I am taking you to the beach today, says Mother Wracks, they called me in. Put on this shirt and they will think you are one of them.

What is it mother, asks Wracks, She says it is a hand-woven silk Hawaiian shirt sent by your uncle Duke.   Silk is the most comfortable fabric to wear and quite expensive, says Mother.

She drives up to the Bu in her blue Chevrolet Impala station wagon and lets the Wracks out with a brown bag lunch.

Stay close to Mickey says mom,   he won’t let anyone hurt you.  See you at five.

In the golden days, the Bu was a festival.   They played volleyball in the cove and sat around and smoked but most importantly, went surfing.  It seems the Bu was more consistent in those days but now it is long ago.  Hodad built a thatched hut at the first point to live in and would sit in the shade and play his guitar.  The only thing he would eat was hot dogs and he would give Wracks a piece sometimes.   Johnny told on him and the police made him tear it down so there was no place to go with crazy Kate.  He and Kate were a sight to behold him in a floral shirt and Kate running around in a wetsuit and surfing first point.  The Wracks sit and watch.   The best surfer to surf the Point was Lance and no one could figure out how he connected the points and he wouldn’t tell anyone how.  Then he stopped surfing the Bu and no one knew why. Rumor had it that he got drafted and a psycho general with an English name made him surf in Viet Nam in the middle of an artillery barrage.

One day on the beach the Wracks saw a girl with long brown hair with the briefest Bikini he had ever seen and the other girls would wear small swimsuits in loud colors.  The bikini she wore was brown and handmade and crocheted and blended into her dark tan.

Look away, says the girl in the brief bikini.

But you don’t have any clothes on, says the Wracks.

Look away she repeats.

Wrack can never forget that girl with steel grey eyes who now cuts her hair in a crew cut and hosts a successful talk show.  John, who would only show up when the surf was big and parade around the parking lot in a silver bathrobe, somehow got run over in that parking lot and never showed up again.  Maybe he crossed the line once too often.  They say he is from an extremely wealthy family but the people at Tranquil Hills got him.

There was an oriental man named Don who was the best nose rider in California along with the Huntington kid and he earned the name: the masochist.  He was a black belt in Shotokan and Jujitsu.

The beach would cry out to Mickey, “The masochist is in a fight again”,   and Mickey would have to go and break up the fracas.  Only Mickey was big enough and trained well enough to stop him. A girl they call Lava Girl had bright red hair yellowed by the sun.  She would come to the beach in a white full-length swimsuit and spend all day wading in the tide pools collecting things.   She brings things up to the wall like shells, crabs, sea anemones, and bric-a-brac and shows them to people.  She never smiled, not once.  A woman only smiles when they know someone loves them.  The Wrack wanders about trying to find someplace to stay.  A beautiful woman with black hair and violet eyes feeds him bits of a sandwich and Frito corn chips.  She is the only girl not in a bikini.  She was extremely nice to him and her given name was Gidget.  She eventually became an actress and married Richard Burton.

This exists as a compendium of the days at the beach when camaraderie existed and people worked together as one.  Those days are gone but a distant memory in the mind of a disgruntled worker.  Fall is here and the seasons roll around again and again, and the days go by like pages in a book. Time is a parameter like space and distance and becomes an engram in a future happening.  The Wracks is happy to relay the world as it was before the darkness overcame the nation.  His beautiful Hawaiian shirt was stolen, as was his tie-dyed denim shirt his grandmother made him.  He will never know and everyone thinks it is better that way.

It is fall and the cool offshores blow from the canyons out to the ocean.  Alone as always Wracks stands inside the North Gate of the Bixby Ranch and looks down the cliff and out to sea.  A triangular reef in the middle of a kelp forest breaks left, and right too, but the left is better.  Harvest season begins in October with the thirty-first at the end to summon in the holidays.  On the way up, Rincon presents as a pecuniary three feet at best and the Wracks wonders why Tarantula Point is at least fifteen feet and bigger on the hourly sets.  The wave throws out roundly and the seaweed rises on the face on the smaller sets making the reef look like an undulating forest of brownish green in deep cold water.   The water here burns the face with coldness, and ice cream headaches are commonplace.   Maybe it is because the water off Point Conception and the bigger Government point is at least one thousand feet deep.  Surfers who live up here say that Government Point can hold any size swell nature has to offer, but Tarantula Point, situated on the north face of Government Point is the biggest.  Some say that Perkos produces bigger waves but it is in the south ranch, on the south side of Government Point.  Up here in the north ranch,  the waves produce a crack as the peak hits the ocean and the offshore wind stimulates a spinning tube.   At point conception, the protuberance that pushes out the farthest west of any place in California, the winds can change at any moment, and the rains, when they come, fall hard and are relentless.  So here, just inside the North gate at the ranch, the Wracks ponders going out by himself and catching a few lefts before heading home.  He has brought a seven-foot eleven-inch pintail gun with slots in the tail, shaped by Dean and on loan to the Wracks from his brother.  He will wear a Oneil spring suit underneath with a farmer John lower so the body has double the thickness of the neoprene.  Another huge set pours through and the left breaking wave ends in a channel with easy paddle and access to the peak.  The Wracks is trying to summon up some courage to go out, by himself for an hour or two.  In the meantime he watches four-inch-long tarantulas, slowly, methodically crossing the road to get somewhere probably to mate before the cold winter season ahead.   They are big, brown, and have short hair over the entirety of their bodies.  The fangs on their mouth are one inch long, but you can pick them up and they don’t bite.  It seems they move under the spell of an unseen drummer.  The Wracks set the tarantula down and look out to sea again.  Another huge wave comes out of the deep water ocean, breaks, and finalizes and the Wracks thinks he will have to flip a coin to decide whether to go out.  A tall rancher appears out of nowhere and salutes the Wracks.

