CARLOS & KATRINA

A Novel by Charles Adrian Trevino
Copyright 2006, 2018

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Chapter 7

Carlos Fontana sat on a boulder on the beach watching the waves as they rolled in and broke, biding his time and contemplating the paradoxical nature of his existence.  He was waiting for the tide to come in and cover up the rocks that were posing a threat to his life.  Clad in his blue–black wetsuit with his surfboard lying beside him in the sand, Carlos studied the ocean swells that were crashing over in long, smooth tubular walls.  The tide was still too low, and the waves he wanted to surf were breaking too close to the large, dangerously sharp rocks that protruded out from the tip of the sandy point.  But the combers were perfectly shaped, peeling very fast and curling over in precision form; that was why he was sitting alone waiting here, instead of joining the crowd of surfers who were riding sloppier but much less dangerous waves a few hundred yards to the south.

Carlos watched the wind–hollowed waves like a cat in a window watching a mouse just outside.  The urge to go out and chance the dangerous surf was driving him near crazy, but clearly, the price to be paid for falling off was just too high.  Of course it would still be dangerous when the tide got higher, but not quite as risky as it was now. So he just sat there on his rock in the pleasant morning sunshine and waited, thinking about life and it's paradoxicalities.

The endeavor he was contemplating was fraught with danger; yet it was this very same danger that kept the other surfers down the beach from coming over and ruining his precious solitude, the solitude that he so badly needed, and which was so difficult to find in the crowded city.  Having good waves all to himself made running the risk of surfing these rock–strewn waters worthwhile. The surfers down the beach were the more common, lesser skilled but regular locals of the area, territorial bastards who refused to acknowledge or respect his superiority. They were loudmouthed morons who would ruin his day if he let them; mostly cut–and–dried blowhards and blusterers who had heard about his various talents and were consumed with jealousy, Carlos thought to himself.  He was a threat to their self–delusional egos.  That was why he had to despise them; because of their constant, insatiable need to find out something bad about him, something that might be embarrassing, something which they could use to cut him down to size and make themselves feel less insignificant by comparison. And his unrelenting Usher pursuers provided these jackals with that something they so desperately needed, by constantly spreading vicious scandals and rumors about him.

Carlos looked over at the distant blacksuited figures surfing the poorly–shaped waves to the south and thought about his fall from grace from the surfing hierarchy.  He knew damn well it was Ushers who had caused his former surfing companions to avoid him as they reacted to the lies and distortions which his zealous enemies relentlessly circulated about him, using the techniques that had been handed down to them through the ages.  And it wasn't just malicious gossip that plagued Carlos.  He had somehow incurred the wrath of a large number of wealthy, powerful and very petty Westview socialite–magpies, the scions of highly placed political, financial and media insiders, who in his estimation were really just a bunch of rank–and–file milksop brats. Through their parents, these spoiled invertebrates had access to the controls of a sophisticated image–destroying machine, a well–oiled apparatus designed to demolish the reputation of anyone who crossed or displeased them, utilizing the services of shadowy organizations such as the much–feared Usher Eyes and other surveillance/terrorist entities. These self–proclaimed foes of his were obsessed with perfecting the time–honored art of character assassination, and Carlos seemed to represent a very large threat to them, one which needed to be neutralized. If spreading stories filled a need, who cared if the stories were true or not? Certainly not the Ushers.

Yet there was frequently some bit of truth behind the stories, some fact about himself which he would have preferred to have hidden away from prying, malicious eyes. By his own admission, Carlos was a pretty strange guy.  He had suffered many frustrating blows in his life; the absence of his father, the schizophrenia of his mother, the natural tendency of society to alienate eccentric people like himself. But what had harmed him more than anything else was a relentless and sadistic barrage of abuse he had sustained at the hands of certain ultra–vindictive and very powerful Ushers, who had taken umbrage at a heinous offense he had allegedly committed when he was only eleven years old. The intense fall–out from this one mistake, which to him was nothing more than a quite understandable loss of temper that had flared under extreme provocation, had caused Carlos to gradually withdraw from the mainstream. He had begun to dislike large gatherings of people, crowds which were all too often comprised of common herd–beast types... the insatiable rumormongers whom he had increasingly come to regard as mean, unenlightened bovine jackasses, to be avoided at all costs.

