by Jack Lopez
As we caught our breath I thought about F. He didn’t like me anymore. At first he seemed to, but more recently he’d try to bait me into arguing with him, and had even used a racial slur to intimidate me. I knew that if he ever went too far, I’d tell my father, and my father would stand up to the dick, kick the royal shit out of him, should it come to that. But now my father wasn’t around. Besides, Jamie had already kicked his ass.
“Well,” I said, “we’d better get to it.”
“Let’s wait for a good break,” Amber said.
When it came we sprinted across the highway and then lay in the sand off the road, not far from the asphalt. A few cars whizzed by, nothing out of the ordinary. After a time of catching our breath, we sprinted the long sandy beach to the water’s edge, where Jamie should be.
The overcast was in strong, small cloud wisps rushing past our faces as we stood right above the shoreline. Amber began yelling for Jamie, but he never would have heard her, what with the roar of the breaking waves and the onshore wind. Her words were just blown about like whitecaps far out at sea. As I looked at her, she was peering out onto the black ocean, and I felt a sudden urge to hold her.
But I said, “Let’s split up; I’ll go north, you go south.”
“No,” Amber said. “We’re not separating.” The tone in her voice made it final, and she took my arm, placing her hand in mine and pulled me forward with her.
First we walked north, calling for Jamie. When we got pretty close to The Strand and the houses on the sand, we turned back. Walking south, I began looking up on the mesa for my house. There were only a few other buildings on the huge flat piece of ground overlooking Playa Chica. Our neighbors were horse people, and I could see the lights from the various barns and houses surrounding my own house.
When we were south of the mesa we found Jamie. He was sitting in the sand shivering. Amber hugged him. She tried to give him my sweatshirt, which I’d gotten for her, but he refused, and it wouldn’t have fit anyway.
“Did you see anything? Cops or …” His voice was hoarse and nasal as it trailed off.
“No.” I wasn’t lying; I hadn’t seen anything, and I was on high alert for sirens.
The wind was howling, and it seemed to be blowing the tops of waves right on us: I felt damp inside and my hair was wet. We sat in silence, comfortable in each other’s company, knowing there was no good solution to Jamie’s problem. The high-tide surge was almost up to where we sat.
“I’m going to hitchhike south,” Jamie said. “I can’t stay here.”
“Only psychos hitchhike,” Amber said.
“I’ve got to get out of here. I’m not getting arrested for that prick.”
Silence.
“What if the cops are driving Coast Highway?” Jamie on the highway with only the beach for cover, which was no protection at all, wasn’t a scenario that I relished.
“It’s cool, there’s nothing else to do,” Jamie said with a resigned quality to his voice that I’d not heard before. It was acceptance and calmness at the same time.
Amber pulled Jamie into her shoulder.
“What’s going on, guys? I mean, shit’s happening pretty fast. Jamie, you fought F?”
“Yeah, I did.” He sounded as if his tongue was too thick or something, making his words raspy and soft at the same time. “I kicked his ass. I surprised him. He went off on me twice and I didn’t respond. This time, I nailed him right in the throat and got him on the floor and worked out on his face. I fucked him up. I hit him and hit him and kept hitting him. And you know what? It felt really good. I mean, really.”
“It was ugly, Juan. I hate F, but I don’t want Jamie to …”
“Be killed by that fucker,” Jamie filled in.
“No, get arrested. You wailed on him. It’s different now, Juan. F’s weird or crazy or something. He changed big time.”
“He takes everything out on me,” Jamie said. “And I’m through with it.”
Amber removed her arm from around Jamie’s shoulder and sat up straight.
She had always protected him, especially after their father died. She had a fierce protective net around Jamie, always looking out for him, once even challenging a bully who was giving Jamie and me shit after school. We were in the first grade and thought it was very cool.
One time when I was with Jamie in his room shortly after his father died, he started crying. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do, but Amber came in and held him. Simply held him and they both cried. I left, letting myself out of the house and walking home in a sad daze. At that time she made it a point to keep a close eye on him, to spend time with him when I wasn’t around, even taking him with Robert Bonham when they went to Disneyland on one of their first dates.
