American Animals

It was, in Maya's estimate, just about the most perfect day possible to be out surfing. She breathed in the open ocean air, tasting the slight tang of salt on the front of her lips. Turning back her head, she let a gentle offshore breeze catch in the length of her dark hair—it normally hung curly and brown around her shoulders, but when it touched the water it immediately went about ten shades closer to black, and straightened considerably. From far overhead, the white circle of the sun shone down over the stretch of beach.

Lompoc beach stretched for about two miles in each direction; a white sweep of stone-strewn sand. The sand had been banked about fifty feet back from the waters edge, pushed there by a hundred-thousand years worth of waves until it formed small hills to her back. Maya carried her surfboard under one arm as she jogged down the hill and toward the water.

She's always eschewed a wetsuit or drysuit, except on the days that it became too cold to surf without one. Instead she wore something that almost looked like a lifeguard uniform; a one-piece bathing suit in dusty red. Instead of the hospital cross, it held a depiction of a hand in slightly plastic-y white with the thumb and pinky held outward in opposite directions. Slowing her trot as she neared the water, Maya held a flat hand up over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

Today, whitecaps swelled in the distance and rolled in to crash with a strangely muted sound against the water-darkened sand of the beach.

Far out in the water, seated with their knees hooked over their surfboards, were a number of other surfers. About ten in total. She could see their footprints leading over the sandy beach. A bit further down, a couple of families were sitting on scattered picnic blankets—for the most part, the beach was separated into two distinct areas. Nobody would ever bother you, if you crossed them, but most people who lived around here didn't anyways. One was populated by full-time surfers and the occasional La Verne University students; the other was for families looking to bring their children to the beach for the day.

Maya returned the wave of a little boy building a sand castle, about twenty yards down the beach. He straight-away went back to smooshing his plastic shovel into the bottom of the bucket-built castle to create a moat. She's been surfing this beach since she was thirteen, and her parents had first moved to the slightly sleepy California town of Lompoc. It was about twenty minutes outside of town, travelling past the sprawling, hill-covered farm fields that made up Acorn. Down West Ocean Avenue. From there the path split, one slightly smaller road leading to the Ocean Park, a family campground of pop-up wooden gazebos and ocean lagoons. The other road, the one that she drove nearly every day during the summers, led to the beach.

She had always stood out a little bit—or rather, she had always stood out by hiding. In a land of tall, blonde-haired surf bums and beach babes, she was... not that. A pair of nearly black, slightly sharp-cornered eyes gave her an appearance of alertness. As she looked out over the waves, the breeze blew her hair back over her shoulders. It revealed a face which was small, dark-skinned in a way that spoke of a bit more than a deep tan, windblown.

Little Mouse. It had always been her mother's nickname for her.

Her family was Peruvian, and looked like it. Her father had come to the United States the year before she was born, and met her mother—who had already been living here for a decade before that—at a grocery store. Her mother's family was also Peruvian, though they were two-generations removed from the culture. They had originally come from a small town, remarkably similar to the one of Lompoc, in Peru called Ilo.

As the water first hit Maya's feet, she smiled. The Northern Pacific water never got really warm, even in the depth of summer, but between the heat of the sun and the shallowness of the water it was comfortable enough. Waves that began near the north-east coast of Hawaii, around Princeville or Honolulu or Kapa'a, came sweeping in the three-thousand miles of open ocean to crash against the California coast. They were turquoise and lukewarm and wild. On days like todays, when the waves tilted wildly over the sand, Maya thought that the water looked almost seasick.

Tucking herself into one of the waves, she felt it crash over her before she emerged on the other side. Pressing her chest and hips to her board, she began paddling out to join the surf-line where the other surfers bobbed on their boards. They were about two hundred feet off of shore, out where the slightly shallower beach—a distance of about fifteen feet—dropped away a sheer two hundred into darkness. As the underwater swells struck the submerged cliff, they rose out of the water. Gained speed, picked up a surfer, and curled closed as they flung themselves toward the sand.

