9. Wai Momi (part one)

The world is my oyster! So many possibilities! Life is good!

That’s what I thought when pulling back into port. My world with all these possibilities was pretty small, but that was fine with me. Once free, I really only thought about whatever the possibilities were for the three most important aspects of life: Where to get food and drinks, where to ride my motorcycle, and where to meet the ladies. What else was there really for a twenty-one year old seaman?

The answer to these three vitally important questions were, of course, wherever the hell I wanted! My new Hawaiian home was so exciting, and I’d constantly be making new discoveries. How amazing it is to be kama’aina! There were of course occasional consequences for all this freedom, yet this did not temper my excitement for quite some time. I was too enthralled with living my new Hawaiian life. I could do anything!

Adding to the freedom filled fantastic feeling on this Friday with 1111 days to go was that I had the whole weekend off without duty, I had just come back from a week at sea where I was unable to spend any of my money, and on top of that, I was paid the day before pulling into port. That meant for the first of those three important aspects of my life to consider, I had enough money to avoid eating at the galley!

If I could avoid it for the rest of my enlistment, that would be a victory for mental health. Eating at the galley seriously depressed me. At the time, I didn’t understand why the slimy-skinned baked sea chicken served on the boat’s mess deck tasted so much better than the slimy-skinned baked base chicken served at the galley. I’m sure it was an identical recipe. Both were chewy and slimy and gross. I guess intolerance to military chow was inversely proportional to distance from land.

I suppose it could have been due to the lack of possibilities we had once sealed into the fast attack sewer tube. There’s no Kentucky Fried Chicken of the sea to compare to that slimy-skinned, chewy chicken they served us underway. A meal which you could probably rub against a door hinge to lubricate it and cure a squeak. Plus, while chowing down on the boat, you were always subconsciously thinking of something to assuage yourself.

At least this isn’t beef yakisoba.

But in port, you weren’t under a constant yakisoba threat. (Unlike on the boat, they made several main dishes per meal in the galley.) Therefore, you could compare your base galley mediocre meals (like the aforementioned slimy-skinned chewy chicken, and others like the overcooked tough-as-nails rawhide ribeye cow skin steaks or the mushy as all hell baby meat ravioli) to all the palatable possibilities out in town. This made eating cafeteria food when quite broke, as I said, quite depressing. It’s like you take a bite of the government gifted grub and realize that your entire life up to that exact moment culminated in a mouthful of slimy-skinned chewy chicken.

Is this all that I am worth? Am I not good enough to deserve better than this?

Fortunately, I wasn’t flat broke on this Friday night. I did deserve better bird and could buy my favorite form of fowl that Friday, a chicken fajita pita from the Jack in the Box in Waikiki right across from Déjà Vu. Then I could cruise the Waikiki strip, I had the option to bar hop around Lewers Street looking for the ladies, and would likely end the night at Déjà Vu if there were none to be found. And obviously I’d wake up Saturday morning on the beach next to the Duke.

This was a perfect plan for a Friday night right after returning from the lonely sea. I threw on my helmet and rode right over to Waikiki. While coasting towards a red light on Kuhio Avenue a few blocks before the Jack in the Box, I spotted some big blonde Texan hair walking down the sidewalk.

That has to be Loraine!

She’s impossible to miss with that giant 1980’s television series leading lady teased out blonde hairdo. I called out to Loraine as I slowed down and pulled alongside of her, noting from the way she had been stumbling that she was likely completely plastered.

“Hey sexy, going my way?”

“Fuck off!”

“Loraine!”

“Leave me be!”

“No wait—Lorraine, it’s… It’s me. It’s Brendan. I was just, I just saw you from dow…”

It didn’t seem like I could get through to her, but then something clicked. She finally stopped, looked at me, and eventually realized who I was.

“Brendan?”

“Yes!”

“What… what are you…”

“Doing? I was gonna get a bite to eat. Wanna join me?”

 “Nuh—no. No. I want to go… home. Take me… there, please. Just… take me home.”

“Okay no problem! Home it is. Saddle up and show me the way!”

We cruised down Kuhio Avenue to the end of Waikiki and took a left by the zoo. Loraine was positively smashed, possibly even blacked out, but coherent enough to ride on the back of the bike without falling asleep or falling off, and was also able navigate the way home. From where I spotted her, she lived about three miles away, a smidge past the Lunalilo Freeway in a neighborhood called Kaimuki. Her place was a small detached single-story house that seemed to me to be at least as old as I was, perhaps quite a bit older even. Those multi-paned, crank and gearbox operated jalousie windows made the houses look dated to me. That’s pre-air conditioning technology right there.

The front door opened to a small living room, which had an opened-up couch bed straight ahead, and a tiny kitchen to the right along the wall that wasn’t divided from the living room other than a small table. There was a dark hallway between the couch bed and stove that presumably led to the bathroom and maybe a bedroom. I’m not certain if there was actually a bedroom back there as the couch bed was open. Perhaps this was a studio apartment and there was just the bathroom and a closet in the back. I don’t really know.

Loraine immediately disappeared into that dark hallway as soon as we entered her place. She had been trying to talk to me from back there, but I couldn’t understand her. Her speech was stilted, choppy, and while repetitive, her sentences were unfinished. Then she went quiet. For quite a bit.

I figured that there must be a bedroom back there, and that she simply passed out drunk. This was disappointing as I was hoping to hang out with her and chit chat for a while. I didn’t even have her phone number, but here I was inside her house. This was a nice and unexpected development. But then again, it was possible that she wouldn’t even remember how she got home. That was usually the case with me after a big night out. I figured it would be a good time to leave, but lingered a bit with this sense that I could possibly missing out on something good. Maybe she wasn’t actually passed out. Maybe she was really focused on something or maybe she was simply on the toilet.

“Loraine?”

She didn’t answer. I stood there a little while longer, uncertain if I should actually leave or wait it out just a bit longer. I certainly didn’t want to miss any opportunities, and yet had this nagging feeling that it did seem a bit creepy for me to stay inside her place if she was indeed already sleeping, whether in a bed or on a toilet.

“Okay… I guess, uh… I guess I’ll get going if that’s alright… You’re okay right? You okay in there?”

Again, she didn’t answer. For a split second, I thought I should make sure she was okay before leaving. But then I immediately felt it would be highly inappropriate to wander into her bedroom or bathroom uninvited with the pretense of checking up on her. What if she was naked? No, she was fine. She was a professional. She had to be. There was no way a bartender could make it that long in life if she didn’t instinctively sleep face down or at least not throw up while sleeping on her back. Like there were little machinery operators inside of us when all hell breaks loose.

We capsized! Shut the damn valve on the puke pipe right now or we’re all dead. Go!

Yeah, she’d be fine. At least I tried to convince myself that she would be and grabbed my helmet. But then again, there was still hesitation. This is because I knew my entire existence was due to the fact that my father’s first wife’s life ended prematurely on account of this exact concern I had: Falling asleep face up after a night of drinking. (Weird to think that if a certain person didn’t die, then I could never have lived.) I stood in the living room holding my helmet, frozen with uncertainty while contemplating what I should do.

What if her little machinery operators got trapped in a watertight compartment before closing the valves in the puke pipe?

And then suddenly Loraine emerged from the darkness a completely different person. For example, she was topless (yet still wearing her blue jeans and white sneakers), plus she was now also full of energy and speaking a mile a minute. This was in a much more frenetic manner than I was used to, like when she was at the bar with a ton of needy customers. No, this was even more frantic than that. Absolute turbo Texan. She looked at my helmet, then looked back at me, and started off on a different rapid-fire train of thought.

“Are you leaving? Where are you going? Why don’t you put the helmet down and stay a while? Do you want a beer? I have Dos Equis in the fridge. Here, I’ll get you one. Sit down. Sit, sit, sit. Sorry I don’t have Murphy’s or Guinness or Red Hook Double Black Stout. I didn’t know you were coming over. I have Dos Equis though. Can you drink that or is that too much like piss water for you? Wait, there might be a Heineken in here. I know you like that. Shit. No, it just looks like only Dos Equis in here. Why don’t you give it a shot? Maybe you’ll like it. Okay? It’s better than Bud Light. Wanna give it a shot?”

“Yeah, okay. Sure.”

I sat down, she popped open the Dos Equis and set it in front of me. She did not stop talking. Just rapid fire, sentence after sentence after sentence.

“Here you go. Hope you like it because that’s all I have in the fridge. Give it a shot. Speaking of shots, I also have some tequila. Do you want any? I know it’s not vodka. I don’t have any Stoli here either, because like I said, I didn’t know you were coming over, but you can have some Jose Cuervo if you want—”

“No shots. I’m on the motorbike tonight.”

“Okay no shots. But you should eat. Are you hungry? You must be hungry. You said you were going to get something to eat when you picked me up. You’re still hungry right?”

“A little bit. Like you said, I was planning on—”

“You want me to make you something instead? I’ll make you something. Do you like macaroni and cheese? I’ll make you some if you want. You really should eat something. Is macaroni and cheese okay?”

“Uh, sure. That sounds good.”

“Yeah okay, I’ll make you some mac and cheese. Wait, hold on. Let me see if I actually have any in here. I probably should have checked first. Let me see, let me see, let me see… Okay we’re in luck. There’s a box right here. I’ll get this started. Do you need another beer? I’ll get you another one, okay? Let me just get this water going and I’ll get you another beer.”

“No not yet for the beer. I’m still good on this one.”

Once she put a pot of water on the stove, she started going back and forth between the kitchen and the whatever was down the dark hallway, speaking a mile a minute the entire time and pausing only to take a quick drag of her cigarette next to the stove. Just going back and forth, so quickly that I couldn’t imagine that she was doing anything useful back there. It was almost like she was pacing. And all the while talking! Maybe her legs were connected to her mouth and neither could be stopped. I could not understand her movements or her speech.

Sounded like she was talking about someone’s daughter. Maybe it was her daughter? But if she had a daughter, there weren’t any signs of a child in her house as far as I could tell. I was unable to figure out just exactly what she was talking about. Just that someone’s daughter, maybe hers, did something somewhere. During one of these paces to the kitchen, she managed to pour in the macaroni noodles before disappearing into the hallway while speaking in turbo Texan only to return, stir, and disappear again.

Loraine finally seemed like she finished doing whatever she was doing (or not doing) back there as she stirred the noodles one last time, and instead of disappearing into the darkness as I had expected, she sat down on the mattress of the open couch bed. Maybe she needed a break. Not from talking though. She did not stop her rapid fire talking. She just kept talking, and talking, and talking, and talking.

