Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' (13 page)

Without so much as a warning, Sonny abruptly cut
sharply back across the face of the wave and dove into the curl,
hunched down and riding low, and Chris slewed around and tried to
follow. But it was too late- the opening of the curl had collapsed
as suddenly as it appeared, and Chris crashed headlong into the
churning foam, gobbled up by the boiling surf and then blasting
straight up through the top of the turquoise monster, trailing his
now un-tethered board nearly ten feet skyward before flailing to a
splash on the water below.

“
OOOOOOOH!!!” the crowd on the
beach exclaimed in unison.

The surfer dude turned away, shrugging his
shoulders. “That's it, game over, class dismissed.” And with that
the crowd dispersed, grinning and shaking their collective heads as
another one bit the proverbial dust.

From her vantage within the store, a pair of
binoculars to her eyes, Alani winced as she watched the epic
wipeout, echoing the cry of the onlookers from the beach,
“Oooooo-!”

Noelani appeared over her shoulder and said with a
small shrug and a tiny frown, “He certainly is accident-prone,
isn't he?”

Alani jumped, startled, and then laughed and swatted
playfully at her mother. “OH! Mamma, stop that!” She lowered the
binoculars and pondered aloud, “He must need a whole team of
guardian angels to watch out for him.”

Noelani replied softly as her gaze
focused somewhere
beyond
the water, a tiny smile gracing her lips,
“Something like that…”

Walter found his ball at the edge
of the fairway, nestled tightly in a thick clump of grass. With a
vicious swing, he slashed at the ball. Dirt and grass sprayed
everywhere, the ball blasting out of the rough and flying straight
and true towards its destination, only to inexplicably fade to the
right, landing with a splash of sand in a fairway bunker. Walter
dropped his club in astonishment and said with contempt, “Oh- My-
GOD! Are you fucking
serious
?” And then he kicked his
club in anger, a barely stifled, “Shit.” escaping his
lips.

Abigail’s back stiffened as she reacted to Walter’s
unexpected burst of profanity and looked back at her husband
without speaking, unsure of how to react. She then turned and
hunched down over her own ball, and with a smooth, unhurried stroke
the ball leaped off the carpet of green and rose majestically into
the air, dead on target. The ball glided lazily downrange and then
finally descended gently onto the viridian-hued fairway, landing
just on the edge of the green- where it rolled, and rolled and
rolled- eventually disappearing over a low rise which obscured the
base of the flag-stick.

Abigail watched with mouth agape, amazed at the
miraculous event. “Wow...! Walter? Honey did you see that? Walter?”
Abigail turned to look for her husband, only to find him already
sitting in the cart, staring straight ahead, his lips pursed into a
tight white line, fuming and silent.

Sonny paddled over to Chris’ board as Chris splashed
back to the surface spouting water. Laughing softly, he inquired,
“Dude! You okay?”

Chris climbed back onto his board, straddling it as
he reconnected his tether. “Fine- Slight miscalculation. Ready for
another?”

“
It's
your
money.” As they
paddled slowly back out to the lineup, Sonny asked, “Dude, when you
board, how you steer?”

“
Heel and toe mostly, just like a
skateboard.”

“
Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you
this, but on the water, it’s like opposite, man, steer with da
front foot an’ keep your fins tight to the wave, mo bettah
control.”

Chris smiled and nodded. “Appreciate that, man.
Thanks.”

Sonny shrugged, “Jus’ tryin’ to make it interesting.
You ready?”

“
Born that way.”
Chris snuck a quick look behind him, where the massive swell of
what promised to be an even
bigger
wave bore down on them like a Mack truck, the
lacy foam that adorned its top being scraped from the surface by
the breeze of its’ passing. Chris flung himself forward, racing
ahead of Sonny, who churned and flailed his arms in a spray of
water as the giant emerged and reared its head.

Flashing down the glassy surface of the wave, Chris
suddenly swerved and screamed back up the face, whipping around at
the crest and flying back down again as the wave began to curl.
Hunching low, his board bouncing, Chris flew into the tube of
water, Sonny close behind, the contest now becoming almost more of
a chase scene from a movie than merely a casual ocean ride.

Chris burst from the opposite end of the curl and
swung high again, skidding along the top of the massive wave as
Sonny shot by below, the curl collapsing and catching the end of
his board. Knocked off balance by the crushing foam, Sonny
disappeared into the boil of surf as Chris again slid down the face
of the monster, suddenly turning at its’ base and flying straight
up, exploding from the crest and executing a perfect board-grab in
mid-air, flipping over twice and landing gently with a splash as
the crumbling wave washed to shore.

