Humuhumunukunukuapua’a
(A Bananafish By Any Other Name)
By
Daniel Goethel
“You just keep your eyes open for any bananafish. This is a perfect day for bananafish.”
“I don’t see any,” Sybil said.
“That’s understandable. Their habits are very peculiar.” He kept pushing the float. The water was not quite to his chest. “They lead a very tragic life,” he said. “You know what they do, Sybil?”
She shook her head.
“Well, they swim into a hole where there’s a lot of bananas. They’re very ordinary–looking fish when they swim in. But once they get in, they behave like pigs. Why, I’ve known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight bananas.” He edged the float and its passenger a foot closer to the horizon. “Naturally, after that they’re so fat they can’t get out of the hole again. Can’t fit through the door.”
“Not too far out,” Sybil said. “What happens to them?”
“What happens to who?”
“The bananafish.”
“Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can’t get out of the banana hole?”
“Yes,” said Sybil.
“Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil. They die.”
“Why?” asked Sybil.
“Well, they get banana fever. It’s a terrible disease.”
“Here comes a wave,” Sybil said nervously.
“We’ll ignore it. We’ll snub it,” said the young man. “Two snobs.” He took Sybil’s ankles in his hands and pressed down and forward. The float nosed over the top of the wave. The water soaked Sybil’s blond hair, but her scream was full of pleasure.
With her hand, when the float was level again, she wiped away a flat, wet band of hair from her eyes, and reported, “I just saw one.”
“Saw what, my love?”
“A bananafish.”
“My God, no!” said the young man. “Did he have any bananas in his mouth?”
“Yes,” said Sybil. “Six.”
The young man suddenly picked up one of Sybil’s wet feet, which were drooping over the end of the float, and kissed the arch.
“Hey,” said the owner of the foot, turning around.
“Hey, yourself! We’re going in now. You had enough?”
“No!”
“Sorry,” he said and pushed the float towards shore until Sybil got off it. He carried it the rest of the way.
“Goodbye,” said Sybil, and ran without regret in the direction of the hotel.
–JD Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
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For My Grandma
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Memories
Truth is ephemeral
a brief moment existing only in the present.
Time fades recollections;
Thoughts of the past becoming self-justified dreams
of what we want ourselves to be.
As grass pigments on favorite jeans hints at adventures had
or a wine blemish reminds of parties long gone;
Truth stains the fibers of our being,
but quickly fades.
Some moments treated with the bleach of purposeful forgetfulness
are lost forever;
Others hold fast to keep us sure
of who we are.
Yet time breaks the carbon bonds of all truth.
Memories act to patch the gaps,
a solid stitch holding the essence of existence together.
A home-made solution mending the rifts of truth;
The thin thread of hope of how we wish we were.
A stitch in time,
a memory belies.
Truth becomes a mélange of vague memories,
but what was means little.
For the binding of shared memories
becomes the only statement of existence.
Sewn tight, an unbreakable connection;
Passing through the infinity of time,
it may never be overwritten.
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The turn dial television buzzed softly in the corner of the small living room. The young boy lay on his stomach amid the sea-blue fuzz carpet. He was lost in the TV reruns and his own simple pre-teen thoughts. Now and then he would run his hands through his perfectly straight, dirty blonde hair, cut in a perfect bowl atop his large round head. As Magnum dodged bullets onscreen he would roll back and forth across the carpet in a haphazard buzz of unpredictable energy. After a particularly rousing round he laid spread eagle running the carpet strands through his finger tips, enjoying the fuzziness between his appendages. Not unlike an unchaperoned golden retriever he periodically would roll on his back, rub his thin hair on the carpet creating a strong static charge. He would play with his static charged hair, mesmerized by the otherworldly nature of hair dancing on its own, with some strange affinity to his fingers, all the while never taking his eyes off Tom Selleck in his perfectly positioned Detroit Tigers baseball cap.
