Category Archives: Uncategorized

That Wave’s Gone, Man… cont.

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I am often unsure as to whether I wrote about something, talked about it (more likely), or just thought about it. In a prolonged period of not surfing, and if one (presuming I can serve as an example) waits for waves on the Strait, this can be an extended time between swells, rumors of swells, and just swells that have no chance of threading the needle; a comparatively tight fit if you’re looking from space; and hitting a spot I’m willing to go to, the desire to surf and the frustration… builds.

In addition to predicted swells not behaving to the forecast models, there are the other factors, adverse winds, mostly, chopping up whatever swell is heading east.

Tensions mount, and even the mellow-ist surfer is ready and planning to go for as many waves as possible. So, if a swell, forecasted well ahead, that doesn’t do the drop-off as the actual day approaches, people, surfers of all ability and stoke levels, show up ready to rumble.

Resentments, to narrow this, are what I’m attempting to focus on here, specifically holding on to them. In my most recent session, not that it was all that recent, with the window closing, I had the opportunity to, possibly, run over a guy who ruined two rides, like, a year ago, and, not only didn’t apologize for not even trying to get out of the way, but actually may have not even noticed, or cared, or may have even thought he was, somehow, getting even with me. No, I didn’t yell or try to push him back, I just rode past him.

EVEN? Who knows. Happy? Not really, but it was important enough to think/talk/write about it.

This photo is, obviously not current. Yeah, I remember Thorpe. And Bellore is still playing. Here’s how it relates: I watched some YouTube last night, MIC’D UP segments. The one from two weeks ago featured Pete Carroll. At one point, he talking to running back Dallas, who had just made some mistake, possibly even a fumble, and was obviously upset. “It’s over,” the coach said, “Keep playing.”

I’m trying to remember the times I’ve been resentful of someone in the water. Having five guys show up on stand up paddleboards when I’m on a regular longboard was one. Tough to compete. I got out of the water and went somewhere else. They won. If there is winning in surfing.

Because I watch too many YouTubes, I recently saw one in which Matt Archibald was on the beach at very crowded Lower Trestles, discussing how, when he started out, the less experienced surfers got the scraps and worked their way up the pecking order. It is a competition for the best waves, and reaching a certain skill level allowed one to challenge those at the peak. Now, he said, eight-year-olds are going for bombs.

Fully realizing that I have caused others to be frustrated because I’m competitive, riding a big board, with a paddle, I… really, I’m not sure where to go with this. I’ll have to think about it.

OKAY, having thought for about two minutes, here’s an example: There were three good surfers at the peak, waiting for the sets. There were six or eight surfers on the down-wave side of the peak. Unwilling to wait, I had to watch as the surfers went for the (relative) ‘bombs’ I would have loved to have been riding. On the beach, I was sort of pleasantly surprised when others were grumbling about someone other than me. Several surfers were visibly pissed, talking about ‘backpaddling,’ and such crimes.

The truth is, if they wanted the set waves, all they had to do is paddle outside and wait. Turns were taken, mostly. Not that I defended the surfers at the peak too stridently. I was thinking about the rides I had gotten. Happily.

Still, the froth is building. If we’re in the water together, come sit by me. No, really.

“Swamis” excerpt on Wednesday, come hell or high surf. OH, and I’m working on some new t-shirt designs. Thanks for reading.

“Swamis” Continues Apace

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I’m so late. I will add some Halloween stuff to this later. Promise. Remember, copyrighted material. Hope last night went, well, well.

                        CHAPTER FOURTEEN- PART ONE- MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1969

            Dr. Susan Peters and I were sitting on opposite sides of the table in treatment room. I had an unopened PeeChee folder in front of me. There were two stacks of manila folders in front of her. She was laughing. She wrote something on a legal pad inside the open top folder.

            “Your father telling you to smile, or laugh rather than… punch someone or, um…” Dr. Peters pointed to another folder. “Slam someone’s head into the water fountain. Did you try his, that… technique?” I smiled. Big. Fake. The doctor returned a gritted-teeth smile. “Scary,” she said. We both laughed, her more than me.

“So, Dr. Peters if this neural feedback dude does show up with his own equipment; we… I’m assuming Dr. Dan will be here. Also. We, I’ll do the testing and all; then you three can decide if I’m, what, insane … or damaged?” She fluttered her hand and wrote something else. Two or three words. “Or, I mean…” She looked up. I smiled.  Can’t I be both?”

            “Of course.” She removed a legal pad from the folder, set it on a clean area on the table, and closed the folder. “Dr. Dan’ll do the, uh, testing… again. The neural feedback; it’s… therapy. As far as… you’re probably neither crazy nor damaged. Just…” She laughed for no obvious reason. “The drunk dad at the baseball game story. Love it.”

            “Loving something; it’s neither clinical nor objective. You’re not that kind of… doctor.”

            “No. I’m that kind of… person, Joey. Stories. Yes. Just tell me if I’m getting this right.” Dr. Peters was ready to write. “So, Freddy’s on third base, one drunk dad, from the other team’s drunk dads, is hanging on the outfield fence and giving your brother shit, another one jumps in your father’s patrol car. Unmarked, right?”

            “Cop car. Instantly recognizable. My mom guilt-tripped my dad into going to the game. The game was in Vista, as is the substation. My dad showed up fifth inning.”

            “Out of six.”

            “Seven, I believe. Pony league.”

            “Your father asked Drunk Dad to kindly get out of his car?”

 “According to him. The ‘kindly’ part. I had heard yelling. Not my dad. He never… yelled.”

“You’re running over, outside the fence, your dad yanks Drunk Dad out of the car, and another drunk dad…”

“Handed the guy a baseball bat… with which Drunk Dad hit my father, breaking his arm. Left arm. Radius. Distal.”

“Okay. Technical. I love the ‘with which’ part. Your dad pulls the bat out of Drunk Dad One’s hand, jabs him in the sternum.”

“Below it.” I pointed to a spot just below my rib cage. “Xiphoid process. Straight shot.”

“Ow! Okay. Not trying to kill the drunk dad.” I shook my head. “But Joey; you’re running over, you call out, your dad looks over at you, and that’s when he got… hit.”

“It was.”

Dr. Peters slid her finger up the page. “My question is…” Dr. Peters stood up, walked to the door, opened it, leaned into the hallway. “He here, yet?” I couldn’t hear the answer. It took longer than yes or no. The Doctor pulled herself back into the room, closed the door. “Accident on the freeway. And Dr. Dan wants to wait. So, next time.”

I stood up. “Your actual question: Was my father distracted, and do I feel responsible for my father’s broken arm? He was. I do. Drunk Dad got some sort of settlement… from the County. Eventually. My father got a week off, went back to work with his arm in a cast.”

“Another chapter in the… the legend,” Dr. Peters said. I may have smiled. “Should I have said ‘myth?’”   

“My father was everything anyone says he was.” She had purposefully and successfully provoked me. Shit. “Not, Dr. Susan, everything everyone says.”

Dr. Peters stepped toward the door; made a fist she probably didn’t think I saw. She opened her hand before she turned back around. “Then, Joey, next week; I would like to… revisit… the accident… Perhaps we can catch one of your… spells.”

“You think you caused, induced it, that you’re… responsible… for it?”

“No. Maybe. Sorry. Yes, but… maybe you allowed it, rather than you couldn’t control it. You try so hard to… Can you describe what it’s like? I mean, that kind of… self control, you with the impulsive… behavior.”

“Shocking.”

“No, not even surprising. Your… pauses. I put them into two categories. Short ones, you’re doing the one step forward, two back thing, considering the previous moments. Six to ten seconds. The absences, where you visualize some event, and you can still be aware of… where you are, whatever else is… those are longer.”

“The double-exposure thing? Yeah, I’m still… there… in those. Present. Aware.”

 “But the one I… witnessed. It was… intense. Whatever you were seeing, was everything else… gone?”

“Gone.” I put both hands up to my face, palms in, fingers tight.   

