A JACKASS IN JAVA: DAY FOURTEEN (31MAY2013)

    

     The rash behind my arms kept me up last night. It’s so damn itchy and turning a little white, as if there is powder there, but there isn’t. I wonder if it’s fungus.

     I wake up at 0615, feeling tired from broken sleep. Al’s knocked out while I brush my teeth in bed. I grab my board and head out the door as quiet as possible. I’m not expecting much this morning, but when I show up, I see a set rolling through at four-to-five feet. It’s 0645, and six heads are out. They knew to come early.

     Stoked, I start putting on my sunscreen and pull out my board. I notice that nearly all the wax, save for the chest area, has been stripped from use. I put on some wax, but since I don’t have any basecoat with me, it doesn’t stick very well.

     The Swiss chick who always surfs with her boyfriend is on shore talking to another Euro chick who’s staying at Compound One. I can tell that something’s not right. A local guy paddles in, and I hear the Swiss chick apologizing for something. He puts down his board and starts drawing in the sand. Not sure what happened there, but I can assume that she must have dropped in on him.

     I walk to the lineup. The tide’s so low that I’m about twenty yards where the closest guy is sitting. I see that Camille, Ana, the guy who I kind of look like, the greedy ass Aussie longboarder who looks like Groucho Marx, Edo, and this English guy named Rich are out there.

     After a few duckdives, I meet Edo in the lineup. I had showed him my secret handshake last night at the dinner party, and we fumble around, trying to get it right in the water. At that moment, a rogue wave pops up out the back. It’s one of those good ones that’s standing and will line up all the way to shore. “Right there, Edo!” I say. “Go!”

     “Nah, Matt,” he says, while racing towards the outside to paddle for it. “You go.”

     I turn and paddle for it. I’m in the perfect spot, and as I pop up, both hands slip off of my unwaxed board. My chest hits the deck. I finally pop up late, but I’m behind the section. Richard is in front of me. He looks back at me as I’m eating shit and kicks out of the wave. It’s a pure Barney moment, eating shit like this, so clumsy.

     As I resurface, Richard is looking back, and he says with his eyebrows scrunched down, “You just paddled out here!”

     Fuck, I’m thinking. I already know what he’s getting at. Yeah, I just paddled out. Proper etiquette would have been to sit around for a while, let all the guys who have been there get their waves, and then after enough time has elapsed, go out and get mine.

     “Sorry,” I say. “I tried to give the wave to Edo. He didn’t want it and told me to go. I just had dinner with the guy last night. I went.”

     “Oh, oh,” he says. “Edo said to go. Okay.”

     I circle past him and say, “Here, I’ll even sit on the shoulder. You can have ALL the waves you want.”

     He smiles without looking at me. Of course, my natural reaction is defensive. Fuck this guy. I sit towards the inside at the second point. I almost slip again on my wave. It’s a smaller one, but it’s good for two turns. After my ride, I see him catch a small, mooshy wave towards the inside. I’m stewing, thinking of ways to make this guy feel uncomfortable, but he goes in.

     It starts the session with bad energy, and I already had a funky feeling about this paddle out when I saw the Swiss chick apologizing to the local dude.

     The sets start breaking on the outside. There is still decent size from yesterday. After a few duckdives, I’m in position for the first wave of the next set. I’m in the perfect spot, deep and late. I’m mindful that my board doesn’t have much wave. I grip the rails hard as the wave breaks, but it slings me down the face so fast that I don’t have time to pop up without slipping. I get up too late and lose the wave. On the next wave, the board slips out from under me as I’m trying to go for it. This is hell. Good waves but the lack of wax on my board is breaking my session. It’s like being at a buffet without a fork or a spoon. For every wave I catch, I’m a second slower, which ruins my performance. On one, I get up fast enough, but my foot slips on the top turn. I figure I can go in, put more wax on my board, or be really desperate and grab some basecoat from the compound, but I can’t. I know that every minute the tide goes up higher, and this window might close. I make the decision to stick with it and hopefully make the right adjustments to ride the waves better.

     By 0830 I’m the only one out. Two German chicks from compound one paddle out. The waves are getting mooshier but are still breaking. I’m still late on every wave that I get. Most waves I scratch out on because I can’t kick or paddle like normal or I will come unglued from my board. I catch an inside wave in, while the surf is still working behind me. It’s my worse session so far.

     When I walk in my room, Al is sitting there reading. He says, “You were gone for a while. I saw you out there; I was there before you paddled out, but it looked like shit.”

     “Nah, man. It was good.” I put my board down and grab some basecoat off of the shelf. “I just didn’t have enough wax!”

     Furiously, I’m working my bar of basecoat into the board. Every bare area is getting covered. I might be overdoing it, but fuck it. Today, lesson learned: wax is detrimental to a good surf sesh.

#

     After we eat breakfast, we head over to the other compound to see what the gang is doing, but no one is there. I give the Tokoro to Edo to patch the ding from the other day. He says that everyone is at the Rajawali Hotel eating breakfast and using the wifi. I opt to go back to the compound while Al goes to join them. I do a little bit of writing.

     About an hour later, Al shows up. He says he wants to check the harbor for surf but he’s starving. He says, “Let’s go to Padangs.”

     I’m not even hungry yet, but Al only has one more full day here, so I go along with it. He gets the chicken curry with two scoops of rice, while I get only one piece of chicken curry, spinach, and tempe. 

