1. Like anyone truly grounded in his or her place, Pablo (not his real name) never spoke about himself, never talked about Los Cerritos. Conversations were always about the waves that day, parties from the night before, or people—new surfers or women—who’d set up camp. He never let on to his own story, except for the briefest hint dropped one evening as he watched the waves reel off the point. “Surfiar ha abierto una puerta para vivir,” he said. Surfing has opened the door to life.

2. At the time it was hard not to laugh. Pablo stood there in his red poncho, his dark eyes squinting through the sunset. All that seemed missing from his monologue, with its utter pride and histrionics, was a raised fist, or a band of Mariachis backing him up on strings and horns. But looking back on it now, perhaps with less illusions than I had at the time, (or, fuck-it, perhaps more), I see that what he wasn’t saying was the real story.

3. Pablo’s hacienda: a sun-cooked Detroit van and a pair of cheap dome tents walled in with Coca-Cola signs and stacks of surfboards. It sat just above the high tide mark. Pablo rented the boards and sold herb. His hacienda was the gathering place for both local Mexicans and travelers alike. The first time I saw him, he was getting high with a local Mexican’s horse. He’d stroke its muzzle, whisper in its ear, and blow smoke into its nostrils. Then, without warning, he mounted the horse, galloped down the beach and back, and started doing tricks.

4. My days in Cerritos had a monastic regularity. I’d get up just before dawn, then surf through the morning. Usually by 10, the sun was hot, and onshore winds blew out the waves. Once the cool air and glassy water returned in the evening, I’d paddle back out with Pablo and all the other surfers for the sunset session.

5. In between I spent a lot of time waiting. I’d read, write, fish, or swim. Some days I hitched into Todos Santos to check emails or buy groceries. But maybe the best times were spent in the narrow rectangle of shade under Pablo’s metal sign-roof, where I slowly began to decipher the local Mexican slang. As far as I could understand, anything good was masculine, Padre. Anything weak or bad was feminine, Madre. And cabron, or bastard, was a ubiquitous term of endearment. But for all this machismo, almost seeming to border on misogyny, any female aged 15 to 55 who passed in front of the hacienda would cause an immediate transformation in Pablo and the rest of the Mexican kids. All conversation ceased, and they’d sit up like polite suitors, each trying to outdo the other with compliments on the woman’s beauty, especially if she was a gringa, and most of all if she was huera, blonde.

6. And yet, somehow this behavior seemed less for the woman’s benefit and more a way for the kids to try and prove to each other that they weren’t gay.  Read More...