AGAIN, I missed an opportunity to take photos. I wasn’t aware randomly running into HELMET BOY would turn into a story, and I wasted some time looking for a photo I could use (you google what you want and only find people who want money for their photos), and then checked my stats. SHIT! I am trying to get people accustomed to checking out my site on Sundays and Wednesdays, but, no, I wasn’t ready.
SO, I went to the piece I wrote, and, naturally, had to do some editing. AND SO I’m posting this part now, and later… latest art attempts, almost-weekly ADAM WIPEOUT update, and the latest edit of my query letter as part of my attempt to sell “SWAMIS.”
The Cold Shoulder
Chris and I were on the bluff, doing that thing surfers do, talking previous sessions while keeping our eyes on the very late afternoon conditions in the water. Waves would rise on the kelp beds, black dots on brushed silver, line up, the faces of the lines going black. Clouds, heavy on the horizon, were threatening rain and promising nightfall.
Beautiful.
Three surfers were still in the water. Keith, a hyper-dedicated local, was surfing better, objectively, if objectively includes taking off at the proper spot, dropping in cleanly, driving through sections and pulling out with a loose and smooth style, the result of and proof that he has a very high wave count.
The wave count comes from a dogged dedication, enduring countless skunkings; from relentlessly searching for waves on a fickle, unpredictable coastline; and from a willingness to ride anything from barely breaking to ridiculously dangerous waves; all in cold water with nasty rocks and often vicious tides. It shouldn’t be surprising that riding a lot of non-epic waves prepares one for the rare gift of, not to exaggerate, decent waves.
That is not the story. Chris had surfed earlier on this day. I arrived minutes too late to suit up and get more than a couple or rides. But… Chris and I had been out days before for one of those rare sessions with rare and truly memorable waves (and yes, ‘rare,’ twice, it’s that rare. Word had gotten around. Surfers who don’t check the conditions religiously showed up; surfers who don’t know the lineup, paddle past those who do, blow takeoffs, get in the way. So, normal stuff.
Still, any discussion from the bluff or the beach includes who is surfing, how they’re surfing, and how they even knew there might be waves. Chris and I were beyond that, on to the subject of rights, and rights of way, and the seemingly unsolvable issue of priority. We were on how brutal that wipeout Joel got was, how long the rides were, how critical (and again, how rare) when a young guy (like, in his 20s) rides up next to us (switching to present tense, for fun) on a bicycle, slamming (to channel a little Springsteen) on his coaster brakes just before he would go over the six foot drop to driftwood and rocks. The obvious daredevil is wearing a helmet. Light yellow, maybe. He checks Chris and me out. He has a sarcastic smirk on his face and seems to want to participate in the conversation. Not someone either of us recognize, the standard practice is to not engage. If he gives me a tip of his helmet, I might break protocol and give him a half nod. Still, not an invitation.
Chris turns away, the literal version of the metaphoric cold shoulder. Because my right ear, narrowed by bone growth, is plugged up from not wearing my earplugs during my most recent three sessions, some wipeouts incurred in each, I face the bicycle guy. Lip reading has become something I attempt out of necessity, fully aware that being hard of hearing is somehow equal to being rude. Sorry. Speak up. Please.
“Oh, yeah,” Bicycle Boy says, followed by something like… Okay, I heard it wrong. Chris heard it correctly. “You guys are cracking me up over here. All like, ‘Yeah, top ten ____ ____!’ and, ‘____ ____ top ten!’” He throws his hands out toward the water. Chris mouths, “Top three! (Exclamation mark implied!!)” I nod. Big nod.
My response to Helmet Boy is something like, “Yeah, surfing, man, it’s so… juvenile.” But,
in the category of ‘what I should have said’ is, “Why don’t you tighten your chin strap, get back on your 3 speed Huffy, and go see what your mom’s making for dinner.”
What Chris did was raise his right hand over his shoulder as Bicycle Boy picked up his bike like a skirt, spun around, and rode past us. Single finger salute.
Good move. Smooth. Stylish. No wasted big arm movements.
NOTE- As far as photos of what might have been a top three session… Hmmm. There’s a policy. I don’t think you can buy any, but I haven’t really checked. Google “All time surf on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.” I did; it’s as frustrating as trying to find waves… not to dissuade you… too much.
TYPICAL November doppler image. TWO illustrations derived from the same source. I couldn’t wait for the scans. ADAM and his sister LISSA taken from a cookbook Dru’s friend LIESHA purchased. Modeling the wellies (proper term on tide flats, ‘pig boots’ otherwise) with style.
I have recently spoken with several people pushing me to self-publish my novel. Not my first choice. To that end, I’m trying to get an agent, necessary stop to not paying but getting paid. My daughter, Dru, is putting the package together; query, sample illustrations, first ten pages. HERE’S the query letter:
Query- “Swamis,” Fiction of the ‘totally could have happened’ strain by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
Dear _______ ________,
That my 92,000-word novel “Swamis” has become as much love story as murder mystery is a surprise to me. Almost. The action centers around the surf culture at Swamis Point in North San Diego County. It is 1969. An evolutionary/revolutionary period in surfing and beyond, to those who have only known crowds, this was a magical era.
Joey DeFreines, Jr, the narrator, is the son of a Japanese ‘war bride’ and a detective with the County Sheriff’s Office. The ex-Marine is trying and failing to maintain a balance and calm as marijuana becomes a leading cash crop in the unincorporated area that are his jurisdiction and as the completion of I-5 supercharges population growth.
Very close to turning 18, Joey is damaged, troubled, prone to violent outbursts, and possibly brilliant. A compulsive note taker, Joey, nicknamed ‘Jody’ after a military cadence, is an ‘inland cowboy’ outsider who wants, desperately, to be a ‘Local.’
And he is desperately attracted to Julie Cole, one of a few girl surfers in the beach towns along Highway 101. Nicknamed Julia ‘Cold,’ just-18-year-old Julie might appear to be a spoiled, standoffish surfer chick, rabidly protected by her small group of friends. She is also almost secretly brilliant, and quite strong willed.
Julie’s father is a certified public accountant who may, with help from outwardly upright citizens, be laundering increasing amounts of drug money. Julie’s mother, Julia, moves from fixer-upper to fixer-upper in a housing market about to explode. She may also be the head of a group growing, packaging, transporting, and selling marijuana. Once grown in orchards and sold to friends of friends, the product is moved through Orange County middlemen to the larger, more profitable, and more dangerous market of L.A.
Joey and Julie, both concentrating on studying and surfing, are rather blissfully unaware of what is going on around them. Joey’s father’s death, for which Joey may be responsible, has connections to the violent and fiery murder of Chulo, a beach evangelist and drug dealer, next to the white, pristine, gold lotus adorned walls of a religious compound that gives Swamis its name.
Finding Chulo’s murderer, with those on all sides believing Joey has inside information, pushes Joey and Julie together.
There is an interconnectedness between all the supporting characters, each with a story, each as real as I can render them.
“Swamis” was never intended to be an easy beach read. And it isn’t.
Me? I am of this period and place, with brothers and friends who were very involved in the marijuana/drug culture, both sides. I was not. It is very convenient that a Swami, like a detective, like many of the characters in the book, is a ‘seeker of truth.’
I have written articles, poems, short stories, screenplays, two other novels, some moving to the ‘almost’ sold category. I had a column “So, Anyway…” in the “Port Townsend Leader” for ten years, I’ve written, illustrated, and self-published several books of local northwest interest. I started a surf-centric website (blog) in 2013: realsurfers.net.
After many, many edits and complete rewrites, I believe the manuscript is ready for the next step. Thank you for your time and consideration,
Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
As always, anything that you think might be protected by copyright is. So, thanks for respecting that. MEANWHILE, if you have something to say to me, say it loud. AND, get some waves if you can, preferably EPIC! ALL TIME! TOP THREE! AND, Wednesday, like… 10ish..
I kind of forgot it’s Wednesday. I did say I was going to give an update on my attempts to sell my novel, “SWAMIS.” No, I’m not ready. I am waiting for feedback on my original query letter because, try as I may, though I can go on at length about each character and any and all of the plot points in the manuscript, it has proven extremely daunting to write one page that will convince an agent or publisher that he or she HAS to read it, buy it, print it. Still, I try.
Two illustrations by Scott Quirky (not his actual last name): “Heart of the Sun” and “Globular Raven,” though, he wrote, “They really actually have no names. I let the viewer see what they see..” Really and actually? Okay, I’m seeing…
I did just write a little essay in which a non-surfer has some sarcastic observations about how surfers can go on (or go off) about how awesome wave riding can be. I’ll save if for Sunday.
TODAY is the many-third anniversary of Trisha’s marriage ceremony. SO…
Gary and Roger were my closest surf friends. Roger started board surfing the summer I did, 1965. Gary started the next summer. By the time we were seniors, many others had tried surfing. Most didn’t stick with it for long. Though Roger lived closer to me, Gary offered to give me a ride home.
So, of course, my computer skills fail me. This is a ‘cut’ from “Swamis” I didn’t mean to ‘paste’ here. Inside scoop: Gary and Roger were my neighbors when I lived in Fallbrook. Their family had a bomb shelter; ours didn’t. The characters in the novel are actually based on my friends, Phillip Harper and Ray Hicks, though I kind of get confused in the writing as to which is which. I, sadly, lost contact with Phil years ago. I just spoke to Ray, who I give a lot of credit for getting me back into surfing, last night.
Okay. Out and Back.
Rainy Days in Real Life
An old wives’ tale is that rainy day marriages last. Who better to know the truth of this?
Paul Simon, married several times in real life, wrote: “We were married on a rainy day, the sky was yellow and the grass was gray; filled out some papers and we drove away; I do it for your love, I do it for your love.”
November is the rainiest month in the Great Northwest. We’re somewhere in the eye (or not) of a bomb cyclone/atmospheric river event, so, if you’re planning on getting hitched, hustle it up. Or consult the almanac and set a date.
It was raining on this day, November 10, 1971, when Trish, nineteen-years and eleven days old married me, twenty-years and almost three months old. We thought we were pretty grown up. Still do. We weren’t ‘that’ grown up. Still aren’t.
That any relationship can survive over time is genuinely amazing, A-maz-ing! People who haven’t met Trish want to meet her. Most often, when asked, it’s to see what kind of woman could possibly put up with me.
I already said ‘amazing,’ twice. So, ‘beyond amazing.’
Our daughter, Drucilla, asked me yesterday if I, notorious for not giving Trish gifts, was going to, perhaps, write a poem or something in honor of the occasion. “You mean, like, something new?”
I’m not sure what to write about someone who cries for no reason obvious to me; who refuses to cry when there is good reason; who might panic over some small thing but is strong and determined amid disasters; someone who is wise and decisive, rational in a situation, offering a solution, an attitude adjustment away from anger and frustration.
In all the big decisions we have made in our relationship, me arguing against most of them, Trish has rarely been wrong. All right, almost never. And yet, she has always had faith in me. Not blind faith. True faith. I’m still trying to make that a correct choice.
Here are a few lines from ‘Honey Days.’
“Is it love that gets us through the constant storms, is it love that gets us through that dark December? Love is love, but love can take so many forms; there’s love that’s felt and there is love that is remembered. Years have passed, endless rains, broken glass and empty trains, yet it’s our love that sustains through honey days… I remember.”
I did write a verse for a song a while back, one verse in need of a chorus and two more verses. I very recently came up with a second verse. And no, the ‘honey’ thing, not a theme.
“Hold off on that sugar, Honey, I don’t want to die, I just need a taste of something sweet to get me by; Honey, you should know by now that I might never be, someone who’s as good for you as you have been for me.
I still can’t believe it, Honey, you have been so sweet; didn’t know I needed you to make my life complete; Honey there are universes dancing in your eyes; it’s not just that, it’s so much more that keeps me hypnotized.”
