by Malcolm Knox
What they never understood was, the ocean itself was into competition.
Nobody within a bull’s roar.
Long right-handers. Your bread and butter, your face to the wave, you dropped into the pit and wrote your signature on good-size Burleigh. Into the pit, up on the lip, roundhouse cutback, down again, chop the hands, build up speed, through the next section, up on the lip, hack a big bucket of spray out of it, drop down again . . .
. . . yeah . . .
They didn’t know what hit them. Except the ones that did. Frank Johnson and Michael Peterson in the final heat but in your wake, carry you up the beach on their shoulders. Local newspapers snapping away. You pull a stink-eye. Didn’t like them photographers.
At the preso, Nat Young walked out of a poster on your bedroom wall and give you the trophy. Nat was up from New South to scope you. Handed you your money in a white envelope. It had a bulge in it.
Nat hadn’t entered the conness. It was beneath him. Like only the plebs, only the scumbags would worry about something as warty and working class as competing.
Would of killed him for that too.
A bunch of Coolie boys was there in the crowd. Nat was making some kind of political speech, urging revolution or whatnot, and halfway through the boys started chanting:
DK! DK! DK!
Shouting down the best surfer in Australian history.
Gary Trounson going off his head. Father Aplin, wearing a new style of Mexican wedding shirt you hadn’t seen before, and baggy corduroy pants. Always ahead of the curve, Father A. More traditionally turned out in singlets and stubbies: the butchers, the plumbers, the newsagents. Was one of them that yelled out:
Just get out the way and give him his trophy, Young!
One of them that yelled out:
Your day’s over, Young! DK’s gotcha!
Nat Young, The Animal, handed over the mike.
DK mumbled: Yeah thanks . . . yeah . . . And, um, yeah.
Coolie mob went bananas.
Lisa up the back, slow handclapping above her head. Like she was at a concert. Hearing the music you were playing.
Dimple deep as a low C. Bangles tinkling on her wrists.
All the boys went down the pubs, the clubs, to celebrate. Got on the whiz, on the gear.
You went home with Lisa and sat in your room and pulled C-1s. Deep Purple, Hendrix, Santana instrumentals.
You didn’t mess round or nothing. You just sat and pulled C-1s and listened to music. Posters of Nat Young and Hawaiian waves on your wall.
Celebration.
Then down to Sydney, the nationals. Rod shown up again from wherever he been. Bas with him, pretty emaciated these days, more the junkie dog. Bas reckoned he’d been onto a good thing hanging with Rod—some buddy who’d feed him and ferry him round and entertain him and do all his chores for him. Bas thought he swung it sweet but then he didn’t figure on Rod’s other mate, the one in the bag, moving in as well.
Rod had the idea he was gunna get a wildcard in the nationals. Threw a few sticks in the back of the van and hit the road:
You, Rod, Lisa.
Bas, snarly embittered bastard. One night on the road he found your dope and tried to eat it all. You got the bag in the nick of.
You never remembered nothing much of that trip cept packing C-1s, punching C-1s, passing out in the back, waking up when Rod found a wave. Then more C-1s.
He was keen to get out and hit a wave. Him and you, leave Lisa on shore.
Nice waves.
Rod surfed on smack. He kept pushing it at you but you wouldn’t touch the stuff.
Rod took your wave. You got the next one, a bigger one, and you was deep inside the barrel. It still had a way to run but you saw Rod paddling out so you fell back and slingshotted your stick straight at his head.
Just missed.
Rod cacking himself when you paddled back out.
Can’t believe you were inside a barrel but still had to kick your board at me, he cackled.
Priorities, you said.
Rod paddled off, laughing, shaking his head that you give up a barrel to try to hurt him.
He didn’t take no more of your waves.
You camped. Lisa cooked: fried eggs on the open fire, toasted marshmallows, billy tea. After dinner, Rod take a shot and you and Lisa smoked C-1s. Bas passed out in the crook of Rod’s arm. Lisa slung on her guitar and played you her sweet tunes. The brother and the dog snoring, the girl singing.
She brought you a big hessian sack which she filled with your muesli. In case you couldn’t get it in New South.
You wrote postcards to Mo. Yous were living that Life eh.
•
Sydney, early summer ’72:
Rod driving and hooting, stoned. You with your head out the window, stoned. Down the Pacific Highway, your first time in the big smoke: big houses, trees, hills and dales. Car yards and petrol stations like at home only bigger here, more English than American, that sort of thing
no words for it but
perfect day, sunny and a few clouds to stop the sky getting boring. Cooler than home and more geography here. You turned down the Mona Vale Road, big up-themself houses and big up-themself people, pale ones in European clothes, suits in summer, not like Queenslanders, where are all the shorts and sandals eh!
Then into the bush and glimpses of the sea.
You needed to stop and do a poo in the scrub. Your stomach buzzing loud no matter how many C-1s.
Then a last dip down the hill and you were there, that other Mecca: Sydney’s northern beaches.
You stopped and looked at Mona Vale. Rod turned north. You stopped and looked at Bungan. You stopped and looked at Newport. You stopped and looked at Bilgola. You stopped and looked at Avalon. You stopped and looked at Whale. You stopped and looked at Palm. You stopped and looked at North Palm.
