I AM POSTING some parts of my novel as I make my (hopefully, as alway) final edit. Changes I’ve made in the earlier chapters demands these changes and cuts. As I add new text, I will be deleting any previous text. Is it paranoia? Maybe. ALL versions of “Swamis” are copyriight protected, all rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.

UPDATE- Monday, April 13, 2026- I have spent time on the conclusion. The big mental challenge is wrapping in some other characters and hinting at what might happen in a sequel. “Beacons,” another north county surf spot with, conveniently, a useful double meaning, would be the title.

As always, we’ll see.

CHAPTER TWO- SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1965

My mother took me and my younger brother, Freddy, to the beach at what became the San Elijo State Park. Almost or just opened, it runs along the bluff from Pipes to Cardiff Reef. We were at the third stairway from the north end. I was attempting to surf. Freddy was playing in the sand. Our mother was collecting small rocks, mostly white ones, and tiny, bleached pieces of driftwood. The waves were too small for real surfers. Pushing my way out, walking, jumping over the lines, I was turning and throwing my board into the reforms, standing up, awkwardly, and riding straight in; butt out, hands out, stupidest grin on my face. “Surfin’!”

A girl, about my age, was riding waves. Not awkwardly. Smoothly. Not straight, but across. She wouldn’t have wiped out on the third ride I witnessed if I hadn’t been in her way, almost frozen, surprised by a wave face so thin and clean I still swear I could see through it.

            I held my board by the rails, tumbled with it. I felt her board hit it. I let go. Both boards, upside down, hers on top of mine, broach to the waves, headed for the beach. We both popped up, shoulder deep. She pulled the strands of blonde hair away from her face with both hands.

“Kook,” she said, pointing at our boards. I sloshed through waist, then knee high water, retrieving her board just as she, body surfing a reform wave, popped up very close to me. “What’s wrong with you?”

            Because I didn’t respond, she looked a little closer at me. “You.” Because I still didn’t respond, and still, undoubtedly, had the stupidest grin on my face, she started to say ‘sorry,’ but didn’t.

            “Me? Yes.” I replayed the moments before she spoke. She waded toward me and placed both hands and some weight on her board. I didn’t remove mine. She looked toward the bluff. I followed her eyes. Two women were standing above the wood stairway, even with us. One was my mother.

The girl looked back. Her eyes were green and seemed, somehow, as transparent as I had imagined the waves to be. “Kooks have to stay out of the way.” She flipped me off with the thin fingers of both hands. “Double bird!” Her expression turned the words into an explanation.

            “Some say, ‘Double eagle.’ Okay. I… shouldn’t have… You’re… not a kook, then?”

            She looked at my hands on her surfboard, turned her head to look more closely at me. “No. I’m someone who stays away from cops. And their kids.”

            “Oh. So, so you know something about me, then?”

            “Oh? No. No, but…” She leaned on her elbows, across her board, her face close to mine. “You don’t seem…”

            “Retarded? Maybe. Getting better is what the doctors…” I took my hands off the girl’s surfboard and did a low double eagle. “…Better.”

The girl, perhaps slightly amused, pointed to my board, resting, skeg up, on a clump of seaweed. “Surfing isn’t easy, Junior. All the real surfer guys are assholes.” She turned, threw herself onto her board, and started paddling. “I’d give it up if I were you.” 

            “Maybe,” I said as I hurried inshore and picked up my board. I had to almost yell to make sure she heard me. “I’m already an asshole.” I walked and pushed and paddled and made my way through the waves and out to where the girl was sitting on her board. She looked out to sea. She looked toward the shore. It was a lull, too long for her not to turn toward me as I attempted to knee paddle.

            “Your daddy get that piece of crap board for you?”

            “Hansen. Don. Eighth grade graduation. I was happy enough with a surf mat.”

            “We can’t be friends, Junior.”

            “No?” There was a delay. “No. I’m a kook and you’re… a hotdogger.” I didn’t allow her scoff to stop me. “But… What about when I… get to the point where I surf wa-aay better than you? Still, no?”

