Good Fortune Surrounding Bad Luck
a funny and odd and kind story
Part of the excitement about being in LA was the waves. Yes, in LA proper the waves are not as good as Santa Cruz, or Rincon, or Blacks Beach, or any other spot in San Diego. But here it is, this big and loud and dusty city with decent waves and water so much warmer than the Bay Area. Before I realized how far away the beach was from Studio City, from the Valley, I figured I’d bop around to a few galleries my friends suggested I see, then head to the coast for a small surf session. Now, neither of those happened—the galleries for lack of time and preparation, and the surfing, well, I’ll tell you.
I decided on the first day in LA that I wanted to surf El Porto. An old friend from high school suggested it, and I’d heard enough people shit talk about it to assume that it's a fairly beginner and outsider friendly spot. After an hour drive to the beach, I got to the parking lot and looked at the waves. They were weird and wonky, but didn’t look too bad. There was no wind and no clouds—barely any haze.
As I slipped my leg into my wetsuit I felt something pop. I looked down at my leg and the wetsuit had blown an entire seam nearly a foot long across the calf. I figured the water wouldn’t be too cold but I didn't have time to patch it on the trip, so I should try and find a new suit.
To my left, a guy was taking off his wetsuit and something about his demeanor, his slow obliviousness, had me guessing he was from here, or at least lived nearby.
I asked him if there were any surf shops close where I could get a wetsuit, telling him about the blown seam. He gave me a short list of places, but then asked. “What size are you?”
I was a few inches taller than him, but he was clearly pretty ripped. He said he wore a large and thought I could fit into an old suit he had in his car.
“How much do you want for it?” I asked.
“You can have it,” he said.
“What? No man, I'll pay you for it.”
“No, it's fine. I don’t ever use it and I just feel bad throwing it away. It’s got some patches on it, but it should work.”
I was kind of surprised by his generosity. I went over and got the suit and thanked him, and asked him his name. We started talking about surfing and surf culture things. I told him I was on a writing and surfing trip and how excited I was to go find new surf spots along the coast. I asked him about surf localism — the territorial nature of some spots up and down the eastern pacific coast. He was from Oahu, out here working as a roadie for some band, and was telling me how much he enjoyed it out here. A very kind person. His name was Tim.
After talking for a bit I took out my board to show him. It’s a used board from craigslist that I love and was excited just to share it. I took it out of its case and placed it right beside my car, just within another parking spot.
We kept talking, asking him about work, just the normal small talk kind of stuff, when a Prius pulled up next to my car, then backed up, I assume to realign the parking job. But as the driver did that, we both looked over and heard a crunch. The Prius just rolled over the tail of my board. I looked at it, the middle fin destroyed and the back of the board slightly crunched. Bad, but not an impossible fix. Definitely expensive. As the driver, a near six foot five and very large man, got out of the car, my kind new friend started yelling at the guy about how expensive a fix for the board was.
“Sorry, no English,” the driver said as he went to the car to grab his phone.
He spoke into the phone in what sounded like Russian, then handed me the phone. Slowly we started to argue over Google Translate. Tim still had my back and was waiting for the whole situation to be over with. Honestly, the fact that we had to argue by speaking into a phone and then handing it over for the other to read, made it clear how stupid both of us were being. I honestly had to hold in laughter as I was handed the phone. He didn’t understand how expensive a board repair was, and I didn’t understand how he didn’t see the board there. And that was that. But it would be such a costly fix I was determined, after he disagreed with everything I said, to get some money out of him.
The last thing I said to Google Translate was that the cost of the repair was really expensive, and to “give me something.”
The tall Russian man said to Google, “I only have Mexican money.”
“Fine,” I replied, incredibly confused as to why he had pesos.
He went into his glovebox, pulling out a wallet empty of cards and showed me the pesos.
“See,” he said in English. “This all I have.”
He handed me the money, 580 pesos. I put my board in my car and he drove off.
Tim came up to me and said he was sorry that happened. I said it was okay, I did have another board but was excited to ride this one for the trip in LA. Feeling bad that my board was just destroyed in the middle of a surf trip, he asked if I wanted to borrow his board. He gave me his number and said I could bring it to him whenever. He didn’t have work that week so I could hold onto it. I said that was very nice, but I would just use it for the day. He got into his car as I got into my wetsuit, and paddled out, immensely greatful for all the kindness this stranger was showing me.
The waves were okay. I caught a couple and could tell it would get worse. That day I had to drive further south to Huntington beach so figured I should get a move on.
After heading to Huntington Beach, I texted Tim and got his address. He wasn’t home so he told me where to put the board and I drove there. I put it in his backyard, thanking him again.
Even putting aside the peculiarity of a man Russia not speaking much English and having a good chunk of pesos some 140 miles from the border, it was a strange series of events. My wetsuit was destroyed, my board done for the time being, but here was this random guy, just being generous for the sake of generosity.
A few days after I got home from the trip, he texted me. He said, “Memories,” and sent this photo.
