In the Break (14 page)

I swallowed ocean water, and coughed, and panicked, and don’t remember much from the experience. Except one visual: Jamie
taking the drop on the largest wave I could ever imagine. One, two, three, four, five times his body’s height. Or maybe I
made up the size, I don’t know. Thirty, forty feet on the face? I don’t know. I was in the water. Disoriented. Adrenaline
flooding. On autopilot survival mode. In the clouds, for that amount of water going up and going down and exploding sideways
gives you the feeling of being in the air at twenty thousand feet in clouds, weightless, yet unable to breathe.

Jamie freefell, with his feet still on his board, though it wasn’t grounded in water. Down and down and down he went until
the preternatural barrel covered him on his descent.

“Juan,” Amber whispered.

My head rested in her lap. We were on sand. My throat burned. My head ached. She rocked me back and forth. I shivered a full-body
shiver. As I came to I moved out of her embrace.

“Where’s Jamie?”

“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” she said. She looked out in the bay.

I looked there too. It was almost dark, and huge white explosions Richtered the sand, vibrating the entire bay. It was closed
out, a solid white wall of nuclear foam from point to point. Closed out!

“Where’s his board?”

“Jamie’s not in yet.”

Maybe he’d swum outside to deeper water. I’d heard of guys getting their boards after tremendous wipeouts in big waves, waves
in which you didn’t wear a leash. Some sort of big-wave phenomenon in which the board sort of gets “stuck” close to the wipeout
spot. Maybe that happened. Maybe Jamie was outside.

“Did you see his wave?”

She shook her head. “I can’t see out there. Must have been some wave you lost your board on.”

“I thought I saw Jamie take off,” was all I said.

From shore, and in this light, nobody could get what was happening outside. I couldn’t explain to Amber what happened to me,
much less what I’d seen her brother do. “He probably paddled out to deeper water. He’s not around?”

“No. But I’ve been with you. A dolphin swam you to shallow water.”

“Say what?”

“A dolphin swam you in.”

“Don’t give me any shit, Amber.”

“I’m not.” She was serious. Her jaw was set and her eyes hard, and her hair was blowing about her back and face.

“Let’s scan the beach.” I stood up, feeling sick to my stomach, and I ran away from Amber, retching as I ran, and it felt
good to get the saltwater out.

Amber’s board was way up on the beach. Mine was getting hit by whitewater, coming in and then going out and crashing on the
sand. Amber grabbed it and pulled it close to hers. As she lifted it I could see that the entire nose had broken off, the
fiberglass dangling yet still clinging to a chunk of foam like a banana peel holding onto a chunk of banana.

Looking alternately out to sea and up on the dry sand, we walked to the far point; Jamie’s board was not visible. So we went
to the other point, the direction toward camp. Nothing. And we could no longer see the outside reef break, only hear it, feel
that
tremendous blast of energy unload in the bay — there was water everywhere, the fog coming back in, the light fading.

A helpless, desolate feeling began to sink in as I felt just how far removed we were from civilization, from things known
and loved, things familiar.

The air was warm, but I was cold. I put on my shirt over my wet-suit and looked at Jamie’s T-shirt and sunglasses lying on
the dark sand. Not so many hours ago he’d had it wrapped around his head; I could still hear him shout “excellent!” if only
as an echo.

“Is he outside? Is he beyond the break?” She squinted, trying to see through the fog.

“I bet he is. His board’s not on shore. If he’s with his board he’s okay.”

“He’s stupid enough to paddle out, isn’t he?”

“It wouldn’t have been stupidity.” It would have been the smartest move he could have made, I thought. How could he have taken
off on that wave? How could he paddle back out through those monstrous waves? If anybody could do it, Jamie could. He was
a surfer, unlike me. I had acted like a coward. Jamie had confronted the waves, the entire ocean. I had turned tail and ran.

“We should check the cove,” Amber said.

“Maybe he paddled there.”

We both felt we should remain in the bay of the dolphins, in case Jamie made it to shore. But we knew he could make it back
to camp, should he find himself on dry land. Still, I didn’t want to leave. “Let’s walk the beach one more time.”

