But the wipeout had exhausted him, and back in his car, shivering, frightened at the memory of what he took to be a near drowning, he put his face in his hands and sobbed for a moment, his whole body convulsing. Breathing deeply, he recovered, sighing, and reversing the car saw himself in the rearview mirror. He was amazed at his tears, that his eyes and cheeks were dirtied by his fingers— a face of suffering and triumph—and that he felt such relief.

8

Welcome to the Wave

Before that first big wave of his life, his wipeout, the hold-down, his near drowning, it had never occurred to Sharkey that he might fail. Was it Uncle Sunshine’s belief in him that made him reckless? Perhaps the man, being a kupuna, had challenged him, knowing the risks, so that he would take the wave and taste fear. You always find what you afraid of. Sharkey had not imagined being swung so high on a wave—balanced on its brow, suspended over the great vertical swoop of its face, looking down at the glittering plow of moving water and, losing his footing on the board, feeling terror, as though he were being thrown into its blade.

And that was only the beginning of the ordeal. The worst of it had come moments later, when, suffocated by successive waves, he had lost all sense of up and down in the wash. Though he’d gotten the leash off his ankle, he was not saved by quick thinking. What followed had been the result of the churning of the shore break, which had tossed him forward like a splinter of driftwood. He’d been lucky.

Seen from the beach, the distant sets had seemed smaller and rideable, not the canyon walls and sweeping ravines he encountered when he paddled out. Nothing at Magic Island, where the winter swell was less than head-high, had prepared him for this. Not even Uncle Sunshine’s casual warning had helped.

“I think maybe you wen’ wipe out,” he’d said, seeing Sharkey’s gashed arm afterward, the bruised flesh of his knees.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s good. Only two kine surfer, da kine wen’ wipe out already and da kine gonna wipe out bym-bye.”

“It freaked me out.”

Uncle Sunshine laughed. “Yah! If you say something different I call you a bull liar. Was a big wave?”

“Da kine,” Sharkey said.

He saw it again, fierce-faced, a monster, the smooth incurve below him, lengthening, fattening, defying him with an abyss—his feet slipping from his sliding board, falling into the slope of water and being sucked into darkness.

“Was epic yesterday,” Uncle Sunshine said.

And Sharkey remembered his face in the rearview mirror, streaked with tears, contorted by what he had just suffered; yet in that ugliness he was triumphant—he was alive. He had no way of explaining this feeling, but Uncle Sunshine seemed to guess it.

“Was one good lesson for you.”