But then like her pacing, that too stopped. Very abruptly. Loraine was just sitting up motionless and silent, and then she slowly slumped down onto the mattress. It was like someone flipped a switch or pressed some button on a remote-control to power her down. Once on her back, Loraine almost immediately began to softly snore. She was down for the count for sure this time.

I turned the stove off, put out her cigarette, and finished my beer. Time to go. I took her shoes off and slid her dangling feet onto the bed. The sleeping on the back thing had me a bit concerned, so rolled her head to the side, scrunched a pillow under one of her shoulders to help keep her head to the side, put her blanket over her topless (yet bottom-full of jeans and socks and presumably panties) body, and saw my way out.

So far, the night hadn’t exactly gone according to plan, but I wasn’t complaining. I had never seen Loraine drunk before. (Or her boobs.) I was glad I wasn’t the only one that drank to such excesses. I mean, I suppose the night would have been a lot more fun if she hadn’t had so much to drink. It was wild to see her so absolutely hammered, then bounce back full of energy for little bit, and then completely shut down. It was like a sleepy toddler after being served a two-liter bottle of Jolt cola and a family sized bag of Skittles. A stratospheric trajectory that still lands right into the dirt.

So, the night definitely could have been a lot more fun if she hadn’t had so much to drink, but then again, she probably wouldn’t be stumbling down Kuhio Avenue by herself for me to pick her up if she didn’t have that precise amount to drink. At least this way I got to see Loraine topless. The world was still my oyster, and those were a very nice set of pearls.

I headed back to Kuhio, parked the Marauder in the loading well of the Waikiki Town Center, and grabbed a Jack in the Box chicken fajita pita. After chowing down, I decided to skip Lewers Street to go straight to Déjà Vu. (It had already been a nudie night after all.) Since Loraine was passed out on her couch bed at home, I did not sit at the Déjà Vu bar. When she was off, there was always a dude behind the bar. No thank you. There were too many dudes in the Engine Roo—excuse me too many male Petty Officers in the Engine Room of the USS San Francisco—so I definitely didn’t want to sit across the bar from any more males while drinking my ales.

I grabbed a stool at the same table Charlie and I had sat down at when I couldn’t see her face but for a blob. There was unfortunately no sign of her face this night. Maybe she was doing a private dance. Maybe she was behind the stage. Maybe it was her day off. I didn’t yet know. With definitely no Loraine and probably no Charlie, I searched for any familiar face. And then one appeared. Tia came by to kiss me on the cheek, pinch my arm, and take my order.

“Hey cutie! Love your biker jacket. What can I get ya, your usual?”

“Yes, I’ll have a pint of your finest Double Black Stout.”

“Are you planning on sticking around for a while?”

“Well, to be honest, I’d be surprised if I even make it to thirty years old.”

“Oh stop. I mean tonight. How long are you staying here?”

“Why? Do you want me to leave? Was it something I said?”

“Okay, now you’re just being silly!”

“That much is certain.”

“Alright, listen. I’m just trying to say, if you’re planning on drinking here tonight for as long as you usually do, why don’t you order by the pitcher instead of by the pint? It will be a lot cheaper for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. A pint is four bucks, but a pitcher is only eleven dollars.”

“Did you just say a pitcher is only eleven dollars?”

“Yes. So even if you were only planning on having three beers, it will still be cheaper for you to get a pitcher.”

“Holy cow. Wait—are they like these tiny little half pitchers or something?”

“No, they’re a full sixty-four ounces. Regular pitchers.”

“You’re telling me I can have a half a gallon of premium beer for eleven bucks?”

“That is exactly what I have been trying to tell you. Maybe if you weren’t making all those jokes you would have heard me.”

“Wow. Yeah… it looks like I am definitely sleeping with Kahanamoku tonight.”

“Huh? Sleeping with who?”

“Just making another joke. Never mind.”

“Okay. So, you want a pitcher of Double Black Stout then?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Let’s do this.”

Tia took my twenty, returned a little bit later with my eleven-dollar half-gallon pitcher and one of those easily tipped over pilsner glasses, plus my change. I only took the singles and left the five-dollar bill on her little round tray. I ordinarily tipped a buck a beer and figured there were four or five drinks in this pitcher. Tia wasn’t sure why I didn’t take the five.

“Don’t forget all your change.”

“That’s your tip.”

“Five dollars?”

“Yes. This whole time I’ve been here, no one has told me about the pitchers. Not even Loraine. So, thank you for saving me money.”

“Wow, thank you! You’re so sweet.”

She walked away, stopped, turned back slightly and dipped her head to quickly say something before quickly heading off again.

“You should ask me out.”

I heard that, and it felt like my heart burst out of my chest, flipped around in the air, and landed back into its proper cavity. Holy shit! Well that was rather unexpected. I mean, she was flirty with me from day one, but c’mon, I was at a nudie bar. Let’s get real here. They work for tips. But holy hell, this night! First a Loraine inviting me to her place, stripping topless, serving me beer, and trying to cook for me. And now hot as hell Tia just asked me to ask her out.

The world really is my oyster!

Damn, Tia was so beautiful—one of the most beautiful ladies I had ever met in my life. There’s just something about a half Asian, half white mix. I like it. From the moment I first spotted her, my thoughts were, “Tia’s so gorgeous it hurts! And so out of my league that I shouldn’t even be looking at her!” Maybe that’s why she told me to ask her out. Yeah, she could tell I wouldn’t do anything of the sort on my own. She must like shy guys. Being such a hot chick, Tia would know to give a little prompt in such situations.

And yet despite the clear direction she gave me, this was still terrifying. Exciting, but oh so very terrifying. I had to drink that whole first pitcher before I could even think about asking her out. Plus a few shots of Stoli were necessary. But even then, I wasn’t ready. I ordered another pitcher. At some point in the night, the liquid confidence kicked in, and I decided to go for it. Sort of. When she was passing by my table with someone else’s order, I shouted out to her to get her attention.

“Hey!”

“Shot of Stoli?”

“Uh… yeah.”

She took my money, came back a bit later with my shot and change. This was my opportunity. I knew women like food. I decided to start there.

“So, what do you like to eat? Like, uh… what’s your favorite restaurant?”

“I really love going to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. There’s a lot of great places there.”

I didn’t know how to follow that up.

“That sounds neat.”

“Yeah.”

She walked off and I tried to process how Hilton Hawaiian Village was the answer to my food and restaurant questions. It’s like if I asked if she enjoyed traveling and if so, what would her favorite destination be, and then she answered, “American Airlines.” Would you then ask her if she’d like to go to the airport sometime and see where American is flying that night? I guess that would work, but my night faded away before I figured out any sort of follow up questions.

I woke up on the beach by the Duke. 1110 days to go. Wallet and keys were still inside the inner pockets of my zipped-up biker jacket. Having slept on the beach at least half a dozen times already, probably more, I no longer freaked out when waking up outdoors. It seemed unlikely that any thief was getting into my snug-fitting diagonal zippered black leather Perfecto without waking my drunk ass up. But with insatiable thirst now as my primary concern upon awakening next to the statue of Mr. Kahanamoku, it appeared this day was going to follow my standard day-after-drinking pattern, which as far as my own studies had shown, had three phases before all systems returned to normal.

In the first phase, there was that absolute, extreme dehydration and also this sensation of being rather overheated. During this initial phase, I just wanted to bathe myself cold drinks. Like simply submerge into a vat of it. Yellow or red Gatorade was ideal. Ginger ale or Sprite with lots of ice would do. A Royal Mills iced cappuccino also worked, but the idea of a hot, regular black coffee was so very unappealing. And there was absolutely no way I would want even a single sip of beer. No way.

Disgusting. Never touching booze again… at least not until later.

I didn’t understand how most hungover people wanted hot, black coffee or those “hair of the dog” beer and shots. I noticed that these drink-through-the-hangover type people tended to get crippling headaches. I, however, have never had a headache in my life, so I was fine with my inherent inability to desire drinking two days in a row when compared to having throbbing brain pain.

Phase one thirst and feverish feelings lasted the entire day, but it was really only the most apparent phase until I downed two bottles of some form of non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated, ice-cold liquid. Then it just lingered in the background until the next morning. I would be pretty sweaty all day too, so the overheating sensation may have been due to an actual slight rise in body temperature and probably the reason I wanted ice cold drinks.

Phase two appeared to involve being brain damaged. At least temporarily. It was like I switched off the majority of my brains the morning after heavy drinking, leaving barely more than the life support system sections functioning. Maybe I did get headaches, but we shut down all the pain receptors. But the most apparent part of this phase was having absolutely no computing power. Just full on loss of IQ. I called this foggy mind phenomenon “residual stupidity.”

The weird part about residual stupidity is that even when my BAC card said I was good to go, sometimes my brains still had trouble figuring out just exactly where I was supposed to go. To be honest, this morning after drinking residual stupidity often seemed to be more of a danger to me than when I was legally drunk the night before. Like a different kind of DWI. Driving While an Imbecile. Fortunately, residual stupidity completely disappeared the next morning. Like we overnighted a shipment of fresh, brand-new replacement braincells. Tip top again. Let’s do some nuclear calculations.

Phase three came later in the day and was actually pretty nice. Once beyond the worst of the brain fogging residual stupidity, I’d enter this day-after-drinking euphoric phase. It was great. Everything was great. It was like I was high on drugs.

My non-scientific explanation was that since alcohol was a depressant, my body overcorrected by flooding the system with too much serotonin or dopamine (or perhaps some similar purpose happy brain chemicals I’ve never even heard about). Then we just had to ride out this natural high for that afternoon or evening until all hormone levels return to specs. This is kind of like how reactor power is controlled. There are always overshoots and corrections with opposite overshoots and corrections until equilibrium is reached. It’s just nice that you’re drunk during the depressing part so you don’t realize it, and sober during the euphoric part so you get to experience it. Pretty neat how that worked.

But on the beach, I was still in phase one. I made a pit stop at the ABC store right on the corner of Kalakaua and Uluniu Avenues to drench myself in brain-freezingly cold yellow Gatorade so that we could begin to move on to phase two. And that I sure did. It was only a five-minute walk to the Marauder which was thankfully still in the loading well of the Waikiki Town Center. Even my helmet was still secured with the strap locked under the seat. I was still so hungover that the thought of putting my sweaty and sandy head into the full-face helmet was just too unbearable. It would be like wearing three or four pairs of ski masks on a warm day. Too much!

