The Pollinator: In His Own Words

By William G. Reagan

The Pollinator: a tabloid name given to an evolutionary icon, Bill Kerrigan. A journal has been found; for the people of the late twenty-first century it provides a study in development, revealing the mysterious Kerrigans phenomenal, sublime and torturous transmutations: in his own words.

In this novel by William G. Reagan, fantasy and fictional memoir commingle. Chapters in the form of brief journal entries function to create a mosaic work that is tinged with stream-of-consciousness episodes. The story chronicles the protagonists life of suburban sensuality and his acquisition of superhuman capabilities which are engendered by and mature through the act of surfing. Follow Bill Kerrigan as he gradually discovers that he is--and was always meant to be--a volitant creature. He is a flyer, one who--at a price--can accrue and dispense the gift of bliss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 13, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465328755

William G. Reagan

William G. Reagan was born in Santa Monica, California in 1950 and lived in the San Fernando Valley for his first fifty years. As a boy, his best hours were spent climbing the trees of the suburban forest and riding his bike through the nighttime Valley streets cultivating wonder from stucco-framed light beams and sensibility from household cooking smells. Currently he surfs and lives in Ventura, California where he studies, teaches and practices the energetic and somatic therapies.

Book preview

JANUARY 3

I am writing this note in fear to whomever may find me stricken or to no one, either because I am ill or because I am a person who is terrified of becoming ill.

Tonight I was sitting alone in the lineup at Malibu—holding out against the dark for that just-one-more-wave—when the sweet, staggering fragrance of Malibu Creek was blown out of the canyon, onto the ocean by the evening offshore breeze. I inhaled it deeply several times and became extremely dizzy. I thought I was going to float away. It was a sick feeling that subsided quickly. I paddled in and drove straight to my house.

I felt fine at home but eventually worked myself into a hypochondriacal snit about my dizzy spell: I could have drowned out there! Maybe it was a silent heart attack or a stroke. What if I drive to the hospital and it hits me again in the car? I better stay near the phone.

When it comes to my health, sometimes it’s hard for me to find the balance between obsession and denial. Yet with this bit of writing I’m feeling better. I’m probably okay. No note of farewell to the few I am close to will be necessary tonight, I guess.

JANUARY 18, 1992

My name is Bill Kerrigan. I have no special knowledge about the course of the wide world. However, I carry a vague intuition that such knowledge is gathering on the borders of my capability. I was born in 1950 and have lived in the Valley, counting the days like most people. On TV last night I watched a documentary. There were several biographies; various artists and professionals talked about themselves. As children they all knew where they were headed, what they should do. It wasn’t just actors and writers or musicians and painters with their blah blah blah stories of past lives; there was this one guy who was a dentist. He said that as far back as he could recall, he liked watching people’s teeth when they talked and looking into their mouths when they yawned. And when his baby teeth came out and the new ones grew in, he was completely engrossed: fiddling obsessively with each loose baby tooth until he had it between his fingers, then rubbing furiously the gums where a new tooth poked through. By the age of ten—using the old string and door technique—he had performed eight baby-tooth extractions on siblings and neighborhood kids. The guy was chirping like a loony, "That’s what I was born to do . . . It was meant to be . . . It was like I could do it before I was born." Holy shit. That’s how I feel, like all that has happened to me was set into motion before I came along. I remember way back, who I was and how I related to the world; all the things I did and felt when I was a kid I do and feel now, but with intense compulsion, an impelling that will not be quelled. But as an adult, I really don’t know where I’m headed or what I should do.

I’ve never kept a journal before. Except for adolescent poetry, all of my writing has been for the professional and academic worlds: reports and treatises. In the rudimentary writing classes I took in college, most of my assignments came back with a big, red C minus. One professor wrote disparagingly in agitated crimson scrawl on the face of my term paper, Mr. Kerrigan, you’ve got a hard-on for the semicolon that has not softened all semester.

It is the odor of things that drives me. The implements of writing, pencil and paper, attract me with their fragrances like the aroma of food draws a hungry person. This attraction is what compels me now to record the events of my life, forces me to tell my story to the paper and to the air, air which seems to have developed its own life, air which presses its cheek against mine, smells the breath of my words, looks over my shoulder constantly.

I surfed under the moon tonight, celebrating my birthday. That’s my idea of a birthday party: me and the dark ocean. I had a new and most powerful experience. My emotions were strange. I cried hard; phenomenal tears gushed from my eyes like water from a faucet.

