The Tribes of Palos Verdes (10 page)

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.”

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.

When he smiles at me as I take off, I know exactly what he's feeling. In the water, far away from my mother's watching eyes, he loves me more than anything.

But he won't walk to the trail with me at the end of the day. He tells me to go ahead, he's going to walk with the guys later. He pretends he has something else to do, a joint to smoke, a ding in his board to patch. I pretend to believe him. But I know he is ashamed of something.

“Who were you with last night?” he asks me later.

“No one. I was nightsurfing, alone.”

Jim stares straight ahead. Then he looks at me.

“Mom says she saw you at the bay with Randy Marx.”

“Gross! It isn't true,” I say vehemently, the hair standing up on the back of my neck. “Here, I'll ask him.” I stand up, ready to shout for Randy, but Jim yanks me down. He rubs a hand over his eyes. I move closer to him.

“You know I'm not a liar.”

“Okay, genius,” he tells me. “Miss Mentally Gifted knows everything.”

“I wish you didn't believe what people say about me.”

“I thought you didn't care,” he answers, half smiling, “what anybody thinks.”

“I don't care about other people. I care about you—the good one.”

“Just 'cuz you're bad doesn't mean I'm the good one,” he says.

*   *   *

For as long as I can remember, Palos Verdes surfers have been at war with the Vals. Vals are the guys from the San Fernando Valley, forty miles east of here.

Lunada Bay,
the
bay, is one of the best surf spots in Southern California. The waves are long, clean, tubed right, with no close rocks. The bay is famous, not only for its waves, but also for its exclusivity. Locals Only—no Vals—is our policy.

You can spot a Val a mile away: they have colors on their wet suits and weird haircuts, long in the back, short on the sides. They have bumper stickers on their cars, and rusty dents.

Only Vals use leashes, the wimpy rubber bungee cords that attach a board to your ankle. In P.V., if you lose your board to a wave, you swim, ashamed, after the wipeout.

You don't do tricks, or fancy stunts. You just ride waves. You ride and you don't fall off.

*   *   *

When Vals invade, Skeezer throws rocks at them, and Jim lets the air out of their tires. All the boys circle them in the water and jeer at them, calling them “trolls, idiots,” menacing them until they pack up and leave.

The police don't mind if the guys punch a few Vals out, as long as they do it fast. The citizens wink and say it's better to keep the riffraff out. No one wants tourists or Vals parked in front of the million-dollar view.

But some of the Vals are cute, and some surf like pros. If the other guys aren't around, I even talk to them sometimes. I tell them they better run when they see Skeezer, though. I tell them not to leave their radios on the rocks if they want to take them home in one piece. I tell them they better buy black wet suits and get normal haircuts. Some of them are babes.

I never kiss a Val, though; you just can't, not even the cutest ones.

Skeezer can tell I would, though.

“Val fucker, Val fucker,” he taunts me.

*   *   *

The house on Via Neve is always dirty now. My mother will not clean, and she doesn't trust maids or gardeners anymore. She made Jim fire them last week, saying, “They're all gossips and spies for the neighbors. Besides, we have to start saving our money now.”

While Jim and I take turns washing the bathtub and doing the dishes my mother lies stiff on her bed, telling us my father is late with his check. She says he might never send us money again, and we'll really be poor.

“We'll have to sell the furniture,” she sobs. “Even the TV.”

At dinnertime I open a can of chili, but she snatches it away from me.

“Only eat half, Medina. We have to save.”

My brother looks at me, slowly grinding his teeth.

He doesn't joke around as we smoke pot and pull weeds the next week. Instead he looks out at the bay. All of a sudden, he takes his board, steadies it against the pool fence, then punches it.

I try to joke with him, I tell him it might hit back. He tells me to fuck off and punches it, until my mother comes from her room. She tells him not to stop.

“Imagine it's your father's face,” she says.

*   *   *

My brother is leading two lives. One minute he's playing Fish with my mother, next he's acting cool at the beach, swaggering like a Samoan. He acts tough, but I can tell he's getting tired. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hands are shaky sometimes. I try to surf next to him, but he pretends to be irritated, shooing me away like a dog. Still, I never leave him.