Thankfully, Hawaii didn’t have helmet laws for licensed motorcyclists. I figured I could make it the nine miles to my Ala Napunani home without wearing it, no sweat. I bungy netted the helmet to the back seat, fired up the bike, and thundered down the alleyway between the Waikiki Town Center and the International Market Place. For reasons unknown to me, I turned right from the alleyway onto Kuhio Ave. To get back to my apartment, however, I was supposed to turn left. It was that residual stupidity. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking. At all. I just rode off and made a right with absolutely no thoughts going through my mind. After a half a block of riding on this automatic idiocy, I suddenly realized that the direction I was going and the direction I wanted to go were incongruent.

I’m going the wrong way! I have to make a U-turn! But no wait! Turn left here right now!

I figured instead of making a U-turn across a double yellow line which was most likely illegal, I should hang a left at the cross street and shoot over to Ala Wai Boulevard along the canal. That would put me on the correct course. Once I began to turn left onto this cross street, which was Walina Street, I noticed a one-way sign pointing the wrong way, along with a big red and white DO NOT ENTER sign right in my face.

Fucking residual stupidity!

I took evasive maneuvers by tucking in tight and leaning over hard, and made this rather peculiar P-shaped U-turn back onto Kuhio Ave. And now let me tell you something about my particular brand of the famous “luck of the Irish.” If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. There were absolutely no cars around, except for one. A cop car. Of course it was a cop car. Luck of the Irish!

He took notice of my stinky PU-turn and promptly pulled me over. I turned off my bike as he approached to be polite to the officer, but he was certainly not a happy camper and immediately yelled at me. This was without even thanking me for shutting off my bike to stop all the racket it was making. That should have been worth some points. Nope, the police officer just started right in on me with a raised voice as if I hadn’t shut the bike off.

“What the hell was that!?! What the hell were you trying to do back there!?!”

“Well, I almost went the wrong way down that one-way street back there, sir. But I caught my mistake before fully doing it and made a U-turn instead.”

“How the hell did you ‘almost’ go down the wrong way of a one-way street!?! How does something like that ‘almost’ happen!?! Tell me how!”

“I mean, I’m like kama’aina and all, but I’m also kind of new here, sir, so I’m not a hundred percent familiar with all the streets yet.”

The police officer was not sympathetic to my explanation at all. He actually seemed even further agitated by what I thought was a perfectly reasonable explanation for my peculiar maneuver. In fact, he began to dress me down like I was back in boot camp or something.

“Do you even know what the hell you’re doing on that motorcycle? You’re a hazard to other motorists! Let me see your license, insurance, and registration! Now!!!”

I decided against explaining “residual stupidity” to the officer and instead pulled out my wallet and handed him my license.

“My insurance and registration cards are under the seat, sir.”

“Get them!”

“Okay, I just thought I should maybe—”

“I don’t want to hear it! Just give me the damn things!”

I got off the bike to get my insurance and registration from under the seat. He took a look at the license while I fumbled around with my keys to unlock the seat.

“You don’t even have a motorcycle endorsement! You shouldn’t even be riding this machine!”

“Wait. Hold on, sir. I have a permit.”

I handed him my insurance and registration cards along with my learner’s permit, which was a separate blue and white piece of paper. He looked them over, I put the seat back on and sat down, and then he had another outburst.

“You just made an illegal U-turn, you tried to go down a one-way street the wrong way, you don’t have a motorcycle license, your permit is out of state, your insurance and registration are from yet another state, and you’re not even wearing a helmet! What the hell is the matter with you!?! You’re an accident waiting to happen, do you realize that!?!”

“I believe I’m beginning to realize that, like the totality of it all now, sir, yes.”

“You know you have to have a helmet if you’re riding under a learner’s permit, right!?!”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Then why don’t you have one?”

I’m not sure how he didn’t see that giant helmet I had strapped onto the bike. Then again, a black helmet on a black seat behind a black biker jacket. I suppose I blocked the view of it even when I was standing to access the under-seat compartment. I leaned forward and pointing to the seat behind me.

“I do have one; it’s right here, sir.”

“You’re supposed to have that damn thing on your head, not just have it with you! What is your problem!?! Why aren’t you wearing your f—why aren’t you wearing your damn helmet!?!”

“Because it’s too hot and suffocating to wear in this weather, sir. Besides, I figure you guys wouldn’t be able to tell whether I had a license or a permit while cruising around. You know, like not having probable cause, I think. Or uh… is it reasonable suspicion? I don’t really know which one you need for pulling someone over, sir.”

The cop trembled visibly with anger as he handed my papers back to me and then said something which really surprised me.

“Shut up right now and put that damn helmet on! Right now! Then you get the hell out of here! You get the hell out of here before I do something I regret!”

He didn’t specify exactly what the thing was that he would regret doing. Could have been a little baton crack to the cranium. Who knows? But man, was he pissed at me! Like really pissed at me. I thought it was excessive. Honestly, I’m not sure what the big deal was. Okay, so I wasn’t wearing a helmet and made a shitty little U-turn. No biggie. But it was like the dude seemingly took my entire existence personally. Where was his aloha spirit!?!

I mean, the streets were empty this early in the morning on a Saturday, so it wasn’t even like I cut in front of a bunch of oncoming Kuhio cars. And there weren’t even any cars on one-way Walina, the street I nearly turned onto but didn’t. So, while his anger was surprising, it was even more surprising to me that he actually let me go without giving me the two tickets. Maybe the reason I escaped two summonses was due to a wee bit of aloha spirit poking through his angry “aloha attitude” that he didn’t even realize he possessed. But he didn’t have to tell me twice. I put the helmet on, fired the bike back up, and rode off.

Pearls have been casted, but not before that oyster tried to snap my damn fingers off!

I made three resolutions as I rode back to my Ala Napunani apartment. First, I figured that I’d better get a motorcycle license before the next cop who left his aloha spirit at home in a box gave me tickets (or baton cracks to the cranium) on some other residually stupid morning. Second, I should get a half-faced helmet so it’s not like I’m riding with a sweaty sock over my head. And finally, I should ride on over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village asap to check out the restaurant situation in order to properly ask out Tia.

Once home, I took a nap on my pile of laundry bed. Once awake, I looked in the phone book for the both the Hilton Hawaiian Village and a Suzuki motorcycle dealer. Needed a place to take Tia, a half face helmet, and some performance parts. The Hilton was right at the beginning of Waikiki. And there was a Suzuki dealer called Montgomery Motors at 818 Iwilei Road, which according to my trusty map, was almost perfectly situated at the midway point between my apartment and Waikiki. Blast off.

I went to Montgomery Motors first. They had a wide selection of protective gear including full-face, half-face, three quarter, and motocross type helmets. I grabbed a couple of their black half-face ones and eagerly tried them on. It was about time I looked like a badass. I mean, wearing a full-face helmet on a cruiser was like wearing a bowtie at the beach. Doesn’t quite look right. Then again, neither did these particular half face helmets on my big fat head. They were too thick and sat so high up on my head that it looked like I was wearing a bird’s nest. I put them back and went to the parts counter to inquire about performance upgrades.

I wasn’t a seasoned enough rider to dump the clutch, but still thought my motorbike was too slow. I just needed more horsepower. I asked if they had any longer duration camshafts and higher compression pistons. No dice. The only performance parts available for the Marauder were slip on mufflers and jet kits, both of which I had already installed. I didn’t notice any bump in performance, but at least my Marauder was a lot louder. Brand new, it made more of an annoying vacuum cleaner whirring noise than the nice rumble it now made.

The trip to the dealer was a bust, but being halfway to Déjà vu, I figured I could go check on Loraine and grab some pineapple pizza at the International Market Place. I’d have two beers tops, eat a slice or two, and have enough daylight left for a cruise along the Kalanianaole Highway, explore more of the windward side, and then make my way over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. To my surprise, Loraine was fully recovered and bubbly.

“Hey sugar! Sit over here!”

Since it was only late afternoon, there were only two other people at the bar. They had brightly colored full-face helmets with them, suggesting sport bike riders. Loraine introduced me to them and continued:

“These guys have motorcycles too.”

“Oh, is that what the helmets are for?”

“Smart ass!”

“Sorry.”

Loraine leaned in a bit closer to me and cupped one side of her mouth.

“I like your motorcycle better.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, yours vibrates!”

“Ooh, scandalous.”

She poured me a pint of Double Black Stout and I engaged with the guys as she engaged in other bartending duties.

“Sport bikes?”

“Yeah, I got a ZX-9, and he has a GSX-R750.”

“A Ninja and a Gixer. Nice. Which one’s faster?”

“Depends. I have a little more horsepower, but his is just so much lighter.”

“Comes down to the rider, huh?”

“We’ll go with that. So what do you ride?”

“Well, I’m no threat to you guys. I’ve got a cruiser that’s slow as hell.”

“Different strokes for different folks. What is it?”

“It’s a Suzuki Marauder. It has eight hundred and five cc’s with forty-nine horsepower of maximum performance.”

They looked at me wondering if I was being serious. So I smiled.

“I know, I know. Don’t make fun of me.”

“We won’t. As long as you don’t talk shit about sport bikes like the Harley guys do.”

“Oh no. I won’t do that. Harley guys always make fun of my bike too. Actually, it’s not even the Harley guys. It’s the guys who want a Harley, but don’t even ride.”

“You don’t want a Harley?”

“Nah. They’re too expensive.”

“Good move buying a metric cruiser.”

“All the looks for half the price.”

“Plus the reliability.”

“Maybe, I dunno, but I bought it for the looks. I saw a Marauder in a magazine ad and instantly wanted it. It’s good looking. I mean, Loraine definitely likes it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She just told me that recently. She seems to really like V-twins.”

“Well that’s no surprise. Most women we meet are usually afraid to ride on sport bikes… but they love Harley’s. They don’t even think twice about hopping on the back of a Harley even if the rider is piss ass drunk. It’s pretty fucked up.”

“Right, yeah, totally. Well, I mean, my bike looks like a Harley, but I’m only gonna have a couple of these beers before heading out.”

“Is that a Double Black Stout you’re drinking?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty potent. 6.9%. Be careful.”

“Wait, you know about Double Black Stout?”

“Yeah, I tried it at this little tiki bar down the road. Not my thing, but this old-timer dude who looked like he didn’t have a care in the world was drinking it out of a big ass bottle, so I tried it.”

“Really? What’s the name of the bar? I’ll definitely check it out.”

“Uh… I think it was something like Jimmy’s or Johnny’s. I don’t remember. It’s just this little place inside the Kuhio Village Resort.”

