Chris climbed back onto his board, straddling it as he reconnected his tether. “Fine- Slight miscalculation. Ready for another?”
“It's your money.” As they paddled slowly back out to the lineup, Sonny asked, “Dude, when you board, how you steer?”
“Heel and toe mostly, just like a skateboard.”
“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this, but on the water, it’s like opposite, man, steer with da front foot an’ keep your fins tight to the wave, mo bettah control.”
Chris smiled and nodded. “Appreciate that, man. Thanks.”
Sonny shrugged, “Jus’ tryin’ to make it interesting. You ready?”
“Born that way.” Chris snuck a quick look behind him, where the massive swell of what promised to be an even bigger wave bore down on them like a Mack truck, the lacy foam that adorned its top being scraped from the surface by the breeze of its’ passing. Chris flung himself forward, racing ahead of Sonny, who churned and flailed his arms in a spray of water as the giant emerged and reared its head.
Flashing down the glassy surface of the wave, Chris suddenly swerved and screamed back up the face, whipping around at the crest and flying back down again as the wave began to curl. Hunching low, his board bouncing, Chris flew into the tube of water, Sonny close behind, the contest now becoming almost more of a chase scene from a movie than merely a casual ocean ride.
Chris burst from the opposite end of the curl and swung high again, skidding along the top of the massive wave as Sonny shot by below, the curl collapsing and catching the end of his board. Knocked off balance by the crushing foam, Sonny disappeared into the boil of surf as Chris again slid down the face of the monster, suddenly turning at its’ base and flying straight up, exploding from the crest and executing a perfect board-grab in mid-air, flipping over twice and landing gently with a splash as the crumbling wave washed to shore.
A moment later, Sonny duck-dived a final swell and popped to the surface to see Chris casually seated on his board, leaning back with elbow propped on knee as he studied his fingernails in feigned boredom.
Chris looked to Sonny with a grin. “Tie game!”
Sonny responded with awe, “Dude! That was totally sick! How'd you do that?”
Chris replied laconically, “Years of practice. Next one's for all the marbles. You ready?”
Sonny looked back over his shoulder, his eyes growing wide. “Are you?!”
Chris glanced quickly back behind him, only to see the swell of an enormous wave that was bearing down on them with a roar like a freight train. A strangled cry of- “Ho-LY SH-!” was all that could escape Chris’ lips as he furiously thrashed at the water.
Walter stood in the middle of the sand trap, straining on slippery tip-toes to see over the edge to the green, scrambling and sliding as he tried to jump in the soft, crumbly surface. Nearly falling onto his backside after a final failed attempt, he waded back to his ball, which was plugged nearly to invisibility in the soft, white sand.
“Oh, screw it!” he grumbled, and swung mightily at the ball. The ball exploded from the trap in a shower of sand, the stiff ocean breeze blowing the majority of it straight back into Walter’s face. Flinching from the sandy barrage, Walter slipped and fell, sliding down the face of the dune on his backside, a slow trickle of sand pooling at his feet. And as if to add insult to injury, the ball rolled to a stop between his heels. Walter stared it with a malevolent glare and muttered under his breath, “Son- of- a- bitch!”
The wave grew, and grew, and GREW- the crest towering over twenty feet above the distant trough below, the foam-laced bottom of which seemed to be almost behind the tip of Chris’ board. He slowly rose to his feet, his pulse quickening as the adrenaline kicked in. Leaning slightly over and down, Chris plunged sharply downward, a hearty ‘Yee-HA!!’ erupting from his lips as he flashed down the rumbling face of the wave. Just as he neared the bottom, he swerved back to his left and climbed the roaring giant like an arrow, again skidding along the foaming crest before whipping back and down, this time carving a curving track across the face of the monster as it began to curl.
As Sonny fought to keep up with the slicing and slaloming form of Chris, the rumbling giant formed a glassine tube that seemed to stretch forever, the kind of wave that often became the stuff of legend. But as Chris dove into the glassy cylinder, Sonny suddenly saw what apparently Chris did not- the length of the tube was an illusion, the reflections of its’ length and the tightness of its end deceptive because of the apparent perspective of what was essentially a tightening noose of powerfully churning water- and one that was going to collapse well before they reached the end.
