Surf
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Brian Unger’s recent novel The Rincón Notebooks: Before the Storm (Missing Links Press). Buy it here.
Tuesday, 24 January (9:58 p.m.)
The moon poured light on the hills and no car passed me and Mikey Surf on the road. The transmission slipped out of gear with a whirr and a whine and I slid it into neutral and then back into drive and it caught, so we continued to drive and went to the Calypso bar. Puerto Ricans and Americans were drinking and talking under the beat and thrum of jíbaro music played by a three-person combo with a cuatro guitar, a güiro scraper, and a pair of tall bongo drums. Vance Trento sat in the back near the ocean and Mikey Surf went straight for Trento’s table while I stopped at the bar to say hello to Janisa, the bartender. Trento and his wife were sharing a pitcher of rum punch with Cal Ritchie, Cal’s wife Carol, and José Muñiz. Cal was a local waterman known for riding fearsomely large waves with a nonchalance that one percent or perhaps one-half percent of surfers could match. The prior winter he had been photographed by Steve Fitzpatrick streaking across a 40-to-50-foot wave at Tres Palmas on a small tow-in board.
Vance, Cal, and José hired on as judges for the Cerveza Corona Pro contest this weekend, a competition conducted by the Asociación Profesional de Surfing de Puerto Rico, and I had a media pass so I could interview the contest managers, judges, and competitors for a book, or an article in The Inertia. Weather reports indicated that a solid swell was on the way, and pro surfers were arriving in town to practice in the local conditions. A category 3 blizzard was on track from Chicago to New York, where it would roll into the North Atlantic and rotate into a giant nor’easter. A second storm with highly turbulent winds was simultaneously slamming its way through the southeastern states. The converging storms would combine in the Atlantic off Cape Hatteras sometime on Wednesday and when this combo collides with the high pressure of the south the differential will generate intense winds and create a monster swell that will roll south two or three days before hitting Puerto Rico. And then there is the Puerto Rico Trench, five hundred miles long and 28,000 feet deep, firing up the swell with additional velocity as it rolls to shore.
After stopping to chat with Janisa, I made my way over to the table where Mikey was sitting with Vance and Donna Trento and the others. Trento was a competitive surfer back in the day in Jersey, a member of the Dewey Weber World Team. He was a wiry little athlete, extremely effective on almost any type of wave. Vance tried to introduce me around the table even though I lived in Rincón, and he was essentially a tourist.
“Hey José, Cal, Carol,” Trento asked the table, “this is Brendan, do you guys know Brendan McGuinness?”
“Sí, the longboard professor, que tu hace, amigo? José said.
“Hey Vance, I live here, you don’t have to introduce me,” I said gamely. “You’re the tourist.”
“Hey easy on V.T.,” Mikey Surf jumped in, “he’s classic, you’re just a longboard kook.” Everyone laughed heartily and Donna Trento managed a thin smile at the corners of her mouth.
“How are you tonight sweetie?” Carol asked me.
“Doing great, thanks Carol. José, are you and Cal ready for the contest?”
”
“Oh sí, vamo’pa’llá,” said José. “It’s gonna be one helluva competencia, Professor, double-whammy. Two fuggin’ storms off Hatteras. They’re gonna roll south, Dude! Boom! It’s gonna be a gnarly swell.”
The waitress brought extra glasses and Cal Ritchie poured a rum punch for me and Mikey. Everyone in Rincón was excited about the contest and the predictions for epic surf. Rumor had it pro surfers Sunny Garcia and Shane Dorian were in town, and other pros had been spotted at local breaks. The bar at Calypso was filling up fast. All heads turned when Dorian came in with Otto Flores, Sean Penn, and three women. Penn was trying to disguise himself with a funky hat pulled down over his forehead but several people recognized him, including Mikey Surf.
“Look, there’s fucking Sean Penn with Shane Dorian,” Mikey slurred, looking over at the movie star. Mikey was solid drunk by now. “Fuggin’ guy can’t act, no talent. Plays same character every movie.”
“That’s Sean Penn? ¡Coño, mano!” José exclaimed. “Jeff Spicoli, Fast Times at Ridgemont High! Holy Shit, my wife loves that dude!”
“Sure as shit, that’s him,” Mikey said. “Guy can’t act.”
