After hanging around my parents’ house for a while, I saw a notice in the Advertiser that the Honolulu Police Department was looking for new recruits. Intuitively, I knew it was the right thing for me, so I entered the police academy. It was, after all, the most macho thing I could think to do. I thought if anything could save me from being gay, being a cop would be it.
I wanted to be a pro surfer when I was twenty-two, and I let fear of being gay stop me from chasing that dream. Dario Fonseca had been a big part of that fear, but I was ten years older and out of the closet, and I couldn’t let fear of anything keep me from finding out who killed Pratt, Zamora and Chang. I couldn’t avoid the Next Wave, if going there would help solve the case, just to avoid Dario.
Dario had probably known I was gay within about five minutes of meeting me, if it took that long. I knew there was this thing called gaydar, a kind of gay radar that you developed the more comfortable you were with being yourself. It helped you figure out who was gay and who wasn’t. Mine wasn’t that well-attuned yet, but obviously, ten years ago Dario’s had been in full bloom.
Back then, I didn’t like the way he always found himself next to me when we were out drinking, the way he often rubbed his leg against mine-or the way my body reacted when he did. I was damned if I’d be dragged out of a closet I wasn’t even sure I was in.
I hadn’t seen him since that day I’d walked out of his shack on the beach, but he hadn’t changed much. When I walked into The Next Wave that evening, he was standing next to a display of bodyboards explaining the principles of the sport to a customer. By then I’d been on the North Shore for six days and I was tired, sad, horny and frustrated. Beyond figuring out that Mike Pratt’s shooter had probably camouflaged himself as a photographer, I hadn’t been able to come up with a single lead on the case that took me beyond what I had read in the dossiers.
Dario had clearly followed everything that had happened to me over the last few weeks. “Well, look what the cat dragged in!” he said, coming up to me as if it had been ten days since we’d seen each other last instead of ten years.
He hugged me and kissed my cheek, and I hugged him back. I’d never been comfortable with too much physical contact with other guys before, always afraid I’d do something that would reveal my secret self. Now I figured I had nothing left to reveal.
“You look good, Dario,” I said. “Must be all that clean living.”
He was probably thirty-five, but he’d hardly put a pound on his skinny frame, his face had no lines, and his hair, though thinning at the top, was still full enough. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” He winked at me. “And I do mean everywhere,” he said, in a low voice.
His voice returned to normal as he said, “Now, why don’t you take a look around while I finish up with this customer, and then we’ll go in back and get all caught up.”
He went back to the girl he’d been showing bodyboards to, and I walked around the store. The Next Wave was located just off Hale’iwa Road, overlooking Waialua Bay. The buildings in the neighborhood were all one and two stories, simple wood-frame places often with fading paint and a motley collection of clunkers, Jeeps and pickups parked outside. Most people on the North Shore were there because they loved to surf, and high-paying jobs in the area were non-existent. People spent their money on expensive gear rather than on fancy homes or tricked-out cars.
When I was surfing the North Shore, The Next Wave was a hole in the wall next to a discount shoe store. Since then, Dario had moved up from occasional salesman and the store had taken over the adjacent space. A news clipping on the side wall described how Dario Fonseca, owner of The Next Wave, had been given the key to the city of Hale’iwa by a previous mayor. Maybe Dario was more serious than I’d given him credit for.
I hadn’t surfed competitively in years, but I still kept an eye out for the latest gear, and Dario had it. There was some serious money tied up in his inventory, everything from O’Neill surfboards to Rip Curl wetsuits, Oakley sunglasses to Reef sandals, Croakies to Sex Wax. As you moved around the store, you could shop for T-shirts, boogie boards, leashes, and cork coasters in the shape of aloha shirts. The Next Wave also sold surf guides, magazines, signs that read Surfer Girl Crossing, and beach towels featuring the Ford woody station wagon that the Beach Boys had made famous.
Clothing took up nearly half the store, with fake surfboards at the ends of the racks with face-outs of shirts and shorts. You could buy every type of souvenir gadget known to man, including miniature surfboard magnets, bottle openers that looked like shark fins, ball caps with a long flap around the back to protect your neck from the sun, roof racks for your car or truck, and plastic cups with The Next Wave logos. After I’d made a complete circuit of the store, I wasted time by trying on a couple of different pair of sunglasses, modeling for myself in the tiny mirror. I thought I looked a little like Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix; just give me a black duster and the ability to do those jumping, twirling moves in slow motion and I’d be the baddest detective in the Honolulu PD.
It was late in the afternoon, and The Next Wave was busy, a mostly young crowd shopping, discussing and buying. Dario had even installed a little cyber cafe in one corner, serving cappuccinos and lattes and renting out time on six computers. Each of them was busy, and from the expectant looks of a number of the coffee drinkers sitting near the stations, I figured they would be for some time. I also saw a couple of people using their own laptops and realized the cafe offered free Wi-Fi.
Against my expectations, Dario seemed to have turned himself into a solid citizen. I’d given up on sunglasses and moved on to hats by the time he came over to me again. “So, how does it feel to be out and proud?” he asked. “You’re here, you’re queer, get used to it?”
“Strange,” I said. “I never wanted to be a celebrity. But now my face has been on TV and in every newspaper.”
“It’ll pass,” Dario said. He gave me a smile that was half a leer. “I always knew you’d come out of the closet some day. I didn’t know you’d do it so spectacularly.”
“How did you know?” I blurted out. “When I didn’t even know myself?”
“This calls for some liquid refreshment,” he said. “Hey, Cindy, keep an eye on things,” he called to a girl by the register. He took me by the arm and steered me back to his office, past a display of sun block featuring life- sized models of scantily-clad guys and gals.
His office was at the rear of the store, down a corridor that led to rest rooms and a loading dock. He had a side view of the ocean through a big plate-glass window; I could see wind restlessly whipping waves against the deserted shore, a line of rock and scree too rough to surf.
The rest of the office was cluttered with sales props and advertising memorabilia. The walls were lined with posters of past surf champions, including a couple we’d both surfed with way back when. He opened a small refrigerator and pulled out a pair of Kona Longboard Lagers.
He used a bottle opener in the shape of a palm tree, with the Next Wave logo, to pop the tops and handed one to me. “To your new life,” he said, toasting me.
“And to yours. Looks like you’ve come up in the world.”
He shrugged. “I’m doing okay. Retail’s tough, though. You’ve got to be on top of things every minute or you can lose your shirt.”
We sat down in a couple of beat-up armchairs. “Back to your question,” Dario said. “How did I know you were gay when you didn’t know it yourself.” He took a pull on his beer. “It’s in the eyes, usually. Hunger. The way a guy will look at another, thinking no one is noticing. Straight men touch each other without thinking-they’ll wrap an arm around another guy’s neck, they’ll hip-check or punch one another in the arm.”
I shook my head. “I see gay men touch each other all the time.”
“That’s true. What you want to look for is the ones who are afraid to touch. They’re the ones in the closet.” He smiled. “They’re the ones who are the most fun to chase. They know they want it, but they’re scared, and you have to get them past the fear.”
“By getting them drunk,” I said.
“That’s one of the ways.” He lifted his bottle to me, took a long drink. “By touching them. Giving them these deep, searching looks that say, ‘I can see into your soul.’”
I shook my head. “Dario, you are so corny.”
“Rhymes with horny.” He raised his eyebrow. “I’m always horny. How about you?”
That was something I wasn’t expecting, and it took my breath away for a minute. “That was nine or ten years ago,” I said, finally. “And I’m already out of the closet by now. You can’t drag me any further.”
“Honey,” he said, leaning toward me, “you don’t know how far I can take you.”
