February 15. Somewhere over New Jersey ....
The jet's shadow jumped from cloud to cloud. Where there were no clouds he could see houses, houses set in a mosaic of pavement and lawn. Near the towns the houses were laid down in a grid. In the suburbs they bloomed in paisley patterns, built around the ubiquitous cul de sacs. Where there weren't houses and roads and parking lots, the fields and forest were a midwinter brown. The jet climbed higher and the clouds pressed closer together until the plane's shadow was lost in a vast, white mattress.
There had been a girl at the bar in the airport. She sat across from him, behind a book and a flugelhorn of beer. He caught her eye and she did that tight-lipped smile that white people do that could mean anything. He took it as a smile of invitation, picked up his own flagon of ale, walked around the bar and sat down next to her. "Where are you off to?" he asked.
That evening, after he had thrown his gear in the bunkroom at the Surf & Board, he walked up the road to another bar. The island night was soft and warm. Where the road dipped down into a dark, green valley the sound of barking dogs faded and another, more liquid, sound took its place - tree frogs singing to their mates. The trees around him seemed to pulse with the trill of amphibian desire.
Although it was Saturday night, Brisa's was quiet. A few people were playing pool and the kid who sold pinchos outside had just fired up his grill. He sat on a stool by the bar and asked the pretty gringa to bring him a beer. She did, then walked around the bar to the television set on the other side of the room, and put in the first of many surf videos. It was good to be back in PR.
Later, after many beers and pinchos, he met a man named Wally Gator. Wally looked and sounded like Fred Flintstone, except Fred didn't have blond hair. Wally was easily the most gregarious drunk in the bar. His mass and friendliness drew other people to him like a lodestar. He was telling stories about the Northshore, about the time he crashed a party thrown for the surfers competing in the Pipemasters and ended up drinking with Tom Carroll. Wally said he picked the tiny surfstar up off the ground to tell him how much he admired his riding and what a great guy he was. Somehow, it seemed entirely plausible.
Later still, after Wally had temporarily winded himself telling stories, he asked Gator how long he'd be staying in Puerto Rico. "Until I get tired," Wally said. "Until I get tired."
February 16. Surfed Parkinglots small and sloppy in the morning.
Drove to town in the afternoon with Cleary, Jim and Shelly in Brian's beat-to-shit island car. The rear suspension was almost gone, so the tires rubbed in the wheel wells every time Brian took a turn hard, which is to say, every turn. To counteract this weight shift, the passengers leaned forward and into each turn. We got pretty good at it, leaning in unison like the Puerto Rican Bobsled Team, as Brian steered the winding road towards town.
When we pulled up in front of the grocery store, Brian discovered that he had left his T-shirt back at the ranch. Not wanting to appear disrespectful to the locals, Brian refused to go into the store barechested. Shelly offered him her T-shirt and Brian tried it on. It was too small: He looked like one of the rent-a-boys from the Village People. Jim found a greasy old towel on the floorboards of the car and I cut a short slit in its center. Brian pulled the insta-poncho over his head and put his hat back on. He looked like a baby-faced Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter.
We fanned out in the store and got all the food we needed for a barbecue. The checkout girls were giggling at Brian's getup and he smiled back at them, which made the girls laugh harder. "Man, I'm never doing that again," Brian said when we got outside.
"Don't worry about it," Shelly said. "They thought you were cute."
When we got back to the Surf & Board we had a big barbecue for everybody and Jim made his famous gizzard pinchos. He got a lot of shit for buying gizzards instead of regular chicken meat, but Lou and Lobo ate them anyway.
February 17. Surfed Parkinglots again in the morning with Pat. It was shoulder-high and crumbly.
That night Joe, Ryan, Jason, Henry, myself and a Polish girl named Margaret sat on the back porch drinking, smoking dope and telling stories. Ryan told us about the big swell last year. Margaret told us she was a witch. Later Joe tried to put a spell on her, but she turned him down.
The water came on at midnight. Everybody else had gone to sleep, so I did the dishes and took a shower. Anybody who lives in Rincon quickly learns the value of water.
February 18. Finally, a bit of swell. Surfed Sandy's in the morning with about 20 other people. The lineup was a little stroppy, but the waves were good.
Joe and Ryan decided to drive up to Wilderness that afternoon. We got in the Silver Bulletª around 4 and were wading off the rocks at Wildo less than an hour later. On the sets, the waves were a few feet overhead. Unfortunately, there were 40 other guys in the water, contesting the peak. Joe and Ryan paddled right into the fray. I drifted off to the side to work on some basics. I pulled off a basic wipeout, the more advanced flying faceplant and worked on my rudimentary duckdive. Then I caught a fast left. And another. Fuck the peak - I'd stay on the inside bowl section and catch what I could.
About a half hour before sunset, a tropical shower rolled though. The wind whitened the water before its passage and then the rain smoothed it down. The setting sun shone through the droplets to create a rainbow that stretched from behind the palms on shore, around 190 degrees of arc, to a point on the sea just out of sight. For a moment, the crowd forgot its battle for waves and watched this miracle of nature unfold. I felt a chill and was glad for the vest I was wearing.
We left the water when the sun finally disappeared below the horizon.
February 19. Sandy's AM. Rented a car with Pat in Aguadilla in the afternoon and drove back to Maria's in time for a late afternoon session. Had $1 rum drinks at Calypso after we got out of the water.
February 20. Checked Wildo at dawn - no good. Drove all the way back to Rincon and caught some nice head-high action at Pools before anybody else was out.
Later that morning, I put on some fins and swam into the lineup at
Maria's with a camera. Everybody was out: Joe, Ryan, Brian, Randy, Aimee, Rachel, Pat, Lou
and Duke. The Duke was styling on that longboard down at Dogman's.
February 21-27. The flat spell began. Caught some solid head-high waves at Wildo on the
22nd, but then it got calm. And things slowly started to unravel.
Cleary discovered tow-in road surfing on a piece of busted longboard. Randy went out hunting rats with a pellet gun. I bet on the cockfights. Duke collected beachglass. Jason smoked a lot of dope. Joe spent hours in the hammock with his earphones on. Aimee went skin-diving. The South Africans set fires. Allen read a lot. Koji shagged a succession of local girls. Jim tried to organize a soapbox derby on the road down to Parkinglots. A bunch of people got tattoos. Angry Joe shot out Cleary's car window with the pellet gun and then Cleary shot Joe in the leg. But mostly we drank.
February 27. Late in the afternoon, Chuck, Brian, Davis and I drove all the way up to Middles looking for windswell. There was a little there -- really ugly onshore stuff. So we buzzed back to Jobos. It was almost dark and the waves weren't lined up, but we all needed to surf bad, so we hit it. Chuck and Brian were soon in prime position, snagging waves right off the rock. Davis, who usually surfs his homestate of Maine, was freaking cause he didn't have to wear his 6 mil. I even bagged a few misshapen peaks before calling the game on account of darkness.
February 28. The swell's back. Small, but rippable rights at Domes in the morning. Chuck
and Mavis, a couple of computer programmers from Florida, were the first ones on it. The
crowd came later.
I heard one guy in the lineup say that he and his buddies used to surf this break in the seventies and they were the only surfers out. Hard to imagine.
That afternoon Randy, Brian, Sean, the other Chuck and I drove up to
Wilderness. Waves were about head-high, groomed by a side-offshore breeze and the crowd
was spread out along the various peaks. Despite the minor annoyance of local spongers
occasionally dropping in, it was a great session. With the exception of Randy, who would
stay another month, we all had to leave the next day. We all surfed till sunset.
