I see great shadows
from clouds that sprinkle the ocean far below. The ocean surface looks like a
vast sheet of wrinkled pudding skin spread out across the horizon. Then I’m
struck by the metaphor as old heavy dinosaur skin….
Four hours later after
take off from LA, at 1:30 pm Hawaiian time, the plane soars by one of the
islands— it seems so small and accidental at such heights. Upon reaching Oahu
we circle it and begin our fast descent. Things begin to take shape again,
mountains become large and great and the shoreline peopled with swimmers and
surfers— the water is green and clear and where coral lies, shady but the water
glistens like diamonds. Men stand knee deep in shallows with fishing poles and
the sand at their feet looks like cracked flakes of driftwood. We touch down in
Honolulu.
I fight through the
crowd for a good fifteen minutes. I’m dying for a smoke. It’s very hot too and
the sweat is building on my brow. Suddenly, to my right, I see Rich, leaning
against a wall. He’s in shorts, very tan and smiling.
“What’s up man?” I
asked.
“Heyyy… here you go
bra.’”
He draped a fragrant
lei over my head.
I claim my bag and we’re
off into Honolulu. Tourists everywhere— cameras draped around necks, obese
fathers and pale lipstick smeared mothers and indifferent children in shorts
strolling along the streets. The city is beautiful— modern buildings in strange
new shapes, clean white sidewalks and shiny glass surfaces. We stop off at a
liquor store in the hotel district and Rich returns with a six pack of Buds and
Bud Drys.
“I finally made it,
man.”
“All right.”
Rich’s car is an old
beat up ugly red uninsured Corolla. It runs good and is very Rich and very me,
for that matter. He lives in Haleiwa— a good hour and a half away. We take our
time and stop to gaze at the magnificent mountains overlooking small rocky
bays. When we rach the north shore, the landscape is all country and sea. He
rattles off the names of beaches and hangouts we pass.
We pull into his driveway at Kapu ‘ai Place. My beers are gone. I’m feeling the initial tugs of a
buzz. His apartment is really big and homey. It’s seven hundred a month. We
walk through the front door into the kitchen with a bathroom on the right. I
walk into the spacious living-room with a couch on one wall and a television on
the opposite wall beside his bedroom door. In the far corner is a spiral
staircase that leads to the other tenants apartment but it is blocked off.
Beside the staircase is a small surfboard. The extra room, my room is to the
left and off the living-room. I push open the door and inside it is bare, no
carpet but very big as well. I toss my bags on the floor and then kick off my
shoes, slip into shorts and light shirt. The orange rug in the living-room feels
so soft on my hardened feet. There is a divider between the kitchen and living-room, like a table where Rich keeps his radio, CD’s and keys. He turns on
the radio.
I call my parents to
them I made it and my mother is relieved. I shower. I decide to strut the
Bruins t-shirt tonight. Rich gives me a pair of shorts that are less touristy
than the ones I brought, less flowey and colorful.
We stop over his
brother Frank’s house. He lives on the next street over with his wife Gail and
five kids. Four of the five kids are by a different father but the youngest,
Dave Jr is fathered by Frank. We sit around in the livingroom and chat.Frank
looks like Robert DeNiro in the movie Deer Hunter with tough countenance, dark
eyes and goatee. Frank is relaxed on the couch, tired, slunk back and seems
content not to move. Rich invites him out with us to go to the Sugar Bar and he
politely refuses.
We skip back to Rich’s
for money and a quick drink. Our street is right off Kamehameha Highway which
is the main road that runs around the island. Rich says it would take about
four hours to drive around the island in a circle.
Sugar Bar. I’m already
good and buzzed. I half expected to do battle with mean local Hawaiians. I’ve
heard that whites aren’t very welcome on the island. Mainlanders are called
Hoeles and it’s a negative word. I was prepared for an unfriendly reception.
The bar is crowded and a rock n roll band plays in the corner. There aren’t
many mean faces at all, in fact, mostly white blond haired surfer boys with
gorgeous girls by their sides. Everyone seems happy and drunk.
Rich orders a beer,
myself a rum and coke. We head out the back doors and on to an outside patio
with umbrellas over round tables. We are having a great time joking and
laughing like maniacs. Rich drinks rum and cokes now. Then we prime with some Jim Beam. “Aww man,
this tastes delicious!” said Rich. Soon the night becomes one round of drunken
vision and darkness and nothing is real, just liquid dreams.
I stand alone drinking
above the hum of voices, music and the ring of ice cubes. Up from the darkness
a girl approached me then hugs and kisses me on the cheek. Instinctively, I know
Rich has something to do with this.
“Hi there, sexy,” she
said.
“Wait a minute.”
I peer through the
darkness of the bar and then as the crowd clears, I see Rich watching, laughing
and drunk.
“Is this yours?” I
asked.
The girl laughs at my
comment. We all laugh. Her name is Sue. Rich had only met her a couple of nights
ago. She’s visiting and staying with a friend, Kathy who lives by the Haleiwa
harbor. Sue is from Michigan and staying three weeks.Out of the blue another
girl comes up from behind me, kisses my cheek and massages my shoulders for a
few seconds. “Hii!” She is Kathy.
On Sunset Beach, a
curly haired man and his dog jostle along the beach. They run; he throws a
stick and the big shaggy dog retrieves it. The dog jumps on him. He is a
slender white guy, probably visiting from the mainland. He jumps into the water
and the dog stops short of the crashing waves. He is afraid and bounces back
and forth along the shore and big sets roll in and break loudly. The North
Shore ocean— moody, pushy and deadly; not at all unbelievable to see this man
ripped and sucked away out to see like a paper bag.
I’m in a small
laundromat off Kam Highway. It sits between Kammies, a general convenient store
and Sunset Diners. It’s an unattended dirty laundromat. There’s a couple of
surfers starting a load of laundry and two couples waiting for the dryers to
finish.
“One time,” said Rich,
“ I went to Kammies for a pack of smokes and someone stole a pillowcase and
sheet from my wash. Don’t leave. You never know— beach bums will come in and
take what they need.”
On the north shore
everyone seems to look the same— slender, good-looking and tan. The women seem
to have been teleported here from a far away dreamy paradise. No wait! This is
paradise. The women are all tan, dark, long legged, perky round breasts— even
the smaller ones, goddess faces and long perfect hair. This is no place for an ordinary looking, overweight, pale-faced easterner such as myself.
In line at D’Amico’s,
a small hot beat looking restaurant off Kam Highway. I hear pieces of
conversation from a group of surfers about a shark attack. They talk excitedly
as if it had just happened. They are guessing the attack happened at Sunset
Beach. I leave and head back into the car where Rich and Sue are waiting. I
tell them what I heard but I got no response. They are still going for a swim
at Sunset anyway which is a short walk from our house.
I stayed in to catch
up on some writing. Soon enough Rich and Sue return from the beach not having
seen or heard anything about a shark attack. Now I’m ready for a swim and I put
my notebooks away, grab a towel, a beer and I’m off. I cut through the neighbor’s
yard at the end of the street, walking gingerly on hot tar and sand filled with
pine needles and prickly baby pine-cones. I walk on to the beach and trudge
along to the spot me and Rich had a blaze last night until three in the morning
and great drinking session. Clouds float above. I lay down my blanket and pin
my sneakers on the corners as paperweights against the wind. Waves criss cross
against each other today. When a wave hits the shore, it recedes and causes
tiny holes, the size of beebe's in the wet sand. In the distance I hear a
helicopter approach. It swings in low along the coastline. It’s a big army
chopper and it races by and disappears down the coastline. I assume they are
looking for sharks.
I wade into the water
up to my knees and the waves come in and crash down upon my shoulders. I dive
into a wave and it carries me back to the shore. I play and play….
I walk into the house
and Rich greets me excitedly. “Hey man, there is a shark out there. They found
some guy’s boogy board with a shark bite in it. They haven’t found the dude
yet.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Waimea Bay.”
“Wow.”
Waimea Bay is only
about a half mile away from Sunset. Real close. Too close.
Later that night, we
watched the 11 o’clock news. They confirmed the found board, discovered more
than a mile away from where he went surfing on Wednesday (today is Thursday)
and it had a chunk bitten off by the shark. The bite was sixteen inches wide and
that it was at least 8 feet long. “Searchers yesterday scoured the area on the
Haleiwa side of Waimea Bay near Leftovers, the surfing spot where Bryan Adona
apparently went surfing after work Wednesday and never returned to shore, said
David Mortensen, acting Captain of the Fire Department’s Rescue Two Unit.
Mortensen said no sharks were spotted but a lot of sea turtles— a favorite food
of sharks— were seen in the area. The board was found yesterday along Oahu’s
North Shore at the entrance to the Waimea River by a lifeguard at Waimea Beach
Park.”
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=25639940
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=25639940
So until police
forensic tests prove otherwise, we gots a shark here. Wow.
“Hey Rich, let’s take
a cruise to Waimea Beach.”
“Umm… there might be
cops there. Fuck it, sure,” he said.
The sky is clear and
stars sprinkle the dark. We hear the roar of the waves as we walk through the
parking lot and then on to the beach. There are people nearby and we assume
they are the family of Bryan Adona keeping a vigil until morning. An erie feeling
grasps at my insides, a fear of the unknown waters beats in the night air. I
imagine Bryan’s disfigured corpse drifting near and the prowling Tiger shark
search for sea turtles or men or god knows what else. The ocean scares me
tonight. Killer shark night.
We walk along the base
of a steep cliff until we reach a rocky cove. I stand there in the wet sand
with frightful thoughts. Every two minutes thunderous sets bowl in (more
missing journal pieces…. Until I can find them.)
-(loose pages)…. Steely
stares of local Hawaiians. It was a good break from the humdrum of work and
family responsibility— a break to restore a sense of freedom, albeit small
scale. Nights like these made living that much easier.