As I finished a long, strenuous ride on a fast, moonlit wave, I exited the back of it with too much speed; the force of my board launched me out of control into the air. On the way up, I took a cold, jolting blast of ocean wind in my face. It immediately registered as the odor of the birthroom where my son was born. Then, instantly, I caught in my nose and mouth a warm scent of jasmine that seemed to come from within me. I could actually taste it deep in my lungs. Then a sharp gust of concentrated, fishy shoreline smell shot intrusively up my nose.

At the top of my trajectory it seemed like I was released from gravity; for two or three seconds I believed definitely that I would float away. I splashed down on my belly. The descent was like a long fall that tickled my insides. Right then I thought I was having a stroke from the exertion of riding the long hollow wave. I fumbled for my leash in a panic, reeled my board in and climbed onto its deck in confusion. I automatically looked out to the sea of moonlight for more waves on the horizon. Nothing. I rested. I was okay. Out of nowhere, a big pelican appeared, sitting in the water next to me—close enough to see its eyes shine. It looked right at me and that’s when I started to cry, prone on my board, bobbing up and down in the ocean.

This marked the onset of a new emotion, the magnitude of which was heightened in contrast to the uncanny, rapid succession of the previous four: exultation from the ride, panic, confusion and relief. While sobbing, the feelings of ultimate release, profound detachment, and sublime safeness all merged as an aggregate sensation. This is the best I can describe it. I recovered from crying by dipping my face in the ocean. The mild taste of jasmine lingered in my throat and mouth. And I was hungry like never before. I dropped the stroke idea; I wanted food! When I turned to paddle for shore, the pelican flew off, I lost it in the distance. I tried to think about what had happened to me, but the shock of my bizarre launching didn’t compare to the food fantasies I was having. I could only think of food. In fact, I’m thinking of food right now.

JANUARY 19, 1992

After I put down the pencil last night, I was weak with hunger. There was nothing much to eat at my place, so I drove to The Heart in Canoga Park. In the ten minutes it took me to drive there, I felt faint several times. In the parking lot, I considered leaving to go home; I thought I might be getting sick. The aroma of food came in the car window when I rolled it down to get air. It smelled like home, peace, safety. That gave me a boost; I shook off the malaise and got out of my car.

The Heart is a vegetarian restaurant that I discovered in the fall of 1977; there I was introduced to a most palatable vegetarian diet which I maintain to this day. By 1975—when what I now recognize as my changes began—I had lost my appetite for meat. It was the odor of meat cooking that bothered me; I was forced away from eating flesh with little knowledge of how to enjoy other foods. So, The Heart was what I needed. In the year that followed my first meal at The Heart, I ate there almost daily; I lost weight and my skin got real smooth and supple like when I was a kid. The visceral sensation of eating and digesting improved; food passed through me with no alimentary distress. And my energy level soared. The Heart is my favorite place to eat.

After walking the length of the parking lot, I became dizzy. I entered the vintage storefront in a daze and walked through the little market to the modest restaurant in the back. The smell of cooking food gave me strength. I sat at the wooden counter on the end stool where orders are placed at the pass window.

Moani was working. Be right there, Bill, she said as she passed me with a plate of hot food. I looked at the meal she was serving and saliva almost escaped from my mouth; I couldn’t swallow fast enough to inhibit the flow. I felt a brief rush of panic at this loss of control until Moani came back to take my order; the saliva flow stopped. Over two years ago I spent some time with Moani, dating I guess it would be called. Our relationship culminated during a day at her parents house while they were in Hawaii. I don’t have a name for all of what happened, but part of it was romance. Hey, Bill. Howzit?

Pretty good. How ‘bout yourself?

Good. Been surfing?

Yeah.

I could tell; your hair’s all flat. She smiled, pointing up at my flat, salty hair.

I said, "Real good waves. At the end of the night, I got a real long, powerful one about as high as the dessert fridge there." I pointed. She looked at the top of the dessert fridge to assess the wave height.

Cool, she said. That’s all I told her about my ride. She pulled out her order pad, Ready to order?

I said, Swell. Been ready. She smiled, staring at the pad, holding the pen poised. I gazed at her before I spoke . . . Beautiful. I ordered my usual hot sandwich and a baked potato. She started to leave, saliva flowed and I swallowed desperately. I added quickly, I’d like a large side of red beans and rice too. She stopped, looked back and puffed her cheeks out to imply that I was overeating. I told her, with a feeling of boyish self-pity, I’m unbelievably hungry. Come back here; I need more. She walked back, raising a suspicious eyebrow. I said with urgency, Give me a bowl of that corn chowder and a dinner salad too. She wrote it down and left to put in my huge order without looking back up at me.

I think I heard her mutter, How weird.

