Rush (16 page)

Spencer says, ‘I'm going down there today. It's like this ritual I have. Surf the attack spots. I even flew to Western Australia once to make a break the day after an attack.'

I ask him, ‘What's the attraction?'

His reaction is strangely coy. He shrugs and says, ‘I dunno. Tempting fate, I guess.' It's like he's already distracted by the thought of something else. This seems to be how Spencer's mind works, leaping swiftly from one thing to the next, never settling for long.

He's out of his seat when he says, ‘C'mon, are you ready or what? I booked two seats.'

 

The plane is small and sits eight people. You can feel the wind shaking the frame, like a fat kid is jumping up and
down on the wing. The other passengers are journalists rushing to the scene of the attack, some freelance and others on assignment. Everybody is listening to Spencer; this is his classroom and he is the teacher, and class is in session.

Spencer is saying, ‘For a surfer there's a lot of excitement in being bumped by a shark. Basically, you're shitting yourself at the time. Anybody who says otherwise is a born liar. But when you get in to the shore, you're bragging to your mates. “I was bumped by a shark.” It's not a sensation you're going to forget. It's like brushing death.'

One of the girls toward the back of the plane is taking note of everything that Spencer says with a pen and pad.

Next, Spencer is saying, ‘This beach where the attack took place, it's renowned as a feeding ground for seals. Ideal for a white pointer shark. There are a lot of deep channels in the reef, and sharks love deep channels that they can sneak up from. They'll shoot up like bullets and seize their prey. They get the light in their eyes, and their vision is poor anyway. It's hard to discern if it's a seal they're about to eat, or a man on a board. Sharks are known to spit out a man after the first bite because they aren't really fond of us. Humans have so many bones. It's like a human eating fish, picking all of the tiny bones out, one at a time.'

Spencer seems to tire of talking and he turns to watch the world slide by below us. I can't be sure, but I'd bet money that he's thinking about the drop, about a dive.

The landing is shaky and I'm thinking that maybe this is how I die. A fiery death in a metal tube filled with
people I don't really know. The airport is nothing more than a short runway in a field, a series of sheds and a small building near a road leading seemingly into nowhere. This, apparently, is somewhere in South Australia.

Spencer rents a car and we take the highway to the coast. There are two surfboards strapped to the roof.

As he drives, Spencer is saying, ‘In all likelihood, the same shark isn't hanging around. So it's not like the shark is going to attack again, strike right after. But you can hope.'

He says, ‘During the first few days the breaks will be quiet. Nobody is game to go out. There will be a big fuss between the conservationists and the fishermen. Professional hunters will say that once the shark has a taste for human blood it has to be stopped. Conservationists argue that the surfers know the risk once they enter the domain of the shark.'

I ask him what his take on all of this is.

Spencer sighs and says, ‘I think it's nature running its course. Survival of the fittest, no matter the circumstances.' There's a beat before he says, ‘What I enjoy is defying nature.'

The beach is officially closed when we get there, but that doesn't mean anything. It's just like a warning. There aren't security guards trying to stop you, as if The Beatles were out there surfing and you wanted to interrupt for their autograph.

It's not like trying to talk a man off a ledge. ‘Think about what you're doing, how selfish you are.'

Basically, it's not like anybody is going to stop you.

For Spencer, it's like, ‘Man, we're going surfing.'

It doesn't matter that I don't know how to surf and I've never done it before in my life. To Spencer, these are the kinds of details that are irrelevant. He's more interested in the sharks than he is in the waves.

The waves break off a reef about fifty yards from the base of a series of cliffs. To get to the beach we have to follow an unsteady trail of rocks to the cliff base. This is one of the most isolated surfing spots in the country. The coastline would be abandoned if it wasn't for people in parked cars, spectators hoping for a glimpse of
The Shark
, or newspaper photographers taking pictures to send back to home base.