Dr. Peters sat down, pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the table. She pulled a second, empty legal pad closer. I didn’t sit down. “I talked, on the phone, to the professor at UCLA, the neural feedback… dude. I told him I thought you… you observe… everything. If you had an overload of… input. I mean, the absence thing, being gone. Maybe it’s…”

I sat down in the chair she had offered, slid the Pee-Chee folder over and in front of me. “These spells. The one you saw. They’re different than… when I had seizures. They’re like, like an 8-millimeter movie. Really, I couldn’t tell you if it was a dream or a memory.”

“Let’s call them… visions. Visions?”  I nodded. “Are they in color?”

I had to laugh. “Oh, because men, supposedly, dream in black and white. So… no. But… what did the feedback dude say about your… theory?”

“Not total bullshit, actually. He said anyone, with that much… stimulation, be it from epilepsy or another neurological disorder, would be on the ground, most likely in a fetal position. Gone.”

            “And I wasn’t… I mean, on the ground.”

            “No, just… gone. As you said. Yourself.”

            “I do… try to, to not react. Not have a spell, not end up… gone.”

Dr. Peters wrote a few more lines, slipped the notepad into a folder. I opened my Pee-Chee folder, opened the notebook, spun the enlargements Julia Cole had left on the Falcon around and toward her. “What do you believe being an actual witness to something like this would do to that person?”

            “Holy fuck!” The doctor pushed away from the table. Too forceful a push, she had to grab the edge to keep from going over backwards. “Joey! Fu…uck! Where’d you get these?”

            I shook my head and blew out whatever air I had in my lungs.

            …

            Dr. Peters followed me to where the Falcon was parked, still shaded by the overhanging eucalyptus trees. She looked back toward the building and pulled a single cigarette from the bottom left-hand pocket of her lab coat. I set my folders on the roof, lit her cigarette with my father’s lighter, took out a Marlboro, lit it.

“Our secret, Joey?”

            “Client/Doctor… sure.” We both inhaled. Twice. Susan Peters inhaled deeper, held the smoke in longer, let it out more slowly. “My mother,” I said, “not sure you knew this; she works in the photo lab. Camp Pendleton. Secretary. I’ve been there… a few times. The photographers are Marines or ex-Marines. The older ones were at every landing, every battle. Most are… so… sad, so… damaged. Ruined.”

            “Most, not… all?”                                                                         

            I leaned against the driver’s door of the Falcon. “Hard to say. People… hide it.” Dr. Peters raised the lower back of her lab coat and leaned against the bumper. “I’m hoping, since I do… I do remember images, do file them, rerun them; I do… maybe I’m just… weird, and not…”

            “Next week, Joey; we’ll know more.” I shook my head and arms as if I was electrified. Dr. Peters dropped her cigarette butt, stepped on it, stepped away from the bumper. “It’s just like that. If your… friend, with the… photos, needs to talk…”

Dr. Peters pulled a business card from her coat, offered it to me. I took the card, stuck it into the Pee-Chee. “I know your number, Dr. Peters.”

            “Susan. Please, Joey.” I looked at the cigarette butt until Dr. Peters picked it up, held it out toward me, and closed her hand around it.

            “Susan,” I said as I unlocked the door, “In the parking lot… yes, Susan.”

            “Yes?”

“Yes. Susan, I’m not gone, but I am… going.” Dr. Peters didn’t respond. “It’s a joke. You’re supposed to… smile.” Dr. Peters smiled.

            …

It was just after noon. I was on 101. I had seen decently sized waves at the various low spots. I could see, over the guard rail between Pipes and Swamis, unbroken sets. Still, I glanced several times to my right and up the hill. I passed Swamis, turned right at D Street. Cars were parked on both sides. The door to David Cole’s office was open. I couldn’t really see inside. I turned right again on Vulcan.

I drove slowly past Julia Cole’s mother’s house. No Jesus Saves bus. The VW bus was in the driveway. Two houses down, I could see waves forming in the kelp beds, but I couldn’t see the actual lineup at Swamis. I could see the entrance to the lot, the gold bulbs on the white walls. I considered turning around and going past the house again. A car came toward me from the south. It may or may not have slowed down. Their neighborhood. I looked down, allowed the car to pass, pulled back out.

…

My remaining change, eighty-five cents, was arranged in three stacks on the little corner shelf in the phone booth, along with my keys and wallet and cigarettes and my father’s lighter. The handset was perched on my right shoulder. I was in my trunks and a t shirt; barefoot. I put the handset to my face. “No, I just want you to… tell Mr. Greenwald. Hello? Oh. Hi. I was trying to explain that it’s late and…” I took a step back, testing the length of the cord. One foot out of the booth, one in. “No Sir, they are not with me. No, I do not know where my surf friends would be.” I looked past the small parking lot to the larger lot. Two thirds full. Most were not surfer’s vehicles. Neither Gary’s nor Roger’s cars were among them.  

“Am I going to surf? Possibly.” The Jesus Saves bus was at the far end of the lot, the door open. I didn’t see Portia. “You know, Mr. Greenwald, there’s this thing about doctor/patient confidentiality, but… Sir, I have to tell you…”

The operator interrupted. “Deposit thirty-five cents for the next three minutes, please.”

“I believe this doctor is the craziest one yet.” Click.  

…

I went through the trees and the old outhouse and to the stairs. My board was leaned against the fence and my towel was draped over the top rail. There was a woman next to my board, sitting on the lower cross member of the fence, the top rail crossing her back, just below her shoulders. Her arms were outstretched, hands twisted, fingers on the top of the top rail. She waited until I got very close to her before pushing herself forward and standing up, moving between me and the surfboard. “This is Sid’s board.”

“It was.”

The woman moved close enough that I stepped back. Tall, thin, her hair quite long for a woman over thirty; very straight and very blonde. There was something solid, white, in her hair on where it went over her left ear. Solid. She noticed I had focused on it and reached for it with her left hand, a large diamond on the ring finger. “Might be paint, she said,” moving strands of hair against each other, slightly breaking up the gob.

“Paint. Yes.” The woman was wearing a dress, mid-knee length, and a sweater, connected near the neck with a short length of tiny beads. Another strand, with larger beads, was rather tight to her neck. Her sandals were on the concrete next to her. I had seen this woman before.

I closed my eyes. The grocery store. Customer. She was wearing a dress that time also, talking to Mrs. Tony between the middle and the south register. Mrs. Tony had three account cards, slightly splayed, in her left hand. Her pencil was out of her hair and in her right hand. The woman was placing bills, in three stacks, on the ledge on top of the rack. Mrs. Tony looked at me as I passed. She moved her head, quite sharply, toward the middle counter. The woman looked at me. I looked at the three cards and three stacks and kept walking.

That image faded.

“I see what they mean about you, Junior.” I opened my eyes. The woman’s eyes were blue, very light. “Judith.” She left room for my response. I didn’t. “Julie’s mother.” She didn’t move back. I didn’t move away. “You drove past my house. Yesterday… evening.” She looked up and in the direction of her house, a little to the right from straight across the highway. I didn’t follow her eyes. Her house wasn’t visible from where we were standing. “The Falcon wagon…” She looked toward the smaller lot where the Falcon was parked and partially visible through the trees. I didn’t look. I did nod. “Used to be your dads, then your mom’s. Ruth. I don’t know her, but everyone knows Joe DeFreines. Knew. She took you surfing. It’s your car now?”

 I wanted to answer quickly. “Three more payments to my… No. Yes. Mine. Now.”

Julie’s mother backed away, flipped her right hand out and to her right, to the south. “Before they opened the state park.” She kept her eyes on mine. “Third stairway down. You were just learning. You and my younger girl, Julie; you both must have been around… eleven.”

I didn’t remember seeing this woman. I did remember waves so thin and clear that, walking out, pushing a surfboard, it seemed I could see through them. Transparent. I did remember the girl, laughing, standing, riding more than the soup. I remembered being surprised when a wave hit me, chest high, while I was watching this woman’s younger daughter. Julie.

“You know, Junior, I… we, we were there. That night. Chulo.”

