by John Decure
“Yeah, he is, but his poetry stinks.”
“Tord?”
Mick stared into the garage with me. “Dude won an award last week for this poem he wrote about a yellow flower. Wants to hang it in the shop.”
“The award?”
“No, the fucking poem.”
“You going to?”
He gave a tiny chuckle. “I would if it was any good, but like I said …”
I didn’t doubt his assessment. For an auto mechanic and former enforcer, Mick was quite the literate bastard, my only surfing friend who frequented the used-book store on Main more than I did and was always reading something. Well versed in the classics even in high school, he’d once helped me with a senior-year term paper for our English lit class, a tortured analysis of the nature of betrayal as explored in King Lear that had run aground way back in the first act. Methinks that dog of a paper would have netted a big fat F without his guidance, and I bought him a used Riverside Shakespeare in gratitude. My guess is that reading provided a handy escape hatch for Mick when he was growing up, but I have no guess as to why he decided to spend his life poking his head up under the greasy metal asses of automobiles.
Tord looked out from beneath a chassis and saw me. I nodded hello but he ducked behind a wheel well, his lips tasting something sour. “What’s eating the poet?” I said.
Mick squinted into the garage. “He’s been in a pissy mood all week. Think the award went to his head. He says ever since he got the news about it, he can’t locate his muse.”
“Tough break.” I paused, watching Tord skulk around beneath a chassis. “Know what you should do?”
“Can his ungrateful ass?”
“There’s a sensitive approach. But you’d be stuck without a mechanic, so that’s no good.”
“No shit, I’d be buried.” He tucked my estimate under his arm. “What do you propose, Counselor?”
“Easiest thing to do is just let him hang the poem.”
“Damn. I knew you’d say that.”
“I’m your lawyer. I know what’s best.”
“Yeah, and the thing I love is how you’re so modest about it.” He turned toward the garage. “Turd!” he bellowed. Tord’s pointy blond head emerged from the dark and nodded at us. “One of our best customers here is sick of reading those old People magazines we got in the waiting room. Wants something more highbrow.”
Tord’s face was flat, as if he was unsure if his boss was fucking with him. “Yaah, okay.” He eyed us cautiously.
“Go ahead and stick the yellow-flower poem up on the wall across from the clock. And the award.”
Tord looked like a kid in a toy store. “Really? You want … now?”
“Better do it before I change my mind.”
Tord dropped the pneumatic wrench he was holding and scrambled toward the office, then stopped suddenly. “But, boss, what about the motor oil poster?” I knew the one he meant; a trio of swimsuit gals in white one-pieces and matching Stetsons, phony six-guns smoking—among other things. I’ve studied it a few times before.
“Just take it down. Fold it up gently.”
“Yaah, okay, boss.”
“The sacrifices we make for art,” I said, flashing my friend the old shit-eater.
“Put a sock in it, Shepard.” We watched Tord gallop across the yard to his red Volvo, car keys in hand. “So, you really want to keep the Jeep alive?” Mick said.
I hesitated. “I don’t know. Hadn’t thought about a burial just yet.”
“You’re supposed to be the big-time prosecutor,” he cackled.
“Hardly.”
“You telling me you can’t swing a new vehicle?”
I thought of Carmen, what she might think if I tooled up Porpoise Way in a shiny new SUV My salary at the state bar was decent and the mortgage on my dead parents’ house had been paid off long ago. All I had to do was make the property taxes and pay for upkeep. I was also making money managing the business affairs of my middle-aged surf-legend friend, Jackie Pace. In the past few years the vintage surf memorabilia market had exploded, and Jackie and I had worked a deal with a well-known local surfboard shaper to reproduce a series of classic Pace Potato Chip models from the sixties, signed by Jackie and sold at collectors’ auctions twice yearly. The first boards netted two thousand apiece, but the most recent batch went for three times that. I was cleaning up on these funky pill-shaped early short boards, these instant relics that were destined not to ride waves, but to hang above fireplace mantels. This last year the money had gotten so good that I was able to bank half my bar salary, sit back, and watch my 401(k) plan grow.
