The big wave hit him squarely and solidly and he shuddered at the impact. It ripped the board from his grasp and sent him over the falls, tumbling and tumbling into the wash. He covered his head and rolled with the barrel, fighting nothing thinking of nothing but calm and peace and going loose. Pressure was in his ears as he was forced downward and bumped the sand in the brown and foamy water, pulled forward by his leash and the buoyancy of his board, ripped from his hands and tumbling forward on the surface. At long last the wave overran his board, released him, and he swam up from the dark.
White foam hissed around him, settling back into slack water. Mentally he counted down the seconds, his personal timer calibrated to the period of the swell. Two seconds reunited him with his board; with every following second he regained three strokes on his previous position. After thirty strokes the next breaker towered white and heavy overhead and he dove deep, deep and straight and beyond the pull of the whitewash. In two dozen more strokes he had gained enough to turtle under the last wave of the big set and holding the board in his hands he weathered the impact, the force flipping him upright. The next set was small and breaking inside, and he paddled around the crest and safely beyond the break zone.
No one understood the contradiction, he thought. No one knew the beautiful ugliness, the terror and anarchy below the surface. Perhaps the volcanic sand obscured the detail. The water here was murky, a churning brown on even the best day. Cliffs and hills and deep ravines, broad plains and haze-ringed volcanoes dominated, stark and impressive; but here the black sand reflected the light from the surface. Here the landscape was scarred with the historical markers of fire and water.
The swell had been kicked up from a strong low pressure system traveling up from the frozen continent. The storm would never arrive, not in the dry season. But it sent its army, pulling up and dropping the sea, sending ripples across the Pacific. And now the vanguard was arriving. It was traveling slowly and inexorably toward him in due time. The big swell would arrive tomorrow.
Still, he thought, it was already building. That last outside set had appeared quick and heavy and had rolled and pinned him good. He tried to punch through it, suck up the face of the heavy wave and punch through. But the wave had steepened quickly over the outer break and he found himself turtling halfway up the face. He had been rolled and pinned and tombstoned along the bottom in the swirling chaos. Yet the surface he knew, looked innocent. The sun rose behind a tower of haze casting light without color. At the morning’s offshore breeze the crest paused momentarily, and spray blew backwards away from the beach and across his face. Birds squawked from the ceiba and almond trees, and smoke rose from the fields behind the top of the ravine. The waves would peel slowly and gracefully from right to left and the pounding torrent of the big swell was inaudible from the shore.
A still lagoon ran deep into the ravine, backing the narrow flat beach. The beach, the narrow fishing boats, and the mist-backed cliffs were behind him now as he faced outward at the wide and open Pacific. He faced the horizon watching the swells roll in. Several smaller sets passed underneath raising him up and down; they were shallow here, and would break far in toward shore. Then the first wave of the big set came in, hurtled across a vast sea in a violent tempest to meet him here under the calm dawn of the tropical sun. Spinning his board, he paddled gently toward shore, holding his spot, the spot he had picked off the rocky point break where the big waves straightened and turned to a fluid curl. As the big wave rose he paddled now, to keep in place, the place where gravity would break him from the current that pulled uphill.
He paused with his hands flat on the surface of his board. This was a dangerous second, a nexus where fear and guts and skill all met. If the wave felt too deep he could still bail and dive deep, down deep under the wave away from its pull, deep enough to hide from the circular violence of the oncoming crash. Precipitously now he would gain speed sliding down the face of the wave. Too long of a wait, and the wave would steepen, and he would bury himself at the toe of the slope and then it was into the wash.
With feet under him he brought the board under control, cutting a wide and slow turn at the bottom of the wave. He waited, trailing a finger into the liquid wall. The barrel was almost on top of him now, and he bent down, grabbing the rail, hurtling forward, foam exploding behind him. He exited the tube as if shot from a cannon born again, baptized into the calm fury of salt and spray and swell.
There were other waves that day, bigger and heavier, but that ride would go unequaled for the morning. Riding straight and tall carving turns moving up and down the wave, stalling and gaining speed, he too would look innocent and calm. Innocent and calm and peaceful like the surface of the water he skimmed. Others joined him, freed from the gates of the surf resort, later risers, good for an hour before the wind switched. La Chica paddled into the lineup, a client in tow. They all bobbed together, a line of solidarity facing away from the beach eyes scanning the limitless horizon in the morning light.