I looked around, hoping something might keep me from having to respond. “Yes. Mrs. Cole. With… Julie. Julia. It must have been…”

“Horrible. Yes. Julie saw the fire. I saw the lights.” Mrs. Cole turned away for a moment, wiped her eyes. She turned back. “Chulo. I knew Chulo… most of his life.”

Realizing I had been squeezing coins in my left hand, I placed them into my wallet, already stuffed with little notes and receipts and twenty-three-dollars in bills. “Sorry.” I pulled my towel off the top rail, wrapped my keys and my wallet in the towel, put the bundle under my left arm. I nodded toward the water. “Surfing,” I said, looking toward the water. “Going. Mrs. Cole.”

“Ex Mrs. Cole. Or… first Mrs. Cole.” I looked back at the first Mrs. Cole. “Judith. Non-Jew Judith to David Cole’s… people. The current Mrs. Cole, Gloria… goes by Glor…” Judith swung her head around, pushed the hair away from her face with both hands. “Uppity. East Coast. Old money. Glor would prefer it if I went back to my maiden name.” Judith waited as if I was supposed to ask something. “Sweet. Judith Sweet. Fuck Glor, I’ve never been… sweet.” Judith looked to see if I was shocked. “Anyway, Junior; what do… you… know?”

“Joey.” Perhaps in response to Judith’s move, I used the fingers of my right hand to pull my hair forward, over my ears, right side, then, awkwardly, the left. “Nothing. What I know.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” I reached for my board with my right hand.

Judith put her left hand over mine. “Joey, your father understood how things… are. It was under control.” Judith caught me looking at the oversized diamond on an oversized ring. “Second husband.” Moving her lips side to side, the look she gave me was intended to say something like the second husband wasn’t her first choice. “Mooney. I pronounce it ‘money.’ Nice guy.” Her hand still over mine, she moved her face even closer. “Chulo; that was… so… wrong.”

“Wrong.”

“Your father and Chulo, Chulo’s family; there’s… history.”

“Yes. From the parades.”

Judith responded with an obvious scoff, moved her hand to my left forearm, looked at my clouded watch, smiled, and looked into my eyes. “And Chulo; he is another… surfer. Was.”

“And good. When I started… Chulo and Jumper… they ruled.”

Judith pulled her hand off my arm, looked away, stepped back. I followed her eyes. Portia was coming toward us along the bluff. I took the first three steps down the stairs.

“Portia wasn’t asleep, Joey.” I dropped down three more stairs. “And she spoke with your mother. Ruth.” I stopped. I turned fully around. Portia was next to Judith, nothing but sky above them. “I’m just trying to protect my friends and my… daughters.” Judith put her right arm around Portia’s shoulders. “Like your mother is trying to protect… you.”

I knew I had to look at Portia. She pushed back her shawl, put her hands on her belly, slid each hand away from the center, looked at her hands, and then at me. “Your mother calls you Atsushi.”

“Lately. Yes.” I moved back up my most recent three steps. “She, um, your real name… it’s… Patty?” Portia smiled. Perhaps because I had dared to look at her directly. Fully. She seemed more Patty than Portia.

“It was. Patty Long.” She waited a moment. “Back when I came… here, when I first… met your, um, daddy.” She twisted her lips into what was almost a kissing position. She twisted them back, sucked them in, possibly remembering some part of her real story she didn’t want to discuss on the stairs at Swamis. “Teenage runaway. Don’t know if you knew that.”

There was a delay before I answered. “No. Sorry. I mean…” I moved my hand around to try to suggest she had chosen the right place to run to, gave her an expression I hoped conveyed that I really knew nothing about her past. “You’re here… now. Portia Langworthy.”

 “Your mother; she said her… real name is… was Moriko. I understand the biblical reference. Ruth. ‘Your people will be my people,’ all that. She told me she tried so hard… we all do; she wanted to… Portia inflated her cheeks and twisted her lips. “To blend in.”

Judith Cole-Mooney snickered and said, “Like, good fucking luck with that,” checking to see if I was offended. I wasn’t. I was, undoubtedly, moving my eyes between the two women at the top of the stairs. Still, I couldn’t help but overlay Julia Cole’s serious expression on her mother’s snicker. No. I wouldn’t allow it.   

Judith put her right hand on Portia’s stomach. “So, Atsushi… Joey; are you going to help us sort this shit out, or what?”

I looked at Portia. “Because I am my father’s son?”

Portia gave a weak smile and mouthed something. “All will be revealed.” Possibly.

“My father said, ‘There are no real mysteries. You just have to ask the right person.’ Persons, maybe. That’s not… me.” Both women gave me quizzical looks. “When I don’t know what to say, I quote him. Sorry. Look, the detectives don’t want me involved. They’re…”

“Handling it? Dan and Larry?” Judith leapt down two stairs and stood directly over me. Her expression showed real anger, real frustration. “You don’t fucking get it, Junior. Langdon’s… not… going to stop.”

Looking into Judith’s eyes, equally as light as her daughter’s, blue rather than green, didn’t help me in maintaining any semblance of coolness. “You’re… right.” I took a step down, backwards. Losing my balance, I pulled my board closer, twisted my body, threw out my free hand, took two more steps. “He… won’t.” I was now facing down the stairway, toward the water. I didn’t turn around.

“All right,” Judith said. “Jumper’s getting better. Fuckin’ Gooks couldn’t kill him. He’ll… help.” Judith’s voice got louder. “It just got too big, too… too fast. David’s… we’re all getting out of this… shit. It’s… real estate. Glor’s got David all involved in it.” I did look around and up. “I mean, fuck, Joey, look around. People want to be part of this. California. Magic!”

Judith was almost dancing, up a stair, down, her hands moving around in the air, all rather unevenly. She stopped with her left foot on the stair tread Portia was on, her right foot on the tread below it. She kept her hands up as I went back up, stopping one tread below her She studied my eyes. I kept them open. “Magic,” I said. “We’re all looking for… the magic.”

“Yes,” Portia said, “We are.”

That Portia and Judith were studying me seemed to give me permission to study them. Portia had heavy black eyeliner and shadow around light gray eyes. There were freckles on her cheeks and forehead. The hair in front of her ears was blonde. The hair that framed her face and softened her cheekbones was one-tone black. Dyed. Artificial.

I looked several seconds too long. Portia blinked, self-consciously pulling at a section of her hair. “Disguise. Costume,” she said, moving her hands to the opposite shoulders. “Still playing dress-up.”

“it’s, hopefully, a forgivable sin… Portia.”

“Not the Portia I… imagine. Not yet.”

“God. Portia, Patty; just tell Joey here what you actually fucking saw.”

“I got there too late. I’d been… waiting.”

“No, Patty.” Judith took a step down, turned around, put her arms around Portia’s waist. “I meant… sorry, at the bridge.”

Portia looked over Judith and at me. “I saw… an accident.

“Fuck.”

I looked past Judith. Portia looked at Judith. “It’s what I saw. Cars made it past… us.” Portia looked at me. “There was room, there was… time.”

I turned and started back down the stairs. “Jumper. I heard… He’ll help you. I’m sure.”

Judith blurted out, “Julie gave you… the pictures!” It was more a plea than an argument. “She… we shouldn’t have gone down there. She shouldn’t have seen… that.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t turn around.  

Too many questions, too many images bouncing around my head. Stopping at the platform, I tried to count the surfers in the water; eleven, one coming in, two going out. I looked at the diamond reflections on just one outside wave as it approached. Too many to count, they merged into one shimmering white line. I imagined the intensity of the light spots, the blackness of the shadows. Flash cards. Seven. “Waiting for you,” the note had said.

When I looked back up the stairs, the two women were gone.

Not Depressed, but…

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…there is a lot to be depressed about. I’m sure you don’t need a list, but we could start with, mostly because surfing is the main thrust of realsurfers, the fact that the surf is one foot ON THE COAST. Oh, it is, like, 17 seconds; due, perhaps, to the hurricane that grew at an astounding and historic rate and slammed the shit out of Acapulco. So, there’s some hope, On the coast, MEANWHILE, it’s 25 degrees and clear at my house, fifty feet above sea level, probably twenty feet under water during the Ice Age. Under ice, rather, in an ancient fjord between the Olympics and the Hood Canal. Not such a big deal except that I am headed to Bremerton to try to finish an exterior paint job.

