No, of course I should not have had the laptop on a TV table, unstable enough that TONY could, bounding over to greet me, knock the table over and bend the plug in portion of the cable that connects the hand me down (from Dru) computer to the vital (because the screen portion of the laptop no longer works), and great, monitor.
Of course not.
Do I love trying to hunt and peck my way to a post on my tablet? It’s… Something.
I can’t add the new drawing or the new photos, and…
And, does Tony, begging for food an attention (the “pet me” and the “I’m so cute” his usual ruse, easily translated to “Feed me, Dude”) give even a single shit that I am trying to unbend the mini plug in part of the heavy cord?
Of course not.
So… I do have content. Just exactly like those sessions your friends get and you miss, classic, epic, all time awesome content.
But, hey, I have to go. Tony’s litter pan needs changing, his water filled, oh, and isn’t he adorable, jumping up in the middle of my drawing table, knocking off anything loose, and then punching me because I didn’t pet him quickly enough?
Actually, yes: quite adorable.
If you can figure out the surf forecast, when and where… Good luck. It will be EPIC!
…to save America… except America. If America needs saving from tyrants and kings and dictators, from an amazingly accelerating descent from a nation OF and BY and FOR the people to yet another country ruled by yet another unrestrained, disgustingly amoral, self-professed strong man; yet another country of people governed by lies and intimidation; characterized by fraud and deceit, hatred and bigotry, carrots for those willing to submit, sticks for those who don’t, a willingness to ignore or even condone unspeakable cruelty… If that is where we are headed, pushed toward living our lives under the ridiculously hateful and freedom oppressing agenda, not in anyway a new idea, but one long promoted in America by haters who claim some religious right to hate, by those who will strike out against anyone claiming those pushing this agenda are not ‘good people… If easy success is given to profiteers and grifters and scammers and… and the rest of us, who, not yet forced to bend a knee, hold our breath, hold our tongues, wait, in hope, that the American experiment of democracy, always fragile, never perfect, might survive.
If we get another chance to vote, we should. Meanwhile, I’m doing the most American thing I can think of; I’m going to work.
Not that surfing or looking for surf is in any way unpatriotic.
About the sketch. I had an idea, ran out of time. I’ll get back to it. Thanks for checking out realsurfers.net
Poem. Fear of Crying- “It takes a lot to make me cry, so please don’t try; and if you do, I promise you, I’ll try to make you smile.”
My finger, someone else’s wave.
What We Deserve- We all deserve better; or we believe we do; better or more; less stress, more success; less pain, more gain. Yeah, slogans; the salesperson’s pitch, the trap of new age clap trap; me-ism, we-ism, jingoism. And it’s not that I don’t buy into it. If I put off the work I should be doing, get up early, load up, and drive out for a minimum of half an hour, full of anticipation; by golly, I sort of believe I deserve waves; good waves, uncrowded waves, and lots of them. And I sort of know that belief has no basis… except I want my reward to be as great as my desire, as true as what I imagine it could be.
The Truth is- Sometimes we get skunked. Sometimes someone else gets the wave of the day; someone newer to the game, someone to whom a lucky make on a wave on which the surfer displayed no style, no sign of years of accumulated wave knowledge; and yet, that surfer’s dreams were surpassed. Blissfully so, because a ride like that deserves to be properly appreciated.
Humbled, Not Humble- My most recent surf expedition left me searching for excuses for why I performed so badly; and I hate excuses. Still, I have some: Pressed for time, mind set more on real life than surfing, chose the wrong place to paddle out, relentless set waves. Those are the easy ones. The more fear inducing mind fucks: It just might be true that waves I would have once relished seem daunting, dangerous even. Perhaps my age is catching up with my self-image as someone who tries, as hard as possible, to defy if not deny it.
Still, a Great Session, Other than the Surfing – I got to use my wheelie to pack my board down and back, I met an old friend, TYLER MEEKS, chatted with CHIMACUM TIM, and a couple of other surfers. In processing my latest embarrassment, not that it was witnessed, more that I haven’t been able to not talk about it, I have to go back and take a mental count on other times I’ve been treated unfairly by the ocean (not that, again the ocean plays favorites or that any surfer deserves favor), and there aren’t that many. Did I learn something from my failures? Yes. Do I count the times where I left the water because I lost a fin or was injured or caught three waves in an hour because of the crowd? No. But I can easily recall the sessions in which I was humbled, in which I didn’t live up to whatever standards I believed I had set for myself. Again, belief versus reality.
