by Pat Conroy
Jordan smiled and said, “It drives him crazy. It is why I wear my hair long. It’s not why I surf.”
“Why, then? I’d like to know.”
“Because surfing makes me feel like I’m in the presence of God. The ocean. The sun. The waves. The beach. The sky. I can’t explain it, Doc. It’s like praying without any words.”
“Do your parents have any idea about your religious nature?”
“They don’t know one thing about me.”
“Have you always felt this way about your church?”
“It’s the only thing in my life that’s stayed the same,” Jordan answered. “It was comforting when I was a kid. It’s comforting to me now. Prayer’s the one thing that makes me feel I’m not alone.”
“You’re lucky you have your faith, Jordan. Very lucky.”
“You’re Jewish. What do you believe?”
“I’m Jewish,” the doctor said, quietly, wiping his glasses with his tie. “And I believe in nothing.”
“I’m sorry. That must be terrible,” Jordan said.
“You’re a fine boy. A very fine boy.”
“I tried to make you hate me when I first came in.”
The doctor laughed. “You did an excellent job,” he said. “I like your fighting spirit. I like everything about you, except for the fact you’re a liar.”
“How did I lie?” Jordan asked.
“You said your father never hit you. You said he didn’t beat your mother,” the doctor said in such a tone that Jordan was certain that the man knew everything.
“He’s never touched either one of us in his life,” Jordan said, but there was no spirit or conviction in the words.
The doctor applauded, clapping his hands together not in mockery, but in appreciation. “Well done. You and I both know his career might be over if you spoke the truth. I understand why you have to lie. Keep out of his way, Jordan. I’ve seen lots of men like him. They grow more dangerous as their sons grow older. You’re smart enough to learn how to avoid his fists. Outsmart him.”
“I’ll try,” Jordan said.
“You haven’t had much fun in your life, have you?” the doctor asked.
“Not very much.”
“What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you? I know, you can’t tell me about your old man. But in school.”
Jordan thought about his short life and how he had never received a single letter from a friend he had met in school. He had never been asked to spend the night with a classmate and he had never danced with a girl.
“In third grade,” Jordan finally said, “I transferred into a school in February. It was my third school that year. On Valentine’s Day, my class had a big party and the teacher had put out boxes with the names of all the kids in the class. In the morning, the kids put all the Valentine’s cards in the boxes of their friends and kids they liked. The teacher then read your name out and you’d go up and get all your Valentines. One girl named Janet Tetu received over sixty Valentines. She was so nice and pretty some of the boys sent her four or five.”
“And you didn’t get any,” the doctor said softly.
“I still’ve never gotten one,” the boy said. “My father doesn’t believe in Valentine’s Day. He thinks it’s a sissy holiday.”
“I wish we’d met sooner, Jordan. Play sports again when you get to your new school. It’ll make your father happy and it’ll keep you out of his way,” the doctor advised.
Jordan shook his head and answered, “No. He picks me up after practice. That’s when I’m trapped. Those are the worst times. When I’m alone with him.”
“Your mother’ll pick you up. I promise that.”
“The Colonel makes the rules in our house.”
“I’ll make this rule,” Dr. Brill said. “Your mother picks you up or you don’t play sports. No exceptions.”
Later, Jordan told me he couldn’t believe the conviction of the doctor, but said, “A deal.”
“I’ve been seeing your mother all this year, Jordan,” the doctor said.
Jordan was surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“She’s very worried about you. She’s very worried about herself.”
“So what’s new?”
“She told me what your father does. No, don’t be alarmed. She swore me to secrecy. She’s forbidden me to report it to the military authorities and all of us know they wouldn’t do anything anyway. Your mother believes your father loves you very much but … she also thinks he might one day kill you.”
