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NOTE: The King of Mush Mountain
isn't entirely fiction. There are some
basic elements that came directly from a strange experience I had back in the early
1970's, and it involves
a story of its
own.
THE KING OF MUSH MOUNTAIN
by Bob Feigel
Jay didn’t like air-conditioners. They stuffed up his sinuses and wasted gas. But what the hell, it was a company pickup, the gas was paid for and the dry Arizona air rushing through the open windows made him feel like he was driving along the top bench of a sauna.
Without a second thought he flicked the control on the dashboard to high, shoved a new tape in the slot and settled back to enjoy the silent desert outside.
Jay Randle. Five years ago his name was so well known in the world of surfing that ‘JR’ was all you needed to sell a magazine, a surf film or anything else from wax and
boardshorts to dark glasses.
Yep. Jay was one of surfing’s all-time super-stars. But that was before the
glamor wore off and he tired of the kooks and cameras that followed him on every wave.
Now Jay was on his way back home to the coast of Southern California with a solid chunk of money. A nest egg earned by busting his balls for the past four years on construction jobs in Florida, Texas and New Mexico.
It was all part of his master plan. Work hard, earn big and save every dollar. And so far it had paid off. Now Jay was on his way to the company HQ in Los Angeles to return the pickup and grab his final paycheck. Then he’d take a couple days to catch up with his family and a few old friends before
taking off with his escape fund to find a nice little piece of land near a beautiful, clean point break somewhere without a lot of other people. Baja, New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Central America, even Oregon. Anywhere without crowded waves.
On the outskirts of Phoenix, Jay pulled off the highway and stopped at a roadside store for a cold bottle of Dos Equis and a bag of pretzels. As he stepped from the icy store back out into a blast of hot dry air,
he was temporarily blinded by the glaring sun. Was he seeing things? Were there really three kids on
BMX bikes checking out the bright yellow, classic old JR signature model long board carefully cushioned in the pickup’s bed. And, if he wasn’t imagining it, were they really carrying much smaller surfboards under their arms. In the middle of Arizona?
As Jay walked towards the truck one of them noticed, nodded to the others
and they took off. Jay watched the youngsters turn the corner and disappear before getting back in the pickup, opening the beer and following.
* * *
“Why not drop in on a few waves before Blythe?” he chuckled. Jay followed the kids into a huge parking lot with a gigantic
sign looming over it. It read: “SURF CITY, USA - The World’s Biggest Inland Surfing Beach.” The lot was filled with cars, pickups and 4x4’s, many topped with board racks. Five dollars bought a ticket and a smile from the girl perched behind a thick glass window. But it was snatched by a surly, overweight jock-type slouched sullenly at the entrance. “If this keeps up, I’ll feel right at home." However Jay was totally unprepared for the incredible scene he found inside.
SURF CITY was big. And by BIG I mean something like 20 acres filled with various low slung Polynesian style buildings, potted plants, palm trees, concrete walk ways, covered patios
with picnic tables, food stands, lifeguard towers, and a wide, grit sand beach facing SURF CITY’s claim to fame - THE SURF!
A two and a half acre mushroom shaped ‘surfing lagoon’ conveyed a sort of movie set realism that places little strain on the imagination. The brochure he’d been given on the way in explained how the wave machine’s massive hydraulic system was used to store a massive amount of water that could be released when it reached a certain level. Then every couple of minutes or so, a million gallon mound of chlorinated water popped up at the base of a four story concrete water reservoir - made to look like a waterfall - and travel like an ocean swell from the small end of the mushroom, surging 400-plus
feet towards the waiting surfers and their boards. As the mound of water rushed into the larger, shallower end it popped up and became a three to four foot wave - mushy, but surfable.
It was ingenious engineering masterpiece. A Disneyland with waves ... and all the props belonged. But the PEOPLE! Where did all these people come from? It was as if someone was making a movie about a southern California beach on a set that looked like a set, but had somehow airlifted in the entire summer weekend menagerie from Malibu, Huntington Beach or La Jolla, using them as extras.
It was staggering! But here they were, on the sand among the palm trees and beach umbrellas. Pale fat families out for a day at the beach, sunburnt kids throwing balls and kicking water in the shore break,
cleancut students passing Frisbees, volley ball games, tan and bleached lifeguards in faded red trunks, burheads in cutoffs ogling at motionless rows of pink skinned, bikini clad girls laid out on their towels like greased Barbie dolls in rigor mortis. And, believe it or not - THE LOCALS.
Oh they were locals all right ... complete with aloha shirts, faded tank tops, well worn
boardshorts, flipflops and that unmistakable territorial swagger seen on surfing beaches and in school playgrounds world round. Besides, none of them had a towel.
* * *
Naturally, the locals were hanging out together, facing the waves and talking loudly. Jay was reminded of The Pit at Malibu in days long past. A nearby group of flunkies sat close enough to hear any words of wisdom but far enough away not to be mistaken for one of the elite. And the Locals’ harem-in-waiting? Well they sat off at a distance erupting into occasional fits of noisy laughter, hoping to be noticed.
