have to talk… soon.”

I had to respond. “How old are you, Detective Lieutenant Langdon?”

“I’m… twice your age.” I nodded. He nodded. “College. College… Joe.” He smiled.

I may have smiled as I looked around Langdon at Dickson and Wendall; both, like my father, twelve or more years older than Langdon, this assuming he knew I was seventeen. I did, of course consider why he would know this. Wendall gave me a questioning smile. Dickson was mid-drink. 

“I don’t know if you know this… Joseph: Your father was involved an investigation… cross-county thing, involving… me.”  Langdon was, again, looking straight into my eyes. I blinked and nodded, slightly. “Yes. So… if there is any irony in my being… here, it is that Joseph DeFreines was, ultimately…” Langdon was nodding. I was nodding. Stupidly. “…a fair man.”

Langdon did a sort of European head bow, snap down, snap back, and tapped me on the shoulder.  I had half expected to hear the heels on his rat-stabber shoes click.  

COPYRIGHT STUFF- All rights to original content reserved by author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

THANKS, AS ALWAYS, for checking out realsurfers.net. Get some waves when you get the chance! And remember, sharing is… caring; that set bomb you let some kook take and blow the takeoff on… well, that was nice. OH, and, just remembered, the controversy on whether it’s justified to drop in on someone who took your wave continues. I saw it, I tried it. Twice. AND I felt… kind of justified. AND, when two guys dropped in on an alleged backpaddler, I was left outside with undisputed priority. GREAT!

“I just want to get wet,” Other Lies, and “Swamis,” continued

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, getting barrelled, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf fiction, surf novels, surfing blogs, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

FIRST LIE: “I just want to get in the water,” or any variation on this (purposefully not talking about the folks cruising SURF ROUTE 101 and, I guess, everywhere, with Walmart plastic kayaks, canoes, wavestorms) by someone who actually surfs. Okay, shouldn’t have excluded Wavestormer Troopers, BUT…

…here’s the (a) story: So, three sessions ago, fighting a radically outgoing tide and small, choppy waves, I had one of those go-outs in which I, objectively, SUCKED. Two sessions ago, on a borrowed SUP, same spot, even smaller waves, I, subjectively, did OKAY. Or, at least, better… BUT, tasked with packing a board heavier than my Hobie on a long trek back, and unable to just drag someone else’s board across the soft sand and the scrub, I allowed, for the first time in my career, someone else to pack my board part way. It was his board. I was… grateful.

So, next session I packed in my MANTA board. I had finally coated over the paint with resin, and figured, if the waves were the usual, minimal, I could, at least, jump into a few. The waves lived up to my expectations; minimal. AND, NO, even if I said I just wanted to get in the water, which I didn’t, I would be lying. I wanted o RIP. I always want to rip. I didn’t. I let frothed-out ripper KEITH ride the board. He did rip. I watched. I caught ONE WAVE, belly ride, totally tubed, with enough juice to propel me down the line and into the gravel shelf. YAY!

MANTA and slightly lost Hobbit.

OH, and Keith put a ding in the Manta. That’s one of the costs in surfing. Occasionally getting h orumbled is another. STILL, next time I get wet…

SECOND LIE: “I’m not political.” Add to this, “I am willing to talk.” That part is true. I am working on a project proposal for a guy who is running for the state senate as a republican. So, in discussing the job, politics did come up. I said that, probably, 70 percent of people agree on 75% of things, that where the radical 30%, 15 in each direction, left and right, come together is distrust of the government. The potential client agreed. THEN, because he is also part of the nebulous percentage of people who consider themselves religious (there is a scale on this), I added that we are all raised with certain morals, and, if we go against these, we, in our own minds, sin. So, because we want to consider ourselves ‘good people,’ we try to live up to our own sense of morality.

HE AGREED. What I actually (or also) meant, or meant to imply was, that if a person is raised by a parent who used every device and trick to fuck over people in order to enrich himself, that person’s moral backstop, compass, guidebook, whatever, is… different.

BECAUSE I couldn’t help myself, and, actually, I MIGHT DO MORE, I drew a couple of, possibly, kind of political illustrations. I found out a few things: A LOT of women do not want to see even a negative image of Fred Trump’s son, a NASTY piece of work. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong: there might be, like, 15% who think… SHIT, I can’t imagine why they’d have anything other than disgust, AND, if they defend him on some false and thin pretense, I might believe they have an incredibly strong resistance to the gag reflex, and/or are lying.

