1 | THE BIG GREEN ROOM
He was going to shoot the barrel. Porter Rockwell could feel it coming on, and he was buzzing inside waiting for that perfect wave. Conditions were great. The weather was right. The waves were breaking on a sandbar far enough out to give them height, and an offshore wind—that is, a wind blowing from the shore toward the Atlantic Ocean—was cleaning up the spray and spume on their faces, and giving them that shape, the flawless curl.
He’d been waiting for this since that glorious first day his new friends had taken him, a land-bound boy who’d only known the deserts of Utah up to that point, to the Outer Banks for his first time surfing. He’d been eleven. When his dad had bought the local veterinary practice in Ridgeport, North Carolina, and moved his family out from Provo, Porter had been miserable. He’d left behind friends in Utah and been thrown into a school where everybody seemed to speak some kind of strange language he could barely understand. Furthermore, they’d insisted that he was the one with the funny accent! Plus, he’d been a small kid, and somehow the genetic material of his parents, both of whom were quite tall and former college athletes, didn’t seem like it was taking in Porter.
He’d been small. Puberty had arrived, but with no accompanying growth spurt. This meant that for his middle school years in Ridgeport, Porter had been the shortest and most underdeveloped boy in his class. There’d been girls, including his current girlfriend, Maren Davis, who had towered over him at that point. What was worse, his small size made him a target for the school bullies, who never met a kid who was smaller than them that they didn’t want to push around.
I was straight-up dying inside, Porter remembered. But then along came Ben Prescott and Latch McRae.
The two had been friends forever, and when they saw what was happening to Porter, they took him under their wing. First, this meant protection from bullies—nobody messed with Ben and Latch. Latch was ferocious, for one thing, a junkyard dog when it came to taking up for his friends. But Ben was a much more sinister foe. If you tried to bully Ben or his associates, you might find your locker suddenly smelling like old socks and vomit. (“A simple experiment combining sulfur-containing compounds with an acid in a controlled, small-scale setup,” as Ben would say.) Or you might experience your hair turning a weird shade of green in the gym showers. (“A water-soluble, skin-safe, cosmetic-grade pigment mixed into a shampoo, conditioner, or other hair product and used unknowingly.”)
But after Ben and Latch had gotten to know Porter, who was no slouch at taking up for himself—just a bit too small for it to be very effective—they had declared him “hunter material,” and eventually brought him into the “club” they’d formed when they’d first played “pirate fighting” together when Ben was six and Latch was five. The object of the club was to defeat the bad guys and find the treasure, whatever it might be.
Then slowly over the years, the imaginary had become real. And so the “hunters” were born, and the treasures they sought got more valuable. The lost engagement ring of a hapless couple, who’d somehow lost the $5,000 ring after a proposal along the Ridgeport waterfront (found with some surface diving equipment and the loan of a state-of-the-art metal detector from Ben’s treasure-hunting father); or the case of the disappearing treasure bass, where a farmer had hidden $10,000 inside a taxidermic bass mounted on his living room wall and one of his farm dogs had decided to pull it down, gnaw on it like a bone, and bury it out in the yard without the farmer’s knowledge (found with Latch’s deep vibing ability with animals and ability to understand dog psychology). Many such cases.
And so, at eleven years of age, Porter had become the third hunter.
And at fifteen, Porter’s growth spurt that had taken forever—and that even his poor parents had worried would never come along—hit. And hit big. Over the next two years, Porter had put on over a foot of height and nearly sixty pounds of muscle. He was now six-foot-five and 240 pounds of pretty much nothing but muscle, especially after three years of football practice and starting as quarterback last year for the Ridgeport Raiders. Two boys who had bullied him back in middle school, Eric Slocum and Tom Hance, were now his starting tackles, whose main job was to protect him, their leader. He also made sure Eric and Tom treated all the others on the team with respect, even the seemingly less valuable players.
By now, after years of surfing North Carolina’s Outer Banks beaches, he was a better surfer than Ben and almost as good as Latch, who seemed almost supernaturally talented.
But over all that time, after all those drives from Ridgeport across the Albemarle Sound and onto the Outer Banks beaches, he’d never once caught a wave that was high enough and round enough to get inside. Riding a barrel had become bucket list material for Porter.
Porter paddled over a couple of good swells that he would have been happy to catch on other days. But he’d been watching the morning sets, the patterns the waves were arriving in, and it was looking like every fifth wave in a set was the big one. He’d just counted four.
Porter glanced out to sea and saw the first wave forming, and it was a doozy. It seemed to rise up and up, as if it were a traveler that had come a long, long way and was really anticipating finally dropping its luggage and totally smashing into its final destination, 4x4 Beach.
Porter turned himself around and faced the shore. This was going to take every bit of brawn he had in his arms. Wave number five was coming fast, and he was going to have to match speed and timing in order to catch it.
Time to lay on the gas, Porter thought. He dug his arm into the water in a graceful arc on one side, then the other, then the first side again until he was propelling himself and his board like a racing boat and angled shoreward.