In his adolescent oblivion he couldn’t sense the heavy air of tension and sadness hanging in the house. Instead he reveled in the opportunity to have free reign over the early evening television programming. It wasn’t until recently that Magnum had become his hero of choice. Although the show was long past its primetime airing, he had recently taken it up on his frequent weekend trips to visit his grandparents. Many years earlier his grandmother had started watching it with him after his parents had left him with them to take a trip to Hawaii with his brother who was four years older than he. After hours of crying out the bay window of the shady street of his grandparent’s home hoping his parents’ car would magically show back up, he was finally placated by the mellow, sunny scenes of Tom Selleck plying the waves of Waikiki on his surf-ski. He had no concept of what or where Hawaii was, but when his grandma promised to one day take him, just the two of them, he felt a sense of relief and privilege, knowing that his brother wouldn’t be invited. Since that day, when his feeling of abandonment had suddenly turned into one of entitlement, he had watched Magnum, PI with a sense of fervor, looking forward to that unidentified day when he and his grandma would one day take flight to the land of beaches and drinks with tiny umbrellas.
Lost in his Hawaiian fantasies he hardly understood Magnum’s walking on clouds in the current episode. Nor could he figure out the lack of parental supervision. Enjoying the freedom he lolled on the carpet completely ignorant of the harsh din of the tan rotary phone–clashing harshly with the dark pine wainscoting–that buzzed on the wall just a room away in the kitchen. Of course, with his thinly veiled fear of verbal communication and utter scorn for the phone–a device that required communicating without any control over who with or a physical indicator of the message being conveyed–it was no surprise that he was unphased by its sudden shattering presence in the quiet of the house. However, he was temporarily distracted by the delayed, but sudden reaction that the phone created in the rest of the small two-floor house. His mother, a short, normally composed doting woman with waist length brown hair came bounding down the stairs from his parents’ bedroom. Her stockinged feet, whose socks extended over her immense calves formed from years of semi-professional figure skating, hit the last carpeted step, which was the same deep blue as the living room rug. She agilely pushed off the banister at the bottom of the stairs and made a sharp right into the seldom used dining room, which was abnormally away from the carefree boy and her usual route between the white polka-dotted blue felt couch and his dad’s blue lazy boy. At the same time he heard the breezeway door slam shut as his dad came running in from the garage where he had been quietly mending his nets.
He had found it odd that his dad had been home all day considering it had not been windy. He had long grown used to having his dad gone fishing long before he woke and home for only a few hours at night before bed. Any day he was home was a treat, and that day had been a special bonus when he got to go out to breakfast at the colorful joint down by the docks. A place his mother usually half-heartedly objected to his going. He found it exciting, but always a bit scary. The yellow building, only 30 feet from the harbor’s edge–where his dad’s 45 foot trawler lay calmly at mooring–was relatively quiet on such a sunny, patient spring morning. As he sprang from the high truck over the recent spring puddles, cigarette smoke billowed out the front door engulfing the neon ‘open’ sign. He followed his father into the dimly lit diner, cowering slightly behind his dad’s sturdy frame. Upon entering they were greeted by a few calloused and sun-scorched old-timers; past their prime in everything but story-telling and cigarette smoking. They grabbed stools at the counter between two fishermen that cast an odor wavering between rotten herring, smoke, hot sauce, and an unkempt auto body shop.
“Coffee?” The large owner/cook/waitress demanded in a harsh German accent.
Realizing that she was addressing him, while holding a steaming pot of coffee–which had once been clear but was permanently stained a dark black-brownish color–he quickly grabbed his father’s elbow and buried his face in the hand knit sweater that smelled of diesel fuel and shed fish scales like dandruff when he touched it.
“Yes, please!” His dad spoke up.
“I don’t ask you.” The owner chimed back in broken English with her typical ill-humor, but her rough countenance quickly faded into a brief, wan smile. She poured a thick motor oil-like sludge into his father’s mug, which had a faint odor of burnt rubber. With a surprising agility–given her ample girth–she made a quick about face, tossing the pot back onto its hot plate and almost simultaneously grabbing a bottle of orange juice from the adjacent refrigerator. She poured it into a glass nearly as tall as the portion of the child’s upper body that managed to peer over the countertop, and tossed it along the bar where it stopped directly in front of him. Just as quickly she leaned back and returned to watching the movie that played on the grainy television above the griddle.
