The Cascading: Knights of the Fire Ring

by CW Ullman

  “Actually, the Palmer’s house used to belong to the Sagehorns. Chad Sagehorn and Rusty were good friends when they were kids and Rusty went over there a lot,” Ronnie said.

  Rusty took about two months to withdraw from all the drugs he had been given in the VA. He hardly talked except to give requests or answer questions. If the question needed more than a yes or no, he did not answer. He was mobile and cognizant, but did not talk and appeared vacant and forlorn most of the time. Darla was very surprised by the next development.

  When they got in the car to go back to the house, Rusty asked, “Can we go to the surf shop?”

  After they parked in back of the shop, Rusty walked up to the padlocked door and waited for Darla. Entering, he did not say anything, but went into the back of the shop where he chose a piece of styrofoam eight feet tall, three and a half feet wide, and six inches deep. He set the blank on top of two sawhorses, got a pencil and a piece of string, and started drawing on the styrofoam.

  Ronnie was watching and motioned Darla over to the side and whispered to her, “He’s shaping a board. This is great news.”

  Over the next few weeks, with Darla doing most of the work and directing Rusty, they fixed up the back of the surf shop and moved in. They partitioned the room into separate areas. One small area near the bathroom was Rusty and Darla’s living quarters. In the larger area, he worked shaping the styrofoam piece into a board.

  A few days later, while Charlie, Curtis, Ronnie, Gaston, and Carlos were putting the front of the store together, Rusty was in the back still working on the board. He had been at it for so long that no one actually thought he was going to finish it. It would be the first board he had made since coming out of the hospital. While the guys were hammering up front, Rusty walked from the back and stood in the middle of the room. Charlie saw him and got the attention of the other four.

  “Hey, Russ,” Charlie said.

  The four of them stood looking at him and Darla. Darla had tears in her eyes and Rusty was holding the finished surfboard. The bottom of the board was facing the guys. They could see the center line, some piping along the edges and the skaggs, or fins, on the bottom.

  “Rusty, is that the finished board?” Charlie asked.

  Rusty nodded, which was his reply to most things. Charlie suggested they lay it on two sawhorses. When they saw the top of it, where the surfer would stand, they were stunned into silence. Carlos backed up and left the room. Gaston turned away and Charlie was trying to come up with something to say, but could think of nothing. No writing, flowers, dolphins, or standard surf etchings were displayed on top. In the middle of the board was the one thing Rusty saw constantly, although no one knew it. This is was what haunted him.

  The drawing was a completely accurate representation of My Ling’s eyes. It was the way she looked after she had been pulled out of the ocean and was resting on the floor wrapped in the blanket. It was the look Rusty saw when he was standing next to her just before he picked her up and put the life vest on her. Her look was of gratitude, evident in her contented gaze. At that moment, Darla learned more about Rusty than from all the stories she had heard and all the time she had spent with him. Rusty felt solace drawing the girl’s eyes. The only way he could negate the horror of that day in 1975 was to picture My Ling’s eyes in that brief moment of gratitude.

  As they were all looking at the board, five boys around the age of twelve came into the shop. Charlie knew the boys because he was in the local Rotary club with their fathers. The boys walked over to the surfboard.

  One of the boys, Tom, said, “Totally rad. Charlie, where’d you get it?”

  Charlie answered, “Rusty made it. He’s been working on it for a while. What do you grommets think?”

  Tom picked it up and said, “It is so light. The girl’s eyes are so… like…I don’t know…sweet. I mean, her eyes keep checking me out. I would totally want a board like this, fer sure.”

  “Charlie, you could sell a million of these things. Rusty, you gonna make more?” asked Tom.

  Rusty did not say anything.

  “Cool. Whatta you guys think, huh?” Tom said, turning to his buddies.

  They all chimed in and said they wanted a board like this and asked Rusty how long it would take for him to make one. His silence made them turn to Charlie and repeat the same question. They all believed Rusty’s lack of speech was because he was an old stoner. When someone asked Rusty a question and he would mumble, or not answer, they would turn to Charlie for an interpretation.