Discreetly, Maya studied some of her companions of the day as she tucked herself into the surf line. A couple she recognized—Lydia Munich, a red-headed woman wearing a neck-high wetsuit. The slightly glistening black fabric did absolutely nothing to hide the face that she had a body which would make a Barbie doll feel self-conscious. Maya had taken a couple of classes with Lydia in high school. They were both Lompoc natives. They'd never been the closest of friends, but they'd also had a couple of good chats over the years and were at least close enough for Lydia to light up when she saw Maya riding swells a couple of yards away. The fire-haired woman raised her hand in an emphatic wave, which Maya returned.

The other was Mikey Teeth. Nobody knew where Mikey Teeth came from. He was about fifty, built like a five-five scarecrow, with skin so deeply sun-brown and sun-lined that he could give a walnut a run for its money. He looked hard like that too. Surfer jerky, Maya thought, grinning. The nickname came from the hole in the front of his mouth—his front four teeth had been knocked out at some point and never replaced. He didn't seem to care. He chatted easily with the University students, knew how to tell a really good story, and carried himself with a well-aged, hard earned confidence that Maya always thought said: Been there, kid, done that.

She watched as Mikey Teeth caught his turn on the waves. His corded arms came up, his body standing easily into the swelling wave and letting it carry him away from the lineup.

Maya wasn't watching. Something else had caught her attention. There were a number of surfers she didn't recognize—likely University students—but of that crowd, her eyes held on two that remained slightly separate. They were a pair of young men and, unlike some of the others, sat on their boards like they knew what they were doing with them. Legs spread, they leaned back with a kind of confidence that was common among Californian men—but which actually looked like it belonged on them.

Both of the men wore their wetsuits open down their chests, with the arms tied at the back just behind their waist. One, the closer to her, wore his sandy brown hair tied back from a broad forehead and handsomely featured face with a yellow elastic band. The other, his companion, wore his hair loose around his forehead. It was shorter, slightly wavier, with small blonde threads that flashed out of the brown as the sun caught them. If she had to guess, he was the shorter of the two—which still made him tall—but broader in the arms and chest. His features were a bit rounder, a grin pushing up the corner of his lips as his friend said something too distant for Maya to hear over the sound of the ocean.

As soon as she saw her mounting the board—an obvious University student with sandy blonde hair who had been brought surfing by her friends—Maya knew she was going to bite. Hard. The more you surf the more you begin to see it; the first second, by judgement call, whose going to waste a wave. For the most part, as long as they're not doing anything too ridiculous, you just let it go. Maya let it go. Instead, she sat back on her board and watched the front-most of the two young men come to the same realization as her, a fraction of a second later.

Yeah, she thought. These two surf.

Even before she hit the water, he was paddling forward to take it. The whole thing was quite respectful. He was a couple dozen yards closer in, and waited until he saw her head appear from beneath the turquoise-white swell before he snagged the wave. She watched him catch the swell, body fighting for a moment to bring the angle right, and then drop. As soon as his board caught the swell, she nodded in appreciation. He cut sideways through the trough, riding it first up and then down, walking his board forward a couple of inches.

He wasn't just good, Maya realized. He was professional. He ripped so hard that even the University students, most of whom had probably only been out a couple dozen times and watched too many YouTube videos on surf culture, sat up to watch. The tip of the man's board broke through the wave, and Maya whistled in appreciation—though she knew that he wouldn't hear it—as his board spun over the wave before dropping back into the swell. He rode it for another hundred feet, his back slightly arched, his arms relaxed, and then did a two-foot turn on the board and raised his arms above his head before letting the wave pull the board out from under him and sending him underwater, burying him beneath the spray.

"You're up," I didn't even realize that the current had pushed the first man closer to where I was seated. I glanced at him as he spoke, waving him forward.

"Your run. You were here first."

"Sure," his grin, she noticed, was almost blindingly white. "But I have a feeling I'm going to want to see this from here."