I hope you are aware that thirty-foot-long great white sharks patrol just outside the surf line.  If you go out there you are taking your life in your hands, says the Rancher. 

I am deciding says the Wracks.

Decide all you want,  it is your ass on the line out there.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you says the Rancher and he waves goodbye and saunters off. 

I decided says the Wracks and the rancher waves his right hand up in the air without turning and walks away.

The fact that immense great white sharks lurk out in the water is not the only thing that scares the Wracks.  The water is incredibly cold and predatory sharks do not frenzy until the water reaches seventy degrees.  The fact is that the Wracks are alone and no one wanted to spend four hours driving on a freeway to have their head freeze off in deep seawater. Hawaii is a lot warmer. The Wracks gives up.  He drives the borrowed Pinto runabout out through the north gate gets on Highway One and drives down the long thirty-minute hill that burns out brakes to start transiting on his way home.  He pulls out a Pall Mall Gold, pushes in the car lighter, and ignites the cigarette.   The cigarette will give the Wracks two hours of stimulation so he can drive without stopping, possibly time for another cigarette.  The scenery is brown before the rains, and the highway pushes outward in the distance with not a person around. The freeway looks like an endless ribbon in the distance.   The Wracks turn on the radio, find an FM rock station, and turn the unit up loud.  The Pinto has a long range on a full tank of gas and at seventy miles per hour he will be home in three hours.  He smokes and the radio plays and he passes El Capitan which is completely flat and finally in Goleta he knows he will make it home.  Rincon is blown out now and Highway One stretches south into Ventura.   He thinks he can make it on one full tank of gas and the gauge shows slightly less than one-third.  He passes the nuclear-made tunnel and approaches the county line then the Bu and finally up Moonrise Boulevard to home.  He has spent eight hours on the road and youth is vitality and wasted on the young and this was a long time ago and then some.  The Wracks do not surf anymore or own a surfboard.   His wet suits sit in the closet unused.   He lives in Northern California where they grow grapes,  looks out the window and wonders where all the time has gone. The air is cool in Northern California by October and Halloween heralds another season beginning and the year ebbing.  In the small yellow room with a stereo he looks around and wonders and thanks God for another day. 

