by Malcolm Knox
But Basil was getting out of hand so Mo made you try to train him. You took Basil to classes where all the dogs and the dog owners stood in a circle round the trainer. First day, trainer’s explaining how to reward dogs for following instructions. He give them a bikkie out of this bag he held up. All about rewards and bikkies.
And but so while he was saying this, Basil tore out and charged the trainer, knocked him down, ripped the bikkies out of his hand and hoed in. Too much like his master. Except everyone said you weren’t Basil’s master, they said you were his father. He took after you that much.
You finished your confirmation classes. Father Aplin said Dennis knew the New Testament off by heart, just about.
Dennis said he liked the Old Testy more. But hard to remember all them names.
Mo didn’t often kiss him. But when he got confirmed in St Barnabas—stubbed his toe and howled as he walked up the steps to the altar, Father A smiling away in sympathy, Lost count of how many times I’ve done that meself, he went—when it was over Mo cried and covered Den with sloppy wet ones.
He was confirmed now: Mo thought he was going to heaven.
•
Wrong. Dennis was already there.
At Snapper, at D-Bah, at Rainbow, at Greenmount.
At Kirra.
That was the summer you rode your first barrel. You had photos of Nat Young in barrels on your walls. Rod said you couldn’t do it, said no-one could on the boards you were using. Meaning, you couldn’t do it, nor could he, nor could Tink or FJ or any other of the kids around.
But you found the other cathedral, the green one, this day at Kirra.
Paddled into the wave, stood up, hooked right towards the shoulder, and somehow you were too far back on your board, the tail stalled in the water. You looked up at the lip about to smash down on your head and ducked. As you ducked you bent your knees and the board rode higher up into the wall, which was pitching and straightening ready to chuck you down on the sandbank.
But it didn’t.
You weren’t even there, you were just waiting for the lip to come down and smash you.
But it didn’t.
The lip stretched out like bubble gum and went over your head, like someone was tying a knot round you. It wrapped round you. The lip was now over your head and washing the side of your face. Meanwhile your board was scooting along, sticking like a fly to the wall.
Waves made this tunnel.
Just people didn’t often happen to be there.
But this time, you were.
It shot you through, spat you out, and you were in the open air again. You stood upright and cruised off the wave’s shoulder.
Your arms hanging by your sides. Inside you they were raised to the sky, in praise. This was what Father A and Mo meant by: Praise. Ecstasy.
You didn’t know what had happened.
Yes you did.
You seen it.
Dreamt it.
Now you done it.
You’d rode a barrel.
•
You wanted to go straight in and sit on the beach and think about it, without moving, without eating, without surfing, for like a week. Wanted to live the rest of your life thinking about that place you just been. Think about it and cradle it and not let it be spoilt. You just wanted to finish.
You didn’t go in.
You paddled back out to do it again.
And Roddy, sitting out there in the line-up. At first he said nothing, like he hadn’t seen you.
You began to wonder had it happened. If Rod hadn’t seen it, was it real?
He paddled for a few waves and got wiped out going too deep, aiming for the barrel.
That was how you knew he’d seen.
You tried it again that afternoon, made a couple more, wiped out a heap. You were a barrel rider. That was what you were going to be now.
But Roddy still acted like he never saw you.
Getting dark, he finally goes:
Fuck it, Den, been trying all day and I can’t do it.
Do what?
You bloody bastard. You done it, eh.
You saw me right?
The way he was looking at me I didn’t know if he was gunna kill me there and then, sitting in the water, just dunk my head and hold me under and drown me—or burst into tears and tell me he loved me.
I saw ya Den.
Just shaking his head.
We gotta start entering you in a conness, he went. Otherwise you and me’s gunna end up doing each other in.
And yeah, that was it:
Your next love:
Competition.
Dennis won his first conness: Kirra Juniors. December 11, 1966. Should of won a trophy but the guy at the preso, the club president, had lost it somewhere or it been pinched.
Dunno how to say sorry, the president said. Dunno what else I can give you.
How bout these?
Dennis liked the sunglasses the president was wearing: aviator style, gold rims, blue-tinted mirror lenses. He was too quick for the president, who threw out a hand to get them back but they was already on Dennis’s face.
First trophy.
But after that, it got good with the trophies. He win an age conness and they take him to The Shop—surf shop that sponsored the event—and he get a voucher to buy shorts or a shirt or whatnot. He thought all his xmases come at once. Brand new money: $$ and c. No more pounds shillings and pennies. Dollars and sense now. Couldn’t believe they were paying him to shoplift.
Competition was mostly on the right-handed points. Your bread and butter. You won the Kirra Boardriders. Before the zone juniors at Greenmount you broke the nose off your board, a whole ten inches snapped on a sandbank. You couldn’t swipe another and that was your favourite so you just rode it with no nose. You won. Then on the same busted stick you won state juniors at Snapper. All right-handers. You would of won the state open title against the men at Burleigh except your board snapped clean in half as you come out of a barrel and that was it, not even you could surf half a board.