  “Rusty’ll do it, but you’ve got to be patient and ask your parents first,” Charlie said.

  Tom asked if he could take it out in the water and Rusty nodded. The guys kept on about the cool look in the girl’s eyes.

  One of the friends said, “Check this: me, on my board and little Miss Girl’s Eyes is scopin’ me out while I’m rippin’ the gnarliest waves. Whacked girl’s eyes, Rusty, bananas.”

  Another young surfer, Randy, said, “Totally bananas!”

  The enthusiasm they all had for the surfboard infected the adults. Tom, with a thick tussle of sun-bleached hair, grabbed a piece of plywood and started writing on it.

  “Charlie, check this for the name of the shop and then have Rusty draw them. Whatta ya think?” Tom said.

  On the plywood Tom had written two words “Girl’s Eyes."

  Randy added in, “Girl’s Eyes’ Surf and Stuff.”

  Tom and Randy high-fived each other. Carlos had walked back in and saw the kids with the surfboard. He came to Charlie and pulled him aside.

  “I don’t know about you, but I almost lost it. He has her eyes down exactly. I realized this is always in his head. Did it bother you to see the eyes,” Carlos asked.

  “Yeah, but seeing the reaction of the kids gave me a perspective that hadn’t occurred to me. Their enthusiasm for the board may reinforce something positive in Rusty. He must be getting some good out of doing the art work. If he’s making boards with her eyes on it and people like it, in some way he’s paying homage to her,” Charlie said.

  “Or he might be deluding himself. I hope you’re right,” Carlos said. “Hey, Rusty, why don’t you and Darla come to the beach and we can watch these guys at the jetty near the Charthouse.”

  Charlie changed into board shorts, tucked his own surfboard under his arm and they all headed to the beach.

  As the water rolled into this small cove, the artificial jetty constructed of large boulders pushed the water up higher, creating runs of four to six foot waves that were short, but great shape. The kids were already in the water when Charlie ran through the shallows, then threw his board forward, and rode out to them. He had to duck dive under waves before arriving where the boys were seated on their boards waiting for the next set of waves.

  “Charlie, this ride totally rocks. I’m AMPED! You can carve (make big splashy turns) and clidro (quick turns up and down the wave) like you’re on a skateboard. You gotta try it,” Tom said. Charlie and Tom exchanged boards. Tom continued, “It’s a Ferrari. Get further back. Let ‘er rip, dude! Paddle!”

  Charlie lay down on the board as the wave rolled towards him. He thought the wave was too close, but he stroked his arm through the water anyway and was surprised when he glided to the front as the wave hit the back third of the board and shot him forward.

  Charlie shouted, “Holy shit.”

  He had never had such an easy a time catching a close wave. He was carving easily, and it felt like the board had a steering wheel. He rode the board all the way to the shallows, jumped off, grabbed it under his arm, and ran ashore.

  “Rusty, how did you get it so light? Dropping in was like having a propeller,” Charlie exclaimed. “Totally insane!”

  He put his arm around Rusty which brought a slight smile to his face. Charlie said, “I know you can hear me. I’m going to work your fingers to the bone. Stock up on masks, blanks, and resin because we’ve got six grommets sitting out there and when their old mans try their kid’s boards, y
ou’re going to have more orders. I don’t know if you’re hollowing out the blank, using a lighter glass job or what, but this girl is swift. I bet no one is going to want a pop out (surf boards made on an assembly line) once they ride this puppy. They’ll all be clamoring for Girl’s Eyes.”

  Charlie ran back out in the water. Rusty, Carlos, Gaston, and Darla sat in the sand, watching. Off to their left, a family carrying fishing poles was walking on the jetty back towards the beach. Darla and Carlos were watching the surfers and had not noticed when Rusty got up and slowly walked to the jetty. The family, a father, his wife, and a girl of about nine, stopped when Rusty approached because he appeared to want to ask them a question. The father thought this red-headed man wanted to know if they had caught any fish. He was confused when Rusty walked past him and the mother, and stopped in front of the girl.

