Tag Archives: Erwin Dence

Secret Spot, Illustration

Posted on by under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, surf culture, surf flyers, surf illustrations, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing drawings, surfing illustrations, surfing Southern California in the 60s, surfing stories, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

The drawing is taken from a Rich Wilken photograph of Dru Harrison at Waddell Creek, a spot unknown to me but probably not secret; that photograph from the 40 year “Surfer” anthology “The Perfect Day,” accompanied by a piece by Drew Kampion on “The Day They Walked on the Moon,” July 20, 1969. About that, and, of course, more. In this case, the story was also about radical, for the time, surfing at a Western Surfing Association (WSA) contest at Oceanside, and some perfect (and uncrowded) waves at Lower Trestles.

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What I remember about the day, a Sunday, is that I went surfing, and the next day, I went to the accountant’s office in Oceanside to pick up my paycheck for the previous week’s work at Buddy’s Sign Service. Buddy’s real name, because almost no one, even someone in Florida whose son would end up learning sign painting in prison, would give a child the name Buddy when Lacey, Lacey Rollins, was available (Oh, maybe Buddy was a prison name).

Buddy, with his wife, Sandy, had recently moved from a trailer in the back of his first shop, in South Oceanside, which they had moved to from a shed, to one of three upstairs apartments at what had been the “Blade-Tribune” newspaper building, 1st and Tremont, home of his new shop. Big, high ceilings; quite Loft-like. The building was a block from the Greyhound  bus station, a few blocks from the pier. With the Vietnam War still in full swing, and Camp Pendleton nearby, for a kid from what I thought was the suburbs but would now qualify as rural, this was a pretty scary/exciting neighborhood, with waves just beyond the railroad tracks.

Buddy seemed to hang out at the office a bit, and, in fact, was there, slouching in a chair, when I came in.  The woman who was making out my check, I noticed, while I was waiting at her desk, had been practicing a signature on some scratch paper. Sheila Rollins (or some other first name I’ve forgotten).

Since I, freshly graduated from Fallbrook High, considered Buddy, at 32, old; and, in fact, thought Sandy, at 21, was a little oldish, and kind of (I’m being honest here) cheap; and definitely thought Buddy was pretty white trashish. He was good at lettering- a skill, practiced and learned; rather than in any way artistic (which is the reason I went after a job as a sign painting apprentice- high(er) art). I was a bit stunned that the woman might consider Buddy- I don’t know, desirable- maybe.

“Where were you… um… yesterday,” she asked. “Surfing,” I said, and probably went into some details of where and how good she, knowing I had seen the signatures and was probably judging her (I was), didn’t actually care to hear. “You know, you’ll always remember where you were when man first walked on the moon.”

Buddy nodded at me and smiled at Sheila, then sat up straighter when Sandy entered the office.

Sheila gave me my check for whatever balance remained, after taxes, from forty hours at $1.35/hr. I would routinely cash my check at the market on the way home, or, if it was early enough, before checking out a few surf spots, maybe surfing Tamarack or Grandview. Yeah, minimum wage was $1.65 an hour at the time. I found this out a month or so later when I found a required government poster in one of the bathrooms at the “Blade-Tribune” building; right after Buddy gave me a raise to $1.50.

“No,” I told the new bookkeeper, Sandy, “You actually have to pay me more.” Sandy looked at Buddy, lettering at a 4′ by 8′ easel, standing on one leg, like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull (so you get an image). “I can show you the poster. I mean…” Buddy looked at Sandy, looked at me, shrugged. “Next week, then. Okay, Kid?”

I’m pretty sure I surfed at the south jetty that Monday morning, but, can’t quite remember where I surfed on the day… you know, THE day.

NOTE: My  printer is out of ink. I’ll do a color version of this later.

If the Session Report is, “It was really pretty…”

Posted on by under Erwin Dence surf illustrations, learning to surf, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, SUP surfing, surf adventures, surf culture, surf illustrations, surf satire, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing drawings, surfing in Washington State, surfing satire, surfing stories, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized

…it, most likely, means the waves weren’t happening. It was very pretty yesterday.

