Wesley Van der Sloot

Post Hurricane Emily, and the heat has descended on us like a sick smelly old blanket, causing all life to slow down to a sticky, oozing molasses pace. The seawater is boiling, and the last vestiges of swell and wave are depressingly gone, replaced by a vast expanse of flatness across the Gulf. Water quality is off the scale bad, as tons of raw sewage has found its way down the Rio San Juan to the Rio Grande from distant Mexican towns like Monterrey following torrential rains and floods, courtesy of the remnants of Emily. The sewage plume has discharged from the Rio Grande into the Gulf of Mexico at Boca Chica, now transported by wind and current along our beaches where thousands flock to escape the oppressive heat, playing unsuspectingly in the water, always aware that sharks populate the ocean out here, but never realizing that tiny organisms like Enterococcus pose a far greater risk, lying in wait with huge bacterial teeth….waiting….waiting…..

My son has spied a feces or two merrily bobbing along in the swash zone, waiting to be deposited like nuclear sea beans on the shoreline, waiting for some unsuspecting jogger or beachstroller to run through it. He hasn’t got much time to look for that sort of thing right now because he’s working for the Murphies as a deckhand aboard the Hardbottom. He’s baiting hooks and removing fish for pinche fresas from Monterrey who don’t tip worth a shit.

The other day as we were watching “The Endless Summer” he told me about Wesley and Sara breaking up.

Wesley is just about one of the hottest young surfers on the coast, carving the waves to pieces, catching giant air, and pushing it to the extreme. Sara, his girlfriend is my sons girlfriends cousin. Wesley and Sara have been together for maybe six months or so, but in young adult time, that’s forever.

Wesley broke it off last week. Hooked up with somebody new. Sara was devastated, stopped eating and spent a night or two in the hospital according to my son, who’s pretty sick of the story himself right now. Said it’s wasting his time.

Of course the gossip lines are buzzing. Sara moved back to San Benito, where she continued to be devastated, as rumors flew from both camps. She and Wesley had held a joint bank account, which Sara, although devastated, had the presence of mind to totally loot after the breakup. This in turn devastated Wesley, who had been saving his money as a deckhand aboard an offshore sport fishing boat so that he could make the summers ritual trip to Mexico to get a fix of waves in places with names like Pasquales, Tikla and Punta Mita during this time, which is the flattest time of our season. So threats were made, names were called, and the trauma continued.

Last night my son told me that Wesley and Sara had hooked back up, and that it was on again. Oh, and by the way they’re going to go to Mexico to celebrate.