What mattered most in Hawaii was his being left alone—not embraced but allowed to be himself, as long as he was respectful. From his earliest days in the islands he was aware that he was a haole among locals, and, conspicuous, likely to be persecuted for his difference, or at least teased, and perhaps rejected. The rules were unspoken and arbitrary. He never knew whether he would be challenged by surfers in a lineup or threatened with a fistfight on the beach or simply yelled at—“Get off dis wave, haole!” So he learned to be circumspect, he took nothing for granted, he practiced humility, and this observance of protocol was as important as obeying the mood of the wave itself. After that, as an obvious haole, he needed to succeed on the wave, ride it well and repeat it, because he was watched.

The day that stayed in his mind as the turning point was not the one on which he met Eddie, or the one on which he rode his first big wave, or any day of sage advice from Uncle Sunshine—who was in any case confined to Waikiki with the other Beach Boys, seldom venturing to the North Shore. It was another day, of a random encounter which, looking back on it, seemed like a tribal rite.

The biggest waves at Pipeline broke to the right. Sharkey wanted to ride them but knew from whispers that local surfers kept everyone else away, as though observing an ancient taboo. Being forbidden from that portion of the Pipe meant that he might never learn the skills to ride it and prove himself—which was, all along, the whole purpose of the taboo, an expression of privilege and belonging and exclusion.

It had to have been months after getting to know Eddie Aikau, because he had his own car now, his board on the roof rack, and he routinely skipped school whenever the forecast promised big surf on the North Shore—a beautiful day, to hell with school, a sense of being a runaway as well as a trespasser. He lingered on the beach, watching the sets rise, and then dared himself to paddle out, to take a chance against the cluster of surfers astride their boards in the lineup, becoming more alert as he got closer to them. He heard their low barks over the gulp and dump of breaking waves.

Then, “Eh! Haole!” from one dark tattooed boy sitting on his board.

The others glanced at him, their heads jammed into their shoulders; they were neckless under their wet hair, and dangerous—water dogs.

“Get the fuck off my wave, haole!”

Sharkey prepared to paddle away—looked for a dip in an oncoming wave and began to work his way toward it. He had seen fights in the water, he had heard stories of outsiders being knocked from their boards and the boards themselves smashed. He lay flat and moved fast, and there came another shout.