Mr. Jenkins and his son Jeremy drove in mostly silence bumping along the rocky dirt road of San Onofre State Beach. Even though they lived together, it wasn’t often that Jenkins spent time with or even saw his son for a meal or a brief talk. The few, sporadic encounters in their relationship had always been awkward and uncomfortable. Jenkins loves to criticize, and in his eyes his son is nothing but a failure, someone unfit and ungrateful for the pleasures of middle-class America.

Jeremy had graduated top of his class only a year before with a bachelor’s degree in oceanography from UCSB and now, finished, he was embracing his freedom as a legal and self-proven adult. There are not many moments in one’s life that you can relax without the ever-evolving growth of responsibility that can never truly be met without severe and consequential hardships along the way. Life is a puzzle and freedom the ultimate goal. Freedom from worries, freedom from society, freedom to escape, and at this time in his life, Jeremy was deep in the throws of this conundrum.

Mr. Jenkins is a highly paid and sought after lawyer in the corporate community. He had gotten big-name companies off the hook for their apparent guilt and, in gratitude, had earned millions. He works hard, but for all the wrong reasons. Greed torments his life and he thinks of nothing else but work and money.

“The waves look pretty fun today … don’t you think dad?” Jeremy speaks enthusiastically as they pull up on his home break, Old Mans.

“Yeah,” he grunts, unimpressed by anything nature has to offer.

Jeremy quiets again. Whatever conversation he tries to achieve is immediately averted by his father’s dull demeanor. Jenkins pulls into an open spot, careful to miss the pothole with his new, black Escalade. Beside them, in a beat-up old Toyota pickup truck, two sun-baked surfers were enjoying a bowl in a beautiful hand-blown glass pipe before they surfed.

“Damn pot-smokers.” Jenkins faces his son, “It’s lowlifes like these that ruin their future and expect the rest of us to pay for them.”

Jeremy didn’t answer. He wished he could be in that pickup truck with them. There’s nothing like a good surf session on a head full of tetrahydrocannabinol. It’s an invigorating experience! But his dad wouldn’t recognize its creative beauty. He’s too straight, too focused on the material world to expand his knowledge about the unknown.

Jenkins’ cell phone rang and he answered it without hesitation. It was a client. She had slipped and fallen on the deck of a cruise ship while in the midst of a tropical storm and she was using Jenkins for an expected $800,000 outcome. Jeremy got out of the car and hurriedly unstrapped the boards from the roof of the very carefully protected car.

Jenkins stayed inside the luxury of his vehicle as Jeremy prepared to indulge in his passion. He put on his wetsuit, carefully waxed his prized, self-shaped long board, and stretched, all the while examining the waves for patterns in placement, shape, and swell direction. When Jeremy finished his routine Jenkins was still in the depths of his important conversation. Jeremy waited for another minute, but eventually gave in to temptation. He knew his father’s priorities and, obviously, he was not a part of them.

The water was cool and refreshing, a nice change from the humidity of the air. A slight offshore breeze was preventing an ocean fogbank from drifting toward the coast. Jeremy cautiously walked out onto the seaweed and barnacle covered rocks revealed by the low tide and entered the ocean’s natural and therapeutic relaxation.

On his knees, Jeremy paddled through the oncoming chest-high sets to the outer-most peak. For the size and wave consistency it was a fairly uncrowded day at Old Mans. Only a few of the older locals waited for the bigger waves far outside of the break while a couple of beginner surfers cluttered the small inside waves near the shore. Jeremy made it out and instantly found himself on a perfectly breaking shoulder-high left. All heads turned as Jeremy proved his superiority in judging and sculpting nature’s perpetual motion of water. He walked to the nose, found himself with all ten toes dragging in the water off the tip of the board and, then, walked back again for a slow-moving, neatly formulized, roundhouse cutback. Close to shore, after a few more astonishing maneuvers, Jeremy pulled out of the wave before the water became too shallow. Up on the beach Mr. Jenkins was finally out of his car but still on the phone, standing above his board and admiring its unused, expensive perfection. He had missed watching his son’s wave. He always did.