You figured your back-hands out. You experimented with new boards you made in the rat cellar, and new moves. There was other ripping surfers but DK was ahead of them all. You were the Legend and the Messiah. They all knew if you was out the back. Nobody faded you. Nobody dropped in on you. If they was inside you and paddling out while DK was on a wave they got the hell out of the way. Like you had a force field.
Even free surfing you had to be the best in the water. If FJ got some kind of smoking barrel you would stay until you got a smokinger one.
Rod baited you: Nah, Tink got the best waves today.
You wouldn’t sleep till you got out there again and outsurfed Tink.
Rod was usually joking.
You didn’t get jokes.
Jokes weren’t your thing.
You got edgy about the number three and the number nine. You saw a car numberplate with a three or a nine on it on your way to a comp, you knew it was your day. You heard someone mention three or nine on the radio news, you knew you’d win that day. If there was no threes or nines in your life, you got a bad feeling. The day before the state junior titles at Snapper, you were frantic looking for threes or nines on letterboxes, grocery shop hoardings, car numberplates, everywhere, but there was none, not one, and sure enough your board got nicked. You ducked into Bob’s milk bar for a minute and when you come out your stick was gone.
Gone.
Your best Keiths Surf Boards rebirthed stick.
Day before the state juniors in your own backyard.
Never mind.
Rod had a brand new Draper board. Rod always rode someone else’s board, never a Keiths Surf Boards board. Rod was funny like that. He didn’t want your boards no more. He
thought you shaped them weird on purpose so he couldn’t ride them. He said the only one who could ride them was you. Said the name should of been Keith Surfs Boards, not that he was getting you to change it, he still wanted to be advertised but he didn’t want what you shaped. So he swipe a board from someone else and ride that.
When you got home, Rod’s new Draper stick was in the rat cellar. You worked the glass off it then set about reshaping it. Planing the rails and the tail so it was an exact replica of your best stick, the stolen one.
•
Then you reglassed it. All afternoon and all night. Missed your late surf but you be ready for the state juniors next day.
Rod wasn’t happy when he come home.
What ya done with me stick?
He saw his Draper glass, just the glass sheath but no board in it, standing up against a pylon like a snake’s skin.
Bugger ya, he said.
State juniors tomorrow, you said. Me stick got nicked outside Bob’s.
Rod looking at you like you’d finally flipped, you’d lost it, you’d went barking mad.
We can both use this one, you said encouragingly, gave the new rebirthed board a tap on the tail. You’ll love it, it’s better than it was before.
Dennis, Rod said. Come outside.
You were a bit sheepish, so you followed him. You knew how it looked to Rod. But state juniors was next day. He’d understand.
You followed him to the front yard.
There on the grass was your stick. Your best DK.
It was nicked, you said.
It wasn’t nicked, Rod said. Mrs Dolethorpe was walking past with Father A, they saw it lying on the path, they knew the state juniors was tomorrow, they figured some punk must of pinched it off you. So they took it for safekeeping. When I saw Father A this arvo he said tell you your stick was at Mrs Dolethorpe’s. Right next door. It wasn’t nicked, Dennis. Nobody’s got the hair to nick your board. They wouldn’t make it out of Coolie alive.
Far out, I went. Looking at my beautiful Keith stick. My fave at the time. It was better than the Draper one I’d just reshaped. I could see it now. I hadn’t got the Draper’s rails tucked under right. Wasn’t enough wood left on it.
You can have your one back, I went.
Yeah but it’s not really the same stick, is it?
Nah, I went. It’s better.
Rod didn’t believe me but what could he do. He was in the state juniors as well. He just walked away shaking his head.
But he made top ten, on that custom reshaped Draper.
I won. I told Rod he should always surf Keiths Surf Boards boards now.
He went quiet. Shaking his head a lot. Like I’d entered a new realm of craziness.
Rod was the one who couldn’t take a joke.
•
That type of thing.
I never knew how bad he wanted to win something.
Tink was with you and Rod pretty tight, and FJ, and a crew of others, but Dennis Keith discovered something early on:
He breathed surfing, he lived surfing, he dreamt surfing, he lived surfing, he breathed surfing—but he didn’t like surfers.
Everyone talked, like a mothers’ group, in and out the water, gabbing away, about this, about that, bugged hell out of him, like surfing was some kind of social occasion, and half of them talking so much they miss a set, talking so much they let waves go to waste, unforgivable waste . . .
. . . babble babble babble . . .
The Pit was in a gap between the Snapper car park and the jump-off rock where you had to go through if you wanted an easy paddle-out. The Pit was a natural semicircle theatre, with rocks you could sit on and rocks you could lay your board on, and the boys chose The Pit as their hangout.