Carmen had no idea that I was doing this well financially. I figured if she did, it might make her more reticent about marrying me, what with her proud streak about making it on her own and her current financial woes. One of these days I would have to tell her, but not yet.
“Just get it back on the road,” I told Mickey.
He flashed the gap in his teeth at me. “Gonna take some doing this time, J. We’re not talking tune-up, as you know.” The bottom-line total he gave me was in the neighborhood of a down payment on a new car, but my mind was made up against that because of Carmen.
“Just give the good poet the word,” I said.
“He already ordered the parts this afternoon.” Mick nodded as I shook my head at that little revelation.
“Nice call, Svengali. You could have been stuck if I’d said no.”
He shrugged. “Something told me you weren’t ready.”
“I want to drive it to work tomorrow.”
“Not likely,” he said. “Won’t be ready till noon, maybe eleven if Tord is quick about it.”
Not a problem, I thought. I was long overdue for a surf, and that was all the excuse I needed for tomorrow morning. “Guess I’ll have to go slide a few by the pier.”
Mickey Conlin gazed down the street and into the whistling breath of the Pacific. “You still into it pretty heavy?”
“Not like we used to be, of course, but yeah, I still make an effort. When Jackie’s around I tend to get out more often.”
“Who you surfing with these days?”
“The usual gang of idiots.” Actually, most of the crew from our day was gone—moved away, dead, or in jail. I stopped keeping track years ago.
These days I just didn’t have the time to hang at the beach, and my surfing forays had been reduced to quick tactical strikes of an hour or two at most. More often than not I surfed alone.
I had a thought about tomorrow. Perhaps I could take Carmen’s brother, Albert, out for a paddle. He was a total novice but he loved the thrill of catching a wave, and a nice little session would probably help get him adjusted to his new surroundings. Yet Albert was so far beneath my experience level that surfing with him felt a little like baby-sitting. It would be nice to hit it with Mick, who had been an accomplished rider in his time.
But there was more to it than just surfing with someone on my level. These days I was noticing more than ever the lack of familiar faces around town and in the water. When I was sixteen it seemed like my friends and I owned the beach, the peak on Northside, the half dozen best parking spots for drinking without the cops seeing you in the beachside lot on Friday night. The sidewalks on Main were our private skateboard park, and we slalomed and banked in and out of cars and bodies wearing scowls that let people know they were in our way. Of course, we had to grow up, and the more I traveled to surf breaks in other people’s backyards, the more I realized that I couldn’t rightly lay claim to a damn thing for my own in a world so diverse. That is, not if I wanted to be anything more than a rank hypocrite, and surfing is too full of those already. I’m talking about guys who will vibe you like heavy locals the minute you set foot on their beach, but can’t wait to jump in the car and go crowd out someone else’s spot when the swell is hitting better there.
But growing up around here was a good time while it lasted. Then came college and a lot of hours chained to a desk, then l
aw school, and what felt like double leg irons anchoring me to that desk, a three-year sentence to late nights in a hard chair under a hundred-watt reading lamp. After that came increasingly complex legal work up the freeway in L.A. I first represented parents losing their kids, because of abuse or neglect, in juvenile dependency court. As parents, most of my clients were simply clueless. Convicts, drug addicts, unrepentant wife beaters, teenage moms. Most of them weren’t too keen on personal accountability, which meant that they usually depended solely on me to set their worlds right again. The responsibility weighed on me day and night. That is why, when I came to the state bar, I was so tickled that my “client” was the agency and its principle of protection of the public, not some poor loser with a bullshit sob story and a heart full of unrealistic expectations—for me, distance represents safety. But Christ, a dishonest attorney can cause phenomenal havoc, as a three-hundred-exhibit paper case will quickly teach you. In this kind of litigation, the details can swallow you whole if you let them. I know because it’s happened to me plenty, and in a system in which the flow of new cases is seemingly endless, winning does not always feel like quite enough. All too often I am left with nothing more than aching eyes, a pulsating headache, and a long sit on the freeway after dark, alone. Peeling off the Pacific Coast Highway and heading down Main, I pass storefronts closed up hours ago, hear a skateboard clicking by on the sidewalk just out of view, catch a hint of salt air and french fries, see the flash of an old pickup with a pile of surfboards poking over the tailgate hanging a left way down the block. Without thinking I speed up—was that someone I know? Doubtful. So I slow down again, knowing these are just flashes of a played-out dream tripping by, fragments of a lifestyle that once was so vital to the question of who I am, but is now just slowly, inevitably slipping away.
