Sharkey realized in time that, random, selfish, and improvisational in his choices—“I’m a bum, I’m a surf gypsy”—pleasing himself, he’d created a personal style. His stories suited that style. Among the silent watchful surfers he was the talker, and without saying anything, his fellow surfers, especially the younger ones, began to dress like him, with the same shorts, the same hoodie and flip-flops, the same board, though he had a quiver of them. And in mirror imitation they seemed to acknowledge that his style was unique, the result of his travels and his romances.

And some, the visitors especially, didn’t stop at imitating him. They wanted his life. They’d heard the talk about him, and—impatient, eager to learn the details of his career—they tried to befriend him, to know more. They told him about themselves, hoping to attract his interest, relating their exploits in the water, and with a penetrating gaze and their own stories seemed to insist, Please, remember me.

In this they tried, by being close, to live through him—never his fellow surfers in the hui, who were secure in their own lives and routines and single-minded in their surfing: they too were in the water every day—they were locals, whose lives were small and circumscribed by the islands. The surf bunnies and the wahine—most of the women—were seldom envious, and were happy simply knowing him, wanting nothing more than a casual hookup. It was a reassurance to him that many of these North Shore women were no different from the men, just as good in the water, just as unreliable onshore, just as hungry and horny, laughing among themselves on the beach in the day, as foul-mouthed as the guys, and prowlers at night, looking to be stoned. He was not a hero to them but rather a vortex of energy, a source of pakalolo.

But the surf tourists, the hangers-on, the groupies, to whom he was a celebrity—they could be parasitical. Incredibly—to Sharkey at least—the sponsors too, the big-money businessmen who funded the surf meets and flew in from California and Australia, badly wanted to be in his orbit. Men older than he was, millionaires, powerful in their dealings, who rented expensive houses on the beach for the surfing season and gave parties—they wanted his friendship, they praised his life, the life he had made out of accident and desperation and dumb luck, his whole existence a form of escape, fleeing to the water to be himself and protecting himself on land by telling lies about his life.