            “Friends? Still… no.” The girl turned away again. Not as long this time. She almost smiled. “You coming back tomorrow, Junior?”

            “No. Sunday. Church. It’s… Joey. My name. We… Not my dad… We… Church.”

            “You… Church,” she said. “My mom and I… Well, me; I… surf.”

            The girl paddled over and pushed me off my board. The first wave of a set took it in. She turned and caught the next wave. I watched her from behind it. “Graceful, Julia Cole,” I said, loud enough for her to hear. “Your friends call you Julie.” I said that to myself.

Saturday, August 1, 2026-

                                    CHAPTER ONE- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1969

            “Notes. I take a lot of… notes. Your stack is bigger. Is that my… permanent record?”

            “Ah. Humor. Yes, Joey, I guess it is. But you, and your… copious notes… Do you write them as a… an aide? Visual.” 

            “As my own record, Doctor Peters. Some time I might not remember. Correctly.”

            “Susan. Please. You brought your notes, and, I’m guessing, homework, into the office; so, can I assume that your mother drove you?”

            “We took my car, Doctor Peters. The Falcon. I drove. My mother… snoops.”

            “Detective’s wife. Sure. Would you read me something from one of your notebooks? Your choice. Maybe something about… surfing.”

            “Kind of boring, but… give me a second. Okay. ‘The allure of waves was too much, I’m told, for an almost three-year-old, running, naked, into them. I remember how the light shone through the shorebreak waves; the streaks of foam sucked into them. I remember the shock of cold water and the force with which the third wave knocked me down, the pressure that held me down, my struggle for air, my mother clutching me out and into the glare by one arm.’ It’s more a story.”

            “You wrote this… when?”

            “Recently. See? Notebook. So… August… 1968. It’s me… creating a story from fragments, from what my mother told me. Or from dreams. Seems real…”

            “We can’t know how much of life is created from… fragments. But, please, Joey; the basketball practice story; I didn’t get a chance to write it down. So, the guy…”

            “I’m not here because of that… offense.”

            “I am aware. Just humor me.”

            “Basketball. Freshman team. Locker room. They staggered practice. I was… slow… getting dressed. Bus schedules. He… FFA guy… Future Farmers. JV. Tall, skinny, naked, foot up on a bench; he said I had a pretty big… dick… for a Jap. I said, ‘Thank you, Rusty,’ just as the Varsity players came in. Most stood behind him. He said, ‘Oh, that’s right; your daddy; he’s all dick.’ Big laugh.”

“’Detective,’ I said. ‘Rusty, I am sorry about your brother at the water fountain.’ I kind of… whistled, stuck out my upper teeth. Bigger laugh. Varsity guys were going, ‘Whoa!’ Rusty was… embarrassed. His brother… That incident’s in the records. Fourth grade. Three broken teeth. Year after I… came back. That’s why the… Shouldn’t have done the whistle; thought I was… standing up for myself. Resisting.”

            “Joey. You’re picturing it… the incident. You are.”

“No. I… Yes. I quite vividly picture, or imagine, perhaps… incidents. In both of those cases, I tried to do what my father taught me; tried and failed. ‘Walking away is not backing down,’ he said. Anyway. Basketball. I never had a shot. Good passer, great hip check.”

            “Rusty… He charged at you?”

            “He closed his eyes. I didn’t. Another thing I got from my father. ‘Eyes open, Jody!’ Some other freshman, Umberto, squealed… to the coach. No one else did. Rusty and I denied anything happened. It didn’t make Rusty and I… or Umberto and I… friends.”

            “All right. So, so, so… Let’s talk about the incident for which you are here. You had a foot on… a student’s throat. Yes? Yes. He was, as you confirm, already on the ground, faking having a seizure. He wasn’t a threat to you; wasn’t charging at you. Have you considered…?”

            “The bullied becomes the bully? It’s… easy, simple, logical… not new; and I have… considered it. Let’s just say it’s true. My story is… I’m trying to mend my ways. Look, Grant’s dad alleges… assault. I’m… I get it; I’m almost eighteen. Grant claims he and his buddies were just… fooling around; adolescent… fun; I can, conceivably… claim, and I have, the same.”

