CARLOS & KATRINA

A Novel by Charles Adrian Trevino
Copyright 2006, 2020

________________________________________________

Chapter 34

Carlos cruised in his rental car down the street, for once not even glancing at the magnificently designed and landscaped mansions that he so admired -- even though they sometimes conjured up bad memories for him. In the past, driving through the neighborhoods of the opulent town of Westview, whether visiting friends or as a delivery driver, had always cheered him up; it had instilled in him a strong desire to work hard at his musical projects in the hope of achieving financial independence. He had never aspired to actually live in Westview himself, nor had he ever wasted his time and energy feeling envious of the upper and upper-middle class people that lived there. He had always been content with the thought that if he tried hard enough, he might someday escape the chains of poverty that so bedeviled and prevented him from improving his outlook on life, which for such a very long time had been extremely grim but had suddenly improved immensely, as if almighty God himself had smiled on him. Yes indeed, his life had undoubtedly gotten better than it had been. But now his future was beginning to look dark and cloudy again.

Carlos had begun to regret losing his temper and walking out on Katrina even as he stalked down the curved tiled path to the driveway where his rental car was parked. But it had been too late to go back -- and he had been too angry to do so anyway. The massacre in Franklinville had jolted him to his soul, and had made the prospect of living in opulent comfort and contentment with Katrina and her mother in their beautiful, mostly Usher-populated neighborhood seem somehow... inappropriate. He desperately needed time to think about what he should do, and which direction he should take as his complex life loomed uncertainly before him -- with all of its attendant perils and pratfalls.

As Carlos drove down the street at a moderate clip, he saw in the distance a shiny new Mercedes luxury car rounding the corner and coming his way; a young blonde-haired man was at the wheel, his large well-muscled arm resting on the open window frame. As they passed each other Carlos glanced momentarily at him, and was surprised to see the rich young buck glaring at him with a hostile, sneering expression on his face. "Fuck you, prick," Carlos muttered under his breath, looking away. A second later he heard a car horn honk, and looking back through the rear view mirror he saw the obnoxious young swell holding his hand up with middle finger upraised as he sped away.

Carlos laughed. "Fuck me too, huh stud?" he said to himself, continuing on down the road. He had long ago learned not to let such things upset him, but in his present state of mind he found himself starting to get mildly annoyed. In the past, before his reputation had been expertly shot to hell by his numerous enemies, he had often taken comfort in the company of his many fair-haired surfer friends -- their presence had had the effect of scaring away most of the Ushers that relentlessly dogged him, giving him a respite from the all too frequent taunts and insults. For that he had been extremely grateful.

Life was complex, Carlos mused as he drove down the street in the direction of a quaint-looking little cafe he had passed by many times, but had never stopped at. Now his empty, growling stomach was prompting him to stop and get a quick bite to eat there. A minute later he was pulling into its small, almost completely empty parking lot. Setting his brake and picking up his black attache case, he stepped out of the car and walked towards the entrance.

Once inside, he saw that the restaurant was completely empty except for one man whom he assumed was the proprietor due to his imperious manner; when Carlos looked at him he immediately felt like turning and walking out. Carlos was not one to stereotype people according to their looks -- he did not like people doing that to him -- but he had had many bad encounters with tall, slim-looking blonde men who seemed to be endowed with a permanently mean facial expression, the kind of look this guy was exhibiting right now as he watched Carlos enter his fancy little cafe. Ignoring the man's piercing stare, he sat down in a booth and picked up the menu; he was extremely hungry.

The hostile-looking man approached him to take his order, reluctantly it seemed. Looking at his menu and not the proprietor, Carlos politely ordered a light breakfast of toast, orange juice and coffee. The radio had been warning of a large, potentially dangerous ocean swell and as Carlos planned to go surfing that morning, the last thing he wanted to do was glut himself just before he paddled out; that was never a good thing to do when the waves were big. The man took his order and disappeared into the kitchen, and Carlos opened his attache case and took out a pamphlet that Frank Fortune had given him the night before -- Air Force Major General Dan Murdock's last warning to the world -- and began to read it once again, growing angrier by the second.