“bonk, bonk bonk,” goes the knuckle against the glass window in Wrack’s room. “Who is outside my window at three in the morning,” asks Wracks.  “Bonk, Bonk, Bonk, meet me outside,” says BG.  “bonk, bonk, and bonk, it is me BG.” Says BG.  “Where is my dog,” asks Wracks. “I gave Punkin a milk bone and put him to sleep,” says BG.  “How did you get in my house,” asks Wracks who now is wide awake. “I reached through the dog door and opened it up,” explains BG. “I did not want to wake your parents so I put Punkin to bed and came around to your window.  Meet me in the back.”   “I have to put on some pants,” says Wracks, “give me a minute.”  Wracks exits his room, walks down the hall, closes the hall door, and looks at the cushion where Punkin the house dog sleeps.  Punkin dozes upside down with a smile on his face and stirs when Wracks walks by.   He opens his eyes, makes a whining noise, and goes back to sleep.  Wracks lets BG in the back door. BG wears a cardigan sweater and a large woodsman hat because it is winter even here in the best climate in North America on the west coast in December.  “The con is on,” says BG.  “It should be about eight to ten feet at the point and bigger at the indicator.”  “A new swell is hitting today and then it will drop tomorrow. The con is on and we should go now and be out in the water at sunup. The tide is low at two PM so the swell should peak in the morning and then drop with the tide. Let’s have breakfast.  What do you have? “   “We have eggs and toast,” says Wracks.  “I’ll have two eggs sunny side up and two pieces of toast with butter,” states BG. Wracks takes out a pan from underneath the stove, adds butter to the bottom of the pan turns on the electric range, and then drops four eggs into the melting and then sizzling butter.  Five minutes later the two sit at the kitchen table and have breakfast with two cups of Yuban fresh brewed coffee.  “It will not be as big as last time we went but it should be really good and have excellent shape. “  BG takes a draw on his coffee and finishes his eggs. “Bring some gas money and a pack of Pall Mall Gold.   We will need the nicotine.”  Says BG.  He rises from his chair, takes his dish, and sets it in the sink like he would at home.  “I’ll get my stuff, “says Wracks. The dog spins around right side up and yawns.  “I’ll see you out front, “says BG as he exits the back door in the dark in December as the mist from the ocean puts a shade and shadow on everything.   The dog goes back to sleep.  Wracks gets his jacket, his coke and bread, his paraffin bar, a pack of cigarettes, two dollars in change, and an O’Neill super suit, and goes out the back door into the garage.  A red diamond tail Nat Pro gun sits in the rafters and Wracks pulls it down with a hook and brings his gear outside the gate to underneath the big pine tree on Bacon Way as the street lights illuminate the misty air about the night. The green General Motors durabuilt engine econocar hatch sits open and Cool is loading his surfboard into the car between the seats.  “I invited him along, “says BG. “The more the merrier.”  Cool turns his head in a Mexican pullover with a hood and says,  “Hey brau,”  He then takes a draw on his cigarette and finishes a Heineken bear in a dark green bottle then heaves the empty into the neighbor’s yard.   “tonight you are going coffin,” says BG.  “Wait till I get my motorcycle helmet,” says Wracks.  Wracks dashes back into the back, into the garage extracts a black bell motocross helmet, and puts it on.   The three surfboards sit in the middle of the car separating the two driver seats and the back folds down into a large cargo area.  The gear of the three surfers sits on the right behind the “passenger side,   On the left will go Wracks coffin style. “Get in,” says BG, we have to get going.”  Wracks climbs into the cargo section, sits down facing back, and lays into the car like Count Dracula going to sleep.  BG closes the Hatchback over him, enters the car, ignites the ignition, puts the car into gear, and the three set off into history. Down Bacon, past Mellowman’s, onto Quez Lane and then Sunrise Avenue and Wracks looks up at the stars with his helmet on, chin strap on, and starts to fall asleep and the car accelerates like mad up Highway Number One.  “We are going to take the freeway today,” stipulates BG.  Up Pang Oh road the hatchback flies and the tires screech around the hairpin curves until the plateau and Freeway 101 appear as a green sign in the headlights at night perpendicular to the direction they were going.   Onto the onramp the car flies and BG accelerates until the car is in fourth gear and floored at night with the high beams on traveling on the 101 north.  Wracks awakens from sleep to see the stars and the car fills with smoke the windows are halfway down and the wind whips around Wrack’s helmet, the icy coolness bringing him back to life.   Within a short time, the three arrive at the junction, the junction of California Street and Highway One, and the ocean makes sounds and the moon sets largely on the ocean, illuminating the way to the little corner.   The little corner is the most consistent surf break in SB and gets a northwest, a hard north, and a straight west swell.  BG says today the swell sweeps in straight west and Wracks dozes coffin style in the hatchback.   Kool comes to life and says, “Let’s stop at the little clam for provisions.”  BG acknowledges and the car comes to a stop a half hour later at a little market, in a shack, set against s a hill with a gas station a half block away and the ocean rumbles and roars.  BG buys a hot dog and a pastrami sandwich heated in the store microwave.  Kool gets a sandwich and a bag of candy.   Wracks stay inside the car.   The two eat in silence.   Then BG says, “Let’s get going and be out in the water at sunrise.”  Kool acknowledges with a hand gesture.  BG ignites the car and heads out on the highway. Within ten minutes the three are at the little corner and pull into the big parking lot made especially for wave riders surrounding them with cyclone fencing and concrete blockades.   The night closes and the scene begins to lighten into a dark grey and morning arrives.  Eight cars are situated inside the parking area.  Die-hard wave riders who scoff a normal life sit in their cabs or hang out of the cargo doors of their vans waiting for first light.  Sharks cruise in the darkness and light sends them back out to deep water until the sun starts to set again.  Vans of ladies arrive to watch the wave riders surf the long thin tubular swells of the little corner.  The little corner breaks mostly on a west or northwest swell.  On these disturbances, the waves line up perpendicular to the point and break with ruler straightness in cylindrical almond-shaped tubes.  From the outer first point, three separate tube sections exist and a wave rider can situate his or herself strategically at each section to ride deep inside the wave.  The little corner holds a west swell up to fifteen feet, and then it starts to break erratically and closeout.  On a rare hard north swell that refracts off the Channel Islands onto the west-facing beach, thirty-foot waves will break for a morning and then disappear in the afternoon.  For these waves, people dedicate their lives and wait and watch for the perfect big day to arrive.  Once initiated, the little corner draws addicts from all over the coastal region of southern California.  Cool is the first out of the car. BG uncorks wracks who arises like a vampire from his tomb, shucks the helmet, and saunters with the other two down the little trail unto the base of the beach to catch a glimpse of what morning brings.   Today, the three are lucky, a solid ten to twelve-foot swell sends lines three to five at a time to break down the point into the bay.  The morning starts, the light arrives and a cool offshore breeze holds up the waves unto perfect spinning vortexes larger than ten feet and growling.  Cool screams out an unexplained word and runs back to the green hatchback along with BG.  The hatch opens, three wetsuits hang on the car and wracks share the bar of paraffin with the other two, and white streaks appear on the surface of the three long surfboards. With boards in hand, the three-run down the trail, through the flotsam and jetsam of wood and seaweed up to the point.  Timing the sets, they launch during a lull and are outside.   The sun comes up over the mountain interior to the little corner point and the day begins.  About twenty people ride the waves that morning and enough waves arrive to give each his or her own to enjoy.  When the sun rises directly overhead, the offshore wind stops and the ocean becomes completely smooth and glassy like a window pane.  Three wave sets pour through endlessly.  Within an hour the wind reverses into a westward flow and the ocean surface starts to roughen up and chop.  BG turns to Wracks and says, “We’re going in.” Wracks starts to paddle to shore without waiting for a wave to ride and then arrives on the beach by going along with the white water.    Cool waits up at the car. BG opens the car, Cool grabs a bag of candy and starts eating.  Wracks strips off his wetsuit and enters his druid robe.  Cool takes off his wetsuit then noticing some young ladies down the parking lot, starts dancing stark naked and singing.  The girls laugh and blush and Wracks stows his gear in the hatchback and modestly puts on his corduroy jeans and tee shirt and then his jacket.  BG smokes a Pall Mall Gold and drinks a Coke.   The waves still pour in and the parking lot shows full.   Surfers run down to the beach with their boards and the wind is a light five knots on shore.   BG tosses his cigarette butt and says, “Let’s go.  Wracks get in the coffin.”  Wracks dons the black bell helmet and descends into the hatch.  Cool drinks a beer and tosses the can as close to a trash receptacle as he can.  The green Chevrolet launches southward at light speed. “I told you so, I told you so,” chides BG….  Ten to twelve feet slides and churning green tubes.  What more can you ask for.”