I’ve long decided to include the trip there and back into any session report; and, in the Pacific Northwest, with the snow level moving up and down with the same systems that bring swell to some spots and not to others; well, the view of the Olympics, even from the Safeway gas station in Port Angeles, is ultra pretty.

We all try to be scientific, using all the information available, plus past experience (ie; at this angle, this tide, this size, this spot was working); but we always have to factor in the skunk factor (on a similar tide and swell angle, the same spot was not working), and the “Random Theory,” that being that sometimes, even when the factors all seem slightly off, random acts of surf magic can happen.

EDIT- And sometimes everyone gets skunked.

Throw in wishing and hoping and praying, and that it’s a weekend between a constant barrage of wet frontal systems, and you get way too many desperate surfers combing the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

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My original plan was to either hit West Riverdale at dawn, before the tide got too high, with the Wrench as a backup. Or, I could go to The Outfall a bit later, when the tide got high enough.  I had things to do in Sequim, and, really, I planned on going to work on a painting project later. The problem, pre-dawn, was, the angle just wasn’t there. Oh, the swell, which had been stubbornly southwesterly, was supposed to go more northerly during the day, coinciding with a drop in swell size.

So, I made what I thought was the best decision. Nope. Lots of people at West Riverdale, all on the beach, cars piled high with boards; one guy, Tim Nolan, in the water, and the tide already too high. BUT PRETTY. Vehicles were coming, heading out farther; the coast always an option for those with enough time. Some surfers were, evidently, deciding to wait out the tide. I went out anyway. Tim paddled past me, pointed to the horizon, said something about where the swell was actually going, and got out of the water. I snagged a few shorewashers and surrendered to reality, wetsuit-driving away.

Over at the Wrench, the parking lot was packed with multi-board vehicles and warriors suiting up or suiting down. I squeezed into the back row, asked the guy in the rig next to mine if he could get out. “Hi, Erwin,” he said. It turns out it was Darrin, who provided me a ride on his board when mine was caught in the rip on a big day in December. I was also caught in the rip, my daughter on the beach, on the phone to her mother.

“Thanks, Darrin,” I said, shaking his hand a second time. I had been unable to really thank him properly when I got back out (after Keith Darrock rescued my board, and because one must go back out after a thrashing); and all this gratitude didn’t stop me from (accidentally, I swear) taking off in front of him on my first ride at the Wrench.

Thinking I was doing allright among those surfing, many of them beginners, kneeboarding weak little waves into the creek; one of several guys on standup paddleboards, evidently trying to be civil, asked me if I was new to riding an SUP. “First time, today,” I answered; not like he was so good. “Oh, you’re doing great, then,” he said, “you really seem to have the physics down.” “Thanks.” This was kind of depressing, and the waves were dying anyway.

Deciding I’d switch to only riding erect, I took off on a solid eighteen incher when another SUP hero took off in front of me. When he saw me, he bailed. “No problem,” he said, as if it was my fault, after my board went under his. “I didn’t know you were going to go straight,” I said. Next weak wave, I paddled, standing up, all the way to the parking lot. High tide. Two sessions. I was done.

More surfers, some quite excited, some not even checking the waves, going by the ‘if surfers are out, it must be good,’ were headed for the wild surf as I got dressed and headed toward Costco, then home.

I got a call from Keith while waiting for my order at the Jack in the Box. It’s perfectly acceptable to talk about great waves ‘after’ you get out of the water. I’d made the wrong decision. “You would have loved them.” Yeah. If I hadn’t had stuff that needed refrigeration, if I hadn’t just ordered a milkshake for Trish, if I didn’t know for a fact (or pretty sure near-fact) that the waves Keith and a few others (others in on this super fickle secret spot) had gorged on would be gone before I could get there…

I left my board on the car, just in case. I’ve checked the buoys since 5:30. Nope; might as well go work on the project I didn’t get to yesterday (I did do the drawing, above). Still, hoping and wishing, I’ll leave it on the car, just in case. Okay, it’s 7:13; I’ll post this and check the buoys.

Oh, and Tim Nolan did get in on the waves that had missed West (and East) Riverdale.