Again, I am willing to talk.

“SWAMIS.” Since I am serializing the novel, I should recap: 1. Joey is at the court-appointed psychologist’s office; the conversation coming around to whether he has moved from being bullied to being a bully. 2. Joey’s first meeting with Julie at Pipes.

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 at the outside lineup, the preferred takeoff spot. They all knew each other. If one of them hadn’t known about me, 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, I had surfed the peak, had selected the wave I thought might be the best of a set. Three other surfers came out. Okay. Three more surfers came out. Sid was one of them. I knew who Sid was. By reputation. A set wave came in. I had been waiting. I was in position. It was my wave. I took off.  Sid took off in front of me, ten yards over. I said something like, “Hey!”

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

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

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

After three lefts, surfed, I believed, with a certain urgency and a definite aggression, I 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 four 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.

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

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

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

Duncan, Ronny, and Monica were dressed as if they had surfed but were going to check somewhere else: Nylon windbreakers, towels around their waists. Duncan’s and Monica’s jackets were different, but both 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,” I said. “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, 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… 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… 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 when I asked, “Phone booth? There’s one at… I’m heading for Swamis.”

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

            “Joey,” I said. “Joey.”

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

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

OBLIGATORY COPYRIGHT STUFF: I reserve the rights to any and all of my original works. Please respect this. Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Thanks.

HAPPY LABOR DAY! I do hope you’re getting WET and BARRELED! The next time (and any time) I get in the water, remember, “I’M HERE TO SURF.”

Enduring the Dog Days, and “Tightening”

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, Original Erwin t-shirts, real surfers, surf art, surf fiction, surf illustrations, surf novels, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing novels, writings of Erwin Dence

It’s a sort of positive for me that the summer drought on the Strait of Juan de Fuca coincides with painting season. More like consolation, with even driving to the coast not a guarantee of finding waves. Busy now, it gets crazier in September when people start panicking about getting their castle dolled-up before the rains start getting more consistent. Finding time to devote to my other passions, including drawing and writing, becomes more challenging.

BUT I do have time while scraping and painting and second-coating to think, THINKING, IMAGINING being the most crucial component in each of these activities. Imagine what the drawing COULD look like, imagine WHAT I want to convey.

IT’S A PROCESS. Not dissimilar to house painting, actually. To use the project I am currently working on as an examlple, the homeowner has a vision of what she wants her Victorian home to look like; I have my own ideas. A few color changes later, we do it her way,. with eventual agreement that it works AND it’s what the person paying me wants.

SO… I prep and paint, and it’s never one coat of any color. I paint, and then TIGHTEN UP the paint, picking up missed spots (‘holidays’ in the vernacular), making sure the transitions are crisp and clean, the result being a job I can be proud of and the client will both pay me for and recommend me to others because I did it (right).

BRIEF SURFING INTERJECTION- Having missed one opportunity summer surf, and being pissed because I could have gone and didn’t, I did get a few waves recently. Just enough, with passing fancy rigs with boards on them on a daily basis along SURF ROUTE 101, to cause me to want more. MORE.

TIGHTENING. I am going to a memorial later today for a person I have been bumping into for years on the PORT TOWNSEND. I have a story I told his widow I would tell, and I’m going to try to write it out rather than ramble on in some fashion that might embarrass the others as well as me.

BUT FIRST, “SWAMIS,” the novel I’ve been thinking about, writing, rewriting, tightening for way too long. Having thought about how I needed to tighten a SCENE with the protagonist, JOEY, and the closest character to an antagonist, BRICE LANGDON, I tried to devote a bit of time to it yesterday, but got an urgent text: THE floor guys didn’t show up, could I PLEASE do some painting. PRAYER EMOJI. Shit! Fuck! I made the changes, pulled out the thumb drive. The emergency painting and looking at another project pretty much did the day in. OH, and then thunder and lightening; the weather kind. I went to bed and did not get up early… enough.

ORIGINAL ERWIN NEWS- I paid back some seed money I was loaned by local master builder/climber/skier/hiker/all kinds of other stuff, JIM HAMILTON; the money intended for my investment in getting some t shirts going, which, four months later, I did. Most are gone now. Thanks, Jim. BUT, DWAYNE at D&L LOGOS has been working on a FULL COLOR DESIGN, and I am SOOOO excited to see the results.

