Santa Cruz Stories

By George Hawkins

A scathing, riveting, explicit portrayal of the denizens of northern California's infamous surfing community. This eclectic collection of eccentric, bizarre, curious, peculiar characters leap off the page, grab the reader by the collar and drag them willingly into tales of debauchery and spiritual redemption. Crisp, smart dialogue embellished with metaphor, alliteration, and obscure symbolism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Hawkins
• Release date: Oct 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311179623

George Hawkins

A writer of both fiction and non-fiction, Hawkins has been honing his craft for over fifty years. Although novels and short stories are his preferred métier, he has written a non-fiction, adventure travel book titled, A Bicycle Journey to the Bottom of the Americas, recounting his three and a half year, 17,500-mile bicycle adventure from Alaska to the tip of South America, available from iUniverse, Apple Bookstore or Amazon or in either paperback or eBook versions. In the Irish Goodbye, his latest fiction offering, Hawkins has drawn heavily on his youth growing up in Albany, New York, an Irish-Democratic stronghold where machine boss Dan O’Connell ruled for over twenty-five years. This bittersweet coming-of-age tale harkens back to the mean streets of Albany so eloquently penned by William Kennedy. The protagonist, Brian Reilly, maturing from childhood to adolescence, passes through a tumultuous period of disillusionment, betrayal, and finally redemption. His beliefs and trust are reaffirmed by a crippled outcast who saves his life and teaches him to look below the surface of things. Overcoming multiple losses and setbacks Brian achieves manhood. When not writing or rewriting novels and short stories, George swims in the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, California where he also enjoys hiking or biking in the nearby coastal mountains. Of course, he is a voracious reader.

Book preview

Santa Cruz Stories

George J. Hawkins

Santa Cruz Stories

by George J. Hawkins

Copyright 2014 George J. Hawkins

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s vivid imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, with the possible exception of Steve Hoberg, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

Cover Photos: Don Coyro

Books by

George J. Hawkins

Military Madness

A Bicycle Journey to the Bottom

of the Americas

The Irish Goodbye

Contact the author at

[e-mail]

Dedicated to

The Cowell Beach Swim Club

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

-Mark Twain

Swimming to Atlantis

---

Adrian stood alone on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean. Below, through a thin haze of fog was the beach where he had begun to swim again. The vast, powerful ocean filled him with an ominous feeling, not always though; it all started after his parents were lost at sea in the family sailboat, the Atlantis. The Coast Guard and members of his father’s yacht club searched in tandem, then independently, for months after they were reported missing. Nothing: no bodies or any piece of clothing or scrap of nautical gear was ever recovered.

A teenager then, Adrian refused to leave the family home, a mere stones throw from the harbor and beach where the Atlantis had been moored and where he learned to swim under the watchful eye of his mother. Against the stern advice of aunts and uncles, he opted to employ a housekeeper and any other hireling who would insure his health and comfort in the only home he’d ever known. For a good two years he thought his parents would come bounding through the front door to wrap him in their arms and recount a survival story of harrowing trials and tribulations.

But into the third year of their absence, he began to doubt his earlier hopes. Slowly, with much reluctance, he accepted the fact of their demise. Nevertheless, their clothing, their personal items, the entire house was a shrine reminding him of his parents on a daily basis. Accepting this, he took comfort in their artifacts.

Never during that three-year period was a single piece of evidence recovered to document the tragedy. Often, looking out to sea from the cliff above the beach he would slowly shake his head, clench his fists and wonder how a man, a woman and a sailboat could disappear without a trace.

Oh, things like that did happen, not frequently mind you, be that as it may… friends and family members confided, attempting to placate him.

His financial security was more than assured for the rest of his life. Thankfully, his parents, both medical professionals, had provided for him with insurance policies, investments in both mutual funds and real estate, plus a generous trust fund. Disregarding the well-intentioned advice of relatives upon high school graduation, he refused to go away to college. Furthermore, Adrian was adamant he would never, under any circumstances, sell the family home or what was once the family home. It had become his hermitage, his refuge. Still, after all these years he looked, with a pinch of hope, out to sea from the cliff above the beach. Gradually, his antipathy and fear of the powerful body of water at his doorstep was ameliorated.

At first his outings to the beach, long after his parents were taken from him, were merely to cool off on hot summer days. Later, after he got used to the cold ocean, he would let the salt water wash over his skin, covering him with a liquid membrane. With only his mouth, nose and eyes above the water, he would float on his back for extended periods, the waves washing over him gently, soothingly. Soaking in the brine, he looked about the sheltered harbor. To his left was the wharf jutting out into the Pacific a half-mile. On the wharf was a wooden thoroughfare lined with fish markets, cafes, commercial boat charters, souvenir shops and a lifeguard station that overlooked the harbor. Anchored at the south side of the pier were fishing boats and sailboats. On the north side, four buoys divided the swimming area from open ocean.

A waxing sun burned off the lingering fog revealing a blue sky slashed with streaks of white clouds. Adrian’s inquisitive brown eyes looked out at the four buoys marking the perimeter of the swimming area. The nearest buoy was two hundred yards from shore; the others were one hundred yards from each other, with the farthest buoy a distance of one mile from the sandy beach.

At mid-morning, there was barely a breath of wind. The ocean surface, calm and dark green invited him. At the beach overlook, he grasped his chin with a tanned right hand, pulling at it pensively. Suddenly, he was aware of the whistle buoy located two miles outside the harbor making its sharp one note report. He could barely see it bobbing in the foggy distance. A light breeze brought the pungent smell of decaying seaweed and kelp to his nostrils.

Today, Adrian vowed, he would swim, for the first time, to the closest buoy. As a child he had been a strong swimmer at this very beach, perhaps foolishly aggressive, much to his mother’s displeasure, about charging into the surf and diving beneath towering waves that crashed with great force on the shore. Of course, that was long before the sea took his parents from him. Now, looking out at the mounting surf, his feelings of contempt and fear crystallized into a feeling of guarded respect. With unaccustomed urgency, he got on his bicycle and pedaled down the hill to the beach.

He trudged through the sand to the north end where a sandstone cliff rose up to the overlook he’d occupied earlier. Not far from the base of the cliff, he spread out his beach mat, removed his sandals, and stretched out beneath a hot midday sun.

Feeling the rays of the sun scalding his shoulders, now covered with a patina of perspiration, he awoke from a snooze and turned over. He took a drink from his water bottle while looking furtively at the second buoy, the white cone rising three feet above the water’s surface.

Pulling himself to his feet, he fitted a green swim cap to his head while making his way quickly through the hot sand to water’s edge, where he cut a look at the lifeguard tower on the wharf. In the wood and glass enclosure, Adrian could vaguely make out the silhouette of the guard on duty.

Slowly entering the surf, the sharp cold of the salt water felt mildly pleasant, forcing him to breathe deeper as he submerged to his chest. Anxious, he dove into the trough of an incoming wave entering the silent, powerful ocean depths. He kicked to the surface, where he took a deep breath before stroking vigorously toward the buoy. Moving almost effortlessly, his breathing slowed as frigid water massaged his body. His arms, heavy at first, became charged with energy. Legs and feet began to synchronize with his plunging arms and soon he was moving through the water as though drawn by a powerful magnetic force. Counting his strokes, lifting his mouth quickly and