Rip Current | ONE
Title: RIP CURRENT
By: tea_diva
Chapter: One
Word Count: 9,703
There’s no current that pulls you under in the beach. Rip currents pull you out. It’ll dig up the sand so it’ll cause a trench or a trough to be there. Even after the rip current is gone that drop off can still be pretty pronounced, so people will step off into it, not ready, next you know they’re getting carried off shore. What happens is people get scared or tired from trying to fight that current and think they’re not going to make it back in. And that’s when they have problems.
~ On Rip Currents, Peter Davis
(Galveston Island Beach Patrol Chief)
Nate wakes with the sound of crashing surf in his ears, the rumble smash of the waves slowly driving the echo of gunfire and screams back until there is nothing but the steady heartbeat of the ocean breaking along the beach and Nate’s own breaths filling up the empty night.
He lies there, momentarily immobilized as he tries to remember that this is reality now. The king sized bed with crisp white sheets that smell strongly of musty bleach, the cool quiet night, the thundering surf, the moisture that hangs in the air even when the humidity isn’t high. When he squeezes his eyes shut his skin feels dry and burnt, the sting of angry shamal winds and the fierce, unrelenting sun more real than anything. He opens his eyes quickly and takes a steadying breath.
He’s in Oahu, not Iraq. That part of his life is over and done.
Kicking back the covers, Nate sits up and scrubs his hands through his hair. It feels wrong, too short to be a civilian cut but definitely no longer compliant with the grooming standard. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to look at his own reflection without hearing Sixta passing judgment. The thought almost makes him smile, except it’s not the first time he’s been chased out of sleep by memories. It’s been months, but he still mostly sleeps in two-hour intervals until he surrenders and climbs out of bed. He had hoped Oahu would be different, a balm that would smooth away the past.
It’s two days into his vacation and so far it hasn’t worked.
He abandons his bed with reluctance, his body heavy with exhaustion, eyes squinting and gritty in that way that feels familiar. Feels normal. As an afterthought, he picks up his notebook from the coffee table where he’d left it and pushes open the thin, creaking door of his cabin, settling onto the front steps of his porch. Beyond the narrow path overshadowed by thickly green bushes and brightly colored flowers he can see pale stripes in the dark as the surf rolls up the sand.
The world is a shadowed grey-blue, faint traces of pre-dawn light offering a hopeful glow along the horizon, silhouetted palm trees shifting and swaying in a cool breeze that makes Nate shiver, his sweat drying quickly in a prickling shock of cold. The world is silent, sleeping.
There was a time when he would have considered it peaceful. When he might have leaned his head against the rough wood of the porch railing and let the steady predictability of the waves lull him. But that was back when being well rested wasn’t a vague memory. When he could close his eyes and drift and not see blood and death. When theoretical knowledge was the only kind of knowledge he had of war and violence.
Nate props his notebook on his lap, uncapping the ballpoint he keeps tucked inside and pauses, his pen poised at the top of a blank page, his thoughts circling like birds of prey above a kill. There’s so much he wants to write down that for a moment it feels as if he has absolutely nothing to say. He pushes through it, closes his eyes and breathes slow and deep until an image crystalizes in his mind.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s already writing.
His words are a spidery black scrawl that spills over the page, the memory taking hold of him until he forgets everything else. It’s almost an hour before he looks up and when he does, it is with a certain amount of surprise. There’s a hint of pink along the horizon, the sun fighting its way into the sky.
He feels steady again and, with a sigh, Nate recaps his pen and closes his notebook. When he takes a long slow breath he smells the salt in the air, the vibrant tangy freshness of vegetation that he can only describe as ‘green’, and a crisp coolness that makes the world feel clean somehow.
In the distance, Nate sees a man running along the curve of the beach, bare feet splashing in the water. His pace is as steady as the cadence of the waves, something about him looking loose and natural, like he belongs in a way that Nate has never felt of himself.
It occurs to him that this is the second time he’s seen this man running in as many days, and he wonders if it’s a routine. He has no way of knowing. Nate took his watch off the moment he boarded the plain to Hawaii and hasn’t bothered to look at it since.
Not too long ago he might have been out there running himself. After a month of living as a retired Marine he’d started to wonder if the strict regimen he kept was entirely healthy, which prompted him to attempt a kind of rebellion against habits that had become engrained in the Corps. He left his bedroom in disarray, his bed a pile of twisted sheets and heaped blankets, his clothes clumped in heaps wherever they happened to fall, and he stopped his morning runs.
“This place is a mess, Nate,” his mother had said when she had come to visit. “You weren’t even this untidy when you were a teenager.”
Nate had shrugged. “I’m trying something new.”
It occurs to him that he might have gone from one extreme to another. More than once he’s felt an itch to get moving. It’s not like he completely rejected physical activity, but somehow sporadic basketball games with his friends, and half-hearted sit-ups and push-ups in his own apartment never felt like enough.
He watches as the runner makes his way across the stretch of beach directly in front of Nate’s cabin before disappearing into the distance as the sun crawls upwards, splashing the world with violent color: red and purple and pink and orange that makes Nate think that it is going to be another warm, beautiful day.
His cabin is secluded, one of only six private cottages that make up the Dharma Resort. It’s set a fair enough ways off the private beach and shrouded by enough vegetation to offer privacy from the two other cabins nearby, as well as anyone out by the water. Nate leaves the door open when he goes inside to change, pulling on a pair of shorts overtop of his boxer-briefs, and exchanging the worn blue T-shirt he had slept in for a fresh white one.
There’s a little two-cup coffee brewer sitting on a counter in the corner with complementary packets of coffee right beside it and he’s momentarily tempted. It’s habit by now, like his day doesn’t actually begin until he gets his first dose of caffeine. Filling up an entire mug to the brim feels like a luxury. Having a second cup to follow-up the first, let alone an entire pot to himself is one of those little things that Nate keeps finding himself feeling eternally grateful for. No more military rations.
The coffee served up at the main house however, is incredibly good, far better than any pre-packaged blend, and well worth the trip. Besides, he can tell by the way his stomach is roiling that it’s probably better to have some food to go along with his caffeine. Slipping on his sandals, Nate locks his cabin door as he heads out.
The walk to the main house is not far, and though Nate knows there is a pebble walkway that cuts through the foliage behind his hut, he prefers to walk along the sand. There’s an outcrop of dark volcanic rock that stretches almost down to the water just before the steps leading to the outdoor eating area and the main house of the Dharma Resort. Yesterday when Nate had walked up to the smooth stone patio sheltered by vibrant green trees and bright flowers he had been the only guest there. A willowy blond woman with a warm, glowing smile had greeted him and refilled his coffee cup when it had gone empty, but she had sensed his wish for quiet and busied herself preparing things for the morning buffet without making much conversation beyond a gracious, ‘Aloha.
This morning as Nate walks past the rocks he notices a man sitting perfectly straight, legs folded up in an awkward tangle. He’s chanting. It’s a steady lilting rhythm of words that Nate doesn’t understand, but something in the smooth cadence of the voice reminds him of the mellifluous moaning call to prayer that had become familiar in Iraq.
“Prayer is a good thing. Maybe it will keep them too preoccupied to shoot at us”. He remembers the exhilarated thump-thump of his heartbeat as he had crouched behind one of his platoon’s Humvees looking over at his Sergeant with mustered confidence as they sat, meters away from a hostile town.
Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he tries to dislodge the memory.
The chanting cuts-off suddenly, and Nate glances up to man, meeting a warm chocolate-brown gaze. “Aloha, brother,” the man greets, his voice soft and unobtrusive, but carrying easily over the distance.
Nate nods. “Good morning.”
The man has an orange hibiscus flower tucked behind his ear and a colorful lei hanging over his bare chest. He’s wearing loose white linen pants and no shoes, his hair is dark and his skin is golden. Sitting up there on the rocks he looks like a Hawaiian deity overseeing his land.
“I’m Rudy Reyes,” the man says, leaping off the top of the rocks, his feet planting down onto the sand firmly.
"Nate Fick," Nate says as he accepts the offered handshake,
Rudy's smile broadens. “Welcome to my resort, Nate. I hope you’re stay with us so far has been good?”
“Yes. It’s beautiful here.”
Rudy sighs, his warm brown eyes taking in the stretch of beach and the surf and the line of trees. “It certainly is.”
They end up walking up the steps together and when Nate zeroes in on the fresh pot of coffee, Rudy walks round to the other side of the buffet table and hands him a fresh mug. “Are you a breakfast man, Nate?”
In the middle of savoring his first sip of coffee, Nate glances up, more than a little embarrassed by his level of distraction. “Pardon?”
“Breakfast,” Rudy says with a laugh. “I’ve always found that you’re either a breakfast person, or you’re not. Breakfast people like to make an occasion out of the first meal of the day. Eggs, fresh fruit, fried tomatoes, waffles and croissants and sausage.”
Nate considers the question. “I don’t really know.” The realization is surprising. “I think I used to be a breakfast person when I was a kid.” Back when his mom or dad was around to spoil him, and he didn’t have to cook for himself, or keep to his own schedule.
“You never grow out of being a breakfast person.” Hands perched on his hips, and looking like a credible if cape-less impersonation of Superman, Rudy declares: “I’m going to make you breakfast.”
Nate makes a half-hearted effort to resist the offer, but Rudy is already heading toward the open kitchen area, picking various ingredients up as he moves. “It’s no trouble,” he insists. “I love cooking. It’s part of the reason why Cherie and I opened up this resort. Most of my friends aren’t really breakfast people, and so far the majority of the guests checked in for the week are happy to make do with the buffet so they can make the most of their stay.”
Rudy cracks two eggs onto a skillet, and then turns to looks at Nate over his shoulder. “Besides, it’s the least I can do for a Marine brother.” Nate glances down at his own arm where the bottom of his tattoo is showing beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. He had noticed, of course, Rudy’s own tattoo but hadn’t mentioned it.
“What was your division?” Rudy asks, his attention focused on the skillet.
Nate frowns as he takes another sip of coffee. It's not something he particularly feels like talking about, and briefly, he considers asking to change the subject. “First Reconnaissance.”
Rudy nods, his back still turned, his attention still focused on preparing breakfast. “That’s cool, my brother. How do you like your eggs?”
As it turns out, Rudy is not only a good host but he’s also a formidable cook. Nate ends up groaning over his breakfast while Rudy keeps his coffee mug filled and regales him with stories about the island. They don’t talk about the Corps even if Nate catches the assessing look the other man flashes his way, taking in the haircut and the dark circles under his eyes.
Hell, he probably notices that Nate still hasn’t regained all the weight he lost in Iraq. If Rudy has questions, though, he keeps them to himself and Nate is grateful for that.
As Nate finished eating, Rudy asks, “What are your plans for this fine day?”
“I don’t know,” Nate admits. “Yesterday I ended up on a fishing cruise.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mm.” Nate takes a final swallow of coffee, setting his empty mug back onto the table before getting up to help Rudy clear away the dishes. “It turns out I don’t like fishing.”
“Well, at least it was a new experience. That’s what vacations are supposed to be about.” Rudy takes the dishes that Nate hands him and fits them into a large dishwasher. “Have you tried out the beaches yet?”
“I went swimming out by my cabin.”
“No, no,” Rudy says, shaking his head so emphatically that the orange flower behind his ear blurs. “Surfing.”
Nate’s eyebrows jerk upward. “Oh. No. I’ve never surfed, and I’d hate to have one of my new experiences include the Hawaii hospital.”
Rudy tips his head back as he laughs. “You can’t come to the north shore and not try surfing. This afternoon, I’m taking you out. Small waves, no reef, and I’ll keep an eye on you.”
