“You da Shark,” the man said in a querying and uncertain way.

“I killed a man,” Sharkey said loudly. Then in a hot whisper, “Ran into him at Waimea. He wen’ make.”

The baggage handler put his hands up and thrust with them, as though repelling a bad smell. He parted his lips and stammered, then with force said, “Shoots!”

The ticket agent said nothing, simply passed Sharkey his baggage receipt and boarding pass, but when Sharkey got to the security checkpoint he was ordered out of line—“This way, sir. Just a few questions”—and frisked and interrogated, then made to wait in a windowless cubicle while his carry-on bag was searched and whispered phone calls were made.

Finally the TSA man handed him his driver’s license and said, “You’re good to go.”

On the flight—overnight, five hours, not long enough to sleep—he sat awake in the dark as though dazzled by an afterimage.

A woman in the seat next to him said, “You got masses of attention back there.”

“Do I know you?”

“Parool Verma,” she said. “Travel writer, I’m here on assignment. You might have read my things.”

Sharkey said, “I don’t read.”

“What do you do?”

“Surf.”

She wagged her head from side to side, and though he could not see her clearly, he inhaled her, a sweetness he was unused to—perfume, a syrupy fragrance that formed a kind of aromatic shape in the semidarkness and defined her body.

She said, “I was wondering. I saw them at Waikiki. It’s mainly white guys, is it not? No people of color. I mean, minority communities.”

“Many,” Sharkey said.

“But not African American, to be sure.”

He snorted and got a powerful whiff of the perfume. He said, “You from L.A.?”

“I can say L.A. was our portal.”

“Nick Gabaldón—L.A. guy, great surfer. Black. Crashed into the pier at Santa Monica on a big day—wen’ make shooting the pier. But, hey, we don’t color-code surfing.”

“Maybe that’s the problem with the sport, not so?”

“There’s no problem. It’s not a sport.”

“What is it then, if I may be so bold?”

“I don’t know.” He was too weary to think of words. “It’s a kind of life.”

“Just that alone, selfish life.”

“Yes!” Sharkey surprised himself with the force of his reply, then fell suddenly asleep, waking just before the plane landed in daylight. The woman hurried away from him. He roused himself to collect his bag and dozed in the taxi, waking when they arrived at the hotel, and slept until noon.