The disgruntled proprietor/waiter returned after a short while with Carlos' order and set it down on the table without a word, a barely-concealed scowl still marking his face. Carlos put his pamplet down and began to drink his coffee as the man disappeared into the kitchen again. A few seconds later an obnoxious rage-rock song began blasting from the cafe's overhead speakers, excessively loud; this guy obviously did not appreciate Carlos' presence in his fine establishment. He emerged from the kitchen again wearing a smug look on his face.

Starting to get really annoyed now, Carlos motioned to the man with an upraised hand. "Excuse me sir, I've got a bad case of tinnitus. Could you possibly turn that enchanting music down a little bit?" he asked in a mock-polite tone of voice.

"NO!" The jerk practically spat the word out in his face. "That's what I listen to, and that's what this restaurant plays! If you don't like it, you're welcome to leave!"

"Oh, I see. Well then... more power to you and your customers!" Carlos reposted, still using his sarcastically polite tone. "And may I commend you on your excellent taste in music, sir-rah!" Picking up his glass of juice he calmly took a sip, regarding the angry waiter with the blank facial expression that he had stolen from David Slasher.

The man's face contorted into a murderous mask of barely controlled rage. "If you don't like it, you can get the hell out! What the hell makes you goddamned Mayinkans think you can just come and..."

"THANK YOU, thank you very much..." Setting down his glass, Carlos picked up his attache case and rose up from the table. Reaching into his pocket, he contemptuously tossed a twenty dollar bill on the table and began to walk towards the door.

"Goddamn Mayinkan! You and your queer band made my daughter come out of the closet! She told me she's a goddamned fucking lesbian! My own daughter! Thanks to you and your fag singer, you little..."

"I suggest you disown her immediately, my good man. GOODBYE!" Carlos interrupted him brusqely, proceeding toward the exit at a dignified pace.

"Faggot! Get the fuck out of here!" the angry cur bellowed.

"I am out of here, piglet!" Carlos yelled back at him, abandoning any show of restraint, sarcastic or otherwise. He pushed the door open and stalked out, his anger now starting to boil over. He hadn't gone very far when he heard the enraged man burst out of the door behind him. Turning around, he saw the grunt coming after him with a large wooden roller clenched in one hand. Carlos quickly reached for his back pocket, a viciously angry look coming over his face.

The tall slim man immediately stopped in his tracks; an expression of uncertainty and fear had suddenly replaced his contorted visage. Carlos backed slowly towards his car which was only a few yards away, his hand still in his back pocket. Continuing to stare the now thoroughly frightened proprietor down, he opened the car door and got in, quickly starting the motor and throwing the car into reverse. The noble hetero scrambled out of the way as Carlos floored it, accelerating backwards towards him; then shifting into forward drive, he screeched out of the parking lot and sped away down the street. He fully expected the bellicose asshole to summon the police, and only wanted to get as far away as he possibly could from the place.

Now he was really angry. It seemed strange that he should have had two unpleasant encounters with white buttheads in such a short space of time, especially in Westview where people generally minded their manners. Carlos immediately began to think, as he was often wont to do, that it was not a coincidence but was really his old friend "God" messing with him again, trying to teach him another lesson in life; coincidences like this had happened to him many times before. Feeling guilty, he started to reflect on some of the accusations he had so angrily made to Katrina only a few minutes earlier.

Carlos had always possessed a rare faculty for being able to see things from other people's perspectives, putting himself in their shoes, so to speak; it had played an important role in his growth and development as a human being and had kept him from turning into a spiteful, vindictive monster, despite all the cruelties he had suffered at the hands of Ushers and their willing puppets over the years. He began to think about all the contentious people he had encountered in his lifetime, and how he had struggled to understand what made them so angry; this compulsion to understand had driven him to many different sources of information, trying to learn more about other people, and about himself. After years of searching for answers he sometimes felt like he was no closer to comprehending either, but in truth he had actually gained quite a lot from his efforts.