  Carlos was wondering how Rusty liked the reaction his board was getting. When he turned to ask him, he saw that Rusty was over with the family.

  Carlos turned to Darla and asked, “What’s Rusty doing?”

  All of a sudden the father started hitting Rusty in the back. The mother was grabbing at Rusty’s arms and yelling at him. Out in the water Charlie saw Darla, Carlos, and Gaston running across the beach to a group of people that looked like they were fighting with Rusty. .

  Carlos ran up to the group and said, “Hey, take it easy.”

  The father shouted, “He grabbed my daughter.”

  The girl was crying while hiding behind her mother. Rusty tried to step around the mother and grab the girl, but Carlos blocked his move.

  “Whoa, boy, you’re freaking these people out,” Carlos said. “Do you know them?”

  Rusty’s face was not blank for the first time since he had left the VA. He had a pained expression and was crying. Carlos wondered what the father had done to bring Rusty to tears. Carlos was holding Rusty back, but he also wanted to confront the father. He was about to ask the father what he had done, when Rusty got loose, ran around Carlos, grabbed the girl, and fell down in the sand with her. That is when Darla and Carlos heard the plea that Rusty would repeat in the years to come. It would be the reason Darla and the others would need to watch Rusty carefully. Carlos, with the help of Darla, pulled the father off Rusty and separated Rusty from the girl.

  “Rusty stop! What the hell are you doing?” Carlos asked.

  They pried his hands lose from the girl. The mother took her away; backing up with the girl behind her. When they were far enough from Rusty, she ran with her daughter while the father gathered up the fishing gear and ran after them. Rusty tried to go in their direction but Carlos held him back.

  “Fuck! Rusty, stop,” Carlos said. “Get it together. C’mon, man. You don’t know these people.”

  Charlie was out of the water and running towards them. Darla stood in front of Rusty who was still being subdued by Carlos. Darla talked soothingly to him, asking if he knew the family, but he was silent. Charlie reached them and asked what had happened.

  “I’ll tell you in a second, but I need to ask Carlos something,” she continued. “Did you hear him?”

  Charlie interrupted Carlos before he could answer, “What did he say?”

  Again, Rusty did not reply, his face was blank and his body slack. Carlos let him sit down on the beach facing the waves. He stood behind Rusty and stepped back motioning Darla and Charlie to follow.

  Darla brought Charlie and Carlos in close so she could whisper to them. She said, “It sounded like Rusty knew them.”

  “This isn’t good, Charlie. Rusty is more messed up than I thought he was,” Carlos continued. “Rusty kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please forgive me, My Ling,’” The family with the nine-year-old girl was Vietnamese.

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  Girl’s Eyes Surf and Stuff opened in April 1978, even though Charlie had wanted to open either before or after April because he believed April was an unlucky month for him. The Grand Opening was covered in the new local newspaper, the Beach Reporter. Colleen made trays of sloppy joes, Chris was operating the cash register, and Darla stood next to him processing orders. Gaston, Curtis, Carlos, and Ronnie were goodwill ambassadors walking around the store chatting with customers.

  Rusty was shaping surfboards in the back of the store. On the walls of his work area were pictures of Asian girls around eleven-years-old. The collection had started with one photo in the center of the north wall and had grown to cover half the wall.

  Darla had grown very close to Rusty. Most of the time she was acting in the role of a mother watching over her challenged son. Darla felt she could not let him out of her sight for too long. During the Grand Opening, she periodically checked in the back of the store to see how Rusty was doing. While he was bent over the board, she came up next to him and rubbed his back. Sometimes he would not notice, but sometimes he would go with her into the living quarters and they would make love

  Half the time, it would last for a few minutes and other times he would love her for hours. Always, he wanted to lie with her when they were done. It was these tender moments that Darla cherished that made her feel ever more connected to him. He would embrace her until they fell asleep or just stay next to her until she stirred to get up.

