CURRENT ISSUE 06/17/03 Front Page Weekly Features Ain't That America? To-Do List Riding Shotgun With Adventure Frank Haskins Musing With Mitch Moth's Diary News from Travistan Info Archives Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Riding Shotgun   With Adventure   by Ron Langston   Chapter 37: Environmental Control Con Queso The ice plants and European beach grass clung to the sandy lip like bad piercings on the counter help at a head shop. Smeg -- he said that was his name -- gestured for me to follow down the path to the gray shrouded beach below. "Dude!" he said, coming to an abrupt halt and pointing to a large mound a dozen feet below us. With his finger to his lip, an idiotic smile and many pointless nods, he conveyed to me to keep quiet. I can keep very quiet. Smeg, however, was going to be sleeping the big sleep if he didn't back off. "Dude," I whispered back, "you go wait in the car." His face changed to shocked disbelief. "Things could get, ah, stringent." Smeg thought about this for a moment, nodded several times again, and took his barefoot, lanky, sun- and pot-addled self back up to the Pacific Coast Highway. Not a moment too soon. The morning mist was beginning to burn off, and the offshore winds died away, leaving some very decent 5-foot breakers rolling in, no chop, good shape. There should have been a hundred surfers out in the water, but even men and women who willingly knee-board the roaring tube of the Wedge's 20-footers have limits to their courage. The lump moved its vast bulk. Just as I feared, just as my contacts had suspected. This wasn't going to be easy, but hundreds of locals and the countless surf shops, 7-Elevens and small-time dope dealers they supported with their parents' hard-earned money depended on me. I swallowed hard, stood up and strode stern-faced to my doom. "Let me guess -- Indiana?" The corpulent, balding tourist shifted his pink 400-plus-pound frame and squinted at me. "Iowa," he said with Midwestern ease. Just then, an equally huge, unpleasant and commerce-killing form thundered into view. "Hon, who is it?" I prayed the straining seams of her one-piece and my breakfast would stay put. But it didn't stop there - waddling into view were three, no, four beefy sons, clad to the butt-crack in ugly, loud shorts, their ample, rose-colored guts youthful versions of their dad's. "Join us for lunch?" the patriarch extended a hand the size of an office chair. This was going to be worse than I'd feared. Next week -- Chapter 38: Enrique, Enough with the Tabasco Sauce!
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