10. Wai Momi (part two)

I’m a loner. I ride alone. I drink alone. I sleep alone. (Maybe that last one wasn’t all that great.) But the point is, as a loner, I had limitless possibilities. Like I’ve been saying, it felt like the world was my oyster. Yet I’m not sure if I was a perfect loner. I seemed to always be on the prowl for the ladies. What sort of loner goes around looking for other beings? Although at the time of this writing I have yet to read the book, I believe this quote is from the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and it summed up my quandary quite well:

“And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want, what do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”

Me at twenty-one years old would have responded with freedom. I felt like I had so much freedom. And because I felt that the world was my oyster, I hadn’t fully grasped just how lonely I was. At least not until the birthday of Anya the Israeli cocktail waitress approached. Her eighteenth birthday was on Friday the 30^th of January 1998. (I didn’t know she was seventeen when I met her.) Let’s see, a tall jaded blonde woman born in the Soviet Union who had a hard childhood and worked at a bar when I met her?

She seemed a lot older than seventeen, officer! I swear! In fact, I thought she had a few years on me!

As her birthday drew nearer, I subconsciously thought I’d gladly give up a lot of my perceived freedom to be with someone such as Anya. Yes, I’d gladly hand over my freedom if she was the one to wake me up in the morning and wait for me at night. (Although I think I would be the one encroaching on her freedom, more than likely, by waking her up in the morning and waiting for her at night whenever I wasn’t passed out on the beach.)

I had her phone number from back when I was in Israel with Submarine NR-1. There was an internal debate as to whether or not I should call her. Seemed risky. Plus, there were a few prerequisites to take care of. First, I had to purchase an international calling card. Second, I had to figure out the time zone difference between Honolulu and Haifa as to not miss her birthday or accidentally call her in the middle of the night. And finally, I had to grow a pair.

Back when I was a senior in high school, I paced back and forth full of anxiety before calling Linda the church-bait girl on her birthday. I had no fear of heights, spiders, snakes, dogs, bullies, flying, tight spaces, speeding on motorcycles, diving underwater in submarines, or being irradiated by nuclear reactors. But women absolutely terrified me! (Well, women and maybe needles too. And especially women with needles.)

In case I did have the balls to call her, I bought a calling card and consulted a world map with the time zones indicated. Turns out there was a twelve-hour difference between us. With me being so far west and super close to the international date line, I was behind her. (Haifa is Zulu +2 and Honolulu is Zulu -10.) The twelve hours difference obviously put her on the other side of the world from me. Hell, she couldn’t get much further away from me on this (sometimes) yellow tinted (alien) planet unless she moved to Botswana, which was Oahu’s antipode. Alternatively, she could banish me to Tubuai, French Polynesia, which was Israel’s antipode.

[Tubuai is noteworthy for being Fletcher Christian’s first island of choice to make a settlement after his mutiny on the HMS Bounty and subsequent marriage to Mauatua Miamiti Isabella Christian-Young in Tahiti. However, the natives were restless there, so Fletcher abandoned Tubuai after two months and settled on Pitcairn Island until his death of natural causes. Or suicide. Or murder. Or until sneaking back to England. Take your pick as no one knows. Then his Tahitian wife married Ned Young, the man who slept through the entire mutiny and subsequently found himself stuck on the HMS Bounty afterwards. He decided to make the most of it and opened a brewery on Pitcairn Island, where he lived to be the second to last surviving original mutineer—albeit an involuntary one.]

But I digress with antipodes and mutinies. It was time to face my fears. Just one fear actually. The needles would have to wait. I mean, she probably wasn’t even going to answer, so what was I fearing really? Yeah, it was her birthday, so she would in all likelihood already be out partying. Hell, Anya might not have even had the same number after all those months. That made it easier to start dialing the number. I figured that she wouldn’t answer, so at least I could say I tried. I never wanted to be the person looking back with regrets. Years and years from her eighteenth birthday I certainly didn’t want to think,

I should have called her.

Using an international calling card I purchased at the Exchange, I put on my big boy pants and called Anya that Friday morning before heading to the boat. It was my first time calling her since leaving Israel sometime the previous summer. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting her to answer… but she did! Her sexy Russian accent was unmistakable. Hers was, and probably still is, my favorite accent that I have ever heard. With her actually answering the phone so unexpectedly, I didn’t have time to become a nervous wreck.

“Allo?”

[Aллo? / Hello?]

“Anya?”

“Dah. Ktoh etah, chert vozmee?”

[Да. Кто это, черт возьми? / Yes. Who the hell is this?]

“Uh, this is Brendan the redhead Navy guy from New York.”

“Who?”

“Brendan… from New York. I met you in Haifa last summer while looking for the sunken submarine INS Dakar. You were the cocktail waitress for a big group of sailors who made me smoke with you until I puked a bunch of times. And then later you tested me with all these logic puzzles to see if I was smart enough to go out with you. Do you remember any of that?”

“Ah Brendan! Yes, of course I remember. It has been long time, rizshee doorak. Kak delah!?!”

[…рыжий дурак. Как дела? / …redheaded fool. How are things?]

“Ochen kahrahsho. Ah tee?”

[Oчень хорошо. А ты? / Very well. And you?]

“Otleechnah.”  

[Отличнo. / Excellent.]

“Kharashoh!”

[Xорошо! / Good!]

“Wow Brendan, I see you learned some Russian words—simple Russian words, but at least you learned something.”

“Yes, I did!”

“I did not think you were capable.”

“Okay hold on. I just wanted to say this: Sdnyem Rozshdyeniya!”

[С днем ​​рождения! / Happy birthday!]

“Spahseebah!”

[Спасибо! / Thank you!]

“Pozshalstah!”

[Пожалуйста! / You’re welcome!]

“I will not admit this to anyone, but this is impressive.”

“That I remembered your birthday?”

“No. Well, yes, but no. It is impressive that you are speaking Russian, and I almost understand you. I did not think it is possible.”

“That’s quite a compliment, actually! I mean, the understand me part. Not really the other part.”

“Brendan, what are you doing? I think by now you would not bother with the language that is too difficult for you. You should have given up. You waste your time.”

“No way! I mean, yeah, it is pretty difficult, you’re totally right about that—”

“I am right always.”

“Yes. Right, but I still have to try.”

“Why do you have to try?”

“How else am I supposed to impress you?”

“Oh please, Brendan! Why do you try to impress me? You should find some dumb American girl, one that is even dumb enough to date you, and then you forget about me and—”

“Nah. I could never forget about you!”

 “Konyechna, yah znahyoo etah. You will never forget about me.”

[Конечно, я знаю это. / Of course, I know that.]

“Konyechna! But Anya, just remember: we went on a date, yet you’re not even a dumb American girl!”

“No, we didn’t! When was this?”

“When we went to The Bear.”

“That was not a date.”

“You said it was a date.”

“I did not say this.”

“You implied it.”

“How did I imply it?”

“The next day, you literally said I was the only American sailor you ever went on a date with. That’s right, you said a date.”

“I did not say this.”

“You did. You said you were surprised that you agreed to go on a date with me because you think Americans are stupid and you only date British officers because they have a better sense of humor.”

“I said unlike Americans, they can actually make me laugh because they are smarter and wittier than Americans.”

“Ah-ha! You see? You did say that!”

“Okay, I say that. That is something I say often to American sailors. I like to make them cry.”

“Yeah, you definitely said that to me. And in fact, the day before at your bar, you said my humor was more like the British humor, so you would ‘maybe’ go out with me on a date when I asked.”

“It was not a date.”

“Well, maybe, but then why did you go to The Bear bar with me?”

“I felt bad for you. That is why.”

“Really? You can actually feel sympathy for people? That’s hard to… are you sure can? But wait a minute, why would you feel bad for me? Is it because you made me puke?”

“Please. You made yourself puke.”

“Okay, then why did you feel bad for me?”

“You were virgin, no?”

“Yes, I was, but—”

“See? I felt bad for poor virgin you.”

“The problem with that is that you didn’t know I was a virgin until we went to The Bear.”

“So?”

“Well that means tha—”

“Please. Who cares?”

“Uh, I think th—”

“So, are you still virgin?”

“Actually, no.”

“Please Brendan. Your hand doesn’t count.”

“Ya znahyoo. It wasn’t with my hand. It was with an actual girl.”

[Я знаю. / I know.]

“Wow Brendan. Congratulations. You must be so proud of yourself.”

“Thanks, but I’m still saying our night at The Bear was a date, alright?”

“No, it was not a date. I just felt bad for virgin you.”

“Right, felt bad for virgin me before you even knew poor virgin me was actually even a poor virgin. Okay, sure. And then you felt soooo bad for virgin me after that not-date that you wanted to make out with me too, right?”

“Oh please, Brendan. I was drunk.”

“Sure, sure. Whatever you have to tell yourself to be able to sleep at night.”

“I don’t have to tell myself anything. I sleep fine.”

“I actually don’t doubt that. So maybe I shouldn’t tell you this in case it disrupts your sleep… but there’s no way a Russian girl like you gets drunk from four or five pints of Guinness and a few shots of vodka.”

“Please. That’s nothing for Russians.”

“See? That is exactly my point! That means you knew precisely what you were do—”

“Okay fine. It was a date.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It was a date.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“Please. I just wanted to see what it is like to be stupid American girl.”

“Sure, sure. But not too bad, right? I know you had fun with me.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I know what your maybe means. It means—”

“Brendan, please. Don’t you have anything more interesting to talk about? Sometimes you were able to not bore me. Not often. But sometimes. Now you are boring me.”

“Okay, yeah. I have something else. In fact, I am calling you from halfway around the world in Hawaii.”

“From where?”

“Hawaii. You know, those islands in the Pacific? Like with Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Waikiki, all that?”

“Ah. In Russian it’s ‘Gah-vai’.”

[Гавайи / Hawaii]

“Gah-vai? Really?”

“You should know by now there is no ‘H’ letter in Russian.”

“Well yeah, I just thought you used the ‘X’ letter instead, like it’s the “kha” sound, right? Seems much closer to me. But okay, you use the ‘G.’ So it’s Gah-vai—but wait a minute. What do you call Honolulu? Gonolulu?”

“Da, doorak.”

[Да, дурак. / Yes, fool.]