DWAYNE did some digital editing and had eight of the image printed up. They are heat-transferred, in a modern, way-better version of the hated ‘iron on’ process. I have to wait to see what the my cost will be. SEVERAL are already promised. WE’LL SEE. I will get back to you on it.

IN A NOT-UNRELATED STORY, I showed my most recent illustration to the clients I met with yesterday, friends of ANNIE FERGERSON, the woman behind the recent documentary about, you know, me. NOW, I REALLY BELIEVED folks would have to have a copy. I had forty printed up, two sizes. I have 38 left, BUT, hey, sales is not what I’m good at.

Although I haven’t given them an estimate, I did get a text back saying, “this would make a great t shirt.” “Open for discussion,” I texted back. I should have included the PRAYER EMOJI, way more convincing when the two hands come together. WE’LL SEE.

ADDING TOO MUCH CONTENT to make the best use of my semi-free minute, here is a poem/song I’ve been working on. THE PROCESS is, again, the IDEA- overhearing a conversation about you; the FIRST DRAFT- this includes singing verses, trying out rhymes. This takes some time; usually when driving to or from a job; harmonica to see if there is a tune. It has to flow. And repetition to make sure I have it memorized. WRITING- Putting it on the thumb drive. REWRITING, EDITING, CHANGING- making sure it tells the story. TIGHTENING, TIGHTENING, TIGHTENING.

AGAIN, THIS is an imagined scene. Fiction. Maybe it’s a song I’ll never sing in public, a poem I’ll never recite; I don’t know; I wrote it and it’s part of the driving song collection, along with favorites by others, the result of many years of song writing.

I HAVE TO GO, and I still have to write something about the late PETER BADAME. Get some waves, huh? See you on the highway. OH, and I do claim and reserve all rights to my work, so…

                                    A PRIVATE CONVERSATION

                                                      an excerpt from some longer story

It was a private conversation, words I was not yet meant to hear,

Thought I’d surprise you at the station, couldn’t have known that I was near.

Your words and tears shared with a stranger, someone you’ve met along the line,

I should have known this was a danger, if I did not the fault is mine,

I’m sorry, so sorry.

You spoke of time apart and sorrow, now… I could barely hear your voice,

You said that love’s something we borrow, said freedom is a frightening choice.

You spoke of hope and disappointment, small victories, great tragedy,

In all the time we’ve been together, you never disappointed me.

Not ever, not ever.

I saw the touch, though at a distance, saw how your fingers were entwined,

You didn’t put up much resistance, offered a kiss, you did decline.

That’s when I walked out of the station, this is my last apology,

You should need no more explanation, perhaps we’ve set each other free.

It’s frightening… so frightening.

But that’s another conversation, a private conversation, a very frightening conversation,

A private conversation

This version: August 9, 2024. Some changes August 17, August 18, 2024. AND YES, I did make a couple of changes after I put it on this page. FLOW.

LATE BREAKING and INCOMPLETE…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, Original Erwin t-shirts, real surfers, Seattle surfers, surf culture events, surf novels, surf posters, surf stories, surfing tales, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, writings of Erwin Dence

WORD ON THE STRAIT. More on all of this on Sunday, including a list of scheduled, distinguished speakers, artists’ work on display, short documentary, and more.

Classic stylist Archie Endo is back from Thailand. Temporarily. I am hoping to do a surf trip with him before he goes back.

Stephen R. Davis conquers another peak.

SAD NEWS via CHIMACUM TIMACUM (Tim Pauley) on the passing of EDINSON SERNA:

“There will be a celebration of life for Edinson Serna this Sunday at Myrtle Edwards Park at 4pm. We will be meeting by the PI building by the sculpture garden on the water.

Many of us knew Eddie fron surfing in the Pacific Northwest. He was always a vvery likable guy, super stoked, positive, and excited to be in the water surrounded by people. Hope to see everyone this Sunday. RIP”

NOT-SECRET-ENOUGH stuff. Professional videographer ANNIE FERGERSON (left) will be, if not premiering a short documentary on a notorious wave hog at the upcoming CULTURE EVENT, at least showing outtakes or a gag reel. NOTE; The goonball with the cap ON TOP OF the hoodie put this off fro a while, then, in true self-centered, sociopathic fashion, agreed to be filmed (with certain restrictions as to the angle from the beach, no gratuitous nudity, etc.). “Yeah, I figured, at my age, I would love to see a slow motion video of me, you know, like, cruising, and, uh, yeah… what?” WHAT?