Jordan told me he broke down when he heard those words spoken aloud, the ones he always believed in his heart to be true. He felt himself break open in a deep undiscovered place, one of the dark spaces he had created for himself as a boy. He had wept enough in his life to keep a small aquarium of saltwater fish alive, but the tears had been fierce and private. In front of this small, kind doctor he felt them run down his face in hot spillings. The tears came fast because the secret was out and this odd-shaped, unassuming man had gotten his mother to admit their mutual nightmare at last. During his childhood, he had often awakened in the middle of the night when he had rolled over and his cheek felt the cool wetness where the tears had fallen. It was as if someone had thrown a glass of water on his pillow.
“I talked with your father about this,” Dr. Brill said quietly when Jordan regained control of himself.
“Oh no,” Jordan said, his eyes fearful, despairing.
“He denied it all. I showed him this medical report from last September when you were admitted to the naval hospital with a hairline fracture of the jaw.”
“I got it playing football,” Jordan said.
“So you told the admitting physician,” Dr. Brill said, handing the manila folder to Jordan. “But you didn’t even go out for football this year. Coach McCann corroborated that.”
“It was a touch football game with some enlisted guys,” Jordan said, trying to think ahead of the doctor.
“Your father did it, Jordan,” the man said. “You don’t have to lie anymore to protect him.”
“What did my father say?”
“He denied it completely. He was very cool and polished at first. Then he got angry as he continued to deny it. After he convinced himself that I’d totally made the whole thing up he got furious. It must be terrifying to face his fury as a wife or a son.”
“Did he ever admit it?” Jordan asked.
“Never did. I told him I didn’t admire officers and gentlemen who made a habit out of lying.”
“You said that to my father?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “He, of course, threatened to kick my fat naval ass.”
“He could do it too, Doc,” Jordan said.
“He most assuredly could, but I suggested that the ensuing court-martial might be somewhat detrimental to his career. I made a deal with him. I’d keep quiet if he stopped the abuse.”
“Do you think it’ll work?”
“No. But your mother does. I want you to do your part by keeping out of your father’s way. Be polite. Play his game. Your tough-guy, wise-ass role pisses him off. Get rid of it when he’s around. I’ll check in with your mother periodically. Could you cut your hair?”
“No. I can’t give him that satisfaction yet. I’ll cut it before I start high school though. I promise.”
“That seems fair to me. Good luck. I’ll write you sometimes.”
“I’ve never heard from a single shrink I saw before. You’re not gonna write me, so don’t say it,” Jordan said.
“Yeh, I am,” Dr. Brill said. “Every year you’re gonna hear from me.”
Jordan shrugged and asked, “When?”
“On Valentine’s Day,” the man said.
That was the summer that, on the tree-shaded streets of Waterford and the sun-sifted beaches of the Isle of Orion, Jordan Elliott entered our lives.
In Pony League, we batted in the first four positions. Mike batted first and led the league in hitting. Capers batted second and led the le
ague in doubles and triples. Jordan batted third and pitched the team into the state finals. I was the biggest boy in the league and hit twelve home runs that summer.
In the championship game against Greer, we were beaten 1–0 when I lost a fly ball in the lights while playing right field. The loss was devastating to me, but Coach Langford reminded us that no Waterford Pony League team had even made it to the state finals before. He told me that there would be lots of championship games to come and that I should learn about losing young so I could savor the joy of winning when I got older.
Spontaneously, Jordan asked me and Capers and Mike to spend the night with him at his house on Pollock Island after the game. We could sleep late, he said, then play basketball at the base gym, or go swimming at the Officer’s Club pool. I cleared it with my mother, then walked across the parking lot and joined Mike and Capers in the back of Colonel Elliott’s car. Jordan was in the front seat, his blond hair still wet from the sweat and exhaustion of pitching the game. The loss sat heavily on us and we were unusually quiet as we watched Colonel Elliott discussing the game with Coach Langford.
“Did you ask your father if it was okay if we spent the night?” Mike asked.
“I asked Mom before the game,” Jordan answered. “He wouldn’t notice if I asked the Harlem Globetrotters to spend the night.”
Colonel Elliott approached the darkened car still dressed in his Marine uniform. Even his demeanor looked as though he had ordered it through Supply. His carriage was erect and he moved with pantherish grace. When he reached the car, he fumbled for his keys, opened the door, closed it, then put the key into the ignition.
