In Skater's Time
By: Rick Beck
(© 2021 by the author)
Editor: IJK

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

beck@tickiestories.us

Chapter 18
Egg Roll Heat 

Skip arrived at my house in his little Deuce Coupe a little after ten in the morn, because he wanted to miss rush hour. We strapped my board to the top of his car. We drove past where the gigantic nuclear power plants stood. We'd seen them on our trip to Huntington Beach, but we passed them at seventy miles an hour, and they looked surprisingly unsubstantial at seventy miles an hour.

The nuclear power containment buildings were huge, when you are traveling at walking speed. As we sat on our board, facing them at San Onofre, I couldn't help but wonder how much waste water leaked unnoticed into the Pacific.

While we waited to catch our wave, I wondered if enough escaped to manufacture some huge green hairy creature, that would one day appear from the depths, consuming surfers as it came ashore. They did that all the time, according to the Japanese movies I saw.

The surf was up, and when you sit on your board, and you see it for the first time, it's intimidating. A force of nature is unleashed, and mere mortals intend to harness its power and ride it like you might ride an unbroken bronco.

The first wave I caught took me half way to the beach, before it nearly drowned me. I got seriously acquainted with the bottom of the Pacific Ocean on my first ever successful attempt at riding on top of my board, before I was dragged under it for some distance.

Besides losing a little skin on one of my sides, I was none the worst for wear. I began wondering what the attraction was. The Beach Boys made it sound so easy. I needed to let settle the portion of the Pacific Ocean I drank, before trying another wave.

“You OK?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to practice falling off my board,” I said.

Skip laughed.

“That's the spirit,” he said.

Yeah, that was the spirit all right. I'd be a spirit if I drowned.

“OK, not the first wave, not the second wave, but the third wave is our wave. You'll ride this one. I'll catch it with you. This is your wave, Z. I can feel it in my bones.”

I followed the same routine to stand up on my board. This time I felt my feet touching the surface. I felt my board in a way I hadn't before, and Skip was maybe ten feet away. He'd caught the same wave. He was yelling like crazy, but I couldn't hear a word. I did my best to balance myself, letting my arms help this time. I was scared this time. What's the worst that could happen? I could drown. If I did drown, I wouldn't be worried about big hairy things coming to get me.

This wave wasn't quite as big as the previous wave I caught, which made it feel like an easier ride. By the time we were approaching the beach, and I'd moved several times, keeping my arms out. I was a real big success. We were having, fun, fun, fun, now.

I made a graceful exit off my board, stumbling on something below the surface. Lord, I hope it wasn't a surfer.

I was standing up and recapturing my board when Skip rolled over top of me. He knocked me down, and I was sitting in two feet of water, if you didn't count the five foot waves that were rolling over us.

“I was trying to keep my bathing suit dry,” I said in a fake anger.

“You did it, dude. You did it,” Skip said, and he jumped on me again.

He needed to stop doing that. He had me aroused. I'd ridden my first wave, and it no longer seemed like such a big deal. Of course I could surf. I was a California boy. All California boys surf. It's required.

It took until I was out past the breakers, and lying on my board again, before I felt the feeling of satisfaction that went with success. Before I left Massachusetts, I tried to imagine myself as a California boy. To be one, you had to successfully surf at least once.

My tutors, the Beach Boys, didn't describe it perfectly, but they caught what you felt, once you were on your wave. Like so much of California culture, teenager style, they outlined it for us, allowing us to capture it on our own terms.

California wasn't so much a thing, as it was an illusion, until you were here, and once you were here, it was bigger than I thought. The people were nicer than I thought they'd be. The weather was better than anyone could imagine, but I was warned, be careful what you say, or someone will come and pave paradise, and make it into a parking lot.

So, for anyone reading this journal, California is OK. No great shakes, you know. You can do this, or that, and I suppose, if you want to do it, it's OK. The weather, well it's too hot, or too cold, when it isn't just right, but it's just right a lot. I have to admit that. I thought there would be a lot to do, once I got here, and I guess there is, but I often have nothing to do, but look into the azure blue skies, and wait for the weather to change, and I'm told, it does change. Most people can remember a day, when the weather did change, until it went back to being perfect every day.

I wouldn't recommend anyone follow me out here, because I don't thing California needs any more parking lots. I don't have a car, so I don't notice them much, but I'm new, and I'll probably change my opinion, one day, when I have time to give it some thought.

San Onofre left me turning all the lights out in my bedroom, before I was ready for bed, but after dark. I wanted to see if I might glow. I didn't seem to be glowing, but I don't know what it looks like when someone does glow. Maybe it's easier to see from a distance.