DETAILS ON all of this and more on SUNDAY, you know, like, maybe don’t look for it before, like 10am, Pacific Daylight Savings Time. There will also be updates on ORIGINAL ERWIN T SHIRTS and, now that my daughter, Dru, fixed the slowdown on microsoft word, the novel, “SWAMIS.”

MEANWHILE, keep working on your surf stories. We’ll talk soon.

Microsoft Word Doesn’t Like “Swamis” on Sundays, Stealing Something from Keith, and…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf culture, surf culture events, surf novels, surf posters, surfing novels, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

…It isn’t as if Keith doesn’t steal (as in a wave or two) or borrow a few things from me (though borrowing doesn’t fit as well with the surf metaphor) a few things from me, including the graphic below, but it was just so easy to copy and paste the announcement for the FOURTH OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA AND THE SALISH SEA EVENT from Librarian Keith’s (as opposed to Cougar Keith or any other Keith) Port Townsend Public Library newsletter… and just… repost it.

Because excuses are always necessary when taking things without permission (such as, “Oh, you actually wanted that wave?”) I would say the goal here is to further spread the news.

Erwin Dence

Join us at the library, WEDNESDAY, JULY 17th, 6 to 8 pm, for an evening of surfing stories and surf art. Writers and story-tellers include, Greg Tindell, Drew Kampion, Tim Nolan, Dana Terill and Erwin Dence. A crew of local surf artists may be present to show their work. 

Greg Tindall
Although Greg Tindall has written for the UK-based Surfer’s Path, the US-centric Surfer’s Journal and Australia’s equivalent, White Horses, and while he has covered surf contests for Surfline and hurricane-surf seasons for ESPN, his true passion is telling stories in-person.  From the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, as a Florida Voice, to the Surfing Heritage And Cultural Center (SHACC) in San Clemente, from the Tuckerton Seaport in New Jersey to the Libby Little Theatre in Montana, Greg now has the privilege of telling some good ones to his friend and mentor, Drew Kampion.

Drew Kampion is a former editor of SURFER (1968-72), SURFING (1973-82), WIND SURF (1982-89), and WIND TRACKS (1996-99) magazines. He was Editorial Director for the Patagonia clothing company (1990-91) and Associate Editor for NEW AGE JOURNAL (1992). He founded, published, and edited the ISLAND INDEPENDENT (1993-96), an award-winning “bioregional magazine in newsprint,” serving the “maritime rainshadow” islands of Washington State. For his work with the INDEPENDENT, he received first prize for editing a periodical with a circulation under 50,000. Until recently, Drew was the American Editor of THE SURFER’S PATH, world’s first “green” surf magazine. His episodic parody, THE TEACHINGS OF DON REDONDO: A SURFER’S WAY OF KNOWLEDGE (as illustrated by artist Tom Threinen) was a regular feature of the magazine. 

Erwin Dence is a writer and visual artist residing in Quilcene. He is well known for his regional surf-centric essays on his website realsurfers.net. Erwin is also in the final stages of the surf novel, Swami’s. His visual art is vivid, surreal and at times hypnotic. His art will be on display at the event. 

“SWAMIS” WISE, because, last Sunday, my computer went from fast to ‘oh my God, what the fuck’s gone wrong’ mode last Sunday, right after I decided to pull out early, so to speak, chopping off the last fifteen-thousand words or so, but it seemed okay on Monday, I took my thumb drive to COHO PRINTING and had eight copies printed up.

IT’S A DIFFERENT THING, looking at a manuscript on paper. 104 pages on the computer, 90,000 words, printed front and back to reduce waste if not cost, is still a lot of paper. And it’s… real. Tangible. Touchable. And… shit; I want to make changes.

THE LAST things I wrote were a last chapter modified to fit better as the end of… of this; with so much more to the story; and a new epilogue because the one I had written before the last rewrite no longer fit. SO, eight copies in a box, a copy in hand, questions in my mind on who could read them, I realized the new epilogue was possibly as ill-fitting as the others. Yes, others; there are others of everything.

