Desperation Reef

44

Brock goes to the church wall, draws his sidearm from beneath his Hawaiian shirt, and sets it near the flamethrower.

Comes back and sits across from Kasper Aamon, leaning back and crossing his arms.

No words between Brock and Kasper as they watch the Go Dogs and the Right Fighters crunch off and lean their long guns against the wall. Carefully set their holstered handguns on the ground. Go Dogs guns on one side of the flamethrower; Right Fight’s on the other.

They return to their tables and sit.

Time passes in a muted, near silence. Eyes watch them from the thick manzanita. Children’s laughter comes through the open windows of the chapel. The Kupchiks and their son bring plates of food to one of the far tables. They wave. Brock notes how much better the boy looks, his respiratory infection handled pro bono by an Anza Valley doctor. They’ve decided to stay awhile rather than head off to Tulsa.

Brock sees that some of the Breath of Life parishioners have crept back from their trailers; some of the earlier guests have left their cars and reappeared for the Thanksgiving feast.

Brock spots two drones easing in low from the north — Riverside Sheriffs is his guess, sent in response to the 911 calls no doubt called in by his frightened congregation.

Kasper Aamon takes a long look at them, too, then turns to Brock.

“So your brother won the surfing contest,” he says, trying to saw off a bite of white meat with the tiny plastic knife. Which snaps in half. Kasper leans left a little, almost tipping over his chair, then deploys a big hunting knife to cut the turkey. “I watched on ESPN 3. Drank beer through a straw.”

“Mom won best wipeout. That’s her down at the end.”

Aamon calls to Jen: “I saw your wipeout! You’re weird people to do stuff like that just for fun!”

Jen lifts an energy drink to him. “It’s in our blood!”

Another wordless pause, suddenly broken by the rough clatter of two helicopters descending from the south. Brock sees the green-and-white of Border Patrol, and the black-and-white of the sheriffs.

The drones close in, buzzing like big mosquitoes.

Then Kasper to Brock: “What it comes down to is, we don’t have much to say to each other. We have different beliefs, different convictions.”

“Yeah, well, people can change, too.”

“Don’t give me some shit about agreeing to disagree. We believe in different gods, too. And that’s where I draw the line.”

Brock nods. “Try this: the only god I believe in is the Breath of Life.”

“No. The first rule is: there’s only one.”

“You don’t know that, Kasper. You can’t.”

“I’m absolutely positive.”

Brock shrugs. “Look around you. Your god could use some help. That’s what we do. Help.”

Aamon gives Brock a long look, something like amusement on his face.

“So, just one question, Brother Brock. What’s with the hair? You trying to be a Black guy or something?”

“I like it this way. Feels right.”

“Hmpf.”

The drones vanish into the blue. The helicopters spiral down in a loose helix to hover like tremendous dragonflies over a pond. Sand swirls, plates and cups jump into the air. Some of the celebrants hold their hats.

Brock stands, raises both hands and flips them off. Aamon next, then the Go Dogs and the Right Fighters. Raised fingers and drowned-out “fuck-yous!” Most of the others have their faces down now, holding on to their hats, protecting their eyes. Mae barks and wags her tail, her voice hardly audible against the whirlybirds.

Children spill from the church. One of the boys points a yellow squirt gun at the choppers, and another launches a rubber-tipped arrow from a tiny bow. A girl has a small Dalmatian puppy by its middle, legs paddling air, hugging it to her chest.

Brock foresees a terrible massacre about to unfold, remembers all the cops who’ve mistaken cell phones for guns, kiddie toys for the real thing.

He and Mahina start toward them, but the swift kids are almost to their table by then. Mahina sits back down and shelters the girl and her puppy on her spacious lap. Brock snatches away the boys’ weapons and plops them into the rickety folding chairs.

The helicopters nose in closer, their mechanized roar lowering over him. Brock can hardly see through the blowing sand and dust.

Then, the choppers suddenly rise, back off from each other, and bank away into the sky.

Their terrifying voices fade, then vanish. Like a storm switched off, thinks Brock. Or a killer swell at Mavericks retreating to the deep.

As the dust settles, he looks to the Right Fighters and the Go Dogs — some still flipping off the government warships, some smiling, but none moving toward their guns under the awning.

He takes the puppy from Mahina’s lap.