Which makes me sad.
Christ, Mick might not even surf anymore, but he knew what I knew about the life we once pursued, and he’d valued it just as I had.
“Meet me at the pier at six,” I said. “The weather’s supposed to clear. There should be some wind swell left over from the storm that just blew through.”
He scratched the toe of his boot on the pavement. “I don’t know, man. It’s been quite a while.”
“Come on. As your attorney I’m telling you, you need to do this. I’m advising you to hit it with me at the crack.”
“That’s fine, but I gotta open up around here at eight.”
“Let the poet do it. He thinks you walk on water right now.” Through the smudged office window. I could see Tord pulling down the old motor oil poster.
“We’ll see.” Mick’s tone was noncommittal. “Think it’ll be crowded?”
I didn’t know. Weekdays you used to be guaranteed uncrowded surf, but lately the pack near the pier seemed to be ever present. “I hope not … for their sake,” I said.
Mick didn’t respond to my little wisecrack, but instead gazed across a row of shining car hoods at the white brick wall backing the property. His eyes seemed to be reflected inward, like those of an older man studying yellowed photos of his former self.
“We’ll see.”
Six
I walked down Main toward the pier and stopped at the Food Barn, where I picked up four steaks, garlic bulbs, extra virgin olive oil, fresh angel-hair pasta, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and a halfway decent Chianti. The storm clouds had passed and the stars shone a cold white in the night sky, the wind salted and brisk off the sea. Outside the market, I stood next to the community bulletin board to avoid the chill as I counted my change. Thirty-nine bucks at the register—damn, that happened fast.
An older woman in a clear plastic raincoat emerged from the market and thrust open a huge black umbrella, eyeing me harshly as if to discourage any smart-ass observations about the rain having stopped hours ago. She clicked down the sidewalk past dark storefronts, struggling to lead with the umbrella against the whipping onshore winds, her rigid posture reminding me of Mary Poppins, awaiting liftoff with the next powerful gust. Then she paused and glared over her shoulder as if to ensure that I wasn’t following her. I nodded affably and called out good night. The dear lady flipped me off. Christ, this town seemed to be getting meaner by the day. Mary Poppins picked up the pace, still shooting me the stink-eye, then disappeared behind an overstuffed Dumpster.
A hundred three-by-five cards chattered like a tiny wind-powered engine. Tonight I wanted to make a nice dinner for Carmen and Albert, to help them feel more at home, but I knew Carmen would feel uncomfortable sitting around and watching me cook on the same day she unpacked her bags. She’s too proud and independent for that and would at least insist on helping. My plan was to marinate the steaks and grill them outside on the barbecue while she made a Caesar salad and boiled the pasta. Give her something to do while letting the house fill up with the smell of cooking food.
My change count tallied two nickels, six pennies, and a rumpled dollar bill. I hate being without any cash. I’m not fond of the credit card hustle, so if my wallet’s empty, I really feel it. I headed across the street to the ATM, thinking, Christ, it’s cold and this suit jacket may be wool but it’s worthless against this breeze, and what the Mary-fucking-Poppins was with that old bag anyway, and damn, I should’ve bought the tri-tip that was on sale as long as I was there … a typically high-minded procession of thought. I drew closer to the money machine, which was bathed in overhead light like an altar in a shrine to capitalism, and now I was rationalizing about the risk involved in withdrawing cash on a dark street at night, not a slick idea, partner, but wait, I was in a small town not known for crime, my small town, that is. So on and so forth.
