go here for the short story series intro and character list
The waves must be checked before surfed. There must be a walk across the cobbled stones. There must be banter and debate. The view from the parking lot does not suffice. The cliff dust, the thirty minutes, the tide changing, the setting, all need the brush of calloused feet that come to enjoy them. All steps are obligatory. The surf spot has a specific name, but amongst them, they call it Poopers.
The rocks rolled under the waves, and the deep, marbled sound pushed up the jagged bluffs. The air glistened in a static mist from the thrashing salt water. Across the cobbles, Louie and Jo picked their way through with a pirate’s meandering step.
“You’ve seen those stories written about us?” asked Louie.
A set of waves came in the distance. Jo studied them rolling in. The first smaller wave peeled to the left. The second and third had two peaks that pulled the center wave down in a single crash.
“Yeah, it’s kind of funky,” replied Jo.
“It’s you, right?” asked Louie.
Jo’s foot slid off of a matte purple cobble and he had to quick step to keep his balance. After he recovered, he stopped and looked over at Louie. He smiled and held in his bottom lip underneath his front teeth, “not me.”
Jo stopped there, not quite to where they usually paddled out and sat on top of the rocks. He kicked out his feet. Louie sighed and sat, crossing his legs next to him. He picked up some smaller stones, letting them slip through his fingers.
“Not you. Okay. Sure. I believe you. Not you. Not you at all,” said Louie.
“Just somebody who really knows us, I guess.”
“Not you.”
“Not me.” Jo picked up a pebble and lazily tossed it in front of them. “I told you. I’ve been working on my book and on my poems.”
“I gotta find one of those.” Louie tossed a pebble of his own that plopped and ricocheted back towards them before sitting back on his hands. Jo smiled and waited for Louie’s imminent jab. “I needa find me some ambiguous project, something that halts inquiry, something that camouflages all my bullshit.”
Jo laughed and leaned forward, pulling on his calves. They sat for a while. The sun baked their necks. Pelicans traced an unbroken wave. A squirrel ran down to give the cobbles a sniff before retreating to the foot of the cliffs. And it was a bad late morning to be a throwable pebble.
After a while, Jo reached out toward Louie, holding something in his hand. “Here. Proof. My bullshit has the camouflage of a peacock.”
Louie opened out his hand. It was a poem Jo had written titled young sand.
disclaimer: this is a DIY comfort manual which sometimes can cause symptoms such as the throwing of Molotov cocktails and the urge to kiss somebody you don’t know
scrape a handful of people off of some random sewer walls (must be random)
place their brown blonde and balding on a large granite boulder
now give it three pats on the top of its head and say nice sand
let the mixture sit
the randomness of their meeting will make them lighter
how they never should have shared a seat together
will take the weight off their bones
and make the large hard boulder two-ply comfy
wait longer and then much too long
until they soften into a puddle
until the young sand boulder ages
and through the lapidary of chance
it presses through their toes
The waves must be checked. There must be a walk across the cobbles. There must be banter and debate. The view from their parked cars does not suffice. All steps are obligatory. They call the surf spot Poopers.
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