Agua Mal

The whole time I was there I kept thinking, it’s the wrong fuckin photo. Sure it was nice and it was one of the few photos that had him smiling; I mean legitimately smiling out of happiness, not just because someone had stuck a camera in his face. Still, I didn’t think it was right. But, who am I to say what’s acceptable? It was never my decision to make.  What his folks had done was to take an old footy shot - one of those group photos of all the players - I think it was the under 17 B division; it was fairly recent. Anyway, they’ve taken this photo and like, isolated him out or something, so it was just him, you know? They’ve blown it up and made the edges all soft and fuzzy like a cloud, to give it a heavenly look I guess. That was the photo they handed to everyone as they entered the funeral hall. The card had a little prayer on the back, ‘May our heavenly father … ‘ something, something. I guess it was directed to Jesus, but it really should have been a prayer to Poseidon. I actually saw him praying once, out there on the waves. The ocean, only God we worshiped. Even though it was the wrong photo, it still made me smile when I looked at it. In the shot, he’s sitting, arms folded across his chest with a big shit-eating grin smacked on his mug. The best thing about it though is, he’s gone and made fists under his arms and he’s pushing out his biceps to make ’em look all buff. Ha, that was Goo alright; make you laugh even at his own funeral.  

His folks put on a nice official little funeral. All his rellies came from a long way away, to say one last goodbye I guess - which is a load of shit when you think about it, cause these people had nothin’ to do with him when he was alive and kicking, and now they rock up, crying into their handkerchiefs and fallin’ all over each other. They get to sit right up the front and cause a big scene while we, his real family, have to stand shoulder to shoulder cramped up the back. His stupid bloody parents almost didn’t let us into the service. It wasn’t till the bloke running the funeral home told ‘em ‘It would be best not to exclude anyone from paying their respects.’ He was probably just scared we’d torch the place if we weren’t let in. I guess we were just lucky to be up the back. And like I said, it was a nice service; but it wasn’t our service. I think we all felt that way because after we left, we decided to organise one last, proper send-off.

My main gripe with the photo was that it was him in his Aussie rules get up. Yeah, he was a mad AFL player, I’m not taking that away from him, but it wasn’t who he really was. He was damn good, no doubt, but he would’ve been good at anything. Give him any bat, any ball and he’d dominate. He was tops at footy, but on his board he was God. 

He’d not been surfing too long when I met him. I remember I thought I was hot stuff and I wouldn’t stop giving him stick for being such a Grommet. I’d been surfing like, a month longer, but it was all I needed to lord over him. Ha, I’m surprised he put up with all my crap; but that was just his nature I guess. Always polite, just taking it all in; never stopped watching and learning. 

In no time at all he was surfing rings around me. I watched him get better and better, and I was expecting him to start rubbing my nose in it, like I done to him; but he never did. Not once did he talk me down. It threw me off sometimes, the way that he was never angry or spiteful; I can’t remember ever seeing him blow his top. I guess it says a lot about us, the fact that we can’t trust someone so genuine, we always gotta expect the worst of people. Never Goo though. He’d always give you the time of day. Even if we’d catch a bunch of randoms surfin’ our spot, he’d politely ask them to move on down the beach. Ha, I’d have my board pretty much cocked and ready to start crackin’ some heads; but it never came to that. I suppose they saw that … thing in his eyes that everyone responded to. I don’t know if they respected him, or if they were just scared, but either way they knew he was serious. I know people who’d kill over a spot, but Goo was never like that. It brought all of us down to be around him. Not down as in depressed but down as in calm; he himself was calming. 

People ask which beach he got stung on, if it was at our spot or not - it wasn’t, but at the same time I don’t tell ‘em where it did happened. It doesn’t matter. There’s stingers all up and down the coast. If you’re unlucky, you’re unlucky. It’s like Russian roulette but you don’t even realise it. I don’t give a toss how I look with stockings on; it’s worth it in the end, no doubt. 

He entered a bunch of comps and gained a bit of cred, but nothing to get him sponsored or anything. We’d all be down on the sand, just chillin’ and then he’d come up for his run and we’d all jump up and be yelling and cheering like a bunch of nuts. I swear, every time, every comp, we were the loudest support group. He’d ride harder, and it’d send bad vibes to all the other competitors. He did end up wining a few tourneys and brought trophies and cash home. I don’t think his parents even realised. I know they didn’t care. They hated us, man. They had daggers for us. Just didn’t get it, you know? We’d turn up to the door in like, boardies and nothin else. Bleached blond dreads and dirty feet; windburn round our mouth like pash-rash. 

I had this crazy old pushy I found in the garage and we’d go riding from his house down to the beach; me peddling with my board under one arm, trying to steer the brakeless hunk-a-junk with the other, all the while with Goo doubled on the handlebars. We’d go tearing down the road, swinging from lane to lane as if we were shredding this bitumen wave. You could skid sideways hard enough and kick up little splashes of gravel like the spray of water from a wicked cut-back. 

We’d dump the bike up near the showers, without a chain or anything, because we figured no one’d be stupid enough to flog it, and if they did they’d soon bring it back. It always felt like crossing the bloody Sahara or the Simpson Desert, going from the road to land’s edge. The sand just stretched on and on. We couldn’t be bothered to get up early, so by the time we arrived at the beach, it was always midday. The sun had been cooking the sand all morning and without fail, we’d arrive at the hottest part of the day. It was always a mad dash from the grass to the water, and a few times we’d drop the board halfway and jump on it before our feet melted. These were the bad old days when we shared one board. It was mine, and it was the board we used for our ceremony.  