If I were to allow myself to get depressed by this or the unknowns of approaching winter, it would be because I’m ignoring all the other tragedies and horrors going on in the world: Wars I can’t help but compare (not politicizing, just thinking) to our own western, manifest destiny, expansion. It is Sunday, and there is football, if I turn on the right channel.

Even blocking out the distant wars, it is difficult to not, occasionally, perhaps when trying to pull out of the grocery store, think about how many of us are treading water, trying to pay the rent, trying to keep the heat on, and how many people have given up and gone under.

Despite being somewhat aware of social wrongs and injustices, I freely admit to being quite hypocritical. Thoughts and prayers are no more effective coming from me, a guy who will drive two blocks to avoid eye contact with pretty much anyone holding any sort of sign than from any politician tracked down and compelled to comment on the last or next mass shooting.

I didn’t write the following piece because I was depressed. Or, perhaps, in my sleep, I allowed myself to not ignore, but to follow some twisting dream logic. I have, because I am basically chickenshit, only shared this piece with my friend, Stephen Davis. He says it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. Yeah, so, Steve and I have different opinions on a lot of things, and it isn’t like he’s read that much of my stuff, but…

Like a Hermit Crab, Like Coyotes

It was a found sleeping bag that she spread out and flattened, just out of the rain, on someone’s, a stranger’s, stoop. She wanted this timely gift to be her cocoon; goose down and polyester and cotton; she longed to be wrapped, swaddled, insulated; to wake up as someone else. Someone better.

            Pushing herself in, the smell was of mildew, and urine, and other people’s body odors, other people’s sexual encounters, of that odor of the pores trying to rid the body of poisons: Alcohol, hatred, anger, desperation.

            She took breaths in through her mouth. This didn’t lessen the coldness in her feet and in her face, each breath almost burning, burning the way whiskey can burn, or vodka. She pulled the top over her head and pulled at the zipper, useless, frozen two-thirds of the way up. She was breathing her own breath. Unbearable. She pulled at her hair. Dry, wispy even.

            This wasn’t her. Not the person she believed she was. No. She remembered that person. She remembered why she was no longer that person. Compromises, mistakes, confidently rushing into situations she was warned against, instructed against; stubbornly defending her positions, her choices, as the right positions and choices; angrily striking out at those who questioned her right to make her own mistakes.

            Now she blamed others for not trying harder, for not being more convincing.

            It just couldn’t be all her fault. Not entirely. If she could have another chance. If she could just roll herself down the stairs, across the sidewalk, into the gutter, the water could wash her down. The water, the open water, wasn’t that far away.

She loved the water. Floating, challenging the waters holding her up and laughing at the clouds holding her down.  

            If she could, she thought, yes, now, if she could submit herself to the judges, the preachers and the teachers, the analyzers and the purveyors of the hypothetical, the gatekeepers of the straight and the narrow, the high and the mighty; if she could admit she was wrong and they were right. If she could, she would.

            Yes. Now.

            She heard, at some distance, in the heavy drizzle, in the out-of-focus light from homes and streetlights, in the squish and rumble of passing cars, someone say, “I’m sorry.”

            “I’m sorry, too,” she thought. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry,” she yelled.

            There were responses. Other doorways. Other partial shelters. All of them sounded like “I’m sorry.”

            The rain and another long night let up by sunrise. She was gone. The sleeping bag was still there, pushed into the shrub where she had found it. I crawled out of the back seat of my car on the curb side. I took a whiz into the gutter. I walked across the sidewalk and up the three cement steps, pulled out the bag. I pulled the zipper open as I walked back. I spread it, inside out, over the roof of my car.

            I looked around. “I hope it helped,” I whispered. “I’m sorry,” I said.

THANKS for reading, The long term forecast should bring some relief. On the coast. Look for the latest excerpt from “Swamis” on Wednesday.

Photo from the internet, some real estate outfit. Good luck to them. All original work on realsurfers.net is copyright protected. All right reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. If you really need to contact me, check out Erwin Dence Painting Company. I’m sure there’s a phone number. Checked. Yes.

Epic-Ness and Other Subjective Subjects

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Here is a quote from the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy after resorting to using Democratic votes to forestall shutting down the government, kicking the next episode of this ongoing drama to a time closer to Thanksgiving: “You can always count on the American people to do the right thing after they’ve exhausted every other option.” No comment, Kev, not even “Get fucked and go back to the valley.”

Here is a quote from Trish after I bought, with her help (so adept at on-line buying), some new (zip up- a surrender move to bone spurs- like, real ones) booties after using some (pull on) not-totally-worn out models borrowed from Keith after I (you may recall) accidentally threw away a bag containing my wetsuit, vest/hood, booties, and my day-glow leash: “How are you doing with gloves?” My response: “Oh, I don’t really need gloves.”

Here is my right hand after being knuckle-dragged across the ‘rock garden’ at a northwest break:

It isn’t just the cuts. If any exposed skin (including the face) hits the rocks at almost any spot on the Strait, there will be cuts. The bruising is an option not exclusive to, but definitely more common among the thinner-skinned less-young. It may get worse among the actually-old.

Here is the scene: The window of rideable waves was closing, the tide was dropping, and I was looking for one last wave. Or another last wave. Just another wipeout, really, but Cougar Keith, who had been too early for the waves, and too late to ride them during this session, was witness to the whole awkward thing; me rolling around, trying to stand up, getting knocked down several times.

Next time, my new gloves (thanks, Trish), will be on. I will sacrifice feeling the water to not feel the rocks.

Odd to me that as hard as I try to be fluid in the water, I look so embarrassingly dorky trying to get back ashore. When I recounted the session story to Adam Wipeout, someone who “Just knew, he said,

“It wouldn’t be an Erwin session without some blood.”

I do have a photo somewhere on when I decided I didn’t need booties. Again, rocks; big crusty rocks. No one got a photo, though everyone in the lineup noticed, when, in my excitement, I bit my tongue on takeoff on a wave early in a session. Evidently a red mustache is noticeable. Cougar Keith may have been out on that occasion. Witnesses. Accounts vary.

WAIT! This is what I really wanted to write about today: An Objective Look at Subjectivity.

AS I WAS waking up this morning, I guessed that it was 6:24. I looked up at the projected time on the ceiling from the clock radio on Trisha’s side of the bed. 6:26. Wow. My brain is just so… I looked at the non-projected time on the other clock radio. 6:29. Oh. I guess I’m just alway a little ahead. OR…

BEFORE I woke up I had this dream in which I was paddling for a wave. There was a sense of urgency. It was a left, and I took off on the shoulder, had an on-the-wave view of the face and the barrel as I rode it, ending with a Hawaiian pullout on the sand. NEW SCENE- I was walking up to someone who was standing by the open trunk of an older American car. “I got a 6.75,” I said, “might have won the heat if I’d gotten another wave.” “Really?” “Yeah. Why?” “Nothing.” “Oh, you just don’t believe I would ever get a 6.75.” “6.25, maybe.”

That’s when I woke up.

We have all noticed that the best waves and the best rides are the ones we didn’t see. Someone else’s story. EPIC. Sometimes, however, the same dreamy setup gets scored… differently when reported on by multiple witnesses. “Longboardable.” “Chest-to-shoulder, bigger on the sets.” Very popular.

I’m never really sure how to respond to reports of epic-ness that I miss. I am prone to believing the person who downplays size and wonderful-ness. Perfection-ness. One surfer I have respect for says, “So, what? A kook on a perfect wave?” And then there’s the “Have you ever seen ______ breaking, with the indicators going off and big roll-throughs and…” “Yes.”

STILL, the opportunities, real or exaggerated, that we miss sometimes stick with us longer than the sessions and conditions and rides we can exaggerate or embellish into the world of EPIC.