     After we pay for our meals, we stop at the Indomaret to grab some ice cream. The chick behind the counter asks if she can take a picture with us. It’s funny because she’s been very flirty since we’ve been here. We see her every day, so we pose with her while her coworker takes a pic. It’s so hot outside that we eat our ice cream in the store. Two for a dollar, the old school price for ice cream. 

     We stop at the harbor on the way back. There are busloads of Muslim school girls with their white head wraps, and they wave at me and Al as we drive by. After passing four lambs sitting by the road, we drive up to the harbor. The conditions are clean and pristine, but the waves are still mooshy.

     I head back to the room, and Al stops at Compound One. When I get back, the guy who lives upstairs that I kind of look like asks me for my passport.

     “What do you need it for?” I say.

     “There might be a problem with your VISA.”

     I go in my room, pull it out, and hand it over. “I already got my ticket for Lion Air.”

     He flips it open and says, “Yeah, you’re gonna be one day over thirty days, so . . . you might want to get an extension in Jogja, but that will take you three trips. It’s either that or change your airplane ticket, but that route will be more expensive.”

     “Fuck,” I say. “I wish I knew that to begin with.” We both pause for a moment just standing there. “I’ll figure it out.” I walk back into my room, unable to write, just thinking about my new predicament. Jogja is at least three hours away. And to have to make three trips there? I think about changing my flight, but I can’t. I already have my ticket to Jogja, and I’ll be paying for rescheduling two flights. I also think about all the surfing I’m doing. Yes, I can’t say that this trip is what I expected, but I have long, rippable lefts out my front doorstep. I think my surfing can progress so much more if I stick it out the whole month.

#

     A couple hours later, I’m fumbling with my GoPro surfboard mount and camera. I have no idea where to tie the dummy chord. Rian drives in on his moped. Outside the window, I see him power walking towards my room. When I open the door he says, “Al and Reese are surfing the harbor. The left is good. Wanna surf?”

     “It’s good?”

     “Yah!”

     “Well. . .” I know I have to write more. I can possibly read a book. “Okay.”

     I’m even more embarrassed riding by the Muslim chicks because all I’m wearing are my board shorts. Just as I pull up, Al and Reese are leaving. Rian is walking towards me with his board, still dressed. “Sorry,” he says. “The wind change. Onshore now.”

#

Town skate park . . . but I haven't seen one skateboard here.

     At 1515 Al and I head to Choco Point. “I think it’s gonna be good,” says Al. “There were decent sized sets rolling in at the harbor.” However, we pull up to crumbling white wash. The tide . . . it’s changing. The window was recently decent, but now the tide is too high in the evening. We watch it for twenty minutes. Al says, “I’m outta here, dude.”

     1615, I’m still staring at it. A German couple paddles out but it might be their first time surfing because they get caught on the inside and then go home. A local guy shows up. It’s the same guy that the Swiss chick was apologizing to this morning. He has a fish strapped in his surf rack. “Nice board,” I say. We talk for a bit.

     “Three years ago,” he says, “just me the only local. Now, I look around, and I am the tourist.”

     “Fuck. . .” I look down at my handlebars. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?

     “How long you here?” he asks.

     I do my best to remember some of the bahasa Indonesian that I’ve been studying, then it comes to me. “Tuju belas!” I blurt out. He smiles. “I was studying bahasa Indonesian earlier,” I say proudly.

     “Yes. In Bali . . . no need to speak as much. But here in Java, it is not fair. You must try to speak bahasa Indonesia.”

     The waves in front aren’t getting better. “Okay,” I say. “That’s it for me. See you tomorrow.” He nods. I wish I knew how to say that in Indonesian. “Selamat core,” I say.

     “Sore,” he says. “Selemat sore.”

     I had tried to say goodnight.

#

     There’s a going away party for Camille and we are combining it with Al’s going away. Sonia is the one cooking tonight. We will be eating fish and vegetable curry. Al and I offer to pic up some martabek and beer. At the market, Al and I can’t help ourselves. Call it an American thing, but we are worried that there won’t be enough food, so we kill off a chocolate, banana martabek for ourselves and two chicken satay plates. After we eat, we head to Compound One. Long story short, we were wrong. There is so much goddam food. Al and I don’t say a word to each other, but we know we’re ashamed for already having eaten. We do our best to act as excited as we should be. The food is good, but our appetites are ruined.

     Reese pulls out his iPod. I ask if I can play some of my music on his speakers. I put on Innersections, and everyone is more interested in watching my phone than conversing. “I have all of the movies on my laptop,” I say. I can play them tomorrow night.

     We have some after dinner beers and call it a night. Al says, “Sorry, dude, but I’ve been homesick. I can’t wait to go home. This trip wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.” Should I be offended? I’m not. I’ve held back from my usual accomodator-masturbator role, accepting that it’s out of my power if Al has fun or not. We’ve mostly surfed the river mouth since being here. And Machines? It’s been there, sure it’s been crowded. It does barrel. If Al really wanted to, he could have battled the crowd and been there every day, but I can’t blame him for not liking it. It’s fast, it’s shallow, and it’s dangerous. He had the same ideal that I had in mind, but he probably imagined more fun, uncrowded surf if anything. Instead, we’ve been at the river mouth, Choco Point. It’s been good on some days, but Al expected more. “I already checked Santa Cruz forecast,” he says. “There will be some swell coming in.” Part of me is jealous. I envy him escaping the awkwardness that I have to deal with being here. I go to sleep with the thought of progression. I am still surfing consistently. I will be a better surfer by time I leave this place.