Free In the Break by Jack Lopez Page A

don’t know. Maybe she was apprehensive about surfing unknown waters. I know I was scared
     shitless the first time I’d surfed here.
    “The rocks are rounded, and there’s a channel to paddle out in. I’ve never seen a shark here.” Last summer I surfed here every
     day for a week while my family stayed at my aunt’s trailer. Jamie was with me, and the waves had been small but fun. Another
     time, I’d camped down here with some older guys. Actually at San Rafael,but we’d ended up surfing here because San Rafael was a one-man wave, and it easily became too crowded. I knew this place,
     knew it better than Jamie.
    “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, already changing right in front of us, using a towel.
    “Moo,” I said.
    “Fuck off, Juan.”
    The Pacific Ocean in Mexico is the same one you encounter in California. But it
feels
differently because it’s in another country. Maybe that was why Amber was hesitant, I don’t know. But she was suddenly modest,
     an irony, because we’d held each other, and I hadn’t slept for her closeness and my desire that had raged all night. Still,
     we’d not done it, though we’d explored each other’s bodies with a luxurious sense of time, relishing the new sensations as
     if they’d last forever, as I knew they would.
    I came out of my reverie, walked to the opposite side of the car from where Amber was, and began changing out of my pants.
     The waves were calling, there wasn’t another soul at this very good surf spot, and it appeared that Amber now wanted some
     privacy.
    “It’s an easy paddle out, there’s a channel,” I said.
    “Yeah,” she said, suddenly unapproachable. I tried to watch her change but she gave me the knife-stare, so I took off down
     the path to the water.
    Getting out into the lineup was slow going. The tide was out and the stones covering the inside were round and slick with
     a green moss. When it became deep enough to float my board I began paddling. You couldn’t paddle very fast because you’d hit
     rocks and slip off your board in the light tidal surge inside. Even after it becamedeeper, every so often you could push off rocks with your hands, but nothing mattered — the sun was hot, and I was in Mexico
     with Jamie and Amber!
    When it was deep enough I dunked myself in the cool refreshing ocean, drenching my aching head. I looked back and saw Amber
     maneuvering the cliffside. Once in the water she paddled too fast and hit a rock, slithering off her board. Not hurt or anything,
     she scrambled back on with a new awareness.
    Out in the break we huddled together. From the mesa the waves had looked shoulder-high. Yet out here in the lineup, they were
     overhead. Puntas is so much fun because you can take the drop fading left, hit the bottom and crank a huge turn, and then
     climb up the face of the wave just ahead of the whitewater, and then bank off the lip with a snapback, and take the drop again.
     At low tide, as it was now, the lip of the wave throws out just a bit, just enough to make it fun, and with the added size,
     there was a little something at stake, though the waves were surprisingly gentle for how big they were getting. A perfect
     wave for Amber to ride. And the reason I loved it so much: its forgiving nature.
    “This wave’s cool, Amber,” I said. “It’s easy to make and the water’s not that shallow.”
    “You can go either way,” Jamie said.
    “I’m fine, you guys,” she said.
    “I know,” I said, taking off on the first set wave, bottom turning so that my right hand dragged in the water, and then was
     covered by the wave — tubed! sort of—without getting in the whitewater. The wave was well overhead, and I could hear both
     Jamie and Amber yelling encouragement as I nailed a huge cutback once outsidethe hollow part. With a peak wave the process of getting covered lasts for a very short time. That first wave was probably
     the best wave I’d ever ridden in my life — an omen, I just