There isn’t really any way to get out of the invitation gracefully, and Nate isn’t even particularly certain that he wants to, so he agrees. Rudy beams at him. “I have to be around to make lunch but after that, you and me, we’ll head out to a spot I know.”
_________________________________
Oahu is teaming with people. Apparently Hawaii’s peak tourist season is pretty much always. For the most part, the crowds are happy and bustling, and it makes Nate feel pleasantly anonymous. He heads away from the Dharma resort in search of something to occupy his morning and stumbles on the shopping district.
The majority of trips Nate has taken in his life have been with his family so he never had much occasion to souvenir shop. He’s traveled with the Corps, but ferrying relief packages to desperate countries or, alternately, invading them wasn’t the kind of atmosphere that lent itself to souvenirs either. Not in Nate’s opinion.
He feels a little lost walking through isle after isle of tacky shot glasses and sloppily painted tiny ceramic scenes of beaches. There’s a spinning rack of colorful Hawaiian license plates with different names on them: Susan, Albert, Bill, Natalie. He even comes across a selection of tiny spoons with minuscule pictures of Oahu beaches.
On the far back wall he finds several shelves filled with little hula bobble-figurines and he can’t help but grin, picking one for each of his sisters. He buys his parents hand-crafted gifts, a painting that he sits and watches the artist finish, and some hand crafted jewelry, tucking everything he buys into the backpack he carries slung over his shoulder.
Further down the road he finds a large stretch of beach that’s already teeming with people. There’s surfers skimming along the waves, kids on inflatable rafts thwapping at each other with pool noodles, he spots a few kayakers paddling between surfers and swimmers, and a motorboat stopping at a dock to pick up some people on a tube.
There’s still a few hours to kill before he has to meet up with Rudy at the resort so he finds a clear spot on the sand and pulls his towel out of his backpack, settling into a relatively clear spot between a line of sunbathers.
Nate is not usually inclined to lie in the sun, mostly because he has found that he is incapable of tanning. Nate burns. Always. No matter what precautions he takes, or else he remains perfectly pale. As Rudy had said, however, holidays are about new experiences, and maybe this time Nate will be lucky.
Reapplying his suntan lotion, Nate resettles his sunglasses over his eyes and then drops back onto his towel.
He can’t get comfortable.
The heat from the sun feels different than the dry, stifling heat of Iraq. The screams of little children aren’t tinged with fear or followed by the thundering crash of bombs. There’s shrill laughter and the splash of water all around but Nate’s skin is still crawling.
The water is as congested as the shore but he wades out and finds a relatively quiet spot, and he just floats, the water lapping up around his face as he closes his eyes. He feels heavy with exhaustion.
Nate has a strong suspicion that it is not a coincidence that the owner of his resort happens to be a retired Marine. He remembers his mother’s smile as he had sat on the couch in his parent’s living room in front of the Christmas tree, unwrapping the strangely flat present. At the time he had wondered if his parents had given him a calendar.
“Mom,” Nate remembers saying, staring at the glossy folder that had said ‘Oahu' in white script. “The reservation is for January.”
She’d matched his gaze evenly. “I know, honey. I booked the trip.”
“But I have school.”
It turned out that what he actually had was a decision to make. “It’s just an option,” she had explained later. “Something to consider. Your father and I can speak with the travel agent, we can change the timing so you can go away in the summer, or maybe over reading week?”
But she also said, “I’m worried about you, honey.”
Nate went to class every day and took notes, and had absolutely no idea what he was doing there. Half the time it felt like it was just something he was supposed to do; something that was expected. It was what he’d planned to do before he’d joined the Marines. Mostly, it just felt like he was going back to the last thing that was familiar and hoping everything else would just fall into place.
“You’re allowed to take a break,” his mother had said. “Nathaniel, you came back from Iraq, retired from the Marines and went straight back to school. It’s okay to take some time off to figure things out. You can defer for a year, start back next fall.”
Nate feels a rushing tug across his skin; the familiar whooshing pull of water and his eyes snap open. He knows exactly what has happened, the sensation all too familiar: he’s floated right into a rip current.
The beach is growing steadily more distant as Nate is pulled further and further out.
Vaguely, he hopes that the lifeguards don’t notice his predicament. Maybe for most swimmers getting stuck in a current like this is a serious thing and yeah, he knows the statistics, but he really should know better. He does in fact know better, and the first clue should have been that a spot on the crowded beach was actually devoid of activity.
The other clue was just about every lesson he ever had involving water during his Marine Corps training. The clues were all right there to be read in the water but Nate had been floating along with his eyes closed.
The current is strong, and he knows better than to fight it. Nate treads water, doesn’t panic, and inch by inch, shifts closer to the edge until finally, he slips free of the current.
“Here,” a voice says, and a second later the end of a lime green surfboard with dark green edging and a thin orange stripe down the middle cuts right in front of Nate’s nose as he starts to swim for shore. “You found the rip current.”
Nate grips the edge of the board to prevent it from bumping into him. “I know,” he says, irritated with himself for the foolish mistake. When he looks up at the guy who’s sitting on the board, his irritation is forgotten. He blinks.
The guy is straddling his surfboard, plain black board shorts bunched a little, exposing a portion of thigh. His chest is bare, skin tanned perfectly golden under the sun. Nate can see freckles along the bridge of the man’s nose, but mostly he gets sidetracked by the bright blueness of the man’s eyes, watching him from beneath a fringe of blond hair. “I thought you’d need help, but you handled yourself pretty well.”
Nate wipes a hand across his face, brushing away the beads of water dripping off the ends of his hair. “It’s not the first time I’ve found myself caught in a rip current.”
The corner of the man’s mouth quirks upward slightly, but somehow manages to show all his teeth. “When in doubt, don’t go out.”
Nate snorts. “Thanks for the PSA, I’ll remember that next time.”
The man glances back over his shoulder toward the beach and Nate’s eyes drift involuntarily down the muscular torso, thick drops of water beading on tanned skin. The man asks, “Do you need a tow?”
“It’s fine.” Nate forces his eyes up and clears his throat. “Thanks, though.”
“Are you sure?” the guy asks, flashing a sharp little smile. “You don’t need to impress me.”
It’s embarrassing that the lighthearted flirting catches him so off-guard that he is honestly at a loss for words. “No,” Nate says. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, then.” The guy is already paddling away. “I’ll see you around.”
“Sure,” Nate croaks and adds quietly, to himself, “Dammit.”
_________________________________
He isn’t sure what it is about the exchange, but Nate finds himself turning it over in his head on his way back to his cabin.
It doesn’t feel like a missed opportunity because he’s only in Oahu for a little less than two weeks and then he’s going home. He’s not looking for a holiday fling or even a one night stand because he’s only just stopped breaking into spontaneous tears for no reason at all. His emotions are still a bit out of whack and frankly, he has no idea how he’d handle any sort of relationship right now, however casual.
Nate changes into a dry pair of swim shorts and grabs a new towel, draping his damp one out on the porch rail to air dry, pinned in place by a rock. Why didn't he say something back? He could have made a joke or something. That would have been normal, not getting flustered and swimming away like a bitch. That’s not something that Nate thinks he’s ever done before.
Really, he just shouldn’t have been in the rip current to begin with. Then the guy wouldn’t have even come over. If any of his Marines caught him floating straight out into the current like that they wouldn’t have shut up about it for weeks.
Nate twists his key with a vicious twist as he locks his cabin, heading to the main house. They’re not ‘his' Marines anymore he reminds himself as he moves along the beach, his sandals kicking up sand as he walks, they have a new LT and a new set of orders.
When he gets to the patio dining area he discovers that the place is actually crowded. That morning Rudy had mentioned there were about thirteen guests currently staying at the resort, and by Nate’s estimate most of those are present on the patio. Conveniently, he spots an empty table in the corner that Nate happily drops into, out of the way and in a quieter spot. A pleasant, smiling woman takes his order and brings him a glass of freshly squeezed juice as he waits.
“Everything all right, my warrior brother?” Rudy appears standing right by the side of Nate’s table without Nate ever noticing the man’s approach. There’s a white apron covering his naked chest, he still has the hibiscus flower tucked behind his ear, and he’s gripping a spatula in his right hand.
Smiling, Nate nods. “It’s fine.”
Rudy flashes him a brief, skeptical look, but lets it go. “This is the lunch rush. When the last person clears out, we can head out.”
They end up leaving a bit before that, Rudy's wait staff happily dismissing him once he’s prepared the last plate, promising to take care of guests and clear everything away. Still, Rudy doesn’t leave until the lithe blonde woman Nate had encountered the other day steps out onto the patio in a dark blue sarong dress and says, “We’ll manage. Go!”
“I love you, babe,” Rudy says, transferring the bright orange flower from behind his ear to hers. He grins at Nate. “That’s my Cherie.”
There’s a green Jeep parked in the front driveway that already has two surfboards tied to the roof. One has a sunrise beach scene painted across the expanse; the other board is a vivid red with a single white swirl running down the length of it.
“I know the perfect spot to learn how to surf,” Rudy says as they climb into the truck. “Surfers are usually pretty protective of their spots, but I know the guys who use this beach. I don’t think they’d mind.” They pull out onto the road, turning in the opposite direction that Nate walked that morning.
It's on the tip of Nate's tongue to ask why Rudy is doing all of this: the breakfast, the surf lessons, any of it. What he ends up saying, though is, “We can just go to one of the public beaches. I don't mind.”
Rudy shakes his head. “Then you have to compete with crowds, as well as the waves and other surfers. This spot we’re heading to is almost never crowded. The guys who surf there keep the secret locked down, but they’d understand me making an exception for a Marine Corps brother.”
“Are they Marines?”
“No," Rudy says. "But they’re warriors.”
After a while, they turn down a narrow dirt road, the trees falling away until Nate can look out the window and spot the water. “I love this island,” Rudy says with an appreciative sigh. “Everything about it is alive and full of energy.”
The truck jostles along the dirt road, and Nate braces his hand along the window ledge. “How long have you lived here?”
“Not long. Cherie and I moved after I retired from the Corps. That was after Afghanistan.” Nate nods. He remembers Afghanistan. “Originally, we were just going to get a house here, but the realtor who was showing us around took us up to the resort, just as a suggestion. It was perfect.”
“Sounds like fate.”
“Fate,” Rudy echoes. “Yeah. Like destiny. It was even within our budget, plus it would be a home and a business. We’ve been making good money doing something we love.” Rudy has that same quality that the runner Nate had watched that morning had, a sort of rightness, a sense of direction and purpose that makes Nate ache.
“Here we are,” Rudy declares, interrupting Nate’s thoughts. He brings the car to a halt and turns off the motor. They wrangle the boards off the roof of the Jeep and Nate ends up carrying the shiny red board down a steep, rocky incline to the beach.
“First,” Rudy says as he drops his board onto the sand. “You’ve got to scuff up the wax on the board pretty good, otherwise you’ll just slip right off.” He demonstrates, picking up a handful of sand and rubbing it along the surface of the board.
When Nate copies him, Rudy runs a palm across the top, checking Nate’s work. “Good. Now we go into the water.”
The waves crashing along the sand are fairly sizable. Out deeper, those waves only get bigger, and Nate wasn't lying when he had said he'd never been surfing. “Aren’t I supposed to practice getting up onto my board on dry land, first?”
Rudy cocks his head. “Are you going to surf on dry land or in the water?” When glances dubiously out at the waves, Rudy nods definitively and says, “We’re going into the water,” then he picks up his board, tucks it beneath his arm, and sprints down the beach toward the waves, lying on top of the board as he paddles out.
