“I want to hear more,” one of the girls yelled from the back. “Let the dude talk.”

“The wave,” Sharkey said. “Consider the wave. You think because you’re riding it that you’re superior to it. But you’re not—the wave is one of a kind. It’s unique—but you’re not unique. The wave has not existed before. It comes out of the sea, rising on an unseen reef. It lifts you, gives you a ride, and then it’s over. It’s dead and gone. Or maybe you’re not on the wave. Maybe no one’s riding it. Maybe no one sees it. Think about that.”

Sharkey defied them, facing them, his crazy hair making him seem a wild man. They looked scolded. Skippy was murmuring to the boy next to him. Olive seemed to be suppressing an urge to tell him to stop—he saw a kind of panic in her widening eyes. He had not known what he was going to say, but something in Skippy’s prayers and praising introduction, saying how he admired him, filled him with shame that had become anger.

“Get rid of the contests!” he shouted. “I know what you want. You want to win prizes. You want respect. You want to compete. You want to win and be a hero.” He took a breath, and panted, saying, “But winning is nothing—it doesn’t help you. You get to my age and you’re pau. No one knows you. No one remembers. Look at me—you don’t know who I am!”

Out of breath from his rant, he thought of the purity of the waves, how they were shapely and brief and neutral—neutral most of all. And with the waves rolling toward him in his mind he saw the oafs jostling in the lineup, who splashed into them and tried to wrestle themselves upright.

“I’ve done nothing, I’ve made no difference, yet the wave always leaves a mark,” he went on, because his pause had created an awkward silence. “Even a small wave reaches the shore, disturbs the sand—grains of it—or shifts a whole beach, or chews at the dirt of an embankment, and maybe undermines and collapses a house. Then it vanishes. The perfect crime. And maybe in its short trip to shore, it tips you over and drowns you.”

Someone called out, “Sweet!”

“Like life,” Sharkey said. “You drop in, you ride for a while, then you die. The ultimate hold-down.”

The word seemed to excite a boy in the front, who pulled his finger out of his mouth and wagged it at Sharkey and said, “Like, did that ever happen to you, man—a real bad hold-down when you thought you were drowning?”