A moment later, Sonny duck-dived a final swell and
popped to the surface to see Chris casually seated on his board,
leaning back with elbow propped on knee as he studied his
fingernails in feigned boredom.

Chris looked to Sonny with a grin. “Tie game!”

Sonny responded with awe, “Dude! That was totally
sick! How'd you do that?”

Chris replied laconically, “Years of practice. Next
one's for all the marbles. You ready?”

Sonny looked back over his shoulder, his eyes
growing wide. “Are you?!”

Chris glanced quickly back behind
him, only to see the swell of an
enormous
wave that was bearing down
on them with a roar like a freight train. A strangled cry of-
“Ho-LY SH-!” was all that could escape Chris’ lips as he furiously
thrashed at the water.

Walter stood in the middle of the sand trap,
straining on slippery tip-toes to see over the edge to the green,
scrambling and sliding as he tried to jump in the soft, crumbly
surface. Nearly falling onto his backside after a final failed
attempt, he waded back to his ball, which was plugged nearly to
invisibility in the soft, white sand.

“
Oh, screw it!” he grumbled, and
swung mightily at the ball. The ball exploded from the trap in a
shower of sand, the stiff ocean breeze blowing the majority of it
straight back into Walter’s face. Flinching from the sandy barrage,
Walter slipped and fell, sliding down the face of the dune on his
backside, a slow trickle of sand pooling at his feet. And as if to
add insult to injury, the ball rolled to a stop between his heels.
Walter stared it with a malevolent glare and muttered under his
breath, “Son- of- a- bitch!”

The wave grew, and grew,
and
GREW-
the
crest towering over twenty feet above the distant trough below, the
foam-laced bottom of which seemed to be almost
behind
the tip of Chris’ board. He
slowly rose to his feet, his pulse quickening as the adrenaline
kicked in. Leaning slightly over and down, Chris plunged sharply
downward, a hearty ‘Yee-HA!!’ erupting from his lips as he flashed
down the rumbling face of the wave. Just as he neared the bottom,
he swerved back to his left and climbed the roaring giant like an
arrow, again skidding along the foaming crest before whipping back
and down, this time carving a curving track across the face of the
monster as it began to curl.

As Sonny fought to keep up with the slicing and
slaloming form of Chris, the rumbling giant formed a glassine tube
that seemed to stretch forever, the kind of wave that often became
the stuff of legend. But as Chris dove into the glassy cylinder,
Sonny suddenly saw what apparently Chris did not- the length of the
tube was an illusion, the reflections of its’ length and the
tightness of its end deceptive because of the apparent perspective
of what was essentially a tightening noose of powerfully churning
water- and one that was going to collapse well before they reached
the end.

Just before Chris reached the end of the roaring
tube, Sonny hunched low, grabbing the board with both hands and
hanging on for dear life as he deliberately swerved directly into
the foamy break, knowing from painful experience that this maneuver
was his only hope of surviving the impending crush of tons of
turquoise sea. Closing his eyes and grabbing a quick final breath
before being consumed, he cast a quick glance up ahead to Chris,
who still rode low, skipping his hand along the upward curl of the
wave, blissfully unaware of the impending doom that awaited
him.

With a final crushing roar, the gigantic wave
collapsed, the end of the tube slamming shut like a thunderclap and
crushing Chris like a bug. It was the last that Sonny saw of him as
the roaring foam enveloped him as well, tossing him in its turmoil
like the ultimate spin cycle in the world’s largest washer.

Slammed beneath the waves by the tons of crushing
blue, Chris spun and swirled, tumbling head over heels underwater
in what surfers universally called ‘going rag-doll’. His
light-weight board was dragged ahead like a cork, suddenly reaching
the end of its tether, which stretched to breaking and snapped like
a giant rubber band. The board rocketed back towards Chris, flying
into his temple and knocking him unconscious. As the boil of raging
surf passed uncaringly over him, Chris began to sink.

Sonny emerged from the churning water, still
hunched, riding low. As he slowly began to straighten, he quickly
glanced behind him to check on Chris’ fate. He looked on in horror
as he saw Chris’ board pop jauntily to the surface- completely
devoid of its rider.