Moani brought my food in courses. I ate furiously. Over the years I’ve taught myself to be a slow, relaxed eater—not last night. Moani whispered from behind the counter, leaning toward me, You eat like a pig, bro. Chunks of food are flying everywhere. You got more on the floor than in your mouth. She chuckled and I swallowed to allow a moment to acknowledge her humor with my polite grin, then I kept on eating.

On her break she sat with me at the counter, eating her snack while I finished my dinner. She’s a graduate student at CSUN, studying American Sign Language. That’s usually what we talk about, her school stuff. We never discuss our former relationship. Sign Language, which I also studied intensely in college, is handy in a conversation when you’re chomping food. So, as my mouth chewed, my hands spoke, thereby eliminating any interruptions in my incessant munching.

After her break, she brought the dessert I ordered. She asked, with a hint of disgust, How can you eat so much?

Surfing gets me hungry I guess . . . . But tonight was exceptional; I had to gorge. I resisted the impulse to tell her what was exceptional. She left shaking her head, returned with the check and slapped it down on the counter.

See ya on the further, Bill.

On the further, girl, I said. I was stuffed; it was a chore to get to my car. The full feeling was gone by the time I got home. I stretched out on my couch and thought about what a constant source of sustenance The Heart has been for me over the past 15 years. Mostly though, I thought about Moani and the change that she’d induced in me.

APRIL 7, 1992

At dusk, I awoke from a half-sleep dream to the song of a mockingbird. Its voice had entered my dream. My first springtime mockingbird called me out to the backyard. I found it on a telephone pole. The song was clear and sweet with endless permutations. I caught a section of its tune and whistled it; the bird copied my imitation and we traded riffs for awhile. When it did a lick that I couldn’t answer or copy, it apparently lost interest. As it flew off, a surge of ineffable emotion burned in me; for a few curious moments I had the mockingbird engaged, communicating.

I whistle all the time: in my car, on the toilet, pacing the house, in the ocean when I’m waiting for waves, constantly. I got into it from playing the trombone in junior and senior high school. My first semester of junior high, I joined the class entitled Beginning Winds because I thought it would be bitchen to be a drummer—so did 17 other guys. The band director, Mr. Dennis, ordered me to play the trombone instead because he needed trombone players in the band, not more drummers. As he was giving his commands on the first day of class, one of the de facto drummers yelled out, Yeah, Dennis needs tromboners! He was permanently dismissed. I learned that Mr. Dennis was not fond of drummers; they were the screw-ups in band. Mr. Dennis didn’t like band at all, and eventually switched to teaching math, his real love—yet I played on.

That first day, he looked down at me from his podium, Of course, William, you’re committed to joining band next year. Otherwise, why would you toil to learn the trombone? Mr. Dennis was intimidating. His initial pressure is the only reason I can muster as to why I played trombone for six years. I didn’t want to disappoint. I was easily and fully intimidated by adult authority in those days. I had a real strong sense of not wanting to be viewed as trouble; that moniker would have been humiliating. I complied.

However, all that tromboning made me an incredible whistler; it gave me the breathing skills and the chops. The trombone got me involved in music which I chose as a major in high school. Music captured my interest far beyond the academic majors and it was an easy way to graduate. Those years of listening and learning deepened the penetration that music spirit and music knowledge made into my core.

Yesterday I surfed small, spring waves. During one of many lulls, a guy paddled over to me, sat up tall on his board and asked if I had been surfing on Superbowl Sunday. I told him I had, and that I remembered him ripping. I said that I’d timed it to paddle out at the kickoff. This brought a primitive, celebratory cry from the young man, accompanied by crazed punches into the air. On that day there had been waves in sets, six footers, and we were the only people out. We were not as fortunate yesterday. We sat with others for a long time and watched the waveless horizon. The guy said, "Superbowl Sunday is the day."

You bet I never miss it, I told him. Still we waited with our eyes fixed out to sea. I whistled Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy. Waves came. There was a large peak.

Are you going? the guy asked in an edgy, wave-hogging sort of way.

I’ll take it left, I answered while keeping my eyes on the peak.

Really? he said in a guilty, wave-conceding kind of way.

Yeah. You go right! Go, go, go! He took off right. My left panned out for a fast ride up the coast. After I kicked out, I looked for him. He was long gone down the coast. I paddled out and lined up again. With the dusk, people left the water. I sat watching the ocean turn grey. There were no waves and I was ready to leave. I whistled the Debussy again, on and on. Waves came. I whistled and rode waves alone, far into the night.

APRIL 20, 1992

Tonight at my desk I write under the soothing illumination of Mom’s antique lamp; it’s like the setting ocean moon, low and to my right. My pencil scratches the paper, word after word, thought after thought; the rasping sound whispers to me: Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing . . .

