In the morning Billy and Nicole bodysurf the foreshadowing shore break in front of the house. It was perfect for playing the game where you had to go as far up the beach as possible with the surge before spinning on your belly and gliding back down with the backwash. Standing is not permitted so if stranded you wait for a set to get you back, like flapping grunion on moon light California shores.
“Hey Nicole, the surf really is coming up.”
“Are you trying to get out of coming up to my place to do the yard? I’m cooking a great meal for you… I’ll drive you up.”
“OK let’s wash off with the hose and go. This swell will stick around for days.”
Her house is filled with her treasures from around the world, each sculpture, piece of glass or hammered out copper platter tells the story of Nicole’s restless years of escaping from and then finding herself. Billy loves how she’s decided to make a stand here on the North Shore.
So as they are finishing a tuna, green beans with olive oil, more chardonnay meal
, Baby calls on the phone, his scratchy voice straining, as he yells into the phone
“Billy bro. you better get home, grab what you can and get off the north shore”
“What are you talking about Baby? Are you guys mad at me or something?”
“Billy turn on the radio bro. The biggest swell to ever hit the north shore is pounding in! It’s so big that the backwash has pulled three marines out of the Wiamea car park and drown them in the shore break bra! Billy Nikido went with his house.” And for once Baby’s raspy voice chokes…
“It’s getting dark so we’re leaving for Waianae… Your seawall is already gone and the cops have closed the roads. You can make it down from Nicole’s on the cane roads. Bro be quick or it will all be gone. We’re outa here.” And he hangs up.
“Nicole I got to go.”
Why take the risk, whatever you lose we can replace.”
“Naw the little I’ve got I want to keep; it’s all I’ve got” and turning to get her eye, “and I want to show you my mother’s wedding ring in the LOVE box. If I can borrow your car I’ll be back in an hour or two?”
“You are not going to put yourself on the line without me mate. Grab the keys I’ll get my jacket and let’s do it!”
He thinking’ gotta love this woman’
Racing through mud slide turns, along the blind cane roads where too many good guys have been cleaned up by monster cane trucks, Billy wheels Nicole’s sports car as Nicole navigates to Kam Highway just across from Billy’s house. There is one lonely street light with a weak yellow glow through surf mist as thick as fog. When they get out of the car the sound of the huge ocean swells churning up the outer reef is so loud they have to shout to hear one another. In that moment of chaos a set of waves is pouring white-water across the highway to their feet. Billy says,
“Crap Nicole.! How big does it have to be to wash over the outer reef, over the inner reef, go up over the sea wall, through the fence and across the street?”
“Billy have you got a plan or can we just get the hell out of here?”
“Ok Nicole, got a plan, I’m going to go open the gate go in the house and check things out between sets. You stand at the gate and call me if you hear a set sucking out on the reef and I’ll meet you by the car, I should have enough time to run across the street in front of the white-water and put my stuff in your car.”
“Billy anything in that shack can be replace, don’t do it!”
I got to get the love box,”
What?” over the roar
Something for you!”
And he charges across the street behind the receding surge.
Going through the gate Billy sees that the sea wall is completely gone, his Jeep has been sucked out to the reef, crumpled up like a tin can then violently thrown in a heap back under the house and half the earth under the house is gone, the stumps hang desperately like a kid trying to reach the floor from a high chair and all his germinating plants and infant palm trees are gone or awash.
He finds the box grabs his passport and shaving gear throws them in a shoulder bag, grabs his new surfboard and screams to Nicole
“It’s getting bigger! Stay at the gate!”
Nicole has been screaming against the roar but Billy doesn’t hear so she bounds up the steps, grabs him by the arm and slings him out to the porch. The house is tilting and starting to fall forward into the eroded void. Shoulder bag under one arm and new surfboard under the other. The raging of the sea has taken more earth than the house could handle, and it begins to creak forward and collapse like a dying camel. As a mountain of white-water approaches…
Nicole! Grab the tail of the board, I’ll get the nose. We jump on three!”
If there was music for this it’s Miles doing Stravinsky while channelling Jimi.