“Oh come off it Mikey,” said Carol. “Don’t be so negative. He’s a pretty cool dude – I mean, he helped all those people in Haiti after the hurricane.”
“I hear he surfs pretty good, too,” added Vance.
“Yeah, he can surf. But he can’t act,” Mikey insisted, downing his rum punch and pouring himself another.
“I heard he didn’t even bring a decent board with him to Haiti. The surf went off for like a week and he had to sit on the beach like a kook with his thumb up his ass!”
“How’s classes goin’ at the colegio?” José asked me, trying to change the subject.
“Good kids, we’re reading some pretty cool stuff.”
“What do you teach again?” Carol queried. “I can’t remember.”
“American lit, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean lit, with the political history thrown in. This semester we’re reading the José González book on originary Puerto Rican culture, Bernardo Vega’s Memoirs; poems by Corretjer, Julia de Burgos; the Nuyoricans, Miguel Piñero, et cetera. We’ll check out the F.B.I. assassinations of Puerto Rican patriots, the independentistas. I want the kids to get the real straight-up history, not the official state propaganda.”
“Okay Brendan, enough with the big words,” Mikey interrupted. “Nobody knows what the fuck you Marxist professors are talking about.”
“Mira, Mikey!” José interjected. “I know what he’s talking about – imperialismo Americano – the fuckin’ F.B.I. and C.I.A. assassinations of Puerto Rican patriots. You norteamericanos have July 4th Independence Day, when’s our Boricua Independence Day?!”
“I agree, José,” Mikey Surf replied. “¡De acuerdo!”
“Wow, that’s cool Brendan,” Carol added. “I didn’t know English professors taught heavy shit like that. We didn’t read stuff like that when I was in college at Gainesville.” Mikey guzzled his rum and stood up, a wavering drunkard in the night air. The table looked up at him in fear.
“I gotta say sumpin’ to Sean Penn,” Mikey marbled.
“Mikey don’t,” Cal said. “Let it go. We don’t want a scene.”
“I have to, Cal,” Mikey said quietly. “He killed Tim Robbins in Mystic River. It was a good fuckin’ movie, but that was a fuckin’ bonehead move. He got the wrong guy.”
“Mikey, eté – it’s just a movie,” José Muñiz added. “No es la vida real.”
“Oh sí, es la vida real,” Mikey averred.
“Mikey, celebrities hate when strangers come up to them,” Trento declared. Penn was standing with Shane Dorian, Otto Flores, and the three women, waiting for their table to be cleared off. Mikey got up and slid towards them knocking into chairs and tables all along the way, a pirate ship struggling to right itself in rough seas. He tapped Penn on the shoulder.
“Hey Sean, Dude! My sister Cassy Bellamy was second assistant director on Carlito’s Way, remember her? She said you guys hung out some.” Penn swung around to face Mikey. He was about Mikey’s height and weight, with a thick wave of hair jumping out from under his floppy hat.
“No shit, really? I remember Cassy, man. What’s your name?”
“Mike Bellamy, around here they call me Mikey Surf. I have a bar in town.”
“Your sister’s a cool chick, man, good to meet you. I’d love to come to your bar.” Penn stuck out his hand out and shook Mikey’s.
“You guys are from Hermosa Beach, right?” Penn asked.
“Right on brah,” said Mikey Surf. “I learned to surf at the pier when I was a young grom.”
“Far fuckin’ out! My parents used to drop me off at Bay Street,” said Penn. “That was my little kook spot.” Mikey was half-wasted but Sean Penn was totally cool about it and treated Mikey with dignity. I was glad for that because Mikey was under a lot of stress. He had lost two people very close to him in a short span of time, his wife and my wife, Yvonne, and Janice. He was coming apart at the seams, drinking like a fish, depressed as hell. This conversation with Penn had clearly buoyed him. The culture at large had endorsed him, and that’s all he ever wanted. I could see him beaming a gap-toothed grin as he walked back to our table.
“Sean Penn is so cool,” Mikey blurted. “He was surfing Bay Street in Santa Monica like a little kook while I was down at the pier hangin’ ten on my old Dave Sweet. My sister Cassy worked with him on Carlito’s Way. He played that coke-head lawyer. Fuckin’ great actor!”