It is tempting to put other examples of Trish-inspired songs/poems. I have them. Julie, one of two lead characters in my novel, “Swamis,” is Trish-influenced. Definitely. Julie has that inner strength; she is intuitive, always seeking the truth, and able to sort through the bullshit to find it.
So, yeah, everything I do other than, perhaps, my ongoing affair with the other woman in our relationship, surfing, “I do it for your love.” And, not to think too much about this, but I did love surfing first. If Trish is, then, my mistress… Well, so be it.
This is actually before we got married; Trish seeming to be wondering what she could possibly see in me. I still have no answer.
Quick Reggie Smart Update: He and Jasmin and two kids are headed to Maui for a eight days, hoping, of course, to get some surf. I have to mention JASMIN because Reggie says she reads realsurfers, like, all the time. SO, thanks, Jasmin, and thank you for checking it out.
I should mention that the rights to Scott’s stuff are his. NEW STUFF ON SUNDAY! If you see some waves, get out there!
The most recent full moon on the Salish Sea. Perfect evening for a paddle.
Sessions Worthy of Remembrance
There are several things that can make a surf session memorable, memorable enough to last years: That time you surfed an often crowded spot alone; that special ride on an otherwise not-special day; that trip with a friend (or potential lover) or friends that you remember more for the friendship (or the movement from potential) than the time in the water; that time where the waves were solidly pumping and you were ripping at the very peak of your ability… and, and, and- yeah, those times.
Think of a spot you’ve surfed, once or many times. Or think of a friend you surf or have surfed with. Think of the music that was playing in the car or in your head. Think of fog, or sideshore winds, or dawn patrols, or skunkings, or the road to here or there, or where you ate on the way home from somewhere you did or didn’t find waves. Think of anything that leads you back to a magical adventure, or ride, or session.
Okay, why was one session, or one ride during the session memorable?
I can’t speak to the adrenalin and dopamine and endorphins, and whatever our bodies and minds create when we anticipate what could be, some fantasy session; and remember or imagine when you find that dream setup, and then you’re in it. If it takes some time, hours, even days, to come down from the high, it takes years before you are unable to bring the memory out of your vault.
You’ve felt it, clueless kook to wherever you are on your journey; the rare-but-there moments are what surfers live for, why surfers ride crappy waves and call it ‘practice.’ The waves are working, you got into the lineup, jockeyed or waited for position, you’re on the wave, committed, driving… and you’ll make the wave… or you won’t.
If you’re not surfing for the thrill of it, the magic of it, please, just take up another hobby.
A memorable session:
Mostly I remember being cold, getting out of the water at Grandview with the sun already down, silver lines on a silver platter. This session was memorable enough that it became part of the reason I started writing, “Inside Break,” the precursor to “Swamis.” It was a different take on my early surfing life, one not much different than any surfer who started before he or she could drive; riding with your parents or someone else’s, then begging older surfers to take you along.
Phillip Harper and I, possibly sophomores, got to go, after school in Fallbrook, with Bucky Davis and Phil’s sister, Trish (not my Trish- different Trish). Backseat. She was driving, headed to modeling school in Encinitas. They were, to me, the perfect surfer couple. Not that she surfed. Maybe she did later, years after that romance ended. Maybe. I tend to push things toward the romantic.
To me, having learned at Tamarack, with some trips to ruin real surfers waves at Pipes and Swamis, Grandview was a surf spot I knew about. I also knew I was not going to be welcomed by the locals and the older inlanders for whom it was their chosen North County spot. Phil, who had surfed there, told me.
Nevertheless, we were there and I was going to show Bucky… something. The waves were “Not good enough,” he said, “Not yet.” This was just before he pushed me into the washout that was the way down to the beach, long filled-in, replaced by a house and fence.
Before it glassed off (alternate title for ‘Inside Break,’ ‘Afternoon Glassoff’), Phil and I went out, only ones in the lineup. Bucky paddled out. We surfed. It got dark. I was bragging about my nose rides. “No,” Bucky said, but only later, Trish now driving, heater maxed out, “you… he, he kind of slides up to the nose. If you want to be a real surfer, you have to go foot over foot.”
“Yeah,” Phil said, “Foot over foot.” Real surfer. Yeah.
Hama Hama News- Adam “Wipeout” James got into a a group text sort of bemoaning that he had done a lot of driving, hadn’t scored great waves, BUT, good news, his son Emmet (Adam spelled it with one ‘t’, so I will also do so) got (may have said ‘bagged’) his first buck.
Congratulations! Adam has another son, Calvin. One is nicknamed ‘Boomer.’ I believe it’s Calvin. NOW, hunting and fishing and all that is kind of a deal down here on the Hood Canal section of SURF ROUTE 101; up there with first Bigfoot and/or UFO sightings; so I had to respond. I said I got it with a ’59 Chevy, but it was probably with a Toyota. Crushed front quarter panel. Dead dear. My older son, James, got his buck with a Buick; big ass Buick Trish pushed him to buy because it seemed safe. Deer over the windshield, James… safe.
CHIMACUM TIMACUM NEWS- For the second time ever, the last being ten years ago, Tim and I were in the water at the same time. I don’t think either of us burned the other. Next time…
“Swamis” NEWS- In looking for an agent, I wrote a query letter, sent it to several people whose judgment I trust to check out. THEN, panicked it wasn’t good enough, I started editing the hell out of it. THEN KEITH, after I told him to wait for a better version, said he liked it. SINCE I am not that stoked on the rewrites… yes, he can send it back, and then… I am not changing the first ten pages, and will post another chapter or sub-chapter on WEDNESDAY..
I’M NOT POLITICAL STUFF- I’m considering getting an alias. BUSTER WALLS came to mind because I wanted something that suggests but can’t seem to remember that term for the subversive, covert kind of sarcastic attack that I have often been accused of.
ANYWAY, I hope you find some waves, and if you don’t, hope you have a great time looking. Don’t steal my stuff. Thanks for reading.
I just and finally got this Wheelie, and, I know, it’s kind of cheating, but, if you’re riding an e-bike down the trail, or a regular bike, um, yeah, I’ll cheat… a bit. OH, yeah, I agree that riding an SUP is cheating. So… don’t.
I was the only one checking for surf after a very dark and very night. Me and this seagull. All I had was a banana. One-third for me, two thirds for… this guy.
When I have some free time, I sometimes do some drawing. the excerpt from “Swamis,” chapter nine, has Joey going to a clinical psychologist, court-mandated after he had an incident in which he ended up with his foot on another student’s neck. ANYWAY, you don’t have to psychoanalyze me because I can’t seem to not go a bit too psychedelic.
CHAPTER NINE- MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1969
I was driving my mother’s 1964 Volvo four-door. Because I never told the DMV I had a history of seizures, I did get a license, I did drive. Because my mother believed I was getting better, she allowed me to drive. Still, she looked in my direction frequently. Because my father believed I was getting better, he taught me. If I did, indeed, have some kind of brain damage, I could force myself, will myself to control the freezes my father called ‘lapses,’ and the outbursts he called ‘mistakes.’
There are stories for each sport I was pushed to try, each team I did not become a part of. Each story involved my lack of attention at some point of time critical to practice or a game. More often, I was asked to leave because, while I had not been what my father called ‘fully committed,’ I had committed violent, unsportsmanlike attacks on an opponent. Or a teammate.
I was, initially, pushed toward surfing. My father’s answer to my fears was, “If you have a lapse, you will drown. So… don’t.” It was the same with driving. “Concentrate. You’re always thinking behind. You have to think ahead. Got that, Jody?”
My mom and I were heading down the grade and into La Jolla. “Favorite part of the trip, Mom; the ocean’s just spread out… so far.”
“Eyes on the road, please.” I glanced past her, quickly, hoping to see some sign of waves around the point. She gave me her fiercest look. I laughed, looked at the road, but looked down and out again on a curve. Scripps’s Pier. Waves. “Are they testing you again, this time?”
“I don’t think so. The new doctor. Peters. She’ll, I guess, analyze whatever they found out last time with the wires and the fancy equipment.” I looked over at my mother as we dropped down through the eucalyptus trees at the wide sweeping right-hand curve that matches the curve of La Jolla Cove. “So, maybe we’ll find out; either I’m crazy or brain damaged.”
“Eyes on the road, please.”
…
I was in the office, standing under a round ceiling light installed a few inches off center. I had two PeeChee folders, three notebooks in each, set on a long, thin, empty walnut table. I opened the blue notebook in the top folder, wrote something I had just remembered, and closed it and the folder. I moved my pencil between my fingers until I dropped it.
The cabinets on two of the walls were cherry. A tile countertop featured a double sink. Porcelain. This was a rented space, easily converted. The six windows on the south wall extended from about a foot-and-a-half from the floor to eight inches from the ceiling. Four of the windows offered a view of tropical plants up against a mildewed redwood fence, eight foot high, no more than three feet away. The light that could make it through the space between the eves and the fence hit several, evenly spaced, colored glass and driftwood windchimes. The sound would be muted, nowhere near tinkly.
The fourth wall had a door, hollow core, cheap Luan mahogany. Several white lab coats were hanging on it. There was an added-on closet, painted white, with another mahogany door, this one rough at the hinge side. Cut down and re-used. There were, on one wall, six framed copies of diplomas or certificates. Three doctors, two universities. Two unmatched wingback chairs, each with an ottoman, were canted toward each other, facing the window wall.
The mahogany door opened. Dr. Peters entered, carrying a large stack of folders, most tan, several in a gray-blue. She kicked the door closed, dropped the stack on the table. She removed her white lab coat, hung it on the door, turned and pointed, with both hands, at the Gordon and Smith logo on the t shirt she was wearing.
“More of a San Diego… city thing, Dr. Peters.”
“Susan. I met Mike Hynson once,” she said. “He was in ‘Endless Summer.’ I figured you’d be either put at ease or impressed.”
“Once? Mike Hynson? Professionally?”
She shuffled through the stack, breaking it into thirds. Roughly. “Funny.”
“Is it?”
“No. It’s… funny you should come back with… that. If he was a… client, I couldn’t say so. I nodded. “So… I’m not saying.”
“No.”
Dr. Peters shook her head. “I went to his shop. Really cool. It’s not like I surf. I am petrified of the ocean.” She pulled out a folder from what had been the bottom third of the stack. “You?”
“Sure. There’s… fear, and there’s respect. A four-foot wave can kill you.” She may or may not have been listening. “Is that my… permanent record?” Dr. Peters laughed as if the remark was clever or funny; it wasn’t either. I didn’t laugh. She let her laugh die out.
She pointed toward the wing chairs. I shook my head. “Okay.” She pulled an adjustable stool, stainless steel, on rollers, from the corner on the far side of the closet. She motioned toward it. An invitation. “Or… we can both stand.”
“If it’s… okay with you, Ma’am. Dr. Peters.”
“Susan. What do your… friends call you?”
“Trick question?”
“Maybe. Okay. Yes.” We both shrugged. “And the answer is?”
“Surf friends. A couple.” Her reaction was more like curiosity than disbelief. “Friends call me Joey. So… Joey, Dr. Peters. I… I’m not… accustomed to calling my superiors or my elders by their first names. Respect.”
She leaned in toward me. “I’m fucking thirty… thirty-one. Joey. Young for a clinical psychologist. So?”
“Now I am impressed, and at ease. So… okay.” The Doctor squinted. “But, uh, Dr. Peters; you’re now, I’m guessing, my court mandated doctor of record?”
Dr. Peters restacked the folders. “Your father… and you… agreed to that.”
“Negotiated. Grant’s dad’s an… attorney.”
“Your father’s… was… a detective. Couldn’t he have…?”