Another Nearly-True (but still fictional) Story from Surf Route 101

Posted on by under real surfers, short stories on surfing, surf adventures, surf sessions, surf stories, surfing, surfing Windansea in the 1970s, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

La Marea Esta’ Subiendo [The Tide is Rising]

Her assumption must have been that an incoming tide brings things in, in toward shore. That’s when she would show up at Windansea, looking over at or walking the high tide line; scraps of driftwood and plastic and seaweed. I can’t be sure if she showed up for the middle of the night tidal pushes. I certainly didn’t. I was really only there when I thought there might be overhead waves.

But, I did see her there; I knew why she was there. One of the La Jolla locals who also surfed Crystal Pier was kind enough to explain, on a flat day, up in the parking area, careful not to have any other locals see him talking to someone who lived outside, even if just outside, the acceptable local zone. My not-really-a-friend even translated the phrases she kept repeating.

After my first attempt at surfing Windansea, I always checked it out when it was too big for any break in Pacific Beach. I’d given up on big days at Sunset Cliffs, my original choice, after a bad experience at Luscombs.

To this day it was the tube of my life. Everything being ‘locked in’ was supposed to be: Time slowing down, a thousand mirrors bouncing off the wall of the wave, a crystal chandelier exploding, the only sound wet rumbling-thunder; but, no, it was not at all peaceful. After the initial drop there was no choice but the tube; but I had to, had to make it. All I saw, peripherally, in an infinite moment, was the cliff, to my left, through the curtain.
Oh, yeah; the curtain; thrown over me…one…two…three… tighter… then pulled back. Open face. Breathe. Yeah; all the cliche’s, except, except…

… except I was the only one out; tubed but scared shitless; no less so after I made it to the shoulder, well within the shadow of the cliffs, standing, stretching, just cruising over the last of the dark, fat wave, even unable to celebrate my survival, my victory. The sun reflected in a variety of stripes and lines and sparkle on three more waves in the set. Paddle!

I caught more waves, dropping in on the shoulder, driving down the line. It took three waves before the memory of the first ride came clear. What was; what could have been. Even if I hadn’t made it, I told myself, I would have been all right. Still, my breathing quickened. Wave of my life. It was, I (again) told myself, enough for this day. I wasn’t scared; but I was, I guess, reluctant.

Sorry; too much explanation. This wasn’t my plan for this story.
Quicker: I tried to time my exit. Retreat. I could see the set hitting a reef farther out, an indicator. Three waves. I paddled out, over the first three, turned, held my position; caught the third. No tube; but a long wall. When it went fat, I straightened-out. There was backwash hitting the bluff, energy from the first two waves reflected from the point. My thought was I’d climb up the cliff (it’d worked before, but there were people there to grab my board as I scrambled up). The time I spent trying to find a place to land allowed the next wave to break hard, clean. I got worked, pounded, feet in river-type rocks, board bouncing against sandstone. And another, and another.

I had no choice but to leap onto my board, back into the next wave. I decided to paddle toward the cove. I paddled to my right, then toward shore. Almost there, a wave (six feet, at least) crashed down, right on my feet. In the cove!
I just hung on. There’s catching the soup; part of any surfer’s learning curve; and there’s this: I was engulfed. It’s like the wave smothers you, rolls over you; a heavy piece of driftwood; but then you’re pulled, or sucked, back over the energy and blasted in front of it. I’ve made it through this so many times. Not that one. Somewhere, probably when I was separated from my board, hands still clutching the rails, then violently thrown against it, I let go. Sorry. When I thought I was at the surface, I inhaled, still six inches left of a foot of churning foam. I coughed, inhaled again, coughed, got enough air for another wet cough.

drowning

I was gasping, confused, in another shadow, suddenly aware I was cold, cold and caught in the turbulence of too much energy from too many directions. Still, I wasn’t scared. I knew I could make it to shore, some shore; even if the rip took me north, toward that pinnacle rock; even if… I told myself I would not drown. Never.

And I did make it to the non-beach; still coughing; breathing in, coughing out, leaned over, hands on my thighs.

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Two surfers were half-sliding down a steep trail in the corner of the cove. One of them yelled out, “Man; your board hit sooo hard!” And I saw a board; half a board, on the rocks to the north. “That’s it; broken,” I thought. Then; “Wait, my board’s red.” My board was, had to be… I jumped back in the water. I found my red board at the top corner of a cave under the sandstone. I had to swim in; the tide still rising, the waves still coming.

