Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

On their first date Dad took my mom to Topanga Beach. He played guitar for her and convinced her to paddle out surfing with him. They got married a year later, moving into a house on the beach.

Mickey helped Charley and me string up our boxing gloves. Mine had been acquired in a trade for my Raggedy Ann doll with a boy who was moving from the beach. This went down following a particularly tyrannical evening with Nick after which I had announced my desire to learn how to box. Then a few days later, as if to show that he was unfazed by my sudden urge to box—an obvious gesture meant to protest Nick’s drunken rages—Nick put together this little bout between Charley and me.

It’ll be good for you, Norman, he said.

While Mickey secured the knots Charley and I craned our necks to peek around the flat-topped dirt knoll on the point.

Stop leering at the naked ladies and put your mouthpieces in, said Nick.

The nude beach was just around the dirt knoll and both Charley and I quickly denied any interest in girls.

Good, said Nick. You know what’s behind those tits and asses?

Charley and I looked up at Nick, waiting with our eyes and ears wide open.

Mothers and grandmothers and brothers and sisters and cousins that you have to deal with, he said. Weddings and anniversary parties. Endless headaches.

Charley and I waited for more, but that was it.

You’ll get it one day, said Nick. Mouthpieces in?

Yeah, I said.

Good. Your mom would have a complete nervous breakdown if you lost your teeth.

Mickey was chugging down his beer. He looked back into the cove at my house where my mom was watering plants on the deck.

Okay, said Nick. Keep your hands up and keep your feet moving.

Like Muhammad Ali, I said.

Nick smiled and I could smell the beer on his breath.

Yeah, just like Ali.

Charley didn’t look nervous at all. He was two inches taller and about ten pounds heavier. We circled each other and I danced like Ali. I saw some openings between Charley’s glove and shoulder, enough room to punch him in the jaw, except my arm just lurched instead of shooting forward to punch him. Again, I tried to swing but my muscles tightened and I had to break through their resistance to throw a punch that ended up as a fly swat across Charley’s forehead. Then all of a sudden he came at me. I put my hands up and he hit me in the stomach and I lost my breath and turned sideways and he hit me in the nose. A stinger went down my body to my feet. It wasn’t as simple as pain. It was liquid and it was cool like the ethyl alcohol that my dad used to wash out his ears after surfing. My eyes watered and instantly I was scared shitless. I looked around for help and Nick was squinting at me, lips pursed.

Ready to quit? he said.

I nodded. Charley threw up his arms in victory.

I put out my hands for Nick to unlace my gloves and he rubbed his forehead and sighed and put down his beer. Charley moved with a confident swagger and Mickey complimented him on his toughness, and that brought to mind my crying over my Raggedy Ann doll the night after I made the trade. I had wanted it back. It was the only toy left from when my parents lived in the same house. But it was too late—the boy and my doll were already in another city.

Charley got his gloves off first and said he was going skateboarding with Trafton and Shane and a few of the other legends on the beach. They were going up to Coastline where the pavement was new and the streets were wide and steep and rolled on forever.

Your mom specifically forbids that, Norman, interrupted Nick before I could make my plea to tag along with Charley.

I looked at him and I felt my face turn red and my chin quiver.

It’s too dangerous, he added.

I touched my nose and it was sore and he seemed pleased that it didn’t make sense—allowing me to box but not go skateboarding.

Life is a long series of readjustments, he said, patting me on the back as if to soften the unfairness. Better to get used to it now, Norman, he added.

Nick and Mickey went ahead of us, carrying the gloves and mouthpieces so that we wouldn’t lose them. I followed Charley to his house near the point.

You can come along if you want to, he said.

I didn’t need his approval, I knew all those guys too, but I pretended to be grateful.

CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_91260ae2-9dfd-5b66-a010-18d94f6df4d4)

NEAR THE TOP of Ontario Peak I woke up. Feathers rocked from the sky and coated my face. I had been dreaming but could not remember the dream. Were Dad and I just gliding side by side down a powder run?

