Roll

            The van looked more suited to transporting high-ranking military officers to dangerous locations than high school boys to the marina. It had only front windows, its sides solid sheets of painted metal. It was unadorned, save for a “United States Marine Corps” sticker on the bumper. Parked across the street from my house, it silently awaited me. I approached warily.

“Roll, bitch!” shouted the nameless guy in the front seat without turning his head, and with these profound two words, I was a Sea Scout.

            Many of my friends had been members of Sea Scouts for over a year, and I sought their counsel before deciding to join myself. In the spirit of active recruitment, they regaled me with tales of all their best times on the boat, from eating upwards of six slices of Lil’ Caesar’s pizza, invisible under heaps of Safeway-brand ranch, to docking at the Port of Sacramento and swimming, wakeboarding and waterskiing to their hearts’ content. They told of whaleboat races in the marina, and revered a microwaveable creation known in Sea Scout lore as “boat pizza.” What male high school freshman did not dream of such exploits?

            So, needless to say, my inauguration to the boat was a bit off-putting.

            This anonymous command, “roll,” was problematic in two ways. First, its unbridled aggressiveness almost sent me back into my house to end my Sea Scout career before it had begun. Where was the camaraderie, the brotherly love? This was not how I had imagined the glory of the boat. Second, once I had overcome my desire to flee, I realized I had no idea what “roll” meant. Did he mean get in the van so they could leave and roll the tires? This was the only logical explanation I could come up with. Tentatively, I entered the van.

            The interior was a dingy, four-row cocoon which legally sat eleven but, by my count, held at least twenty people. The side door, which I had come through, took me to the second row, where older-looking members sat eyeing me.

            “ROLL!” shouted another three people I did not know. Before I had any more time to ponder what this meant, it was physically explained to me. One of the senior members rose from his seat in the second row, grabbed me around the waist and hurled me backwards over his seat into the back of the van. I tumbled wildly, catching another member in the head with my shoe.

            “Watch out!” he yelled, and supplemented his request with a forceful fist to my stomach on my way over the seat. Finally, I landed in a heap on the floor of the van between the third and fourth rows, unsure of what had just happened and aching in about six places. When I figured out which way was up, I looked around to find myself next to Skyler, one of my recruiters.

            “Welcome, dude,” he said, helping me to my feet.

            “Thanks, man,” I replied. I took a seat to his right, and with a groan that only a thirty-year old car can produce, the van pulled away from my house.

            On the way over to Coast Guard Island, where Sea Scouts rowing takes place, things became significantly more genial. All the members introduced themselves to me, and they told me about the upcoming plans for Sea Scouts. However, in the back of my mind, the purpose of this excursion kept rearing its head. Yes, the actual act of rowing.

            At my behest, my friends had coached me extensively in the physical act of whaleboat rowing (which, they informed me, was dramatically different than the kind of rowing “those Crew pussies” did). They demonstrated the back lean with locked arms, followed by the elbow pop and the forward lunge. They warned of the dangers of stationary arm rowing, explaining that “your arms will fall the fuck off after like a quarter mile.” They mapped out the entire course around the island, until I could practically see the “orange buoy line” and the “three boats.” After all this instruction, I felt relatively prepared. However, I knew that my awkward arm motion practices during class would not accurately mimic the real act of rowing. I only hoped that I could learn fast enough so as not to incur the wrath of my boat-mates with my mistakes.

            When we arrived, everyone poured out of the van and moved down a big ramp toward the dock. Gene, the skipper (adult leader of Sea Scouts), opened a huge box, which I saw was full of oars. Everyone hurried to grab one, and it became apparent that people had certain oars they favored and used consistently every week. As I was new, I was left the dregs. There were four oars remaining after the mad rush, all looking equally weathered. The ends were chipped, and the handholds were completely worn down, covered in duct tape covering older duct tape. I opted for thinnest one available, hoping its reduced weight would make the rowing easier. This was my first mistake of the evening. As I was walking in the procession towards the boats, my friend Yohan turned to me.

            “Dude, that’s a coxswain’s oar,” he said.

            “What?” I asked, with absolutely no idea what this meant.

            “Look how long it is. It’s for coxswains dude. We steer. You row. Go get a shorter one.”