I took a mental note of that. Bottles of Double Black Stout in a Tiki bar inside the Kuhio Village Resort. Got it. We returned to taking about motorcycles and whole the cruiser verses sport bike divide. One of the guys, just like me, seemed to think that my full-face helmet didn’t fit my aesthetic.

“Since you have a black leather outlaw biker jacket and a machine that looks like a Harley, you should get one of those novelty helmets with the spike on top. You know, like one of those Germans?”

“Oh man, I totally would if I knew where to get one. I was actually just at the Suzuki dealer today, and all they had were these big dorky half face helmets.”

“I know where you can get a German.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t see any with a spike on top.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

The dude told me the name of the store, which I have long since forgotten, and the approximate location in downtown Honolulu. Two solid tips from these rice rocket riders. A new bar with Double Black Stout and where to get an open-faced helmet that didn’t double as a bird’s nest. I would have bought them shots if they weren’t riding. Way too early for them to sleep on the beach.

I finished my second beer, thanked the guys, and told Loraine I was going to grab a bite to eat and then go for a cruise. As I was leaving, Charlie walked in wearing her street clothes—tiny jean shorts and a giant oversized white tee shirt. She was carrying a big canvass bag that seemed large enough for a day at the beach. I was surprised to see her in the daylight.

“Whoa! You’re here early. Hi!”

“Yeah, I got a ride here but don’t clock in for a while. How are you doing?”

“I’m good but hungry.”

“Me too.”

“Oh, I was just going to grab a couple of slices of pizza at the International Market Place. Wanna join me?”

“Sure. Let me just put my bag in my locker. I’ll be right back.”

I was not expecting her to say yes, so this was a nice and unexpected treat for me. We walked to the outdoor food court of the International Market Place, which was well-shaded by banyan trees, and she grabbed a table close to the pizza place while I grabbed the order. Pepperoni pizza for her and Hawaiian pizza for me. “Hawaiian” pizza maybe a little bit mislabeled as neither the pineapple nor the pig were indigenous to Hawaii. (The pineapple originated in South America while the feral pigs were a cross breed between small pigs from Asia and large pigs from Europe.)

I sat across from her and reveled in her beauty. Even without make up, I thought she was still just so gorgeous. A natural beauty. Also, without makeup, she looked a hell of a lot younger. In fact, if people walked by with the two of us sitting there at the outdoor table by the pizza place, they probably thought we were both still in high school and had just been cut loose from class.

While we were eating and chatting, Charlie seemed a bit down to me. That was apparent even when she greeted me earlier inside Déjà Vu. Usually when she’d spot me, she’d break out in a huge smile. Sometimes she would just start laughing for no reason, perhaps either in anticipation of what I was about to say or maybe just from recalling whatever I said to her during our last encounter. She was just so subdued this day. I probed around, and to my dismay, she told me she was having relationship trouble.

“He’s a Marine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He comes into Déjà vu a lot. Maybe you’ve seen him.”

“Maybe, but I don’t usually pay attention to dudes.”

“You definitely like boobs too much for that.”

“You know it! So… did you meet him at the club?”

“Yeah, he was a good tipper.”

“And a good guy?”

“Yeah, I think he’s a good guy. But we fight a lot.”

“Over what?”

“He drinks too much.”

“Like me? I drink too much.”

“No, not like you.”

“He drinks more than me?”

“I don’t know. You mostly drink beer—”

“And vodka.”

“Yeah okay, but he drinks whiskey. Like only whiskey. And he drinks a lot of it. He’ll even drink it by himself at home.”

“Yeah I don’t drink at home alone. I guess that could be a problem.”

“But it’s more than that.”

“How so?”

“It’s like… when you drink too much, you just get silly. You’re fun when you’re drunk. But when he drinks too much, he gets mean. Like really, really mean. Sometimes he scares me.”

“Oh shit. I’m sorry. That sucks. He scares you sometimes?”

“Yeah. It’s like he’s fucking crazy or something.”

“Sounds like a Marine.”

“Yeah it does.”

“So why are you still with him?

“Well he’s really sweet when he’s sober.”

“And that makes up for all times he’s drinking, being mean, getting into fights with you, and scaring you?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“Yeah, well when he buys me things.”

“When he buys you things?”

“Yeah. He knows he’s a mean drunk and when he was being an asshole to me, so he buys me things to make up for it.”

“And that works?”

“It definitely helps.”

“So, what kind of thing does he buy you?”

“Lots of things. Clothes, shoes, jewelry… and now he’s gonna buy me tits.”

“Buy me tits? Is that a pirate themed lap dance?”

“No, you’re such a—no, he’s going to buy tits for me.”

“Buy tits for you?”

“Yeah?”

“Like a boob job?”

“Yeah”

“Why do you want to get a boob job?”

“Because my tits are too small, duh.”

“I think they’re perfect.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Stop it. I already made up my mind. And he said he’d pay for them.”

“Okay, I won’t try to talk you out of it. None of my business. That’s between you and your boyfriend. Got it.”

“He’s not really my boyfriend. We’re just sort of dating.”

“Ah.”

“But I mean he’s going to pay for me to get bigger boobs, so… I dunno. Maybe he is my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know how that works. But if you don’t mind me asking… just how big are you going to go?”

“I think about 250 cc’s.”

“You know, I was thinking in cup size, but then you responded in motorcycle engine sizes… so that’s pretty relatable.”

“Well, it should make me a nice C cup.”

“That does sound nice. So, like how much do these things cost?”

“Five grand.”

“Holy shit! Five grand?”

“Yeah, five grand.”

“You could buy a motorcycle for that. Is that for both boobs?”

“No, it’s five grand for the left one, but I have a coupon for buy one get one free.”

“No way. They really do that?”

“Yeah.”

“No, they don’t. I think you’re fucking with me.”

“I had you there for a minute.”

“Like a second.”

“More than a second.”

“Okay sure. Whatever. You got me. Good job. Anyway… so bigger boobs cost ten bucks per cc?”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“I choose to believe what I want to believe.”

“That sounds about right.”

After we finished the pizza, Charlie went up to Déjà vu to get ready for her shift. I went on to cruise along my favorite piece of earth: the Kalanianaole Highway. The only issue with this highway was that it really isn’t all that long. Maybe six pristine miles between suburban hells of Hawaii Kai and Waimanalo There were actually three clusters of little towns waiting for you on the far side of the ride: the aforementioned Waimanalo, plus Maunawili and Kaneohe.

Kaneohe is noteworthy as it is where Marine Corps Base Hawaii is. It is adjacent to Kaneohe Bay and usually referred to as “K-Bay.” It is likely that Charlie’s boob-buying, angry-drunk, sort-of-boyfriend was stationed here. Fuck K-Bay! Not stopping in that suburban hell hole!

So, this evening, I intended to go beyond the towns of Waimanalo and Maunawili and the end of Kalanianaole Highway, turn onto Kamehameha Highway instead of heading back to Honolulu via the Pali Highway (which are the only two options at the end of the Kalanianaole), then go past the Marine town of Kaneohe, past the other way to head back to Honolulu (which was the Likelike Highway), and then go up the sparsely populated windward coast for as long as it remained light out.

I had a glorious ride on the Kalanianaole Highway and survived the suburbs after turning onto Kamehameha Highway. Towards the end of Kaneohe, the Kamehameha Highway narrows from four lanes to two lanes, the commercial buildings give way to residential, and then they eventually give way to a state park. I was finally out of all that suburban eye pollution! I was surrounded by trees and fields and ocean and mountains! It was all so green and lush!

Once past the He’eia Kea Boat Harbor, the ocean comes right to the edge of the highway, within only three or four feet of separation. I mean, so close that there wasn’t even a beach. It was surprising how low and close the road was built to the water. I wondered if (or how often) this road would be underwater.

I also wondered how many cars drove off into the sea at night, as there didn’t seem to be much in the way of street lighting. However, there were quite a few diagonal and J-shaped trees in that little three-foot section dividing the highway from the water, along with plenty of mangroves. The trees and mangroves likely acted like jersey barriers for cars, but there were still plenty of gaps to fit a car through.

After this close-to-the-water mangrove section of the Kamehameha Highway, there was another residential area called Kahaluu, which contained a pretty tight left turn. The highway started to have a good share of twists and turns at this point, and long stretches without housing. But the part about this section of highway I enjoyed most was whenever I cruised through a tunnel of trees. It felt like I was riding right inside the jungle! It was just so tremendously beautiful. It was also pretty damn dark with the vegetation so dense, they weren’t letting any sunlight through. It really did feel like I was in a tunnel.

Unfortunately, this little piece of jungle became too misty and then full on wet for my tastes. The windward side was the rainy side after all. Getting caught in the rain while walking definitely sucks, but getting caught in the rain while riding a motorcycle takes it to the next level. I have to tell you, there is little worse in the world than having wet, clingy pant legs. (No wonder they say riding a motorcycle is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Because if it rains, you immediately want to take your pants off.) Hell, I’d eat a week’s worth of beef yakisoba over a few minutes of wet, clingy pant legs.

Abort mission!

I made a U-turn and rode back out of the rain. I rode all the way back around the south eastern tip of Oahu via the Kalanianaole Highway and decided to ride over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The plan was to scope the place out, pick a restaurant to take Tia to, and then head over to Déjà Vu to see what day she was free. This was the plan, and this was the night!

By the time I rolled into their property, it was already properly dark. I don’t know what it was about the place, but once I was riding on their private roads, I felt a bit intimidated. I hadn’t seen a place like this before, and it seemed pretty exclusive. I felt out of place.

Could have been the narrow private road lined with lush tropical vegetation that seemed like they had stolen from the windward side like only rich people could do. Could have been all the high-end stores for jewelry and designer clothing. Could have been the sign to the lagoon.

They have a lagoon?

That’s what rich people have instead of ponds. The water is always much bluer, and the people are much tanner than pond scum like me. I was just not comfortable enough to dismount wander around to look at the restaurant scene and rode off on my Marauder.

I formulated a new plan: Let Tia pick the restaurant on a night of her choosing, and then eat slimy skinned chewy chicken, rawhide ribeye cow skin steaks, and mushy ass baby meat ravioli at the base galley the rest of the month so I’d have enough money to pay for her dinner. Good plan. I shot over to Déjà Vu, parked the bike in the loading well, grabbed my usual high-top table and ordered some Double Black Stout. Tia landed a pitcher on my table and presented my change on her tray. I picked up the singles, leaving the five-dollar bill as a tip.

“That’s for me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, sweetie. You’re so nice. I was just making sure.”