Then there were more problems awaiting him at home, in the form of a mother who seemed intent on sabotaging all his efforts to educate himself; it was almost as if she feared he would grow wings, fly away and leave her to her fate.  He struggled every day to understand her mental illness and the effect it had had on their lives, but there was no getting around the cruel truth; she was more like an enemy than a mother.  He was also involved in a constant struggle with many of his teachers at school, some of whom blatantly downgraded his consistently high test scores, forcing him to divert time and energy in repeated attempts to make them correct their "errors." He was frequently accosted in public by dolts he had never met or even seen before, clueless, socially–inept jerks who loudly spewed out insults, innuendoes and accusations regarding supposed offenses which he hadn't actually committed. As time went on, all of these irritants had begun to take their toll on his besieged psyche. In his frustration, self–pity and loneliness Carlos had turned to drugs for solace, and the search for harder drugs had led him to associate with still more lower–character types, which in turn contributed to his general disdain for people and reinforced a dangerous proclivity to withdraw into himself.  It was a vicious cycle which he couldn't seem to break.

Yet there always seemed to be some hidden silver lining, something paradoxical at play in almost every negative thing Carlos contemplated.  His alienation from society had also freed him from the time–consuming socializing and partying that occupied normal people; it had forced him to turn to different pursuits in order to fill his lonely hours.  Music was one such higher pursuit; surfing and motorcycling were others.  And he was an avid reader.  Books could take him to other worlds, other eras; they provided an enormous source of relief to him from his many cares and worries.  Despite all his hobbies and interests, however, he still suffered from intense bouts of depression and loneliness which he tried to assuage through the increasingly frequent use of various mood–enhancing drugs, sadly failing to see that this self-destructive habit was in itself a major impediment to any resolution of his problems. In spite of all these setbacks, however, Carlos was a good student and remained easy to get along with, if not too badly provoked.

"Hey, Fontana!!" someone bellowed from down the beach.

Carlos looked down to the south and a smile slowly spread across his face, brightening up his saturnine expression.  His friend Troy Winters was ambling lazily up the beach towards him, a surfboard under his arm.

"Hey, Fontana!" Troy shouted from 30 yards away. "They're talking about you! They're sayin' you're no good! 'Cause you've never been to the Islands!"

Carlos gave Troy a contemptuous sneer and laughed.  The big blonde ne'er–do–well was one of the few surfers who still wasn't afraid to be seen with him; that was because Winters was so big he simply didn't care what anybody else thought.  Carlos picked up a tiny little rock, tossing it at Troy as he neared him. The pebble bounced harmlessly off his rubber–suited torso.

Troy laughed.  "Hey, what are ya, jealous or something? You jealous of me, boy? 'Cause I'm good–looking and my daddy's rich?" Troy dropped his surfboard in the sand next to Carlos.

"You better watch out, Winters.  I'm persona non grata around here! You don't know the things I done..."

"Nothing you done would surprise me, Fontana.  Hey, what's the tide doin'? Are we on?" Troy motioned to the perfect but dangerous waves breaking directly in front of them.

Carlos looked at the surf again and frowned.  "Well, it's still breaking real shallow... but if you go out, I'll have to go out too.  I can't let you shade me, Troy."

"These little waves just might hurt us, amigo.  Those mean ugly rocks are just inches below the surface." Troy looked out at the ocean with an expression of genuine concern.  "Sure keeps the crowd down though, don't it?  Hey Fontana..." Troy turned to look at Carlos again. "I heard you made it with Katrina Fury!"

Carlos nearly jumped off the rock he was sitting on.  He snapped his head around and looked suspiciously at his big jovial companion, who let out a burst of loud, boorish laughter.  Carlos felt a hot flush spreading over his face.  He fought to control it.

"Aw, she just likes good music, that's all.  Just a good ear."

"That's not what I heard! C'mon, how'd you do it?" Troy looked curiously at Carlos, who looked back at him with an irritated frown on his face.

"A lot of beautiful girls throw themselves at me.  Didn't you know that, Troy?" Carlos said, using a condescending tone of voice.

"I've never seen you with any babes like that, that's for sure.  What'd ya do, hypnotize her? You one of those hypnotist guys?"

