Locals Only

We were getting ready for surfing this morning when a Mexican scam artist wearing red jeans, and his accomplice, showed up and lifted fifty pesos from Jay’s pocket using ventriloquism and fishing line. They also got away with two litres of Jugo and a bag of Fish tails they stole from somebody else. He seemed very affable at first, but he didn’t make any sense, and kept playing air guitar. This was his way of siphoning bills out of Jay’s pocket.
we paddled out across a small bay with a faint odour of raw sewage lifting off the seawater. The Spot was filled with proud Vuenuzuelan’s who wouldn’t share the clean left and so we were forced to surf the dirty right. Off shore sea spray picked up rivulets of water and flung them rudely into our faces as we dropped in. I got caught on the inside, tangled up in the seaweed which held me down while a double set of waves took turns gang banging me.
After the Vuenuzuealans left, we had the wave to ourselves. After about fifteen minutes this skeletal figure with hair down to his knees, a horsetoothed grin and and a psychedelic fun board came and started catching every wave. Jay couldn’t get a single ride in- The Joker would drop in to the shifting point break and charge down the line directly and purposefully coming as close as he could to Troy and myself, who were hanging around on the shoulder. As he got whizzed by he hurled flaming pumpkins at us, then did backflips off his board after the wave died out. Then the Fabio twins came out- a pair of boogie boarders with permed hair. They owned the spot and there was no more action. We floated like idiots and watched helplessly As the Cat in the hat and thing one and thing 2 did what they pleased.
The Next day, I had my wetsuit on, and my big blue kooky rental board under my arm, and was about to pick my way down the trail etched into the seacliff to the wet rocks below when this dude, standing in front of a BMW, with an Americano in one hand, his eyes hidden beneath a Quicksilver surf cap, and a single fin eight foot softtop mounted on his roof rack yelled out “Hey Gringo!” I looked up at him, and he was pointing at a slogan spray painted on the rock. ‘NO GRINGOS’ it said. Then he pointed at another rock ‘Locals Only’ was the slogan on that rock. What could I do? The dude had three friends with him. I walked back to Jay’s van- Troy and Jay were still only half into their wetsuits. Then Joker and the Fabio twins pulled up in a rusted out Toyota pickiup. We kicked the dirt beside the van for a bit, then Jay went and talked to Joker for a bit. Jay came back saying that Joker hadn’t even seen the BMW guy before. So whatever. They said it was all cool. Joker said he had friends from Canada. But Jay was still tentative. “I’ve dealt with this in Hawaii. Said Jay.
Jay and I went down the Cliffside and into the water. Troy stayed in the Van reading the last few chapters of ‘Fierce invalids home from hot climates’ Jay told me to stay close to him and led us to a weak wave leff than two feet high that occasionally forms in the shallows about forty feet outside of the main action.
“Let’s just stay out here” Jay was saying “I know how this stuff works. When they see how badly we want to surf, they’ll start to let us in.”
I paddled into a shallow bump and popped up for a three second ride. This middle aged looking guy wearing board shorts came creeping past, hanging ten off the end of his long board, sucking the last bit of steam out of the main break. “Yeah, go for it!” he yelled “Hang loose!” I thought he was being sarcastic.
“Don’t make direct eye contact with them” Jay said, And a little later “I’m going to go closer in. because you’re such a kook, Rob, you have to wait here for a bit. Stay away from the other surfers.”
Jay went up there, and just hung around. Then Joker came past me and said “Hey, go up there and surf with your friend.”
It turns out the locals, but for the one Jackass in the BMW, were all really nice. A weirdo longboarder- Richard- apparently runs a surf hostel about eighty miles south, near a point break, and with an empty pool for skateboarding in. Five bucks a night. How anti-climactic is that?
Maybe I should wrap this up with: The soft top rider with the BMW who said “NO Gringos” could be seen arguing with Joker on the inside after a bigger set came through. BMW then paddled off. Jay and I had a great time surfing but when we got back we found troy with an apple duct taped into his mouth, strapped tightly with yellow nylon rope to a chain link fence, and ‘Off the Pig’ scrawled in surf wax on his broken bob Mctavish that lay in two pieces in front of him. Then when the Federales came in…
Wait a minute- the Federales really did come in. An extended green pickup with a fifty cal. Mounted on top and eight armed soldiers came snorting and bouncing up the gravel road. But no, they didn’t us all up and throw in a dirt floor Mexican prison until uncle Ed could fly down and bail us out- Instead one of the soldiers knew some of the local surfers, and the soldiers had nothing better to do.