She gave me one of her familiar cheek on cheek kisses and began to walk off, but I had unfinished business. I was kind of glad that Charlie hadn’t come around to sit with me yet so I could make my move on Tia, who was just about to walk off.

“Hold on a sec.”

“You always want a shot of Stoli as soon as I leave.”

“No, I don’t—I mean, sure I’ll take a shot of Stoli—”

“Okay.”

“But, no, I was just going to say, uh…”

“Oh, sorry! What were you going to say?”

“Yeah, so I was like riding around a bit before coming here, and I was thinking, uh…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I was thinking that maybe you’d wanna… I dunno, maybe you’d wanna go to that Hilton Hawaiian Village place with me sometime? You know, like… I can take you out to dinner, if you want. Would you like to do that?”

“I’d love to do that—”

“Really? Sweet!”

“—but I can’t.”

“Oh! Wuh—wait. You can’t?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Uh okay… so… can I ask why—er, uh… why not?”

“Well, let’s see…”

Tia took a breath and sighed before continuing.

“Okay… I’m an unstable single mother with drug and alcohol abuse problems, a bunch of health issues, I’m trying to finish school so I don’t end up working in a strip club the rest of my life, and I have a complete asshole of an ex who stalks me and won’t stop harassing any guy who tries to go out with me when he finds out I’m seeing someone. So that’s why I can’t.”

“Oh, is that all? For a minute there I was worried you might have had some baggage.”

She gave me a nervous smile, possibly worried that I wasn’t deterred after she unloaded her full cargo plane onto me.

“I’m sorry. I like you, you’re very sweet, but I can’t. I just can’t right now. Please be understanding.”

“No, I uh… yeah I get it. I understand.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—”

“Sorry.”

She walked off.

Well that was awkward.

I was pretty crushed. Going from such a high to such a low. I mean, I had considerable excitement and anticipation! Now there were smoldering ashes. But had to hold my shit together and pretend to be fine. I found a good line of reasoning to accomplish this. Hers was by far the most candid rejection I had ever received in my life. I suppose that took a bit of the sting out of it. But it still really sucked. Another crash and burn to dissect while drinking. How did I keep mixing up all these signals time and time again? I had these switch-ups down to a fucking science.

And to this day, I swear she said I should ask her out. But I guess she said that I shouldn’t ask her out. You know, sometimes people only hear what they want to hear. But then again, asking me to not ask her out seemed so random and out of place after simply buying a pitcher of beer.

Here is your change.

Here is your tip.

Thank you. You shouldn’t ask me out.

Okay I won’t. And you shouldn’t park too close to fire hydrants.

Putting that into the conversation made about as much sense to me as what she had included. This whole thing felt like a set up and therefore was a confusing letdown. But like I said, the way she handled my misunderstanding with such candor was kind of refreshing. No need to make it awkward. I wasn’t going to keep trying or anything like that. I gave it a shot, she said no, so I had to respect that. Besides she was still my favorite flirty cocktail waitress, and I was not about to jeopardize being refused a second pitcher of Double Black Stout! I tipped her a five again, which injected a little more drama, however.

“Why do you keep tipping me so much? Do you think if you tip me enough, I’ll change my mind about going out with you? I can’t. It’s just really not a good time for me, okay? Please.”

“Oh no, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just thought I was tipping the standard amount.”

“Standard amount?”

“Well I thought so.”

“You tip a lot more than anyone else does around here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I thought you were just doing that because you wanted to go out with me. But I don’t want to send you the wrong message by taking it. So, you really shouldn’t feel like you have to keep tipping me that much now that you know I’m not going to go out with you. It’s okay.”

“No really, I didn’t think I was tipping you that much. It’s just that I never ordered by the pitcher before and did some spur of the moment math. You know like how I tell everyone that when I turned twenty-one, the old timers would always tell me to take care of the bartenders and cocktail waitresses, and tip them at least a buck a beer, right?”

“Yeah you’ve told me that before.”

“Right. So, then if a pitcher is sixty-four ounces like you said, then that works out to a little more than five 12-ounce bottles of beer. Tipping five bucks a pitcher seemed about right to me.”

“Well I wish more customers thought the way you do.”

“Why? How much do other people ordinarily tip for a pitcher?”

“Usually a dollar.”

 “A dollar? For a whole pitcher?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? What do they leave for a bottle of beer then? A couple of dimes?”

“No, they’ll tip me fifty cents or seventy-five cents if I’m lucky. Kind of whatever change is left.”

“Makes no sense. A pitcher’s like five bottles of beer. So, they should leave like two-fifty, three seventy-five for a pitcher based on what they’re leaving for a bottle.”

“Right!?!”

“But they’re only leaving a buck for an entire pitcher?”

“Yup!”

“Hmm. Maybe they suck at math then?”

“They definitely suck!”

She walked away laughing. It appeared all of the awkwardness had been eradicated, plus I was now quite impressed that Tia had clearly acted against her own self-interests when she suggested those pitchers to me. Experience would have shown her that she would have lost out on tips if I switched over to pitcher format. Yet she went right on trying to save me money anyway. I liked her. Bummer about all her baggage.

Charlie eventually came by, and I did a few lap dances with her, plus bought her some fake champagne. I had a few more shots and closed in on the halfway point of my second pitcher. At 6.9% ABV, the Double Black Stout was indeed fairly potent. I was not yet capable of completing two full pitchers before my memory recorder would shut off for the night. At least not with my standard compliment of shots. I woke up on the beach by the Duke as per usual, but what was unusual this time was that it wasn’t yet morning, and I didn’t naturally wake up. I could just make out a silhouette beside me.

Someone is trying to rob me in the middle of the night!

Yet the thief was trying to wake me up and kept calling me “sir” with a female voice. Once I finally came to, I realized it was a cop, not a robber. That was slightly less alarming, but still somewhat. I might be able to fight off a thief, but if a police officer was going to take me to jail, there was nothing I could do about it. I sat up and discovered I was talking to a cute lady cop. Yet I still feared being taken downtown for being drunk on the beach or something.

“Sir, you need to get up.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Why were you doing something illegal?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But is this like a restricted hermit crab habitat or something?”

“No, this is a public space; you’re fine being here, but you shouldn’t be sleeping. You can get robbed.”

“That’s exactly what I thought you were trying to do at first!”

“See? Anyone could come up to you and take your wallet.”

“Nah, I keep it zipped up in my jacket. I’ll be fine.”

“Well I’m telling you, you need to move along. You can’t sleep here. It’s for your safety.”

“Okay, yes ma’am.”

I wasn’t about to tempt fate by giving her an excuse to arrest my drunk ass and moved right along as per her orders. I began walking down the sidewalk of Kalakaua Avenue towards my bike but realized I was most likely still well above the legal limit to ride. I couldn’t sleep on the beach and I couldn’t ride home. But I wasn’t going to leave the Marauder all alone in Waikiki, so I wasn’t about to take a bus or cab home either.

I went back to the beach pretty far down from where the cop woke me up. This part of the beach had a number of hotel towers on it. I figured I could find an obscure spot to sleep where I’d be out of sight, out of mind of that police officer, but I didn’t see a suitable location to shield me from the law.

Then I noticed a beachside hotel wall that I could easily scale to bypass their main entrances. I found an unlocked service door to a utility hallway and down a bit, a janitor’s closet. I climbed up onto an empty upper shelf and fell asleep. Not quite as glamorous as sleeping outside on the beach beneath the stars, with all the toilet cleaning products in there, but at least it was something.

I woke up with 1109 days to go and fully dehydrated as per phase one of recovery from a night out. Had to get some Gatorade from the ABC store so we could proceed to phase two residual stupidity. It was definitely peculiar awakening not in the sand but curled up in a ball on an unforgivingly hard top shelf of a strange smelling janitor’s closet. I hopped down, peeked out the door to make sure no one was coming down the utility hallway, made a break for the maintenance door I had entered, and hopped the wall to get back onto the beach.

Once at the Waikiki Town Center loading well to collect my Marauder, Gatorade in hand, I decided I was going to make it all the way up the windward coast, rain or not. Yes, I was going to take the long way home. The really, really long way home. Time to explore! I downed the drink, tossed the bottle towards the dumpster only a few feet away, and missed. Twice. One short, one long. Fucking residual stupidity. I wasn’t about to go behind the dumpster to pick it up. It was fine there. I put on my helmet, fired up the bike, and rode off. While making my way to the Lunalilo Freeway on the local streets I had some thoughts.

I fucking hate helmets! I can’t wait to get a fucking license so I don’t have to wear this stupid fucking thing. And then I can also get a base sticker so I don’t have to keep doing that stupid fucking coasting and balancing while flashing my fucking military ID bullshit. I’m tired of this crap.

But once past the suburbs of Hawaii Kia and I entered my favorite playground of the Kalanianaole Highway, I relaxed. You have to concentrate on the twisting road, so there’s no time for unpleasant helmet and gate guard thoughts. Cruising on the motorbike in this piece of the Earth, I felt alive. It felt like I finally made it. This was the life. Warm sun, fresh air, freedom to roam. I was content. Perhaps even happy.

I made it around the south east tip of Oahu and past all the suburbs at the other end of my playground, plus even rode through the spectacular tunnel of trees in Kahaluu without wet clingy pants legs. I was in luck. No rain that morning. Although a much shorter section of road, the tree tunnel was nearly as pleasing as riding around the tip. Not a car on the winding road. I felt remarkably isolated. I almost felt like the road was built by an ancient civilization which had mysteriously vanished, leaving their infrastructure to nearly be reclaimed by the wild.

The road through the jungle tunnel ended at a tee, and at this point the Kamehameha Highway rejoins state route 83, and it is there we rejoin modern civilization. This was about thirty miles from the International Market Place. I turned right to continue up to the north shore. I rode another 30 miles up the Kamehameha Highway along the windward coast, which although was never completely isolated from humans, did have a pleasant country road feel alternating between small towns and nature. Dark green mountains, bright green fields, vivid blue water. On this side of the island, that ocean simply loved to come right up to the side of the road for a little smooch, often just separated by a small and low pile of rocks. I wouldn’t say this area was spectacular, but it was pleasant and relaxing.

There were a few gentle turns, but nothing so winding and sharp to require full concentration. The windward side was a good place to ride and think. I could reflect. I was no longer angry. Kind of hard to be angry after the spectacular Kalanianaole Highway, the stunning tunnel of trees, and the relaxing Kamehameha Highway. Yes, this was a place of reflection. I had been doing well with respect to finding food and finding places to ride, but I haven’t had much luck with the ladies.

