“Where’d she go?”
“She slipped out around six. Mom saw her leave. You have fun?”
“Time of my life.” I said still in a dream like state.
“Good. Get up.” Steve split and I jumped up and put my painter whites on. I left home at fourteen and went to live in my friend Gary’s house. Steve was Gary’s Brother and Gary’s dad had a painting business. The first day his dad was going to work, he saw me sleeping on the couch, woke me up and put me to work painting houses. I did that for the next few years. I learned a lot staying with them, my first trade, a good work ethic. I soon realized the bills never stop coming, so I can never stop working, ever. Great house filled with great people. All love in that house, all the time. It was one happy family.
I walked into the kitchen and Gary’s mom Cindy Lou was doing dishes. Gary’s dad Gus, was at the table finishing his breakfast. “Let’s make this quick, we’re wasting daylight.” He loved saying that, he hated wasting any part of the day.
I grabbed my plate and sat down and started eating my eggs. Everyone was looking at me and smiling.
“What?”
Gary looked at me with concern. “So you had fun last night?” He asked me.
“I love her.” I said. The room was quiet for a second then they all started laughing, but in a good way.
“I am sure you do. And I am sure she loves you also. There is a big lesson here you need to learn right now. We don’t come in girls.” Everyone was silent looking at me. I felt a little uncomfortable talking about this in front of Steve and Gary’s ’s mom and dad. Gary could see my discomfort.
“Don’t you worry about what anyone think’s. We’ve all had this talk. It’s simple math. If you come in girls you will get a baby. You don’t need a baby.”
Steve looked at his mother at the sink.
“She doesn’t need any grand kids, not yet anyway.” Cindy turned away from the sink and looked at me.
“Better listen to the man.” She said.
Everyone was quiet looking at me to see if I got it. I started realizing how important this conversation was. Gary continued. “ You don’t need a baby, she doesn’t need an abortion, and the sooner you get this lesson the better you her and everyone will be.”
“But I love her. I want to marry her.’ I said believing my own words. The all broke out laughing again, everyone except Gus. He wasn’t laughing. He leaned in real close.
“Somehow you ended up in my house. That means you are my responsibility. It is up to me to teach you the lesson’s my son’s learn. You have to be responsible in this life. Responsible to yourself and who ever you deal with. You say you love this girl. I think it’s a little soon to determine such a thing, but for the sake of argument let’s say you do. Well even more than ever you should take your time, get to know each other. Bringing a child into this world is the most important precious thing two people can do, and should not be taken lightly. A child is not for eighteen years. A child is forever. You and the girl might not last, but the child will. Respect is everything. You have to respect yourself and your girl to make the right decisions. You want to be a man? Well the first step to being a man is being responsible for your own actions. To take accountability for everything you do.” He leaned back.
Steve and Gary got up, put their dishes in the sink and went outside to the truck.
“You got it?’ Gus asked me. He was a very good man.
“I think so. I know I’m not ready for a baby. But I do love her.” Gus stood up and messed up my hair.
“Of course you do. You’re going to be fine. Just be aware of your actions. Try to always see past the next five minutes. Hurry up we got work to do. See you outside in five.” Gus got up and left. I woofed down the rest of my eggs and toast and brought my plate to the sink. Cindy took it and motioned to the shelf.
“She left something for you.” On the shelf was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up and unfolded it. Inside was hand drawn heart with the words ‘call me’ inside it. I jumped up for joy.
“Take it easy kid. It’s all going to be O.K.” I kissed Cindy on the cheek and ran out of the house.
7
“I’m going to Hawaii.”
“What do you mean you are going to Hawaii? When are you going to Hawaii?” My dad was in shock. I had just come back to Miami to finish school and now I was dropping out again. He floored the accelerator in his Porsche 911. He loved those cars. And he always floored the accelerator when he got pissed off.
“Less than a week. I just have a few loose ends to tie up, pick up my new surfboards then I’m leaving.”