It’s a little bay, really; Big Rock on the south end, Windansea in the middle. As I said, I knew (four waves in an hour on a six foot day for a twenty year old wave hog) only to surf it when it was big enough that the pack at the peak (there has always been a pack at the peak) couldn’t maintain tight control. I’ve never surfed the breaks outside or north of the main break, only surfed the main break; never went left. Steep drop, then fat shoulder; juke around, try to have some speed for the inside section. The day after the tube of my life, while successfully negotiating quite a few waves,  I lost my board three times at Windansea. Not on the drop; but, once trying to backdoor the peak, twice not having enough speed on the inside section.
Someone, probably a tourist, on the second wipeout, was kind enough to place my board up on the high rocks; protected from the waves and the rising tide. When I came in, retrieved my board, felt the new ding on the rail, looked at how much more crowded it was than when I’d gone out, thought about where I was supposed to be, I had to pass by the woman. She looked up; first at my board (no, my board was red), then at me. I smiled. No, I was just someone who wasn’t the man she was still looking for. She really didn’t see me. Not me. She looked past me and kept talking:

“No he visto el cuerpo,” I have not seen the body.
“Nunca se ahogaria.” He would never drown.
“Nunca.” Never.
“E’l debe ser tan frio.” He must be so cold. “Tan Frio.” So cold.

There was a sudden crowd at the palapa, more at the railing; some were pointing. I looked around, scanning the lineup. A board hit one of the big rocks to my left. A hollow, solid thud. On the next wave it drifted back out, moving in the rip toward Big Rock. I just watched it. In moments, it seemed, two lifeguards passed me, passed the woman, both leaping into the shorebreak. As everyone watched the rescue, I looked at the woman.

The guy was all right. Kook; never should have been out there.

The woman looked at her watch, crossed herself; the last move, smoothly executed, seemed to be part of her own ritual, her fingers pointing out to sea, then to her lips. Her hand opened, fingers fanned. She reached into a pocket on her coat, pulled out car keys. She did notice me. probably staring, as she opened the door to her (I was surprised by this) fairly new, fairly expensive car. When I didn’t look away, she gave me- not a smile-  maybe a bit of a nod.

The tide was going out. “La marea esta’ bajando.”

Angels Unaware- Nearly-True Tales from Surf Route 101

Posted on by under short stories on surfing, surf adventures, surf stories, surfing, surfing in Washington State, surfing satire, surfing stories, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

Angels Unaware- Mostly-True Tales from Surf Route 101- First Draft. 02/05/16
It was one of those still-Winter, cold light, late dawn mornings; only the ridges across the highway fully-lit, the snow level obvious, and obviously lower, an obviously-new dusting that will disappear from the dark branches by noon; the kind of morning where someone you don’t really know well, on the pump across from you, might just say, blowing out warmth into the chill; “Another day in Paradise, huh?”
Sure, but it’s winter, heating season, and just the fact that the daylight hours are so few means less work; less work, less money. But I’m putting some alcohol-free gas into the car my wife inherited, the nice car; the good car; the car we cannot afford to have any mechanical problems. There’s a ten cent discount for cash, so I went to the ATM, got the fast forty, went inside, made a deal to get fifteen of the higher octane fuel (in case my wife asked- the car needs the high test). The other fifteen would be the regular; the regular unleaded still seventy-five cents or so higher than the price for the alcohol-added regular; and that price, well…
“Great,” I said to the new guy at the counter (there have been a parade of people behind the counter since the store reopened, the only gas for fifteen miles in the three directions one can go, mountains blocking the west- and we’re not supposed to complain about the price), “I look for the cheapest gas I can get for my rig; but for my wife’s…”
He nodded, I nodded; he gave me my change; ten dollars. “For my gas… later… somewhere else,” I said. “You’re set,” he said. “Just give me a signal when you switch.”
The woman I seemed to be holding up from getting to the counter with my whining looked like she had forgotten something, but, as I started to fill the tank with the high octane fuel, she approached, holding a bank card in one hand. “Can you spare a dollar?” She made some vague motion toward her car, parked sideways away from the pumps.
“I only have the ten,” I said, the bill still in my hand. She said nothing. “Why is it always me?” She nodded.
“I’ll bring you back the change.”
I handed her the bill. “She doesn’t know,” I was thinking, “how poor I actually am.” She couldn’t know that I was waiting for one job to start, waiting for someone at some desk somewhere to get to the paperwork necessary to close the deal. I was hoping a check I’d written would take a day or two longer to get back; I was hoping, worrying, taking small jobs to fill in. Then I thought about faith, and how we’d always survived; and how we’re tested, and how…
“Shit!” I’d allowed twenty dollars and fourteen cents worth of the high-priced fuel to be pumped; and couldn’t quite figure out how to make the switch. The woman saw me waving, alerted the counter guy. He switched the pumps.
“I had to do it,” I told myself, preparing for what I’d tell my wife. “Maybe she was really…”
The woman came back out, handed me my change. A five and three ones. Eight dollars.
“Thank you so much,” she said.
“Sure,” I said, draining the last of the fuel into the tank.
“You’re an Angel,” she said as she fondled the Lotto ticket I’d just bought her. “Wish me luck.”