He had come to the conclusion that the main cause of people's troubles was their own confused psychological makeup and emotional immaturity, particularly in regards to their sexuality. He sometimes felt grateful that the conditions of his strange life had led him to solitude and masturbation, and an acceptance of the consequences of both things; not always, but sometimes. Accepting what he was, and why he had developed in such a way had instilled in him a strong belief that social popularity and sexual conquests had nothing to do with a person's value or character at all; it was a foolish notion, so commonly held by just about everyone he met that he had started to believe it was just as natural as growing angry with someone who annoyed you. It wasn't, and it was only the long hours he'd spent in lonely solitude that had given him the time to think things out, and had allowed him to see the truth of the matter.

He began to remember some of the things he had learned about people's mindsets, and the reasons for their differences; he had concluded that a lot of it had to do with a person's ideology, what a person regarded as normal and abnormal behavior. The discords ran so particularly deeply between people of different races and cultures that some observers had speculated that it was all a matter of evolution -- or lack thereof. One particularly opinionated writer, a white supremist who went by the name of Houston Mullet, had done extensive research regarding people's histories and religious beliefs; he had then taken it upon himself to write many volumes on these subjects, putting his own spin on the things he had discovered. Carlos didn't like him at all; he thought Mullet was just another intolerant, narcissistic racist ass. But he had provided Carlos with valuable insights into the Central Reserve, the country's dominant banking institution, and after reading Houston's point of view regarding the elitist hierarchy that controlled the Central Reserve Carlos had been forced to give Mullet's opinions some thought. He hadn't liked what he had thought.

According to Mullet, the world had been populated by repugnant, sub-human ape-like things that were bereft of any qualities that could be considered human, until "God," or more specifically a group of highly evolved "Gods" had caused them to evolve by sexually mating with them -- with devastatingly bad results. A race of inferior beings was created, creatures of immoral and abnormal character who indulged in "bizarre" sexual practices such as homosexuality, and they had started to corrupt the true humans. In response to this evil, the "real" humans had to subdue them with their rods, or "fasci"; this was where the word "fascist" had come from, a word that had acquired negative connotations over the millenia. The beaten-down, inferior beings had consequentally rebelled against their superiors and had actually gain ascendency over them, causing them no end of trouble, a situation that had continued to the present time. This, according to Mullet, explained the fundamental differences between the white and non-white races -- and explained all the evil in the world. It was due to what he called "secular humanism," or toleration of evil-doers.

Carlos wanted to believe that Mullet was just another blustering fool blowing hot air, but he had been forced to consider the man's opinion; he had observed the differences between races many times himself. But Carlos believed that if what Mullet said had actually been true at one time, racial hybridization was obliterating any clear-cut differences between the races and was creating a confused, mixed-up mess. In Carlos' biased opinion it was a beautiful mess that was beneficial to humanity as a whole in that, despite all of its growing pains, it was almost certainly less offensive to the all-wise God that Carlos himself knew and worshipped than was the slavery and genocidal cruelty that Mullet himself seemed to condone and advocate.

It was also Carlos' opinion that certain types of people, elitists of genetically lower character who were entirely devoid of moral conscience, had used this schism between the races to gain ascendency over the less ruthlessly opportunistic, less "realistic" peoples of the world. These elitists had achieved such success and gained so much wealth and power by exploiting these ideological differences that they were now poised to take over and control the entire planet, reducing it to a hell on earth which only they themselves could escape thanks to their supreme wealth. As for the rest of humanity, well, they had earned their fate by being so unrealistic; contemptibly blind and stupid poets and dreamers, they deserved to become the chattel of the elitists. This was the ideology of the evil Realists, the true animals whose cupidity Carlos so despised. At least that's what he thought.