Not that I ever have, but, this one time, surfing Upper Trestles, glassy, knee-to-waist, with no one else out… Yeah, I know, it sounds like I’m lying, even though it was 1975, and it is, objectively, true… If someone else told me this, I would be… skeptical.

Look for the next sub chapter of “Swamis” Wednesday. I am thinking about resentment as it applies to surfing. Meanwhile, may everyone, even kooks, score EPIC.

“Swamis” Edit Continues

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I already posted Chapter 12, Part One, twice. And I’ve done more work on it. I thought I was past it, but it just… keeps… pulling me back. This is possibly THE critical point in the story, and I’m trying to, as always, make it more focused, tighter, better. SO, next time.

I have been trying to take a few more photos of surf spot hipsters. Yes, I’m all about fashion. I was impressed by the Wellies/pig boots and the hat. More impressed when someone wears a boonie hat into the water. By impressed, I mean… curious. YES, this is (bad planning on the angle) a well known spot, but, in my defense, there are obviously no waves. As frequently happens, these two dudes went cruising up the beach and around the corner, as if, maybe, there might be rideable waves there. Big rocks, yes, waves… I don’t know, I haven’t made the walk in a while.

I’m heading off to the Seattle side this morning, Dru’s first post-surgery visit. Maybe I will post Chapter 12, Part 2 later. We’ll see. Hope you’re getting waves. Fall is definitely here.

Hawaiian Brian Noji- Finally

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My friend Reggie Smart, when I told him I had met the guy who won second at the latest Cape Kiwanda Longboard Classic in the men’s 40-49 category, went through a list of names. “No, Reggie, it’s Brian. I wrote it down.” “Oh, yeah; Hawaiian Brian.” “Sure.”

SO, I finally figured the best way to get a photo from my phone to the site is to do the copy-and-paste.

INCIDENTALLY, if you know Reggie, please put a little pressure on him to compete next year. Reggie catches a lot of waves, knows how to finish off a ride with a move other than a variety of bails.

OKAY, now scroll down and check out my actual Sunday post. And, if you would be so kind, check out the latest (sub) chapter of “Swamis” on Wednesday.

No “Swamis” Wednesday

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I have to go (back) to Seattle today. Work. I should be enroute now, 6:33. I spent a week in Seattle the other night. Old joke. It was a day and a half. Three-quarters, more like. I dropped Trish and our daughter off there on a Wednesday. Dru had surgery on Thursday morning and was supposed to come home on Sunday. Nope. Monday. I braved the Sunday retreat from the Olympic Peninsula, the ferry traffic reduced by broken propellers and who-knows what else, the super steep, clutch ruining hills, and confusion a big city can bring on someone so long in the country, and the frustratingly difficult navigation requirements in and between the massive buildings of the Medical-Industrial Complex. We just escaped on a Monday, Dru propped and pillowed in the backseat, Trish driving, me giving navigational tips like, “Just pull a U-ey and get in the fucking ferry lane.” “No. The signs say…” “Okay, maybe there’ll be another boat, like, eventually.” “If I get a ticket…” We missed the ferry anyway. Some sort of 50 car unit pulled into service.

Dru thought it was amusing that she did the ‘double chin photo move.’ Wow, three Pepsis and an unopened container of orange juice. I, no doubt, finished off her hospital food.

With an incredible amount of shuffling and a large number of phone calls, I managed to free up the next day, hoping for a score on the Strait.

If you had to guess, you’d be correct. No score. Following my own advice to at least get a few shots of other searchers, I have these:

Notice the lack of barrelling, spitting waves. One of Dru’s nurses lives in Olympia. I wanted to ask her if she knows surfer Tom Burns. Trish talked me out of it. I was in the water with this guy for a couple of hours, hoping for a couple of waves. He’s from Olympia. “Hell, yes, I know Tom. He’s a wellspring of knowledge about all the wave conditions out here.” “Yeah, that’s Tom,” I said. “And… he remembers names.” I texted ‘Tom Morello’ to myself. The text failed.

SHIT! What also failed is a cool shot of “Hawaiian Brian” Noji, second place finisher in his age group (50-59?) at the recent Cape Kiwanda Longboard Contest in Oregon. I transferred the image from one phone to another and… I did tell him it’d be on my site, and…

…and, as usual, I don’t have time right now. Van to load, ferries to miss.

Sunday.

Chapter 12, Part One- Joey Goes to “Swamis”…

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

…looking for clues to Chulo’s murder. He talks with witness, possible suspect Baadal Singh. Because each chapter follows a specific day, this day had to be split into three parts.

            CHAPTER TWELVE- PART ONE- SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1969

I couldn’t say for certain if I had slept at all. I was outside the house at five. I had my lunch, in its pastel blue paper bag, in one hand, my dad’s big flashlight in the other. The Falcon was pointed toward the road. Getaway position. My new board was inside, my nine-six pintail on the by-this-time rusted-on factory racks. I carefully closed the driver’s side door, rolled the car down the driveway, turned the ignition key, popping the clutch, in second gear, at the county road. I turned on the headlights and retrieved a half a pack of Marlboros from under several Pee-Chee folders, those stacked on top of a four-track tape player, that set in the middle of the bench seat.

Waiting for a truck to pass before I could turn left onto Mission Road, I reached into the inside pocket of my windbreaker for matches. I had considered, briefly, pulling out ahead of the truck. I grabbed the flashlight from the dashboard, shined it on my fogged-up watch. “Should have left earlier.” I passed the truck on the last straightaway before Bonsall.

The wood-sided Mom-and-Pop store in Leucadia, perilously close to the southbound side of 101, didn’t open until six. It was parked in the pullout just past it at five-fifty-two. I reran the TV coverage from the previous nights, waited for the lights in the window to go on. Hostess donettes, frosted, a quart of chocolate milk, a tiny can of lighter fluid, and package of flints.

I pulled into the Swamis parking lot, did a soft left, and looped into a hard right. I stopped the car, shone my lights on the portion of the wall where Chulo had been killed. It looked the same as it always had. White, not even gray, not even yellowed by the headlights, low or high beams. I backed up and away, made a big lazy arc in the very middle of the empty lot, and pulled into a perfect spot, ten spaces over from the stairs. Optimum location. I leapt out, stood at the bluff. Not loud enough to suggest waves of any height. I exhaled the smoke from my third cigarette of the day. “South wind. Fuck!”

…      

            The Laura Nyro tape re-running the songs from side one of “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.” It wasn’t the tape. It was the player. Side one of albums from the bargain bin, Leonard Cohen and Harry Nilsson and the Moody Blues, side one of The Doors.   

I looked at my increasingly water-logged diving watch each time another car pulled in, each time car doors slammed, each time a surfer or surfers walked out onto the bluff, peered into the darkness, and decided to go elsewhere.

            It was still an hour before sunrise, overcast, almost drizzly. I stuck my father’s flashlight under my left arm and walked straight across the pavement, across the grass. I followed the Self Realization Fellowship compound toward the highway, toward the forty-five-degree curve to where the compound’s original entrance had been. There were two large pillars, gold lotus topped, an arch between them, the wrought iron gates long secured with long rusted chains.

Two bushes had been replaced with full-sized plants. The soil around them, the grass next to them, were new. It would all blend in. Quickly. I touched the wall. I looked at my hand. Dry. Perfect, as if no one had been burned to death there.

Backing away from the wall. I walked across the wet grass and onto the pavement at the entrance to the Swamis parking lot. This was where the crowd had assembled, where the sawhorses and rope had been. Unlike the compound side, there were cigarette butts and candy wrappers and straws and smashed paper cups on the rough pavement, scattered and stepped on and run over.

Clues, I thought. Killers returning to the scene of the crime, blending in, hanging on the ropes. Missed clues. I pulled out the Marlboro hard pack from the inside pocket of my windbreaker, stuck the third to the last cigarette in my mouth, lit it with two matches held together. I turned on the flashlight, held each new clue close I had picked up to the beam.