They’re only hope is to leap off the porch onto the one story high churn of diabolical flotsam and force. As the house falls they leap and Nicole loses her grip, immediately Billy’s guts rip as he feels her go and grasping for three long seconds only to have her Jacket as she slips away. Gone. Abandoning the board he fights toward where he last saw her but the violence is so intense that he feels himself posited against the fence unable to move… then the power recedes back toward the sea sucking everything with it but Billy who is wedged all twisted into the passion fruit vines and the metal fence, shoulder bag spun around a broken arm, clutching her jacket.
Almost lifeless he tries to extract himself from the fence, dazed, he senses the broken arm. In an instant his soul has ripped again, he now has a good reason to walk into the sea, to join Nicole and they can breathe water together, and be ghost fixtures on the North Shore, or legends of love or… just together.. He is almost free as another set of waves approach. He takes a step toward the sea when Baby, Blah James and John John headlock, hoist and leg tackle him toward the gate and the mud road where Nicole’s car sits under the weak yellow light. Where Jake is propped on his crutches.
“Let me go let me go!!”
Naw bra Jake thought we better check on you.” Baby says
“Billy bra we saw the whole thing. Bro.” 6’4” Blah James say through tears, still holding Billy off the ground by the waist.
“You drink this or I’ll shoot you” says John John offering a flask of fine Kentucky bourbon
… and all cry softly under the weak yellow street light as the second force of waves approach. Billy uncontrollably shattered by the weight of this moment, the boys in sympathy aching with the childlessness their life choices.
As they brace against the fence for the next slamming of white-water, straight out of the coming wall of force strides Nicole like some slightly drunk combat British soldier. She has a vice grip on the uprooted mango tree that saved her life. Sometimes it’s like that, unbelievable, striding with a massive gash in her leg and eyes ablaze with willpower; returned, redeemed, regained, by a ‘roots of steel’ mango tree.
“Give me my jacket!"
CHAPTER 14
There is little gravity to a decision if it doesn’t nod to those that have gone before and those yet to come.
The next few days are perfectly beautiful sunshine and gentle trade winds, but for the mist hanging in the air from the sea. Even though the swell was smaller than before it still seemed too big to fit the planet. The take-off spot where Billy had ridden the giant waves earlier in the season was closing out across the bay. This was the second reform after the first break, a left hander that honestly didn’t fit the planet, pummelled a reef far offshore whiting the horizon before reforming to dump in one motion across the Bay …
Days later Billy, arm in a cast, Nicole, bandaged leg, sit with Jake and his crutches in her Mercedes above the Bay.
“This is a good time to consider a change.” Jake says
“Surfers of the future won’t understand what these waves have done; not the wrecking our houses or the Super comps and the tourists. But it’s like that pure surfing pure naivet
é pure arrogant anonymous waterman vibe has been scoured from this island. It’s not going to be bad really, just never the same again. I imagine Nikido would have quietly escaped.”
“So I’d like to try Indonesia and anonymity.” Jake offers a sad toothy smile,…” and you two guys, farming yourselves off to Maui and the 2nd string surf crew, probably have children who become famous artist and don’t even surf… and you’ll have this awkward awareness that makes your neighbors wonder, in envy.”
And the two men look into each other’s’ eyes, “What about Julia Jake?”
“Billy, really we were best as a photo op couple. Neither one of us really wanted to give it all away, really commit, everything was easy but not the glue you guys have.”
“Classic Jake! You actually are the prophetic Holy Goof” Billy smiles
Nicole says
“Mate you haven’t got an anonymous bone in your body.”
Part three
WEIRD BEER
Going home
CHAPTER 1
Kites seem similar to rainbows, they know something we’ve forgotten… and can’t see. Invisible power and majesty, like a stallion, handle-able but perhaps never truly tamed. It is an ancient symbol inviting an acquaintance with the personality of the elements. Lau Tsu flew kites.
The drive of the big kite strains the boat bow timber. Blood mixes with sweat from Jakes bald head, blurring and stinging. Celeste at the helm and Sadi has slipped to the bottom of the boat; arrows fly overhead. Jake expertly sines the kite for more speed but the boats of the villagers bare down, sails akimbo. The fastest broaching in front of Jake’s outrigger blocking access to the Spirit Ladies fortress. All is lost, until Jake arrogantly loops his kite into a swooping dive that rips the archers from their boat destroying the kite but allowing Jake and companions to clamor into the Spirit Lady’s fortress.
