Dawn Patrol

59

The Institute of Self Awareness was founded back in the 1960s.

Of course.

If there was any single word that typified that decade, it was self.

Some shrink came down from Esalen with a head full of acid and a trust fund and bought the old Episcopalian retreat that had been founded on a bluff above one of the best right breaks on the entire West Coast.

The shrink didn't surf but didn't mind those who did using the stairs on the south side of his property to go out and hit that marvelous break. To honor that generous man, and because The Institute of Self Awareness was too cumbersome to pronounce all the time, the beach below the retreat simply became known as “Shrink's.”

The Institute of Self Awareness became first a hippie, and later a New Age retreat where people could check into a room, eat vegetarian meals, take meditation seminars, yoga classes, and otherwise become aware of themselves.

“What does that mean?” Dave the Love God asked Boone one day while they were sitting in the lineup at Shrink's waiting for the next set and looking up at the retreat's cottages.

“It has nothing to do with masturbation,” Sunny told Hang Twelve.

“I don't know,” Boone said. “I guess you just do it.”

“Yeah, but do what?” Dave asked.

“Whatever it is.”

Then the set came in and they forgot about the question.

Boone had only been vaguely aware that the place was even called The Institute of Self Awareness anyway. He had always known it as Shrink's, had carried his board down those wooden steps probably hundreds of times, and there was no way he was ever going to check into a room, eat vegetarian meals, take meditation seminars, yoga classes, and otherwise become self-aware.

For one thing, he couldn't afford the steep room rate. For another thing, he wasn't introspectively inclined. For a third and final thing, he was already pretty aware of who he was.

“If there is one thing that can be said about Boone,” Sunny Day proclaimed during a reasonably drunken session at The Sundowner after closing time, “it is that he knows who he is.”

“That's true,” Boone said. “I surf, I eat, I sleep, I work-”

“Sometimes,” High Tide said.

“Sometimes,” Boone said, “and, every now and then-more then than now-I make love. And that's about it.”

But now he wishes that he had gone to the place at least once, so he'd know the lay of the land, because now he's pretty sure that's where Tammy is.

The Institute of Self Awareness has developed a specialized and lucrative clientele.

To wit, people-especially famous people-who have become aware that their real selves might need a little cosmetic surgery, need a place where they can hide from the prying eyes of the public while the swelling goes down, the black eyes fade, and time passes before they reemerge into the world with their new noses, breasts, faces, lips, stomachs, butts, or all of the above. So the ISA now makes a lot of its income by providing a cocoon in which celebrities can hide until they fully morph into their new selves.

And the institute zealously guards its clientele against the paparazzi, the tabloids, and the just plain curious. The founding shrink may not have thrown up any fences against the surfers, but the new management has built high walls to shield its guests against even the longest lenses of the paparazzi. The walls are topped with strands of barbed wire and motion sensors, lest anyone should try to climb in. Beefy security guards patrol the perimeter and man the front gate of the reception room, barring entrance to everyone but expected visitors and attending physicians.

So while tourists and local visitors can walk around the gardens all they want, to get into the private part of the retreat itself is akin to entering the gates of Troy.

Teddy can walk right in.

Theodore Cole, M.D., is a cash cow for The Institute of Self Awareness. Teddy not only has strippers in there recovering from boob jobs; he has Hollywood stars and starlets, Orange County trophy wives who want a little distance from their home turf, and San Diego society matrons from La Jolla who have coincidentally discovered their need for spirituality along with their face-lifts.

So if Teddy wants to store a girlfriend inside the walls for a night or two, the welcome mat is out. And if Teddy says that no one is going to get in there to look for her, then no one is going to get in there to look for her.