Crazy for the Storm (22 page)

It’s a clean shape. Fast down the line, he said.

I nodded. For Shane to give me some of
his
wax and then compliment
my
board was a kind of achievement and I noticed some of the crew watching and I was as sure as ever that it was a big deal.

All the ceremonies were played out and there was no way to delay the inevitable anymore. Time to paddle. Rolloff picked up his board and said he’d come along.

We hoisted our boards and walked to the point. The tide was high and the waves gathered against the rock shelf and finally broke in a bundle of energy, unreeling like a beam of light running down the line.

It’s only waist-high, I told myself.

Where’s the take-off spot? I said.

He looked at me suspiciously. Right off the creek, he said.

A moment later Rolloff wasn’t next to me anymore. He was leaning on his board stepping through the shallows.

There’s a little channel through here, Norm.

I trotted back and hustled to get right in his trail. The channel was mostly sand with an occasional rock. My fin hit a rock and Rolloff told me to flip my board over. When the water came over our knees he righted his board and jumped on and paddled. I did the same. My shoulders cracked as if breaking through a dry husk and I labored to propel myself forward. By the time I made it to the take-off zone I was beat.

There was a lot of seaweed to wade through and I knew that would make it doubly hard to catch the waves. I sat up and
looked toward the beach. The yellow submarine house used to be right there, I figured, eyeing the plot of dirty sand. I had watched the party from out here, over the backs of the swells. Dad had told me that one day I’d realize how great it was, how lucky I was, and be glad he made me learn to surf.

A set, Norm, said Rolloff.

I swung my board around, nearly tipping over, and followed Rolloff, hoping he’d steer me into the right spot for take-off. He spun his board like a turret and dropped forward and his arms stroked around twice, rising gracefully out of the water. An instant later he popped to his feet and glided below the wave, then his scarecrow arm posted above the lip.

Just in time I became aware of the next wave and cranked my nose into the pitching face and sliced through. The cold water snapped my senses to the fore and I tingled. The air was crisp and my ears gurgled with saltwater. The seaweed stench seemed to drive me toward the next swell even though my shoulder muscles threatened to rip from the bone. I coughed and grunted and tore against the water, driven by those familiar sensations.

There was a lot of wasted energy, lurching and jerking, before I somehow scratched into the wave. When I stood up my legs quivered and I had to steady my labored breathing. I used my entire weight to lean back and scoop the nose of the board out of the trough at the bottom. Then I tottered to one side just enough to steer the board off the bottom and down the line. I leveled into the face and the lip was curling in front of me. I gyrated, rocking from rail to rail, pumping my knees. I just started doing it. With each pump the board jetted. Suddenly I was screaming like a bottle rocket, hooked into some invisible flow. And like that, in the blink of an eye, I was dancing again above the earth in that old magnificent world.

The wave closed out in front of the station and I kicked over the back. They all hooted from the beach. An older guy with a mustache and curly hair made me look twice. The second time I felt my eyes sting and my face seemed to crumble. Dropping my head, I shuffled my board around and paddled toward the point, coughing and gagging on the tears and mucus.

I paused and drifted shy of the point. Rolloff kept glancing at me. I angled away from him.

You okay, Norm? he called out.

I raised my arm. This rocked me to the opposite side and I searched beneath the surface. The sparkling sediments rained down past the tiny bubbles leaking from the rocks below. The perfume in my nose and the gurgling in my ears. Home.

If it wasn’t for your dad I might not be surfing right now, said Rolloff when I paddled back to the point. I for sure wouldn’t be as good.

Good thing, huh? I said.

He tipped his head up and down. Lovin’ it, he said.

By summer’s end I had my own money and my own set of friends and was so out of the loop with my mom and Nick that I hadn’t realized Nick had moved out. Even though I stayed at Eleanor’s some nights, she never mentioned it. It wasn’t until my first day of junior high that I asked my mom where Nick was.

He moved to the beach, she said.

Good, I said.

I told him he can come back when he stops drinking, she said.

That’ll never happen, I thought, and I nodded.

