by Don Winslow
The world turns red and he feels like he's somersaulting.
A bad, bloody wipeout.
141
Remember when you were a kid in the swimming pool and you'd see how long you could hold your breath underwater?
This isn't that.
Getting caught in the impact zone is different from holding your breath in a swimming pool. For one thing, you can't come up; you're being rolled over the bottom-bounced, somersaulted, slammed, and twisted. The ocean is filling your nasal cavities and sinuses with freezing salt water. And it isn't a matter of how long you can hold your breath; it's a matter of whether you can hold your breath long enough for the wave to let you up, because if you can't You drown.
And that's just the beginning of your problems, because waves don't come to the party alone; they usually bring a crew. Waves tend to come in sets, usually three, but sometimes four, and a really fecund mother of a set might bring a litter of six.
So even if you make it through the first wave, you might have time to take a gasp of air before the next wave hits you, and the next, and so on and so forth until you drown.
The rule of thumb is that if you don't manage to extricate yourself from the impact zone by the third wave, your friends will be doing a paddle-out for you in the next week or so. They'll be out there in a circle on their boards, saying nice things about you, maybe singing a song or two, definitely tossing a flower lei out onto the wave, and it's very cool, but you won't be there to enjoy any of it because you'll be dead.
Sunny's in the Washing Machine, and it rolls her, tumbles her, somersaults her until she doesn't know up from down. Which is another one of the dangers of the impact zone: You lose track of which way is up and which way is down. So when the wave finally lets you up, you budget that last bit of air for the plunge to the sweet surface, only to hit rock or sand instead. Then, unless you're a really experienced waterman, you just give up and breathe in the water. Or there's already another wave on top of you.
Either way, you're pretty much screwed.
Keep your head, Sunny tells herself as she plummets. Keep your head and you live. You've trained for this moment all your life. You're a waterman.
All those mornings, those early evenings, training with Boone and Dave and High Tide and Johnny. Walking underwater, clutching big rocks. Diving down to lobster pots and holding on to the line until you felt your lungs were going to burst, then holding on a little longer. While those assholes grinned at you-waiting for the girlie to give up.
Except you didn't give up.
She feels a jerk upward and realizes that her board has popped to the surface.
“Headstoned,” in surf jargon.
Dave will be out there already, watching for the board to pop up. He's on his way now. She forces herself to do a crunch, not to release the leash but so that if she does hit bottom, she'll take the blow on her shoulders and not on her head, snapping her neck.
She hits all right, hard, but on her shoulders. The wave somersaults her three or four times-she loses count-but then it lets go of her and she pushes up, punches to the surface, and takes a deep breath of beautiful air.
142
Boone gets his arms around Dan's arms and pins them to his side. Dan still has his gun in his hand, but he can't raise it to shoot.
Dan slams three hard knee strikes into Boone's ribs, driving the breath from Boone's body. Boone gasps but doesn't let go. To let go is to die, and he's not ready for that yet. He can feel his own blood, hot and sticky, running down his face.
He pivots on one hip, turning Dan around toward the river. Then he starts walking, holding tightly to Dan, pushing him toward the water. Dan tries to dig and fight, but Boone has the momentum. Dan rears his neck back, then slams it forward, head-butting Boone on the bridge of the nose.
Boone's nose breaks and blood gushes out.
But he holds on and pushes Dan toward the bank of the river. He plants his feet, pivots again, and crashes into the muddy water on top of Dan. Boone releases his grip, finds Dan's chest, and pushes him down. He can feel Dan's back hit the muddy bottom. Then Boone holds on and pushes. It's a matter now of who can hold his breath the longest, and he figures that's a contest he can win.
But he's losing blood fast, and with the blood, his strength.
He feels Dan wrap a leg around him and he tries to fight it, but Dan doesn't panic under the water and gets his leg locked around Boone's. Then Dan turns his own hips and spins. Boone's too weak to counter it, and Dan flips him under. Then Dan sits up, on top of Boone, grabs him around the throat, and pushes down hard.
Boone arches his back and tries to buck Dan off him, but he can't do it. He feels weak, and tired, and then very sleepy. His lungs scream at him to open his mouth and gasp. Take a nice deep breath of anything, even if it's water.
His brain tells him to give up. Go to sleep, end the pain.
In his mind, he's in the ocean.
A giant wave, a mountain, curls over his head.
Suspends in time for a second.
Hangs there, as if deciding.
Then it breaks on him.
Ka-boom.
143
Johnny Banzai charges into the clearing.
His badge is clipped to his jacket, his service revolver in his hand.
Harrington and the county people are right behind him, but Johnny has demanded he go in first.
Family fucking honor.
He goes in hard and fast, unconcerned with safety. He heard a gunshot in the distance and doesn't know what the hell is going on, but he hits the clearing ready for whatever it is.
Some of the men are already running. Others stand there looking startled and confused. Johnny doesn't care about the mojados — he sees three younger guys, better dressed, running away toward a line of trees, and young girls, looking around, milling in confusion.
Then he hears another gunshot.
It sounds like it's coming from the other side of the reeds, down along the river.
