Malibu Breaking Point

Along Southern California’s springtime coast, large wave swells appear. Forecasts this year call for more water, and its opposite fire. Seasonal events range from Santa Ana winds causing blazing flames to hostile La Niña heat and rainstorms. These now normal occurrences consume the media with another year reporting devastating weather conditions. It’s safe to assume weatherwise, things are never safe.

A heartbreak happened. The discovery of a deceased woman required further investigation. Evidence gathered oceanside was sent to a downtown Los Angeles crime desk. Ring camera video footage captured from a Pacific Coast Highway restaurant helped provide a clue.

Surrounded by palm trees several weeks earlier at LAX, a parking lot full of cars extends as far as the eye can see. Sitting in a Corolla Hybrid, confused Santa Monica sophomore student Tiffany Barrow scratched her head. High above, white chemtrails spelled out “Surrender Trinity” across the blue sky. Not a surprise, it was a hallucination.

Back at the beach, basking sunbathers soak in the rays. Unemployed movie actors and plastic surgery starlet wannabe’s stretch out and tan. On a smoggy afternoon, the scent of coconut suntan lotion, smeared and heavily lathered, permeates the air baking bronze bodies. Many good-lookers pass by without notice. Alive and kicking surfers paddle out into the ocean to catch a wave. Against this relaxing backdrop, the lifeguards are kept busy.

Zuma Beach has particularly rough surf. Noted for turbulent riptides and a strong undertow, the waves deliver a crunching blow. They’ll pick you up, then slam your ass down hard. When you manage to get back on your feet shaking a head full of sand, the exploding blunt force head trauma with a Hollywood cartoon character “halo” of twinkling stars orbits around your head in circles.

Some late-night beachcomber excursions wait for seasonal grunion runs when schools of smelt-like fish make their annual appearance. The surreal, odd act of nature occurs around midnight. Fish that enjoy the dark arrive in thousands spawning in the sand. They squeak and grunt when mating. California Department of Fish and Wildlife has strict guidelines in place from March to September allowing for hand fishing only.

The beach plays an important role in Hollywood movie history. Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon’s Beach Blanket Bingo adventures echo teenager tropes of Southern California in the 1960s. Heaps of offbeat exploitation movies were made. One in particular has a twist, schlockmeister Del Tenney’s The Horror of Beach Party. Unlike West Coast productions, the 1964 black and white movie was shot on the East Coast in West Stamford, Connecticut for $50,000.

On the Long Island Sound, barrels of radioactive wastewater are dumped overboard. The result: zombie amphibians with hot dog teeth. The threatening monster escapades with outlaw biker gang brawls has scruffy guitar jangle by The Del-Aires. Chocolate syrup was used for blood gore. The movie is often mentioned in the best “worst” films of all time lists.

Back in downtown Los Angeles inside the Bladerunner Bradbury Building on Broadway, you’ll find Terry Duke. The fearless private investigator with “Columbo” instincts always asks the right questions. In his Venetian blind-windowed office, on his desk is the Tiffany Barrow file. By ruling out foul play, Duke’s conclusion was the case didn’t hold water.

However, a strange coincidence did come to light. Trinity’s flamboyant, entrepreneur father was named Richard Barrow. The white-trash pedigree business titan was repugnant. He started his career running seedy $5 grope room peep shows on Santa Monica Blvd. targeting male loneliness. Marketing to compulsive, horny customers, his smut house specialized in adult dolls that were difficult to keep in stock.

Barrow was shameless scammer, his quick moving inventory sold Latex Lauras and Silicon Sallys costing upwards of $5000. Robots that promise to be the perfect bedroom partner engaging in raunchy sexual activity don’t live up to the hype. To top things off, Barrow’s sleazebag lifestyle ended years ago while on a vacation. Off the coast of Hawaii, he was swept out to sea.

Raised without a mother, Barrow’s only child Trinity was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Like many who struggle with severe psychological conditions, she turned to substance abuse. A regular visitor to the Sandoz Sanitarium, her drug of choice was self-medicating on psychedelics. She rarely, if ever, pondered the future logically, which made thinking a challenge, due to the heavy burden of guilt abuse carries.

To promote well-being, Trinity tried to solve her personal misery. She went on a road trip soul-searching mission before the semester started. Heading eastward, mile after mile of bewitching high Mojave Desert terrain passed by. In this barren oasis landscape, she felt the need to fulfill her lifelong fantasy by staying at the Joshua Tree Inn. There’s a method to her madness. Trinity tried to reconnect with Gram Parsons’ roaming cosmic spirit, by drinking a Margarita at the bar and placing a red rose in front of Room 8.

Apparently, she also made a mistake by staying outside too long unprotected in the sun. She applied aloe vera moisturizer on her face and returned home to the Southland. This time, she’d directly confront an ongoing personal problem with the City of Angels. For her, the noir setting was a place where internal demons were waiting instead of angels.

At sundown, an intoxicating fragrance of night blooming jasmine hung in the air. After finishing a Three Cheese Juicy Lucy burger at Barneys Beanery, an invisible little devil with a pitchfork sitting at the bar saw her. He put a lot of insane thoughts in her head. Trinity took off for the beach.

As sunset faded, a swim seemed in order. With no vital lifelines, Trinity broke the number rule “don’t swim alone” and took a risk. Walking the shoreline alone with crazy eyes, her trembling legs took swaying steps. After a Hail Mary, she turned around and plunged into the ocean. Her modest frame struggled in the dangerous surf. Dizzy underwater, tumbling around like wash in a spin cycle, she disappeared. The Ring video stopped at that point.

In an era with reality on the decline, it’s uncomfortable and necessary to want to experience some sort of rewarding feeling when a tragic story ends. There was Tiffany Barrow. Another drowning victim in the Pacific Ocean, the same body of water of her father’s demise. A difficult reminder of life’s fragile mystery, as a motionless figure washed ashore in the darkest of tides.