Carlos looked down at the sand.  The last thing he wanted to do was to start thinking about Katrina again.  Yet he thought about her constantly; in the past few weeks, the tawny beauty had never left his mind for more than a half–hour.  No matter how he chastised himself for being foolish, he just couldn't stop fantasizing about her.  He still couldn't quite believe she had actually started talking to him, after he had demonstrated one of his better songs in a class they shared.  Carlos had secretly admired Katrina for years, just like all the other guys who saw her.  But Carlos also felt something else whenever he contemplated beautiful girls like Katrina; a strong feeling of resentment at the realization that they always wanted something he didn't seem to have.  He knew that he was neither rich nor good–looking, but even so there was something that made him bristle at the thought that his better qualities would never even be considered by these femme fatales, who seemingly walked on air.  Carlos had felt this resentment every time he had seen Katrina, and experienced the strong attraction she radiated.

When Katrina had first spoken to him, he hadn't so much been suspicious of her intentions; what had really worried him was the thought that he might let down his guard and really start believing that he actually had a chance with the dusky automaton.  He had had his hopes dashed too many times to go rushing happily and foolishly into something that couldn't possibly last; what would he do after her infatuation died down, and he had become hopelessly hooked?  It was better to keep her at arms–length, and not let himself be drawn too deeply into her world.

But then Carlos had seen something at school that had produced a poignant reaction in him.  He was sitting on a bench between classes keeping a low–profile, as was his usual manner, when Katrina had walked by carrying a load of books in her arms.  She hadn't seen him, but as he watched her in silent admiration a disgusting thing had occurred.  A group of students sitting around another bench began to laugh and jeer obnoxiously at her; they had yelled out something like "hey, how're the birds treating ya' today?"  As she started to walk faster past them Katrina had stumbled, flustered, and almost dropped her books, which elicited another wave of mean laughter from the little crowd of hyenas.  The sight made Carlos recoil in disgust; it was like watching a beautiful deer taking flight, pursued by hunters.  But worse than that, it had had the effect of making him want to go to Katrina and offer his support.

Later Carlos asked a talkative classmate who had been standing nearby and had also witnessed the incident just what the allusion to birds was about.  The student seemed to know all about Katrina's personal affairs; he mirthfully told Carlos a sad story indeed, about how Katrina's father had died, and how she had "flipped out" and been sent off to some mental institution for weeks.  Carlos had been pierced to the heart by Katrina's misfortune; that sympathy had been his undoing.

Troy spoke again, bringing Carlos back to the present. "Now they're really talking about you, Fontana! Say, what does a gun like that want from a flake like you, anyway?" Winters asked.

"Nothing.  She wants nothing.  C'mon, let's get out there.  The tide's high enough now..." Rising up from his rock seat, Carlos bent down and grabbed his board.

Troy picked up his board as well, and the two surfers began to walk towards the water.  In spite of the dangers posed by the break, their moods were instantly lifted as they immersed themselves in the spirit of the moment.  Both surfers lived for surfing; they loved the soft crunch of the sand under their bare feet, the feel of the water as it rushed up to greet them with it's white foaming lace swirling around their legs, the sound of the seagulls calling out as they soared above, and the smell and taste of the ocean.  Wading out, they threw their boards down onto the water and flung themselves onto their decks, paddling energetically to get out beyond the breakers.

Once they were outside they floated lazily on their boards, looking warily at the rocks that jutted out like sharp teeth between them and the shore.  A beautiful, glassy blue liquid peak rolled straight toward Troy, and it was too much for him to pass up.  He turned and paddled hard for the wave; catching it, he quickly stood up on his board and immediately angled to the right, staying ahead of the curl and taking no chances.  Troy cleared the menacing rocks, and it was smooth sailing after that.  He enjoyed the rest of the wave as it broke in deeper water, throwing thick fans of spray around as he executed sharp turns on it's smooth surface.

As Troy finished his wave and paddled back out, a bigger and better wave was coming to Fontana.  This one would break farther out from the rocks, and would be safer to ride.  Carlos turned and stroked hard; he felt the water lifting him and hurling him forward and down as he jumped to his feet.  He made the steep drop, turned right at the bottom and began to speed down the line, but then suddenly whipped his board straight back around, slamming hard into the whitewater.  As he turned to face the wave again he crouched down, and the thick mass curled completely over him, enclosing him in a dark liquid pipe.  He was forced to squat even lower as the cylinder constricted, and he shot through the tube like a bullet going down the barrel of a rifle. Then suddenly he was back out in the daylight again, and as the water cleared from his eyes, he saw that he had made it safely past the dangerous rocks.  A feeling of elation came over him, and as he began to dance on the sparkling face of his perfect wave in the brilliant morning light, for just a few moments Carlos forget about everything else.

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Copyright 2006, 2018 by Charles Adrian Trevino.