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Back Under the Wave at Waimea Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright
  3. Epigraph
  4. Part I
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. 8
  13. 9
  14. 10
  15. 11
  16. 12
  17. Part II
  18. 1
  19. 2
  20. 3
  21. 4
  22. 5
  23. 6
  24. 7
  25. 8
  26. 9
  27. 10
  28. 11
  29. 12
  30. 13
  31. 14
  32. 15
  33. 16
  34. 17
  35. 18
  36. 19
  37. Part III
  38. 1
  39. 2
  40. 3
  41. 4
  42. 5
  43. 6
  44. 7
  45. 8
  46. 9
  47. 10
  48. 11
  49. 12
  50. 13
  51. An Excerpt from THE BAD ANGEL BROTHERS
  52. 1The Rejection Ritual
  53. About the Author
  54. Connect on Social Media

“He’s too interested. He’s talking about marriage. I don’t want that.”

Sharkey’s hesitation was like a question, a querying silence.

“Because I have you,” his mother said.

7

Wipeout

The winter swells had arrived, big days in January, peaking at twenty-five feet on the North Shore, and that was a Hawaiian measure, of the back of the wave—the face was close to forty, great blue claws of water closing over tiny defiant surfers. In some places on the coast, at Lani’s and Chun’s, random waves washed over Kamehameha Highway, sluicing it with foaming seawater that drained into the grassy verge on the far side, leaving a surface of sand and broken seashells and twists of brown seaweed, like a warning that the ocean would overwhelm and claim the whole road one day.

The previous year, lying on the beach with his eyes closed, Sharkey had felt the power of the surf, the slumping sound of it rocking his body, but with a brief pause, and then another slump, like rocks pounding into a ravine in a toppling sequence, one boom burying another and becoming a brief hush, a sudden intake of breath, and sitting up, Sharkey had seen the surfers like flotsam, bobbing in the subsiding swirl of the boil.

In town, at Magic Island and Waikiki and Diamond Head, the surf had dropped—“flat to a foot,” as Uncle Sunshine put it. But he encouraged Sharkey to look at Waimea Bay and Pipeline, to have an idea of what big surf looked like.

“I’ve seen it before. Last year.”

“Dis week is more epic. Big, da wave.”

“Should I bring my board?”

“Yah. But be akamai. Dis weekend insane.”

“I wish you could come with me, Uncle.”

“More better if you go alone.” The old man studied him for a moment. “You gotta get used to stay alone if you wen’ take this more serious.”

Alone, Sharkey thought—I’m alone at school, I’m alone at home, I’m alone here with Uncle Sun. I not you friend . . . I you kupuna. I am obviously alone, an obvious haole, with the sun beating down on me, squeezing me small.

“Okay,” he said.

Still, he did not feel that he was ready; he wished for company for the forty-mile ride to the North Shore, someone to talk to on the beach, a bit of encouragement perhaps, from a friend he had not seen for a while—Harry Ho. So after school he walked down the road to Punahou School and waited at the gate of the driveway for the bell to signal the end of the Punahou day.