On the way back you stopped and looked at all of them again.
Worried: there was loads of beach breaks here, not a string of right-handed points like home. They was more like D-Bah, with peaky rights and lefts. Where the nationals were being held, North Narrabeen, had you worried enough already: a left-hander. Surfing with your back to the wave, you was never as comfortable. Sydney had more lefts than rights. All the locals down here, probably half of them goofy-footers, at home in the lefts, they’d have a good crack at you at North Narra.
You stopped and looked at Warriewood. You stopped and looked at Little Narra.
Then down between a caravan park and a big open paddock, over a little lagoon bridge, up the hump into the carpark, and there it was, most famous break in Sydney: Northy.
Four foot and clean and about thirty goofy-footers tearing it up. Mirror images of DK. No longboard cruisers here. They were surfing vertical: into the pit, up on the lip, turning their little toothpicks on a sixpence.
They’d caught up with you all right.
You went in the surf club and took another poo.
Lisa lined up your accommodation, a wooden house on the lagoon with one of the North Narra animals who been up the Goldie the last year. You dug them boys and they dug you. Of all the blow-ins up at Coolie, the Northy boys understood respect. They got out the water or sat in the channel while you DK was there. They wanted to look and learn.
As a show of mutual respect you paddled out and sit in the channel and give them a few waves.
Only a few mind.
That sort of thing.
This guy who had the wooden house, Brian Giblet, was one of the better surfers. Wore a Mexican wedding shirt like the one you seen Father A in. You’d have to start stocking them. And on his feet, Slaps with black velour straps. Nice. Loved his rum and whisky, Brian. Wouldn’t touch your hooch, though he was cool with you punching C-1s on his balcony. He’d knoc
k back rums all night and you and Lisa punch C-1s. Rod sneak to the downstairs toilet and have his fix, then come back up and dance while Lisa strummed.
Brian played along with her on his baby grand piano.
Reckon ya can beat us on our lefts? Brian said.
There was challenge in his voice. And rum. Something cocky about him: Sydney.
On home turf they was always different.
This was three am the night before the first round of the nationals.
You decided you didn’t like Brian so much now.
You nudged him off the piano stool.
Ever played before? he said.
You shook your head and sit down. You been listening to Lisa for more than two years, you knew music, and like she always told you, you were pure natural genius. Mo said so too.
You pushed your aviators up the bridge of your nose (still there). Your moustache twitched.
You started playing. Just like that. Improv. Lisa picked up what you were doing and tuned in with her guitar and soon the pair of you were jamming like Cleo Laine and John Fricken Dankworth, Lisa even singing, making it up as she went, about how you were going to smash them next day at North Narra.
Finally you found a way to end it.
Brian, sitting pissed on his big brown beaten-up leather couch.
Yeah right, he said. A fresh rum and Coke in his hand. Never played before.
And he’s hardly surfed no lefts either, said Rod, but he’s still gunna fuck yers all tomorrow.
That night was special with you and Lisa. Her glazed eyes in yours as you lay on a cane lounge in Brian Giblet’s sleepout. Mozzie mesh waving in the breeze. Offshores tomorrow, sweet.
Lisa didn’t need to ask how you learnt to play piano just like that. She knew already:
Pure natural genius.
I want to stop time now, she said, curling up against you. I want the world to end.
And found a place between your arm and your rib.
Bigger money in this conness, about five grand all up. There’d been talk about the legends, Nat and Midget, making a comeback, but Nat pulled out on the morning saying he done his groin and Midget had to fly out to Hawaii. It still left Terry Fitzgerald, Paul Neilsen, FJ, Townend, Bartholomew, Peter Drouyn, some good surfers up from Victoria and WA, and about fifty goofies from Narra and Queenscliff and Maroubra. Surfing in Australia never been stronger than 1972.
Everyone talking about this new govt they had, Labor Party after twenty-three years. You didn’t know about that. You weren’t political or nothing.
Rod didn’t get his wildcard but surfed the trials in six-footers, and cos it was big you went out as his caddy with his spare board. He was going all right. You sat there out the back, watched him ripping. He paddle back out, stoked. He might make it through to the conness proper.
But his leash was made out of a bike inner tube with a football sock as the ankle strap, you rigged it up for him, and it snapped and he lost his stick. He took ages to swim out the back to you, and when he got there, he was unlucky, very unlucky cos a huge beautiful set come in and you been sitting there for half an hour dying, watching them perfect waves, and you couldn’t resist it no more, DK got on this massive left and was carving . . . then went down the beach and got a few more . . . and Roddy couldn’t find you to give him his spare. Unlucky to get eliminated in the trials, he was.
You paddled out in your first heat of the main conness and ripped. Your back to the wave, you dropped in the pit, leant back and accelerated up on the lip. Tossed up big rooster tails of spray. Carved out big sheets on your bottom turns.