My dad thought about this for a moment.
“You got money huh? How’d you get money like that?’
“You know how. I’ve been making moves for a while. Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m going.” He hit the pedal harder careening in and out of traffic on I-95 like Mario Andrettti.
“What about school?”
“They’re not teaching anything in that building that’s going to really help with life. Not my life.”
“How would you know, you didn’t live life at all yet.” My dad really wanted me to be an Attorney like him. It just wasn’t going to happen. I held up a picture of a wave breaking on the North Shore. A perfect cylinder barrel with a surfer inside the tube. He looked at it.
“This is what I have to do now. I’m 17 and I have been surfing since I’m ten. I gotta make my way and figure it out. I’m not asking you for anything. School’s not going anywhere.”
My dad looked at the picture. “You will get more life experience out in the world anyway.”
“What ‘d you say?’
“You heard me. Hey, I left you in California didn’t I?”
“That wasn’t a choice situation.”
“For who?” We both smiled. Choices, life is full of them.
He dropped me off at my Friend Ernie’s house where DCB was shaping surfboards in the back. No big goodbye with my Dad, just a firm handshake, then I didn’t see him again for a few years.
I got out of the car a block from my buddy Ernie’s house and walked the rest of the way smoking a joint. I felt an incredible feeling, like magical. It was the feeling of impending freedom. I was just about to really be on my own. And the excitement was not having a clue of what was coming my way. The excitement of the unknown, there is nothing like it.
I waited for what seemed like an eternity at the front door of Ernie’s house. The music was blasting loud enough to be heard for miles. That combined with the sound of a planer wailing as it cut foam for surfboards in the back it was no wonder they couldn’t hear me.
The door opened and Ernie stood there covered in foam dust from head to toe. He looked at me for a moment then smiled this shit eating grin.
“Wait till you see these. Get in here.”
He pulled me inside by the shoulder and I went into the living room. Ernie’s house was always buzzing. There were about ten surf rats in the back skating on a homemade ramp. Behind that was the top secret shaping room where DCB was in the back shaping his up-sting down-wing surfboards. He would shape foam fins himself then glass them in. They became short light really space age looking surfboards that could really work well when you knew how to work them. This is Florida in the late seventies and these boards were in. I was almost seventeen and on my way to Hawaii. I was like the conquering hero in my neighborhood.
Gary was sitting next to me eating Bar B Q mackerel that they had just caught that day spear fishing. But that’s another story. These guys grew up swimming down with nothing but a Russian sling to where the big sharks are and spear their dinner and bring it back. I always found that crazy. For sure the wounded fish sends out a distress signal. Next thing you now, you’re the bait.
Gary handed me the bong with full bowl of some of our first green weed. It was all called Sinsemilla back then. Then it was Krypto. There wasn’t forty flavors of weed like today, and for certain no over the counter shops. I used to say as a kid, “I hope I see wee
d become legal in my lifetime.” Wow, it did.
“Wait till you see your sticks. They are so sick.” Gary was completely faded. I hit the bong and sat back. Ernie and DCB walked in with my new sticks. They leaned them up against the wall in front of us and sat on the couch. We just stared at the boards in silence.
DCB was like a shaping God to us. No one could make a board like him. No one was allowed to watch him make a board because it was all top secret. We sat there in awe staring at the boards he made and they were beautiful. Two boards one six foot tall and one five feet eleven inches. Up sting down wing bat tail surfboards for smaller waves and a round tails for big waves. These were the best for Florida waves, especially in Miami where it doesn’t get too big. Really good small wave boards. And they looked really cool from any surfers standpoint. DCB was way ahead of his time. I saw him surfing twenty five foot waves at Tres Palmas in Puerto Rico on a Five foot one Diamond tail surfboard. If you know anything about anything then you know that is a really little surfboard to be surfing such big waves. Generally the bigger the waves the bigger the board you need. Either way you cut it the two boards we were looking at were amazing.