Even with the adrenaline coursing through him, Brock has never felt this exhausted in his life — not from fire or flood or being rag-dolled across reefs by monstrous waves all over the planet.

But he feels the breath of life in him, going out and coming in.

Kasper Aamon is looking at him. “Want to join us, Stonebreaker? Fight for the right stuff? You just saw your government at work for you.”

“You’re a hypocrite, Aamon. You want to rat out my church to the government you say you hate. It’s their power you crave. We’ll never join you. We like the people you hate.”

Brock reaches out and one-hands the puppy across the table and into Kasper Aamon’s big paws. Another wordless moment as the Dalmatian licks Aamon’s broken jaw.

Kasper sets the dog on his lap.

“Stonebreaker,” he says, gesturing with both hands to the churchyard and the people. “Are you willing to die for what you believe?”

“Yes, but I’d rather die in my sleep.”

Aamon considers the pup, petting its head as he gives Brock an assessing glare. “First you break my jaw. Now you try to break my will to hate you. With food? You think we’re your Thanksgiving savages? Quaint. But I’ll admit I’m finding it difficult to hate you personally. Much as I hate the people you harbor here in this fine country. Which does not belong to them. So, thanks for the grub. We’ll say our goodbyes now, and get to shooting that video we need to shut down this heathen slum.”

A hawk keens high up in the heavy dark sky. Scrub jays bicker on the aluminum roof of the church. Faint music from the trailers.

Pastor Mike stands. “First, I’d like to offer up a prayer of thanks.”

Brock is still standing from the puppy pass-off.

“I’ll say the prayer, Grandpop,” he says.

“Go then, Brock.”

Mike sits and Brock looks to the people. Absorbs their attention and bows his head, loc spikes raised like antennae. His voice is rough and resonant:

“Breath of life,

Hear our voices,

We breathe you in, and breathe you out,

Breath of life,

Give us life,

Give us the strength to love. Hallelujah and amen.”

Jen opens her dust-stung eyes at “Hear our voices” and watches Brock — her smaller, darker, more passionate, less happy twin son. Her mutineer. Her prophet. Her fearless big-wave rider. He always wanted to be believed, she thinks. Watches him here, believing himself.

Then she looks at Casey, sitting with his head bowed, hands folded, blond forelock forward, unflappable Mae dozing between his feet. Casey: her gentle, loving boy, now man. Her born believer. The most beautiful wave rider she’s ever seen, his father and brother included. I don’t love that woman beside him, Jen thinks. I could try.

Casey takes Bette’s hand. Feels that familiar jolt when he touches her. They trade glances and he squeezes her hand and listens to Brock asking the Breath of Life for peace. Casey smiles at that: Brock’s never had peace for more than a minute at a time in his life. Not your karma, brah. Never seen a wave you couldn’t ride, a fire you wouldn’t fight, a flood you wouldn’t paddle your kayak over, a man you couldn’t whup. Including me. But, like, peace?

He toes off one sheepskin moccasin, rubs a knobby foot along Mae’s soft Labrador flank.

Smiles at “Hallelujah and amen,” thinking: epic prayer, bro. You dropped right into that monster. You own it.

Mae likes Casey’s warm foot, raises her head and squints up at him, then thumps back down into a favorite dream, on Casey’s boat, going fast, watching the birds dive into a patch of white water in a green ocean. Loud noise and the boat bumping. No words for all this, only memories.

Suddenly, raindrops come roaring down, big as blueberries, densely packed and hitting hard.

The children and the innocent pour into the big cinderblock building.

The Go Dogs and the Right Fighters scramble to the wall and collect their arms.

The Go Dogs follow the children into the church, and the Right Fighters trot through the deluge for their yellow-and-black dune buggies.

Standing in the open doorway of the chapel, Brock watches the buggies splash down the gravel road, American flags swaying soggily, clouds of exhaust heavy in the rain. He watches Kasper Aamon’s vehicle bounce off the main road and into a sandy wash that leads to the trailers.

Followed by the Right Fighters, buggy engines whining.

He can’t believe Kasper is doing this.

But he’s not surprised one bit, either.

“Enough of this shit,” Brock mutters to himself.

His duty is to the people who have come here for sanctuary, not to change the minds of those who are here to hurt them.

He collects Dane Brockman, Javier Frias, and Keyshawn Quadra, and eight more of his most capable Go Dogs. Eleven of them — his almost dirty dozen.