Drawing off the bottom Drawing

Posted on by under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, mind surfing, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, surf illustrations, surfing, surfing art, surfing drawings, surfing illustrations, Uncategorized

Yeah, I know I just posted a drawing yesterday, but, somehow, too much time on my hands, maybe, not wanting to watch any football after the Seahawks were eliminated (the team who should have, and could have beaten All World Cam and the Campthers, and, at least, did [almost] come back, and didn’t get humiliated- sorry Arizona], I kept working on this drawing. And I like it.

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I don’t always love everything I do, and I’m always worried that I’ll screw the whole thing up by adding color; but I do like this one.

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I do wish I could figure out a way to sell some of these images. I’ve been building quite a portfolio. Any Ideas?

Illustration for “You’re a writer, too… Right?”

Posted on by under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, mind surfing, northwest surfing, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, short stories on surfing, surf adventures, surf culture, surf stories, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, surfing drawings, surfing in Washington State, surfing satire, surfing stories, surfing tales, surfing the strait of juan de fuca, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

It’s fiction. I wrote the piece first. I added the illustrations to the short story (next post down), and because I just can’t not edit, change, clarify, hopefully improve whatever I write (or draw, but can’t once the drawings have been scanned), I made a few changes.

Image (28)Partway through the drawing I decided to add the coffee. I totally lost control after that.

 

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Satiated, Satisfied, Ready for More

Posted on by under Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, getting barrelled, mind surfing, northwest surfing, old surfers, real surfers, realsurfers illustrations, surf illustrations, surfing, surfing art, surfing blogs, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

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I was dissatisfied with the results when I added color to this drawing. I may try it again. Meanwhile, here’s a drawing for something I haven’t written yet. So, I’ll contemplate the complicated issue of wave lust while I scan the forecasts and the horizon, think about how great it might just be, and, probably, consider how long it’s been since I got a really super-satisfying surf experience, and how… you get the point. Even those who participated in, and were completely satiated by a recent feast of wave action, are ready for, ready for more.

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Okay, so maybe I have now written enough. May your wave lust never be completely (as in, only, completely) satisfied.

 

Oregon Secret Spot Secretly (at least covertly- sort of) Photographed

Posted on by under hipster surfers, northwest surfing, real surfers, Secret spots in Oregon, surf adventures, surf culture, surf stories, surfing stories, surfing tales, Uncategorized

UPDATE: Here’s a shot of my nephew, Fergus Lynch, at Waikiki Beach in Ilwaco, close to my father’s house in Chinook, Washington. Wait, is this a surf spot? Ooops.

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It isn’t really a secret spot, but it is really quite well protected. While I was driving around looking for a place to park where I wouldn’t have to hike past a beachfire attended by what, from a distance, I would have to think were surfers, parked in someone’s back yard; surfers who would, no doubt, be unhappy to see yet another non-local drawn to the unmistakable (to another surfer) long distance view of glassy, heavy, twirling barrels, my nephew, Fergus, did take the hike. Not a surfer (other than the times we hit Seaside Cove while visiting my Dad- Not this trip, however, on Christmas Day), Fergus got some great shots. This is, in my opinion, the best of them.