-Early morning drives
were pleasant and refreshing from the city mainland streets. The ocean, forever
on the right, warm sweet morning along Kam Highway— Sunset Beach and and
surfers already swimming out to meet the waves; Shark’s Cove, a long half
circle of coral rocks where outside the rocky cove, the waves crash and explode
against it; Waimea Bay, where some of the biggest waves in the world have come
and gone, now twenty footers roll in and tower over the curling azure water;
passed the yellow steel Anahulu Bridge;
passed the Haleiwa boat harbor where small groups of men and women are
preparing boats for sailing; through town and the small collection of general
stores, t-shirt shops, liquor store and surf shops; Weed Circle, the rotary
that splits off in two directions: Wailua further west or to Wahiawa south.
Traveling through Wahiawa you pass miles of sugar cane and pineapple fields.
-On the left, the
Wainae mountains thrust out, flirting with the sea— its shady volcanic form
against darkening sea; red sun suspended beneath pink clouds— distant
silhouettes of surfers riding into the dying day.
-life, death and
renewal; end of the beginning— the lesson of the volcano.
-wana means sharp
rocks.
Sunset storm on Sunset
Beach. The big waves crash in all crazy directions; the tide is much higher
than usual and pounds the shore. Mean winds blow and bend the palm trees. Black
clouds bowl over the grey misty mountaintops.
-Me and Rich went to
Shark’s Cove in search of whales on the horizon but it’s too misty and rainy to
see that far so we explore the coral rocks that make up the cove instead. We
follow a sandy path that runs in between all the clumps and piles of coral rock
and it’s wet as we climb to higher heights we are careful of the knife-like
edges. Along this second level, made of coral, are small caves, molded by years
of rushing waves beneath it. We move up and down along the coral and towards
the sea now. It’s a rougher trail. We come to a deep cave beneath that runs
beneath our feet towards the surging ocean. We near the mouth and a cluster of
surprised crabs run off to hide in cracks and seams. A thunderous echo resounds
inside the cave, growing closer and more loud. We are startled and jump back a
few feet as the wave crashes and fires through and moving on to its hidden
destination. We hop up on to a higher level now and the ocean is 75 yards away
and we walk parallel to it along the reef.
-Through Haleiwa, all
during his drive looms the mountain, always in sight like a beacon high above,
it’s deep shady grooves like fat crinkled dinosaur skin— appearing prehistoric
and volcanic as if, any minute, a Pteradactyl would come circling, gliding,
hovering until it is satisfied and disappears into the reptilian day.
-A cluster of palm
trees, at the entrance, grew from a rocky tree root laced and grassy hill. The
palms twisted in intervals and knots, expanding like blowfish when a gusty wind
blew up from the ocean. The wind was chilly; the North Shore expected rain
tonight.
-At Sunset Diners,
four men— three Hawaiians and a Hoele sat at a greasy dirty picnic table and
drank beers and whistled at pretty girls as they walked passed into the
adjacent store for six-packs of beer and post-cards.
-A homeless beach dog
hobbled across the street sniffing out the dark corners of the trash bins.
-A new set of waves
bowled into the shore. It was a relentless pound like the beating of hearts. He
took the keys out of the ignition and his mind went blank. The car seat
upholstery stuck to the back of his legs and sand filled the floor around the
brake and accelerator. The tide was slipping in….
No movement. Just the
black of night.
His thoughts slowly
came back into focus. It was a problem, he thought. On one hand, she’s great…
on the other, she’s a bitch. She’s lazy. She does nothing all fucking day. I
work. I pay the bills. I buy the food… sometimes I like it here with her. I
belong. I have a purpose, family. Other times I’m an outsider with the heart of
a mainlander— a New Englander white ass skin Hoele. She loves it here. I swear
she was born here. It pisses me off that I’m the one that runs the show and
when I want a night out with the boys, she gives me shit for it. Me? I don’t
thinks so. Where’s the problem? That night I got home from Waikiki at 2 in the
morning, she nearly had a fucking heart attack.
-Lounging in the yard.
A cool Kailua breeze and the smokey scent of hotdogs, hamburgers and barbeque
ribs. Beer cans pop open as we watch the families playing croquet on the smooth
grass— the younger kids run around with a soccer ball laughing, kicking and falling.
Parents tend to the real small children who still haven’t mastered walking yet.
Feathers flapping hidden by batches of green coconuts and the radio plays music
in the yard. Bob Dylan sings: “I was so much older then I’m younger than that
now.” A picnic blanket is spread out in the shade of a pine tree; strands of
their beady needles rest gentle.
-close the door so you
won’t hear them.
-The kids waited
excitedly in the the car when a mean scowling Hawaiian biker passed slowly by—
expressionless fat-lipped and sun glasses. He looks at the kids. The younger
child waved. The biker scowled deeper and raced his bike into eucalyptic
heaven. The father in the front seat, whispered, “Fucking Moke.”
Waimea Bay
Waves approach like
thunder and rise up as if from a monster’s throat and a fifteen footer breaks— great globs of
foam spits in the air, wave rushes to the shore as if still in the monsters
throat, the phlegm and then whoosh boom boom… like giant bowling balls rolling
and crashing into the pins. When the set is done, a normal round of seven
footers continue to pound the shore, truly amazing— the sound, vision and angry
sea.
The tide is coming in.
I lean against the rock and think about the shark attack here this morning.
Rich is back aways having a smoke maybe fifteen feet above me too. The night is
cool, soft. I reach into my shirt pocket for a smoke and turn my head to address
Rich when all of a sudden I’m immersed in sea water up to my nipples— surrounded—
images of sharks flash through my brain and Bryan’s corpse. I grab on to the rock tightly and
try and move back towards Rich but the water is so powerful that I can’t move.
After about ten seconds or so, although it seemed like an eternity, the water
receded back across the rocks and I scurried along the rocks with Rich safely
away towards the top. Rich laughed his ass off. “Ha ha man, one minute you were
there, the next, gone. I was getting ready to jump in and save you ass. Hell, I
thought you were sucked out to sea!”
We waited until the
large set was complete and then dashed down to the shore across the beach
toward the parking lot where the beach was bigger and more spread out. Rich
played chicken with the waves; I followed. I was soaked anyway. We inched out
to where the surf died and where our feet sunk deep into the sand and water
fills our footprints. Rich pretends to be a clueless tourist, not paying
attention to where he’s going. The mad onrush of waves echoes. “So anyway… that
Besty sure is hot huh? Sweet little lady she is, that’s right,” he said in
sarcastic voice. As the water surged toward us, nipping at our heels, we’d bolt
like scared puppies laughing nervously away from the shore. Then we’d stand
side by side to see who would run first. The water was warm and if there wasn’t
a damn shark out there I’d go for a swim. Suddenly a wave came in at a blind
angle behind Rich. He didn’t see it as I took a few steps back; as he laughed
in triumph, the water began to surround him quickly and he bounced out before
it got to his waist.
*
Second day in Haleiwa
I nursed a hangover most of the day. Played my first game of tennis in dead
heat, stomach acid heavy and rumbling. Sue was with us, watching us, well, Rich,
running around shirtless and tan; myself white as snow and overweight.
Drove up a mountain
road, overlooking Waimea Bay with Sue and Rich. Lava hardened rocks and red
dirt filled the land. The red from the dirt stains your clothes and won’t come
out, Rich warns. We are at Pu’ uo Mahuka Heiau, a sacred spot for Hawaiians.
*
In Haleiwa coffee is only served in the mornings— a quick wake up call
for surfers or beach bums. Afternoons coffee pots are dead, no interest. At the
Sunset store they refuse to make more. “Only in the morning,” he says. Beside
the store is a restaurant where I spy some old rancid coffee, still hot but
inky. They refuse to make more and “waste” another pot. Jesus. I’m lost.
Where’s the java?
*
I hear the call of the city… the mainland.
*
Driving home from Wahiawa along Kamehameha on sunny day when I reach the
endless stretches of pineapples that recede back as far as the mountains, as
far as I can see. Sweet pineapple Hawaiian air. The fields are cared and
gardened well and even the dirt pathways one walks along the pineapples are
combed down and neat. The fields are owned by Dole and Del Monte. Warnings
signs to stay away from picking them abound fences on both sides of the road.
The road descends nearing sea level and now on both sides are tall sugar stalks
that trail off into the hilly wild— mountains on the left, such bigness with
deep grooves sawthed through them. I imagine so many years ago a great lava
explosion, burning its way down the side leaving huger river-like imprints now
grown with vegetation and trees, thick and green jungle. The road nears the
coastline and the ocean comes into view against a clear blue sky with chunks of
rolly polly clouds drifting by, the ocean suddenly opens up like a miracle and
I’m struck with awe by its majesty. It feels as if I’ve just discovered
Atlantis.
*
A Sunday on Waimea Beach. Boogie boarders and surfers ride the waves (
only five days after Bryan was killed by the Tiger Shark) and the beach is
packed. Lots of military types in early 20’s, army hair; local families and
tourist families; Japanese men wielding cameras with friends. Beside the beach
is a park packed with white families; Hawaiian teens throw around a football and
tennis ball.
Me and Rich just sit on a towel and observe everything.
Suddenly a lifeguard runs toward the beach, megaphone in hand. “You
there! On the bodyboard… you’re out too far!” In a couple of minutes its
apparent that the man on the board has no control and is sliding deeper out to
sea. He is unable or not trying to latch on to a wave to bring himself in. He
just bobs up and down, holding the board, struggling against Waimea current. He
turns in helpless circles. The lifeguard calls out again, “listen… stay calm
and relax. Someone is on their way out. Hold on and relax.”
The man is quickly becoming just a spot on the ocean.
