In the Break (10 page)

After drying off I put on my sweatshirt. Amber wore her new Indian cotton pullover as she dried her hair with a towel. Jamie
peered out at the building waves, still in his wetsuit.

The man who’d extorted our money to park sat in his doorway eating. After he finished his plate he stood up, this time with
ease, and made his way to me. His hair was wet and he had clean clothes on. He smelled of aftershave.

“Your money,” he said, offering the ten dollars I had given him.

“No, it is fine, I said.

“I insist,” the man said. “I am not right these days.”

“If you want to charge, that is fine.”

“You make no trouble. Others are not so welcome. They have been like pigs when here. We live here, and those who visit should
respect our houses,” the man said. He still held out the two five dollar bills.

“I agree.”

“Take your money.”

I remembered attending S.C. football games at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Nestor would park our car right on the lawn of
some family that was making extra money by letting people cover their property with cars. My father paid twenty-five dollars
and sometimes more for the luxury of parking very close to the stadium. We were right on top of the waves.

“I will pay five dollars to park. That is fair.”

“Fine,” the man said. He pocketed one five, giving the other one to me.

“You like the big waves?” he said. His voice, for some reason, reminded me of my grandfather’s.

“Oh, yes!” I said.

“I know a very good place,” he said.

“Where?” I said.

“In the ocean,” he said.

“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t.

“An island,” he said.

“What’s he saying?” Jamie grunted from his perch on the rocks.

I could barely see him, what with the blackening sky and the swirling thick mist covering everything. The sea was now slick-black,
oily almost, and the waves hitting the rocks exploded with a white, rhythmic frequency, the tide all the way in.

“He says he knows an island where the waves are really good.”

“Excellent!” Jamie said.

“That’s nice,” Amber said, “but last time I checked we didn’t have a boat.”

Good, Amber, I thought.

“You wish to go?” the man said.

“Yes,” I said. “But we have no way of getting there.”

“I am a fisherman,” the man said. “But recently I have not been fishing. I have been only drinking.” He paused and looked
out over the now black sea. “I have a dory and will take you tomorrow, if you wish.”

“What’s he saying?” Jamie asked.

“He says he has a boat and will take us tomorrow.”

“Excellent,” Jamie said. “Hell, yes!”

I looked at Amber. She shivered. The man’s confession worked like a truth serum for me. I wanted to confess to him as well.
I’ve stolen my mother’s car! We’re on the run! Jamie beat up his stepfather! I love Amber!

I said, “What is your name?”

“Jésus,” the man said.

We sat before a small fire, right on the point overlooking Puntas, banda music blaring on the only radio station we could
get. The fire burned bright and flamed out, and then one of us would feed it some brush and driftwood until the process would
repeat itself. It was a dark clear night, and out of the fire’s light all you could see was black, except for the sky, which
was filled with cosmic treats: the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Mars low on the horizon, and billions of other stars and
planets and galaxies, even, whose names I didn’t know and whose light was reaching this point on Earth after traveling for
a longer time than the Earth had even existed, for all I knew.

Jamie had a pint of sloe gin. I hated the shit; it tasted like medicine. We sat on top of sleeping bags, sophisticated drinkers,
but, still, sand covered our existence, and that was okay by me.

Amber stretched on a blanket in various yoga poses as Jamie and I watched. Right now she was in a cross-legged forward fold,
her head slightly above the sand.

“That’s cheap about my aunt’s trailer,” I said. “Maybe they’ll be gone tomorrow. Maybe whoever it is just took a long weekend.”
I didn’t know what the deal was, but those people were still there when we drove back to San Rafael. I might have had a chance
had they not been there. I might have been able to set up Jamie at the trailer and then return home with Amber.

“I wonder where that old Mexican will take us?” Jamie said, changing the subject. He didn’t seem concerned about what he would
do, now that he was down here. All he wanted to do was surf, and he was doing it. I didn’t want to leave until he was settled,
I knew that much.

“You’re so lame. He’s not taking
us
anywhere,” Amber said, releasing out of her pose at one-eighth speed.

“He’s got a boat.”

“So he says.”

“He probably does,” I said.

“See.” Jamie sneered at Amber.

“I’m not going out with that drunk,” Amber said.

