Doug Dorst - The Surf Guru

Bobby catches a set wave, but drops into it too late. He manages to carve off the bottom into a floater, then elevator-drops and loses his balance; he pitches into the water and is driven face-first into the sand. There is a slash of pain in his ankle, then a wrenching tug. Then fire in his legs and side, a glimpse of thrashing gray and a flat black eye, a strange warmth bathing his body. A crushing blow to his chest that squeezes the air out of him, and with that a mysterious clarity: he remembers that he should yank on the shark’s gill slits, a trick he learned from the GOO-ROO Surfer’s Survival Guide . He grabs and yanks, loses hold, grabs and yanks again.

Then he finds himself on the beach inside a ring of wide-eyed, shrieking people, and he calmly, sleepily stares at the cuff still fastened around his ankle, at the rubber cord that trails from it, at the clean slice where the leash was bitten through.

In the hospital, they have to cut open his GOO-ROO wetsuit. They try to sew him up, but Bobby has lost too much blood, and he dies on the table amid rags of black neoprene. One doctor tells the local news it looked as if poor Bobby was molting.

The Surf Guru returns to Padre Point immediately and arranges a ceremony for Sunday afternoon. He spends thousands of dollars on flowers — hyacinths, lilacs, and mums. With a single phone call to the city council, he has the road that runs along the cliff closed for the day. Everyone comes. Some weep. Some vow revenge against all things selachian. Some throw flowers off the cliff. Some of the flowers fall into the water; some come to rest on the cliff side.

The Surf Guru watches the ceremony from his deck. He wears the Greek fisherman’s cap, the hat of sorrow and solitude.

The GOO-ROO Surfer’s Survival Guide , priced at $16.95, is also available with the Surf Guru’s autograph on the inside front cover for $19.95. Even though the autographed version has sold 750,000 units, only three purchasers have complained in writing that the autograph looks suspiciously like a dog’s paw print.

The red-haired boy does not own the Survival Guide , but he knows that if a shark ever attacks him, he should yank on its gill slits. “It’s intuitive,” he says.

Surfers fill the bay. A hundred GOO-ROO boards twinkling. A hundred black wetsuits with GOO-ROO stamped in screaming green across the chest. It is an ordinary sight, but today he is taken aback. So many pieces of himself, spread across the water, carried by the waves like so much flotsam.

He eats a big breakfast. He worries that he has been losing weight.

(For a poodle, maybe)

The Surf Guru’s wife once bought a cable-knit doggie sweater at a church craft fair, but the dog bit her when she tried to force its legs into the sleeves.

Later, he and the dog played fetch with the sweater until it fell apart. From inside the house, she watched them with mercury eyes.

— We shouldn’t do this.

— I’m not his wife anymore. Legally or otherwise.

— That is an excellent point. Still, it doesn’t feel right; he trusts me.

— You deny yourself. Everyone around him does.

— I don’t understand.

— Is that really all you want? To be his lackey? That’s your destiny? Your dharma? Your raison d’être?

— Now that you mention it, I would like to play the saxophone professionally. I’d like to be the man who resuscitates bebop.

— Then make it happen. Believe in yourself. Seize the day. Et cetera.

— I’ll need money.

— Yes, you will. But you’re resourceful. Of your several fine qualities, it is perhaps the finest.

— I love you.

— Shhh. Don’t spoil everything.

The red-haired boy picks off a nice right and executes a quick barrel and a vertical snap. He swoops long, smooth lines across the wall of water.

The Surf Guru pours another glass of Chianti. Even though his back is knotted up and burning with pain, he puts on a beret, the hat of restrained contentment.

The trophy case in the dull-green house is empty. In an effort to raise capital, all 473 of the Surf Guru’s trophies were sold to a surf-themed pizza chain owned by an aging former star of Hollywood beach movies. They are now mounted on the walls of Shred-Boy Pizza franchises in twenty-six cities worldwide, including brand-new airport locations in Athens, Saskatoon, and Las Vegas.

Olivia calls Chad in a panic. Next year’s line of GOO-ROO boards, the Poseidon Series, must be renamed. LoweRider, it seems, has just filed on all commercial uses of “Poseidon.”

“They found out,” she says. “We must have a leak.”

“Don’t be silly,” Chad says.

“I’m not being silly. I’m talking about corporate espionage .”

“Sometimes coincidences are just coincidences,” Chad informs her. “You can’t just go around believing everything that appears to be true.”

Olivia’s heart pounds as she tries to think of a suitable alternative. Neptune? Triton? Apollo? Vishnu? Tangaroa? Quetzalcoatl? Ra? It’s no use. All the gods have been trademarked.

GOO-ROO dog food is a bomb. A white elephant. An albatross. A millstone around the corporate neck. No matter how bright the colors on the bag are, no matter how scrupulously the ads are targeted, it’s a money loser year in and year out. Finally, Olivia confronts the Surf Guru, suggests cutting production costs by using cereal fillers and fewer organic ingredients. The Surf Guru shakes his head — the dog enjoys GOO-ROO dog food, will eat nothing but. Olivia is instructed to change nothing.

The dog also likes Chianti. Even after a brimming bowlful, he still fetches with aplomb.

The Surf Guru notices a girl in her early twenties walking along the beach. He can tell even from this distance and in the failing light that she is beautiful. He decides that she has the features of a Byzantine Madonna. He does not care if he is imagining this.

She is returning from work. She wears a business suit and walks barefoot, carrying smart shoes in one hand. She needs the beach, he thinks, maybe more than she knows. He wonders about her name. It is certainly not Polly or Molly or Jill or Francine; it is exotic, like Nadia, or simple in its elegance, like Catherine. He quickly reminds himself that she, too, would ultimately find him turgid.

She stops and sits on the sand. She watches the red-haired boy surf. The boy launches into a snap-air floater, then drives off the bottom and carves improbable arcs all over the bowl.

The Surf Guru applauds, quietly, with his fingertips. As he watches the boy paddle back out to deep water, he tries to call up images of a long-ago self. He fails; his memory feels diffused, diffracted, dishonest.

He leans forward in his chair and pets the dog, asleep at his feet.

If the Surf Guru felt like expressing himself verbally on the subject of feelings, he would say, “What I am currently feeling is a peculiar mix of longing and fear, of nostalgia and hope, of power and restraint, of shining and fading.” His voice would tremble for an instant, but he would smooth it out, so as not to let you notice.