I made the hour drive today to surf California Street in Ventura. In the surfing world this spot is called C-Street. But I like using the whole word, California. I love the sound of that word, how it looks on the page when I shape it in pencil. Gary, my friend from Santa Barabara, met me in the condominium parking lot. We like to surf late; the condos provide wind relief for the nighttime dry off. Our compulsive routine ensued: check the California Street bay, pee at the Holiday Inn, jog to the first point and back, play a tape on the car stereo, stretch, suit up, wax up, lock up, walk out onto the huge concrete promenade and check the surf again.

The bay waves were meager so we jogged about half a mile on the bike path that leads to Pipes. Pipes is the point break produced by the Ventura River; it’s just about my favorite spot. Sections of the bike path were washed out; this happens every two or three years. Nothing stops the ocean. Engineers with all their concrete cannot fend it off.

The waves of winter rearranged parts of the California coast. The winter rain was heavy too, ending a long drought in some areas of the state. The raging Ventura River swept away recreational vehicles and trailers into the ocean at Pipes; a flash flood caught the riverside R.V. park residents by surprise when the entire site was inundated. The thought of it scares me. Large bodies of moving water really give me the creeps, especially rivers. I’d never go river rafting. When the ocean serves up bigger waves—which for me is about eight to ten feet—it takes courage for me to paddle out. But as soon as I catch one wave, I become strong. This is a strength I carry in my heart long after I return to shore. The more waves of a powerful nature that I ride, the stronger I become and the more capable of enduring all the formidable shit that flies at me in the workaday world.

During our jog up, I got a whiff of death; it was a dead sea lion on the rocky shoreline. Gary grinned, "Bill, something died! The shoreline features rotten death stench on a regular basis. I’ve learned to expect it, but this one knocked me down. Gary was grossed out and amused at the same time; as I wretched and went down on my knees, I heard him giggle. I winced when the tail of my board tapped a rock. On my knees I was hot and sweaty, ready to blow chow; my mouth watered heavily. The boiling wetsuit made it worse. I felt Gary’s hand pull on my upper arm. He helped me up, led me away from the fetid flesh, strapped my leash to my ankle, staggered with me to the ocean, Let’s get you cooled off."

We paddled out. I rolled off my board into the brine and stretched open the neck of my wetsuit. Cold water filled the entire suit. When I felt cooler and better, I sat up on my board, ripped off three gnarly belches. Gary asked, Recovered? Then he laughed in relief as if he were the one to have been spared from puking. I felt well and sturdy. I checked my board. No damage. We lined up.

Gary is my good old pal. We became friends at age 14 when we played football for the Reseda Rams in the Pop Warner leagues. He was the fullback, I was the halfback. Beyond that we have a long history, but our connection now is surfing.

Waiting for waves, I recalled when I first became sensitive to odors: It was like smelling the dead sea lion constantly, like motion sickness for months. It’s been years since I had that kind of extreme reaction to stench. It was a devastating reminder that I am a permutable thing, a reality I sometimes lose track of or try to forget. That was my first change; I became sensitive to smells. Next I changed my diet. Then I learned to surf. Years later, I met Moani.

Still no surf. I forgot the dead sea lion and the memory it brought; I just wanted to ride some crappy waves. We decided to move. Gary talked about his wife and kids while our lazy arms took us gradually down to the top of the bay where we sat up on our boards. It seemed to me that as we blathered on, talking about this and that, the grey dome of ocean sky soaked up the energy of our words into its impersonal moisture. This was a disquieting observation; I thought it was very bizarre to have had such a perception at all, but I kept on with the conversation.

After awhile, a breeze came up in our faces; we stopped talking to sniff the air. Gary said, Try this! He gave me instructions with his eyes closed. Sit up tall and turn your board into the wind so the breeze hits your face directly. I did it. He continued, Now close your eyes and imagine you’re floating like a magic carpet on your board. I did it. I caught onto his game right away; with the wind breezing in my face and the mild bobbing motion of the board, it was easy to fantasize a mildly turbulent flight of forward intent. I perceived this flight as a bodily sensation only. The fantasy intensified as the bumpiness of the water and the wind speed varied, inducing the sensation of climbing and diving, accelerating and decelerating, of being jostled by air currents, as if my board was responding to upward and downward drafts. I heard Gary’s voice, I’m getting visuals.

Like what? I asked with eyes closed.

Like a video game. Buildings and houses are passing under me like I’m landing a spacecraft in a video game.