He loved coming for breakfast here–if only to watch the R-rated movies that, despite not really understanding, he would never be able to watch at home, and therefore retained a tantalizing forbidden enjoyment. Today was a particular favorite, ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’. It didn’t make much sense to him, but it was one of the few movies that made his dad crack a smile so he always enjoyed watching. The timing made little sense given that it was well into the New England spring, but the choice of movies rarely had rhyme or reason.
“Ya ta good faw da cowfeee?” The patron next to him leaned in spewing a mixture of smoke and phlegm in his direction. The child’s eyes grew wide as he sat frozen on his stool.
“Hey, shut yer trap and mind yer own bizness. Ain’t you missing a keno game or sumtin’? If’n you breath another puff o’ smoke on that boy yer next bredth gonna be through a tube!” She hissed without turning from the tv set.
Not enjoying being the topic of conversation he sat perfectly still focusing on various bumper stickers plastered on along the wall. He hoped that if he sat still enough he might become invisible as if he was being pursued by a T-Rex. It seemed to work as everyone returned to their own business leaving him in peace. Meanwhile, his dad sipped his coffee engaged in conversation about the recent appearance of the mackerel schools just offshore, but with a slight snicker as he observed the fuss over his son.
To avoid future interaction he began perusing the one page menu with the intensity of a lion mid-hunt. He already knew what he wanted. He had been working up the courage to order the pancake for months. The stories were legendary. The pancake was the size of a small wallaby. If you didn’t finish it you had to spend the day cleaning the coffee pots. He had no idea what was true and what was fisherman hyperbole. He just knew he wanted it, but when he whispered his choice into his dad’s ear the response temporarily shattered the confidence he had building over those months.
“Are you sure?”
Was he sure? What would happen if he didn’t finish? He realized he was the center of attention again and tried to disappear into his dad’s dirty sleeves.
“Well, tell her what you want.”
He looked around unsure and mumbled something incoherent as she watched on impatiently, arms folded and leaning against the sizzling griddle.
“I don’t read minds.”
“A blueberry pancake,” he mustered all his strength after clearing his throat.
“Ok. Best be hungry’r than a seal in a lobstah trap.”
He smiled, somewhat confused, envisioning the giant pancake and sea of maple syrup he planned to douse it in. The enigmatic German turned back towards the griddle revealing the back of her tattered, grease covered t-shirt, which read “If it’s called tourist season how come we can’t shoot ‘em?” She proceeded to pour out enough batter to feed a drunken mob. His heart sank a bit knowing that, as his mom was fond of saying, he had acted like a pelican–his beak was bigger than his stomach. He could never finish the man-covered pancake. Nervous sweat formed on the back of his neck. There was no turning back, though. He spent the next ten minutes intently focused on Chevy Chase’s futile antics, while trying to muster up all the hunger that he could.
Once again his dad was in deep conversation with a newcomer. Fresh off a boat–covered in mud and smelling like cod liver oil–he swore up a storm explaining how he managed to tow up a string of lobster traps and a 1-ton rock, which had torn the belly from his cod end that morning.
“Had it up to da rail and damn twine caught. Swear the rock was 5 times the size of his big ole head,” motioning with a nod to the man sitting next to the boy. “But not nearly as dense as’n that fat noggin’. It bounced off’n the rail like it was covered’n seal blubber tak’n a chunk outta the fiberglass. Crewman dove outta the way just’n time else he woulda been walkin’ ‘round wit one’a dem foam hands, flattern dat cake on the griddle. Course the traps were hung on the starboard door still and when that rock let go, boom, boat done listed like a tidal wave come roarin’ up. Guy had’n the nerve to tell me to haul em up and return em. That after he set em right across my bow. So I says to em, I says screw off and I grabbed my knife and ginsu’d the crap outta em. I tells ya, I was in no mood.”