The whine of a motor and whistle of a man pulled him from his reverie. “Eh! Sereno!” He paddled over to the skiff and the slender brown man at the tiller. “Quieres unos camarones?” Chipe was long and lean like his skiff, and with his face weathered dark and stiff looked beyond his years. He throttled down, pulling him along slowly, inexorably out past the break and up and over the swells. Past the danger of an outside wave Chipe idled. The priest from San Miguel had blessed his boat and the boats in the fleet, holding a mass on the beach at low tide. He’d attended too, watching from his hammock across the beach.
“Si.” He thought of the upcoming swell moving toward him, across the wide pacific. It would thunder against the cliffs, and push over the beach to the lagoon at high tide, refreshing the stagnant water with oxygen and fish and crabs. “Es posible para tu esposa cocinar?”
“Ven a las ocho.” Chipe made the sign of the cross and pointed the skiff west, past the rocky point, and motored off to tend to the nets. Sereno paddled back to the lineup, knowing well that none of the fishermen would want to fight the big swells tomorrow or the day after. He paddled to La Chica, and they spoke quickly and quietly in Spanish, making a show for her client. The rest of the lineup looked at him, the friend of fishermen and another oddity washashore out past the breakers off the narrow beach. He made room for her client; following his lead the Americans did the same. More came paddling out, paddling through the crash of the big swells and gliding quickly over to the narrow take off. He paddled into the next wave riding ahead for the narrow beach and dropping to his board as the wave faltered, riding the whitewash into the shallows.
The sand was hot, black flecks of ash were hot in the sun, and the ground felt good and hard under his feet. He walked in the cool sand on the waters edge, around the narrow half moon bay to the foot of the bluff that extended out to form the point break. His hotel was there, the thin line of bare cinderblock rooms. Chipe’s parents owned the hotel, its five block rooms under the bluff and up against the homemade seawall. He rinsed in the outdoor shower, him and his board both. The room was cool now but would bake under the sun. He’d been just another gringo during the first weeks sitting in his hammock and surfing and watching the flow of the tide in and out. It could reach the seawall and beyond working up the constant slope of the hard packed sand. But it never reached the lagoon, the still and scum covered water behind the trees.
One morning sitting in the sun in his hammock watching over the fishermen launching their boats into the churning surf his Christian name had been forgotten. By now the young fishermen had come over, accustomed to a smoke or a drink between checking and mending their nets. Gringo tranquilo, he was then, the white man who came and surfed and sat quietly and humbly, who shopped at the market speaking their language in his broken and quiet voice. He had started by helping launch the boats, spinning the long and narrow skiffs to lift the bow under the cart, heaving and pushing up the slope of the wet sand and sweating hard under the overhead sun.
Sereno he became, a name called to his face and picked up by the village children. It was good to have a name he thought, it was good and appropriate to be christened in this manner, to be given a name by his family in the sleepy village nestled into the bluff.
From his room he grabbed his tobacco pouch and his cooler and some fruit from the market, stowed his board and put on dry shorts and sandals. He pulled a bottle of water from the cooler, kept cold with bags of ice, impure water frozen from the trickling creek that fed the lagoon behind the village above in the deep ravine. He drank his cold water and ate his fruit, watching the surfers paddle and jockey for position off of the break. Soon the wind would switch, the sun high overhead would heat the land and pull the breeze onshore sending chop across the still tranquil water. The wind would ruin the morning surf.
On these days he would usually broker trips with the fishermen, when the wind was bad or the surf was flat. The Americans from the surf camp, from behind the gated walls would gather on the beach, bored and tired. He would set up trips for them with the local fisherman who spoke no English but could troll behind the big shrimp boats to the west, catching tuna and jacks. The fishermen would get fifty dollars, seventy-five if fish were caught. Sometimes for those with cars he would arrange for a guide to take them to the high cerro or to San Miguel for the bullfights. The rumor was passed from guest to guest, and they would search for the man called Sereno. But today the young fishermen were all out on the water, checking their nets before the big swells rode in.