“Dad,” Jordan said in the darkness.
Colonel Elliott did not answer. Instead, he backhanded Jordan so hard that his head snapped back against the seat and his baseball cap flew into Capers’ lap in the backseat.
“You walked five batters. Five goddamn batters. I told you not to try to throw that sinker until you’ve mastered it. Didn’t I tell you that, mama’s boy? Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Dad,” Jordan said, trying to warn his father of our presence hidden by darkness in the backseat.
Another backhand silenced Jordan as the colonel continued, “You walked the goddamn kid that scored. If you hadn’t given that little bastard a free ride, then that error wouldn’t have cost us the ball game.”
“But I made the error, Colonel,” I said from the backseat as the surprised Marine turned around to see the three of us staring at him in shock.
“Boys, I didn’t know you were here. Hey, good game, you three guys, and what a hell of a season this has been. I’ll tell you one damn thing, we’ve got ourselves a nucleus of athletes in this car that’s gonna shake this town up. I’m the only one in this town that knows just how good you guys are going to play together. Let’s stop for a milkshake. How about a milkshake, son?” the colonel said looking over at Jordan who was staring out of the open window toward the still-lit field.
Jordan nodded his head and I knew it was because Jordan dared not speak. Colonel Elliott bought us all a “victory” milkshake and was most charming on the ride home. But a secret link had been forged between Jordan and me. We were members of the same sorrowing, broken-faced tribe. There is no stronger brotherhood than between two boys who discover that both were born to fathers who waged war on their sons. That night, I told Jordan about my own father and the luminous disaster that bourbon had played in the unhappy history of my family. We traded stories until sunrise, as Capers and Mike slept soundly in the guest room—Capers and Mike who had lived the lucky life of children who had never even been spanked by their parents.
After the Pony League season ended, the four of us spent two weeks on the Isle of Orion under the supervision of my grandparents, Silas and Ginny Penn McCall. We surf-fished in the breakers catching spottail bass and flounder for dinner. I discovered that summer that I loved to cook and feed my friends, and I enjoyed the sound of their praise as they purred with pleasure at the meals I fixed over glowing iron and fire. I had the run of my grandparents’ garden and I would put ears of sweet corn in aluminum foil after washing them in seawater and slathering them with butter and salt and pepper. Beneath the stars we would eat the beefsteak tomatoes and okra and the field peas flavored with salt pork and jalapeño peppers. I would walk through the disciplined rows that brimmed with purple eggplants and watermelons and cucumbers, gathering vegetables. My grandfather, Silas, told us that summer that low country earth was so fertile you could drop a dime into it and grow a money tree.
Each night, I would make a campfire on the beach from piles of twisted driftwood as the other boys cleaned the catch of the day. The wood fire smelled of sargassum and salt air, attar of the Gulf Stream, and its perfume would lightly touch the trout and bass fillets as I sautéed them in butter.
At low tide, we would go with our cast nets to the smaller creeks at the rear of the island. The three of us took turns showing Jordan how to hurl the net. Capers gave the first demonstration, looping the rope around his left wrist, then placing part of the weighted net between his teeth, and grabbing two other sections of the net with his hands. It took both hands, your mouth, and your wrist to execute a throw properly. It also took rhythm and practice and good hand-eye coordination. Jordan had all the prerequisites, and on his fifth toss the net bloomed in a perfect circle before him, as lovely and gossamer as a spiderweb. With that toss, Jordan caught his first white shrimp and his first blue crab. We filled an ice chest with shrimp that low tide and I fed them shrimp dishes for the next four meals. When the shrimp were gone, we went crabbing and caught enough crabs to feed ourselves for a week. I stuffed a four-pound flounder with a mixture of crab and shrimp and baked it in my grandmother’s oven, flavoring it with lemon juice and garlic, experimenting with cayenne and paprika and soy sauce and olive oil. Thus I began to take the first steps toward what would become a career.