My bank card was buried in the machine, my grocery bags set around my feet like cement shoes, when I heard a male voice. “Um, excuse me, but—”
I whirled. “What do you want?” I sounded paranoid, heart thumping in my ears. In L.A., you don’t approach people using an ATM at night. Ever.
He stood beneath an awning in front of the bicycle shop next door, well out of the glow of the orange floodlight the bank had installed high above the machine I was using. In the shadows he looked tall and rangy, his long hair jagged about his shoulders. “I was wondering if you could help me out a little, bro.”
Bro. A clichéd term of endearment some surfers use on other surfers.
“Sorry. No.” I tore three twenties from the machine and stuffed them into my wallet.
“My girlfr—we … I just, need a little, um—”
“Listen, man,” I said, cutting him off and still sweating the situation. “This isn’t the time or place to hit people up, get it? You could get shot.”
“Oh. Yeah.” The silence of recognition hanging in the air between us. “Fuck,” he muttered, though out of fear or disappointment I could not tell. I gathered up my bags and got out of there fast.
Every time I see my house on Porpoise Way I just walk right past the memories. I see a father who looked a lot like I do now and died too young for me to remember him much more than you might recall a friendly neighbor who packed up and moved on rather suddenly one day a long time ago. A mother who split early one morning without a good-bye when I was just seventeen, quietly so that she wouldn’t disturb my sleep. The gorgeous spearlike surfboards my dad shaped by hand for riding big waves, valuable relics now, hung along the walls like big-game fish. My mother’s offbeat tastes reflected in a seashell-encrusted lamp in the kitchen, a beaded rainbow rug in the upstairs bath. Chilean rococo, she’d say with a wink. Just objects, I tell myself. Forget nostalgia; home is not a place, it’s a state of mind. One that I’ve located through the act of dialing the ocean’s rhythms, of understanding and, with years of practice and absurd dedication, mastering the complex mechanics involved in riding a breaking wave while standing upright on a surfboard. Home is not this stoic house that greets me in the shadows each night as if it hadn’t enough faith in my return to shine a light down the front walk. Not hardly, thank you. Home is the many friends I’ve made in th
e lineup and on the beach, the commonality of experience, the shared addictions, the early-morning surf checks and evening glass-offs, the half-baked, wavegreedy safaris to Mexico, the wrong turns, blown engines, and encounters with banditos. The rush and stoke and walk-on-water beauty of the act.
I feed myself this kind of bullshit all the time. It helps make the empty spaces inside this house less noticeable.
But tonight the little two-story with the narrow brick path, overgrown roses, and upstairs dormers staring down onto Porpoise like a pair of gentle eyes was aglow from every window, and I slowed my steps up the front walk just to soak in the odd sight. Inside, Albert was sprawled in front of the tube in the living room, catching a video from his extensive personal collection—Tom Hanks in Big, the same film he’d been watching when I showed him how to work the VCR that morning. Albert can sit through a film five times in a row, mesmerized.
I called out a greeting.
“Hi, J.,” he mumbled, fixated on the movie, which was almost over. Hanks was back at the amusement park, face-to-face with the magic wish-granting genie that had made him an adult. Wishing now to be a kid again. I caught my half-lit reflection in the hall mirror, and it almost didn’t seem real, my image there in the mirror. Nor did the passage of time. But here you are anyway, I said to myself, and you can’t fight change. My brain was saying, Don’t just stand there, you might as well come inside, but the feet weren’t listening. Maybe this was why Albert watched his damned movies over and over again. Maybe he was aware of the same slippery passages of time and had found a way to hold on to something a little bit longer, or at least feel like he was holding on. Then he looked at me self-consciously, as if suddenly aware that he was in my living room, watching my TV, and my feet started to move again.
The kitchen lights were blazing and the door was open to the backyard. No sign of Carmen, or Max, my pet Rottweiler. I put the groceries on a counter near the refrigerator and thought I heard a female voice calling out.
