I had graduated from the beach break and was surfing at Lawrencetown Point now. Nirvana Farm and some of my other “secret spots” just weren't breaking because of the swell's direction. It was the crowd at Lawrencetown or it was no surf at all.
Some of the guys laughed at me when I rode up on my bicycle with my board on the trailer. I guess it looked pretty lame.
One day I was unstrapping the board in the parking lot, listening to Gorbie and Genghis razzing each other. I usually tried to stay out of their way.
“Hey, Wheels,” Genghis called to me.
I tried to ignore him.
“You, Longboard, where'd you get that old battleship?”
“From a friend,” I said.
“I don't know why anyone would want to ride a big piece of crap like that.”
I picked up my board and began walking toward the water. I had to walk past his car.
My board slipped out of my hands and hit the front bumper of his car. I felt like an idiot.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Genghis laughed, shook his head and slapped Gorbie on the shoulder. Some other guys in the parking lot were laughing too.
As I paddled toward the point, I saw how crowded it was. My self-confidence was gone. I didn't feel like surfing anymore and thought maybe I should just go home. But a voice in my head said I couldn't let guys like Genghis get to me. I had as much right to be here as anyone.
A dozen surfers were competing for the waves at the point. Tara was there with a couple of her friends. The guys all had shortboards and wet suits that I could tell were bought this season. They watched me as I paddled toward them. Aside from Tara, no one looked friendly.
One advantage of riding a longboard is that you can take off farther out. You can catch the wave before it gets steep, so you can take off before shortboarders. I saw a dark hump on the horizon, and I paddled past the crowd
toward it. When I was in position, I turned around and began to dig with my hands. The wave was approaching and I had good speed. I felt it under me and began to stand as the wave started to jack up.
As I began to drop, I was headed straight for the pack of surfers in front of me. They began to scatter, right and left. I was used to surfing with Ray or alone. This was crazy.
I felt the wind in my hair and I aimed for a spot between two surfers who were bailing off their boards because they thought I was about to mangle them. I stopped breathing as I slid smoothly between them and made a wide arcing turn that took me back onto the face of the wave. The path was clear now as I pulled high up onto the wall of the wave. A feeling of peace and control came over me as I slid across
my
wave. I had balance and speed as I shuffled forward a bit, taking a cool, casual stance like I'd seen the old guys do in the magazines. Ray would have been proud.
As the wave ended, I kicked out and sat there for a minute in the shallows looking down at the rocks and the seaweed flowing in
the cold clear water beneath me. It felt good to be away from the crowd. I heard someone let out a hoot and saw the next pair of waves approaching. At least eight surfers were scrambling for the late takeoff position. As the wave was about to break, I saw Tara back off as other surfers had jockeyed for position in front of her. On the takeoff, two young guys bumped into each other and fell off, and then Tim and Weed both made the drop, Tim going left and Weed to the right. Both of them snapped hard turns at the bottom and jammed back to the top of the wave in true thrash-and-bash maneuvers. There were other surfers in their way, but they didn't seem to notice or care. It was every man for himself as the inside surfers scrambled to get out of the way.
As I paddled back to my takeoff spot, I saw that Genghis and Gorbie had paddled out too. They sat on their boards right in front of me. There was no way I could take off if they were in my path. They were doing this on purpose. I felt a tingle of anger inside me but decided to play it cool. Let them take a
wave or two in the next set, and then I would go for the third or fourth wave.
I listened to them insulting each other, cursing and splashing water. I couldn't tell if they were serious or just goofing around. They let wave number one pass under them and I saw Tara, farther in, paddle for it and catch it. But so did two other surfers. She got stuck in the white water and had to kick out. But that put her right in the path of whoever was about to drop in on the next wave.
And that would be Genghis and Gorbie. It was a sizeable clean peak and they were sputtering at each other, shouting, “My wave! My wave!”
Gorbie was closest to the peak, and by traditional surf rules it was his wave, but Genghis played by no one's rules. Genghis dropped straight down, reached out and shoved Gorbie off his board. Then Genghis beat his chest once like a gorilla and tore across the face of the wave. He didn't notice that Tara was right in his path, frantically trying to paddle out of his way.
