Will Skudin, the second most famous surfer from New York, sometimes sends famous American surfers to me here in Ireland. Some of these surfers drink too many pints and try to take a shortcut to my house through the cow field. I find them in the morning on their backs, jeans stuck in a barb in the fence. Of course, Mason Barnes doesn’t drink, so I didn’t ever have to pluck him out of the cow field.
Clem from County Clare got wind of Mason showing up and told me, “I heard the man staying with you is only after spraying Miley Cyrus down with a hose.”
“Sure, and I heard he’s the second coming of Jesus Christ himself,” I said back.
“You don’t think Skudin would have told you that?”
We laughed.
I am a liaison. It is essential for catching waves at the second best big wave in the world to get along in Ireland, culturally. I am uniquely qualified to be the American liaison, having lived and surfed exactly half my life in America and half in Ireland, a click away from the second best big wave in the world, Mullaghmore.
When Mason arrived from New York, he accepted a cup of coffee from my wife, Stefanie. While he drank coffee, he charmed my wife with his good looks and southern manners. By the fourth coffee, Stefanie was so obviously smitten that I started up the surf talk. I asked Mason if he had a strategy for catching a wave tomorrow.
“Hmmmm,” Mason said, “good question.”
Stefanie, instantly bored by the surf talk, left the kitchen.
“I watched all of the YouTube clips,” Mason touted. “I’ll let the local crew wear themselves out a little bit, then jump in and wait for my wave.”
I sighed.
“Hmmpha,” I said like a derisive grampa. “Not gonna work,” I said. “This isn’t Hawaii or California,” (I almost added a snotty ‘bro’, but I bit my tongue). “You can’t be laid-back here where there are twenty-foot tides and unpredictable winds. You don’t have the luxury of waiting. You need every minute. Plus, the locals will not wear themselves out.” I explained, staring into the middle distance. (Again I did not add bro.)
I don’t mind explaining these things to famous American surfers because they usually respond with an “Oh,” or something, and then they thank me. None of them ignore me. After all, I am the second most famous surf writer from New York. But they all know that. When you’re the second most famous surf writer from New York, you don’t have to tell people.
Mason said “Oh,” and sipped his coffee.
The next day Mason sat on the back of my jetski, watching the action at the second best big wave in the world. I have lots of excuses to not surf this scary wave. Today’s excuse is it's so scary and dangerous that it needs the best rescue jetski driver in Ireland, and he’s not here. I’m the second best rescue driver in Ireland.
Wave-starved surfers and photographers screamed like barbarians in the delight of battle that morning. They screamed at the huge waves rearing up and roaring along limestone slabs of rock. They screamed at each other, to get under the rearing waves and paddle head down, to commit. Not many rides were successful, most of them sent surfers up and over with the lip, then into the thick white foam. I’d pick the fallen up and drag them to safety. Mason sat on the back of the ski while I rescued them from the white foamy rip.
I plucked athletes out of the water for an hour. Tic fucken tock, bro. I wanted to say, but again, bit my tongue. Will Skudin sends me famous surfers who always want to catch a wave. But Mason sat on the back of my ski. Was he too scared to try? No. Will would not send me someone like that.
I rescued more surfers. Mason sat.
Mason finally took his board out of the gunwale, jumped off the ski and paddled out. With the tide rushing he had forty minutes, tops, before the waves stopped breaking. But he didn’t start hunting right away. This guy didn’t hurry. He sat on his board and with time-consuming respect, he shook hands with all the surfers.
A gentleman.
“Tic fucken tock, bro,” I said out loud now that he was gone.
He shook hands then waited, last in line, to catch a wave. Will’s surfers usually hunt for a wave like sharks. Mason was a friendly sunfish, flopping about.
