Tom Hanks - Uncommon Type - Some Stories

“Got any wax?” Kirk asked.

“In a drawer in there,” Frank told him. His paddleboard had a mat, so he didn’t need wax anymore but kept some for those who might need some stick for their sticks . Kirk found a cake in a drawer full of junk including short-end rolls of duct tape, old mousetraps, a hot-glue gun but no sticks of glue, boxes of staples, and a set of channel locks that was going to rust in the salt air.

“Hey,” his father said. “Put my phone in the refrigerator, would you?” He handed over his mobile.

“Why the refrigerator?” Kirk asked. The thing had not worked in many years.

“If you broke into this camper and wanted to steal anything of value, would you look in the busted icebox?”

“You got me there, Pop.” When Kirk opened the door, not only was there the dank smell of years of nonuse but there was also the sight of a small, gift-wrapped box.

“Happy birthday, son,” Frank said. “How old are you again?”

“Nineteen, but you make me feel thirty.” The gift was a waterproof sports watch, a newer model than the watch Frank was wearing, all black and metal, a heavy-duty military chronometer already set to the correct time. Strapping it around his wrist made Kirk feel like he was about to board a military helicopter to go kill bin Laden. “Thanks, Dad. This makes me look cooler than I am. Didn’t think that was possible.”

“Hoopy boofy, Junior.”

As they carried their boards down the path to the beach, Frank said again, “I told you, I’m going to have to make a few calls around eight thirty. I’ll holler at you when I get out of the water.”

“I will salute my recognition.”

Standing in the sands of Mars, they watched a set of waves play out as they attached their board leashes to their ankles with Velcro straps. About a dozen large, well-shaped curlers came along before the surf lessened, allowing Kirk to run into the tide and hop on his board and paddle out, duck-butting through the smaller waves as they broke over him. He’d be lining up just beyond the break with the younger surfers, those who shredded the faces of as many waves as Poseidon sent their way.

As a paddleboarder, Frank sought the larger waves off of Mars, those well outside, beyond the lineup, where along with the other stand-up surfers he’d wait for the larger sets of heavy water, the waves generated by storms in the South Pacific that grew muscular with mileage. Before too long, he easily caught the shoulder of a wave, rising up six feet or so above its floor, riding gracefully in wide turns. As he was the surfer closest to the curl, the wave was rightfully his own, the other Martians peeling off to leave him to it. When the wave closed out, he hopped off his board and held his position in the shallows until the set died. Then he hopped back up, his feet shoulder width apart, dug his paddle into the ocean, and crested each ridge of incoming water until he was outside again.

The air and water were cold, but Kirk was glad he had gotten out of bed. He recognized old Martians like Bert the Elder, Manny Peck, Schultzie, and a lady he called Mrs. Potts—the veteran long boarders. And there were kids around his age, some of the pals he grew up alongside who were now, like him, in college or the workforce. Hal Stein was in graduate school at Cal, Benjamin Wu worked as an aide to a city councilman, “Stats” Magee was studying for his CPA license, and Buckwheat Bob Robertson was, like Kirk, still an undergrad, still living at home.

“Hey! Spock!” Hal Stein called out. “Thought you’d died!”

The five of them waited in a circle between rides, comparing the notes they’d kept since adolescence. Kirk was reminded of just how good Mars had been to him. Living within driving distance of its waves had allowed Kirk access to a world all his own. At Mars, he grew comfortable in the powerful waves of the place. Mars was where, alone, Kirk tested himself and excelled. Onshore, he was a statistic, a tick mark smack in the middle of a bell curve, neither a dropout nor a scholar, not an ace or a deuce. Other than a couple of English teachers, Mrs. Takimashi the school librarian, and the crazy, gorgeous, honey-haired Aurora Burke (before her new stepfather whisked her off to a new family in Kansas City), no one had ever singled Kirk Ullen out as being special . But in the water of Mars, Kirk was master of all he surveyed. He was glad he’d been coming to the place for years and could be there this day as he turned nineteen years old.

After so many rides he had lost count, Kirk was pooped, so he rested in the lineup. When the morning sun came out, he could see the tops of the vans and his dad’s camper in the parking lot, the tile roofs of the shops across the highway, and the rocky, scrub-brush hills beyond. With the blue water against the brightening sky, Mars took on the look of a sepia-toned photograph of some legendary surf locale in Hawaii or Fiji, a color image long since faded to an amber tint, turning green mountains into yellow and brown hills. If Kirk squinted, the Mexican-themed shops became bures on a slip of beach, native huts on an atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Again, Mars became a different world and Kirk was its king.

Sometime later he heard his father calling him from the beach. Frank had laid his board on the sand, planted his paddle like a flag, and was making the hand gesture universally translated as “I am going to make a phone call.”

Kirk saluted his father just as Mrs. Potts screamed, “Outside!” Sure enough, a set was shaping up well offshore, the waves as visible as humps on a washboard, breaking at least fifty yards early, making for dozens of long, aggressive rides. Everyone paddled furiously. Kirk was tired, but he was not about to sit out a great set. He stroked hard and steadily until experience told him to wheel around and paddle toward the beach. He caught the third wave that came his way.

As he was rising up on the apex of water, instinct timed his springing to his feet for the drop into the wave’s trough. This wave was gorgeous, well shaped and smooth faced. And huge. A monster. Kirk kicked out of the trough and climbed up the face, just in front of the curl of white water, a compressed whisper of wind at his back. He jerked left and shot down perpendicular to the arc, pulled right at the bottom, and again sluiced up the face. He topped the very crest, bounced along the rim, then dug once more into the slot, retarding his speed to allow the break to catch up to him. He knelt as low on his board as his physique allowed until water was bending over his head and he occupied the little green room of the curl. Rushing water was on his left, the smooth glass of the surface on his right. He dragged the fingers of his free hand in the wall of green like the fin of a dolphin, a knife in the water.

As ever, the curl closed on him, the water smacked him on the head, and he wiped out, no big deal. Churning in the white water, he relaxed, as he had learned long ago, letting the wave roll beyond him and allow him time to find the surface and fill his lungs. But the ocean is a fickle mistress, Mars indifferent to human effort. Kirk felt his leash go taut in the Velcro around his ankle. In the foam and chaos his board snapped back, nailing him hard in the meat of his calf. The hit had the same blunt force as the blow from the croquet mallet Kris had once taken to him in the backyard, which sent him to the doctor and her to her bedroom. Kirk knew he was done for the day.

He felt for the sandy bottom, knowing the next monster was about to crush him. He lunged up for a breath, sucking in air, seeing seven feet of white water roaring down on him. He ducked under the wave, blindly felt for the Velcro of his leash, and ripped it off his foot so his board would get tossed toward the beach and away from him.