Pirata

by Patrick Hasburgh

  “This one’s his,” I said.

  “If he can make it,” the Aussie said.

  I spun my Red Fin around and paddled after the Jesus freak. I hooked his leash with the nose of my board and we nearly collided, but it slowed him down enough for Jade to make the wave—and then a magnificent rail turn into a big-time Pacuinas barrel.

  I flipped the Christian a middle-fingered shaka and then dropped in on the next bomb, bottom-turning a little to my left and pushing him into the closeout. It was a nice wave. I trimmed up the Red Fin and took her home.

  I joined Jade onshore. He was smiling.

  “Dude, what a wave,” I said.

  “What an ass-cork,” he said. “What was with that guy?”

  “There are two kinds of Christians,” I said, “the real kind and the kind you don’t want sitting on your jury. Ass-cork is right.”

  “I made that up,” Jade said, enjoying the permission to be obscene.

  “It works,” I said.

  But I was secretly hoping that this guy was also the turn-the-other-cheek kind of Christian, because he was riding in on the cleanup wave from the last set. And I could tell even from this distance that he was furious. He made it to the sand and stormed up to me. He took off his leash and tossed his board. And then he waved a fist in my face.

  “I paid a lot of money to come here and surf this wave, you cross-eyed prick,” he said, just about spitting. “So if your little concubine takes another one of them, I’ll kick his arse, and then kick yours.”

  He stood there, glaring at me. I could see that Jade was frightened, but I was really pissed off about the concubine insinuation. And what’s with that cross-eyed shit?

  I turned a little sideways so I could see him better—and then I punched him square in the face. My fist caught the Aussie flush and knocked him flat to the sand. He looked up at me, just as amazed as I was. He tried to scramble to his feet, but I stepped on his wrist.

  “I live down here, mate,” I said. “If you ever fuck with my kid again, I will have you killed.”

  This was the toughest tough-guy thing I could think of. I hoped it would work. This Aussie was a lot younger than I was, and a shitload more fit.

  I could see Obsidian running toward us.

  “Obsidian!” Jade screamed. “Dad just knocked this fucking guy OUT.”

  But I couldn’t tell whether Jade was proud or panicking. A few locals I had surfed with at Pacuinas over the years began to circle in. I nodded to a couple of them, and I hoped they remembered me. I was lucky that they nodded back.

  Then some of the Jesus freak’s Australian buddies jogged up and helped him to his feet. There was a lot of stink eye going around, but nobody knew quite what to do, so we all just tried to look big and badass.

  I could see that some of the Aussies were ready to throw down, but then one of the locals stepped in. He pointed to them.

  “You chicos ever hear of a Mexican standoff?” he asked, in pretty good English.

  Then he motioned back to his amigos, who were standing in a half circle behind him. “This is what it looks like,” he said.

  Every Mexican on the beach laughed. If they didn’t understand English, they sure got the body language. There was no way these Australians were dumb enough to get into a brawl down in Mexico—with Mexicans.

  “Leave it in the water,” one of the Australians said.

  Another Aussie picked up the wave hog’s board, and they all walked off, murmuring and kind of laughing. I think they knew that their fellow Down Under man was a dick.

  Obsidian and Jade were staring at me.

  “Holy shit,” Obsidian said, “I didn’t know you were like that.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “I think I hurt my hand.”

  42

  I ran into a bump trying to register the boys at the Mexican Junior Nationals at El Tigre. The contest organizers were telling me that the competitors had to be Mexican, and they wanted to see birth certificates or passports to prove it.

  They wouldn’t buy my story that Jade and Obsidian were born in Tijuana to a Vietnamese UCSD exchange student on a spring-break binge down in Mexico. But as luck would have it, I could buy the organizers for 1,000 pesos each.

  When you bring kids who are used to being the hot-shit groms at their home break to a national surf contest, it’s often the first time they’re competing for waves against young surfers who are just as hot shit as they are. Jade took this a lot better than Obsidian did—who kept telling me he had a stomachache.

