A JACKASS IN JAVA: DAY TWENTY FOUR (10JUN2013)

     I feel worse from the Sprite than the arak. Miraculously, I don’t have a hangover, but I feel a bit dehydrated. I roll out of bed at around 0900. So far for the early morning surf check. Last night was a sacrifice to the vacation gods, for a few nights of drinking over a month long trip is acceptable. I pull open the curtains and see Edo and Randy sitting in the kitchen, talking. When I step outside, Edo says, “Sorry, Matt. Did we disturb you?”

     “No,” I say. “I’m fine.” My scruffiness is at the worst that it’s ever been. I rarely get to grow everything out. My bedhead and bedbeard is terrible. It’s already bad enough when everything is in place. I look like shit. “Plenty of arak,” I say.

     Edo has a concerned look on his face. “No good, yah?”

     “No. It’s good! No hangover!”

     Randy says that Machines is the call this afternoon because of the low tide. He says we’ll leave in about an hour. I hydrate the best I can, polish off an oatmeal, and start prepping my gear. Grant stops by about a half an hour later, asking if I want to grab something to eat. I tell him that I’ll just eat at the warung at Machines when I get there. 

The Ride:

     Reese, Grant, and Ana are supposed to meet us there later. Randy and I head out ahead of them because he suggests we grab some food to go. It’s the only time that we both have ridden out together to check out Machines. First we stop at a little shop on the side of the road to grab some gas. It’s like this over here. There are so many side roads and villages that little shops, or the front of people’s homes, have liter bottles filled with gasoline. One liter is only 5000 IR. We both fill up, ride to a restaurant overlooking the harbor for a couple meals to go, and then we head out. 

     I’m surprised that Randy is taking it slow on this ride. Usually he bones out, and I’m way behind, struggling to keep up. I reflect on the way this trip had started and the things that I wanted to get off of my chest and say to him, and part of me is glad that I didn’t because it would have severed our relationship completely. I reflect hard and do some deep contemplation on this ride. Through the turns under the canopy of trees and around the bends, avoiding the chickens that keep crossing the road, I switch to a softer focus, seeing more of my surroundings instead of just the road, ten feet in front of me. The demons begin to breathe. I think about my childhood in Maui, my uncle and my brother both one and the same. If it wasn’t my uncle treating me like shit, it was my brother coming home to visit from college to “check on my progress.” It was either a beating with the boxing gloves, a cold piece of chicken straight from the refrigerator waiting for me on my dinner plate, or the scoldings of why I didn’t do a good job cleaning my grandpa’s six bedroom house (all by myself). I put both of those guys in the same boat, and for some reason my eyes start welling up, and then tears begin pouring out profusely from under my sunglasses, running down my face until I taste their salt. My brother and uncle in my high school days—prison guards. Then I start thinking about my deadbeat dad. How can you have a son and not give a shit about what’s going on in his life? All the men in my family have had a negative influence on me, save for my grandfather. I wonder why I’m crying. It isn’t for the Donny Duckbutter of today. The tears are for that scrawny, teenage kid, living in a prison for four years, every day walking on eggshells. He’s misdirected, joins the wrong crowd and stays out late because he’d rather be anywhere else but home. Uncles can have heart to heart talks, right? Brothers too, even grandfathers, but . . . well that’s not the way his family is. They’re stern and cold, and if you fuck up, you get the silent treatment. “Be like your brother,” my grandpa used to say. The kid, he doesn’t know what he wants to be in life. He knows he’s a shitty waterman, can’t spearfish worth shit, and that he’s not interested in being the one to take over in raising the family’s cattle. I see that scrawny kid sitting in his bedroom, scared to walk outside the door and climb those stairs. He’s wondering if he’s done everything he’s supposed to have done to ensure he can show his face at the dinner table without being ridiculed. He’s telling himself that things aren’t really that bad and that this is normal. After all, cleaning the house, watering the plants, pulling weeds, scooping the dog shit, going to the pasture every day after school and in the mornings and afternoons on the weekends isn’t much pressure for a teenage kid. My uncle had accused me of using my grandparents for their money, that I was living there “rent free.” “Why don’t you live with your mom?” he used to say. That kid in his room with the door shut, he’s wondering if he did all of his chores and if he did them right. He thinks he did, but he knows that the guards upstairs will still have something up their sleeves. “No graduation party, you don’t deserve it,” or “3.5 GPA? That doesn’t mean shit. Try to do that when you get to college.”

     Seeing that kid, I want to hug him and tell him that I understand what he’s going through. Unfortunately, I don’t know what else to say to him. I want to tell him that everything will be all right, but it’s a lie. There will be repercussions, and he’ll have some emotional baggage that will resurface even when he’s a grown ass man. And even though he doesn’t know it yet, he’ll adapt the traits of the monsters around him. In the future, he’ll try to reinvent himself, but I don’t know if he has what it takes to pull it off.