“Never. My fault. Best he could do, with me too close to turning eighteen, is… this. A… choice, an option. We… discussed it. But… question; you’ve already suggested I might be a bully; how do you feel about… another smart ass trying to get off easy?”
“Most of the smartasses I deal with aren’t so… smart.”
“And the bullies?”
“That… urge; it shows weakness; I’m sure you agree.”
“That I’m weak? I agree. My dad’s take: I either don’t think or I take too long thinking.”
“Thanks, Joey.” Dr. Peters wrote something down. “Now, your dad didn’t want to go with… what he called ‘Psycho drugs.’” She moved from the stool to the larger of the two wing chairs. She sat down and used one foot to pull the ottoman into position. She put both feet up on it. She looked at the other chair, then at me. Another invitation. I remained standing.
“How long since you had an episode? Full?” I glanced at her folders. “Okay; three years ago, lunchtime, evidently out on the square at Fallbrook High School. Embarrassing?” I must have smiled. “Okay. Different subject. Grant Murdoch, your foot on his throat.”
“Weak… moment. But, previous topic… subject… The drugs, never were an option.”
“No. Of course not. But… Grant Murdoch, his faking a seizure caused you to…?”
“He wouldn’t have done it if he’s known I… I never went to Friday night football… activities. My surf friends… persuaded me… to.”
“Had Grant done this prank… before?”
“You mean, did my friends know he might?” I shook my head. “I haven’t asked.”
“So, this time, the prank, you acted… hastily?”
“Prank? Yes, I did.” I closed my eyes, envisioned the episode. Ten seconds, max. I pulled the metal stool over, sat it, spinning around several times. “He was… really good at it. Foaming at the mouth and everything. I was… Doctor Samuels, your electrode man. Spike. Do you have any… results?”
“Inconclusive.”
“You’re… disappointed?”
“No; but skipping over how you, just now, called another doctor, a grownup, by his first name… the tests; it was… bad timing.”
“Because I didn’t have a seizure, or even a… spell? And… Spike is a nickname. If you have a nickname… that you‘re willing to share.” She smiled. “By inconclusive, Dr. Susan Peters, do you mean… normal?”
“Pretty much, Mr. DeFreines.”
“That is… disappointing. The doctor, two doctors back…” I pointed to the files again. “He insisted I was just faking it.”
“Are you?”
“Inconclusive.”
“You didn’t have a… you know about the most common seizure, right?”
“Petit’ mal. Absence. Thousand-yard stare. Yes.”
Dr. Peters smacked the top of my stack of folders. “You study… everything.”
“Some things. Only.”
Dr. Peters looked toward her stack of files. She took a breath, looked at the plants outside the windows, at the chime swaying slightly and silently, then back at me. “You went back into… regular, public school, in the third grade. Tell me about that.”
“One of the… teachers… decided I might not be a brain-damaged… retard; maybe I’m… a genius.” I waited for her reaction. Her expression was hard to read. Blank. I danced the stool around until I faced the windows and the plants and the mildewed fence. “I’m not.”
“That’s why you turned down the scholarship?”
I made the half spin back toward the Doctor, waited for her to explain how she knew that. “School records came with a note.”
“Vice Principal Greenwald. Sure.” I spun around one more time and stood up, spinning my body a bit, unable to not smile. “I turned down Stanford because I am a faker, a phony. I… memorize.” I gave the seat of the stool a spin. Clockwise. It moved up about three inches. “I wouldn’t be able to compete with people with… real brains.”
Dr. Peters leaned forward, then threw herself back in the chair. “Okay. We’ll… forget about the competition aspect… for now. This… memorization. Yes. In medical school, I had to… so much is repetition, rote, little mnemonics, other… tricks. My roommate called me… don’t use it. Re-Peters.”
“I won’t… repeat it.” I swept one hand back toward the table. “Sorry. Too easy to be… clever. Or funny.” Dr. Peters shrugged. “So… Tricks. Files. Pictures. Little… movies. I… wouldn’t it be great if we could…?” I walked closer. Dr. Peters pulled her feet from the ottoman. She leaned toward me. “There are the things we miss. They go by… too quickly. If we could go back, just a few seconds, review… See what we missed.”
“And you can?”
“Can’t you? Don’t you… you take notes, you… Do you… rerun conversations in your mind, try to see where you were… awkward; where you… didn’t get the joke?”
“I do. I try not to. I’m more of a… casual observer.”
“That’s me, Dr. Susan Peters; Casual.”
“Observant.” Dr. Peters stood up. The ottoman was between us, but she was close. Too close. She was about my height. Her eyes were what people call hazel. More to the gray/green color used in camouflage. “Tell me…” she said, quite possibly making some decision on the color of my eyes, “I’m trying to determine if there’s a trigger, a mechanism. Tell me what you remember about… the accident?”
“The… accident?”
“When you were five.”
“I don’t… remember that one. I was… five.”
“No, Joey, I believe you do remember… that one.”
…
This wasn’t a brief remembrance of past events, this was a spell I couldn’t avoid, couldn’t think or will myself out of, and couldn’t stop. I stepped back, turned away. I shook my head. I tried to concentrate on… plants, the ones outside the window. Ivy, ferns, the mildew, the grain of the wood… “Like Gauguin,” I told myself, “Like Rousseau,” I said, out loud. “There’s a lion in there… somewhere.”
“Can you tell me what you remember, what you… see?”
I could not. The Doctor stepped between me and the window. She started to say something but stopped. She looked almost frightened. The image of the Doctor faded until it was gone. I was gone.
…
Everything I could remember, what I could see, was from my point of view.
I pulled down my father’s uniform jacket that been covering my face. I was in my father’s patrol car. Front seat. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and put it on my left shoulder.
“Our secret, Jody boy. Couldn’t put you in the back like a prisoner.” I didn’t answer. “Too many of you Korean War babies. I can’t believe… if they’re gonna have half-day kindergarten, they should have… busses both ways.” No answer. “Best argument for your mother getting her license.” No answer. “When I get on the school board…”
The light coming through the windshield and the windows was overwhelmingly bright. There was nothing but the light outside.
My father yelled something, two syllables. “Hold on!” His hand came across my face and dropped, out of my sight, to my chest.
His arm wasn’t enough to keep me from lurching forward. Blackness. I bounced back, then forward again, and down. Everything was up, streams of light from all four sides, a dark ceiling. My father was looking at me. His shadow, really, looking over and down. “You’re all right. You’re… fine.” He couldn’t reach me. The crushed door and steering wheel had him trapped. His right hand seemed to be hanging, his fingers twitching. He groaned as he forced his arm back toward his body. “We’re… fine.”
There were three taps on the window beyond my father. “Stay down,” he said. I could see my father’s eyes in the shadow. He looked, only for a second, at his gun belt, on the seat, coiled, the holster and the black handle of his pistol on top.
“You took… everything!” The voice was coming from the glare. “Everything!”
The man came closer. The details of his face were almost clear, then were lost again to the glare, like a ghost, when he leaned back.
“If we could just…” my father said as the suddenly recognizable shape of a rifle barrel moved toward us. Three more taps on the window. “If we could… relax.”
I could hear a siren. Closer. I tried to climb up, over, behind my father’s shadow.
“Everything!”
“No!”
The first gunshot, my father screaming the shattering of glass in front of and behind me were all one sound. The pieces of glass that didn’t hit my father blew over me, seemingly in slow motion. A wave. Diamonds. My father’s left hand was up, out. A bit of the light shone through the hole. I could hear the siren. I could see a red light, faint, throbbing, pulsing. The loudness of the siren and the rate of the light were increasing. I could see the man’s face, just beyond my father’s hand. His eyes were glistening with tears, but wide. Open. His left cheek was throbbing. I could see the rifle barrel again. It was black, shiny. It was moving. It stopped, pointed directly at me.
My father twisted his bloody hand and grabbed for the barrel. Again.
I could see the man’s face. Clearly. His eyes were on me. Bang. The second gunshot. The man looked surprised. He blinked. He fell back. Not quickly. He was a ghost in the glare, almost smiling as he faded and disappeared.
Tires slid across gravel. The siren stopped. The engine noise was all that was remaining, that and something like groaning; my father, me, the guy outside. Mr. Baker. Tom Baker.
“Gunny?” It was a different voice.
“I’m fine.” It was my father’s voice, but at a slower speed.
“Bastard!” It was the new voice, followed by a third gunshot.
Dr. Susan Peters came back into focus. She looked quite pleased.
I HAVE COMPLETED my many-ist rewrite of “Swamis.” AFTER chatting for an hour on the phone with the head of a publishing outfit, I am now looking for an agent. I’ll get into this next time. THIS time, thanks for reading. Remember that original stuff on realsurfers is protected by copyright, all rights reserved. Thanks for respecting this.
AS FAR AS WAVES, best of luck; if I don’t see you on the water, maybe I’ll see you on a trail. WHEELIE!
There is the no waves skunk; the wait for hours for waves to show up and then go out in waves that are or become way worse than the waves you could have ridden; and the show up with good waves but suffer some breakdown (ie; broken and lost fin) or run out of time before you can get out because you have to, HAVE TO LEAVE. We could add the times you just know it’s going off and you just cannot, this or that obligation, go, BUT you will hear about how awesome it was. Somehow being there and not surfing is more painful; what could have been for you and was for… them. Yeah, that’s petty. We all should be accustomed to this and not harbor resentment. Should. Jimbo and Buster got waves, supposedly, allegedly ‘All time, Epic, etc.’ You were working on your resume, trying to make yourself seem a bit more regime-friendly. Worth it.
Right Decisions, Wrong Decisions, Indecision, and/or Three Degrees of Skunk
“Time and tide wait for no man.” I don’t know who to credit the quote to, and frankly, I’m not motivated enough to even try to look it up. Here’s another quote, from me, probably said earlier, possibly better, by someone else: “There are good and bad decisions; sometimes the worst decision is indecision.”
I have missed more waves through indecision than bad decisions. I could trade this possible aphorism, as it relates to my most recent attempt at finding and riding waves to, “Always listen to Trish,” and/or “Trish is almost always right.”
Yesterday was my wife’s birthday. Always a year and a bit behind me, age-wise, always ahead of me, decision-wise. YES, Trish knew the election was getting blown out while I still held on to some desperate belief that even people I am going to say are fooled rather than that they are fools might vote self-interest over grievance, YES, Trish said I shouldn’t agree to go with ADAM “WIPEOUT’ JAMES if he had to get back to HamaHama by 11 am. YES, Trish did say, when I got home at 10am, that I should just go back out. YES, Trish was right.
The, let me see, 1971… 2024… 53rd wedding anniversary (I was 20, Trish was 19 years and eleven days old) is coming up; you’d think I’d believe her by now.
I am extremely bad at giving presents. To anyone. If giving a compliment on, say, a surfer’s, even a friend’s ride or style, is a sort of gift; I’m stingy enough to never give false praise. RUDE SARCASM, yes, though, since you should believe Trish, she says… well, a lot; all of it honest. “You always try to be cool. Give it up!” This was when we were first dating; still holds up. “You say you’re just joking. No, you almost always mean it.” Okay. “You never listen.” No. What? “You’re an asshole and you’re never sorry.” Okay, there Trish is wrong. I am sorry. Sometimes.
I’m sorry right now. Sorry for myself that I didn’t set up an alternate plan, ride back with someone else, sorry I actually (broke a rule here) got word that a spot that wasn’t working pre-dawn was working (hence regret for now heading back out), and I found out, way after the fact, that I could have abandoned Adam, surfed the spot that was working at dawn and beyond, and gotten a ride back. So, TRISH. Right.