“Those guys outta Mass think they own the ocean. Serves em right.” His dad agreed with grave anger.
“So now I’m mendin’ for 3 hours and just run out of twine. Figure’n its time for some bacon. Why ain’t you out fishin’? You never in on’n a beauty of a day like’n today.”
“Wife’s family havin’ some problems. Wanted to get boy outt’n the house. Plus I got plenty of things that are need’n fixing on the boat. Never a day off in this business.”
“Amen.”
The conversation paused as a spatula that resembled a pizza paddle was procured from a seldom used cabinet.
“If that be your boys’ breakfast he might’n sink the skiff on the way to the boat.”
A muffled chuckle came from the seat next to them, but was quickly suppressed when the source realized that the German might not take favorably if she thought he was taking her pancake lightly. While he waited with a sense of foreboding, which mixed with a tinge of excitement, and a hint of satisfaction at being able to spend his Saturday alone with his dad. It made him feel important at being treated like a man, which was the only way fishermen treated sons around the docks. The conversations faded away to prototypical fishing topics such as fish prices, costs of fuels, and the miserable start for the Sox. Suddenly the low din ceased completely as everyone watched the pancake being lifted onto a serving platter that resembled an oversized dustpan. She tossed it in front of the kid with a slight flourish so that it spun for a second in front of his wide eyes.
“Betta get ta work. Got plenty’a dishes out back that need washin’ and potatas that ain’t gonna peel themselves,” she let out with a booming voice and a sly smile.
He had no idea if she was serious or not, but his heart sank a bit. There was only one thing to do as everyone in the joint watched, and so he doused the pizza sized pancake in half a bottle of maple syrup and got to work. The fluffy deliciousness mixed with the tangy blueberries and sweet syrup forming an explosion of taste in his mouth. He quickly packed away half of the monstrosity in his lanky, yet slightly overweight frame.
“He might do it!”
“I always says he had a hollow leg.”
He enjoyed the friendly banter around him, but felt the airy batter slowly expanding in his stomach as he began to slow down. He struggled through bite after bite, each forkful less pleasure filled than the last. He tried to resurrect the hunger he felt every time he got off his dad’s boat after a long day fishing. The extreme hours and perpetual rocking created an unquenchable hunger. At the same time he tried to avoid the thought of the many bouts of seemingly ceaseless seasickness. Some of the instances were probably more due to the binging on the endless supply of cold sodas in the boat’s cooler, which his mother severely limited at home, than due to the constant rocking of the boat. As his mind wandered, his hands instinctively kept stuffing his mouth, giving him a look of a ruddy cheeked chipmunk fitting as many acorns in his mouth in preparation for a bleak, cold New Hampshire winter. Soon he had put down ¾ of the massive, fluffy breakfast. He paused and took a deep breath.
“Don’t make yourself sick,” his dad looked down in real concern, knowing that his own hard headedness hadn’t been lost in his quiet son.
As he force fed himself a last few oversized bites, a wave of intense tiredness invaded his eyelids. Disappointment hung around him as he realized he couldn’t finish. Being the perfectionist that he was, not being able to finish a task that he had set out to do would plague his sense of well-being for months. Not to mention the fear he felt in the possible repercussions for not completing his breakfast. Just then his dad leaned in and scooped up the last 4 enormous mouthfuls as all the patrons looked on in amazement.
“Guess yer outta dish duty,” she winked at the fast fading child. “Never seen nothin’ like it. I served one’a ‘em last week and this guy didn’t finish half. Had ‘em cleaning my griddle with a toothbrush fer an hour.”
Waking temporarily from his food induced coma, he smiled as his dad gave him a congratulatory pat on the back.
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As his body still processed the half gallon of syrup 9 hours later, he was jarred out of his food revelries by the jingle of fine china and plate-glass caused by his mother rushing through the dining room towards the ringing phone. He heard her take a deep composing breath before answering the phone.