            “But it wasn’t… fun… for you?”

            “It… kind of… was. Time’s up. My mom’s… waiting.”

            “Joey I am, I can be… the bully here. So… sit the fuck back down!”

UPDATE- Easter Sunday/Resurrection Day, April 5, 2026- I am on page 220. I tried to do some work on the novel on a different computer. Something happened and I lost all the changes. Like 2 hour hours worth.

When this happens, a writer just knows it was the best work EVER, and un-duplicate-able. HOWEVER, I did Reed it it, and… Better. I remembered most of the stuff I had liked.

If rewriting makes a work better… “Swamis” has to be… Better!

Big Ending Coming!

UPDATE MARCH 14, 2026- I AM continuing to work on the novel. I am at page 207 or the current page count of 227, somewhere over 93,000 words. This number has remained fairly consistent. Each time I edit something down or out, I seem to add something else.

I stayed up a little later than my body clock is comfortable with last night to finish the 8th episode of the PBS MASTERPIECE version of Alexander Dumas’ novel, “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Worth it. I had to find out how all the plot lines converged. Suspense. I KNOW who killed Chulo. That is not the mystery. It is the mystery to the characters. Bearing in mind that the reader only knows what Joey sees or finds out, what is intriguing to me is the discovery of clues by Joey, his growing relationship with Julie, and where and how various characters play into the final of this book.

An early scene that I took out may be back in. Jumper, back in the water after returning home, wounded, from Vietnam, is witnessed violently overreacting when Sid comes up behind him. If I spent too much time revealing Joey as capable of violence, it seems appropriate that it becomes… appropriaty.e to the story. Still working this out.

HINT- If there is to be a sequel, it would be titled, “Beacons.” A trilogy would include the title, “Grandview.” Maybe. I have to finish this one.

Thanbks

This is a continuation of Chapter 19. Julie and Joey, despite some setbacks in their relationship, are awkwardly working together to find the reason behind Chulo’s death, and who is responsible.be

Julia Cole, her bag over her shoulder, stopped a third of the way up the lower stairs. My board under my right arm, I skipped a step to join her. She skipped a step to not allow it. She stopped at the platform, waited until I joined her, and pointed to the words, “Old men stop here” carved into the water-side railing. 

“I’m fine, Miss Cole.” I took a deep breath and held it as I made the ninety-degree turn to the top set of stairs, switched my board to my left arm, skipped a step, and started up.

“Joey…” I stopped and looked back. “You can call me Julie. Please. Everyone else does. I don’t want anyone to think we…”

“’We’ again… Julie?”

“Yeah. That. And, Joey, since you’re ahead of me, is it all right if I check out your ass?” Julie set her bag down, started to reach inside, her eyes still on me. “Or not.”

Taking one step at a time, I exaggerated the side-to-side movement of my hips. Eight steps up, I could tell by the vibration in the wooden structure that Julie was running up the stairs behind me. We were even when she, then I, stopped, three steps from the top.

I let out a bigger-than-necessary breath and leaned over, tapping the nose of my board on the step she was standing on. I took another deep breath.

“Cigarette, Joey?”

“No, thank you, Julie.”

Julie’s breaths were quick and shallow. Her smile was tentative. “I called you Joey way before you got up the nerve to call me Julie.”

 “You win… then.” I was trying not to break into an uncontrolled giggling grin. “Julie?

“Yes.”

 “Julie. I will… I would like to… take my… keys and my… wallet… back. Please.”

Julie hit the pocket of her windbreaker and shook her head. She took two stair treads up, stopped, set her bag down, and turned around. “La Jolla. There’s Windansea and… there’s Blacks Beach. And UCSD. We could…”

I took the two stair steps between us in one. “We could, Julie, but…” I looked down at the bag, back at her face. We both seemed to notice how close we were. “Julie… People. What would people think?”

“Joey. Joey, if you… want, you can call me Julia.”

“Julia? Julia… you’re smiling.”

“Yeah? Well, you started it.”