I remember the morning being real bleak and miserable. It wasn’t the postcard picture-perfect Gold Coast everyone loves and expects. I guess Burleigh itself isn’t the Gold Coast everyone expects. It’s got its own vibe, nothing like Cavil av. The day was one that the locals love, because without sun all the tourists tend to stay indoors. We’re free to walk the streets without having to dodge flocks of backpackers asking for directions and just buggin ya. 

Even though it was overcast, we agreed to get to the spot before dawn; just to be sure there’d be no one around. Not that there are many people behind the Burleigh rocks, but the last thing we wanted was a scene. It was kinda creepy in that we all rocked up at the same time. I mean within two minutes, everyone was there. No one said anything. I had the board, our old board, the original one. I went and put it down, just a few up from the tide line, where the sand was still dry like cotton-wool. I dug the fins in and lit the candle I nicked from my mums bathroom. She must’ve gotten it from the ‘Body Shop’ because it smelt like paw-paws. I put the flame in the middle of the board then sat down. The rest of them were standing up behind me, all dead quiet. There was a little moment where nothing happened. We all just sat and watched the flame bend and warp. There was no wind, but I think our breath was enough to make the light flicker.  The water was still, and the lapping of the waves was barely noticeable; like a chest rising and falling. The water’d steal up the beach, then slip back down. I was seated in a chair made of sand and I was running the tiny diamonds around my bare feet. The sand would cascade through my toes and the felling would trickle up my neck. 

That still moment passed all at once and everyone came forward, one at a time, to add to the board. Some of the girls put flowers, others had written letters or poems; Dave-o cut off one of his dreads and Mickey put down the ticket stub from a concert. I don’t know who it was but someone poured a bottle of corona on the board which I though was a bit stupid, but … 

Mickey had on his wet-suit and the top half was folded down around his waist. I remember the tiny white hairs on his back and the Goosebumps brought on by the early morning chill; or maybe it was the occasion that got us all prickly. There was no more sun. No more hot desert to dance across. I saw out the corner of my eye, people from school that didn’t even know him too well. I was almost gonna jump up and tell them off, but I thought against it. They were being quiet and no one else noticed them; besides ‘It would be best not to exclude anyone from paying their respects.’

Apart from the board itself, and the candle, I laid down a pamphlet for Tahiti. Every little surfers dream. Theaphou, man. We’d talk about it all the time. Just shoot through and live in a little shack. Spend our days out on the blue crystal water; or on the beach, in a hammock drinkin out of coconuts ‘n’ that. All smiles brah. 

The candle had melted down some and the wax had dried sticking the candle to the board. We never discussed it, but as one, we all moved and picked up the board like a bunch of pallbearers, side-by-side around the length of it, shielding the flame and trinkets from falling off. The crest of water was still breaking lightly. We walked out to belly-button depth, past the crest of mini-waves, and pushed the board out. The rip carried the board out into the pacific. Off to Mexico I guess. None of us took our eyes off it as we moved back onto the shore. I think it was Tiny-Timmy who started it, but everyone picked up handfuls of sand and threw them onto the top of the water. Like a fistful of dirt onto a grave; and it was a grave. No his body wasn’t out there, but what we remembered of him, the things that made him (at least in out understanding) were floating off into the drink. We didn’t even bother to ask his parents for some of his ashes, they wouldn’t have even looked at us. I was planning on busting in and taking a handful of him. I had a bloody Tupperware container with me and everything; but they took him off too quick. They put him in this vase and sealed him up in a wall next to his Nan and Pop – doesn’t matter though, because like I said, the sea and our spot will be a sepulchre, more so than his actual tomb ever will be. Sepulchre, you like that word? I looked it up. ‘… in a sepulchre, in this kingdom by the sea.’ 

As we threw our handfuls of sand into the water, it started to foam up like froth from the mouth of a mongrel dog. The waves started picking up, and were peaking higher and higher. It almost felt like a spell we were casting; some kind of black magic with the sand and foam. The ocean and the sky were the same dull, blue-grey colour as each other and because the sun still wasn’t up, it was impossible to tell where one finished and the other started. A wave would swell up and begin to peak with a white edge expanding up over the top of the horizon; just as it was about to crash down, just when you thought it would all fall apart under its own weight and the weight of all the water out there in the Davy-dark, it would go on and continue to soar up and bleed into the sky; a mirror, or more-so an extension of the sea. It would keep rising higher into the air where it would morph into a cloud, then roll away, disappearing over my head. I’m sure all this is making me sound like a Wally, but … 

I guess everyone started talking behind me as they left the beach. I think I remember hearing conversations, but it might’ve just been the humming in my own head. I was the last one left on the beach. It felt like I sat there all day, but I know I didn’t because I never did see the sun come up - and it’s not that everyone else left early or that they didn’t stay long enough, ya know; it’s just that I happened to be the last one to leave. I sat for ages at the spot just, looking. I watched his board drift away, even though I couldn’t see it. I watched him ride out. I watched it as it floated across vast expanses of blue until it reached Tahiti. I watched it as it passed around the thousands of little islands and reefs scattered like handfuls of sand; riding perfect waves. I watched it as it said goodbye to Tahiti and headed off to Mexico. I watched it as it headed for the golden shores of Acapulco Bay. I watched it as it drifted off the edge of the earth.