Chapter Thirteen

Tara was walking toward me. I didn’t want her feeling sorry for me. I wanted to get the hell out of there. She’d do better if she wasn’t hanging out with a real loser.

I almost got away, but Ray pulled up just as I was about to walk home with my board and my wounded pride tucked under my arm. He got out of his van and put himself in my path. His skin was pale. He was sweating even though it was cool.

“Humbling, isn’t it?” He could read me like a book.

“No philosophy lesson today, okay?” I was feeling mean and didn’t want to have to hear any of his little speeches.

“Thought you were going into the longboard division too.”

“I had enough for one day.”

“Hell, man. If you’re losing, be the best at it. Go for broke. Be the best at losing. I take it things didn’t go well in the juniors.”

“Gee, Ray, you’re, like, psychic. You should have your own tv show.” I had never been this rude to him before. I just couldn’t help myself.

“You could probably use that edginess. Make it work for you.”

“I’m done with contests, Ray. I wish you hadn’t talked me into it. It sucks all the fun out of surfing.”

“Sorry about that,” he said seriously. “Some things do suck all the fun out of anything.”

“How would you know?” I asked, wanting to be out of this conversation.

“I’ll tell you one thing that kind of takes the joy away. Dying, Ben. That’s the chip on my shoulder. I’m dying. I’ve known it for a while, and the thought does get in my way sometimes. Like on a good day back there with you at Nirvana Farm. I kept thinking, I may never get to experience this again.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ray had to lean against his van. Mickey D poked his head out the window and licked him on the cheek. “I came here to die, Ben. I’ve been fighting cancer for about three years, but it’s been winning. I was feeling better when I came here but knew it couldn’t last.”

“You’re making this up.”

“Hey, I wish I was. I didn’t write this script. I’d pencil in a happy ending, but maybe this is as happy as it gets. I was at the hospital this morning. Reviewed the whole thing with the cancer doctors here. They figure I should have been dead months ago. So it could be any time now.”

I felt light-headed. “Ray, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I got to live one hell of a life. No big complaints.” He paused. “I could have stayed home in California and watched all my buddies feeling sorry for me. Hell, they’d even let me steal their waves because they knew I only had a few more rides before lights out. But I had this vision in my head—being on the road with Mickey D and coming here. I’d always wanted to come to Nova Scotia. So I decided to come here to surf and then...well, you know.”

My throat was tight and I couldn’t talk.

“What can I do to help?” I finally said. The dog was licking his face again. For the first time, I could see it in him. I could see death catching up with him. I could see it in his eyes.

“Surf, Benjamin. Go in front of all those people and surf in the longboard heat. Surf like a god or surf like a gremlin, but just go do it. And I’ll watch.”

It was the last thing I wanted to do.

“What if I suck?”

“If you’re gonna lose, lose big-time. Have some fun with it. Show ’em all you can take it.”

Twenty minutes later, I was paddling back out into those gnarly, bumpy brown waves. The chop was worse. The waves were worse. My competitors were all older guys who knew how to handle the conditions. They were good. They made it across difficult sections, they had some longboard moves— walking to the nose, and one guy could even do a spinner.

All I could do was make the drop, get a few feet across a wall and then get walloped by the dirty lip of the thick wave. I took off on six waves. I got creamed by every one. But I just kept paddling back out for the punishment until my twenty minutes in hell were over.

When the horn sounded and I got out of the water, people started cheering. They had loved the wipeouts. Spectators always do.

Ray was smiling at me as Tara ran up and put her arms around me. “You were amazing,” she said.

“I did terrible.”

“Yeah, but you kept paddling back out and didn’t seem to care that the waves were eating you up.”

“How’d you do in your heat?” I asked.

“I lost,” she said. “But I didn’t lose as well as you.”

Ray joined us and we waited for the scoring. I came in dead last in my heat.

“Warrior mentality,” Ray said. “Congratulations.”