  There were sixty entries in the fourteen-and-under division—twenty heats, three surfers per heat. Because of the sign-up hassle and, no doubt, the boys’ questionable nationality, Obsidian and Jade were relegated to the final heat.

  I didn’t expect the boys to win this thing. I just wanted them to experience organized competition at a national level. I wanted to show them that the world was a bigger place than they probably thought it was, and how nobody was all that special or different.

  But as we sat on the beach and watched the opening heats, all I wanted for my boys was that they wouldn’t be humiliated. There were gromeros here in ragged shorts, riding waterlogged boards with missing fins and dinged-up rails, who were absolutely owning hollow overheads and pitchy barrels. The kids down here were hungry, and it showed.

  The heats in the opening round lumbered on, Mexican-style, but at least the swell was holding up. In fact, it looked like it was getting bigger. Jade was dozing on and off. Obsidian fidgeted. The beach was muggy and bug-ridden. I was nervous.

  And then, right around dusk, Ali Nereida and Jade Lutz and Obsidian Lutz were announced over the screechy PA. I had used my expired FM3 as Mexican ID and claimed to be the boys’ real dad, so they had to use my last name—and I puffed up a little at the sound of it.

  The boys snatched up their boards and sprinted into the ocean. I was barely able to nod good luck. The shore break was pumping, but Obsidian and Jade easily powered their way through it. The final heat of the day would begin immediately. It would last twenty minutes and probably end in the dark.

  A competitor’s two best waves are scored at a maximum of ten points each. Two perfect waves would make twenty, but that’s an unheard-of total at a Junior Nationals. A good score here would be around fifteen. A combination of sevens and eights could win the heat.

  Jade was in a white rash guard. Obsidian was wearing blue. A young lady was in red. Ali Nereida was a girl, what surfers call a wahine, and immediately after the horn sounded, she pounded down the face of the first makeable wave and leaned into a backside barrel.

  I wished I had binoculars, but even from where I was, I could see that Obsidian and Jade were head-smacked and staring at each other. Then Jade chased down a smaller wave but missed it. I could see that he was pissed at himself.

  As the next set was coming in, the girl in red was sitting on Obsidian’s outside. My kid had priority because the girl had just paddled back to the lineup, but she charged hard for the next wave anyway, forcing Obsidian deeper than he wanted to go. Then she backed off—suckering Obsidian into making the drop—and smiled as the wave collapsed on his head.

  Ali Nereida was kicking ass.

  Jade made a wave, barely staying on his feet as he boned a cutback. It was clear that he was in over his head, and I began to think that I had made a mistake entering my guys into a competition this heavy.

  But then Obsidian made a huge wave with a big drop into a delicious string of rail turns. He tried to finish with an amazing reverse air—but missed it, and then flipped into the shore break closeout. The tip of his surfboard jammed into the sand, and it snapped in half.

  Obsidian waded out of the water, the remains of his board dragging behind him on the leash like a drowned dog. The top of his right foot was bleeding.

  “Dude, so sorry,” I said. “You had that dialed.”

  “Yeah, good wave, huh?” he said, surprisingly zen. “I was just starting to figure it out.”

  But his
day was over.

  “Come on, Jader!” Obsidian screamed, waving a fist at his stepbrother. “Up to you, bro.”

  So far the judges had scored the wahine 9.6 and 9.1, which sort of shined the shit light on my wave-scoring theory. But they scored Obsidian’s last wave a 6.6, which I thought was generous, seeing as how he blew his air.

  Jade’s only score so far was a 2.7, and now he was paddling hard after a set wave—he nailed it and made the drop, linked up two sweet roundhouses, and then stuck a perfect one-eighty.

  But instead of paddling back to the lineup, he rode the white water into shore.

  “Dude, get back out there,” Obsidian said.

  Jade uncuffed his leash and handed the Glenn Pang to his stepbrother.

  “I’m getting crushed,” Jade said.

  Obsidian looked over at me as Jade hugged him and then rapped a lucky knuckle on the TC Pang. “You need to go,” he said.

