The Ninth Wave
Authors: Eugene Burdick
"Not for the timid. There are violent actions, profanity,
vulgarity, startling sexual episodes, and bold, brash political
philosophy. . . . Book-of-the-year."
--Chicago Tribune
"Relentless and Irresistible."
--Dallas Morning News
"Teems with vigorous life."
--San Francisco Examiner
"An Intriguing novel, both for the vividness of its scenes,
and the power of its ideas."
--New York Post
Cover illustration by Terpning . . . . . printed in USA
vulgarity, startling sexual episodes, and bold, brash political
philosophy. . . . Book-of-the-year."
--Chicago Tribune
"Relentless and Irresistible."
--Dallas Morning News
"Teems with vigorous life."
--San Francisco Examiner
"An Intriguing novel, both for the vividness of its scenes,
and the power of its ideas."
--New York Post
Cover illustration by Terpning . . . . . printed in USA
All rights reserved
The Ninth Ninth Wave
A Buick drove up behind the circle of Model-A's that were parked at the
top of the cliff. One or two of the cars had neat chrome-plated engines,
powerful squat carburetors, wire wheels and twin exhausts. The others
were dilapidated and broken down. All of them, however, had braces on
the tops where the long surfboards were slung.
Mike opened the door of the Buick and at once passed from the smell
of the woman, the odor of perfume and deodorant, into the hot odorless
sunlight. He turned and looked at Miss Bell through the open window.
"I'll see you again, Mike . . . very soon," she said expectantly,
half whispering.
"If I can get away," Mike said, hedging. "Busy this week. I have to . . . "
"If you have time for surfing you have time to see me," Miss Bell said
sweetly, but there was the corroded edge of a whine in her voice. Mike
smiled at the way the flesh around her mouth worked in tiny flat jerks.
"Please now, Mike."
"O.K. I'll try. I've got some work in chemistry to catch up. Maybe
by Friday."
They talked for a few more minutes. Mike could feel the sun starting to
open pores on his back, through the thin cotton of his T-shirt . . . the
tight blue jeans over his legs turned warm. He was bored, but it was
pleasant to talk to her. Some angle of the car caught the sun and
reflected chrome brilliance in his eyes so that all he could see of
Miss Bell was a black faraway figure. She receded and as her figure grew
more doll-like and remote it took on a reprimanding, hostile look. Mike
squinted his eyes to keep the blue refracted light from the Pacific from
blinding him entirely.
Her voice took on its piping schoolteacher's authority. "You just must
be more considerate of me, Mike. You must."
"Why?" he asked idly. "Why, Miss Bell?"
At once the remote doll-like figure collapsed into a posture of
apprehension. Miss Bell's voice lost its crisp quality and quavered.
"Well, don't you care, Mike? Doesn't it mean anything to you?"
It is so easy, he thought, so easy to make her drop that cool note of
authority in her voice. He reached out and touched her shoulder and at
once she leapt back into proper proportion, was neat and full-sized in
her flowered silk dress.
"Sure I care," Mike said. "I'll call you later in the week."
"For sure?" she asked.
"For sure," he replied.
He turned away from the car and started toward the edge of the cliff. He
heard the Buick start and then turn slowly. Mike smiled out at the blue
Pacific, noticed a tanker, hull-down and far at sea, smoke from her
stack smearing the blue-white sky.
When he got to the path that led down the cliff he stood for a moment
while his eyes cleared of the glare. At the bottom of the cliff there
were two umbrellas, shabby and stringy. Anonymous legs stuck out of them.
A few surfboards were scattered around. The sand was white and washed
looking, picking up all the sun in the cove.
I know, Mike said to himself, that you look clean from here, but when
I get down there you will be jumping with sandfleas, a regular layer of
them, just off the sand . . . hopping, jumping, screwing around. Jumping
into the air and rubbing their legs. But I like it. Sandfleas don't bite,
they just tickle.
As he started down the narrow curving path he could see that most of the
boys were far out in the cove. Very far out, as if they were waiting for
the occasional big hump. Their boards rose and fell, they sat with their
feet up, some of them wearing straw hats to shield their faces from the
sun . . . tiny, lazy, Mexican-looking figures.
