“There weren’t many of us,” he said. “But it’s always a dogfight in the lineup, you know that. And there were plenty of locals—it’s their territory. Remember, the Hawaiians killed their first tourist.”

Someone whistled.

“Captain Cook,” Sharkey said.

They were slow to respond; they leaned back and opened their mouths wider, as if to listen more clearly. Sharkey realized that only a few of them—the tall woman and perhaps one other—knew who he was, and so when he spoke it was in a protesting tone.

“If you’re in the lineup, be respectful—take the wave that nobody wants, the one with no exit, that breaks in front of the reef. Be willing to fall. On the Pipe, the hardest part is making the drop, because it’s so steep. And you might just get dumped on the reef. Or worse.”

One of the boys at the back asked, “What’s worse?”

“Underwater tunnels. Those caves. I’ve been put in a cave.”

Even the boy wearing the piled garlands of flowers was listening now, but Sharkey could tell from the attentiveness of the others that they were spectators and not hard-core surfers, and probably saw a guy talking because he was half drunk and old, and old people never listened.

“And there’s the hold-down.”

“The two-wave hold-down,” someone said.

“The three-wave hold-down,” Sharkey said, protesting again, asserting himself. “Three bombs hitting you. Under the wave at Waimea.”

“That’s suffocation,” the boy said, speaking through the thickness of lei blossoms.

“But you keep climbing up your leash,” Sharkey said. “Up the heavy evil wave.”

The tattooed young woman said, “You still surf the Pipe?”

“I choose my days.”

“How about the Eddie?” one of the boys said. “You compete in the Eddie?”

“I surfed with Eddie Aikau,” Sharkey said. “I knew Eddie Aikau. Yes, I surfed in the Eddie. I surfed with Eddie’s brother, Clyde. I can still handle big waves—know why? Because it’s straight ahead, less stress on my joints. No kick-outs. Economy of movement.”

Why am I lecturing them? he asked himself. Am I trying to impress them? He smiled, pitying himself, finding himself laughable.

“Waimea’s awesome,” the young woman said.

Except for the winner and his garlands, they had to be tourists and first-timers, though Sharkey could not tell whether they were dazzled by what he said; if not, he was making a fool of himself with all his talk.

Aware that he was boasting—and why was he boasting to these youths?—he said, “Phantoms, off V-Land, is gnarly. Jaws is even bigger. So’s Mavericks. And there’s the Cortes Bank, off San Diego. That’s killer.”

Speaking again through his flowers, the garlanded boy said, “You surfed Cortes?”

“You’ve been everywhere,” a toothy boy said, looking hungry and a little surprised. He didn’t know Sharkey either.

“In your day,” someone started to say.