“Really? That’s funny. Kind of sounds like gonor—”

“Brendan, please.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Say-chas ya zhivoo ha Gah-vai.

[Сейчас я живу на Гавайи (sic) / Now I live in Hawaii]

“Nah Gah-vaikh”

[на Гавайях / in Hawaii]

“Ah yeah, I used the nominative instead of prepositional. You guys have so many freakin’ endings. Speaking in Russian is like trying to do arithmetic in your head. Alright… try this again. Nah Gah-vaikh. Gah-vaikh. Okay… Say-chas ya zhivoo ha Gah-vaikh.”

“Nyeploha.”

“Not bad? Alright, I’ll take it. So anyway, I transferred here, I dunno… less than three months ago.”

“Must be nice to live in Hawaii.”

“Totally. Way better than that shithole place rotten Groton where I was stationed when I met you. It’s soooo much nicer here. It’s a paradise.”

“I would be jealous, but you will not get to enjoy living in such paradise for long.”

“Really? Why not? Did you somehow put in a transfer for me back to rotten Groton so I’d pull into Haifa once again on my next deployment?”

“Oh please, Brendan, it is because you will die soon of skin cancer. You cannot stay in sunlight. You are a poor vampire virgin.”

“Well, it’s either skin cancer or liver failure, so I may as well go out by way of paradise.”

“Brendan, you have to be careful. You must only go out at night so you do not die before you come to see me again. I do not want your dead corpse to visit me. Or your ghost to haunt me.”

“So, you’re saying to be careful because you actually want me to come see you again?”

“Damn. I should watch what I ask for.”

“You should.”

“I have to go now. I have plans. It is my birthday as you know.”

“Yes, that was the reason for the call.”

“Thank you to remember my birthday and to call me. I did not think I was to hear from you again, moy rizshee doorak.”

[…мой рыжий дурак. / …my redheaded fool.]

“Like you said, I’ll never be able to forget you.”

“Next time you call, I can talk longer.”

“Next time? So, you want me to call you again?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you say you have to be careful what you ask for?”

“Brendan, please.”

“Okay, okay, okay. But I will definitely call you again in the very near future.”

“I would like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, but of course I will deny it.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll take that. And I’ll let you run. Have fun tonight. Save some vodka for the other people.”

“Maybe. Pokah, moy rizshee doorak!”

[Пока, мой рыжий дурак! / Bye, my redheaded fool!]

“Preyatnavah vyecherah!”

[Приятного вечера! / Have a good evening!]

Once off the phone, I was feeling simply spectacular. Giddy even. I eventually came down to Earth once I came to the realization that this was pretty much the only girl who had ever expressed an interest in me. I mean, sure, expressed in a very snarky, unconventional way. And yes, the phone call might have seemed somewhat hostile, but that was apparently how Russians flirt. I liked it, and I liked her.

It would have been amazing if after work this day, I could invite her out for some Guinness and warm vodka to be flirty and snarky once more. Figures that the one girl who I liked and who liked me back was halfway around this damn yellow-tinted fucking giant stupid alien planet.

When would I ever be able to have some Guinness and warm vodka with Anya again!?!

In all likelihood, it would not be until I was discharged from the Navy, which was three years and a day away from this eighteenth birthday of hers. Anything could happen in three years. There was a nagging suspicion I’d never see her again.

Instead of going out on a date with Anya after work as I fantasized, I made pasta at home and turned in early on my laundry pile. It was two days before payday, and I had no money. I woke up with 1096 days to go, which made it the most significant day of this week. Saturday, the 31^st of January 1998 marked three full years in the US Navy.

That meant it was my halfway point of my enlistment. Six years without counting leap years is 2190 days. This was an easy number for machinist’s mate sailors to remember as it was the turbine oil we used on the boat: 2190-TEP, which we abbreviated to simply twenty-one ninety when spoken (and fuck the TEP part). Then all you had to do for your countdown was add in the number of leap years. For me, it was two: 1996 and 2000. So, I had a total of 2192 days, half of which is 1096 days, or that Saturday in my case. (Had I enlisted a year and a month later, I would have only had 2191 days total in my enlistment.)

Saturday was a stinky duty day. Weekend duty definitely sucked more than any other duty days as you were working an extra day, but at least most of the crew—and therefore chiefs and officers—were not present. When not on watch, you could pretty much fuck off doing jack shit. The odd thing about duty was that it seemed to ensure that the day’s weather would be absolutely perfect. It was life’s way to rub it in your face.

It rained a lot in Hawaii, even if for only a few minutes before clearing up, but a few minutes was enough to give you wet clingy pants legs on the motorbike, mind you. Yet it never seemed to rain on a duty day except for maybe the morning while riding in. But the whole rest of the day would be sunny and warm and glorious. Every fucking weekend duty day.

The combination of lack of higher ups and rain made sitting at the pier after watch a preferred activity on the weekends. You couldn’t stray too far from the boat, but I’m not certain what the Ship’s Organization and Regulations Manual (SORM) said was permissible, so I probably never went more than thirty feet from the brow. Good enough to find a crate to sit on and shoot the shit in the sunshine with a shipmate.

At this point of my time aboard the San Fran, I didn’t really have any close friends. I’d say that was because I didn’t really have anything in common with most of the nukes other than surviving the peepayleenay. I did like talking to Jay-Jay, Hash Brown, and Bruce the most. I found them to be the funniest guys on the boat. Yet as I said, there definitely wasn’t a lot in common with us. None of them liked heavy metal, drank stouts, or rode motorcycles. Bruce was married, Hash Brown was a surfer, and Jay-Jay lived all the way in Aiea (and thus rarely went to Waikiki to drink).

While I was definitely a loner type and also still too new aboard the San Fran to have forged any truly tight friendships yet, being stuck inside or in close proximity to the sewer tube on a beautiful weekend and being bored out of our minds, we all talked as if we were best friends that have known each other forever. The conversations would get quite personal, even down to your masturbation habits. Weird shit.

I probably had the most shoot-the-shits with Jay-Jay as he was just an angry little fucker who hated the Navy and didn’t want to hear about other people’s disgusting habits. After some off-watch downtime relaxing on crates on the pier, hating that captive feeling with the perfect Hawaiian weather, I figured I’d go back down into the engine room to shoot the shit with Jay-Jay while he was stuck on watch. I had to tell someone about my milestone without the conversation devolving into the last time someone had shit their pants or something similar in nature.

“Today is my halfway point.”

“Halfway point? Like… in this whole fucking bullshit Navy crap?”

“Yuuup.”

“Today? Seriously? Are you fucking serious?”

“Yuuup. One thousand ninety-six days down, one thousand ninety-six days to go.”

“You’ve been in three fucking years already?”

“Yuuup.”

“What the fuck? You just friggen got here… but you’ve been in longer than me? Jesus Christ.”

“Eh… welding school and that stint on NR-1.”

“Ah, that’s right. Mother fucker.”

“I’d celebrate tonight, buuuut…”

“Yeah. Well, congrat-u-fucking-lations. I’ll buy you a cup of bug juice later.”

“Thanks, bud.”

“Shit dude. I can’t believe you have less time left than me. I was happy that I broke through twelve hundred the other day. And then you come along and say you’re already down to ten fucking ninety-six!”

“At least you didn’t spend a year in rotten Groton.”

“True. That must have sucked balls.”

“Yeah, big fat hairy ones. It really did suck. So, when did you get to Pearl?”

“January last year.”

“So, you’ve been living in Hawaii a little over a year already?”

“Yeah, minus the sea time I guess.”

“Nice. Well, the not sea time part. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Because I’m telling you, there’s absolutely nothing to do in Groton. It fucking sucked.”

“I bet. Probably only Norfolk would suck worse.”

“Yeah, totally. So, this is completely off the subject, but… do you know where the—well, I mean, okay, you obviously know I’m going out tomorrow night to celebrate my halfway day, right?”

“Right, it’s good reason to get shit faced. Just make sure you show up on Monday before the underway.”

“Yeah, I intend to. Well… then do you want to come out and get some drinks with me?”

“Nah, I have the start-up.”

“Me too. I’m U.I. in Engine Room Forward.”

“Don’t drink too much then.”

“Me? Never.”

“Riiiight. Just don’t miss the underway.”

“And miss all the fun?”

“Yeah. All the fun. Don’t wanna miss Queen La Chiefa yelling at us for some fucking bullshit made up reason. What a fucking asshole.”

“Yeah. Can’t miss all that.”

“Yeah. He fucking tore me a new one yesterday.”

“What’d ya do?”

“Nothing. He’s just a fucking asshole.”

“Something must have set him off. What was he yelling at you about?”

“I made a joke about fucking an underage girl.”

“Well, I mean… he has a daughter. A really young daughter. Maybe he took it personally.”

“No dude. He was just talking about fisting babies. Like he took what I said personally after he was talking about fisting fucking babies!?! No way. Then he gets all mad when I mention teenagers and just snaps? Fucking psychopath. One second, he’s laughing with you, the next second, he’s fucking screaming at you. There’s something really fucking wrong with that guy.”

“Alright, note to self: don’t mention meeting seventeen-year-old Anya in front of Queen La Chiefa. Just stick to benign topics like fisting babies.”

“I can’t wait to get off this fucking boat.”

“So anyway… getting away from fisting babies and fucking underage teens and shit, let’s talk about meeting the of-age ladies. What I was about to ask was… with you being here over a year now, do you uh… do you like know where the all the women go? Like at night? Where do they all go?”

“What women?”

“No seriously. Where do they go? And don’t say dance clubs. I fucking hate dancing. There has to be other places they’re going to besides the dance clubs.”

“There are no women here. It’s like ten to one on this fucking rock.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s dismal in the bars. But I see so many of them during the day. They have to be going somewhere at night. Where the hell are they all going?”

“Fuck if I know. Doesn’t matter anyway.”

“Well, it matters to me.”

“No, it really doesn’t.”

“What, are you fucking gay or something?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, so then why doesn’t matter to you?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter because the women out here—if you can even fucking find one—only date locals.”

“Hey, you know what? This hot Hawaiian chick said I was kama’aina. It was like my—”

“Whatever, dude. That doesn’t mean jack shit. Chicks here only date non-military locals. Emphasis on non-military. You know, like native Hawaiians or dudes who moved here just to surf and don’t even have fucking jobs?”