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When it was evident that he was taking photos, one of the surfers came in, walked up to Fergus, said, “You better hide that camera.” With his next breath, he asked, somewhat excitedly and unexpectedly, “Did you get my last ride?” Fergus gave him a digital review of his photos. He had just caught the last of the surfer’s last ride, an attempted kickout close to the rocks. Perhaps Fergus, not looking like a threat, probably more like a hipster (and this is the last time I will ever use the word- hipster, that is, not tourist) tourist, and maybe more so when his parents caught up to him, got away with taking a few shots on what had to be a rare, but definitely epic (by any set of standards) day. What’s amazing to me is how great his eye is. But then, his mother is an artist. Great work, Fergus.

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I actually had to bug my sister, Melissa, to bug her son to get the photos to me. Then, because he sent it in one format… not a big part of the story; I have the photos now, and next time I’m down visiting my father, I might take that hike.

UPDATE: Just received photos from Melissa. The last one is of furtive photographer Fergus and his father, Jerome, in disguise. No, I won’t be hiking-in anytime soon.

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Susceptible

Posted on by under real surfers, surfing novels, surfing stories, surfing tales, Uncategorized, writings of Erwin Dence

“‘The music,’ he said, he always said, always said, ‘is in the words. Pause. The words, one, the words, one, two, the words. Pause. The music, one, is in, one two, the, one, two, three, words.’ He was right.”
“No. No. I’ll, uh, admit… he had the genius thing you and I didn’t… poor us; had to earn shit; but he was always… I’ll pause here, not to sound, um, musical or anything, always… susceptible. It’s why he got screwed up originally, why he became a Jesus Freak, it’s why he got back into drugs again. Enlightened. Geez. Like, because he could drop too much acid and still seem, uh, lucid, lucid to his drugged-out and, on drugs or not, dumb-ass friends. Geez. Assholes. White trash… He thought; on the drugs thing… God, man; I don’t know what he fuckin’ thought. He thought it was easy. He thought it was all good fun. He thought wrong.”
“You’re right. Susceptible. I always thought; always believed, maybe, he… he was… was he, maybe, ni-eve? Or maybe we were because we believed in the whole ‘work hard and you’ll succeed’ bullshit.”
“Oh. Oh; yeah; yes. Definitely. Us not him. Sure. Sure, but, man; we’re still alive, still struggling. Moreover… is ‘moreover’ the right word here?
“Probably. Moreover?”
“Moreover, what he was was, mostly, he was…susceptible.”
“Susceptible? (there’s a long pause here, during which my youngest brother and I look at each other, look at several surfboards leaned up against a wall in my garage) Yeah, sure. Susceptible.”
SUSCEPTIBLE
My brother, our brother; no, he wasn’t a musician, wasn’t a poet’, maybe; probably wasn’t more than a guy who wanted to form some kind of life that included surfing whenever it was good. I don’t have to argue with our other brother about this; he’s right. Sidney took the easy way out. Well, what he thought was easy. It worked for him; for a while. I still have the board Sid gave me; classic Surfboards Hawaii pintail; no longer the clean white with the fine pin stripe at the overlap, the dings from a couple of sessions at that reef break that really wasn’t a surf spot (but was never crowded) still not patched. Still, since I have this outlet, such as it is, before I go over the story (and it’s a story I’ve told, I’ve written, I’ve re-written); let me publish something my brother did write. Maybe it is poetry. Maybe it’s just words and pauses, that, if read out loud, as poetry should be read; and, say, try this- slur over the words, because, and my brother also believed this, even the actual words aren’t as important as the music- maybe it is music.
CAR CHASE
A car door will not stop a bullet;
A door and a femur will,
There is pain; the numbness, alleged, promised, that is a lie;
Another lie.
With every car that passes I feel, or hear;
No longer able to discern a difference;
The sound of a wave;
That first sound.
Oh, that’s it, that’s right;
The same bullet that only pierced the front windshield,
My car charging the roadblock, my head down,
Hoping the motor might stop a bullet or two;
That bullet (or those bullets) took out the back window;
Collapsed: diamond chunks not blown out crumbled.
And now, headed for the sea; whoosh;
I hear the sea, whoosh; I hear the sea.
Closer.
*Syd

