Outside World

There was a knock at the door. I was half asleep. Probably fully asleep, actually.

“Are you guys coming?”

I was on the top bunk in a hut in an old army barracks. The tape had clicked to a stop. We’d been listening to Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty as we always did.

I didn’t want to go. We were all in our mid-teens. Walking to the beach armed with alcohol in the middle of the night hadn’t seemed like a terribly good idea when it was first floated earlier in the day. It seemed diabolical now.

“Yeah, give us a sec,” Phil said.

I was surprised to hear that he was awake. I’d asked him a question while the second track, ‘The Road’, was on. He hadn’t answered. I’d assumed he was asleep. Phil generally went to sleep quickly. He was one of those people. 

I wasn’t. 

I’d lie on the top bunk, staring into the darkness, listening to the music and, if the tape had run out, listening to the waves crashing in the distance.

“Are we really going?” I said.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Why?”

“It’ll be fun.”

Yeah, maybe.

We’d been coming to the camp every January since 1976. It was a church campsite. Most of the families were from the same church. But it wasn’t a church camp. It was by strict invitation only. Numbers were tight. If you wanted in, you had to wait for someone to drop out.

I couldn’t really work Phil out. He was possibly the most effortlessly charismatic person I’d ever met. He didn’t hog the conversation. He wasn’t particularly witty. He just had it. I didn’t even go to his school and I still knew all about his fabled love life.

During the day we’d catch waves on our Morey Boogie boards and talk about what we might do that night. Maybe go to the pizza restaurant in the main strip. But we’d usually head home around ten. Maybe stay in one of the huts and talk or listen to music, then go to sleep in the traditional fashion. It wasn’t a bad system. It had always worked. Why push it?

“Come on,” said Phil.

Okay, I’m really doing this, I thought, as I climbed down from the top bunk.

I put on my Quicksilver board shorts and some runners. It still felt like a lot of bother for a reward that didn’t seem guaranteed. Why was everyone else so keen?

We met at the water tank, as planned. About ten of us.

“Right…no sound,” someone whispered. He looked at Phil for confirmation. Everything had to be run past Phil.

We moved off quietly, past our sleeping parents, across the cricket pitch and past the mess hall. Once we were out of earshot, someone pressed play on 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

‘Outside World’ filled the night air as we walked under the streetlights towards the beach. The camp already felt removed from ‘real’ life. This was something else again. No one knew we were here. No one knew what we were doing.

Even while it was happening, it felt like a moment frozen in time. An instant classic.

It’s the summer of another year

A little world weary, a little more to fear

Hold those cards tight to your chest

We reached the beach and the drinks came out. I didn’t really notice. I was more interested in what I was doing, or not doing, in relation to the girls in our group.

‘Only the Strong’ kicked in, and the almost unbearable tension of ‘Outside World’ finally snapped.

Speak to me, speak to me

I’m at the edge of myself, I’m dying to talk

Look at me, won’t you look at me

Back once more at the point of no return

Phil asked me whether I thought it was an onshore or an offshore breeze. We’d just started surfing on real boards a day or so before. This was something I could comment on. Finally.

“Feels like an offshore,” I said.

I thought I’d ask him a question. Maybe get the conversation on my terms. Keep it to surfing. Keep it to Phil and me.

“Hey Phil,” I said. “Left or right?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are the waves breaking to the left or–”

Just then someone asked him what sort of drink he wanted.

Shit.

Someone handed me a beer. I took a sip. I didn’t love it. I put the bottle down and lay back on the sand as ‘Short Memory’ played out of the boombox, a watchdog in a nervous land.

I heard a voice behind me.

“What year at school are you in this year?”

It was one of the girls.

I sat up.