The John-John Effect- Perhaps you remember a World Surf League contest in France a few years ago: Roll-throughs, brutal death pit shore break; every reason to be intimidated if not scared shitless; and everyone is getting slaughtered… except John Florence. He was ripping the place like it was his back yard. I don’t need to add to that, do I? One surfer’s nightmare is another surfer’s dream.
Cold Comfort- Though I refuse to admit that there is any real value in talking about what I or you or anyone “Used to” do, I do, while wishing I could still ride a six foot board in six foot beachbreak, still wish I could spin and one-stroke into a late drop, crank a vicious hit on an oncoming section, or do a reverse flyaway kickout, and with full awareness that bragging about what I once did only shows what I can no longer do, I do take some solace in my own history; successes and failures.
What Failure Guarantees- A better next time.
Next Time, Man…
ACTUALLY, I wanted to write something about friends, surf friends, close friends, not that kind of friends. The idea is that we have surf acquaintances, and often, our only thing we have in common is that we are surfers. Some, but not all, of my best friends are surfers. Yes, I have so many writing projects in the process of becoming something worthy of sharing. What I’ve been thinking about has some connection to my last humbling. The gist of the story is that I sort of stole PHILLIP HARPER’S car and drove it to a surf spot I was sure I was going to do well at. I didn’t. I lost my 9’9” Surfboards Hawaii noserider paddling out. Lesson- Hands tight on the rails when turning turtle, arms loose to make it through the turbulence. Other lesson, learned when Phillip, who gave me permission through his mother while he was ill and in bed at the motel adjacent to the Cantamar trailer park, Baja California, Easter Vacation, 1968, had a miraculous recovery when he realized that I was driving his Chevy Corvair with a desperate oil leak to K-38, a place where, on the way down, we saw multiple boards destroyed on the rocks. When I got out and up the cliff, all the other dudes, invited and self-invited, and a very angry Phillip, showed up. I don’t remember anyone asking how I did. Later in the week, an offshore wind made Cantamar, which I had tried to surf because I didn’t have a car and everyone else slept in, became rideable for a while; we surfed some blown out shit waves south of Ensenada, paddled out at a spot that was more crowded than it probably was in North San Diego County, and had some other, non-surfing adventures; fireworks, lack a proper bathroom/shower facilities, a lot of hanging out, and a bit of what folks would refer to as partying. Memorable trip for a sixteen-year-old.
What is interesting to me is that I forgot that I had stolen (borrowed) Phillip’s car until I was writing about this trip, fictionalized, as “Inside Break,” the alternate (in a way) coming of age novel that has been (is still being) transformed into “Swamis.” Because I was thinking about this, I accumulated a list of the cast of the actual incident. I’m listing them here because I will forget the names again. The trip was organized by Phillip’s stepfather, Vince Ross. Vince was borrowing a trailer. He and Phillip’s mother, Joy, and Phillip’s sister, Trish (not my Trish) were to stay at the adjacent motel. INVITEES: Phillip Harper, Ray Hicks, Erwin Dence, Melvin Glouser, Clint/Max Harper, Mark Ross. We were supposed to stay at the borrowed trailer, which did not, and this became an issue have a sewer hookup. But, because of the UNINVITED surfers, Dana Adler, Mark Metzger, and Billy McLean; Mel and Ray and Phil and I got to stay in tents outside the boundary, adjacent to a field of, I’m guessing, sugar cane. There were other American surfers also camped there; way cooler than we were.
If this is in some way connected to friends, Phillip was my first surf friend, Ray was a friend before he started surfing (classmate, Boy Scouts). I am still in occasional contact with Ray, and credit him with inspiring me to get back into surfing at fifty, after an eight or ten year near drought. I haven’t been in contact with Phillip for years. While I’m fine with knowing something about what has happened with Mark and Billy and Dana, and others, I do feel bad that I might not have been a good enough friend to Phillip.
Tyler Meeks when he had the sorely missed DISCO BAY Equipment Exchange. His hair is longer now. I didn’t recognize him immediately when I last saw him. He is supposed to call me about t shirt opportunities. Call me, Tyler.