Carlos continued driving through the beautiful enclave without any further incidents, and arrived at Westview Beach a short time later. No police car had intercepted him yet, and he decided the safest place to be was out in the water, inconspicuous amongst the other wetsuit-clad surfers. Donning his wetsuit in the parking lot, he quickly applied wax to his board and hastened down to the water's edge, pausing there to wait for a lull between sets so he could paddle out. The "big dangerous swell" had turned out to be just a false alarm, as the news outlets so often blunderingly gave; the waves were only ten feet from the front, which was only five feet by the old school surfer's scale -- far from the eight to ten foot swell he had been hoping for.

When the set had subsided, he ran swiftly towards the water holding his board out in front of him and plunged right in. Paddling furiously to get past the shorebreak, Carlos ducked under an incoming wave and immediately felt his board getting swept away backwards from beneath him, going with the surge; physically out of shape, in only thirty seconds he had completely exhausted himself and was floundering about like a beginner. Cursing to himself, he suddenly realized that between attending to his music business and galavanting about with Katrina, he had done nothing in the way of exercising for the past three weeks; this was something that had happened to him before, many times in fact.

Pulling his board back to him by the leash, he attempted to get out past the wave line but found himself moving imperceptibly against the current; he felt as if he were paddling through thick mud, so weak had his arms become during his long period of inactivity. When he finally got outside, he found himself vying for the medium-sized peaks with a crowd of well-off Westview locals who got to surf whenever they wanted, and who were anything but out of shape; they were giving him no quarter. When he finally caught a wave to himself he blew the take-off completely, careening erratically down the wave and falling on his face at the bottom. When he surfaced he could hear the sound of loud laughter coming from some of the surfers around him.

Furious, he paddled back out and tried again, but met with little success. In order to surf well, a surfer had to surf regularly, and most Westview locals did; but Carlos was not so lucky and quite often found himself hitting the water after laying off for two or three weeks. As a result, he frequently found himself being forced to give up waves to barrel-chested surfers who were maddeningly inept, but who could paddle strongly about the wave zone all day long without tiring. It was just another annoying aspect of his frustrated life.

Finally, after over an hour of trying like hell Carlos caught a decent wave and managed to take the steep drop without falling. Upon clumsily reaching the bottom he turned, slowly and awkwardly; looking up, he saw that due to his tired sluggishness the lip of the wave was already throwing out over his head, giving him just a fraction of a second to duck down. Pulling into the tube, he went into a low crouch and hung on as his board sped along inside the wave's interior. After a few seconds he burst out of the dark liquid cylinder into daylight again, managing to straighten off as the wave crashed over in front of him. Feeling vindicated but tired, Carlos decided to quit while he was ahead and rode the wave's whitewater all the way in to the beach.

Fifteen minutes later he was dried off and sitting on his large beach towel in the sand, intently going over Major General Dan Murdock's tell-all pamphlet. As he pored over the pages, he found himself getting angrier and angrier once again; this was not why he had come to the beach that morning. He put the pamphlet down and stared out at the ocean. By this time the prevailing onshore tradewinds were beginning to blow slightly; they would soon transform the lovely glassy surface of the ocean into a useless, unsurfable mess. He was grateful that in all of his lethargic ineptitude he had gotten at least one good wave.

Staring absent-mindedly out at the water, Carlos heard the sound of mocking laughter coming from a group of local surfers sitting a short distance away from him. He had heard that type of laughter many times; chances were high that the buffoons were talking about him... again.

"Ha ha ha! I told you he sucked! Did you see him out there, falling on his face? What a fucking dweeb!" said a large, muscular local with a stylishly shaved head.

"That guy is the most over-rated kook there ever was... anyone who says that guy can surf is a frickin' idiot! He completely sucks!" proclaimed another suntanned blonde kid, very loudly.

Carlos looked down at his beach towel, a little grin spreading over his face -- he was used to this kind of irreverance. In the past it had infuriated him, but he had finally stopped getting angry over such things; after all, his good friend Liko Boy Lahainia had only recently dubbed him a "radical stylist" after seeing him surf in the Kanala Islands. After hearing that kind of accolade coming from Liko Boy, one of the best surfers in the world, Carlos no longer cared what anyone said about him anymore. He continued to listen to the criticisms, silently laughing to himself.