Cool, I said. I kept my eyes closed with no visuals, just the kinesthetic and tactile experience. Wind in the ears helped too. Slowly the field of dark grey before my eyes turned red as sunlight penetrated the marine layer near the horizon and shined on my eyelids. The light rays, wind and mild current of the sea all came from the same direction; I stayed pointed toward this flow. I got some visuals. It was a flat, red plane with a red sky and red horizon. The three areas were discernible because they varied in hue enough for me to perceive the motion of flight over the red plane.

Just as I was getting into it, I heard Gary’s voice, Waves outside. I opened my eyes and we paddled farther out to pick up the unexpected impending set waves. We got a bunch and they were pretty good for about an hour, long rights. A natural rotation evolved so that while one of us was riding, the other was paddling. This enabled us to watch each others’ rides. It’s fun that way. Near dark, Gary waited at the top for me, passing on a few waves, to tell me that he had to meet his wife for dinner. The sets slowed.

I asked, One more or paddle in?

I better get going now, he said. We paddled for land. After a couple minutes of paddling, behind us we heard a good wave break outside. It made a giant wall of foam; we rode the big foam for a long prone ride to the shore. We floated on its bubbles, side by side, and the froth splashed up all around. In the light of dusk, the foam was bright white like a cloud. As we approached the beach, I arched my back and extended my arms like Superman. My board responded to the weighting of my arch by accelerating. I was the man of steel, ripping through the clouds.

Protected from the night wind by the condos, we dried off casually at our cars. Gary proclaimed, I like cold ocean. When you wipe out it’s like a cold beer shoots up your nose. He was all excited. He said with a grin, I saw you doing the Superman thing there.

I said, Yeah. It was fun. The board picked up speed when I arched on it. I pretended I was flying through the clouds. I felt annoyed, defensive.

Great, Gary smiled, I thought about that dream you had about your dad.

Yeah? I was gettin’ downright pissed.

I love that dream, he said with no notion that I was beginning to boil. I don’t know why, but I was fully pissed with steam in the next few moments. I hated that he loved my dream; that nosey bastard was in my business. I held it in while I dried off and managed to subdue my irrational pique to maintain the decorum of See ya next time.

Gary and I learned to surf in ’82, when we were in our early thirties. I told him about my dream at that time and how I bet my dad would have enjoyed watching me learn to ride waves. My dad had passed away about a year earlier when I was 31.

This is the dream I consider to be the first one I can remember. It’s one of several that have remained vivid in my memory. I was maybe four years old. In the dream, my dad and I stand before a vast lake. It’s imperative that we cross the huge body of water to avoid some vague danger, although the water represents danger too. I’m terrified. My dad is in complete command, epitomizing strength, wisdom, decisiveness. With his glasses on, he lays face down in the water and instructs me telepathically to climb on his back and hold on. I crawl onto his back and grab his shoulders. My vision focuses on his sizeable bald spot. He extends his bulky arms Superman style and we are propelled at high speed, creating a large wake. He splashes noisily through the water, covering a tremendous distance to safety on the far side of the lake. What a ride! I’m stoked. We get out of the water. As he leads the way up a nondescript embankment toward a dark and featureless horizon, I notice his bald spot again and the extra fat on his sides. He glances back at me; I can see that his glasses are still on. My dad. In that dream, he symbolized power, safety, and caring like a dad should. Sometimes when I ride a wave, it’s like riding on Dad’s back again.

MAY 2, 1992

I’ve been watching the riots on TV. It’s scary. Are these people going to burn down the entire city, turn it into a war zone? I’m glad my kid moved to Oregon. He lives in a forested area, the remains of the primordial. His mom got a job in the movement to save what’s left of the old growth forests, and off they went. The kid resides there in a cabin, in a small town and he doesn’t want any part of L.A.

I don’t know why I stay here. I work as a speech therapist in a large residential school that treats children who have been marred by abandonment, neglect, abuse, murder, crime, poverty and mental illness. The facility is situated in the local mountains where I am able to escape the paved environment of suburbia. I’ve worked there since 1977, a third of my life. I drive early each workday for an easy 30-minute commute. So, on most days for me, it’s sunrise in the mountains, drive to the ocean after work for sunset in the waves, then back to the Valley for dinner at The Heart. Sweet routine. Maybe that’s why I stay. And something about the Valley, that I don’t understand, holds me like gravity.

On April 30, Thursday, while I was driving from work through the suburbs at the bottom of the hill, I had to swerve to avoid rock throwers. The freeway was packed, blocked up with drivers escaping L.A. or trying to finish business and errands before dark; I couldn’t get to the ocean. The Heart was closing early to comply with the riot curfew; I barely made it for dinner. I found the frightened employees eager to go home and hide. My sweet routine was dismantled.

