[Non-fiction] Surfers Just Know Other Surfersby Scarlett Davis

Surfers Just Know Other Surfers

by Scarlett Davis

Before the surf lesson, before the sexual assault, I had spent the night researching snake trails on the beach.

Sea snakes! It was the worst kind of internet rabbit hole to fall down while on vacation. Yet thanks to TikTok, I had conjured an image that I couldn’t shake: a snake reverse-lassoing its way down from a coconut tree, edging towards the water for a morning cold plunge, all before sunrise or the tourists. And, other than the evidence, a scaly imprint in the sand, it’s like the event never happened. 

Despite giving myself the ‘bedtime scaries’, my hotel room still felt cozy with the AC set to low temperatures, and me safe to scroll under an impenetrable dome of sheets.

“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” asked my friend, already two paces from the door and fully dressed for dinner. We had an airtight Excel sheet for visiting three countries in three weeks, but we’d finally reached the leg of our trip with some downtime for each of us to make our own schedule.

“Can’t,” I responded, “I am surfing tomorrow.”  I could hear how absurd I sounded. Another Thai tofu green curry was tempting, but I hadn’t surfed in years and I wanted to feel light and unencumbered, I didn’t expect anyone to understand. 

My ex-boyfriend was a surfer and that’s how I got the bug. Truthfully, I had yet to fully heal from that discard or the loss of a parent figure that followed shortly after. Surfing was a step in reclaiming that last tether to my old life and part of that healing had already begun in Vietnam.

If I closed my eyes, I could transport myself back to that first night: fresh off the plane, hungry and dirty, but searching for the perfect bowl of noodles, the streets had come to life around 2 AM, people sitting in tiny chairs with tiny tables, drinking iced coconut coffees, facing the street of honking mopeds carrying families of four.  I can still picture the reflection of the papered, colored lanterns like faerie orbs in the tabletop’s plastic next to my spring rolls, Bun Cha—the perfect blend of sweet and sour, and a glass of kumquat iced tea to wash it down. The restaurant was empty, except for us and a group of young local women who had left a graveyard of beer bottles and empty dishes, which the waiter cleared with a nod of pride.

“Holy shit, that’s amazing!” I said to my friend who is Vietnamese-American.

She laughed, “I know. I wish we had something that could compare back home.”

I wish we did too. America seemed starved of the vibrancy that so freely permeated Asia.  That feeling, that sense of possibility, stayed with me even on our quick hop over to Hanoi where a twenty-year-old soldier voiced his desire for a new life.

“I wish to be you,” he said longing for my freedom and finances. Despite the rigidity in his life, I got the sense that he was ‘well-traveled’ through his conversations with strangers like me. 

“Would you like to see a picture of my dog?” I asked. 

He winked, “Want to see a picture of a bomb?”

As the plane began its descent, the glint in his eye was replaced by a thousand-yard stare. Despite the vast difference in our experiences, we felt closer in age in that moment.

“From an old, middle-aged lady,” I said, “Do something fun on your next day off,” I reached for his hand to shake while slipping him a couple of bills, which he tried to reject at first. I realized it was a gift to be either young, unanchored, or better, both and maybe I was still those things despite carrying some dead weight.

Landing in Phuket for our second week, I didn’t realize that I had longed for the sound of crashing waves. We have beaches at home, but they are stagnant. I guess I missed the ‘motion in the ocean,’ just as I preferred the ‘organized chaos’ of Vietnam to the island pacing of Thailand. 

That day, the day of the assault, I was hit with a slight pungency of durian from the fruit vendors as I pedaled up and down the beach looking for the surf school I’d located online, which had favorable reviews.  The tsunami surge warning signs were a harrowing reminder of the beach’s tragic history. I’d gotten a head start before the crowds, making note of a couple of shanty bars that might be a good place to crack a book afterward.  I had almost given up finding the school when I unknowingly stumbled upon it outside a resort.  Keeping my options open, I walked past the school when I heard a man ask If I wanted a lesson?

“How did you know?” I asked, perplexed. For all he knew, I could have been a resort guest on my way to the Starbucks because I wasn’t wearing my swimsuit.

He smiled and shrugged. “Surfers just know other surfers.”  He seemed friendly enough as he showed me where I could shower after our lesson, as well as a couple of mid-sized boards. It was a relief that he didn’t want to force one of the foam tops on me.

So, I was a bit bummed when I returned that afternoon and he presented one of the beginner boards that felt more akin to driving a boat.  By this time, the wind had blown out any real waves, so I understood that he would be pushing me into waves, something my ex-boyfriend knew better than to try. 

It wasn’t long before old surfing skills resurfaced:  duck diving and getting into position quickly. Since he was creating the momentum, my largely improvised ‘pop-up’ stance mattered little.   Still, I found myself looking back over my right shoulder, trying to anticipate the timing for when to paddle. “Relax,” he said, “I’ll push you into the right one,” he said while adjusting my swimsuit bottoms.  The gesture was uncomfortable but I chalked it up mentally to perhaps a cultural difference. Maybe he was assuming I felt exposed, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then, like a rocket, I shot off, once the right wave developed underneath me. I stood up briefly, and for a second, I thought about my ex off in the distance cheering for me. I could always spot him in the lineup, the way he would always end his ride, pumping his board like there was a spring beneath it, wishing for more gas.

“Tee-hoo!” the man called, a universal surfer’s cheer. 

The inside of my arms had started to burn. I was hungry now to catch another wave, so I swam back to him and I tried to ignore his hands on my suit, but they felt more frantic as he pushed the fabric to the side. I reacted quickly, sliding off my board and into the water.  It then occurred to me that our break was not in direct sight from the resort, just a hair to the right.  “It’s under the water,” he said, floating now almost on his back.  Panic must have washed over my face, thinking my fear of sharks or worse, sea snakes, had come true, despite this man being the true predator.

To stay safe, I played off his erection, and like any good surfer, I caught the next wave to shore.  I didn’t even unleash the board from my ankle as I walked back, gesturing from the beach that the lesson was over.

The next morning, my friend and I discussed another tragedy over breakfast.

“That flash flood in Texas—the body count is almost a hundred.” She’d chosen Pad Thai and salad from the buffet.

“Horrible,” I offered, shuffling around sliced dragon fruit and fried eggs, while gazing at the hotel’s infinity pool. After so much grieving, I’d grown used to the distinct feeling of being more outside my life and looking in, than actually living it.  I wondered if the assault was like a cannon ball into the infinity pool—would the impact displace some water or would the pool just recalibrate itself?  Was I that hollowed from life that this was just another setback to trivialize? 

I often think about Khalil Gibran’s poem “Fear” where he describes how a river can never go back once she disappears or becomes the ocean.  I realized in the weeks following, after going through the motions of reporting and then being victim-blamed, that maybe I missed a body in the count—the person I used to be before heartbreak, who can no longer return.

Surfers just know other surfers. Maybe he was right, maybe there is something that marks those who know what it’s like to succumb to the weight of something that wants to drag you under, and yet we find a way resurface, despite.

I look forward to that day when I paddle out again as someone brand new and when someone inevitably asks how I got started, I’ll just answer with I got the bug and it will be as simple as that.