Nate doesn’t feel nearly as graceful carrying his own board but he doesn’t drop it, and he follows the same path Rudy took out into the water.
Of course, once he gets far enough the waves start rearing up over his head and shoving him back towards shore. It’s daunting because Rudy had promised that the waves at this beach were small, and also that they would start in a sandbar, which had seemed like a sensible plan.
In Nate's opinion, these waves are in no way small, and he's having difficulty getting past them. There is no sign of Rudy anywhere, though Nate doesn’t really want to start calling out for him because, well, he has his pride and also, he’s too busy coughing on the salt water that keeps slamming into him.
He's a goddamned Marine. This is downright embarrassing.
“Hey,” a nasal voice says, and Nate glances over to see a dark headed, lanky man gripping a surfboard. “You gotta duck-dive that shit, otherwise you’re just gonna end up back on the beach, mouth full of salt water and trunks packed with sand.”
Nate has no idea what the guy is talking about but in the next moment he watches as the other man kicks toward an oncoming wave, takes in an exaggerated mouthful of air and then presses down on his surfboard, taking both it and his own body under the water as the wave ripples over top.
It doesn’t seem like an overly complicated maneuver and when the next wave rolls in Nate tries it. He finds himself popping up right beside the stranger and feels a small curl of satisfaction with his progress.
“I’m Ray,” the guy says. His surfboard is the color of the inside of a cantaloupe, with bright neon pink stylized flowers on it. “Pretty bitching, am I right?” Ray says, catching the direction of Nate’s gaze.
Nate raises his eyebrows. “It certainly makes a statement.”
“Yeah. You know what it says? ‘Look at me, I’m right the fuck over here.’" Ray grinds proudly. "None of this bullshit sky blue and sea foam green for my baby. If me and my board get separated, I’m damned well gonna find her again.” Nate can’t help but notice that Ray’s swim trunks are composed of equally loud colors, and wonders if the man's philosophy extends to his board shorts as well. “Hey, I didn’t catch your name.”
They duck-dive another wave and when they both resurface Nate says, “It’s Nate.”
“Nate.” Ray nods like he’s decided Nate’s name is acceptable. “Nate, you don’t have a single goddamned clue what you’re doing, do you?”
Pursing his lips, Nate says, “Not so much.”
“So what. You came out here and decided to teach yourself?” Ray’s eyes are slightly narrowed, assessing. “How did you find this place?”
“Actually,” Nate says, his eyes scanning for a sign of Rudy. “A friend promised to teach me.”
“Some friend,” Ray scoffs. “He didn’t even tell you to duck-dive the waves. I hope you’re not paying this dude.”
They dive under again and when they come up Rudy is right there, sitting on his board and smiling at them happily. “Nate, brother, I knew you’d make it out. The sandbar is around over this way.”
“Oh Jesus,” Ray says. “You got Fruity Rudy to teach you how to surf?”
Nate glances at Rudy. The man still has the rippling physique of a Marine Corps warrior, and he probably hasn’t lost any of the training either. In comparison, Ray looks like a gangly twig and, even if Nate secretly thinks the guy might deserve it for his mouthy comment, he wonders if he’s going to have to step in when Rudy takes offense at the nickname, or even the tone. Then again, Rudy had mentioned knowing most of the guys who surf at this spot and Nate wonders if this is ribbing between friends, or if Ray is genuinely looking to cause trouble.
His question is answered when Rudy laughs like this is an exchange they’ve had a million times before. For someone who was just insulted, the laugh sounds genuinely full and joyful, which is probably why Nate feels more than a little confused. “Is there a problem?”
“No, not at all,” Ray scoffs, with a dramatic eye-roll and a tone dripping with sarcasm. “If you subscribe to Rudy’s ‘surfing as a path to enlightenment’ philosophy.”
Rudy smiles serenely. “There are worse paths you can take to enlightenment.”
“All right, Buddha.” Ray turns back to Nate. “I hope you realize he’s not gonna teach you shit. He’s gonna sit on his board and watch you repeatedly land on your face, and then tell you it’s all part of the journey.”
“When surfers first went over to Africa they found some of the best waves on beaches located near extremely remote villages. The people who lived in those villages had probably never seen a white man before, let alone a surfboard, but they took the boards out right into the surf and stood up the first time out, on their board while riding the curl.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Yeah, for like, three seconds, and then they fell on their face.”
Nate snorts a laugh. “Are you offering to teach me then, Ray?”
“What?” Ray looks surprised, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him.
Rudy bursts into raucous laughter. “That’s not wise, brother. Even an ex Recon Marine doesn’t stand a very good chance of surviving a surfing lesson with Ray Person.”
“I’m not that bad,” Ray protests with a pout.
The waves are pushing them back toward the shore but no one seems concerned. “Tell that to Walt,” Rudy retorts.
“Yeah, well… Some people have a natural ability, and other people are just train wrecks waiting to happen. I can’t be held responsible for Walt.”
Rudy scratches his chin. “So, the fact that Walt’s taken the prize money at Big Wave Africa two years running is a fluke?”
“Damned straight,” Ray answers. “Brad hasn’t entered Big Wave in two years. If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Eventually they make their way over to the sandbar, which does in fact have much smaller waves, much to Nate's relief. He spends the morning watching Rudy surf, all steady and loose as if he’s standing on a skateboard rolling across flat solid ground, listening to Ray shout insults and constantly reminding them that: “This surf is nothing. It’s like the bunny hill of waves. No, it’s less than a bunny hill. What d’you call something that’s smaller than a bunny hill? An anthill? Way to ride an ant hill, Fruity Rudy!”
Rudy’s instruction consists of telling Nate to ‘feel the wave’ and ‘not to over-think it’. Ray’s instruction is nowhere near as succinct, but boils down mostly to the fact that the only thing Nate needs to be concentrating on at this point is getting up on his board.
Getting onto the board, Nate discovers, isn’t the hard part.
The hard part is staying there.
“Whoo-hoo!” Ray shouts and claps. “A world record and personal best. Nathaniel Fick stays up for a grand total of four seconds!” Nate takes the ribbing because between Rudy and Ray, he’s actually having fun and laughing and for the first time since his plane landed he feels like he's actually on vacation, and not as if someone has just hit the 'pause' button on reality.
He’s never had this particular perspective of the waves. He’s pretty high above the water and though he understands the basic physics behind surfing, he feels like a newborn colt standing for the first time. He curls his toes and clenches his hands and braces for the inevitable fall, because Nate has found that the moment he manages to successfully stand on his board, he starts to think about falling off it.
Rudy says. “To ride a wave, you have to be at peace with yourself. That’s the first hurdle.” He adds, “You’re getting better,” even if Nate doesn’t think that’s strictly true.
“The first hurdle,” Ray says. “Is standing up on your fucking board and staying there long enough to get to a wave.”
“This concludes our lesson for the day.”
“Wait,” Nate says, catching Rudy’s phrasing. “'For the day?' You haven’t given up on me yet?”
Rudy smiles. “Never, my warrior brother. You haven’t learned to surf yet.”
Something in Nate’s expression prompts Ray to begin cackling with glee. “I’m so there,” he says. “Sign me up. Same time, same place.”
They climb out of the water, propping their boards up in the sand. “Do you need a lift?” Rudy asks as he reaches for his towel.
Ray shakes his head. “Naw, man. I stole the truck from Walt.”
Rudy’s eyebrows jerk up. “You better get it back before he notices it’s gone. He feels the same about that truck as you do about your board.”
“Dude, the bitch was out with Brad on dawn patrol. They’ve probably been killing themselves all day over at Pipeline. No way he’s going to notice his baby’s been out of the garage.”
As they finish drying off Ray squints over at Nate. “You should come by the place, have dinner with us.”
"Ray," Rudy says, his tone soft but firm. “Maybe you should run that by the Iceman.”
“He’s fine," Ray says, unfolding a pair of sunglasses and putting them on with a dramatic flourish. "How many times does he have to say it?”
Rudy shrugs. “As many times as it takes to become true.”
“Alright there, Yoda. I was gonna invite you, too, but forget it. I’ll see you bitches tomorrow.” Ray tosses his towel over his shoulder and picks up his board, waving as he marches up the hill.
Rudy and Nate take their time gathering their things and climbing the hill. As Rudy finishes tying their boards to the roof, Nate says, “I had a good day. Thanks for the lesson.”
“You can’t teach surfing. You can either surf, or you can’t. It's something you have to figure out for yourself.”
“Well, at the moment, I think I’m of the second variety,” Nate says, the corner of his mouth quirking upward.
Rudy nods. “At the moment.” He says it with a kind of weight to the words, like he’s not talking about surfing at all. Nate doesn’t ask what exactly the other man means.
_________________________________
Nate is starving by the time they make it back to the resort. He washes up and then goes out to eat at a local bar that Rudy recommends. He stays out dancing and drinking ridiculously colorful, fruity drinks with higher alcohol content than a straight up shot. By the time he staggers back to his cabin the only thing he has energy left to do is to kick off his shoes before he collapses face-first into bed.
When his eyes snap open, it’s still dark out. His heart is hammering against his ribcage and every muscle is clenched like a fist. He grabs for his journal but for the longest while he can’t think of anything to say.
He’s tired of feeling like he never made it out of Iraq. He’s tired of feeling like he left some vital part of himself somewhere on the road to Baghdad. He’s tired of feeling all the time as if he doesn’t fit anywhere, no longer a warrior, but not a civilian, either.
Nate writes it all down and then he closes his notebook. His therapist said this would help him make sense of his experience. Nate doesn't think it's working.
In the bathroom, he washes up and pulls on a pair of shorts, slipping on his running shoes before he leaves the cabin. He takes off running along the shoreline, following the rushing swish of the waves, the slow rise of the sun hanging over his right shoulder. He runs until he hits a stretch of tall rock that juts out deep into the water, and then he turns around and starts heading back.
_________________________________
Ray is leaning over the buffet table stealing coffee when Nate finds his way to the dining area for breakfast. “You better not have finished off that pot,” he says, in lieu of a proper greeting.
“Charming,” Ray says. “And no, your highness, there’s plenty more for all the good little girls and boys to enjoy.”
Nate fills a mug with coffee and grabs a slice of bacon from the buffet tray. He supposes that he’s coming in later than usual because there are people settled at tables already, happily enjoying their first meal of the day. He stakes out a table in the far corner, which Ray happily settles at while Nate goes in search of breakfast.
When he returns, Ray snatches the bacon off of Nate’s plate and stuffs it all in his mouth before Nate can protest. “So,” Ray says, his cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s as he chews. “Brad totally fell off his board at Pipe the other day and cracked his head open. I was wondering if we could do the surf-thing in the morning instead of the afternoon.”
Nate blinks, a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth. “Uh, what?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Ray says, waving a dismissive hand. “Walt just told him he had a concussion, but one of us has to be around to make sure he actually, like, takes it easy, and since Walt has to do a thing in the afternoon, I thought, y’know, maybe we could surf in the morning.”
Nate has his mouth open ready to comment when Cherie pauses by their table. “Ray, are you eating us out of house and home again?”
The smile Ray flashes her is filled with false innocence and schoolboy charm. “No ma’am. I’m just having one cup of tasty tasty coffee.”
Cherie narrows her eyes suspiciously. “All right then. I’ll send Rudy out to you two.” When she turns to Nate, her smile warms immediately. “Good morning,” she says, and then moves off toward the kitchen.
Nate is feeling more than a little confused, mostly because he’s still trying to make sense of the jumbled sentences Ray hit him with before he had even finished his coffee. “You know, Ray, you don’t have to teach me to surf. If your friend is hurt you should probably visit him.”