“I have to go work for my father,” says Cool “Mellow.”    Wracks as customary fades into oblivion as the car enters the 101 at California street.    The three arrive back at Bacon Way at three thirty p.m.  “Service with a smile,” says BG.  “Wracks, get out, I have to go to work.”  Wracks grabs his gear in a brown grocery bag and plucks his red NatPro gun from the car.   “Thank you very much, BG that was a session I will always remember.  BG and Cool accelerate in a close circle and rocket up Mellowman’s land to Charmed Street where Cool lives.  Wracks stowed his board in the rafters and washed his super suit with cold hose water.   The little dog sits on the kitchen step, growls, and wags his tail.   Wracks enters the house.  “What’s for dinner” asks Wracks. “Grab a frozen bag of chicken and microwave it, “says Mom.   “Where were you?” “I was surfing big waves up in SB with BG,” explains Wracks.  “go shower off and do your homework,” says Mom.   Wracks walks to his bedroom, then falls into his bed and is asleep.  The day closes, and night arrives again and the darkness brooding in the silence becomes a reality.  Wracks wakes up when it is dark, makes his meal, boils water for a cup of coffee, and reads by his little desk lamp.  The dog saunters in through the doggy door and falls asleep on his little cushion and wracks turns on the evening lights and locks up the house.  A light shine from under the door in Grandma’s room and Grandma is watching Tony Orlando on television.  “Do you need dinner,” asks Wracks.  “No, she says and smiles and holds a speaker up to her ear.  “I already ate.”  The day ends, the night begins and another page turns over in the book of Wrack’s life.  Today he rode long thin tubular waves for a quarter-mile ride while the world turns.  No one noticed except Wracks and maybe his little dog and tomorrow he will wake up and read the Sunday paper and maybe go to church.  Then a new week begins again and wracks grow a little older.

A light and peculiar tapping, not a curious or raucous rapping, happens at my windowpane in the dark, in the night, almost in the morning, and the day is 4 AM. “Wake up wracks, the Bu will be happening soon.”

Whispers BG.  “Don’t you ever sleep,” intones wraks.  “The Bu will be happening,” whispers BG. “Get up.”  “How did you get in my yard without the Dog barking,” asks Wracks.  “Pun kin is with me,” says BG.  “Say hi to wraks punk in.”  A little dog growls somewhere in the dark.  “For the right to surf the Bu when it is happening, I require a pack of smokes and two cans of Coca-Cola.”   “Bring some bread too.” Whispers BG.

Wraks gets up as if summoned by God and grabs his druid robe and wetsuit that hang behind the door.  He opens his door and creeps into the kitchen.   Grabbing a brown paper grocery bag, wraks shovels food into the bag, grabs some coke cans from the refrigerator, and steals a pack of Pall Mall Gold from the stogey stash in the cupboard up above the vacuum cleaner storage bin. Outside, BG sits on the step behind the kitchen door and pets Punk.  “Good morning,” says BG.  “I have a seven-foot-three board I want you to ride today.  The fin is crooked but it was shaped by Rdick and it is a square-tailed gun glassed violet.  Let’s go. Do you have the smokes?”  “I have everything,” promises Wracks.  “Get in the car and let’s go. I want to be out at the third point at morning light.” 

