The Tribes of Palos Verdes (15 page)

“I'm not hungry, Mom.”

“It's me, stupid,” I say. “Get up. The bay's huge, you've got to get up.”

“Go away,” he whispers. “I can't get up. I feel terrible.”

“I'm not lying,” I say. “It's seven feet!”

He rubs his head as if he has a terrible fever, his eyes are closed, and he is rocking. “Do you have any pot?” he asks.

My mother comes in from the hall. “Don't ever give him any pot, Medina.”

My brother groans. “Would the two of you shut the fuck up!”

“Jim,” my mother says, “don't you dare talk to me like that.” Then she turns to me. “Don't talk to your brother about the waves.”

These are the biggest waves I've ever seen. A few guys are paddling out in the water, crowds of girls watch from the shore. Skeezer, sitting on dry land, looks at my board, laughs, and says I'm crazy. Ted slaps me on the back and says, “Go!” Everyone is watching me as I look at the huge walls of water. I head for the rocks, trying to smile.

Storm oceans are thicker, heavier, weighted with churning sand. The waves, deep ocean swells, are arctic cold in some spots, suddenly warm in others.

Waiting for a lull, I start to paddle out, aiming for the horizon. Seaweed thrashes around my ankles. The sun is half-hidden, orange, dull.

The set starts before I'm ready. The water level suddenly changes, rising upward, growing taller, wider, impossibly vast. The ocean surges backward as if sucking in its breath, pulling everything toward its core. Trying to avoid being sucked in too soon, I aim the nose of my board to the right, only half in control. As I paddle frantically, a guy drops in too early, falling through the air, screaming into the wind. The wave pulls itself up like a mountain being born; it crests, then begins to fold, hissing. Broiling spray hits my face from six yards away.

At the break line, the guys are lined up, tense and focused. A few smile, watching me struggle toward them. Most don't even notice. As I approach, heart beating fast, Charlie Becker motions for me to line up next to him. “I see you've improved your paddling skills,” he calls out, winking at me. Then he tells me I can take his turn, but I better get ready, it's coming up fast.

The view from the backside of a wave is surreal. Surfers drop off the edge of the world, free-falling into space. As I watch them go, Charlie tells me not to be scared. “I'm not
too
scared,” I say, shivering.

“Good,” he says gravely, eyes twinkling. “Because this one's for you.” He gives my board a shove, calls to the guys that this is my wave.

“Noooooooo,” I scream, dropping in, suddenly weightless, headed for the bottom, nose first. The wave begins to fold in on itself as I careen to the side, ducking down, wind whistling in my ears. Then I'm inside a long, blue cavern. It's eerily soundless except for the noise of my board cutting through a thick wall of rushing liquid. The wave gets softer as it unfolds, looser, slower, more forgiving. I relax, letting the shape of the wave guide me across the bay. Just before it ends, I look at the people on the shore. Even though I know Skeezer's watching, I can't help it. I do a little dance, shaking my butt, moving my arms up and down like a disco queen.

When I paddle out again, my teeth are chattering, arms numb, face frozen. An older guy nicknamed Teacher, because he wears glasses, paddles up beside me.

“Excellent,” he says, slapping my back so hard it knocks the wind out of me.

*   *   *

Later, I burst through the door. Jim is on the couch, eating Count Chocula frosted cereal from the box with his hands. He is shaking, like he's cold, and looking at the cartoons on the television.

“Come on, Medina, narrate,” he says.

Instead I tell him about the huge waves, how everyone saw, how I only fell twice.

“It was so rad,” I say, “like taking off on a 747 plane.”

“Please shut up and narrate,” he says, face tense, eyes closed.

When I do the cartoon sound effects, Jim starts to laugh.

“Bugs is waiting under a bush, he clobbers Elmer with a pail. Elmer's head turns into a pail, it pops back into shape…”

“I love that,” he says, standing up. “I always feel better when you do that.”

“That's all folks,” I say, imitating Elmer Fudd, trying to smile.

He laughs and leaves the house, slamming the door behind him.

“Let him go,” I tell my mother as she follows. “Please.”