“No, no,” Ray says. “Brad doesn’t actually like, have a concussion, Walt just told him that he did because otherwise the idiot would just keep pushing until he did get a concussion or, you know, brained himself on some coral. If you’d rather do it in the afternoon that totally works for me.”
Before Nate can tactfully explain that Ray has missed his point, Rudy comes over with a pot of coffee, refilling both their mugs, before dropping into a chair at the table. “How’s Brad doing?”
Ray sighs. “He’s fine.” Nate can’t hide the smirk behind his mug fast enough, and Ray hits him with an accusing glare “What?”
“Nothing,” Nate says. He purses his lips. “Generally speaking, if a person is ‘fine’ you don’t have to tell them that they have a concussion when they actually don’t.”
“Okay, well, it’s not lying if it could have been true.”
Nate laughs. “That’s not how logic works, Ray.”
Rudy frowns, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Why did you tell the Iceman that he had a concussion?”
“Look," Ray says with an exaggerated sigh. "You’re both missing the point: Brad’s totally fine. He fell at Pipeline yesterday and yeah, he cut his head and he threw a holy fit but he went to the hospital and they checked him out. But, y’know, Walt saw an opportunity, and it’s not like Brad ever listens to his doctors anyway, so Walt told him he had a concussion.” He catches Nate’s look and says, “Pipeline’s kind a big thing. As in, big ass freaking waves with a nasty coral reef right below it.”
“Okay,” Nate says.
Rudy shakes his head, looking mournful. “I thought he’d take a break after the Triple Crown.”
“You know Brad,” Ray says. “Winning the Crown doesn’t mean a damned thing to him, it was just another opportunity to surf. Like he really needs an excuse. He’s on dawn patrol every damned day. Mostly, I don’t even know what time he leaves. Walt was just trying to get him to take it easy.”
“But you still insist that he’s fine.”
“Come on, Rudy. Brad doesn’t 'take a break' from surfing. It’s not a job; it’s a way of life. This is how he copes with shit. So, y’know, at least he’s coping.”
By the time Nate retrieves his pack from his cabin and makes it back to the main house, Ray has finished lashing his board to the roof of the Jeep. “Road trip!” he cheers and quickly adds “Shotgun!”
Rudy and Nate share a look, but Nate happily climbs into the backseat. The moment Rudy turns over the engine, Ray’s popping a CD into the player, and the shrill sounds of Avril Lavigne fill the cab.
By the time they break for lunch, Nate is able to ride what Ray calls ‘ant hills’ and Rudy calls ‘respectable beach break’. He’s not comfortable zigzagging back and forth like Ray does, but he’s not pitching right off his board the moment he gets up either. When he pops-up, both his feet land right where they’re supposed to at the same moment and he’s starting to trust that he won’t just trip over himself the moment he gets up.
“Not bad,” Ray says, clapping him on the shoulder as they carry their boards back up to the Jeep. “Tomorrow we’ll try surfing some real waves, how’s that sound?”
“Like you’re crazy,” Nate quips.
They drop Ray off on the way back to Dharma Resort. Rudy turns down a smooth dirt road marked by a large post and lintel made of thick wood. There’s a worn yellow surfboard propped against the right pillar.
Nate stares out the window at the wild greenery that makes him feel more than a bit like he’s driving through a rainforest, and then Rudy’s turning out onto a round driveway in front of a sprawling two-story mansion. It’s sand colored, with ironwood shingles and wood framing the windows and doors. Over top of the roof, presumably on the other side of the house, Nate can see the branches of a rather formidable tree.
“It’s a monkeypod tree,” Rudy explains. “I think this is one of the most beautiful homes on the island. Everything about it is natural. Those are ohia wood poles and lava stone,” he nods his head to the pillars at the front entrance. Nate has no idea what ohia wood is, but he can easily agree that the house is beautiful. Beyond the trees, he can see the ocean.
“Private beach front, with respectable swells,” Rudy says, catching the direction of Nate’s gaze.
“Yeah yeah,” Ray says, hopping out of the front seat. “Home sweet home.”
He unstraps his board from the roof and holds up his hand as he walks away, his thumb and pinky extended, middle three fingers curled. “See you bitches tomorrow!” It seems to be his customary send-off. They watch as he carries his board off to the left of the house.
"That's his house?" Nate wonders.
“He lives in the guest house,” Rudy explains, shifting gears and turning back down the private drive.
“Still. That place was pretty impressive.”
_________________________________
Nate gets into a rhythm. He still wakes up far too early, his skin caked with sweat and his breathing shallow, but now after he’s finished writing in his journal, he runs. When he reaches the stretch of rocks that cut off his progress, he turns back to his cabin and showers before heading up to the main house for breakfast and copious amounts of coffee.
During the morning, Nate takes tours around the island, walking through historic Honolulu, and the ‘Iolani Palace. He finds an expansive farmer’s market by following a crowd on the weekend, and even stumbles upon the Oahu version of Chinatown. The afternoon he spends with Ray and Rudy trying to "feel the waves" and ultimately landing on his face as Ray barks orders at him, “Relax” and “Don’t fight it, go with it” and Rudy looks at him with knowing eyes and says, “It’s all part of the journey” every time Nate asks what he’s doing wrong.
Sometimes Ray drags him out to a bar in the evening, other times Nate wanders in the direction of the music and laughter. He ends up at an Elvis show one night and a fancy seafood restaurant the next, and he likes how it feels: wandering with no destination in mind and stumbling onto things that he might not have found any other way. It doesn’t seem like a vacation anymore, he knows the island pretty well now and it feels a like he’s always lived here.
It’s not a bad feeling.
Five days into his stay Nate maybe hasn’t made that much headway with the surfing, but at least he isn’t freezing up and panicking the moment he gets up on his board anymore. He refuses to leave the sandbar, but Ray has taught him how to zigzag ahead of the curl, shifting his weight to make the board turn.
On Friday, when he jogs up the steps in search of breakfast, Cherie is setting out a new platter of fresh fruit and greets him with a warm smile, saying, “Rudy’s got a plate set aside for you.”
Nate fills up a mug with fresh coffee and stakes out a table near the kitchen. “Nate,” Rudy greets, and then disappears below the counter-top, reappearing a moment later with a plate laden with an egg white omelet, a small cup of strawberry yogurt and three strips of perfectly crispy bacon, which he sets on the table, before pulling off his apron and dropping onto a chair opposite and interlocking his fingers. He looks as if he is about to deliver some very bad news.
Rudy says, “We got an onshore wind today.”
Pausing in the act of sampling his omelet, Nate says, “That’s a bad thing?”
“The worst. It means that it’s all crumbling, shapeless, tragic surf out there.”
Nate tips his head down and fights a wave of disappointment. “Do you kayak?” Rudy asks. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t, it’s easy to pick up.”
Nate is disinclined to believe that because, “You said the same thing about surfing.”
Rudy shrugs. “You’re making progress. But today I’m gonna take you out to see something really spectacular.”
Rudy shepherds him into the Jeep after breakfast. He packs a cooler into the trunk before driving out to Kailua beach. They rent two banana yellow kayaks and march out into the water. The sky is bright and blue and perfectly clear. When he leans over the side of the boat, Nate can see fish swimming in the water.
“I hope you brought your camera.”
“Where are we going?”
“You see over there?” Rudy points at a cluster of small islands. “Those are the Mokulua Islands. They’re bird sanctuaries.”
Nate doesn’t consider himself a big fan of birds. His grandfather had a parakeet and mostly Nate considered it a pretty irritating pet to have. He much preferred the idea of a dog or cat, something with fur that you could cuddle up to, or chase after.
When they reach the shore, he only half pays attention when Rudy points out the different types of birds, mostly he’s distracted by how beautiful it is. For one thing, the islands are pretty much deserted. Rudy moves them along so they’re always ahead of any tour groups, and though they see a couple out paddling here and there, it's refreshingly peaceful.
They have lunch on the beach, and end up swimming in a little lagoon and it feels like they’ve found a corner of the world completely new. Like they’re the only two people who know about this place.
“Can I ask you something?” Rudy says, stretched out on the surface of the water, letting the waves rock him back and forth as he floats.
“Sure.”
“Why Oahu?”
Nate blinks, then laughs. “Actually, this whole trip wasn’t really my idea.”
Rudy squints at him. “Whose idea was it?”
“My mom’s,” Nate admits with a wry twist to his mouth. Rudy laughs appreciatively. “She wanted me to take some time off. Switch gears.” He worries for a moment that now might be the time when Rudy asks, when Nate has to explain his time in Iraq.
Rudy says, “She sounds like a wise lady.”
“Yeah.”
When they get back to the resort, Ray is waiting for them with his hands on his hips. “What did you ladies do all day without your buddy Ray Ray?”
Nate feels a surge of gratitude to both men for the easy acceptance and welcome they’ve given him. It’s the first time since leaving the Corps that he hasn’t felt alone, hasn’t caught himself missing the constant presence of his platoon. He says, “We rented some kayaks and toured around Kailua beach.”
Ray narrows his eyes at Rudy. “Are you turning him into a fucking goat boater?” and then, without letting Rudy answer, he turns back to Nate, “Did he take you to the Mokes? Did you see lots of boobies?”
“By which I hope you mean the bird,” Cherie says, coming up to them.
“Uh, yeah,” Ray says, like it should be obvious. “Of course I mean the birds.”
Cherie steals Rudy away to prepare dinner and Ray ends up following Nate back to his cabin. “I always thought this was a pretty awesome set up,” he says, as he walks up the porch steps. “It’s like, all the awesome stuff you get from staying at a hotel, like someone to cook for you, but it’s also like having your own place. I mean, check it. You’ve got your own kitchen. You could totally cook for yourself if you wanted to.”
Nate kicks off his sandals. “I’m on vacation. Cooking for myself is just about the last thing I want to do.”
Ray rolls his eyes. “Well, obviously. Especially since you’ve got Rudy to do it for you. I’ve tried bribing him to come and make me food but so far no luck.”
Despite the fact that Rudy has a perfectly good dinner going back at the resort Ray marches Nate out to the driveway and into a light metallic blue Range Rover Evoque that is polished to a glossy shine. Nate takes one look at it and says, “I sincerely hope this is your vehicle, and you are not involving me in your twisted desire to live out a version of grand theft auto.”
Ray cackles happily as he turns over the engine. “Bitch, please. This is totally Walt’s car. If I was going to steal something it would be awesome, like a tank or an entire fucking battleship.”
“Would this be the same Walt who refuses to let you drive his car?”
“Yeah,” Ray says. “But he’s letting me do just about anything I want right now because he feels really guilty for taking Brad out surfing and allowing him to crack his head open.”
Nate nods. “And this would be the same Brad who does not actually have a concussion.”
“See!” Ray says, flashing a wide, tooth-filled grin. “It’s like we know each other!”
Ray drives to a towering hotel, tosses his keys at the valet like he’s actually a guest and ushers Nate inside. “It’s totally cool,” he assures Nate as they walk through a tiled entrance-way and then out past a fairly sizable and elaborate pool, complete with fake rocks. “I do this all the time. Friday nights they do this live performance thing with real Hula dancers, and the food is pretty spectacular.”
There are five long banquet tables set out on the sand in front of a makeshift stage decorated with flowers and long reedy grass. Ray finds them two empty spots and drops down onto the sand. “You’re gonna love this.”
Nate staggers back to his cabin at some ungodly hour, more than a little drunk, but with a camera filled with memories, most of which pertain to some pretty spectacularly failed efforts to hula dance. He collapses into bed and doesn’t have a single dream.
When he wakes up the next morning, the sun is already up.