She tried to look strong. But I thought she would let him come back, after some excuse, and I refused to stand there and pretend otherwise, so I bolted.

On my first day at Paul Revere Junior High one of the eighth-grade boys, a surfer named Rich, recognized me from Topanga Beach. Apparently he was out surfing one day that summer and had seen how all the legends watched out for me and how every once in a while they let me take a set wave. Rich befriended me because I was anointed in a club that I suddenly realized was spectacularly cool even beyond the oasis of Topanga Beach. By day two I was hanging with Rich and the popular crew. They had long hair and burned skin and always wore shorts and ragged shirts. I fit right in like a jigsaw piece, folding me back into the regular world again. You were right Dad, thanks for making me surf.

A week later, I woke in the night and there was a strange glow out my bedroom window. I went upstairs and into my mom’s room and outside her glass door I saw tongues of fire.

Wake up! I yelled.

I was naked and when her eyes opened I turned away before she saw the three pubic hairs sprouting out. I ran downstairs and put on some boxers. My mom waited, urging me to forget about the boxers, she had a towel for me. Then we ran out of the house together. I reached into the storage area under the garage to retrieve my surfboard. She yelled at me from the stairs, but I wasn’t going to let it burn. Feeling the heat of the fire on my back, I hauled my board up the stairs, past the garage and onto the street. Mom knocked on a neighbor’s door and they called the fire department.

Nick showed up a half hour later. The whole roof was burned and the drywall on the top floor was charred from the heat. The
fire chief said that embers from a fire earlier that night about a mile north, carried by the Santa Ana winds, had probably landed on our roof. Because our roof was made of old shingles, he said, it caught fire easily.

We had to move into a house about two miles away, across Sunset Boulevard, for six months. The first night there my mom mentioned
puberty
, and I realized she had seen me naked the night of the fire and I was embarrassed. Then she asked me if I felt different.

No, I said, unwilling to admit that over the last few months I had often been surprised by jolts of aggression. Outbursts of anger that never quite made it out of my body. I’m going to bed, I said.

During our first week at the new house Nick came around. It wasn’t clear whether or not he had quit drinking and I didn’t ask my mom. I steered clear of him and he steered clear of me.

Around this time one of the girls from seventh grade invited the surfer crew to a party on a Saturday night. My weekend curfew was 10:00. I came home at 10:30 and my mom was upset, worried. She threatened to ground me. I shut my bedroom door on her and opened
Surfer Magazine
and thought about surfing and one of the girls from the party named Sharon who kept talking to me. My phone rang and I picked it up and it was Sharon. She asked me if I had fun at the party. It was great, was all I could come up with. Then she asked me if I was going to masturbate. I didn’t know what to say. I told her I had never done it. She scoffed and said I was lying. I swore to her that I never had. She sounded excited and invited me over on Sunday.

Cool, I said.

She told me her address and I found a pen and wrote it on my hand.

Good night, she said in a sultry voice.

I couldn’t sleep. Even though I knew about sex, had seen it all around me on Topanga Beach, I wasn’t sure if I should be masturbating or not, or really how to do it. How could I be so out of it?

My date commenced with Sharon stealing her parents’ Mercedes and driving us to Westwood. She was only thirteen, so driving a Mercedes along Sunset Boulevard with the windows down and Madonna blaring made her the coolest chick in the world. Sharon gave me my first ever handjob on Makeout Mountain, providing a helpful model for how to masturbate in the future. By the time she parked in front of my house, scraping the hubcap against the sidewalk, it was forty minutes past my curfew.

I ran up the brick stairs of our temporary house, a single-story stucco with plastic awnings. I tried to open my bedroom window but it was locked. I circled to the side of the house and climbed onto the back porch. The sliding-glass door to the porch was cracked. I slipped inside.

I tiptoed to my bedroom door and was not halfway there when my mom opened her bedroom door.

You’re busted, Norman.

I’m getting some milk, I said.

I don’t think so. Go to bed and we’ll deal with it in the morning.

Over breakfast my mom informed me that I was grounded the following weekend.

That’s bullshit, I said.

Another word and it’s two weekends.

We’ll see, I said.