Just before Chris reached the end of the roaring tube, Sonny hunched low, grabbing the board with both hands and hanging on for dear life as he deliberately swerved directly into the foamy break, knowing from painful experience that this maneuver was his only hope of surviving the impending crush of tons of turquoise sea. Closing his eyes and grabbing a quick final breath before being consumed, he cast a quick glance up ahead to Chris, who still rode low, skipping his hand along the upward curl of the wave, blissfully unaware of the impending doom that awaited him.
With a final crushing roar, the gigantic wave collapsed, the end of the tube slamming shut like a thunderclap and crushing Chris like a bug. It was the last that Sonny saw of him as the roaring foam enveloped him as well, tossing him in its turmoil like the ultimate spin cycle in the world’s largest washer.
Slammed beneath the waves by the tons of crushing blue, Chris spun and swirled, tumbling head over heels underwater in what surfers universally called ‘going rag-doll’. His light-weight board was dragged ahead like a cork, suddenly reaching the end of its tether, which stretched to breaking and snapped like a giant rubber band. The board rocketed back towards Chris, flying into his temple and knocking him unconscious. As the boil of raging surf passed uncaringly over him, Chris began to sink.
Sonny emerged from the churning water, still hunched, riding low. As he slowly began to straighten, he quickly glanced behind him to check on Chris’ fate. He looked on in horror as he saw Chris’ board pop jauntily to the surface- completely devoid of its rider.
“Oh- SHIT!” he exclaimed as the massive giant dissolved into foam on the shore, and Sonny spun his board around and pounced face-down upon it, frantically flailing his arms into the water as he raced back into the waves. Blasting through a rising swell, Sonny emerged beside Chris’ abandoned board, ripped off his own leash, and dived beneath the placid surface.
Down, down he swam, the murky, turbulent water limiting his visibility to only a few feet in any direction. After what had already seemed an eternity, his lungs burning for air, Sonny saw him, floating just above the sea floor, limp and unmoving. Sonny kicked his legs with fury and sped toward the lifeless form of Chris, snagging him by one wrist and kicking hard against the sand, shooting to the surface before the sea claimed them both.
As they exploded through the boundary between sea and sky, Sonny curled his arm under Chris’ chin and hauled him over to his board, struggling to shove Chris’ limp and unresponsive body onto it. Gulping a quick gasp of air, Sonny looked to Chris and feared the worst- he looked dead.
Alani tore the binoculars from her eyes and her hand flew to her mouth in horror as she watched the drama unfold on the waves. She felt somewhat guilty about watching Chris, but rationalized to herself that it was more out of a peculiar curiosity than genuine interest, and now that curiosity turned to dreaded concern. He wasn’t dead, was he? Alani banished this terrible thought from her mind and returned to the reasons she was watching in the first place.
More than just another stupid Haole tourist, Chris had something- weird and yet oddly intriguing about him, a strange familiarity that she couldn’t explain, one that came from another place and time and that tugged insistently at her soul. And then of course there was that bizarre moment when she touched him after the plane crash- What the hell was that? She pondered, her brows creasing in
renewed curiosity. Shaking the nagging questions temporarily from her mind, Alani raised the binoculars again and focused into the distance.
“Don’t die on me, dude!! You owe me!” Sonny yelled in frustration and pounded on Chris’ lifeless chest, then put his mouth to Chris’ cold lips and blew-
Chris coughed and spewed water, gagging and sputtering. “Ohhhhh- shit!” he moaned, his eyes fluttering open. He squinted into the sun, blinking sand and salt from his eyes, finally focusing on Sonny sitting astride the board beside him, “Whoa! What the hell happened?
Sonny grinned, “That, dude, is called the Blue Crush! You okay?”
Chris coughed and spat, wiping his mouth as the color began to return to his face. He spat out another salty mouthful of the sea, and asked, “Whoa-! Did you-?”
Sonny interrupted, avoiding the awkwardness of the reality, “Did I save your sorry ass? Yeah.”
“Wow, uh- thanks.”
