Chapter Six
Already regretting having cut one more deal with one more almost-government type, Doc stood and quickly walked outof the SolMar, past the pool and across to the sand, kicking his sandals under the palapa bar and breaking into a light run down to where the surf hammered itself frothy-mouthed against the rocks of the cape.
He stared up at the carved rock, sculpted by wind-driven sand into filigree as ornate as lung tissue, like something done by Salvadore Dali on a major mushroom jag. Then he started climbing. When he couldn’t inch any higher, he hung there, anchored by the pain in his hands and toes, his damp belly feeling the warmth of the sun-warmed granite. He studied the rock, looked far out to sea in search of whale breath. It was the cleanest, starkest, most beautiful place he knew, and the sheer wild poetry of the cape reassured him. Even in the worst prison or torment he’d ever found himself he could close his eyes and see himself diving cleanly into the turquoise water off the cape, flying like a manta ray above the yellow sand.
He took a deep breath of the aerosol pumped up by the crazed surf. The whole spine of the western push of the continent finally slopes down to the water here, the ridge of the Californias slipping under the sea. And only the implausible humor of God could get away with having an decorative arch at the end of it all. He hung in the wind and sun and the spray and felt serene and clean. Then he looked back over his shoulder and saw the new condos edging out onto the beach. And where American surf rats had covered the rocks with unintelligible slogans in dayglo spray paint.
There were even two slackers currently engaged in more tagging, tall surfnazi types in their twenties wearing ragtag X-generation mufti. One kid watched and called encouragement while the other hung from a handhold and sprayed another set of glyphs at the edge of the mass of scrawl. Doc climbed down without looking at the pair, hoping they’d be gone by the time he got over to the defaced wall. They weren’t.
Ignoring the spectator punk with the streaked blonde dreadlocks, who ignored him right back, Doc called up to the green-haired painter. He mentioning natural beauty, the fact that the wall was a Mexican national park. He plaintively requested that the kid desist and come down. He got no acknowledging glance, just a laconic upraised finger. Doc stared at the paint job awhile then looked out at the light dancing on the ocean, taking deep measured breaths. It didn’t really work. He stepped to the base of the stone face and picked up a half dozen baseball-sized rocks and started throwing them at the spraycan artist.
The second hit him, the third hit his thigh hard enough to knock him off the wall. The kid’s thirty foot fall was half-slide, most of it fairly abrasive. His landing on the scrabble at the base was gratifyingly hard. But youth is resilient and he got up very pissed off. He mentioned this right to Doc’s face for about thirty seconds, after which he seemed content to lie on the sand under Doc’s foot and whimper.
Swept by a sudden squall of rage, Doc grabbed the twerp by the throat, lifting him up and squeezing his neck until his mouth widened into a soundless shriek. He snatched up the spray can and pointed inside the gaping mouth, finger posed on the button. He held that pose for a long, shuddering moment. Finally he shook himself, stuck the can down the kid’s shorts, and dropped him on the sand. He said, “Locals only, Dewd.”
He started to walk off, then swung around and swept back in on them. Kneeling on the gasping grunger’s chest and gathering his full attention, he said, “Get some paint thinner and towels in town, come back tomorrow and clean up your mess and as much of the rest as you can. If it looks like this tomorrow night, I’m going to look you up and tie you around my dick in a square knot. You understand me?” He got a weak nod for his troubles and immediately felt sickened; disgusted with the world and ashamed of himself.
He stalked off towards the surf, bitter at himself for losing his temper, for laying hands on a civilian, for making threats and resorting to violence. Not the way to build a better world, grasshopper, he thought. But as he approached the high pounding waves his pace slowed a little, and his thoughts started to clear.
At least you had some control, didn’t follow through with your latest work of poetic justice, he told himself. You’ve got to pick up the small change in these things, gotta give yourself one for trying. My self, he corrected. I’ve gotta love myself for trying. In fact, I’ve got to love myself for hating, which doesn’t make any sense to me at all. But I’m working on it.
Doc twisted his torso slightly, easing the tension in the long muscles down his sides and spine. He flexed his fingers, now feeling a little pain in them. They’re not getting any younger. Suddenly the thought came: did I not notice pain when I was a kid or just not remember it? Or does getting older just hurt more? He grinned sourly, thought: Does it matter?
He watched the blonde surf punk dragging his buddy back towards the SolMar and thought, did I have feelings like that when I was young and just forgot them? He decided that even at his most rebellious and obnoxious he’d never had an impulse to go to another country and spray paint their national monuments.
He was walking towards the rocks at the south end of the beach when it hit him. Oh not me, he thought, I just went to other countries and killed the men, fucked the women, and blew up the whole damned landscape. He stopped for awhile, looking down at his feet in the sand. Then he threw his head back and looked up at the sand-blasted rocks, windsculptured into a hallucinigenic lace like living tissue. He said, “But see…they made me do it,” and started laughing. “Hired less than an hour, Doc is already taking the law into his hands, playing God, and talking to himself.”
He laughed again then looked back at the graffiti. He thought: Nice world we’ve got when mountains can’t defend themselves. He lowered himself into a lotus position, working his butt into the sand, then started rolling the mantra of his afternoon meditation. The cadence of the syllable locked to his breath, then his heartbeat, then to some rhythm of the waves resonating the packed sand beneath him. Before his thoughts turned off to allow him to rock with the mantra he realized that what he should do, oddly enough was look up a Marxist reporter.