#sorry I watched an old movie with Marilyn Monroe and got accented

[shittygaypornmagazine]

*sliding to the rottmnt artists side like a 20th century gentleman with a transatlantic accent* Oh well my dear you will not believe the angst ideas that I have for you! Yes-yes, listen, Leonardo Hamato- You know him, right? Yes, him! So what if you and your golden hands put him in the Prison Dimension and-

[junkpoetic]

Six

The next morning, Elliot was a bit ornery about what we should do for the day. He didn’t seem to want to get out of bed and grab breakfast, so I met Juno in Quincy Market at a place called Neptune’s Café. The walls were painted cold blue; however the atmosphere was warm. I left

“Why are you so intrigued by my name?” She asked.

“I don’t know, it’s a good name, I like it.”

“You’ve never asked me where I am from.”

“Yes, I did, Winnipeg.” I replied.

“No, I was born there, I am from Jersey, I am actually going there soon.”

“How soon?” I asked accidentally.

“How soon is now?” she smirked.

“I love that song! But aren’t you from where you are born?”

“Not necessarily.” She arranged her thoughts in her head before continuing. “I live in Boston. I am from Jersey. I was born in Winnipeg.”

“Okay, so where you’re from, is where you grew up?”

“I guess it changes. If I were on vacation and a stranger asked me where I am from, I would say Boston, because Jersey is irrelevant to them.”

“So… if you asked me where I am from, I should tell you where I live now, not where I am from?” I teased.

“I haven’t asked where you are from?”

I thought about it. “I don’t believe so.”

“Am I a stranger?” She asked.

“You are not.” I replied.

“Where are you from?”

I laughed. “I don’t know anymore; I am so fucking confused.”

“Places are just places right?” She smiled.

“What’re you going to do in Jersey?”

“I planned a surf weekend with friends. They might come here instead though. It depends on the weather.”

“Surfing in October?” I thought she was kidding.

“Prominent breaks man, the best waves all year. Not to mention the ocean is empty, so all the waves are mine.”

Curiouser. “So, you’re a surfer?”

She slowly inhaled a sip of coffee. “I don’t know, I like to surf. What constitutes being a surfer?” She said coyishly.

“I always assumed the act of surfing?” I replied.

She raised the question. “So… if you kill one person, you’re a murderer?”

“It depends on if it was murder…” I replied.

“If you kill three people and by pure happenstance all of the killings are done the same way to people with the same profile, are you automatically a serial killer?” She was on a roll. There was no stopping her.

“Hmmm, I am not sure. I guess it depends on the connotation.”

“So, if my intent is to become a serial killer when I grow up, the first few kills would be in training? Then once I hit a number, I get my serial killer certificate… however, if I just happen to accidentally kill three similar looking people, the kills are considered null, and I am not a serial killer?”

I tented my hands and stabbed my chin with my fingers lightly. “Yes, I think we’ve nailed it down.”

She laughed. “Yes, I am a surfer.”

“Epic.” I smiled.

I learned a lot more about Juno Rafferty that morning. Eventually Elliot met up with us, and then Madeline did too. It’s funny I have known of Madeline for such a long time, yet I know nothing about her other than her nickname she acquired somewhere in her youth from being known for enjoying a cocaine high. She may have only done it once and I have defined her by it. She seemed to be very successful, she owned her own internet clothing company, and lived in a large flat on Newbury. It goes along with what Juno said about one thing defining you being untrue. Imagine if our youth defined our entire lives? Imagine if we could never climb out of it? I had to laugh though, here I was with Juno, who’s name literally means youth, and here she was defining me. There are some days I like being inside my head, stuck, like we were on the rooftop, today was one of those days.

Elliot was very intrigued by surfing in October. So much so that he was looking for spots nearby. He’d never even surfed but always wanted to at least try it. All the years we’d been coming here, it was always summer, the beaches were overcrowded, and the waves sucked. Juno explained that if you can surf the north Atlantic coast, you can surf anywhere.

We had two days left on trip and things felt a little awkward now knowing Elliot’s fate, and though he was vague when I asked what kind of cancer, it was still very sobering knowledge. Like anyone, I held out hope that maybe a mistake was made somewhere. Maybe they mixed up his chart. Maybe he was just too dehydrated and out of shape on marathon day. I kept putting all these thoughts in a blender and spinning them around my head. Adding to it with every new thought, or glimmer of hope.

After breakfast Juno and Madeline went about their separate ways. Elliot was fixated on his phone searching for surf spots. Whenever he got something in his head, he had to live it out. I loved that about him. He had the confidence to do really anything. If I mentioned skydiving, we would probably be on a plane this afternoon. Instead, we spent the afternoon in a surf shop that Juno recommended called Motion Surf.