One of the boys was eating from a paper bag and Mike was sure that it
was Hank Moore. It was just like Hank to take his lunch out on the
board. That was what was confusing about Hank, Mike thought. He was
like an old lady before he got in the water. Cleaning off his board,
testing the water with his toe, edging slowly into the water and not
diving sharply in like the rest of the boys. Hank would go out slowly on
his board, not yelling like the other surfers, but picking his way out
cautiously watching the waves, protecting the brown paper bag which held
his lunch. But once he had eaten his lunch out of the brown bag, wadded
it up and thrbwn it out on the water, Hank changed. He sat stubbornly,
endlessly waiting for the ninth ninth wave. Some of the other boys would
get excited, mistake a big hump for the ninth ninth, but never Hank. He
aJways knew when it would come; he never took a smaller wave; he always
waited for the big one. They all believed that every ninth wave was bigger
than the preceding eight, and every subsequent ninth wave was bigger
than the one before it, until the biggest wave of all was the ninth ninth.
Mike wasn't sure if the system was accurate, but he did know that there
was always one wave a day that was bigger than the rest. The other waves
might be big and sometimes they were really huge and you might get excited
and think that one of them was the ninth ninth. But not Hank. He always
knew when to wait. He always got the biggest wave of the day.
Some days he would sit quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the humps,
watching them come working up out of the ocean, not moving for three
hours. Then finally, he would turn around, start to paddle, and it would
be the biggest wave of the day. If he picked his board up and got out
of the water that was a signal there would be no other big ones that
day. Hank read the weather reports in the papers because a storm far out
at sea would often mean big waves and every day, winter or summer, that a
storm was reported Hank was down at the cove, looking out to sea, waiting.
As Mike came down the steep cliff he watched to see how the waves were
shaping up. The coast was flat and even except for this cove which had
been carved by waves into a huge U-shaped indentation. The swells rose
quietly and smoothly from the flat ocean, beginning at the very edge of
the horizon. In even lines each wave moved toward the shore, increasing in
speed as it approached shallow water and beginning to steepen. Then as the
waves reached a certain point of shoal water they turned a concave face
toward the beach, reached higher and higher and began to feather with foam
at the top. Along the rest of the coast they pressed powerfully against
the rocks and sand without breaking, but as they came into the cove the
feathering tips broke forward and the entire wave crashed over and rolled
like a long, noisy, incredibly powerful cylinder toward the shore.
Mike could see that the waves were big, but no one was taking them. They
were waiting for a ninth wave. When it came, swelling up big and green,
sucking up all of the water in front of it, slanting sharply into the sky,
the lines of surfers kicked their boards around, lay on their stomachs
and began to paddle slowly, looking back over their shoulders. Only one
person did not move in the line and that was Hank Moore. Monkey-like he
reached down a hand, touched the water and moved his board away from
the nearest person. Then he looked out toward the sea. Mike began to
trot down the path, suddenly anxious to be in the water.
When the wave reached the line of surfers, several of them backed water,
afraid to try it. Several more skewed their boards sideways when the
wave began to feather and prepared to smash forward. In the end only two
or three boys actually rode the wave through its crash and only one of
them was able to control his board and finally get to his feet.
As Mike rounded a boulder, his view of the cove was cut off. When the
ocean came in sight again, Mike was much lower, walking steadily downward
into the hot reflected sun, the cleansing odor of seaweed and iodine,
the sudden streaked smell of long-burned charcoal. This descent into the
odor, the heat, the smell of sand, was as pleasant as the first second
when he dove into the water. He walked slowly, controlling his urge to
get quickly to the beach. He felt the muscles of his legs strain with
the slight effort of holding back as he descended.
When he got to the sand he took his shoes off, slid his blue jeans off
and stood up with only his swimming shorts on. He walked toward the
nearest umbrella.
"Hi, Mary Jane," he called to one of the girls. The girl rolled over,
shaded her eyes against the glare. Here at the bottom of the cove, cut
off from the wind and picking up all the dull reflection from the sand
and water, it was hot with a dead pleasant heat that pulsed rhythmically
as the waves shifted the air and made it heave and swell. Mary Jane's
nose had sweat on it and the edge of her bathing suit was rimmed with
moisture. She stared for a moment, expectant, a smile on her lips but
unable to see him. Mike stood still and waited. He knew what she was
seeing. When you lifted your head suddenly and looked into this dull,
glaring sun, people looked like black solid shadows, faceless, formless,
only the edges of their bodies glowing with an astral brightness.
Then Mary Jane recognized Mike.
"Hello, Mike," she said. The other two girls under the umbrella looked
up, their faces surprised; suddenly unfocused and confused. They did not
smile and the smile faded from Mary Jane's face. Their faces were bruised
somehow with a hard memory; a curiosity that changed to irritation.