On my board I wish that cigarettes were waterproof. The wetsuit Spencer has given me is too large and doesn't keep the cold at bay. I lie flat on my stomach with the smell of salt and wax in my nose, bobbing up and down on the choppy water. Conditions are less than ideal and the sky is clouded over with grey.

Spencer calls across to me from where he straddles his board. His hair hangs loose and wet around his shoulders. ‘I can almost smell death on the water.'

I assure him, ‘It's an olfactory illusion.'

Around us the water is dark and offers no reflection. I imagine some great shape below the surface, circling us, rising slowly and biding its time. My question is who the shark is more likely to take. I wonder if there's any real pain, or if it's so sudden that it won't matter. How long does it really take those endorphins to kick in?

Spencer can tell me these sorts of things, but he's too busy assessing the sets. The swell is maybe three feet. I watch him move, almost forgetting that I'm possible shark-fodder. The statistics are basically that you're more likely to
be hit by lightning than eaten by a shark. My problem with that statistic is it's usually quoted by conservationists.

It's a right-handed reef break and Spencer moves gracefully. He's been in the water for over twenty years. Earth, air, water; anywhere is his territory.

My first reaction when he tumbles from his board is that a shark has taken him, but it's just him rolling forward. When Spencer pulls himself back onto the board and faces the next set of waves, he's clearly not concerned by the possibility of sharks. Maybe it's just the knowledge that he's out here tempting them, and he's secure enough in that.

After maybe an hour of surfing—him taking waves and me on my board, either lying flat or sitting with a leg over each side as shark bait—Spencer pulls a knife from I don't know where. The knife is sleek, looks brand new. It's one of those hunting knives.

Spencer holds out his palm and slices deep across it. Blood drips in streams over the sides of his palm before he's even finished drawing the blade. He winces as he does this, but then he smiles. He holds his hand up for me to see, pouring blood down his wrist and dripping it into the water. He is completely lucid as he does this.

He tells me to hold out my own hand and I do so without a thought. The pain doesn't really register, maybe because my hands are numb from the cold. The blood brings warmth to my outer body, and I cradle the wound as Spencer paddles away, leaving a trail of his blood as dark as the ocean. In a minute he's back on the waves, ignorant of his wound.

I draw my legs up onto the board where I can put my chin on my knees. For a moment I'm rocking unsteadily,
and then my balance settles. I look down at my palm but I can't see the wound through the blood, and the first reaction is to wash the blood away in the water. I do it, tempting death. When I get a good look at my wound it's deep and I know it will need stitches.

I curl my palm into a fist, squeezing blood onto the board. I hold tight until I'm sure the blood flow is considerably lessened. The cold is biting at me.

Spencer continues to surf without a care in the world.

I don't spy a single fin nearby. I don't see much of anything at all.

The gulls are cawing and the sound strikes me as eerie, and I almost consider paddling in; Spencer doesn't really need me out here, but I tell myself I have nothing to be afraid of. It's the fear that really bites you and gives the adrenaline rush. You don't need a set of shark teeth for this at all. I finally understand and paddle in without Spencer, and it's not until I reach the shore that I realise how excited I am.

I'm not afraid of death because I know it's coming. I know because it's inside of me.

Fear is one of the vital elements that keeps us alive and makes us human. I'm not afraid to die. It happens to everybody. But there's a certain amount of fear involved in putting yourself at risk. Fear of the pain that comes with failure, that blinding pain before death sets in.

I'm looking at the open wound on my hand, and the skin has been pulled tight from the cold and the water and I can see right through the layers of my flesh.

I turn back to the ocean, and Spencer isn't there. For a moment I can't see him at all, and I feel a slight grip on my heart as I think that a shark might actually have
taken him. But that would be stupid. That would be predictable.

Spencer is paddling in and soon he's at the shore, smiling and laughing.

 

Our stitches are received in tandem. Eight across the palm of our left hands. The doctor is looking at us like we're insane, and it takes a great deal of effort to convince him otherwise before he starts smiling. Spencer is telling us this story about a guy he knows who was speared by his own surfboard. He's saying, ‘Wetsuit was the only thing holding his innards in place.'