Some SOLACE, me trying to lessen the pain of carting my gear all the way to the beach with a thirty-minute window to change, surf, change again, head for the car. Since donning a wetsuit is approximately a ten-minute process, getting out of it, another ten to twelve; there was, realistically, only time to watch surfers catch and not catch waves. OH, and a chance to look like the guy…
SO, there’s the paddle of shame; paddling rather than surfing in because the waves went away (frequent and forgivable on the fickle Strait) or because you are, perhaps daunted by the surf at hand (semi-forgivable if you’ve been surfing for three hours and there’s a seven-wave set approaching); and then there’s the greater shame of being all set to go and then not going out because the waves are not what you are prepared to ride.
This was not the case, and, no, I don’t want to be that guy, OR the old guy who dispenses ‘back in my day’ stories rather than subjecting himself to paddling out and providing proof that this is not his (apologies for using the masculine) day.
RIDING WITH ADAM, I have to say, is very enjoyable. He has great stories that go way beyond surfing, BUT, as I told Adam when we were hightailing it back to his car, me with my bag of dry wetsuit and supplies, Adam with a fresh ding in his latest favorite board of all time, if I had made a deal to get a ride back with KEITH and RICO, I’d have abandoned him in a fucking heartbeat and gone out. I WASN”T JOKING.
Wipout-wise, REGGIE SMART did suffer an injury recently; his board smacking him in the jaw, teeth going through his lip. He drove himself to the emergency room and, in true Reggie style, wouldn’t let the nurse touch him after she touched way too many things with her gloved hands, turned down a stitch from the doctor, saying he had ‘peroxided and denatured the shit’ out of the wound, and couldn’t he just shave off his soul patch and put, like, one of those butterfly things on it? Sure. Did he want vicadin? “No, I’m good.” I’m not all over instagram, but Reggie is. Check him out.
I WROTE a first verse of this poem and/or song (song) a while back. I have been working on a second verse. And a chorus. One I know but one that doesn’t actually fit is something that someone in my family of seven kids came up with. Not sure who should get credit.
Cookies and candy and ice cream and cake, donuts and brownies and pie, and for dessert, Jello.
Hold off on that sugar, Honey, I don’t want to die, I just need a taste of something sweet to get me by; Honey, you should know by now that I might never be, Someone who’s as good for you as you have been for me.
I still can’t believe it, Honey, you have been so sweet, Didn’t know I needed you to make my life complete; Honey, there are universes dancing in your eyes; It’s not just that, it’s so much more that’s kept me hypnotized.
The world of surf, what it is and what we believe it to be, and surfers, real and otherwise, keeps spinning. Some can articulate the range of emotions and sensations flowing through a surfer in the most magical, intimate moments. The addiction is the desire to feel that release again. And… again.
ANYWAY, more to come. I am almost done, like 15 pages from my latest edit of my novel, “SWAMIS,” and I did talk on the phone to the president/owner/whatever of a Seattle publisher. I’ll get to that on Wednesday. RIGHT NOW I am considering whether to take off and look for waves with a dropping swell or… I’ll check with Trish and get back to you.
ALL ORIGINAL stuff on realsurfers.net is copyright protected, all right reserved. Thanks for respecting that. GOOD LUCK.
I got this painting/assemblage from SCOTT. Because I don’t know his last name, after I ran into him out on the Strait, and because he knows KEITH, I called Keith. “Oh, yeah, Scott. He’s kind of… Quirky.” I agreed. Scott was not too thrilled with the nickname. Because he sent this to me on ELECTION DAY, with my mind wanting to be filled with anything other than dread, I had to text back to ask if I could post it, and to ask if this was his illustration of the brain-fuck of being part of endless vote counting and discussion and, ultimately, indecision, or, at least, decision deferred. WHAT I GOT back was something truly cosmic. “If you wish. Kali ma came at an opportunistic moment… to eat our illusions of separateness.” SO, for your consideration: New nickname- COSMIC SCOTT. Fortunately, it’s not up to a vote. It sticks or it doesn’t.
I mentioned that I have been in communication with a publishing house in Seattle. This is the ‘pitch’ I sent them, along with a polished chapter from “Swamis.” The next step is a phone call on Thursday. It isn’t as if I don’t have enough to fret about. We’ll see how that goes. I have put a lot of work into trying to make the manuscript as tight as possible, including setting aside stories I thought worthwhile but just did not fit with the flow of this novel. Strange thing about novels; out of a whole world of storylines crashing into one another, the novelist has to focus, focus, focus. That’s the tough part.
ILLUSTRATIONS -Yes, I do have some original artwork to go with my novel, “Swamis.”
POTENTIAL AUDIENCE-Because I surf, and people know I surf, I look for new works in which surfing is a component. I get ‘the word’ about new surf-related books, often receiving one as a present. Most are not great. Most overdramatize the dangers of the sport while underestimating the intelligence of surfers and the importance surfing plays in their lives.
There were, in 2023, an estimated 3.3 million surfers in the United States, with many more who once surfed, or are attracted to the surf culture, real or imagined, or who believe they
California (and world) surfing spots were undeniably less crowded in 1969, the year in which most of “Swamis” is set. This time, symbolized in my novel by the completion of I-5; with the Vietnam War, the draft, counter-cultures, drugs, radical societal changes, and the most evolutionary period in surfing; is fondly looked back upon by those who came of age during it, and is thought of as a sort of fantasy world by those who have only known crowds daunting enough to keep a wannabe surfer from even going out on a day when Swamis is breaking.
Because I was there, with friends and family on both sides of what became the marijuana industry, and because I, like the narrator, was not a part of it, I believe I can honestly render a realistic-but-fictional story of someone on the cusp of everything that was frightening and magical, love and surf and mystery, about that time.
MY GOAL has always been to have “Swamis” in the hands of a major publishing house. I am treating this as another opportunity to present my case and gather some feedback.
THANK YOU for checking out realsurfers.net. I am, of course, still working on the latest edit of “Swamis,” and I’m about thirty pages from the end. I will post another chapter before Sunday. Or Sunday. All original work, including Scott’s, if protected by copyright.
GOOD LUCK on all fronts. Waves. Yeah. You’ll most likely be reading this after the election day, so…since I don’t know whether to celebrate or sell the farm…
When I have some time on my hands, and I don’t have some device to get trapped/sucked into the void of YouTube, I sometimes do some drawing. Lately I’ve been sort of caught up in the odd social oddity of dogwalking; mostly with the requisite packing of a poop bag, sometimes empty, sometimes full, and how it affects the bearer of the poop’s attempt at maintaining dignity. SO VERY important!
ALSO, I don’t actually know if I’m early or if I’m late. My guess, late. I probably wouldn’t have colored in the sketches if I hadn’t been confused. NOW, about the upcoming election. I FUCKING VOTED, there’s not much more I can do but worry. And hope. And worry.
Confusion; YES. I just spent twenty minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t upload this photo of ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES and longtime Port Townsend-centered surfer, CODY CAPUTO, hanging out at the HAMA HAMA OYSTER COMPANY on Hood Canal. Cody was headed down SURF ROUTE 101, Adam was doing whatever he does (llike, everything), while sporting the latest ORIGINAL ERWIN design. THERE seems to be an event every weekend; this one related in some obscure way to Halloween.
“SWAMIS” NEWS- I heard about a publishing house in Seattle on KUOW, an NPR station. SO, I submitted a sample chapter and a little synopsis, AND I got a response, like, ‘sounds intriguing, tell us more.’ OKAY. I was hoping it wasn’t a vanity press, selling services, which, sadly, it might be. But, since writers are always forced to beg people to read, I took this as an exercise in actually trying to sell my novel re-re-re-edited a chapter, writing… stuff.
BECAUSE what I really want is to not self-publish, I will share my response: WAIT! I’M HAVING ANOTHER MELTDOWN! It’s not raining, I have a house to finish painting, there might be waves somewhere, the election’s way too close, time wise, and, by all reports, vote-wise. SO, I’ll get my shit together and talk about this on WEDNESDAY… unless I have a heart attack Tuesday night.
Thanks for checking out realsurfers. The sketches are, just because it’s proper, protected by copyright. All rights are reserved by… me, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Hope you’re hitting some waves.
CONCRETE PETE, A 68-year-old GUY who was really pissed off, Legendary TIM NOLAN, photo by another guy in what IAN described as the OLD GUY CORNER. The rest of available parking area was pretty much filled. THE ONLY REASON I am showing a spot that might be recognizable is that SURFLINE, evidently, said it was going to be, on this day, eight feet. There were, at this time, eight people in the water, and eight inch waves, and not many of those. The pissed off guy did go out, came in more pisssssed. I apologize for not getting his name.
HANGING OUT is kind of fun, but my motto is “I’m here to surf.” And I was. So, to use another word I’m using lately, I spent some time ‘Stwaiting.” When the parking lot emptied out and there was only one surfer in the water, and squalls were coming through more consistently than waves, I went out, ready to face another near-skunking.
Yeah. EPIC! Now, perhaps it cleaned up and the waves showed up. Or not. MORAL- DON’T BELIEVE THE FORECASTS. Also, don’t always believe the POSTCASTS. “It was all time, man, chest to shoulder on the sets, rides all the way to the fence (or the woods, or the rock face, or the wherever).”
I COULD GET INTO how the discussion at the old man corner devolved, with input from someone way under 70, into priority and backpaddling and who deserves an asterisk next to their name. It’s a constant issue, not resolved, might never be. Still, if you’re the only one out…
CHAPTER EIGHT- WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1969
Some people come to the bluff at Swamis just for the sunsets. Carpenters and insurance salesmen mix in with the surfers, just out of the water, who have to have one more look.
On this afternoon, the water appearing, deceptively, enticingly, both soft and warm, the waves appearing gently, though too small to do more than wash onto the rock shelves, I was sitting on Falcon’s tailgate, middle row, writing in a notebook. “It’s a picnic and the ocean is the meal.” I scribbled over that and wrote, “After school, after work surfers. Medium crowd. No hassles. Sunset watchers took over the bluff. One lady, business outfit, thanked LA smog for nice orange sunset.”
It was through this crowd of sunset watchers that Portia Langworthy walked, right to left, from the Jesus Saves bus at the far west end of the parking lot to the new brick bathroom and shower facility on the 101 side of the stairs. With something bulky under her left arm, right arm and hand out, palm down, as if floating. Dancing.
Portia was wearing a long blouse, set off with a cloth sash, wide, purple. Violet. Her skirt stopped just above her ankles. Her feet were bare and tan. The blouse and skirt were in dark and almost competitive prints, Gypsy/Peasant/Hippie look. Her hair was long, straight, almost black, accentuated with a band around her head that almost matched the sash. No jewelry, just a smaller version of the cross Chulo wore, hers carved from a conveniently shaped piece of driftwood, hanging on hemp twine.
Pretty at a distance, I couldn’t describe Portia closeup. Inexplicable. When she spoke with others, close to them, she seemed to have an intimidating intensity that said she cared about them, but also understood them. Understood enough that she couldn’t be lied to. Frightening. I didn’t believe it was just me who couldn’t look into her eyes. Not straight on.
In the very middle of the pack of sunset watchers, Portia stepped between the sun and a man straddling a bicycle undersized for him. Gingerbread Fred. Portia blocked his view of that moment just before the sun exploded and spread at the horizon. It took another moment before she hugged him. I could see her face over his right shoulder. Dark, shadowed. She looked at me for a moment.
Losing focus on everything else, I knew her eyes were a blue that didn’t match anything else about her. Maybe the sash.
I saw her, there, and I saw an overlapping image of her from another time. Mid-day, I was taking a break, just around Swamis Point at Boneyards. Lying on the largest, flattest of the big, soft edged rocks, I was close to being asleep. Portia’s shadow blocked the sun. She asked, “Do you know Jesus?”
I didn’t open my eyes. “Whose version?”
“Yours,” she said, without any hesitation. She dropped a pamphlet on my chest and moved back, allowing the sun to hit me full on. I blocked the sun with a hand and opened my eyes. The pamphlet was hand drawn, hand lettered, eight-and-a-half by eleven, folded, with some vague message about some vague but wonderful Jesus. I sat up.