Tia was only the fourth girl I’ve ever asked out. Linda from my high school days was the first. When I worked up the courage to actually ask Linda out, she said it didn’t make any sense. The second girl I asked out was an attractive stranger I spotted in the Orlando Fashion Square mall. I happened to be feeling particularly confident in my working white Good Humor uniform that day. I suppose I didn’t yet realize just how ridiculous sailors look in that popsicle hawking uniform. She said no rather promptly.

Anya the Russian in Israel was the third. I didn’t exactly get a solid yes out of her when I asked her out. It was technically a “maybe” which was subsequently upgraded to a reluctant non-verbal “yes” a day or two later. Considering Tia the fourth’s recent no, I began to think that perhaps Anya’s upgradable maybe had to do with my transient nature. Perhaps my proposal would have been off the table had I lived in the same town as her. She might have thought something like this:

“I don’t like him, but I’m bored. Maybe he’ll be fun, but if not, at least soon he’ll be gone.”

Shot down by Tia, Charlie was taken, and I’m pretty sure Loraine thought I was too young for her. She might say no. Too risky to ask. I had to meet someone new. But where? I knew the ladies were outnumbered on this island, but still, there seemed to be plenty of them walking the streets. I just had no idea where they were walking into from the streets. Where were they all going? They were definitely not going to any of the bars that I’d frequent. Maybe they were at that Tiki bar those two dudes on the sport bikes told me about. I had to find that place.

I stopped for gas in Sunset Beach. I was now on the north shore, but the curve around the northern tip was so gentle, I had no real sense of my accomplishment. I suppose the first clue should have been the position of the sun. The second clue should have been the absolutely monster waves once a beach was in view. Easily the largest waves I had ever seen in my life. (At least outside of a surfer magazine.) If there were waves like that on the windward side, there would be no road left. Total annihilation.

I filled up and noted lots of posters of surfers on giant waves inside the gas station’s minimart. No doubt these photos were taken just steps away from the cashier’s stool. Odometer showed I had ridden exactly sixty miles from my little loading well parking spot. Map showed I was basically on the far side of the moon here in Sunset Beach, and I was getting tired. Not sure what phase of the hangover that was. Hadn’t done anything too stupid yet.

Windward side was quiet. The mostly sand-less eastern coast shoreline seemed more like a gentle river bank than being on the edge of the vast Pacific. Not on the north shore. There was more bustle. People were going places. There were lots of cars, many long sandy beaches, and powerful waves that would surely kill a certified and officially-stamped-in-the-records fourth-class naval swimmer such as myself. (I believe a “fourth-class swimmer” is one step above drowning in the boot camp pool.)

Riding along on the north sure also felt less like a country road as it had while riding the quiet windward side. This was definitely a surfing community. You don’t see that upstate New York. (Although and argument could be made when you pass through a ski town.) I continued on my way, completely oblivious to the fact at in ten days, history in the surfing world was about to be made. I wouldn’t know for a few years, but on January 28^th of 1998, a surfer named Ken Bradshaw would catch a wave that was somewhere in the range of 70-85 feet high, along with many other waves taller than a multi-story building. New posters were going to go up in that gas station.

[I also didn’t yet know that Ken and I were going to be next door neighbors in the future, and that our first interaction would be him waking me up on the beach one morning and yelling at me… but that is for a different chapter.]

Three miles from Sunset Beach, the road hugged these dark rocky volcanic cliffs, curved around a beautiful beach named Waimea Bay, and crossed a river conveniently named the Waimea River. I saw a sign for “falls” but I couldn’t see any. This was actually the first river I had seen in Oahu. I thought I was going to see a lot of waterfalls as per television and movies, but this was not the case on my island. You learn these things once you’re kama’aina.

Waterfall? Da kine not on Oahu, brah.

Another three miles from Waimea Bay, there a sign just before a fork in the road. Left for Honolulu, right for Haleiwa. I didn’t have it in me to explore any more. Too hungover. Haleiwa would have to wait for the next weekend. The road entered the valley between the Koolau and Waianae Mountain ranges. (The Koolau range was the one I had just ridden along on the windward side.) This area was flat and arid. The two mountain ranges were far enough in the distance that they weren’t a factor. Here, the land soaked your eyes with dark red dirt and pale-yellow brush. There was nothing green or blue on this part of the island. Well, other than the sky.

About seven or eight miles from the fork in the road, I rode past a large and low building that seemed to me like Spanish architecture. Red clay roof tiles, pale yellow terracotta sides with arched porticos. There was a sign for the Dole Plantation at the entrance. I figured I would soon see vast fields of pineapples at this point, but I made it all the way into a run-down looking town called Wahiawa without seeing any sort of agricultural activity.

I stopped at a Jack in the Box in the center of Wahiawa for a chicken fajita pita and wondered if all those flat dull yellow weeds were pineapples. It was very underwhelming and confusing. I saw not a soul working those fields, no vehicles, and no sign of irrigation equipment. Do pineapples pick themselves? That central plain I rode through felt dead to me at the time, yet little did I know that the pineapple industry in Hawaii had indeed been dead for a number of years. I had no idea, so this lack of agricultural activity confused me. I did not know my pineapple history (which should actually be a requirement before declaring yourself kama’aina).

The original pineapple came from the area that is now southern Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay between the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers. It spread up through South America and into the Caribbean. The first whitey to obtain the pineapple was Christopher Columbus in 1493. He brought it back to Spain. The Spanish would introduce the pineapple to Hawaii around 1813. But the problem for the rest of the world’s pineapple pining people not living in an area suitable to grow them was spoilage. Back then, there was no way to bring these sweet bad boys to the market profitably. Enter the tin can.

A dude named Jimmy Dole graduated from Harvard University with a degree in agriculture in 1899, and then moved to Oahu. With his savings, he bought 64 acres of government land about two miles from the Jack in the Box in which I was eating. After vetting various crops, Jimmy boy would begin growing pineapples the on his land in 1901, but the only way he could profitably sell his sweet and juicy goods to the masses was through canning. So, he first built a cannery nearby in this town of Wahiawa, and then later built another one in Honolulu by the port.

But that wasn’t enough to satiate consumer demands. Jimmy realized the production bottleneck was human labor. So, ten years after he began growing pineapples, James hired a man named Henry Ginaca to invent a pineapple coring machine. (This was conveniently named the “Ginaca machine.”) After a number of tweaks over the years, it could peel, core, and slice pineapples nearly ten times faster than a human.

But even that wasn’t enough to satiate consumer demands. He needed more land. So, Mr. Dole bought an island to grow even more pineapples. This was the island of Lanai. (Yes, that is the same word as what a veranda or porch translates to in Hawaiian, and what we called the area behind Maneuvering in the Engine Room. I do not know if the name of the island has any connection to porches however.) After Dole bought Lanai and created the largest pineapple plantation the world has ever known, the pineapple pining people were finally satiated. In less than three decades from when Jimmy Dole set foot in Hawaii, his company would grow 75% of the world’s pineapples.

Yet as I sat in what was basically ground zero of this pineapple empire, not only did I get the sense that this industry was dead, but it turned out that this industry was actually dead. The Dole Company had ceased its Hawaiian cannery operations seven years earlier, in 1991. The Hawaiian Islands once produced more than three quarters of the world’s pineapples but at the time of this writing, it produces less than one percent of the world’s supply.

What happened? The invention of refrigeration, the evolution of people’s tastes, and cheap foreign labor. Once fresh pineapple became the standard, production moved to the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Indonesia. At least they built the nice-looking Dole Plantation building for tourists. That building I passed was not actually a remnant of the Spaniards, but a relatively modern tourist attraction built where there used to be fruit stand. There is nothing left of the original Dole structures.

I knew none of this at the time. What I did know was this town of Wahiawa was surrounded by the military on the east and south sides. This was the US Army’s turf. On the east side of town was Schofield Barracks and on the south side was Wheeler Army Airfield. I sure was getting sleepy, so being near a military town had an advantage.

You see, back in 1919, Lieutenant Dwight Eisenhower rode in a military convoy from Washington D.C. to San Francisco. It took him sixty-two days. In 1945, General Dwight Eisenhower rode on the Reichs Autobahn. He felt that we needed an American autobahn to connect military bases throughout the United States. In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which funded the creation of the Interstate Highway System. Because of this, I could get home from Jack in the Box in a jiffy.

Since Hawaii could not possibly have an “interstate” highway, these interstate grade highways built between military bases had an “H” designation before the number instead of an “I” as used on the mainland.

H-1 connected Barber’s Point Naval Air Station in the south west to Pearl Harbor Naval Base and Hickam Air Force Base in the south central, and then continued on connect to the [King] Lunalilo Freeway through Honolulu in the south east. Construction of the Lunalilo Freeway began in 1952 while actual interstate grade Queen Liliuokalani Freeway construction began in 1963. H-1 was fully completed in 1986.

That Lunalilo Freeway was built before the Interstate Highway System was developed was notable by the frighteningly short on and off ramps. That plus having the on ramps merge into the highway before the off ramps, the opposite of the Interstate’s mandates.

H-2 connected Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Army Airfield in this central valley of Oahu to H-1 at Pearl City, just west of Pearl Harbor. Construction began in 1971 and was fully completed in 1977. This highway is known at the Veterans Memorial Freeway and it was my ticket to get home quickly.

Note that there was a third interstate grade highway (that I had no idea about at the time) called H-3 for obvious reasons. It connected Kaneohe Marine Corp Base to H-1 around Aiea, the suburban sailor magnet. H-3 had opened only five weeks earlier unbeknownst to me. It wasn’t even on my map as it was so new and I didn’t notice the signs for it as I sped by to get home.

I had been riding for about three hours (plus my gas and meal stops) and covered a distance of about 100 miles. That ride, my hangover, and the fact that I had duty the next day meant I passed out within seconds of landing on my pile of laundry for a bed in my Ala Napunani apartment. But I passed out with happy thoughts dancing through my head.

Those happy thoughts, of course, were fully extinguished by the time I woke up in the morning. Fucking duty. 1108 fucking days to go. The San Fran was in Magazine Loch, but on the closer side, practically right in front of my old barracks, Paquet Hall. I wondered why they always parked on the far side of Magazine Loch when I lived in the barracks and didn’t have my motorbike, yet once I had wheels, they parked much closer. Figured. Still, it was nice how close you could park a motorcycle to a submarine.

