The Gentlemen's Hour

29

The next morning’s Dawn Patrol is another dull session, surfwise.

The sea is flat glass—any half-competent surgeon could do delicate brain surgery sitting on a longboard in this ocean. Michelangelo could lie on a board and paint the Sistine . . . ahh, you get the idea.

Johnny tries to bust up the monotony.

“Do ducks,” he asks, “really line up in a row?”

“Ducks?” Dave asks. “In a row? Why?”

“Why do I ask, or why do they line up in a row?”

“We haven’t established yet that they

do

line up in a row,” Tide says, “so Dave is asking why you’re asking. Is that what you’re asking, Dave?”

“Yeah, I’m asking why JB wants to know whether ducks line up in a—”

Boone dips his head into the water. When he comes back up Johnny is saying, “You know the expression ‘ducks in a row’? I’m seeking input whether that reflects a zoological reality, or it’s just bullshit.”

“It would be an ‘ornithological’ reality,” Boone says, “not a ‘zoological’ reality.”

“Good pickup, B,” Dave says. “We finally know the question that Banzai missed on his SATs.”

“Let it go, Dave.”

“So?’ Johnny asks. “Has anyone actually ever seen ducks in a row?”

“I believe that ducks,” Boone says, “are freshwater creatures. Hence, I don’t know that I’ve actually ever seen

ducks

, in a row or otherwise.”

“I’ve seen ducks in a row,” Tide offers.

“You have?” Johnny asks.

“At the Del Mar Fair,” Tide says. “At one of those booths where you shoot the BB guns. The ducks were all in a row.”

“This is just what I mean,” Johnny says. “Is that an imitation of actual nature, or the perpetuation of an ornithological myth?”

“An avian stereotype?” Boone asks. “Pelicans are gluttons, seagulls are filthy, ducks are anal-retentive—”

“Can you be politically incorrect about birds?” Dave asks.

“Only birds of color,” Tide says. “Or female birds. White male birds you can trash. This Irish seagull waddles past a bar and—”

Hang Twelve sits up on his board and in a tone of unusual authority pronounces, “When the mother duck has

baby

ducks, the baby ducks swim behind her in a precise row.”

“You’ve personally witnessed this?” Johnny challenges.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Where what?”

They stare at each other for a second, then Johnny says, “We have to get some waves.”

“We really do.”

“We’re pathetic,” High Tide says.

“We are,” Boone agrees.

He’s not sure whether it’s the absence of waves or the absence of Sunny that is the main source of this malaise. Probably both, but Sunny would have put a quick and witty end to this idiot discussion with some deadly accurate barb.

“Maybe we need to recruit another female onto the Dawn Patrol,” Boone suggests.

“A replacement Sunny?” Dave asks.

“We already have Not Sunny the Waitress,” Tide says. “Do we also want Not Sunny the Surfer?”

“Recruiting a replacement Sunny,” says Johnny, clearly nonplussed, “would be making a statement that the real Sunny isn’t coming back.”

She isn’t, Boone thinks. She’s moved on. To the professional, sponsored surfer ranks. Good for her, but we have to face the fact that we’re mostly going to be seeing Sunny on magazine covers, not out here in the lineup.

Hang Twelve, mouth agape, stares at him.

“What?” Boone asks.

“Shame on you,” Hang says.

The session drags on in desultory silence. Even the ocean doesn’t make a pretense of showing up, just lies there lifeless and supine.

“It’s like a big lake,” Tide says.

“Lakes don’t have salt,” Hang says, still pouting over Boone’s suggestion of replacing Sunny. “There’s no such thing as a big salt lake.”

The other surfers look at each other for a second, then Johnny says, “No. Don’t bother.”

They don’t. They don’t bother to educate Hang about Utah, they don’t bother to launch into another topic of conversation, the ocean doesn’t bother to come up with waves. Boone is grateful when the Dawn Patrol drags to an end and the guys start to paddle in.

“You coming?” Dave asks him.

“Nah, I’m going to hang.”

He looks toward the shore, where the veteran denizens of the Gentlemen’s Hour are already gathering, pointing at nonexistent waves, sipping coffee, and sucking cigarettes, doubtless talking about flat Augusts past.

And Dan Nichols is paddling out.