Fritz’s Birthday and An Epiphany

Over the summer and into the fall of 1995, Jayne had been part of this group of sometime criminals and beach misfits. Becky the Zonie was a good friend. It had been so long since Jayne had a good gal pal, and for a season, she and Brandt were Jayne's regular companions. Jayne knew that Brandt had a crush on her. He was lanky and tall, tattooed, his black hair buzzed close to the scalp. Jayne met his brother, Tanner, first. This was the summer that her boyfriend and Jayne broke up. She was lost, running on empty all the time, and probably distracting herself to numb how destroyed she still was inside. 

Jayne had somehow linked up with this group. Brandt and Tanner, the brothers. Fritz the wild-eyed, muscle-y criminal. Shania, Fritz’s girlfriend, was lost in space most of the time. Vance, the quiet one. Sigrid, the alcoholic. Don, with his broken front teeth. Barbara, the obese bitch. Jason, the beach dude. Blonde Becky, the voice of sanity. And Jayne, the enigma. There were others, but that was the core group. The beach house was a rental, and although Becky and Shania were on the lease, they all seemed to live there at various times. The big sliding doors opened wide to a deck and patio right on the Mission Beach boardwalk. There was constant foot traffic in front, skaters and bikers, tourists and military, college kids and beach bums like Jayne. 

Jayne lived in North PB, but she would ride her bike down to hang out since street parking on Mission Boulevard was hard to come by. There was always someone at the house. The fridge was notoriously empty, but there was a taco shop in the alley, and someone would inevitably bring beer over. At any time of day or night, there were people in the deck chairs, or sleeping on the floor, or drinking beer on the boardwalk wall. Becky worked at the Nordstrom’s makeup counter, one of the few of them with a real job. Jayne was working at the PB Town Council at the time. They felt like they had all the time in the world, and it would be this way forever, no real responsibilities other than rent and gas, no obligations to tie them down. 

Most of the boys in this crew were always up to no good. Jayne wasn't even sure if they had apartments of their own or if they permanently drifted around, moving from house to house as people came and went or got evicted. Jayne was renting a room from Gunnar, a guy she found in the Reader listings. She had recognized him from the beach when she came to view the room. He was a roller-blader, or “fruit boots” as Brandt called them back then. Gunnar didn’t talk much but he was pretty cocky. Short but good-looking with sun-bleached blonde hair and a fit, tan body. He liked to flirt with Jayne. He considered himself quite irresistible. She referred to him as “Hot Shot.” Jayne wasn’t home very much, although she liked the setup there. My friend Scott, a roofer, had put carpet in the bare bedroom when she moved in, and the apartment was only one block from the beach on Opal. She could have stayed there forever if Gunnar hadn’t started acting jealous. They never even dated.

It was Fritz’s birthday, and they all met up at the beach house to walk the two blocks to Saska’s steakhouse. No one knew who paid, but they all ordered steaks and drinks. It was big time. The bartender knew the group, for better or worse, and the drinks were strong and bottomless. Jayne, in a moment of super-consciousness, had an epiphany. She looked around, removed from the faces that teased and provoked each other, and wondered how she had ended up there, and had a supernatural vision of her life. Everyone else was completely present, existing in that moment, sitting at the long table noisily drinking and eating, but Jayne was standing on a beach watching kids run in the surf, at peace. Perhaps Jayne was just exhausted, tired of killing time until she had to move forward and get on with the rest of her life. 

Until then, through the sad deterioration of her boyfriend’s life from bad influences, and the fallout when she finally realized he didn’t want her help, Jayne had been living in sadness; she carried it with her everywhere. The breakup had been so terrible, so much loss. Jayne had ended it, but still felt abandoned. She was convinced he was the great love of her life, and yet he was so wrong for her. She enjoyed Brandt’s company, but didn’t feel the way he did. He was just a distraction that she kept at arm’s reach, a jester she used to entertain herself and bury the deep loneliness that kept her from moving on with her life, away from the beach life. 

Jayne sat there as Fritz got drunk and threw the basket of rolls, and they sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow” in high falsetto voices, and the tab came and people threw down cash. They all exited and walked to the bar down the street, where Brandt pushed two tables together as the others trickled in. The group got rowdier, and some of the boys tried to start a fight in the bar, so they all left and walked back to the beach house. Grunge music blasted, and the party grew bigger as passers-by came in off the boardwalk. At some point, when the music got too loud, when broken glass and spilled beer covered the kitchen linoleum, Jayne quietly unlocked her bike and rode home in the dark, the drum of the waves drowning out their voices as she sped away.

That dinner was the height of the beach house crash pad days and the end of her suspended reality. What Jayne mistook for the ultimate freedom was heavy shackles that tied her to the past. Soon after, Jayne moved out of Gunnar’s up the street to an apartment and landed a new job, one that launched her into a career, a new relationship, and a life. Jayne remembered their faces like a still photograph imprinted in her mind. She heard Becky moved back to Arizona after a fight with Barb. Tanner and Brandt moved to Vegas. Vance and later, Don, went to jail. Fritz disappeared. The fates of Sigrid, Jason, and Shania, Jayne never knew. Saska’s closed its doors in 2020, and a new restaurant took over. She still wonders if they still have the red leather booths, but she's never been back.