Cigarette butts. Various brands. Lipstick on two of them. A partial pack of matches. “Carlsbad Liquor. Beer, Wine, and Spirits.” I opened it. “Left-handed,” I said. I pulled out several of the remaining matches. They left a red streak when I tried to light them. “Too wet.”

I put selected cigarette butts and the pack of matches into the Marlboro hard pack. I moved back and forth along the de facto line, established where dead center was. I crouched down to study the patch of debris in front of me. “Menthol.” I picked up a butt with a gray, slightly longer filter. I blinked, possibly from my own cigarette smoke in my eyes. “Different.”  

There was a noise. Slight. Footsteps. Pulling my flashlight out from under my arm with    my right hand, I stood up, right foot sliding back.

“Gauloises Bleaues,” a man, ten feet away, said.

I flipped the flashlight around and into my right hand. The beam hit just below his head.

“Picasso smokes these. Jim Morrison and John Lennon smoke these.” I slid my right foot up and even with my left and lowered the flashlight. The man was holding a push broom. Stiff bristles. “My uncle imports these. I smoke these.” I nodded toward the broom. “You and I spoke… before. You gave me a… sort of… newspaper.”

“I did? Okay. So, no one cleaned… here, behind the… the line.”

“So, you. You. Here. Scene of the crime, eh?”

            “Me? Here? Yeah. I don’t know… why.”

The man took two steps, closer. “Joe DeFreines, Junior. You surf. You work at a grocery store, Cardiff, weekends.” I leaned back. “I look a bit different than… I did.” He nodded toward the west end of the wall. “Meditation garden.”

             I flashed to that time. Four seconds, at the most. “Swami,” I said.

            “No. Not nearly. Gardener. I was with a Swami.”

The gardener’s beard and hair were tucked into a dark coat. The man’s eyes were almost the only part of his face showing. He had a bandana pulled up and covering most of his face. He had on the type of felt hats older men still wore; probably brown, pulled down around his ears.

“Lost most of my eyebrows. Eyelashes just got a good curling. Singed. Still there.”

“No! Shit!” I took half a step back. “It was… you.”

 “No shit.” The man extended his hands. He had a leather glove, dirtied calfskin, on his left hand. He had a white cotton glove on his right hand. His first two fingers taped together, as were the other two, and, separately, his thumb. The bandaging wrapped around the main part of his hand and was taped at his wrist. Three of his fingers showed stains that were either, I thought, something that had seeped through, ointment or blood. I was staring. “Second degree,” the gardener said, “Flash burns. Fools.”  

I turned and looked toward the highway. There was a late step-side pickup in the spot closest to the telephone booth on the highway side of the original parking lot. There was a three-legged fruit picker’s ladder on the rack over the bed, gardening tools bundled upright against the cab, the handle of a lawn mower hanging over the tailgate.

“You must have gone to the… hospital, Mister… You know my name. Mister…?”

“Singh. Baadal Singh. Baa, like ‘baa, baa, black sheep,’ sing like… sing.” I nodded. Baadal Singh laughed. “No hospital. They keep… records.” This seemed amusing to Mr. Singh. “I was two full days… downtown. Not in a cell. Interview room. Just… Dickson calls you Jody.” I nodded. “Your father… sorry about him, incidentally. Wendall, he calls your father Gunny.”

“They both do. Marines. Wendall and my… dad. Not Dickson. Why would they even mention… me?”

“They didn’t. Downtown detectives. One of them said… I am under the impression he was giving Wendall some… grief. And Langdon, he said…”  

            “Langdon?”

“Langdon. Yes. Fuck him.”

“But, Mister Singh, you were a witness; not a… suspect.”

 “Witness. Yes. Suspects have rights.” Baadal Singh looked at the little pile of cigarette butts and candy wrappers he had pushed close to my feet, then at me. I squatted to look more closely. Baadal Singh lowered the bandana that had been over his nose. “’Nice sunburn’ one of the detectives told me. ‘Hard to tell,” Dickson… said.”

Mr. Singh pushed the broom handle toward me. It leaned against my chest as I turned off the flashlight and stuck it back under my left arm. “Marines, you say?” Mr. Singh pulled the glove from his left hand with his teeth. He pulled back his coat. He reached into his coat and took a thin box of cigarettes from the coat’s breast pocket with his bandaged right hand. He laughed. The glove fell to the ground. I slid my right hand down the broom handle and picked up the glove.

Baadal Singh took a cigarette out of the pack. “Gauloisis Bleaues” he said. He showed me a book of matches from the Courthouse Bar and Grill. “Downtown. Langdon treated me to lunch on my… second day. Clientele of lawyers and bail bondsmen and cops and criminals. He told me I would, eventually, be charged with Chulo’s murder.” Though he didn’t laugh, Mr. Singh did smile. He pulled out three matches from the right-hand side with his right hand. “Right-handed,” he said, striking the three matches as one, and lighting the cigarette. “All clues that make me what Langdon called ‘completely convictable.’”

I didn’t react. I was playing back what Mr. Singh had just done.

“Joe. Chulo wasn’t a Marine, though, was he?”

I had, evidently, forgotten to inhale. My Marlboro was down to the filter. I spit it out on the clean part of the asphalt. I stomped on it. Too much information, too quickly. I was starting to hyperventilate.  Baadal Singh put his left hand on my right shoulder.

“Chulo? No.”

 “You’re calm. Right?” I nodded. “This is how real coppers work, Joe. Blackmail. Bluemail, maybe. Information is currency. You know that.” I coughed and took in a more normal breath. “Langdon… not really the other guys, he wants everything I know in exchange for… temporary, at least, freedom. What I know is there is too much money around. Cash. Fine for small… purchases. Someone needs to… Do you… understand? Good citizens. Businesspeople.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“You’re looking, though. Langdon was right about that. You get enough clues and you… analyze, you imagine.”

 “I don’t… imagine. I… memorize. I… remember.”

“Yes. Some… another day; you’ll have to tell me the difference.”

“So, Mr. Singh; you told them what you know?”

Baadal laughed. “Not even close, mate.”

            …

            It was closer to sunrise. I had been talking with Baadal Singh a while. “White pickup,” he said. “Farm truck. Double wheels in the back.”

            “White pickup. Farm truck. Double wheels in the back. Duelies, I think they’re called. The other vehicle, black car, loud muffler. Straight pipes. Made a rumbling sort of sound.”

            “Right. And?”

            “And Chulo had been in the white truck with a Mexican and a tall, skinny, white guy. Chulo had already been beaten. You believe the Mexican and the skinny white guy were taking Chulo to the Jesus Saves bus, but if they had, they would have had to face… Portia. So, they knew her?”

            “Drugs, Joe. You had to have known… that. Portia and Chulo? Marijuana?”

            “I told you, Mr. Singh. I just… didn’t pay attention.” Baadal Singh shook his head. “You weren’t a friend… of Chulo’s?”

            “Not… really.”

            “So, again; why are you telling me all… any of this?”

            “Because, if I… disappear, I want someone to know the truth.”

            “Not me. Not a good choice.”

            “You’re my only choice, though. So… remember.”

“So, the black car pulled in. Lights off. Two guys jumped out. Also a Mexican and a white guy. There was an argument. Between the two… groups.”

Baadal Singh, with me following, stopped between the phone booth and his truck. “The two white guys…” he said, “The one from the car pushes the skinny cowboy dude over here. He says, ‘We have customers lined up. They are serious. Call someone. Now! You need change, A-hole?’ Meanwhile, the Mexican guy… from the black car, he kicks Chulo a few more times, drags him across the parking lot.”

“Where were you, Mr. Singh?”

“Call me Baadal. Please.” Baadal pointed toward the concrete shower/bathroom facility. “Cowardly. Yeah.” Baadal stood by the door to the booth. “So, the… let’s call them gangsters… White gangster is outside, cowboy’s dialing. I see him… he kind of ducking, looking up…”

Baadal stepped away from the booth, looked across the street, past the railroad tracks, and up the hill. “Not sure if that is relevant.” Baadal turned toward me. “I’m just trying to understand this myself, Joe.”