Returning the man's grin, Maya moved her head side to side once in a way that was both slightly self-deprecating and also managed to say: Oh, you're gonna wanna watch this. Paddling forward, she read the water. A couple of the University students turned to watch—though she thought it was more her figure that caught most of the young men's attention rather than the fact that she knew what she was doing. She could see the wave beginning to build. Turning herself slightly to meet it, she rose with the water.

She didn't stand the same way that a lot of California surfers did; walking back the board instead of walking it forward, toward the nose. She surfed Peruvian.

As the wave really began to rise around her, the young man was forgotten; the University students were forgotten; even the heat of the sun and the coolness of the water was forgotten. Maya flew forward, leaning down slightly as the wave began to crest. She balanced easily, legs braced loosely beneath her, hands held near her hips. In time, one would drop and one would rise as she caught the trough, cutting back and then forward a couple of feet in front of the wave before rejoining it.

She didn't know what it was that made her want to outdo the man who had come before her. She'd always been a bit competitional, especially when it came to surfing. On a thought, she turned her board up and rode the wave to its peak. Using her momentum, she kicked off. As soon as the board began to move, she knew it was perfect. Knew it by feel alone; by the experience of a thousand mistakes, and years of practice. The board rotated beneath her. As she came down, she bent her knees and dropped her right hand flat against the front of the grip-tape near the nose, both pushing the board down and steadying herself at the same time.

It wasn't quite as flashy as a snap, which sent a spray of water exploding out from the wave, or the rodeo flips she sometimes practiced, but it was done expertly. It was an expert move, to be admired by people who knew surfing. Backboard Aerial. She knew that the two young men would know what they were seeing.

As Maya felt the closeout of the wave coming, she bent low and let the momentum carry her into a final carve; performing a bottom turn before letting the wave knock her off her board and into the water.

She closed her eyes as the current grabbed her, rolling both her and the board beneath the water for a moment. She resurfaced quickly as the wave passed, duck-diving beneath the next as she pulled her board back beneath her body by the strap around her ankle and began the paddle back out to the line. As she did so, she paused to watch the second man surf. It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at.

As soon as she did, she burst out laughing. He rode the wave, making the entire thing look easy—something that she knew in reality was actually incredibly difficult. As he broke the peak, he bottomed out flat and spun on his heel. He walked backward, both arms raised to the sides of his body. It almost looked like moonwalking. Maya gave the man a salute from her seat on the board, catching a flourish in return. Just like her move had been, she knew it was directed at her. It was a masterclass in footwork.

His grey-green eyes shone as he turned back, completing the maneuver and dropping back into the trough, bending his knees and back slightly. They were both fucking excellent, but Maya thought that if it really came down to it, the second one was the better surfer. Maybe, she admitted with a bit of chagrin for her earlier showing-off, even better than she was. A rare occurrence, especially on Lompoc.

They went back and forth for the next three hours, trading waves. The more that Maya watched the young men surf, the more impressed she found herself. As the afternoon went on, Maya found herself alone with the men. The University students went in first, and then Mikey Teeth, and finally—with a final wave—Lydia. Whether by choice or because they were the final three, Maya found herself floating closer to them as the afternoon progressed.

They began trading numbers on waves; makeshift competition style. One would ride, and as they paddled back the other two would hold up fingers out of ten for how impressive they had been.

On one of the final waves, as Maya paddled out and began to read the water, something caught her attention. It was going to be enormous. Turning, she began to paddle in more quickly, gaining speed as the momentum of the wave caught her up. As it began to rise, she stood. She felt herself lifting away from the water; not like she was rising, but as if the ocean were falling away beneath her. An exhilarating, familiar feeling.

When she fell into the trough, her board throwing up a line of spray as she skated the barrel, she found herself glancing upward. The curl of the wave hadn't quite crested yet, and she knew the moment was perfect. It made a blue, rolling ramp beneath her. Balanced on the shuddering board beneath her feet, she crouched slightly and leaned forward. She felt her speed building, spray lashing against her eyes and cheeks as she crossed the face of the wave. Dropping slightly, she turned her board and cut upward.

