The Savage Coast, Part 2: It's Not Terrible

Poised for a moment on the edge of a rural roundabout, Franck honked his horn. Cloistered as I was in the back seat in a cocoon of board bags, I couldn't see anything, so I asked him what happened.

"There was a cute girl... we... saw her side, but we wanted to see her face..." he said in halting English. "It's a basic strategy," he concluded.

"I can't see anything!" I complained bitterly, in broken French.

"You... can trust Chanchan and me," he offered.

"I trust you! It's a not a question of trust; it is to say that I can't see anything from here! I would like to see them myself," I mourned.

Guys are guys everywhere.

****

Minutes later, we were getting into our wetsuits, and Chanchan was making fun of me for closing my eyes every time I went for a big move on my surfboard. The two of them laughed when I told them, in heavily accented French, that it was only because my "style" was too intense to look at. I told them the joke about Bangkok being the capital of Thailand, and we started our trek through the trees and stinging flies, out to the beach.

****

The surf was small and blown out, and it was almost impossible to get any speed to do anything. I paddled over to Franck.

-What's another way to say 'It has nothing to commend itself'? I asked in French.
-It sucks, he said.
-More polite?
-C'est pas terrible. 'It's not terrible.'

****

That was it... "it's not terrible". Condemnation by backhanded compliment. Of course, it really wasn't terrible. For my entire life, I've had a strange love of standing in random places and thinking about how I might never have been there if I had not made some small decision(s), at some point, to follow my fleeting inclinations. In High School I decided to study French. I continued in college. My senior year in college, Mitch and I decided to go live in France. I wasn't accepted the first year, but I got in the next year. I went to France, worked for 7 months, then applied for another job in Royan. I got that job. Yesterday, while I was running back and forth between the bank and the bike shop, Franck called and said he'd be at my place in 25 minutes. One hour, and several dick jokes, later, we were in the water. And it wasn't terrible. The waves were disappointing, but I was glad to be there because I felt that feeling that I am always chasing, and that eludes me most of the time. I was glad to be exactly where I was.

From the Sunday session: