Norman Ollestad - Crazy for the Storm

It would be boring to be them, I said.

Could you imagine? he said, and we laughed like two monkeys.

In the morning a crosswind was chewing the swells down to one-foot mushers. We left and never found another good wave in Baja. After traversing the monotonous desert all morning we parked on a bluff of dust and sand, no bushes or plants or color, except for the emerald sea below. Just looking at it cooled me down.

Good thing we got those waves yesterday, he said.

It’s sure better than sitting in a hot truck all day with nothing to look at but dust, I said.

He laughed.

Have you ever been tubed? he said.

No.

It’s kinda like flying through deep powder.

Really?

Yeah. Even though it’s different, you get that feeling .

I turned and my dad was staring at me with wild sapphire blue eyes. He saw it in me and I saw it in him—a remembrance of that feeling: hovering in a weightless space with honey on the tip of your tongue and pure red blood gorging your heart, soaring on a current of angelic music cutting clear mountain air.

Maybe we’ll find some tubes for you, Boy.

What happens if you don’t make it out?

You get crushed.

He punctuated his response by holding his gaze on me.

My dad was not his usual self that night. We ate in a town crowded with Mexican tourists and he scowled and stared at the people moving along the cobblestone street. It seemed like he was glaring at women’s asses a lot. He said he was feeling under the weather and he ate oranges and raw garlic with cheese for his dinner.

Are you sad about Sandra?

Naw. I’m just fighting off a bug.

Will she be there when we get back?

I don’t know. I hope so.

In the room we plugged in the fan he had bought at the local hardware store. The store had mostly barren shelves and was dank and dirty, part of a broken world of half-built structures and unfinished roads. We sat naked on our respective beds receiving alternate blasts from the fan. He tuned the guitar, which was way out of tune from the heat. He sang Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain and then shut off the lights.

The following afternoon we set across the Sea of Cortez aboard the ferry. The only thing good about the eighteen-hour journey would be the cool air coming off the water. My dad played poker with a Scandinavian doctor and his beautiful wife. There were stacks of 1,000 and 10,000-note pesos building up in front of my dad’s seat. I wondered if he was trying to impress the wife. She had dove-white hair and lime green eyes. The opposite of Sandra.

The dolphins rode waves off the ferry’s bow as the sun went down. I was mesmerized. They must be the best surfers in the world.

In the middle of the night I was awakened. My dad was curling up on the end of our bench, putting the top of his head close to mine. He smelled funny.

What’s that smell? I said.

We’ve been sweating for a couple days, he said.

You smell like that lady, I said.

We danced together after you went to sleep, he said. Her perfume must’ve got on me.

Where was her husband?

He danced too.

Yeah sure, I thought.

The next morning we disembarked in Mazatlán and the sage was gone, replaced by jungle. The jungle crawled across the hills and was deep green and smelled of wet earth. This is Mexico, I thought.

We took the highway south and drove out to the first point we came to. A blond surfer, clearly an American, was waxing up his board.

Guard the truck, said my dad and jogged across the beach and spoke to him.

When my dad returned he looked excited.

The guy thinks the waves will get good today from a hurricane off the coast. What do you say we drive for a couple hours and then surf?

Is it going to get big?

Maybe. But we’ll surf a point. Just stay on the inside.

At the last point break there was no inside section where I could ride the smaller waves. I brought this to my dad’s attention.

That was unique, he said.

He patted my leg and shut my door and went around to the driver’s side.

The road veered inland and I anticipated it veering back toward the coast. I moved to the edge of the seat, waiting for the moment when we’d see the big waves, not wanting them to catch me by surprise. My dad whistled a tune I had heard him play on his guitar and he told me it was Merle Haggard. He jiggled his shoulders and lifted his voice. It was out of sync with the forlorn lyrics and it seemed like maybe he was trying to hide sadness. Or maybe he was fine. There was no way to read him. He was walled off in his own world. I hated not knowing what he was feeling, not having a barometer to look to. Unable to express my aloneness, I felt tied up, and I sat there picking the scab on my elbow.

My dad reached across my body and braked hard, his skin peeling off the vinyl as I banged against the passenger’s door. Next to a roadblock made of sandbags and a two-by-four stood a young man in a military uniform that was several sizes too big for him. He waved a white flag.

Shit, said my dad.

What?

Nothing. It’s cool. Federales .

My dad eased the truck up to the two-by-four that was about hood high. I wanted him to stop farther back. From under a makeshift lean-to of palms appeared three more young men in uniform. The soldiers had rifles over their shoulders, barrels pointed forward and swinging, as they approached us.

Hola , said my dad. Que paso ?

The teenager with the flag stepped aside and a guy wearing a billed cap took the lead. He was a teenager too. His eyes were small and swollen like Nick’s on a Saturday morning. He didn’t respond to my dad. The other two guys with rifles circled the truck and glared at me. How could teenagers have guns already? I thought.

I peeked around my dad’s body. The leader rested his hand on the nose of the rifle, which was lazily pointed toward my dad’s head.

Pasaporte , he said.

My dad reached for the glove compartment and the teenager on my side raised his rifle. The barrel was inches from my face. My dad spoke to the leader in Spanish and pointed to the glove compartment. The barrel dropped and I peed in my pants. I held my breath so I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t move and the piss ran down my leg.

The leader asked my dad about the washing machine. My dad showed him the Sears receipt. My dad and the leader seemed to argue.

The leader grabbed the door handle and I gasped. The teenagers laughed at me. The leader opened the driver’s door and looked behind the bench seat. He yelled to the guy on my side, who opened my door and rummaged through the glove compartment, scattering papers onto the floor and the road. One of them grabbed my dad’s guitar. The guy holding the flag made kissing gestures to me. My dad put his hand over my hand and I stared at the black floor mat and the papers.

The soldiers took money from my dad’s pockets, then one of them threw the guitar case into the truck bed and a sound rose from my dad’s gut. The leader yelled to the kid with the flag and he pulled back the two-by-four. It slid off the sandbags and when there was enough space my dad hit the gas hard. The teenagers whistled and called out.

My dad did not speak. His arm muscles were taut from gripping the steering wheel. I spoke and it startled him.

What? he snapped.

Nothing, I said.

About ten minutes later he pulled over. He told me to change my shorts and I was amazed he had noticed. He fixed the tarp and inspected his guitar. His face looked angry. The vertical crease between his eyebrows cut deep into his skin and it looked like he had a scar there.

Was that all our money?

Almost, he said, then pulled the poker winnings from the sound hole of the guitar.