The remains of the night shelter the dark green car from the overhead lights on the street of Bacon Way.  Close to the beach, the wet ocean smell of seaweed and brine reaches the street a mile away from the Pacific Coast Highway.  Cool slumber darkness prohibits the morning from starting and the hatchback car moves at light speed down the way, onto Sunset, then to the highway stretching north for one hundred miles.  “I didn’t hear breaking waves at my house,” says Wracks.  “The swell will hit just as we paddle out,” says BG. “How do you know,” asks Wracks.  “I have my sources,” says GB.  “Who are your sources,” questions wraks.  “A friend, far away,” speaks BG “See that white powder spilled on the carpet,” says BG. “yes,” says wraks.  “Touch it and put your finger in your mouth.”  “What is it?” says Wracks.  “It is performance powder.” Says BG.  “What will it do?” says Wracks.  “It will make you surf better.” Smiles BG.  Wraks complies, wets his finger, touches the spilled powder, and puts his finger in his mouth.  “It does not have any taste.” Says wraks.   “We are almost there.” Says BG “Get ready.”

The city of Malibu permits free parking at Surf Rider Beach if a person arrives before six a.m.   Four vans sit in the slot next to the wall that has graffiti written on the surface.  One sentence written in black spray paint reads, “Mickey Dora is the Cat.” Another says, “Kooks will die.”  A final epithet written in dripping blue paint reads, “Malibu Masochist.”  The wave riders huddle next to their cars, all of them in wetsuits, their boards freshly waxed with paraffin, some smoking, some eating bread, some sipping soup from plastic top ramen cups. One person sits in a van with huge headphones on his ears, drinking Jack Daniels bourbon whiskey from the bottle like seven up. “Who is that.” Asks Wraks.  “That’s Moon doggy. Do not mind him, he takes pictures.” Says BG.  “Are you ready,” asks BG, “Ready as I ever will be,” says Wracks.  “Let us jog up to third.” Says BG.  The race is on.

Pebbles, rocks, starfish, shells, crabs, and seaweed provide an obstacle course in the dark, for two people running without shoes, boards tucked underneath their arms up to the top of the third point.  Two other figures crouch on the beach, waiting.  “Do you have a light,” asks BG.  “I do,” says the phantom in the dark.  BG lights up a cigarette and hands it to wraks then lights another for himself.  The four wait in the dark for ten minutes then the light starts to permeate the space and the beach and the sound of waves becomes more prominent and slowly breaking waves come into view.  “Let us launch,” says BG.  Wraks and BG hole their boards with both hands and run into the tide pool brimming with white water.  Stroking hard, the paddle out is quick in a lull and the two sit outside in twilight in the morning at the Bu. The two others on the beach now race for the water and a six-foot swell appears on the horizon.  BG as always takes the first one and wraks scratches for safety outward into the ocean.  A similar wave rears up and begins to break.  Wraks wheels around and pulls hard into a late takeoff and the race is on. 

 Back on the beach, BG says to Wracks, “See, I told you it would be good.  It should get bigger all through the morning.  The light of the sun comes on and the beach shows as a low tide estuary situation with waves breaking down the line, roundly with a hint of offshore wind to hold up the faces and make spray stream off the top. “Get as many waves as you can before the zoo arrives.” Insists BG.  “When I wave to you, it is time to go. “   Waves fill in at Surf Rider Beach at low tide breaking in shallow water across Third Point Reef.  Four feet, then six feet, then eight to ten-foot sets coming in three at a time and the Rdick square tail gun works well.  Eventually, the sun looms brightly over the mountain to the east and the day begins and the waves come in and break and surfers ride them all.  BG waves his hands on the beach and wraks starts to paddle in.   The parking lot fills up full but it is too early for girls in bikinis to show off their young curvaceous bodies.  Wraks and BG dress covered by their druid robes stack the boards and then enter the cab.  They both pull out of the parking lot before noon as the horde of weekend surfers and beautiful girls descend on the Bu to become the one.  “If the tide is high in the morning, like it usually is during the summer, come back at two PM when the tide starts dropping and the waves will increase as the morning crew rests on the beach,” says BG “I have to go to work.”

The green hatchback accelerates quietly down the Pacific Coast Highway toward Tranquil Hills.  Up on the mountain over the ocean with Deadmans and Bacon as cross streets sits the house of wraks. Wraks unloads the gear from the hatchback and throws the equipment on the ivy under the big pine tree. Pun kin barks behind the gate. “Wow! See you soon.” BG waves then reverses the hatchback and is gone.

Wraks washes off his wetsuit and gear with cold water as sea water corrodes everything rapidly.  The dog makes noises and wags his tail.  Wraks is home and enters the house but no one is home except Grandma who watches Lawrence Welk with a speaker glued to her ear. “Hi grandma,” says Wracks. Grandma smiles and waves.  Wraks closes her door, the dog goes to his cushion and falls asleep and Wracks sits alone with his thoughts and a twenty-pound world history book written by Arnold Toynbee.   The day goes on and then the light fades and another day happens like pages in the book of life.  All of this before the darkness in the days when ripping big waves was all that mattered.