I didn't like the bottom at San Onofre, and I did get acquainted with it several times. Actually, I didn't like the bottom at San Onofre, because of those containment towers. I didn't want to admit that something I couldn't see scared the shit out of me, but I'd seen mushroom clouds photos, and I wasn't sure if there would be a mushroom cloud if one of those things blew its stack, but it really didn't matter if you were surfing there at the time.

We went to Redondo the next time and then to Manhattan Beach. Skip said he'd take me to Zuma, but, while we passed San Onofre every time we went up the 5, we didn't surf there again. I liked it a lot more at seventy miles an hour.

Skip had been the perfect gentlemen. We'd had a great summer. He couldn't get enough of surfing, and I had come to accept it as another thing I liked doing. One day, after the surfing was done, we'd gotten back into his Chevy, and he took a long look at me. I could feel the heat coming off him. Skip was hot.

He slid over to my side of the car, threw his arms around me, and we made out long enough for me to be dizzy, when it stopped. Then he sat so close our eyes nearly touched. His eyes weren't blue. They were such a light green that I thought they were blue. Maybe they changed color. Maybe he wore contacts.

“I couldn't wait any longer,” Skip said. “I've been waiting for you to find me irresistible, and then you'd rape me, but I'm tired of waiting, Z. If we're going to keep seeing each other, I've got to have you. We've got to do more than surf, as much as I love to surf.

“I don't know how to make the first move, Skip. I don't know when the time is right, and like the night my father interrupted us, I worry about the things that can go wrong,” I confessed.

“Nothing will go wrong, Z. I won't allow it. I want to make love to you. Not just give you head, but make love like it means something special has grown up between us,” Skip said.

“Oh, it grows every time I see you,” I said. “I really like you, Skip. I won't say love, because love is too complicated, and we always have fun together. No point in complicating things.”

“You are something, you know,” Skip said. “I know we are going to ride off into the sunset together, but I like you more than anyone I've met in a long time. No, love isn't the word, but like a lot comes closest to describing it,” Skip said.

Of course, I wanted Skip in the worse way, and I got my wish, but this time I knew, we were not lovers. Yes, we made mad passionate love, and then we did it again. Skip was very good, and he'd had experience. He was older, wiser, and he too knew that our friendship was not a love affair. Neither of us said it, but we knew it was true.

The time came when Skip was expected to do something with his college education. His parents were smart enough to know, after so many years of school, and so many years of applying himself, their son needed the summer off to surf and travel anywhere he wanted to go.

The summer was coming to an end. Skip's father had taken his son aside to explain how he saw his son's future. You're going to go to work for someone in town. I will not pave the way for you. I want you to be on your own, as far as work is concerned. Stick it out for two years, and I'll open my own investment firm, and we'll go into business together.

Skip's father worked for an international investment firm. He'd made his millions moving money around. He was a vice president in the firm, and a candidate to take over the top job within the next five years. His father didn't want the top job, or the jet, or the pampered that care with it. Because the headaches, and pressure, had killed two CEO's that Skip's father knew.

Once it was time, Skip put on a suit, took out his transcripts, and he began to search the San Diego vicinity for the right job.

By that time we were talking on the phone every night. He promised to come by, but he had to find a job first. He'd had his fun, and now it was time to apply himself, so he had something to look forward to.

Skip's family had been middle class, while living in El Cajon. His father was an investment broker, making inroads in a fortune 500 company. As he moved up the food chain at his firm, they moved into the Rancho Bernardo upper middle class. They sent their son to a good college, and once Skip proved himself, his future was with his father's firm.  

I was a stock clerk in a small grocery store. While I wasn't going to stay at Hitchcock's for the rest of my life, I might stay there for the foreseeable future.

I was in no hurry to get where I was going, where ever that was. I was having a hell of a good summer, even while working full time, because Skip had nothing to do but see that he showed me a good time.

We were friends. I didn't know why, but it didn't matter, because Skip was one of the nicest guys I'd ever met. As California boys went, he was one. The Beach Boys didn't sing any songs about him, but he fit into a few of their songs.    

* * * * * 

I skated down passed the mall to the patch of grass on the far side at about three one afternoon.

“Ralph.” I said.

“Hi, Z. You look pleased with yourself,” he said.

“I am pleased. Isn't life wonderful, Ralph.”

“I guess that depends on who you ask,” he said. “For some of us, life sucks big ones.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Anything I can do for you?”

“You mean it” he said too quickly for him to be thinking it over.

“Name it. Your wish is my command,” I said blithely.

“Do you have a gun?” Ralph asked, as serious as a judge.

“Why would I have a gun? Is there going to be a war?” I asked, still unconcerned.

“You'll need it to shoot my mother, and then, rob a bank, and give me the money. That's what you can do for me.”

I was speechless a thirteen-year-old could think that way. Ralph seemed like one of the nice guys. Had I missed something.