What We Don’t Know- DELANA is a DJ on the local Port Townsend public radio station, KPTZ. The program is ‘Music to my Ears,’ 4 to 5 pm on Wednesdays, repeated on Saturdays at 1pm. I’ve caught her show quite a few times when driving. Old tunes, little stories about the artists involved. What gets me is that at the end, and I’m paraphrasing, she says, “Remember to be kind to those we meet. Each of us carries a burden that others do not see.” What we know about our surf friends is what we have in common; and sometimes surfing is pretty much it. And… that’s fine. In fact, it’s great.
The step parent of “Swamis,” different take on the same era. Thanks for checking out realsurfers.net. Oh, and Happy Memorial Day, and, oh, good luck, Sally Fitz. They may or may not hold the next round tonight. As with everything, we will see.
There are some surf windows that become legendary; December of 1969 and August of 1975, California swells, one north, one south; epic enough to get a mention in *MATT WARSHAW’S “Encyclopedia of Surfing,” and extremely memorable to me because I was out for both of them; the first at Swamis, the second at Upper Trestles.
And then there are the legendary sessions we miss. Waves are breaking, brown-green slop to sparkling barrels, all over the world; and it is easy to believe even the most fickle spot gets something rideable to all time, some time. Rather than tales told in parking lots and over coffee or beer, or perhaps, in the bread section of a grocery store, YouTube and Instagram pushes almost-live images that are so much easier to find than the waves themselves. Trip to Bali because you saw something? Hawaii? Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can hit something all time in Australia or France. Gee, Mundaka and Uluwatu look fun. Malibu? Sure, and maybe a few leg burners at Rincon or Jeffry’s Bay. It would be so awesome to hit Cloudbreak on, you know, an almost survivable size. Yeah!
Maybe. Time and money and, even if you study the forecasts and hack Kelly Slater’s schedule, luck. The WSL’s version of a Pipeline contest has been on hold for… a while; one day’s competition in self-admitted beachbreak-like conditions. Still, it’ll get better. Hopefully.
Getting back to me; it’s not like I dominated SWAMIS in ’69, with overhead waves as barreling, offshore winds as strong as I ever experienced there, and with a certain amount of pre-internet hype and publicity adding to the crowd of takers and watchers. No on the domination. Swamis was, for the time, extra crowded, this exacerbated by the fact that when the surf gets big, the places one can reasonably surf in San DIego County gets reduced to Swamis, Cardiff, Windansea, Sunset Cliffs, maybe that non-surf spot, La Jolla Cove. Remember, I did say ‘reasonably;’ as in get out, catch more than one wave. Undergunned on the first day of a five or six day run, I did better as the waves evened out and the crowds diminished. A week or two later, the surf was just as big, less hype, less crowded. I went out, feeling lucky.
TRESTLES: Warshaw quoted MICKY MUNOZ as saying the south swell in August 1975 was as clean as any he remembered. Mr. Munoz was the first person I saw when I paddled out on my round-nosed, small wave board at Upper Trestles. I, admittedly, shoulder-hopped the first few waves, my fin just vibrating. Still, I made a few waves. I feel, this many years on, so lucky that I had the opportunity to work up the hill from a classic spot, park on the beach, and surf it, from barely breaking on, with what would seem an absurdly small crowd.
LOCAL OR LUCKY, it’s a term that comes up often out here on the fickle-as-shit Olympic Peninsula. The sessions worth remembering do happen. As they do everywhere. Maybe not as often. It’s probably acceptable to savor, or even recount the magic of the best sessions while waiting for the next one. I mean, not like bragging. It just seems like bragging.
Okay, maybe it is bragging, but, hey, you have stories I might not totally believe. Tell me those next time I run into you at Costco or Fast Taco or… wherever.
*Port Townsend Librarian Keith Darrock would love to get (now)Seattle-based surf historian/writer for the next OCCASIONAL SURF CULTURE ON THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA EVENT. Not the only reason he is mentioned here.
I’m working on my collection of songs and (I always kind of chuckle when I say this) poetry, and used some of my winter down time to do a potential cover. I should apologize here for posting “If It’s Over” twice. So… Sorry. If you stick with me, we’ll get to “I Guess I’m Lucky.”