When Amber started surfing she insisted that Robert take Jamie and me along sometimes, even though we’d been at it for a few years already. And he did, surfing with us down the coast at breaks we would never have been able to get to.
When F entered the scene, Amber took up the void left by Mrs. Watkins’s defection. It wasn’t that their mom neglected Jamie or anything. She was just spending time with a man, a guy who wasn’t Jamie’s father, and I knew Jamie didn’t like it, though he never said anything about it. He kept quiet, as usual. But it was weird — I could know stuff about Jamie without us ever talking about it. I knew he didn’t like F being with his mother. I knew he wasn’t happy when she eloped with him. But what could he do?
Could he really get arrested?
We sat there quiet, gazing out over the dark sea. In the silent roar of the waves breaking by the shore I wondered how I could help. I couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t gauge their emotions, but it was as if Amber had read my mind.
“F hid the car keys,” she said.
Jamie shouted, “The dick locked them in his safe.”
I wondered why Jamie hadn’t just taken his mother’s car, then remembered it wasn’t running, the reason he’d taken F’s in the first place to get us to the morning waves. “Maybe I can get my mother’s car,” I said. A plan was formulating in my mind.
“Could you?” Amber said.
“Your mother won’t give you her car,” Jamie said.
“I won’t ask.”
We digested the implications of that remark. Remembering the warmth of Amber’s hand in mine, I thought, I could do it. My father was at work — he wouldn’t be home until eight in the morning, and my mother was a heavy sleeper. Besides, I didn’t want Jamie to go through any more shit. Not tonight.
“It’s just to get Jamie out of town, get him a good start.” I’ll get the car back before my father gets home from work and before my mother wakes up, I thought.
“I’ll go with you,” Amber said.
It was after midnight as Amber drove my mother’s car. I was pensive in the passenger seat — I’d never done anything close to this my entire life! We drove in the Barrela family car, a brand-new 4Runner cruising next to the beach without letting the tires go into the sand. Tourists always tried to drive up on the beach to park, and when it was time to go they’d gun their engines and spin their tires, expecting the sand to release them, but the sand was unforgiving. It was tricky driving because Amber had turned off the headlights so as not to be seen from up on the mesa, should anybody be watching. There were no other vehicles on the road, and when we were directly south of my house on the mesa, I told Amber to stop the car, leave the engine idling. Soon Jamie opened the side door and got in. He held his backpack on his knees. There was no reason to peel out, but the sand covered the highway and in her excitement Amber stepped on the gas too hard and burned rubber getting back on the highway. After a short time she turned on the car’s headlights.
“Lemme drive,” Jamie said. “You’re going to get us pulled over.”
“Shut up,” Amber said.
“Stop for my board, okay?” Jamie said.
“You bet,” I said.
“You can’t hitchhike with a board,” Amber said.
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p; “I’m not going south without it,” Jamie said. “Swell’s building.”
Far off in the distance you could see waves breaking white against the unseen pilings of the pier. We’d often stored our boards in Greg Scott’s garage so we could walk to the pier after school let out, because the waves there were usually better than the beach break at Playa Chica. Sandbars would form around the structure, making for reeflike surfing.
And that big south swell was heading to the coast of California, the result of the hurricane off Hawai’i. The waves from the storm would hit our coast anytime, so the surf forecasters had said. Everybody who surfed was pumped up, waiting for the action. It looked as if Jamie would be getting those waves, while I wouldn’t
I felt somewhat guilty for taking my mother’s car — opening the garage and pushing it down the road before starting it, and without her permission — and definitely felt guilt for stealing all the cash in her purse. Yet there was an excitement in the air, a veiled electricity, what with the approaching big swell and the chaos surrounding Amber’s and Jamie’s lives.