“You're just like everyone else. You got it good, so you think I got it good. Well, I don't. Life sucks, and I'm the sucker. You got your job, plenty of money. You go surfing with your boyfriend. If I had your life, I'd think life was peaches and cream, too.”

“Ralph, in spite of what it's like for you now. It will get better, because you're a cool kid. You set me back on my heels with your talk of killing and robbing, but you are stuck with what you have, until you're a little older.”

“If I get a little older. My mother's a disaster. CPS took me once. They locked me up with some real pieces of work. You know what a kid my size does, when a six foot kid, weighing two hundred pound, tells you to do something?”

“I can't imagine it. What did you do?” I asked.

“I did what they told me to do, and when they finished with me, they sold me for a dime, a cigarette, whatever, until they wanted me again,” Ralph said.

“Sexually?” I asked.

“What do you think? Where are you from? Anyway, I ran the first chance I got. I hid out, until my mom got sober for the first time during my lifetime. She noticed her checks got smaller when the 'brat' wasn't around,” he said. She's my mother. She's supposed to take care of me. CPS came to get me. My mother got a lawyer to stop them, and so now she gets her extra cash, and I stay away from her. I sleep in the storm drains, like Gordo, John, Ace, and those dudes.”

“John said that you were in school,” I said.

“I go to school. As far as they're concerned, I live at home. I shower in gym, and I get clothes from Father Carroll's, downtown. I do OK,” he said.

I was doing better before I stopped to talk to Ralph. Why didn't someone do something for the kid. I knew kids steered clear of CPS, no matter how concerned they were for the welfare of kids. They didn't have the time or the money to protect the kids in their custody. It was not a secret in Massachusetts, and no one could live under a bridge in the dead of winter.

“You hungry?” I asked.

“Does a fish swim?”

“My parents are cool. They always bring home dinner, during the week. There's plenty for you, if you want to come with me. I want to help you Ralph,” I said, knowing help for a kid like Ralph took way more smarts than I had.

It was Chinese night, and both my mother and father raised an eyebrow, when they met my dinner guest.

“You're shorter than the last dinner guest Zane brought home,” Dad said.

“It's on account I haven't grown up yet,” Ralph parried. “There's a height requirement to eat here. Z didn't say anything about that.”

“No, no requirements,” my father said, looking at me.

“He was trying to be funny,' my mother said.

“Zane usually hangs older boys to dinner with him,” Dad said.

“Dad, he doesn't know who Zane is,” I said.

“I do, too,” Ralph corrected. “You think I'm stupid. Z is for Zane.”

“Bingo,” Mom said.

“What are these things?” Ralph asked, pointing at the egg rolls.

“Egg roll.”

“Don't look like no egg I ever seen,”

“It's good,” I said. “Don't put too much of the mustard on it, and you'll like it. They've got good stuff inside.”

“What kind of good stuff?” Ralph asked.

“Ancient Chinese secret,” I said, leaning to whisper it.

My parents both laughed, as Ralph bit into the egg roll on his plate. His face took on a odd look, as he chewed it. Then he chewed a little faster, and his eyes began to show some sign of recognition.

“Those Chinese are pretty clever. It's good. I like it,” Ralph said, taking another bite, as my parents watched.

“If you put just a little bit of this mustard on your egg roll, it gives it an entirely different flavor,” I said.

I may as well have said that you need to slather it with mustard, because he slathered it with mustard. Cutting it with his fork,  he took it into his mouth. It confirmed what I'd suspected all along. It doesn't take long to look at an egg roll, and in a flash, it was back on his plate.

Both of my parents had small smiles, understanding Ralph's condition, quite well, because I'd been just like him at thirteen. Tell me don't, and I couldn't wait to do whatever it was, but Ralph was a trooper. He used his fork to get the mustard off the bite he spit out, and it went right back into his mouth. This time he chewed carefully, and he liked it a lot more with a lot less mustard on it.

“Here,” I said, giving him the fresh egg roll I just put on my plate. “I'll take the rest of that one off your hands for you. I like the mustard, but it's best enjoyed in small amounts. The Chinese know how to spice up a dish.”

I took the piece of egg roll covered in mustard off his plate, replacing it with a fresh crisp one. Ralph smiled for the first time, and he seemed to relax. Ralph ate a little bit of everything, which surprised me, but it shouldn't have. The kid was living under a bridge. He'd probably eat grass if you put taco sauce on it.

“Where do you live, Ralph,” Mom asked. “Why aren't you home eating dinner. I mean we're delighted to have you. I was just wondering.”

Ralph looked at me, turning his head. I nodded once, realizing the third degree was coming, because of Ralph's age. My parents had already thought about the legal questions concerning me taking up with a child. The only way I would be allowed to bring him home, was if my parents knew the truth.

“I don't live at home,” Ralph said politely, folding his hands in his lap, knowing there would be more questions.

