It wasn't bad enough that we still had to deal with zombies and the camps that had sprung up along the boardwalk in the safe zones. Now we had to fight off the living as well. But here's the thing, we're from the bottom so we're used to it. We don't run. We couldn't run even if we wanted. We have nowhere to run to, you see. This is our home. We're welcoming as shit and all. Hell, we used to get over a million visitors and three shootouts every single summer. But nobody comes to our house and shits on the rug and lives to tell about it. At least that's how Shiloh put it.
“They had to be taught a lesson,” Shiloh said while making coffee from fresh grinds, using water he'd boiled with canned heat. He was a transplant from some all-white town up in the Appalachian Mountains who came out West with the high school sweetheart he'd met at an all-Christian academy. They eventually married, but they didn't really seem to have much of a plan at first. He got a job just off the boardwalk making coffee for locals and became part of the neighborhood in a big way. He was almost always high, but he was one of those stoners who told amazing and hard to believe stories with so much detail that it made you wonder if they might just be true. He was a wealth of knowledge on what was happening in the hood, plus he was crazy entertaining. His hobbies included conspiracy theories, Hollywood trivia, porn, and martial arts.
Shiloh's wife, Mary Beth, took to spending her days at Gold's Gym nearby and soon began training to fight in the UFC. She wanted to be the next Ronda Rousey, who also came out of Venice. Soon she was attracting a lot of attention with her natural abilities, skimpy outfits, and crippling arm bar, causing opponents to submit in under a minute. She got picked up by a local promoter and began fighting and pulling in sponsors fast. She took over supporting them both full time, and they could finally afford to eat more than cheap pupusas from the one dollar shack across from Shiloh's work at the Venice Grinds. A few months later she left him for a woman and moved down to Redondo Beach in South Bay, a white-washed Caucasian paradise full of affluent earners and their overly entitled trust fund kids. Last I heard she was fighting in Vegas and dating men again.
She's probably dead by now. Most people I used to know are. It's just a fact of life. Most people don't have what it takes to survive in this world the way it is now. There were tons of suicides from what I’d heard, after the Zedsters started walking around. Caesar told me they found these perfectly normal looking bodies just laid out straight. OD's mostly. He said he was going through an apartment and found this smoking hot naked chick in the bathtub with both her wrists slit. He said he couldn't take his eyes off of her lying in the red water, that it was hauntingly beautiful like something out of a museum.
Shiloh stayed because he was one of us now. It was obvious to anyone with eyes. And hey let's face it; South Bay was no kind of environment for a free soul like him – he was the kind that finds compromise tantamount to creeping death. He thrived in her absence, losing weight and gaining his confidence back. He dated plenty of hot chicks he met at the local bars like Townhouse and The Whaler and Nikki's, but after marrying the first woman who let him go all the way he felt he had a lot to make up for, sexually speaking – a lot of notches left to carve onto his belt – so he didn't settle back down again. He knew fucking everything about how Dogtown ran. I mean everything. Either that or he was completely full of shit. To this day I still don't know which it was.
“Back in the day there were enforcers who kept things in line out on the boardwalk. They kept it cool so the cops wouldn't have to come in. Taking on One Blood wasn't all that different for them, except now their hands weren't tied by the fear of being arrested and hauled off to jail to rot for life. Things got messy real fast. You better believe it.”
In no time at all, word got around that the original inhabitants of Venice Beach were not going to be pushed out. It only took killing a few of their lieutenants for them to get the message. After that came the truce. That's when the rules were put into place.
They get the beach after sunset. They get the streets too, unless you're higher up that is. And even then it's not suggested you tempt fate unless you absolutely have to do it. They also get everything east of Lincoln, including where I used to spend most of my days – Venice High. I've still got some amazing acid in my locker at school, but I could never go back for it now. It's probably gone anyway. I guess I don't need to be tripping on anything stronger than weed, not with everything that's happening down here. We got whole farms of weed now. Entire apartment buildings dedicated to it with guys who do nothing but move the plants from one window to the next all day long chasing the sun. We could practically use it for currency at this point.