“No problem,” I said.

“He won’t be drunk tomorrow.” Jamie took a big swig of sloe gin.

Amber looked at me. Jamie looked up in the sky.

I threw some small pieces of brush on the fire. It sputtered awake. “Jésus.”

“Jesus, shit,” Jamie said.

“What?”

“His name is Jésus.”

“Absolutely. Jesus.” Amber lay back on a sleeping bag. She arched her back so that only her shoulders and feet made contact.
I could hear her slow, deep breaths.

I sat with my legs crossed, sifting the sandy dirt between my feet.

Jamie stood up a little wobbly and threw a rock over the cliff. You couldn’t see it hit water; it was that dark, though you
could see the whitewater of breaking waves out in the lineup.

I stretched out my leg, stopping it on Amber’s sleeping bag. I stretched farther, until I touched her foot. She came out of
her pose and sat up smiling, rubbing my shin, back and forth.

“I don’t want to go out on the ocean with that guy,” she said.

Jamie took another drink of the gin. “I do.”

“Really, Jamie,” Amber said. “I don’t want to go out on a boat.”

“Don’t come, then. Juan’ll go. Right?”

Amber stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff. She looked over.

I lay down on the sleeping bag, right where she had been seconds earlier.

“Right?” Jamie said much louder.

“I don’t know. I’ve got my mom’s car here.”

“One more day won’t mean shit. It’s not like you’re
not
in trouble. Whatever happens, happens.”

“Stop it, Jamie,” Amber said.

I fell for the taunt. “Let’s see what his boat is like. One more day won’t make that much difference.” I hoped the people
at my aunt’s place would be gone by then; I hoped my parents were …

Approaching the fire, Amber said, “Jamie, you think you’re Kurtz going farther and farther up the river. Well, you’re not!
We need to decide some things. Now! How are you going to stay down here? What if that trailer’s not …”

“What river?” he interrupted her. “We’re surfers! And I’ll stay right here, surfing.”

“Get real.”

“I am. Realer than I’ve ever been in my life.” He took another swig from the bottle.

“Don’t be so lame!” Amber sat down again on the sleeping bag, right next to me.

Jamie got up, sort of half-walked and stumbled over to my mother’s car, rooted around on the floor, came back, and plopped
down on his sleeping bag. He pulled something out of his pants pocket. With unsteady fingers he placed it onto a burning branch.

“Where’d you get that?” I could see Amber’s bare legs, see the tiny hearts on the gold ankle bracelet she always wore, a gift
from Robert Bonham.

Jamie took a hit off the joint and passed it to me.

I hated pot; it makes you stupid and lazy, and that was how I felt now, though I still refused it. I passed it on to Amber
but she refused so I passed it back to Jamie.

“Cindy,” he said, exhaling smoke.

“Did you get her phone number?” Amber put some more brush on the fire.

Sometimes they would do that, just start talking about a subject that nobody else knew, except for them. One of them would
say something, a complete non sequitur, but the other one would be right on track.

Amber placed the paper bag of stuff from the store in front of her, sitting down. She reached under her Indian jacket and
unhooked her bra, pulling it out and looking at the back strap. She
frowned at it, and then squinted. She opened the nail polish and painted some on the metal hook.

“No. What are you doing?”

“Address?”

“No. What for?”

“Talk to her, write to her.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“What are you doing?” I pretended to be calm in spite of the appearance of her silky black bra.

“This thing’s rubbing my back.”

“My sunglasses are rubbing my ear,” Jamie said.

“Let me see them.”

He took off his glasses and tossed them to her. She squinted at them and then painted some nail polish on the curved part.

“Why are things so fucked up?” I said.

Amber looked up in the sky and chuckled.

“My brother got married just because Bonnie’s pregnant. Why’d they have to get married?”

“She’s pregnant? I didn’t know that!” Amber shouted.

“Why’d Mom marry F?
Marry
!”

“Why did you mark up his underwear?” Amber said.

“They were skid marks,” Jamie said.

“Shit,” Amber said.

“My point exactly.”

“It wasn’t a very good welcome for him.”

“He wasn’t welcome.”

“He did his flamethrower shit,” I said.

“What?” Amber said.

