All week I’ve been seeing gargs where they formerly weren’t. Gargs on streetlights, rooftops, mailboxes, even one on a vending machine. Always perching. Hanging ten from some point of vantage. I blame Dutch.
Dutch Radner took second in the Billabong Pipeline Masters this year. It would have been first but he got ragdolled by a mega bomb that broke early. Still won 75K, and that was enough for Dutch. He lived cheap. Wax for the board, gas for the van.
But sometimes he’d drop a chunk on a crazy purchase. Like when he won the Corona Open J-Bay in ‘09, dude bought a true-to-scale Iron Man helmet with working pieces. The visor flipped up and the eyes glowed and everything. His pride and glory for four days until Kenz dared him to wear it in the waves, and the salt water bricked the servos.
So I wasn’t surprised when he got hit with a new notion. I was toweling off after the dawn patrol at Leadbetter Beach when Dutch called out to me.
“Mondo — get your eyes on this shit!”
He was sitting in the back of his van, shirtless and dripping, Macbook on his lap. I peered over his shoulder.
“Get a load of this fucking garg, bro.”
It was a stone beastie, cracked and sun-weathered. A carved animal of some kind, with a lionish snout and squinty little eyes. I couldn’t really tell what it was supposed to be. I told Dutch as much.
“Mondo, this is some real-deal Notre Dame shit,” said Dutch.
He scrolled down the page to show the listing. 16th-Century Late Gothic Limestone Gargoyle.
“It’s twenty-four grand,” I said.
“Victory at sea,” said Dutch.
Two weeks later the garg was delivered by truck.
It was about a foot and a half tall, with scabs of lichen and two dull fangs. Dutch dubbed her Rita. He decided immediately she was a she.
Mac took one look and spat on the ground. Said she gave him the willies.
“That is not a good object,” he told Dutch, “You oughta get yourself rid of that thing.”
But none of us paid Mac much mind: the guy was sixty-five and everything gave him the willies. The ice cream stand at Hammond’s started serving balsamic strawberry and Mac said that was demonic.
“She smells like smoke,” said Kenz, who had gotten to her knees to sniff the thing.
“Yeah,” said Dutch, “She’s from some church in France that burned to the ground. Only the gargs were left.”
“Hardcore,” said Kenz. That was big coming from Kenz, who described most things as “kiddie shit.”
Mac scratched his orange-white beard and frowned.
“She ain’t one of us,” he said.
Dutch patted Rita’s ash-blackened head.
“You’re right, Mac,” he said. “But we can fix that. Saturday night — baptism.”
Nobody said anything.
“Baptism,” repeated Dutch. “Same as any of us. Once this baby gets the wet kiss, she’ll be queen of the coast.” He pointed at me. “My main man Mondo,” he said. “You’re onboard, yeah?”
When Dutch Radner stands barefoot in the sand and the sun is setting behind his dreads, you get onboard.
“Fuckin A,” I said. “Let’s get this new blood in the water.”
Everyone but Mac whooped approval after that, and we split to regroup on Saturday for the ceremony.
You have to wait until Saturday night for a baptism because all of the tourists are in town getting smashed on margs and hoovering thin-crust. Leaving the beach open for the real sickos to do their sicko shit.
Walking down to the sand I thought about my own baptism. The summer I graduated from Santa Barbara High, I crushed my first fifty-footer at Leadbetter, and Rob Goggins invited me to roll with his crew. Rob Goggins was like Dutch squared. He had six toes on each foot. I had paddled out with him for the ceremony thinking, if I go under and don’t come up again, I’ll die happy.
When I got down to the beach, Dutch was waiting with Kenz, Globus, Collins, and Kid Wally. They’d tied Rita to two stacked boards for extra buoyancy.
“Yo-ho,” said Dutch, and we started paddling out.
It took four of us swimming alongside the Rita-board to hold her steady. But the garg stayed upright as we bobbed out over the first set of swells. We stopped when we were far enough out that nobody would hear the chanting. Looking back, the town was like a string of candy lights. The garg’s stone head was tilted ever so slightly, looking up at the sky. In the moonlight, she looked a little different: the ears seemed sharper somehow, the stone eyes less empty.
“Lovely Rita,” said Dutch. “We come here to baptize you by the sea. Say it with me.”
