Mini-Dude Has Surfed the Poles for Twelve Years and Has the Arrest Record to Prove It

FCL I have to ask about the arrest.

Mini-Dude [long exhale] I knew this was coming. You bring me out here, you offer me a bottle cap of Gatorade, and then you go for the throat.

FCL People want the story.

Mini-Dude Fine. And I want it on the record that I was never convicted. I was processed.

FCL Take your time.

Mini-Dude It's a Saturday. Solid three foot, little wind on it but it had shape, and I'd been out for — I don't know. Six hours? Seven? Time doesn't work the same when you're my size, the sun's a whole situation. And I come in, and I've got that feeling. You know the feeling.

FCL I think I do.

Mini-Dude The urgency. So I go to the porta potty in the lot. And here's the problem nobody thinks about, because the world is not built for a man of my stature: that door handle is roughly forty feet above my head. Proportionally.

FCL So how do you get in?

Mini-Dude I wait for someone to go in, and I go in with them. Standard procedure. You ride in on the shoe. Nobody notices.

FCL You ride in on the shoe.

Mini-Dude On the shoe. So this guy — big fella, rope belt, real "I do triathlons" energy — he goes in, I go in on the shoe, he does his business, he leaves, and I'm in there. Alone. With the door shut. And a door that heavy, from the inside, at nine inches — that's not a door. That's architecture. That's a wall with a rumor of a door in it.

FCL How long?

Mini-Dude Two hours. In August. Do you understand what that structure becomes at two in the afternoon in August? That's not a bathroom anymore. That's a slow cooker with a moon on the door. I was in there marinating. I was making eye contact with my own reflection in that blue liquid, and my reflection was disappointed in me.

FCL What did you do?

Mini-Dude What any core guy does. I started yelling.

FCL From inside.

Mini-Dude From inside. And picture it from the outside — you're a normal family, you've got the wagon, you've got the sunscreen, you've got the little umbrella nobody's going to set up correctly — and you walk past a portable restroom and a tiny voice comes out of it going "HEY. HEY. IS ANYBODY OUT THERE. I'M IN THE BATHROOM. I'M NINE INCHES TALL. HEY."

FCL That's genuinely horrifying.

Mini-Dude Six people ran. A woman dropped a cooler. A kid started crying and the dad picked him up and full-sprinted. Left the chairs. Those were good chairs. And I'm going, "no, no, come back, I'm a surfer!" which — I understand now — did not help.

FCL And that's when the police came?

Mini-Dude That's when the police came. Somebody called it in as, and I quote, because I have seen the report, "voice in the restroom."

FCL "Voice in the restroom."

Mini-Dude That's what I was reduced to. Twelve years of dedication to a wave, and my legacy is "voice in the restroom."

FCL So he opens the door.

Mini-Dude Now — before I go further — I want to be fair to this man. Because what happened next was not his fault and I have never once said it was.

FCL Okay.

Mini-Dude Put yourself in his position. He's got a call that says there is a voice in a locked portable restroom. That's the whole file. He doesn't know if there's a person in there, an animal in there, or something worse. So he comes up on that door the way you'd come up on any door, and he's got the taser out. I have never faulted him for that. That's procedure. I'd have had it out.

FCL The door.

Mini-Dude He opens the door. And he's scanning at eye level, and there's nothing. Empty. And you can watch the man go "huh." And then, very slowly, he starts to look down.

FCL Oh no.

Mini-Dude And I go, “’Sup.”

FCL [laughing]

Mini-Dude And that man came off the ground. Both feet. A grown man. Six-one, two-twenty, twenty-two pounds of equipment on him — and he went vertical, like somebody pulled him up on a wire.

FCL And the taser —

Mini-Dude The taser went off on the way up.

FCL Where'd it go?

Mini-Dude Straight down. Into the floor. Into the quarter inch of standing water that both of us were, at that moment, standing in.

FCL Oh no.

Mini-Dude And I'll say this — the probes missed me, and I'm grateful, because those barbs are three inches. That is a third of my body. That's not a probe, that's a harpoon. One of those lands and I'm pinned to that wall like a permit.

FCL So it was the water.

Mini-Dude It was the water. That whole floor lit up, and for the next several seconds the two of us were — and I have thought a long time about how to describe this — we were both briefly batteries.

FCL He tased himself.

Mini-Dude He tased us. It was a shared experience. And I want to be careful here, because that man has apologized to me more times than my own family has apologized to me for anything, and it was an accident, and I'll say it in print: Ruiz, it's fine.

FCL But.

Mini-Dude But.

FCL There's a but.

Mini-Dude [tight] He screamed.

FCL [laughing]

Mini-Dude He screamed. Full volume. Sustained. And I want the record to show that I did not.

FCL You didn't scream.