Almost half an hour later, when Jeremy had ridden a little under a dozen waves, Jenkins was ready to surf. He paddled out with the nose of his 10-foot-5-inch Stewart sticking high above the water’s surface and his leash on the forward foot of his uncoordinated body. When he paddled his legs draped over the sides of the board, breaking his already staggering momentum by dragging his feet along with him through the water. To him, the water was cold, uncomfortable and unpredictable. He liked the image but longed to be on land. After exerting himself through countless waves, he pulled himself up and sat on his uncontrolled deck of foam next to Jeremy.

“You made it.”

“Yeah,” Jenkins panted, “that was a long set.”

Jeremy smiled and bit his tongue to keep from mocking his father as an obvious poser. In the time it had taken his father to paddle out, Jeremy had caught a wave, ridden it to shore and made it back in time to meet with his dad.

In shallower waters two men were bickering with each other over their rights of a past wave. There was disagreement on who was in the wrong and who had dropped in on whom. The water became disturbed and the magic broken.

“So what’s your plan Jeremy?”

“My plan?”

“Yeah, you can’t just surf for the rest of your life … you need to make something of yourself and be a productive member of society.”

“And why’s that?”

“Why?” Jenkins became annoyed, “Because you can’t be a leech for the rest of your life.”

“A leech! And what makes you think I’m a leech?”

“Because you haven’t done shit since you completed school … which isn’t saying much since all you did your four years of college was party and take advantage of girls.”

“How would you know what I have or haven’t done, you’re never around to even notice!”

A set of waves began to form as they rolled slowly out of the fog toward shore. Jeremy was well aware of its presence and quickly left his dad, paddling away to meet it head on. He caught the first and largest of the seven-wave set, ripping it to pieces with his professional-like appearance and agility. After ending his ride, Jeremy turned back toward the oncoming waves just in time to see his dad catch a good 4-foot-high wave and dig his nose straight into the ocean floor before having the chance to even attempt to stand up. Jenkins’ board became submerged by the wave for a second and then flew up again, landing inches from his head as he emerged from the catastrophe. Jeremy broke into hysterical laughter as he paddled over toward him.

“How was that wave?” Jeremy asked, still chuckling.

“It would have been better if I had no responsibilities and just surfed every day like you … I mean, what the hell are you going to do with your life Jeremy, be a bum?” Jenkins retaliated.

“Well, maybe if I had a father who was there for me it would be easier,” Jeremy scowled hurtfully.

“You fucking brat!” Jenkins almost fell off his board. “What do you think I’m doing all the time?” He paused. “Well, I’ll tell you … while you’re out fucking around every day I’m out working in order to provide for you and your mother!”

“Working! Working for what? So you can drive around in an expensive car, live in a giant house, eat overpriced food. What good is working if that’s all you do? I don’t give a shit about being rich. You weren’t there for me while I was growing up. Why should I want to get a job and do what society expects of me if it requires giving up my own life to be a slave? Fuck that! I can find everything I need from mother nature herself!”

Jenkins lay back down on his board and paddled to shore without waiting for a wave. Jeremy sat hurt but relieved of the burden to have to prove himself to his father. Another set came rifling to shore from deep waters and Jeremy surfed it with a feeling of freedom he had never experienced before.

On land Jenkins threw his board on top of his Escalade, carelessly strapped it down and drove off without even bothering to take off his wetsuit. On his drive home, the straps holding his board in place broke loose and the board flew from the roof, landing two lanes over in front of a big rig on the freeway. He never surfed again.

Jeremy stayed out surfing for a few more hours. When he finally got out, the fog had made its way to the coastline and visibility was only a few hundred feet. He went to where his father’s car had been parked and found a disheveled pile of his clothes in its place. He put on his dirty clothes, propped his surfboard up in the sand, and sat facing the ocean. In the next 10 minutes, the two surfers in the beat-up pickup truck finished surfing and prepared for an after-exertion bowl. They beckoned for Jeremy to join them and he gratefully accepted. Jeremy had found his permanent place in society.