Tapping the Source Read Online Free PDF Page B

stood by the cash register as the kid rang up the sale. He was very much aware of one of the girls staring at him, a kind of half smile on her face. The music was loud. The sunlight was coming through the glass and the open door, burning the side of his face. When the kid had stuffed Ike’s money into a box, he pulled a couple of colored cubes out from under the counter and pushed them at Ike.
    “What are these?”
    “Wax.”
    The girl on the glass made a face. “You gave him Cool Waters,” she said. “I think he needs Sex Wax.”
    The other boy chuckled. The kid who had made the sale pulled out a round piece of wax and thumped it down on top of the cubes. “You rub it on the board before you go out,” he said.
    Ike nodded. He had remembered seeing surfers wax their boards. He slipped the wax into the pocket of his jeans and picked up the board. “Rip ’em up,” he heard one of the girls say as he went back outside, into the brilliant light. He heard one of the boys laugh, and he had not guessed that buying a board could turn out to be such a humiliating experience. Well, fuck them, he thought; the price had still been good. He adjusted the board beneath his arm and headed up the sidewalk, deciding as he went that the din of traffic was preferable to the music of the shop.
    •   •   •
    Back in his room he used a pair of scissors on one of his two pair of jeans. He cut them off just above the knees and put them on. He picked up his board, which barely fit into the small room, and tried to get a look at himself in the mirror. One thing was certain and that was he didn’t look like many of the other surfers he’d seen around town. His hair was too short, and his body looked white and frail against the dark material of the jeans. He shrugged, swung a towel around his neck, nursed the board out of the room, and headed down the hall.
    He was coming down the steps and onto the shabby strip of grass when he nearly bumped into one of the girls who had come to his room looking for papers. It was the tall, athletic-looking one, and the sunlight was dancing off her strawberry-blond hair and her white tank top. He felt somewhat embarrassed, naked, in the brilliant light. He tried to hide as much of himself as possible behind the board.
    “You a surfer?” she asked him.
    He shrugged. “Trying to learn.” He studied her face for signs of a put-down. Her cheekbones were rather high and wide, her brows delicate and nicely arched. There was something about her face, perhaps it was the arch of the brows, that gave her something of a bored, haughty look. But somehow that expression did not carry over into her eyes, which seemed rather small and bright and looked directly into his own. There was a bit of a smile on her face and he decided that it was not like the smiles on the girls in the shop. He went down the sidewalk and turned to look back. She was still standing in the same spot, watching him. “Have fun,” she called. He smiled at her and started away, headed for Main Street and the Pacific Ocean.

6

     
    The beach was crowded, the sun bright, but the breeze at his back was cool, and as he stood in the wet sand and felt the Pacific Ocean touch his feet for the first time, sending ribbons of coldness up his legs, he began to see why many of the surfers wore wet suits. Still, he did not hesitate. He had this feeling that every person on the beach was watching. He waded into the white water, stepped almost at once into some kind of hole and felt his nuts shrivel as the water rushed past his waist. He pulled himself onto his board and began to paddle.
    It didn’t take him long to discover that waves which looked small from the pier got much bigger when you were looking at them from sea level. Getting out was harder than he had expected. For one thing, he kept sliding off the fucking board. He was trying to paddle as he had seen the others do, stroking one arm at a time, but just when he would get himself going in