Johnny calls for an ambulance and sprints toward the sound.
144
Boone feels Dan's grip loosen, then let go; then Dan's body slides off him into the water. A slough of blood pillows around Boone's face. He pushes to the surface and sees, like a weird dream, an old Japanese man standing at the edge of the river.
A shotgun in his trembling hands.
In the distance, Boone hears yelling, sirens… but maybe it's his head playing games with him.
He crawls to the riverbank and pulls himself up.
Then he hears something else.
A woman crying.
A howl of ineffable pain.
145
Sunny looks up and sees that she's going to have to take another wave or two on her head, but it's okay, because she's in a good spot, close to the base of the waves, away from the point of maximum impact. But now she does release her leash, because the board is going to go in with the wave and she doesn't want to go with it.
She takes the two waves, then the set ends and Dave pulls her onto the Jet Ski.
“That kook,” Dave says, “jumped in on you.”
“I saw.”
He takes her onto the shore.
People are running up the beach, including some lifeguards with medical equipment. She waves them off. “I'm okay. I'm good.”
But Dave is already striding over to where Tim Mackie is running his pie hole to his entourage and some surf press.
“Yo, kook,” Dave says. “Yeah, you. I'm talking to you.”
“You got a problem, brah?” Mackie asks. He looks surprised. Like, People do not have problems with Tim Mackie.
“No, you have a problem,” Dave says. “You could have killed her.”
“Didn't see her, bro.”
High Tide steps into it. “You should get your eyesight checked, then, bruddah. ”
“You don't do that shit on my beach,” Dave says.
“This is your beach?”
“That's right,” Dave
says. He moves in, ready to separate Mackie's head from his body. But Tide steps in front of him. Sunny steps in front of both of them and pushes the boys aside.
“I can take care of myself. Thanks, but I don't need you to big-brother me.”
“I'd do the same,” Dave says, “if it was Boone or-”
“I can take care of myself.”
Great, she thinks as the crowd stares at her. I wanted the wave of the day; instead, I got the wipeout of the day and a hassle with golden boy Tim Mackie.
“That wasn't cool,” she says.
“Sorry,” Mackie says. “My bad.”
But he has this smirk on his face.
“A-hole,” she says.
He laughs at her.
There's only one response to that. She picks up her board and starts back down the beach, to the point where she can paddle out again. She can hear the crowd murmuring words to that effect. “She's going out again. Do you believe it? After that? The chick's going back out there.”
Damn right, she thinks, the chick is going back out there.
Going back out there to take the biggest wave.
146
Johnny Banzai runs.
It's tough going through the heavy reeds, which cut his face and slice at his arms as he tries to beat them back in front of him.
Then he hears, as if from a far distance, a woman's keening.
147
Luce lies in Tammy's lap.
Tammy strokes the little girl's hair and sobs. Her hands are hot and sticky with the girl's blood, which runs from the little hole in her neck.
“Stop it,” Tammy says. “Stop it now.”
Tammy presses her hand on Luce's neck, but the blood bubbles around it. She feels stupid, and weak, and dizzy and there's pain somewhere in her body, but she can't figure out where, and Luce's eyes are wide and she can't hear her breath and the bleeding just won't stop. She hears a man's voice saying, “I've got her.”
She looks up and Daniels is there, trying to take Luce from her. Tammy holds her tighter.
“I've got her,” Boone says.
“She's dead.”
“No, she's not.”
Not yet, Boone thinks. The girl is in really bad shape-she's bleeding out, going into shock-but she's still alive.
It's like a dream in the waking moments, part real, part illusion. Everything is still at a distance, as if from the wrong end of a telescope, and he feels as if he's wrapped in cotton, but he knows he has to keep moving if the girl is going to live.
The old Japanese man is already taking his jacket off.
Boone takes it and wraps it around Luce. Then he kneels beside her, runs his hand up her neck, finds the little entrance wound, and presses his thumb into it. He picks her up with the other arm, cradles her against his chest, and starts to move back through the reeds, toward the road, where an ambulance can reach them.
“Stay with us, Luce,” he says. “Stay with us.”
But the girl's eyes are glassy.
Her eyelids flutter.
148
Sunny wipes the spray from her eyes and looks again.
She saw what she saw.
About fifty yards out but coming fast.
Waves generally come in sets of three, and they've done the three. But every once in a while, a set has a fourth. This bonus wave is a freak- bigger, stronger, meaner.
Amutant.
Known among waterman as the “Oh My God Wave.”
Which is what Sunny says as she sees it.
“Oh… my… God.”
The wave of a lifetime.
Mylifetime, Sunny thinks. My shot at the life I want, barreling right at me. I'm in the perfect spot at the perfect time. She rises up on her hips to look around and see what the Jet Ski crews are doing. They're lying out on the shoulder, waiting for the next set.
Well, the next set is here, boys, she thinks as she sees Mackie's Jet Ski start forward, easily fast enough to steal this wave from her. But then she sees High Tide paddle out between Mackie's ski and her. Golden boy Tim is going to have to go through him, and he isn't going to go through him. Not High Tide.