Another lifeguard shoots through the crowd, emergency board in tow. In
the water he guides himself efficiently and effortlessly toward the man,
navigating seven footers, lying down and swimming straight ahead; in short time
he is beside the man. The man grabs hold of the emergency board, clings to it
as the lifeguard begins the journey back to shore. The lifeguard rides along horizontal
to the waves, using the bigger waves to guide him in faster. Stroke after
stroke, fighting the currents with unbelievable strength, he turns on another
wave but just misses it. They hover close to the shoreline, waiting and when
another big surge rises up he grabs it and guides them in safely. I can only
imagine the man has a new respect for the ocean that tried to swallow him.
*
In the backyard of Frank’s house is a big coconut tree. Rich shows me around and picks up a couple of
old ratty coconuts from the ground. He throws one up at a young batch of
coconuts but misses as it gets tangled in branches and palm fronds. He misses
the second all together. The tree is very tall. Towards the bottom is a
cluster, big and green and not ready to fall; while another brown coconut hangs
a foot away. He picks an old coconut up, tosses it and misses over and over
again, no easy feat because of the height. I pick one up and heave it upwards
and just scratch the palm fronds below it. Leaves shake a little. Rich throws
another but this time connects but unfortunately they are too strongly rooted.
I try one more and it sails wide but hits another cluster by mistake just
enough where it knocks off a fresh brown coconut. Rich picks it up and shakes
it. The juice splashes inside. “All right. It’s good,” he said. I toss another
coconut and knock one off again. We’re going to collect as many as possible—
refrigerate them and pour all the sweet juice into a fat container mixed with
rum.
*
Rich takes me to the palm tree. He points to the bark. “See these?” They
used to make spears out of these. Feel how sharp it is,” he said. He pulls down
a long branch, made up of small plates and the plates thin out into blades.
Attached to the blades are sharp points like nails. It reminds me of Vietnam
movie. It would make a nice trip wire device. The tree is thick and the bark
resembles elongated plates reaching upwards in a pattern for about five feet
and then the plates seem to peel and change into thin hard branches with spikes
sprouting off. At the top, palm fronds hang loose and green and like every
picture of any palm tree I’d ever seen. Coconut trees look similar to the palm
trees except, well they have no coconuts.
There is a banana tree in the yard too although it has been stripped of
all bananas. The banana tree is about seven feet tall, thick and leafy and
guarded by flying bugs and geckos that live beneath it. Flies coast around us,
land on our bare feet and hover around my face. Rich pulls off a large leaf
from the banana tree. He puts it on his head like a hat. “Look familiar?” he
asked. I shook my head no. “The Vietnamese in Apocalypse Now. This stuff is
very waterproof,” he said. I took it to the outside water faucet and turned on
the water. The water easily rolls off it.
In the front yard is a papaya tree. It is about five feet tall, a fragile
stalk and made up of a thin green bark that covers a soft light green inside. I
pull on a branch and it breaks easily. Once there were four trees but Frank’s
four year old stepson, Noah destroyed the other three. The mutilated stalks are
chipped off and broken in pieces. On the one good tree are two fresh green
papayas. Rich picks a papaya which looks like a pear. He cuts it open. Inside
the fruit is a thick mass of tiny white seeds. “The outer layer is the edible
part,” he says.
“Can you eat the seeds?”
“You can. I do. Some people don’t like them.”
*
We sit on Sunset Beach with a snapping fire, listening to The Soft Parade
and are pretty drunk or at least, on our way. Beer cans lie scattered around a
bottle of vodka. Behind us is a collection of branches and wood chunks we had
collected from nearby yards. It’s 3:30 in the morning.
We hadn’t seen each other for almost a year and tonight we had been
talking for some time, catching up on things. “Seven months is a long time,”
Rich said. “I figured when I first got here I’d be happy living here for two
months. Real happy— but look, seven months… and one friend later, here I am—
still here. I’m broke now but there’s still a chance I might get my job back. I
feel ready to leave though. I think I’ve gotten all I could here.”
“Things will work out. Hopefully I can find a full time job— you’ll get
back to work and we’ll save up and split,” I said.
A wave roars; it crashes like a stone wall collapsing.
“It’s strange,” I said. “You know, when I traveled across the country to
get here— for the first time in my life— I felt like I was truly alone. I felt
it a little in New York but as I went further along, I felt this big empty
hole. By the time I reached LA I had come to this new understanding about myself.
I look at it this way. Everyone’s got roots somewhere, a home base, family and
friends you know, our ROOTS. We spend most of our lives living off a
comfortable familiar couch— over the years the couch changes shape, color style
but the fact remains, in the end, it’s always going to be the same couch. It is
our support and we take comfort there. We hide from life’s problems when things
go to hell. But when you leave that couch… and you walk out that door… you are
all alone, no support, no familiar comfortable things. You are you, alone. And
it feels strange because you are not used to being alone, you’re not sure if
you is you or not and it’s actually quite scary. And the further you get from
the couch, the things you left behind all turn into one grand illusion.”
“My brothers used to tell me that before I joined the army. You gotta
depend on yourself. I always remembered that.”
“When I was back home I used to believe— theoretically, of course that we
were all alone. I didn’t really understand. But it made sense to a teenager.
Those half baked beliefs about souls I wrote about. It’s one thing to see it’s
point, it’s another to be in it, to live in the aloneness.”
“I’m glad you made it,” said Rich.
The radio went silent as a set of waves rolled in and boomed all around
us.
“This weather makes me lazy— very sluggish and lazy,” I said. “On the
road, my senses were very alert, memory sharp, tuned into everything from
cigarette butts on 6th Avenue or the way homeless smoked butts on
Hollywood Boulevard. Here my brain feels like a sponge.”
“I know the feeling. I used to take the bus into DC on week-ends. I was
aware of everything, all the time. Faces in the crowd, red lights and stop
signs, landmarks to help me find my way,” he said.
“That’s it, exactly.”
The fire dimmed. Rich got up and tossed some more wood upon it and it
smoked thick as the breeze carried it into my face. I buried my head in my
poncho. I smelled like a burnt log.
“We’re gonna have some good times. It already feels like 1986 again. Two
rebellious seventeen year olds with no worries in the world,” said Rich.
We have been best friends since we were sixteen. Rich joined the army for
three years while at the same time, I became romantically involved with Anne
over the same years. Recently, our situations had expired. He had finished
serving and was discharged; myself and Anne simply had different views on our
future together and went our own ways. Now Rich and I were all set to rekindle
our friendship.
“Together again. Let’s make a pact. Work, save money then hit Europe,” I
said.
“Good idea. A toast.”
We banged beer cans.
“We’ll hitch back to Boston and save up enough money and then fly to
Europe,” he said.
“Fantastic. We live in a world where dreams can come true,” I said.
We were real drunk now and never more free and open toward possibility.
*
Oahu’s north shore is a long stretch of country and sea, some farms and
grazing cows, surf shops and convenient stores— congested parking lots at the
beaches. Everything begins to close down at seven o’clock and by nine, nothing
is open except for local bars or restaurants. It is winter and sun sets at 6:30.
In Haleiwa, only Foodland remains open which I believe is the most expensive
supermarket in the country. Sometimes we hit Sugar Bar, other times, Steamers.
These are the only two bars— no swinging nightlife like there is in Honolulu or
Waikiki. Beautiful place to visit; not sure I could truly live here. The drive
to the cities is at least an hour or more and not a smart thing to cruise so
far away for a night of drinking. Give me the city or give me death! When I’m
drunk I get crazy impulses. Here on the north shore, there is a shark prowling
the waters behind us so maybe drinking and swimming is not a good idea either,
or swimming in general. This place is like an exotic South Berwick Maine where
my Grammy lived. There are few houses off Kam Highway and lots of fields and
ocean. Our street, Kapu ‘ai Place is a dead end and through the dead end and a
couple of sandy yards is Sunset Beach. Frank lives on the next street over,
Hoalua Street.
*
Good day for a drive. Rich has to pick up his last check at the military
base in Kaneohe, about an hour and fifteen minute drive, on the eastern side of
island. The speed limit is 45 mph but most drive at 50. On the section of Kam
Highway that runs through sugar and pineapple fields, police helicopters spot
speeders, call it in to the ground where the men in blue await at the end of
the pineapple fields. There is a strict seat belt law and alsoa 1500.00 fine
for driving an uninsured vehicle. Of course Rich’s car is uninsured.
So we pass the Turtle Bay Inn and Royal Hawaiian Shrimp Farm, comprised
of irrigation ditches where they breed delicious shrimp, I might add. On
through Kahuku and its markets and surf shops— the police station, church,
hospital and fire department. Malaikahana State Park. On the drive I’ve
noticed, where the ocean is on my left, the size of the waves have grown
dramatically smaller, 2 to 3 footers. We pass the pictaresque Polynesian
Cultural Center where fat Hawaiians and Samoans wait at the bus stop. On
through Hauula, Kahana and Kaaawa. Kaneohe Bay. Kaneohe is a pretty big suburb
with strip malls gas stations on every corner, McDonalds, music stores and
photography shops— and traffic.
As we near the US air station, Rich hops out to walk and thumb his way
through the base because of his uninsured car. It’s a three mile trek to the
Mokapu Peninsula where he worked to get his check. I take the wheel and head
back toward the Kaneohe traffic to look for help wanted signs while I wait for
Rich to return.
*
Rich is a good companion, like a brother. He is a student of life with
dreams; he is a clown who can pick me up when I’m down. We are very similar—
two guys clowning around through life, playing tricks, laughing and goofing
around. We wear rubber flowers on our shirts, filled with beer and ready to
squeeze and squirt; red over-sized shoes always ready to go somewhere, on the
road, ready to bring our show across the continent.