At night we close up all the windows with boards and metal. They're not really bullet proof so I try to just stay away from them as best I can. The doors are locked and we got semi-automatic guns by the staircase so nobody’s getting up here. Oh, I forgot to mention. Caesar and I moved into Travis's place. We're just holding it for him, until he gets back with his mom. He had Bronan hotwire one of the abandoned cars that didn't burn that first night. He set off in search of his mom. I try not to think about it too much. It'd be nice to see him again and all, but I'm not expecting it. You gotta live in the moment these days. You can't think about the past or the future too much or it will drive you crazy. That's how people end up getting all emotionally fucked up and offing themselves.
It gets loud out there at night, but you learn to get used to it. Believe it or not I was sleeping through worse before all of the madness started. One night I slept over at Travis’s and we sat up listening to a woman get beaten up by her pimp on Speedway over by Big Daddy Pizza. Eventually the guy stopped kicking her ass and she stopped crying. She picked herself up and they walked away together. That's how it's always been down here. There wasn't anyone to even stand up for anybody until Dogtown Locals Union came along.
We don't break the rules. Breaking the rules can mean death or worse. One thing I know about life in the zombie days is that there are things much, much worse than death out there. Block handed out shirts and hats and hoodies with the famous Dogtown logo that looked like a cross from his store, Venice Originals. It had become the unofficial gang colors long before One Blood came stomping into town. The same way Bloods rocked red clothes or bikers wore their MC logo on the back of their cut, Venice locals proudly displayed the Dogtown logo. No one had to ask what you were about when they saw you wearing it. Locals would shout out love as they passed you, whether they knew you or not. It stood for unity, even back in the days before Zeds.
There is a barricade up at Santa Monica. I know because Caesar and me siphoned gas for his Oldsmobile and took a trip up to Malibu to go surfing about a week ago. It's mostly clear up there and the locals are still super friendly, once you got past the militarized zones. Fucking celebrities, man. Who knew they were hoarding for the end of the world, too? I got to surf with Harley Richards though. That was pretty cool. I asked him what it's like to fuck a porn star.
“It's actually pretty amazing,” he replied with a smile and a cheesy wink. “Why do you think I kept doing it?”
“So which was the best?”
“That's a trick question,” Richards smiled. “They're all gifted in their own way, although I still do have a soft spot for Kitty Dior. I can't believe she's gone.”
He was being so honest, in fact, I felt like I could ask him anything. So I did.
“How come you didn't die like all those other celebrities at the Emmys?”
“It's a funny story,” he started. “I was supposed to be there that night. They had me fucking presenting an award to one of the Gleetards or something like that, but I never made it. I stopped by my dealer’s apartment on Pico and started cutting rails of blow to get myself back up to speed for the show. That was around 11 a.m. Rigo, that's the name of my dealer, or at least it was until the fucking Zombie Wars broke out; he talks me into going to a strip club called Plan B for a few drinks. Says he wants me to meet this new girl dancing there. Thinks she'd be
up my alley. I know the truth is the guy is trying to use my name to get himself some action, but what can I do? He's got the cleanest snow on the west coast. I haven't had shit this pure since I was vacationing in the Caribbean. Turns out the manager of the strip club is a fan of my TV show. The next thing I know we're doing lines right off the girls in the office, and swapping war stories about girls we'd hooked up with before.”
“Must be nice, man.”
“Oh it was. Trust me, it was better than nice. But I'd been fooling myself into thinking I was still going to make the Emmys on time. I was even texting my agent telling him not to worry. After a while two things become crystal clear to me. The first is that I can't feel my face anymore and the second is that there is no way I'm gonna make the show. Rehearsals started at like 3 p.m. and by this point NPH is doing his opening remarks. I didn't even bother to call. I shut my phone off, grabbed Sandy, that's the name of the girl Rigo wanted me to meet, and we high tailed it back to my place.”