Deprivation causes this violence: deprivation of love, nourishment, choices, opportunities, guidance, discipline. It’s not a revolution. It’s hate. Hate fills the void; I can nearly smell it! It metastasizes across centuries, spreads like a ruinous oil spill on the Santa Barbara coastline. Hate.

I attempt to oppose these forces of hate on a daily basis, using my parents’ gift to me: kindness. I am especially aware of this with the kids at work. Many of them have known only hate and deprivation. On the morning of the second day of the riots, headed for coffee, I entered the cafeteria at work to find 20 or so boys eating breakfast as usual. Their houseparent, Nate, who is a black man, was supervising the meal. When he saw me coming, he stood up and we immediately shook hands sincerely in a spontaneous gesture of interracial respect. The boys—several of whom had claimed that they wanted to join the riot—stopped eating and watched us suspiciously as we chatted warmly. I like to think that for a couple of minutes there, Nate and I kicked Hate’s ugly ass. But really, we just yanked a few hairs from its ancient nose.

MAY 6, 1992

Sadness. For me this is an evanescent emotion. Last night I went shopping at Ralphs market in my neighborhood to buy things for the riot victims. A few women at work have been making runs to South Central Los Angeles. They asked their fellow employees to donate diapers, clothing, toilet paper and baby food. Elderly people were in need of soft food in easy to open cans and packages.

In the peaceful, flourescent lit supermarket, as I loaded my cart with baby food and soft food, I pictured those babies and old people desperate for something to eat. For the first time in over eight years, for an instant, I almost felt sad. I suppose I still have the usual range of other emotions like joy, fear, anxiety, mania. How can I name them all? I’m more aware of the ones that have faded. Depression, for example, is nonexistent. I have a new internal world, emotions with no name. I’ve barely developed a method to categorize the most disparate pairs.

My very first memory is the visage of my mother’s golden cocker spaniel, Fawn. I was maybe two years old. I had struck fawn on the head with a toy truck, and there was a trickle of blood above the eye on her right brow. I remember her facial expression. She had the dog-question-face. She was asking me, What was that? She didn’t know what my attack meant. She didn’t flee, she didn’t snarl or bite. Such a look on her face, it was innocently curious. I recall clearly sensations of guilt, shame, and compassion radiating hot inside me. These emotions were seared deep into my psyche, indelible.

When I was seven years old, the boys on my block got frequent haircuts at the very local barber shop. Our moms requested the crew cut from the sober barber, Frank. Staring at the blue veins suspended in his soft, pendulous, milk-white arms before our eyes, our heads were shaved to shadow all around except for a little, one inch line of hairs in the very front. This was also called a butch haircut. The line of hairs became like a row of toothbrush bristles, straight and stiff, when we applied Butch Wax. Mmmmmmmm, Butch Wax! It came in a small, palm size jar. The wax was viscous, pink and scented with something that I wanted to eat.

One day, my next-door friend Daniel, who was six, called for me at the front screen door to come out and play. He had just gotten a butch and his row of blond bristles stood proudly at attention, having been freshly waxed. I went out and we soon got in a hassle on the front porch while playing with his toy cars. My anger escalated quickly and I invited him to put on the gloves. This was my dad’s prescription for an honorable solution to neighborhood conflicts; Daniel had not yet been initiated. I was angry yet calculating; as we got the huge, laceless boxing gloves from their place in the garage and put them on, I knew I would pound him. Daniel maintained a jovial, teasing attitude which was the source of my initial irritation. I recall my mood was dark and violent that day.

We squared off in my hot, grassy backyard, out of my mother’s view, near the back fence. I was bobbing and weaving with my chin tucked down like my dad had taught me. Daniel stood there with a smile, naively peeking from between the two gloves. I beat his shadow blond head with a flurry of rapid blows. With each blow, he cried harder and harder in a continuous crescendo of somber phonation from the first punch to the last. I stopped and he sobbed. I was stunned. I helped him take off the gloves without a word. I had flattened his blond row of waxy hairs. He walked out of the back gate, crying.

Gloves in arms, I went into the garage. I sat on the old, greasy workbench waiting for his mom or mine to admonish me. Neither came. One of my gloves had something on it. I touched it. It was sticky. I sniffed it. It was Butch Wax. I inhaled it. Seductively redolent at first, the scent insidiously filled me like the fumes of some vile toxin, eroding the retaining walls of my emotions. I cried like a baby who gets no relief from its distress. That was the last time I pounded anybody. The agony of that remorse has served as a natural aversive, a lifetime deterrent to my impulses of violence and vengeance.