There comes a time when a boy becomes a man.  It often does not occur in a bedroom, or in a van, or any special place.  A boy becomes a man when tossed into the elements, in the world, in a commonplace, in an extraordinary situation, all alone.  For a fifteen-year-old teenager, in high school, becoming a man meant riding big waves, radically, with commitment, for the entire world to see. For Wracks, his time comes now.

“Let’s go down to Diego, “says Getty

“The surf is flat, I checked it myself,” says Cool

“There might be something coming in at staircase,” says Getty

“Do you have smokes and brew,” asks Cool.

“We have smokes and brew, “promises Getty, “I need company.”

“I have gas money,” says Wracks, “I’m in.”

“Get your gear and throw it in back,” orders Getty.

Kool has a green Meth model shaped like a teardrop, and a green robe and a duffel bag filled with goodies, and he tosses them all in the back hatchback of the yellow and white Volkswagen van.  Wraks has a purple and red second hand NatPro purchased for a song from Bee aye the seventh member of the room.  Getty has a red pintail BK potato chip.  Wracks has drilled out the glassed-in fin on his purple monster and installed a neon large orange fin of his own design.  The result yields a blatant diamond tail billboard meant to handle large surf.  He delicately places his board in the back of the van along with his blue druid robe and a sack of food liberated from his parent’s house.  The ride down to Diego bodes long and boring and Wracks falls asleep, like always on the bed in the back of the van as the tuned exhaust blare a blatant note of existence. 

Kool drinks a Budweiser sixteen-ounce in a huge gulp, finds someone to throw the can at, and heaves the crumpled mass at them on the freeway.  The can bounces off the windshield of a sedan, the sedan swerves, and an angry driver displays the finger to Kool.  Kool displays the finger back and grabs a cigarette, then lights the Marlboro with a Bic butane lighter, smiles, and draws a huge puff from the reefer. The who blares from a tape deck suspended from the metal dashboard of the van and time passes.  Smoke drifts in eddies out the side exit windows, and the town of little happenings comes into view.  Looking down at the cliff, the three survey the beach break with rocky reefs interspersed amongst the long expanse of sand.  The waves break at two to three feet with a light wind blowing the soup into a delicate froth of soup.   

“Let’s go to seven-eleven.”  Says Getty “ I am hungry.”

“Yeah, dah.” Screams cool,   “Hamburger, candy, and a huge Slurpee to go for me.”

The yellow-white van growls into town and the first 7-11 looms in front of it.  Getty pulls in, he and Kool exit the car and go inside the store.   They both return with brown bags and large Slurpees in blue and red cherry.  Wracks eats his bread, a packet of Kraft cheese bits and savors a can of red sugared coca cola. 

“We are going to Windiness, “   smiles HP

“The cashier inside the 7-11 says that a hard south swell currently focuses on Windiness and the surf should be larger there. “

“I have never been to Windiness,” says Wracks

“The break appears to be a deep-water reef close to shore and the waves break right and left depending on the season and the swell direction.” “It is only fifteen minutes more, over the bridge, at the entrance to Diego Bay.  A colony of small houses is situated there and the person told me where we could park safely.”

Over the grey steel bridge and into the southern part of the niche, before Crown beach go the three surf riders with hopes, dreams, and ambition.  In ambition comes excellence and today excellence tests under the envelope of big.  Windiness beach looks like a short beach strewn with rocks, typical of southern California beaches.  Windiness sets straight like a flat beach break except here, south of The Niche, the bottom of the ocean a hundred yards out spans deeper than one thousand feet.  For this reason, ocean swells attract to the reef and rear up suddenly out of the deep water and break hard with much mass and water coming over with the breaking wave.  Wracks looks out the side window of the van and Windiness, today breaks at over twenty-five feet in height.  A tall man in a white helmet and long surfboard enters a huge swell and turns his huge board and banks toward shore on the huge wall of water.  The wave at Windiness rears up as a huge triangular peak and breaks in both directions. At this point in time, the lefts break better.  A slight offshore wind makes the surface conditions epic in nature and the waves tumble to completion with spray dancing off the top of the breaking waves.

“I think the waves are too large for me,” whimpers Wracks

“We are parking, and you are going out,” screams Getty. “The conditions are epic and half of Diego watches on the beach.  If you start to drown, they will call a helicopter.”

