“I still don’t get it, man.”

They were standing among the lemon trees beside the garage, the two men sparring near the fallen fruit, in the sticky odor of bruised citrus.

“He give me one condition. He give me a break if I ask Sharkey to talk to the hui guys.”

“If you ask?”

“If you wen’ agree, brah.”

“You’re the favor, Joe,” Olive said. She’d picked some lemons; she held them in her hand, and she kept herself a little apart from the men, smirking at them, trying to be patient.

“Ass right,” Moe said, startled into truthfulness. “I promise Skippy you wen’ do it.”

Sharkey frowned at Moe’s pleading eyes, the guilelessness of his appeal, imposing on their friendship because of the debt, to help calm Skippy, buying time for Moe to sell the pakalolo.

“’Cause matter of factly, I tell Skippy I never for see you surfing these days, which mean you probably have plenny more time to talk story.”

Moe’s hopeful face was the face of a child, and even the apple he clutched to propitiate Sharkey was offered like a child’s tentative gift.

“You got something else to do, brah?”

The simple earnest question stung Sharkey into confusion. “No—nothing.”

Relieved, and in a careless reflex, Moe raised the apple and took a bite, filling his mouth, showing Sharkey a bulgy smile.

“Community center,” he said. “Hale‘iwa.”

He prepared himself for a crowd and, resentful in anticipation, said to Olive, “Better not keep them waiting.” But he was saddened by the few cars in the parking lot at the community center, and humiliated, seeing no more than ten boys on the folding chairs toward the front, and a few girls sitting in a group on chairs behind them, all of them grommets. They were very young and awkward, as though unused to the rigidity of chairs, sprawling or seated sideways, uneasily balanced, hugging themselves, none of them sitting upright.

“Here the man,” Skippy said, scuffing toward Sharkey, looping a plumeria lei over his head, giving him a hug. “This my hui, all surfers. They waiting to hear your mana‘o.”

Sharkey raised his hand, making a shaka sign. They mumbled their greetings, and he was dispirited again—so few of them, so young, mostly haoles, slung like monkeys on the chairs, barefoot, with wild hair.

“Guys, e pule kakou,” Skippy said. “Say a prayer. Aloha ke Akua—God is love.”

The chairs creaked as the youngsters bowed their heads, clutching their spiky hair in an attempt at piety.

“Ka mana o ke Akua e ho‘opakele mai ia kakou,” Skippy intoned, then, “The power of God proteck us.” He glanced up. “Say Amenay.”

“Amenay.” The growl filled the hall, then died away.