The Star Group Read Free

horizon, still a quarter of a mile out, I saw blue walls. My heart was pounding, I was scared, but I was having a great time.
    The waves came. They swelled beneath my board like elephants preparing to charge. I let the first set go by, I wanted to get in my rhythm. Jimmy was bold. He launched himself into the last wave of the set and we heard him scream as his head disappeared down the back side of the mountain, heading south, away from the pier. Sal and I watched as the wave exploded in a fury of white. But Jimmy had played it smart and pulled out immediately after going over the falls. He paddled back toward us wearing the same crazy grin as Sal.
    “That was intense!” he shouted.
    “What's it feel like going down?” I asked.
    “Like you're falling ten stories,” Jimmy said, pulling up beside us to catch his breath.
    “You've got to dive away from your board if the wall comes over you,” Sal cold me. “If your board hits you wrong today, it could cut you in two.”
    I nodded. “I'm riding the next one.”
    “Don't take anything unless you're positioned perfectly,” Sal warned.
    His last comment I took to heart. I was out of place for the next wave, but the one after that had my name on it, maybe the name from my tombstone. It was an easy twelve footer. As I turned my back to it and began to paddle, began to feel it pick me up, I felt as if I were in the grip of Mother Nature Herself.
    The speed of the wave was incredible, I was paddling as fast as I could and it was going to sweep me by. Not sure what to do, I jumped up and forced the tip of my board down. For a moment I was pointed almost straight down, and all of a sudden I knew what Jimmy meant about the ten stories. The foam churning below me looked like the bubbling brew in a distant landscape. I had jumped out of a plane without a parachute. The wave suddenly seemed ten times its height. I had caught it, or it had caught me, I wasn't sure yet.
    But I didn't have a chance to worry about it. I was going down fast, screaming my head off, a blue wall grinding out the daylight on my right. The breath of the wave was on me, the fine spray of seawater. Even before its fist blew me into chaos, I felt it winding up. One second a liquid tube was gracefully curling over my head, and the next I was flying into a washing machine broken on the spin cycle. The wave didn't merely close over my head, it slammed the door shut on top of it. I was forced down, hard and deep.
    Fortunately I had a decent breath in my lungs, and my arms over my head. While being tossed in the roller coaster, my board tried to attack me twice, but it only ended up bruising my back. I estimated that the wave held me down forty seconds – a long time to stay submerged in a swimming pool, but an eternity in a roaring ocean. Yet I didn't panic, even when the pain started to grow inside my chest. It was my last day of school, the first day of my love affair with Gale. I simply could not die, it would be too unfair.
    When I came up I was close to shore; my leash had snapped as well. My board was bumping the sand, some little kid was picking it up and showing his friends. I waved to my pals to let them know I was OK and went for my board. The kid looked at me like he wanted a dollar for finding my board. I gave him a smile, I was feeling pretty good. My ride had been a total disaster and yet now I had the confidence to go for it. I really was going to try to shoot the pier.
    When I reached Sal, Jimmy was already screaming his head off on another wave. Sal pulled a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out from under his wet suit. He kept his goods in a plastic Baggie. He often smoked while he was out on the water, no one knew how he managed. We were both sitting up on our boards when he lighted up.
    “How did it feel?” he asked.
    “I bought it big time. But it was cool.”
    He nodded as he blew smoke, staring off in the distance. Sal loved the nature as much as the surfing. I think he used the sport as