“Where are these commenters? These faceless kooks? In some office cubicle in Pasadena? Married with four kids and a mortgage out in western Sydney?”
“So, you’re Cote’s new guy, huh?” says Kaipo Guerrero.
(For the back-story, read part one here.)
Kaipo Guerrero and I are in the sand dunes behind the WSL HQ in Santa Monica. The tumescent, domed building shimmers in the morning light like an ancient sentinel. It must be twenty, thirty stories tall. Its shadow falls across the dunes and beach beyond, unnaturally lowering the surrounding temperature.
Kaipo’s holding a rolled up length of chicken wire in one hand and a can of Bonsoy Brew in the other. I’m on my knees, digging away at the dirty brown sand with a cardboard trowel.
We’re doing our mandatory “offset” shift. All WSL employees must clock at least six hours a week doing conservation or preservation work. This is to make up for the precious fossil fuels we burn in our everyday jobs saving the OneOcean, putting the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves etc.
Kaipo and I have signed on for the little tern re-nesting program. This ecologically significant bird species nests in only three places on Earth. The Santa Monica sand dunes is one of them. We’re to excavate adequate nesting areas within the dunes for the birds to lay their precious eggs, as well as install security fencing around the nests to protect from human and predator alike.
But right now we are at a standstill.
Conservation has turned into interrogation. And the way Kaipo pronounced Cote’s name sounded strained, like it left a foul taste on his lips. Cote’s guy. You could be forgiven for thinking I’m a head of cattle, awaiting slaughter. Maybe I am.
He stares at me now with a deadpan face. Waiting for an answer. Leering over me. He’s dressed in an all blue velour tracksuit. White sneakers and white baseball cap. Even in these cooler temps, he must be hot.
I don’t know what to say. Where allegiances lay. I decide to play it straight.
“Yes, I’m here to help Mr Cote,” I muster. “He’s asked me to assist with fact gathering for some of his calls. I’m super pumped. Really happy to be involved with this exciting organisation.”
Kaipo nods silently.
We get back to work. Or at least, I do. I dig the small trench out to the exact dimensions written on the recycled cardboard instruction leaflet. Kaipo should now be starting to level out the perimeter for the fencing, but instead he still stands there, Bonsoy Brew can in hand, chicken wire long since discarded. Inscrutable in his silence.
Finally he speaks.
“He’s a funny guy isn’t he? Chris.”
“Yeah he is hilarious with some of the calls he comes out with. For instance-”
“I don’t mean ha-ha funny, brah. I mean like, he’s funny like a lump on your balls is funny.”
“Oh well, I guess I don’t know him well enough just yet.”
In the distance I can hear the dull thump of nineties gangsta rap blaring from Cote’s WSL office window. I keep digging. I’m having trouble getting through some of the deeper, denser sand with my cardboard trowel.
Kaipo throws away the Bonsoy Brew can and drops to his knees.
“Here.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a vintage cut-throat flick razor. He lands a flurry of stabs in the dark sand with it in quick succession. It loosens enough to let me finish my excavation.
Uh, thanks,” I gulp.
“You know, these terns fly all around the world,” says Kaipo, pointing to the empty, half-dug nest with his blade. “They don’t know why they do it. Just something hardwired into them. Why do they choose here?”
He stands up, flips the blade and places it back in his pocket in one smooth motion. He looks out over the dunes and to the dull blue ocean beyond.
“Makes you think, don’t it?”
He spins to face Chris Cote’s office.
“Why’d you choose the WSL? Coming all the way over here from Australia?”
“I dunno, I suppose I just wanted a change,” I say, trying my best to keep up with his line of thought. “Plus you know, the work the WSL is doing over here is uh, groundbreaking. And, I guess, innovative.”
I think again about the secret plans Cote shared with me. About how we’re bringing the WSL down from the inside. The revolution may be nigh. But our true enemies are yet to reveal themselves, as Don Corleone would say.
I wonder whose team Kaipo is on. I wonder if he can see right through me.
His expression remains blank. It’s a hell of a poker face.
Kaipo Guerrero reaches back for his pocket. An image of my bloodied corpse lying half buried in the dunes flashes before my eyes. What if Kaipo knows what we’re up to? Is he going to “disappear” me like some off-brand Godfather scene? Who is going to save me out here? Cote? Can he even see us? Would he even care? Or would I just be another anonymous victim in this silent war he’s waging?
What the fuck am I even doing here? About to die in a ditch in some bullshit sand dune under the all-seeing eye of the great WSL monolith?
I need to run. Get out of this situation. Why should I be risking my life?
But before I can act, Kaipo Guerrero has already pulled the item from his pocket. Here we go.
I breathe a silent sigh of relief. It’s a half empty packet of Malboro reds, and small silver Zippo. He lights up with the same smooth single motion he used for his blade. Blows smoke up into the sky. My face flushes red with embarrassment at the thought of my imagined mob hit.
What was I thinking? It’s Kaipo Guerrero. This guy is a sweetheart.
Yet I can’t shake the thought. Standing there in his velour tracksuit, lunging down his cigarette, Kaipo wouldn’t look out of place in a modern day Corleone family.
“I know a lot of you Aussies like to, whaddaya call it? Take the piss? Think it’s cool to laugh at me for some of the stunts I pull when I’m commentating,” he says. “Like with the ladder and whatnot.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I say as I keep digging. My heart still in my throat.
“But I’m the one laughin’,” brah,” he continues. “Here I am. Travelling the world. Surfing the best waves. Rubbing shoulders with the elite. Helping out little fucken terns.”
Kaipo Guerrero takes another puff from his smoke.
“Where are these commenters? These faceless kooks? In some fucken office cubicle in Pasadena? Married with four kids and a mortgage out in fucken western Sydney or some shit? The fuck did they do with their lives?”
He lets the questions linger in the air, like the clouds of his cigarette smoke. I wonder if he’s still figuring it all out for himself.
“I fucken love the WSL, man. And I’d do anything to protect it. Anything.”
Kaipo Guerrero stubbs the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe.
“Yeah, totally,” I offer back weakly.
“Now dig another trench next to the tern nest. Those Bonsoys go right through me, brah. I gotta take a piss.”