“Maybe you should get lost.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said you should probably get lost.”
“You came all the way over here to tell me that? Go back to your board meeting and get out of my face.”
“You don’t understand, I don’t even want to smell you near me.”
“Do you have a problem?”
“You’re damn right I do. I paddled out here first.”
“Bro, I’m not even close to fucking up your sesh today, so piss off.”
He stuck his chest out and massaged his knuckles.
“I think you should leave.”
“Are you really gonna act this way?”
“You’re gonna paddle back to shore and find somewhere else to surf or we’re gonna come to blows.”
“No we’re not.”
“You sure of that, bro?”
“Yes, I am. I know where you got that board. It’s a rental. And you probably picked it out because it was the baddest-looking board in the shop, right? You’re not local, which means you don’t want to start shit with people you don’t know. You probably think I’m with the big guy over there but I’m not. Either way, if you so much as lay a finger on me, you’re gonna have a problem with him and everyone else I know on this island. They’ll smoke you out of here faster than punk rock in the Delta. So, toodles, and enjoy the rest of your week at the shore.”
“Bro, I’m going to surf all over your face.”
“What?”
“I’m going to surf all over your face.”
“You’re going to surf all over my face?”
“You heard that right, mother fucker. Steer clear.”
He pulled away and paddled back to his buddies. I sat there for a moment and tried to digest what he had said: he was going to surf all over my face. Jesus. Was that the best he could do?
Competitive, territorial surfers still exist, but they look and act a lot different than they used to. Once rebels, once hardcore, they’re now just moody brats filled with anger and resentment. They want to be so hateful and isolating but they can never seem to rage hard enough to destroy the stoke. They push the envelope but no longer throw the first punch. Their vernacular loiters with irrelevance as the sport and culture grows on top of them. But that seems to be their evolution: some feign intensity while others are forced into hiding. The rest of us, living for the pleasure and freedom of it all, simply enjoy and endure.
Reggie and the long-haired fella, their ways so out of sync with the sport, have lost a lot of ground in their struggle to define the surf culture. Nowadays, wave on wave, more and more goodness saturates the sea. From what I’ve witnessed, solidarity is strong on the water. Everything else – most of it not worth mentioning anymore – bears little consequence, like a wipeout in the fog.