“Hello?”
He looked up and saw his mom peering in through the kitchen hallway; a slight sheen in her eyes. She quickly turned around walking towards the breezeway pushing the restorative limits of the already overextended phone cord. The sound of the rubber coating smacking against the basket of bills hanging in the kitchen echoed through the house. It stretched taught against the doorframe as she turned the corner into the breezeway. Her voice faded into an interminable whisper.
Magnum: Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts.
Unworried about the phone, Magnum’s credulous voice filled his ears, but was interrupted by his mother’s hoarse sobbing as it drifted out the door and across the front lawn. It mixed with the soft cacophony of crickets that was dominating the early evening twilight, which caused the initial source to be hardly identifiable when it softly drifted back into the living room through the wide open screen windows.
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A mourning dove let out is exasperated ethereal song from high above the open air tour bus. The mid-morning summer sun beat down harshly through the DC haze.
“Is grandpa here?”
His mother, stunned and surprised, gathered her thoughts while gazing over the overlapping white crosses of Arlington Cemetery.
“He isn’t anywhere. But, he is watching over you from somewhere high above. This is where they bury soldiers who defended our country. Your grandfather wasn’t allowed to enter the army because of his farming accident. He tried many times, but he hurt his shoulder and they refused to let him enter World War II.”
“He doesn’t have a cross?”
“No. His body was cremated and scattered across the farm where he was raised. He returned to the soil from which he was created.”
Filled with his childish ignorance, he stared out upon the perfectly manicured cemetery grass. He sat leaning out the large window, his head resting sideways upon his crossed arms on the edge of the casement. His typical contemplative silence masquerading a battalion of thoughts marching through his developing brain. Maples shadowed either side of the narrow lane climbing up to Robert E. Lee’s childhood home. Squirrels and chipmunks chirped half-heartedly at the clamoring bus as it passed, saving their energy to survive the growing afternoon humidity. The sun beat down on the sweating tarmac, while it simultaneously released its blackbody radiation back into the tired atmosphere. The rising heat created a wavy distortion, which caused a funhouse effect that merged, yet appeared to proliferate, the white crosses seemingly spreading towards infinity. His eyes were only half open, but his mind was running full speed through fields of confusion. The lackadaisical, disinterested look of his sleepy face was a mere façade belaying an inner strife, where his lack of understanding was slowly fermenting.
How could people just stop being? How was it possible to just leave your body? Where did you go? If your body wasn’t you, who were you? He understood these crosses represented people, but where had they gone? And why?
As with most children his age, death was a confusing puzzle with no palpable meaning. It was the mystery of the body and mind that tormented him on days like these. Why did we even need bodies? Oftentimes, at night, lost in dream he would see his grandpa, or, more accurately, feel him. They would talk as if nothing had ever happened the night that phone rang. But he never was actually able to see him. He knew he was there and they would discuss school, his grandma, and the Red Sox, but his dreams were always just some sort of vague dialogue in empty space. He would often wake from these dreams feeling relieved and joyful, but more confused than ever. Somehow his dreams always felt more real than anything he witnessed with his senses. This was the essence of his confusion. What role did our bodies play? Could we not exist without them? What made dreams less real than reality? Perhaps it was all just a dream and physical forms just a trick of our delightfully strong and powerful imaginations. What if we were all just characters in one another’s infinite dreams?
Simple confusion such as this likely was the reason he found himself constantly lost in daydreams. Wandering through worlds of his own conjuring with the most magnificent settings and no one to try to limit what was possible. Often he would continue these same daydreams over weeks and months concocting elaborate worlds and scenarios much like Sebastian in his favorite book, “The Neverending Story”, which his grandma had given him and he never let leave his side. To him life in his dreams was much more comforting where the rules of life and death had no bearing, and he could talk with anyone and anything whenever he pleased.