  I nodded at Obsidian, and he sprinted into the surf.

  “Put the leash on!” I yelled.

  The judges gave Jade’s wave an 8.1. I put my arm around him.

  “Nice,” I said.

  But la dama de rojo had Obsidian comboed with an 18.7. He needed two waves, both big 9s—pretty impossible—to win it.

  High tide was just about peaking—it was nearly dark, and I could barely make out a wedge of dots against the darkening sky. It looked like a skein of pelicans swooping low across the water.

  The girl paddled in a slow circle, staying close to Obsidian and protecting her lead. It looked as if Obsidian had given up. He was just sitting on his board and staring out to sea—but then I realized he was watching the pelicans.

  Obsidian paddled toward the lazy birds as the ocean started to rise and lines of waves began to fatten and show themselves. Jade looked at me.

  “Dude, you were right,” he said.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  Obsidian made the backside set wave with a free-fall drop into a bottom turn so full of torque that he had to grip his outside rail with both hands. Then he carved up the face and snapped off three vertical hits in a row, fins above the lip and ripping down the line as the wave walled up—barreled—and then blasted him out in a ball of spray as if he had been shot from a circus cannon.

  He raised his fist—claimed the wave—and fell sideways off his board. Done.

  “Holy shit,” Jade whispered.

  “No kidding,” I said.

  All three judges gave Obsidian’s final wave a ten. The only perfect score of the day.

  43

  “So what are we supposed to do now?” Jade asked.

  “Cry,” Obsidian said. “I got beat by a wahine.”

  “Get used to it,” I said. “But right now—we bask.”

  We were heading away from the ocean, it was drizzly and dark, and the dirt road was more of a ditch. I clicked on the high beams. Jade was riding shotgun. Obsidian was slouched in the middle seat—totally bumming. He knew he could have done better.

  “Bask?” Jade repeated.

  “In our glory,” I said. “It’s like being baked—but in the juices of victory.”

  “That’s baste,” Jade said.

  “Look,” I said. “Obsidian comes from out of nowhere in the final minutes of the final heat to bang out the only perfect wave score of the day—tens by all three judges.”

  I flashed ten fingers three times as if my hands were a scoreboard.

  “And you knocked down a solid eight, my son,” I said.

  “An eight point one,” Jade said.

  “And then you honorably handed over your weapon to your bro, the stronger warrior,” I bragged. “This is mysto surf stuff. Half of Mexico must be talking about it already.”

  “We still lost, Nick,” Obsidian said. “To a girl.”

  But I could see that he wasn’t exactly suicidal. Both of the boys looked like they were enjoying how stoked I was.

  “It was a victory,” I said. “Anyone who knows what losing is will tell you that.” I looked at Obsidian in the rearview mirror. “You need to be able to recognize a victory when you get one. They can be hard to come by. There’ll be long stretches in your life without any. And then sometimes they’ll come in streaks—so you have to be ready. Today was a victory, guys.”

  “Do you ever have any?” Jade asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Like what?” Obsidian said.

  “Well, today is sort of a victory for me, too. I’m proud I helped get you guys down here and sign you up.” I wanted to be careful not to barge in and take credit for who these boys were as surfers. I had very little to do with it. “And I think that if what your mom and I are thinking about putting together works out, that would be a victory, too.”

  “You mean the Wave of the Day?” Jade asked.

  “That was Winsor’s,” Obsidian said.

  “I mean, like, this sort of a family thing we’re talking about—us,” I said. “That could be a victory.”

  This was delicate turf.

  “Any victories that didn’t happen this week?” Obsidian asked, pimping me, but he probably wanted to know a little more about me, too.

  “I’ve had some,” I said. “But I don’t like to baste.”

  We were heading back through the city of Compostela. I dimmed my lights and tried to count the victories I had had since the one big defining defeat of my life. There weren’t many. I was a divorced former car salesman—with a head injury, no family, and occasional substance-abuse issues. If I’d been victorious at anything these last six years, it’d been racing to the bottom.

