The Gentlemen's Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

park and not enough spaces.
    A new word crept into surf jargon.
    Localism.
    Easy to understand—surfers who lived near a certain break and surfed it their whole lives wanted to defend their turf against newcomers who threatened to crowd them out of a piece of water they considered their home —but it was an ugly thing.
    Locies started to put up warning signs: “If you don’t live here, don’t surf here.” Then they began to vandalize strangers’ cars—soap the bodies, slash the tires, shatter the windshields. Then it got directly physical, with the locies actually beating up the newcomers—in the parking places, on the beach, even in the water.
    Which, to surfers such as Boone, was sacrilege.
    You didn’t fight in the water. You didn’t threaten, throw punches, beat people up. You surfed. If a guy jumped your wave, you set him straight, but you didn’t foul a sacred place with violence.
    â€œFighting in the lineup,” Dave opined one Dawn Patrol, “would be like stealing in church.”
    â€œYou go to church ?” Hang Twelve asked.
    â€œNo,” Dave answered.
    â€œHave you ever been to church?” High Tide asked. He actually has—since he left his gangbanging days behind, Tide goes to church every Sunday.
    â€œNo,” Dave answered. “But I knew this nun once—”
    â€œI don’t think I want to hear this,” Tide said.
    â€œWell, she wasn’t still a nun when I knew her—”
    â€œThat I believe,” Boone said. “So what about her?”
    â€œShe used to talk about it.”
    â€œShe used to talk about stealing in church?” Johnny Banzai asked. “Christ, no wonder she was an ex-nun.”
    â€œI’m just saying,” Dave persisted, “that fighting while surfing is . . . is . . .”
    â€œÂ â€˜Sacrilegious’ is the word you’re searching for,” Johnny said.
    â€œYou know,” Dave answered, “you really play into a lot of Asian stereotypes. Better vocabulary, better in school, higher SAT scores . . .”
    â€œI do have a better vocabulary,” Johnny said, “I was better in school, and I did have higher SAT scores.”
    â€œThan Dave ?” Tide asked. “You didn’t have to be Asian, you just had to show up.”
    â€œI had other priorities,” Dave said.
    Codified in the List Of Things That Are Good, an inventory constantly under discussion and revision during the Dawn Patrol, and which conversely necessitated the List Of Things That Are Bad, which, as currently constituted, went:
    1. No surf
    2. Small surf
    3. Crowded surf
    4. Living east of the 5
    5. Going east of the 5
    6. Wet-suit rash
    7. Sewage spills
    8. Board racks on BMWs
    9. Tourists on rented boards
    10. Localism
    Items 9 and 10 were controversial.
    Everyone admitted to having mixed feelings about tourists on rentedboards, especially the Styrofoam longboards. On the one hand, they were truly a pain in the ass, messing up the water with their inept wipeouts, ignorance, and lack of surf courtesy. On the other hand, they were an endless source of amusement, entertainment, and employment, seeing as how it was Hang’s job to rent them said boards, and Dave’s to jerk them out of the water when they attempted to drown themselves.
    But it was item 10, localism, that sparked serious debate and discussion.
    â€œI get localism,” Tide said. “I mean, we don’t like it when strangers intrude on the Dawn Patrol.”
    â€œWe don’t like it,” Johnny agreed, “but we don’t beat them up. We’re broly.”
    â€œYou can’t own the ocean,” Boone insisted, “or any part of it.”
    But he had to admit that even in his lifetime he had witnessed the gradual crowding out of his beloved surf breaks, as the sport gained in popularity and became cultural currency. It seemed