“Wow. Thank You” I was in shock. It was kind of surreal. I was on my way to Hawaii, about to turn seventeen and I have two new custom made sticks.
“You are gonna rip it up on these.” DCB said.
“You are gonna be the ripper.” Gary said.
“ You are gonna get killed.” Dana said as he walked in with a Six gfoot nine inch Sam Hawk Rhino Chaser. Which is what they would call a big wave surfboard, also a Big Wave Gun, A spear. Dana was one of the older surfers at the house. We all surfed and skated, trained karate and were vegetarians. It was a tight knit little crew.
“Those little boards will be good till it gets about three feet. Three feet hawaiian will be like nothing you have ever seen before. It will have a lip as precise as a guillotine ready to take your head off. You are going to need some length underneath you to get in that wave.” He held out the gun. Lightning bolts on the sides with a kamikaze red ball on the deck and the bottom, it looked like a Rhino chaser.
“You’re gonna give him your gun? Really?” Ernie was in shock.
“You aint going to Hawaii are you? He is. There will never be waves big enough for this board here. Better off it sees some life.” Ernie handed me the board. It was hard for me to even hold up I was so skinny. Everyone laughed.
“Put it in the barrel again for me kid.” Dana said.
“You bet I will.” I was stoked.
We gorged on fresh Snapper, Wahoo and a big Grouper that Ernie had speared that day we, got drunk and stoned on Jamaican beer and Colombian weed while we packed up my surfboards. This was my going away party. Stayed up most of the night then woke up the next day and got on the plane to Hawaii.
8
Landing in Hawaii is a trip. With those girls dancing around, putting lei’s on everybody, everyone excited because they’re on vacation. Saved up all their money to spend a week away from their lives and get loaded. On vacation.
I wasn’t on vacation. I was there on a mission. I wanted to set myself up good. I had a friend living there already named Chris that I knew from when I lived in Leucadia. Chris could play the guitar like Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin. But that was all he could do. He just smoked weed and played guitar. He kind of went with the flow. He was staying at some hippie commune with some girl he met named Malia. Sounds Hawaiian.
I planned on finding Chris thinking maybe he would be into renting an apartment with me. Money was tight and I had to make something happen quick. I grabbed my boards and went to find some lodging. I didn’t know anyone else on the island. Someone had told me to go the YMCA and I could rent a room for cheap day to day while I figured it out. It took a minute haggling with taxi drivers before I found one who would take me with all my boards a shit.
The YMCA was packed, there was about ten people waiting for a room. No one wanted to share with anyone. There were double rooms available to split but no singles. There was a big German traveller sitting waiting to get a room. He looked about twenty years old and was about six foot six. He looked like a mountaineer with his backpack and mountain boots. I walked up to him.
“How old are you?” I asked him. He looked up at me from his little drawing pad. He had the whole knap sack backpack across Europe thing happening.
“I am twenty four.” He said is his heavy German accent.
“You got a drivers license?”
“Yaah I have international Driving license for car and scooter.”
“Perfect. Wanna share a room?” he looked at me like I was from Mars.
“Look Colonel Klink. The only rooms they have are a double I’m gonna rent a room then a car and you are gonna drive me to see my friend. Then you can use the car all day. Deal?” I held out some cash and he liked that. He looked like he was on some starving student program.
The next day I woke up at the dawn and walked through Ala Moana Park and went surfing at magic Island which is across from Ala Moana Bowl, probably one of the most famous Surf spots in the world. It’s the wave in the opening credits of the original Hawaii Five-O television show. We would go home just to watch that wave when we were kids.
I walked through the parking of the Rock n Roll clinic, a local night club in Honolulu. As I was walking through the parking lot I saw all these rolled up match books. They were around the backs of some cars all over the ground. Ten here, twenty over there. I kicked one and a half a joint came out. I picked it up, found some matches next to it and lit the roach. It was the best weed I had ever smoked in my life. I picked all the ‘crutches’ and smoked some and stashed some for later.