In one voice we spoke: “We offer you the cold wet sloppy kiss of life. You pledge your soul to the surf. You give your blood to the tides. You take your power from the rolling of the waves. May you ride forever in the pocket of glory.”
Then it was time to dunk her.
A minute later, Rita broke the surface, all our hands holding her, streaks running down her carved muzzle and blind eyes. Born again. Even the scorch-marks started to wash away, leaving our fingertips black.
“Now,” said Dutch, one burly arm on his board and the other on the garg, “Now she’s one of us.”
The next day he lashed her to the roof-rack on his van. She glared down at the hapless weekenders and the teenage townies. She ruled the road. Because this was no Party City plastic-mold, this wasn’t some haunted hayride papier-mâché monster. This was an old school garg, hand-carved in the Dark Ages by some French dude who lived on gruel. And she was ours. Our crew felt invincible. We rolled with Rita and the waves broke where we decreed.
This lasted for three days.
I was wolfing tacos at the Taco Tent when Globus came running. His Viking braids had come loose in the hurry.
“Come quick,” he said, “Someone hit Dutch.”
I followed him, expecting a brawl. A good old-fashioned spring cleaning among the local salts. But no: we rounded the corner to see a mess in the middle of the road. A land rover crunched end-to-end with Dutch’s van, and the van was on fire. I thought that had been mythbusted. Hollywood shit. But here it was. The thing was pouring out a mess of black smoke, flames licking up from the hood.
The paramedics rolled up moments later. They said it was the collision that killed Dutch, not the fire. That he hadn’t suffered. The other driver got through with a broken arm. I recognized him: it was Joe Kino who owned a chi-chi California Fusion joint in East Beach. He was sitting on the curb, tears streaming down his face.
The ambulance took Dutch’s body away. A towing service came to clean up the totalled cars — but not before Kenz ran in to gather what possessions she could. A longboard three-quarters melted. The singed quilt from his mattress, a smashed uke. And, still warm and smoking, Rita.
That night we were inconsolable. It was high tide and the break was choppy, the sea in her full power. We sat on the beach, the five of us, and drank a dram in Dutch’s name. Everyone was there but Mac who’d been scarce since the baptism. We could hear the ‘yoties going crazy in the hills.
“What now?” asked Kid Wally, stubbing out a cig. We looked to Kenz. She had Rita next to her, clawed feet in the sand. Kenz’s weathered face stared out over the water. The corners of her mouth were twitching up and down. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and raspy.
“We burn him back,” she said. “We hit up Joe Kino’s domicile and set it afuckingblaze.”
And this is where I should have been appalled. But something in my chest was limestone and ash, and I felt an ancient will rise up hot inside me. Dutch was dead, and someone’s gotta paddle in front. Now it was Kenz and the garg beside her, haunches tightly curled. Our hands had dipped Rita in the sea and lifted her up and now her current pulled us, stronger than we could swim.
We went in two cars. Collins drove one. I rode shotgun with Kenz in the other. Rita was in the trunk. Whenever we took a sharp turn, I could feel the thud of her rolling from one side to the other. I felt, moment to moment, blankness and rage. Like riding monster swells up and down. You take your power from the rolling of the waves, we’d said to Rita at her baptism, as Rob Goggins had said to me when I was young and hungry.
“How do we do it?” asked Kid Wally from the backseat. A recent UCSB grad, a wizard on the short-board.
“I’ve got cocktail ingredients in the back,” said Kenz. I took it not the drinking kind. I didn’t ask what else Kenz had stocked in her trunk. We rolled the windows down and blasted “Don’t Worry Baby” just for Dutch. But Kenz snapped off the music as we rolled up to Joe Kino’s house.
There was someone standing out on the street in front of it. At first I thought it was Joe himself — then, that he’d hired a bodyguard, guessing at retaliation. Finally I recognized the ratty shorts and creamsicle beard.
It was Mac, and he was holding a sledgehammer. Hell yeah, brother, I thought. Break some windows why don’t we.
Then Mac called out, “Let’s cool it, lads and lasses. Give me the garg.”
“Out of the way, Mac,” said Kenz.
Collins’ car pulled up and he and Globus got out. We faced Mac on the sidewalk, five to one. The old man stood firm, hefting the sledgehammer. The dude might have been sixty-five but he was still jacked, and I retreated a step.