Normally, that would bother her, but she made her point on the beach and she's over it. It's only The Dawn Patrol looking out for one another and she accepts that.
This wave is mine, she thinks as she lies down on her board, turns it in, and points it toward shore. She starts paddling hard, looking once over her shoulder to see the big wave kick up behind her. She lowers her head as she feels the wave pick up the board, then lift it like a splinter, and then She's on top of the world.
She can see it all-the ocean, the beach, the city behind it, the green hills behind the city. She can see the crowd on the beach, see them watching her, see the photogs aiming the big cameras on their tripods. She can see a little boat moving in, photographers on board, getting close enough for shots but staying out of her line. Overhead, a helicopter zooms in and she knows the video guys are up there, ready to get her ride.
If I ride it, she thinks as she gets to her knees, ready to push up into her stance.
Ifhell.
No if about it.
Then she stops thinking.
The time for thought is over; now it has to be all instinct and action.
The nose of the board drops suddenly and she pushes up to her feet, planting them solidly, her calf muscles tensed. Time seems to stop as she's suspended for a second on the top of the wave. She thinks, I'm too late. I missed it. Then The board plunges down.
She leans right, just enough to catch the line, not enough to tip her into the wave and a horrible wipeout. She throws her arms out for balance, bends her knees for speed, and then she's off, down the face of this giant wave, her hair flying behind her like a personal pennant as she turns her feet right a little and cuts up higher into the wave, then plunges back down with incredible speed.
Too much speed.
The board bucks and bounces off the water and she's in the air for a second, the board a good foot beneath her. She lands on it, losing her balance, going sideways, headfirst toward the face of the wave.
The crowd on the beach groans.
It's going to be a bad one.
Sunny feels herself going, her shot getting away from her, and she cranks to the left, squats low, and rights herself as the wave crests over, and then She's in the green room, totally inside the wave. There is nothing else, just her and the wave, her in the wave, her wave, her life.
The watchers on the beach lose sight of her. They're holding their collective breath because all they can see is wave, the incredibly brave chick is in there somewhere, and it's an open question whether she'll come out.
Then a blast of white water shoots sideways out of the tube and the woman shoots out, still on her feet, her left hand touching the back of the wave, and the crowd breaks into a cheer. They're screaming for her, yelling for her as she cuts back up on the top of the wave again.
She's flying now and she uses the momentum to crest the top of the wave.
She's in the air, high over the wave, and as she jumps off the board, she does a full somersault before she hits the water on the far side of the wave. When she pops up, Dave is there on a Jet Ski. She grabs onto the sled, pulls herself on, pulls her board on, and lets him take her in.
The crowd on the beach is waiting for her.
She's mobbed by photographers, writers, surf company execs.
It was the ride of the day, they tell her.
No, she thinks.
It was the ride of a lifetime.
149
It's surreal.
What Johnny sees in the reeds.
Boone Daniels staggers toward him, a girl in his arms, his chest soaked with blood, more blood running down the side of his head.
“Boone!” Johnny yells.
Boone looks at Johnny with glassy-eyed, faint recognition and stumbles toward him, holding the girl out like a drowning man lifting a child up toward a lifeboat. Now Johnny can see Boone
's thumb pressed deep into a wound on the child's neck.
Johnny takes the little girl from him, replacing his own thumb for Boone's. Boone looks at him, says, “Thanks, Johnny,” and then crashes heavily, face-first, to the ground.
150
Waves.
Alpha waves, energy-transport phenomena, gentle vibrations run through Boone's jacked-up brain as Rain Sweeny paddles out through a gentle beach break, ducks under an incoming wave, and pops out the other side.
She shakes the water from her blond hair and smiles.
It's a beautiful day, the sky a cloudless blue, the water green as a spring meadow. Crystal Pier sparkles in the shimmering sunlight.
Rain looks up at the pier and waves.
Boone stands at the window of his cottage, smiles, and waves back, and then he's in the water, swimming toward her in smooth, easy strokes, the cool water sliding along his skin, a caress that eases the pain, which is swiftly becoming mere memory, a dream of a past life that seemed real but was only a dream.
Rain reaches out her hand and pulls him to her and then he's sitting on his own board next to her, rising and falling in the gentle swell. The Dawn Patrol sits off behind them, farther out on the shoulder. Sunny and Dave, Hang and Tide and Johnny. Even Cheerful is out this morning, and Pete, and Boone can hear them talking and laughing, and then a wave comes in.
It builds from far away, lifts and rises and rolls as it seems to take an eternity to crest, and then Rain smiles at him again, lies down, and starts to paddle, her arms and shoulders strong and graceful, and she moves into the wave with ease.
Boone paddles after her to catch the wave and ride it with her, all the way in to the beach, except, as he looks ahead, there is no shore, only an endless blue ocean and a wave that rolls forever.
He paddles hard, trying to catch her, desperate to catch her, but he can't. She's too strong, the wave is too fast, and he can make no headway. It makes no sense to him: He's Boone Daniels; there is no wave he cannot catch, but he can't catch this wave, and then he's crying, in rage and frustration, until his chest aches and big salty tears pour down his face to return to the sea and he gives up and lies on his board.