Wind rustled through the spruce needles, so pure and uncluttered that I wondered if I was still asleep. I was kinked over and a section of the instrument panel crossed the foreground. One corner of the panel sunk into fog like an upended ship. A few feet beyond it was a big tree trunk. It crossed the other way, making an X with the panel. It was impossible to know where the horizon line was and my eyes strained to orient myself. Then the fog thinned like a flock of birds lifting and one of the airplane wings was stuck into the tree trunk. All these weird mashed-together pictures did not add up to anything that made sense. Chaotic swirls of snow fell sideways and back upward then disappeared behind a whitewash of incoming fog.

I tried to breathe but couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. My stomach was choked off by my seat belt, which strapped me into the seat. I called for my dad.

I can’t breathe, I bellowed. Dad I can’t breathe!

Pinned on my side by my seat, I couldn’t turn around to check on my dad and Sandra in the back. I went in and out of consciousness—like sinking into a murk of water and then suddenly rising to the top only to drop into the murk again. The whole thing is just a nightmare, I decided. A nonsense dream. Can’t wake up though.

I noticed something beyond the shattered cockpit—the pilot seemed sprawled out as if diving backward and there appeared to be a bloody cavity where his nose should have been. A reef of fog swallowed him before I could be sure.

I tried to breathe again. Just a speck of oxygen. My hand fumbled for the seat belt buckle and my blue mid-top Vans squeaked against the snow. The buckle released and my lungs burned with cold air. Dad will fix this, I told myself. He’ll turn everything right side up again.

I felt myself winding down, an engine sputtering. My head was light, eyes blurry. I had no idea where I was. Eyes began to close and I surrendered.

CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_790572cc-1b6a-546d-ac73-c71f0d83eeea)

WHEN CHARLEY AND I loaded into the VW bus it was filled with smoke from the joints going around. I took a puff, careful not to inhale too deep, and Big Fowler had to jump out so that the bus could make it up the beach access road to the Coast Highway. A mile south we turned off the highway past the Getty Museum. Shane floored it so we could climb to the top of the hill, then one of the girls would drive the bus down to where Coastline crossed another street and went uphill—the run-out.

Barefoot and shirtless, hair in ponytails, the gang spilled out of the sliding bus door. Polyurethane wheels were fairly new, replacing the old clay ones, and I was awed by the swooping high-speed S-turns the gang carved down the center of the street. Charley and I watched until the succession of dangled arms disappeared around the first bend.

All that remained was the black slope. Charley didn’t seem intimidated and stepped right onto his board and took off. I had never skated anything this steep and I didn’t want to be all alone up there. I rolled forward, kept my turns long and made sure to curve back up the hill before starting the next turn. Charley went around the bend in a tuck and I worried that he would finish way before me and that everyone would be watching as I dribbled in last.

I sucked up my fear and pointed my board down the center of the street. In an instant I was flying. As I came around the bend I could feel the board start to wobble. I shot out of the turn and kept leaning up into the hill, trying to eat up some of the speed. The wheels sent violent quivers into the trucks—the metal axle below the skateboard deck—and up through the deck into my legs and my legs vibrated like loose exhaust pipes. Hold on, I told myself. The sidewalk was closing in and I had to start the next turn. I fought the whipping motion and shifted my weight to my toes and suddenly the wheels stuck and the board booted me into the air. I landed on my left hip, bouncing twice before my skin gripped the pavement and refused to let go. I put my hand down and my elbow came with it, flipping me over. When I finally stopped my back and ass were scraped raw too.

The air stung the whole left side of my body and the ground hurt against my backside. My hand burned and my hip throbbed but all I cared about was if anybody had seen me eat it. I looked up—Charley was already around the next turn.

My skateboard was in a rosebush and I plucked it out, scratching up my other hand. I threw down the board and pushed off, making big round turns for the remaining quarter mile. When I reached the run-out Charley was sitting against the bus with all the guys and the girls with the flowers in their hair.

What happened? said Charley.

Looks like Norm wiped out, said Trafton.

I nodded and pulled my trunks off my hip to show them my war wound. It was as red as a raspberry and bloody and the skin surrounding it was smeared black.