More rejection. Sharkey felt the awkwardness more than Olive. He’d once been welcome everywhere, living his surfing life as the Shark. He was accustomed to being recognized and greeted, as the policeman, as Stickney had done; and it surprised him—bewildered him—when someone asked him his name and didn’t say, “The surfer,” as soon as Sharkey spoke it. He’d taken it for granted that he would get a smile or a hug. But this had been so frequent in the past few years that he now saw it as indifference, confirming his sense that no one knew him anymore, or if they did know his name, they didn’t care—dismissed the risks he’d taken, the prizes he’d won, the monster waves he’d survived.

The thought of trespass was unformed in his head, just a pulse of hesitation, but it became clearer when, starting down the path, his bare legs cut by the sharp edges of the tall grass, brushing it aside, walking ahead of Olive, he saw the bobbing head of a man approaching—bearded, with matted greasy hair, sunburned in blotches, pushing a rusty bike.

“Hi—how’s it?” the man mumbled through cracked lips without a smile. He prodded with his bike, shoving the handlebars before him, nudging Sharkey and Olive. Then they were beside him, close enough to smell the man, his dirt-sweat, his damp hair, the stink of his rags. A decaying haole, blocking the path.

Sharkey reached for the man’s hand and shook it and gripped the hard dusty fingers and said, “Joe Sharkey.”

The man squinted at him, sizing him up, then frowned, looking toasted or tipsy—vague, anyway, in the bright sunshine. Breathless, unsmiling, he opened his mouth, then closed it, swallowing his name as neatly as a cane toad snaring an insect.

“We’re visiting,” Olive said.

“Looking for someone,” Sharkey said, his right hand humming with the man’s dirt.

The man leaned back and scratched his neck. The tattoo on his neck was large but unreadable. He spoke to Sharkey. “You a cop?”

With a surprised giggle of incredulity, Sharkey said, “No, man, we’re just cruising.”

Extending his hand, his yellow fingernails upright, making a cup of his palm, the man said, “Give me something.”

Olive had been preparing for this, clutching a dollar. She handed it to him.

“Come on!” the man said sourly, pinching the dollar bill and gesturing, as though handing it back. “Give me five.”

The man was thin, and smaller than Sharkey, yet there was about him an air of menace—his teeth, his dirty, demanding fingers—and a twitch of the unpredictable. Sharkey knew he could shoulder him aside, push him off the path, but the man would howl and push back, scratch like a cat, maybe bite, and what was the point of fighting him?

Handing him another dollar, Sharkey said, “It’s cool—we’ll just slide by,” and slipped behind him.