*
… ah weee, oh well, obladi oblada life goes on bra’— things just don’t
seem to work out the way they are supposed to. Originally our intent, discussed
over the phone nine thousand miles away, was for me to take a Greyhound bus, a
frugal trip directly to LA. I could get to see some of the country by day,
sleep on the bus by night. Once in LA, I would fly to Honolulu, find a full-time
job sooner than later and help Rich out with the rent. Not that he needed the help—
his government contract job was allowing him to live quite the single man’s
life. I think he said he was bringing home 623.00 a week and rent was only
700.00 a month. Big comfortable two bedroom house on the north shore. Our
newest plan is workable. We’ll stay three months (meanwhile this plan depends
on me working), save our money and head for the mainland and then fly to Europe
to thumb around there for a spell.
Well on my road journey west, I drank away my money in bars, ate in nice
restaurants and ultimately missed my flight to Hawaii. Then I spent even more
of it while living in Hollywood for a week until I could snag the Sunday only
99 dollar flight to Oahu. I regret nothing having had a great time, although a
bit excessive. I figure to try that much harder in Hawaii. I left Ma with 700
bucks in my pocket and arrived with 60. Fortunately for me, Rich is all set,
financially. I just have to find a job to carry my own weight.
Two days after I arrived Rich was laid off, indefinitely. The bills are starting
to add up with no income. After four days we are totally broke. I have been
here ten days and still no job on the horizon. I check the classifieds in the
Honolulu Advertiser but no jobs stand out. We live off what we can scrounge
from the earth or Frank. We eat and drink coconuts and any kind of food we find
hiding in dusty cabinets. Rich creates what he can with lettuce, peanuts,
pasta, oatmeal even an old turkey from the freezer that had been there since
Thanksgiving— parsley flakes, oregano, garlic salt add some taste to our dried
meals. Linguine and butter and turkey strips. We drink water, Sue's beer and
Gail's coffee. We bum money off Sue and she once spent $54 on groceries from
Foodland to stock our refrigerator. Frank will drop off a sawbuck to Rich. Sue
buys cigarettes and Beam & Cokes and beer at the Sugar Bar. She puts gas in
Rich’s car. She is going back home to Michigan in two weeks. She loves Rich.
Rich likes her no more than as a friend despite their drunken sex bouts. The
rent is paid until the end of the month and he wants to start selling off his
weight set, radio and whatever else he can so we can get out of here by then.
Lots of pressure. We feel lucky to have met Sue and she has lots of money. Her
dad owns a big company back home that she manages. Anyway, Rich is her lover; I
am her clown. Basically I might be bailing out of Oahu sooner than I wanted to.
*
Rich gets up off the couch and says, “you know, it’s not that bad being
broke— getting back to basics.”
He puts a snipe in his mouth and I start cracking up. He laughs and says,
“yeah, it’s kind of liberating, you know, after making so much money and having
more than enough to get by.”
“I hate it. Back home there was always someone I could borrow money from
until payday. My sister was good with me,” I said.
It does suck. I haven’t not had a job in three years— since I got out of
high school.
*
Banzai Pipeline and Sunset Beach.
*
Sunset blow outs— waves come crashing and spraying in at all angles and
it’s like looking in on a washing machine with all that thrashing.
*
The free North Shore News community bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser, .35
cents.
*
Still have lots of character sketches from the road to write that I
haven’t touched upon— bad attitudes of surly Greyhound drivers, the girl from
Connecticut, Tyrone in St. Louis, the ride from Grand Junction to Las Vegas and
the ride from Vegas to LA, the marine stationed in Hawaii, some poetry and
fiction— get job and save money! – hit Honolulu and Waikiki. Right now, doesn’t
look like I’ll be at this address too long to get most of my writing plans
done— pick up London’s book, Tales of Hawaii from Haleiwa bookstore— keep
journal updated— get road maps of the mainland. Oh well, enough now— main
priorities, get job and update journals.
*
The cockroach turning to dust and nothing, slowly eaten away by the ants—
wonderful metaphor for me and Rich in current situation. Each time I enter the
bathroom, it gets a little thinner and empty and the round pile of grey dust
around the corpse grows bigger and higher like a cluster of sand.
*
The armies of tiny ants that storm out from tiny holes in the wall to
eat, and steal droplets of food on countertop, to feast, in working numbers,
almost secretly hiding in the mess of dirty dishes and beer cans and newspapers.
Food is food to an ant. It’s survival. Taste buds matter none. This is possibly
another metaphor to develop later on.
*
dream: “This is what you do,” says Rich. “Get a job at the Turtle Bay Inn.
The place has lots of rich characters. It’s so easy. You get into their rooms
and you can pocket five hundred bucks easy.” He grabs a wad of cash from a
mirrored cabinet.
*
The banana tree— I see a young batch of twenty, growing upward,
pointing out and up; above it, a coconut tree four stories high with many young
green sacs of coconuts.
*
I drive home from Wahiawa. The workers are in the pineapple field along
the road— dozens of men and women lined up along a big farming machine with a
long arm that reaches across the field; they stand alongside the arm, toiling
and sweating— they wear heavy protective cloth and head cloth. I see all this
in a magical instant from the corner of my eye. I see the brown mustachioed
face of a Hawaiian straining his body above thousands of pineapples, breathing
in the sweet smelling fruit.
*
Coming into the big blue town of Haleiwa.
*
Rich’s dream: We are traveling and in the midst of a break, somewhere. We
have two smokes left. He smokes one and I flip out. He points ahead, two
separate fingers, V-shaped, signifying that we are going our own ways. We split
up.
*
Kam Highway into town and the looming mountain stays in your sight, its
deep shady grooves like the fat of a dinosaur— a very prehistoric feel. The
fine drive into downtown Haleiwa— pass Sunset Beach and surfers and golden
legged girls; the Banzai Pipeline, a popular and dangerous surf spot; Shark’s
Cove made of a tall coral reef formation that forms a wall, in the shape of an
arch, a wall that typically is pounded by waves; Three Tables, a spot where
about fifty yards out are three separate flat coral rocks, in line with one
another in which the surf rises over them; Waimea Bay, surfers glory, biggest
waves in the world and where they hold the Quicksilver tournement in honor of
Eddie Aikua— drive over the quaint yellow double arched steel Anahulu Bridge
and pass the calm Haleiwa Boat Harbor and then into town— general stores,
bookstores, the church, t-shirt shops, liquor stores, banks— Shaved Ice and
Steamer’s Bar and Grill; the post office and North Shore News building and on
passed Cane Haul Road that marks the spot of the only traffic light in town, a
blinking yellow single light; then swing around Weed Circle, a rotary that
leads into Wailua or Wahiawa— and throughout the drive, looking out Rich’s car,
looms the mountain, like a beacon and that prehistoric feel and I imagine a
Pterydactyl circling the high zenith and to hover momentarily before gliding
away into that reptilian day.
*
The outskirts of Kuhuku, right side there is a wind-farm and deeper into
the distance protruding out from dark treetops, is the world’s largest
windmill. It is white but for the red tips on each pillar.
*
We drive into Huuhula to Sacred Falls. We have a long hike ahead of us. At
the entrance we follow a long dirt path. Huge mountains swell around us. We
pass privately owned gardens of banana and papaya trees— and a strange plant of
hard green leaves that hang from a thick center, it looks like a tall spider
plant, if one existed, with sharp thorned leaves— another plant 7 feet tall
with spiraling leaves that run down a thorny stalk. Just ahead are flash flood
and falling rock signs. A new path blends into the old one, covered by trees,
the path framed by trees that seem to form a round cave around us, like a
tunnel and our new path is more narrow but shady and we walk through the
valley, ascending passed mountain streams littered with rocks and bulging trees
roots across the mud like snakes. Hot hike; we sweat. A tree bends and creaks
in the quiet. Suddenly the mountains appear again and we are at the foot and
the mountain is so close, we look up as if we were on a street looking up at
skyscrapers. Just ahead of us is a group of Australian girls taking pictures.
One of them asks jus how far we are from the waterfall. Rich isn’t sure. I say
that because I hear flowing water that it shouldn’t be too much further. Off we
go and one last push over a jumble of huge boulders we arrive at Sacred Falls.
There is a group of people already there, sitting on the rocks, cameras
in laps and watching the thin waterfall land in the shallow pool. I light a
cigarette. I wash the sweat from my face and chest— cold mountain water, like
ice. Rich walks to the pool and without delay dives in and swims to the far end
just to the right of the waterfall, to a short slippery ledge that he tries to
climb but slips each time. The people around us can’t believe he went into the
cold water. I look up and we are surrounded by high green valley walls. I hear
a rock fall somewhere and it crashes down, echoing off the walls and everyone
looks up, nervously, hoping they don’t get hit by the next one. Rich is still
trying to get up on the ledge, still slipping. I finish my smoke and walk to
the ledge. A couple from San Francisco can’t believe I’m thinking about going
in as well. I say, “well, it’s not as cold as the rivers of New Hampshire.” I
jump in. It’s cold, real cold but not as numbing as eastern waters. I swim over
to Rich and he finally gets up on the ledge. The people clap for him. I now try
and each time I slip right back into the water.
Suddenly a helicopter zooms over us and hovers there and the sound of the
engine and the propeller fill the valley, fill my ears, shattering the quiet
and shaking the valley walls. I look up, waiting, just waiting for it to start
an avalanche and kill us all. It has to be a guided tour helicopter. What an
idiot.
Then, it’s gone and nothing has fallen, no one is hurt and everything is
quiet except for the muffled whispers surprised hikers and and the hushed
waterfall. My eyes still looking up, I turn to the waterfall where it begins
its fall, fifty feet above me, a light soft stream. Rich says the last time he
was here, the waterfall was big and loud and the walls (now bare) were covered
with thick vegetation and shrouded in mist. There hasn’t been as much rain. I
climb out of the water and take a seat on a rock. I go through m y bag and pull
out the coconut. I crack it open. Rich joins me now. I peel off the shell. We
drink the juice and eat a piece of coconut before beginning our journey back to
the car.
