Desperation Reef

“Miss Wu, the second commandment says to love your neighbor as yourself. But I don’t love you. I’m closer to not liking you at all.”

“I’ll cry myself to sleep.”

Casey’s ear gets two kisses; then Bette rings off.

He calls Brock, who answers with an obscenity, sirens in the background.

“Mae got dognapped by pirates and they want twenty-five thousand dollars or they’ll throw her overboard. I’m calling them at noon tomorrow.”

Silence as the sirens whine. Casey can’t believe his own words: Would they really do that? The idea makes him queasy. Jelly kneed. Helpless. Like he’s being stranded in a leaking dinghy while Mae dogpaddles for some distant shore.

“Do you have the money, Case?”

“I can get it.”

“Mahina and I will be there tomorrow morning by six thirty.”

“I’m praying this works out,” says Casey.

“Prayer won’t do you one bit of good, brother.”

“No guns.”

“Don’t argue,” says Brock. “Don’t speak. See you soon.”

10

Casey distractedly fills drink orders and tries to yak with his customers while checking his balances. His thoughts are spinning and he can’t slow them down. Tessie and Aurora have stayed late. Tessie asks after Mae, who is often on her pad in the Barrel lobby, leashed to the ankle of the bronze statue of Casey’s dad.

“She’s at home, resting,” he says. “Worn out from the fishing today.”

Tessie looks at him doubtfully. “You okay tonight, Case?”

“Worn out, too, I guess. That was a big fish.”

“I’m ready for that surfing lesson whenever you are!”

“You got it, Tess. Maybe next week.”

Keeping track on the back of a bar check, he logs in the $648 in his checking account down at Wells Fargo, easily gettable in the morning. It’s mostly from tips and his small bartender’s hourly.

There’s another account with various sponsorship and endorsement money in it, about $4,000.

And $10,000 in CDs he opened with signing bonuses from a hip young clothing company and a start-up watchmaker. It will cost him an early withdrawal penalty of who knows what, but he thinks he can get most of that money tomorrow because the bank manager likes him.

Subtotaling $14,648, exactly $10,352 short.

“Fudge,” Casey mutters.

He’s got $1,500 in a savings account. And about a thousand in undeclared tips safe under the towels in a bathroom cabinet at home.

He adds it all up and writes the new $171,480 total excitedly, then takes a breath of deep relief. Checks his addition to find he’s slipped in an extra zero so the correct amount should be $17,148.

Still almost $8,000 to go.

Fudge me.

He knows what his tax returns say about gross income — just under $35,000 — annually, for his last few years at the Barrel.

Also knows he has plenty of new sponsor merch but it’s not like the pirates are going to want surfboards, XL wetsuits, trunks, beach shorts, T-shirts, hoodies, leather flip-flops, surf-inspired jewelry made of shells, beads, and sea glass. Certainly not organic sunscreen, Day-Glo nose-coats, CBD lip-savers, or blocks of scented surfboard wax. Maybe the Seiko Waterman watches, he thinks. He’s already given most of them to friends, but he’s got six of them with different-colored dials, still in their boxes, worth five hundred bucks a throw, though technically he’s not allowed to sell them.

“Casey! Another margarita! And a couple of Bohemias!”

A bank loan?

Or maybe money from Mom or Brock?

But Casey knows that Brock’s funding for the Breath of Life Rescue Mission isn’t steady, and he’s got Mahina depending on him. Plus, Brock blows money like crazy, getting the Go Dogs to the latest disaster with generous donations, but many of the life-saving supplies are covered by his always meager personal funds.

His mom has eight grand, though how much she can put her hands on, quickly, he doesn’t know. The idea of borrowing from your mom at age twenty-four doesn’t seem right.

Makes Casey feel like the dumbass that Brock and everybody else have always told him he is.

Later, after locking the Barrel doors for the night, he joins his mother on the outside deck for their customary vodka rocks.

It’s the only alcohol he drinks. One vodka with Mom, per night. Doesn’t love the woozy booze buzz; never has. He honors this ritual for her, though. She has her single drink with him, but Casey knows she drinks more at home, later, to help her sleep. He isn’t sure how much she drinks but he knows she’s up before dawn for her miles of paddling, swimming, running, weight lifting, breath exercises in the high school pool. All in preparation for the Monsters of Mavericks in a few short weeks. Then there’s her fourteen-hour days here at the Barrel, noon to 2 A.M. Six days straight and one day off.

His mother has always run on some inner fuel that Casey has never clearly understood. At times it seems desperate. He thinks it has to do with his father. Maybe with her near worship of him. And maybe to do with some things between them. Secrets. Regrets. Things unsaid. Maybe to do with trying to fill the immense hole that’s been in her for as long as he, Casey, has been alive. The same hole in him.