Desperation Reef

“Now, Casey, reach back with your right hand and place your thumb between the waistband and your waist. Yeah, good — now put your fingers in the pocket and spread them out, like you’re trying to find something in there. Now, with your thumb still hooked over the waistband, lower the trunks an inch down your right side. Keep those fingers spread — you’re searching for your car key in the pocket. Or maybe some ChapStick. Yes, good bun work!”

kerchack kerchack kerchack

“Now pull down a little harder, Case, give me another inch of skin. It looks great, by the way, you were smart to do the tanning back there. Good, tan, oiled, and glittering muscle.”

kerchack kerchack kerchack kerchack

Casey shakes his head slowly and smiles at the black backdrop, holds his pose, thumb on his trunks, fingers in his rear pocket, as it hits him that this is one of the funniest but most uncool things he’s ever done. He listens to the camera motor drive, firing away like it can’t get enough. It’s some kind of rad joke, he thinks, to tan and oil your butt for a picture. He decides to post about this. Make a little fun of himself. God knows what the Santa Cruz boys will say. Maybe post when the story comes out in T&A.

“Do you ever get tired of being handled like a piece of meat in some of these photo shoots?” asks the writer.

“Not really,” Casey says over his shoulder. “The people are always nice, and if it’s for an ad, it pays really good. But I do wonder what God thinks.”

“What do you think He thinks?”

“He must see vanity under the sun, and striving after mammon. Maybe some not-cool sacrilege and coveting, too, in how people think when they see the pictures. Nothing super heavy, though.”

“So far as pictures go, Casey,” says the photographer, “these will be pretty tame. I don’t think God would mind one little bit. He’s got bigger fish to fry, this world being what it is.”

“Gnardical,” says Casey.

“What’s that mean?” she asks.

“Gnarly and radical together. Gnardical.”

“You mean God and frying fish?”

“Exactly.”

Half an hour later the photog says it’s a wrap.

“Thanks, Casey. You’re great to work with. And I have hellos to you from Bette Wu. We went to school together at UCLA. I shot her in Laguna a few days ago. Bette lit up when I told her we’d be working together. Says she knows you.”

Casey doesn’t know what to say to that, goes with nothing.

“Oh, and don’t miss that billboard right out front on Sunset.”

17

With the photo shoot done, Casey puts his shirt and jeans and flip-flops back on, then pulls up a director’s chair in front of the writer. The stage is dark and the fans turned to low.

He talks and talks.

Interviews are easy now. He used to get excited and wig out talking about surfing and lose his train of thought, but at twenty-four he’s so used to talking about himself — how he does what he does, and what’s the biggest wave, scariest break, most dangerous wipeout, most terror-struck moment in the water he’s ever experienced — that he can answer without really thinking. He knows what a sound bite is.

But sometimes, an interviewer wants to get the really choice, heavy-duty stuff, which is what this writer asks now:

“So, Mr. Stonebreaker, why do you ride waves so big they can easily kill you? Give the why of it.”

This isn’t a simple answer, but Casey doesn’t have to think about it.

“I feel God when I’m on a big wave. He’s closest to me then. I’m His creation and He loves me.”

A moment of silence while the writer nods and looks down at his tape recorder.

“What about the rest of the time?”

“Oh, for reals, man. But not as strong. I went to the interactive van Gogh a couple of years ago, and felt God there. Yeah. In every one of those pixels.”

Keneally clears his throat.

“Where do you think Jesus Christ fits into all this?”

“He’s a part of everything, like we all are.”

“Even the wicked?”

“Maybe less so them,” says Casey. “I’m not sure how it all works.”

Mae seems to have sensed that things might be winding down here. Aging and slow, she lumbers to Casey’s side and lies beside his chair.

He leans over and scratches behind one ear, runs his finger along her graying muzzle.

“Good luck at the Monsters of Mavericks,” says the writer.

“Thanks, man. I’ll be ready.”

“Some of the contest people up in Half Moon Bay say all the contestants have a chance, but don’t say you’re a contender. Your brother, but not you. Thoughts on that?”

Which hurts Casey’s feelings, on top of his rep as a privileged, semi-talented, money-mad, pretty-boy action doll.

“I hope Brock wins,” he says.

“Instead of you?”

“Heck yeah.”

“When does he find time to surf and train, with all those rescue missions he does — the fires and floods and hurricanes, or taking those vaccines to people who couldn’t leave their homes or tents or encampments?”

“Brock has the energy of ten men,” says Casey. “And doesn’t even train that much for contests,” says Casey. “He’s a total natural.”