The RAZZ - Chapter 16

© surmon 2009

Murphy The Surphy

The next weekend took at least three weeks to come around. I don't know what took it so long but the following Saturday morning saw Ronnie arrive, bright and early, to pick up me and my gear and head off for a glorious weekend together. At least, that's what I thought was going to happen. I didn't know that a collection of her rich and 'beautiful-people' type friends was also going to be there.

"Why don't we try somewhere else where it's not so crowded," I gently suggested.

"No, it's great here. Those guys are OK when you get used to them. It'll be cool. We'll have fun with them — you'll see," coaxed Ronnie, in her nicest voice.

What fun. Watching those apes flash their muscles, money and near-perfect teeth while trying to avoid the direct gaze of the biggest ape of all, Damien, the ex-sports car driver. There was no love lost there and none given. I started to feel a little out-numbered and began to wish I'd told Tats where we were going just in case he turned up when I needed a little help. One thing Tats did have under his camouflage was a fair bit of natural courage and just enough dislike of wankers to make a do like this wind up interesting.

I gave myself over to a lot of thought that day. I was overwhelmed by the knowledge, and the brutal social discrimination being radiated at me, that I was different to that bunch.

The difference is hard to explain but it is simply that they seemed to spend money as though it - the money - wasn’t important to them. Whereas with me, I had to have a debate about almost every sum of money that was going to leave my paws. It could be said that I was tight but I would argue that, owing to the fact that I was completely self-sufficient with no support from my parents; I was frugal. I realise that is shining a fair light on the  matter but that is how I justified it to myself. Most of the people on this weekend excursion appeared to receive comfortable allowances from their family units or have jobs that were just a fill-in between then and the time when they would step into the family business or share in the family money. It's a difficult thing to look that in the face and honestly say it doesn't matter when you are summing up a person. I realise that a lot has to do with the particular person's attitude and personality as well, and in the case of this lot of parasites, there were many things about them that were rubbing me the wrong way.  Being laughingly advised to freely spend my money because tomorrow is another day does not keep the rent man and other slavering wolves from kicking down the door and chewing off your arse. The point I'm getting at is that as the day progressed I found my self feeling less able to cope with this bunch of party-heads and was even starting to get angry with Ronnie. In short — I was losing it.

We did not shag on the beach in the moonlight that evening. We just partied for a while, watched the goons skive off to share some kind of chemical experience that made them “really amusing”, walked for a very long while in the sand and, sometime, shortly before dawn, we collapsed exhausted on the front verandah of the house where we stayed while the substance-stimulated crowd partied on around us.

The heat of the sun on my face woke me up to a disastrous day. The party crowd were still at it — just — with smiles frozen on their plastic faces, and gave me an earful about wimping out. I took it all in the best possible humour and wandered down to the beach where I threw myself in the ocean to be simultaneously shocked into life and have my brain shattered into shiny pieces by the breath-snatching chill of the Great Briny Blue.

I felt extremely human after that, and determined to demonstrate some of my natural vigour to the bunch of chem-heads back at the shack. When I returned they were all planning to “carve up the ocean” and “kill some dolphins” or whatever they said so I grabbed my board and towel and followed after them with Ronnie asking where I had been and what I had been doing for the past couple of hours. At least that felt good — having Ronnie ask after me in the midst of all her other friends.

The surf had come up quite considerably since I was there earlier and dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. Although the sun was shining on our small part of the world I noticed that I wasn't the only one in the crowd who succumbed to a little shiver. Undaunted by Ronnie's warnings and the threatening cyclonic weather I hurled myself into the surf to pit myself against the elephants — the ‘elements’, I mean —  and show up the muscle elephants while I was at it.

It wasn't much of a contest. With the waves rapidly rising in height and the effects of the previous nights stimulants wearing off, the horde of muscle men managed to flail about aimlessly for half an hour and slowly make their way back to the beach. Now it was my turn to shine; my day in the sun, although it was a cloud-obscured sun.

I could see Ronnie motioning from the beach that I should come in because I was the only idiot left out there and I understood what she was getting at because some of the waves were now nearing five metres. But I am a determined little bugger when the mood takes me and I determined to prove I had something the others did not have. To be honest though, it didn't feel like courage. It was a donkey-like stubbornness, and it was being fed on the hay of my pride.

I took a couple of big ones in, and listened for some reaction from the beach but instead of applause I could only see Ronnie waving madly at me and her friends running along the beach —  probably in a drug crazed frenzy, I thought. So I turned my board and dug in for the final onslaught.

How prophetic that phrase was.

The next wave was worth waiting for – 15 metres if it was a cubit! The undertow from the thing caught me at least five minutes before the wave arrived and it dragged a couple of kilometres out to sea.