“Was she amazing?”
“I wouldn't say amazing, but I probably have a higher bar when it comes to shit like that than you do. You'd probably shit yourself over having a chick with implants blow you. It takes a little more to get my motor revved up, if you know what I mean. Actually, it takes a lot more.”
“Like what, bro?”
“Let's just say I like the rough stuff. The next day I wake up and she's dead. I try calling the cops but the line is out. The television is out. Nothing works. I walk out in the street, right out into PCH in my robe with coke still on my face, but there's not a car in sight. That's when my neighbor John comes out with an AK-47 in his hands. I shit you not. The guy’s a tech start-up billionaire who bought up half of Malibu. I'd never seen him not wearing a suit, much less holding some kind of weapon for guerrilla warfare. So John comes out and starts telling me that everyone is dead. I thought he was fucking with me at first, until I got cleaned up and he took me to the barricade. Talk about dodging a major fucking bullet, man.”
We rode all the way from third point down to where the old timers navigated crusty old wooden long boards. Those big walrus looking men with white, curly mustaches, saggy old tanned skin, and shit eating grins did surf tricks at the far right where the break hit the shore, down by the old pier. We jumped in and there were some epic sets that day, two feet overhead during low tide, fast and mean and unforgiving. I only fell once, but ended up getting pulled back up and through the falls when I did. It was like being stuffed into an industrial-sized washing machine on tumble mode. I had salt water leaking out of my sinuses the rest of the night and I couldn't pop my ears until the next afternoon. When I finally got out I was totally exhausted. I'd been surf stoked – but paddle weak – for over an hour. That's when you want to keep riding and you're fiending like an addict for the next wave, but you don't have the energy left to get slotted in. That's when one of those long boards would have come in handy. That night I could barely lift my arms. I was glad we were bolted into Travis's place. The next day my chest was as sore as the first time I ever bench pressed free weights. I woke up from dreaming about surfing. I could still feel the water rushing past my feet and legs as I shot out in front. There is absolutely nothing in this world like that feeling; I promise you that.
The locals in Malibu used to be crazy territorial, and with good reason. So many people from all over the world would come out and pull shit. It's like they'd been watching reruns of Gidget and thought Frankie Avalon was going to sing them a song while they paddled out together on a waxed, redwood coffee table turned into a floatation device. In those old movies all the guys rode together on the same wave. We call that a party wave. They head straight toward the shore so all they get is the drop and the push. In real life that kind of thing can get you beaten up fast. The guy closest to the peak of the wave has dibs. If he is able to pop up and ride he has priority and you have to back off, even if you're super close or you think it's your turn. Failure to follow this simple rule has lead to endless fights both in the water and on the shore. It's not just fucking around either. When the waves get heavy out there it can be dangerous to have some clown dropping in on you. In addition to dinging up your board they can collide with you and leave you knocked out face down in the surf. That's why some of the guys I know took to adding razors with surf stickers or resin to the fronts of their boards. Up in the 'Bu they don't do that kind of dirty shit. They just wait for you to get out and then beat your ass in the parking lot. That way they can put you in your car when they're done and send you on your way. LOCALS ONLY is still the only graffiti spray painted on the walls up there.
If someone didn't stand up to the endless line of tourists and Valley kooks they'd have ruined the break forever. That's how they handle shit up in Malibu. They are the owners, the ruling class. If they don't like something, they pass a law in their favor. They are not above playing dirty to get their way either. It's what they know. They are the 'ends justify the means' class. I'd say most of those guys are still up there. Oh sure they act nice when you see them; they smile and invite you in. But you're just visiting and they never let you forget it. That's like their form of charity, letting you see how good they have it, then sending you back to hell to think it over. Maybe they think it's supposed to be motivational or something.
