Crazy for the Storm

arrow as it knifed down and impaled the surface of the ocean. My dad paddled up next to me.

Perfect left-hand tubes. I’ll be damned, he said. I’ll be goddamned.

A vein rippled with thumping blood from his bicep to his shoulder and his eyebrows forked down over the bridge of his nose, as if he were a savage poised to attack.

I felt ridiculous—these waves were too big and strong for me.

A tube like that will change your life, he said.

I don’t want to change my life, I said.

Another swell bared its vicious claw.

You want to watch it for a while? he said.

I thought about it. Yes meant that later I would stop watching and actually try to surf it. No could mean that I wanted to surf it now.

I shrugged.

I’ll test it out, he said.

This was a reef wave, a quick combustion of energy that lasted about six seconds, nearly opposite the long reeling point break in Baja. The reef wave dissolved where the water got deep again, where there was an opening in the reef—the channel. My dad paddled through that opening and out past the reef, before cutting over to the take-off spot. In the unlikely event that I would decide to paddle out, I felt that the channel would protect me, and once out there, if a giant set came I could take refuge in its safe harbor.

My dad paddled for the next swell. He got right under the peak and a tumult of water gathered from the floor of the wave and shot up the face, loading the lip. The heavy lip stacked over the face of the wave, separating my dad’s board from the coveted arc where a surfer did his thing, and my dad was stuck on the roof. He gripped the rails of his board, sat up and leaned back. Just as the roof collapsed against the reef, the nose of his board ripped free and Dad spun around out to sea. Barely avoiding getting pummeled against the reef.

Faintly I heard voices. I turned and the beach was alive with cheering kids. Behind them the dark jungle flourished as if about to gobble them up. Rounding the sand spit came the vaqueros on horseback. One of the boys from the village was in the lead.

I looked for Papaya’s yellow shirt against the shells, but it appeared to be gone. The vaqueros made their way along the wet sand and the horses shied away from the lapping waves.

The horses stopped in a perfect row and their shadows fell onto the wet sand. The vaqueros looked out at us and waited. It struck me that the vaqueros had left whatever work they were doing because they expected to see something extraordinary.

Immediately I paddled for the channel. The channel was safe. Deceptive because it appeared to be in the line of fire yet was just out of reach of the wave’s angry bite.

As I got closer I heard a groan rising from the reef. Not understanding where the noise was coming from, I sat up. When the next wave came I watched closely. As the swell wrenched and dragged at the reef the groan sounded. At the same time the crest pitched outward, transforming the wave into a tube. I looked into the big oval eye zooming toward me. There was something peaceful about the inside of the tube. Then the eye blinked shut and the wave exploded against the reef.

I glanced to shore. I saw the vaqueros astride their horses staring at me and I was sure they understood that I was hiding in the channel and that I was a coward. Then Papaya came around the spit on horseback and the disgrace was unbearable.

To make matters worse my dad waved me into the lineup. I wiped my eyes, pretending to have salt in them. I simply chose not to look up and floated there for a while. Nonetheless every second seemed to double the weight on me. I felt the vaqueros watching and Papaya watching and the pressure kept mounting. It finally broke me and I started paddling.

The doubt came right away. It felt like poison under my skin and my head rang. I even imagined Nick laughing at me. He was there helping feed the poison.

I looked up to get my bearing, to make sure I was following the channel out far enough past where the swells hit the reef. Just then a big wave stormed down the reef. The fear it unleashed was like a headwind. I tried to paddle but the headwind beat me back. A burning heat amassed from this friction. I vibrated and coughed and suddenly an ember broke free and seared through me. I stopped paddling.

I searched the clean clear water, trying to gather courage. The hot fear was spreading. I mashed my teeth and imagined a toxic ball beating like a heart inside me. The ball spit its toxic juice through my body, eroding my will. I hated the fear more than anything, so I focused all my hate onto its source, hoping to overpower it.

Fueled by this hatred, my arms oared again. The current wrapping around the reef into the channel shoved me backward. I paddled harder. As I came over a swell I saw my dad dropping into a cavernous pit. His back was to the wave and his board wiggled at the bottom, nearly bucking him, and he leaned so far into the bottom turn that his left hand grazed the water. He was unable to bring his body upright and the mighty forces sucked his board up the face. They drew him to the ceiling. For a split second his body stood tall and it seemed like he could just step right onto the roof and walk down the backside of the wave. Instead the wave pitched him out over the reef. He was horizontal to the ocean, his board chasing him, and he fell out of the sky and belly-flopped. He skidded and the lip struck his torso and the explosion of whitewash obliterated him.

I paddled over the wave just before it got me and stroked hard to make it over the next one. Beyond its crest the ocean lay flat. I caught my breath.

I was numb. In a state of shock. Convinced that my dad was fine but that I could never take that kind of beating. Yet, in that moment, I would have rather died than succumb to my cowardice.

I noticed that the smaller waves missed the outer coral heads and peaked inside. With the drop in size came a drop in heft all around. I paddled for the inside zone, unfazed by the fact that if a set came I would get pummeled.

I shook with adrenaline. Fuck being scared, I muttered.

I monitored the ocean like a big cat waiting to pounce. It wasn’t long before a four-footer steamed past the outer reef. I paddled under it and the tail of my board tilted and I was looking straight down at the white and purple coral heads. I jumped up and stayed centered, fighting the forward pitch of my body.

Get the back foot down, I told myself.

The floor of the wave dug a trench. I swept down the face to the bottom and pressed on my back foot and the nose of the board scooped out a chunk of water as it ripped from the trench. The twisted veins of water pulling off the bottom sent a shock through my board and nearly bucked me off. I leaned hard into the wave. It towered over me. The lip eclipsed the sun and the face of the wave turned dark blue.

My brain protested. A wall of water is threatening to collapse onto you. Bail out.

A voice, some kind of knowing force, told me—it opens up. It wraps around. You will fit inside.

Impossible. A mountain is toppling and you are under it and you need to dive out of harm’s way.

No. It bends and you fit inside.

Automatically my knees drew up to my chest and the board climbed into the pocket. My eyes closed as I entered the tube.

The groan rumbled. I opened my eyes. An oval window framed the sand spit. The rock spires. The coconut palms. And the groan sucked away and the spinning cavern was silent. The ominous wall had bent and wrapped me in its peaceful womb. I was buried inside a thing that could maim or kill me, yet was cuddling me now—I was stretched between panic and bliss. Everything essential, everything formerly invisible, burst forth and pulsed through me. I was there, in that elusive space—the dream world of pure happiness.

The window changed shape and—whoosh—I emerged and the world came crashing in, noisy and bright and chaotic.

I saw my dad down the line. A dazzling smile. His eyes beamed with love and I felt like a knight bringing home the golden chalice. I rode out over the back of the wave.

Holy cow, Boy Wonder! What a fantastic tube ride!

I nodded and my lips burned against the salt. And I noticed blood trailing down his rib cage. A big gash on his back.