At the last second, Tara dove deep and let
her board go. Genghis jammed high onto the wave again and slid past her, but when she surfaced I could tell he had scared her.
Gorbie had paddled back out to catch another wave, but I already had it lined up. It was my turn. I knew I'd have to turn before even making the full drop if I was to avoid Gorbie, but I figured I could do it.
I felt the wave under me. My board was tapping into all that energy. I was off, pushing myself up onto my feet. I suddenly realized I was coming up on Gorbie too quickly. Instead of trying to get out of my way, he whipped his little board around and jammed it into the steepening wall. I barely slid past him and went for the long wall cruise. Over my shoulder, I saw him take a late, steep drop and make a bottom turn so hard I thought he'd get a nosebleed.
Within a second he was on the wall with me, dogging me to kick out.
“My wave, Fartbreath,” he said.
I was still new to the game. I should have taken the hint and kicked out. It was only a wave, after all. There would always be
another. Maybe I wasn't thinking with my brain. Or maybe I didn't like being called Fartbreath. I didn't give up. I didn't bail. I stayed on my path. I could see the wave was about to close out ahead of me. It was prime time to plant my back foot and kick out, but when I inched backward by one step, I slipped slightly and lost my balance. Gorbie had gone high on the wave, and he was right above me, coming down fast.
I tried to bail but it all happened too quickly. The pointed nose of Gorbie's board drove hard into my ribs. It hurt like hell. Then he was on top of me and we were both off our boards and dropping over the falls with boards, leashes and bodies tangled together.
When we came up for air, Gorbie cursed at me. “It was my wave. You should have kicked out, creep.”
My side hurt and I was gulping for air. “Sorry, dude,” I said. It wasn't my fault but I was shaken and scared. Gorbie paddled away. The fins from his board had sliced into the side of my board. I was shaky as I got up
onto it and immediately realized I was right in the way of Genghis. He had just dropped into a long wall and was heading my way with a vengeance.
I struggled to paddle out and away from him. As he slipped by, he shouted, “Go home, Ben. And take that pig board with you.”
I paddled away from the crowd of surfers, wincing from the pain in my side. I steadied myself and started to head in to the beach. Tara saw me and paddled over.
“You okay?”
“Dinged board, a little sore in the rib cage. Could be worse.”
Tara paddled beside me to shore. When we got out of the water, she said, “I think I'll wait until the egos cool out there.”
“Might take a while.”
Although I was still in pain, and my own ego had been battered, I was feeling better about the world in general. Tara brushed her wet hair out of her face and smiled at me. “There's a bonfire tonight down by the inlet. You gonna be there?”
“I wasn't invited.”
“Don't be silly. If you want an invitation, I'm inviting you. So?”
My heart started beating faster. “Sure,” I said. “I'll see you there.”
I felt bad when Ray saw the big slice taken out of his board. “That board hasn't had a ding in the last thirty years,” he said.
“Sorry, Ray. Can you fix it?”
“No,” he said, almost angry now. “But I'll teach
you
how to fix it. Right here. Right now.”
So I had my first lesson in surfboard repair. There was sanding, cutting fiberglass cloth, mixing resin and adding catalyst. Some of
the resin hardened on my hands, and that felt weird. Then I had to sand the surface again for almost half an hour.
“I'm not going to surf in a crowd anymore. That's how this happened. Surfing in a pack sucks.”
“Yes, it does,” Ray said. “But it's a necessary evil sometimes. And you need to confront that demon too, warrior style. But without violence.”
“What?”
“It's a Zen thing, more or less. What was it you didn't like about the crowd?”
“I don't know. I didn't feel free to surf like I wanted to.”
“That's where the warrior part comes in. You accept the circumstances and you fight the negative part within you. You don't have to get agro for waves or let anyone run into you, but you fight the negativity.”
“How do you do that?”
Ray smiled. “You use your mind, dingo. When else is it difficult for you to surf?”