Downtown was deserted, and we didn’t want to get pulled over. For no reason the police would stop a car with kids in it late at night, and if they were looking for Jamie, well, they’d find him. Amber had her license so we were legal. Still, I was relieved when she turned on Ninth Street and got off the Coast Highway, heading toward Greg Scott’s house. She coasted to a stop one house away from where our boards were stored.
The air was humid and thick with salt these few blocks up from the water. Palm fronds riffled above us as we made our way to the backyard. Even the streetlights seemed to conspire a sort of “muffled” light, if that’s possible. You could hear the soft creaking of a nearby oil well, a remnant of the city’s past, moving up and down, up and down, a mechanical beast of burden that never slept, so nobody would be able to hear any noise when Jamie got his board.
Amber and I went with him into the backyard. There was a sticky gate latch, which stuck, of course, and Jamie made a big thunk! muscling the gate open. The whole scene struck us as funny, and we began giggling, the first light moment since the beach this morning. Trying to suppress our laughter, we made our way to the garage. Inside, Jamie moved some boards, and Amber took hers, then I grabbed mine so that Jamie could get his, but a strange thing happened. Amber and I held on to our boards, leaving the backyard with Jamie. I don’t think it was a conscious decision or anything, just an opportunistic moment of self-delusion.
“We need to get them back anyway,” I whispered to Amber.
“Oh, absolutely.” She nodded agreement.
As we loaded the boards in the back of the SUV I said, “Maybe we’ll catch a few waves in the morning.” It wasn’t that far off.
“It might be good,” Jamie said.
“Yeah,” Amber said.
Suddenly Greg Scott showed up in the street. “What’s up?” he said.
“Jamie’s got to get away for a while,” I said.
He looked at my mother’s car. “Where you headed?”
“South,” Jamie said.
“Do you have any stuff?” Greg Scott said.
“Just what’s in my pack,” Jamie said.
Greg Scott looked at all of us. “Hang on.”
In a while he returned, carrying a pile of things. “This might help,” he said, dropping it on the floor. Sleeping bags and towels and God knew what else. As he handed Jamie some money, he said, “Late.” He turned and walked away.
Greg Scott was the best! Jamie, Amber, and I stood alone in the dark quiet street. We transferred the pile from the grass on the parkway into the back of the truck, trying not to make noise with the doors.
Avoiding Main, Amber drove the backstreets of town. When we were past the trailer park, we got on the Coast Highway, heading south, my mom’s 4Runner our raft, the Pacific our Mississippi.
CHAPTER 4
The early morning swells humped on the horizon, racing toward shore. Once they hit shallow water the tops cascaded down and over each other with a lovely creamy-white grace, a turbulence contrasting with the still blue of the lightening sky and the deeper black-blue of the water.
I pulled myself out of the passenger side of the car. Amber was scrunched up though comfortable-looking in the back, a sleeping bag over her and her hand right on her mouth. Jamie was in the water, I supposed, for his board was gone — mine and Amber’s were still underneath the car, safe and undisturbed — and I could see a surfer paddling through the swells.
Last night we’d driven until we could no longer stay awake, and we’d parked not far from the parking lot at Swami’s, the nickname for the Self-Realization Fellowship grounds overlooking the reef break south of Encinitas.
Sometime before light, when I was groggy and Amber was out, Jamie drove us into the parking lot. The lot had a curfew posted, and we didn’t want to get hassled by cops for something that dumb. Light was just dusting the golden dome of the temple. My mother’s car was the only one in the lot.
As I pissed in the bushes I watched the surfer. Jamie, I could tell by the way he paddled. We’d surfed together since the summer of the fifth grade.
The summer after her husband’s death Mrs. Watkins spoke to my parents about surfing. They all decided that it would be a good idea for Jamie and I to get boards. At that time Amber was going the cheerleader route, sneaking out of her bedroom window at night and running with the wild girls. She had no interest in surfing during that era. She did take it up when she was in the ninth grade, probably to impress Robert Bonham, who surfed really well. And when she started surfing she hit it with a vengeance.