JUNE 7, 1992

Early this morning about five, I was in the backyard pacing, restless, whistling. A cool breeze came up; I smelled distant winter in the air. I walked into my garage where I’ve assembled a gym; without forethought I started lifting.

I use a Soloflex. I like it. With the rubber weight straps I get a quiet, peaceful workout; there’s no banging of ear-damaging metal plates. I’ve been pumping rubber for three months; when I surf, it’s obvious that my strength and endurance for both upper and lower body functions has improved. This new strength catalyzes my determination to ride winter waves. I train compulsively three days a week in my stinking garage without fail. I surf five days a week, traveling to Ventura, waves or not. I’m stuck on that spot; California Street is the only place I want to surf. If it’s flat, I paddle a couple of miles up the coast and back, picking off any stray, wimpy waves. Then I get out of the water at the river and run—carrying my board—for four miles in the deep, soft sand down to San Pedro Street and back. I’m strong. I love the grit of a schedule: Work. Surf. Eat. Train.

My old relationship to odors is reemerging as a stimulant to my obsessiveness. In the late seventies I was obsessed with women. Nowadays I’m training and surfing like a fiend, no longer drawn to the female fragrance. The garage funk of gasoline, grease, moisture, old wood, traces of solvents from days gone by, dust and the smell of the rubber weight straps keeps me in there for the required workout hours. When I drive to the coast and smell the ocean, I get a boner every time. This is the only time I get an erection, when I first whiff the ocean through my car window. Down goes the dick predictably when I pull up on the parking brake at the condo lot—and it stays down until the next ride to the beach. This would seem bizarre to me had I not been through other such weird shit.

I’m planning for winter, calculating every training step, every attitudinal strategy, coaching myself. Unlike football, there’s no coach telling me I can’t play that day. The ocean makes that call. Last winter I caught more sizeable waves than ever before, but I didn’t rip. I’d make the drop and hang on, then maybe do a pretty good cutback, but no real carving, nothing much off the top or bottom. This winter I want to carve; I’m positive it’s within my range on bigger waves. I’ve been surfing remarkably better since my floating episode in January. My quiver is squared away; last fall Scott Logan shaped two new boards for me, a 6’ 6’’ and an 8-foot gun. Like my two other boards, they’re white with Scott’s blue logo on the deck near the nose as the only decorative touch. It says Scott Logan Designs. When I picked up the new boards, his shop had that freshly glassed surfboard smell.

The first time I walked into Logan’s, Scott himself was there, instructing a young woman on the care of her purchase, a new wetsuit. He glanced my way and said curtly that he’d be right with me. That day the shop was especially strong with the odor of new surfboards; I waited anxiously in the fumes of this unique aromatic compound. Having read about Logan in the surf magazines, I felt uneasy in response to his stature as an athlete and his authority as a surfboard designer—I was having a confidence meltdown. When he attended to me, we shook hands and I introduced myself, shyly explaining that I had been riding a boogie board for two years and I wanted to try surfing. As I jabbered this information, he kept hold of my hand while seeming not to hear my words. He looked at my eyes and continued to shake my hand long beyond what would be customary. I watched his face transform from hard, macho certainty to childlike glee. He reminded me of my kid: When he was three, every time I picked him up at his mom’s house for a visit, he jumped up and down for joy and looked up at me with smiling, euphoric eyes. Scott’s eyes beamed like that. Not even a surfer yet and I had connected with a shaper. Tutelage ensued.

Last night, surfing past twilight, I had another flying experience. I was having fun in the waves, surfing strong. There were rights and lefts which broke up the crowd, allowed me to get my share with no hassles. There was a good feeling in the water; everyone who could was riding. By dark I was completely alone. The waves backed off and the wind picked up. I got cold and bored. I thought of Gary’s flying game. Facing the flow of the water current and wind, I closed my eyes and instantly experienced the kinesthetic, tactile, and aural sensations of flight, seated on my board, legs dangling down in the fantasy sky, being jostled by imaginary drafts. In a matter of minutes I became drowsy, yet I began to visualize the buildings of the Ventura coast passing under me. I know what that part of the coast looks like from the air because I’ve studied numerous aerial photographs of it in the surf magazines and also viewed the town from the local hills in my parked car many times.

In my half-dream fantasy it was daytime. I flew over the fairgrounds, the oil storage tanks, the apartments, the condominiums, the Holiday Inn. I turned inland and glided up California Street to the magnificent courthouse; its 24 Franciscan monks’ heads—spooky faces in terra cotta relief—watched me approach. Whoa! As I made a sweeping U-turn to avoid their gaze, I saw people and cars moving in the town below. It was a vivid fantasy, extraordinary for its minutiae. I had to keep reminding myself not to fall asleep; I was constantly on the edge of slumber. I didn’t want to conk out on my board and drown.