Forty minutes went by before a final flurry of waves rumbled down the reef. It was an eight wave set. Only three waves were ridden, just one surfer actually made the wave. I went to pick up the other two who didn’t. Only three waves were ridden, but the rest of the lineup lost their position in desperate attempts to catch one. The surfers knew, as I did, that the previous set was probably their last chance at a wave that day. Mason was now left at the top of the reef, in first position to catch a wave I was sure wouldn’t come.
Mason will not be catching a wave then. Will Skudin may be the second most famous surfer from New York but he’s not infallible. He made a mistake and sent me the wrong bro.
Too bad.
Probably later on Mason will say that he should have listened to me. I’ll put my hand on his shoulder in a paternal way and tell him that it’s really, really hard to get waves here, that it’s an accomplishment just getting out there and all that shite.
While imagining this conversation in my head, one final wave emerged from the dark sea. This wave came alone to the reef, about three minutes after the set, in a way waves don’t. You never see one more wave come in three minutes after the set. This one came in unusually, at an angle different to the rest, and when it hit the reef there was only one person in position to catch it. Mason didn’t hesitate. He sat under it, paddled, head down, into a very scary and technical drop, turned at the bottom, and rode into the barrel of the best wave of the day, the best of the year. That rare angle made the wave grow even bigger as it exploded down the reef.
Mason, on his first wave ever out there, on a borrowed board, drew a perfect line like he’d been surfing it as long as I have, staying well on the bottom of the wave. He spent five or six seconds in the second biggest barrel in the world. He got lipped at the end. A lot of times, on the very best waves here, the ones that grow like this one did, the wave implodes at the end when it hits the deep water of the channel.
He was underwater for a long time, more than thirty seconds. He came up, face bobbing in the white foam and smiled, more of a contented smile than the adrenaline lit, spark-plug smile you’d expect.
Professional big wave surfing is a tough way to earn money. I’ve seen all impressive first performances here at the second best wave in the world. Scary wave specialists like Nathan Florence and Lucas Chianca fresh from Hawaii or wherever, both got amazing waves their first time out, but they used every minute of the surf window. They were out before the tide. They hunted for their waves. They took every opportunity. They were neither chill, nor laid back.
But Mason is so laid back his head knocks on his heels. He knew that wave was coming to him like he knew the sun would rise.
That evening Mason drank four cups of coffee then left to catch a flight to Milan for Fashion Week. After he left, I googled him. County Clare Clem was actually right. Mason sprays Miley Cyrus down with a hose for two minutes in the music video for “River”. Google also says Mason is one of the most successful male models ever. He’s done huge work with Loewe, Breitling and Tommy Hilfiger.
…
“But so what?” I say … I guess, like, to myself? It’s now one year later, and Mason’s on his second trip to Ireland. He’s only just arriving and already on his third coffee. My wife is swooning at Mason’s stories about the world of fashion, making a point to ignore me. I’m halfway through a bottle of Portuguese red. Stefanie knows I have had a fantasy crush on Miley Cyrus ever since I saw her sing “Sleigh Ride” in A Very Murry Christmas. I convinced myself that Mason’s wave last year was a fluke. A chance event. A lone pig flying in the sky. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” I hold back from saying bro in a real snotty way.
“Ignore him.” Stefanie says to Mason.
I have a good life and I haven’t felt the sting of jealousy in a very long time.
As a baggy-pants teenager in New York City in the nineties, I skated to a midtown Manhattan address. It was a male model audition for a Quicksilver ad. I arrived, sweat dripping, having skated from Brooklyn. I sweated and waited with tall, big-jawed fellas, wearing big-faced watches, fresh expensive clothes, many in suits, all with perfect skin. They smelled of oiled leather and confidently showed their brilliant white teeth. Finally, I was called into a side room. They would call me, the ad people emphasized, after asking me to smile.
“None of those dudes even surf!” I said as I left. The ad execs giggled and the room full of good looking guys laughed outright.
Mason finished his third coffee with, like, a flourish, and says to Stefanie that he chases big waves using the modeling money and gets the big modeling contracts because of his success in big wave surfing.