___________________________________________________
|| END PART ONE >>|
STORY MASTERPOST
By: tea_diva
Chapter: One
Word Count: 9,703
There’s no current that pulls you under in the beach. Rip currents pull you out. It’ll dig up the sand so it’ll cause a trench or a trough to be there. Even after the rip current is gone that drop off can still be pretty pronounced, so people will step off into it, not ready, next you know they’re getting carried off shore. What happens is people get scared or tired from trying to fight that current and think they’re not going to make it back in. And that’s when they have problems.
~ On Rip Currents, Peter Davis
(Galveston Island Beach Patrol Chief)
Nate wakes with the sound of crashing surf in his ears, the rumble smash of the waves slowly driving the echo of gunfire and screams back until there is nothing but the steady heartbeat of the ocean breaking along the beach and Nate’s own breaths filling up the empty night.
He lies there, momentarily immobilized as he tries to remember that this is reality now. The king sized bed with crisp white sheets that smell strongly of musty bleach, the cool quiet night, the thundering surf, the moisture that hangs in the air even when the humidity isn’t high. When he squeezes his eyes shut his skin feels dry and burnt, the sting of angry shamal winds and the fierce, unrelenting sun more real than anything. He opens his eyes quickly and takes a steadying breath.
He’s in Oahu, not Iraq. That part of his life is over and done.
Kicking back the covers, Nate sits up and scrubs his hands through his hair. It feels wrong, too short to be a civilian cut but definitely no longer compliant with the grooming standard. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to look at his own reflection without hearing Sixta passing judgment. The thought almost makes him smile, except it’s not the first time he’s been chased out of sleep by memories. It’s been months, but he still mostly sleeps in two-hour intervals until he surrenders and climbs out of bed. He had hoped Oahu would be different, a balm that would smooth away the past.
It’s two days into his vacation and so far it hasn’t worked.
He abandons his bed with reluctance, his body heavy with exhaustion, eyes squinting and gritty in that way that feels familiar. Feels normal. As an afterthought, he picks up his notebook from the coffee table where he’d left it and pushes open the thin, creaking door of his cabin, settling onto the front steps of his porch. Beyond the narrow path overshadowed by thickly green bushes and brightly colored flowers he can see pale stripes in the dark as the surf rolls up the sand.
The world is a shadowed grey-blue, faint traces of pre-dawn light offering a hopeful glow along the horizon, silhouetted palm trees shifting and swaying in a cool breeze that makes Nate shiver, his sweat drying quickly in a prickling shock of cold. The world is silent, sleeping.
There was a time when he would have considered it peaceful. When he might have leaned his head against the rough wood of the porch railing and let the steady predictability of the waves lull him. But that was back when being well rested wasn’t a vague memory. When he could close his eyes and drift and not see blood and death. When theoretical knowledge was the only kind of knowledge he had of war and violence.
Nate props his notebook on his lap, uncapping the ballpoint he keeps tucked inside and pauses, his pen poised at the top of a blank page, his thoughts circling like birds of prey above a kill. There’s so much he wants to write down that for a moment it feels as if he has absolutely nothing to say. He pushes through it, closes his eyes and breathes slow and deep until an image crystalizes in his mind.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s already writing.
His words are a spidery black scrawl that spills over the page, the memory taking hold of him until he forgets everything else. It’s almost an hour before he looks up and when he does, it is with a certain amount of surprise. There’s a hint of pink along the horizon, the sun fighting its way into the sky.
He feels steady again and, with a sigh, Nate recaps his pen and closes his notebook. When he takes a long slow breath he smells the salt in the air, the vibrant tangy freshness of vegetation that he can only describe as ‘green’, and a crisp coolness that makes the world feel clean somehow.
In the distance, Nate sees a man running along the curve of the beach, bare feet splashing in the water. His pace is as steady as the cadence of the waves, something about him looking loose and natural, like he belongs in a way that Nate has never felt of himself.
It occurs to him that this is the second time he’s seen this man running in as many days, and he wonders if it’s a routine. He has no way of knowing. Nate took his watch off the moment he boarded the plain to Hawaii and hasn’t bothered to look at it since.
Not too long ago he might have been out there running himself. After a month of living as a retired Marine he’d started to wonder if the strict regimen he kept was entirely healthy, which prompted him to attempt a kind of rebellion against habits that had become engrained in the Corps. He left his bedroom in disarray, his bed a pile of twisted sheets and heaped blankets, his clothes clumped in heaps wherever they happened to fall, and he stopped his morning runs.
“This place is a mess, Nate,” his mother had said when she had come to visit. “You weren’t even this untidy when you were a teenager.”
Nate had shrugged. “I’m trying something new.”
It occurs to him that he might have gone from one extreme to another. More than once he’s felt an itch to get moving. It’s not like he completely rejected physical activity, but somehow sporadic basketball games with his friends, and half-hearted sit-ups and push-ups in his own apartment never felt like enough.
He watches as the runner makes his way across the stretch of beach directly in front of Nate’s cabin before disappearing into the distance as the sun crawls upwards, splashing the world with violent color: red and purple and pink and orange that makes Nate think that it is going to be another warm, beautiful day.
His cabin is secluded, one of only six private cottages that make up the Dharma Resort. It’s set a fair enough ways off the private beach and shrouded by enough vegetation to offer privacy from the two other cabins nearby, as well as anyone out by the water. Nate leaves the door open when he goes inside to change, pulling on a pair of shorts overtop of his boxer-briefs, and exchanging the worn blue T-shirt he had slept in for a fresh white one.
There’s a little two-cup coffee brewer sitting on a counter in the corner with complementary packets of coffee right beside it and he’s momentarily tempted. It’s habit by now, like his day doesn’t actually begin until he gets his first dose of caffeine. Filling up an entire mug to the brim feels like a luxury. Having a second cup to follow-up the first, let alone an entire pot to himself is one of those little things that Nate keeps finding himself feeling eternally grateful for. No more military rations.
The coffee served up at the main house however, is incredibly good, far better than any pre-packaged blend, and well worth the trip. Besides, he can tell by the way his stomach is roiling that it’s probably better to have some food to go along with his caffeine. Slipping on his sandals, Nate locks his cabin door as he heads out.
The walk to the main house is not far, and though Nate knows there is a pebble walkway that cuts through the foliage behind his hut, he prefers to walk along the sand. There’s an outcrop of dark volcanic rock that stretches almost down to the water just before the steps leading to the outdoor eating area and the main house of the Dharma Resort. Yesterday when Nate had walked up to the smooth stone patio sheltered by vibrant green trees and bright flowers he had been the only guest there. A willowy blond woman with a warm, glowing smile had greeted him and refilled his coffee cup when it had gone empty, but she had sensed his wish for quiet and busied herself preparing things for the morning buffet without making much conversation beyond a gracious, ‘Aloha.
This morning as Nate walks past the rocks he notices a man sitting perfectly straight, legs folded up in an awkward tangle. He’s chanting. It’s a steady lilting rhythm of words that Nate doesn’t understand, but something in the smooth cadence of the voice reminds him of the mellifluous moaning call to prayer that had become familiar in Iraq.
“Prayer is a good thing. Maybe it will keep them too preoccupied to shoot at us”. He remembers the exhilarated thump-thump of his heartbeat as he had crouched behind one of his platoon’s Humvees looking over at his Sergeant with mustered confidence as they sat, meters away from a hostile town.
Rubbing a hand over his eyes, he tries to dislodge the memory.
The chanting cuts-off suddenly, and Nate glances up to man, meeting a warm chocolate-brown gaze. “Aloha, brother,” the man greets, his voice soft and unobtrusive, but carrying easily over the distance.
Nate nods. “Good morning.”
The man has an orange hibiscus flower tucked behind his ear and a colorful lei hanging over his bare chest. He’s wearing loose white linen pants and no shoes, his hair is dark and his skin is golden. Sitting up there on the rocks he looks like a Hawaiian deity overseeing his land.
“I’m Rudy Reyes,” the man says, leaping off the top of the rocks, his feet planting down onto the sand firmly.
"Nate Fick," Nate says as he accepts the offered handshake,
Rudy's smile broadens. “Welcome to my resort, Nate. I hope you’re stay with us so far has been good?”
“Yes. It’s beautiful here.”
Rudy sighs, his warm brown eyes taking in the stretch of beach and the surf and the line of trees. “It certainly is.”
They end up walking up the steps together and when Nate zeroes in on the fresh pot of coffee, Rudy walks round to the other side of the buffet table and hands him a fresh mug. “Are you a breakfast man, Nate?”
In the middle of savoring his first sip of coffee, Nate glances up, more than a little embarrassed by his level of distraction. “Pardon?”
“Breakfast,” Rudy says with a laugh. “I’ve always found that you’re either a breakfast person, or you’re not. Breakfast people like to make an occasion out of the first meal of the day. Eggs, fresh fruit, fried tomatoes, waffles and croissants and sausage.”
Nate considers the question. “I don’t really know.” The realization is surprising. “I think I used to be a breakfast person when I was a kid.” Back when his mom or dad was around to spoil him, and he didn’t have to cook for himself, or keep to his own schedule.
“You never grow out of being a breakfast person.” Hands perched on his hips, and looking like a credible if cape-less impersonation of Superman, Rudy declares: “I’m going to make you breakfast.”
Nate makes a half-hearted effort to resist the offer, but Rudy is already heading toward the open kitchen area, picking various ingredients up as he moves. “It’s no trouble,” he insists. “I love cooking. It’s part of the reason why Cherie and I opened up this resort. Most of my friends aren’t really breakfast people, and so far the majority of the guests checked in for the week are happy to make do with the buffet so they can make the most of their stay.”
Rudy cracks two eggs onto a skillet, and then turns to looks at Nate over his shoulder. “Besides, it’s the least I can do for a Marine brother.” Nate glances down at his own arm where the bottom of his tattoo is showing beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt. He had noticed, of course, Rudy’s own tattoo but hadn’t mentioned it.
“What was your division?” Rudy asks, his attention focused on the skillet.
Nate frowns as he takes another sip of coffee. It's not something he particularly feels like talking about, and briefly, he considers asking to change the subject. “First Reconnaissance.”
Rudy nods, his back still turned, his attention still focused on preparing breakfast. “That’s cool, my brother. How do you like your eggs?”
As it turns out, Rudy is not only a good host but he’s also a formidable cook. Nate ends up groaning over his breakfast while Rudy keeps his coffee mug filled and regales him with stories about the island. They don’t talk about the Corps even if Nate catches the assessing look the other man flashes his way, taking in the haircut and the dark circles under his eyes.
Hell, he probably notices that Nate still hasn’t regained all the weight he lost in Iraq. If Rudy has questions, though, he keeps them to himself and Nate is grateful for that.
As Nate finished eating, Rudy asks, “What are your plans for this fine day?”
“I don’t know,” Nate admits. “Yesterday I ended up on a fishing cruise.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mm.” Nate takes a final swallow of coffee, setting his empty mug back onto the table before getting up to help Rudy clear away the dishes. “It turns out I don’t like fishing.”
“Well, at least it was a new experience. That’s what vacations are supposed to be about.” Rudy takes the dishes that Nate hands him and fits them into a large dishwasher. “Have you tried out the beaches yet?”
“I went swimming out by my cabin.”
“No, no,” Rudy says, shaking his head so emphatically that the orange flower behind his ear blurs. “Surfing.”
Nate’s eyebrows jerk upward. “Oh. No. I’ve never surfed, and I’d hate to have one of my new experiences include the Hawaii hospital.”
Rudy tips his head back as he laughs. “You can’t come to the north shore and not try surfing. This afternoon, I’m taking you out. Small waves, no reef, and I’ll keep an eye on you.”