*   *   *

All night I hear the storm waves crash against the side of the cliff below the house, bigger and bigger. Jim comes in at midnight, walking unsteadily down the hall, trying to tiptoe over the loud spots on the floor. My mother stays in her room eating chips from a bag. I hear the pop and the pug dog wiggling. The waves rise ever higher, crashing without mercy against the rocks, until no one can sleep. We all meet in the kitchen at two.

“Don't talk about the waves,” my mother says to me. “Don't say anything.”

Jim stares at me intensely, laughing, his pupils alert black dots. His skin is waxy and moist, his hands trembling.

Excitedly he says, “I heard you kicked ass out there today, girl. I heard even Skeezer wouldn't go out. Congratufuckinglations.”

“Don't say a word,” my mother says, standing up quickly, slamming the refrigerator door shut. A jar of mayonnaise shatters on the floor.

“Did you almost die?” Jim says.

I smile at him; I don't say a word.

“I'm going out surfing with you tomorrow,” he says. “I feel
so
good.”

Tide

 

 

At dawn the storm is over. Everything slows to a dead stop.

The water under my house shimmers like blood and glitter.

A few Bayboys laze on the cliffs, sitting dumbly on their boards, smoking burning joints and bickering. Seagulls cruise overhead, confused, not knowing where to land. A local news crew arrives.

“Red tide is a natural occurrence, a surge of tiny one-celled sea organisms called phytoplankton, which can unexpectedly proliferate and spread over a large area…”

The television broadcast goes on all morning, as reporters try to explain to the bewildered citizens what has overtaken their shores. The red glow in the water is due to an invasive microscopic plant, probably washed in by the storm. Each liter of sea water contains millions.

The tide itself is not harmful to humans, but it is deadly to fish, eating up oxygen in the water, so fish literally drown.

“The only possible danger to human health comes from rotting fish,” a newscaster warns. “Citizens should avoid all areas near the water.”

*   *   *

They shut down the tennis club on the second day.

Closed until further notice, by order of the U.S. Health Department due to the red tide. We will inform members by telephone of all changes in status.

Sincere apologies,

The management.

*   *   *

Everyone has his own view of the red tide. Especially people with an ocean view.

“They aren't telling us everything,” Marge Paxton says to Marlene Smalley on the cliff. “I mean they can't just shut down the tennis club, unless it's an emergency! We shouldn't be breathing this air. It's scary.”

“How can something safe smell so bad?” Buffy Peters asks. Then she squeals. “Look, your footprints are glowing!”

Buffy's husband peers at the tide with a flashlight, holding his nose, grimacing.

Terri Miller asks her best friend, Sally Jones, “What do I do with the kids? They're stuck in the rec room. Maybe we should wear gas masks?”

Skeezer sneaks up on me. “Let's push Medina in,” he yells.

*   *   *

The third day of the tide, octopus tentacles begin to wash up against the rocks, silvery-red, leaving phosphorescent trails in the tide pools. Porpoises lay on the sand, inert, like soggy leather sacks. A whale maroons herself against the pylons of the jetty, swaying gently in the fog until she dies.

The stink seeps through living rooms and gardens, into ocean-view master bedrooms. And there it stays, over the women who recline on their beds, scented towels over their eyes, fingers dangling in bowls of ice water. It hangs over the doctors and lawyers, who drink an extra belt of Scotch and curse.

“Damn that damn stuff,” an angry man screams into the night, “damn it to hell, already.”

Towel girls play video games and watch television under sun lamps. They call each other's private phone lines and laugh about their parents' hushed arguments. The surfers hide in their rec rooms, locking the doors, smoking weed. The mothers call each other nervously and direct their maids to spray Lysol all over the rugs and couches twice every hour.

Families are at home together for the first time in years. They aren't sure what to say to one another. They try to make the best of it.

A few families—the Scudders, the Arnolds—move to their second homes in Mammoth Mountain or Hawaii. They leave maids behind with instructions to burn potpourri night and day to lift the smell from the Persian carpets.