In all the years he’d surfed, Jay could never figure out what surfers who spent every day together, day after day, had to talk about constantly every day, day after day. When did they find time to do something new to talk about? Was it more difficult than it looked?
“Hey - howzit ...howz da waves?” “Awright, broh, but it was mo’ bettah yesterday when Beercan Larry was on da, you know, machine.” “Yeah broh, Beercan really knows how to crank it up so we get, you know, bigger waves.”
Only six surfers were allowed out at a time and the two locals who were standing in line in front of Jay paused their conversation just long enough to give him a good sniff. He looked like one of them in his trunks, but the sight of his big yellow board made him immediately suspect. Jay smiled and the two quickly looked away to continued their self-conscious exchange.
“Yeah, well it’s awright today!” ‘Awright, look at that right!” “Awright!” “Awwwwwright!” Jay paddled out with the others when it was their turn and was the only one to catch it. Effortlessly he was on his feet and cranking a hard right on the mush wall. From the sides of the lagoon and on the beach people saw a big yellow board appear to slide backwards and forwards as if by magic.
* * *
While waiting in line for his next wave, a new face joined The Locals on the beach.
“Yo Flash, where ya been hangin’?” “Yo Dude. Just cruised in from, you know, the big pool out West. Awesome, broh. Righteous slides out California way.” Awright! , where’d ya like, ah you know, surf?” “You know... .. Huntington Cliffs and all those, you know, bitchin’ spots.
“Farfucking out, man. But, you know, like Spider’s really got like, you know ... hot after you split.”
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ll have this place wired again in, you know, no time.”
“Yeah, well look at Spider on this right ..... he’s ridin’ his, you know, new stick!”
It was a good ninety-five degrees out with only a hint of hot desert breeze making it over Surf City’s high protective walls. Spider was the one in the multicolored wetsuit jacket and the shock cord running from his ankle to his shinny new three fin Zingo-tail surfboard. Even Flash had to admit that Spider had really gotten hot.
“Farfuckingout! Spider don’t take no shit from no one! Look at ‘im, you know, cut off those
Tucson valley yo-yos! Awwwright!”
On his next wave Jay took off fin first, did a couple lazy spinners, stood backwards, cranked some radical cutbacks and finished with a standing island pullout in the shorebreak. By the time Jay got back in line, Spider was ripping up another wave so badly that the Valley yo-yos were looking for their strings to climb back up on.
“Hey broh, you seen that new guy on that big yellow board?”
“Yeah, but I never seen nobody surf like that ‘cept, you know, in those old surf flics.”
“Hey Flash, look at Spider on this next wave. Bet he really shows this new guy where it’s at.”
No doubt about it, Spider was on. Full on. He ripped and slashed and stunned his fans with a series of squat stance rapid-fire mini cutbacks and roller coasters that made it appear that he was riding a demon instead of a surfboard.
“Farfuckingout!” “Awwwwwwwright!”
Silently, Flash moved away from the rest of the locals and headed in the direction of the wave control room.
* * *
As the afternoon wore on, Jay and Spider continued to entertain the multitudes with their spectacular stunts, and when the inevitable happened and they finally paddled
for the same wave, the other surfers in their group got out of the water in order to watch the battle from the beach.
Out in the water Jay looked over and grinned at Spider who was energetically waxing his board with a colorful, fruit scented wax made especially for chlorinated water between 65 and 80 degrees. Spider looked up but didn’t smile back. Up in the control tower, Flash was laughing his head off.
Suddenly, sounding something like the world’s largest toilet flushing, the four story reservoir evacuated far more than its normal million gallon load and instead of the usual three to four foot wave a giant eight foot monster bore down upon the two surfers.
On the beach the people scrambled for higher ground.
In a matter of seconds Jay recovered his initial surprise and with a couple of strokes was in the big wave with no trouble at all. Spider wasn’t so lucky. As he tried to take off in front of Jay his three fin Zingo tail spun out from under him, his cord snapped and the board hurled itself straight towards Jay’s head.
“Take THAT!", sputtered Spider as he went under. ‘And tell the rest of your hotshot friends this is a locals only spot,
GLUB ...”
Up in the wave control tower Flash was being carried off kicking and screaming hysterically by a jelly bellied security guard.
On the beach the crowd gasped.
Jay ducked, caught Spider’s board with his upraised hand and carried it a few more feet before throwing it out ahead of him and jumping on. The crowd on the beach cheered as Jay whipped up and down, in and out, and around the massive curl of the hard breaking wall of water with smooth powerful movements that seemed to defy gravity. As Jay cut a graceful line in front of the curl, it covered him completely. But just before the horrendous shore break exploded in the shallow water and inundated beach with swirling, bubbling foam, Jay came shooting out of the tube, up the closing wall of water and
over the back.
Before retrieving his own board, Jay climbed out of the water and walked over to where the lifeguards were comforting Spider. He put the three fin
Zingo-tail down in front of the mumbling local and smiled.
“Nice place to visit,” he thought. “But I sure wouldn’t want to live here.”
The
King of Mush Mountain©
Robert R. Feigel 2007 - All Rights Reserved
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