I pulled up next to the Engineer’s Gixer. Despite both motorcycles being designed and built by Suzuki, his was a vastly superior machine to my Marauder. I liked the way mine looked better than his, but there’s no doubt his motorcycle was purpose built with form following function. That was just what speed looked like. It was pretty insulting to think that his 750 cc’s made 129 horsepower whereas my 805 cc’s made merely 49 horsepower. I suppose mine was form over function.

With that low-performance/good-looks formula, my bike was stunning. It was somewhat of a callback to the 1950’s, and if you didn’t know much about motorcycles, I bet you’d think my Marauder was an old Harley Davidson. Yet it was a cheaply made hunk of garbage with a lot of plastic bits like both fenders, the chromed headlight housing, and the supposed air cleaner cover and oil tank.

I say “supposed” as there were a lot of fake parts such as that air cleaner housing that housed no air cleaner and covers on the sides of the battery compartment made to look like a shiny oil tank despite being equipped with a wet sump engine requiring no such implied oil tank. The cylinders had fake air-cooling ribs, as the engine was actually liquid cooled, and it had polished aluminum and chrome steel bolt-on covers to hide the ugly dull cast aluminum ribbed crank case. It tried so hard to look like a Harley, and for the most part succeeded.

With all its fakery, it was pretty damn pretty, only marred by the rider, me, wearing a giant full faced helmet and bright orange dork vest. Once parked, I quickly stripped myself of those items in order to feel less like a loser. But then the next blow to the ego rumbled from down the pier and pulled alongside my Marauder. Another serious machine. It was a gorgeous silver Harley Davidson FLSTF “Fat Boy” with subtle bits of yellow trim.

That bike had zero fakery. Every bit on that Harley had a reason to be there and almost everything was made out of metal. It had a real air cleaner housing with an actual air filter inside, a real oil containing oil tank, real air-cooling fins on the cylinders of its air-cooled engine, and the chromed sides of the crank case were not covers, but the actual crank case itself. Oh, and both fenders were made of steel, not of plastic like my Marauder.

Until inspecting this Chief’s Fat Boy, I wasn’t really into Harley’s. The only one I could remotely afford was a Sportster 883. I didn’t like the little “peanut” fuel tank on them or that they didn’t have the long and low look of the full-sized bikes with 1340cc Evolution engines. And that’s exactly what the Chief had: a long and low bike with a teardrop fuel tank and big ass engine. His Fat Boy was a serious machine.

It sucked that my piece of shit was parked between a Suzuki GSX-R750 “Gixer” (the hottest sport bike on the market) and a Harley Davidson FLSTF “Fat Boy” (the most badass cruiser on the market). To further injure my delicate biker self-esteem, the rider was a Chief wearing a nice fitting half face helmet and a black reflector vest. He just looked cool.

Why does my dork vest have to be orange!?!

It was bad enough that I dressed as a sailor most of the time—as I was one—but I was not the construction worker in the Village People and did not think I should be forced to dress as him as well. What’s next? The Indian headdress? I digress. Anyway, I had known I really needed a new smaller helmet, but now I realized I needed a new dork vest too. It was possible the Chief was only waved in by the Makalapan gate guard because he was a Chief and that maybe I’d be turned away, but it was worth a shot buying one to see if black was the new orange.

I chatted with the Chief for a moment. He was a pretty big guy and one of a slew of new crewmembers. He was taking over the Auxiliary Machinery Division, usually known as “A-Gang” and was the only non-nuclear trained division in the Engineering Department. It was a coner group as the Auxiliary Machinery Room was forward of the Reactor Compartment.

I went down onto the boat, put my shit on my rack, and went aft for turnover. Not long into my watch, I heard the most dreaded announcement I could think of. This shit again?

“ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM DRUG SCREEN—”

“It’s gonna be four.”

“—VIS NUMBERS ENDING IN FOUR. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. ATTENTION ALL HANDS. THERE WILL BE A RANDOM DRUG SCREENING FOR THOSE WITH SERVICE NUMBERS ENDING IN FOUR.”

“I knew it. I fucking knew it. Every god damn time.”

This was the third time in a row my number was called. Random my ass. There was 0.3% chance of this happening. They were clearly gunning for someone. I bet Hashbrown had the same last digit in his service number as I did. I hated these “random” drug tests not because I did or wanted to do drugs, but because I had the hardest time pissing while someone was watching me. This battle of wits and whiz could last for hours. Chiefs would get so mad that they’d begin threatening to award me with punishment.

“Okay that is definitely not helping. I have to pee even less now, Chief. Remember, I need to be relaxed to release a sample. We’ve gone down this road twice before.”

I’m not sure what time I finally ended up filling up the peepee cup. Probably in the afternoon. Definitely made some Chiefs angry. For the rest of the duty day, I worked on my quals while off watch and while on watch, day dreamed about me looking cooler on my motorbike. I planned to go to the Montgomery Motors and DMV when I was off duty.

I woke up on the boat and had to work a full shift before being cut loose. Duty days were basically 32 to 36-hour sentences. 1107 fucking days to go. After being dismissed, I sped off to the DMV to switch over my driver’s license from New York to Hawaii, and to get a Hawaiian motorcycle permit. To my dismay, I had to wait a week between tests. I passed the exam to switch over my license as that had to be done first. Technically, I would not be able to legally ride my Marauder for a week due to no longer having a valid motorcycle permit. (It didn’t stop me.)

Being legal was a work in progress. I had intentions. My conscience was clear. Back on the bike, I struggled to, but eventually found the little store with the “German” helmets that the sport bike riders had given me a tip about. It wasn’t a motorcycle dealer and didn’t even specialize in anything related to motorcycles. It was more like a costume store. Like a precursor to supply the now common cosplay phenomenon. Hawaii has a lot of Japanese tourists, so perhaps the owners of this establishment saw the trends heading to our shores.

On the shelf were just two choices. The pre-World War 1 Prussian “pickelhaube” styled helmet with bright metal trim and a spike on top was not one of them. They did however have the World War 1 and 2 German “stahlhelm” style helmet. (This is the one that flares out at the lower edges and is longer in the back, giving it the nickname of the “coal bucket” helmet. Or maybe just think of this one as the “stormtrooper” helmet.) The other choice was a World War 2 American G.I. “M1” style helmet. Both helmets had a tag inside with the following inscription:

 “Not D.O.T. certified. For novelty use only.”

Interesting, but whatever. I needed something other my hot and sweaty full face or that bird’s nest high half face helmets. One of these would do until I obtained a license and no longer needed a helmet other than to get onto base. Besides, in order to be D.O.T. certified, the helmets only had to pass a test at fifteen miles per hour. No, not fifty. Fifteen.

More riders die wearing a helmet than those going helmet-less, and this is despite the number of riders riding with and without being roughly equal. The helmet just allows an open casket. Knowing this, I was fine with a non D.O.T. helmet. They could always cremate me and spread my ashes somewhere in the ocean around the Kalanianaole Highway. But those were future plans. Now in the moment, which novelty helmet was it going to be?

Although the German stahlhelm was undeniably cooler looking than the American M1 on the shelf, the same could not be said on my head. My babyface simply did not work with the stormtrooper look. Maybe it would if I was cosplaying the end of the war when they put old men and young boys on the frontlines. The M1 looked better on me, but I certainly didn’t look as cool as that Fat Boy riding Chief with his legitimate half helmet and full mustache.

Once the cashier realized from a quip I made that I wasn’t going to use the American G.I. helmet to play dress up, and that I fully intended to wear it on my motorcycle, he tried to dissuade me from buying it. Dissuade might be too gentle. Refuse to ring up might be more accurate. There was something about him that gave off anti-authoritarian vibes, however, so I figured I’d play to that.

“What do you care? This state doesn’t even require helmets. I just need it to get onto the Navy base.”

He rang it up. Once I implied it was to stick the stupid naval rules up their giant naval ass, he seemed quite pleased. They didn’t have any dork vests there. Maybe no one cosplayed the Village People any longer. I rode off to Montgomery Motors as that place had a couple of walls full of safety gear from genuine helmets, to gloves, to eye protection, to dork vests. Turns out they even had a black reflective vest similar to what I saw the A-Gang Chief wear. For the ride to work in the morning, I brought the full-face helmet and orange dork vest with me just in case, but they were unnecessary. I was waved right on in through the Makalapa gate in my M1 novelty helmet and black reflective vest.

Take that you giant naval asses with your stupid rules!

The first real ride with my G.I. helmet would be the following weekend. I had duty on Friday and woke up Saturday morning on the boat. 1103 fucking days to go. It’s never a good night’s sleep even if you pulled first watch and were able to through the last watch into turnover. If you wake up on your day off, you normally go home and sleep your day away, as I had done on my laundry pile in my otherwise empty Ala Napunani bedroom.

But as long as you wake up on your laundry pile bed before 1600 hours, or 4 pm for all you civilians out there, there was enough time to make it up to the north shore, explore, and return the long way home. I did, so that’s what I did. Hopped onto the Marauder, rode along H-1 for a bit, switched over to H-2 in Pearl City, rode through Wahiawa where H-2 ends and continued up on the Kamehameha Highway, which was state route 99 until my destination: Haleiwa, the surfer town I bypassed the week earlier.

I wanted a nice long ride to fret over where all the women went. I was feeling lonely and was beginning to think I’d never meet a lady who I didn’t have to pay for one song or one hour at a time. That’s like the same fakery found on my Marauder. No, I wanted a real connection. Real like parts on a Harley. I was still holding out for that Tiki bar. You know, things like that. Those were the things I was planning on thinking about during my nice long ride. Instead, I was thinking about how much I disliked strangulation.

Holy shit, that skid lid I bought was one hell of a wind catcher at interstate highway speeds. It was like a mini parachute. Whereas my full-face helmet merely put a strain on my neck as it was pushed back by the wind, the G.I. novelty helmet just rotated around my cranium and used the chin strap to choke me out. The only solution was to pull the chin strap tighter and tighter and tighter so the skid lid wouldn’t rotate, but even that was unpleasant.

Do you prefer your strangulation to be a level six or level nine? It’s adjustable.

That wasn’t the only source of discomfort unfortunately. I was also unprepared for what the wind did to my eyes while wearing merely sunglasses. At speed, it stung. I had to squint to the point it was almost hard to see, but even then, I couldn’t keep my eyes from watering. By the time I got off my bike in Haleiwa, I had red, teary eyes looking like I just watched the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when Spock is fatally irradiated in Engineering.

I have been, and always shall be, your friend. Live long and prosper.