To Carlos' surprise, he heard one surfer defending him. "I wouldn't talk so loud if I were you... I saw the guy get barreled on an eighteen foot wave at The Con... I don't think you would have even paddled out that day, man..."

"Bullshit! If that guy can surf I'll eat my fucking wax. He's never even been to the Islands! I'm a thousand times better than that kook, dude... " said the bald-headed blusterer.

"Come on, you big kook, you've been surfing three years! That guy's much better than you, he was just out of shape today... if he was in form he'd blow you out of the water proper, fucker..." Carlos' defender was still sticking up for him.

Another surfer chimed in, also on Carlos' side. "He has been to the Islands! Troy Winters told me he ripped the Islands, twenty-five foot! He said he's gone there twice with him already... he just never had the money to go before, that's all..."

"You know Troy Winters?" asked another young crew-cutted surfer, in an awestruck voice.

"Hell yeah, he's in my economics class! I talk to him all the time, he says Fontana ripped with Liko Boy Lahainia at his secret spot, twenty-five foot sets... it was so big they almost drowned! You're fulla' shit, man, that guy could eat you for dinner..."

"I don't believe it. So he's been to the Islands once or twice... so what? I've been there six times already, and I'm going back again next month... I'll blow that idiot away, anytime dude..."

"You're a great man, Shaun," said another young baldhead; the other surfers in the little clique burst into laughter. As Carlos watched in amusement out of the corner of his eye, Shaun the Man looked down at the sand and snorted in disgust... but he shut up. Carlos looked away, pretending not to notice them.

Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of loud, boisterous hoots and wolf-whistles. That kind of enthusiastic outburst could only mean one thing; the appearance of a stunning bathing beauty. Carlos declined to turn around and look, like all the other beach-goers were doing; he had decided long ago that no other girl could match Katrina -- his lost love. Picking up Dan Murdock's pamphlet again he slowly began to read, but his heart was starting to feel heavy. Sighing, he put the paper down again and stared out at the waves, which were still smooth and glassy.

One of the surfers in the group of locals that had been talking about him suddenly whistled through his teeth. "Mama-cita, how would you like getting tubed in that?" he exclaimed.

"Now will you shut up, fag?" said the surfer who had been defending Carlos.

"Ai yie yie... well, I guess its better than fucking dogs!" said Shaun the Man, letting out another of his loud obnoxious laughs. Upon hearing the all-too familiar insult, Carlos immediately jerked his head up and looked behind him... and his heart started to beat fast in his chest.

Even in her modest one-piece black swimsuit Katrina Fury was putting the entire beach to shame, including the beautiful waves, as she walked across the sand toward him. She hadn't seen Carlos yet -- she was giving one of the groups of admiring buffoons that haughty "hands-off" look... but to no avail. They all continued to whistle and howl shamelessly, in abject lust. Katrina ignored them and kept on walking towards the ocean, pouting in annoyance.

Carlos rose up and turned around, not yet daring to hope. But it looked as if... maybe... his jackass outburst that morning might not have been the final nail in his coffin after all, as he had so unhappily thought. Katrina turned her head, looking away from the howling hordes, and suddenly spotted Carlos standing there on his beach towel, a look of disbelief on his face. She smiled and waved, and began walking faster toward him.

Carlos began to feel elated, almost giddy with happiness as he watched Katrina stepping lightly over the sand towards him. He suddenly felt an impish, almost overwhelming urge to turn and look at the jealous expression that was surely plastered on Shaun the Man's surly face, but stopped himself; it would be boorish to do that. Instead he just smiled back at her as Katrina approached him cheerfully, now disregarding her throng of admirers.

Life was good again.

***************

_______________________________________
Copyright 2020 by Charles Adrian Trevino.