I’m not (all that) political, but I do pay attention.
I would have done it in color, but that might make me seem… political.
I GUESS I’M LUCKY, because I never get the blues; Oh, yes, I’m quite lucky, because I never get the blues; Now I might get suspicious, and sometimes I’m anxious, too; I might even get desperate and tear up a thing or two; But I count myself lucky because I never get the blues.
Please don’t tell me your problems, and think that I can relate; I don’t harbor jealousy and I won’t subsidize hate; If you want to complain, you can just go to Helen Waite; Don’t be telling me gossip and acting as if it’s news, ‘Cause I can’t share your problems, and I want no part of your blues.
Dream of tomorrow, you sacrifice all your todays; You’re so busy workin’, you haven’t got time just to play; But you still have to crawl on your knees to pick up your pay; Though I’m selling my blood just to pay up my Union dues; I still count myself lucky because I never get the blues.
My old truck’s still running, my dog didn’t die; not in love with a woman who told me goodbye; And my Mama still talks of her baby with pride, and I can’t remember the last time I cried.
But then… I’m lucky, because I never get the blues; oh yes, I’m quite lucky, Because I never get the blues; Sure, sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I’m hurtin’ too; I might even get lonely, but not like most people do; Then again, I’m just lucky; yes, I count myself lucky; Hell yes, I’m quite lucky… because I… never get… the blues.
PHOTO voluntarily REMOVED.
All original work on realsusrfers.net, unless otherwise attributed, is covered by copyright protections, all rights reserved by the author/artist, Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
YOU WON’T get lucky without trying. Find some surf, get on it! MORE stuff on Sunday, and yes, I’m, like, 170 pages out of 214 or so on my latest rewrite of “Swamis,” suddenly concerned that I did not, perhaps, put in enough description of the characters. You know, like, “Roger and Gary were both blonde, both assumed a stance that said, ‘casual,’ both with expressions that said, ‘cool.’ For the most part they maintained the image.” I have been, so far, realizing it’s almost a requirement for a novel, resisted describing the breasts of the women in the novel. So far.
The documentary Annie Fergerson produced featuring me, old fat me surfing and philosophizing, is still available on Vimeo. You have to go to: https:/review/9855582/42dd5c63de or, if you’re a Vimeo person, Erwin_Final_240715 I know, it’s a bit of a hassle.
In trying to promote my novel, “Swamis,” as I wait for responses from the literary agents I have sent submissions to, I cannot help but wonder, “Why am I not in ‘Surfer’s Journal?’ I have art and eleven years of ‘realsurfers.net’ writings. There just have to be some gems in there.” SO, I set about to write something to send to them. Another submission, another attempt to describe my novel in less than 90,000 words. Here is what I came up with:
Swamis to “Swamis”
You are at Swamis Point. It’s 1969. Yes. Horizonal lines, energy in motion, beyond the kelp beds, are bending to match the shoreline, redirected and reshaped by the pull and drag of ancient reefs. As waves rise and wall up, peaks become more defined; steepening, feathering, braking, peeling across the almost-soft, fingered ledges. Your path paddling out along the shoulder of each incoming wave, is as close to the break as possible, always looking over your shoulder to check your lineup spot; that one palm tree for the inside peak, wherever the crowd is sitting for the outside peak. You are ready to spin and go if a rider on increasingly short equipment blows the takeoff, is too deep, slides out on a bottom turn, or oversteers on a cutback.
You have a front row seat of surfers dropping in and turning, crouched and driving across the first section. Longboarders are getting in early, going for fin-first takeoffs, side-stepping to the nose; pulling out on the shoulder or cutting back; juking and cruising, tucking into that calf high barrel on the inside inside.
When it’s your turn, you drop and drive and weave through the sections and other scrappers, would be shoulder hoppers. Approaching that final tube, arms out in a subtle celebration, your arch becomes a full body twist, shoulders to ankles. The fin breaks free. Your speed while side-slipping allows you to punch the nose into and through the wave. Your properly executed standing island pullout provides the perfect punctuation mark. Yes!
In surfing, in 1969, there were few qualities more important than style. Or none. Whatever else Swamis was or wasn’t, it was magical.
