The morning haze hadn’t yet burned off, and the sun was still hiding up there, somewhere. I considered getting some donuts, but didn’t want to overdo it, as I had already had breakfast and something that resembled a cinnamon roll.
At least it was made with love.
I passed a donut shop. Then another. I came upon a third.
My willpower shattered, I hung a U-turn and made my way back to the third donut shop, and left a few minutes later with a half dozen bars and cakes and crullers, two-thirds of which were chocolate. To wash them down, I got some chocolate milk. Chocolate may or may not be an aphrodisiac, but it sure as hell was a Jim Knighthorse picker-upper. I was giddy with anticipation.
I paid two bucks and parked in the public parking near the pier. I could have easily parked in my parking space under my apartment building and walked across the street and saved myself a fistful of dollars. But what the hell, I was feeling wasteful. I ate my first donut.
The beach was mostly quiet, although the faithful surfers were out here in droves. The waves were choppy, but that didn’t discourage the diehards. And in Huntington Beach, they were all diehards. I ate donut number two.
If I turned my head a little, I could see my apartment building across the street. My apartment was there on the fifth floor, overlooking Main Street. And next to my apartment, through an open sliding glass door, I could see my Indian neighbor dancing in his living room. Jaboor was wearing only cotton briefs and was singing into a microphone, although it could have been a TV remote control. He paused in front of the glass door and shook his ass for all of Huntington Beach to see. I ate donut number three. When the ass-shaking was done, he boogied away from view.
A cool breeze blew through my cracked open windows.
I contemplated the breeze. Donut four.
Outside, I gave the last two donuts, both maple bars, to the first bum I found. He seemed genuinely pleased and started on them immediately, despite the fact that they were not chocolate. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.
I crossed over to the pier, where a handful of fishermen were fishing. Not a single woman in the bunch. Behind my Oakley wraparounds, I scanned the fishermen carefully, wondering what the blond punk would look like now.
He would be near forty. At twenty, he had looked like hundreds of other surfers. Blond, tanned, healthy, good-looking. What did he look like now? Most lifelong surfers didn’t allow their bodies to go to pot. No, if he were still surfing, he would still be fit and trim. I had to assume he was still surfing. It was all I had to go on.
If so, he would still have his tan. Still have his blond hair.
And if he was a lifelong surfer, he would still live in the area, or not far from here. Hard to give this weather up, unless he moved to Mexico, like some die-hards do.
But at the time he hadn’t been surfing, right? He had been fishing. But he looked like a surfer. His hair was stained blond by salt and sun. I knew he was a surfer. But that didn’t mean he was still surfing. Maybe he got married and moved to Riverside to start a family.
Still, if he were a surfer at heart, even with a job and family and a long commute, he would find a way to the waves. It’s in the surfer’s blood. They can’t escape the siren call of the waves. It’s a lifelong passion.
Well, I had 40 or 50 years left on this planet. That should be enough time to cover all the beaches.
I spent the afternoon there at the pier, searching faces behind my shades. The sun did eventually burn through the low cloud layer, and when it did, and when most of the fisherman went home, I did too. Just a hop, skip and jump away.