Michael and I had been very close at times over the years. But he was cranky. He asked to be taken off my Hawai‘i email list, so he didn't know that Sheyene and I had been on O‘ahu recently. He may not have known about Truman.

He met Sheyene on the Big Island when we were on our honeymoon in 2000, then again in 2004. The second time I surprised him by calling him up when we were in Waimea. Michael and I always found common ground for conversation and thought. His only disappointment with me, I think, came when I didn't like his novel as well as he wanted me to. He should have been a memoirist, as he had a lot to say that is worth remembering.

I loved the fact that he embraced both sides of his hapa identity and rejected the culture of victimhood. I hated the fact that he held grudges against good people who meant well. He was a little boy, a Little Leaguer, who never quite grew up. And he was a cranky cynic who sometimes forgot his youth. He was an idealist and an outlaw, a defender and an iconoclast.

The last time I saw Michael, January, 2004, he spent a lazy afternoon with Sheyene and me on the lanai of our second-story room at the Kamuela Inn, a perfect view of Mauna Kea behind him. Immediately beneath the rail of our lanai was a dumpster and construction debris. Fitting contrasts. We drank and smoked (Sheyene smoked cigarettes then, I smoked an occasional cigar to be sociable) and talked, telling each other stories of The Hawaii Literary Review (Michael and I always put in the original article that Peter Nelson later deleted), his psycho dog Lolo, and the parts of our respective lives that we'd missed out on. He liked Sheyene a lot, and she liked him. He seemed to be amazed by the nature of our relationship, though, so different from the many relationships he'd had with younger women over the years. There seemed to be a question about it on the tip of his tongue the entire afternoon, but he never asked. It was his way of being respectful, I think.

I think what astonished him most was the list of things my own life, which seemed like a life of drudgery compared to his own, had yielded: the first and second lives, still intertwined, no bridges burned—Kansas and California, the two families, the highs and lows with the writing, the four (at that point) children, and the constant dream of returning to Hawai‘i, which shows up in one way or another in my writing. I think Michael would have been more surprised by my new novel, which contains a great deal of humor, than he would have been by Truman. Of the two of us, I was the one who changed and moved on. He was the bipolar spirit who held fast, the surfer who finally planted his feet on the big rock that had borne him, and defended his space.

Michael was selfish and generous. He demanded respect and attention. I was never around him so much to grow so annoyed I couldn't give those things. So we remained friends for thirty-six years, when others, much closer to him, had finally given up. It was always easy for me to see and speak of the best in Michael, even now. I think he regarded that trait to be only his due, and yet sappy. In the end, though, I believe he understood, on some level hard to describe, who I am. Because, even though he always did most of the talking, he also listened. He was curious. He had to hold forth onstage, always, but he wondered about the audience that managed to hear him out. What made them tick? Why didn't they get it, get everything he was?

In the end, I think I frightened him a little. In his eyes I seemed impervious to those things that had roughed him up over the years: marijuana (Michael introduced me to weed, but I never cared for it), discipline (I held on to this while he wandered), a need for sexual conquest (in this respect he always seemed sad to me, because he never seemed to be in control, never consciously chose), and most of all, the need to keep quiet for long periods and simply listen, take things in. He needed that from me and everyone else in his life, and could return only small bits of it himself. He knew how much that cost him, but he couldn't do anything about it.

I knew his health was bad and that his law practice was sporadic. It seems he had many more health problems than I realized. He seemed to be doing better than that the last three times I saw him, in 1995, 2000, and 2004, but Michael always did put up a good front. It seems to me he lived out his final, difficult years with a certain kind of quiet dignity that was invisible to those of us who knew him more from his boisterous rants and general crankiness.

His heart problem brings to mind Pistol Pete Maravich, the most talented basketball player I ever saw, who I believe still holds the NCAA season and career scoring records. Even though Maravich had a Hall of Fame career in the NBA, winning a scoring title and multiple All Star selections, he was always regarded as a showboat, an underachiever, more style than substance (even though those behind-the-back passes and other showy moves he displayed are commonplace in the NBA now), because he always seemed like he could accomplish so much more. His career ended early, and he dropped dead at the age of 37 playing a pickup basketball game. An autopsy revealed he had only three chambers in his heart—it was astonishing he'd even managed to live to adulthood.

Michael accomplished plenty in his life. His failures could have turned him to do some really awful things—and he sometimes defended people who did such things. But even though he could be verbally devastating and used that destructive talent even on his closest friends, it seems to me there was a line he never crossed. I'm not sure exactly where the line is or what it divides, because Michael clearly sacrificed friendships and important relationships in his life. But his bitterness could have caused greater harm than it did. In retrospect, I see some restraint in his behavior. I remember he said some pretty awful things to me when I didn't like his novel as much as he wanted me to, and refused to review it. But I understood his rage, the depth of his disappointment, and when I didn't strike back, he let it go, and we recaptured our friendship. I'm very glad about that. Michael needed to be forgiven for many things. But then so do most of us—I certainly do. In the end, Michael earned the small forgiveness he got from me, and the result turned out to be greater than I first appreciated. In an odd way, I feel like I should ask Michael to forgive me for expecting too much of him. But the truth is I expected too little. I underestimated him because of his showy ways. I wish the show had continued long enough for me to see that before he was gone.

In the end, it was the romantic dreamer in Michael that attracted me to him. He was passionate about life in a way that was natural and could not be parsed. The dream was large and so were his imperfections. He was deeply connected to family and alienated from everyone who ever knew him. His poems were petty and sublime. In rare moments the light inside Michael burned so bright and hot, no one in his cosmos could bear to look upon him. And so it falls to a distant acquaintance, someone who skimmed in and out of his merry and tragic life, a frequent doubter and constant friend, to offer this small elegy.