The Tribes of Palos Verdes Read online

  * * *

  A few minutes before sunset, Dan paddles out. His arms move like spiders through the water, his face dry and calm.

  “He’s coming out,” Jim hisses. “Be cool.”

  Dan paddles up right next to me, looks me up and down, and smiles.

  “Hey, little thing,” he says. “I like surfer girls.”

  He doesn’t even look at Jim. But he keeps talking to me, telling me to move up on my board and paddle from the nose in rough water. He nods a lot and smiles for no reason, extra stoned.

  Nothing he says makes much sense. He talks about the rat race, how you’ve got to get out of it and surf “free.” He talks about his friend’s secret pot farm in Humboldt County and a crazy dog that followed him into the water in Hawaii. He starts one story before finishing another and forgets where he left off.

  I get cold listening, so I start to paddle for a wave, but Dan grabs hold of the rails of my board and shakes me around, laughing.

  “Don’t go anywhere, cutie,” he says. “I want to talk to you for a minute.”

  Jim sits about six feet away, brooding now. He doesn’t go for any more waves. It’s dark when we get out of the water. I paddle back in with Dan, while Jim follows a few yards behind. Dan walks me up the trail. His arm keeps grabbing mine.

  Just before we leave, he tells me to come back sometime and he’ll show me a secret spot. I turn around and look at him, warm all of a sudden.

  “What a freak,” Jim mutters on the way home. Then he stays in my mother’s room, watching TV, ignoring me.

  * * *

  Even Skeezer doesn’t know how to surf goofyfoot, right foot forward. That’s my favorite trick, even though I’m not left-handed like most goofyfoots. I can lean way back, putting my weight on my back foot, just cruising, rubbing my stomach and patting my face, taking the top of my wet suit off, balancing it on my head.

  That’s what I like doing, even when they laugh at me, balancing a wet suit on my head, just cruising down the face of a wave, holding out twenty seconds, singing La-la-la-la.

  Other guys get mad when there’s lots of people out, but I’ve decided not to let crowds bother me. I’m a wave catcher. While the other guys huddle up in a pack, I go in front, first, behind, over the top; it doesn’t matter. I’ve learned to look at surfing like a war.

  The guys think of surfing as being mellow, everyone in turn, like the line at the supermarket. But I’ve learned to look at it like this—you only get a turn if you fight for one. I let Jim take good waves but I never let Skeezer or Mikey. Jim says if I’m not careful, someone’s going to punch me, or maybe worse. But no guy in Palos Verdes would ever punch a girl.

  No one has the guts to punch a Samoan either. Samoans are huge, at least three hundred fifty pounds. They have roses and barbwire tattooed on their thick necks. Skeezer says they keep guns in their wet suits.

  Even if the waves are good, everyone clears out of the water when we see their battered brown station wagon pull up. We sit on the rocks, far away from the gang of Samoans as they amble down the public cliff stairs.

  I’ve seen them reach into the tide pools and grab for fresh abalone, eating the meat from the shells raw and whole, then sucking the juices from mussels that lie clumped on the buoy. They dance and laugh together, drinking malt liquor out of brown bottles until they are so drunk that they can barely stand. I watch them from the rocks in awe. I have never seen people dance without music before.

  The Samoans live in San Pedro, a city you should be afraid of. People are murdered there in their sleep for no reason.

  San Pedro is twenty miles from Palos Verdes. As I ride through its streets, on the way to the mall with my father, I talk about the Samoans eating from the tide pools, sucking the fish raw from the shell. I press my hand against my father’s as he quickly drives his Mercedes through the streets, decorated with graffiti, lined with barbwire.

  I shiver and ask him if it’s true what my mother says—that he’s going to stop giving us money, so we’ll be poor.

  “She says you’ll kick us out and we’ll have to move to San Pedro and go on welfare.”

  “Goddammit,” is all he says.

  My mother is as big as a Samoan now.

  * * *

  The air is hot, humid, semitropical. I lie in a raft in the pool, rubbing my neck with an ice cube, waiting for Jim to finish talking to our mother. As I watch through the open window Jim bites his nails. My mother throws up her hands, annoyed.