“This fucker killed Dutch,” said Collins. “He’s gotta get it.”
“Not like this,” said Mac. “You’re in the thrall of that fiend.”
“Watch your mouth,” said Globus. “She’s one of us.”
“I tried to tell you,” Mac went on, “That thing’s got a wicked streak. Why do you think Dutch went the way he did? It wants fire.”
“It wants justice for Dutch,” said Kenz sharply.
I felt that surge of will boiling up behind my ribs again. I could sense Rita resting in the dark of Kenz’s trunk, like an oyster’s pearl. The terrible weight of the stone. Her rough and timeworn snout. And I knew I needed to see this house in flames.
I popped the trunk and reached for a Molotov to light. A second later the sledgehammer heaved against my ribs. Mac had lunged forward and shoved me with the head of it. I fell back wincing and the bottle smashed, spilling cold gasoline.
Mac leaned the hammer on the car, reached into the trunk and lifted out Rita, grunting at the effort. Globus snatched his sledgehammer, and Kenz picked up the bottle I’d dropped.
“Come on, Mac,” she said, brandishing the broken end. “Put her down.”
Mac raised the garg above his head, winding up to smash her on the pavement. Kenz charged him — Globus and Kid Wally were struggling over the sledgehammer — my head felt hot and woozy. There was a spasmic tangle of movement, and then Mac was on the ground, motionless, bleeding. Rita clunked down next to him, unbroken.
In the distance, Collins was trying to ignite one of the other bottles with a lighter that wouldn’t start. He clicked it and clicked it, swearing under his breath. I got painfully to my knees and crawled toward the garg to pick her up. Kenz was yelling something. The lighter lit. I reached out —
A crack —
The sledgehammer slashed down in front of me, straight into Rita’s side. She split like an egg. I looked up to see Kid Wally, breathing hard, holding the handle, and towering Globus knocked out nearby.
The kid swung the sledgehammer down again, turning Rita to rubble, blow after blow. As he did, the blazing will that gripped my chest ebbed away. The others must have felt the same because Kenz sank down onto the curb, staring in bafflement at the broken bottle in her hand. Collins had stomped out his wick. Finally Kid Wally dropped the hammer and looked around, stunned. I thought, the kid of all people. Resisting the will. Maybe he needed a leader less than the rest of us.
Mac was still lying on the ground. There was a big chunk missing from his face. It hit me then that I hadn’t actually seen Kenz touch him, or anyone else. The movement I’d seen before he fell had been a squirming, the sudden thrash of something wriggling free.
Kenz stayed with Mac and Globus while they waited for emergency services. Collins took Kid Wally home, shaking. I’d volunteered to take the stone pieces and sink them in the sea. The waves had given Rita her power, and I figured they would wash it away.
I went to Leadbetter Beach with the smashed rocks in a tied-off trash bag, paddled out to where the seabed falls off, then let the bag drop.
“Victory at sea, Dutch,” I said quietly, and for the first real time felt the horrible sadness sloshing up inside me.
In honor of Dutch Radner, I stayed out there for a while, catching the pre-dawn curlers. There was no light, but my body knew the moves, and I fell into a flow. My first solo ride in eons. Following no one. Gliding through a barrel with eyes closed, close as I could come to peace.
That gentle mood lasted until I tramped back up on the beach and into town. That’s when I started to see them. On every roof, on every eave, like flocks of crows.
All week I’ve been seeing gargs where they formerly weren’t. I haven’t asked the others yet if they can see them too. I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’ve got a feeling that pretty soon, all of this is going to burn.
Weston Gaylord is a writer of short fiction, plays, and live immersive experiences. He has been a member of the Geffen Playhouse Writers’ Room and The Vagrancy Playwrights Group, and a recipient of the Humanitas PLAY LA fellowship. He has developed new work with the Boston Court New Play Reading Festival, Ashland New Plays Festival, and SFBATCO’s New Roots Theatre Festival. His writing has also been featured at Games For Change, The Latest Draft podcast, A Little New Music and Future of Storytelling Festival. Originally from Seattle, he now lives in Los Angeles and dreams of grey, drizzly days. He writes a spooky short story every October, and this is one of them. His favorite revenge story is Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. | website
