Chapter 41
Frannie took in the sight of Hooky’s Court just as they reached the edge of the torchlight. Heat reached her in a wave and rippled through her body and she gripped Newp’s hand and trembled.
The fire pit, a great black area of hot coals and sand, stretched twelve feet long and six feet across. Tiki torches dotted the beach all around, the smell of the lamp oil as sharp as the orange flames above the wicker poles, and the air itself was thick with exotica music, basically wild imitation-Hawaiian jazz on phonograph records. The music was fast and wild, animal, and everywhere bodies shimmied and shook, girls in everything from bikinis to cocktail dresses twisted like they did last summer and every summer forever.
Every summer must be full of youth, wild at dance.
Watching the boys in slacks and shorts and everything in between, some in loafers—loafers in the sand!—and some barefoot like as Tom Sawyer, Frannie tugged Newp’s sleeve.
“Oh, Newp,” she said, meaning it, “It’s just the most.”
“Hey, Angel!” called Hooky, loud and lean, and she saw him twisting under torchlight with two Va Va Voom girls, his big straw hat coming clean off his head every time he bobbed, the chin strap the only thing keeping it from sailing off and catching fire.
Frannie let go Newp’s hand and waved high and wide. Then Truly and Betty emerged from the shack—apparently Hooky had volunteered it to act as the dressing room— and took the stage.
The singers wore sequins, Truly in a number that shimmied and showed off muscular legs, and Betty in a flannel nightgown, yes, but owing to what must have been a sense of humor that allowed Betty to be patient with herself, she had sequins on the flannel. So all was right with Betty’s world, but she sparkled too. They formed up near one of two mike stands and looked out expectantly.
Newp started running to the stage and Crainiac ran up and grabbed Frannie and spun her around, hanging on her shoulder. He waved, clowning for someone, and said a little too loudly SMILE, FRANNIE! She saw a Channel 4 News reporter (judging by the number on his microphone) complete with sport coat and hat, standing in front of a camera held aloft by a cameraman.
Frannie and Crainiac danced some for the cameras and Frannie maneuvered them close to the stage so that she could toss her shoes by the edge.
Newp bounded up between them and grabbed a microphone from the other stand, then dropped to the back of the stage to grab a guitar near the amps. When he returned, he planted the mike again and shouted. “Hey Laguna Beach! Say hey!” A whoop rose from the crowd in response.
Frannie felt and then saw Hooky beside her, and he put his giant hand on her shoulder. Frannie realized as she and Hooky listened that Newp was a natural.
“Everybody, tonight is something special,” Newp continued. “It’s July Fourth weekend and we’re gonna have some joyful Independent Noise.”
“Yeah!” The crowd answered, and the Hawaiian music cut out as someone pulled the plug on the record player.
“And let me tell you, tomorrow night there will be fireworks, but tonight we got fireworks of our own, man. Before the suits descend—” and here he pointed at the TV camera—“and I know you’re watching! Before the highfalutin fellas from the City and the Hollywood royalty get to this beach, it’s just us. Us Laguna Folk, and we got some folk fireworks for you.” Newp raised his voice, holding his hand out towards the girls. “Some folk-fire. Some folk-works. Say hey!”
“Hey!” Hooky’s voice boomed above the rest.
“So here tonight from your very own Café Monstro, you know the one, I give you The Fencers!”
Then Truly and Betty started in harmony, kicking it off with what Truly had told Frannie was an old murder ballad, Tom Dooley. As they sang, the gang on the beach all swayed, hanging on one another as the hypnotic words flowed. In the middle of the song—
Hang down your head, Tom DOOLEY—
Hang down your head, and CRY—
Frannie turned around, Hooky’s arm around her shoulders as they watched the band. Poor boy, you’re bound to die.
The stars shone on the waves, the moon so bright that it cut a long white runway across the ocean, a waterway for her heart to launch a plane of spirit and dip a wing at the parentals in Maui.
Next they sang a calypso-styled number, “Bay of Mexico,” and Frannie and Hooky danced and swayed. On and on the band played—"Good Night, Irene,” next, and couples crept hands on onto another.
Sometimes I live in town.
Over the sound of the waves the harmonies of Newp, Betty and Truly droned on: kisses sweeter than wine.
“Hail, Hookele!” came the voice of T-Bone, and Hooky turned away from Frannie as a group of Legionnaires dropped to their knees in the sand and waved their arms in bowing salutes like Arabs in a Popeye cartoon.
“Hail, Hookele, Chief of the Feast!”
“All right, Legion,” Hooky called, clapping his hands together. Frannie watched him go to work. He was a master of men, was Hooky. She backed all the way to the water to watch them while the surf sucked at the sand below her feet. She watched him, his arms held out in magnificent gestures, the yellow lights of the stage behind him, Truly, Betty and Newp still singing.
It was time for the feast, and Hooky directed the Legion like General Eisenhower himself, showing them where to dig around the fire pit. They used shovels to dig trenches and move coals out of the way, and soon two boys, one on either side, pulled on great ropes, hauling up out of the coals an enormous mound of what looked like a stretcher, all covered over in silver paper
Soon the foil was stripped away and the smell of deliciously pulled pork wafted through the air, a whole pig on a bed of apples, pears, oranges, pineapples, mangos, guava and kiwi. The smell mixed with the flying sparks and waved along with the orange fingers of the tiki torches, sickening sweet and gorgeous as Hooky, that wondrous man on the sand.
She knew as she watched him that nothing could ever be as good as this night nor as luxurious as this July 3, 1958, no sound as gorgeous as the cackled fir and the laughter of sun burnt surfers and the folk music of the Fencers. It couldn’t possibly be. Frannie stood and turned her back to the scene, and ached deep for her future without this. It was bound to come as sure as 1959.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Newp with a plate of glistening luau pork and fruit. “Frannie, I brought you some.”
“Thanks. But nah.”
“I thought you ate pork.”
“It’s… I don’t know. I don’t eat it tonight.” She hadn’t even noticed the music end. Frannie took the plate and looked back towards the stage where Truly and Betty now stood, hounded by new fans. “Newp, you should be with the girls!”
“Well, we couldn’t forget about you,” he said.
The exotica-faux-Hawaiian records started again and after a moment Hooky pointed. “Hey! I see a ray!” Frannie turned to see a white, glistening manta ray leap and dive offshore, and as it slipped away Newp called, “Hey, let’s look for some more manta rays.” Then someone shouted words that she would curse until the day she died.
Chapter 42
“Night surf!”
Night surfing is a rarity even in Laguna Beach. The surfer must go through all the usual motions—paddling out beyond the breakers, waiting for a wave, then paddling to meet it before trying to ride atop the wave as it comes back—but at night, every step is rife with added risk. Shadows that might be visible in day to warn the surfer of a sudden drop off or underwater danger, a reef or a wrecked boat, disappear. The waves are choppier and harder and other surfers are near invisible, their chattering voices lost amid louder winds and waves. Collisions happen, legs break, eyes are gouged out by board fins. Night surfing is alive with risk, and this is what those who practice it lust for.