There was always a swell. The water was always warm. It was rarely blown out or crowded. It was magical. And there were, along with the witnesses and the dealers and the posers and burnouts and the liars, other storytellers in the parking lot, magicians spinning tales of epic days and mystic spots; magicians spinning images of even greater magic.
The view from the bluff, the balcony, the upper deck of a sometimes surf amphitheater, is almost unchanged: The point to the right, Boneyards just around it, the outside and inside peaks, the beachbreaks along the rip-rapped base of the bluff, Pipes, the curve of La Jolla in the distance.
The walls of the Self Realization Fellowship compound were there; brilliant white, crowned with gold lotus flowers. A dirt pullout just to the south of the parking lot entrance that served as a check out spot now has luxury homes, soundproofed, behind security-gated walls, squeezed between101and the bluff; millions spent for a view we got for free.
The Swamis parking lot was smaller. A green outhouse under the trees has long been replaced by the brick shower/bathroom facility. The wooden stairs, replaced twice since, had some unremembered number of steps; well over a hundred. It featured two main sections. The upper flight went straight down, perpendicular to the bluff. A landing, where the stairs made a ninety-degree turn, offered a from-the-shoulder, up-the-line view of the lineup. “Old men stop here” was carved into the waterside top rail.
My earliest memory of Swamis as a surfer is from 1965. Almost fourteen-years-old, I was doing the kook’s blind paddle for a wave someone else was, no doubt, on. Sorry.
Other images: Walking out to the point when one of a group of Orange County interlopers responded to a man claiming he’d surfed Swamis since 1949 with, “Then you should surf it… better.” Wailing over after school, only five locals out, and my friends from Fallbrook complaining that they couldn’t get a wave. “Well. I caught… some.” “Fuck you then!” Going out on a day with the tide still too high, beating the crowd for a while as the swell built. In my mind, I was in sync and wailing. Falling from a high line on an outside wave on a big day, whatever breath I had lost when I hit the trough; bouncing off the bottom, sucking in more foam than air when I reached the surface. Coughing, choking, swimming, going back out. Surfing, with various degrees of thrill and success, every day of the still-famous December 1969 swell.
1969. I graduated, not yet eighteen. My surf friends were moving on. The draft was coming. Vietnam was real. Surfboard design had gone radical. The completion of I-5 made San Diego’s North County commutable. Marijuana, grown in backyards and avocado orchards and purchased from friends of friends, was becoming a cash crop. Dirty money had to be made clean.
There was, perhaps, *“An acceptable level of corruption.”
A person can drive past Swamis and never realize it is on the map of a world they are not a part of and know little about. Yes, surfing represents freedom on TV commercials, unwaxed boards on shiny new cars. Beautiful, fit, underdressed surfers play the smiling outsider, the anti-nine-to-fiver if not antihero; too cool, too perfect. Mass marketed magic.
It is the magic, real or perceived, that pushed me from imagining and remembering to writing “Swamis,” my surf/detective/coming of age/mystery/romance novel. I had a story line: A surfer, involved in the drug trade, is murdered, burned next to the wall. I had a narrator: Half-Japanese son of a Detective with the County Sheriff’s Office. My age. I had his love interest: Surfer girl, her parents are involved in the trafficking and money laundering. Both main characters are damaged; both have been protected and shielded.
Sounds clichéd, huh?
I have written four versions. Not that I wanted to. I had to edit out the peripherals, narrow the scope and the timeline. I can, if asked, explain where each of the many characters in the novel came from. All are based on placing a real person I have, in my time, encountered, or combinations of people, into fictional situations. I can give you a backstory on any of them.
The narrator, Joseph Atsushi DeFreines, is not me. He does know what I knew and has chosen to not know things I could have known; particularly about the growing, processing, and selling of marijuana. I have three brothers with intimate knowledge of plays and players of that era. One brother, under threat, ran away from operations in Northern California. One turned to Jesus. One went to work for the Border Patrol and on to I.C.E.
It is the best imaginable coincidence that a Swami, like a detective, is a seeker of truth. I am still, while trying to sell the novel, holding on to as many characters as I can. I still have work for Joey and Julie, for Jumper Hayes and Gingerbread Fred, and others. Second novel- “Beacons?” Third- “Grandview?” Both spots are mentioned in a work in which I am still trying to capture the magic.
