"A pressure wave hit me from behind, then a vortex like a whirlpool in front which tipped my board over and sucked me into the ocean. I felt a thud hit my board and the presence of a huge shape in the water."
The world divides between labour and capital and capital wins, eventually but always. Rarely does a rising tide float all boats but the surf writer finds himself in the position of having to eschew the collective and fight for the individual.
The fellow surf writer with whom he would share common cause is his mortal rival in a viciously shrinking market. He (rarely she) has to be labour and capital. A major philosophical stumbling block rarely acknowledged until now.
A few, maybe more, months ago I sent Dell a thousand words or so which he agreed to publish. Two ways the surf writer prices a piece of work. One, according to the going rate and two, according to what the market will bear. In this case the market could bear nothing, so I pivoted and went for a pair of trunks, or boardshorts in the southern hemi, as remuneration.
There wasn’t a size to fit me but Dell graciously allowed that I could have his, which he described as “lightly worn”. They arrived in due course and after ensuring there were no suspicious stains consequent to Dell’s high-flying Bondi lifestyle I tried them on.
They were Need Essentials, with whom I have no association, and they seemed quite nice.
I’m a stranger to technical trunks but these were stretchy and felt deluxe against the twig and conkers. At 5’10” and 75 kilos, ripped like a classic middleweight from a combination of spartan tastes, surfing, rigorous training and hunter-gathering I’m a true size 32. The Needs were a bit big and hung low. That could be design or maybe Dell, who struggles with his weight, might have already stretched them with his more expansive mid-section.
I tried them out and went surfing, and this is what happened.
Twas late afternoon at Lennox Point, my home break, the greatest Pointbreak in the world, just after the summer solistice. The Point was pumping in a rare out of season south-east swell. Solid lines.
The crowd was thinning as the sun sank low towards the hills and the long summer afternoon threatened to turn to twilight. I paddled out and way out and way deep, where I had seen a big set break. I wanted one bomb before dark and I was prepared to wait for it. I had the NeedEssentials on and I could discern no phenomenological difference in my interior subjective state or my external reality compared to other boardshorts I had worn.
That is to say my position was completely neutral towards the product if I was asked at the time what I thought. I remember thinking that, if someone asked me what I thought I would be neutral.
At that moment, I became aware of movement to the south, seaward of the cliff line which marks the end of Lennox Point. It was a feeding frenzy, with terns bunched up and diving into a boiling mass of fish which were churning the surface into white foam. I could hear their metallic cries getting louder, they were coming this way and quick. I didn’t move.
Within the minute I could see they were small tuna, bonito. My heart quickened with excitement at seeing a feeding frenzy and anxiety at its proximity. I put my feet up and lay on the board, one arm paddling so I was roughly facing the approaching feeding frenzy and any sets.
A pressure wave hit me from behind, then a vortex like a whirlpool in front which tipped my board over and sucked me into the ocean. I felt a thud hit my board and the presence of a huge shape in the water. Blood drained from my brain, my body went ice cold, stiff and lifeless.
Within seconds the feeding frenzy went ballistic, it turned into an acre of chopping, leaping tuna with baitfish scattering like shards of broken glass in the last rays of the setting sun. I was in the middle of this, a long way out, no obvious escape route, so I slowly one armed deeper into the cliff line, thinking the bait ball was heading north.
Some primitive sensory trip-wire was set off deep within my reptilian brain stem and I became aware of a sudden approaching wave of movement which had an impression of size and volume. Black dread flooded me and my blood turned to thick tar.
A pressure wave hit me from behind, then a vortex like a whirlpool in front which tipped my board over and sucked me into the ocean. I felt a thud hit my board and the presence of a huge shape in the water. Blood drained from my brain, my body went ice cold, stiff and lifeless.
Then a raging jolt of electrical adrenalin surged in me, relieving my temporary paralysis and I climbed back on the board. I can’t remember any thoughts; there was nothing, a void and then there was something. Not a sound passed my lips, not even a silent scream. Vibrating at some high cosmic frequency I paddled over to a set wave paddled into it and stood, going up and down on the wave until I went past a paddling surfer. I made the sign of a fin with my hand in the air and went in.
On the headland I saw my brother and best friend. I drank a beer with them and smoked a joint as the sky darkened to a shade of bruised purple.
We went back to my place, built a fire and drank a case of beer under the southern cross. Chain-smoked joints until we had a fine intoxication. No need to make a fuss. Nothing reportable. A swing and a miss is no news around here. Attacks make news. Drive-bys, enquiries, bumpings are fodder for passing the time at the butchers. Two days later, someone got knocked at Broken Head. Fifteen-foot White. Not a soul got out of the water.
It’s weird how the names are adding up. Sam Edwardes, Lee Jonson (Grimace), Cooper Allen, Sam Morgan, Jade Fitzpatrick, Seneca Rus, Matt Lee, Craig Ison, Tadashi Nakahara ….there are others.
It’s weird how the names are adding up. Sam Edwardes, Lee Jonson (Grimace), Cooper Allen, Sam Morgan, Jade Fitzpatrick, Seneca Rus, Matt Lee, Craig Ison, Tadashi Nakahara ….there are others.
Pals, friendly faces in the line-up, fellow bullshitters in the carpark. But you know, bee stings falling coconuts and all that crap.
Sometime after midnight we got hungry. By the side of the house I grabbed a fat, young rooster from the low bough of a cottonwood tree, put him under my arm and to soothe him put him my face next to his.
“Time to go for you mate I’m afraid.”
Spinning him around by the feet to disorient him I put his head on the block and with one swift strike with the machete chopped his head clean off.
By the time I’d bled him out, boiled and plucked him, prepared him in a marinade of lemon juice, thyme, oregano, seeded mustard and olive oil it was close to three am. I pulled him out of the oven as the sky lightened and the cock crowed.
By sunrise we were eating like Canaanite kings of the old Testament.
I had had the Need Essentials boardies on for well over twelve hours and despite the eye-ball sweating drunkeness, chicken blood, juices and spilt beer, and maybe a little bit of caca my testicles remained comfortable and without rash or other irritation.
I have to give them six and half stars out of five. A rare win for the worker against the forces of capital.