#

Machines:

     Randy and I pull up to a different part of the beach away from the Warung. It’s only about fifty yards away. The left isn’t barreling yet, but it’s good for some turns. The tide still needs to go down. The right-hand slab, it’s working. Since the swell’s going out, it’s a little manageable. Some guys are sitting on it. It’s clamping down, but some of the waves open up. A French kid that’s been here for a while gets a clean barrel. He kicks out of the remnants of the wave with his chest puffed out in victory.

     While we’re eating, we see Reece, Grant, and Ana pull up by the warung. I try to wave them down, but they don’t see us. They leave ten minutes later.

     After we’ve finished, Randy says, “If you’re not full, now’s a good time to paddle out.”

     “Nah, I’ll wait for you,” I say. After this trip I’ve learned that I don’t feel comfortable relying on Randy for anything. Not anymore. Actually, I hope that after this trip I’ll never have to ask him for another favor again, but today, to surf Machines, I have to rely on him. I need him today. He knows this wave. I don’t. I’ll have to put on my little brother hat for this one.

Trials:

     I know he wants to surf the right, but he’s surfing the left because he wants to help me get into waves. I know this; I can tell this, and I appreciate this.

     The left isn’t barreling consistently yet, but with the tide going out and the reef becoming more and more exposed, I know that it is only a matter of time.

     “Right here,” says Randy. He points to a dead tree branch on the big, cliffy rock overlooking the left. “And there. The two story shack on the beach.” I look over, trying to stay in place. He holds his arm out, angling it towards the beach. “Go,” he says. “Paddle this way.”

     Let me be honest here. . . You may be reading this, thinking: Matt, what are you afraid of? Well, I’ll tell you what. There’s this saying for writers that you write like those who you read. As a surfer, you’re a reflection of the waves you surf. Sure, El Porto in the winter has big, beach-break waves. Most closeout, but I’ve seen guys get barreled. It’s pretty challenging. Huntington can barrel too. I’ve surfed Huntington, and like Porto, I haven’t been barreled there, but I’ve been pinched pretty bad. I turn. I like turns. I do a lot of turns. Trestles and Manhattan Beach. I’m a surfer who likes long lefts, carving from top to bottom, and . . . that’s the way that I surf. Now let’s look at Machines. The right is a slab with jagged reef. I heard that a very famous pro surfer surfed here and sustained the worst injury he’s had in five years. The left. Call me a pussy, but it’s scary too. The top of the wave foam balls, reforms, and barrels at the middle of the wave all the way into the channel, mind you over shallow reef. If you wipe out, you’re in the impact zone in shallow water; you don’t want to wipeout. The shoulder is where my brother has positioned me, the “easy” part of the wave.

     “Go,” is what he had said. It’s like getting jumped into a gang. You know you’re gonna get your ass kicked, taking on three to five cholos, but you accept this as you step into the circle. It’s a beating that you’re committed to taking, and even though my heart’s in my throat, I’m kicking and paddling like J.O.B.

     This wave, a barrel, fuck . . . it’s so deceiving. It starts off so mooshy on the shoulder, but immediately off of the bottom turn it just stands up. You can’t go straight; you have to pull in. I do. I pull in, seeing that it’s going to shut down, but I do it anyway. The wave is so fast that the next thing I see is the green backdrop of being underwater while my board gets sucked forward into the wave. I struggle to get to the surface; I’m taking too long. Looking at the oncoming wave, I scramble for my leash and pick up the slack as fast as I can, grab my board, and paddle towards the channel.

     “How was that?” says Randy.

     “Kind of fast,” I say. “It shut down.”

     For thirty minutes, it’s just me and my brother. He passes on a lot of waves so I can go. Force fed barrels, gnarly barrels. Fuck, he’s calling me into every one, and it’s cool, I mean, yeah, he really wants me to get barreled, probably even more than I do. I’d probably shit my pants if I had one brewing, but I don’t, and again, I’m paddling like my life depends on it because it does. Pumping down the line, the face is standing up. I’m waiting for it to open. It does. I pull in, and the speed and power is ridiculous. On my front side, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. My natural instinct is to bail. The sensation is too much; my mind is not fast enough to stay in the moment. All I can do is hold my line. Do I have a choice? I don’t. My life is in the vortex of this barrel. Stand and see what happens is all I can do. I get pinched at the end. As I resurface, my head hits my board from underneath it. I reposition myself. The next wave is breaking. I duckdive and get sucked back. My feet hit the reef. It’s sharp. I’m sure I’m cut. Back at the lineup, I check myself and find that I’m okay.

    

Outclassed:

     On the bombs, Randy says, “You want this one?”

     “No, you go.” As if I’d say anything else. The waves on the shoulder are hard enough. Fuck, the outside waves are menacing. This one is a juggernaut, a wall hitting the cliff, jutting out of the sea. It’s heavy. The way the water forms here is nothing like I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ll have nightmares about this wave. Randy takes off. I see him get the drop and dangle both arms down in front of him in his relaxed style. From behind the wave, he disappears until he kicks out all the way on the inside.