Our beloved break, on the other hand, used to be swarmed with Valley assholes taking advantage of our free street parking to pilfer the best waves of the set. We also took the bulk of tourists as well. Hordes of vacationing Euro's would rent soft-top boards and then pilot them right into the heart of the break on a daily basis. Guys who'd never ridden before in their lives would go out on heavy days with high surf advisories and nearly drown. You could always tell who those first timers were, too. They rode big long boards covered in spongy Nerf fiber painted obnoxious Smurf blue. They were the ones that went out when it was double overhead and got sucked into the wrong spot by rip tides, and then ruined your best wave of the day without so much as an apology.
I don't miss those fucking guys, man. Not at all.
Back then there were days I dreaded suiting up and paddling out. For real. I'd fire up the bong when I woke up, pop in some Bob Marley, check Facebook, then hit up Surfline to see the webcams. It didn't matter that I was going to go out as soon as the weed hit, grab a coffee and check the break. I still looked. I never did understand all the shit about swell direction and tides and currents, or time between sets. I wanted to learn more about it, but never got around to it. Usually if it was going off somewhere I got a call and even a ride if need be. Watching the way the waves came in while I sipped my coffee told me all I needed to know about how I planned on riding that day. But a lotta times there would already be some fucking assholes in the water. I'd head back, rub some Vaseline on my neck to keep from getting chaffed and catching suit burn, pull on my four-three with the trap and hurry out. Once the gear was on I wanted to get wet right away. You often see guys running on the sand with their board. There's a reason for that. It gets hot in the suit fast and the water is cold. The idea is to get overheated so when the freezing water rushing through the inside connects with your skin it feels soothing.
Not much has changed, except I don't dread getting in the water so much as getting to the water now. I used to go barefoot before, but now you have to have flip-flops on because you never know what kind of nastiness you're going to be stepping over from the night before. We go as a group now, with armed Union guys escorting us to the water in case we run into trouble. It happens almost every single time we go out, too. They end up having to deal with zombies is what I mean. Sometimes they have to clear out the remains of one of the former boardwalk people who didn't make it through the night, with One Blood on their lazy shift watch. Mostly it's hungry-ass Zedheads.
At first the Z's were a real fucking problem but once we got to know them a little better, how they worked, well things got easier I guess. You see the zombie infection is one hundred percent transmittable one hundred percent
of the time. At least as far as we know. Shiloh broke it down for me once.
“Let me put it in perspective for you. Ebola is like only fifty percent transmittable,” he said in between steaming up some foam. There was no more milk for lattes, but luckily Venice had been full of old hippies and new age vegans before the end came so there was nearly a year’s supply of boxed soy milk.
“Other diseases don't even come close – not AIDS, not Malaria, not Avian Flu. Nothing. So once a person is bitten, they almost automatically die and turn into these insane, hungry, angry machines. They are good to go right from the start and with no warning. They will fuck your shit up, little man.”
“I know, man,” I shot back. “I was there when the shit happened. I saw it with my own eyes, man. I'm not just some kid.”
“I don't know if you've ever heard stories about guys lifting cars off of children at accident scenes or shit like that,” he said, ignoring my outburst, “but that's about how strong these fuckers are. It's like whatever the thing is that takes over the controls is ramped up and ready to test everything. They feast hard and fast in the first hour after they kill the host and become zombies. They eat anything with a pulse that gets in their way. Now imagine this kind of highly contagious biological agent being unleashed in a small but overcrowded area, say like downtown. It's total pandemonium lights out holy shit time.”
Shiloh loved telling stories. He was good at it, too. He nearly always had an audience.
“Some of the guys think that the virus itself works in two stages. You see, how the fuck would they get it here, right? It goes off like a spark hitting a trail of gunpowder that leads right to a powder keg – fast and deadly. BOOM! Do you light a fuse on a weapon like this or do you detonate it from a safer distance? That's why they think there was something in place to begin with, and then later a catalyst was introduced, or some type of accelerant.”
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