The Tribes of Palos Verdes by Joy Nicholson Page A

when they laugh at me, balancing a wet suit on my head, just cruising down the face of a wave, holding out twenty seconds, singing La-la-la-la.
    Other guys get mad when there’s lots of people out, but I’ve decided not to let crowds bother me. I’m a wave catcher. While the other guys huddle up in a pack, I go in front, first, behind, over the top; it doesn’t matter. I’ve learned to look at surfing like a war.
    The guys think of surfing as being mellow, everyone in turn, like the line at the supermarket. But I’ve learned to look at it like this—you only get a turn if you fight for one. I let Jim take good waves but I never let Skeezer or Mikey. Jim says if I’m not careful, someone’s going to punch me, or maybe worse. But no guy in Palos Verdes would ever punch a girl.
    No one has the guts to punch a Samoan either. Samoans are huge, at least three hundred fifty pounds. They have roses and barbwire tattooed on their thick necks. Skeezer says they keep guns in their wet suits.
    Even if the waves are good, everyone clears out of the water when we see their battered brown station wagon pull up. We sit on the rocks, far away from the gang of Samoans as they amble down the public cliff stairs.
    I’ve seen them reach into the tide pools and grab for fresh abalone, eating the meat from the shells raw and whole, then sucking the juices from mussels that lie clumped on the buoy. They dance and laugh together, drinking malt liquor out of brown bottles until they are so drunk that they can barely stand. I watch them from the rocks in awe. I have never seen people dance without music before.
    The Samoans live in San Pedro, a city you should be afraid of. People are murdered there in their sleep for no reason.
    San Pedro is twenty miles from Palos Verdes. As I ride through its streets, on the way to the mall with my father, I talk about the Samoans eating from the tide pools, sucking the fish raw from the shell. I press my hand against my father’s as he quickly drives his Mercedes through the streets, decorated with graffiti, lined with barbwire.
    I shiver and ask him if it’s true what my mother says—that he’s going to stop giving us money, so we’ll be poor.
    â€œShe says you’ll kick us out and we’ll have to move to San Pedro and go on welfare.”
    â€œGoddammit,” is all he says.
    My mother is as big as a Samoan now.
    *   *   *
    The air is hot, humid, semitropical. I lie in a raft in the pool, rubbing my neck with an ice cube, waiting for Jim to finish talking to our mother. As I watch through the open window Jim bites his nails. My mother throws up her hands, annoyed.
    â€œIt isn’t stealing, Jim. Your father owes me. He chose to get nasty, so I’m forced to rearrange things.” She then asks if he understands the difference between stealing and rearranging.
    I put my fingers in my ears, tired of hearing about money, banks, signatures, accounts. As the sun pours down, I feel more and more restless, thinking about P-Land, wondering if Dan really knows a secret spot.
    I close my eyes, remembering an older guy’s attention, wanting more.
    *   *   *
    When I get to P-Land, Dan’s passed out in his bus under the old eucalyptus. But when I knock on the door, he sits up, squinting, trying to place me.
    â€œHey,” he says, his eyes red and filmy. “Come in.” He smiles, patting the stained knit afghan beside him.
    His bus is dirty, strewn with sandy clothes and rusted tools. I sit on a moldy flowered cushion stolen from an old couch. I tell him I want to know about the secret spot. He rubs his hands together, looking me up and down.
    â€œSo you came for some secret fun.” Then he laughs and winks, loading the bong from a Baggie stuffed with pot.
    When I bend down to take a toke, he snatches the bong away, laughing, telling me I can’t smoke until I meet his lady.
    Then he