I can’t explain the feeling of walking through that park to a wide open wave field. A Wednesday in Honolulu, everyone was either at work or I school, so I had the surf to myself. The waves were two to four feet, just over head and perfect hollow south shore. If you grew wave starved like I did in Florida till you moved to California then Hawaii, like I did, this was absolutely surreal.
I surfed all day standing in Barrels till my arms felt like jelly, then I got out and found my stashed half joints and went back to the Y. I found Gunther waiting for me by the room.
“You said we would get a car? I would like to do some sight seeing.” He said.
“Take it easy Mein Furher. We will.” I was beat I passed out till the next day. Gunther was huffing and puffing but tough shit I was beat, and I was a kid so I had that ten foot tall and bullet proof attitude to begin with, almost an invincible innocence., and I had the money. So I just didn’t give a shit. I was in Hawaii and I had surfed, whatever else happened I did that. I fell asleep with a huge smile on my face.
The next day I came out of the car rental place with my huge German roommate and the keys to small compact car.
“Get in the front Eichmann, you drive.” Gunther looked at me coldly and got in the driver’s seat. We got in and Gunther put the keys in the ignition. He didn’t turn them, instead he turned to me and looked me in the eye.
“I do not appreciate how you keep referring to me with these…these nazi names. I would like you to stop this.”
“Take it easy Turbo. The truth is that probably your Grandparents burned my Grandparents alive…or somebody’s Grandparents alive and I’m not holding that against you. Lighten up Adolph.”
He looked at me crossed eyed then turned the key and took off. I figured right away everyone drives fast when they are pissed.
We found the hippie commune Chris was staying in no problem. Gunther was great with the directions. He was definitely a traveler. As soon as I walked in to the place I could see Chris gardening with a bunch of hippes. Dirt heads really, like they looked like they had been camping for the past month. With no shower, or bathroom. I walked up behind him, he didn’t even notice. They probably drug the food or something.
“You seem pretty absorbed in that. What you planting?” I said. Chris turned around with a smil
e cause he recognized my voice.
“I’m gonna put in some Basil and Oregano.” Then he looked around and said in a whisper,” Then I’m gonna come out and plant some baby weed plants in between them.”
“Good plan.”
“You ready to get out of here?” I asked. Chris looked around. A really cute Hawaiian/ American girl walked up. I could see why Chris was living in the commune.
“This is Malia.” Chris said. She looked at me like I was a piece of meat. “Malia this is DL.” She held out her hand and gave me this really firm handshake and looked right in my eye..
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“I’m going to go with DL for a little bit, and I will be back later.”
“Don’t forget dinner is at eight.” She said. “You can’t miss it.” I thought, for certain the food is drugged.
We took off and went to the car. Gunther was standing next to it reading a map.
“Who’s this?” Chris asked.
“Our Driver.”
Nice.”
We pulled into the parking of what I would later find out to be Sunset Beach North Shore Hawaii. Not much of a parking lot back then, this was in the late seventies, about 1979. I was seventeen and standing where every surfer dreams of being. We grabbed my two boards out of the car and told Gunther to pick us up by Sundown. He pulled out of the parking lot to go sight seeing.
I walked out to the beach with Chris. The waves were about three feet North Shore perfect tubes. A guy came out of a house on the beach carrying a surfboard so I walked over to him.
“Where am I?” I asked him. He could see my excitement and he smiled. He pointed at the different breaks.
“That’s Sunset Beach, that’s Stones own, then Rocky Point, Log Cabins and down there is Pipeline.” He took off towards Pipeline. I paddled out at Rocky Point and had the best surf session of my life. I stood in barrels all day with my friend Chris and only two other surfers inn the water. We surfed till dark then got out and smoked a joint that I had brought with me.
Becoming A Son Page 3