“Twisted,” screams Kool and the crowd on the beach turn their heads for a second and look at him. Kool tears his clothes off like a man possessed and stark-naked pulls on his wetsuit like a hotdog stuffing machine.  Today Windiness breaks like big Pipe and Kool rides goofy foot. Windansea and 18^th Street are the only breaks in southern California that fire on a hard south-southeast swell.  Both HP and Kool prepare with amazing speed and run toward the entry spot on the beach.  They both run to the water and cast themselves out like torpedoes steaming out of a submarine.  Wracks remain stolid and slowly waxes his board and counts the set waves.  The sets are four in number with the second wave the largest and the sets periodically appear at twenty-minute intervals.  Wracks decides to paddle out.  At windiness, a channel to the right of the reef sucks waters out in a huge riptide when the waves break large, and wracks enters the entry zone and the rip aids the paddle out into deep water and big waves.  Out in the middle of the ocean, an extraordinarily large set hits the reef and Wracks gets caught inside the area where the wave breaks and loses his surfboard, comes up after the set and finds him in the middle of nowhere in twenty-foot-plus waves.  He sees the older man in a helmet and asks him for help.  The older man says,

“Son, in big surf, you have to swim in.  If a rip pulls you out the only way in is to body surf the waves in.”  Wraks again asks him to help him in.   The man in the helmet repeats his command. “Body surf the waves in,”  “It is the only way. “

In large surf the ocean heaves in turbulence and without a wetsuit, most people soon drown.  Wracks starts to backstroke his way into the beach.  The riptide hinders his exit.  A huge set hits the reef.  Wracks turns into freestyle stroke and scratches hard to enter the twenty-foot-high wave.  The wave picks him up and Wracks hydroplanes down the face of the wave using his hands like fins  At the bottom of the wave, Wracks turns and points toward the open area and the wave overtakes him and pushes downward, deeply and the turbulence spins him around like an old rag doll.  When deep under water all watermen open up their eyes.  Watermen open up their eyes to see where the bubbles go.  Where the bubbles move signals the direction up.  Wracks swim in the direction of the bubbles, break the surface, and gulps down a huge amount of air.  A second wall of white   water hits his body and Wracks goes underneath again.  Watching the bubbles, he swims upward and breaks the surface again.  The set of waves concludes Wracks has been pushed inside towards the beach, and exit from the breakers seems possible.  Within ten minutes, the wrack scramble up on the beach and looks for his board.  Some kind observer rescues his board from the rocks and sets the purple explosion on a safe stretch of beach.  Wracks sits  on the beach and looks again at the breaking waves.

“It wasn’t so bad,” he thinks, I am going back out.”  

Wracks grabs the reins of his horse, gets back on and rides again.  Luckily, no huge clean-up sets made him swim in again.  Both Getty and Cool surf as the time of their lives on the left breaking waves, just like Pipeline.  Wracks surfs the rights which break slower and mushier but still huge in size.  Wracks’ gets three huge set waves presently and successfully performs two rollercoaster reentries in double overhead plus surf.  The wrack notes that the bottom turns feel good with the large custom fin.   By three o’clock PM. HP waves from the beach and heads up to the car at a parking place that mysteriously appears out of nowhere for the three at this exclusive and fabulous colony community.  The three exhausted wave riders strip their wetsuits and dress slowly.  Then the three sit inside the car and devour whatever remains of food in the car at hand. 

“That was epic,” says Getty “Awesome radical lefts.”

“Tubular,” asserts Kool as he smiles largely and eats a two-foot-long beef stick.

“I got two really good ones,”  says Wracks “I can’t go left yet.”

“I have to work tonight, “ says Getty, “lets go.”

The white and yellow van roars to life as the megaphone exhaust shakes and belches mist out of the header.  The van rolls over the bridge, gets on interstate five and the three head for home.  HP smokes cigarettes, drinks a Coca-Cola and drives.  As usual, Wracks falls asleep.  Kool Chain smokes and drinks a Budweiser red sixteen-ounce beer.  Wracks wakes up at the refinery, and again at dismal canyon road, past the high school.  At the corner of Mellow man’s lane, Bacon Way and Saint Inez sits the Wracks’ house, with grandma, the dog, and a little bit of home.  Wracks and Cool pull their gear out of the van and Cool takes his board and duffel and disappears down the street towards Marco’s way.  Wracks rinse off his gear with cold water and enters his house.  The little dog wakes up, yelps, and seems to smile.  No one resides within except for Grandma who sits in her room and watches Lawrence Welk reruns.  She waves at wracks and smiles. 

“I will make dinner in fifteen minutes,”  says Wracks

Wracks finds some chicken with wine left over in the refrigerator and puts the mass into the microwave oven.  The oven hums, the dog runs in his sleep on the cushion, the house darkens as light leaves the remains of the day, and night in tranquil hills begins.  Here nothing becomes of what it seems.  

Wracks never rode the waves at windiness ever again.  The drive remains too long, especially for a person who does not own a car.  The secret of windiness remains.  When a huge storm turns off the coast of Antarctica, in the west, extreme south swells focus on south-facing beaches on a north stretch of land.  A huge offshore canyon at windiness captures extreme south swells and Windiness can be twenty feet when everywhere else looks as flat as a lake.  Everywhere of course, except Jalama and the extremely well-kept green custom houses last another day in a time when darkness and immensity threaten the world and the intrinsic fabric of mankind. If a wave rider surfs windiness, watch out for great white sharks as Simmons disappeared mysteriously there one day in big surf in a deep fog. 

