40 THRASHER
SURF STORY by Kiran O'Brien, Christiansted, Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands..
The grommets were limin' around the doghouse. Rich pulled up to the beach in his truck. He had just returned
from his annual trip to Mexico as evidenced by his new Pancho Gonzales mustache. "Oh man, how was it?" asked
Scott, the first to see him amble down the path with his board. "It was radical. Totally unreal. Mexico is insane.
the worms are huge" "The worms? The kids just didn't get it. They expected to be hearing tales of huge perfect
board-splitting barrels at Puerto Escondido, and dreaming about their future trips away from the mushy
close-outs Judith's Fancy was offering that day.
Rich must have been doing something beside surfing on his trip, like maybe peyote. "It was sick." he continued.
By now everyone had gathered around to hear his radical tales of Mexico. He was just about fifteen to twenty years
older than most of the other surfers, but for an old guy, he still ripped. All the surf rats were riveted on the tales of
his surf trips which usually centered on big, perfect, uncrowded waves.
This time it was different. He looked even older than usual. He told of camping by this isolated point break
and visiting the nearby town, where the only bar and grocery store was also a bordello. Rich had met some
other surfers from California down there and they were communing with nature out on the point and their
only reality checks were as other-worldly as the twilight zone.
They were all deathly sick down there, that's par for the course in Mexico, One of his buddies,
Stan, was, they swear, near death. He was violently ill and skeletal. They had to bathe and
feed him. Somehow, they discovered he had a tapeworm. He got this medicine that made
the tapeworm stick its head out from where the sun don't shine. He didn't want to
undergo surgery in Mexico, not this part anyway, and he was too weak to travel. He
begged his friends to help him. So, Stan held onto a tree, while Rich and the other
guys started to yank the worm out of him. They played tug-of-war with this tapeworm
trying to pull it out of Stan's body, while poor Stan bellowed in pain.
Stevie's mouth dropped open. "No way!"
Rich continued. "Do you think I could make up a story like this? We
must have pulled like ten feet of worm out and then, one of us got as close
to Stan's you-know-what as possible and cut the worm with a knife. The tape-
worm recoiled back up inside Stan like a tape measure." There was silence while
the kids pondered the dangers of surfing in Mexico. Finally
Rich turned to head down the little path to catch a few waves.
Robbie piped up. "So Rich, how were the waves?"
"Great." he smiled and jumped in the water.
Ocean