He rolled a cigarette with the rich tobacco from the pouch sprinkling with the broken pieces of mota. It was better this way, and he smoked it slowly feeling the tide recede. When it fell below the far rocks, across the other side of the narrow beach, he would carry his shirt and his tobacco pouch and walk around the rocks to El Cuco. When the tide receded in the day he could walk the beach to town, where it would be cooler and quicker than the hot and dusty road that ran behind the village over the bluff behind the lagoon. There the cars and trucks rattled over washouts carrying cattle and pigs and workers to the farms to the west. It was hot and dusty and narrow and hard to get a ride. On the beach he could skirt the cliffs and walk on the wet hard packed sand, still cool from the falling tide.
In El Cuco he ate at a small restaurant facing the town square. The food was no better or no worse than the others there. A window opened toward the beach, and the cross breeze kept it cool. Sun was bright and hot outside the window and the door, but the narrow room funneled the wind keeping it in cool shade. Here worked Nica. She was approachable. She wasn’t from here, and had no protections of family. A family, he knew could serve to protect someone against graft and violence and disorder. Without a family to protect her, he could approach and talk and dance with her without getting anyone upset.
After his meeting with Nica he ambled across the square. The town had a small open-air market with fruit stands and a few vendors. He filled a bag with Pilseners and old bread and fruit and a bottle of wine before walking back down the slope to the beach. The tide was still low and coming up higher and he walked heavy with his parcels around the rocks to his porch snug in the rocks between the bluff and ocean.
He swung in his hammock, drinking and smoking under the shaded porch. Reaching out with his hand he explored the seams in the block wall with his fingertips, and pushing off he swung back and forth suspended in the air. The movement was reassuring; the breeze was not enough here to make him swing and he would otherwise lie still and hot and stifling. Air rushed by and made him dizzy and made the landscape of sky and sand and ocean swing in diminishing arcs before his eyes. He did not want to lie still and unmoving.
A dog nosed his hand, and he pushed off of the dog, swinging back and forth in the shade and breaking pieces off of the stale loaf and feeding them to the dog. He was unusual: healthy, fully fleshed and collared. He belonged to La Chica and she would be nearby if the dog was here. He rolled another cigarette thick and full tamping the heavier end and holding it out when he heard the scrape of a sandal on concrete and the dog’s ears pitched forward. Her client had been safely guided back to his hotel at the surf camp she was building east of town along the big lagoon east of El Cuco. Dark and lithe, she took the smoke and a beer she pulled a chair alongside. Everyone had expected him to provide her protection. She needed none though, and his advances had gone unrequited some time ago. Now she extended a leg to the toe of his hammock, rocking it gently and drinking her beer and smoking slowly in blue curling wisps. And it was enough, and better this way, moving slowly and without effort in the shade.
Together they watched the tide come up to the homemade sea wall, stones laid one by one by Chipe’s father. The tide came up and the wind blew stronger onshore and one by one the riders came in from the breakers until none were left. The tide was high and the big sets crashed in solid walls, rushing and rebounding off the bluff and the sea wall in chop and confusion. Wood and leaves and trash swirled in the wash a few meters from his feet, swinging slowly and rocking gently too and fro. But the wall was built well by Chipe and his father, and it would be many years before the mortar crumbled and was undercut by the rushing water.
There they sat, under the shade of the roof drinking and smoking, she rocking him gently and rhythmically. “It’s gonna be all time” she said. “It’ll be firing double tomorrow.” He took a long slow drag, and rested his hands in his lap.
“Yeah, it’ll be all time for sure.” He thought of tomorrow’s high tide, surging forward, driven forward by the big swells unridable in a heavy afternoon onshore breeze. He’d never seen it reach that far up the beach, to the tail of the long and narrow and stinking lagoon. It would be good for the waves to wash over the beach he thought, and refill and renew the lagoon with fresh water and new life. “It’ll be all time,” he whispered again. Under the roof in the shade of the hammock he drank and smoked and dozed and slept. The fishing boats came in, over the breakers, fighting against the swirling chop and then gliding gracefully to a stop in the shallow water. The young men would run down with the dolly, balancing the middle of the boat and run it up to the trees, chocking it still in the sand. The wind rocked him gently now, and he was swinging alone in the shade.