  “It isn’t stealing, Jim. Your father owes me. He chose to get nasty, so I’m forced to rearrange things.” She then asks if he understands the difference between stealing and rearranging.

  I put my fingers in my ears, tired of hearing about money, banks, signatures, accounts. As the sun pours down, I feel more and more restless, thinking about P-Land, wondering if Dan really knows a secret spot.

  I close my eyes, remembering an older guy’s attention, wanting more.

  * * *

  When I get to P-Land, Dan’s passed out in his bus under the old eucalyptus. But when I knock on the door, he sits up, squinting, trying to place me.

  “Hey,” he says, his eyes red and filmy. “Come in.” He smiles, patting the stained knit afghan beside him.

  His bus is dirty, strewn with sandy clothes and rusted tools. I sit on a moldy flowered cushion stolen from an old couch. I tell him I want to know about the secret spot. He rubs his hands together, looking me up and down.

  “So you came for some secret fun.” Then he laughs and winks, loading the bong from a Baggie stuffed with pot.

  When I bend down to take a toke, he snatches the bong away, laughing, telling me I can’t smoke until I meet his lady.

  Then he introduces me to his bong.

  “Meet Miss Lady Highness,” he says, tipping the bong as if in a bow, running his wrinkled fingers up and down its neck, caressing it. “She’s my best girl. I don’t want her to get jealous.”

  The bong is yellow, cracked with age, very tall and thick like a plumbing pipe. “Miss Lady Highness” is scripted sloppily on its sides with a red marking pen. Dan lights a match to the pipe end, and tells me to suck deeply. He laughs. The pot crackles and burns, sweet in the hot air.

  I smoke two deep hits, looking at him. He winks at me again; his dry, bony hand comes clamping down on my leg. I move back a little, but his hand stays locked, squeezing. The pot is very strong, the bus glows surreal orange in the sunset. Floral patterns on the pillow seem to skip and jump. His hand traverses up my leg as he tells me about a wave he surfed in Java.

  “There were these electric eels underneath us, man. It was crazy!”

  He puts his mouth close to my ear.

  “Have you ever smoked Thai stick before, girlie?”

  “Nooooo,” I say, my voice very low and floating.

  His hands rub rough, like a dry towel up and down my legs, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. His face hovers close to mine, expanding. He draws in a hit and exhales slowly, licking his lips, blowing hard. I put my hands in front of my eyes, waving the smoke away. I smell fish and beer on his breath as he squeezes me.

  I think about how much older he is, how much respect he gets from the Bayboys. I feel good. I smile at him, wondering if he’ll surf the bay with me in front of everyone. I pretend not to notice his hand.

  Suddenly Dan lowers his face onto mine and pushes his tongue into my mouth, flicking it in and out like a lizard’s, rough. The wrinkles around his eyes look like lacy webs up close, his lips are rough and cracked. I concentrate on keeping my mouth open as his tongue fishes around, grazing my teeth, slimy, warm. I feel his hand slip over my breast. Queer flashes of heat and light surge through the bus; I back away, gagging.

  “I feel like throwing up,” I say. “Are you sure this is pot?”

  He gives me a shot of tequila.

  “Swallow,” he says.

  * * *

  I’m kneeling over the bong, naked except for the boardshorts, drawing in another h
it and another, confused, hoping to black out. When I try to stand up my head hits the quilted ceiling. I see a cascade of falling stars, shimmering silver and blue. Dan speaks, his voice hard, crystalline in the silence.

  “So you like me,” he says, giggling. “You think I’m really keen and neato.” His hand locks on to my right breast, rubbing it in a circle, faster and faster, looking me in the eye. I feel nothing except the scraping of his hand dry against my skin. The water roars below, and I imagine I’m far away from the bus, taking off on a warm wave. I put my arms out as he thrusts a thin, pointed finger between my legs, jiggling it around.

  “Do you like that?”

  I feel his bony erection against my leg. I close my eyes, lying very still as he slides his pants off. He throws towels and clothes out of his way, laying his weight on top of me, pulling my boardshorts halfway off. They dangle, loose, around my ankles. Then he pushes into me.

  “There.” His eyes roll back in his head as he shudders, moaning low. He stops moving, and closes his eyes, smiling, licking his mouth. After a while, he gets up. He looks at me and winks again.

