Our surf trips had begun to resemble anarchy. Not necessarily in any kind of malign way. They were just becoming more and more outlandish at the fine line of excess. The hazards and trials that wave riding had unleashed were being crosshatched with a collective propensity for nocturnal extremism among a crew already too high on thrills and adrenaline. Our patterns of revelry seemed to escalate exponentially on the road, no doubt a byproduct of fear and naïveté and freedom.
On one mission the Silver Fox vomited onto the dance floor in a packed-to-the-gills nightclub. On the same jaunt a series of street sumo sessions was initiated, in which we would find newly tarred patches of country road and use them as ad hoc nocturnal wrestling rings. An established pattern of blindside, top-rope pile drivers had grown out of it. At one point, feeling particularly edgy after a wild night and with some kind of score to be settled with the Barrel Searcher, I cringed visibly and repeatedly when I mistook a shirt hanging to dry on the bannister of our rented shack for his airborne figure. No one knew quite where the next big hit was coming from.
The hijinks didn’t stop there. We bound each other with duct tape as part of routine hazings. There were big-hit rugby tackles on the beach. Above it all, hanging like a cloud, were the simmering tensions between the reefer- and non-reefer smoking contingents of our squad. So when OMA, Jimmy Snukka, and the Masochist produced a tiny amount of contraband one evening during an al fresco party, the Barrel Searcher, having (perhaps rightly) had enough of our surf trips turning in to magical mystery tours, snatched their stash, paused in thought, and then cast it into the black, nighttime bog.
Thus ensued a frantic and fruitless search for it in the swamp. Meanwhile, the Barrel Searcher had moved on. He was now attempting to hot-wire a vast piece of farm machinery on the side of the coastal road. Barely conscious, he could be seen silhouetted against the stars, jamming the controls back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, with mechanical forcefulness. When that failed, in what could only have been a further antidrug statement, he unzipped and emptied his bladder from the cabin of the Armageddon machine onto the roof of OMA’s car.
Still, there was room for more. When the rain came, the kitchen in our fleabag accommodation was transformed into a makeshift sumo ring. Even when corralled indoors, there was space for progress. This time, in a startling innovation, the Barrel Searcher and El Gordo donned swimming goggles and, stripping down to their underwear, squirted dish soap across the linoleum floor to lubricate their combat.
Though no angel myself, I began hoping that sleep would be a refuge from both the bog search outside and the gladiatorial bout within. Amidst the increasingly cacophonous clanging of pots and pans, and the slamming of cupboard doors, I retreated to the perceived safety of the bottom bunk in my bedroom.
I was wrong to assume I would be safe there. The Barrel Searcher, fresh from his victories in the kitchen, was taking no prisoners. Awakened suddenly by a dream-like feeling of falling, I realized the bunk was being tipped over. Down among the wreckage, I found myself trapped in a kind of wooden cage—with up as the only way out.
Before I could escape, however, there was just enough time to see his body silhouetted for the second time that night, this time against the ceiling, coming in from the top rope. We had reached a nadir of multiple levels, chaos reigning, all bets off, no formal rules of engagement.
The initial impact was accompanied by his haunting and primal scream. The second blow, my combatant having extricated himself from our miniature arena and positioned himself once again on the upended bed frame for the knockout hit, rattled teeth and bones. Desperately and claustrophobically struggling with both the Barrel Searcher’s weight and a sea of blankets and sheets, I watched stars shooting before my eyes. I was now roused—pinned against the bottom of the top bunk, feeling the rough wooden slats cutting into my back—and prepared to do battle.
Perversely, my opponent chose that precise moment to end his night. With a stunning transition from force of nature to pussycat, he disentangled himself and disappeared into his own locked dorm. In a moment his snores echoed through the walls. I laid there stunned and listening, for some time, in the post apocalyptic wreckage of the now suddenly silent room. Beyond the sleepy coastal village, waves were breaking in the dark.
Finally rising, I hobbled away to find another redoubt, but not before toying with and rejecting the idea of delivering a top rope of my own—a water dousing, a duct taping, or another related gesture. Vengeance would be in bad taste, I told myself. The night had peaked. All was now quiet. I vowed we would meet again at dawn.
First light came and went. Following the annihilation and debauchery of the previous evening, the waves, predictably, began firing with the morning tide. Rising to check the conditions, we transitioned, somehow, from what can only be described as barbarian darkness to the glassed-off calm of the light. I wondered where the wildness came from as I sat amidst the cleanliness of the ocean. Was it a reaction against conventional culture—or just boorishness? Were we spoiled and entitled, or merely the latest set of bucks to be caught in the headlights of a blood-and-thunder masculine paradigm?
Who knew and, to be totally honest, who cared. All was forgotten when a big, ultra-glassy, violently-cold lefthander wrapped into the cove, glinting and glimmering in the sun. Swapping one combat zone for another, I noticed the Barrel Searcher paddling over the shoulder as I dropped down the face—a little quieter now in his countenance.
The wave was big and perfect, vertiginous and tricky. As I sped down the line, there was time for us to eyeball each other. I chose not to spray or run him down, or even gesticulate lewdly. After all that had passed between us the previous night, it seemed bizarre that we should now be locked in a moment that could be described as private, even sublime.
As I kicked out with a little Walk Like an Egyptian shimmy and paddled back out to the lineup, he turned to me with a nod. It’s impossible to suggest that anyone was redeemed. Like the rest of them, I had simply misspent time and money in mindless revelry, and then found a single moment of clear, icy perfection with my nemesis as witness.
On the drive home together—amidst silences echoing of overtiredness, guilt, and the grotesque prospect of various forms of work the next morning—we rode in exhaustion. Critically we had waves to look back on, temporary reprieves from past and future realities—and from the quasi madness and compromises of morality. The extremes of the trip on land and sea had, like that poet said, made all the difference.