     An Aussie guy who was living next door to me paddles out. He’s now staying at a guesthouse close to Machines. He too, from the same spot as Randy; he paddles in on a monster and gets an instant barrel. Fuck. What balls. I have no balls. These guys have balls. Fuckin’ A. It’s just . . . it’s heavy.

     A French guy comes out too. He’s super cool. He takes off with a GoPro clenched between his teeth. He tells us that he’s sponsored by GoPro. “I go to Surfer Poll in Oahu,” he says. “Kelly Slater gave me my GoPro.”

     Another old, tatted Aussie with leathery skin shares a cigarette in the lineup with the French guy. Unreal.

     Even though the lineup has gotten thicker, Randy is still calling me into waves. Fuck . . . I’m just so . . . FRUSTRATED. I paddle in with all of my might. I pull into the wave, leaning towards the face, trying to get shacked, but not all of the waves open up.

     On my next one, Randy’s on the inside watching me. The wave opens up on my bottom turn, but I’m going too fucking fast. I stick my hand into the wave, trying to slow myself down. The barrel is behind me. I miss it. “Fuck!” I say.

     “That was a good one though,” says Randy. “I bet you want another one after that. You just gotta get your barrel technique down.”

     Exactly. What he said: get your barrel technique down. He’s so right, but . . . I have no barrel technique. I’ve never been barreled before, so I’ve never had one. I’ve had a barrel technique in my brain, but the image in my brain is nowhere to be found. After all of the surf videos I’ve seen, this is one of the hardest lessons of my life. IT IS NOT EASY. For sure not this wave. For an introductory barrel, this is like going from zero to a hundred-miles per hour, like going from elementary school straight to college, like going from slopey Trestles to a barrel machine. The guys I’m in the water with, they’re just plain GOOD. They know barrels. I don’t. But he’s also right about another thing. I do want another one.

     From the shore, I see more people watching now. I’ve sat there with everyone before, and . . . the guys watching are so judgmental, criticizing the guys who aren’t getting barreled. I never want to judge anyone’s surfing anymore, not after this experience. Right now, I know I’m the guy in the water who doesn’t belong.

     Reece paddles up to me and says, “Hey. When we showed up, I asked, ‘Who’s out here?’ They guys said, ‘One Hawaiian guy and a nervous looking Asian guy.’ I said, ‘I think I know the guys that you’re talking about.’”

     Fucking Reece. Mr. Blunt. Now I’m just mad. My energy is thrown off. It’s more crowded. Even though Reece and Grant are my buds, it’s less waves for me. With the tide draining out even lower, the waves get faster and faster. I paddle into a wave and my nose purls. I resurface, unscathed. I go again. Purl again. Beatings. Fucking beatings, but I’m still not cut. I don’t purl on my next attempts. I’m in the vortex again in one, but I just can’t make it out. Too much power, too unstable, too much inexperience. I think about going home with the story about how I didn’t get barreled. “Almost barreled” is the same as not getting barreled. I’m dreading how everyone will ask.

     “Did you get barreled?” says Reece.

     With a stern face I say, “No.”

     “Try harder,” he says.

     I’m forcing it, looking for the opening, stalling, and I’m not in there. The waves are so fast now that I can’t even pull off my bottom turn, so I have to straighten out into the rocks.

     I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Rick, Klaude, Francis, Al, Whiffle Boy. Trust me, I want to get barreled; I wanted to get barreled on this trip, but this wave. If you guys were here, you’d understand. At home, I’d like to think I’ve had days when I tested my mettle, when I had paddled out when only a few guys wanted to, but I’m outclassed here. I’m not ready. I’m just not ready. All I can say is that I tried.

#

     Randy paddles in, so that’s my cue. I’m only one more beating away from being on the sand. My last ride is insignificant. It just wasn’t meant to be. On the shore, I check myself again. No cuts, no bruises, and same goes for my board. The appreciation I have for my life is refreshed. I made it out in one piece.

     After today, my surfing ego is officially dead. I thought Bali was heavy, but this wave surpasses anything I’ve ever encountered in the water. No ego. I said it before, but this time I’m serious. From now on, if anyone tries to praise my surfing or anything I do on a wave, I’ll say thanks, but deep down inside I know the truth. I was scared shitless in barreling reef break, but I somehow managed to push myself over the ledge. I’ll let you guys be the ones to come here and conquer this wave. I don’t have anything to prove anymore. One day it will happen, or maybe it won’t; I don’t care. The pressure and anxiety that I’ve put myself under has left me empty. I’ve surfed this spot three times and that’s three times enough. Bring me back to a long rippable wave. That’s what I surf, and that’s the kind of surfer I am. I’m not a hellman, and I can live with that.