That was when I saw her eyes.
Portia backed rather than looked away, as if we had both seen some truth of who we really were. She turned into the glare, danced up to two young women in street clothes, handed them pamphlets, and danced into the shallows. One, and then both young women danced. Not for very long.
The Portia on the bluff let Gingerbread Fred’s hand slip away as she stepped away. I would save this image: Hands stretched between them, nothing but light behind them.
I had heard stories about Gingerbread Fred. Almost myths. Tijuana Sloughs, breaks outside of Windansea; Fred was on a list of names of surfers from the pre-Gidget past. Legends: Simmons, Blake, Holder, Edwards, Richards; stories enhanced, gilded with each retelling.
This was the current version: Fred was damaged, burned out, not fully there. Korea was the rumor. Or Vietnam. Or both. Yet, he was here, the bluff at Swamis Point, as he was, seemingly, religiously, for the sunset.
Legends are one thing, parking is another. Someone pulled a car out of a space two spots over from the optimum location. Not taking the time to retrieve my notebooks and binders from the tailgate, I got in, and backed out and over, narrowly beating another car as I eased into the spot. Exciting. A little victory.
I was aware that something had blown off the tailgate. I opened the door carefully to avoid hitting the car to my left, got out, and walked to the middle of the traffic lane. A man was holding the North County Free Press, eight pages, stapled in the middle, open and up to his face.
There was an ad for a farm cooperative on the back page, a photo of me on the front. Me, behind the plate glass window. “Local Detective Dies in Mysterious Car Accident.” The heading for the lead story, right side, balanced by the photo, was “Joseph J. DeFreines, Heroic by Nature.” The by-line was “Lee Anne Ransom.”
I imagined what the man was looking at: The coverage and the photos from the funeral. In the featured photo, top right, page five, my mother was looking down, holding the folded American flag, with Freddy, on one side, crying, me on the other side, looking at my mother and not crying. Or he could have been looking at the photo of the crowd, San Diego County Sheriff O’Conner and a group of detectives and deputies, all in uniform, Detective Wendall holding the department’s show horse, a magnificent Palomino, the saddle empty. Wendall looked honestly broken. Or the man could have been reading the testimonials. Or he could have been reading the article on the bottom right, “Is Marijuana Now the County’s Top Cash Crop?” Also written by Lee Anne Ransom.
Or he might have been using the paper as cover to look at me.
The man lowered the paper, held it out, still open, with both hands. He was of East Indian descent, I guessed. I had seen him before, different setting, different clothes. He was, on this afternoon, wearing workman’s clothing; heavy, blue-gray pants with worn and wet knees, lace up boots with the toe areas scuffed, a long sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had a faded red bandana half hanging from his left front pocket. His hair and beard were black, both reaching just below his collar.
“I can get another… copy,” he said. “They are, of course… free.”
“No. I have… another copy.” I shook my head. “Free. The free thing.”
“Then, thank you so much.” The man folded the paper, folded it again, tucked it under his arm, did a slight forward tip of his head. “I do some… gardening.” He moved his left hand behind him, pointing toward the wall to the Self Realization compound. “Outside, mostly.” I returned the head tip. “Volunteer.” English accent with East Indian rhythm. Perhaps.
“Oh,” I said, looking along the white stucco wall and suddenly remembering where I had seen him, “You’re a… member?”
He smiled, one of those half face smiles. Right side in this case. “Loosely… connected. Less so all the time. I saw you once. Inside.” He nodded toward the far-left portion of white wall of the Self Realization Fellowship compound. “The meditation garden. Do you remember?”
I tried not to visualize. It didn’t work. I closed my eyes, opened them again. I could still see the gardener, along with another version. Same man, dressed in a robe. He was standing next to an older man, with even longer hair and beard, gray, and dressed in a robe made from a silkier, more colorful fabric. That man was possibly an actual Swami, or Yogi, possibly even the Swami. They were smiling. At me. Appreciative smiles. I jumped up from the bench and ran down the manicured paths with hand-set stones, perfectly cared-for plants, flowers year-round.
“I… ran.”
“You did. Yes, you do remember.”
“I was… studying. Not… anything else, Swami.”
“Perfectly fine. Meditation is… one’s own time. And… not a Swami.”
“Sorry. Not a Swami.”
“If Swami means ‘seeker of truth,’ perhaps, we…many of us are, perhaps, Swamis.” ”
I followed the man’s eyes back to the bluff. Portia was returning from the bathrooms with a different bundle under her arms, with different clothing, a very different look. Braided strands from the front of her hair were wrapped around to hold the rest in place. There was, perhaps, a ribbon. She was wearing a loose top, long, with long sleeves, a subtly patterned or even one-color Pendleton, with bellbottom pants and sandals.
Portia was walking behind the sunset watchers. “Conservative,” I said, pretty much to myself, but expecting some comment from the volunteer gardener. No. He was gone. He was crossing the lawn by the white stucco compound wall; and was halfway to Highway 101 when the Hayes Flowers van entered the lot.
…
I was in front of the Falcon. The people had formed a sort of wall at the bluff, watching the burnt orange in the wispy cirrus clouds at the horizon fade. I was watching Portia. She was watching the yellow van go down the far row. She stepped onto the pavement, and stopped on the passenger side of my car. The van stopped at the squared off end of the asphalt, next to the Jesus Saves bus.
I opened the driver’s side door. I stood there too long, watching Portia. She was not moving closer to the bus and the van. Waiting. She glanced toward me. I am certain she smiled. Because I had to say something, I said, “I got a good… spot.”
“Good,” she said. “Great sunset.”
“Yes.” I glanced toward it, then back toward Portia. Her face was shadowed, but this Portia, in regular clothes, seemed younger.
“Oh,” she said, “It’s… you. How… are you?” I couldn’t think of a response both quick and clever. I gave her a weak smile/nod combination. “Chulo… and me… I, we… have to go to Balboa, the, uh, Naval hospital. His friend… Juni. That’s what Chulo calls him.” She laughed. “It sounds more like ‘hu’ni’ when he says it. Juni. Chulo says you know him… from before.”
Before.
Portia walked to the front of the Falcon, setting her bundle on the hood. I shut the door and moved toward the front of the car, across from her. “Jumper. Jumper Hayes. He’s… there? Balboa?” She nodded. “He allright?”
“He’s alive. He was just flown here… there. From Hawaii.”
There were voices coming from the space between the Jesus Saves bus and the Hayes Flowers van. Portia, keeping her eyes on me, moved closer. Several of the sunset watchers beyond her looked toward that end of the lot each time the two men’s voices were raised, short bursts back and forth, not quite distinguishable words.
I didn’t look. Portia didn’t look. She said, “I have never met him. Jumper.” Portia’s eyes were, with her usual dark eye makeup gone, a softer blue than I had remembered. Or imagined. Her black hair was, at the roots, lighter. “We’re going… with Mr. and Mrs. Hayes… their car. Good citizen car. It’ll get us through the gate.”
“The yellow Cadillac. Yeah. That’ll work. And… Gustavo’s a vet… veteran.”
Portia put her right hand on my left arm. “We didn’t say nothing… about… you.” I looked at her hand until she removed it “Langdon… he wasn’t there because of that.”
“No?”
“No. Never even went to… look. And anyway…”
“I wanted to… It was…” I was trying not to get lost, trying not to cry. I slid my hand across the hood, toward but not quite touching Portia’s. “Thank you.”
Portia had to say something or walk away. The muffled back and forth at the Jesus Saves bus continued. “Your father…” I kept my eyes on her. “Good man. Chulo and me…” She touched my left hand, slid her right hand on top of it, both of our hands resting on the top edge of the door. “He… introduced me and Chulo. ‘Troublemakers,’ he called us. Got me a job with…” She laughed. “You’re there now. Mrs. Tony’s.” I must have looked surprised. “Then I got on with Mrs. Hayes. Consuela. Arrangements, mostly. Shop work.”
Portia paused to make sure I was listening or that I understood. “The religious thing. That was Chulo. Converted and all. Work camp.” She had a ‘taste’s bad’ expression, just for a moment. “Jail. East County. You probably knew about that.”
“In Fallbrook it was known as, ‘The Great Avocado Robbery.’”
Portia laughed. I reevaluated her age again. She was barely over that line I’d set between me and adulthood. “They do love their avocados,” she said, with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.
“They do. Chulo and Jumper and some mysterious guy from… somewhere. A buyer. Supposedly. Never caught him. I got that from the papers. Never… my father didn’t tell… ‘war stories.’” I laughed. “Of course, he did; just… not to me.”
Portia. I was trying to think of a word for the look she was giving me. Earnest. Sincere. “Chulo says he did his best. The Deputy… Bancroft… Well, sorry God, but… fuck him.”
It was my turn to speak. I didn’t. I was visualizing Deputy Bancroft from the few times I had seen him at the Vista Substation. Once was before he had crippled Chulo, all smiles and backslapping his fellow deputies. A second image was of him looking worried and angry, trying to get the others to support him. Some took his side. My father did not.
Portia shrugged. She may have smiled. “I see… your father, in you. He… sorry for saying this again… He was a good man.” I had to look at her. Sincere. “You are your father’s son.”
The light had become grainy, the smog-enhanced colors at the horizon had gone gray. The few lights around the parking lot, just coming on, had to compete with the advance of night. The sunset show was over. Most of the watchers moved away from the bluff and, at various speeds, toward their vehicles. A few stayed on as if, perhaps, they were waiting for closing credits.
Not yet.
“Really?” It was loud. There was a softer, muffled response, followed immediately by, “Fuck you and Jumper then… Chulo!” Loud and clear. Both Portia and I looked over. The Hayes Flowers van blocked the view, but occasional columns of cigarette smoke raising up beyond the two popout surfboards revealed where Chulo and the man doing the yelling were standing. “Last run.” The other man’s voice was lower but clearer. “There and back. Simple.”
A skinny man wearing a cowboy hat, straw rather than cloth, went up the stairs of the Jesus Saves bus, closed the doors, started the engine, revving it quite unnecessarily.
“Asshole,” Portia said. She looked up and whispered, “Sorry. Again.”
Asshole was honking the Jesus Save bus’s horn, flashing the headlights. The running lights and the inside lights in the driver’s area were flashing. The bus’s engine was racing. I looked over as it passed. Asshole, wearing sunglasses, a bandana around his neck, looked straight ahead, rode the clutch, then popped it.
Chulo limped around the front of the van, and got in. “Different clothes,” I said. The engine was still running. He pulled the van forward and started down the bluff side lane. Counterclockwise. The van stopped, passenger door even with me.
Chulo nodded. I nodded. “Get any… good ones?” he asked through the open window, both of us aware of the sound of gears grinding between second and third as the Jesus Saves bus headed north on 101.
“A couple,” I said, to Chulo, as Portia walked past me, “Before the tide got too high.” She opened the van’s passenger door, set her bundle of clothes on the bench seat, held the door open, and looked at me as if she expected me to say more to her or Chulo. “Different clothes,” I said, more to Portia than Chulo. “I mean,” I said, looking directly at Chulo, “this is not the, um, John the Baptist look.”
“Yeah! Most people get it wrong,” Chulo said. “Jesus, way classier dresser.”
“Oh. Sure. Jesus. Whole cloth. Yeah.” I stepped away.
“You know the gospel.”
“Partially by choice.”
“Holy Spirit, man,” Chulo said, moving his fingers like a piano player. “Mysterious.” Portia closed the door. Chulo looked at her before he looked past her and at me. “I told them, Jody; Wendall, the State Patrolman, everyone… Plymouth. Gray Plymouth. Old guy, I said; probably didn’t even realize… what happened. And besides, your dad had already…”
“What about Langdon?”