The doctor won't believe the story, and Spencer says, ‘It's true, goddamnit. I swear it's true, man. Three hundred stitches and all that did it to him was his own board.'

When we're finished, Spencer asks where we can go for a good drink, and the doctor obliges with directions. In the car I ask Spencer, I don't know why, if Juliet has a boyfriend.

He says, ‘Why? You interested in her?'

I tell him I don't know.

He says, ‘You should be. I've seen the way she looks at you.'

I tell him I hadn't really noticed, even though I had.

He says, ‘I hear she's wild in bed.'

The frown on my face feels like invisible hands are roughly contorting my features. ‘This is your sister you're talking about.'

He nods and says, ‘Yeah,' as if I'm asking for confirmation.

We're in a small country pub drinking and there are maybe two or three beers in us when a man comes up to the bar and he sees the stitches in my face and he says, and I swear this is exactly what he asks me, he says, ‘What happened to you? You try to kiss the mirror and it break or somethin'?' There's a long flat silence after this, and the girl behind the bar gives an uncomfortable chuckle in an attempt to break it.

I roll my eyes and Spencer politely suggests the man fuck off.

This man, he's big and broad shouldered and wearing a flannel jacket. He hasn't shaved for about a week. He says, ‘Hey, okay. Lighten up, I'm just messin' around.'

He takes his beer and wanders back to the table where he's seated with another group of truckers. It seems they pay us little attention, and soon they're chuckling and talking among themselves, drinking beer and talking about women.

The girl at the bar says to us, ‘I thought there was going to be some trouble for a second there.'

Spencer says, ‘What? From that guy? No way.'

We go back to minding our own business and Spencer tells me the story about the time he did an instructional dive with a middle-aged woman strapped to his back. Between bursts of wheezing laughter Spencer says, ‘She fucking pissed on me, man. I swear she pissed herself.'

I'm doubled over against the bar coughing and laughing and Spencer starts slapping me on the back. The girl at the bar stares at us, bewildered.

We leave the bar as dusk is settling outside and Spencer says maybe we should check into the motel over the road and we can catch a flight back to Sydney in the morning.
As he talks he's flexing his palm, opening and closing, looking at the line of stitches.

I say, ‘Whatever you want. You're in charge of this expedition.'

I'm looking west toward the sun setting over flat earth. The door to the pub behind us opens but we aren't really paying a lot of attention until we're surrounded by truckers.

One of them is shoving Spencer and saying, ‘Hey, dick-head. You think you can talk to my mate like the way you did in there?'

Spencer seems largely unperturbed. What he says, grabbing the trucker's wrist, is, ‘What I think is maybe you should stop touching me.' He says this casually, and there's only the barest hint of a threat in his voice. He lets go of the trucker's wrist.

The trucker throws a punch that lands on Spencer's cheek. There's a crack over the dull thump. This whole time I'm standing there not sure of what to do, because I've never been in a fight before. But it's too late to think because one of them grabs me from behind and another starts throwing punches while I'm defenceless. At the same time Spencer is regaining his balance and wiping blood from his face, telling the trucker he's going to regret that one.

Those endorphins that Spencer spoke about, that adrenaline rush, it's really filling me with each punch. The grip on me from behind is tight, but I throw my head back and it connects with something, maybe somebody's jaw. There's as much pain in the back of my skull as I'm sure there is in my attacker's face because he lessens his grip on me. Then I'm looking at the guy who's been
throwing punches into my stomach and face, and I knock him to the ground.

The fight lasts a minute, maybe two. It's quick and it's brutal, but it's also clumsy. Punches are thrown at any opportunity, regardless of where the blow lands. There are three of them and two of us, but somehow we get the upper hand. This might be because I take one man out of the equation with a blow to the balls and leave him curled in the foetal position moaning.

Spencer kicks at one of the men on the ground, maybe breaking a rib.