Salt

Trevor and Chase jogged down to the edge of the water, clean white boards under right arms, fins back and facing in. They stretched and did a few twisting warmups, then launched into the relentless, pounding shorebreak, eventually fighting their way through to the long, roiling middle section, where you could sort of catch your breath for a minute or two while you paddled through annoyingly foamy, rolling hills towards the inevitable beatdown in front of the outside bars. This time, they were lucky, hitting it between sets, and they angled out through swelling, unbroken water towards a lonely peak out and to the right where two older guys with 8 foot boards were sitting. The sky and water were grey, meeting in a dark band on the horizon.

A hundred yards to the left, a moving swell of sea mobilized, felt the outer sandbar, and stood up, throwing its top out, over and into the trough with a thunderclap, making a beastly warping hole in the ocean. The giant, whalelike eye stared balefully at the two boys as it lumbered towards them at a leisurely pace.

Trevor turned to Chase, teeth flashing.

Once they were far enough out, the two surfers turned parallel to the beach and headed north to where the other two guys were sitting. From a distance, they seemed to be having a normal discussion. But they were shouting all the words. What was with the yelling? But their faces and boards were pointed straight out to sea.

Then Trevor and Chase saw the other guys suddenly drop to their stomachs and paddle quickly outward, towards a steely, lined-up set, their jabbering still running at full volume, like an out-of-sync soundtrack.

The first wave passed by unridden. Then one of the two, a large, bearded guy named Steve, wheeled his canary-yellow 8’4″ around at the base of the second wave and gave four strong strokes towards the beach. He got to his feet in one quick motion, let his board drop, then set his inside edge to stay high  up on the 12-foot face, finally carving a  top turn at the end of the bowl section. He dropped back down to get speed, pulled hard off the bottom, and rocketed into the inside section, blazing past Trevor and Chase until, looking back, they could only see the back of the wave and a track left by Steve’s fins.

Chase’s eyebrows raised up as he turned to Trevor.  Nice, one of them said quietly.

The boys were now close to the lineup where the other surfer, a smaller, dark-haired guy named Horace sat. Horace was paddling hard for the last wave of the set, but a wide swath of backwash and rip was spilling outward at the same time that the wave was trying to break. The swell abruptly doubled up, a big chop of water and spray held up the nose of Horace’s board, and the wave lurched shoreward, riderless. Horace glared at the two boys.

Trevor and Chase stopped paddling, remaining prone on their boards. Then Steve was flanking them on the left.

–Sup, said Trevor.

–This beach is a mile long, there’s NOBODY out, and you guys wanna come and sit in the exact same place where we’re sitting?

Steve abruptly stopped paddling and sat up on his board.

–What’s wrong with that wave right over there? or that one? Or that one? He pointed up and down the beach.

–This just looked like a pretty good peak.

–Plenty of waves, offered Chase.

Steve and Horace turned away, paddling farther out and farther north. Horace yelled something indistinguishable.

Chase thought: the fuck? The two sat up on their boards, looked at each other and shrugged. They let themselves drift south a bit.

After a few minutes, a set came their way. Chase took off on the first wave, pumped a few off-the tops, and kicked out with a big boost, holding on to his board as if he was going to do an aerial, although he wasn’t really committed to anything. He popped up out of the water just in time to see Trevor tucking into the next wave, stalling up high to try for a coverup. Chase made a kind of birdlike cry and flashed a shaka. Trevor pulled out right in front of Chase.

–Dude you were slotted!

–So sick out here?

Later that night at The Dock, Steve — sometimes referred to locally as “Grizzly Adams” — launched into a tirade against the pissants on their L.A. boards who tried to come out and sit right next to him and Horace, when there was nobody out anywhere, because they were too sheeplike to actually think for themselves for once in their lives. Someone made a suggestion about missing their mommies. I’m starting to really hate surfers, growled Steve. It’s over, agreed another.

In a different part of town, Trevor and Chase watched surf videos and ate burritos. They high-fived each other and recounted their best rides from that day. They were so stoked!