“You're too far up on the nose when you paddle out,” he instructs me in front of the other guys. Then he demonstrates the best way to paddle, pushing water backward from both hands, digging into the liquid to propel himself forward. He tells me to bend my knees slightly, to sway with the motion like a skater gliding on ice.

Another time he says, “Don't call surfing a
sport,
Medina.” He winks at Mikey. “It's a lifestyle.”

He's learned how to roll the perfect joint, how to say “What's up brada?” in the perfect Hawaiian accent. He sits in the center of the popular boys, drinking his beer from a cooler, joking about girls and pot, ignoring me.

But he's nervous at home. He closes the blinds as soon as he gets back from school, afraid people will see him playing cards with my mother.

“Do the Bayboys talk about me behind my back?” he asks when we're alone in my room.

*   *   *

I snoop around, trying to find out what Jim and my mother do when they're alone. Tonight they're playing checkers in the dining room. Jim is at the table, face in his hand, glum, silent. My mother tells him to cheer up—she'll make banana splits later, just the way he likes them, with freshly whipped cream. She pinches the skin on his arm, wags her finger playfully.

“You're losing too much weight. Those shorts are baggy on you.”

Jim stammers. He starts to tell her he's been feeling nervous lately, his friends wonder why he doesn't come out at night like he used to.

“Maybe I should hang out with them more. Just to keep the peace.”

“I don't see any reason for that,” my mother interrupts, leaning toward him. “We always have so much fun together.”

When Jim doesn't answer right away, she takes his hand. “Remember what you promised? That you'd never leave me alone? That was so sweet.”

Jim drops his plastic piece, fumbles for it on the ground. My mother continues playing, advancing her piece carefully. Then she tells Jim he should forget about the Bayboys. She says they're rough, ignorant, ill-bred. “You're the sensitive type,” she says, feeding him a butter cookie.

*   *   *

At school, the class has to sit through Mr. Odell's vacation slides. It was Mr. Odell's lifetime dream to go to Africa on safari. He went in the summer.

In one of the pictures, Mrs. Odell is wearing brown lipstick and sweating. She stands against a row of tall black men, doing a native dance, smiling. Everyone looks crazy because Mr. Odell used the wrong type of flash, and in place of people's eyes are glowing red dots.

In honor of Mr. Odell's vacation, the whole class has to do a paper on Africa. Anything about Africa is okay.

I get a book from the school library about different tribes. For my paper, I choose the Morubu tribe of southwestern Africa, because the Morubus believe that no one born into their tribe can ever leave. Sometimes Morubu children stray from tribal ways and go to Cape Town to eat hamburgers and smoke hash. But the elders of the tribe aren't stupid. They keep everyone's soul.

The Morubu elders burn herbs and sticks, bless them with a name, and put them in a jar. Many Morubu youth die within months after leaving for the big city.

“With no soul, you die,” the elders say in explanation. “The body dies, but we keep the soul safe.”

Leaving your tribe is worse than dying. This is what I write about. Mr. Odell gives me an A plus.

I show Jim my paper and tell him about the Morubus.

“It's a fucking genius paper,” he says. “You write so cool.”

“Maybe we're the tribe of Palos Verdes,” I tell him.

“Yeah.” My brother smiles. “I want ten thousand waves and no rules at all.”

*   *   *

My father's new house on the other side of Palos Verdes is like a palace. I spy on it from Angel Point while I surf, looking at its sienna tile roof, its gardens that stretch like a belt around long perimeters. A bright white gazebo stands out against the snow poppies like a pearly carcass.

My mother says there's no way my father could buy a house in three months and furnish it like that. She says he bought the house a year ago, in secret.

“I checked,” she says, holding out a phone, “and you can call a Realtor if you don't believe me.”

My father hasn't invited me over yet, but I've already seen the inside of the house in a magazine. It is white and sheep-skinned, crystaled, vased. It has high ceilings painted with gold filigree. It has money.

I saw my father's new girlfriend in the same magazine. She has black mink hair that falls in ringlets to her shoulders, a blinding smile, dark eyes, clear, white skin. She is much more beautiful than my mother. She looks very good sitting on the couch.