  “Okay, Baadal. So, whatever was said on the phone, it wasn’t what the gangsters wanted to hear. Obviously. A-hole, he’s still on the phone, right?” Baadal nodded. ”You’re still thinking it was a joke?” Baadal shook his head. “No. The white gangster goes to… your truck?”

“My truck. It was on the highway. Chulo’s gets dragged all the way to the wall. Skinny white guy… whoever was on the line must have hung up on him. He slams the phone, chases after the white gangster, meets up with him halfway across the lot. The gangster stops, sets the petrol can down, looks way over where the bus is parked. I sneak over to… here, the phone booth. Chulo, he’s… sitting, back to the wall. He sees me. He yells… something.”

“You couldn’t hear him?”

“I could. He’s saying, ‘No! Not her!’ That’s when I, I ran past the two guys and over to the grass. I yelled out that I had called the cops.”

“Had you?”

“No. That’s when the Mexican gangster poured the petrol; my petrol, on him. Chulo.”

Two vehicles pulled into the lot and passed us. I recognized both vehicles. One from Tamarack, one from Swamis. Both had surfboards on the roofs. The second car’s exhaust was louder. “Rumble,” I said.

Baadal Singh shook his head. “Louder.” We both nodded. “I fancied myself a revolutionary back in London. I didn’t run away so much as I was… banished. Sent… here.” Baadal put his right hand over the place where his inside pocket was on his coat. He looked at me for a moment before he flattened his hand as if it was a sort of pledge. I am not a killer, Joe. Remember I told you… the truth.” He smiled. “Not all of it, of course.”

“This isn’t over, is it?”

“This? No. Here is the… a secret part, Joe. I… so stupid. I walked up to Chulo, got down on my knees.” Baadal took a deep breath. “Do you want… to know?” I closed my eyes. I envisioned something I had seen in a magazine, a black and white photo of a Buddhist monk on fire. I opened my eyes. Baadal Singh was close to me. “The white gangster was talking to the cowboy. He said, ‘You know Chulo is a narc. Right?’”

“Narc. Chulo?”

“That’s how the guys from the truck responded.” Baadal Singh didn’t move his head. “At first.” He kept his eyes on me as he half-forced the calfskin glove onto his left hand. I must have looked away for a moment. I might have been elsewhere for a moment. Seconds.

Baadal Singh was somewhere else.

“Mr. Singh. Baadal; may I ask you… why were you at Swamis… that night?”

Baadal reached for his boom. He grabbed it in the middle, moved it up and down several times. “Another time, Joe. You have a lot to… memorize.” Baadal and then I turned toward the latest car pulling into the Swamis lot, Petey Blodget’s once-fancy fifties era four door Mercedes. It had a diesel engine sound and smell. There was a single pile of five boards on a rack, a browned and battered kneeboard on the top of the pile. I shifted my focus to the girl sitting in the middle of the front seat. Julia Cole. Baadal Singh looked up at the palm fronds, swaying in the trees above us. He hit my shoulder with his left hand. “Another time.”  

“Wait. Baadal.”

I wanted more information, but I couldn’t help but follow the Mercedes as it pulled in, clockwise, and backed into a spot two spaces closer to us than the Falcon. Surfers bailed from three of the doors. Julia Cole was the second person out of the front door on the passenger side. The guy riding shotgun was Petey’s son. My age. Nicknamed Buzz. The four kids from the back seat ware all too young to drive themselves.

While the others rushed to the bluff, Julia Cole looked at me through the space between the stack of boards and the roof. At me. Not for very long. Petey was looking at Baadal Singh and I from the driver’s seat. He slowly opened the door, slowly pulled his feet out and onto the pavement. Julia Cole pulled her big gray bag out of the Mercedes as Petey walked toward the bathrooms.

Baadal Singh backed up a step. I took two steps toward him. ‘Gingerbread Fred. Fred Thompson, did you see him?”

“Later. Only. I was… busy.”

“But he saw… them?”

“He did.” Baadal lit up another cigarette with three matches and handed me the pack. “And they saw him.”

“Did he seem to… recognize… any of them?”

“You mean, did I?” I nodded. “No one I had seen before. But… I will never forget them.” Baadal Singh moved his face very close to mine. “Since you claim you don’t… imagine. Maybe you… guessed. I am not here… legally. More to it than that. I am, in England, legally… dead.” 

There was no way to hide or disguise my confusion. “They… Langdon, he let you go.”

Baadal Singh chuckled. “Bait. Yes. It’s a game, Joey; but you were right. Langdon did ask me, as you did, why I was at Swamis… that night.” Baadal Singh shook his head as he backed away. “And… if you know more about me you’ll know more about why.” He laughed as he turned away. He turned his head slightly as he let out smoke from the Gauloisis Bleaues cigarette. “Again, Joe, it’s Langdon I lied to; not… you.”

 -All rights to “Swamis” and changes to the original copyrighted manuscript are reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Thanks for respecting this.                     

REMEMBER to check out realsurfers.net on Sunday for non-Swamis content.

“Swamis” Detective Langdon on TV

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                        CHAPTER ELEVEN- FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1969

It was just dark enough outside that the window above the kitchen sink reflected the image of my mother and me. I had scraped whatever was left on the three plates we had used into a small, galvanized garbage can, and was putting them into the soapy water. My mother was scrubbing the dishes and placing them into the drying rack. We both looked at our reflection rather than at each other.

“What does Larry say now, Mom?”

“Detective Lieutenant Wendall… temporary promotion… says Detective Lieutenant Langdon is not going back to Orange County anytime soon; not with the death of… Chulo Lopez.”

“No. Too much fun here.”

“Langdon has support. Downtown. Not the Chief. Politicians.” My mother did look at me. “Dishcloth, Atsushi.” Dishcloth. I pulled one from the towel bar, tossed it onto the drying rack. “However, he… Detective Wendall…” We were back to looking at each other in the window. “He says the Sheriff’s Office is no longer pursuing whoever was in the gray car.”

“But he, Wendall, he believes the, our story? The lie?”

“He was at the station. He heard your father talking to Freddy… and you… on the phone. He knew I was… leaving.”

“He got there… before you did. Did he ask… why you came back?”

She shook her head. “He will. Any question, your father would say, that logically should be asked…”

“Will be asked.”

“And we have… the answers.”

I unfolded one of three fresh dry washcloths, laid it on top of the soapy water, pushed it down with a flat palm. “I wish I had gone for pizza. I wish I hadn’t… chased… you.”

My mother tilted her head toward me, but only slightly. I slid the three big plates, three smaller plates, three forks, three knives, three glasses into the water. “Atsushi. People will disregard… so much… to believe what they wish to be true.”   

“It’s on!” It was Freddy, yelling from the short stretch of wall between the kitchen and the living room. “Come on!”

“We will just let them soak,” my mother said, giving me, not my reflection, a look that I understood to mean that there would be no further discussion on what Detective Sergeant Larry Wendall believed or why he chose to believe it. She stopped next to the little table that held the phone, turned toward me. “It is over. Accept it.” I stepped toward her. “Please.” She didn’t give me a chance to argue. “For me.”

…

“You’re missing it,” Freddy Hakaru DeFreines yelled. When our mother and I came into the living room, he was walking backwards from the television to our father’s lounge chair. Phillip Reed, the stand-in News Anchor, was on the screen, sitting at a table. I looked at Freddy. He pointed at the screen with both hands, put them together in a prayer gesture, and fell back into the chair, causing the back to recline, the footrest to pop out. Freddy slid into a position with his shoulders on one armrest, his calves on the other.

“Don’t sprawl, Hakaru.” Freddy ignored the request. “Out! Now!”  

Freddy twisted to straight, grabbed the arms of the chair, and jolted himself forward and upright. He joined me in the space between the coffee table and the console. Our mother sat on the kitchen end of the sofa. Freddy looked at her, walked over, turned up the volume.