Confused by death, he still felt great pain at not being able to communicate with the dead. Somehow he figured that if he waited long enough he would see his loved ones again, but he wasn’t sure where or when. He just figured that some day they would appear again and it would be as if nothing happened. There was also the apparent loss of beauty that hurt him. He recalled suddenly with a deep pang of bitterness the time he had attempted to save a monarch butterfly with a broken wing. The site of such a beautiful creature in such horrendous pain had scarred him forever. He had tried to nurse the colorful black and yellow insect to health for hours. When it had succumbed in his hands with a last pulsating and final desperate wing beat, he cried. The tears lasted for days. He didn’t know exactly why he had been crying. But to see such beauty destroyed and wither–to lose the ability to physically interact and sense that beauty in the world with the intense instinctual joy it created–was devastating. Even if our bodies really were nothing, he felt that eternal beauty should never have to be destroyed. It was the same sinking feeling he had every time Fantasia had to be destroyed, even though he knew it would be rebuilt. Although he could understand the beauty in the cycle of destruction and creation, he was never able to ignore the pain involved.
Gazing at the seemingly endless plains of crosses, which now appeared to be slowly waving, due to the steamy heat distortions–as though a slight breeze had caused a ripple through a wheat field–he could not help but feel a heavy sense of sadness from all the destruction of beauty that he knew they represented. The field itself evoked a foreboding beauty, but he imagined it was little condolence for those who could no longer see or feel their loved ones.
He tried to recall his grandfather. It had been less than a year, but everyday it grew harder and harder to bring his physical form back into his mind. Like a jigsaw puzzle with a few critical pieces missing the image he now conjured never seemed quite right. There he was sitting in his blue lazy boy with his close cropped white hair and big panda like grin. But certain parts of him were blurry. What shirt was he wearing? How wrinkled had his hands been? The feel of his stubble when he would grab his grandson as he ran through the living room of his grandparent’s house, picking him up softly mid-stride, burying his face in the child’s neck yelling “I’m going to get that Chick-eee meat”, was sharp and rough, but serenely enjoyable. He would rub his stubble back and forth tickling the small boy causing him to scream with pains of joy and pleasure. The smell of his grandma’s fried potatoes–the same potatoes they had just finished digging up from the small side yard garden they had planted earlier that year–hung in the air. The calming quiet tittering of Chickadees singing out their nightly reports in the warm dusk of the New Hampshire early fall. In the distance the soft jingle of an ice cream truck rang through the pines. Unfortunately, the warm memories were now mixed with those tinged by the bitter decay of that unseeable entity called “Cancer”.
The high pitched sounds of a bugle slowly wailing out ‘Taps’ alarmed his senses. A group of soldiers in perfect alignment raised their guns high in a perfectly choreographed 21 gun salute. His mother placed her slight arm over his shoulder as he watched on from the sticky leather seat of the bus. Their tears fell softly mixing in a small puddle before being greedily eaten up by the dry green earth.
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“Strike two!” He yelled out to no one in particular as he held his favorite waffle ball bat. He stood in the vacant front lawn. Shimmering water droplets clung tenuously to the grass, the abandoned wounded of the late summer shower. As soon as the steamy rainstorm had passed he couldn’t wait to get out of the stifling house. That was buried under a dense cloud of uncertainty and gloom. He waited, staring out the screen door with bat and ball in hand, legs slightly dancing in anticipation for the rain to end. As soon as it had, he was out the door, the steam still thickly rising off the hot, black pavement.
He dug his white Nikes into the imaginary batter’s box of the narrow, fenced in lawn of his grandparent’s house. The wet sand stuck in large clumps to his already dirt-stained shoes. He held his favorite waffle ball in one hand and the yellow, dented and well worn bat in the other. He briefly glanced into the bay window of the teal one-story ranch style house. His grandfather lay inclined in the adjustable hospital bed that took up the majority of the living room. He was watching his grandson hazily through the rain-stained plate glass window. The drug induced stupor gave a sleepy raccoonish appearance to his face, which contrasted sharply with the sallow color the disease had caused in his tightly stretched skin.