Back in the mind of many, so close yet so far away, but not forgotten, lies Sands Beach.  Sands Beach is located in the northernmost part of Island View and has the distinction of being the exclusive retreat for the students who attend the major university that becomes part of the state University system nearby.  No parking exists for Sands Beach.  Students walk in or lock their bicycles in the racks provided by the university.  The University stresses bio-complacency and urges its residents to walk or ride bicycles instead of driving a car.  A student places his or her bicycle in the racks, locks the bicycle, and then walks past a grove of planted pine trees to behold the undeveloped, unmarked, unspoiled vista of Sands Beach up to Naples reef.   The beach shares the same characteristics as beaches nearby in the Island View Community.  White sand with rocky stretches at the land-ocean interface, with plenty of seaweed dispersed, blending into Mediterranean scrub vegetation moving inland.  The Majestic Channel Islands sit offshore and block most southerly and northerly moving swells that might impact on this coast.  Clean ocean water lubricates the interface of beach and ocean and a rocky reef creates a surfing location amenable to board riding.  During the winter months of November to the end of February, intense onshore winds blowing around point conception create surfable waves up to eight feet on the rocky reefs after which the swells close out in a huge wall across the beach.  What makes Sands so attractive to wave riders stems not from its seclusion, or location, only the fact that the prevailing winds create wind swells all winter long.  During the winter months of Island View, Sands Beach breaks three to six feet almost every day.  A right-breaking wave predominates and pipeline tube riding becomes possible across the shallow rocky reefs.  Another byproduct of seclusion and University policy derives the fact that Sands is also the locally sanctioned nude beach.  Women in various stages of undress sunbathe or frolic in the breakers and show nature’s way in all shapes forms and nuances.  Modest girls only take off their tops and men become immune to the sights that normally would send a lone heart racing.

Wracks peddles his ten-speed bicycle to Sands with his Halloween orange progression surfboard shaped by Rdick every chance he gets and in Island View this happens almost every day.  The university does not enforce attendance in class and the girls do not magnetize to Wracks because he is nothing more than a starving student with no ways or means or committee.  Wraks loves to tube ride Sands Beach.  Dalman loves to tube ride Sands Beach, Cloy comes to tube ride Sands Beach.  The wave at Sands Beach has the attribute of being easy to master.  Merely paddle into a building right peak, put the board into a sideslip, and as the swell hits the rocky reef and becomes a tubular vortex; drag his or her hand and tube ride, pipeline style.  This action yields a wave cover-up and an easy exit over shallow water.  Even though the beach has pools of tar that riddle and trap a person who treks across its surface, Wracks never tires of the fine, offshore breezes that prevent the wave from breaking and create a spinning tube that breaks like a closing zipper with spray-pushing out to sea.  Wracks keeps a jug of paint thinner at his apartment to wash the sticky black goo from his bare feet.  Sitting out in the water on an early Saturday morning as the sun nears zenith and watching nude women parade up and down the beach, the reality seems like a vision from nirvana or utopia.  In a neoprene wetsuit, the cool, fresh ocean water, laden with beneficial minerals, replenishes and rejuvenates the body and the relaxation of the moment,  calms the soul making life bearable, even pleasurable.  Even the huge great white sharks that frequent the area bask benevolently and never intrude or molest people like Wracks or his roommate Cool.   Because the sewage outlet for Saint Barbara city, exits two points and ten miles to the south, the white sharks seem well-fed and almost friendly.  When a white shark has no hunger, the beast will hover underneath the surface of the water with its dorsal fin submerged.  A twenty-foot-long white shark can hover in ten feet of water, motionless for extended periods.  Occasionally, a huge white shark will shudder to warm its carcass in the cold water and vibrations from the shaking emanate in all directions like little ripples in a tide pool. At Sands Beach, white sharks often linger ten feet away.   When a white shark’s fin breaks water, the animal seeks to startle prey into bolting or flight. Motion excites predators.  In the presence of a predator, a wise human remains motionless, or moves slowly away from the animal, as they inch away.   Out in the water, if a fin comes up, a wave rider begins, without splashing, to paddle nonchalantly to the beach. This is because if a white shark touches him or her out in the water or bumps that person, the shark will ultimately attack him or her and devour them.  Once a shark has a person in their memory, he or she cannot ever go back in the water at that place and must hunt, catch, and harvest the shark because white sharks remember and live a long time.  Wracks never think about worst-case scenarios.  Waves at Sands beach break beautifully, the water cools and refreshes, and the young women look fabulous in the buff.  S.B. has a short winter period of wave activity, a narrow swell window, and a large surf that only happens for one day.  Wracks soon will return to the city of Angeles and intensive training in remorse.

Only the shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.  Only the shadow possesses the word or invisibility outlined in the Holy Koran.  Wracks do not want to be like the shadow. Wracks wants to work in a free clinic and ride large surf radically.  The future looms hazily in the mind’s eye of Wracks.  The future in its nebulous and stochastic parameters, floats silently, but majestically and never leaves Wracks alone.  In a time when darkness pervades all, and righteousness and justice go on sabbatical without notice, there remains beauty in nature for all to witness, partake in, and enjoy.  Man, no matter how important he or she seems still exists as a toy in the hands of Allah.