  “I hope you got what you came for, girlie,” he says. “Did you like your secret?”

  I stare at the hollow wrinkles around his eyes, trying to focus. Warm fluid is dripping off the pillow under my back so I turn it over, wiping it carefully on the carpeted shelf.

  The next thing I remember is downing two more shots of tequila, swishing it around my mouth. Then I grab a towel, run down the cliffs as fast as I can, tumbling at the steep part on the bottom. Dan comes after me, laughing, telling me I’m crazy, grabbing my legs from behind. I wade into the water, scrubbing my legs with clumps of seaweed, swirling around in the water, sloughing off the mud. I tell Dan to go away, pushing him, trying to get clean.

  At sunrise, I wake up groggy, looking around at the tide pools, unsure where I am. Sharp stones stick into my naked back, my hair is muddy and matted with sand. Three Eastside surfers are coming down the trail, scanning the waves. Swathing the towel around me like a robe, I hide in low, thorny bushes for two hours until the surfers are gone and the sun is high and bright. When I get to the top of the trail, Dan’s bus is gone. My shirt is hanging on a tree, blowing lazily in the breeze.

  The surfers are still in their silver BMW. They look at me and whisper, peeling out, sending up a cloud of yellow dust. One of them throws an empty bottle of beer out the window. It misses my head by three inches.

  “Groupie,” they shout as the car zooms away.

  * * *

  I tell Jim that Dan is my new boyfriend, even though I never go back to P-Land. That’s what I say when I leave the house at night, but this is the truth: I go nightsurfing alone. I make lots of noise when I sneak out my sliding glass door, even banging my backpack against the grate on purpose. Sometimes Jim stands at the window and watches me. I feel his disgust, even two miles away.

  I pretend I’m having so much fun that I don’t miss him, and on a wave, for one delicious moment, it’s true. I push off and feel myself rise. I am on top. Pleasure surges through me for a brief, fleeting moment, like an electrical current through the water.

  It’s scary when I fall in the dark, alone.

  * * *

  There’s a new plan: I see my father on alternate Saturdays. Either he takes me to lunch or a movie, or we shop. One Saturday he cancels on short notice.

  “What excuse did your hero have?” my mother asks. “Let me guess…”

  As she ticks off women’s names, I ignore her, tell Jim to gather up his gear before the beach gets too crowded. But my mother puts her hand on his shoulder.

  “Saturdays are our day,” she says, speaking in the little girl voice she only uses with Jim. “Just because he canceled on her doesn’t make it right if you do.”

  An ache fills my brother’s eyes as he watches our mother framed against the vastness of the ocean. I try pulling at his shirt, whispering to him.

  “You’re always with her now,” I hiss. “Don’t turn into a momma’s boy.”

  “At least I’m not like you, Medina,” he says, stung. “I have feelings. Not urges.”

  * * *

  Jim stays away from me all weekend, making a cross with his fingers, warding me off.

  I pretend I’m talking to Dan on the phone, flirting, laughing, teasing. “At the tone, the time will be six o’clock and forty seconds,” I hear. “You’re joking, Dan,” I say.

  Finally Jim comes to my room, tells me we better talk. I can hardly breathe as I throw my stuff into the pack. He doesn’t say a word on the trail to the bay.

  But in the water, Jim gives me a warning. He tells me I better stop hanging around with Dan because the Bayboys know I’m sleeping with him. He says I’ll lose all their respect if they think I’m just a surf groupie.

  “What would the Bayboys think about you,” I ask, “sleeping in Mom’s room, playing cards with her every night?”

  He starts to answer, but only swallows. He can’t find anything to say.

  Neither of us look up at the window. But we know she’s there, watching.

  * * *

  Sometimes I watch myself in the mirror while I exercise. I can see I’m not beautiful. I’m skinny, bony, ugly even. I’ve heard Skeezer describe my face as the muzzle of a shark. My eyes are always roving incessantly from side to side. Watching. I have unsupple skin that throws the water off it, no eyelashes, limp blond hair that falls to my waist like a plastic sheet. Legs that are too long, like a skinny bird, legs that are bowed, scarred from the jetty.