When she hit the air, she once more felt the perfection of her movement. She had only been planning a variation of the aerial, but as she left the water, small droplets chasing the tail of her board upward, she knew she had the height and the momentum for something else.

With her weight already positioned, back foot controlling the rotation of the board as she launched, she bent slightly and caught the side of the board with her foot, just above the toes. Even as it spun beneath her—once, twice—she was already searching the wave for her landing points. She found one, feeling her feet catch the board mid-air and steady it.

She hit the foam, and even though it was the softest part of the wave, she still hit it. The shock of the motion went up her legs from the bottom of her feet straight up into her hips, and Maya shot out from the front of the wave, carving a long circle around it. Diving off, the propelled herself beneath the wave with outstretched arms and surfaced. The first thing she saw, at a distance, was the young men. They were both seated on their boards, arms raised and all twenty fingers thrown up above their heads.

Grinning, Maya gave them a wave and turned back toward the beach. She opened the Velcro on her ankle leash and brought the surfboard under her arm as the water became shallow enough to stand. While making her way up the beach, a figure caught her attention. She had to shade her eyes with her flat hand to see who it was.

Lydia sat with her legs kicked out in front of her, the nose of her surfboard buried in the sand just in front of one of the hills, her back leaned against it. As Maya approached, the young woman's hair caught the light of the sun and looked like a sweep of fire down either of her shoulders.

"Holy Hell, Maya!" The woman's friendly voice called out. It was followed by a low whistle, "I always knew you could surf, but that was an show!"

Maya grinned, pausing a couple of yards away and planting her own surfboard in the sand. She glanced back out at the waves for a moment before turning to Lydia.

"Well," she dropped one eye in a conspiratorial wink, "I had a pretty good audience."

"Yeah, thanks for that, by the way. I think I had a pretty good shot with the tall glass of water out there... until you showed up." Despite her words, Lydia's voice was friendly—on the edge of laughter.

"I'll toss him to you when I'm done." Maya winked as she hefted her surfboard under her arm once more, "Anyways, off to the showers."

"Promise?" Lydia's voice called against her back as she walked away. Maya lifted her hand in a wave of acknowledgement.

As she stepped out from one of the wood-walled showers near the parking lot, with her surfboard leaned up against it, Maya found herself facing the young men. They had obviously just come out of the showers themselves; which were little more than three plywood boards around a metal pipe and a one-dollar showerhead. But it worked to get the salt off. The young men were walking across the parking lot, toward a brown camper van. One, the taller man, raised a hand toward her in a friendly gesture. The other one pulled up short, jogging a couple of steps to bring them together.

"Couple nice sets out there," he greeted her with the automatic familiarity of one athlete who admires another. His grin was wide and charming, "And that last wave—Damn!"

Maya grinned back at the man, reaching up to towel off her hair. "Not so bad yourself," she replied.

"I'm Nathaniel," he reached out a hand and she arranged her towel to shake it, "and that's Theo. Theo!" He leaned back, and Maya saw the other man pull up short. "Give the pretty girl a wave!" Theo waved, and Maya laughed softly as she returned it.

When she turned back to Nathaniel, she found him holding up a joint. The white paper was well-rolled, and he turned it back and forth between a finger and a thumb as he offered it toward her.

"Care to join us for a bit? Our digs are a bit rough at the moment, a little cramped, but... uh, homey." he nodded back over his shoulder, toward the van.

"Well," Maya's grin widened slightly, "I suppose I could be convinced."

Five minutes later, after sliding her board along the top gunnels beside theirs, she found herself in the young men's van. Maya plucked the joint from Nathaniel's fingers, pinching the end of it and bringing it to her lips. Breathing deeply, she passed the joint to Theo. She let the thick smoke roll up from her open lips, inhaling through her nose for a moment and then tilting her head back to blow it in a long line. It spread out and disappeared as it blew over the raised roof of the camper van.