Lorelei Zimmerman had the curliest blonde hair. She was named after Marilyn Monroe’s character in the fifties movie “Gentleman Prefer Blondes”. She had never seen the movie, but she liked that the origin of her name derived from Marilyn Monroe. She was in her early thirties, probably the same age as Juno, or close to it. She had a welcoming soul, and she took the time to explain surfing to Elliot and I, two guys amid their forties, who had absolutely zero clue about it. She spent her youth surfing in Australia, it was in her blood, she studied abroad in Boston where she met her now husband Rami and they put their roots down in here. The way she spoke of Australia, I could tell she missed it dearly.

“Catching an unbroken wave is one of the most difficult things to learn as a novice.” She explained that patience and persistence would pay off because the feeling of dropping in on a green wave for the first time is an out of body experience. She reflected on her first green wave as if she had just ridden it into shore. Elliot handed her his credit card and told her to get us everything we’d need to surf and since we were leaving in a few days, he told her to teach us as fast as she could. She laughed and began talking about the four stages of waves and how to approach them.

“The first stage is a lump in the water, and basically impossible to catch. The second stage is the delicate sweet spot and hitting it right is essential. This is where you begin paddling into it. In the third stage is when the wave breaks onto your back. The wave is broken in the last stage and now white water. Positioning is everything when trying to predict when the wave will break.”

Elliot was listening so intently as she spoke. Her accented words were becoming glued to the inside of his mind.

“You want to be about five meters out from where the waves are breaking. Look for the lumps in the horizon that look like stage A waves. Once you pick a wave paddle with it matching the speed of the wave. Matching the speed is difficult because there is no force pulling you forward. Once you have proper paddling strokes and your body is centered on the board, gravity arrives. Keep your head down low over the nose of the board as you’re lifting up on the wave. Gravity becomes your best friend once you’re in position. When you feel confident on the wave, you’ll know when you feel it, that’s when you pop up. Never hesitate to pop up.”

She popped up on a surfboard on the carpet showing us the proper ways.

“Don’t go out too far, it’s such a common mistake new surfers make. See where other surfers are and follow their lead.”

She helped us pick out surfboards, and then even waxed them for us. Elliot’s board had a drawing of a guy on it that looked like he was vomiting a rainbow. It looks much better than it sounds. He said that specific board spoke to him as if it were the chosen one. I just nodded my head and said OKAY. My board had a skull on it with a snake crawling through the mouth and up through the eye of it. It was colored with the most beautiful blues and greens. The first wetsuit Elliot tried on was too tight leaving little to the imagination. It was hilarious watching Lorelei try not to look down at his forty-six-year-old package. He was almost flaunting it, but he kept a straight face.

 Lorelei said she’d be happy to meet up this weekend at Nauset Beach to help us get our feet wet, no pun intended. Her words not mine. We agreed to stay through the weekend, because well, Elliot was now obsessed with wanting to surf… in Boston, in October. It’s also weird how long ago the marathon felt … fucking time.

We kept it pretty low key later that night. We went to an Italian restaurant called Giacomo’s on the north end and ordered the works. It was our favorite spot to eat whenever we came into town. Italian food tastes worlds better in October than it does in June. Maybe we’ve been doing it wrong the entire time. Elliot ordered as if it were his last meal. King prawns, calamari, manicotti, some sort of pasta with scallops too. He ate every god damn bite and then washed it down with a five-hundred-dollar bottle of Amarone. I was full just watching him eat as I snacked on bruschetta drizzled in the freshest olive oil. I also had the caprese salad with pesto along with a seafood linguini. Everything tasted so damn good I almost wished it was our last meal.

“You really think we can pull off surfing?” I said tossing my napkin onto my plate.

“We’re going to god damn try.” He said still chewing whatever it was he was chewing.

“Always an adventure.” I said feeling a bit sentimental.

“Still can’t believe I couldn’t finish the marathon…”

“But you did…”

“In a way.” He said modestly. “I wasn’t going to tell you by the way.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I am dying.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I haven’t even told Louise.”

“Are you kidding?” I almost choked on a cherry tomato.

The waitress interrupted and Elliot ordered us an entire key lime pie for dessert, and I must be honest, I didn’t think I could fit another calorie in my body. When they put it in front of us it was still smoking from the freezer and God dammit when I sunk my teeth into that tangy ice cold vanilla and key lime pie all down to that glazed graham cracker crust I saw my life flash before me in a montage both bittersweet and beautiful from the time Elliot and I were kids in the street playing baseball and drinking lemonade, all the way up to the rooftop last night with Juno Rafferty and attempting to feel up every single one of the shiver bumps on her tight cold skin. All the good, the bad, and the ugly, in that same fucking blender that I call my mind that just spins constantly like a cyclone vomiting rainbows among other things less attractive.

After dinner we walked out into the rainy night and up and down the streets in the north end. We bought cigars and smoked them on a sidewalk outside of an all-night café before catching a cab back to the hotel and calling it a night.

“Today was a good day.” Elliot said before we parted ways for the night.