Features

Gangster Surf

The opportunity was staring him in the face: Vaughn would open up his own surf shop in Rockaway. He was two days away from going to prison in violation of an employment condition to his probation when Lawrence called to say that his father, a doctor named Yury Benin, was interested in investing in FTW. The two men met on December 10, 2008, and Vaughn laid out his business plan. The doctor agreed to the deal and fronted the funds immediately, allowing Vaughn to remain free on probation.

He found a storefront on Beach 116th Street, blacked out the windows and, with some boys from Beach 149th Street, got to work. By this point he had already become acquainted with almost every surfer in the area, and he wasn’t afraid to ask the local kids to help him build the store. “We put our sweat and blood into that place,” says Matt Alessi, an 18-year-old who works behind the counter a few days a week. Vaughn brought in the All City Crew, a well-known street-art collective, to paint wild-style streetscapes, subway trains, and big-booty girls in short shorts brandishing huge handguns. The construction took months. “I met Bobby out in the water one day,” says Sal Falcone. “He was telling me about making teams, sponsorships, building up the young kids, uniting the community. I was down with the movement from the beginning. All of us neighborhood kids helped build that store. We raised it up like it was a little baby.”

Vaughn is confident that a handful of his kids possess the baseline skills to become elite surfers—if not professionals, then at least able to make some money selling action shots to surf magazines. Pat “Rambo” Butera is more ambitious. “If you can surf in New York, you can surf anywhere,” he says. “The waves here are tricky, and when I go someplace where the conditions are cleaner, I’ll be able to take it to the next level, no problem. I just need more waves.”

But it became apparent at the Rockstock & Barrels competition a few weeks ago that the FTW kids have a lot of work to do. Kevin Gray won his first heat and eventually took third place. Little Tommy Tyne took second place in the boys’ division, losing to a kid from Rhode Island. Rambo came in third in his heat and didn’t advance. “These kids are so far behind,” said Vaughn after the match. “The other kids do contests all over the East Coast. They’re so far ahead, it’s like night and day.”

Vaughn plans to start a camp to teach the rudiments of competitive surfing, and in the meantime he coaches his kids whenever he’s not manning the shop. On a recent Friday afternoon, Vaughn paddles out to a Rockaway Beach break and finds Rambo, Kevin, Graham Hill, and Lawrence Benin straddling their surfboards, rising and falling in the swells. The water is 62 degrees, and all the boys are dressed only in trunks. After a few minutes, Rambo, who’s positioned about ten yards farther offshore, straightens up and sends the alert that a set is about to roll through. The other boys begin hooting and whistling—then sprint-paddling, like windmills in a hurricane, trying to get into position to catch the waves.

The first one is closing in fast—first a mound, then a hill, then a steep wall maybe five feet high. Rambo takes two furious paddles, pops to his feet, and coils his upper body against his legs. He makes a ferocious snap-turn off the lip of the wave, coming back down again, then back up for another. He speeds by, pumping up and down the face of the wave, the fins of his homemade board razoring through the water.

Kevin, the flashiest of the FTW kids, is the next to catch a wave. He goes left, carving sharp lines, and buzzes by a jagged wooden piling protruding from the water. He ends his ride by attempting to launch off the crest of the wave, but he falls, landing awkwardly, and gets blasted as the wave explodes onto shore. Everybody waits, wondering if Kevin might be dead. After a long pause, he emerges with his arms up, a wide grin on his face, and paddles back out.

Another set soon approaches, and Rambo is in position. Vaughn sits outside the lineup, marveling at how he makes it look so easy—big cutbacks and turn-on-a-dime maneuvers. “Can you believe he’s only 16?” Vaughn says. “I’m telling you, man: In two years, he could be the poster boy for New York surfing.”

Rambo speeds up the face of the wave, high into the air—but instead of landing on the wave’s face, he descends onto its back. Frustrated, he paddles back to the lineup, next to Vaughn. “What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I land that? Do I need to grab a rail?”

“You just gotta flow with the wave,” Vaughn says. “Let the wave and the board take you. Keep a hand on the closest rail.”

The sets continue to come, one after another, until high tide is at its peak. After weeks of rain, the sun has broken through the clouds. Vaughn extends his arms, lifts his chin to the heat, and closes his eyes, soaking in the rays. An hour passes. The waves become mushy, the sets less frequent. The session is winding down, and Graham has football practice, so the boys paddle in. But Vaughn stays at the break, waiting for one more set. “It’ll be better in a few hours,” he shouts toward the shore. “We’re surfing tonight. No matter what.”