Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [94]
Pete met his future wife, Tara, in 1991 at a party. She was tall, drop-dead gorgeous, smart, and funny to boot. Pete was a hilarious guy with a grand personality. “He just lit up a room,” she says. “But he was also very kind. My son was one year old. Pete was so sweet to him. Played with him in the water. Taught him how to surf. My ex was never really in the picture, and I remember one day my son called Pete ‘Daddy.’ I said, ‘Is that okay?’ He said, ‘Actually, I like it.’ I was like, ‘Okay, he’s a keeper.’ I felt safe and very protected around him. I still do.”
At the turn of the millennium, Pete Mel was at the top of his game—Evan Slater called him the best all-around big wave Surfer on Earth. He appeared alongside Skindog, Darryl “Flea” Virostko, Brad Gerlach, and Mike Parsons, all naked, in a Vanity Fair spread. Yet he was, he says, “a selfish motherfucker.”
For Mel, the substance abuse began with drinking during the big wave off-season. Something to keep up the buzz during the long, frustrating months when the surf was down. “It’s funny,” he told me later. “The best part of it all is actually when a big wave session’s all said and done. Sometimes the buzz lasts a day. Sometimes a few days. It’s euphoric. Just something you can sit well with. Like, yeaaahhh. But then eventually you get a comedown and the soreness will kick in. Sometimes I’ll get sick. You wanna keep it going. Maybe a drink and a cocktail to keep up the buzz. Then other drugs, too, unfortunately.”
One night when he was fairly well lit up, he snorted a line of cocaine. It lit him up further, so he tried a little more. “I’ve always overindulged and done stupid things,” he says. “It runs in my family.”
Mel thought he was keeping the powder and sauce a secret from Skindog and Tara, but he gained forty extra pounds, which is tough to hide. “I was watching Pete and a few guys and going, ‘Are you fricking kidding me?’” says Skindog. “Especially Pete. He has a wife and kids. For me, my family is my cocoon. I always enjoyed having a good time, but once you’re not having a good time, it’s done, and I don’t let anything like that near my house. So I’m like, ‘Pete, dude, what’s up? Oh really? You’re doing a gram of coke a day and drinking forty beers?’”
Peter Mel and Ken “Skindog” Collins. Project Neptune, January 2001. “It was awesome,” said Mel. “Heaven on earth.” Photo: Rob Brown.
It was simple. Big waves made Mel high. When he didn’t have that high, he craved it. Drugs and booze became a crutch. Mel went cold turkey and stayed clean for a while, but he remained frustratingly overweight and out of shape. Maybe, he thought, a little speed would get him back on track. He snorted some methamphetamine. Now this was something. It took away his desire to drink. He started losing weight, surfing a lot, getting shit done. He was soon hitting it all the time—all the time. Before long, he could once again survive a two-wave hold down at Maverick’s and come up laughing.
“You could see it in Pete’s head—he was going a million miles an hour,” says Skindog. “Spun out. He started getting all skinny. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I cut back on the red wine.’ Then he disappears. I can’t get hold of him. When I did see him,