Sharkey felt a slight sense of oppression, of obligation, thinking, He’ll want me to say something about it, I’ll have to read it, I’ll never finish it.

To change the subject, Sharkey said, “What about your father?”

“He died.”

“Mine too. I was a kid.”

“How old are you?”

Sharkey said, “Thirty-five.”

“I remember when I was thirty-five. Good year. My first book, Hell’s Angels.”

And Sharkey felt that oppression again—another book, a big brick of pages, daring him to open it, and his always thinking, There’s too much of it, it’s heavy. The mildewed smell of books in Hawaii made them seem poisonous—you couldn’t open them without sneezing.

Talk of books, here especially, seemed irrelevant. What was the point of mentioning these inert objects while on the beach, facing the moonlit sea flickering with chop and now and then a wave bursting in blackness offshore and crusted in white; these palms, this mild air and moonglow—it was all beyond books. People who did not have this beauty in their lives found some strange squirrelly indoor comfort in books.

Sharkey did not know what to say, and was glad when Winona broke the silence, saying, “You guys going in?”

“Waiting for that monster wave,” Hunter said. “It’s bullshit, right? Hundred-foot wave?”

“No,” Sharkey said. “People talk about them. Some people have seen them—you’d never forget a thing like that. The one west of San Diego—Cortes Bank. Other places—Tahiti, maybe Indo. They appear out of nowhere and then they’re gone.”

“Waimea,” Winona said. “They come forty-five, some days in the season.”

“Twice that size is what I’m looking for,” Sharkey said.

“Perilous quest!” Hunter said, gagging. “The hundred-foot wave, holy grail of the ocean,” and began to cough, batting his arms and tramping in circles as he fought to get his breath, spitting and choking.

“You all right, Hunter?” Honey asked.

“No!” he screamed and, trying to speak, gagged some more, then said in a pinched voice, “I’m drunk.”

“Remember we’re supposed to change rooms tonight.”

“Shit!” Hunter shouted, and spat, then crossed his arms and looked helpless.

“You said you wanted a suite,” Honey said. She turned to Sharkey. “Can you take us to the Kahala?”

In the car on the way back, Hunter found the empty Chivas bottle on the floor and cradled it like a doll and dozed off, snoring softly. But he came awake as Sharkey pulled away from a stoplight and cried out, “Hey, I could kill us all!” He lunged at Sharkey and grabbed the steering wheel and yanked at it.

But Sharkey held tight to it and raised his elbow, jamming it against Hunter’s chin. He said, “But then we’d miss the weed, and the sex, and the waves,” and slipped his elbow into Hunter’s neck, applying more pressure.

“He’s freaking out,” Winona said.