“What? That can’t be the only ones they like. You’re telling me that they’ll take unemployed surfer dudes over us military guys? No way.”

“No, really. Yes, way. It’s like some stupid fucking fantasy they all have when they come out here for vacation or for school or some other stupid fucking bullshit reason. They all think they can fuck a Hawaiian dude or some douchebag with a surfboard and a VW bus and then *poof* they become a local too. Just like that.”

“Well, that’s just fucking great.”

“It gets worse than that. After they hook up with some fucking local dude, they start looking down at military guys too. Then they all start talking fucking pidgin, like the next day, like they were fucking born here. Bitch, you just flew in last week. Get the fuck outta here.”

“Ah shoots, brah. I no like dat. Da kine chocked up.”

“Don’t fucking talk pidgin to me. I’m sick of that shit.”

“Sorry dude. I mean, I just slept with a surfer chick in VW bus last night. I’m like super kama’aina now, so you have to forgive me.”

“Dude, shut up. You didn’t fuck some surfer chick last night.”

“Okay, there was no surfer chick last night. I have yet to attain super kama’aina enlightenment yet.”

“Pfft. Whatever. But seriously dude, it’s like, if you don’t have long hair and a tan, don’t even fucking bother with the women out here. If they say something to you, just fucking ignore them. Because if you start talking to them and get your hopes up, then a fucking local will come into the bar, and those bitches will immediately turn to them and ignore you, so…”

“I mean, I wouldn’t even know where to find these women to ignore. But c’mon, there’s got to be some girls out there who are into military guys.”

“Yeah, they’re called strippers. They fucking love guys in the military. Especially right when they get their fucking signing bonus. Shit dude, you can get a date with a stripper if you tip well and then just casually mention you’re thinking about reenlisting, like during a lap dance or something. They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah? You’re reenlisting? You can ev—’”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. It’s like you can even hear the ‘cha-ching’ sound in their hallow fucking heads. And of course, just say you’re reenlisting and don’t actually do it. Don’t get sucked into their bullshit. Don’t fucking reenlist just to bang a stripper like some dumbass fucking loser. Just say you’re going to.”

“I’m not very good at lying.”

“It doesn’t matter. Fuck them. They won’t know you’re not until it’s too late. But who cares? Because if you actually did, those fucking leeches will just move on to the next victim right after you spent all your bonus money on them. Yeah, they’ll bleed you dry and still come out as the fucking victim somehow. And then there’s always some other stupid fucking sucker to bleed dry already fucking lined up. God damn fucking whores.”

“Whoa dude, seems kind of personal. Is this from experience?”

“Fuck no. But I know how things work. I pay attention to shit. Because it actually happened to a few of the guys on the boat.”

“You know, it’s funny you should mention all this stripper stuff because I went to lunch with one and she—”

“Dude! Don’t fucking tell me you’re actually dating a god damn fucking stripper. I was just fucking joking. Jesus Christ.”

“No, we’re not dating. I would never, well I mean…”

“Dude!”

“No, I’m not going to, but check this out, I know some Marine is out there who’s buying that stripper I went to lunch with—who’s hot as fuck by the way—new tits. Yeah, he’s going to buy her new fucking tits.”

“What a dumb ass.”

“You know, I was wondering how he was going to pay for it. Signing bonus. Makes sense. I guess I didn’t even think of that because I’ll never reenlist. So it’s like, not even a place my mind wandered into while thinking about the whole thing. Yeah, I bet he did reenlist, and that’s how he’s paying for her boob job.”

“Fucking sucker.”

“I dunno, that stripper’s really fucking hot, and she seems really nice. I don’t think she would use him… or anyone for that matter.”

“For fuck’s sake, don’t say that. Don’t even think it. You’ll start to believe it. Just go meet chicks at the beach or something.”

“I can’t really go to the beach. I’ll blind all the women when I take my shirt off. And for any of them wearing dark enough sunglasses, I’d have twenty, thirty minutes tops before I turn into a pile of fucking ash.”

“The sun is strong as shit here.”

“Sure is.”

“Yeah, maybe you should just learn to fucking dance then.”

“Fuck. I’m never getting laid again, at least not for free.”

“Hey, maybe you’ll get lucky and meet a drunk ass tourist chick in some fucking bar the locals don’t go to. Who knows?”

“I think I would have met at least one by now.”

“Tell me more about that stripper who you’re buying big fat cans for.”

“I’m not buying her—”

“Oh, excuse me, tell me more about that stripper who ‘some Marine’ is buying big fat cans for.”

Inane, wandering conversations like this could last for hours, right until chow time, or having to go onto watch, or being gifted an off-watch assignment like cleaning a bilge or counting inventory of chain-falls and come-alongs or some other useless bullshit like that.

Yet despite the number of people stuck on the boat for weekend duty and dying to shoot the shit to pass all the hours away, there were long stretches of time that dragged on, such as in the middle of the night while standing watch. Obviously at that time, most everyone else would be sleeping—the ultimate way to pass the time. On night watches, I would wander the entire Engine Room taking logs once an hour and fill up the rest of the time staring off into space, concocting future plans.

I don’t think there’s any way I could make it to Moscow before getting out… but what if I took a MAC flight to Japan? Maybe then I could find passage to Vladivostok? I dunno, maybe on a ship or cheap flight from there?

MAC flights, or Military Airlift Command flights, were flights on cargo planes like the C-141 Starlifter, C-5 Galaxy, or the then new C-17 Globemaster, for example, where military personnel could book a free seat if space was available. (Contrary to my knowledge at the time, from 1992 on, they were renamed AMC flights, or Air Mobility Command flights, when MAC combined with SAC, the Strategic Air Command.) Just about everyone still called them MAC flights even in 1998, but there was always that one guy with a correction out there.

“Actually, they’re called AMC flights now, and you probably can’t go to Russia because of your SECRET and NOFORN security clearances.”

“Actually, you can go suck a dick right now. Yeah, go book a MAC flight directly to a big fat hairy one. Don’t even need a fucking clearance for that.”

Besides daydreaming about going to Russia to meet the ladies and now adding an extra layer of wondering if I even could with my security clearances (fucking Navy, I swear), I would think about my motorcycle, the status of my license and base sticker, and all that safety bullshit I had to wear. During one of these watches in the wee hours, I came up with a pretty solid idea in my opinion.

What if I cut up my dork vest and stapled the reflectors to my backpack? Clearly the dork vest didn’t have to be orange to get onto base as I’ve been using my black one no problem. Maybe we were all wearing orange dork vests because that was the most common reflector vest color in the store? And then we were all like, ‘Maybe they have to be orange? Why else would everyone wear an orange one?’ So, if it doesn’t have to be orange, why the hell do I even need a vest? Fuck it. I’m putting the reflectors on my fucking backpack!

Once home off from duty with 1095 days to go, and after a nap on my pile of laundry, I did just that. Instead of checking with whatever the land base equivalent of the SORM was, I just assumed I was correct and mated my dork vest to my backpack by cutting the four reflector strips off of the dork vest, stapling two of them to the front of the backpack on the straps, and stapling the other two on the back of the backpack in a tee shaped pattern where I could fit them. One of the reflector strips on the back had to be cut in half to fit. I’m sure there was a regulation specifying length of the strips, but I figured the Makalapan guards would have waved me in through the gate before noticing that the one little strip was likely shorter than specifications.

The hybrid dork-back-vest-pack was ready to go and be tested in the morning, and I was ready to head to Waikiki to celebrate my halfway day. Luckily for me, it was payday. The sky was the limit. Well, monetarily speaking. Timewise, I did have a limit. With the reactor start up commencing a few hours prior to the underway, I had to be on the boat before my natural alarm clock would wake me up. Therefore, I couldn’t pass out on the beach. I had to return home and use a real alarm clock. That meant I couldn’t ride downtown. So, my celebration started with a bus ride.

The fun didn’t stop there. Being a Sunday evening, there was no action at the Red Lion. No ladies at the bar, and there wasn’t even a drunken male skinny dipper to see on the other side of the bar’s hotel swimming pool window. Sitting alone drinking Guinness from a can didn’t feel too celebratory, so after my self-imposed two drink minimum, I moved the operation way down to the other side of Waikiki at the Kuhio Village Resort Crap Hole Tiki Bar, after brief stop at the International Market Place for a couple of slices of pineapple and ham pizza.

Unfortunately, the only ladies at Crap Hole Tiki were senior citizens, including the bartender. All very pleasant people there, but again, not the way I wanted to celebrate my halfway day. After two 22oz bottles of Double Black Stout, the only alternative for me really was Déjà Vu. Once you pour some Double Black Stout into your pie hole, it’s next to impossible to return to Guinness or (gasp!) a lager like Heineken right afterwards. So basically, I had to go to Déjà Vu.

Sunday nights at Déjà Vu also sucked as there was no Loraine, no Tia, and no Charlie. After a pitcher and a few lap dances with strippers who took the opportunity to cash in on “Charlie’s customer” while she wasn’t there, I decided to return home so that I didn’t miss the startup and have to come up with an excuse to tell Queen La Chiefa while waltzing in a couple of hours late. (Chief, I was stuck fisting all these babies! So many of them; it was a nightmare!) No, gotta head home from Déjà Vu. But first, I had to brave what I referred to as “The Gauntlet” when leaving.

At the time, there were a lot of prostitutes in Waikiki, and they were pretty brazen about their solicitation. (You may recall the time I mentioned one of them pushing me up against the window at Denny’s and pinching my nipples in order to get a yes out of me.) There were so many hookers on the streets that you could read about it in the paper as the local citizens and politicians were complaining about the nuisance to the reporters. But with so many sailors and Japanese tourists, it was probably impossible to stop. For whatever reason, the police looked the other way, so this shady activity wasn’t even pushed into the shadows. Maybe behind closed doors, those same politicians vowing to fight prostitution in the newspaper were secretly concerned about crashing the economy by discouraging sex tourism.