Astride my magic carpet board, I headed back down California Street, passing over the freeway and the trestle, then out over the long Ventura pier. At the end of the pier I made a sharp right, up the coast toward Pipes. I slowly cruised at about three stories off the water’s surface. Looking to my right I saw the Holiday Inn—suddenly now in the dark of night—with the light of its bright green sign glimmering on the bay water. As I approached each in order, the condominiums, apartments, and fairgrounds were all lit up and twinkling, looking as they usually do when I paddle in from the sea at night. I floated along with a deep sense of peace and self-assurance. When I passed over Pipes, my tranquility and fortitude were shaken by what I saw. In my fantasy, I saw me down below, sitting on my board, facing the horizon with my eyes closed. I efficiently repressed the eerie sense of surprise that this vision induced. My confidence in my ability to maintain flight and control the fantasy waned. Was I asleep? The height bothered me and I feared that I might plummet, functioning more in a dream than with my remarkable imagination. The me down below opened his eyes; I decided to terminate the fantasy.

I opened my eyes expecting to see dark horizon; I saw instead the faint image of the blue Scott Logan Designs logo on the nose of my board. I was no longer seated, but floating above my board, about six feet high, in Superman flying posture; this was no fantasy. I felt my leash tugging gently at my ankle. The emotional part of me was shut off completely at this point. Within a few seconds I was being propelled out to sea, under no power of my own, at a slow velocity with my board in tow. The concentrated redolence of jasmine flowed through my nostrils and mouth into my lungs like gasoline into a carburetor. I reasoned that this jasmine might be the source of my involuntary propulsion. After going about a quarter of a mile out, I was stopped abruptly. My board caught up to me and kept going until the leash tugged it back under my prone body; it drifted slowly. I got an intense falling feeling in my stomach and indeed fell on top of my board, belly first, hitting my chin which knocked me into momentary semi consciousness. I was able to hold onto the board and was fully revived when the ocean lapped my face; I gasped the water into my throat, sat up quickly on the board choking. I sneezed hard three times. When I opened my eyes after the third sneeze, I saw a humungous pelican poised on the liquid surface in front of me—I sobbed at its presence as before. It looked at me with intent for several minutes, tilting its head from side to side like a curious dog, examining me subjectively. I felt extremely vulnerable by its proximity. With an awesome wingspan it rose from the water and flew over my head, causing me to duck reflexively. It stroked into the dark toward the pier.

Like last time, jasmine taste lingered while I paddled to shore, and again my appetite raged so that I could not reflect on my experience. On land, I ran to my car at a good clip, as fast as my reserve strength would allow. I dried off, packed up hastily and drove out of the condo parking lot with a feeling of desperate hunger.

On Highway 101, headed to the San Fernando Valley, near Malibu Canyon I was so seriously fatigued—depleted of all prior nourishment—I thought I would faint. The steering wheel became heavy in my hands. When I reached The Heart parking lot I was completely exhausted. On rubber legs, I hit the front door of the eatery. The smell of food perked me up. I sat down without washing my hands, at the end counter seat, and squinted the dinner special menu board into focus. Mexican! I screamed out loud. People stared; I didn’t care. In my lust for dinner, joy overwhelmed me and I fought back tears. The dinner special was Mexican food; I ordered two of them from the disbelieving waitress, Hannah. I patiently yet efficiently convinced her of my genuine need for two dinners; she brought them in short order: tamales, beans, soft tacos, Spanish rice, enchiladas, all with red and white sauce. It was perfection, each bite. I was on a food high. I digested this huge meal readily during the short time it took me to shop for a few things in The Heart market. My post-meal euphoria lasted only for the ride home in the cool night air. In my kitchen I prepared and devoured jumbo desserts of unspeakable quantities and ingredients.

JULY 17, 1992

I met Gary in Ventura after work. We checked the waves, stood around in the parking lot, talked for an hour. I didn’t tell him about my new experience. I hid it from him because I wanted to hide from it. We did our warm-up routine, suited up and jogged on the bike path past Pipes to the river mouth; with a small south swell at high tide, it looked best for that day. As we climbed down the rocky, sloping shoreline to the sea, we saw a big guy getting mauled by the high tide shore-pound on the jagged chunks of stone at Pipes. He was wearing trunks only. We watched while he climbed up to safety over the point rocks and slowly made his way to the bike path. We walked toward