So my parents and Mrs. Watkins took us to the beach a few times a week that summer and Jamie and I began our surfing lives. For Jamie it was a way to grieve, I guess, because he used to cry in the water sometimes. He thought nobody could tell, but I could. I let him have it, and was just there with him, just was with him.
We surfed and we shot hoops and we hung together, and even Amber got tired of hanging out with angry chicks who got in trouble all the time. It wasn’t in Amber to be a criminal, like her screwed-up so-called friends of that time.
I looked back in the car; Amber showed no sign of waking so I was stuck — I couldn’t leave her like this, asleep in a parking lot. “Ah,” I sighed, looking over the ocean, wondering about Nestor and my mother. I could barely make out Jamie’s form out in the water.
The summer between the seventh and eighth grades, our third full summer surfing, Jamie bestowed “best surfer” title on me. That summer his mother had worked out of necessity — it was after Mr. Watkins’s death and before she married F — and on her way to work she dropped us off at the bluffs, where the waves were always better than in front of the mesa where we lived. This also saved us from having to ride our bikes on a two-lane road, pulling the board rack that Nestor had fashioned out of an old wagon for me.
That summer there was a sandbar buildup not far from the limestone cliff, which offered a great left. Jamie was goofy foot, meaning he faced the wave when going left; I was regular foot — I faced the wave when going right. On the prevailing south swells I became excellent at going backside, left, going with my back to the wave. I could crouch with one knee up and the other knee almost resting on the board and grab the outside rail, leaning into the wave, making ones that I shouldn’t have, perfecting this maneuver while surfing the left-breaking sandbar all summer.
In mid-August, Claire Watkins stopped at the bluffs to drop us off, as she’d done many other workdays. It was a misty morning, not too unusual right along the coast, but the parking lot was filled with cars, and the entire cliffs were lined with onlookers, something we’d not seen any other summer day. Mrs. Watkins got out of her car with us. What we saw on the ocean that morning was a surfer’s dream: summer morning south swell, huge empty waves. The biggest waves we’d ever seen. Not even the older surfers ventured out, and everyone stood hypnotized and in awe of the beautiful and violent display before them.
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br /> “You boys don’t have to stay,” Mrs. Watkins said, sensing our fear, our survival instinct, which was palpable. “I’ll take you home. I’ve got the time, I’m early.”
But Jamie and I knew we couldn’t leave the beach, even though we probably wouldn’t go out in the water. We just had to stay and watch, if nothing else.
Before she left, Mrs. Watkins extracted a promise from us that we would not go out in the huge waves. Only if it got smaller could we venture out. She wanted to force us to return home, but she knew that should we leave, we couldn’t face any of the other boys who stood on the cliffs. Claire Watkins was cool that way, sensing subtle things that other parents didn’t have a clue about. She didn’t want to leave us, but she also didn’t want to make us look foolish. So she went to work as she’d done countless other days that summer.
After she left, Jamie and I walked down to the beach with our boards and placed the towels and lunches in the sand as we always did upon arriving. The cliffs above us had a better vantage point for seeing the overall view of the waves marching to shore. Yet on the beach we had a better perspective of the size of the waves at water level. It was hard to judge size accurately since nobody was surfing, but we figured the waves were three to four feet overhead. Ten feet on the face? Usually the waves we surfed were two to four feet, once in a blue moon six feet on a big swell. These waves were the equivalent of Hawai’i’s winter North Shore, surfing Mecca.
Plopping on the sand and not even bothering to remove our sweatshirts and short pants, we watched the incredible display of power all through the morning. Neither of us had any intention of going out in the massive waves, though we did begin taunting each other about doing so, since nothing was at stake because not even the older guys were going out.
So we sat, two thirteen-year-old boys on the beach. And watched. Like everyone else.
Until an older guy actually paddled out. He timed it in between sets, making it look relatively easy. He took off on the first wave of a set, and rode a huge blue beautiful peak all the way into the shore-break, where he kicked out. Everybody on the clifftop yelled their approval. And soon more older guys were on the beach, waxing their boards before paddling out.