*
The highest point of a wave is the crest; the lowest, the trough. Waves
don’t move the water. That is the illusion. Waves move through the water,
leaving the water in it’s place. Long periods between sets are called lulls.
The curling mass of water on the wave is the tube. The act of riding waves is
an ancient act for porpoises, seals, sharks, killer whales, fish and birds.
Waves peel laterally, plunging breaker with hollow face. Tunnel-like formation,
barrels. Outgoing currents of water between breaking waves are riptides or
rips.
*
dead wide stare
*
Laie Point in Kahuku. From the distance the rock is a huge flat reef that
sticks out into the rough Pacific— in the middle of the reef is a long egg
shaped hole, like a cave that you can see through. We exit the car and walk
some 200 yards to a jetty first, made of soft dirt and as we near the middle to
the end of peninsula, the ground becomes sharp coral and we slip on our shoes.
Ocean spray and foam rise up over the reef and the boom of waves pounds our
ears. The coral turns to barnacles and the rock becomes even sharper as the
coral sticks up like steak knives. Careful advancement. Scattered holes in the
coral allow me to look at the water beneath us— it’s almost like peering through
a bridge grate to see a river. If I should fall, I’m in for a nasty cut.
.jpg) |
| Me and Rich at Laie Point |
Me, Rich and Sue wander out close to the edge and the wind howls and
waves explode and and spray and splash on us. Big sea crabs roam in tidal
pools. Sue slips, catches herself but still scrapes her leg and moves away. Me
and Rich crouch down, coral spears beneath us, waiting. All I want is a big
wave to smash the reef so I can photograph it. As this thought enters my mind,
without warning the biggest wave yet comes out of nowhere and slams the rock and
completely soaks us. Slowly we get up and make our way back, laughing of
course.
*
Sunset Beach. Me and Rich walk through the sand. We’ve just missed sunset
but I can just see the hot orange glow burning on the horizon. Surfers are
riding final waves in; while a few remain until darkness envelopes the sea.
*
Dream: There is a big party back on the east coast for Paul Mallet. I
assume I have to throw it for him and take care of all the necessities. I am
at some station waiting in line. Mike Hart walks by, doped up wearing leather
and in a depressed state. With his eyes straight ahead he passes me by. I avert
him. I don’t want to converse with him. Throughout this scene there is a mood,
maybe a déjà vu— that I’m heading back home to a haunted past where everything
is dead. I say to the ticket clerk at the window, “one way ticket to New York.”
The party is in a big mansion. Not many people there at first. There is plenty
of food, alcohol and open space but few people. The dream turns hazy. After all
my efforts to put this party together I’m left with a feeling that somehow I
really didn’t have to come home— that they didn’t need me.
*
My first north shore sunset. Me and Rich are in the backyard of Sue and
Cathy’s apartment on Haleiwa Road near the village. Their backyard is on the
ocean and the water is warm and gentle. Once the sun’s pilgrimage begins, the
time is short. I sit in the water and stare at the hot sun, sinking above Hawaiian landscape. Soft waves roll in. Clouds darken and drift by like
figures. The fading sunlight reflects off the ocean, shimmering like light from
heaven. I stare at it for movement but I can’t see the movement yet I see that
it it seems to be closer to the mountaintop. I can’t see the actual movement.
My thoughts zoom back to Randolph, of memories and feelings. Suddenly I
miss my dog, Brandy; my family and friends; neighbors and acquaintances; people
I knew in the laundromat and the bookstore; Anne and Tonya and what might have
been; Dano and his drunken freedom; Jamie and his phone conversations about
life’s absurdities; my house, bedroom of a thousand tales; the radio station
and Scott’s love for sports; my brother Dave and all his buddies’ goofy obscene
proverbs and attitudes; Wabrek’s discussions on life music and success; Slabs
and his wild talk; my sister Dawn and her warm heart; punishing New England
snowstorms and sweltering muggy summers; ice skating on ponds and swimming in
cold beaches— images of home float through my mind and my heart is lonely like
the sea— sunset, such magnificence and amazing physics— the sun now passing
behind the mountain, sinking. Still, I stare and still, it moves and I’m blind
to it’s movement. The sky reddens, the ocean darkens and only a slither of
light lands on the shore. In one magical animated movement I saw it move— the final
drop as it disappeared. Only shades or crimson remain, a watercolor on the sky
as night moves in— harbinger of dreams and nightmares, full of purpose and
unrest. I know now the choice I made to come west was right and it was time for
new purpose, lessons and adventures.
*
We picked up two hitchhikers on Kam Highway. The girl, dressed in a Tye-dye dress was Angel; the man in Tye-dye t-shirt and cut off jeans was Joe.
They left Northern California and moved here. “LA’s cool, man but this is
paradise,” said Joe.
*
Trapped, broke and frustrated on a tropical island.
“Look,” said Rich.
“Wow. That’s cool,” I said.
“I see them all the time.”
One end reached up from Haleiwa.
“Just maybe there’s a pot of gold waiting for us,” I said.
*
Waves lick the shore like probing tongues. Tourists capture post-card moments
of their loved ones. Walking through this sand is like trudging through snow;
my feet sink about 3 inches into the sand. Surfers ride twenty footers. Near
Pipeline, I stop to rest and lean upon a fat smooth coral rock, shaped like a
bureau. I happen to look over, behind the coral rock and there is a Polynesian
girl or perhaps a local hoele who is lying out naked, beautiful golden skin,
round white breasts and thick brown nipples. Her face is hidden from my eyes
because of the angle I’m at. Her body just absorbs the sun.
*
Having used up it’s energy, the wave flickers and dies upon the shore
like a candle flame.
*
I imagine myself surfing— strong currents pull me off course but I regain
direction and paddle out. My board gleams from the sun shining on beads of
water. The further I get the bigger the waves— I rise up over a soft swell. My
buddies are out too.
“Hey bra, good surf!”
I’m out 200 yards now and there are five others nearby, waiting… a set
begins to chug down from behind us. A cool one is upon me and I break, swimming
full steam. I rise with it but can’t catch on and I fall upon its back— I’m
pissed— nearly had it. Then another comes, bigger, looks like 18 feet from
trough to crest. I rise up and catch it. I hop up on the board, knees and
hands— I’m on it now and cruising. The wave peels off toward me— the lip
encircles me— huge tunnel of water. It closes quick and I shift my weight, then
zoom, I’m out of the barrel. Two surfers trying to duck the wave nearly cross
my path and I turn nearly knocking his head off. Not paying attention and
commending myself for avoiding the crash now I was caught in the barrel— it
closes up then, crash. My body slapped hard into a blast of sea-foam, my board
having slipped from under me. I write along in the breaker.
*
hot dreams
*
someone told me that God is the Devil on acid; bullshit, the Devil is God
drunk on whiskey.
*
going through my journal and found this in some old papers so I’ll save
it here and maybe work on it when I leave Hawaii. It was probably written last
summer in 1991:
Hi Jack.
Life is pretty depressing. Remember freedom and unattached spontaneity?
Sitting around without a care and then a spur of the moment idea with Rich or
Dano and we were gone. Drinking beers in the afterglow of a long softball game—
ideas popping in our heads— journeys in the future. Remember the unchecked life
and brotherhood of friends? Remember? Where’s Dano? Where you would like to be?
Well he has his daily responsibilities— we all do but he’s free. Is he free?
Where’s Rich? He’s in the army and his soul is more free than mine. Doesn’t
that make you sick? Remember the glory of abandonment and choice? I could
choose my next adventure, unchallenged. How sadly happy I was then.
Still there Jack?
That freedom of choice that no one could intefere except for yourself. I
was alone and on top. That’s me beside the camp fire near the waterfall— and
there I am in Boston screaming obscenities at statues. Now I am chained in the
mud, trapped in an unfamiliar body. If I could shed this new skin and celebrate
life, my soul, and freedom. I will go far away and discover new things. Let me
pack my bags. There is a vast land out there. Leave her alone.
I’m coming Jack.
*
Sunset Beach, week-end, sun, surf— today there are surfing tournaments— past victors of Eddie Aikua championships— lots of players today.
It’s hot and tropical and sand burns my feet. Waves roll in
between 5 to 10 feet. Thin tan beauties sprawled on blankets— beer drinking
buddies laughing loudly— families, tourists, mostly American and Japanese—
military boys and Dead Heads— a person on a horse canters along the shoreline
ignoring barking dogs— body surfers in the shallows— music coming from a band,
well, a trio jamming the song Brown Eyed Girl on a makeshift stage and huge
speakers. Their music has a reggae Hawaiian feel— a
real party atmosphere. A voice comes over the PA to announce that the next heat
is in 15 minutes. Jet skiers pull out surfers toward the bigger waves. A
helicopter patrols the beach-line.
*
Shark’s Cove at sunset. The reef stands beneath the
setting sun, the waves pound it. Once upon a time, sharks patrolled the cove
here in search of food and territory. Now it is a training ground for snorkelers
and divers. I am alone. The range of mountains on the left, they jut out into the
sea— the shadowy volcanic form against darkening ocean— the red sun suspended
beneath pink clouds— silhouettes of surfers, waiting for the final set of this
Hawaiian day.
*
Pearl City is pretty big, urban— main street with
shopping malls many traffic lights and three lane roads. I drove Kam Highway
south to H2 in Wahiawa. Real highway— first 55 MPH sign I’ve seen in quite a
while. Lousy traction on the roughly grooved pavement. Then I take H1 ( Kam
Highway again) and roll into Pearl City. Houses and apartments rest along the
green mountains. The sky is clear. Pearl Harbor comes into view and I can see
the Arizona Memorial.