After these meals, we would lie on our backs in the sands and moan with the pleasures of overeating. We were surprised when we discovered Jordan could call almost the entire night sky by name. Venus was the lamplighter in the Western sky that started the whole show each night. We stared up at the sky and talked about our lives, telling stories that didn’t matter because those are the only stories American boys can tell.
The single disappointment Jordan had that summer was when he discovered the quality of the surf in his new home. He had no idea one could be disappointed with an entire ocean, but he felt completely let down by the Atlantic. Standing with his surfboard beside him, he first looked at the waves coming in at low tide with complete disbelief.
“What a pussy ocean,” Jordan said.
“What do you mean ‘pussy ocean’?” Capers said, as though Jordan had insulted the entire state. “It’s the ocean, man. The Atlantic Ocean.”
“It just won’t do,” Jordan said. “It’s just not big enough.”
“Not big enough?” Mike said. “How much bigger can it be? It’s the ocean, for God’s sake.”
“The Pacific’s a real ocean,” Jordan said. “This is something else entirely.”
Jordan could activate Capers’ Southern chauvinism even in those early days of their friendship. Capers said, “Is everything in California better than anything we’ve got in South Carolina?”
“Yep. Everything’s better in California. This is a Third World state, boys,” said Jordan, sadly watching the puny waves as they puttered into shore.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
Jordan explained, “Let me put it this way. South Carolina is the Oklahoma of the South. That’s about as low as you can get.”
“But you’re an Elliott,” Capers said. “A South Carolina Elliott. That’s one of the most distinguished names in South Carolina history.”
“Can’t help that,” Jordan said. “It’s still a loser state.”
“You come from something special,” Capers said. “No one’s taken the time to explain to you about your ancesto
rs. I’m also an Elliott on my mother’s side. We’re second cousins once removed.
There are books written about the Elliott family.”
“There are many books written about my family too,” Mike said.
“Name one,” Capers said, not quite sneering.
“Genesis, Exodus, the Book of Kings, Deuteronomy …” Mike reeled off.
“Those don’t count,” Capers said.
“They do to me,” Mike said.
“You said that. Not me.”
And then one day in the middle of July when a failed hurricane from the Caribbean struck the South Carolina coast and the Atlantic finally produced some waves that even a California boy could admire, Jordan taught us how to surf. He was a patient teacher and taught Mike how to get up on the board first, then brought Capers out where the big waves were breaking and got him up on the board on the third wave he rode. The storm increased in ferocity as I started out to meet Jordan who sat on his surfboard while thunder roared over us in a deep-throated howl and lightning cut through the black, boiling clouds.
To avoid being swept back to shore, I had to dive under the waves, as they came at me with the force of a small building collapsing. The sky was dark and the rain hurt my cheeks and eyes as I struggled to reach that dead zone in deep water where Jordan awaited me. When I reached Jordan, I held tightly to his board and rested for a few minutes before I tried for my learner’s permit as a surfer. We floated on the ingathering swells that came rolling from behind us without pause. On land, I could see the palm trees, supple as ballerinas, bend their heads toward the ground in gestures of shy submission.
“What about the lightning?” I asked, as terrible bolts cut through the sky.
“Lightning doesn’t hit guys like us,” Jordan answered confidently.
“Why?” I asked.
“We’re out here to surf, Jack,” Jordan admonished. “This isn’t a class in electricity. So pay attention. Watch me. Choose a wave that seems right for you. One you can be part of. I like that third one. Now watch. Timing’s everything.”
I watched as Jordan’s eyes measured that third wave as it began its supple rise behind us. As it gathered height and strength, Jordan started to paddle confidently until the board was cutting through the water at the identical speed as the wave which caught the board and lifted it. As the board rose, Jordan lifted himself to his feet, crouched yet relaxed, and guided the board down the face of the wave like a careful man taking an escalator for the first time. The board cut the water like a knife cutting linen and Jordan rose high in the air, then dropped straight down as the wave sent him hurtling toward the beach. It looked as though Jordan were riding the back of a lioness onto the sand.