  “Should we drive home or crash somewhere around here?” I asked, letting myself up off the mat.

  “Can we go to a strip bar?” Obsidian asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because strip bars are a crime against women,” I said, caught off guard.

  “Why?” Jade asked. “Mom danced when she needed the money. She said it was nothing to be ashamed of if you weren’t slutty and the men couldn’t touch you.”

  I was going to need to back out of this alley—it was a good thing the Suburban had four-wheel drive.

  “Your mom is like an astronaut discovering new planets,” I said. “But for regular girls, taking their clothes off for money can be a bummer.”

  It would be smart to change the subject.

  “How would you guys like to get a tattoo?” I said, nominating myself for the Irresponsible-Stepdad-of-the-Year Award.

  And then all I could think of was that kook from Oz with The Last Supper tattooed across his back.

  “Are you kidding!” Jade said. “That would be so cool.”

  “Yeah,” Obsidian said. “I want a skull—on my neck.”

  “I was thinking of something a little different, maybe,” I said. “Like ‘death before dishonor’ or ‘peaceful warrior’—in Chinese. And small—like maybe on the bottom of our heels.”

  I had just driven down another alley I needed to back out of.

  “How about if we design our own?” Jade suggested. “Something for just the three of us that’s symbolic.”

  “As long as it has a skull,” Obsidian said.

  “It’s not going to have a skull,” I said.

  “How about a surfboard?” Jade asked.

  “Maybe a surfboard,” I said.

  “Do you have something I can draw with?” Jade asked.

  “In the glove compartment,” I said.

  44

  I got tatted at an all-night parlor on the plaza in La Peñita. I was now the proud owner of a Jade Phuc original tat. It was a miniature surfboard with Meagan inked across the bottom in green, white, and red, the colors of the Mexican flag and the only ink the tattoo artist had in his kit.

  The Meagan surfboard took up about six inches on the inside of my left forearm, and it hurt like hell. It was still bleeding a little, and I was supposed to stay out of the ocean for at least a week.

 
“It’s a great tribute to an amazing person,” Jade had said, finishing up the tattoo design he was drawing on a paper towel. “Mine and Obsidian’s will say Mom and yours Meagan—and it’s on a surfboard, like a family coat of arms.”

  “So it’s sort of like an adoption,” Obsidian said.

  “It’s even better,” Jade said.

  He’d been working on the design for about an hour, and for some reason I’d gotten caught up in the energy. I was longing for Meagan. I’d just had a great day with her kids. I felt a little like a real dad again. We’d all been bunking together. And I had always wanted a tattoo. Or maybe the Epilim and exhaustion had somehow morphed into a lovestruck mania.

  But what the hell. I rolled up my sleeve.

  The boys wanted me to get tatted first because they were a little freaked out by all the horror stories they’d heard about painful needles and how bloody it was. And they were right. The process was bloodier and more painful and took longer than I had expected. But that’s probably because tattoos are inked in to last a lifetime—something that hadn’t totally dawned on me, not at first.

  Jade sucked it up and raised his hand to become the next tattooed member of our new family tribe. The tattoo artist wanted to see proof that Jade was at least sixteen, which is apparently the age of consent for tattoos in Mexico.

  “Why didn’t you tell us that before I got my tattoo?” I asked.

  “I’m busy-ness man,” the artist said, in so many words and some impressively broken English. “Me talk first, you no buy.”

  Nobody likes to lie in front of their kids—unless there’s a good reason. So I told the guy that Obsidian and Jade were both almost sixteen and Irish twins, and that I was their birth father—and I was giving him permission to scar my children for life.

  He still shook his head.

  “Lo siento,” he said. “No crime.”

  I would have offered to bribe him, but I had used up my extra cash buying off the organizers of the surf contest.

  “Maybe this worked out the best way,” Jade said.

  He had stretched out on the Suburban’s middle seat and was gazing up at the stains on the roof liner. Obsidian was in the very-back seat, already asleep.