The machete wielding locals are afraid to go into her courtyard... And Jake is afraid to leave her beer cellar... The golden light from the dropping sun dances two miles across the wind scuffed lake; from the beer ashram to her castle.
He’s thinking, ‘What’s up with these guys? It was an accident!’
Her rock wall fortress is three stories, thick limestone, and tall wooden windows with small glass panes. The humidity fussed light, like alcohol in a Martini, floods onto the hardwood floor of the beer cellar. Jake is slumped into a padded leather chair staring at her wall of beers like a cat in front of a birdcage.
Beer is an acquired taste, and pace. Over time you can taste it before you open the bottle and you manipulate the effect by controlling the pace; old age also controls pace.
Silently she stands in the doorway, three steps above the polished floor. It’s a startling moment for Jake, like when someone touches you from behind while you are staring at one thing, dreaming of another, then shocked back into this world.
Her silver hair is falling thick and randomly onto the shoulders of her silk kimono. Eyes the nondescript color of diamonds sparkling above high cheek bones. She is slender yet curvy, almost nascent like the colt-ness of a 13 year old girl. “Crap you freaked me out!” he says as light floods in through the small metal cross hatched panes. She is barefoot and walks so silently Jake thinks ‘she’s floating and this Deja vu is all too weird’. The music would be Jefferson Starship doing a cover of “Wooden Ships”.
Lingering on tip toes like an angel in an upward abyss, she pulls a litre bottle of beer from the wall rack. Her hands seem even older than she is, long and small boned, raised blue veins running over the dry landscape. “The limestone keeps you fairly cool” she says presumably to the bottle. Her eyes, like pale grey diamonds, fall once again on Jake, this bald 5’10” sinewy old rooster of a man; perpetually bloodshot green eyes, skin cracked like a tanned satchel and a manicure scruff with trim moustache.
She hands him the bottle. He opens it, lingers on the aroma; smells like Mexico and being 19, and instinctually he stares down the bottle neck.
To cover his shameless pausing on the potential epic story of her hands, he says,
“In the middle ages monasteries were the largest breweries. The monks used beer to fast. Records show up to five litres a day per monk.” Then he just blurts out
“Are you really Osley? I mean San Francisco Osley? Government computer hacking Osley?
CHAPTER 2
…but at a place called the beginning…
Cresting out at 10,000 feet, on the rim of an East Indonesian crater, Jake and his guide Sadi pause atop the switchback trail. “Better email Craig” He says to the reclining Sadi.
Craig, the once anarchistic academic, known as “The Accountant” who cooked the books for the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, the Hawaiian Hui, and various rock groups is now redundantly atrophied to a fear of contact with the world; reduced to cyber-communication, donuts, coffee and cigarettes. He lives in his North Beach San Francisco apartment and only goes out for take away food and cigarettes. He has a huge savings account fed by e-book sales from his interpretation of Jakes outrageous adventures.
‘… Craig, I’ve made it to the top of the crater. Below is the village and two mile diameter lake, the brewery is a round building in the middle of the stream. There is a domed mosque type building in the center of the village. To the left is the beer church, looking forward to that! The map is good but your building across the lake looks like a semi hidden fortress terracing down the crater wall; glass front facing west. Love these digital binoculars. Craig, on the map; what exactly does that phrase “Spirit lady’s castle” mean?’
Craig, awakened by his email alarm is in front of his computer pouring coffee and eating donuts. His ashtray is overflowing with cigarette butts and his leather swivel chair is a bit ripped but remains a treasure that Jake bought him. About the room are signed posters of 60’s and 70’s rock groups along with letters of appreciation pinned up with thumb tacks. On a nearby table mail is stacked and overflowing. He is a balding long hair in a cardigan. He has four locks on his door. It’s 3am in San Francisco.
Jake let me worry about the” Spirit lady”. I’ve backed you up on all of your “calculated adventures” before. Leave the editing and research to me. This “publish as its happening” thing is only duplicated by CNN! (Maybe this is my last cigarette!) Get all your top priority research and decision making questions ready ahead of time and hit send at 4:00 GMT each day? I’ll plot the next scene and give you some tools to pull it off. You just get down there and start making friends so we can e-book it ASAP. By the way we are killing it in e-book land. (Shit, spilled my coffee!)