That was fiction. He’d left the back hatch open on his van, imagined the rest. He knew he was running. Or, more correctly, he felt like he’d been running, though he was really just hiding a darker reality behind his visible life with whatever screen** and story*** and as much sheen he could afford. For a while, it was all pretty damn shiny; surf trips, friends with names we might read in a magazine or hear on TV, vehicles that were so impractical, surfboards one should hang on a wall ridden and given as gifts. Secret gifts too good to give back. Or up.
*Changed, by Sid, from Sid, short for Sidney. Yeah; of course. **I’m thinking the facade of a house just west of 101. ***Fictions about background, actual income sources, actual investments, actual relatives; just about everything.
Oh, and I must now say this is fiction. Just a story. Don’t go looking for real life equivalents, for ‘based-on’s, though, yes, the ‘whoosh’ from Sidney’s piece (he only thought he was being chased, only imagined being shot); I did use that in a piece already posted, on the sounds of a rainy Seattle. I stole it; sure; but really, I remembered it, and I believed it to be true. Truth.

SUSCEPTIBLE-     Part One- The Devil and the Fear of Darkness
I couldn’t save Sidney. Roger couldn’t save him. By the time Roger called me about the desert airplane drop and the intercept of the small plane, and the attempted bust and the shootout and the escape, Sidney not among the bodies at the… he called it a ‘showdown,’ two guys in a four wheel drive at the junction on miles of dirt roads and the only highway back, two bodies and bags of recovered drugs when the showdown was over; when he realized the escaped member of the party, the guy the other guys tried to kill when they thought he had ratted them out; when he just knew that guy had to be Sidney, possibly wounded, but not at the scene…
“Hi, Laurie; Roger. How’s everything? You barbequing?”
“No. I know you think that’s what we suburbanites…”
“Is my brother around?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
But it was something.
“Don’t fuck with me, Roger. What is it?” The pause here is probably twenty seconds. That’s a long telephone pause. Still pausing, waiting. “It’s Sidney. Sidney, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So… yeah. Is Mikey around or not? I don’t have time to…”
“MIKEY!”

Years earlier, Sidney turned to Jesus when he decided his life had sunk low enough; about the time, he later told me, when he gave up sniffing glue, not so much because he could hear (or feel) his own brain cells popping, but because his partner-in-sniffing, both sharing the tube and the paper bags, had popped enough that Sidney could no longer understand him. “He was gone.” I should say ‘turned back to Jesus,’ since we all had enough of a religious upbringing to share the beJesus out of us, to convince us that we were probably, most likely, doomed. Because I like to wrap things up in some terse phrase, I began to claim that “we learned guilt and hypocrisy at an early age.” Because I was the oldest, I had to hide or deny (hypocrisy) my intense fear of the dark; because Sidney possibly learned more of the verses of the Bible, or paid more attention, he developed a fear of the actual Devil. Because Roger was much younger, and because our father died while he was younger, and because our mother met up with several (two, really) future step-fathers who couldn’t care less about religion (I was old enough they had little influence on me or my fears), Roger developed only a fear of failure. Intense, actually.
It was cool, in those days, to announce your love of the risen savior, the redeemer, the Lord; but the religion was mixed in with so many other notions that…I shouldn’t discuss religion, really; I had become free (by circumstance more than will) of the trappings and the niceties and the hypocrisy. The Jesus Freaks offered a simple message; as Jesus had; it just became more complicated when groups were formed, organization was needed.
Somewhere in this complexity, Sidney moved up, and, when other simple believers lost their enthusiasm and fell off, he moved on to other groups; cynics, paranoids, studious zealots who could find scripture to back up their own fears. And Sidney could study deeper, explain the subtleties in a seemingly-clear way. Groups became smaller; Sidney moved higher. And funds were needed. Money. The Devil Incarnate; in various incarnations; but real.
Now, it might be easy for you to compare what I just wrote about my brother did in impressing other druggies by merely being able to somewhat communicate. Fine, but, I, the brother with the fear of the dark, still think him a genius; and still feel the loose-but-real restraints of the morals I was taught, the things I believed; goodness and evil and redemption; I held to my fear of the dark; almost savored it. And, after all, my father told both of us how, back in the war, he had seen The Devil. In the Dark.