“You know how he always farts? Well, one time when Juan and I had just gotten back from surfing, he spread his legs wide apart,
put his butt in the air, and lit his fart with a match. Can you believe it?” Jamie looked to me for commiseration.

“It was foul shit,” I said.

“You guys,” Amber said.

“Full dick stuff,” Jamie said. “Skunk city.”

When F had first moved in to Jamie’s house after he married Claire, Jamie and I put shoe polish on his underwear. You had
to respond, I mean the guy’s sitting right where Mr. Watkins used to sit, lighting his farts on fire. My older brother shoe-polished
my uncle’s underwear when we were younger. My uncle was a farter too. When Jamie and I did it to F’s — the asshole wore huge
white briefs! — we couldn’t stop giggling, and now, when I thought of it again, I giggled.

“It’s not funny, Juan,” Amber said. “You guys didn’t give him a chance. He was trying to help.”

“He was gravy training,” I said.

“Oh, and you were so good to him, Amber,” Jamie said. “You took his coins too.”

F went berserk on that one. He had a coin collection, or so he claimed, in a huge glass jar. Jamie and I took coins from the
so-called collection any time we wanted money. When the level became noticeably low, F hid the remaining loot somewhere where
we couldn’t find it. And gave Jamie a tongue lashing. Evidently everyone was raiding those coins.

“He is a jerk,” Amber said. “Let me have a beer, then.”

We had a cheap foam cooler filled with ice and sodas and a few beers. I opened three bottles and passed them around. Amber
took
some of Jamie’s pot as she handed his glasses back to him. He put them on and leaned back.

We sat there, watching the Baja sky, listening to the sounds of the empty night: waves breaking over the rocks, wind rustling
sand and fire, and every so often tires echoing off the pavement up on the road.

Amber did have a point about F. He hadn’t always been so bad. In fact, at first, I sort of liked him. He established an account
for Jamie at this place that made hamburgers — Bimbo Burgers they were called — miniature hamburgers that were outrageous.
Jamie could eat eight at a time, no sweat. I could eat four or five when I was hungry. Any time we wanted, and especially
on our way back from surfing, we could stuff ourselves with those little hamburgers. That had been cool on F’s part.

There were other things as well. One time F took Jamie, Greg Scott, and me to this all-you-can-eat smorgasbord. It was after
surfing, and F insisted on taking us. He paid, and then had to go run some errands. Jamie and Greg and I got down to business,
going for the roast beef first, with mashed potatoes. We each had two plates of that, and then went back for turkey plates.
By that time I was stuffed, but I just had to get some desert, German chocolate cake. But Jamie wasn’t finished. He went back
for ham, and then had two salads, and three deserts. When F came back from whatever he was doing, the manager of the place
was at our table telling Jamie that he couldn’t come back. Greg and I couldn’t help cracking up.

Jamie looked sort of embarrassed, when F intervened and said, “What are you talking about? Isn’t this all you can eat?”

The proprietor said, yes, it was, but there were limits, and Jamie had exceeded them.

“What limits?” F said.

“Look, I don’t want no trouble, okay, but this boy isn’t welcome here again.”

“Your food tastes like shit anyway,” F said. “C’mon, guys.”

He followed us out of the big room that was the restaurant, but stopped right in the entryway that separated the eating part
from the lobby. And there, before the manager, the staff, and the patrons, he lifted his leg and shook it as if there were
something stuck high up in his pants, all the while cutting a huge fart.

We were in the eighth grade and thought that was the funniest thing that would ever happen in our lives. Greg Scott fell on
the ground he was laughing so hard. My stomach hurt the next day, I’d laughed so much. But when I told my older brother, he
didn’t think it was that funny. He said it might have been funny if I had done it, or Jamie or Greg, but he said it wasn’t
funny when a grown man acted like a kid. Something’s off, he’d said.

It was later that I understood what my brother meant. It was like F had missed the day when they taught you boundaries or
something. He seemed to understand how to act around adults, but around kids he tried to be one of us, and he wasn’t, no way.
So it was inevitable that things would go wrong when this dipshit who sometimes outdid the kids tried to assume authority,
tried to impart discipline and shit, cause it just didn’t wash. And that was Jamie’s whole issue. How can you accept advice
or punishment from someone when you don’t respect them?