FIRSTS Stories: The Boys Tell All

Gus Teller

Most people have this preconception that stoners don't get up before noon. You know, because we were up late the night before smoking from our bongs and getting the munchies. Stereotypes are pretty huge at Milton High. There are the jock guys and the popular hot chicks and the art geeks and those weird drama dudes who wear all black and do performance art on cafeteria tables to get girls' attention. Then there are dudes like me, who smoke joints between classes and blow off school entirely from time to time and get stuck with a shitty slacker reputation. So yeah, I get that there's some truth to the old clichés.

But I'm one stoner who likes the morning. Like, the ass-crack of dawn, when everyone else is still asleep or never went to bed. When it's just me and my surfboard and my mom's not nagging me and my dad's not yelling and my sister's not crying and the baby's not screaming at the top of his lungs because he's hungry or shit his diaper again or whatever babies cry about.

Just to clarify—the baby's not mine. Thank God (or whoever the big man upstairs really is) for that.

The waves aren't particularly gnarly today, so some of the hardcore surfer dudes who come out and film each other doing crazy stunts already called it a day. But honestly, I like days like this. The sky is this insane fluorescent pink color on top and where it meets the ocean, it's kind of this dull copper, like a coin. Pretty trippy. Which is why I'm happy to just sit on my board, dangling my feet in the water, watching the colors change, watching whoever is up there paintbrush the world.

I'm not the greatest surfer. I'm not one of the hardcore dudes. But I'm also not one of the wussies who come out and freak because they heard something about shark attacks or the scary undertow. I started surfing in the first place for two reasons. One, I thought it would help get me girls. Two, I figured I'd get ripped, which would help a lot with number one.

Strangely enough, number one actually worked. Two, though—well, I'm still carrying around a bit of a gut. Probably from those munchies.

I turn around when I hear a whistle from the beach, one of those ear-splitting whistles some people can make by sticking two fingers in their mouths. I don't have that skill, but my girlfriend Alex does.

(Girlfriend. Seriously, how far out is that? Alex is the first girl who wasn't just some chick who fist-bumped me in the hall at school. I'm still getting used to calling her my girlfriend. The word just feels weird in my mouth.)

I start paddling back to the shore. She's in her wetsuit with the top part rolled down and she's wearing a bikini top underneath. I don't have to tell you how hot that is, since you can probably guess. But Alex isn't stereotype hot. She's her own brand of hot. She rocks dreadlocks and hates wearing bras and always has like, a thousand rings on at a time. She smokes a lot more weed than I do and doesn't care what anyone thinks about her. (Which is different than a lot of people, who pretend they don't care but really do.) I never believed in that whole love at first sight thing, but when I first saw Alex in the hall at school, flipping off one of the popular girls for making fun of some fat kid, I'm pretty sure I fell in love. Just a little bit, then more and more.

When I get back to the shore and lug my board onto the sand, I realize Alex doesn't have hers. She's holding a thermos, which she plants in the sand when I get closer. I watch her face break into this giant smile. Alex has the best smile ever—it shows all her teeth and her eyes go all squinty and kind of disappear, which sounds weird but trust me, it's the cutest thing ever. She's smiling now. My heart starts doing this blood-pumping thing where it bounces around in my chest, like a ball slung through a pinball machine.

I wait for her to tell me to get back out there. She'll go grab her board and we'll wait for the next big wave and see who rides it the longest. (Always her.) But instead, she starts to peel her wetsuit off and she's wearing this tiny bikini bottom with little knots on the side and now it's not my heart doing the blood-pumping thing, if you know what I mean.