I enter through the Bowfin/Submarine museum and bounce
toward the USS Arizona museum. The ticket clerk hands me a ticket for a shuttle
boat that goes out to the memorial. I look around the museum: big models of
the Arizona before, during and after the attack; models of Pearl Harbor and the
city on that fateful morning; profiles of heroes; photographs (one particular
picture of a sailor reminds me of a Neal Cassady picture) and paintings of the
fleet; a torpedo from one of the planes that the navy later found— unsure of
the unpredictability of its mechanism, they blew it up and only the exploded
shell remains on display; memorabilia from 1941— matchbook covers, magazine
covers, books, war mottos, military insignias, navy uniforms, coins, a pack of
Lucky Strike cigarettes.
My group lines up at a theater for a twenty five minute
documentary— a black and white film including live footage from the massacre as
well as politics and culture of the day. Interesting. After the film we hit the
shuttle boat and cruise through the harbor. The shuttle boat is driven and
supervised by two navy women. A National Parks guide rattles off information
over the loudspeaker. I imagine it would be a pretty methodical job having to
narrate this history a dozen times a day or however many tours they run. I look
out over the side; water sprays my face lightly and cool breeze blows my hair. The
water is green and calm as we pass by brick landmarks representing where
each ship had been stationed— Oklahoma… Utah… and so forth. The guide tries to
recreate the mood of Sunday, the 7th of December. He points to where
the planes came from ( from the road through the pineapple field on Kam
Highway, Rich had pointed out a little Hershey’s kiss formation that was the
lowest part of the mountain and that is where the planes entered the island) and
who was awake or asleep. The shuttle pulls up along the landing platform at the
memorial. Everyone scatters with cameras and camcorders (I’ve got Frank’s
camcorder). I pause along the railing and look down. I see the infamous rainbow
effect— where the ship’s oil still leaks into the harbor and it is puddled
along the surface in spots, oozing oily color. Nearby is gun turret #3, poking
out of the sea, thick and round and empty weathered steel, ghost-like. Red
buoys mark the stern and bow. However the sunlight is very bright upon the
water making perception below difficult. I can barely make out the outlines,
shadows, shapes and forms of buried ship. Out near the bow and stern, small
pieces of the ship stick out and water trickles by like river water passing
over a rock. Very solemn place. Towards the shoreline, contemporary ships are
busy at the dock. It’s difficult for me to imagine that there are men still
buried inside the ship, watery graves— skeletons now— brothers and sons trapped
by death. Eerie feeling standing there imagining December 7th 1941.
I look out toward the mountains where the planes crossed to surprise America,
the world. Deadly awakening.
Upon leaving the shuttle boat and coming to land again,
the driver tells me that Pearl Harbor is a breeding ground for Hammerhead
sharks. Man would I love to see one!
*
*
Lively song of geckos at night.
*
Hawaiian images and definitions: sapphire bays, the slurp
of water on the shore; Hau tree forest— Hau tree goes earthward spreading
itself long dense tangled into a forested maze; mud sliding on ti leaves; tako
is octopus; lauhala mats are leis strung from hikes to Kalaawa Valley and other
remote places; monkey pod trees; pikake, kou, plumeria are blossoms strung into
leis; lei wili is popular twisted lei; poki is rwaw fish and salmon with
tomatoes; talk story is an exchange of stories at the end of the day; the
hawaii ahana is a feeling of brotherhood and family among Hawaiians; luau is
the myth of Pele, the fire Goddess— life, death, renewal, the end, the
beginning— the lesson of the volcano while punawai is a psychic energy from the
natural dynamism at the volcano; coffee trees; mountain apple trees; unmarked
police camaros; dominant motif in music is Jawaiian, a montage of Hawaiian and
Jamaican reggae; medakas are mosquito fish; mon is the family crest; the Hawaiian islands are just the tips of huge volcanoes that have slowly built up
from the depths of 18,000 feet as the result of countless underwater eruptions.
*
more images and definitions: the island foot wear are
slippers with two straps crossed in the middle right over the instep; oama is
slender white fish three to four inches long that are fished; the spirit of
aloha or ohana; beaches packed by 7 in the morning; laulima means to accomplish
together; for lunch I ate a fish burger with pineapple juice and for supper,
noodles, egg fu young and seschuan chicken and cream cheese danish— great day.
*
Depressing day. Thoughts, such hopeless strings like
dried leis. The night before I was to start my first job on the island, at
McDonalds of all places, me and Rich drank whiskey to celebrate my new income
but I got wasted, woke up late and drunk and after some consideration about
calling them with some crazy excuse, I went back to sleep. Fucked myself there.
I need another job, quick in order to stay on Oahu at a cheap bed and breakfast
for a couple of months. Rich told me he’s heading back to the mainland no
earlier than next week. I’ll have no place to live or money to live off. Very
scary situation. Need a job, a shit job, Taco Bell at $4.25 an hour— anything
to get by and save. Poor Jamie doesn’t know what he’s in for when he gets here.
He’ll be in Honolulu by Sunday. Today has been shit. Rich and Sue woke up on
the wrong side of the bed— both very bitchy but in subtle aggravated ways. I’m
sick of being broke and jobless and dependent on others for food. Horrible
feeling of helplessness and free loaderness. I will get a job because I ain’t
going back to the mainland with tail ‘tween my legs. Things will work out.
*
Billowy pillows of silver on Sliver Mountain; fingers of
light through the blinds.
*
Sunset storm and bug of travel and highways and leaving.
*
Books to get: Waimea Summer by John Dominis Holt and
Captain Cook by Aldyth Morris
*
Storm at Sunset, waves crash in all directions and the
tide is closer than usual— scraping the shore, The winds bend the palm trees.
Black clouds bowl across the mountains, below it grey and cold and I’m wearing
my jacket that I last wore in Denver. I sip on Vodka and Strawberry/Guava
nectar mix— sweet but a little thick like cough syrup. Storm rages on and high
winds as I sit there in the sand. It’s as if the natives had wronged Pele.
*
… shades and shades and shades of blue green and green
blue and mountains and sea.
*
Sunset I saw night
and day join together— streaky light pink clouds with the sun now gone except
for faint traces of light that mark the horizon as the black starry night
dotted above the clouds moves in.
*
Magna and Bristol cigarettes. Coconuts and juice.
Linguini and butter and spices. Old salads. Turkey and linguini. Fried turkey
and spice. Rice clumps. The hell of smoking the last cigarette. The bliss of
cracking a new pack. An occaisional meal, lasagna at Frank’s house or Sue’s
splurges at McDonalds. A borrowed spoonful of sugar and half cup of milk. Taste
buds that don’t register taste anymore. Simple eating process to survive and
comfort the twisting chambers of an empty stomach.
*
Shark’s Cove. Downpour of rain. Me and Rich have come to
a whale watch but it’s too misty and difficult to see. We hang out anyway and
explore the long stretch of coral reef. We climb on sharp edges, weave in and
out and up and down and pass caves molded by waves and sand pits drenched with
water. We reach a relatively deep cave beneath a large coral pillar and I can
hear the ocean run through it— at first it rises up like an echo and it grows
louder until the wave crashes beneath us, startling me as it continues flowing
by through hidden path. It’s like an amazing natural tunnel. Huge waves burst
against the reef filling up natural pools of water. Small fish swim in the
pools. As we near the pool, the scared fish jump to the next pool to escape us.
They are quick and graceful. Seawater rushes over the edges of the reef.
Sometimes big crabs— dark green spidery creatures cut across the rock from one
hole to another hole. I cautiously approach the edge and look down hoping to
see a reef shark. Fifty feet or so from the edge, submerged but, for a half
foot sticking out above the surface was a series of table-like flat shelves.
Waves swell up mighty and powerful and crash— rising up and over the shelves
toward us, spitting mad and wild and it slams the edge. The water gets sucked
back out like a natural powerful vacuum. We continue to dodge knife-like coral
daggers. The rain falls hard and I am completely soaked as the winds howl above
the roaring ocean. Another big wave crashes over the shelf, bursting toward us
like a volcanic blast of curling grey smoke. If we don’t run we’ll surely be
caught and dragged into the sea— we bolt thirty feet or so until the wave dies
out behind us. Further down the reef is another shelf with a near perfect round
hole in the center of it and when the swells rise above and back, it fills up
like a huge drain. Rain comes down even harder now.
“Banzai Bartelamia and Sunset Jim venture out into the
land of coral people,” I said.
Towards the Pipeline, a few yards from where the shelves
break are three singular square shelves covered with wet green vegetation—
once standing tall and united now broken into fragments as water rushes up,
filling the cavities between the square shelves and then draining away back
into the sea until the next swell. The power of the sea here is just amazing to
me, I’m in awe really. I look past the coral rocks toward the Banzai Pipeline
and surprisingly it is empty as big round tubes roll in.
*
Possible story ideas— conflict and sadness in Hawaii. An
unhappily married man rethinks the idea of what makes a perfect wife. Or a
homeless man who lives on the beach with no job, money, home or friends.
*
moving
sale
yard
sale
last call
sale
great deal for friends
sale.
Going to California
With a backward glance
Of western volcanic nights.
*
Looking over my shoulder nine thousand miles away where
the season grows cold bare white as sickness. I think I might be leaving this
world of blue green light and tropical sun.
*
Haole man, that’s me, haole man. All us haoles. Island
mix of cultures— Chinese, Japanese, Samoans and Filipinos among many and me,
haole. Tourist machine, this island. Haole money. English, Australians. I am
white man, an outcast in the jungle. A white nigger. One time me, Rich, Sue and
Denise went to a bar in Puhululu for last call. While I was drunkenly putting
the moves on some blond, Rich was at the other end of the bar being rousted by
local Hawaiians who didn’t appreciate us being in there bar. Another time,
after we had just finished playing basketball beside the tennis courts, as we
were walking back to the car, we passed a group of 8-12 year olds, boys and
girls playing ball. Suddenly a heavy local Hawaiian girl broke from the pack
and chased a little white boy, screaming at him, “I’ll kick your haole ass!”