“I’m more interesting to the fashion world as a big wave surfer/male model than the other way around,” he says.
“That’s so interesting,” gushes Stefanie.
“That wave you got last year was a fluke,” I blurt while Stefanie makes Mason his fourth cup of coffee. “A once-off. Beginner’s luck. That wave was a thousand monkeys typing for a thousand years and writing The Merchant Of Venice. A combination of synchronicity and pure, dumb luck, like the universe producing a sphere with life on it. Creation and your wave have a lot in common.”
“You are totally right,” Mason responds. He’s complimentary, maddeningly polite and completely humble. “I don’t know how that worked out for me.”
I gulp down my fourth glass of the Portuguese red. Mason’s relentless humility triggers something primal in me and I start with the Zoolander quotes.
“Just because we have chiselled abs and stunning features, it doesn’t mean that we too can’t not die in a freak gasoline fight accident,” I say laughing.
“Ha ha,” Mason says, not laughing.
“Yer so hot right now,” I say.
My wife gives me the look she gives when I’m being a dick.
“Oh-kay… so I’m thinking about tomorrow’s swell,” Mason says, trying to change the subject.
“As a Caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so you must become, Derelicte!”
He laughs again and it still seems genuine. I wait for him to speak so I can interrupt him.
“… Yep…” he says.
“Have you ever wondered if there was more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?”
I hear my wife’s exhale. “Dylan,” she warns.
“Can we talk?” Mason asks, “like, normally?”
I’m breathing hard. I am making fun of his life, his career. And Mason, polite and patient, neither acknowledges my teasing nor dismisses it. I have to sober up, reel myself in.
I have to make a choice right now and either accept that I have some deep issue with not being cool or good looking enough to land that Quicksilver gig thirty years ago, or accept that Mason Barnes is some sort of prophet.
I decide that Mason is definitely some sort of prophet.
“Let’s go get the boards ready,” he says, amicably.
The mess in my garage calms me. My breathing slows down.
We talk about the incoming swell, the other famous surfers who flew in for it. Mason lays out his strategy. He will let the local crew wear themselves out a little bit, then jump in and wait for his wave.
I don’t say a thing. Every surfer Will sends me leaves a board in my garage. Mason’s board is at the bottom of the pile. I don’t say, ‘bro’.
There’s no way Mason is going to repeat the ride he got a year ago I think, while I start the careful process of moving other people’s giant, expensive, pointy surfboards around to get Mason’s out. A thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters will write Hamlet before that happens again. A whole flock of pigs will fly in V-formation, like geese, snorting instead of honking, across the sky…
…
It’s one year later and Mason sits on the back of my ski watching the fly-in pro surfers and the local heroes. The photographers move like time lapse stars in their home orbit. Tic fucken tock, bro, and finally Mason jumps off the ski and paddles out. Again, he shakes everyone’s hand and spends twenty minutes chatting to whoever is close to him, being both humble and polite. Then a set arrives. Many waves in a row empty the lineup. All the surfers catch waves or attempt to, and are now out of position for the straggler wave that arrives alone, a minute later and hits the reef at that rare angle that makes the wave grow bigger as it reels down. It is - once again - the wave of the day.
Mason would have given it away to anybody else who was in position to catch it. But there is no one. Once again he makes a furious and technically perfect drop on a wave that rises up for him, and only him. He pulls into the barrel and surfs the best wave of the day without hustle, without ego, without aggression, with flow.
A flock of geese fly by, their honks like the snorts of pigs. It starts to rain and it sounds like a thousand monkeys.
Will Skudin sends me surfers. Will sent Mason to me.
Will believes in Christ the way Carl Jung believed in collective unconsciousness. Will believes Jesus died for our sins. I believe that you will not share my belief that Mason is a prophet. You will not think a dude catching two waves at Mullaghmore makes him a prophet. Even if this prophet pays for big wave adventures by prancing around with a hose-squirting Miley Cyrus.