Someone’d spraypainted a big sentence on a boulder at the mouth of The Pit . . .
They had bonfires and scoped the waves and claimed it as their cave, their clubhouse, that kind of thing. And if you was a drive-in surfer from Briso or blown in on a hot offshore from out west or even coming from close by like Burleigh, and you parked in the car park, then you had to walk through The Pit if you wanted to get to the jump-off rock, and if you had to walk through The Pit you had to run the gauntlet of what the boys say to you. And they’d say what they’d say.
Welcome to Coolangatta . . . not!
Didn’t matter what they said, it was all dribble most of it, what mattered was they laughed, cacked themselves like crazy, send people mad with paranoia.
Someone’d spraypainted a boulder at the mouth of The Pit . . .
•
They got a rep, boys in The Pit. Rod was in there with the worst of it. They weren’t bad boys, their bark was worse than their bite, but this was the whole point, they had to act more psycho than they were so they wouldn’t have to bite.
The Pit was nasty to walk through . . .
But not DK not personally. He didn’t open his mouth. He never said a word. He didn’t like it. Abusing strangers just cos they were walking in from the car park. Wouldn’t have a bar of it.
He just sat leaning against a rock that curved in the shape of an armchair cradling his back, a rock in The Pit that gave him support at every point where he needed it, sat there and let it all wash over him.
He never abused a soul in The Pit.
Didn’t mean he didn’t get a reputation for it.
Whenever anyone grizzled about the nasty boys in The Pit, they’d say, It was that Dennis Keith and his mates.
And Dennis never said a word to deserve it.
Didn’t even approve of it.
So there you go. Reputation.
Like The Pit was your voice, the rocks spoke for you, them rocks you grow out of . . .
The words in the spraypaint:
BE PREPARED TO FIGHT
When he surfed, he didn’t like to talk. He was on the move, on the move, getting more waves, paddling and paddling, more waves.
No talking.
Half the time they were talking about him anyway.
Why they always have to talk?
Plenty of time for talking on land. Why waste surfing time with talk?
Why?
It bugged him, bugged him, bugged him.
Riding the wave was between you and it, personal, one on one. You start bringing other people into it, gasbagging, you break the dream. You slit it open. You kill it.
He heard someone talking he’d have no hesitation dropping in on them. Teach them silence.
They made too much noise. Like dogs pissing on their territory. But the only way to assert your territorial rights was to catch waves. Pretty simple. Just shut up. Shut up.
The only talking you did was to yourself, out the back. You get onto a gibber with yourself, both ends of the conversation about this or that, mad about a wave you missed, that kind of thing.
Also let yourself have the odd temper tantrum too, out there:
But only under the water. A good growling yell at yourself, when you were under the water.
Unheard.
He had these tricks to psyche the others out. During a lull, he sit further out the back. Sometimes he take his lunch out with him, a spring roll in a paper bag, and eat it sitting on his board. It freaked them out that he was so sure of himself on his board he knew he could paddle out without getting his lunch wet.
If the lull went on, he stand up on his board—in the still water. Kids always trying this, standing up on a still board. They wobble, stay up for a second or two, then fall.
He could stand up—five, ten seconds, as long as a wave. On a stationary board.
They couldn’t believe that. Another DK story.
Silence, his habit.
Even on land, no need to overdo the talking bit.
In his head he was paddling into another wave.
In his head he was gliding on glass.
The way it felt like you were going downhill.
The way it kept walling up in front of you.
The colour of that glass.
The silence of it.
This was in his head, on land, or in his head, in the water, or in his head, on the wave:
Shut up.
Mr Paterson and Father A liked Dennis: he was quiet. Liked him more than Rod, gasbagger. When they took Dennis to the beach he didn’t say boo. He listened. Watched. Learnt. Adults liked that in him. He didn’t need supervision: they only had to give him a board and let him go, he wouldn’t give them a moment’s worry. Self-sufficient Dennis.
Adults thought that meant he was grown up. Unlike Roddy.
Because you wouldn’t speak much, wouldn’t trust, wouldn’t make friends, Rod become your interpreter. Rod turned up at school and told the latest story about what Dennis done. Rod sat in the line-up and described Dennis’s last wave: some incredible manoeuvre no-one ever tried.
Dennis paddled away from Rod’s little show, looking to get deeper, deeper. Looking to get into that take-off spot right in behind the black granite.
If he got to that take-off, that vertical slot, nobody could follow.
He went in there and wiped out.
Nobody caught more waves than Dennis, not even the plumbers and the butchers and the newsagents and the house painters and the headmaster and the priest, none of the grommets, none of the blow-ins.
But also, nobody wiped out more than Dennis.
And the old heads saw him wipe out behind the black granite and said:
Kid’s mad.
Cracked in the head.