“When the waves are big.”
“What are you feeling?”
“I don't know. Fear, I guess.”
“It's natural. Now, you probably think I'm going to say that a wave warrior would fight the fear within him.”
“Sounds logical.”
“But that's not it. A wave warrior embraces the fear, knows why it is there and respects both the fear and the wave. So you look for a way to work with the fear, to turn it into something useful. And you'll be a better surfer.”
“But I'm not sure I get it.”
“You will. Find your center. Find your strength. Listen to the fear but don't let it control you. Instead, learn from it.”
I was done sanding. “You going in the water?” I asked.
“Nah,” Ray said. “I have to go to Halifax. I have some prescriptions I have to get filled. Maybe e-mail back home and let 'em know I'm okay.”
“There's a bonfire at the inlet tonight, just up from where you're staying. Drop by.”
“Maybe,” Ray said. “Now take better care of that board. It has a history, you know.”
“I will.”
I don't know what I was expecting at the bonfire. I hitchhiked there and saw a bunch of the city surfers drinking beer and smoking weed. The fire was raging. Genghis and Tim were arguing about something. I found Tara talking with some girls, and she introduced me.
“I saw you get nailed by Gorbie today,” a girl named Wendy said. “You get hurt?”
“Only my pride,” I said. “And my board.”
“I hear there's a tropical storm off Bermuda,” Tara said. “Could be waves here by Thursday.”
“Don't know if I'm ready for that,” I said before I realized how I'd sound.
“I am,” Wendy said. “I can't wait.”
“Wendy's going to be in the contest this year,” Tara said. “And so am I. Surfing a real tropical swell would put us in good shape.”
“Ben, you should surf in the juniorsâit's sixteen and under,” Wendy said.
I shuffled my feet and looked down. “Don't know if I'm ready for that, either,” I said.
Just my luck that Gorbie was walking up behind me right then and heard it. He'd been
drinking. “Ben, man, you gotta learn not to drop in on a brother.” His voice was decidedly non-brotherly.
“Sorry, I thought I had the wave all alone.”
“I dropped in deep. Would have made it if you hadn't gotten in my way.”
“Like I said, sorry.”
“Next time, dude, your ass is grass. You better stay with the knee slappers in the shore break and stay away from the point.”
Tara looked embarrassed. “It wasn't your fault,” she said after Gorbie walked off.
“Here, have a beer,” Wendy said. I guess she felt sorry for me too.
I wasn't a drinker. But I had this feeling I should accept it. So I did. I slugged it back and was standing with the empty in my hand when Ray walked up.
“Easy on that stuff, soldier. Been there, done that and have the T-shirt and the scars to prove it.”
“Hey, Ray. This is Tara and Wendy.”
Ray said hi to them, and then he stared into the blazing fire. “God, this brings back
memories,” he said. Then he walked off a few paces into the darkness. When he turned back toward me, I had the bizarre impression he'd been crying. I think he was about to say something to me, something important. But there were shouts.
Genghis slapped Gorbie on the head. They did this all the time. I used to think it was just playing around, but the game escalated quickly. They'd both been drinking quite a bit. Gorbie retaliated by pushing Genghis's arm up behind his back. But Genghis got out of the hold and tripped Gorbie, who rolled quickly to one side, grabbed his enemy's legs and pulled him downâright into the fire.
I don't know how Ray did it, but it was like he had seen each move of this stupid fight in advance and knew exactly what was about to happen. Genghis was falling into the fire all right, but as he neared the flames, Ray was there, reaching out with his powerful arm, grabbing him and pulling him back. Everyone froze.
Ray sat Genghis down by Gorbie on the ground. You could see that his clothes had
been charred and you could smell that his hair had been singed. But he was all right. Ray said nothing to them. He walked slowly past me, looking disgusted. “This does bring back old times. And I keep forgetting that some of those old times weren't that great.”
The tropical storm stalled off the coast and the waves came rolling in. On shore it was warm and sunny and the water was even warm enough to surf without boots or gloves. That's something rare around here.