SO, I DECIDED TO JUST start with the first chapter; all dialogue, not too much (but enough) exposition, AND, I thought, why not share it with, you know, YOU.

BUT THEN, partway through some unavoidable rewriting, M I C R O F T started going R E A L L Y S L O W.

I get a certain sense of panic when this happens; maybe not as severe as last week’s attack, but I am still not sure what to do: New computer? No. Go to the library and use their’s? Maybe. Not today. TODAY I AM working on a poster for the upcoming event. It’s getting closer by the second!

I HOPE ALL YOU ALL had a great International Surf Day, enjoyed the recent Solstice, and… and you’re saving the date to do what surfers do: Talk Story.

OH, and there is some possibility that outtakes, at least, from a very short documentary by a professional filmer, centering on a villainous surfer who hits the sometimes waves on the Strait, just might be something else offered at the upcoming surf culture event.

OH, and surfer, ARCHIE ENDO, Crescent Cruiser, is back in the area after an extended stay in Thailand.

MORE. Later. GET GOING!

Doors, Panels, Screens, Artsy Dealies, My Most Recent Obsessions, Eye, Eye, Eye, AND BIG DAVE Stuff

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, mind surfing, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, surf addiction, surf art, surf fiction, surf novels, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing novels, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, writings of Erwin Dence

Trish wasI, as always, correct when she said I had become obsessed with these door panels I have been working on; four by-fold doors rescued/salvaged/pack-ratted from some job. My theory was, because everyone has limited wall space for art, these would serve as screens, or even, doors.

Yes, there’s an inside and an outside, and I kind of lost track of what was on one side when I was painting the other side. It wasn’t all, like, thematic. Maybe a little. Obviously I have some sort of fascination with waves. And color. I would start out, get to something that was not what I envisioned and… here’s the obsessive part; I would keep going until l was a high percentage of satisfied. The fear at some point is that I could then screw the whole thing up. A line too far. Or a color. Or… something.

I want to thank Joel and Rachel Carben, owners of the COLAB in Port Townsend, for allowing me to have my art in their space. Although I paint houses for a living, my artistic leanings have been toward drawing.

SO, I am not at all sure what to do with these panels now. Hanging out for three of the monthly Port Townsend ARTWALKS has reinforced my belief that marketing is not my strong suit. Not even close. SO, do I tell myself that the joy of art is in the process? That is true, but… but, but, but…

Captions: Stephen R. Davis approaching the wall of doors at the COLAB;Joel Carben and Steve; a framed painting that caused Steve to comment,”It’s nice that you’re finally going for fine art,”; various panels taken where they were painted (a Costco/White Trash garage). OHHH, and then there’s BIG DAVE.

I took this a week or so ago at the Home Depot in Sequim. I had already heard a rumor that Legendary Surfer BIG DAVE RING was giving up surfing due to arthritis in his knees. I did write about this. The rumor was confirmed. *Sort of. Quickly, Dave was raised in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and was part of the pack of “Pier Rats” that included standout, Joe Roper. Dave, currently 66, was fourteen when I moved to PB in late 1971. I was twenty. Not a big talker in the lineup, not a guy who hangs out and chats it up on the beach, part of the reason I found out any info at all is because we have been mistaken for each other, as in: “I read your last thing on your blog,” to Dave, or “I heard you were ripping the other day,” to me.

Most of this was back when Dave was merely rocking a big-ass mustache. We both were riding big boards (Dave a 12′ SUP as a regular surfboard), and we both caught a lot of waves, from the outside, or scrapping for insiders. Dave is a master of the late takeoff and the sideslip, and plows through sections I would dodge..

A notable quote that got back to me was, “I rolled up and the Walrus and the Beast were both out. I went somewhere else. Though I’m almost more comfortable with being referred to as ‘That asshole wavehog, kneeboards on a SUP,” and I’ve been doing my best to increase the size of my mustache, I must agree with those who say Big Dave is the Walrus. Coo coo ca choo, coo coo ca choo.

*Having already, in a pattern that seems to hold true among older surfers, moved from popping up automatically, to knee boarding the takeoff and standing up after the first section, to kneeboarding the entire wave, Dave expressed little interest in belly boarding. “No, but…” I could tell Dave was imagining the perfect pre dawn session, sneaking out, lining up a few bombers.

