(Redwood National Park ~ 1974)
A sooty, cold day and thick stratus clouds blanketed the coast from Tomales Bay all the way north to Gold Beach. Rain had drizzled intermittently for a week. Offshore, a pair of surfers stationed outside the line of breakers. Their colorful wetsuits and boards made them look like orchids bobbing on an iron sea. One of the surfers pointed to the foam blowing off the wave cresting a few yards away. “It’s gettin’ hairy, Sully.” she shouted to her companion.
“Let’s try some of that,” Sully called back as he paddled to catch the next comber. Both were relaxed and smiling at one with the sea.
The surfers’ old yellow pick-up truck was the only automobile in the parking lot where a prominent sign announced that no lifeguard was on duty and the beach was closed. To the north, sheltered from the offshore wind by the low bluff and a pile of driftwood, a solitary figure slouched against a worn and faded olive drab pack. Almost invisible, his serape and cap were the same browns and grays as the surrounding landscape. Tucked into the rocks he had kindled a small fire. He was watching the surfers and playing a tin whistle, but its tune was lost in the wind. The whistler and his dog were traveling south for the winter.
He watched as the surfers came in on the same wave side by side and kicked out at the shore break in tandem. The surfers were so physically similar he thought they might be twins, brother and sister. Both were tall, lean, dark haired, and muscular. Knowledgeable from years as a spectator, the whistler appreciated the pair as others might a pas de deux. He softly applauded their most recent wave and, nodding toward them, addressed the small dog leaning against him. “Josie, love, you’re sleeping though a marvelous show. Those children are a pair of falcons in their prime!” The dog put her muzzle in the whistler’s palm and went back to sleep.
An aluminum camp pot was suspended over the fire by an impromptu driftwood tripod. Fish soup simmered in it. The whistler sipped wine from a plastic cup, tasted the soup, and added wine to it. Returning to his tin whistle, he watched as the surfers paddled out together toward the line of breakers.
The whistler was so engrossed in the surfers and his music that he didn’t notice the California Highway Patrol cruiser pull into the parking lot nor the lanky female officer who swung out and was approaching him across the sand. She picked up her feet one at a time, as if wading through sewage in Sunday shoes.
Officer Diana Riley didn’t like what she had to do. If fact, right now there wasn’t much Diana liked about her job. She worked alone. The first woman in CHP’s Northern Division, other cops shunned her, making her feel like a malpractice lawyer at a medical convention. Even her job title, ‘Women’s Traffic Officer Patrol,’ called a ‘WeTop’ was a source of crude locker room humor. The only day-to-day human contact she had was ticketing speeders, some of them stone assholes. And, there was always the risk that she’d be shot by one them. Most Californians didn’t understand that drug traffickers infested her rural northern county, all of them prison hardened and armed.
Di’s cruiser carried more firepower than a battleship, and, notwithstanding enthusiastic indoctrination, she didn’t like that or carrying a sidearm. For one thing, her pistol was heavy and threw her posture out of alignment.
Tourists make pilgrimage to Northern California to experience its storied coastline and ancient, sacred redwood groves. Then they crash their way through at 85 mph.
Now she had to ticket two surfers and run off this harmless old tramp. Welcome to California. Surfing this beach is illegal and we don’t like walkers. Just drive through at the posted speed limit and buy souvenirs made in China. Have a Big Mac and a Cherry Coke. Have a nice day. Now go home.
Why had she talked to the California Highway Patrol recruiter on careers day at San Jose State? And now, damn it all, she had sand in her shoes! It would have to stay there until she was home and shed of her gun belt and harness. Life sucks, she thought.
The tramp’s dog uttered a low growl to alert her master to Di’s presence, but did not rise to challenge her. A good dog. The old man did rise, but took off his hat, made a funny old fashioned bow, and greeted her. “Good afternoon, officer.” He said. “Yes, I saw the sign saying the beach was closed for the season and I know camping is a regulated industry in the Golden State. We’ll move on.” Still smiling, he said, “Remember your manners, Josie my girl.” With that the dog sat up and offered Di her right paw. She smiled, her eyes behind mirrored sunglasses, but recovered her cop face.
Diana Riley was impressed. The old boy had a beautiful Irish accent and he didn’t offer any of the usual lame bullshit. If he’d said he didn’t know this was a California State Beach or hadn’t read the sign, she’d have quit CHP on the spot – driven her cruiser into the surf and joined the Peace fucking Corp! People think that cops are stamped out new each day and sent on patrol dumb as dirt and gullible as preschoolers.
“My Josie here’s new to the road, just a wee colleen really,” the old tramp continued, gesturing at the well-behaved dog. “She runs this way and that, chases every rabbit, squirrel, and chipmunk she smells. By three o’clock in the afternoon the poor pup’s knackered. ”
“And dogs aren’t allowed on the beach,” Di continued in her best cop impersonation.
“Take us away, yer honor.” The old tramp grinned, holding his hands out together. (Did he actually wink at me, she thought?) “My Josie and me are public enemies number one and two, a regular Bonnie and Clyde. You can claim the bounty on us and make your fame in the world of crime busting, the Eliot Ness of Humboldt County.” Changing his tone, he slumped a little and said, “We’ll just pack up and be on our way.”
Meanwhile, Di had smelled the old man’s soup. Her parents owned a boutique winery and she grew up sniffing and tasting everything the world put in front of her. As a schoolgirl she kept a notebook of tastes and smells; had done ‘smell and taste’ for her 11th grade science fair project. She had a vintner’s nose and pallet. Right now Di smelled garlic, onion, fennel, olive oil, and fish. And it smelled wonderful! The old man apparently noticed.