“I didn't have a choice. You owe me money. I can't collect if you're dead.” Sonny grinned, the moment passed, and as if on cue, the rescue complete, Chris’ board drifted lazily over to them. Sonny snagged it and said with a smirk, “Think you can manage to ride back in without dyin'?”
Walter stood on the far side of the green, glowering down at his ball, which was now resting cozily in the sand trap on the other side of the green. “Dammit!” he grumbled, and then turned to Abigail, who was wandering near the opposite side of the green, her hand shielding her eyes as she searched for her own ball in the nearby rough, “Abby, I don't see it anywhere over here. Are you sure it's not over by you?”
“No. I've looked everywhere…” Abigail suddenly straightened and tilted her head oddly to one side, almost as if she were listening to something and said, “Walter, check in the hole.”
“In the hole? Honey, I'm sure I saw it go over…” Walter shrugged and walked briskly to the flag, convinced that Abigail was confused, and looked down. There, to his astonishment, was a bright pink Hibiscus logo facing sunnily up at him. “Well I’ll be damned…” he muttered, yanking the pin and lifting the miraculous occurrence from the hole. The ball trickled slowly down the green to rest at Abigail’s feet, where she stared at it in shocked amazement.
“Oh my Goodness! It really was in the hole. I never…” Abigail lifted her gaze to that of her husband, who was standing still and thunderstruck by the bizarre turn of events, “Walter- that was only my second shot! What on earth do you call that?”
Walter replied with a slow gust of breath and roll of eyes masking his shock at the miracle that had just unfolded, “That, my dear, is called an Eagle...”
“A what?”
“An eagle- a score typically reserved for players… like me.”
Chris and Sonny emerged from the whispering surf clutching their boards beneath one arm, then simultaneously planted them both nose-down into the soft, white sand as several curious onlookers looked on mutely.
Chris shook his head and grinned as he unwrapped his water-proof wallet, peeling it open and hauling out a dozen-odd bills. He handed them to a beaming Sonny, who carefully counted them, and then without explanation handed a pair of them back to Chris.
“Here, Dude, I can't take all your money! Today- you get the board for a 'discount', you earned it. I ain't nevah seen no haole tourist ride that way, first time out! You got mad skills, bro! Where'd you learn to ride like that?”
Chris responded with a shrug, “Vermont. Aspen. Telluride. The Alps. Anywhere there's snow. You ever been snowboarding?”
Sonny replied with hands in pockets, kicking at a patch of sand as they trudged toward the rear of the store, “Nah, I ain't never got off this island, ain't never seen no snow.”
“Bummer. Dude, you'd totally dig it, it's like riding a two-mile wave.”
Athletically mounting the steep wooden stairs in clumps of twos and threes, the boys emerged onto the crowded open-air patio that was filled to overflowing with lunch-time tourists, all of whom went suddenly silent as a group, collectively having just witnessed the recent near-death experience that none had found in their tour-books.
Sonny smiled smugly and strode through the thronging crowd like a visiting rock-star, a slight nod of acknowledgement to the gathering as he passed. He turned to Chris as they reached the door at the rear of the store and asked, “Hey! You thirsty, Haole-boy?” He grinned and fanned the sheaf of bills in his hand, “I’m buyin’.”
Walter glowered over his ball, nestled deep within the one lone divot in the middle of the pristine fairway. Looking down-range to the group on the green, he shook his club at them and yelled pointlessly at the distant golfers, “Damn Hackers! Fix your divots, you morons!”
Abigail just tut-tutted and replied, “Oh for goodness sake, Walter, don't make such a big deal about it. Just take a drop.”
“But, Abby, I…”
Abigail glared at Walter and scoffed in annoyance, “Oh, for God's sake, Walter, you're not playing in the Masters! Just take a drop.”
Walter stooped and picked up the ball, a sheepish grin on his chastened face as he said, “I suppose you're right.” He raised the ball to shoulder height, and dropped it. The ball bounced softly off the carpet of green, and almost mockingly rolled slowly back into the same hole. Walter cursed softly under his breath, “Oh, for Pete’s sake…” as he bent and retrieved the ball and again held it out to his side. He released the ball again, watching it with a look of chagrin that abruptly changed to consternation as it rolled straight back into the same hole, rocking almost comfortably into its embrace. “Oh-God-DAMMIT!” he said through gritted teeth, and raised his club threateningly as if to beat the recalcitrant orb into submission.