“It is amazng,” he said, “what I’ve gotten done because I’m not always putting stuff off to go surfing.”

I get it, Dave.

EYE and LEG UPDATE- I’m finally through with the wound care for the gouge on my right calf. Pretty impressive scar. I am going to have my eye checked out on Friday, with surgery to remove the clear oil inside it, hopefully, scheduled for… soon. It isn’t as if I can’t work, it’s just annoying. I sort of attacked a woman in a parking lot the other day because she had a bandage over one eye. “Hey, what happened to you?” Different deal. Worse than mine. Nice conversation. ANYWAY, I did tell Trish that, because of the glare in the water, I might not surf until the oil in my eye is exchanged for (I asked) saline solution, that to be replaced by the proper bodily-produced fluid.

BUT, but, but… when I check the forecast…

Moving on. Back to another of my obsessions. After I post this, my plan is to get back to “Swamis.” I had friends attempt to read earlier versions. I know where I have to make changes, and I have been working on it. That’s my process. Evidently. Obsession, distraction; what we have to do and what we want to do and what we really really want to do.

Good luck with your obsessions.

Surf, Music, Dance, Poetry… STUFF

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, real surfers, surf novels, writings of Erwin Dence

THIS is a silkscreen I did in the 1980s. I’m not apologizing for it being, perhaps, sexist or something bad by today’s standards. It doesn’t go so much with a poem I’ve been working on, but nothing I found in a search did either. I COULD, of course, draw something that does connect better, but… I haven’t.

I AM ALWAYS working on something, art-wise, story-wise, song-wise, otherwise. I have been working recently on a song that starts out, “It was a private conversation, Words I was not yet meant to hear, She had been to long at the station, Couldn’t have known that I was near…”

WHAT I DO is keep working on these songs, and everything I do until it’s… better. SURF-WRITING-WISE, I am always trying to push some comparison between the best moments and music, even dance. Not all dancing is graceful, Stephanie Gilmore style pretty. AND she also incorporates solidly radical, powerful moves into her repertoire. Similarly, there is something esthetically pleasing about a vicious power hack.

MUSIC-WISE, please try to convince me that you don’t have some tune or beat going through your head when you’re paddling for and surfing a wave. If you don’t, well…

Too much explaining.

                        A Private Conversation

I was coming up the stairway, two bags of groceries pressed against my chest, She was dancing on the landing, third floor, Sun from the distant windows lit her hair on fire, Her shadow moving with her on the sidewall.

Six stairs below her, I leaned against the inside rail.

She was moving to music, music I could not hear.

Her movements made the music real. Slink and slide and step and stop, Step and stop, slink and slide, one arm always at her side, The other, gliding, raised then lowered, Free, and spelling or signing or reflecting, Words or images or memories or dreams,   Real to her.

Real to her, private.

Sunset music, light, a tinkling rhythm beat under the woodwinds, Only fleeting hints of nightfall.

I should not have been a witness, Seeing her, dancing, silent, hair on fire,  In some soft and private conversation with some distant, absent, loved one.

Loved one, someone else dancing with her on the landing, Sharing her space.

The background, The air and the light and the wallpaper and the paint were as alive as she was, Slinking and sliding and stepping and slowing, Listening, perhaps, briefly, The dance resumed as response.

Her other arm became the free one, Sending the code, The secret, private messages in our most ancient language.

I should not have been there.

I couldn’t face facing her, Couldn’t imagine her trying to explain, Not to some neighbor, some stranger three doors down.

Setting my bags on the third step from the landing, Sitting two stairs below that, Alone in the dark, with vague shadows of someone dancing, Projected on the stairwell wall.

I envied her for dancing, dancing alone in the hallway, Music swirling in her head.

Waiting in the stairwell,   Waiting long after her door closed, Long after the light moved up the wall and softened, And darkened, I waited long until her music faded.  

My steps up became drums, not heavy, Step, step, step,

If I imagined a saxophone solo, Sad squeaks and missed notes, Looking out the window at a screaming orange sunset, I couldn’t stop myself from sliding one foot across the worn oak floor, And then the other, My grocery bags shifting, side to side, In some rhythm that made some sense… to me.

THANKS FOR READING. Original material, of course, protected by copyright, all rights reserved by the author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

AS ALWAYS, IF YOU CAN’T BE NICE, BE REAL.