I mean recapture. Of course.
*The quote comes from San Diego County Sheriff’s Office Detective Joseph Jeremiah DeFreines, increasingly unable to control the corruption in his jurisdiction.
THE REASON I am posting this here is that I ran it past my friend, surfer/librarian KEITH DARROCK (and yes, the Port townsend Public Library does subscribe). He didn’t say he hated it, BUT, he said what I really need to do is talk about me. “ME?” Paraphrasing, it was, “Yeah, like examples of your art, some poetry, your video of you surfing; that’s what they have in the ‘Profile’ section.”
Keith is right, of course. I started writing about myself. It’s not working. The best self-recommendation I could come up with, for my being so consistently described as ‘a character,’ is that I fail, frequently, and keep trying. It is true in my art, my writing, my surfing, my work as a painter, my relationships with others.
So, yeah, I’ll come up with something. May as well put a couple of artsy things I’m proudest of:
HAP-PY HOLIDAYS!
All original works are protected by copyright. All right reserved.
RANDY at COHO PRINTING in Port Townsend stayed late to do some tricky stuff on my recent drawings. A Port Townsend native and super avid fisherman, I made the kook mistake, while trying to describe the lighting particular to looking north into the water, of asking him if he fished in the Strait as well as… you know, other waters. There’s nothing quite as enjoyable as that ‘you’re a kook and an idiot’ look. Happy Thanksgiving, Randy! Hope theyre, you know, like, biting.
Top to bottom- THE FIRST DRAWING was a sketch wasn’t too stoked on. Always tough to try to do faces on surfing illustrations. They’re either cartoony or… usually kind of cartoony, as is this one. SINCE my drawing board is plexiglas, I flipped the paper over, put it up to a light, and redrew it as the…
THIRD DRAWING. The cartoonishness might be mitigated by the modified cross hatch technique that, oddly enough, I’ve been doing almost since I tried (and failed) to duplicate Rick Griffin’s work in ‘Surfer.’ OH, and I screwed up, had to glue in a patch, try to make it match.
THE SECOND DRAWING is one of those I draw in reverse, black-for-white. I had it reversed, went into that drawing to add detail, had it reversed again, did some touchup on that, and, Voila! this one. OH, and, again, there is a patched section. SO, another original for Original Erwin is, you know, not pristine.
THE FOURTH DRAWING is one I kept after ripping up three others, the first one a muddied attempt at using pastels despite my being acutely aware that the palm of my hand is way too heavy for chalk or pastels, or pencils. OH, and really wanting a serious drawing of JULIE for “Swamis,” I can’t seem to draw a woman’s face that I’m happy with. Semi happy with this one.
I wanted Randy to do a copy of the FIFTH DRAWING with a blue or silver rather than black on white. “It’s not like I want something that’s all that tricky.” Well, evidently, with Randy’s Star Wars computer/printer set up, it is tricky, can’t just use one of the colored inks. So, next best thing, I got some copies printed up, black on a silver-blue paper. OH, and yes, it is pencil, but with ink over drawing AND, just for more drama, I added some white dots. They don’t show up so much on the original, but when I added some on one of the copies… Yeah, next time I’m at the COHO, I’ll get a scan of that.
IF THIS SOUTH SWELL/ BOMB CYCLONE STUFF KEEPS GOING, I’ll probably do some more drawing AND keep micro-editing stuff required to get “SWAMIS” published.
I am, as always, THANKFUL for the folks around the world who check out realsurfers. I HOPE YOU GET SOME SURF. New stuff on SUNDAY!
All original works are protected by copyright. All rights reserved by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
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!
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.
JOEL and RACHEL CARBEN are the proprietors of the COLAB in downtown Port Townsend. Colab as in Collaborative Work Space. Joel is one of the members (if there is such a thing) of the rabid-if-desperate and frequently-disappointed Olympic Peninsula/Strait of Juan de Fuca surf community. There is an ART WALK each month in PT (I’ve never gone on one), so, partially in the interest of promoting the COLAB enterprise (more people hanging out with laptops and connections), why not have me and two other artists show our stuff? I mean, after all, Joel does actually own the cedar art piece/surfboard shown below. Long story. I was supposed to spray paint “Locals Only” on it or something, but…
ARTISTS, huh?