I believe your collective unconscious will say, “He’s just some dude with a lot of luck. These things happen.”
…
I make Mason his fourth coffee and pour the dregs of a bottle of Portuguese red into a whiskey tumbler. I rebel against the rules by savagely pouring wine into tumblers. Stefanie, obviously, is not at home.
“How?...” I ask, fumbling, “and in what way, did you pay for the life you live?”
Mason’s look says that I already know.
“I’m not talking about money,” I say. “How do you get to have that …confidence …no, not confidence,” I shake my head, snapping my fingers, trying to find the right word. “Trust. Yes. How do you trust the universe will work with you like that? How the fuck did you know those waves were coming? How have you balanced your metaphorical ledger?”
“Well,” he starts, “I was surfing all these big wave spots and getting good waves, but nobody ever really noticed me. I did it for twelve years. I just didn’t give up. I kept at it and at it, like never quitting, and eventually people started to notice me, and it was shortly after …”
“Fuck all that,” I say, rudely interrupting his drivel.
He doesn’t understand that I am asking him how he got to be on a first name basis with Miley Cyrus and God. He doesn’t understand that I’m digging for an ugly answer.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m after skeletons, bro. I want to know why or what allows you to communicate with the whole damn universe? You knew you were getting that wave today and the one from a year ago. You knew they would come to you. And if God or The Force or whatever runs the vibrations of everything decided to give you Miley Cyrus and those two waves, can’t I at least be in the presence of a prophet who can explain this to me?”
Mason sits not drinking his coffee, saying nothing.
“Jesus wandered the desert,” I say. “He was starving and dying from thirst. Mohammad was an epileptic. Buddha was nothing until he left his father’s palace to witness and experience humanity’s suffering. Even Batman’s parents were shot dead in front of him! Prophets come with profound suffering. Enlightenment, Valhalla, Heaven, hosing Miley Cyrus and surfing the two best waves at Mullaghmore that are your only waves surfed must be balanced with suffering. Please tell me. What is it?”
Silence. He stared into the middle distance.
“You knew about those two waves. I believe in balance and for that there must be some suffering, something deep. You must have suffered. I want skeletons. I want my pound of flesh.”
I then notice a drop of sweat dripping down the middle of my forehead. My breath is quick and erratic. I am demanding existential answers from a coffee swilling prophet.
“I have OCD,” Mason says, finally. “I had severe anxiety. I had trouble leaving my room.”
I felt my breath rate level off as the universal ledger began to balance out. Mason is one of the most sociable people I’d ever met. I thought of his conversations with my wife, with my son. He’s relaxed, funny, intrigued about everything.
“I never would have guessed that,” I admit.
“Nobody guesses that,” he explains.
Outside, the bell from the monotone Catholic Church bells rings twice.
“Diagnosed OCD?” I ask to confirm.
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
“So how did you rise in the fashion world with a crippling anxiety disorder? Much less navigate the pecking order at the best waves in the world? That’s gotta be the most intense and complicated social construct… Bro, how did you land that Miley Cyrus gig?”
“Therapy,” he responds. “In therapy, I had to train myself how to not listen to my brain. It was as scary for me to leave my room as it is to surf big waves. I was terrified out there today. But I’ve gotten so good at not listening to my brain that I sort of create my own narrative of the world. I had to learn this trick just to leave my room. And I realized, slowly, that I have exactly the same amount of control of the world outside my room as I do of, say, the waves at Mullaghmore.
“None at all,” I say.
“Exactly, and when you realize you have no control, when you really know it and really accept it, then you can let go completely. When you stop reacting to the universe, when you realise you are part of it, you find connections.”
I look at my tumbler. It’s empty.
The prophet drinks his coffee. I take a wine glass down from the cupboard and open another bottle of Portuguese red.