Mini-Dude I made a noise. It was not a scream. It was more of a tone. I held one note, about four seconds, and then I went over sideways — still completely rigid, arms out — like a little ironing board. But I held the note. And he did not.

FCL You're competing with him.

Mini-Dude A nine-inch man out-composed a trained professional in a live electrical situation and it is not in the report. I've read that report twice. There's a whole paragraph about the door.

FCL What were the actual charges?

Mini-Dude They said "disorderly." I say "misunderstood." And considering the only person who discharged a weapon that afternoon was law enforcement, I think I've been extremely gracious about the entire thing.

FCL How'd they transport you?

Mini-Dude He carried me to the cruiser and set me in the cup holder. Very gently. Like an egg. And I want to say — that wasn't convenience. That cup holder was an apology. Then we talked about the sandbar the whole way in. He's a Blackrock guy, so we don't fully align spiritually, but we found common ground.

FCL Did you spend the night?

Mini-Dude They released me into the custody of a cocker spaniel.

FCL I'm sorry?

Mini-Dude Nobody knew what box to check. Somebody actually said "is this a person or is this property," and I said "spiritually? A person. Legally? Let's not find out." So a woman in the lobby took me home. She had a dog. The dog took a real interest in me. I slept in a shoe. Not the worst shoe I've slept in. Solid arch.

FCL That's incredible.

Mini-Dude It's core. That's what nobody gets. You want to be a corelord? You've got to be willing to get processed.

FCL Let's talk about something easier. Twelve years at the Poles.

Mini-Dude Twelve years. I've been surfing Mayport since before half these guys had thumbs strong enough to work a controller. I've seen the sandbar move four times. I've seen the sandbar move back. I've been out there when the water was so brown it had a texture. People say "it's blown out." I say it's got personality.

FCL For folks who haven't been down there —

Mini-Dude It's a wave. It comes in. It doesn't care about you. Neither do I. Next question.

FCL Okay, well —

Mini-Dude Actually, hold on, I'll expand, because people get this wrong. The Poles is not a spot. The Poles is a filter. The parking's a scam, the walk is long, the mosquitos are organized, and by the time you get to the water you've already lost about forty percent of your enthusiasm. What's left in the lineup is the real ones. Me. Six other guys. A pelican named Dennis who I do not trust.

FCL You don't trust a pelican.

Mini-Dude Dennis has taken three of my boards. Three. Everybody laughs at that like it's a bit. It's not a bit. That's theft. That's a felony with wings.

FCL How does a nine-inch surfer handle a crowded lineup?

Mini-Dude With presence. Size is a mindset. You know how many guys out there are six-two and paddle like they're apologizing? I'm nine inches and I have never apologized. I sit deepest. Always. And people go "hey, you can't sit that deep," and I go, "I've been sitting here since 2014, you sit somewhere else." And they can't argue, because — and this is the beautiful part — they can't see me. So they think a voice is coming out of the water telling them to move. And they move. Every time.

FCL So you're intimidating people who don't know you're there.

Mini-Dude That's called localism. Look it up.

FCL What does a session at the Poles actually look like at your size?

Mini-Dude Do the math. I'm nine inches. You're what, six foot? So your waist-high day — proportionally — that's a forty-foot wave to me. I surf Nazáre every time it's knee high. There are men with jet skis and inflatable vests who train their entire lives for what I do on a Tuesday in board shorts.

FCL So you're a big-wave surfer.

Mini-Dude I am the heaviest charger on the First Coast and it is not close. Guys come in going "eh, it's small out there." Small for who? I just packed a closeout the size of a parking garage. Respect the scale.

FCL And when it's actually overhead? For us?

Mini-Dude I watch from the dune. I'm core, I'm not insane.

FCL I have to ask about the tattoo.

Mini-Dude No you don't.

FCL It says "NO REGERTS."

Mini-Dude I'm aware of what it says.

FCL It's misspelled.

Mini-Dude [flat] It's a font.

FCL It's not a font.

Mini-Dude It's a font, it's a nine-inch canvas, and I'd like to see you do better with the real estate available. And you know what? Everybody knows what it says. Nobody has ever read that and gone, "hm, I wonder what he meant."

FCL Did the artist —

Mini-Dude The artist did what he could. That man was working at scale. He had a needle the size of my leg and a lot of pressure on him, and I have never once blamed him and I never will.

FCL So no regrets about —

Mini-Dude Don't.

FCL I'm just saying it's right there —

Mini-Dude Don't.

FCL Before you go — the other one. The base.

Mini-Dude [immediately] No comment.

FCL Come on.

Mini-Dude I have been advised —

FCL By who?

Mini-Dude By myself. In the mirror. I advised myself and I took my own advice, which is the highest form of legal counsel.

FCL Next time, then.

Mini-Dude [long pause] Next time. And I want it on the record right now: whatever you have heard about me and the United States Navy, it was a current situation. Take it up with the moon.