Many nights, these ladies of the night would congregate at the bottom of the stairs of Deja Vu. It was a good spot for them, as it was often a fucking feeding frenzy on the drunk horny dudes not wanting to go home alone after getting worked up at the nudie bar. Not going to lie, The Gauntlet was tempting as I was technically celebrating a milestone and those ladies were stunning, but ultimately, I found it kind of depressing. I mean, was paying for it going to be the only way for me to have any sort of interaction with women in Hawaii?

It’s all so fake! I must resist.

I was able to make it through The Gauntlet unscathed and went across the street to the bus stop. Oddly enough, there was a pretty cute girl waiting there by herself, a rarity at this time of night. You’d think she’d have already gone home with a local. I didn’t want to bother her, but to my surprise, she actually addressed me.

“Hey.”

I found that weird.

Why is she talking to me? Is she a hooker? Are they sending detachments from The Gauntlet out on patrol to catch stragglers like me who broke through their lines to exits like bus stops now?

She was cute, but really just an ordinary looking girl in ordinary clothes. So she didn’t seem like a working girl to me. Previous experience with hookers had been watching Pretty Woman and banging Treasure. As far as I knew, hookers were drop dead gorgeous and always glammed up. I suppose anything was possible, but if she actually was a hooker, I thought it would be hard for her to solicit guys without putting in some sort of effort into her appearance.

She had straight jet-black hair without volume and was wearing dark blue jeans with a loose-fitting black tee shirt and sneakers, and either no makeup or very limited makeup on. Looked like a regular girl to me. Pretty, but plain. I was still suspicious of her motivations, yet she did have these sad eyes and very little energy in her greeting. She seemed as lonely as I was. But why talk to me?

With my haircut and inability to tan, there’s no way she could mistake me for a local. Like a real local. I was really only kama’aina whenever escorted by a Hawaiian. But it was possible she thought there was something else cool about me, cool enough to want to connect with me, cool enough to even initiate first contact. It could have been my Slayer tee shirt. But damn, she must have been so desperately lonely to talk to a stranger at a bus stop late at night like this. Recent breakup perhaps? Well, I was lonely too. I couldn’t afford to suspect every girl I met of being a hooker just because it was fairly late at night.

I’ll take this connection.

I greeted her back, trying to match her low-key energy and single-syllabled greeting.

“Hi.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“This early?”

“I mean, it’s not that early—but yeah, I guess for me, it is kind of early. You’re right. How about you? Where are you going?”

“I was thinking about partying. You wanna party with me?”

“Party?”

“Yeah, you wanna party with me?”

“Sure. I like to party. Where is this party?”

“Couple blocks away, at my place.”

“A couple blocks away? And you’re taking the bus?”

“Forget it. We’ll just walk. Let’s go party.”

“Alright, yeah, let’s go to this party. Thanks for the invite.”

That was the lowest energy party invitation I had ever received. This rather chill little lady was named Jane. She lived on the second floor of an apartment that was pretty small and dark. No one else was inside, which made sense as who would want a bunch of people inside your place without you being inside your place. We were obviously there before the party was supposed to start. One thing though, cramped studio apartments with an unfolded open bed taking up most of the space really were not the type of place where you could throw any sort of real party in my opinion. At least not what parties look like in the movies.

A lot of people will have to sit on this mattress when everyone shows up.

I was attracted to the coziness and edginess of her apartment. I felt comfortable. Definitely a cool place with moody decorations and purplish walls. I had never decorated a place as an adult, as the Navy frowned upon such things in the barracks, but as a teenager, I had posters of girls named Heather in bikinis and one of Walker Evans desert racing Dodge Ram truck flying through the air. I thought they were cool at the time, but Jane’s apartment had me reconsidering my past choices.

Her décor was more sophisticated. No posters of any Heathers anywhere. (I presumed she’s more of a Veronica type anyway.) I particularly liked how she used what seemed to be white Christmas lights to give just enough light in the place to be able to see and not have to turn on the bright, atmosphere destroying incandescent lamps. She had dark, heavy curtains covering the windows that were certain to block any sunlight that attempted to enter the room by day. She was definitely nocturnal. While I was surveying her apartment, she lit up a cigarette and offered me a drink.

“Wanna beer?”

“Do you have any stouts?”

“Stouts?”

“Yeah.”

“What is Stouts? Some German brand?”

“No, not a brand. Just a type of beer—and it’s Irish actually. At least most of them are.”

“Ah. Well, I have Bud Light.”

“Close enough.”

Generally speaking, I would ordinarily get pretty nervous around women. That night, however, I wasn’t. Maybe it was because I wasn’t super attracted to her, this kind of a literal plain Jane, or perhaps because she actually initiated the conversation with me. I don’t really know why. Maybe I had just the right amount of liquid courage already.

She was clearly on the darker side of life, so I thought maybe we could discuss music. In dark times, that’s what people turn to. At first, I was thinking that Jane was someone who would play records as we got to know each other a bit while waiting for the others to show up. She seemed like a record player type of person, but I didn’t see a record player or even any records, however, despite the place screaming out for them. She probably went to an all CD inventory just like me. Much more practical in small apartments and submarines.

Despite suspecting that it was my Slayer tee shirt that attracted her, I didn’t get any sort of metal head vibe from Jane after walking home with her. I did get this sense that she was into some rather melancholy music to match the décor and her demeanor. Like the I’m-cooler-than-you British shit from the previous decade. My cousins would listen to that stuff all the time. I was eager to hear what she would play as I was certain she was going to share some music with me, which would be an easy conversation starter. Yet she walked to the refrigerator before putting on any music.

Okay, drinks first, then she’ll set the mood.

The kitchen was partitioned off from the main living room/bedroom, so it wasn’t quite a pure studio apartment, but it basically had the one main room, a small kitchen, and a small bathroom. It did not have some mysterious dark hallway like at Loraine’s place. Jane returned with the beers and handed one to me. She lit up another cigarette and sat on the bed instead of putting on any music. She patted the bed to have me sit on it too. No music then.

Jane asked me a lot of questions. I mean, a lot. And I believe I answered them humorously, but I don’t recall her laughing at all. Not even once. Still, I was under the impression that I was providing her some entertainment or stimulation as she just kept asking questions between drags. Maybe I was an oddity or worthy of evaluation. I did get a few questions in myself. Her reason for being on Oahu was to attend the University of Hawaii. I don’t remember her major though. Maybe they had a mortuary science program there.

When we finished our diet beers, the cute little coed asked me if I was ready to party. I thought we had established that. What were these beers for? Did she not call the other people yet? Was I supposed to tell her I was ready for the other people, and preferably more ladies? This seemed weird. I grew suspicious.

Wait a minute here…

Yeah, I pretty much knew what was going on from the start despite talking myself out of it. Just because she’s in college doesn’t mean she couldn’t dabble in other things. Still, I had to confirm it.

“Is ‘wanna party’ the same thing as when a stranger asks me ‘wanna have some fun’ or ‘wanna have a good time’ as code for… you know?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Ah. So how much is this party?”

“Two hundred.”

Figured. I was an idiot. I was always this overly optimistic idiot! Of course she was hooker. Like some fucking random cute college chick was going to invite me off the street to attend a party. No way. Not when it’s like a ten-to-one ratio on this “fucking rock” as Jay-Jay put it, and I’m not even really fucking kama’aina no matter what Maya said. Jane just threw me off with her normal name, plain clothing, lack of makeup, and her limp hair. (Like I said, my only experience with hookers previously was from watching Pretty Woman, banging Treasure, and maybe I should also add running The Gauntlet.) Unfortunately for her, I didn’t have any “party” money on me.

“Two hundred to party… right. Is there an ATM nearby?”

That was a good opportunity to leave and not return. If she followed me, I could outrun her. (I always got “outstanding” on my physical training evaluations.) I believed she sensed my intentions, but oddly she was not offering up any resistance. It was like she knew I could outrun her. Still, she didn’t even try to convince me to come back or beg me to return before I reached for the door. There was nothing like that. She just looked at me kind of sad, pausing a bit before she told me there was one in the ABC store right on the corner that we had turned on, and then took another drag.

Such disappointment in her eyes! Fuck!

Now there was no way I could ditch her. I got the sense that with her, all hope was lost. The world was clearly no longer her oyster. If I read of a suicide on this block in the paper when I returned from my few days at sea, I would not have been surprised. I think she was already dead on the inside, so what’s just a little more effort to end the rest? I didn’t want to add any despair.

“Don’t worry. I’ll come back. I just don’t normally have that much money on me. It all gets converted drinks rather rapidly.”

I used the prescribed ATM at the nearby ABC store. Thankfully it was payday and her pricing was reasonable.

I knew sex didn’t cost three hundred dollars.

I returned to her apartment with the cash, and we got down to business. She stripped off her clothes, manually got me hard, put a condom on me, and started out with a blowjob—through that condom—while I was on my back on the bed. After about ten minutes of this, she told me to scoot over as it was her turn to be on her back so that we could have missionary style sex. Turns out Treasure’s vagina was no looser than Jane’s. I guess that’s what size they come in. I wondered if my dick was too small or if it really was that my hands were too tight. It was probably my hands. Who the hell has a dick the size of a baby’s head?

We went at it for an hour with the same results as my time with Treasure. I didn’t finish before time finished. She tried much harder than Treasure, however. That’s for sure. All different kinds of positions, she switched back to blowing me for a while, and even after my time was up, she took my condom off and gave me a vigorous hand job for a good while. It just didn’t work. And she had pretty good grip strength. Maybe there was something else wrong with me.

Another thing that was different with Jane was that she didn’t immediately kick me out of her apartment the way Treasure did from her hotel room. No, instead, Jane lit up another cigarette and chatted with me naked on the bed as she smoked. I appreciated the whole toplessness of the situation. Again, she asked a lot of questions, and again, she didn’t laugh at anything I said. The most I received in return for my best attempts at humor was movement of her eyebrows and a new question. Maybe her eyebrows were how she expressed laughter. At least it was a reaction of some sort.

It was like she didn’t have any laughter left inside to give me. There was definitely an emptiness about her. I figured she didn’t have a lot of meaningful conversations with people, not that I was capable of giving her one, but her line of questioning led me to believe that this pillow talk was her social time. I wondered if whenever she went to bars and talked to guys, was it solely looking for clientele? Was Jane ever “off duty” from work and able to unwind and make a connection with people? But then again, why bother? I’d imagine it’s near impossible to have a relationship in her business. As she was probing me and I was analyzing her (between peeks at her tits), she noticed something.

“Shit. You still have a boner?”

“Yeah, I guess I still do.”

“I’m sorry. C’mere. I’ll take care of that.”

She got off the bed, still completely naked, and motioned me to go into the bathroom with her. I was confused but excited. I was thinking about the possibilities. Was this was going to be an oyster moment?

Oh wow. What sort of trick is in the bathroom that could finally make me cum? This is going to be some kinky ass shit, that’s for sure. Condom is still off, and now she’s even running the faucet. It’s gonna get messy! Wait, is she going to put her fingers somewhere?

Let me tell you something about this trick of hers: Holy hell, I was not expecting that jolt of ice-cold water right to the little helmet area.

“Wow, that was, uh, that was… unexpected! Completely opposite of what I expected, actually.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

“Sure did. Wow. Boner be gone. Poof.”

Not only did my lil soldier go into full retreat, but I believe it also sobered the fuck out of me. Holy hell! Yeah, they should update our BAC cards to have another column. Gender, weight, number of drinks, total time elapsed, and how often did someone unexpectedly stun your pee-pee with freezing liquids. Woo! But I guess that column title was too long to fit on the little card, so they left it off. Regardless, I did not like her trick. Walking out with wood would have been a perfectly acceptable alternative. Preferable, actually.

In the morning with 1094 days to go, I had the startup in Engine Room Forward as an under instruction watch stander and then a short stint out at sea. Just for a few days though. We’d be back by Friday night. I didn’t bother taking my big bulbus full faced helmet on the ride to base since the novelty skid lid had satisfied each and every Makalapa gate guard thus far. They also had yet to turn me away after switching from orange to black reflective dork vests.

But this morning was the big test. I tried out my dork-back-vest-pack… and it worked! Waived right in. I wondered how much further I could push the limit. Did they make “soft helmets,” like something made out of leather that sort of looks like a real helmet but could be folded up and stuffed under the seat? Something I definitely had to look into. Like didn’t they wear something like that in the biplane era?

Upon our return from sea Friday night, I decided to take it easy instead of drinking until closing and passing out on the beach since there was no way I was going to attempt to infiltrate that fucking hotel again. I was off all day Saturday but had duty on Sunday. Had I gotten plastered upon returning to port Friday night, I would have slept my only day off all away. I couldn’t do that, because I wanted to ride my motorbike.

My plan was to tackle the other mountain range, the Waianae Mountains on the west side, by circumnavigating them going up along the leeward coast and down the center valley, much like I had done with the Koolau Range on the east side along the windward coast. There were two potential problems with my plan, however.

First was that according to my trusty crumpled to death map, there might not be a road connecting the leeward coast with the north shore. Way up by the northwestern tip, the map showed the road in broken lines, signifying that it was unpaved for a number of miles. Not only that, but it didn’t show the unpaved roads actually connecting. There was definitely a gap on the map between the two dirt roads. However, I did find it hard to believe that one corner of the island was unpassable, particularly for a motorcycle—so this did not deter me. I was still planning on investigating.

The other issue with my west side circumnavigation plan was that once I mentioned it to the guys on the boat during our brief stint at sea, they warned me not to go to that part of the island. They said the west side was regarded as for locals only. Like real locals. Native Hawaiians. Actual kama’aina. White boys like me, and especially if in the military, were not welcome. The guys said that they even had a name for us: haole. It’s pronounced as “how-lee” and for any clarification needed, this is the definition of haole in the Merriam Webster dictionary:

haole (noun) ˈhau̇-lē: one who is not descended from the aboriginal Polynesian inhabitants of Hawaii, especially: white. (sometimes disparaging + offensive)

I also found this hard to believe. Yes, I really had trouble believing there would be any trouble with the natives, as every Hawaiian I had thus far met were among the friendliest people I had ever encountered. I felt genuinely welcome on their island. They were all truly full of aloha spirit. I couldn’t imagine a Hawaiian being unwelcoming. I don’t think Maya from the shuttered Hideaway would stand for it.

In fact, the only unwelcoming people I had encountered on the island were haole cops and Navy chiefs. (My guess was that those cops were ex-military dudes who stuck around after their discharge.) The two native Hawaiian police officers I had interactions with were very polite. One was the guy who responded after I torpedo bombed the little white sedan on Nimitz Highway under the H-1 freeway. (He let me off without a ticket and simply said to be careful.) The other was the cute female cop who woke me up on the beach and politely, yet firmly, ordered me to move along for my safety. She was nice. (Imagine if I was woken up by the haole male cop who pulled me over for making a bad U-turn. He probably would have woken me up with his baton.)

In the three months of living on Oahu and not once having a bad encounter with a native Hawaiian, I wondered if perhaps the feeling of not being welcome that the guys mentioned was simply a miscommunication. Many Hawaiians I had met spoke in a dialect called Hawaiian Creole—but more commonly known as pidgin—which could be difficult to understand.

Some of the characteristics of pidgin that I picked up on were that the “th” diphthong was instead pronounced with a “d” (dipdong?) in most cases so that “da,” “dis,” and “dat” were rather prevalent in their speech; if the “th” diphthong was used before an “r,” then it was pronounced as a “t” (“trow away” instead of “throw away”); many of the words were simply dropped from the sentence, particularly verbs like “do” and all forms of “to be” (Da baby fat = The baby is fat); the present tense of verbs was used at all times, and to make them future or past tense, the words “going” or “went” are inserted before the verbs, pronounced “gon” and “wen” (as in We gon surf in da mornin = We will surf in the morning); and the words “brah” and “da kine” were sprinkled into most sentences, with “brah” being the Hawaiian version of “dude” or “bro,” and “da kine” being a substitute word for nearly anything (like a Hawaiian super pronoun).

There’s definitely more to pidgin than those more notable features, and with their sentences also containing liberal amounts Hawaiian words and even sometimes loan words from other languages such as Japanese and Spanish, communication could be a little difficult. So in my mind, any feeling of not feeling welcome in Hawaii had to be down to miscommunication. The west side run around the Waianae Range was not to be cancelled over concerns from my fellow haoles.

The following Saturday morning with 1089 days to go, I took off down H-1 all the way west until it ended in Barbers Point and spits you onto state route 93 Farrington Highway (much like how H-2 ends in Wahiawa and spits you onto state route 99 Kamehameha Highway). Being on the leeward side, it was not surprising how the vegetation here could be described as “arid” or maybe the area could be described as mostly a “brushland.” This side was after all in a rain shadow. The mountains were mostly brown and devoid of trees. Some were covered in pale green grass whereas others looked like big mounds of dirt and rock.

The leeward side was, as I expected, not as beautiful as the windward side. But there was another reason for this besides the differences in flora that I had not expected. This west coast was also one long continuous suburb for miles and miles. At no point in my travels was I the only one on the road for as far as the eye could see, unlike when going up the east coast. In fact, it wasn’t until well past the town of Waianae and more than halfway up the coast that the Farrington Highway even dropped from four lanes down to two lanes. Seemed like the suburbs just continued on and on and on and on.

The weird thing when stopped at the numerous traffic lights was that I felt as if people were staring at me with “stink eye.” Were they actually? I have no idea. I didn’t look around or make eye contact with anybody. I don’t even remember if any one individual was looking at me for any length of time, much less groups of people doing it for an intimidating amount of time. It was just a feeling I had. I probably would have been completely oblivious to what people may or may not have been thinking about me had so many of my shipmates not planted these thoughts in my head only a few days ago.

Fortunately, Farrington Highway did eventually become more scenic, albeit only in the last five miles or so of paved road. The last mile of the highway dropped from two lanes to a narrower unmarked local road, and then it simply ended at Sunset Point. (Not to be confused with Sunset Beach on the north shore.)

I continued up the dirt trail for what was likely less than a mile yet felt much longer due to the ruts and soft sand spots on the trail. Between the now seemingly intense stink eye (which again may or may not have actually been thrown my way) and concern that my smooth round tires would get stuck if I hit too large of a patch of sand, I turned around. This was not a simple task as the trail was rather narrow, in some places barely the width of a single car. Perhaps the stink eye, if actually received, had less to do with me being a haole and more to do with taking my motorbike up a hiking trail. I hadn’t noticed any signs stating no motor vehicles, however.

Once back in the suburbs in the town of Waianae, I stopped for some grub at a place called L&L Drive Inn. Nobody was rude to me, but I still had this nagging feeling I didn’t belong. This of course could have been entirely in my head. Fucking shipmates, I swear. L&L specialized in plate lunches with rice, macaroni salad, eggs, and inexpensive cuts of meat. Most of everything was slathered in mayonnaise.

My plate had the aforementioned rice, macaroni salad, and mayonnaise covered fried eggs, plus some Spam and a very thin overly cooked piece of fatty steak. I was not sure whether or not I belonged in Waianae, but I was sure as hell that my taste buds did not. (I absolutely hate mayonnaise.) With the piece of Spam inside of me, I realized my entire Farrington Highway mission around the northwest tip was a failure. It was okay though as I always had the Kalanianaole Highway and my beloved southeastern tip.

Sunday was another stinky duty day. While on watch, I thought about maybe trying to circumnavigate the northwestern tip from the other direction, from the north shore side. Maybe go very early in the morning when there would be fewer people on the trail. And if I did get stuck in sand, there would be a lot more sunlight in the day to figure out how to get out. Stuck in flat portion of a sandy trail is definitely easy to get out of as I could just get off the bike and meter the throttle while walking alongside of the bike. But the problem I feared was getting stuck at the bottom of a hill. It had happened to me before, and it was a nightmare to escape. I benched this idea.

My top priority was not to go around the Waianae Range, but to no longer need a big bulbous helmet around my head. I absolutely needed that motorcycle license. I already succeeded in switching my driver’s license to a Hawaiian one and then passing their written motorcycle permit test. All I had to do is schedule my road test. Once off duty Monday afternoon, I rode straight to the DMV, took a number, and excitedly stated my purpose to the lady behind the counter while displaying all of my paperwork.

This lady was perplexed, however. She had never seen someone schedule a road test in Hawaii with a motorcycle registered in Connecticut. How could I have been the first? We debated briefly over the language in the requirement section. Nowhere did the literature state that the motorcycle had to be registered in Hawaii. It merely said it had to have valid registration. That’s it. Just valid, not Hawaiian. But she would not budge. Since the local lady behind the counter said I couldn’t schedule the road test, I requested a supervisor. I waited a little bit, and then a Hawaiian male came up to me.

“What’s da problem?”

“Yes hi, uh… I’d like to schedule a road test for a motorcycle license, but she has a problem with my registration for some reason.”

He talked to her briefly and then returned me.

“Well ya, da reason is dat your motorcycle needs to be registered in da state of Ha-vai-i to schedule da road test.”

“That’s what she said, but she was unable to show me where that’s written. I read everything provided which outlines the requirements for the motorbike on a road test. Really, the only thing it states is that the bike has to have valid registration and insurance.”

“Right. It needs to haff valid registration.”

“My bike has valid registration.”

“But not da Ha-vaiian registration, you see?”

“Where does it say it needs to be Hawaiian? It just says valid.”

“Dat’s what valid registration is meaning.”

“So what are you saying? My registration is invalid and my bike can’t legally be ridden on the streets of Hawaii? Because I see a lot of out-of-state license plates on the road from all the military personnel stationed here. Is that actually against the law here?”

“No, you can drive in Ha-vai-i wit da out-of-state vehicle.”

“Yeah I figured, just like any other state. Hawaii is just another state after all. Okay, so this is good. We’ve just established that my bike has valid registration and is perfectly legal to ride on Hawaiian roads. Is that correct?”

“Ya, you can ride in Ha-vai-i.”

“Okay, so then why can’t I use it to take the road test?”

“Because you need to haff valid Ha-vaiian registration.”

“Where does it say that? No one seems to be able to point this out to me. I want you to show that to me where it says ‘Hawaiian’.”

 “You must know that if someting happens on da road test, we haff to make sure dat da insurance is covering da damages.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Insurance? So the issue is insurance now? Meaning we’re past the registration issue, right? Okay, we’re making progress. We just established that my registration is valid. So, now you are concerned with my insurance, correct?”

“The insurance has to cover da damages if dere is da accident.”

“Well, I’m fully insured. Comprehensive. Everything.”

“In da state of Connecticut.”

“That’s where I bought the coverage, yes, but I’m allowed to drive out of that state with my insurance.”

“We don’t know dat insurance from da state of Connecticut is gon cover da accident in da state of Ha-vai-i.”

“What? You can’t be serious! It’s Geico! I have Geico, not some random company like Bob’s Discount Insurance or something. Look, I’ll bring the entire policy in. I’ll bring it in and show you all the details, okay?”

He agreed, but that was likely just to get me to go the fuck away. I zipped home, dug out the policy, and returned. Predictably, he “wasn’t available” to speak to me. I came back the following day after work and waited at the DMV until I spotted him walking around. I ambushed him with my policy paperwork.

“Take a look. Valid in all fifty states and Canada.”

“S’cuse me?”

“For the road test. I just had to show you that it’s valid in Hawaii. So we’re good now, right? I’ll go ahead and schedule the test.”

“Does it say dat it valid in da state of Ha-vai-i?”

“Yeah. Valid in all fifty states and Canada.”

“So it doesn’t say dat it valid in da state of Ha-vai-i.”

“What!?! It says fifty states right here. Look.”

“But not Ha-vai-i.”

“Did I miss a war or something!?! Isn’t Hawaii the fiftieth state in the Union? Admitted right after Alaska, right? Hawaii is one of those fifty states that Geico says it’s valid in.”

“It has to say valid in Ha-vai-i.”

“Wait, wait, wait. So are you saying I have to get Geico to send me a list of those fifty states individually by name? I mean, c’mon! You know Hawaii is one of those fifty states. But if that’s what you’re saying, I’ll do it. Yeah, I really will do it. I’ll call the broker and have them fax you the list of which of the fifty states are covered, which is all of them, so it will just be a list of all of the states, including Hawaii. I’ll do it. I’ll get on the phone right now.”

“Da problem is dat we don’t know if you are going to be adequately covered in an accident during da road test. You have insurance from da state of Connecticut, and dat might not be enough for dis state.”

“No, no, no. It’s right here. I already found that part. Check it out. Says coverage is adjusted in each state according to minimum state requirements. Right here. Look.”

“I’m sorry, but you cannot use your motorcycle on da road test.”

“Why not?”

“I told you why. I haff to go now. S’cuse me.”

“No, you’re not excused. You haven’t adequately explained wh—”

“I haff to go.”

“You know what? Go fuck yourself, you fucking asshole! I know what you’re doing. Fuck you. I’ll ride around your stupid fucking island without a fucking license! Go fuck yourself you piece of shit!”

I didn’t often lose my cool, but that dense as fuck piece of shit was standing directly in in the path of a very important goal of mine for no good reason. And it was hard to take that DMV douche bag dude seriously as his version of pigeon was just too childlike. Whereas full on pidgin sounds like a lot of cool slang, this guy was basically speaking in English with a baby accent. I hated him. His stupid fucking voice just went right through me every time he opened his stupid fucking pie hole to deny me the road test I desperately wanted.

I left the DMV pretty pissed off on account of being treated like a haole. At least that’s how I felt at the time. I could have taken it the wrong way, however. Maybe he wasn’t a racist. Maybe this was just him being a governmental turd clogging a bureaucratic toilet. He would have fit right in as a chief in the Navy.

Regardless, I made good on my threat to him. Who would have thought that one of the most influential assholes I’d encounter during my time in the Navy would not be someone wearing khakis? No, it would be this fucking civilian. The worst kind of civilian. A bureaucrat in service of the government. Someone with too much authority and too little accountability.

While I often pushed the envelope with the rules and laws through frustration of their senselessness, I always intended to work my way into compliance. Now after my encounter with that pathetic pencil neck prick in power, I had no intention. Something inside of me just snapped. I wasn’t going to follow their fucking rules.

I woke up in the morning with 1085 days to go. It was Wednesday, the 11^th of February 1998. Also known as my twenty second birthday. Instead of being happy, I was angry. I still had all the fire in my belly as I had that past evening. I just didn’t give a fuck anymore and now really couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the Navy.

So it was oh so fitting to be refused entry by the guard at the Makalapa gate on account of him judging my dork-back-vest-pack as not complying with the rules. I argued with him. That I had been admitted many times before with this exact set up mattered not to him. He wouldn’t budge. I questioned his intelligence and announced my alternative plan.

“Doesn’t fucking matter, I’ll just use the main gate.”

“Good luck with that. I’ll call them faster than you can ride down there.”

“Do your best, assface!”

I turned around and took a right turn onto Kamehameha Highway as if I was going to the Nimitz gate, then made a U-turn out of sight of the assface Makalapa gate guard. The only reason I told him I was using the main gate was to tie up his time on the phone. I went right through the seldom used third gate—the Halawa gate—without trouble. Hell, that guard was probably just excited to see another human being. I never did have any other problems with my dork-back-vest-pack after that Makalapan assface did his worst this day. Maybe the douche at the DMV called him. Those two would make a terrifying team together.

We’re from the government, and we’re here to help…

On the boat, I didn’t tell anyone about my birthday. It sucks not having any plans and being alone on your birthday, but somehow, it’s less worse if the reason for not having any plans is because no one knew it was my birthday than had I told everyone it was my birthday, and I still ended up having no plans. I suppose the only thing I would have really liked was to have Anya call me, but I didn’t give her my phone number. Again, that’s a better reason not to hear from her on my birthday than had I given her my number and still not hearing from her. So, I was to go out for some drinks all by my lonesome. Not the worst thing in the world as I was a loner. I could do anything I wanted.

After work, unsurprisingly, it turned out what I wanted was Double Black Stout and a few lap dances at Déjà Vu. Loraine wasn’t there, but Tia and Charlie were. I told them it was my birthday once I was properly inebriated, and they were especially nice to me for a few minutes. I suppose there wasn’t really much else they could do.

I left Déjà Vu lathered up and this time I was unable to make it through The Gauntlet. I only stopped to acknowledge one of the girls because at first, I thought it was Loraine. It wasn’t, but her hair was very similar. Then while talking to this lady, I figured that since it was my birthday, I probably should have sex. I wasn’t sure if discount Loraine was the one I wanted, however.

While she did look vaguely like Loraine from a distance, up close she seemed a bit older, and I didn’t find her anywhere as near as attractive. I did get the sense that this woman was likely a knockout back when she was my age. Oddly, this hooker named Jennifer seemed somewhat motherly. That’s not something I was into, but we had already began speaking a bit, and I felt it would be rather rude to then walk away with a different working girl. Jennifer it was. She directed me to a motel just off of Kuhio.

Her room was a pretty standard motel room with two queen size beds. We took the one away from the door, closer to the window. This particular vagina was no tighter than the others. I definitely had a dick or hand problem. One major difference with this vagina, however, was that Jennifer’s was not as well lubricated as Treasure’s or Jane’s. I wondered if it was because she might be having so much sex that it was no longer enjoyable for her. Usually when things are done for work instead of for a hobby, it becomes tedious and not very satisfying.

Wow! Imagine if sex was work and not fun!?!

Then again, it was probably not the worst problem to have. I think I’d rather be swamped having a backlog of sex instead of having to clean out countless bilges. Plus, Jennifer had some sort of tube of lube handy. Problem solved. But then there was a new problem. Midway through my time with Jennifer’s body, the motel room door suddenly swung open.

Shit! The cops!

My first thought was wondering if the police officers would let me put my pants back on before taking me downtown or would they bag them for evidence. But it wasn’t the cops. It was another hooker/sailor combo. That’s what I gathered as the two ladies chatted about us while I was still thrusting away and the other two began stripping down. They took the bed next to the door and quickly got down to business. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this development. Four strangers having sex on two beds side by side?

Hmm. Is this what it’s like to be a sailor? Is this really how the sailor life is?

I generally don’t even like to pee next to someone. Often, I can’t even go if someone is waiting behind me to finish so they could go. It’s so much pressure! And of course, all hope is lost if someone is purposefully watching me like a chief during a drug test. But never in a hundred years would I have thought that this sort of stage fright would translate to sex as well. It was so damn awkward to be honest. What was even more awkward was that occasionally the other sailor and I would accidentally make eye contact and shrug at each other.

Why do I keep looking at him!?!

Guess this is how it is now, this sailor life of mine. I wondered if similar thoughts were going through his head. I also began to wonder about all this hooker pricing. Treasure was $300 on Kalakaua Avenue. Jane and Jennifer were $200 on Kuhio Avenue. So, does that mean if I walked one more block over to Ala Wai Boulevard, we’re talking $100? Then what about across the canal? Perhaps you can sleep with those women for free. Hell, maybe if I went up into the mountains, the ladies would actually pay me for sex! It is possible that due to having thoughts such as these, time won the race once again.

“Alright honey, that’s an hour.”

“Okay, don’t worry, I’ll use the sink at home.”

“Use the sink?”

“Yeah, I know the trick. Don’t worry.”

I left and passed out on the beach. Seemed as though these ladies weren’t doing it for me. I wondered if it was because I knew it wasn’t real. Well other than the money. The money spent was definitely real. So far, I had doled out a total of $700 for sex and never once came. Instead, I seemed to only manage to build up a highway system of hookers. I began to refer to Treasure as H-1, Jane as H-2, and Jennifer as H-3 in my private thoughts. I suppose the best part of my travels down the highway of hookers was that if I now went home without a lady and had to jerk off, instead of feeling like a loser, I could instead say to myself something encouraging like,

“Smart move sailor. We just saved ourselves at least two hundred bucks.”

I would continue to contemplate such thoughts and many others the following weekend while cruising on my Marauder. I was off on both Saturday and Sunday. I had duty on Monday however, ordinarily a decent day to have stinky duty. That meant you had the following weekend off too, albeit you would wake up on the boat Saturday morning. This Monday, however, was Presidents Day with all those not on duty allowed to take the day off.

In four section duty, there were four different weeks of duty days before repeating. Week 1 would be Sunday & Thursday duty, week 2 would be Monday & Friday, week 3 would be Tuesday & Saturday, and week 4 would be just Wednesday. So, you only had a 25% chance to have a duty-free three-day holiday weekend.

Regardless, at least I had two full days off. This particular Saturday following my birthday was Valentines Day, and I was feeling frisky. I was going to ride naked on Valentines Day and every day from then on. I hit the Kalanianaole Highway without a helmet, wearing only my yellow tinted goggles.

It was insane just how much more glorious it was to ride my motorcycle without that big stupid fucking full-faced helmet. Just everything about it was better. I could hear better, I had better peripheral vision, and best of all, the wind wasn’t constantly pushing my head back. I didn’t realize how aerodynamic my face was. What a relief for my neck!

It really is hard to describe how much more comfortable it is to ride without a helmet to those who don’t ride. I don’t know, maybe it’s like the difference between going to sleep in bed naked versus going to bed fully dressed in work clothes, including your steel tipped boots. Or how about this explanation? It was so much nicer riding without a helmet that I felt like going back to the DMV to shake the hand of the douche bag dude and thank him for treating me like the haole that I was. Without him being such an asshole, I might not have become a rebel without a helmet.

I had a full weekend of glorious helmet-less riding, which of course would end Sunday evening in the loading well of the Waikiki Town Center. I made the rounds at the Red Lion and Crap Hole Tiki, but as usual, there was little action. This lack of action saw me—you guessed it—predicably deciding to end my night at Déjà Vu despite knowing there would be no Loraine, no Tia, and no Charlie. At least that’s what I thought. I was therefore rather surprised to see Loraine sitting on the customer side of the bar when I walked in. She was a bit tipsy and had one demand of me.

“Take me home on your motorbike.”

“I dunno. I think I might be a wee bit over the limit. Wasn’t planning on ri—”

“I have a bottle of Stoli at my place.”

“Are you ready to leave now?”

In the morning, it felt like I got hit a garbage truck. And everything was upside-down. I started to make sense of the situation and found my head dangling off a mattress somewhere. There was this huge ass fan blowing incredible amounts of air in my face while filling my ears with just a whole lot of white noise. Fuck, I was hungover! Even upside down and filled with residual stupidity, the room seemed familiar. Ah yes. This was Loraine’s living room. I began to regain my senses. Just barely audible with all the fan whooshing sounds was this little beeping noise.

<Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.>

So softly. So silently.

What is that?

<Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.>

Oh shit! That’s an alarm! That’s the alarm! What time is it!?! Fuck! It’s already 8am! I’m supposed to be on the boat in exactly… now!

It was President’s Day, but of course I had stupid fucking duty. Not only was it a holiday where most people would have the day off, but I had just noticed that a half-naked Loraine was passed out next to me. This had to be the worst day ever to pull duty.

Fucking hell! Why can’t I just stay in bed with Loraine!?! She’s mostly naked again! I should be off today! I do not want to be on the boat! I want to be in this bed! Fucking life! Fucking Navy! Fucking one thousand eighty days to go!

I didn’t have much time to pity myself while pulling myself out of the nearly naked Loraine’s couch bed. I was going to be quite late for duty! I quickly dressed, noticed a pot of cloudy water and bloated macaroni on the stove along with numerous beer bottles and a half-finished bottle of Stoli, ran out the door, and hoped to hell my motorcycle was outside her house and not back at the Waikiki Town Center loading well. Thankfully, there it was right outside.

What a sight!

Shiny red, silver, and chrome Marauder tucked against a grey-blue wall one door down from Loraine’s place. Now I had to get from Waikiki to Pearl Harbor as fast as I could! And I could make it in about twenty minutes if I hustled. Maybe I’d be thirty minutes late tops. Not the end of the world. I fired up the bike just as the morning rain began to fall.

Despite the predictable morning rain, I was really speeding. Pretty recklessly for the conditions in fact. This resulted in my skin burning from hundreds of raindrop needles. It was like being sand blasted in the face. It hurt like hell, but I had to go as fast as possible. I was even weaving in and out between cars on Ala Moana Boulevard to try to gain a precious few extra minutes.

While in the left lane passing cars near Restaurant [Death] Row, I noticed my lane was coned off ahead. There was a car in the middle lane, so I shot all the way over to the far-right lane. Then I saw that the middle lane was coned off as well. I quickly realized at my closing speed, I’d be exactly where the car in the middle lane needed to be when they also had to move over to the only remaining open lane. I hit the brakes.

Yeah, so as one might imagine, wet roads and hard braking are as good of a combination as Seamen Sample and low hanging light fixtures. The ass end of my Marauder suddenly spun out counterclockwise, the tires caught a little traction again when completely sideways, and then it flipped over and threw me off on the high side.

I was sliding down Ala Moana Boulevard feet first on my leather jacket clad elbows and my wallet protected ass at maybe forty miles an hour. The Marauder was sliding with me, just a few feet behind. We slid for such a distance that I had time to look back three times to check that the bike was still sliding behind me. Yes. Yes, it was. I was just hoping not to be run over by my own damn motorbike.

Interestingly, and through no skill of my own, both the bike and I stayed in our lane without knocking over any cones or hitting the curb as we loudly scraped down the road past dozens of onlookers going about their quiet, rainy morning business on the sidewalk. After a few seconds of sliding, I rolled onto my side and used the momentum to hop onto my feet, and then I jumped out of the way of the bike.

As fast as I could do it, I chased down the still sliding bike and picked it up right when it stopped. The pedestrians were asking if I was okay, but I couldn’t look them in the eye. I didn’t even respond actually. Too embarrassing. This was my second motorcycle wreck! And this one had quite a large audience for it. Fortunately, the Marauder wasn’t too damaged and fired right back up. I sped off as I heard a lady on the sidewalk say in a very sweet and encouraging voice,

“And he saves the bike too!”

Left behind at the scene was my dignity. And also, my front brake lever. The cheap pot-metal lever snapped right off. Now without it, it was going to be a challenge. Riding in slick conditions with just the rear brake to stop? That was no good. No good at all. In all honesty, I should have parked the bike and found alternate means to the base like the bus or a taxi, but I was already halfway there. I figured I could make it.

But as I made my getaway from the scene of my high-side crash, I found that Ala Moana Boulevard wasn’t just funneled down to one lane. No, it was completely blocked off and traffic was diverted down a perpendicular street. I spotted some signs for some sort of marathon. Figures. What a perfect day for me to wake up late and experience road closures.

The diversion put me in an area that I wasn’t too familiar with, so I became even more anxious about how late I was going to be. Yet only a few blocks later, I was instantly relieved when I spotted King Street. I had never ridden down it before, not on my bike that is, but it was the street the bus travelled from Pearl Harbor to Ala Moana Center for my transfer to the Waikiki bus. I figured I’d to turn left onto King Street with the intention of getting onto Nimitz Highway just like the bus. Nimitz Highway ends at the main gate of Pearl Harbor Naval Base, so I was all set.

Or so I thought. What I hadn’t realized was that King Street was one way in this section, and I couldn’t turn left. Since I rarely took the bus back to Pearl Harbor in a sober state, I wasn’t sure which street the bus took on the return route. I took a chance and took a left at the next street, which ended up fortuitously merging back into King Street where it was again a two-way street. Then having some sense of familiarity with the bus route, I turned off of King Street and onto Dillingham Boulevard. That’s how I’d get onto Nimitz Highway!

But this also was not to be. At the end of Dillingham Boulevard, the entrance Nimitz Highway was blocked off with cones. This actually made sense as Ala Moana Boulevard and Nimitz Highway are essentially the same road with different names, with both being state route 92. So, instead of Nimitz, I took the high road. Literally the high road. There was an entrance to the elevated portion of freeway H-1, the section that was directly over Nimitz. I could take it to Kamehameha Highway and turn left right into the Makalapa gate after pulling over and throwing on all my safety bullshit.

Just as I merged onto the limited access H-1 freeway, the rain really began coming down. It was coming down so hard it was bouncing back up and dispersing into a mist, making visibility quite poor. And this was also the point where the Marauder’s engine began sputtering.

At first, I thought it was the torrential downpour somehow getting into the intake, but then I realized it was more likely because I was running out of fuel and needed to switch to reserves. Since I didn’t have much further to go, I wasn’t too worried, figuring I’d be able to make it onto base. If the bike died on the base, I’m sure someone like Jay-Jay would give me a lift to the gas station to bring back a gallon of gas.

While reaching down to turn the gas cock to the reserve, I didn’t notice all the cars stopping short in front of me. I had been keeping a large gap in front of me knowing that I only had my rear brake to stop on the slippery surface, but I didn’t notice how quickly everyone slowed down to a crawl once the light rain became a downpour.

When I looked back up from leaning over and messing with the fuel valve and saw all those cars almost at a stop, I instinctively hit the brakes pretty hard. Or brake rather. That single rear brake. More Seaman Sample and low hanging lights. It locked up, spun the bike around again, and down I went for the second time, this time in a low side crash.

Shit! I’m a fucking trainwreck!

I picked the bike back up and decided to get off at the next exit. That was the airport exit. I just really needed to get off that damn slippery-as-shit wet-as-fuck expressway with just the one functioning brake. The Honolulu International Airport exit was the one before the exit for the main gates of both the Air Force and Navy bases. I mean, the exit for the main gate lets you off at Nimitz Highway, and that highway was all coned off just before it went under H-1. I figured it was either get off at the airport exit here or really push my luck on the slippery freeway for three more exits with my one functioning brake.

I thought that the airport exit had to have a nice slow speed local road to get onto Hickam Airforce Base. After all, the Honolulu International Airport shared the four runways with Hickam. (Note that the Navy actually built that airfield.) So yes, I figured that there must be a little road somewhere I can use to gain access to Hickam. And of course, if I got into Hickam, I knew how to get into Pearl from there. While taking a surprisingly tight turn down the exit ramp into the airport from H-1, again with this rear brake only to rapidly slow down, I went down for a third time. It was another low side crash.

Usually, people say three time’s a charm, but this third crash was all for naught. If there was a way onto Hickam from the airport exit, I was unable to find it. At least not without crossing Nimitz. Eventually I realized that I did need to go across Nimitz to see if maybe I could get onto Radford Drive and take that straight into the Makalapa gate of the submarine base. Cutting across Nimitz right under the H-1 was going to be a problem for sure if any cops were around, however.

The Nimitz Highway intersection by the airport exit was all coned off as expected, but there were no runners there at what I estimated to be eight thirty in the morning. I was just going to go for it and cross Nimitz. Like, without any runners, why would that be a big deal? But shit, wouldn’t you know it? There was a cop standing right there at this exact intersection. He of course could make it a big deal. I, however, figured that the cop would surely agree with me. I was in a pickle after all. I would just ask him politely for permission to cross as there were no runners around yet. Like I said, no big deal.

Turned out it was a big deal. What was surprising was that this cop was a native Hawaiian, not some fucking haole. In theory he should have an abundance of aloha spirit and let me pass, yet he wouldn’t let me cross even after pleading my case. He obviously wasn’t one of those really nice native Hawaiian cops with the aloha spirit as most of them seemed to have. No, of course, this day I’d meet my first native cop who happened to be one of those reverse racist assholes with “aloha attitude” as I called it, just like that DMV douche bag dude.

“C’mon officer. I’m really late for work. I’m in the Navy, and I’m going to be in a lot of trouble. Can’t you just let me past this one time before the runners get here? Please?”

“Da road stay closed, brah.”

“I know, I know. I know it’s closed. I just need to get across real fast. I mean, did the race even start? Are there even any runners out yet because of the rain? Probably not, right? But, how about this? What if I turn the bike off and walk it across? Would that work for you?”

“Da road’s closed. Go nuddah way.”

“I don’t know another way.”

“Go back da way you come.”

“God you’re such an asshole!”

I spun around and made my way back onto H-1. I passed right on by the Nimitz Highway main gate exit—which curiously wasn’t visibly blocked off as far as I could tell—but I figured it had to be because it spits you off right onto Nimitz Highway. I mean, Nimitz was blocked off at the two places I checked. So, it had to be blocked here as well, and therefore I planned to get off at the next exit. That would be Kamehameha Highway, and I’d use the Makalapa gate right off of it like normal.

To my dismay, Kam Highway was the exit that was blocked off. I didn’t know why I didn’t think this earlier, about how Nimtz Highway ended at the main gate at Pearl Harbor. Why would they end a marathon there? Yes, it made much more sense for the run’s route to veer off of Nimitz and onto Kamehameha Highway, which is exactly where the Kam Highway started. If I had thought about it logically, I could have exited H-1 at the Nimitz exit and gone straight into main base entrance. Now it was too late.

Being forced to ride past the blocked off Kamehameha Highway and submarine base exit, the next exit I could leave the freeway was at Aloha Stadium. Since I was already so damn late for duty, I figured I may as well stop for gas there too. It was better than running out of fuel on my way back to the main gate. Imagine having to push a bike in a downpour along a limited access elevated expressway and down into the Navy base? Yes, it was worth the extra ten minutes or so of being late to potentially avoid that situation. The rain let up as I filled up my tank, but I was completely soaked already.

Once departing the gas station, I returned to H-1 going the opposite direction, got off at the Nimitz exit after all, went in through the main gate, and snaked my way around the base to the submarine piers. All I can say is what a walk of shame onto the boat from my parking spot! Everyone looking at me knowing I’m the asshole? It was awful.

I did not have my wristwatch—probably left it at Loraine’s place in my rush to leave—but regardless, I knew that I had to be at least an hour late. At the very least! It was such an awful feeling. Fortunately, the first person to see inside the sub was Jay-Jay. A non-hostile!

“Oh man, what a morning! I can’t believe how late I am!”

“Late for what?”

“For relief. I guess I don’t have first watch then? Shit, is the Engineering Duty Officer mad at me though?”

“What are you talking about?”

Then it occurred to me.

“Wait. If you’re not on watch—uh, what time is it?”

“Seven forty-five.”

“Seven forty-five!?!”

“Yeah.”

“You mean eight forty-five, right?”

“No. It’s seven forty-five.”

“How is that even poss—so I’m not late!?!”

“No. You’re early. Unless you’re some fucking diggit who says ‘Uuuuh… if you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late. Durrrrr.’ But I don’t think you’re a fucking diggit, so…”

“No, I’m not a dig—holy shit! What a relief! I thought I was like an hour late! You sure it’s seven forty-five?”

“Yes, it’s seven forty-five. Everything okay? Why are you all wet? You’re like completely soaked. Did you fall in the harbor or just walk here without an umbrella?”

“Yeah, everything is fine now. And no, I was caught in the rain on my motorbike. But I, uh… I think I just need to buy a new fucking watch though! I don’t know exactly where mine went. I actually don’t know anything anymore. I gotta go change.”

“Whatever, dude. Try not to get into another time warp or fall back into the harbor on your way to turnover.”

I would later discover that Loraine purposely set her clock over an hour ahead so she wouldn’t be late for whatever she was always late for. So, I actually wasn’t late for my stinky duty at all. Her system worked!  Yeah, okay due to her system, my bike was all banged up, I ended up with quite a few scrapes and bruises, there were now holes in my pants and scuffs on my Perfecto jacket, and I was soaked down to my boxer shorts and socks… but technically, yeah, her system did in fact work. I think it just had a few kinks to iron out before we could call it a successful program.

[Note that this race which caused so much headache for me is known as the Great Aloha Run. For years I told this story thinking it was the Honolulu Marathon, but that is held on a different day along a different route. The Great Aloha Run is an 8.15-mile course from Aloha Tower to Aloha Stadium along Ala Moana Boulevard, Nimitz Highway, and Kamehameha Highway. The first race was held in 1985, so the 14^th annual GAR will forever be either my favorite or least favorite one depending on my mood.]

After getting off second watch, and still very much sore from my triple wrecks, I sat up on the pier. The rain had since cleared and the day became simply glorious. This was to be expected as I was trapped on the boat with fucking duty on what should be a day off. I don’t know why the hell life just had to rub it in my face like that every fucking time. It was crazy to think that I would have twenty-four hours of duty every fourth day for the rest of my enlistment, with the only relief being going out to sea—where I’d be trapped inside the submarine not for hours, but for days, weeks, or months. Some relief!

What the hell did I get myself into!?!

It had been a few months since naive noob me was staring out the window of a 747 daydreaming of Hawaiian life just before touchdown. Now I was in Hawaii, but still just staring out at this paradise during a gloriously sunny day, this time trapped on a submarine. Things weren’t going the way I had hoped. I remember all the excitement I had when talking to Maya at the Hideaway when I had been in Hawaii less than a week.

She and I were engaged in lively banter that day. One of the things I discussed with her was some sort of psychological mumbo jumbo about the “emotional stages of relocation” or similar words that were on one of the pamphlets included in my official US Navy Pearl Harbor welcome packet. I’m totally going to butcher this as I don’t quite remember, but the pamphlet said there was maybe five emotional stages of relocation, and I think they were something like this: 1. The honeymoon phase, 2. The culture shock phase, 3. The adjustment phase, 4. The isolation phase, and 5. The acceptance phase.

Yeah, I’m sure I butchered the hell out of remembering the stages, but I did have the actual pamphlet with me at the time for more accuracy while joking around with Maya. It even had a graph in it that looked like reactor power with overshoots and corrections. Yet I didn’t believe any of that psychological mumbo jumbo, however. I remembered telling her that there was no way I would feel any of those stages beyond the honeymoon phase in a place like Hawaii. I said there would have to be something seriously wrong with someone feeling anything other than the honeymoon phase the entire time living in this paradise.

A few months later, I don’t know. I didn’t know if there was anything wrong with me, but the honeymoon was definitely over. It started to feel like there weren’t really all those possibilities out there for me that I used to think I had. It felt like maybe the world wasn’t my oyster anymore. It felt like all I could do is stare at paradise from the outside and hope one day things would be better. I would just have to wait it out in Pearl Harbor, stuck in the Navy for 1080 more days.

The interesting thing about this Pearl Harbor place was that prior to the haoles’ naval intrusion into the native Hawaiians’ land, the name of these waters was actually Wai Momi. The translation for Wai Momi is Pearl Waters. You see, before this harbor was home to submarines, it was home to oysters. But the name mattered little to me at that point sitting on a crate on the pier feeling like I’ll forever be stuck on the outside looking in. My world was a giant sea snot.

I fucking hate oysters.