The beach was so far away by now it was lost to my sight below the horizon. I could only hope I still had an audience because I was beginning to wish I wasn't out there at all. I was too scared to look around me because, more than once, I thought I caught a glimpse of Moby Dick or Jaws or at least the giant squid out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I gingerly lifted my legs out of the water and waited for the wave to pick me up.

Unfortunately, I didn't have long enough to wait before I felt the forward surge of a great tsunami. I took a deep breath and made a weak effort of paddling, hoping the wave might pass by but, no — it was a sticky one. It latched onto my board and began to propel me, with alarming acceleration, towards the beach, and quite possibly, destruction.

Christ, that wave was big! Even the mullet living inside of it had to have an elevator to get up to the crest for a look-out. As it picked me up my ears popped and my nose started to bleed. I heard a whooshing noise and ducked just in time to avoid getting clouted by a Qantas Long-Range 747.

Then I heard a loud knocking noise. At first I thought it might be Davy Jones or even King Neptune himself knocking on my surf board hoping to come up for a chat but common sense told me that wouldn't be right. They probably couldn't talk out of water. Anyway, it was only my knees, white and trembling, sending out an s.o.s.  

From the top of the wave I thought I could see, as I looked around, the hazy blue Mountains of the Great Dividing Range in front of me and the snow capped alps of New Zealand behind me.

What a view. I bumped my head on something. I looked up to see the Sea Rescue helicopter hovering right above me, the people inside waving frantically. I didn't need to be told right then how stupid I was — I already knew — but I was heading towards the shore. What more could I do?

Well, for a start I could have tried wishing I was somewhere else a lot safer, like jogging in New York's Harlem wearing a pair of Nike runners but I wasn’t going to take the easy way out of this. I was going to ride it out.

It was a long way back to the beach. The whiskers on my face had grown to designer stubble length by the time the beach came into sight. And what a sight it was — dirty yellow and long sideways — but it looked just like a beach to me.

I was up pretty high on the wave and I thought I could see my darling Ronnie on the beach, still frantically waving. There was also quite a large crowd gathered on the beach. Perhaps I was going to be a celebrity — if I survived.

The mob was waving frantically. I thought they were trying to encourage me,  so I decided to oblige them with a few tricks. First, I did a a couple of wobbly arm waves with moderate success that inspired me to do a hang five, and then – a hang ten. The crowd was screaming.

Into the back of my mind came a naughty idea that I should moon my audience while I had them where I wanted them. I loosened my shorts and was about to turn my best face to the crowd when I heard a loudspeaker system barking at me. I swear it said: "Come out of the water now! Don't look behind you!"

Now, I know that old story. Many's the campfire or dark night when I've frightened the life out of some gullible 6-year olds, so I wasn't going to fall for it now. I turned around very deftly on the surfboard and was about to drop my drawers to snap the crowd with my Brownie when I got the shock of my life.

Ploughing through the wave behind me was the biggest shark you could ever imagine.

No! It was bigger than that – you'll have to try a little harder.  This thing was enormous. If there was one word to describe its size even it wouldn't be big enough.

Right then, I wished I had dropped my pants as I'd intended because the effect the sight of the beast from the deep had on my constitution left not a lot of room in my drawers for the farts that followed the first reaction.

I could hear the crowd on the beach screaming and I realised my time as a celebrity was going to be brief indeed as the great, grey monster closed in. “This is tragic,” my brain screamed, “I want at least my 15 minute quota of fame.”

By this time I was scooting across the face of the giant wave which had started to break a couple of kilometres behind me. I was hoping to elude the great grey beast with the speed I was gaining but it seemed that the faster I went the faster it went. I think the thing was surfing the wave too.

"Get off!" I yelled bravely, "This is my  wave. Find your own."

But it was no use. The monster closed in mercilessly while the crowd on the beach wailed and shrieked. I looked behind me and I could see the beast's large glassy eyes. When  I looked again it was so close I could see it's great gaping mouth, a hideous black hole that, to my horror and disgust, even had things moving about in it!

I did a double-take on that because I could swear that I saw a human shape in that awful orifice; and I could swear he looked vaguely familiar. Could it be that this gruesome beast had already had a feed on some other surfers who had been in the water with me? And now, with appetite yet unsated, it was after me! A tasty morsel as an 'afters'!

I could smell its breath, hideous and oily, oozing out of the great black maw as the beast overtook me and shot out a large stiff black tongue to scoop me up and swallow me.

As darkness of the monster's interior enveloped me, I gagged on the smell of its greasy breath and lapsed into merciful unconsciousness, my mind, strangely enough, occupied with the calm thought, wondering really, if this is how Harold Holt felt on that fateful day when he achieved immortality. Then... the eternal darkness.

o-0-o

To: Chapter 17 – We all live in a Red Submarine