When the sun dipped below the bluff he went to work and retrieved his second board. He didn’t care for the feel or look of the big gun. It was thinly narrow and pointed like a weapon for a soldier going to war, and surprisingly thick and heavy despite its sleekness. He waxed the board heavily and checked the leash for kinks and tears. Cool air moved past him, slowly pouring off the land and down the ravine. As he worked in the shade he could feel the land exhale and the water flatten.
The takeoff points would be full tonight. The big swells were starting to break overhead now, and the long pauses gave everyone a chance to paddle through the low surf to try their hand at a big wave. When he paddled out he was among the first, but far from the only one out, and had to wait until he could catch his first wave. The gun was fast and squirrelly and wanted to run out from under him. The wave was steep and fast and he plunged down its face, cutting a bottom turn so sharp he threw himself from his board and was cycled through the wash. He took two more waves, duck diving fluidly deep below the tipping crest. With the next drop he spread low and broad, leaning into the turn. Riding the wave as far as he could, he practiced his cutbacks, coming back into the closing wave. The big swell tomorrow would break steep and fast, he thought, and was no place to be uncomfortable.
After four good rides he rode the whitewash in, flat on his belly, arms levering the hanging teardrop of the gun’s nose. Darkness was oncoming and the waves were no longer the danger. Day was failing and in the flat glassy light he couldn’t see the other surfers to steer around them. He felt ready and awake, and he walked along the water’s edge, even though the sand was now cool. When the big swell came tomorrow he would be ready for the excitement, excitement made even more palpable when tipped with fear.
Other surfers came off the water and gathered in tight knots along the beach, watching night as it came over the narrow beach. There was safety on the beach, in and among the families that came down to enjoy the onset of darkness and catch a cool breeze in the open air. They would swim and play soccer on the narrowly slanting beach, safe in the company of their families. Sereno too was safe, though danger could now lurk in the jungle and among the rocks toward El Cuco. He stowed his board and retrieved his cooler from his locked room, taking a six-pack to the palapa near the boats. The fishermen gathered with their families, lean and brown and younger than he. They drank and smoked and together watched the children play.
When the time felt right he walked back and rinsed under the shower. The sun had set and the rooftop cistern had cooled. Drying himself partially he let the water remain on his chest; the slow moving night air would help to cool him. Around the hotel he walked, up the steep rocky hill level with the road and skirting the edge of the village above the lagoon. In the shade of the trees the lagoon failed to reflect any light, it was dark and black – a blank spot, a canker in the middle of the beating heart of this fishing hamlet. It should provide fish, crabs, a cool place to swim, a sanctuary, he thought. He thought of rope swings and barbeque and kids splashing while floating idly in white plastic inner tubes while mothers gossiped and fathers listened in a group around the radio. Walking around high above the lagoon the water had dried and he started to sweat, carrying his shirt with the beer and wine to keep it clean and dry.
He crossed the deep ravine at the head of the lagoon. It was undersized for the slow trickle that it now held. He neared a row of homes that lined the road where the bluff flattened and bent to pick a few palm-sized rocks. When the dog rushed him he skipped a rock in front of it and sent him back, barking and false charging in fear. The next one drew a yip and the dog retreated back into the yard.
Carmen always greeted him warmly, even before he was Sereno and when he was barely even gringo tranquilo she was polite and demure. She made a fine wife and kissed him on both cheeks. She and Chipe always welcomed him into their home, and he was glad to present her with her favorite wine. Carmen would have made him a fine wife he thought, smart, bright and industrious. She showed him to the table, opening and bringing them beers and hustling the children indoors. Occasionally she would check on them, bringing more beer and salsa.
They ate together. Chipe had saved him five of the largest prawns; the rest ate chicken. He found that without exception fishermen would not eat their catch. Carmen had boiled them in a thick sauce and served them over rice with beans and tortillas and fried plantains. Simplicity and honesty ruled women’s' kitchens and he had learned to eat without a fork, peeling the shrimp and scooping the beans with the thick flat tortilla and licking his fingers clean. After dinner they danced to the radio, Chipe and the older children laughing and hooting pointing at the big slow and clumsy man dancing with their mother.
