J-Bay, the place. Photo: Byron Loker
After about seven, I wasn’t having much luck. I decided to switch to spirits, which, along with the very pretty bar ladies, started to have the right effect. One of the very pretty bar ladies exhibited something of an Afrikaans accent with a slight American smudge I couldn’t quite place. Then there were the breasts. The kind designed to make a man sit alone at a bar and order round after round of hard liquor. As it happens, I also ended up chatting to the owner, who said I should stay for the band, which would be “phenomenal.” Then he rushed me for the R40 “cover charge” I thought I’d avoided by being there since daybreak.
The rest of the night is something of a blur. The band was good, the vibe just as. At some point I met the brother of the bar lady with the glorious goodies and pinned down the accent: They were from J-Bay, but lived mostly in North Carolina. I tried to casually steer the conversation with Kyle not-quite-from-Carolina toward his sister’s marital status. I also met a girl who asked me to hold her. She really did. She said, “Hold me.” So I did my best to hold her, but obviously not tightly enough, because when I opened my eyes again she was down on the floor next to the bar. I helped her up, but when I turned my attention back to Kyle, who had persuaded his sister to “buy” us a round of eleven tequilas, my friend on the floor met an Aussie who helped her sit on the bar and held her–clearly better than I had.
After he had given the girl who needed to be held some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the Aussie segued into a conversation with Kyle and me, which somehow involved the slighting of Steve Irwin. Threats of bodily harm were made–they are very patriotic, those Aussies–suggesting that the fun was over, and anyway, it had reached that stage of the night when there are only four of you left at (or on) the bar. That’s always a good time to go home. If you can find it. At some point during my wanderings, I discovered that I had lost the book I wanted Kelly Slater to have.
Having to check out of the so-called B&B before 11, I spent the next afternoon mostly lying on the beach trying to recover from a crushing hangover. The contest was on hold, but the slightly onshore three to four-footers were serving up some of the hottest aerial displays I had ever seen. I couldn’t tell who the surfers were, but it was obvious that they were the type paid six-figure salaries in US dollars.
I had time to kill until the Baz Bus headed north and since it was a Sunday afternoon, I wondered what might be a decent time to return to The Reef and see about a beer with my new friends. I decided four was good enough and made my way over there, mostly recovered. As I neared the entrance, a surfer, suited, board under arm, called out from behind me: “Hey, bra.” I turned to him. “I noticed you been hanging around for hours now with your stuff,” he said. “ You OK? You sorted? You waiting for a lift or something?”
“Thanks, man,” I said. “Ya, I’m waiting for a bus. Thanks, though. Going to have a beer while I wait.”
I asked the bartender if someone had handed in a book.
“New Swell?” he asked.
“Yes,” I laughed, “that’s the one. It must have fallen out of my pocket here last night.”
“I got it at home,” the barman told me. “It was on the floor. I’ll bring it for you–how long are you staying?”
I told him I was leaving that night and that he could keep the book. I calculated my chances as slim (by then) of encountering K.S.
“Hey, thanks,” said the barman. “Is it any good?”
“I hope so,” I said. “I wrote it.”
When I came back from the john, there was a new Windhoek Lager waiting for me on the bar. A beer is worth about twice the royalties I earn on each book; if you thought it was crime that didn’t pay in South Africa, you’d be wrong: It’s writing books.
The time came to rendezvous with the Baz Bus, so I made my way over and stopped at a convenience store to get some coffee. The cashier said, “You got all your stuff with you? Do you have somewhere to stay?” I was beginning to wonder how much I looked like a homeless person.
“Yes,” I told her. “I’m catching a bus in a little while. Thanks for the concern, though.”
“No problem,” she said. “If you needed a place to stay, I was going to give you the keys to my apartment.”
“Are you serious?” I asked her. “You’d give the keys to your flat to a total stranger you just met in your shop?”
“Yes,” she told me, “I would.”
I never did meet Kelly Slater, but Sarah almost did. She and I caught that Baz Bus again and she told me she had seen Kelly that day. “He was with his new girlfriend,” Sarah told me. “She’s also from Santa Barbara, UCSB.” Seems these UCSB people are really good at going places.
I told Sarah about my night at The Reef, and about the surfer and the girl at the gas station who were worried about me. “Do I look like a homeless person?” I asked her.
“No,” she replied, “You look like a surfer. Traveling. People here know about that.”