There isn’t really any way to get out of the invitation gracefully, and Nate isn’t even particularly certain that he wants to, so he agrees. Rudy beams at him. “I have to be around to make lunch but after that, you and me, we’ll head out to a spot I know.”
_________________________________
Oahu is teaming with people. Apparently Hawaii’s peak tourist season is pretty much always. For the most part, the crowds are happy and bustling, and it makes Nate feel pleasantly anonymous. He heads away from the Dharma resort in search of something to occupy his morning and stumbles on the shopping district.
The majority of trips Nate has taken in his life have been with his family so he never had much occasion to souvenir shop. He’s traveled with the Corps, but ferrying relief packages to desperate countries or, alternately, invading them wasn’t the kind of atmosphere that lent itself to souvenirs either. Not in Nate’s opinion.
He feels a little lost walking through isle after isle of tacky shot glasses and sloppily painted tiny ceramic scenes of beaches. There’s a spinning rack of colorful Hawaiian license plates with different names on them: Susan, Albert, Bill, Natalie. He even comes across a selection of tiny spoons with minuscule pictures of Oahu beaches.
On the far back wall he finds several shelves filled with little hula bobble-figurines and he can’t help but grin, picking one for each of his sisters. He buys his parents hand-crafted gifts, a painting that he sits and watches the artist finish, and some hand crafted jewelry, tucking everything he buys into the backpack he carries slung over his shoulder.
Further down the road he finds a large stretch of beach that’s already teeming with people. There’s surfers skimming along the waves, kids on inflatable rafts thwapping at each other with pool noodles, he spots a few kayakers paddling between surfers and swimmers, and a motorboat stopping at a dock to pick up some people on a tube.
There’s still a few hours to kill before he has to meet up with Rudy at the resort so he finds a clear spot on the sand and pulls his towel out of his backpack, settling into a relatively clear spot between a line of sunbathers.
Nate is not usually inclined to lie in the sun, mostly because he has found that he is incapable of tanning. Nate burns. Always. No matter what precautions he takes, or else he remains perfectly pale. As Rudy had said, however, holidays are about new experiences, and maybe this time Nate will be lucky.
Reapplying his suntan lotion, Nate resettles his sunglasses over his eyes and then drops back onto his towel.
He can’t get comfortable.
The heat from the sun feels different than the dry, stifling heat of Iraq. The screams of little children aren’t tinged with fear or followed by the thundering crash of bombs. There’s shrill laughter and the splash of water all around but Nate’s skin is still crawling.
The water is as congested as the shore but he wades out and finds a relatively quiet spot, and he just floats, the water lapping up around his face as he closes his eyes. He feels heavy with exhaustion.
Nate has a strong suspicion that it is not a coincidence that the owner of his resort happens to be a retired Marine. He remembers his mother’s smile as he had sat on the couch in his parent’s living room in front of the Christmas tree, unwrapping the strangely flat present. At the time he had wondered if his parents had given him a calendar.
“Mom,” Nate remembers saying, staring at the glossy folder that had said ‘Oahu' in white script. “The reservation is for January.”
She’d matched his gaze evenly. “I know, honey. I booked the trip.”
“But I have school.”
It turned out that what he actually had was a decision to make. “It’s just an option,” she had explained later. “Something to consider. Your father and I can speak with the travel agent, we can change the timing so you can go away in the summer, or maybe over reading week?”
But she also said, “I’m worried about you, honey.”
Nate went to class every day and took notes, and had absolutely no idea what he was doing there. Half the time it felt like it was just something he was supposed to do; something that was expected. It was what he’d planned to do before he’d joined the Marines. Mostly, it just felt like he was going back to the last thing that was familiar and hoping everything else would just fall into place.
“You’re allowed to take a break,” his mother had said. “Nathaniel, you came back from Iraq, retired from the Marines and went straight back to school. It’s okay to take some time off to figure things out. You can defer for a year, start back next fall.”
Nate feels a rushing tug across his skin; the familiar whooshing pull of water and his eyes snap open. He knows exactly what has happened, the sensation all too familiar: he’s floated right into a rip current.
The beach is growing steadily more distant as Nate is pulled further and further out.
Vaguely, he hopes that the lifeguards don’t notice his predicament. Maybe for most swimmers getting stuck in a current like this is a serious thing and yeah, he knows the statistics, but he really should know better. He does in fact know better, and the first clue should have been that a spot on the crowded beach was actually devoid of activity.
The other clue was just about every lesson he ever had involving water during his Marine Corps training. The clues were all right there to be read in the water but Nate had been floating along with his eyes closed.
The current is strong, and he knows better than to fight it. Nate treads water, doesn’t panic, and inch by inch, shifts closer to the edge until finally, he slips free of the current.
“Here,” a voice says, and a second later the end of a lime green surfboard with dark green edging and a thin orange stripe down the middle cuts right in front of Nate’s nose as he starts to swim for shore. “You found the rip current.”
Nate grips the edge of the board to prevent it from bumping into him. “I know,” he says, irritated with himself for the foolish mistake. When he looks up at the guy who’s sitting on the board, his irritation is forgotten. He blinks.
The guy is straddling his surfboard, plain black board shorts bunched a little, exposing a portion of thigh. His chest is bare, skin tanned perfectly golden under the sun. Nate can see freckles along the bridge of the man’s nose, but mostly he gets sidetracked by the bright blueness of the man’s eyes, watching him from beneath a fringe of blond hair. “I thought you’d need help, but you handled yourself pretty well.”
Nate wipes a hand across his face, brushing away the beads of water dripping off the ends of his hair. “It’s not the first time I’ve found myself caught in a rip current.”
The corner of the man’s mouth quirks upward slightly, but somehow manages to show all his teeth. “When in doubt, don’t go out.”
Nate snorts. “Thanks for the PSA, I’ll remember that next time.”
The man glances back over his shoulder toward the beach and Nate’s eyes drift involuntarily down the muscular torso, thick drops of water beading on tanned skin. The man asks, “Do you need a tow?”
“It’s fine.” Nate forces his eyes up and clears his throat. “Thanks, though.”
“Are you sure?” the guy asks, flashing a sharp little smile. “You don’t need to impress me.”
It’s embarrassing that the lighthearted flirting catches him so off-guard that he is honestly at a loss for words. “No,” Nate says. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, then.” The guy is already paddling away. “I’ll see you around.”
“Sure,” Nate croaks and adds quietly, to himself, “Dammit.”
_________________________________
He isn’t sure what it is about the exchange, but Nate finds himself turning it over in his head on his way back to his cabin.
It doesn’t feel like a missed opportunity because he’s only in Oahu for a little less than two weeks and then he’s going home. He’s not looking for a holiday fling or even a one night stand because he’s only just stopped breaking into spontaneous tears for no reason at all. His emotions are still a bit out of whack and frankly, he has no idea how he’d handle any sort of relationship right now, however casual.
Nate changes into a dry pair of swim shorts and grabs a new towel, draping his damp one out on the porch rail to air dry, pinned in place by a rock. Why didn't he say something back? He could have made a joke or something. That would have been normal, not getting flustered and swimming away like a bitch. That’s not something that Nate thinks he’s ever done before.
Really, he just shouldn’t have been in the rip current to begin with. Then the guy wouldn’t have even come over. If any of his Marines caught him floating straight out into the current like that they wouldn’t have shut up about it for weeks.
Nate twists his key with a vicious twist as he locks his cabin, heading to the main house. They’re not ‘his' Marines anymore he reminds himself as he moves along the beach, his sandals kicking up sand as he walks, they have a new LT and a new set of orders.
When he gets to the patio dining area he discovers that the place is actually crowded. That morning Rudy had mentioned there were about thirteen guests currently staying at the resort, and by Nate’s estimate most of those are present on the patio. Conveniently, he spots an empty table in the corner that Nate happily drops into, out of the way and in a quieter spot. A pleasant, smiling woman takes his order and brings him a glass of freshly squeezed juice as he waits.
“Everything all right, my warrior brother?” Rudy appears standing right by the side of Nate’s table without Nate ever noticing the man’s approach. There’s a white apron covering his naked chest, he still has the hibiscus flower tucked behind his ear, and he’s gripping a spatula in his right hand.
Smiling, Nate nods. “It’s fine.”
Rudy flashes him a brief, skeptical look, but lets it go. “This is the lunch rush. When the last person clears out, we can head out.”
They end up leaving a bit before that, Rudy's wait staff happily dismissing him once he’s prepared the last plate, promising to take care of guests and clear everything away. Still, Rudy doesn’t leave until the lithe blonde woman Nate had encountered the other day steps out onto the patio in a dark blue sarong dress and says, “We’ll manage. Go!”
“I love you, babe,” Rudy says, transferring the bright orange flower from behind his ear to hers. He grins at Nate. “That’s my Cherie.”
There’s a green Jeep parked in the front driveway that already has two surfboards tied to the roof. One has a sunrise beach scene painted across the expanse; the other board is a vivid red with a single white swirl running down the length of it.
“I know the perfect spot to learn how to surf,” Rudy says as they climb into the truck. “Surfers are usually pretty protective of their spots, but I know the guys who use this beach. I don’t think they’d mind.” They pull out onto the road, turning in the opposite direction that Nate walked that morning.
It's on the tip of Nate's tongue to ask why Rudy is doing all of this: the breakfast, the surf lessons, any of it. What he ends up saying, though is, “We can just go to one of the public beaches. I don't mind.”
Rudy shakes his head. “Then you have to compete with crowds, as well as the waves and other surfers. This spot we’re heading to is almost never crowded. The guys who surf there keep the secret locked down, but they’d understand me making an exception for a Marine Corps brother.”
“Are they Marines?”
“No," Rudy says. "But they’re warriors.”
After a while, they turn down a narrow dirt road, the trees falling away until Nate can look out the window and spot the water. “I love this island,” Rudy says with an appreciative sigh. “Everything about it is alive and full of energy.”
The truck jostles along the dirt road, and Nate braces his hand along the window ledge. “How long have you lived here?”
“Not long. Cherie and I moved after I retired from the Corps. That was after Afghanistan.” Nate nods. He remembers Afghanistan. “Originally, we were just going to get a house here, but the realtor who was showing us around took us up to the resort, just as a suggestion. It was perfect.”
“Sounds like fate.”
“Fate,” Rudy echoes. “Yeah. Like destiny. It was even within our budget, plus it would be a home and a business. We’ve been making good money doing something we love.” Rudy has that same quality that the runner Nate had watched that morning had, a sort of rightness, a sense of direction and purpose that makes Nate ache.
“Here we are,” Rudy declares, interrupting Nate’s thoughts. He brings the car to a halt and turns off the motor. They wrangle the boards off the roof of the Jeep and Nate ends up carrying the shiny red board down a steep, rocky incline to the beach.
“First,” Rudy says as he drops his board onto the sand. “You’ve got to scuff up the wax on the board pretty good, otherwise you’ll just slip right off.” He demonstrates, picking up a handful of sand and rubbing it along the surface of the board.
When Nate copies him, Rudy runs a palm across the top, checking Nate’s work. “Good. Now we go into the water.”
The waves crashing along the sand are fairly sizable. Out deeper, those waves only get bigger, and Nate wasn't lying when he had said he'd never been surfing. “Aren’t I supposed to practice getting up onto my board on dry land, first?”
Rudy cocks his head. “Are you going to surf on dry land or in the water?” When glances dubiously out at the waves, Rudy nods definitively and says, “We’re going into the water,” then he picks up his board, tucks it beneath his arm, and sprints down the beach toward the waves, lying on top of the board as he paddles out.