“I can handle… Langdon. God… God love him.”
“He means ‘fuck Langdon,’” Portia said. “Another asshole.”
Portia looked at Chulo and then at me. I looked away and then up. There was something about the popout surfboards the van. Different boards, not the same ones I’d seen at my father’s wake. I took a step back to check out the skegs. Quickly, aware Portia and Chulo were watching me, aware someone was approaching from my left.
“Asshole,” I said. “God love him.”
“No shortage of assholes.” Someone was beside me. Gingerbread Fred. Threadbare sweater over a once white t shirt; maximum fade on his Levis, sewn-on patches of different fabric at the knees; no shoes; long, once-red hair, grayed-out and as stringy as his beard; glasses patched and listing to the left; Gingerbread Fred was looking up. He was looking beyond the popout surfboards, beyond the palm fronds and the pine branches. I had to follow his eyes.
A gauze of cloud had caught the last of the day’s sunlight, impossibly mixing pink and blue in a colorless sky. Gingerbread Fred moved close to the van’s still open passenger side door. “Boy gets it,” he said.
Portia, in a voice as gauzy as the clouds, said, “Fred’s here for the show.”
“Fred Thompson, the legend,” Chulo said. “Fred. Me and Portia; we have to get going. Juni… Jumper, he’s… They got… overrun. His platoon. He’s… wounded. He’s in Balboa.”
“Oh,” Fred Thompson said, “so Petey was right. That cocksucker DeFreines did get Jumper to fuckin’ join up. Semper Fi, motherfuckers.”
Neither Chulo nor Portia looked at me. Chulo looked at Portia. She shook her head. Chulo said, “Juni’s choice. Jumper. He wanted it kept… secret.”
Fred laughed. Not a crazy man’s laugh. “Yeah. Well, Petey and me… and secrets. No. At least he… Jumper… had a choice.”
“Mister Thompson, I heard you were out and you…went back in.” I realized, even as I was saying the words, that I had said too much. “Sorry.”
“Mistake. Crashed twice, shot down once.” Fred Thompson seemed to drift away for a moment. I had to look, had to see what that looked like. He came back with a snap. “Sometimes, like, the right wave can make the wipeout and the swim in… just part of the price. Worth it.” He looked at me. I nodded. He shook his head. “Sometimes… not.”
“Bad knee or not, Fred; I still wouldn’t have chosen the Marines.”
“I’m no Catholic, Chulo, but…” Fred made the sign of the cross, then threw his right hand out, fingers spread. “Hope our friend’s… better. And, catholic-wise, I do like the gesture.”
“It is a… good one.” Chulo shook his head, only slightly, did a version of the sign of the cross between the steering wheel and his chest, and revved the engine. “He’s coming back.”
“Jesus?”
“Yeah, Fred,” Chulo said, laughing. “Him too.”
Portia kissed the palm sides of the fingers on her right hand before folding them into a fist. She tapped her fist on the middle of her chest, three times, opened her hand, placed it over her heart. After five or six seconds, she wrapped her fingers around Fred Thompson’s right hand for another five or six seconds.
…
As the van pulled away, Fred held out his right hand. He looked at it, refocusing on me, as if, perhaps, he was supposed to know who I was; as if we had, perhaps, spoken before. “We come back. We just don’t come back the same.”
I copied Fred’s smile.
“You one of their… Chulo’s and Portia’s… followers?” He pointed roughly toward the highway. I shook my head. His hand staying in pretty much the same place, he turned the rest of his body toward the remains of the sunset. “You staying for the encore… kid?”
I wanted to ask Fred Thompson about Tijuana Sloughs, about Windansea and Simmons’s Reef and San Onofre before foam boards, about Malibu and surfing before ‘Gidget,’ about Korea and Vietnam, helicopters before they were gunships. I wanted to ask why he went back in the Army after Korea.
I didn’t. I followed him through the now-empty space next to the Falcon and to the bluff. His bicycle was on the ground, too close to the edge. When Gingerbread Fred looked up at the sky, I looked up. “It’s darkness, for sure, but it’s not… night. We’re in the… shadow.”
Fred Thompson, facing the horizon, extended his left arm and hand forward, level, cocking his hand back at the wrist. He extended his right, creating an almost ninety-degree angle. “Perpendicular,” he said, holding that position for a second before throwing both arms back until they were straight out at his sides. “Parallel.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. I had to step back as he spun around, one, then another revolution. “You’ll get it,” he said, regaining his balance. “You know why?” I shook my head. “Because you… are… looking.” He turned to what was left of the sunset colors.
“Shadow,” I said.
“Ha! Yes. Shadow.” Gingerbread Fred came close enough to me that I could smell his breath. Milk, perhaps, soured. I tried not to react. “You probably heard. I’m… crazy.”
“There’s… a lot of that going around, Mister Thompson.”
“Yes!” He stooped down a bit, still too close to me. “You get it.” I nodded. “This one night, clear, like now. Now, I was raised on the Bible. Not a Catholic. Not a heathen, neither.” He laughed and raised his right hand straight up. “An explosion. There was a… rainbow. So high up… the zenith… that high. The sun was still on it. ‘Every eye shall see him,’ the Book says. People here, in this very parking lot… they were panicked.” He lowered his right arm, stretched out his fingers, brought his arm back until his hand was between us. He, then I looked at his palm. He lowered his hands just enough to look at me. “None of us are ready for… that Jesus.”
“I saw it! Here! I was… here, Mr. Thompson! Swamis!”
“Whoa-aaaa-ooooo!” Fred Thompson’s zoomed to the highest octave he was capable of, and dropped, rapidly. He closed his eyes and looked up. His voice was gravelly when he tapped me, three times, on the chest, and asked, “Can you still… see it?”
“In my mind; yes, sir, I can.”
I could remember, perfectly, what I saw from the back of Gary’s real dad’s Ranchero in the Swamis parking lot. My back was against the cab, three towels wrapped around me, ballast for three longboards, stacked, longer to shorter, and extended out the back. Gary, Roger, and Roger’s second girlfriend were in the cab. The girlfriend was in the middle. I was the only one to see the bright glow, expanding, somewhere between the clear sky and space, the zenith; high enough the sun was still on it. Rainbows.
I had thought about that Jesus, having judged the wicked and the righteous, returning in glory, as advertised. I was sixteen. I wasn’t ready.
When I was dropped off, I peered into the cab of the Ranchero and pointed to the spot in the high sky. I described what I had seen. Roger and Gary and the girlfriend got out and looked up. The glow was a ghost of what it had been. I got a ‘sure,’ an ‘okay,’ and a ‘sorry I missed it.” The girlfriend. She was nice. She didn’t believe me, either.
I opened my eyes. Gingerbread Fred Thompson was six feet away. “I’m sure you know this,” I said. “Vandenburg Air Base. Rocket. Explosion.”
“Sure.” He turned toward the stairs. “I have chosen to believe it was a… a glimpse at what is… beyond, that it was a tear… in the shroud.”
“I’m… fine with that. But… we… you and I, we saw it.”
“We did. You and I… did.” Gingerbread Fred twisted the frames of his glasses, put a finger in his left ear, and yawned. He used the same finger to tap, three times, on his forehead, and said, “Keep it… here.” He clawed at his hair. He tapped his finger, three times, on his chest. “Here, too.” He pulled at his sweater. “I do hope you will excuse me. I am going to… quick dip. Therapeutic. And, kid, what I said about… your father. Yeah. Just checking. Good man, Joe was… for a Jarhead… and a cop.”
As he was dropping down the stairs and out of sight, I looked back up at the highest part of the sky. Zenith. Shadow. Stars, planets. Closing, and later, opening credits for the next show. “A tear in the shroud,” I said, out loud.
MORE CONTENT ON SUNDAY. “Swamis” and all other original material is protected by copyright, all rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. THANKS, get some waves when you can.
I hadn’t really planned on going to Seattle. I had forgotten that I had an appointment in Silverdale to check out the progress on my left eye (looking good after the last surgery, should get the oil out in, like, January), and since I was over that way anyway, and TRISH mentioned that DRU, who had just gotten disturbing-but-(of course)not 100% verified) news about her ongoing disputes with cancer, was going to go over to meet WENDY, someone our daughter met in her first year at LOYOLA UNIVERSITY in Chicago, there with her husband, JON, and I said, “Oh, maybe I could go…also,” this turning, instantly, into a commitment.
Jon, Wendy, and Dru. lost tourists in the background bemoaning that “The place where they throw the fish is closed, pre-8 O’clock.” “Yeah,” I said, to Jon and Wendy, not to the tourists, “It still smells… fishy.”
BECAUSE I wasn’t planning on going to Seattle, I was wearing Crocks. “Not a problem,” Trish, who wasn’t going said, “You’ll walk on, and then you’ll get an UBER.” The ferry terminal at COLEMAN DOCK and the roads in the vicinity have been in a constant state of destruction/construction before and since September of 1978, my first trip to the northwest. Every time I go through there it’s different. The current structure was, no doubt, designed after the oversized structures Hitler’s favorite architect designed. AND walking on from Bainbridge is, like, lengthy. AND you can’t just go out in front and jump in a cab. Actually you can, but we were going to Uber, and Dru has an app, so we walked, like, two piers north (Spring Street if you’re savvy) before we could figure out where a car could pull in, what with the long, plant-filled structure blocking the outside lane of southbound Aurora. Meeting up with Jon and Wendy, the plan was to walk down to Pike Place Market. “It’s only two blocks,” Jon said. No. two blocks over, two blocks down. In crocks.
I AM SUDDENLY REALIZING, as I’m one-drafting this, that I should either do a serious version or just get to the highlights. Or both. Lots of walking. Lots of people. Groups of: Tourists; Buffalo Bills fans; Halloween celebrants in costume (including a staggering drunk catwoman, a woman in a physics-defying top taking photos with others in, you know, other, less memorable costumes); an angry dudes talking to himselve; very very happy dude kind of twerking and singing.
It’s not that I PEOPLE WATCH, but… yeah; can’t help it. ON the way back, crush of people headed home, one way or the other, I noticed a guy (because he reminded me of a friend) with a man bun, a kilt, and oversized glasses. There he was, Dru and I limping along the boat to land walkway.
“I’m ready to go back to ______ (unnamed spot on the Strait that requires extensive walking/climbing).”
I’m not. I’m sore. OH, one last thing: When Dru and I were almost to the parking lot, her van in spot #7, thankfully, I reacted to a smell I identified with, “Smells like skunk,” before I realized the smell, at once sweet and somehow a bit harsh, was… something else. Just laughing was enough for Dru. “You know,” she had said, “Bainbridge Island votes 100% democratic.” “100%?” “Well, almost.”
Three Poems basically revealing that I am so happy I don’t have to live in Seattle:
Limerick Seattle surfers at ferry docks wait, You just want to check out the Strait, At its best it’s quite iffy, You can’t get there in a jiffy, You’ll arrive… just a little too late.
(or early; couple of hours, couple of days, couple of weeks)
Haiku Just missed the ferry, I may as well drive around, Settle for Westport.
Ode Oh, if I was a Seattle surfer, I’d feel so alive, Maybe I’d live in Fremont, Somewhere west of the I-5.
I’d have a built-out sprinter van, No V-dub or Subaru, Three boards in board bags on the rack Like other city surfers do.
And I’d study all the forecasts, Surfline premium’s a must, And every five-star rated day, It’s on the road or bust.
I’d be out there on the highways, In the darkness before dawn, Or I’d be waiting in the ferry line, Hoping, praying I get on.
Or perhaps I’d drive to Seaside, Maybe Short Sands or Westport, Hoping all Tacoma and Portland folks Adopted wing-foiling as their sport.
There is one code that I live by, A truth yet to be debunked, Don’t ever head out to the Strait Unless you’re willing to get SKUNKED.
