Rory’s Rumblings: Mad Dogs And Englishmen

It is hot. Sweltering. The sun is a terrible beast scorching the earth and leaving only pissed Aussies in its wake.  Sunscreen, ridiculous straw hat, it means nothing. I’m burning alive beneath a hole in the ozone layer. Skin red, shirt soaked, limping about as I’ve walked more in the last four days than I have in the last ten years.

But it’s not all bad.

Sir Michael Wright has blown my mind. Griffin Colapinto beat Parko at Snapper in a more than legit fashion. Joel Parkinson, the only other answer than Mick when you ask who’s the best surfer at this dreamy hell of a break. I know, because we’ve been asking.

Jake stole my Kirra story, only fair since I’m fairly sure I remember telling him there’s no way they’d move the site. “Run it as fact!,” I screamed at him from atop our bunkbed.

The women in Oz are gorgeous. I don’t understand how they spring from the men. I’m familiar with the fact that ‘CT events bring forth the beautiful, but I’ve never seen them in these numbers.

One particular works in the bubble, I’ve made a point to say ‘Hello’ each time I see her. Party tonight, I put on long pants. Fancy as I get. I didn’t bring shoes.

Lana at the Surf Club was cool. Warm and welcoming. Attractive. Twenty minutes from so drunk any contact would be fairly termed sexual assault. The type of woman who’d take you home, show you love, smash a glass in your face and burn down your car.

My mind still reels when I see the lineup etiquette on display. Full eye contact fuck-yous on every wave. A manner of surfing that hurts my soul. Makes me angry from the beach. Doesn’t add up to enjoyment in any way.

I’m told this is how it is. All the time. Maybe worse this week than usual, but a daily cluster fuck display of selfishness and anger and a total lack of community.

Being barred from the WSL site means very little. Media access has been curtailed dramatically, due to reportedly poor behavior from one of our peers. It’s a murky story, half-believable, possibly justification for what’s already desired. Cut us all out, run it themselves.

Not so for Sean Doherty. Holed up down below all event, pumping out prose, while I meander and amble and ogle. The fact he knows my name makes me happy. That he seems to like me is uncomfortable. Strange to find an idol your peer. Hard to stomach the praise he serves as anything other than vicious lies. He’s an honorary member of the surf club. As he should be. Because he’s mattered for years and affects our sport and is kind and funny and bald. He also texts my employer and says I should be working harder. I could do without the last, Sean.

The pokies are boring and mildly racist in a way that’s forgivable because it’s not the Aussies who killed our indigenous peoples. They were busy with their own. Tasty Coon cheese brings an ingrained shudder, but fried up and served up it’s unreal.

“Would you like a salad?” Mr McIntosh asked me.

No, I’m fine.

How about some fried cheese?

Fuck me. I would. I’m so ashamed.

On a satchel of twist-ups are the words “Smoking harms unborn babies.” That sucks for them. But I don’t see how it’s my problem.

The ‘VIP’ area, packed to overflowing, perched atop temporary scaffolding, swelteringly hot and offering free hats too small for my head, rocked to and fro with each shift of humanity. It was nerve wracking, fear inducing, perfect justification to retreat once again to the Rainbow Bay Surf Club. I told a cute girl she had a small head and gifted the hat. A pathetic attempt at flirting.  

She accepted the hat then promptly forgot I exist.

More people know who I am than I’d expect. It’s partly an ego-stroke, mainly an anxiety inducer. But it’s scored me free beer and access I don’t deserve and I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I will keep my chin down, just in case. 

After the event wrapped up for the day the staff enjoyed a cozy get together at the Corona bubble. Free beer above a beautiful beach while the sunset lit up the Gold Coast and the temperature dropped into the bearable. Everyone was making fun of my aloha shirt. Because they’re dumb. 

I looked good.  

Late dinner at Eddie’s Grub House, a place described to me as “American food, basically. Cheese on stuff.” Shinya’d explained earlier that he assumes Americans eat almost nothing but fried chicken. Which is what I ordered, so he’s not that wrong.

Dinner turned into drinks turned into trouble. The bar back spilled an entire pint on me. Soaking my pants and leaving my dick smelling like beer. Buckley laid into a girl who had the temerity to complain about his anti-longboarding article. Full-on tirade, “It’s fucking stupid. Just walking back and forth. State of the art fifty fucking years ago.” She was taken aback.

I passed off a shot of tequila, served in a glass piping hot from the dishwasher, onto Conner Coffin. The look on his face told me I made the right decision. I’d’ve retched onto the table. Stripped nude. Cried. Lost a fight.  

Tequila does not agree with me.

“I’m gonna fuck that chubby little girl tonight,” I told Morgan while we stood under the eaves, hiding from a downpour, smoking cigs with the cool kids. I thought it was sewn up. That she didn’t know her father, had a thing for older men. Was drunk enough to like what she saw, but sober enough that I could avoid moral conundrums. I was wrong. She left with a younger, more handsome, young man. Grabbing his hand, dragging him off into the night.

Tyler Allen was present, a typical state of affairs these days. To call him eccentric would be an understatement. I suspect mentally ill may be more apt.

Aussie women are great. Attractive, amusing, open, and frank. Sexually liberated and dressed in clothing that is somehow modest while revealing.

We all went home alone. Or rather, together. Ten grown men stumbling down a dark street into a packed rental.

When I woke up a few hours later I was still very drunk.