*
Endless patterns of green triangles and bushes— sloping
and sunlit; beside each other and piled on top and buried underneath; clouds
smoking through cracks between valleys and peaks— huge upside down triangles; rivers of bulging mountain rock; a neon smokiness where clouds roam
mountain tops like ghosts.
*
I still think of Anne. Before I sleep I visualize her
house— her old farty folks, her cluttered bedroom, the chipped staircase and
toy littered living-room. I guess I’m still hurt by love. I wonder how her life
is now with her new boyfriend. I wonder if Anne is still lazy. I wonder about
Tonya. Stay at home and be happy? Before I sleep the ghosts come.
*
dream: Me and Ralph and others are sitting around the
living-room (where I sleep). Ralph has just finished reading one of my older
poems, a trippy poem. After he finishes he says, “wow, man this is some really
good shit. You’re a pretty good writer.”
*
Ralph is Frank’s best friend, well at least here on the
island. Rich has become close to Ralph too. They’ve all been pretty tight since
Rich got here seven months earlier. Sometimes, I feel like the outsider looking
in.
*
Before I showed up Rich was all set— great job, nice
apartment beside Sunset Beach, family on next street. Then I show up, broke
from frivolous spending on the road and then Rich gets laid off. Two months
later, Rich is heading back east and I’m not sure what to do.
*
I guess I knew I loved her but I knew too that it had to
end.
*
Does one drift and then settle or settle and then drift?
*
Kailua, the eastern shore of Oahu. Smooth powdery beach.
A mostly white city, haoles where they are friendly and not scowling and
shaking their fists. In the distance the mountains loom over Kaneohe Bay.
*
dream: I’m with Tony Hall, who once broke into my
parent’s house and robbed us. We’re hanging out in his room. He’s got three
different girls phone numbers. I knew these girls. The third was a Braintree
phone number and beneath it, it read Anne and Jim (Anne’s new boyfriend). I
realize they are living together and probably married.
*
Heading back to the mainland. I’ll sell my car back home
for a few hundred bucks. Rich has close to a thousand. No excess this time and
stay away from bars. I still want to stay here but oh well, Boston here I come.
I think that’s why I’ve been dreaming of Anne. I think she represents to me the
evil back home, the evil angel in black. If only I could find an affordable
place here, a Bed and Breakfast even. Anyway, when I get home I’m not staying
too long— long enough to save five hundred bucks and hit Europe with or without
Rich. He will be ready to go. He will be ready to go when we get back and if he
wants to go right away and wants me to come I will decline having already taken
enough charity from him— had enough here although neither one of saw the job situation
unexpectedly unfold. At least I learned much about a new culture these past
couple of months.
*
Writing is my life, the one thing that has any true value
to me.
*
I lounge in the yard listening to Bob Dylan.
“I was so much older then I’m younger than that now….”
Evening knocks upon the sun over the sea— cool breeze;
hamburgers, hot dogs barbequed ribs grilling as beers pop open and fizz fizz oh
what a relief it is. Games played with the kids— crochet and soccer while
parents tend to the diapered ones so innocent and tiny. Above my lawn chair I
hear the flapping of feathers and I look up into the coconut tree and beside
batches of young green coconuts are four birds, hanging out, on branches and in
an alternate world, no doubt, reflecting on humanity.
*
The Christmas trees of Hawaii— the Norfolk pines, which
look like the typical Christmas tree except that they consist of thin beady
pines.
*
Spitting forth emotion like lava…what to do, where to
go, how to do it? The future laid out in uncertain terms. Once the plan was
plain and open but now very uncertain. Get ticket to San Diego for a hundred
bucks and thumb to Seattle. From Seattle, along the Canadian border where
weather, no doubt will become a problem, an enemy— the cold north. Camping or
hostels or cheap motels if we freeze or become sick. Route 90 through Seattle,
tip of Idaho, Montana. Hook up with 94 East through North Dakota, Minnesota,
Wisconsin and Chicago. On through northern Indiana and Ohio and then if
possible, if we’re not broke and sick then switch to 80SE to 76 in Pennsylvania
and all the way to good old 95 S and down to Virginia to visit friends and
recuperate before heading back to Boston. If I run out of money before
Virginia, I’ll split up in Ohio and follow 80 into New York City. The trip home
should be interesting. My original route to LA took me through Ohio, Indiana,
Indianapolis, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and LA.
*
58037 Kapu’ai Place fart shows. Prewake hours, me and
Rich blasting out loud cheesy snaps, trying to out do each other— he from the
bedroom, me from the couch. Sometimes we battle at night too, laughing
ourselves to sleep, blowing our horns like musicians.
*
rich’s dream: he reaches out for love as if it were
something to touch or grasp, as if it were a physical thing but he can’t touch
it. This aggravates him— not to be able to touch such a common thing as love.
*
On Kam Highway not a day passes without seeing a military
convoy— trucks packed with soldiers in camouflage uniforms and painted faces.
I’ll miss this place— the local moke biker— cool mean face with dark eyes and
snarling fat lips who looks straight ahead unflinching; surf gods and their
snarled beachy hair; bouncing strides of Daddy Long Legs; eucalyptic heaven; at
Three Tables I dream of waking up to a beautiful Australian woman. I guess at
this point I’ve said all I can. Unlock secrets of my soul— find old rooms and
clean dirty windows of years. Visualize inside— new compartments of truth. Poor
lonely lives sucked away in psychic suicide squeeze. Find old characters in new
skins, new beginnings… imagine such awareness to remember how the nick on the pen came to be.
*
Knock upon eyes, open
vessels; webs spin
to capture that
which brings to life.
*
Heat sleep
webbed feet.
Eyes ache to open
earlier than before.
*
The poet’s song from tropics
what to sing
who to listen?
Songs of season
summer’s long harvest;
spacious seas
surfer’s bliss
North Shore shenanigans.
So far away.
So so far
from home.
*
Who are you?
Your purpose?
A dab, slab, a tab—
stuck out back.
Unlock histories
to show the way out.
We all just seem to be here—
you, me, he and she
spiraling circles
our orbits crossing over
that lead nowhere
to implode.
*
Three Tables: the white pad of paper, beneath this sun is
too white and blinding. My hands’ shadow helps me to see where I write. I’m in
love with the women on the North Shore— two sweet shapely blonds on my left are
sunbathing topless. Another pair of girls are in front of me, a little further
away— one, young, slender and pretty and her blond friend, tanned, a bit on
heavy side but attractive as hell. Nearby are two bearded gay men drinking
sodas and watching the horizon. I look toward the surf where the waves are
swelling up, breaking and crashing monstrously. Nothing really happens at the
beach.
*
An island. Big circle of land. Grows old, tired. Eats
itself up with inactivity. Round and round, a series of implosions until there
is nothing left— except stuffed sharks.
*
Heavy sleeper drenched in dreams and untold stories that
never surface the light of day.
*
Quotes:
“There is a dream dreaming us.” I read this somewhere and
don’t know who said it.
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone
with others. Unfold your own myth.” Rumi
“We have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the
heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we
have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to
find an abomination, we shall find a god… where we had thought to travel
outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought
to be alone, we shall be with all the world.” Joseph Campbell
“One realm we have never conquered— the pure present. One
great mystery of time is terra incognito
to us— the instant. The most superb mystery we have hardly recognized—
the immediate, instant self.” DH Lawrence
*
The Wainaea mountains on the west; the east, from Kuhuku
to Makapuu and the Koolau range. From Wainaea to Dillingham Field and Pearl
City; Waipahu, these beautiful western mountains glow.
Traveling around the island, heading south east passed
Kuhuku, Laie, Punaluu, Kaneohe, Kailua, Makapuu and on through Honolulu; now
heading north again we travel through Waikiki, Pearl City. The magnificent
mountains split the coast and the interior— and on through Waipahu, Wahiawa and
home to Haleiwa.
*
Me and Rich drove to Dillingham Field. The road heads
straight out to sea as the Wainaea mountains guide us along the road. We spot
where Rich had skydived a few months ago— when he had money and was happily
lonely. Off the road are rocky clusters and muddy parking lots and small
beaches. At the end of the road, the pavement turns into a rough terrain of
rocks. I guess we’ll see what the little Toyota Corona is made of! We drive, in
search of smoother surfaces in order that we can reach the end without getting
stuck. The car clickity clacks over rocks and gaps. The rougher it gets, the
slower we move. The car starts to overheat. I dream of bringing a girlfriend
here for wine and music, tucked away on a hidden beach. The road becomes tumbly
and too rocky to continue. We get stuck in a thick sandpit momentarily. We
unstick. Then the car stops again. I get out. The front axle is stuck upon a
tall boulder… later, Sugar Bar for Coors beers.
*
From Kapu’ai Place across Kamehameha Highway, my gaze
rests upon the Koolau mountains— big and round and covered with trees and
vegetation. Rich points to a herd of cows feeding along the steep mountain
ledge. Their outlines are clear enough against the blue sky. One stands alone,
seemingly over the edge, miraculously cheating gravity. She appears black and
white and huge like an elephant— feeding by a tree.
*
Campbell Industrial Park: Atlas Sales (where I work in a
scaffolding yard)
*
On opening, I draw a blank.
*
Excitement is a strange thing. I get caught in its power
like a helpless victim. Feels good but strange. I go with it— uncontrolled by
my free will— I roll and can end up anywhere or with anyone. Excitement IS a
strange thing. I lose rationale and reason and a myriad of things can happen.
It is good. It keeps me forever in good perspective.
*
Umbrella rooftops and china man hats spread out over the
hills of Honolulu.