  I’ve even studied myself in a mirror against Jim’s favorite photograph of my mother when she was a model. I’ve seen I have no chance of being beautiful. There is no soft look in my eye, no curve to my neck.

  But I am built for speed.

  * * *

  For Valentine’s Day, my father sends me a bottle of green perfume. I put a dab on, lift up my wrists and smell them, feeling very sophisticated. I don’t care if my brother sees me, I don’t care if he sticks his finger halfway down his throat and pretends to vomit on the tile.

  After I dab a little more on, Jim grabs my wrists and twists them in an Indian burn.

  “That’s your valentine from me,” he says, flicking me on the head with his finger. Then he smiles and takes out something he’s been hiding. He checks to make sure the door’s locked before he shows me.

  It’s a whole basket of valentines—pink paper hearts and candy kisses. He even got a candy box from Heather Hunt—the prettiest girl at school. When he shows it to me, he pretends he thinks valentines are stupid.

  I nod my head, telling him I’m glad I didn’t get a single one.

  But when I’m alone, I watch the waves and touch myself.

  * * *

  My brother wants to meet Heather Hunt tonight on the cliffs, but he has an early curfew. I tell him to go anyway and show him how easy it is to sneak out. But we both know why it’s easy for me—my mother doesn’t care what time I come home.

  “Do whatever you want,” she says to me when she comes to my room at midnight, waking me up. “But don’t be a bad influence on Jim.”

  “You’re the good one,” she tells Jim behind my back. “Thank God there’s a good one.”

  I can tell my brother is thinking about Heather.

  One night he even takes a shower and puts on his best flannel shirt, a soft green one that matches his eyes.

  But something stops him from leaving. My mother holds his hand.

  * * *

  Tuesday night I’m under my brother’s window, waking him by throwing tiny pebbles at the screen. He looks at me, up and down, my dirty clothes and sandy feet. He opens the window slightly, just enough for me to squeeze in, not giving his hand, pointing at the rip in my shirt.

  “Where were you?” he asks. “What time is it?”

  We both look at the clock, its numbers reading 3 A.M.

  “Mom must have locked my door,” I say. “Thanks for getting up.”

&nbs
p; Jim is silent for another minute. I go on.

  “I was at the cliffs. You know what I was doing.”

  “With a guy? Someone that you fucked?”

  We hear our mother rising, moving her bulk out of her room. Jim panics, motioning for me to get in the closet, shutting it quietly behind me. Our mother moves past the bedroom, tiptoeing through the hall, on a quiet sneak to the refrigerator.

  “Yes,” I tell him, through the slats of the closet, “it was exactly like you think it was. It was beautiful. Well it was okay, sort of. It wasn’t beautiful at all.”

  Then there is silence. Our mother returns, unwrapping a cake, crinkling its cellophane, ever so quietly shutting her door.

  “Who was it, Dan?”

  “Maybe it was a new one.”

  Jim laughs hollowly and pops each knuckle in his hand.

  “Thank you,” I say, clenching my fingers.

  “Fuck you,” my brother says, and rolls onto his belly, feigning sleep.

  “Why don’t you go meet Miss Heather Bigtits. I know you’re thinking about her.”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking,” he says.

  * * *

  You never know the ocean’s moods, but here are some remedies for its dangers:

  1. When you get stung by a jellyfish, pee immediately on the sting. The uric acid will lessen the pain.

  2. A cotton undershirt worn under your wet suit will prevent nipple rash and its mass of red, painful bumps that come from the ceaseless rubbing of rubber over bare flesh.

  3. Duct tape can fix anything, a ripped wet suit, a dinged board, a smashed bottle of beer, even.

  4. Sea urchins lurk under the calmest water; you need to paddle out on the nose of your surfboard to avoid getting needle quills in your feet.

  5. If you’ve snorted too much cocaine, an hour in the water will fix your sinuses. The salt flushes the nose wounds with its moist, cleansing wet.

  But these are only facts.

  The rest is pure magic.

  * * *

  I’m in the water, in my wet suit, drenched, looking good. My brother nods to me, stoked that I’m getting a good set. He drops back and lets me take the waves, proud that I am the only girl who surfs in Palos Verdes.