Desperation Reef

Juana listened to Brock haranguing about this Breath of Life, this new god that he had discovered after being rag-dolled underwater so long at Nazaré that Mahina had to mouth-to-mouth him back to consciousness, and, when Brock came to, there was his god: Breath. Life. Breath of Life.

From Mahina.

Brock had talked on and on about that day.

Breath of Life, show us what to do.

He explained to Juana that the Breath of Life was stronger, angrier, but more generous than the old, jealous, self-inflated gods of the past. Brock admitted to having a temper, alright, because anger gets things done, and never turn the other cheek. Life is a fight. The Breath of Life has just one fundamental, nonnegotiable law: Give it up for your brothers and sisters. Love and protect and serve each other, especially those short on love and without protection. People like you, Juana. Find them and help them. Make them better. Breathe life into them just as Mahina breathed life back into me. The Breath of Life is awesome.

Juana dozed through the sermon in the back row, ate half the box of donuts, and drank a lot of coffee.

Now Brock and Mahina go through the always-open door of their church. The lights are on inside, and the smell of woodsmoke fills the big, chilly room.

In the big river-rock fireplace burns a modest fire, with a ragged human family of four arrayed on lumpy Salvation Army chairs before it. There are fast-food bags and empty wrappers on one of the long, burn-scarred vinyl tables.

“I’m Brock and this is Mahina.”

The man stands but doesn’t straighten, giving Brock a long, worried scan, trying to take in Brock’s fierce face and spikey, dark brown dreads, his tattooed legs, the flame climbing up his throat framed by the hoodie. He regards Mahina blinkingly.

“We’re not going to steal anything,” he says. “Just saw the sign on the highway and we’re about down to our last. We’re the Kupchiks. Stan and Angela. On our way back to Tulsa. I was a car mechanic when the back went out, and we can’t live here on comp and food stamps. Sorry to just bomb in.”

“We’ll get you fixed up.”

“The boy tested positive this afternoon. The new respiratory thing they got out now, not the Covid, thank God.”

“Thank the Breath,” says Mahina.

“There’s bunks through that door,” says Brock. “Clean up in the morning. There’s a trailer you can have in a couple of days.”

“Oh, man, really? Thank you.”

“Thank the Breath of Life, brah. Take it in.”

Mr. Kupchik looks from Brock to Mahina then back to Brock again, skepticism brimming. “Yes, I will try. I’ve never been a believer in that kind of thing myself.”

“You don’t have to believe to help yourself and others. You just have to act.”

Brock thinks of the Kasper Aamon message that came to him early today on one of his right-wing, out-there socials:

“Brother Brock, you’re not a Go Dog, you’re a sick dog! Taking care of all those useless pukes at your church. It’s not a church, it’s a slum of sin. You’re no brother of mine, you’re just a jester giving the rest of us something to laugh at.”

“We want to help ourselves,” says Stan Kupchik. “We really do.”

As forecasted, the Santa Ana winds come hard and fast as Brock and Mahina head back for Laguna on Highway 371. The boxy Econoline takes the gusts on its rear flank. This high-pressure front from the Great Basin is pressing the dry air across the deserts, where it picks up warmth, then surges through the passes, howling all the way to the Pacific. Which is where Brock likes to be during a Santa Ana — on his board, bobbing in the Pacific — where the waves stand up hollow and glittering, the wind back-spraying his face at Brooks or Blacks or Malibu or Mavericks.

Breath of Life, for sure.

19

Casey, sleeping as always like the dead, suddenly wakes up to a loud bop!

Sounds like one of those M-80s he used to buy in Ensenada as a kid. Or maybe a gun.

It’s 3:17 in the morning by the apartment clock. He feels the covers for Mae then remembers she’s with his mom.

Gets his white robe with black lettering on the back — “Muhammad Ali” — over his boxers, and the checked red-and-white slip-on sneakers. Heads out the front door to see the first-floor kitchen side entrance of the Barrel on fire. It’s a Santa Ana wind-blown orange demon, devouring the redwood siding in a widening circle.

He gets the fire extinguisher and a set of restaurant keys from the apartment, slips his phone into the robe pocket, and hustles down the stairs, past the Barrel’s ocean-front deck toward the fire. But another explosion rattles the night, blowing a hole in the deck from underneath, plank splinters shooting up next to a four-top with its umbrella collapsed for the night. Flames jump through the hole, leaning seaward in the offshore wind, chewing at the umbrella fabric. Casey stops right there, not sure if he should dial 911, or leap the banister and climb the deck railing to engage this new threat, or haul butt to the ground floor and fight the kitchen-wall fire, which has grown substantially.