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  In the darkness of the closet, Charlie could see the inside of the barrel of the gun pointed above the bridge of his nose. The ashram had made him wonder how life was going to reconcile his karma to the incident on the Enterprise. He was at peace with the repercussion now staring him in the face. Within the cascading images of his life this gun represented peace. The sound of the gun being cocked brought the forms of Sister Marie Celeste, the Kettle, his wedding, the fire ring and the home birth. But, the reoccurring chaos of the Enterprise kept looping around it all. The overboarding had sat in the back of his mind.

  Charlie’s desire to right things was burdened with an inability to accomplish them. He thought if he could fix Rusty, somehow it would fix himself. The limits of that thinking and the trouble it would cause would soon become self-evident. He was not supposed to escape the mob. He had been living on luck and it had run out.

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  CHAPTER IV

  One day in the shop, Charlie waited on a young mother holding toddler. The mother was blond, attractive, and in her mid twenties. She was shopping for men’s sandals. As he came up to her and before he could say anything, the little girl picked her head up off her mother’s shoulder to look at Charlie.

  Charlie and the toddler stared at each other for a moment. He put his hand out to her and she reached for him. The mother turned to see what was happening and the little girl again reached for Charlie.

  “It appears Molly likes you. Molly, do you want this man to hold you?” She asked Charlie if he minded.

  Charlie held Molly and she explored his face by grabbing his nose and pinching his cheeks. She pulled down his lower lip.

  “Be nice, Molly,” the mother said.

  “I’m Charlie. Looking for men’s sandals?”

  “Size eleven. Father’s Day is coming up and my dad says he wanted sandals from Girl’s Eyes, I think you know him, he’s in your Rotary Club, Jack Ryan?” she said.

  “Yeah, he’s my accountant.”

  As Charlie went to the sandal shelf, he did not notice the woman’s eyes dilating with delight when he brushed by her.

  “Is this your shop, Charlie?” She said.

  He said yes and Cindy introduced herself. At the counter, Darla perked up when they exchanged names. She was protective of Charlie and her antenna went up whenever she suspected a woman was flirting with him.

  “I’ve got a pair of elevens for your dad; do you want to get a pair for your husband?” Charlie asked.

  “If I had one, Ollie-Mays ather-fay is ix-nay. Understand pig Latin, Arlie-Chay?”

  “Es-yay, Indy-Cay, Charlie said.

  Cindy and Charlie laughed, which made Molly laugh. They stayed near the shoe area and talked for ten minutes. Eventually
they went to the back counter where Darla checked her out and then checked her out. Whenever they took a credit card, they also took the customer’s phone number. Darla handed the bag of shoes to Charlie who handed it to Cindy.

  When she got to the front door she said, “Charlie, don’t be afraid to call that phone number,” then left.

  Darla mimicked Cindy, “ ‘…and don’t be afraid to call that number.’ “

  She mockingly called out to Cindy, “Hey, Cindy, I can leave the shop if you two want to get it on.”

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

  “Jealous of her, puh-lease. She was a little obvious,” Darla said.

  “The kid was a cute though?” Charlie said.

  “Some people use their pets and kids as bait. You should go to the dentist,” Darla said.

  “Why do I need to go to the dentist?”

  “To have your mouth checked for fish hooks.”

  “Been working on that one a while?” Charlie said.

  “Nope. The Akashic Record,” Darla said. The Akashic Record is believed by some to be the cosmic recording of all things from the beginning of time. Darla and Charlie used the term humorously to mean anything the two of them created or used that could not be verified.

  Charlie started dating Cindy and found they had much in common: they each lived with their parents, they had no siblings, and they both liked the Eagles. They also enjoyed having sex with each other. Chris, Colleen, and Darla were happy for Charlie. Although they thought he was moving too fast, the dialogue they had away from Charlie was he was moving too fast.

  The more he saw Cindy and spent time with Molly, the more he wanted to marry and start a family. For the first time in a long while, Charlie’s life was smooth. The surf shop was doing well, Rusty was manageable, and he had found a woman with whom he could imagine settling down.