Teams of scientists come in U.S. Fish and Game Department vans to study the tide, armed with sonar webs and telescopic cameras. They put up signs along the worst of the beaches.

DANGER. DO NOT SWIM. DO NOT FISH. UNSAFE WATER.

People gather in knots to discuss the tide. They call a town meeting, the first town meeting in seventeen years. Fish and Game Department scientists tell the citizens gathered in the school gymnasium that this is the worst case of red tide they have ever seen.

“Tides like this are
not usually dangerous,
” they emphasize. “However, this one is so thick, those close to the shore should take
unusual precautions.
”

Listening to theories, the citizens grow angry and restless. They whisper together, attacking the common enemy, misery, stink.

At eight thirty, Ada Pernell finally stands up and asks what everyone really wants to know.

“When will that smell go away? When are you going to do something about it?”

“Yes, hear, hear!” someone else exclaims, as if in a Lion's Club meeting.

The room hums angrily like a hive. As people grumble that it is their taxes that pay for things like the Fish and Game Department, a fire engine roars past, its lights flashing red against the neutral scientific charts and graphs.

“Forget your explanations,” someone shouts over the siren. “We want results.”

The fathers can't will away the red tide or have it fired. The mothers can't redecorate it or ignore its presence. The kids can't surf in it, or smoke near it, or have sex in its bays.

And each day the tide quietly spreads.

*   *   *

Summer school is mandatory for students in the Mentally Gifted Minors program so that we can complete early college courses. It's also mandatory for any student who carries a C average or worse. The quads are full of underachievers in the summer; angry, bored, rich bitches looking for a fight, flicking cheese balls at my legs while I study on the grass.

In the second week of the tide, sudden offshore winds bring the smell to our campus, sickening students and teachers in the airless classrooms. Summer school is shut down in the third week.

*   *   *

I won't need to fight them this summer. There will be no taunts about my mother—
“whale, pig, boat, hog”
—in the hallways. It's the first year I won't hit anyone with hairbrushes or fists, or bite someone's arm to the point of blood. I will not kick Sydelle Braverman's thin shin, or spit in Marcy Knight's Clinique-perfect face. As I dump the contents of my locker into the trash can, I smile and give myself a high five.

But later at home, my stomach hurts as I wrap my surfboard in clean towels for storage. I wind them carefully like a triage bandage, around and around its beautiful vanilla skin.

*   *   *

The tide hasn't reached the shores of Manhattan Beach, a city twenty miles away. Adrian says we should go there.

“We could surf the pier,” he says. “I dare you to come.”

But he knows why I'm not supposed to go. By unspoken agreement, no one from Palos Verdes is supposed to surf outside beaches, because then we'd have to reciprocate and let outsiders come here.

Adrian pushes. “I thought you weren't like them.”

“True,” I say, undecided.

*   *   *

Jim's been sleeping all afternoon. I spy on him, trying to make loud coughing noises so he'll wake up and listen to my idea, but he's huddled under the covers, not moving.

I get three empty banana crates from Lunada Bay Market and line them up side to side in the garage. Then I take the handlebars off my old bicycle and attach rubber bungee cords to the bars. Next I get a screw gun and mount the handlebars into the wood, tightening as much as I can. Finally I take a piece of old carpet from the dog's bed and put it over the crates.

“Voilà,” I say to Jim, dragging him to the garage. “Here's our new paddling machine.”

I turn on the radio and lie down on the crates, pulling at the pieces of rubber as hard as I can, feeling my tricep muscles constrict.

“I'm going to be way stronger than old Skeez when the tide's gone,” I say.

My brother is laughing while he watches me tug on the bungees, and he says the paddle machine is super cool. I tell him we could pretend I'm surfing for real if he'd narrate a good set for me.

At first he doesn't know what to say. He thinks for a long time, his eyebrows wrinkled, his eyes tightly closed. Then he starts to speak softly.

“Okay, there's a big set coming in—”

I interrupt, excited. “What color is the water? How fast is it coming?”

“Shhhhh,” he says. “It's gray-green with whitecaps, it's a south swell, there's no one out but us. Skeezer's watching from the cliffs, all the guys are—”