Then you pulled a swifty on them, something you only tried while you were putzing round in practice, never in a comp:
You switch-footed. You got up with your left foot at the tail, no leash, and your right foot forward. You carved the left-hander with your face to the wave, like a goofy-footer. You could hear yourself laughing in the middle of you. Nobody knew you could surf both feet, natural or goofy. Nobody ever seen such a thing in a national open.
Then, your next wave, just for fun, you moved your feet into a side-by-side parallel, like you were skiing. Crouched down like you had poles tucked under your arms. How hot were you, son . . .
Yeah . . .
Absolutely gutted the others in your heat. None of them’d surf any good in that comp after this.
Gutted the whole surfing world. Half the professionals out there decided to give up, in their hearts, that day.
The ‘official area’ was a nylon tent and a hamburger barbie up in the North Narra car park. A reporter was there, for Sydney radio, and bunged his microphone under your moustache and asked you a question, like, how had you done it, that type of thing.
Lisa handed you your aviators. You pushed them up on your nose.
I am the new govt, you said.
You were only just out of teenage, 22 years old, but you had deep lines horizontal across your forehead. You’d worn them in with the muscles in your forehead pulling your eyes open. Keeping you awake are we? You looked ten years older. Fifteen. Lisa said: Like an incredibly hot 35-year-old. She loved it. Made her feel grown-up.
The birds, the birds, the deep lines across your forehead.
The semifinals was later in the day in onshore mid-afternoon muck. You ripped again, straight in the final. Switch-footing, mesmerising them. Then the wind dropped and there was a new nor’-east swell. Perfecto for the final. You disappeared down Brian Giblet’s place to smoke a C-1 with Lisa, so you didn’t know what was going on up the beach.
When you walked back on cloud nine, everyone was crowded round watching the sea.
The swell had cleaned up and the lines marched in. It was about seven pm. Couple of guys out free surfing before the final.
One tall figure with arms out like a vase, smooth, gliding, silky.
Who they were watching:
So much for the groin strain.
He was too big for competition, too big for the nationals.
Just when your time had come.
Your day’s over, Young!
He hadn’t forgot. He was just here to pull his local crowd.
You ignored him when he come up the sand. You were putting your singlet on for the final. You and Lisa wandered down the beach and had a last little number. When you come back, Nat was being mobbed and the three others in the final walking past him with goggle eyes.
Except for this one dark, wiry figure leaping about Nat like a fricken blowfly. As you got closer you saw how this goblin was giving Nat an earful. Nat was trying to keep up his regal air, above it all.
Didn’t have the hair! Didn’t have the guts to take on DK!
The dark guy cackling his head off. He was wearing boardshorts with a big hairy scrotum painted on them.
Nat paused like he was going to nut this gremlin but thought better of it and moved on, up through the crowd.
Ta bro.
•
DK’s surfing in the final was described as ferocious and mind-bending. With his back to the wave he disappeared into barrels and when they thought he been eaten by the foamball, he shot out onto the ramp.
. . . yeah . . .
Then you took off goofy and blew them away.
You cleared the water. Two of the other guys in the four-man final injured themselves trying impossible moves to match you. The only one with you by the end was FJ, your old mate, also surfing out of his skin with his back to the wave.
The last few minutes of the Australian Open final, you and FJ just sat there in the water, not saying much, few words about how good the waves had been, FJ saying Sydney wasn’t as bad as he thought, you saying it was a good day to be a Queenslander . . .
. . . yeah . . .
Nice moment. You didn’t bother to catch last
waves. FJ had conceded the final.
On the beach they started pulling down the judging platform and the scoreboard. Everyone was going home and you weren’t even finished! Then someone on the megaphone said, Dennis Keith, you’re the winner, if you want to collect your two hundred in prize money you can come to my place later.
You and FJ bellied in together on foam.
You got your trophy. You had the bird.
Your press conference was some bloke from the radio ringing you up at Brian Giblet’s for a live interview:
Dennis, any comments on becoming Australian champion?
Well, yeah. You pushed the aviators up on your nose. They were there. But—nah!
The cheque was two hundred bucks. You put aside half for buying new blanks for shaping, half for Mo, half for a blowout with Lisa, half for Rod for petrol and food for Bas, and half for savings.
Something like that.
Been a week and I haven’t asked Mo to take me out in her car. No more surfing buddies.
She shouldn’t of got me The Thing.
Can’t touch it can’t look at it.
The diagonals in the living rooms of retirement village units are all screwy. I go with Mo to watch her play bingo with her mates. I listen to the radio while she has arf-tea. She shows you off in the dining hall, like there’s some part of the last thirty years that got skipped by the record needle of her brain and she thinks her old biddies are meeting the best surfer in the world, her pride and joy.
Instead of what they’re seeing.
But retirement villages are all about magic.
Illusions.
I’m the rabbit in Mo’s hat.
Then it’s home up the rail (don’t grab it) and in the living room where The Thing is waiting for me and I make for the bedroom and listen to me radio.
The things in my bedroom, I try to look at them and forget about the other Thing.
Shelves of books. I dig books. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The Fountainhead. The Dice Man. The Doors of Perception. Steppenwolf. The I Ching. Hopscotch. The Betsy. Van Loon’s Lives. The Warrior’s Way.
