Boone made him do it twenty times. By the time Hang finished, he was sweating and breathing hard-it was the most exercise he'd done maybe in his life-but he was totally into it. “This is fun, dude!”
“It's even more fun in the water,” Boone said. He led Hang out to where some small waves were coming in shallow, had him lie down on the board, and pushed him into a wave. Hang rode it in like a boogie board.
Insta-love.
Hang kept Boone out there all frigging afternoon, until the sun set and after. On his third ride, he tried to stand. He fell off on that wave and the next thirty-seven. The sun was a bright orange ball on the horizon when Hang stood up on the board and rode it all the way to shore.
First thing he'd ever achieved.
The next day was Saturday, and Hang was out there first thing in the morning, standing on the beach and staring out at The Dawn Patrol.
“Who's the grem?” Dave asked from the lineup.
“A stoner kid,” Boone said. “I dunno, he looked lost, so I took him out.”
“A stray puppy?” Sunny said.
“I guess,” Boone said. “He took to it, though.”
“Grems are a pain in the ass,” Dave warned.
“We were all grems once,” Sunny said.
“Not me,” Dave said. “I was born cool.”
Anyway, it was tacit permission to go bring the kid in. Boone got off the board on his next ride and went up to Hang. “You wanna surf?”
Hang nodded.
“Yeah, okay,” Boone said. “I have an old stick in my quiver over there. It's a piece of shit, a log basically, but it will ride. Get it out, wax it; then I'll show you how to paddle out. You stay close to me, out of other people's way, try not to be a total kook, okay?”
“Okay.”
Hang waxed the board, paddled out, and got in everyone's way. But that's what grems do-it's their job. The Dawn Patrol ran interference for him, both with the ocean and the other surfers. No one messed with the kid because it was clear that he was under The Dawn Patrol's collective wing.
Hang took the board home that night.
Leaned it against the wall next to his bed.
Hang might have been invisible at home, he might have been a nothing at school, but now he had an identity.
He was surfer.
He was Dawn Patrol.
Now he runs toward Sunny's house, gets to her door, and pounds on it. A few minutes later, a sleepy Sunny comes to the door.
“Hang, what-”
“It's Boone.”
He tells her about Boone.
72
Cheerful sits at the hovel that is Boone's desk, trying to balance the books.
Boone Daniels is a perpetual pain in the ass. Immature, irresponsible, a hopeless businessman.
But what were you, Cheerful asks himself, before Boone came into your life?
A lonely old man.
Boone once saved him several million dollars in alimony when the businessman uncharacteristically fell head over heels in love with a twenty-five-year-old Hooters waitress, for whom he bought a new rack and fuller lips to heighten her low self-esteem. Her self-image lifted, she promptly felt herself attractive enough to screw a twenty- five-year-old wannabe rock star and begin a television career that she intended to finance with California community property.
Boone felt bad for the lovesick old guy and took the case, took the pix, made the video, and never showed either of them to Cheerful. He did show them to the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Cheerful and told her to take her big tits, full lips, guitar-stroking boyfriend, and a $100K alimony settlement, get out of San Dog, and leave Cheerful the hell alone.
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Because he's a nice old man and you fucked him over.”
“He got his money's worth,” she said. Then she looked at him with an expression of lust she no doubt learned from porn videos and asked, “You want proof?”
“Look,” Boone replied, “you're hotter than hell, and I'm sure you're the whole barrel of monkeys in bed, but, one, I like your husband; two, I'd cut my junk off with a jagged, shit-encrusted tin can lid before I'd ever stick it anywhere near you; and three, I'll not only take your home movies and photo album into court, but I'll put them on the Net, and then we'll see what that does for your television career.”
She took the walk-away deal.
And made it big on TV playing the second lead, the sassy best friend, on a sitcom that's been draining viewer IQs for years.
“What do I owe you?” Cheerful asked him afterward.
“Just my hourly.”
“But that's a few hundred,” Cheerful said. “You saved me millions. You should take a percentage. I'm offering.”
“Just my hourly,” Boone said. “That was the deal.”
Cheerful decided that Boone Daniels was a man of honor but a crap businessman, and therefore he made it his hobby to try to get Boone on some sort of sound financial footing, which is something like trying to balance a three-legged elephant on a greased golf ball, but Cheerful persists anyway.
You had money, sure, he tells himself now, but nothing else. You'd do your books, count your money, and sit around your condo eating microwave meals, watching television, cussing out the Padres' middle relief, and thinking about how miserable you were.
Ben Carruthers-multimillionaire, real estate genius, total personal failure. No wife, no kids, no grandkids, no friends.
Boone opened up the windows, let some air and sunshine in.
The Dawn Patrol brought youth into your life. Hell, it brought life into your life. Much as you grouse about them-watching these kids, getting to be a part of their lives, sticking your beak into Boone's cases, playing the curmudgeon-they make it worth getting up in the morning.
Boone, Dave, Johnny, High Tide, Sunny, even Hang Twelve-they're precious to you, admit it. You can't imagine life without them.
Without Boone.
The kid Hang Twelve sits staring at the phone, willing it to ring.
Cheerful thinks he needs to say something to the kid. “He's okay.”
“I know.”
But he doesn't.
Neither of them do.
“You hungry?” he asks Hang.
“No.”
“You have to eat,” Cheerful says. He takes a twenty from his wallet, hands it to Hang. “Go over to The Sundowner, get us a couple of burgers, bring them back.”
“I don't really feel like it,” Hang says.
“Did I ask you what you felt like?” Cheerful says. “Go on, now. Do what I tell you.”