Gets me every time. Since we can’t have that while riding, I figured maybe I should go back to Montgomery Motors and buy some goggles. I was quite a distance from there however, and at this point my most immediate concern was grub. I finally made it into the cute little surfer town Haleiwa and parked the bike next to a brown and yellow wooden establishment with the most surfboards for sale I’ve ever seen in my life. It was some joint called “Surf ‘n Sea.”

The surfboards were stacked vertically outdoors with the short ones in front and the monster long boards in the gravel bed parking lot. It was something to look at in awe for a bit. But I needed nourishment and began walking through the tiny town. It only took me a couple of minutes to get to a cool looking double arch dirty white concrete bridge built in 1921 and named the “Anahulu Stream Bridge” according to what was cast into the concrete.

Once over the bridge, I discovered that this “tiny” town was a bit too spread out to be walkable. The sugar industry era wooden architecture made this town seem like you really needed a horse to get around. For me, there just didn’t seem to be anything to do except shopping for the beach and surfing activities you may have been planning. I went back to the Marauder and rode along Kam Highway until I found a restaurant roughly a mile away from Surf ‘n Sea.

Despite all the possibilities on my new island to dine, I found myself repeatedly eating in the same three non-Hawaiian restaurants: The Subway sandwich place in the mini-Exchange on base, where I’d usually get a meatball parmesan hero; The Jack-in-the-Box on Kuhio across from Déjà Vu, where I’d get the chicken fajita pita; and the pizza joint in the International Market Place, where I’d get a couple of slices with pineapple and ham on them.

It wasn’t lost on me that I should be experiencing new culinary treats instead of chowing down the exact same grub I could get in a mall food court in Cleveland when visiting my recently transplanted sister. I suppose while playing it safe from a gastronomical standpoint, the excitement was knowing that there were other possibilities out there. I’d discover and sample them eventually, just as I had with pineapple on pizza. Baby steps.

I very nearly ordered a Mahi Mahi fish burger. Unfortunately, I was just not quite ready to sample the fruits of the sea. While I love it now, back then, I had a different opinion. I just didn’t like fish. I mean other than a couple of seafood-based meals that my parents would serve me as a child. My mother would make me fish sticks for dinner roughly once a week, but they were breaded and tasted like ketchup. I think children would eat anything breaded, fried, frozen, reheated, and slathered in ketchup, even if it was made out of Styrofoam.

Then there was something maybe a little more advanced than eating fish sticks: clams. As a kid, my father would take me to Montauk for a week each summer, and we’d eat at many different nautical themed restaurants. He would have the swordfish and I’d eat something like a steak or the lasagna. I wouldn’t touch any fish except for the Manhattan clam chowder. (You know, the red kind.) But I was so young I thought the potatoes were the clams. It was quite disappointing when my father corrected me after scooping up a potato and exclaiming my love of clams.

“No, those are potatoes. The clams are the chewy little pieces of meat.”

I didn’t believe him. His statement was clearly impossible. The supposed potatoes were so prominent that they just had to be the clams. Otherwise, in my mind at least, they would have named the soup Manhattan potato chowder.

My dad doesn’t know anything! How are adults so ignorant?

While disregarding the fish stick and clam experiences of my youth, I decided to play it safe by skipping the Mahi Mahi burger and settled on the teriyaki hamburger with a pineapple on top. It was a fantastic baby step. What else could I put a pineapple on to enhance the flavor? Maybe fish sticks and Manhattan potato chowder. Not that day though. I fired up the Marauder and continued along the north shore and back down on the windward coast.

There was a coconut stand somewhere along the side of the road once I approached civilization near K-Bay. Definitely needed a break from being strangled and crying continuously about Spock. This would be my first coconut in paradise. Turns out they are not easy to eat. I made a mess breaking off chunks from the hole they guy made at the top to drink the coconut water. I tried to eat it like a melon, but my teeth more often wanted to ride along the surface of the white coconut “meat” or dig into the hairy brown outside. Yeah, the coconut was way too much work to eat and honestly tasted just okay. Plus, the sticky liquid inside… no thanks. I’ll stick to the pineapple.

From the coconut stand, I rode into Waikiki via the Pali Highway shortcut with sticky hands, teary eyes, and a crushed windpipe. I was tired, but needed a drink. The Tiki bar inside the Kuhio Village Resort would fit the bill. It was already now dark out, and I discovered another issue with my open-faced novelty helmet: I couldn’t see shit with my sunglasses on at night, and it was impossible to ride without any eye protection. Things were getting complicated. I dropped the bike off in the loading well and walked to the Tiki bar on Kuhio just past the pink building on Uluniu Avenue.

Kuhio Village Resort did not at all seem like a resort to me. No, it looked like the building was originally just a regular high-rise hotel from the 1960’s that had been converted into apartments or condos (and a laundromat). The tiny Tiki bar was in a space that appeared more like a lobby or area that was supposed to be walked through like to get to the elevators maybe. Perhaps many people had previously checked into their hotel exactly where I had just ordered a bottle of Double Black Stout. It seemed they made the old reception front desk into a bar top by putting bamboo, bar stools, and liquor bottles all around it. Whatever. Worked for me. They had my favorite beer.

I don’t remember seeing a sign for the bar and have forgotten the name. I tried researching establishments at the address, but all I could find online as a reference to this long since closed down watering hole was this passage:

The Really Crap Hole Dive Bar (Kuhio Village Resort apartments) – size of a closet; the whole place was a dump. 

It wasn’t a dump—unless they were referring to the entire old apartment building being called a resort—and I don’t think it really was a dive bar. I didn’t know what a dive bar was back then, and even today knowing all about dive bars, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a dive. It was too well lit for one. And the bathrooms down the hall weren’t theirs, so they were cleaned by the building’s janitors, and thus cleaner than any dive bar I’ve been to. I’d call it an old man bar. Yeah, it was most certainly not a youthful hangout. I was probably half the age of the few other customers. But like I said, no big deal as they carried my favorite beer on the planet. In bottle form, however.

The bottles were 22 ounces and $8 each, or 36 cents per ounce, compared to 64 ounces pitchers for $11 at Déjà vu, or 17 cents an ounce. The music at the Really Crap Hole Dive Tiki Bar was for older people too. Jimmy Buffet was on heavy rotation. After a couple of bottles of Double Black Stout, I went to Déjà vu for cheaper beer, rock music, and naked ladies. However, since this Tiki place was only the second bar I knew about with Double Black Stout, I was sure I would return. Plus, they were very friendly there. (I suppose it must be nice to be retired in paradise.)

Post Déjà Vu session and subsequent drunkenness, I decided to infiltrate that hotel where I slept in the smelly closet as I was worried about the cops patrolling the beach again. But I didn’t want to sleep on a shelf near the cleaning supplies and figured I could get onto the roof for a proper sleeping-under-the-stars slumber. I made it to the top of the stairwell, but the roof access had a notice stating there was an alarm rigged to it. There was, however, a random chair up there next to the door in a corner fitting for supporting a resting sleepy head.

What turned out to be a few hours later (but feeling like mere seconds), a security guard woke me up and escorted me to an office on the ground floor. Sunlight was pouring into the lobby, so I clearly did get a decent night’s sleep, at least three hours or so. This hotel official eventually walked in, perhaps the manager, and began questioning me. He told me that I’d have to wait in his office until the police arrived. Made sense to me. I complied right up to the point in which he asked me what ship I was on and for the name of my Commanding Officer.

Holy shit! My CO?

That was a far more alarming threat than the police. Not only was it alarming, but those questions really pissed me off. If I still worked at the auto parts place that I worked at before entering the Navy, would he have asked me which particular store and the name of the general manager? Why single out military personnel like this?

Now he’s getting personal! This guy wants to hurt me. Is it because of my haircut?

My response when he asked for my ship and CO was to immediately tell him to fuck off, and to bolt out of the hotel. Catch me if you can, fuck face! I ran all the way back to the loading well of the Waikiki Town Center and quickly started up the Marauder for my get away. Fuck that guy! I had a nice semi-soft pile of laundry to sleep on instead of a hard bench in a jail cell. And I wouldn’t get busted down a rank inside my apartment. Now that was some serious bullshit right there. I couldn’t wait until I no longer had a “commanding” officer to worry about. 1102 fucking days to go.

Although the week started pretty rough with me being captured by enemy forces in a hostile hotel that Sunday morning, the rest of the week went much more smoothly. For example, a few days later, I solved both the wind in my eyes and the inability to see at night issues when riding my motorbike. Montgomery Motors had an array of goggle to choose from, with some of them having yellow tinted lenses. I found it quite bizarre and figured it had to be had to have some sort of advantages over both the clear and dark tinted ones. I took a chance and purchased a set.

I figured they’d keep the wind from stinging my eyes, and they did, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the yellow tint worked well during both day and night! Definitely a little strange at first. During the day I had some thoughts while wearing them:

“This is what my planet looks like now while riding a motorbike? It’s like an alien world in some science fiction flick! But… the goggles are keeping the wind from being directed right the fuck straight into my eyeballs, and I’m not squinting from the blinding ass sun… so yes, I guess this is indeed what my planet looks like now. It’s a strange new world.”

Equally impressive was how easy it was to see at night. Day and night, all in one pair of goggles. Drawbacks? Yes. Two. First was that once I removed the goggles strapped around my head with an elastic band, the area around my eyes looked like the area around Loraine’s boobs when she removed her bra. There were indentations left behind from both goggles and bras that took time to work out of the skin.

Second was that the indentations weren’t the only rings around my eyes. Since they were a bit bigger than a pair of sunglasses, the tan line, or in my case burn line, was just a little bit unnaturally outside where the lines should have been. Whatever, I’ll take the bra wearing racoon face. With it, I could see at any speed at any time of day.

I took and passed my written motorcycle permit test this week as well. Soon I would be able to schedule a road test and be done with my stupid choking parachute helmet (at least when not riding onto base). Then I could take the motorcycle safety course and get my base sticker to be done with the balancing and flashing act every morning. But it wouldn’t be long now!

I just wanted to be perfectly legal so that no one could tell me that I wasn’t allowed to do my favorite activity on the planet. With my motorcycle, this was now my island. I could go anywhere. Anywhere I wanted! When I was riding on the bike, that meant I was not on duty inside that stinking sewer tube. Yes, there was all that freedom, plus there were all the thrills! There’s something about that sensation of acceleration when you twist that throttle open. It’s like falling but horizontally, obviously, and almost in control.

The motorbike was a perfect counterbalance to anything eating me up in life. If there was ever a device created to maintain sanity, the motorcycle was it. My Marauder told me that the world was indeed still my oyster.

To be continued in part two…