And every night he went out, either to a bar or to a friend’s house, to drink and smoke on a lanai, telling his stories, reminiscing about his beginnings, remembering incidents from surfing distant waves, episodes in his quest for the ultimate wave, the monster. Part of the drinking and drugging was listening to the surf report on the radio from Bryan the Hawaiian and planning where they’d go the next day. And that was useful, because he always vowed to go elsewhere, to have a wave to himself.

At some point in his smiling vacancy of mind a girl would rise from the shadows and wander over to him, sidling like a cat, grazing his leg, and come to rest at his feet. He’d reach for her; nothing would be said. She’d match him drink for drink—they were island girls, surfers, boogie boarders, and the ones with jobs had to be up early. But their nearness to him, leaning against him, was an understanding that they would leave with him, laughing on the way to his car, knowing what was to come.

No other preliminaries; they would kiss hungrily, become short of breath, all the while slipping out of the T-shirt, stepping out of the shorts, and then tipping themselves into the bed or onto the floor in a frenzied back-and-forth that ended with gasps of animal satisfaction. Sharkey would wake like a blinking monk seal in the early dawn, alone, ready to slide into the water.

He had everything he wanted except that wave, but his wanting it—his search—gave a richness and direction to his life.

Hunter sometimes called, always at two or three in the morning, strangled sounds, grunts, silences. Then, “It’s madness here, man.”

Sharkey could offer nothing of himself: he was content, no madness.

“We gotta do something together,” Hunter often suggested, after a silence.

That was the plan—a promise. But the next time Hunter returned to Hawaii he forgot the plan. He had the marathon to report on, and football to watch. Sharkey saw how the eager fan, mumbling in a friendly way, “Mr. Joe,” sitting in front of the TV, concentrating on a game, sipping whiskey, lifting a powdery knuckle to his nose, could transform himself into the other Hunter, crazed and incoherent, sometimes physically unrecognizable, shouting and abusive, sweaty, bleary-eyed, hollering, “Bestial! Reptiles! Pigface!”