So we did. It was now thoroughly dark with the thinnest line of purple to the west where the sun had split. As we walked I
entertained a fantasy in which Jamie was already back at camp, eating dinner, ready to razz us for our sentimental missteps.

Walking on that dark and deserted beach with Amber I remembered a time when Jamie and I had played Little League. Our team
made the playoffs. After our first game, a game we won 5–4, a bunch of the players from the other team showed up on bikes
at our park. I had ridden my bike; Jamie had been dropped off by his mother. My bike was surrounded by those boys we had defeated.
It seemed as if the park was deserted that Sunday, none of our friends or teammates around.

Jamie and I stayed by the entrance to the gym, watching the boys who came from the next town. They threw us some taunts, and
it was obvious what they wanted — blood! We had beaten them, and their season was over. We would play next weekend. So much
for sportsmanship, I thought as I looked at my lonely bike. A kid sat on it. At least it was locked, though things weren’t
looking good.

To make matters worse, Mrs. Watkins pulled up and honked for Jamie. She idled in the street, not ten feet from the thugs.

“I guess I have to go,” Jamie said. His forehead was furrowed. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

His mother honked again.

“Why don’t you call your mom or dad?”

“They’re not home.”

“Uh.”

This time when Mrs. Watkins honked she kept her hand on the horn. The thugs loved that. “Hey, you big baby, your mama’s here!”
one of them yelled. Others flipped us off.

Jamie just looked at me and then ran down the steps to the waiting car.

I thought it was all over. I counted the boys around my bike; there were seven, almost a baseball team. As I watched those
boys a wonderful thing happened. Not only did Jamie and his mother not drive away, they both got out of the car, Mrs. Watkins
opening the trunk. Jamie walked back up the stairs toward me, motioning me to come.

My heart soared as I ran to the bike rack and unlocked my bike. The boys moved back, and didn’t say a word as Jamie walked
with me. After we put my bike in the trunk, we drove away with the defeated punks yelling and flipping us the bird.

Jamie had come back for me. And I knew I should paddle back out for him. I knew I should go back for him, however futile the
gesture might be, but I couldn’t make myself enter that angry ocean again. Nothing could get me to act, sort of like my non-response
when F attacked Jamie on the sand.

Finally, when it was that night-black that must have been the only known vista to pre-twentieth-century people, we climbed
out of the bay and onto the mesa. We walked and walked through the black void, unable to find the right cove. The fog bank
had come in, hugging the coastline, shrouding each tiny fjord in a cocoon blanket so that we couldn’t see the outline of anything,
much less our camping gear. But the most frightening aspect was the sound of waves crashing on the coastline, where before
there had been no waves.

When we stumbled upon the right cove we found that Jésus was not there. No sign of him or his boat. Waves crashed close to
shore,
threatening our camp, in spite of the fact that we had pulled everything to the highest point on the beach. So in the dark
Amber and I moved everything up onto the mesa.

I gathered some brush and made a small fire. We sat before it, trying to eat, but neither of us had an appetite. We were more
dazed than hungry, and we were on an uninhabited island, far out in the sea. Jamie was lost, our ride back to civilization
not here. For the first time I felt the loneliness of that poor girl and her brother, the ones left on the island of the blue
dolphins. I thought I heard Amber sniffle, and it could have been because of the fog, because it had made its way onto the
mesa, obscuring the world in a wet haze, making you feel like crying. The silence and the pathetic fire and the dampness of
the night and the loss of the magical night sky all had the effect of making me want to weep. But I wouldn’t, not in front
of Amber.

At some point we both got under the sleeping bag, happy for human touch, human embrace, and it felt as if we were the only
two people on Earth, as if no one could ever find us, and that we would never find our way home.

And then we had sex. No preliminaries, no messing around, just fast fierce love, my first time. It was quick and it was so
sweet and wet, and when it was over the nightmare reality of our situation set in once again.

Simply because we could, we did it again later. Had things been different … But then I thought of Jamie’s disapproval that
Amber and I were together. He wasn’t here; we were together. Jamie wasn’t around.