As usual, I didn’t do everything right. I had a whole room to display my stuff. I didn’t put prices on things, didn’t put business cards out. And, I didn’t hang out in the room, charming the folks who came in. BUT, I now realize, the main thing I did wrong is that I didn’t take some photos of STEPHEN R. DAVIS, KEITH DARROCK, and, yeah, me, cruising around to the various galleries.
If I had you could see LIBRARIAN KEITH, as rabid a surf fanatic as I have ever run into (or been burned by), but a solid citizen, mingling with the tourists and the artists, and in the company of two, perhaps… no, I don’t know how to describe Steve and I except we’re probably not as out-there as we believe ourselves to be. I mean, I’m as CITIZEN as the next person, but Steve? ARTISTS, huh?
And we’re checking out everyone else’s art, chatting with artists, partaking in the free snacks (no wine for me, not that I’m bragging. A nice expresso would have been… appreciated).
AND IT kind of worked out. EXAMPLE- We’re at the fanciest gallery in PT (prices fancier, also- wine from bottles with, probably, recognizable names for wine aficionados- no, not Ernest & Julio), and Steve is kind of (I thought) kissing up to this artist with the tiniest possible ponytail (so high concept/fashion), and I see this kid sitting on a bench with a sweatshirt with a logo from CHRIS BAUER SURFBOARDS. “Hey, where’d you get that sweatshirt, kid?” “He’s my dad. Chris Bauer.” “Oh.” When one of the board members (because fancy galleries have boards and directors) comes over and says I’m getting a bit rowdy, I acknowledge this and ask her if he knows KEITH.
THEY chat and I go outside. Again, as with my leaving first at other venues, I sort of think, as I acknowledged, that, if I still smoked, I’d be having one at this point. OUTSIDE the gallery.
I am not a marketer. Particularly not of my stuff.
HERE’S WHERE STEPHEN R. DAVIS got it right. I was critiquing and moving, asking quick, real questions of the folks showing and explaining and (you have to guess) trying to sell their works, questions such as: “How much are the dues? How much floor time do you have to put in? Do you sell enough to make it worth it? Meanwhile, Steve, a bundle of his cards in his hand, was showing his stuff, handing out samples as business cards, making, you know, inroads into the PT art scene.
NOW WE’RE on to the post event CRITIQUE, as in, what did I do wrong? What can I do NOW? I probably should have hung around in the space at the COLAB, charminig the folks who stumbled in, maybe selling
EVEN WITH THE BARAT, would you buy art from this double-chinned fat guy in the sweatshirt for the OLYMPIC MUSIC FESTIVAL (though several people thought OMF stood for Old M F-er)?
Here’s a shot of Keith, Joel, me (hiding the double chin), and Adam “Wipeout” James.
Here’s Steve on his boat from a few years ago. AGAIN, I should have taken a few photos from the ART WALK.
BUT I did, because I was displaying some drawings I did years ago of houses in Port Townsend, get an opportunity to draw one for someone. AND I DO OWE a big thank you to JOEL and RACHEL for the opportunity. TRISH says I should give them a piece of my art. “WHY? He already has the surfboard?”
So, BIG THANK YOU! Heart emoji, hang loose emoji.
MARKETING. I’m working on it. AND I did actually have a good time, chatting it up with people I don’t know, running into some I do know (shout out to Ian), hanging with friends.
Perhaps, on Wednesday, I’ll go over how I’m getting over and/or dealing with the detached retina, the infection in my leg, both related, possibly, to a fall, and a high blood pressure situation I discovered because I just had no choice but to go to a doctor; and the double chin thing. I am totally ready to get back in the water. TAKE THIS AS A WARNING.
Good luck. And, again, if you can’t be nice, be real.
Now that I am committed to putting out a new round of ORIGINAL ERWIN t-shirts, I’m going through my past drawings AND doing some new ones. I scanned these two on my printer AND I have two more illustrations that I have to take to a print shop. AS ALWAYS, attempting to go simpler, I fail.
LET’S DISCUSS THE SURF SITUATION on the Olympic Peninsula and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. NOT GOOD. Now, if you’re almost anywhere SOUTH of here, you should be scoring. AND the forecast is not too… thrilling. BUT I do have my HOBIE patched up and I’ve done some work on the MANTA. I’m ready to leap into some wind chop when it… let me check the forecast. Yeah, wind chop. That’s official.
