Dawn Patrol

71

Hang Twelve runs.

Pushing off on all twelve toes, he hoofs it as hard as he can toward Sunny's house. Like he's trying to pump the fear through his bloodstream and out of his body.

It ain't working.

Hang is terrified.

Word traveled down to Pacific Beach with the speed of rumor itself. The Boonemobile went off the bluff at Sea Cliff Park and burst into flames. Boone Daniels hasn't been found. The firemen are there now. There's already talk of a paddle-out and a memorial service after the big swell is over.

Hang doesn't know what to do with his fear, so he takes it to Sunny.

You gotta understand where he's coming from.

Where he came from.

Father a tweeker, mother a drunk, Brian Brousseau's home life, if you want to call it that, was a bad dream during a nightmare. Brian got about as much care and attention as the cat, and you don't want to see the cat. He was about eight when he started picking up the leftover roaches lying around the crappy little house.

Brian liked the feeling he got from smoking the roaches. It eased his fear, muffled the fights between his mom and dad, helped him get to sleep. By the time he was in junior high, he was toking up every day, before and after school. When school was finally over, he'd wander down to the beach, smoke up, and watch the surfers. One day, he was sitting in the sand, just toasted, when this surfer came out of the water, walked up to him, and said, “I see you here every day, grom.”

Brian said, “Uh-huh.”

“How come you just watch?” Boone asked. “How come you don't surf?”

“Don't know how,” Brian said. “Don't have a board.”

Boone nodded, thought about it a second, looked down at the skinny little kid, and said, “You want to learn? I'll show you.”

Brian wasn't so sure. “You a fag, man?”

“You want to ride or not, dude?”

Brian wanted.

Scared as shit, but he wanted.

“I can't swim,” he said.

“Then don't fall off,” Boone said. He looked down at Brian's feet. “Dude. Do you have six toes?”

“Twelve.”

Boone chuckled. “That's your new name, gremmie-‘Hang Twelve.’”

“Okay.”

“Stand with your feet about shoulder width,” Boone said.

Hang got up. Boone shoved him in the chest. Hang stepped back with his right foot to keep his balance. “What-”

“You're a goofy-foot,” Boone said. “Left-footed. Lie down on the board.”

Hang did.

“On your stomach, ” Boone said. “Jesus.”

Hang turned over.

“Now, jump up on your knees,” Boone said. “Good. Now into a squat. Good. Now stand.”

Boone made him do it twenty times. By the time Hang finished, he was sweating and breathing hard-it was the most exercise he'd done maybe in his life-but he was totally into it. “This is fun, dude!”

“It's even more fun in the water,” Boone said. He led Hang out to where some small waves were coming in shallow, had him lie down on the board, and pushed him into a wave. Hang rode it in like a boogie board.

Insta-love.

Hang kept Boone out there all frigging afternoon, until the sun set and after. On his third ride, he tried to stand. He fell off on that wave and the next thirty-seven. The sun was a bright orange ball on the horizon when Hang stood up on the board and rode it all the way to shore.

First thing he'd ever achieved.

The next day was Saturday, and Hang was out there first thing in the morning, standing on the beach and staring out at The Dawn Patrol.

“Who's the grem?” Dave asked from the lineup.

“A stoner kid,” Boone said. “I dunno, he looked lost, so I took him out.”

“A stray puppy?” Sunny said.

“I guess,” Boone said. “He took to it, though.”

“Grems are a pain in the ass,” Dave warned.

“We were all grems once,” Sunny said.

“Not me,” Dave said. “I was born cool.”

Anyway, it was tacit permission to go bring the kid in. Boone got off the board on his next ride and went up to Hang. “You wanna surf?”

Hang nodded.

“Yeah, okay,” Boone said. “I have an old stick in my quiver over there. It's a piece of shit, a log basically, but it will ride. Get it out, wax it; then I'll show you how to paddle out. You stay close to me, out of other people's way, try not to be a total kook, okay?”

“Okay.”

Hang waxed the board, paddled out, and got in everyone's way. But that's what grems do-it's their job. The Dawn Patrol ran interference for him, both with the ocean and the other surfers. No one messed with the kid because it was clear that he was under The Dawn Patrol's collective wing.

Hang took the board home that night.

Leaned it against the wall next to his bed.

Hang might have been invisible at home, he might have been a nothing at school, but now he had an identity.

He was surfer.

He was Dawn Patrol.

Now he runs toward Sunny's house, gets to her door, and pounds on it. A few minutes later, a sleepy Sunny comes to the door.

“Hang, what-”

“It's Boone.”

He tells her about Boone.