Crazy for the Storm

like a pond reflection until Rolloff called my name.

Norm, he said.

I turned and blinked and the mist congealed into a clear picture.

Hey man. Where’ve you been? he said.

The bodies in the sand twisted around and a chorus greeted me. The ghost town came alive.

I don’t know. Working, I said.

I stepped forward and slapped fives and brandished a hang-loose sign to each legend while the various girls and guys augmenting the scene looked on.

Shane told me I looked like I healed up pretty good, and I touched the indented scar on my chin. Trafton asked me if I was ready to surf again. I wondered how he knew I hadn’t surfed in months. I nodded yes out of reflex. When Rolloff offered his board for a go out I used the excuse of not having trunks.

It seemed strange that I would come to the beach without trunks or a surfboard, so I explained that I worked across the street at the diner. Rolloff said it was good for lunch but everybody else said they liked George’s Market better.

I took off my shoes, plopped on the sand and dug my toes in, listening to everybody talk surf. A swell was due in a couple days from south of Tahiti. Shane thought Catalina Island might block the waves, and I glanced southward as if assessing how the swells would hit Catalina, a smudge on the horizon. Within five minutes I was on the inside of the circle, chiming in at will, and I took off my shirt and felt the sting of the sun on my skin. An hour later I was running up the access road past Barrow’s dilapidated landing and I was excited about tomorrow for the first time in months.

Our garage was at street level. I ran right up to the door, unlocked it and searched for my yellow-railed seven-foot-two surfboard that Dad had given me on my tenth birthday. I couldn’t find it. So I walked down the stairs toward the house, which rested on the hillside below the garage. I looked in the storage space under the garage. It wasn’t there. Sunny followed me around and whimpered and I knew she wanted to play so I took her into the canyon and threw the stick until she was panting hard.

I was consumed by the notion of surfing again. I worried about whether I would still be able to hop right up and make the drop and generate speed down the line.

When my mom returned from teaching summer school I skipped the hellos and asked where my board was.

Gosh I think it’s in the garage somewhere, she said.

I looked in there, I said.

What about above. In the rafters?

Oh yeah.

I used the hood of my mom’s VW to ladder myself to a rafter beam. I pulled myself up and crawled around in the dust and heat that had accumulated in the attic. In the back on top of boxes I found my board.

I hosed it off on the grass outside the front door and my mom asked me how it felt to see Topanga again.

Weird, I said.

She waited for me to say more and followed me to the kitchen. I grabbed a spatula to clean off the dirt- encrusted wax.

She followed me back outside.

Were all the guys there? she said.

Yeah.

Was it good to see them?

Yeah, I said.

I looked at her and her entire face opened up like she was feeling something pleasant touching her skin.

I hope I can still surf, I said.

It’s like riding a bike, she said.

You used to surf, right?

Oh yeah, she said. Your dad got me out there almost every day one summer.

What happened? I said.

She stuttered.

Oh. You know. Winter came. It got cold. And the next summer you were born.

But didn’t you want to keep surfing?

To tell you the truth, not really. I did it for your dad. Once we divorced I lost interest. She flipped her hair back and looked out at the ocean. He gave me lots of attention when we were surfing, she said.

Her longing for other forms of attention from my dad did not register. Instead the notion that Nick didn’t surf either and that my mom had abandoned surfing, maybe even because Nick didn’t do it, suddenly made surfing my one and only desire. It took me by the throat. Surfing would cut me free.

After work I walked out along the dirt knoll and came around the top of the point. I crossed the mouth of the creek, shored up now for lack of rain, and it was spawning green moss. Then the crew saw me and somebody whistled. It made me smile and my cheeks crinkled, sensitive from yesterday’s sunburn.

I asked for a bar of wax and Shane himself rose and climbed under the station and reached into the crossbeams under the top story and handed me a bar.

My secret stash, he said.

I waxed up my board and Shane said he remembered when my old man had bought the board for me.

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