I figured, the kid will either bolt and run, or he won't. I intended to help him, but I wasn't sneaking him into my room. Although, he needed a bath, and I was definitely taking him up to my bathroom, where he could take one.

My mother used her fork to cut up the food on her plate not buried in rice.

“Why isn't a boy your age living at home?” Dad asked.

Ralph turned his head to look at me. I nodded.

“My mother's a drunk,” Ralph said, and my mother had to cough into her napkin, while digesting this tidbit.

“Where do you live?” Mom asked, reluctantly.

Ralph certainly was direct. He looked at me. I interceded on his behalf.

“He lives under a bridge near Hitchcock's Market. Several boys live there. Some boys are older, and they take care of Ralph. Protect him from harm.”

“There are places that will help him,” Dad said. “I can look into it.”

“No, you can't, Dad. You know as well as I do, the state lacks the funds and the will to help kids who can't live at home. He's been that route, and the same thing happened to him that happens to smaller boys. If he doesn't cooperate, they beat the hell out of him, and take what they want, anyway. Don't tell me you haven't heard the stories. I've heard them, and I'll help Ralph if I can.”

“I know of kids who went into state custody, back home. I didn't like the things I heard, but Zane, there are laws, and we can't knowingly break laws,” Dad said, looking at me, and then Ralph.

“The laws are wrong, too, Dad. If they can't properly care for kids, educate them, protect them, they need to leave kids alone to figure it out on their own. Ralph is smarter than I am. He's a cool kid. Thinking of him being victimized by the other kids, not so nice kids, who are also in state custody.” 

“When I try to live at home, mother's boyfriends, wanting a good time, and not getting it because my mother's passed out, they think I'll do in a pinch.”

“Oh, my God,” Mom said, getting up and going into the kitchen.

Dinner was over. Ralph could stay the night, but Dad was going to investigate what could be done to improve Ralph's situation.

Ralph shrugged, like he'd heard it all before. He reached for another egg roll.

“These are good, you know,” he said, taking a tiny bit of mustard and putting it directly into the middle of the bite he cut for himself.

Ralph was totally cool, which is more than I could say for my mother, but the truth was often something unpleasant to hear, when you're good people.

 Ralph was reluctant to go up stairs with me, after we had ice cream and cake mom dug out of the freezer. We watched television, and then I told him he could take a bath before we went to bed.

“Go to bed? I ain't sleeping with you. I don't let guys touch me that I don't know,” he said.

“You’re safe,” I said. “I'm with someone.”

I didn't tell him I hadn’t seen him in nearly a week.

“Give me a break. Half the guys who try to get me are married, and the other half are involved with several people. Don't matter when someone wants it.”

“Matters to me. You're safe here, Ralph,” I said.

He took his bath and put on my pajama tops. The pants wouldn't have stayed on if he gained twenty pounds. He settled for the shirt, and I put his clothes in the washer.

He came into my bedroom practically shining, he scrubbed his skin so much. When he saw the bed, he looked at me, and he looked at the bed.

“You're going to stay on your side of the bed, bub,” Ralph ordered.

“Yes, sir, I am,” I've got to work tomorrow and I'm tired.

“Is the red-head your boyfriend,” Ralph asked, lying flat on his back with his own pillow, keeping four inches between his body and any part of my body.

“Sort of. We've been going out,” I said.

“Everyone knows that. Don't touch me,” Ralph said, turning his head to look at my face.

“I am not going to touch you, Ralph. You're a thirteen-year-old kid. I'm a grown man,” I stretched the truth.

“That's supposed to make me feel better?” he said, turning his back on me. “Besides, I'm fourteen.”

“Oh, pardon me, I didn't know you'd grown up in the last year,” I said.

Ralph laughed. In about five minutes he was snoring, and I figured it was safe to go to sleep. It was a big day with two canned goods deliveries, tomorrow. 

At twelve thirty-two, my eyes shot open. I felt like I was being strangled. I was having trouble breathing. Ralph had his arms wrapped around my chest, and he had a death grip on me. I tried to loosen the hold he had on me, but he was locked to me.

I wiggled, until his arms loosened enough for me to breathe, and I wrapped my arms around him and I went to sleep. He'd heard me speaking up on his behalf, and he was in a new place. I figured his need for human contact was stronger than his fear of being raped.

The next day, Ralph skated up to Broadway, when I skated toward work, and he turned, stepped off his board, and he gave me a hug.

“Thanks, Zane. You're a man of your word,” he said.

“Don't call me that,” I said.

“I'm just playing with you, Z. Thanks for the meal. I don't think I've slept that solid in months. You've got a nice bed. See you, stud.”

I watched him skate away. I wondered if I'd ever see him again. 

To be continued...

Posted: 07/23/2021