A poorly suppressed burst of giggling interrupted his gesture of malice and he looked to Abigail, who reddened and began to laugh in coughing gasps.
“It’s not funny,” he retorted, propping himself on his club as he contemplated the ridiculousness of the situation.
“Oh, I'm sorry- I know it's not dear, but I can't help but think... Well, remember what I said at the club, about how you need to relax?” Abigail took a breath to quell her laughter, and continued, “Have you ever thought that you just might be being taught a lesson?”
Walter rolled his eyes heavenward and then frowned at his still-tittering wife. “Oh, dear Lord Abigail, are you serious? A test of faith? Like Job? Out here on the golf course? Come off it Abby, I'm just having an off day…”
And without another word Walter stepped in and swung violently at the ball, gouging up a huge chunk of sod that flew further than the ball itself. Walter slammed the club into the ground, burying the head into the turf and punctuating the blow as he exclaimed, “DAMMIT!”
Chris followed Sonny into the rear of the store, passing by a small lunch counter that stood curiously absent of lunch-time guests, a pair of colorful individuals busily working at a grill that sizzled and smoked with delicious smells that tugged at Chris’ nostrils as they passed. As they approached the narrow archway leading into the main part of the store, Chris noticed a pair of long, brown legs rolling by on the library-style ladder. As they crossed into the darkened interior of the store, Chris glanced upward and saw Alani, her lovely thighs leading to- heaven. As she slowly rolled away, deftly propelling herself along the shelves with casual flicks of her hand, Chris found his gaze riveted to her, taking in all her glorious proportions as she paused and delicately plucked an item from an overhead shelf. Alani looked down and gave Chris a quick flickering glance, at first coquettish, then suddenly withering as she noticed the focus of his observation and flung herself along the wall, disappearing behind a tall set of floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Chris was roused from his reverie by the return of Sonny, who handed him a dewy bottle of Coke with a candy-cane straw protruding from its top. “Dude, you hungry?” he inquired with a knowing glance over his shoulder at the sound of the rolling ladder in the distance. “C’mon, my treat.”
He approached the lunch counter wit
h the same rock-star bravado he had exhibited outside, slapping a high-five with the brown-skinned and dreadlocked individual behind the counter, faking the same with a small, pale white girl that was pointedly avoiding him as she polished silverware, and began a round of introductions with his new-found friend.
“Yo! Bo-BEE!” he crowed. A punkish, multiply-pierced and heavily tattooed man about Chris’ age turned and smiled a tight smile, wiping his hands on a greasy towel and stepping to the counter. “Bobby, here, he’s an artist, does all the airbrush on the boards…”
Chris stared at the seemingly never-ending swirl of color and pattern that was Bobby’s skin, his heart skipping a beat as he noticed that many of the images seemed strangely- familiar. Bobby reached across the counter for the obligatory hand-shake, finally wrenching Chris’ gaze from his arms to his face as Chris blurted out with an awkward smile, “Dude, I gotta ask- How many hours do you have in all that?”
Bobby replied with a voice that was a soft contrast to his edgy outward demeanor. With a self-deprecatory shrug he said, “More than I can count- hundreds, I guess…“
Chris’ eyes returned to Bobby’s living canvas, “That's amazing. Who did the artwork?”
Bobby replied softly, “I did.”
“Seriously? All of it?”
“Naw. Reg helped me a little with the back- but yeah, pretty much.”
Chris’ eyes widened in appreciation, “Amazing. I know where I'm coming when I get mine, cool.”
Bobby smiled and looked at Chris appraisingly, studying his pristine skin with sparks of inspiration and a hint of- something else, and said, “You want one? I work later today.”
Sonny, no longer the center of attention, added with a nudge to Chris, “You should man, he's usually busy...” Turning to the thin, slight girl working silently in one corner, he gestured and said conspiratorially, “Mina here's our local sanguinarian...”
Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' Page 9