It was so dark, and the fog was in even thicker, if that were possible, and I was inside Amber, and she breathed hot in my
ear. I kissed her neck, her shoulders, her ocean-smelling hair.

After that time neither of us could sleep, thinking of Jamie, so we dressed. Before I could verbalize it, Amber said, “Let’s
go back to the bay.” She looked upon me in a different way, I felt. It was as if we were co-conspirators in some magical game,
and then Jamie would …

Holding hands, we began the solitary walk back to the bay of the dolphins. Even though a thick fog still shrouded the tiny
island and it was black, black out, we sort of knew where to go.

Once back in the bay I began yelling. As loud as my voice would carry, which probably wasn’t that far, since sound bounces
off the water molecules — fog. And this: the waves were still huge, and we could hear the massive explosions far out in the
bay, though we could only see the whitewater that raced up onto the shore.

We walked back and forth in the cove that dark night, shouting Jamie’s name, walking back up on the mesa, looking, looking
for my friend, Amber’s brother. But the fog wouldn’t lift, the dawn wouldn’t arrive; Jamie did not appear. The waves crashed
below and the fog endured. Misty air, breaking waves. Nature. Which had no sentimental cares for our well-being. Alive or
dead, nature didn’t give a shit. It just kept on going, oblivious to the fact that Jamie was in trouble. Ignorant or cognizant
of the fact that Amber and I had hooked up in the midst of all this swirling turmoil. As the guilt intruded, I couldn’t help
wondering if our having sex ensured the outcome of our island experience. My fault. Amber’s and my fault. Bad things happen
when you’re not married. Jamie must have been right — we shouldn’t be together. It did. It didn’t. Jamie took that drop of
his own free will.

Sometime in the early morning before light I awoke. Seeing the night sky in all its starry glory, I knew a change had occurred.
The fog had receded, and I could no longer hear the surf. I lay next to Amber, feeling pangs of love and loss, breathing in
the pungent damp island air, listening to the vague night sounds, hearing the gentle surge of the waves in the cove below.
I could smell the sea, and smell the chaparral; I could smell Amber, I was permeated with her scent.

She stirred next to me. I breathed in the salt smell of her hair, breathed in her earthy smell, and felt the great glow of
desire. And comfort. And dread. My best friend was missing. Amber was beside me. Push pull. High tide low tide. Night day.
Male female. Life death.

John Needles. John Needles had lived across the street and over from Jamie. His family and Jamie’s family moved in at approximately
the same time, since the tract homes were finished at the same time. Jamie hung out with John when they were younger,
even though I was always Jamie’s best friend. It was just that John was right there, whereas I had to ride a bike over, and
wasn’t always there, though I was over a lot of the time.

The problem with John Needles was that he liked to see suffering, he liked to throw rocks at cats and liked to taunt dogs
in yards and went out of his way to step on snails and in general liked to kill things. I kept my distance from him and so
did Jamie, though he was sometimes with us when we did stuff.

When Jamie and I began surfing, John wasn’t much interested in it, which was fine with me because I didn’t want him down at
the beach killing sand crabs and other small sea creatures. Not that he would have been included in the whole deal, but he
might have. So the obnoxious neighbor kid was left: out.

Until the summer between eighth and ninth grade, when John started surfing. Mrs. Needles came right out and asked Mrs. Watkins
if John could come with us to the beach on the mornings she dropped us off. And he did a few times, but by then we were so
good, John was embarrassed to surf around us.

So he went on his own to Playa Chica, to areas where there weren’t many surfers. Either the waves weren’t that big or the
shape wasn’t good or the tide wasn’t right at the places where John surfed on his own. But, still, he surfed, or claimed he
did.

I don’t know if things would have been different had he been in the water with Jamie and me, but when stuff plays out it’s
as if there’s no way to change the outcome. Like Mr. Watkins’s traffic accident. It goes the way it goes.

John Needles was surfing on a spring tide in the afternoon, a huge low tide. He didn’t know the sandbars, didn’t know the
tide
was a minus low, a very low tide, probably didn’t know enough to bail out behind his board, into the wave, when surfing in
shallow water.