Читать книгу Twentynine Palms - Daniel Pyne - Страница 7

Shapes, slender whale-grey phantasms, stumble from the foaming tide.

Surfers.

The roar of a storm-swelled ocean thunders low from the marine layer beyond them.

Black with bits of winter-white flesh, unzipped wet suits, hoods flapping behind them like weird rubber cowls of some long-submerged Benedictine order, the taller of the two young men is hauling his gasping companion to the shallows of Rincon Beach.

Tory and Jack are twenty.

“Little cocksucking Valley shit fucking cut me off!” Tory barks. Jack eases his friend down, then runs back to chase their long boards before they float away.

By the time Jack returns with their sticks, Tory is spitting seawater and blinking the salt and sand out of his eyes. “Goddamn it! They shouldn’t even fucking be out here!”

“He’s a pup. They’re Valley pups. Forget about it.” Jack drags the surfboards beyond the reach of the tide. “You’re welcome, by the way. Thank God for Junior Lifesaving, huh?”

“Never took it.”

Farther up the beach, where clumps of clothes and towels and flip-flops are waiting, Jack strips down the top of his wet suit. Tory glares back at the water. Three more surfers are coming in. Day-Glo stripes on high-fashion wet suits, they’re barely teenagers. Sun-bleached hair. Poolside San Fernando Valley tans, Calabasas or Woodland Hills.

“I’m only saying. Somebody should explain the concept to those guys.”

“There’s a concept?”

“Priority. Do not drop in on another man’s wave. The surfer who is closest to the breaking wave has priority.”

“He was already up.”

“Because he jumped my line.”

“Since when have you ever cared about the rules?”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe you should’ve let a geek have his ride. Take the next wave. You knew he was gonna bail, Tory.”

“These are my waves.”

“Your waves.”

“Yeah.”

“Your ocean.”

“That is correct.” Tory starts to walk toward the three surfers. Amiable: “I just want to explain the concept to this dickhead.”

Jack turns his back, on Tory and the ocean. Picks up his towel and begins to dry off. He feels a chill, but not the kind you get from cold air. He knows what’s coming. He tries not to think about what his options are.

Tory intercepts the three surfers down the beach as they come out of the water. They’ve seen him coming. The smallest kid puts a hand up, a gesture of genuine apology. Without any warning, Tory attacks him. Every punch connects, vicious.

Jack rubs the towel in his thick hair. The roar of the surf overpowers the sound of feet splashing in shallow tidal water, fists slapping skin, the kid’s screams for help. Dropping his towel, Jack wraps his clothes together and puts them on his board to keep them clear of the sand. He doesn’t want to look. If he can’t hear it, and he doesn’t see it, does it exist? A smoldering sun flares hot behind Jack’s head for an instant, lending him a sudden, dim halo. He feels its heat. He cannot stop himself. He looks.

What he sees down-beach, in the water, of course, requires him to run.

He reaches Tory and pulls him away from the gasping teenager whose eyes are already swollen red, shut, a pink slick of blood from split lips draining down his chin and neck and hairless, baby-fat chest.

Tory’s fury turns. He lashes out blindly, screaming incoherently, the gist of which suggests Jack mind his own fucking business, which—in an instant—Jack knows is good advice because Tory’s wildly thrown, bone-hard fist connects with the side of Jack’s head and a pain of molten shrieking sharpness splits through Jack’s eye and buries itself deep inside his skull. His body twists, dissolves, nausea washing over him, and he vomits into the water.

Now the Valley dudes are hauling their bloody companion away, and Jack is stumbling backward, and Tory, defused, is looking on in surprise, as if he just happened upon an accident. Jack’s thoughts in this moment are incredibly clear on one point: something bad has happened something bad has happened something bad has bad has bad has happened—has—has—

“Jack—hold still—let me look at it—”

“Oh Jesusfuck oh—”

“Jack—”

“Get away from me!”

“Jack—”

“Owshitowshitowshitshitshit—”

“Jack, will you let me look at your eye? Shit—here—sorry—but what is fucking wrong with you? You know? Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever try to—”

“Get out. Of my way.”

Then, Tory, seeing it: “Oh man. Oh fuck.”

What.

“Here put this—at least it’s—you just don’t—don’t do that, Jack, you just don’t—”

And Jack has never felt this kind of pain before and never will again, and never will shake the memory of the dull, black, searing screw someone is bearing down on, driving deep beneath the socket of his eye. All he can think about is the pain. Tory’s voice is distant, something overheard.

“It’s not bleeding. It’s okay.”

They’re moving. Up the beach. The sand, on the soles of his feet, burns.

“I’ll drive.”

Jack looks up into the sun. It burns through the haze, and bleaches everything

white.