The Gentlemen's Hour

103

Dave the Love God climbs down from the tower.

Another uneventful day of watching tourists not drown. And tourists not drowning, as has been amply explained to him by the Chamber of Commerce, is a very good thing. Earlier in the year, a swimmer had been killed by a great white, which is a very bad thing—obviously for the swimmer but also for business, and also explained to the lifeguards by the Chamber.

Short of getting Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss and heading out in a boat, Dave’s not sure what he’s supposed to do about shark attacks, although he did actually foil a great white one time by kicking it in the nose. The fact is that the ocean does have sharks—and riptides and big waves—and people are going to be attacked, just as they’re going to drown; but statistically the most dangerous activity

by far

that people do in connection with the beach is to drive to it.

Anyway, he decides to grab a beer at The Sundowner. Johnny B might be there on his way to the night shift, High Tide is coming off his day, and Boone . . .

Who knows where Boone might be?

Boone is on some kind of strange, weird trip. Maybe it’s Sunny being gone, or his infatuation with the British betty—who is definitely, unquestionably,

hot

—or maybe it’s just that he’s tired of surfbumdom, but the Boone he knows is 404. It’s funny because Boone, more than any of them, could always find the through line of a wave, and would hold that line like he was laser-guided. Now he’s flapping around all over the water like some newbie kook, headed for a bad wipeout.

Sure enough, Johnny Banzai and Tide are holding the bar in place, although JB is nursing a Diet Coke.

“S’news?” Dave asks.

“Nuttin’,” Tide says.

“S’up, Johnny?”

“S’up, Dave?”

There’s nothin’ up in August, man—not the surf, not their spirits. Only thing that’s up is the temp.

And the tension, because Johnny B looks worked.

“Boone is helping Alan Burke fuck me,” Johnny explains.

“What?” Dave asks. Boone fucking over a friend? Not poss.

“It’s true,” Tide says. He tells Dave about Boone joining the Blasingame defense team.

“Backpaddle,” Dave says. “You’re telling me that Boone is trying to rescue the little bastard who killed K2? No freaking way.”

Johnny shrugs, like, it’s true, go figure.

“Whoa,” Dave says. What the crud is happening to us? he wonders. What’s happening to the Dawn Patrol?

It’s shrinking for one thing, he thinks.

Sunny is gone.

And face it, Boone may be on his way out, if he’s not adiós already.

What’s that old cliché about (shudder) marriages—“We just drifted apart?” Are we just drifting apart, Dave wonders, or is it more than that?

Too bummed for a beer, Dave just heads home.