He left the couple to dance and he fetched another round of drinks. The small refrigerator was hidden in a cubby outside. Chipe had always been a successful fisherman and his income had been well augmented by guiding tourists to jacks and tuna and bullfights. Despite a ceiling fan, radio and the small refrigerator they remained practical people and had built a lean-to thatch roof against a cinderblock wall. It was cooler to cook outside, though Carmen used a propane burner instead of the wood grill. He poured her another glass of wine and popped the tops on two more bottles of Pilsener. The dancing had ended and Carmen left to put the children to bed.
Together they drank the cold beer and rolled cigarettes. When Carmen returned it was to take up her sewing under the light and warn her husband with no uncertainty in her eyes. Chipe waved her off. Sereno’s head started to buzz and the blood pounded in his ears. He was floating now above the table, the ravine, the lagoon and the small fishing village with the beautiful right-handed point break. He looked from the clean break over the beach to the still and dark lagoon. “La laguna,” he asked, “Cuando nueva agua llegar?”
They both looked at him, unsure of what he was asking or why. How could he ask them he thought, about the lagoon and when it was refreshed; when the trash and the filth would be cleansed by new water? He started again. “La laguna de Los Flores, es con mala agua, si?
“Si.”
“La agua is vieja y muy sucio. Manana, los grande olas limpiar la laguna?”
“Es possible” Chipe said. “Es possible con viento y olas.” He shrugged without commitment. Wind and waves he thought, a day of wind and waves could reach the lagoon. If not, when the rainy season came the ravine would turn into a torrent and flood the lagoon with freshwater. He could wait he thought, to see it flood during the rainy season; it was but a short time away.
“En estacion de la lluviar, el rio limpiar la laguna?”
“Quiza si, quiza no.” Chipe was noncommittal again, rolling another cigarette. “El rio llega a agricolas ahora.” He thought of the farms, the pigs, cattle and melons that all grew to the west. They were thirsty for water, and the water from the little creek now flowed, diverted to the farms. He lit and took a long soulful drag, holding the tickling smoke inside his lungs he exhaled looking up into the jungle canopy.
“Comprende.” he said, “Comprende.” He understood and thought of the growing swell, sliding closer during the night and the inevitability of its arrival. The swell would arrive and the waves would crash and thunder, and the lagoon would be renewed. It was inevitable. Wind and rain and water had helped shape this earth and in the end, would prevail. He felt sure of it. The swell was timeless, ageless. People, he thought, their lives and lies and abuses, could never stand against the insoluble inevitability of wind and sun and surf. They sat in the dark now, drinking in the soft light cast from a waxing moon. He thanked them for dinner and received kisses and hugs. Chipe said he would be there to watch him ride the big waves tomorrow. Carmen would say a prayer to St. Ignacio that evening for him. Few, if any of the fishermen would go out today and many would pass the day watching the big surf.
Walking home in the darkness he stopped above the still lagoon. The moonlight reflected off a narrow patch of water, surrounded by the propping roots of the mangroves. The roots kinked and coiled around and over the open water encircling and squeezing the pool. It reminded him of cow’s heart he had seen under the glass case of a butcher shop, as a child, a heart attached to the veins and arteries, a still heart cold and bruised that didn’t beat. In the darkness, he couldn’t see the garbage, the scum, though it was black and still. He picked up a rock and threw it hard and far, trying to hit the lagoon and send ripples across the still and dark surface. It fell short. Others rattled around the thick trees. Some things, he decided as he gave up on the labor, couldn’t be reached.
Consciousness came slowly in the predawn. The hammock didn’t swing and he’d rolled his head away from the water during the night. A dog barked and a bird squawked a shrill and urgent cry. He was aware of the same sense of urgency, gnawing at him slowly and roiling him inside. In the stillness of the morning he heard the first crash and hiss of the surf pounding its way inward along the break. When the tide rose the swell would thunder and shake the rock itself.
He made preparations, drinking a bottle of water and eating two bananas. He stretched his back and shoulders circling forward and back. He rechecked the leash and board and put his room and porch all into order. The big swells were rolling and he felt the inevitability of their pull. Paddling through the inside break he hit the first wall of wash but the reformed wave had already been broken and he punched through. He stayed well off the point now; as the big swells rose and fell they unzipped across the small bay. The rises were towering and the troughs were deep, deep enough at this tide to roll and bounce him among the jagged rocks off the bluff should he falter.
