The Ninth Wave

by Eugene Burdick

  There were almost a dozen boys waiting on their boards. Some of them were lying flat on their backs, others were sitting with their feet dangling in the water. Mike saw that half of the boys were from Manual Arts High and the rest he did not know. He saw Hank Moore and paddled over to him.

  "Hey Hank," Mike called. "How're they humping? Been waiting long for one?"

  Hank Moore swung around. He was a short, stocky, freckled-faced boy. Although his hair was blond and his eyes light blue, he had a perfect Semitic face. Hank looked coolly at Mike. He's bright, Mike thought. He's got intelligence.

  "They're good," Hank said. "Long wait between big ones, but when they come they're really huge. Must be some sort of funny storm out at sea. Never saw such big ones mixed up with such little ones. About every other third ninth is big and then every ninth ninth is a big baby. Pretty soon there'll be a really big one."

  Mike splashed his hands gently into the water and his board skimmed over the surface, jarred against the end of Hank's board and the two boards were held together by the slight pressure. Hank was sitting neatly in the middle of his board, his knees pulled up under his chin. The top of his board was covered with intricate lines where the salt water had dried on it. Hank never dove off his board or played around in the water. For him the water was only a means of getting out to the waves and he disliked swimming. Hank was talking to a boy Mike had never met.

  "Where've you been, boy?" Hank asked, looking at Mike. "You've missed some good ones. Farting away the day in L.A. when you could have been down here."

  Mike grinned back.

  "No. I've been for a drive. Just riding around Long Beach, Pedro, Wilmington . . . just got here now. Nice day for riding."

  "Riding in a Buick, I'll bet. A blue Buick," Hank said and his voice ended in the slightest burr of a snarl, so faint that only someone who knew him well would know that he was angry. "Riding in a Buick."

  "Yep, in a blue Buick. And stopping and eating four hamburgers, and two Mile-Hi cones and shooting a rifle twenty-five shots at a gallery. Doing that and riding in a Buick that'll do fifty-two miles an hour in second." Mike stopped and looked coldly at Hank for a moment. "Your ass, Moore. Right up your ass."

  Deliberately Hank reached out a hand, stuck it in the water and moved his board away from Mike's. He did it as a rebuke.

  Mike felt a sense of excitement; an excitement that was really a spasm of triumph. Even old Hank, he thought, even old Hank is that way. He pushed his board forward so that it touched Hank's board again and smiled at Hank.

  "Look, Hank, grow up," he said. The strange boy stared in bewilderment. "You're seventeen years old. Grow up. She knows what she's doing. Don't worry about her. Just worry about yourself."

  "You son of a bitch," Hank said.

  Mike watched Hank's strange Semitic face, with the sharp flat planes and the odd blond, twisted hair and the light blue eyes. Hank was angry, but Mike knew that he was also confused.

  But Mike was not confused. Not me, he said to himself, not me anymore. Carefully, picking the words, he phrased the meaning to himself. He was excited.

  You, Hank and all of you, you think that some day you're going to stop worrying. You think that you'll get older and just by getting older some day that god damn worry and uncertainty in your guts is going to stop. You think that you're going to come in out of the worry and the fret and the doubts, like stepping out of the sun into the shade. All that has to pass is time. You think you don't have to do anything; that it will just happen. Well, it won't. Absolutely, positively, without fail it will never happen. You'll always be the same, you'll always be miserable . . . right at the core, you'll be miserable. And you'll spend most of your time trying to escape that fact. That simple little fact.

  Intuitively, on some obscure level, Mike knew he had discovered something valuable. He knew he had a tiny fragment of insight that at once made orderly and understandable a lot of things that had been chaotic. Also, and this with a kind of disappointment, he knew that he could use his special knowledge. Also he knew he would add to it. He would find other things.

  Sitting on the gently heaving board, watching Hank's face, Mike spoke a law to himself: Everyone is scared.

  Mike sat and stared at Hank for a moment.

  "What's he so tough about?" the strange boy asked Hank.

  "He's not tough," Hank replied. "He's just a cocky bastard. Not tough though."

  "Well, what's he so cocky about?" the strange boy asked. He looked sideways at Mike and Mike grinned at him.

  Hank lifted his head from his knees and turned toward Mike. "He screws the English teacher. That's why he's so cocky." Hank said it coldly.

  "Big hump, really big hump," someone shouted.

  "Big hump, big hump," everyone in the line said, taking it up like a chant. The boys who were dozing came awake and began to kick their boards around so they faced the shore. Everyone began to chatter with excitement. The strange boy was talking to Hank, but looking at Mike. Mike swung his board around and then looked over his shoulder. He could see at once that it was huge. It seemed to take something away from the two waves in front of it so that they were small and shrunken and behind them the big one humped up, already so high that it was losing the blue color af the ocean and taking on a green thinness as the sun came through it.

  He looked quickly at Hank. Hank stared for a moment at the wave. He pulled his shorts up tight. He looked over at Mike and for a moment, just the slightest fraction of a second, something dark flitted across Hank's eyes and then was gone.