Nate doesn’t feel nearly as graceful carrying his own board but he doesn’t drop it, and he follows the same path Rudy took out into the water.
Of course, once he gets far enough the waves start rearing up over his head and shoving him back towards shore. It’s daunting because Rudy had promised that the waves at this beach were small, and also that they would start in a sandbar, which had seemed like a sensible plan.
In Nate's opinion, these waves are in no way small, and he's having difficulty getting past them. There is no sign of Rudy anywhere, though Nate doesn’t really want to start calling out for him because, well, he has his pride and also, he’s too busy coughing on the salt water that keeps slamming into him.
He's a goddamned Marine. This is downright embarrassing.
“Hey,” a nasal voice says, and Nate glances over to see a dark headed, lanky man gripping a surfboard. “You gotta duck-dive that shit, otherwise you’re just gonna end up back on the beach, mouth full of salt water and trunks packed with sand.”
Nate has no idea what the guy is talking about but in the next moment he watches as the other man kicks toward an oncoming wave, takes in an exaggerated mouthful of air and then presses down on his surfboard, taking both it and his own body under the water as the wave ripples over top.
It doesn’t seem like an overly complicated maneuver and when the next wave rolls in Nate tries it. He finds himself popping up right beside the stranger and feels a small curl of satisfaction with his progress.
“I’m Ray,” the guy says. His surfboard is the color of the inside of a cantaloupe, with bright neon pink stylized flowers on it. “Pretty bitching, am I right?” Ray says, catching the direction of Nate’s gaze.
Nate raises his eyebrows. “It certainly makes a statement.”
“Yeah. You know what it says? ‘Look at me, I’m right the fuck over here.’" Ray grinds proudly. "None of this bullshit sky blue and sea foam green for my baby. If me and my board get separated, I’m damned well gonna find her again.” Nate can’t help but notice that Ray’s swim trunks are composed of equally loud colors, and wonders if the man's philosophy extends to his board shorts as well. “Hey, I didn’t catch your name.”
They duck-dive another wave and when they both resurface Nate says, “It’s Nate.”
“Nate.” Ray nods like he’s decided Nate’s name is acceptable. “Nate, you don’t have a single goddamned clue what you’re doing, do you?”
Pursing his lips, Nate says, “Not so much.”
“So what. You came out here and decided to teach yourself?” Ray’s eyes are slightly narrowed, assessing. “How did you find this place?”
“Actually,” Nate says, his eyes scanning for a sign of Rudy. “A friend promised to teach me.”
“Some friend,” Ray scoffs. “He didn’t even tell you to duck-dive the waves. I hope you’re not paying this dude.”
They dive under again and when they come up Rudy is right there, sitting on his board and smiling at them happily. “Nate, brother, I knew you’d make it out. The sandbar is around over this way.”
“Oh Jesus,” Ray says. “You got Fruity Rudy to teach you how to surf?”
Nate glances at Rudy. The man still has the rippling physique of a Marine Corps warrior, and he probably hasn’t lost any of the training either. In comparison, Ray looks like a gangly twig and, even if Nate secretly thinks the guy might deserve it for his mouthy comment, he wonders if he’s going to have to step in when Rudy takes offense at the nickname, or even the tone. Then again, Rudy had mentioned knowing most of the guys who surf at this spot and Nate wonders if this is ribbing between friends, or if Ray is genuinely looking to cause trouble.
His question is answered when Rudy laughs like this is an exchange they’ve had a million times before. For someone who was just insulted, the laugh sounds genuinely full and joyful, which is probably why Nate feels more than a little confused. “Is there a problem?”
“No, not at all,” Ray scoffs, with a dramatic eye-roll and a tone dripping with sarcasm. “If you subscribe to Rudy’s ‘surfing as a path to enlightenment’ philosophy.”
Rudy smiles serenely. “There are worse paths you can take to enlightenment.”
“All right, Buddha.” Ray turns back to Nate. “I hope you realize he’s not gonna teach you shit. He’s gonna sit on his board and watch you repeatedly land on your face, and then tell you it’s all part of the journey.”
“When surfers first went over to Africa they found some of the best waves on beaches located near extremely remote villages. The people who lived in those villages had probably never seen a white man before, let alone a surfboard, but they took the boards out right into the surf and stood up the first time out, on their board while riding the curl.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Yeah, for like, three seconds, and then they fell on their face.”
Nate snorts a laugh. “Are you offering to teach me then, Ray?”
“What?” Ray looks surprised, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him.
Rudy bursts into raucous laughter. “That’s not wise, brother. Even an ex Recon Marine doesn’t stand a very good chance of surviving a surfing lesson with Ray Person.”
“I’m not that bad,” Ray protests with a pout.
The waves are pushing them back toward the shore but no one seems concerned. “Tell that to Walt,” Rudy retorts.
“Yeah, well… Some people have a natural ability, and other people are just train wrecks waiting to happen. I can’t be held responsible for Walt.”
Rudy scratches his chin. “So, the fact that Walt’s taken the prize money at Big Wave Africa two years running is a fluke?”
“Damned straight,” Ray answers. “Brad hasn’t entered Big Wave in two years. If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Eventually they make their way over to the sandbar, which does in fact have much smaller waves, much to Nate's relief. He spends the morning watching Rudy surf, all steady and loose as if he’s standing on a skateboard rolling across flat solid ground, listening to Ray shout insults and constantly reminding them that: “This surf is nothing. It’s like the bunny hill of waves. No, it’s less than a bunny hill. What d’you call something that’s smaller than a bunny hill? An anthill? Way to ride an ant hill, Fruity Rudy!”
Rudy’s instruction consists of telling Nate to ‘feel the wave’ and ‘not to over-think it’. Ray’s instruction is nowhere near as succinct, but boils down mostly to the fact that the only thing Nate needs to be concentrating on at this point is getting up on his board.
Getting onto the board, Nate discovers, isn’t the hard part.
The hard part is staying there.
“Whoo-hoo!” Ray shouts and claps. “A world record and personal best. Nathaniel Fick stays up for a grand total of four seconds!” Nate takes the ribbing because between Rudy and Ray, he’s actually having fun and laughing and for the first time since his plane landed he feels like he's actually on vacation, and not as if someone has just hit the 'pause' button on reality.
He’s never had this particular perspective of the waves. He’s pretty high above the water and though he understands the basic physics behind surfing, he feels like a newborn colt standing for the first time. He curls his toes and clenches his hands and braces for the inevitable fall, because Nate has found that the moment he manages to successfully stand on his board, he starts to think about falling off it.
Rudy says. “To ride a wave, you have to be at peace with yourself. That’s the first hurdle.” He adds, “You’re getting better,” even if Nate doesn’t think that’s strictly true.
“The first hurdle,” Ray says. “Is standing up on your fucking board and staying there long enough to get to a wave.”
“This concludes our lesson for the day.”
“Wait,” Nate says, catching Rudy’s phrasing. “'For the day?' You haven’t given up on me yet?”
Rudy smiles. “Never, my warrior brother. You haven’t learned to surf yet.”
Something in Nate’s expression prompts Ray to begin cackling with glee. “I’m so there,” he says. “Sign me up. Same time, same place.”
They climb out of the water, propping their boards up in the sand. “Do you need a lift?” Rudy asks as he reaches for his towel.
Ray shakes his head. “Naw, man. I stole the truck from Walt.”
Rudy’s eyebrows jerk up. “You better get it back before he notices it’s gone. He feels the same about that truck as you do about your board.”
“Dude, the bitch was out with Brad on dawn patrol. They’ve probably been killing themselves all day over at Pipeline. No way he’s going to notice his baby’s been out of the garage.”
As they finish drying off Ray squints over at Nate. “You should come by the place, have dinner with us.”
"Ray," Rudy says, his tone soft but firm. “Maybe you should run that by the Iceman.”
“He’s fine," Ray says, unfolding a pair of sunglasses and putting them on with a dramatic flourish. "How many times does he have to say it?”
Rudy shrugs. “As many times as it takes to become true.”
“Alright there, Yoda. I was gonna invite you, too, but forget it. I’ll see you bitches tomorrow.” Ray tosses his towel over his shoulder and picks up his board, waving as he marches up the hill.
Rudy and Nate take their time gathering their things and climbing the hill. As Rudy finishes tying their boards to the roof, Nate says, “I had a good day. Thanks for the lesson.”
“You can’t teach surfing. You can either surf, or you can’t. It's something you have to figure out for yourself.”
“Well, at the moment, I think I’m of the second variety,” Nate says, the corner of his mouth quirking upward.
Rudy nods. “At the moment.” He says it with a kind of weight to the words, like he’s not talking about surfing at all. Nate doesn’t ask what exactly the other man means.
_________________________________
Nate is starving by the time they make it back to the resort. He washes up and then goes out to eat at a local bar that Rudy recommends. He stays out dancing and drinking ridiculously colorful, fruity drinks with higher alcohol content than a straight up shot. By the time he staggers back to his cabin the only thing he has energy left to do is to kick off his shoes before he collapses face-first into bed.
When his eyes snap open, it’s still dark out. His heart is hammering against his ribcage and every muscle is clenched like a fist. He grabs for his journal but for the longest while he can’t think of anything to say.
He’s tired of feeling like he never made it out of Iraq. He’s tired of feeling like he left some vital part of himself somewhere on the road to Baghdad. He’s tired of feeling all the time as if he doesn’t fit anywhere, no longer a warrior, but not a civilian, either.
Nate writes it all down and then he closes his notebook. His therapist said this would help him make sense of his experience. Nate doesn't think it's working.
In the bathroom, he washes up and pulls on a pair of shorts, slipping on his running shoes before he leaves the cabin. He takes off running along the shoreline, following the rushing swish of the waves, the slow rise of the sun hanging over his right shoulder. He runs until he hits a stretch of tall rock that juts out deep into the water, and then he turns around and starts heading back.
_________________________________
Ray is leaning over the buffet table stealing coffee when Nate finds his way to the dining area for breakfast. “You better not have finished off that pot,” he says, in lieu of a proper greeting.
“Charming,” Ray says. “And no, your highness, there’s plenty more for all the good little girls and boys to enjoy.”
Nate fills a mug with coffee and grabs a slice of bacon from the buffet tray. He supposes that he’s coming in later than usual because there are people settled at tables already, happily enjoying their first meal of the day. He stakes out a table in the far corner, which Ray happily settles at while Nate goes in search of breakfast.
When he returns, Ray snatches the bacon off of Nate’s plate and stuffs it all in his mouth before Nate can protest. “So,” Ray says, his cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s as he chews. “Brad totally fell off his board at Pipe the other day and cracked his head open. I was wondering if we could do the surf-thing in the morning instead of the afternoon.”
Nate blinks, a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth. “Uh, what?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Ray says, waving a dismissive hand. “Walt just told him he had a concussion, but one of us has to be around to make sure he actually, like, takes it easy, and since Walt has to do a thing in the afternoon, I thought, y’know, maybe we could surf in the morning.”
Nate has his mouth open ready to comment when Cherie pauses by their table. “Ray, are you eating us out of house and home again?”
The smile Ray flashes her is filled with false innocence and schoolboy charm. “No ma’am. I’m just having one cup of tasty tasty coffee.”
Cherie narrows her eyes suspiciously. “All right then. I’ll send Rudy out to you two.” When she turns to Nate, her smile warms immediately. “Good morning,” she says, and then moves off toward the kitchen.
Nate is feeling more than a little confused, mostly because he’s still trying to make sense of the jumbled sentences Ray hit him with before he had even finished his coffee. “You know, Ray, you don’t have to teach me to surf. If your friend is hurt you should probably visit him.”