Apology/explanation I understand how frustrating it is to be hours away from the possibility of waves worth surfing. During Covid, quite a few surfers moved over to the Olympic Peninsula, particularly those who could work anywhere they could get a signal. It didn’t take too long for many of them to realize how frustrating it is to live here. AND, there are so many easy amusements in the big city.
All original material protected by copyright. All rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Another chapter of “SWAMIS” will be posted on Wednesday. PUBLISHERS- I have a publisher showing some interest in my novel. They have questions as to my potential audience, my goals. I am working on a response, but , MEANWHILE, if you are or know a writer’s agent, or if you have connections with an actual, non-vanity press, let me know. Leave a message at my home/office (360)765-3212.
NON-POLITICALLY SPEAKING, Please write down all the reasons you would vote for Citizen Thrump (moral character, intelligence, empathy/narcissism level, religious-ness, allegiance to our country and our rule of law, whatever other bullshit you can think of), CONSIDER that you actual reasons for even considering voting for one of the more despicable human beings ever might have more to do with your own grievances that an honest appraisal of a serial lowlife, and, you know, don’t vote for the asshole.
TRISHA’S and my older son, older. JAMES JOSEPH MICHAEL DENCE had a birthday yesterday. His caption, texted with the photo, is “Forty-eight never looked so good.” J.J. when he was young, JAYMZ as a stage name, he has been in Moscow, Idaho since college, working and playing guitar with the FABULOUS KINGPINS, all the while leading his own bands, the current version being SOLID GHOST.
SIDENOTE- I just received (yesterday) a reasonably priced front zip wetsuit, replacing the one I’ve thrashed and patched, the one famously (locally) for having the hole in a most inopportune place for someone knee paddling in a crowded lineup. The suit is from NRS, which, I discovered, stands for NORTHWEST RIVER SUPPLY, and, surprise, they are located in MOSCOW, IDAHO. James said he almost went to work for them, a small outfit then, but now worldwide, but “They still pay Idaho wages.” Yeah, well… in this case, I appreciate it.
ADAM ‘WIPEOUT’ JAMES, obvious animal lover, worldwide local, and HAMA HAMA OYSTERS ambassador, is having a birthday TODAY. 47, and choosing which locals are ready to welcome into which lineup. Adam put the ‘local’ in ‘local or lucky,’ (I do take credit for the phrase) seeming to arrive at locations on days that turn out to be EPIC. Example- Cape Kiwanda, the pullback capitol of the world, with the point actually acting like a point break. Almost guaranteed today will be awesome and barrelling. At least, using a phrase often used by Adam, there’ll be a few butt barrels.
SEQUIM VORTEX STORIES-
I’m checking out at Costco. The checkout guy, possibly trying to impress the young woman assisting, says, “Pop a wheelie. On, like, a BMX bike. You’re too young for that one. This guy probably gets it.” “Yeah, I am, but, you know, there’s never a mention of mama wheelie.” “Oh. Is that a thing?” “Probably not.”
I’m headed from Home Depot (for stain) to Walmart (for bird food, mostly, assuming I need a decent excuse for going to either big box, right-wing owned store), and I see this guy at the light with a sign that says, “Looking for human kindness.” I change lanes to avoid eye contact (because I’m a hypocritical liberal who already voted, solid blue, but one who is still working at 73), and because I run a constant stream of ‘what if’ scenarios through my mind, I wonder what reaction I would get from the man if I came back and gave him the gallon of milk from Costco. It might be, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.” Or not.
I’ll skip the in-depth ‘Previously’ for “Swamis” again, but this chapter mostly takes place at GRANDVIEW, JOEY and a guy from Fallbrook High racing over after school. If you’re figuring out that the story is almost more about the relationship between Joey and JULIE COLE… yeah.
CHAPTER SEVEN- FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1969
Fallbrook Union High School was letting out. Gary and Roger and I were standing in the big dirt parking lot behind the band room. Johnny Dale, in his daddy’s restored 1957 Chevy Nomad station wagon, two girls in the front seat with him, slowed down, then popped the clutch, and spun out directly in front of us. Gary, then Roger, flipped Johnny off, both called him an asshole. Both looked at me when I didn’t participate.
“Witnesses,” I said.
“You?” Gary asked. “No,” they both said. The next two cars that passed got three sets of double eagles, my gesture only waist high, almost happily returned by the car’s occupants.
…
“Friday, March 14,” I said, writing the date into a page about a third of the way through a red notebook sitting on the hood of a yellow 1968 Super Beetle with two surfboards, side by side on the Aloha racks; my bruised and patched nine-six pintail and a brand-new Hansen ten-two. “Finally enough light after school for going. Gary and Roger bailed.”
Roger said, “We’re not bailing, Joey; we have dates.”
Gary mouthed, “Dates” while running his hand along the rail of the board on the driver’s side, adding, “With girls. And it’s fuckin’ Friday! And, anyway, Joey, where’s your date, Doublewide Doug?”
“Doug-L-ass has… art seventh period,” Roger said. I nodded, looked at my watch, wrote a sentence in the notebook without saying it out loud.
“Why is it,” Gary asked, “That Dingleberry Doug has a new fucking car and a new fucking surfboard?”
“Why is it, Gary, that Joey is such a whore that he’ll ride with Dipshit Doug?”
“Why is it, Joey, that everyone’s getting shorter boards, but your buddy, Dipsy doodle Doug, is going full-on aircraft carrier?”
I looked around the lot. “Because, gentlemen, Doug’s… working; one, and his father’s running irrigation for all the new… ranchettes; two, and three, I’m a whore for the surf, and three, again… gas money.” I stepped back from my friends. Both were wearing Levis, Ked’s boat shoes, J.C. Penny’s white t shirts, and nylon windbreakers. As was I. “Why is it that we all don’t have… matching windbreakers like we’re on the Dork Neck Dreever Surf Team?” Both gave me ‘fuck you’ looks. “You guys, with the blonde hair and all. Uninformed people might believe you surf better than I do.”
“Fine with me, Joey. Gary? You?”
“Yeah. Fine, but… Hey, Joey; here comes your date now!”
Doug, varsity offensive lineman, was on the sidewalk, still a distance away, slow running toward us. He had a cardboard art portfolio under his right arm, his left arm out and ready to straight arm anyone in his path.
“Joey DeFreines, surf slut,” Gary said, kissing his right hand, then using a big arm movement to simulate throwing the kiss toward Doug. Roger ran out, putting both hands out as if he might catch this pass.
Doug only saw the last part before Roger bumped into him and bounced away. Doug dropped Roger with his left arm. “Incomplete,” he said, leaning over to help Roger back up.
Gary’s mom’s Corvair pulled in beside Gary and me, trailed by its usual puffs of black smoke. The Princess was driving. There was another girl in the front seat, two more in the back. Sophomore girls. Giggling. The Princess peeled out just as Gary went around the back of the car.
“Better remember to put some oil in it, Princess,” Gary said, pointing to the hood. “One quart ought to do it.”
The Princess popped the clutch, honked as she cut another car off, and pulled out and onto the side road in a cloud of black smoke.
Doug touched his car and leaned against it, breathing heavily. “Made it!” He opened his portfolio, pulled out a piece of drawing paper and laid it on the hood. “Check this shit out!” It was a drawing, pastels, of cartoonish people and cars on the side of a road. A red light was glowing from beyond and below the cars and people. “Pulled over” was written in the same red as a sort of caption.
“It’s from… last week’s Free Press,” I said.
“Where’d you get it, Doublewide Dave?”
” Well… Roger, someone in my art class wanted me to scotch tape it on…” He pointed toward me. “Jody’s locker.”
“Grant Murdoch.”
“Grant fucking Murdoch.”
“Bingo! I told him to fuck himself, Jody, you and I are surfin’ buddies.”
“Surfin’ buddies, Doug-l-as,” Gary said, extending the ‘ass’ part, “Don’t wear that fucking letterman jacket to the beach. Joey wants all the hodads to think he’s from somewhere else.”
“Laguna… specifically,” I said as I rolled up the drawing, using the scotch tape at the corners to secure the roll. “Or San Clemente. Santa Cruz. Just… not… Fallbrook.”
Douglas took a folded piece of paper out of a pocket, the Warrior’s jacket off and tossed it, inside-out, onto the hood of his car.
“Oh, and fuck Grant Murdoch,” Gary said as he and Roger turned and headed toward an almost new Ford Mustang, two girls standing beside it.
Doug looked that way as he unlocked the driver’s door. “Roger’s stepfather’s car, Doug.”
“Yeah, I know, but, Jody, that one girl; I think she’s, maybe, a… sophomore.”
I stepped in front of Doug, blocking his view. “Maybe.” I shaded my eyes and looked toward the sun.
“Maybe she flunked third grade or something. We… You ready?”
I half-danced around the front of the car, grabbing my books and notebooks. “Maybe.”
When I got in the super beetle, Doug slid the paper across the dashboard. “Murdoch. Wanted me to give it to you…” I didn’t unfold it. “Personally. I didn’t look at it.”
I placed the unopened paper into the side pocket of my PeeChee folder. “We going?”
…
Doug was driving. I had a book open, its paper bag cover with unreadably psychedelic pencil lettering. “Civics” and “Grandview” and “JOEY DeFreines.”
“Shit, Jody, I could just cheat off of you.”
“Or… you could… study. I’ll just give you the… shit I think’ll be on the test.”
“Close your eyes, Jody.” Doug pushed the book back toward my face.
I knew exactly where we were; three big corners west of the village of Bonsall, on the last straightaway before the sharp left and the narrow bridge across the wide valley that held the thin line of the San Luis Rey River. I looked over the book and Doug just in time to see the construction site, an elongated building framed up, level with and parallel to the highway on an artificial peninsula of fill.
“Building it quick, Jody.”
“Yes. Quickly.’
“Um, uh, Jody; you know, my sister… she taught me how to drive. She said, if there’s a truck or something coming… on the bridge… she just closes her eyes.”
“Uh, Doug… no. Eyes open. Please.”
We made it across, no vehicles coming our way. A choice had to be made. It was a soft right-hand turn or a steep hill.
“Oceanside’s probably faster,” Doug said. “Cut over at El Camino Real.”
“Faster then, Doug.”
Doug downshifted, made the soft right-hand turn. Thirty seconds later Doug said, “Um, you know; Gary and Roger call you Joey.” I didn’t look over the Civics book. “I’ll call you that if you call me…”
“Dangerous Doug? Or… your choice. Sure.”
“And you can tell Gary and Roger that I’m, you know, really good, surfing-wise. Joey.”
I lifted the book back up to my face. “Or… I can give you a dollar for gas… Doug-ie.”
“Oh. No. That’s all right… Jo-ey.”
…
Doug cut off an oncoming pickup truck as he made the thirty-five-degree turn onto the El Camino Real cutoff, southwest, up and out of the valley, We hit highway 78 on the other side, merged onto I-5, got off at Tamarack Avenue. High tide. Shorebreak. We didn’t even drop into the lower parking lot. Doug missed the turn for Grandview. So, Beacons. Doug pulled in next to a green-gray VW bus with a white roof.
“Last chance, Doug. Sun’s down in… forty minutes.”
The tide was dropping. There were five surfers out, two of them girls. Young women. One of the young women was Julia Cole. There were four guys in street clothes on the beach. Two were watching the young women, one was looking at the flotsam along the tide line, one was doing some sort of surf pantomime, a beer bottle in each hand. He was the one who looked up the bluff at Doug and me.
“Jerks,” I said.
“Fucking Hodads,” Doug said as he opened the trunk on the front of his super beetle. That one in the blazer and wingtips, guaranteed not from around here.”