Darryl Wood, Legendary Northwest Spotfinder

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The first surfer I met in the Great Pacific Northwest was Darryl Wood. That was in February of 1979, just after half of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge, the link from the Olympic Peninsula to the rest of the world, had been ripped from its moorings in a very localized storm that included hurricane-force winds, along with a powerful tidal surge, that shift made stronger by the almost record low pressure, and waves pushed higher on the sixty mile fetch of the ancient fjord, all focused on the center of the bridge, opened to allow the pressure through, pushed open like a gate, and gone.

A week later, Washington State had brought in a passenger-only tour boat from Seattle, set up some connections with a bus company on the Kitsap County side, and I met Darryl, and many other commuters I might never had met if the bridge wasn’t gone. It was the first boat of the morning, both of us headed for work at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. Darryl and another guy from Port Angeles, whose name, and I apologize for this, I have long forgotten, were car-pooling, now only as far as the Southpoint ferry dock. A Civil Service painter, I had just transferred here from San Diego. Darryl and the other guy were Union guys, working on a new facility connected with the dry-docked nuclear-powered vessels. I do remember that Darryl down-played his role as a carpenter, but said his friend was a ‘superstar among the laborers.’

A week later I, a person who had thought I was through with surfing, was surfing, in a diving wetsuit I had just purchased and would later give to a Gary Gregerson,  a friend and fellow signpainter at the shipyard, who planned to use it for walking around in creeks. Sure.

I should say I was attempting to surf at a spot you could then access, after first navigating some winding roads, by driving straight toward the Strait, past the guy who would step onto his back porch, six feet from your vehicle’s window, then pulling to the right on top of firmly in-place riprap. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, 38 degrees, there were three other surfers out, each of whom asked where I came from; and the water was freeeeeeeeezing. My sister Melissa’s board, the only one I hadn’t sold before leaving Mission Hills, longer than the one I had been riding, didn’t float as well with the cumbersome extra rubber, my hoodless head felt like each wave I pushed through was filled with ice cubes, my feet almost instantly went numb, the wax seemed to be as effective as rubbing the board with suntan lotion, and the waves were fast and steep. I caught several waves, couldn’t help but get barreled, and never got to my feet.

DCIM101GOPRO

Darryl Wood, with coffee cup, his longtime friend and fellow surf adventurer, Arnold, and several other members of the local Surfrider Chapter, cleaning up this parking lot just rolled over by another storm.

“The more things change,” huh?

“You still, um, riding most waves on your knees, Erwin?” “Well, no, I, uh… yeah, pretty much. Get a longer ride and, maybe… how are you doing?” As older guys do, and Darryl is a bit older than I am, we both talk about knees without internal padding. He added shoulders damaged from years of swinging hammers and lifting beams and such.

Still, Darryl remains the surfer I most admire and respect from my tenure in the northwest. He has held, tenaciously, to his Christian values, maintained his sense of surf etiquette, and, although he considers himself quite conservative, he is able to look past the posturing and pettiness of a succession of amped-up surfers. Including me.

I asked what Darryl what he thinks of the increasing number of surfers hitting the Strait, so changed from the days when he personally knew most of the surfers in the area, and knew the landowners who had gates blocking access to secret spots. He shrugged. “If it’s breaking on a weekend,” he said, “there might be fifty, sixty surfers.” This wasn’t a weekend.

On this same day I ran into the guy who owns this access, just checking on the storm damage. I had heard that the lot could be closed if surfers abuse the place (or when this guy passes on), and kissed-up pretty much to the limit of my ability to do so. “It’s not for overnight camping,” he said, expressing his displeasure at having, in the past, before “Darryl Wood and those Surfrider people” put the sani-can in, suddenly finding things he didn’t want to find while weed-whacking.

“See you in another ten years or so,” I said as Darryl and his crew moved on to survey some other properties the Surfrider Foundation oversees. We both turned to watch my friend Keith Darrock make it most of the way across another slightly-chopped-up line.

“He’s good,” Darryl said. “Yeah; always does the tuck.” “Always a pleasure,” Darryl said, taking another glance out, at the indicator, the one outside the lefts. It was breaking. He gave a nod toward the water. Always a pleasure.