Yeah! I’m out, I’m headed to the Lane. Gotta get back in the lineup. It’s all I’ve been dreamin’ of for two and a half years. So fuckin’ stoked.
But I get no priority. The boys are about as welcoming as a twenty-mile-per-hour on-shore south. What the fuck? Everybody lookin’ at me all stink-eye. They don’t know shit!
Plus — it seems like I was gone for all of five minutes, and my home break’s all crowded with geezers, kooks, hippies, and bunches of chicks and faggots from up on the hill. UCSC cunts and their girlfriends think they have some kind of Pussy College hall pass to surf here. Like the Lane is just for anyone now.
Well, it fuckin’ isn’t. The Lane is not for you. Not for your girlfriend, not your boyfriend, not any of your friends. No way will this stand. No fuckin’ way!
This scene has me so fuckin’ aggro. I’m too amped — just sitting in my truck tryin’ not to go all school-shooter on these assholes. When I’m like this, crank can sometimes calm me down. Hit that pipa, burn a blunt, get some brews flowing, and whoa! I am better, motherfucker! Screw that punk-ass parole officer. I’m out and I’ll do what I please.
Oh yeah. That’s better. That’s more like it. Now I’m feelin’ it. My dick is hard as a rock! I’m thinkin’ about Ashley and how she gives me head exactly when I say to. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. But I keep seein’ that little chica maricon in County the whole time. Pumpin’ like a big fresh south. Goddamn! I’m so ripped!
I snap out of it and — fuck me — outside is going off. The inside is loaded with kooks. The boys are all over first peak. Schracking! Monster sets from a huge south are rolling through, with super-long lulls and a takeoff so narrow you gotta be the earliest, charging-est, deep-throatin’-est motherfucker, or fuck you, you are not getting’ anything. This shit is gnarly. This shit is mine!
Don’t remember suiting up. Don’t even remember paddling out. Just seems like I’m suddenly in the thick of it, raging. Yellin’ at every kook I see. “Fuck you, faggots!” Paddling in front of all the Barneys and thinkin’, Make room for me, boys; priority is mine!
But goddamn! I’m too amped! Pulse pounding. Can’t chill. Timing is off. The extra fifty I gained in jail, on top of my crank-’n’-beer cocktail, is messing me up, slowin’ me down.
“My wave, fuckhead! My wave!” But my fat-fucker pop-up is too slow — too late. No way am I gonna make it. I can feel my extra body weight dragging me down as I pearl my board and eat it, right into the bowl. Then I get sucked back up the face, feel the sick moment of weightlessness, then — over the falls, right onto the deck of my best board. Under water screaming, “FUCK!” It’s a major hold-down. Hitting bottom. Rag-dolled to shit. Donuts all the way.
I finally pop up on the inside, puking seawater. I paddle the bottom half of my board back in and smash the shit out of it on the railing. All eyes on me in the lot, as the assholes bear witness to the sketchiest, gnarliest, most-fucked sesh of all time. I go to get in my truck and — of course — the keys are still in the ignition. The door is locked.
My fist goes right through the window. Don’t even feel it. Like a GoPro slow-mo. Don’t remember driving home. Next thing I remember, I’m rammin’ that piece-of-shit truck right up onto the lawn at the bitch’s apartment. My goddamn hand is achin’ now, bleeding like a motherfucker! WHATEV!
Fuckin’ stairs. Dizzy. Leaning on Ashley’s doorbell and screaming bloody murder for her to LET ME IN, GODDAMNIT! The neighbors all peekin’ out, like a bunch of little bitches. Let ’em look. Fuck ’em. I need a shower, a blunt, a bump, and a brew! Gotta get my hand under control too. Blood’s all over the place.
Finally she opens up. Fuck. Ashley freaks: “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Goddamn bitch, let me in!” Man, she pisses me off.
In the shower and I’m almost passing out. I hear Ashley talking to somebody. What the fuck? I told her to never answer the door if I’m here.
I yell, “Who the fuck is it?” No answer. My hand is still bleeding and I gotta deal with that. I wrap my knuckles in a towel and lean out the door to get the bitch’s attention.
I can hear her now. She’s yelling out by the front door. Fuck. The cops. Why are they here? She’s sayin’, “Don’t come in! I’m fine! He’s got a problem with you guys, you know that. Please!”
The cops are yappin’, “Coming in, got a call, saw the blood, probable cause, prior domestic.” Yada, yada. Goddamn neighbors. All their bullshit! So yeah, the cops have been here before. They got me then, but not again. No fuckin’ way!
I go to grab my aluminum bat from high school. It feels like one of those giant medieval swords in my bloody hand. Those motherfuckers are gonna get the fuck out of here in a hurry. I haven’t done anything! They got no fuckin’ right coming into my house. Who do they think they are?
“Motherfuckers!” I’m charging, rushing into the front room. I swing and swing and swing. “GET THE FUCK OUT!” Boom.
Screaming. I hear screaming. I can’t hear me. I’m burning. My whole body’s on fire. On the floor, buck naked. It’s not me screaming. Ashley, far away. Can’t move. Smells like gunshots and like... shit. Can’t get up. Can’t feel anything but burning.
“Why did you have to come in?” she says. “You didn’t have to shoot him! He didn’t do anything!”
Five bullets fired. All hits. One lodged in my spine. T7. Sure, I got a lawyer. Fucker never calls anymore. Fuck him. Neither does Ashley. She didn’t want to wipe my shit — left me when I was down.
Legless, dickless, soulless motherfucker I am now, everyone just looks — then looks away. Fuck you, for lookin’ at me like some asshole crip. I blame you motherfuckers for all this shit. Westside forever, you fucks.
Now I’m just rolling. Rolling with the punches. Grinding up to Emeline Street and County Health. Then down to Pacific Avenue to hustle change. Back to the shelter. From the shelter back to Emeline. My chair’s gonna need new wheels from all this grinding. All this goddamn grinding.
Mischa and the Seal
by Liza Monroy
Cowell’s
Every so often the rage creeps up, cresting like waves during a storm. I plan my revenge when I see him there, on the beach or walking down the steps with his board tucked beneath his arm. My eyes lose track of him, even his silver shock of hair, in that neoprene soup. I see clearly underwater, all those legs in all those black suits, false skins trying to look like mine, all the same out here on their little planks. If I could get to him, if I could be sure it was him, I would shred him.
Mischa moved to Santa Cruz as a graduate student in marine biology. Since she preferred being around seals and otters to other people, it was the logical choice. Over time, though, as with everything she attempted, her focus scattered. She couldn’t get it back. She dropped out and lived in her rented shack off the side of a surf shop. Her waitressing tips were enough to cover rent. She ate kitchen scraps and remnants of food on plates she collected. People were so wasteful. Mischa never left a trace.
The guy at the surf shop loaned her a board, blue and made of foam. She spent every day at sea, in the gentle waves at Cowell’s Beach. Even when it was flat as a pane of glass, she went. Every day she basked in the ocean, so close to the sea lions, seals, and otters. She didn’t want to study them, it turned out, she wanted to be among them. With her black eyes and skin so pale it took on a grayish tint in the water, it was like she’d been born one. Mischa could think of nothing she wanted, only things she didn’t: she didn’t want her once-promising marine biology career, she didn’t want any of her former boyfriends — her mother was right, they’d all been losers — and lastly, she didn’t want her mother, who had disappeared after taking too long of a swim.