“No, no,” Ray says. “Brad doesn’t actually like, have a concussion, Walt just told him that he did because otherwise the idiot would just keep pushing until he did get a concussion or, you know, brained himself on some coral. If you’d rather do it in the afternoon that totally works for me.”
Before Nate can tactfully explain that Ray has missed his point, Rudy comes over with a pot of coffee, refilling both their mugs, before dropping into a chair at the table. “How’s Brad doing?”
Ray sighs. “He’s fine.” Nate can’t hide the smirk behind his mug fast enough, and Ray hits him with an accusing glare “What?”
“Nothing,” Nate says. He purses his lips. “Generally speaking, if a person is ‘fine’ you don’t have to tell them that they have a concussion when they actually don’t.”
“Okay, well, it’s not lying if it could have been true.”
Nate laughs. “That’s not how logic works, Ray.”
Rudy frowns, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Why did you tell the Iceman that he had a concussion?”
“Look," Ray says with an exaggerated sigh. "You’re both missing the point: Brad’s totally fine. He fell at Pipeline yesterday and yeah, he cut his head and he threw a holy fit but he went to the hospital and they checked him out. But, y’know, Walt saw an opportunity, and it’s not like Brad ever listens to his doctors anyway, so Walt told him he had a concussion.” He catches Nate’s look and says, “Pipeline’s kind a big thing. As in, big ass freaking waves with a nasty coral reef right below it.”
“Okay,” Nate says.
Rudy shakes his head, looking mournful. “I thought he’d take a break after the Triple Crown.”
“You know Brad,” Ray says. “Winning the Crown doesn’t mean a damned thing to him, it was just another opportunity to surf. Like he really needs an excuse. He’s on dawn patrol every damned day. Mostly, I don’t even know what time he leaves. Walt was just trying to get him to take it easy.”
“But you still insist that he’s fine.”
“Come on, Rudy. Brad doesn’t 'take a break' from surfing. It’s not a job; it’s a way of life. This is how he copes with shit. So, y’know, at least he’s coping.”
By the time Nate retrieves his pack from his cabin and makes it back to the main house, Ray has finished lashing his board to the roof of the Jeep. “Road trip!” he cheers and quickly adds “Shotgun!”
Rudy and Nate share a look, but Nate happily climbs into the backseat. The moment Rudy turns over the engine, Ray’s popping a CD into the player, and the shrill sounds of Avril Lavigne fill the cab.
By the time they break for lunch, Nate is able to ride what Ray calls ‘ant hills’ and Rudy calls ‘respectable beach break’. He’s not comfortable zigzagging back and forth like Ray does, but he’s not pitching right off his board the moment he gets up either. When he pops-up, both his feet land right where they’re supposed to at the same moment and he’s starting to trust that he won’t just trip over himself the moment he gets up.
“Not bad,” Ray says, clapping him on the shoulder as they carry their boards back up to the Jeep. “Tomorrow we’ll try surfing some real waves, how’s that sound?”
“Like you’re crazy,” Nate quips.
They drop Ray off on the way back to Dharma Resort. Rudy turns down a smooth dirt road marked by a large post and lintel made of thick wood. There’s a worn yellow surfboard propped against the right pillar.
Nate stares out the window at the wild greenery that makes him feel more than a bit like he’s driving through a rainforest, and then Rudy’s turning out onto a round driveway in front of a sprawling two-story mansion. It’s sand colored, with ironwood shingles and wood framing the windows and doors. Over top of the roof, presumably on the other side of the house, Nate can see the branches of a rather formidable tree.
“It’s a monkeypod tree,” Rudy explains. “I think this is one of the most beautiful homes on the island. Everything about it is natural. Those are ohia wood poles and lava stone,” he nods his head to the pillars at the front entrance. Nate has no idea what ohia wood is, but he can easily agree that the house is beautiful. Beyond the trees, he can see the ocean.
“Private beach front, with respectable swells,” Rudy says, catching the direction of Nate’s gaze.
“Yeah yeah,” Ray says, hopping out of the front seat. “Home sweet home.”
He unstraps his board from the roof and holds up his hand as he walks away, his thumb and pinky extended, middle three fingers curled. “See you bitches tomorrow!” It seems to be his customary send-off. They watch as he carries his board off to the left of the house.
"That's his house?" Nate wonders.
“He lives in the guest house,” Rudy explains, shifting gears and turning back down the private drive.
“Still. That place was pretty impressive.”
_________________________________
Nate gets into a rhythm. He still wakes up far too early, his skin caked with sweat and his breathing shallow, but now after he’s finished writing in his journal, he runs. When he reaches the stretch of rocks that cut off his progress, he turns back to his cabin and showers before heading up to the main house for breakfast and copious amounts of coffee.
During the morning, Nate takes tours around the island, walking through historic Honolulu, and the ‘Iolani Palace. He finds an expansive farmer’s market by following a crowd on the weekend, and even stumbles upon the Oahu version of Chinatown. The afternoon he spends with Ray and Rudy trying to "feel the waves" and ultimately landing on his face as Ray barks orders at him, “Relax” and “Don’t fight it, go with it” and Rudy looks at him with knowing eyes and says, “It’s all part of the journey” every time Nate asks what he’s doing wrong.
Sometimes Ray drags him out to a bar in the evening, other times Nate wanders in the direction of the music and laughter. He ends up at an Elvis show one night and a fancy seafood restaurant the next, and he likes how it feels: wandering with no destination in mind and stumbling onto things that he might not have found any other way. It doesn’t seem like a vacation anymore, he knows the island pretty well now and it feels a like he’s always lived here.
It’s not a bad feeling.
Five days into his stay Nate maybe hasn’t made that much headway with the surfing, but at least he isn’t freezing up and panicking the moment he gets up on his board anymore. He refuses to leave the sandbar, but Ray has taught him how to zigzag ahead of the curl, shifting his weight to make the board turn.
On Friday, when he jogs up the steps in search of breakfast, Cherie is setting out a new platter of fresh fruit and greets him with a warm smile, saying, “Rudy’s got a plate set aside for you.”
Nate fills up a mug with fresh coffee and stakes out a table near the kitchen. “Nate,” Rudy greets, and then disappears below the counter-top, reappearing a moment later with a plate laden with an egg white omelet, a small cup of strawberry yogurt and three strips of perfectly crispy bacon, which he sets on the table, before pulling off his apron and dropping onto a chair opposite and interlocking his fingers. He looks as if he is about to deliver some very bad news.
Rudy says, “We got an onshore wind today.”
Pausing in the act of sampling his omelet, Nate says, “That’s a bad thing?”
“The worst. It means that it’s all crumbling, shapeless, tragic surf out there.”
Nate tips his head down and fights a wave of disappointment. “Do you kayak?” Rudy asks. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t, it’s easy to pick up.”
Nate is disinclined to believe that because, “You said the same thing about surfing.”
Rudy shrugs. “You’re making progress. But today I’m gonna take you out to see something really spectacular.”
Rudy shepherds him into the Jeep after breakfast. He packs a cooler into the trunk before driving out to Kailua beach. They rent two banana yellow kayaks and march out into the water. The sky is bright and blue and perfectly clear. When he leans over the side of the boat, Nate can see fish swimming in the water.
“I hope you brought your camera.”
“Where are we going?”
“You see over there?” Rudy points at a cluster of small islands. “Those are the Mokulua Islands. They’re bird sanctuaries.”
Nate doesn’t consider himself a big fan of birds. His grandfather had a parakeet and mostly Nate considered it a pretty irritating pet to have. He much preferred the idea of a dog or cat, something with fur that you could cuddle up to, or chase after.
When they reach the shore, he only half pays attention when Rudy points out the different types of birds, mostly he’s distracted by how beautiful it is. For one thing, the islands are pretty much deserted. Rudy moves them along so they’re always ahead of any tour groups, and though they see a couple out paddling here and there, it's refreshingly peaceful.
They have lunch on the beach, and end up swimming in a little lagoon and it feels like they’ve found a corner of the world completely new. Like they’re the only two people who know about this place.
“Can I ask you something?” Rudy says, stretched out on the surface of the water, letting the waves rock him back and forth as he floats.
“Sure.”
“Why Oahu?”
Nate blinks, then laughs. “Actually, this whole trip wasn’t really my idea.”
Rudy squints at him. “Whose idea was it?”
“My mom’s,” Nate admits with a wry twist to his mouth. Rudy laughs appreciatively. “She wanted me to take some time off. Switch gears.” He worries for a moment that now might be the time when Rudy asks, when Nate has to explain his time in Iraq.
Rudy says, “She sounds like a wise lady.”
“Yeah.”
When they get back to the resort, Ray is waiting for them with his hands on his hips. “What did you ladies do all day without your buddy Ray Ray?”
Nate feels a surge of gratitude to both men for the easy acceptance and welcome they’ve given him. It’s the first time since leaving the Corps that he hasn’t felt alone, hasn’t caught himself missing the constant presence of his platoon. He says, “We rented some kayaks and toured around Kailua beach.”
Ray narrows his eyes at Rudy. “Are you turning him into a fucking goat boater?” and then, without letting Rudy answer, he turns back to Nate, “Did he take you to the Mokes? Did you see lots of boobies?”
“By which I hope you mean the bird,” Cherie says, coming up to them.
“Uh, yeah,” Ray says, like it should be obvious. “Of course I mean the birds.”
Cherie steals Rudy away to prepare dinner and Ray ends up following Nate back to his cabin. “I always thought this was a pretty awesome set up,” he says, as he walks up the porch steps. “It’s like, all the awesome stuff you get from staying at a hotel, like someone to cook for you, but it’s also like having your own place. I mean, check it. You’ve got your own kitchen. You could totally cook for yourself if you wanted to.”
Nate kicks off his sandals. “I’m on vacation. Cooking for myself is just about the last thing I want to do.”
Ray rolls his eyes. “Well, obviously. Especially since you’ve got Rudy to do it for you. I’ve tried bribing him to come and make me food but so far no luck.”
Despite the fact that Rudy has a perfectly good dinner going back at the resort Ray marches Nate out to the driveway and into a light metallic blue Range Rover Evoque that is polished to a glossy shine. Nate takes one look at it and says, “I sincerely hope this is your vehicle, and you are not involving me in your twisted desire to live out a version of grand theft auto.”
Ray cackles happily as he turns over the engine. “Bitch, please. This is totally Walt’s car. If I was going to steal something it would be awesome, like a tank or an entire fucking battleship.”
“Would this be the same Walt who refuses to let you drive his car?”
“Yeah,” Ray says. “But he’s letting me do just about anything I want right now because he feels really guilty for taking Brad out surfing and allowing him to crack his head open.”
Nate nods. “And this would be the same Brad who does not actually have a concussion.”
“See!” Ray says, flashing a wide, tooth-filled grin. “It’s like we know each other!”
Ray drives to a towering hotel, tosses his keys at the valet like he’s actually a guest and ushers Nate inside. “It’s totally cool,” he assures Nate as they walk through a tiled entrance-way and then out past a fairly sizable and elaborate pool, complete with fake rocks. “I do this all the time. Friday nights they do this live performance thing with real Hula dancers, and the food is pretty spectacular.”
There are five long banquet tables set out on the sand in front of a makeshift stage decorated with flowers and long reedy grass. Ray finds them two empty spots and drops down onto the sand. “You’re gonna love this.”
Nate staggers back to his cabin at some ungodly hour, more than a little drunk, but with a camera filled with memories, most of which pertain to some pretty spectacularly failed efforts to hula dance. He collapses into bed and doesn’t have a single dream.
When he wakes up the next morning, the sun is already up.
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|| END PART ONE >>|
STORY MASTERPOST