I pull on my wet suit, hood, and gloves, and head toward a bar that has proven itself in the past for me—a fairy godmother made of shallow sand that can take a long, low wall and turn it into a screaming curl.
Paddling out, I pass a pair of younger guys. “Jerry, Herc,” I say, nodding. Fall and winter riders are a unique breed, and we mostly know each other simply because there aren’t many people crazy enough to head out surfing when the water is fifty degrees and the air temperature is forty-one. I time it just right and catch a decent six-footer. On the way back out I watch Herc’s wave go vertical, see him skirt the inside break.
I can feel my triceps burning, and the familiar icy headache that comes from being slapped in the face by a freezing, teasing ocean. It’s harder to pull myself up on the board, easier to nod to the others to take that particular wave while I wait out the next one. “You sure, Gramps?”
I am forty. Not ancient by any means, but a relic in the world of surfing.Gramps my ass,I think, and I decide I’m going to catch the next wave and show these toddlers how it’s really done.
Except.
No sooner have I pulled myself upright and stuck my first turn than I suddenly lose my footing, tumbling backward. The last thing I see is the flat hull of my board, coming at me with lightning force.
When I come to, my cheek is pressed into the sand and my hood’s been yanked off my head. The wind has turned my wet hair into icicles. Jerry’s face slowly comes into focus. “Hey, Gramps,” he says, “you okay? You took a hard knock.”
I sit up, wincing. “I’m fine,” I mutter.
“You want a ride to the hospital? To get checked out?”
“No.” I’m bruised and battered and shivering like mad. “What time is it?”
Herc lifts up the neoprene edge of his wet suit to check his wrist-watch. “Seven-ten.”
I’ve been surfing for over an hour? “Shit,” I say, struggling to my feet. The world spins for a moment, and Herc steadies me.
“There someone we should call?” he asks.
I can’t give them the number of one of my employees, because I’ve laid them all off for the winter. I can’t give them Reid and Liddy’s number, because they think I’m picking up the pastor. I can’t give them Zoe’s number, because of what I’ve done to her.
I shake my head, but I can’t quite bring myself to say the words:There’s nobody.
Herc and Jerry head back out one more time, and I walk slowly to the truck. My cell phone has fifteen messages on it. I don’t have to call voice mail to know they are all from Reid, and they are all angry.
I call him back. “Reid,” I say. “Look, man, I’m really sorry. I was just about to hit Ninety-three North when the truck broke down. I tried to call, but I didn’t have service—”
“Where are you now?”
“Waiting for a tow,” I lie. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to fix.”
Reid sighs. “I’ll get Pastor Clive a limo,” he says. “Do you need a ride, too?”
I don’t know what I did to deserve a brother like Reid. I mean, anyone else would have written me off long before now. “I’m good,” I reply.
Zoe had wanted me to quit surfing. She didn’t understand the obsession, the way I couldn’t pass by a beach with a rip curl.Grow up, Max,she had said.You can’t have a child if youareone.
Was she right?
About everything?
I picture the sheriff showing up at her house.Zoe Baxter?he’d say, and she’d nod.You’ve been served.Then he would leave her holding the little blue folder, the one she must have known was coming sooner or later, and yet still would feel like a kick in the gut.
In the truck, I am still shivering, even with the heat turned up high. I hesitate . . . and then reach into the glove compartment. The bottle of Jägermeister is really just for medicinal purposes. You see it all the time in movies—the guy who’s got frostbite, the one who’s fallen off a bridge into the water; the fellow who’s been left out in the cold too long . . . they’re all confused and frantic until they take a nip to get their blood flowing again.
One sip, and suddenly they’re healed.
Two months later
If not for the garbage truck, I would have missed my court date.
I wake with a start when I hear the high-pitched beeps, jumping upright and smacking my head against the roof of the car. The garbage truck backs toward the Dumpster I’m parked beside and hooks its teeth into the metal loops so that it can lift the receptacle. All I know is that it sounds like freaking Armageddon.