I FULLY expect to not tell you about a surf session in the next posting. AND, yes, I am still working on my novel, “SWAMIS.”

Additions and Corrections and, Yeah, More

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, real surfers, surf fiction, surf novels, surfing art, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing Swamis

“SWAMIS” UPDATE- Working on it. Here is a quickie flyer for a fictional Newspaper. I can’t say that there wasn’t such a weekly paper back in the time my novel covers, 1969. My guess, yes. I do know, based on a story I heard, later, like 1971, when I went to work in the Big City, San Diego, from an older guy, that there were Free Clinics, or, at least, one. “So, I picked up this hitchhiking Hippie chick, and I’m thinking… you know, free sex and all that, and she says she’s trying to get to the free clinic.”

Also not related, directly: I noticed, on occasional trips south, in the narrow strip that is Mission Beach, a storefront law office that, real or imagined, seemed to offer free services. Hard to imagine that now. Parking, incidentally, was pretty much as bad then as it is now.

If writing, journalism or fiction, or drawing, or any form of art is someone trying to transfer imagination to paper or wood or film or any other medium, images stored and remembered are the critical ingredient.

Although I haven’t quite gotten to THE END of the fourth or fifth rewrite of “Swamis,” I do have plans, beyond it, for the main characters. The storefront law office might be part of that.

MEANWHILE, I am still recovering from cuts and an infection on my leg, the treatment keeping me out of the water for at least the rest of this week. SO, IF THERE ARE WAVES, I won’t be competing for them. GOOD LUCK.

SCREW UP of the day- I did write something, using Microsoft Word, filling in some omissions from my last posting. Halfway through this, I realized I hadn’t copied it. Not wanting to lose what I had, I… well, I’ll get back to you on what is partially “Guilty with an explanation” stuff.

In the “I’M NOT POLITICAL, BUT…” category, something about the delays in the trials of the former president, and the inability of some other citizens to see a grift when it’s reaching into their pockets, caused me to draw… this:

It’s already, liike, last week’s news. Ordinarily I claim all rights to my work, but, this time, in the spirit of freedom, free press, all that, if you want to borrow it… FEEL FREE.

Original Erwins in Progress, “Swamis” Again

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, northwest surfing, Original Erwin t-shirts, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, surf fiction, surf novels, surfing art, surfing Swamis, surfing the strait of juan de fuca

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

“Swamis” ‘Sexy Scene’, FrankenSUP, More from the Adam’s Family Big Island Vacation, and…

Posted on by under "New Yorker" cartoon submissions, northwest surfing, real surfers, surf addiction, surf novels, surf-related short storties, surfing Swamis, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, writings of Erwin Dence

…that’s about it. Oh, yeah; HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

I AM, AGAIN, at the end of the latest complete rewrite of “Swamis.” As in, where an author is supposed to write, in case a lack of more pages isn’t enough, “THE END.” I wrote, “NOT EVEN CLOSE TO THE END.” The current version is, after thousands of words were cut, at a little over 103,000 words. As I explained in an earlier post, I was forced to move the first chapter, which, cleverly, I thought, set in something more like the current time, answered a lot of questions I didn’t want to spell out at the end.

AFTER several attempts to write something concise AND with the all important AWESOME first line, I am pretty much just changing all the chapter numbers on my next go-through. LAST? I hope so. ONE OF THE ISSUES I wanted a new opening chapter to deal with is the writing style of the fictional narrator, JOSEPH DeFREINES, JR, aka Atsushi Defreines, aka Jody, aka Joey.

It sort of comes down to whether, as I’m hoping, the clues JOEY finds along the course of the novel are enough for a reader to draw conclusions. It’s not some conscious attempt at might-be-cool (or another failed attempt at it) AMBIGUITY, but Mr. DeFreines, who, after years as an attorney (alluded to but not overtly stated) writes in a very controlled way, clarity over flash. To that end, I wrote, and will not use, a line like, “I don’t use a lot of adjectives in my regular conversation, why should I do so because I’m writing rather than telling the story.”

WHAT’S CHANGED in my constantly working and editing and thinking about the story, “Swamis,” is that it has become much more a love story, Julie and Joey, tangled in the rush and roar of 1969. I have tried to convince the LOVE OF MY LIFE, TRISH, that it would make a great HALLMARK MOVIE. “Oh, with a guy being burned alive and all that?” “Yes I mean, it’s not gratuitous.”

