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Authors: Martha Sherrill
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mint.”
W hitman had all kinds of surfboards—and equipment. Wax, wetsuits, racks for the car. He had stories about his surf heroes and famous surfing spots around the world. Over the summer I’d gotten a complete indoctrination to this world when we’d met up with our father for two weeks at Marguerite’s shingled house on Moss Cove. The house was crowded with cousins and other relatives who had also chosen the second half of June for a sandy and somewhat alcoholic Ruin family holiday. There were rounds of gin and tonics. Rounds of cribbage and bridge. There were packs of cigarettes smoked. There were dozens of ruby red grapefruit halves consumed at breakfast and bowls and bowls of cereal consumed with table cream before bed at night.
Whitman vanished early in the morning to surf at Big Corona or Salt Creek or sometimes the Wedge in Newport and didn’t reappear until late afternoon—the sleeves and top half of his wetsuit peeled off and curling below his skinny waist. My father spent his days philosophizing with an Irvine physics professor who lived nearby or locked in ugly debates about the war with his sister Ann, whose car was plastered with RE-ELECT NIXON bumper stickers. AndI, who had long ago decided that my cousin Lisa was far better company than my gloomy and complicated father, spent mornings and afternoons with my body planted on the sand beside hers, greased up before the sun like a roasting chicken.
Each night I was torn away from Lisa and the family bridge game to attend the movies with my father and Whitman—made more bearable when a system for picking the films was established. We took turns choosing a movie, and no matter what it was, all three of us had to attend. For my father’s first two turns, he’d taken us to see an incredibly bloody movie,
The French Connection
, which I wasn’t allowed to tell Abuelita or my mother about, and three days later a documentary about Woodstock, which introduced me to full frontal nudity and frequent use of the word “balling.” When Whitman’s turns came, he picked a smattering of low-budget surf films—they looked like home movies and had no audio but for the dull strumming of a guitar. The soggy old cinema where they played was near the pier in Huntington Beach and had a distinct beach smell: mold, urine, and sour wine mingled with freshly lit marijuana.
When my nights came, I was excited to exercise my power. I took my father and Whitman to see
The Sound of Music
, a movie that rendered them speechless. (I assumed this was a positive sign.) Three nights later, during a hot spell, I chose a movie that I’d been longing to see:
Gone with the Wind.
“Well?” my father said afterward in the car.
I was throbbing with feeling—and a strange ache, oddly enough, for the Civil War days. Those dresses! The dancing! And since the ending of the film, when Rhett Butler walks off—maybe the whole thing reminded me of my mom and how stupid she’d been,
how could Scarlett possibly let him go?
—I’d had to stifle a bout of open-mouthed sobbing.
“Awful,” Whitman proclaimed. “The worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
“
Really
, Whitman,” my father said dryly. He seemed amused. “You don’t think it’s the greatest romance of all time?”
“It makes
Sound of Music
look like a masterpiece,” Whitman said, speaking for the first time of my previous choice. “It was so artificial and racist—and disgusting. Plus, the whole thing takes place indoors. Oh, except maybe the burning of Atlanta—that was outside—and so phony. Inez, please
don’t
say you really liked that?”
“Inez?” my father asked.
He looked in the rearview mirror at me. I was brushing my bangs away from my face, but later on I wondered if he thought I was wiping my eyes.
“I mean,” Whitman continued, “what awful people, and that horrible bitch Scarlett O’—”
“Okay! We get it!”
my father exploded. “You talk too much, Whitman! Do you know that? Just shut the
W hitman had all kinds of surfboards—and equipment. Wax, wetsuits, racks for the car. He had stories about his surf heroes and famous surfing spots around the world. Over the summer I’d gotten a complete indoctrination to this world when we’d met up with our father for two weeks at Marguerite’s shingled house on Moss Cove. The house was crowded with cousins and other relatives who had also chosen the second half of June for a sandy and somewhat alcoholic Ruin family holiday. There were rounds of gin and tonics. Rounds of cribbage and bridge. There were packs of cigarettes smoked. There were dozens of ruby red grapefruit halves consumed at breakfast and bowls and bowls of cereal consumed with table cream before bed at night.
Whitman vanished early in the morning to surf at Big Corona or Salt Creek or sometimes the Wedge in Newport and didn’t reappear until late afternoon—the sleeves and top half of his wetsuit peeled off and curling below his skinny waist. My father spent his days philosophizing with an Irvine physics professor who lived nearby or locked in ugly debates about the war with his sister Ann, whose car was plastered with RE-ELECT NIXON bumper stickers. AndI, who had long ago decided that my cousin Lisa was far better company than my gloomy and complicated father, spent mornings and afternoons with my body planted on the sand beside hers, greased up before the sun like a roasting chicken.
Each night I was torn away from Lisa and the family bridge game to attend the movies with my father and Whitman—made more bearable when a system for picking the films was established. We took turns choosing a movie, and no matter what it was, all three of us had to attend. For my father’s first two turns, he’d taken us to see an incredibly bloody movie,
The French Connection
, which I wasn’t allowed to tell Abuelita or my mother about, and three days later a documentary about Woodstock, which introduced me to full frontal nudity and frequent use of the word “balling.” When Whitman’s turns came, he picked a smattering of low-budget surf films—they looked like home movies and had no audio but for the dull strumming of a guitar. The soggy old cinema where they played was near the pier in Huntington Beach and had a distinct beach smell: mold, urine, and sour wine mingled with freshly lit marijuana.
When my nights came, I was excited to exercise my power. I took my father and Whitman to see
The Sound of Music
, a movie that rendered them speechless. (I assumed this was a positive sign.) Three nights later, during a hot spell, I chose a movie that I’d been longing to see:
Gone with the Wind.
“Well?” my father said afterward in the car.
I was throbbing with feeling—and a strange ache, oddly enough, for the Civil War days. Those dresses! The dancing! And since the ending of the film, when Rhett Butler walks off—maybe the whole thing reminded me of my mom and how stupid she’d been,
how could Scarlett possibly let him go?
—I’d had to stifle a bout of open-mouthed sobbing.
“Awful,” Whitman proclaimed. “The worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
“
Really
, Whitman,” my father said dryly. He seemed amused. “You don’t think it’s the greatest romance of all time?”
“It makes
Sound of Music
look like a masterpiece,” Whitman said, speaking for the first time of my previous choice. “It was so artificial and racist—and disgusting. Plus, the whole thing takes place indoors. Oh, except maybe the burning of Atlanta—that was outside—and so phony. Inez, please
don’t
say you really liked that?”
“Inez?” my father asked.
He looked in the rearview mirror at me. I was brushing my bangs away from my face, but later on I wondered if he thought I was wiping my eyes.
“I mean,” Whitman continued, “what awful people, and that horrible bitch Scarlett O’—”
“Okay! We get it!”
my father exploded. “You talk too much, Whitman! Do you know that? Just shut the
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