  It's the big one for the day, Mike said to himself. And Hank is scared of it. Like he's scared of all the big ones.

  Watching it, Mike felt the usual slow chill of fear. At some point the big waves were always like that, so awesome that he felt as if he would like to dig his hands in the water, shoot the board out into the safe water beyond the surf line. And then there would be the grind of satisfaction, as he made himself stay there and move his hands to put himself in the proper position to catch the wave.

  Most of the skill in surfboarding depends on catching the wave at precisely the point where it has reached its highest peak, is beginning to feather at the top, and is ready to let all the tons of green water it has held in a curious rhythmic control for so many miles crash downward. A second too early and there is nothing for the board to ride. A second too late and the board is submerged in a lather of foam. Some people are never able to catch this knack, this ability to sense the precise moment when the wave will crack and let its water spill.

  The wave moved from the middle distance with a rush; drew itself from a hump into a towering cliff of water and now, like strange plants frozen in old green ice, Mike could see pieces of kelp in the water, every thread of their filigreed detail caught for a moment in the sunlit water. The water was soundless at this point, but Mike felt a pressure rise in his ears and head as the wave gathered itself.

  Mike felt the water fall from beneath him as the huge wave rose. He looked over his shoulder and saw its green, soft and ominous bulk take shape above him. The wave was pure and undiluted; not a trace of foam in it. He gave a couple of strokes with his arms and the board began to move ahead. He looked sideways and saw the scared white faces of the other boys. Most of them were backing with their hands, making sure that they did not catch the wave. Hank, however, was crouched on his knees on his board. With his hands he was crumpling up the brown bag which had held his lunch while he looked over his shoulder at the wave. His face was rapt with attention and something more; a sort of tough angry belligerence. Hank threw the paper bag away without looking at it and then took two strokes in the water with his hands.

  Mike felt his board lift and savagely he cut the water with his hands. Midway in the fourth stroke he sensed that he had it; felt the body of the wave grip his board and he began to move forward. He looked sideways and saw that only he and Hank were still riding.

  For a few seconds the wave rushed silently forward. Then a thin vein o
f foam gathered at the top of the wave and formed a lip which bent slowly forward. The speed of the wave increased. This was the critical second when the surfboard would not only be moving forward at great speed, but would also drop down the face of the wave as it crashed over.

  Mike glanced sideways and looked at Hank. Then suddenly Mike stood up on his board, still looking at Hank as he did it. This was not the time to stand up, for usually one stood up after the wave had broken and the board had smoothed out. Mike had never stood up at this point, and he was not sure he could keep his feet in the next few seconds. Hank looked at him without blinking and stood up also.

  For a moment they stood calmly as the wave moved forward. The only noise in the vast moving green world was the hissing of the boards over the water. Then from deep in the wave came a sound like rocks rolling together and with a curious lunge it broke. A great green tunnel of roaring water was formed in front of the wave, foam gathered as high as Mike's waist and the board almost dropped away from under his feet. With a slight liquid shock the board landed on solid water and although Mike's feet slipped for a moment he remained steady. He looked sideways and saw that Hank also had survived the crash of the wave.

  Mike's board chittered with speed, slapped a thousand blows against the water. They were rushing toward the blue water of the cove and the noise was enormous.

  That's right, Mike howled to himself. I screw the English teacher. Just what all the rest of them would like to do. But I'm the only one that does it and I'm wiser than the rest of you because of it.

  The surfboard shook with speed, the water hissed and roared, foam tossed up over his shoulders. Words rushed through his mind, piled incoherently on one another, forming impressions and all this mixed somehow with the taste of salt on his lips and the noise in his ears.

  You all think you'll get better as you grow older, but I know you won't. Because I how Miss Bell who is twenty-eight, which is very old, and I how that she lies naked in a bed and cries when she calls me in. I know that right in the center she is rotten with fear and because of this I know that we will always be that way. That it won't change when you get to a certain age, but it will always be the same.

  The wave was dying now and in a few seconds the board came to a halt in a few inches of water. Mike stepped off and looked over at Hank. He felt suddenly depressed, sorry that he had this piece of howledge that none of the rest of them had. And he was sorry because he knew he would use it. It was as if he already knew how unfair was his advantage.

  "That was pretty chicken, Mike, standing up before the wave broke," Hank said. "Trying to delight the girls, eh? You did it because you're chicken, that's why."

  "Sure, Hank, that's why. I'm chicken," Mike said, but he laughed and Hank looked up quickly, his face confused. "You just go on believing that."

  Mike picked up his board and laid it on the sand and in the hot sun, the wood began to steam and the salt traced out a pattern on the board.

  "Hank, can I ride home with you?" Mike said. "Don't have a car today."

  "Sure. I'm going right away. Hurry up."

  CHAPTER 2

  Make Birds Touch Wings

  The Western Motel was built halfway between Long Beach and Los Angeles. At first it was in the open country and its occupants were riggers from the oil fields and an occasional tourist. It was a poor place in which to put a motel and it should have failed, but history caught up with the Western Motel and made it a success. The tall, spidery oil derricks marched closer to it every year. Then in 1922 the land speculation started, in some way became a bubble and around the Western Motel there was a vast pattern of brightly colored tents with men in derby hats giving away sandwiches, cold pop, taffy candy and one free lot if you bought another for $500. A sign saying "Los Angeles -- Population 1,500,000 by 1940!!!" was placed along the highway in front of the Western Motel. The Western Motel prospered and the owner, a Texan, responded by building an elaborate facade around the original kernel of each unit of the motel One was converted into a nipa hut, another an igloo, another a tiny colonial house, another a replica of Monticello. And through the years the Western Motel continued to prosper.

  Inside the Monticello unit of the Western Motel Mike was lying on the bed. On the wall was a mirror and he could see himself when he turned his head. He was entirely naked and in his mouth he had a cigar. His hands were behind his head and occasionally he would blow a cloud of thick white smoke to the ceiling. It was hot and he could feel drops of sweat trickle through the hair on his chest. He had strong, powerful legs and big hands. His face was regular, but not handsome because his jaw was too large and his nose too broad. He had short brown hair. Mike winked at himself in the mirror.

  "Mike, don't lie on the bed naked," Miss Bell said from the bathroom door. She was wearing a loose silk wrapper. "And you shouldn't smoke cigars. You're too young."

  "I like cigars," Mike said, without taking the cigar from his mouth. "If I'm old enough to do this," and his hand circled and took in the room and Miss Bell, "I'm old enough to smoke."

  Miss Bell flushed and she walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Without her glasses on, her eyes looked soft and unfocused. She had an attractive face, although her figure was starting to soften. Her breasts were still large and firm, but her hips bulged the kimono slightly. Her fingers were fattening and a ring almost disappeared on her left hand.

  She eats too much, Mike thought. He remembered the countless hamburgers and Mile-Hi cones and malted milks they had eaten together. She always ate with a breathless laugh, repeating that she shouldn't, but always ordering a hamburger or an extra little-paper bag of french-fried potatoes.

  "What are you going to do in the fall?" Miss Bell asked. "Have you made up your mind?"

  "No."

  "Why don't you go to college, Mike? You're a good student."

  "But why go to college?. What good will it do me?"

  "It will broaden your horizons, it will . . . " She saw the look on his face, faltered a moment and went on. "It will help you to get a good job when you get out of college."

  "Did it broaden your horizons?" Mike asked. "Your dad went to college. Did it broaden his horizons? He still got cleaned out on that Belgian hare proposition."

  "I never should have told you about the Belgian hare business," Miss Bell said. "That doesn't mean a thing. Today you can't get a decent job unless you have a college education."

  She had told Mike about the Belgian hares several weeks before. During the late 1920's, all of Southern California had been swept by an excitement over Belgian hares and newspapers carried advertisements of prize bucks and does. It was alleged that the skins of the hares would sell for fabulous sums and thousands of the hares were bred all over the state. Brochures were circulated which stated that the pelts would be made into exquisite fur coats and much was made of the fine sheen and long hair of the hares. Miss Bell's father had resisted for months, but finally a man he knew made $2500 with the hares and Mr. Bell purchased a matched buck and doe for $1750. They were beautiful creatures, with huge soft eyes and moist noses and he carefully nourished them in his bedroom. But a month later the excitement died, the brochures disappeared, there were a few stories in the papers and Mr. Bell sold the hares to a poultry store for seventy-five cents.

  "I can get a good job without going to college," Mike said.

  "Doing what?" Miss Bell said.

  "In the studios, they pay big money there," he said tentatively. "Or working out at the aircraft factories."

  "Oh, Mike, that isn't big money, those aren't big jobs," Miss Bell said. "Those are the little jobs. Law, medicine, business executives; those are the big jobs. You can't get one of those jobs without going to college."

  "You can make money without going to college," Mike said. "I know that." He puffed on the cigar, felt a drop of brown bitter juice gather in the corner of his mouth, but let it stay there. "You can make money lots of other ways without having a college degree. Did Henry Ford go to college? Or Jim Far
ley? Or Charles Lindbergh?"

  "There are exceptions, Mike," Miss Bell said. "I admit that. But they're flukes. Most of the big jobs go today to men who have a college training. Certainly most of the famous men in the United States have gone to college. I can prove that"

  "How?" Mike said. He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked over at her.

  She put on her glasses. Her eyes came sharply into focus; her face looked thinner. She walked over to the bureau and opened the little night case she had brought to the Western Motel. She took out a thick book.

  "Now don't be angry, Mike," she said. "I brought this from the school library just in case you raised the question. You never take what I say. This is a copy of "Who's Who." It's a list of all the famous people in the United States. Just name me one person, any person and if he's famous he'll be in this book." She paused and added with triumph, "And you'll see that most of them have gone to college."

  "What if he isn't in the book?" Mike asked. "How do I know they've got all the really famous people in there?"