I might be if Joseph DeFreines used more ADJECTIVES.

With apologies for going on about this, I wrote a sub-chapter, moved it to another place because I didn’t know where to fit it in. The place is now the depository of the latest rounds of cuts. AND, when I asked our daughter, DRUCILLA, to check out something on the laptop I am borrowing from her, she had to comment, out loud, “Oh, ‘Sexy scene,” to which Trish responded, “Really? I might have to read that.”

Sexy Scene for “Swamis”

“No, Julie, it was more you than me… The kissing. I was… more… controlled.”

It was late in the afternoon. There were still three surfers out. Julie and I were on the point end of the lifeguard tower. Our towels had slid into a single pile on the x shaped cross members. “No, Joey. You certainly were not.”

“I certainly tried to be… controlled.”

Julie reached into her big gray bag, unwrapped a top, basically something like a small apron. “Controlled. You… weren’t. But… enthusiastic. Yes.”

“More like surprised.”

“Are you going to… look away?”

“You look away; I’m the one who’s… topless.”

“Yes, you are.” Julie put the palm of her left hand on my chest. “You and your stick out nipples.”

“Nipples?” I crossed my arms over my chest.  Julie untied the strap on her bikini top, her left hand holding her top to her chest. She widened her eyes. I turned, untangled my towel from hers, spun around and backed up a bit closer to her, holding the towel up and out in front of both of us. “In case those guys… in the water, have… really good eyesight.”  

“Really good? Thanks.”

“Not a… I didn’t mean…”

Julie pressed her body against mine, slid her arms around me, her hands on my chest until she had my alleged stick out nipples between the first two fingers of each hand.

I tried not to inhale. Failed. A deep breath I was afraid to exhale.

“Don’t giggle, Joey.”

“You are.”

 “You know it was my birthday…” Julie stopped giggling. “…over the weekend. I’m legal!”

“Congratulations. I’m not… legal… yet.”

“I’m willing to risk it.” Julie took a breath. “If you are.”

The towel dropped away as I spun, slowly, with control, Julie’s arms never fully pulling away, toward Julie, my arms squeezing her closer.

Closer.

I FEEL DUTY-BOUND to now mention that, whether or not I use this for the novel, it is still protected by copyright. Thanks for respecting that.

WIPEOUT UPDATE- This is the EMU Adam “Wipeout” James’s son, EMMETT caught off the Big Island. It was prepared by a chef in Seattle, presumably the woman in the photo. ALSO, and it may be because, like realsurfers.net, Adam and the HAMA HAMA OYSTER COMPANY have a world wide reach, my site got a higher than average number of hits since I posted the photos and story of the Adam’s family vacation. So, thanks.

FRANKENSUP UPDATE- Thanks to Joel Carbon for the apt description. Yes, that is my thumb. Yes, I did need a skil saw to cut the fin box out of the tail section of the first SUP I owned. And chisels, and knives. I filled in the big divot with foam from the same board, used some leftover cloth and some resin given me by Keith Darrock to cover the wound. Oh, and the sawhorses were from Mikel “Squintz” Comiskey, cutting down on possessions before he moved to the Big Island. I am also holding on to binoculars and a trophy he won at the Cape Kawanda Longboard contest a few years ago. I’m using the trophy, a beautiful turned bowl, for my keys, not that I still don’t still misplace them.

SPEAKING OF OLD DUDES WITH BAD MEMORIES, I’m thinking that will be my new excuse for bad lineup behavior when I get back to searching the Strait of Juan de Fuca for waves. “Backpaddling? Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice you.” Yeah, age, along with my wearing earplugs and my hearing being no better than marginal without them.

I DO PLAN on doing more board repair on the HOBIE. I guess I’ve had it for six or seven years, way longer than any other board I’ve ever owned (and thrashed), and ALL I WANT is another six or seven years out of it.

It’s still Winter. Get some waves when you can. And, again, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY to all the lovers out there.

INSTANT COMMENTARY from (obvious alias) Frank Lee Darling: “If your taking a swipe at Biden. He doesn’t remember all the good things he’s done. Marmalade Man can’t thinnk of any. Because bone spurs never don anything that wasn’t self serving. That’s it. Connot wait til you book comes out. Probably banned and or burnt in Fla.