“Would you like a cup of soup Officer … Riley?” He read Di’s name plate. “I’ve got a great sufficiency on the boil.”
Di ached to taste that soup. There was a smell she couldn’t quite place and, Lord, it had been a long time since she’d tasted anything more interesting than a burger and fries at the Coast Diner. “I can’t.” She equivocated. “I’m on duty and, and … I’d get more sand in my uniform.”
“Aren’t crime fighters allowed to refresh themselves between gun battles and high speed car chases?” The old man looked up with a grin. He had China blue eyes and a wonderful smile. There were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looked like an elf. At 5’11” Di towered over him.
She thought, I’m losing my mind. I’m 26 years old, single, and live in a county where the only unattached man is a 43 year-old gay public defender with a hairy wart on his nose. I haven’t had a date in 18 months. And now, I’m thinking, actually thinking about accepting a dinner invitation from an 80-something year-old escapee from Darby O’Gill and The Little People!
So, naturally, Di said “I’m supposed to be off duty already anyway. Let me go call out on the radio.” She ran back to her unit, kicking out her feet like a Dallas cheerleader.
When Di came back she’d removed her tie, gun belt, and cop hardware. She wore a wool sweater and anorak over her uniform shirt. She was barefoot. She couldn’t do anything about the stripe down the sides of her trousers. She carried two bottles of her father’s wine which she’d retrieved from an athletic bag the cruiser’s trunk.
The surfers, Sully and Vikki Ramirez, were hunkered down next to the old man, their boards stuck in the sand. They weren’t twins, but sister and brother. Sully taught English at North Coast College. Vikki was a computer programmer/mommy on a day’s furlough. Sully was cute, but shy, Di thought. He was mostly bald, but wore it well. He had dimples and a kind face. Vikki was a surf junkie and high from the day’s waves. She talked nonstop about surf.
The sunset was perfect. They saw the magical blue flash right as the sun dropped beneath the western sea. Diana and Sully walked to the tide pools in the twilight while the old tramp quizzed Vikki about her surfboard and the finer points of surfing and mothering two children. She and Sully didn’t talk much except Sully occasionally identified a mollusk or crustacean. He loved Marine Biology. Later, in response to Di’s direct question, Sully told her he was 34, divorced a year, and had no children.
The tramp’s name was Willie. He called himself a ‘traveler’ and had wandered the western edge of North America since his twenties. He told traveling stories, served fish soup (Di thought it exquisite), and baked biscuits on a stick over the fire, like roasting marshmallows. Willie enjoyed cooking in the open air; said he was a ‘campfire gourmet.’ He played beautiful, haunting music on the tin whistle. Josie showed her tricks and had her own cup of carefully de-boned soup saturating two biscuits.
Willie played folk songs. With little encouragement the others sang along. Willie could play any song they could name, many they couldn’t. They sang camp songs, old songs, popular songs, and four choruses of “Me and Bobby McGee.” They all felt like children on holiday. Finally, the food and wine exhausted, their voices hoarse from singing, the three younger people rose to leave. Willie and Josie shook everyone’s hand.
Standing next to her cruiser, Sully told Di (awkwardly) he’d like to see her again and asked for her telephone number. She (awkwardly) told Sully she’d like to see him too. She was off duty this Saturday and there was a funky old beach movie theater in Arcata near where she lived. Vikki honked the pickup’s horn and yelled for Sully, being playful. Di laughed for joy, her laughter reminding Sully of the tinkling of Chinese wind chimes.
She walked with Sully over to the pickup and wrote her telephone number on the back of the ticket which she’d left on the window that afternoon. She folded the ticket and put it in Sully’s hand, letting her fingers linger a moment. Then she kissed him on the cheek. Di told Vikki she was sure the original ticket had blown away when she was changing out of her cop harness. The two young women kissed each other on the cheek, like old friends. Vikki said, ‘Sully, come on! Some of us have real lives to live,’ and winked at Di. And so, they parted.
Willie and Josie stood in the dark, silhouetted by stars.
As she walked backed to her cruiser Diana realized that in the whole evening nobody had said anything about her being a cop. Not one word, including her.
Then in the quiet after Sully and Vikki were gone, she heard Willie call out over the sound of the surf, “Good night, Diana Riley. God bless and keep you! You might make wonderful babies with that brown-eyed surfer.”
The sly old matchmaker, she thought. “Good night, Willie! Good night, Josie. God bless you.” Diana called back.
She started the cruiser, but didn’t put her uniform back together. “It’s stock car races on the highway tonight. Drunks verses tourists,” she said aloud, surprising herself. “Burn up the track! Smoke ‘em! I’m off duty.”
As she pulled out of the parking lot Diana thought … of course, old Willie was right. There was something about Sully. He’d be a good daddy. She knew that.
***
The following day, another CHP patrolman found that a sleeping hobo had died peacefully on the beach. Officer Diana Riley identified Willie’s remains and arranged for cremation. Later, she and Sully, holding hands, scattered Willie’s ashes near his last campsite. Di read a prayer she’d found handwritten in his pack. She kept Willie’s tin whistle and adopted Josie, his dog.
Willie’s Prayer:
Mother May I ~
Greet all creation with loving-kindness
Share in their joys and sorrows
Find serenity, and
Practice peace
Love everything
Crave nothing
Be at peace and
Cease