With his left still holding the waffle ball he waved quickly up at his grandfather, who responded with a sly, but slow and painful wink. He gingerly lifted the waffle ball bat and pointed it straight ahead well over the tall chain link fence. He held it there for a few extended seconds and smiled over at his grandfather one last time. This time he responded in kind with an ever so slight, wan smile. Bringing the bat back to his right shoulder he focused on the ball in his left hand, tossed it in the air, and swung as hard as his young, squat frame would allow. The worn, faded Red Sox hat fell from his blond head as he connected strongly with the ball, creating a comingling of white and yellow flashed and a strong crack of plastic on plastic. The ball took off, the slats twirling rapidly as it followed a high arc off the bat. He stood in the sand of his imaginary home plate, mesmerized by the power of one of his longest hits. The ball flew over the fence high up in the boughs of the pine in the neighboring yard. Momentarily it stuck, wedged between a few branches. After a moment a series of thin pine cones fell, followed by a small branch, which released a mass of plastic and pine. After a short freefall gravity brought the ball back to earth in a clamor of breaking sticks and bouncing cones. The ball bounced 3 or 4 times on the hard pavement, then proceeded to roll down the incline of the neighbor’s driveway before settling in a small puddle near the edge of the sleepy lane.
Smiling, he flippantly tossed the bat to the ground in a show of defiance and bravado to the nonexistent pitching ace that he had been staring down. He began a slow, cocksure home run trot around the imaginary bases of the front yard. He glanced up to the stands to see if his grandfather had observed his amazing feat of baseball prowess, but his eyes were shut. His face seemed to have an even more sunken appearance than normal. Slightly crestfallen he half-heartedly continued his home run trot through the massive ant mounds and tufts of crabgrass littered about the poorly maintained yard. Returning to the batter’s box he slammed down hard on the last flagstone–marking the pathway to the front door–finishing his pretend celebration of an epic game-winning homerun for his beloved Red Sox. With a slightly dejected air and shoulders slumped hard, he proceeded to walk around the fence to fetch his favorite wiffle ball. The one he had scuffed up ever so perfectly to enable throwing the best wiffle knuckleball. As he reached the edge of the puddle, a car came screeching down the narrow road. Jumping onto the shoulder, the car raced past him splashing the puddle over the edges of his hi-top Nikes. To his dismay, in the wet aftermath of the mini-tsunami, his ball lay squashed and in pieces. Soaked and distraught he launched the bat–that he carried with him out of habit–back over the fence in a fit of adolescent anger. Slowly he returned to the yard dragging his feet in the muddy edges of the road. He proceeded to the far fence edge and stood staring at the high bush blueberry plants that he had helped his grandfather to plant a few years prior. He picked a handful of the ripe fruit, which were freshly rinsed by the summer rain, and returned to the middle of the yard planting himself in the wet sand back propped against the bare, steel flag pole.
The sweet blueberries were a delightful treat that eased his exasperated mind. Playing with them in his mouth he lay down and stared up at the dynamic clouds buzzing across the otherwise blue sky. He placed the remaining small berries on his bulging stomach and slowly chewed them one by one, enjoying the soft delectable tanginess. Lost in simple amazement of the sky, tired by the brief bout of action and energy sapping humidity, he became lost in drowsy, simple thoughts. The thinly veiled sadness that filled every crevice of the house, and his bitterness at losing his favorite waffle ball, slowly melted away. The simple carefree nature of his child’s mind protected him. Laying there with the remaining rain drops periodically dripping off the trees onto his sweaty, sand covered skin, he couldn’t help but be amazed by the existence of pine cones. He stared up at the towering pine, which shaded him from the early evening sun, and delicately placed that last blueberry morsel on his tongue.
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“Aloha.”