Phillip Reed looked directly into the camera. “My guest, Orange County Detective Lieutenant Brice Langdon, has been coordinating with San Diego County’s Sheriff’s Office since the recent and tragic accidental death of our Detective… also a Lieutenant, Joseph DeFreines. And now, with the recent murder… I have to ask, Lieutenant; you have some… history with DeFreines, do you not?”

A second camera angle revealed Langdon sitting across the table from Phillip Reed. Langdon, wearing a black coat and a dark shirt and a plain dark tie, barely reacted to the introduction. He looked directly at the second camera. “Not one that is relevant, Mr. Reed.”

“He is,” my mother said, moving between Freddy and me, “so very… slick.”

“Slick,” I said, “Sleazy.”

“Sleazy slick Orange County dick,” Freddy said.

Phillip Reed continued. “What can you share with our viewers, Detective?”

Langdon managed a bit of a smile. “The California coast is experiencing incredible growth. With this growth comes a need for a more professional approach to law enforcement. The prevailing belief has been, ‘It’s under control.’ It is not. The Sheriff’s Office, out in the County, has had this ‘small town, we all know each other… philosophy.’ Not small town. We don’t know each other.” Langdon shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“Politicians,” my mother said, turning and walking away.

Langdon only looked at Phillip Reed for a moment. “We cannot continue to base our investigations on gossip and rumor.”

“Gossip and rumor, Detective Langdon?” 

“Local law enforcement has been… casual.” Langdon looked a bit frustrated. Briefly. “The unincorporated areas, the Sheriff’s Office’s… jurisdiction; this is no longer… Mayberry.”

“Our mother’s voice came from behind us. “He’s… talking about… your father.”

Freddy and I heard a slam, wood against wood. We both looked around. Our mother walked past us and set a drawer onto the console. She pulled out each of her husband’s badges, showed them to Freddy and me, put them back. There were three of them; his Deputy’s and his Detective’s badges, both silver; his Detective Lieutenant’s badge, gold. Each was mounted on a square of thick, black leather. She lifted the Detective’s badge up again, smelled the leather, held it out as if showing it to the TV screen. To Langdon.

Setting the badge back into the drawer, she pulled out a partial pack of non-filter Winston cigarettes, smelled it, put it back. She took out a Zippo lighter, chrome, with a raised replica of the San Diego Sheriff’s Office logo, with her right hand. She opened the top with her left hand, tried to strike it several times. It didn’t light. She handed it toward me.

I shook my head several times. Freddy held his hand out. She shook her head and placed the lighter, logo facing us, on the console, just above the TV screen.

Langdon continued, “The criminals are becoming ever more sophisticated. Our approach has to, has to become ever more professional.”

Phillip Reed looked at Langdon as if he expected him to say more. Langdon didn’t. “Well, Detective Langdon, here’s how small town we are around these here parts: Gossip, rumor. Detective DeFreines. I interviewed him… many times; even back when he was on a joint task force investigating what the Orange County Sheriff described as ‘an unfortunate incident in which several officers were, perhaps, overzealous.’”

“Good memory, Phillip. Exactly what he said. Overzealous. Yes.” Langdon nodded but kept his eyes on the News Anchor. “It was a while ago. We’ve all… changed.”

Phillip Reed looked directly into the camera. “Joseph DeFreines was a bonified war hero. Marines. In the Pacific; from Guadalcanal on. He served in Korea. Gunnery Sergeant. Most of his… advancement was through field promotions. You understand that… I assume, Lieutenant?”

“I do.”

 “He worked his way up in the Sheriff’s Office. Through the ranks.”

            “One could do that.” Langdon folded his hands on the desk. Exhaled, softly, reset his smile, and added, “In those days.”

“The difference between gossip and news, Detective, according to DeFreines, is two days or two different, independent sources.”

“Or both. Yes. Turn of phrase. He was great at… that.” Langdon stood up. The camera took a moment to adjust. Phillip Reed stood. Langdon said, “I came here to address some of the… gossip.” Langdon sat back down. He looked into the second camera. After a moment, the image switched to that angle.

“As has been reported, the victim of this vicious attack, Julio Lopez, was a sort of street and beach evangelist, and a delivery driver for a Leucadia flower business.” Langdon paused. “It is true that Julio Lopez was present at the accident in which…” Langdon looked over at Phillip Reed, off camera. “…Detective Lieutenant Joseph DeFreines, Gunny to his compatriots, was killed. I stress… accident. Mr. Lopez was a witness. Witness. I believe, Mr. Reed… Phillip, you covered this… accident.”nic

Phillip Reed, off camera, said, “I did.” Ruth DeFreines stepped closer to the console, blocking the screen. She turned, facing her sons. Reed continued, “Automobile accident, east of the Bonsall Bridge. Detective DeFreines went off the road to avoid a head on collision. The road was closed for seven hours.”

“Yes. We have not completed that investigation, but Mr. Lopez was at that scene, yes, and again, a witness. Allow me to address another… rumor, here. Despite the positioning of Julio Lopez’s… body, at the wall surrounding the Self Realization Fellowship compound, and the fire; despite Mr. Lopez having been, as I have stated, a sort of… evangelist, we have found no… religious connection, and none to the ongoing conflict in Vietnam.” 

“Chulo.” The angle went back to Phillip Reed. “His nickname. Chulo.”

“Yes, Mr. Reed. Chulo. Unusual nickname for a… Mexican. Adjective. Pretty.”

“Yes. Unusual. Will you, Detective Langdon, with your… professional approach to law enforcement, tell the viewers that Chulo Lopez’s killer or killers will be brought to justice?”

“They, or he shall be.”

“Mom,” I said, “We have to see this.”

My mother moved down the length of the console, sliding her fingers on the edge.

“You wanted to address the current situation as it relates to… marijuana.”

            The image on the screen switched to a closeup of Langdon. “I have heard… rumors.”

 Mrs. Joseph J. DeFreines mouthed something in Japanese that had to have been a swear, shook her head, and turned off the television. Freddy and I stood up. Both hands on Freddy’s back, she pushed him into the hallway. She turned back, opened her right hand, swung it toward the console.

I picked up the lighter. “Rumors,” I said, popping the top open with my thumb, striking the wheel. It lit this time, burned for a few seconds, and went out.

“Slimy bastard,” my mother said. I popped the top closed with my thumb, set the lighter back on the console. My mother walked back to the console. She slid the two doors that would cover the TV screen. vertical slats, together. The one on the right stuck. She pulled it hard enough that it slammed into the other door. She pushed me away. I was almost to the hallway when I heard the chink, ka-chink sound of my father’s lounge chair. I turned back.

Ruth DeFreines was sitting in her husband’s chair, kicked back, holding my father’s lighter and his detective’s badge. “Atsushi, I plan to sell this place,” she said. “Have to. Hakaru… Freddy will be out of junior high, you are… graduating. He says we should move somewhere near Live Oak Park. What do you think?”

“Mom,” I said, “you’re a detective’s wife; you know where I’d want to live.”

“Widow. And yes, I do… know.” 

I had a confusing series of images going through my mind as I went into the kitchen and finished the dishes. I could only guess what my mother, sitting in her late husband’s lounge chair, was imagining. I did, of course, have more than one theory. I am a detective’s son.

REMEMBER that “Swamis” is protected by copyright. All rights reserved by the author.

Check out some non-Swamis stuff on Sundays.

Internet Outage and (finally) Inage

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IT ISN’T AS IF I had some really compelling content to post on Sunday, but not having internet for several days is somewhere north of irritating. No, it’s not like life threatening- I could, and did, find buoy reports (down) and surf forecasts (continued downness) on my phone.

STILL, checking the wires, restarting the router, wondering if some line between me and the towers and the satellites is down, and when it might be back in order.

NOW. Maybe last night. BUT, now I have to go.

Tomorrow, or even later tonight, I will post the next chapter of “Swamis.” I think it’s two days after Chulo is murdered at Swamis, and Joey’s surf friends, Gary and Roger, are sharing the story at Fallbrook High. AND OTHER STUFF, of course, because “Swamis” is overstuffed.

CHECK IT IF YOU CAN. IT’S, LIKE, ONLINE-ONLY