She glared at me and I scoffed and chomped on my cereal. I slurped it down in one gulp, dropped the bowl in the sink, grabbed my skateboard and left.

Do you have your lunch? called my mom.

I ignored her and skateboarded as fast as I could to catch the bus to Paul Revere Junior High.

Nick was in the kitchen with my mom when I got home from school. He eyed me with a puckered face. I aimed for my room.

Norman, said my mom.

I stopped. What?

You were forty-five minutes late last night, said Nick.

The bus was late, I said.

You lie without hesitation, said Nick. It’s become second nature, Jan.

Mellow out, I said to him.

He shook his head.

You’re goin’ down a bad road, Norman, he said.

Whatever, I said.

Sharon’s mother called me today, said my mom.

My insides dropped and went fluttering down my legs and I was hollow.

I shot her a
so-what
face.

Did you or did you not take Sharon’s mother’s car? said Nick.

I wasn’t driving, I said.

She’s thirteen years old, said my mom.

I told her not to do it.

But you got in the car, said Nick.

She was leavin’ no matter what.

You’d jump off a bridge if she told you to? said Nick.

I missed the bus. I was late.

They noticed the car was gone at 7:30, said Nick. You got home at 10:45.

I didn’t do anything. I just got a ride, I said. She was going anyways.

The fucking denial, the lack of any shred of compunction, is really fucking sickening, said Nick.

I shrugged. Whatever.

His hand was around my neck in a flash and I was tripping backward. I grabbed his forearm and he lifted me off the ground and slammed me against the refrigerator. I slid to the ground and the floor knocked the wind out of me. His eyes were red with throbbing vessels and his face was purple and his fingernails dug into my neck. I had a clear shot at him—my arms free at my sides, his face unguarded. But my biceps turned to weeds. I was afraid to fight back.

Let go. I’m choking, I said.

Let go of him, Nick!

You give me a go-fuck-yourself look again and I’m going to wipe it right off your face.

Okay, I sputtered and nodded.

He unclenched his fingers. I breathed again.

He stood.

A nice little family discussion, he said sarcastically, and he and my mom both laughed. It was clear that she had aligned herself with him again.

Are you okay? said my mom.

I ignored her and stood up and stared out the window.

Your mother asked you a question, Norman, said Nick.

Yeah I’m great, I said staring out the window.

Okay. Well. You’re grounded for two weeks, said my mom. No going out. You have to come home right after school. Got it?

What about surfing? I said.

No surfing either.

I turned and glared at my mom.

Why would you think it would be okay to go
surfing
if you’re
grounded
? said Nick.

I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. However, he was correct—if you’re grounded it doesn’t make sense to be able to go surfing.

This will help you finally learn about consequences, he said. That your actions have consequences. Welcome to the NFL.

It was a peculiar thing to say but I fully understood it. I even smirked.

I served out my sentence for tardiness and lying and the winter turned to spring and we moved back to the house on the edge of the canyon and it seemed like all I thought about was surfing and sex—though I was still a virgin. Then right before spring break Sharon left me for an eighth-grader. She called me aside one day, explaining that he was really just more her type. I walked away weak-legged and I thought I might cry as I stole into the bathroom. I did not love her and I couldn’t understand why it hurt so much. I locked myself in a stall so that nobody would see me like this.

I was kissing Sharon yesterday and today she’s gone. I wanted to touch her again, lose myself against her body. Our make-out sessions were suddenly blissful moments that I longed for. I had told her things that only Eleanor knew. My mind raced, searching for somebody to fill in for Sharon—Sharon under my body, breathing into my ear while I kissed her neck. Then she vanished, abandoned me, and I was free falling. My knees hit the bathroom floor and I spit into the toilet on the verge of vomiting.

I wiped my mouth. All the aggression that had been mounting over the previous couple months erupted. I turned and side-
kicked the stall door. I kicked it and kicked it until the lock busted and dangled from the door. Moving to the sink, I felt looser. Not so jammed up anymore. I splashed water on my face and cooled down. As I made my way back to the hangout spot by the cafeteria I thought about beating up Nick.