After the inside break he paused and slowed his paddle. The big swells were firing, unfurling in clean lines from right to left. They were thick and heavy and he would need a break to get under and through. He paddled, slowly keeping in place and riding up and over the reforming waves. Then he accelerated, digging and pushing himself forward shoveling hard as a boil of water folded down toward him. He rocked forward and dove the nose deep under the upward pull, deep into the dark and cold water feeling the pressure from the water until it passed and he popped upwards safely behind the wave. The effort had knocked him backward and broken his momentum and he dug harder and faster, diving under two more waves. His shoulders burned as he paddled hard, pulling himself out and into the ocean. Gritting his teeth he adjusted his course left and up and around the unfurling lip of the last wave. Still he paddled, out and beyond the break of the heavy outside sets where he paused, panting and spent. He let the current pull him back in line with the takeoff near the break, watching the sets roll under him and steepen on their collision course with the land, detonating on the point with indifferent violence.
Waiting, he kept his spot on the outside, waiting for the next big set. He was not going to put himself in too deep, not this early. The gun still felt squirrelly. And the waves... At low tide the big sets were breaking far out on the point, further than he had ever been before in the deep water. They were shallow sloped, and then steepening in the upper half to throw a huge oblong barrel. He had never seen these back-heavy waves before, never here nor anywhere else. Out in front of the break he had to paddle hard to catch speed in the shallow part of the wave, double hauling until he started to drop. He dropped slowly into the toe of the wave, rising well over his head behind him. Crouching low he moved up the shoulder and into the steepening section of the wave and turned back to the bottom feeling sluggish and slow. Picking up speed he cut back up the face of the wave, exiting over the top in a burst and kicking the board away for a clean landing. He felt ready, and gathering his board he paddled out to the takeoff.
Ready and waiting, deep into the takeoff, he sat calmly on his board, with flat swells rolling under him. From the horizon he watched his set roll in. In the troughs he lost sight of it, rising again the lead wave appeared, slowly closer and closer. Then there was no doubt as the wave towered above him, sucking up and steepening. He turned his board, looking over his right shoulder he only saw the wave, it was kicking up big and he was racing backwards up its slope. At the shoulder he felt his feet lift higher and he popped up, low and straight. He would need to be ready for the drop and if he were too deep in the break he would need to dive deep and hard or be pinned and smeared into the rocks. He hung motionless on the shoulder as seconds ticked by and then the wave fell away. It fell away and he plunged straight down fast and headlong. He pressured the tail out left and took the force of the bottom turn in his knees carving a wall of spray as he climbed back up the wave riding a roundhouse cutback back into the barrel. Cutting back again the barrel engulfed him He rode on the shoulder matching speed as the barrel rolled and rolled. And the sound… The muffled opiate trance of the sound of a circular tunnel of solid water defied physics, defied acoustics: it was loud and calming and rushed through his ears like a throaty wind.
The rest of the morning he surfed the big swells until his arms ached and his legs trembled. He rode in as far as he could and then paddled slowly to the inner break, riding the wash to where he could plant his feet into the sand. Looking back he watched the few remaining riders dropping into waves that were breaking double overhead and more, throwing barrels and exploding onto the bluff.
He had been out a long time, longer than usual. The wind had held and the big swell kept most riders sitting on the beach. They eyed him silently as he walked alone. The tide was out but rising, and the hot black sand burned his feet as he walked to the seawall and into his hammock. Sleep came fitfully and started and stopped. He was so tired, with sleep oppressively heavy and pinning him down making his head swim. He thought of those first nights half in dream and partly in daydreaming recall, of walking the wet sand in the falling tide with hermit crabs scuttling away from his headlamp. There had been so many of them, more than he’d ever seen. They too walked the wet sand, protected in their shells from the violent crashes and pulls of the rolling waves. In the hammock in the calm hot air his body still felt the ripples and the movement of the heavy swell rising and dropping beneath him. Without swaying he was rolled and roiled, motionless in the hammock.