He fixes Mahina with a hard look, but she’s already slung her combat shotgun over her shoulder and she barges past him into the rain like he’s not there.

Make that twelve, he thinks: Breath of Life, get us through this hour.

He’s got them outnumbered.

Brock directs half his Go Dogs to the eastern narrows of the wash, then he and Mahina and five others lope through the rain toward the western bend.

He figures that the Right Fighters are headed for the trailer encampment that lies on the higher ground edging the wash, where they’ll shoot their pics and vids, then circle back to the church and the outbuildings, and his home.

And after that? Time for Kasper’s flamethrower?

The rain has lessened and the wind slants it sideways.

Brock can see the yellow-and-black dune buggies through the dense manzanita, and the first row of trailers huddled in the rain. There are lights on in some of them, movement behind the curtains, dogs barking from behind raised cinderblocks.

He shoulders into the sharp, stout bushes, breaking his way to the wash, Mahina and his Dogs behind him.

He sees bear-like Kasper out ahead of the others, already on the far side, the gun of his flamethrower holstered to his hip, a video camera held up, shooting the trailers.

Behind Aamon, two of his dune buggies are mired in the runoff, big tires sunk into the mud, the drivers trying to gun them back to shore, raising rooster tails of mud high into the air.

Drenched Brock watches the other three Right Fighters — two men and women — slipping and sloshing along the bank toward the trailers.

Behind them Brock sees Dane, Javier, Keyshawn, and three more Dogs in measured pursuit, weapons drawn, gaining.

Watches as Kasper lets the camera dangle around his neck, takes up the dual-gripped gun and fires a stream of orange-blue flame against the nearest trailer.

Disbelief joins fury in Brock’s combustive heart.

The flame hits the aluminum and sizzles out in the rain, so Aamon shoots another sword of fire but again, the rain drowns it to nothing.

Brock and Mahina ford the wash, feet spread, swaying with the current, guns trained on Kasper, five Go Dogs just behind them.

And, Brock sees, another six Dogs closing in on the far bank.

“Kasper!” screams Brock. “You are not allowed to do this!”

Kasper gives him an almost placid look, then fires another jet of fire against the blackened trailer from which Brock now sees the Jones family — Gloria, Burt, and two daughters — burst from the little front door and run into brush, followed by a small white pit bull, stubby legs already half covered with mud.

The rain picks up again now, heavy, windblown and warm.

Brock slogs on, into the smell of gasoline.

Aamon wheels and throws a comet of flame toward Brock, but the homemade weapon doesn’t have much range, and the fire crashes and smokes out in the rushing brown water.

“And you are not allowed to break my jaw and found a nation of filthy heathens!” roars Kasper. “I have the Constitution to enforce.”

“Drop the gun, Kasper!”

Kasper fires a weakening stream of flame toward Brock but again it falls into the water and sizzles out. Which lets Brock check his flank, where he sees Dane, Javier, and Keyshawn — guns drawn — surrounding Right Fighters, some with their arms raised and others on their knees, breathing heavily.

Kasper rounds the Jones trailer and aims the flamethrower at the door, slamming open and shut in the wind.

Brock is clambering on all fours up the collapsing bank of the wash when he sees Burt Jones crash through the brittlebush and tackle Aamon from behind.

Brock is on them fast, trying to pull skinny Burt off Aamon, but Burt holds fast to the red cylinders and together they drag Kasper out of the trailer and into the warm downpour.

Big Kasper rolls over and tries to shoot Brock in the face but the newly bent and creased barrel pours smoking orange-black lava down his arm and Kasper Aamon howls in agony that dwarfs even the roar of the storm.

Brock snatches the gun away, pulls bellowing Aamon to the bank and into the rushing flood.

Watches as the big man flails into the deeper middle current, arms clubbing away, his screams high-pitched and terrified. He’s already gulping air.

Running along the treacherous bank beside him, Brock thinks: I can do nothing but watch, and let Kasper die. Or jump in and save his sorry ass to fight his right fight another day, and another, and another.

Or maybe change?

Atone?

Forgive?

Generally just get his shit together?

He slides down the embankment, dives flat in, and breaststrokes downstream, the muddy floodwater tumbling Aamon out ahead of him.

Brock snags the backpack flamethrower with one hand, side-stroking at an angle and scissor-kicking hard. Finally rises and drags his cursed, gasping enemy toward the near bank.