The Gentlemen's Hour

22

Depending on who or whom you believe, the name “La Jolla” (pronounced “Luh Hoya”) comes from the Spanish and means “The Jewel,” or from Native Americans and means . . .

“The Hole.”

Boone goes with the latter interpretation, just to piss people off, and because it’s funny—one of the most beautiful, expensive, exclusive, and snooty neighborhoods in America getting tagged a hole. Also because the NAs owned it and should know what they called it.

Not that they meant anything pejorative; the “hole” in question probably referred to the caves in the coastline bluffs, and the area was almost certainly a paradise back then, when the original inhabitants lived by fishing, gathering shellfish, and doing a little hunting and farming before the Spanish friars arrived and decided that the people were better off being Christian slaves than free “savages.”

Actually, La Jolla stayed pretty quiet and bucolic for a long time as it didn’t have much to offer besides those caves, pristine beaches, and gorgeous scenery. There were no natural harbors, for instance, nowhere to dock a fishing fleet. It was just a long stretch of grassy coastline with some picturesque rock formations and red seaside cliffs with holes in them, until the real estate boom of the 1880s came along and the Sizer brothers surveyed and bought up some land for $1.25 an acre. Not a bad investment, Boone thinks as he drives up from Pacific Beach, because acre lots in that neighborhood now go for two million dollars, if you can get them.

Then in 1890, the local newspaper heiress Ellen Browning Scripps decided that she was an artist, and that La Jolla was a good place for art, so she started an artists’ colony. Art colonists started to build artsy little beach cottages in the downtown neighborhood still known as “The Colony.” You can find galleries there today along Prospect or Girard, together with five-star hotels, expensive boutiques, restaurants, nightclubs, and office buildings, and the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art occupies a prominent place on the bluff, but the art most practiced in contemporary La Jolla is the art of the deal.

Boone also likes the “Hole” etymology because his route takes him near the infamous La Jolla sinkhole.

A little less than a year ago, an area about the size of a football field simply sank into the earth, taking eighteen two-million-dollar homes with it. City engineers warned the residents just the day before that they shouldn’t sleep there that night, but most did. No one was seriously hurt, but a bunch of people had to be rescued.

The papers called it a landslide, the television reporters deemed it a sinkhole, the geologists referred to it as a breakaway, and the chief city engineer, in Boone’s favorite comment, said, “This is a geologically active area.” No shit, Boone thinks as he drives near the disaster site—an entire neighborhood just fell into a hole, which is just about as active as it gets.

Maybe, Boone thinks, the Native Americans knew something we didn’t.

Like, don’t build over a hole.

He takes a left and turns down toward “Rockpile,” further proof of the area’s geological hyperactivity.

The rock pile that gives the break its name is a stack of red boulders, now splattered white from seagull guano, that clearly broke off from the cliffs sometime in the undetermined past and landed in the water. Like any formation of solid matter in the ocean, it created something for waves to break on, in this case a tasty outside left, very attractive to the spiritual descendants of Ellen Browning Scripps and to surfers.

So you have two very different types of people who frequent Rockpile: artsy ladies in sensible shoes and big hats with their easels, canvases, oils, and watercolors, and then you have surfers. They coexist pretty well, because the painters usually stay up on the cliff and the surfers are down in the water.

The issue is parking.

Rockpile is in what is basically a ravine between two outlying points, so there is a narrow road down to it and a small parking lot along the actual beach. The small lot obviously has limited room for cars, which is the source of a lot of the recent trouble at Rockpile.

The locals know each other’s rides, and if a strange car with a surf rack is parked there, that vehicle and its driver could have a problem. Cars sans racks are usually given a pass because the locies figure it’s a painter who isn’t going to try to take up valuable space out at the break. In fact, some of the artists have taken to leaving cardboard signs reading “I’m an Artist” inside their windshields.

Boone doesn’t do that. He parks the Deuce in the dirt along the side of the road, goes around to the back of the van, and pulls out his old nine-three Balty longboard and leans it against the side of the van. As he peels down to his board trunks he checks out the other cars.

Despite the location, it seems to be a pretty working-class group. There are a couple of Beemers and one Lexus, but for the most part it’s Fords, Chevys, and Toyotas. And relatively young; lots of decals for metal bands in the windshields. Other decals are less benign: “If You Don’t Live Here, Don’t Surf Here”; “This Is Protected Territory”; “Rockpile Regulars Only.”

Nice, Boone thinks as he shoulders his board and then carries it down to the beach. Very broly.

Rockpile is beautiful, no question about it. Boone can see why anyone would want to paint it, surf it, or just hang out there. Just hanging out is about the only option for a surfer today, because there isn’t much surf, but some of the boys are out there by the rocks, sitting on their boards and waiting for something to happen. And scoping the newbie walking into the water. There’re about ten of them, all sitting up and watching Boone as he jumps on his board and paddles out.

Boone angles off to the right, toward what would be the shoulder of the break if anything were breaking. It’s surf etiquette—he’s headed toward the rear of the lineup and not crossing the path of a wave if anyone was lucky enough to get a ride. It shows he has manners and that he knows what he’s doing, but that apparently isn’t enough at Rockpile.

One of the surfers breaks out of the line and paddles toward him.

Boone stops paddling when the guy gets close, and nods in acknowledgment. The surfer looks to be in his midtwenties, has a lot of tatts, short hair. One of the tattoos is a number 5, which Boone doesn’t get, but the rest are the usual Celtic knots, barbed wire, and the like.

“S’up?” Boone asks.

“S’up?” the surfer asks. “You new here, bro? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

Boone smiles. “Haven’t been here for a while. I usually surf the pier at PB.”

“How come you’re not there now?”

“Thought I’d change it up a little.”

“Think again, bro.”

“What?”

“Think again, bro,” the kid says louder, getting a little aggro. “This isn’t your break.”

Boone is careful to smile again. “Isn’t anyone’s break today, bro. There’s nothing breaking.”

He’s truly amazed that the kid wants to start up over literally nothing. He can’t get crowded out of a wave that doesn’t exist.

The kid says, “Go home, dude.”

Boone shakes his head and goes to paddle around him. The kid paddles into his way. Boone tries the other direction and the kid blocks him again.

“That’s bad form, kid,” Boone says. The “kid” sounds strange coming out of his mouth. It doesn’t seem like so long ago when he was the kid and the veteranos were gruffly teaching him good form. Jesus, Boone thinks, I’ll be on the Gentlemen’s Hour soon. Gumming my fish taco and telling tales about the good ole days.

The kid asks, “What are you going to do about it?”

Boone feels a flare of temper but squelches it. I am not going to get into a fight in the water, he tells himself. It’s just too stupid. Push comes to shove . . . well, I won’t let it come to shove, I’ll back off first. But otherwise, kid, I’d knock you off that board and dunk you until some manners soak in and . . . Ego, Boone tells himself. Ego, testosterone, and something else—jealousy of the kid’s youth?