            I jogged back to the oar box. I was angry at myself for not noticing the difference, but I knew this was only a minor error, and I could simply grab another oar and return to the boat. However, things continued to not go my way. The oar box, I discovered was now locked.

            “Hey, uhhh, Gene!” I yelled across the dock. “Can you unlock the oar box? I got the wrong oar.”

            Gene turned to the rest of the crew. “Hold on, men,” he said, and walked back to where I was standing. I had never received so many glares at once before in my life. He unlocked the box for me, and I hastily grabbed an oar, this time surveying it to make sure it was the right length. I walked back to the boats, a walk which felt exponentially longer than the first time I had done it. The glares followed me the whole way, along with a few intermittent eye rolls and disapproving head shakes.

            Finally, we got on the water. My seat was starboard side at the far end, so no one save the man to my left could see when I erred. The rowing itself started out relatively well. The motion was a bit awkward initially, but after a few strokes became somewhat natural. Soon I was in rhythm along with the rest of my boat, although I noticed my strokes were significantly shorter than everyone else’s.

            However, after awhile, my arms and back started to go. I didn’t give too much thought to it, as we had been rowing for some time, and I was sure we were pretty close to finishing our circuit. Still, after another seemingly sizeable period of time, we remained rowing, and there was no sign of the dock. I turned to Geoff, the rower adjacent to me, to see what was going on.

            “Dude, Geoff,” I managed between pants, “we almost there?”

            “What? Haha, nah dude,” he replied, clearly amused at my physical state. “We haven’t even passed the pole yet. Remember the three boats? We haven’t even gotten to the first one. It’s gonna be awhile. You good, dude?”

            “Yeah,” I croaked, straining with the effort of simultaneously talking and rowing. “I’m good.”

            I was not good. After another five minutes, my arms felt like they had been stuffed with hundreds of burning matches. My bones ached, my muscles burned, and I knew there was no end in sight. My panting was getting louder, and starting to draw looks from the rowers in front of me. Just when it seemed all was lost, a call rang out, seemingly from the heavens:

            “Hold water!” It was Gene, uttering the two words which meant that all I desired in life had been granted to me: we were to immediately stop rowing.

            “BAHHHHHHH” was the sound emitted from my lungs as their entire volume was ejected. Through my huffs, I managed to ask Geoff, “Why are we stopping?”

            “That was the bridge we just went under. We’re about to do the sprint.”

            The phrase “the sprint” sounded horrible, but I disregarded it for long enough to bask in the temporary respite from rowing. I set my oar across my lap and sat motionless, a huge smile spread across my face. Feeling slowly returned to my arms and hands, and my pulse started to creep towards its normal rate.

            “Ok men, you know the drill,” Gene called out to us. “Four short, then long and strong.”

            This meant nothing to me, but I was still on my rest high, and did not think twice about it. However, the next command succeeded in snapping me out of my reverie.

            “Ok, out oars, ready, STROKE!”

            All of the sudden the boat was a tumult of action. Water splashed on me from all sides, and my oar flung wildly about beyond anything I could control. I struggled to set it into place, as the yells of “STRRRRRROKE, STRRRRRRROKE” flew all around me. Before I knew, the sprint was over, and we were pulling into the dock.

            As I walked to return my oar to the oar box, I became aware of all the pain in my limbs. My legs were entirely cramped from sitting still beneath the bench in front of me. My shoulders felt as if I had pulled every muscle in them. My hands were a bright red hue, completely chafed raw and covered with the most blisters I had ever seen in one place. However, somehow, I felt great.

            I realized later, while chugging 35 cent cans of Costco brand soda and eating the greasiest pizza that I believed had ever been created, that I now felt a part of Sea Scouts. I had been through the hazing and the rigorous first rowing, and was now prepared to become immersed in all its facets. Now I could joke with all the members, discuss upcoming events, and participate in the general Sea Scout discourse. I was no longer “the new guy.”

I continued to row every Monday for the remainder of my freshman year, and soon I was even sitting in that coveted second row of the van. Soon enough, other new members joined, and I was able to participate in what had puzzled me so much as a new member. When they came up to the van, with a full heart and a lively spirit, I shouted:

“ROLL!”