*
Waikiki— Jack London was here before the tourist boom—
before Hawaii was a state in the early 20th century— even before
Kerouac. Those are my thoughts as I sit in the Shore Bird Lounge within a hotel
near Beach Walk. Rich is outside, swimming in the blue green shallows, peppered
with coral rocks. The surf breaks far out and travel in at a quiet 3 feet.
London loved Hawaii. He wrote some nice short stories in and around Oahu and
the other islands. He built a boat and sailed the wild south seas from San
Francisco to Honolulu. I would like to write short stories too.
*
Pali Point:
We continue our climb off the beaten path. It’s not an
easy climb either. I follow Rich. I lift my body up, grabbing thick tree roots
from the earth and using them like a ladder. It gets steeper as we climb
higher. We rest against trees. Barefoot, my feet slip in the mud and clay. I
grasp for smallish rocks jutting out or thin roots or hardened grooves—
anything solid to move me along. I look back down at the distance and feel
electrified and hopeful we are close to the top. At the top, on the grassy edge
we are awash in sunlight and even stronger mountain winds. We stop at a flat
rock near the edge and then crawl through tall grass and then sit up. It is the
most amazing view of the eastern shore.
Rich crawls on, avoiding the winds, to the very edge and
looks down. “Holy shit, Jim, get over here.”
I crawl, slow as a snake.
“Come on closer… come on… it’s fucking scary,” said Rich.
I get very close, close enough for the scary view—
thousands of feet down into green death. I can’t seem to stick my neck out over
the edge as he did. The wind is strong enough to blow us away should we dare
stand. We aren’t that stupid.
We lay down in the tall grass and I stare into the blue
sky and relax my mind. So I realize what may be on his mind. I think for Rich,
a personal moment as he remembers his brother David. He had climbed to this
spot only once before— with David. The wind whips by us.
“Let’s name this place David’s Point,” I said.
“Yeah… that’s good.”
We linger in the moment and lay out as if sun tanning. I
can hear the grass snapping below from the mountain depth….
*
One way ticket from Honolulu to San Francisco, the name
on the ticket, Shannon Murphy.
*
A drive through the mountain tunnel. On exit, the road
bends sharp and a thrilling feeling swells in me as I think how easy we could
accidentally drive off the road into jungle death.
*
At Waimea Bay kids are jumping off the huge rock during
high tide. The rock is as big as a small cabin.
*
My last night in Hawaii. We stop off at Shark’s Cove in
hopes of meeting women who are staying at the Bed and Breakfast/ hostel across
the street. And wouldn’t you know it, in short time, two attractive women with
a man come walking down the beach toward us.
“This is the plan,” said Rich. “All right, someone told
us there’s a beach party here tonight. We’ll ask them if they know the guy
who’s having it, uh— let’s say, John. John Fitzsimmons.”
“Great.”
All three are very pleasant to talk to and have thick
Aussie accents. No they hadn’t heard of John Fitzsimmons or his party but the
man, Keith, explained that there’s a get together at the Bed and Breakfast if
we wanted to come by later for food and drink. Happily we agree to see them
later and they head off toward the hostel.
Back at Kapu ‘ai Place, we shower. I mix up a brew of
cheap vodka and warm coke.
Later, we stroll down the driveway of the Bed and
Breakfast— drinks in hand and excited to be there. Lights are on in most rooms
and shadows move about behind drawn shades. From the back yard we hear music
and as we turn the corner, a big crackling fire and silhouettes gathered around
a picnic table. We sit down at the picnic table near the barbeque and we are
alone at the table as I peer through the small crowd for our new friends. Rocking
tunes boom from a stereo. The sweet smell of pineapple. My drink tastes deadly
stiff and there is no ice. Most deadly drinks.
After a while Keith and Kim greet us and we settle in and
drink and talk and listen and laugh. Keith is a trip. He’s from London and has
been traveling around the world, most recently, Australia and though he’s
English, his accent sounds completely Aussie. He once canoed down the Congo
River and tells us tales of killer snakes and sickness from drinking bacteria
packed river water and how worms in his skin caused a fever. He says he’s been
all over Europe, China, Japan and has been on the road for two years, living
and waking on the road, staying in hostels and meeting all kinds of people. His
friend, Kim, who we met at Shark’s Cove earlier with him, is from England too. She’s
so easy to get along with and has the biggest blue eyes I ever saw.
Drink after drink after drink….
I meet one man from Germany and another from Czechoslovakia. I laugh the night away with our new friends, at one point me
and the German making fun of each others country with a good natured ribbing.
When the party breaks up, everybody wants to hit the
Turtle Bay Inn near our place. We invite Keith and Kim back to the apartment
and they agree. We hit Foodland for another half gallon of vodka and Coke. Kim
picks out a big pineapple. As the three of us wait in line, Kim, who’s drunk,
starts to emit soft sexual groans and tells us that pineapples “turn me on.” I
turn to Rich and he looks at me as if to say, did she just say that? I smile
and nod. On the way to the car she says, though she’s straight, that Madonna is
so sexy she would make love to her in a second. At this point me and Rich are
practically trampling over each other for her undivided attention.
At the apartment we mix drinks and then walk to Sunset
Beach, to our usual spot and light a fire. The moon peers down from the great
sparkling sky. We kick back listening to music on the radio. We talk about
everything and anything we think up. More road stories from Keith and damn I
can’t wait to travel again. I sit behind Kim and massage her hair and then her
back. I reach under her shirt to undo the bra strap. No go. She casually gets
up and sits on the other side of the fire.
Back at the house, Rich tries to put on the moves and she
shuts him down too. So with that out of the way, me and Rich decide to call
Dano’s girlfriend Mary, where no doubt he is there sleeping or whatever (we are
pretty lit now). The idea is to have Keith make the call in that wonderful
accent of his and pretend he’s a friend of Danos. Of course we forgot about the
five hour time difference.
In spur of the moment drunkenness I announce that I’m
driving to Waikiki. Does anyone want to come? Rich declines. Keith and Kim are
up for it. A drunk frustrated Rich tosses me the keys and we leave.
Completely out of my mind I somehow found Waikiki beach—
the lines in the road vacillating like wavy grass. I find a place to park and
pull over. We walk out to the beach, a soft drunken night. We drink and we
drink and we talk until six am as light began to spread across an orange line
on the horizon. I feel a special bond with my new friends. We decide to head
back to Haleiwa, we walk back to the car and I began to drive through the city
but I could no longer focus, in fact I might as well drive with a blindfold
across my eyes. I ask if any of them were capable enough to drive and they
responded, no. I pulled up along the street curb, stopped the car and was
asleep in seconds.
Two hours later, I awoke, still drunk, not as bad but
capable. I looked around to gauge where we were at. Behind the car stood Kim
talking to two policemen. I was still dead tired but suddenly in a minor panic.
I spott a clump in the back seat— a body covered in jackets. I thought it was
Rich. “Rich. Rich. Rich. Wake up.”
Suddenly Keith pops out from under the jackets. “What’s
going on, mate?”
“I don’t know. Cops there.”
I remember Rich’s car is uninsured and that violation is
a fifteen hundred dollar fine. I search the glove box and grab the
registration. I put on my game face and exit the car toward the cops.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You’re parked in a no parking zone. Can I see some ID
please?”
I show him my Mass license and the registration. As I’m
standing there in downtown Waikiki amid the hustle and bustle of rental cars
and tour buses I realize that maybe my best course of action is to just tell
him the truth, maybe invoke a little sympathy, probably not but I thought the
truth was best. And I told him. We had all been drinking, realized we were too
drunk to drive so I made the best choice I could at the time which was to pull
over along the road, (I never saw a no parking sign) park and sleep it off.
Well the officer didn’t say anything good or bad about my story as he, rather
they, went about their business, questioning Keith now. In the end they let me
go, no ticket, no nothing.
On the way home we laughed about our situation. I remind
Keith that I’m leaving for San Francisco and that he should stay in contact with
Rich. We could all meet up at Venice Beach (Keith’s next destination). I was
still aglow in drunkeness and after I dropped them off at the Bed and
Breakfast, I got back to the apartment at 9 am; laughing uproariously as I
crashed on the couch.
Rich woke me at 11 to get my shit in order. My departure
time was three o’clock. Hung over and dead tired I packed my road bag.
Afterwards, stopped by Frank’s real quick to say goodbye to him and Gail and
thank them. We left for the airport at 1:30. Driving down Kamehameha Highway
one last time— goodbye north shore, land of sea and sun. Goodbye green mountain
jungle.
Once at the Honolulu airport we discovered that my flight
had already called boarding. We buzz through the airport looking for my
terminal, bags flying past crowds of people. When we reached it, the agent said
because I was late, I had to pay an extra hundred bucks to board the plane
after having sweat my balls off to get here to boot. I was fuming mad.The agent
gave me a fuck you attitude. I ranted and raved. I had no choice so I pulled
out my wallet for my money order so I could pay the fucking outrageous late
boarding fee. Rich watched. I moved to another agent and calmly, sweetly asked
her what the problem was and why I couldn’t just pass through? I had my ticket.
I was all set and ready to go to walk into the plane. She took my ticket and
looked at it a minute and then pointed at the door and told me, “go, quickly.”
Wow what a big phew. Rich accidentally called out my real name (our scheme was
Rich would be close by upon handing over the ticket and if they questioned the
name on the ticket, Shannon Murphy, Rich would come over to me and say ‘Shannon
here’s your keys’ or something). But it didn’t matter.
“Well Sunset, see you in a week,” said Rich.
“Banzai, we’ll meet again some day on the avenue.”
We shook hands and parted.
* Feb 1, 2015 well I’m missing the whole first part of my
journal 1992. I still might have it buried. If I find it, I will simply add to
this later, if not, well, I’ll just chalk it up to another lost journal.
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