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"Surf
Heaven"
chapter
3
by matt johnson
“Dad. There's a man in the yard,“ Liam said.
My 7-year-old son often woke me from a peaceful weekend sleep, but it was 5 a.m. on Saturday morning and I didn't want to be pulled from bed. I wasn't particularly alarmed that a man was in the yard. Neighbors often borrowed one of the beat up surfboards stashed behind the house, or my kayak for early morning fishing trips. I rolled over and tried to sleep.
“Dad. He's standing on the picnic table.”
“Is it EJ?“ I said as I pulled myself up to the bedroom window. There was an elderly man with his back to me standing on my redwood table. He appeared to be hanging five toes over the edge of it. It wasn't EJ.
“Hey, old timer. What are you doing?” I asked incredulously. I figured he was one of the neighborhood nomads.
“Do you think this comes naturally?” he said as he backpedaled on the table and turned toward me.
“I’m practicing my pimp strut to the tip.”
“Jesus Christ!” I said. “Its frigging Miki Dora.”
“Matt Johnson,“ Dora laughed. “Where’s my surfboard?”
Dora and I had crossed paths many times at Malibu in the 1960s. We were never quite friends, but rather acquaintances from the beach. Miki had 10 years on me and was clearly established at the top of the Malibu pecking order when I showed up as a young gremmie for the first time in 1965. We ran with different crowds and Dora’s was an echelon higher than mine. He was the king of the point. But he also made numerous enemies with his hair-brained schemes.
Dora once crashed a party I threw for Jack Barlow’s birthday. He pulled up in a shiny new black Porsche 911 with a pair of Marilyn Monroe look-a-likes. He didn't quite fit in with my blue collar crowd. He was impeccably tanned and wearing an European-tailored, silk shirt. Under it he sported an ascot. He looked more like a fruity British royal than the Black Knight. I offered him and his guests a couple of Schlitz beers. He seemed unimpressed and walked off in search of better liquor. Leroy the Masochist took umbrage at Dora’s haughty behavior and flattened all four of his tires. The last we saw of Dora, he was hitchhiking down the Pacific Coast Highway. Leroy ended up in the sack with the two buxom blondes. Apparently, Miki had forgotten about the disrespect we had shown him. He seemed happy to see me. His 9-8 Black Cat was hanging on my garage surf rack. I’d stashed it there the previous evening after finding it on my front lawn and admiring it for nearly an hour. I ushered him into the garage.
“It looks like you've cleaned up your act Johnson, “ Dora said. “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
I was speechless. Dora certainly knew about my “lost period” from the late 1970s through the 1980s, when a series of legal problems forced me to hightail it north from Malibu to San Francisco and eventually settle in Santa Cruz. Dora had run through his own difficulties during that time. The one thing that kept us going was surfing.
“Lets catch a few waves,” Dora said.
I pulled out my 9-2 Michel Junod nose rider. It was my favorite board. Dora spotted a 10-foot Con Ugly leaning against the wall. It was over 35 years old and in need of minor ding repair, but was sealed up and rideable.
“Bring the Ugly,” he said. “The boys will love that thing.”
“The boys? What boys? Its 5 a.m. Nobody's out,” I said as I began to pull on my 3/2 O’Neill wet suit.
“You don't need a wet suit,” Dora said. I noticed he was as stylish as ever, wearing a pair of Black Birdwell trunks and a white rash guard. He was tan and appeared to be in pretty good shape.
“The water's 45 degrees,” I said.
“It's going to be warm today. Believe me you don't need a wet suit.”
I didn't want Miki Dora questioning my manhood so I ditched the wet suit and slipped on a pair of board shorts.
Streetlights flickered in the predawn darkness as we walked the two blocks from my house to the Dirt Farm. There were no cars nor people on the road. I heard the sound of waves crackling in the distance.
As we walked down the trail adjacent to O’Neill’s house, and approached the water,
I felt a chill so I jumped in and quickly paddled toward the kelp bed in an effort to warm up.
Dora was behind me.
I punched through an inside wave then saw a wall of water begin to rise up and feather just beyond the buoy established in memory of Jay Moriarity and Jeff Plucy. It seemed to come out of nowhere. A pair of dolphins leaped over the buoy in synchrony with the wave and rode it in my direction. I watched in awe as they frolicked playfully, then slid down the face effortlessly. I realized I wasn't going to make it up the face of the wave so I turned turtle and held tight to the Ugly. I wasn't wearing a leash and didn't want the board ripped from my grasp. I popped through the other side of the wave and looked behind me. Dora had a big grin on his face.As I paddled toward the horizon I had a feeling something was different. The water felt warmer. The sun had burst through the blackness. Underneath me I saw coral rather than kelp. Dora’s attitude seemed to have changed. He was more relaxed and mellow. To my right I saw four other surfers. I looked quizzically toward Miki.
“Where are we? This doesn't look like the point,” I said.
“Well, its the point, but not Pleasure Point. We're at Sunset Point.”
My head was spinning. I looked toward shore. It didn't seem right. I spotted a horseshoe shaped sandy beach with palm trees and cocoanut trees. There were a few shacks straight inside at the point but no mansions and the Sunset Beach drain pipe was missing. I recognized a dirt road where the Kam Highway should have been, but not a single car was in the usual parking area overlooking the white sand. In fact, there were no cars anywhere.
There was no mistaking I was in the country, on the north shore of Oahu, at Sunset Beach.
But I felt like I had gone back in time.
“This is what the boys saw when they first surfed here,” Dora said. “Before the cars and contests and tourists looking for shave ice.”
“How did we get here,” I said.
‘Don’t question it. Just believe in it,” he said.
“This is perfect,” I said.
“Yeah, it doesn't get much better,” Dora said. “It doesn't get any worse, either. In fact, its like this every day. Five to seven foot waves with light off-shore winds. Sunshine most of the day and a little tropical afternoon rain for variety.”
“Man, this is heaven,” I said.
Dora laughed out loud. “You got that right, Johnson.”
Outside, I spotted Jay Moriarity’s handsome blue eyes and his usual smile.
He was floating on his red Pearson longboard talking to Jeff Plucy.
go to chapter 4