You left Africa two weeks ago and the book launched the same day! Your bio got fifty thousand hits! Most people don’t believe you’re that old and that crazy, so I’ve linked bios on 50-80 year-old sportsman and adventurers; John Glenn types. Anyway this should be a two week, 300 page docudrama. I’ll need photos of the Spirit Lady, learn how they brew the beer, what it tastes like, bios on the philosophy teacher, the brew master. Kite surf your rammed air kites, I’ll pump you with tech. info regarding the weather etc. you just be larger than life to them . . . the stuff you do naturally (donuts, I love donuts) By the way what happened after you left Lombok? I’d booked a ferry from a clandestine government “Travel agent”. Five days no communication. Not like you Jake.
Craig, 4 GMT is easy for you, 9AM in Frisco but its midnight here! Plus! Why did you make bookings with a Muslim ferryman who has a coughing one stroke canoe? It doesn’t spill your coffee or make your donuts soggy, but when the motor dies in a Southeast Asian passage, and the channel serge is so strong that the ferryman freaks out in Indonesian like some New York taxi driver. Well hell man I had to fly the thirteen meter kite for two days straight while he prayed to every wrong god I’ve ever heard of. I would have throttled him with that Russian headlock Jay Robinson showed me but had to concentrate on getting the 19 meter kite up wind to the island. At least a 10,000 foot mountain gave me something to aim at, beautiful really. Where di
d you get my guide? An hour ago he walks straight off the cliff into a head wind, pops open his coat and like Mary Poppins, rights himself and just keep on prancing down the trail!
When we got to port I went to a bar, had a big thirst, and the Muslim guy, Sadi, was blessing the ground, oh did I tell you about the sharks?... ripped the liver out of one and ate it. I always wanted to do that. Anyway at the bar I offered him a beer which he graciously took though it’s against his religion. Just so happens he spins around, sorta Big Bird doing Fred Astaire, and spills the beer into the food of some rad Javanese Muslims. They threatened to kick his ass, (religious rules tend to melt grace), so, he told them the story of flying the kite for two straight days, the shark, etc. They called him a liar.
(As if the hero guy can no longer be rich and white because of his decadent culture?) Anyway they threw him in the pig sty, or he tripped; so, I dropped the ring leader with an underarm spin but got kicked in the back by his mates and had to escape after only one beer! (Gang mentality has no honor in a fair fight.)
Hell no I didn’t communicate with you! I bought a six pack, slept and organized for the hike up here. Sadi is my guide but he doesn’t really know the way, where did you get this guy? Tell me more about the Spirit Lady, what is a Spirit Lady?
The info I’ve got says she’s only been there for around 30 years.
Old chicks are scary Craig.
She’s a few years younger than you pal.
“Like I said, old chicks are scary.”
The locals, who generally settle arguments with machete, don’t know where she came from but it appears the beer ashram leaders, that is the philosophy professor and the brew master, feel she was fated for many generations to arrive. She was about 24 and had silver hair. My best Intel tells me that the place balances between the beer, the philosophy and the spirit lady…. I need a picture and some more info on the Spirit lady. I have a theory. In the late 60's, when the only people who had computers were governments, or the stock market and huge number crunching business, there was a girl from Berkley who started up Navy programing and became the mastermind hacker. She’d go in fix the program, and hack the info. The chip had just replaced transistors... It was said that she was one of the other people besides Ken Kesey and Leary who was clinically testing LSD. We only knew of her as Osley but it was rumored that she had hacked all the FBI files, (J Edgar Hoovers private stuff!!), the CIA files, she fed the info slowly to the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, etc. she knew who killed Janice Joplin, Jimi, etc. and she saved Dylan’s skin. She knew who shot Kennedy ... I mean Osley was this underground rumor that supposedly went to Viet Nam with enough dirt on Ho Chi Mien and his secret USA deals to expose the entire war as a hoax where both sides went wrong... By 1975 Osley just sort of became an outdated story that no one told anymore. Later I heard maybe she died in Cambodia, story is she hypnotized her captors….