As far as “Swamis” goes, I am committed to what JUST HAS TO BE a final draft before the ridiculously scary act of trying to actually sell the novel. I moved the former first chapter to the end, and though I am dying to write about what fictionally happened to the fictional characters between 1969 and now, I’m going to NOT… not yet.
My hope is that, now that I’ve completely mind-surfed the hell out of plot and characters, I might be able to cut the length down from the current 104,000 thousand words. HERE IS the new prologue and a bit more:
“SWAMIS” A novel by Erwin A. Dence, Jr.
PROLOGUE
Some events, terror and bliss, mostly, which occurred in seconds, in moments; those almost nothing in the expanse of time; expand, over time, into placemarks; a corner turned, a road taken, a life changed. Magic.
Half a century after the events, I started writing “Swamis,” as memoir. It no longer is that. This is my fourth full rewrite, with so many discarded words, deleted chapters, all in attempting to turn notes and dreams, images and remembered dialogue, into a story. I have tried to do justice to the various people, characters here, but real people with real lives, who changed mine. There are people who have come into my life, changed it in some way, and gone out. Somewhere. For the most part I do not know where they went, but I do wonder. Wonder.
The story centers on a very specific time, 1969, in a very specific place, North San Diego County. I was turning eighteen, in love, and the world I wanted swirled and revolved around surfing, and surfing revolved around Swamis.
My apologies for my writing style. Years of writing briefs, documents. Dry, perhaps, but thorough. A friend’s review of an earlier draft concluded I went for detail and clarity rather than flash and description.
“I don’t use a lot of adjectives in regular speech,” I countered.
“But this is writing,” she said, “The prologue shouldn’t be an apology.”
“Honest.”
“Sure, and it is… your own voice. Yes, it is that, and, as your mother said, ‘the mind fills in the colors.’ Different thing, I know. Photos, stories; it still applies.”
“Not arguing.”
“Not yet. But… ambiguity and bullshit aside, you don’t exactly nail down who the killer was. Or killers were. Some detective novel, Atsushi.”
“It’s in there. And… doesn’t that explain the need for detail and clarity? And, more importantly, I never said it was that… A detective novel. Trueheart.”
“There’s no such thing as a seventeen-year-old detective. Not in real life.”
“It’s in there; that quote; in the text. And… as far as real life goes…”
“From your particular viewpoint.”
“That’s all any of us have.”
“But… Joey… you called me a friend. ‘A friend’s review.’”
“Just another draft, Julie; I can… change it.”
“To what?”
“Keep reading. It’s in there.”
CHAPTER ONE- MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2023
“The allure of waves was too much, I’m told, for an almost three-year-old, running, naked into them. If I say I remember how the light shone through the shorebreak waves, the streaks of foam sucked into them; if I remember the shock of cold water and the force with which the third wave knocked me down, the pressure that held me down, my struggle for air; if I say I remember anything other than my mother clutching me out and into the glare by one arm… Well, that would be, this all happening before the accident; that would be… me… creating a story from fragments. Wouldn’t it, Doctor?”
“Memories. Dreams. We can’t know how much of life is created from… fragments. But, please, Joey; the basketball practice story; I didn’t get a chance to write it down. So, the guy…”
“Locker room. After. I’m not here because of that… offense.”
“I am aware. Just… humor me.”
“He said I had a pretty big… dick… for a Jap. I said, ‘Thank you.’ All the Varsity players came in. Most stood behind him. He said, ‘Oh, that’s right; your daddy the cop, he’s all dick.’ Big laugh.”
“Detective,” I said. “Sorry about your brother at the water fountain, but I’m on probation already… and I don’t want to cut my hand… on your front teeth.’”
“Whoa! Did that end it? Joey. Joey, are you… You’re remembering the incident.”
“I tried to walk away. He… Basketball. I never had a shot. Good passer, great hip chuck.”
“All right. So, let’s talk about the incident for which you are here.”
ALL RIGHTS to all ORIGINAL WORK by Erwin A. Dence, Jr. are reserved by the author/illustrator. THANK YOU for respecting these rights, AND, AS ALWAYS, for checking out realsurfers.net
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