Porter had come a long way since his first beginner’s foam board. The board he’d chosen today was custom-built by Bob “Shaper” Frankenheimer, owner of Frankie’s Seven Boards Hideaway, Ridgeport’s only surf shop. Shaper Frank, as the hunters called Frankenheimer, had built the custom board after a “consultation” with Porter that had included a night bonfire on the beach with the hunters and their girlfriends to catch Porter’s “vibe.” Shaper had played his clarinet (he’d been a Ridgeport Raiders band member back in his high school days) to accompany Porter’s very basic guitar strumming, and they’d all ended up taking a dip in a calm sea with incandescent plankton bloom that had stuck to their skin until they could get home and shower it off. They’d left the beach that night glowing. Porter had also confessed to Shaper his great desire to get inside a barrel. Six weeks later Porter’s board was ready.
It was a custom six-feet-eight-inch epoxy step-up, shaped with a rounded pin tail with a slightly pulled-in nose designed for the Outer Banks beach break barrels, and this was the board Porter was riding this morning.
Porter glanced back at the wave, which he now thought of as Wave Five.
Lord have mercy, he thought. What a monster.
It was crucial for his takeoff that he time his strokes now with the rising wall. At the moment this meant giving it absolutely everything he had—and then some.
Another glance back.
Wave Five had arrived, and its lip was beginning to throw.
Time to commit, Porter thought. I’m all in!
Porter knew that if he popped up too early, he’d outrun the wave, lose the steep drop, and miss the barrel. That had always been his problem before. You got a great ride—just not the greatest, most satisfying. But if he popped up too late, the lip would overpitch him. That would mean he’d either get caught in a barrel’s closeout or end up in total disaster. Wipeout! He’d experienced plenty of those over the years.
Porter felt the wave steepen and somehow felt—whether by instinct or experience or both—that it had now thrown the lip, that is, started to curl over. He made the drop down the face of Wave Five.
Time to get your feet! he told himself. With a fluid, practiced motion, Porter popped up. He was careful to keep it fast and low, the only way to gain entrance to the barrel he could just feel was rounding out.
Now he could see what he was doing, and what Wave Five was up to as well. Yep, its tube was forming. And what a barrel!
Porter shifted his weight forward, lowered his center of gravity, and angled his board to thread the eye of the storm— the pocket inside the tube. Wave Five curled overhead.
He was there. He was in the “greenroom” of his surfing dreams, under a living tunnel of water! The wave curled down and over him.
He was inside the barrel!
Porter knew his biggest task was to stay just ahead of the collapsing lip—close enough to feel the wave wall’s curve, but not so far inside to be engulfed. It was a razor’s edge of positioning, but he knew he finally had what it took.
Within the tube, speed control was everything. He shifted his weight toward the tail to slow down, letting the nose almost lift, keeping pace with the barrel. Still a little fast. Oh so carefully, Porter extended his arm and performed a hand drag with his fingertip grazing along the wave’s face, adding friction to fine-tune his speed.
Now it was time to accelerate. He pumped the board, bending knees and driving forward to put on speed, always staying in sync with the tunnel’s shift. He kept his crouch low, shoulders forward, eyes fixed on the narrowing exit in front of him—a small opening where morning daylight beckoned. His arms were spread, one guiding the drop, the other lightly skimming the inside wall for stability.
For half a second, maybe less, Porter let himself soak it up, let himself live the vibe of Wave Five. He felt like he was part of the massive wall of sea water, part of its longing to reach the shore and end its journey in spectacular fury. He wanted that for himself—and for the wave, too.
Then the barrel began to close out, and Porter got ready for the exit. He shifted his weight slightly forward, turning the board toward the open shoulder. At the same time, he straightened his legs, getting ready to kick out cleanly and avoid being swallowed by foam.
Then he was out, bursting into the July sunlight!
Porter raised a fist in the air and pumped it twice in victory, saluting himself and the magnificence of Wave Five.
Now it was time to ride the remaining face cleanly. He made a fast cutback followed by a high-speed top turn to finish things off. He felt Shaper’s custom board flex like it was a living and intelligent being under his feet, and the water sprayed as he shifted stance.
His ride faded elegantly across the wave’s shoulder—and he dropped back down.
Bucket list item checked, barrel ride completed, Porter thought. And it was the best ride of my life. So far.
Now he wanted another one!
But first, he needed to take a minute to catch his breath and take in what had just happened. Porter paddled gently for the shore. After a moment he glanced up to see where his friends were and noticed two other men and a beach-ready four-wheeler standing nearby.
They had visitors.
Curious, Porter made his way in, scooped up his board, and joined the other hunters and their girlfriends above the tideline where they’d parked Latch’s truck.
Porter leaned his board against Latch’s truck bed, then joined the group. One of the two men Porter recognized. He was Buck Rensselaer, Latch’s employer in his part-time job and the father of Latch’s flaky, indomitable girlfriend, Sloane. The other man Porter did not recognize.
Latch was the first to congratulate Porter.
“Bro, you got shacked!” said Latch. “We saw it all.” Porter and Latch exchanged high fives and fist bumps.
“Clean exit, dude. That was textbook,” Ben added.
Maren, Porter’s girlfriend, shot him a smile, handed him a beach towel, and pulled Porter’s arm around her shoulder. “Proud of you,” she murmured. “I know a ride like that was one of your dreams.”
“Literally dreamed about it last night,” Porter answered with a laugh.
Ben crossed his arms. He turned toward Porter. His expression had grown serious, and Porter noticed that special twinkle in Ben’s eye.
I know what that look means, Porter thought. Bro smells a treasure hunt. Wonder what’s up?
“So, how would you feel about a trip to Massachusetts tomorrow?” Ben asked him. “Seems there’s a slight problem with the Boston Tea Party, and we’ve been asked to fix it.”