"Where have you been, Mike?" Mary Jane said. "Waves have been good all
day. Some really big ones. Tommie said they were eighteen feet high
. . . base to feather."
"I've been riding around," Mike said. He squatted down on his heels. The
sandfleas started at once, a blanket of tumbling, falling, jumping,
writhing black dots; falling to the sand and then springing wildly back
upward. He felt a light, delicate itch start over his feet, reach up to
his ankles.
"Riding?" Mary Jane asked. "Riding all morning?"
Now the bruised, disinterested look was gone from their faces and was
replaced with curiosity. Their eyes were wide with interest, although
their lips were drawn thin with some sort of disapproval. Mary Jane's
lips drew back and showed moist teeth and pink soft flesh in the corners
of her mouth.
"Yep, just riding," he said. "Out toward Long Beach, past the docks,
then over here. Nothing but riding." .
Oh, he thought, you'd like to ask, wouldn't you? You'd just like to
screw up your courage to say "Who with?"
He squatted there in the sun, feeling like a roadblock in the easy flow
of their serenity, sensing the curiosity well out across the sand like
a physical substance. Squatted there, his knees drawn under his body,
all his muscles taut, his arms dangling, he felt powerful and poised. He
closed his eyes and for a few moments he dozed. When he opened his eyes
the girls were pure black figures. Gradually they swam into perspective.
The girls were tense with elaborate disinterest. Mary Jane yawned, then
opened her mouth as if to speak, but stopped. Mike smiled at them and
quite suddenly their faces looked outraged.
"I think I'll try some waves. Can I borrow somebody's board?" Mike said.
"Board?" Mary Jane asked, her voice round with surprise. "Sure, of course,
see Bill Flatter over there. He just came out."
The quick first impression of antagonism had vanished from all the girls'
faces; they were tense now with curiosity. As Mike stood up the girls
twitched with irritation. Mary Jane scratched at her ankles, her eyes
following Mike.
"Bill, can I borrow your board?" Mike asked a long, very tanned boy.
"Sure, Mike," the boy said waving his hand, his black eyes searching
Mike's face once and then falling away. "Remember, she's heavy in the
tail so ride her a few inches more forward than you'd do normally."
"O.K. Thanks," Mike said.
He picked up a long narrow board, natural mahogany-colored on the body
of it and trimmed with blue at the edges. His fingers unconsciously
ran over the wood, measuring the smoothness, judging the quality of the
board. He swung the fifty pounds of it over his head and walked toward
the water. It's a good one, he thought. That Bill Flatter makes a good
board, heavy in the tail or not heavy in the tail.
When he got to the water Mike stopped and stood on a rock where the water
was only a few inches deep. Usually he would wait until a wave deepened
the water and then with a sweep he would throw the board on the shalIow
water and swing himself aboard and with one movement be heading out to
sea with only the tips of his toes wet. But today he waited a moment
and then put the board on the dry sand.
He walked to the water up to his knees, waited for a wave and with a
clean strong dive dove over it and into the water. He let his body glide,
held himself straight and stiff. Then he stood up and made a curious
unpremeditated gesture: he wrung his hands over his head and then threw
them down to his side and at the same time looked up at the people on
the beach. They were all watching him.
Mike felt a surge of surprise. The gesture was so strange. He was not
sure why he had done it. It seemed vaguely propitiatory, like the sign
he imagined a priest would make over an animal sacrifice, or the motion
that a magician makes after a trick, the jerking wave of hands as if to
cleanse them; to take a curse off.
Mike looked away from the people under the umbrellas. As he walked to
the board, the sandfleas jumped on his legs and stuck to the moisture. He
waded into the water again to drown them. Then he lay flat on the board
and headed for deep water.
It took him ten minutes to work out through the waves. The waves were big
and as the lines of broken surf approached, he dug his hands powerfully
into the water and then came up on his knees so that his weight went
toward the rear of the board and shot its nose up over the foam. When
the nose was over the foam, the body of the wave would hit the board
and smash it forward with a whipping action.
There is a point in the surf where the waves have just broken and the
tons of green and white water are falling almost straight down. One
must cross this point between waves or the surfboard will be thrown
backward or turned over. Mike waited cautiously until there was a lull,
then shot forward over the shattered hulk of one wave and slid up the
side of another wave before it broke. Then he was in the clear water
beyond the surf line.
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