I moved to the bluff, wrapping Doug’s extra towel around me. A set was coming in and Julia Cole was on the second wave. I turned my shortjohn wetsuit back to outside out, peeled off my Levis and boxers, pulled the wetsuit up partway, wrapped the clothes in the towel, pulled the sleeveless suit up the rest of the way. Right arm through, I connected the stainless-steel turnbuckle at the left shoulder.
“My first wetsuit, Doug, December of 1965, made by a sailmaker at Oceanside Harbor, cost fifteen dollars. Christmas present. This one… seventeen-fifty, plus tax. But they were custom, two weeks from measuring to pick up.”
“Val’s,” Doug said as he unstrapped the boards, “my dad… up in LA.”
“Val’s is… valley, as in… valley cowboy.”
“Not trying to hide it.”
“Good. Noble. I am.” I pulled a cigarette out of the pack, showed it to Doug. He shook his head. I lit the Marlboro with three paper matches. Throwing my clothes into the trunk, I stashed my wallet, cigarettes, and matches in one shoe, stuffed the other shoe inside that one, slid the shoes under my clothes.
“Yes, Jo… Joey; I will lock the car.”
Halfway down the first section of the path, I saw that Julia Cole and her friend were out of the water. The three other Jerks followed the pantomimer toward them. “Monica,” the pantomimer, the Head Jerk, said. Loudly. His crew laughed. He repeated the word, stretching it to, “Mon-ee-ca. We have some be-er, San-ta Mon-e’-ca.”
Monica, her head down, made it to the bottom of the trail. The Head Jerk, walking backwards toward the bluff in front of Julia Cole, blocked the trail access. Julia Cole stopped; her face was very close to the Head Jerk’s. She said something. He put his free hand over his crotch, hopped backwards, throwing his hands out and up, beer sloshing onto his madras shirt.
Julia Cole was ten steps up the trail when he said, “Juuu-li-a. Juuuu-lee-ya; you are so cold. Soooo coooold. Ju’-li-a cold.”
Doug and I, boards under our arms, made the turn at the trail’s upper switchback.
The Head Jerk took several steps up the trail, turned back to his crew. “Come on up, you pussies!” Raising the volume, he added, “Surf broads. You jagoffs liking Monica’a ass better… or Juuu-lie’s?”
If any of the Jagoffs responded, it was more like growling or laughing than discernible words. “Brrrrrrrr,” the Head Jagoff said, Julie fifty feet up the trail, “Is the water cold, Juu-lie? And… I’m wondering if you’ve got anything on under that wetsuit. I saw… skin.”
More laughter. One of the members of the Jagoff Crew said, “Come on, dude; cool it.”
Head Jerk moved both beer bottles to his left hand and shot his right hand out. Pleased that the subordinate flinched, Head Jagoff said, “And don’t fuckin’ call me dude… dude.” He started up the trail. His cohorts hung back, possibly because they saw me, looking quite displeased, and the much bigger Doug, behind me, also displeased.
Monica and I met at the lower switchback. I stopped. Doug stopped. I stood my board up, holding it with my left hand, and moved to the uphill side. Doug did the same. Monica nodded, quickly, but looked down as she passed. Julia Cole had an expression as much determined as pissed-off. Defiant. Looking at me, she didn’t seem to adjust her expression one way or the other. I did notice the chrome turnbuckle on one side of her wetsuit was undone and her bare shoulder was exposed. Skin. She noticed I noticed. Another asshole. Another jerk. Her lower lip seemed to pull in, her upper lip seemed to curl. Disappointment. Or anger. Julia blinked. I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Julia Cole passed me and then Doug. “Joey’ll get ‘em,” Doug said.
“No,” she said. “Not… no.”
I may have been replaying Julia Cole’s expression for the third or fourth time when Head Jagoff approached the tight angle at the switchback. I may have missed the first few words he kind of spit at me.
I replayed his words. “What’s the deal, asshole? Huh? You some sort of fuckin’ retard?”
“Possibly, Dude,” I said. “I do believe, Dude, you owe Julia Cole and Monica… don’t know her last name… a sincere apology.”
“You do,” Doug said. “And… don’t know where you’re from, Jagoff; somewhere east coast; but we don’t fuckin’ call our chicks ‘broads’ around here.” Doug looked at me.
“I believe,” I said, “The Jerk prefers being called Dude… over Jagoff.”
“No, Jagoff seems apropos. That, Jagoff, means ‘appropriate.’ It’s French. Jagoff, which, I might be wrong, has something to do with… you know, whacking the… willy.”
Jagoff looked at Dangerous Doug in his new Val wetsuit, his un-dinged Hansen leaning against his left shoulder, his spotless white towel over his right shoulder. Jagoff looked back down the trail. His cohorts hadn’t moved. “Come on up. We have us a fuckin’ farm boy and some sort of retard Gook.”
“Oh, no. Jody; Willy Whacker called you a Gook.”
“Common mistake.”
“Step aside, fuckers!” Neither Doug nor I moved. “Jody,” Jagoff said, leaning in way too close to my face. “Girl’s name. Well. Fuck Monica! Fuck Julie fuckin’ Cole. And… fuck you, Jo-dee… And your fat-ass friend.”
Doug turned toward me. “I meant… Joey, but. Joey, I don’t think an apology is, you know, forthcoming.”
I let go of my board and extended my right hand, palm up, toward Jagoff. My board fell against the bank. He looked at my hand. He made a sound as if he was hawking up a loogie. I kept my hand out. He spit near but not on my hand.
Doug laid his board, carefully, uphill, against the scrub and ice plant on the bluff. He wrapped his towel around his neck and pointed at each member of the Jagoff Crew, now partway up the lower portion of the trail. “Hey, assholes, come on up and help out your friend. But, warning, Joey’s a, for real, fucking, by-God, Devil Dog!”
Jagoff shook his head. “Devil Dog?” It didn’t register. He looked up toward the parking lot, sneering. He put one of the beer bottles in his other hand. Holding the bottles by the necks, he smashed them against each other. The open one shattered, the remaining beer running down his arm. He held the raw edges against the palm of my right hand. He was smiling. “Fuck you, Gook!”
I closed my eyes. I imagined an eleven-year-old kid. My opponent. He had padded fabric head gear and a heavy pad on his body, a padded pugil stick in his hands. He was sneering. Other voices were cheering. I could hear myself crying. Big sobs, inhaling between each one. My father’s voice said, “Eyes open, Jody! Open!” The kid in the head gear, still sneering, was about to hit me again, this time with the right-hand end of the stick. I could also see the Jagoff, his beer bottle weapon pulled back. My father’s voice screamed, “Get in there! Jody!” I did. I saw my pugil stick connect, saw the opponent fall back. His sneer gone.
As was Jagoff’s.
Both beer bottles were on the path, both now broken. It would be a moment before Jerk/Dude/Jagoff reached for his nose; before the blood started flowing from there and his upper lip. It would be another few moments before the three Jagoffs, frozen near the top of the bluff, continued scrambling for the top.
“Devil Dog,” Dangerous Doug said.
“Devil Pup,” I said, keeping my eyes on my opponent. “Marines, Dude… may I call you Dude? There were tears in Dude’s eyes, blood seeping between his fingers. “Or… your name? No? Well, Dude, Devil pups; it’s kind of like… summer camp… on the Marine base, with hand-to-hand combat.”
Doug pulled his towel from his shoulders and handed it to Dude. “Apology, then, Dude?”
Fluffy towel to his face, Dude nodded. “Not to us,” I said. He nodded again. “Promise?” Third nod. “Okay. And, if you would… pick up the glass. It dangerous. Huh, Doug?”
“Dangerous,” Doug said. “Keep the towel, Dude. Souvenir.”
Looking from Doug to me, Dude pulled the towel away, blood seeping through it. “You don’t know Julia Cole. What she’s really like. You defending her, it’s like…”
“You’re right. I don’t know her.”
“’Cause we’re from Newport, Dude. Huh, Joey?”
Dude was staring at me. His eyes narrowed, then widened. Whether or not this meant he recognized me, I smiled. “Newport… yeah.”
Doug blinked and mouthed, “Laguna.”
…
When Doug and I got to the beach, Dude was still at the same spot, placing pieces of broken glass into Doug’s towel. His friends were in the parking lot, three vehicles over from the VW camper bus. There was a flash of light off glass. Julia Cole was behind the passenger side door. I couldn’t see her expression. I could remember it from earlier.
“Sorry, Doug. You know I’m trying to be all ‘peace and love,’ and not…”
“You shittin’ me, Joey? You’re a fuckin’, by-God Devil Dog!”
When we were knee deep in the water, Doug jumping onto his board early, too far back, too much of his board’s nose out of the water, I said, “Maybe we can keep this little incident to ourselves.”
Doug laughed. “How good am I doing, Joey?”
I jumped over a line of soup and onto my board. “You’re fuckin’ ripping, Dangerous Doug!”
…
I left my wetsuit and my shoes on the porch, stacked my books on the dinette table, and looked back into the living room, all the lights except a lamp by the console off. My mother was on the couch. A World War II era record was playing, a woman singing wistfully about lost love. Seventy-eight rpm. The wedding photo was leaning against the console. The song ended and another record, 33 and 1/3 rpm, dropped onto the turn table. “South Pacific,” original Broadway cast.
My mother got up, adjusted the record speed, and walked into the kitchen. I followed.
“The surfing?”
“Good. Doug is just learning, and…”
“Doug. Who are Doug’s… people?” She turned off the oven and pulled out a foil covered plate, set it on the cast iron trivet on the kitchen table. “Would you like milk?”
“I’ll get it. Doug’s father has the irrigation company. Football player. That Doug.”
“Irrigation. Football. Doug. You and he are… friends… now?”
“Now? I guess so. Surf friends, Mom; it’s… different.”
“Still, it is nice that you have… friends.”
“It’s just… it’s not… Surfing’s cool. I surf. It doesn’t make me cool.” My mother gave me a look I had to answer with, “Yes, mother; friends are… nice to have.” She nodded and walked through the formal dining room and into the living room.
I pulled the paper Doug had given me out of the PeeChee and unfolded it. “It was a drawing of me, from this week’s Free Press. Me in the window, looking out. The pen and ink drawing wasn’t quite a rendering, not quite a cartoon, with un-erased pencil lines. “Grant,” a signature at the bottom, was not finished in ink.
I tried to figure what Grant’s motives were. Intentions. I allowed water trapped in my sinuses to drain from my nose, not wiping at them with a paper napkin for a moment, then blowing as much water as I could into the napkin.
Freddy ran into the kitchen from the hallway, half pushed me against the counter. “She called,” he said. “The reporter. Asked for you… after I told her mom wasn’t here. Are you crying?”
“No. No.” I refolded the drawing. “Who? Lee Ransom?”
“Yeah. Her. Mom was here. Outside, grooming Tallulah.”
“Okay.”
“I told her…” Freddy switched to a whisper. “I told her what you told me to say.” I nodded, tried to push past my brother. He put a hand to my chest. “She asked what kind of car mom drives.” I did one of those ‘and?’ kind of shrugs. “She said she asked one of the detectives, and he pointed to a different car than the one someone else pointed to… not the Volvo.”
“Which one?”
“Which car?”
“Which detective?”
“Boys!” I looked around Freddy. Our mother was in the dining room. I couldn’t tell from her expression how much she had heard. I had to assume too much.
“SWAMIS’ is copyrighted material, all rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
And, in the RELUCTANTLY POLITICAL catagory, please vote the reasoned choice; BLUE. There is no other America to save America from going the way of many another country. There is no reasonable reason to vote for a disgusting example of a human being and wannabe dictator. If you claim some sort of Christian stance, ‘he is redeemable’ kind of bullshit argument, you must not believe Jesus when he said about those who speak the way the orange candidate does, that “the truth is not in them.” Or, perhaps, you put little value in the last book of the BIBLE. Cons con. Liars lie. Grifters grift.
Real Surfers 