The high pitched twang of a ukulele flooded the air from a series of tinny speakers hanging in the arrivals lounge of the Honolulu Airport. A thin raven-haired woman in a grass skirt dropped a faux-flower rubber lei on each of their necks. Meanwhile the human flood proceeded to push them through the gate until it widened out in the center of the enormous, bustling terminal. The mismatched pair–finally given a chance to take in their exotic surroundings–extracted themselves from the crush of sweaty, tired, and harried people. They stood there catching their breath each with a look of dumbfounded excitement. In his Larry Bird Celtics jersey, which lay bare his pasty white and slightly chunky arms, he was awkwardly tall especially in comparison to his short, squat grandmother standing by his side. His blonde bowl cut dripped slightly with the sweat caused by the long flight and the instant Hawaiian heat. Smiling with overwhelming joy, his buck toothed, oversized front teeth shone bright in the sunlit room. In equal consternation, his grandmother stood a full half head shorter. She wore a large brimmed sun hat covering her thick, grey hair, which had lost its curl shortly into the longest airplane ride of her life. She wore a matching understated floral print blouse and shorts, which was conspicuous among the bright colored mumus and Hawaiian shirts.
They both tried to hide the undercurrent of trepidation that swelled within them from the unknown of travelling so far from home without the comfort of husbands or parents. The week ahead was full of mystery and joy, but their smiles belied a tinge of fear. He adjusted his massively oversized backpack, which forced him to lean forward in overcompensation. It was filled with a trove of mostly unutilized knick-knacks he had packed himself to stave off the boredom of a previously unimaginable 7 straight hours in a single seat. The initial sensation of overwhelming newness soon faded and his restless legs began to tip his body back and forth.
“I suppose we should find our bus,” his grandma announced rhetorically.
Almost simultaneously they reached into their pockets and pulled out their respective sunglasses; hers were large prescription grade and his the bright colored, cheap plastic dollar store variety. They looked at one another, smiled, and donning their best Magnum impressions threw the glasses on their faces with a single hand finishing the process with a slight bob of the head from one side to the other. Hand in hand they exited the arrival terminal out into the steamy heat of the Hawaiian afternoon. Their senses were assailed by the cacophony of car horns, overwhelming brightness of the mid-day sun, and the powerful, yet calming, aroma of the brightly colored Hibiscus, which flowered in a seemingly endless array of pigments.
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The waning moon hung low over the craggy outline of Diamond Head–the iconic symbol of Waikiki–which sat lonesome and brooding at the far end of the beach. Its growing shadow cast a funereal pallor over the bright sand creating a strong juxtaposition against the fading sun barely visible above the jetty and the horizon beyond. A few faint stars began to shine through the darkening sky, losing their eons old light to provide a brief second of joy to earth’s heaven watchers. The bright pink façade of the Royal Hawaiian seemed to glow in some strange unearthly hue as the eternal battle of light versus dark played out its evening struggle. The seemingly confused sun bursting forth with oranges and reds that quickly faded to pinks and purples as they were engrossed and surrounded by the growing lack of color emanating from the exceedingly victorious darkness. The perpetual battle creating a litany of indescribable colors–each lasted only a second, but filled with an effervescent energy as they fought for existence against the empty darkness. As with every night, the struggle was subdued, yet grand and tinged with futility. Eventually the sun retreated, lamenting its loss with one final strong beam of dark red over the horizon, and a promise to return rejuvenated to continue the war with a sneak attack from the opposite horizon in a mere 10 hours time.
The pair sat in contemplative silence beneath the straw thatched roof of the Royal Hawaiian beach-side restaurant. A cool breeze blew through the open air of the restaurant carrying away the heat of the day and causing the tableside candle to flicker. He snatched his paper napkin before it was able to take flight. Each quietly observed the war of colors, neither uncomfortable with the silence between them. They were both quiet by nature and, unlike many who required constant tittering to avoid the intimidating depths of their own minds, each was comfortable with their own thoughts, which were sometimes preferable to verbal musings. With them words were gold, each utterance maintaining a meaningful weight. The lack of constant conversation did not belie a lack of trust of common enjoyments. In fact it was the opposite; the complete ease they felt with one another allowed them to avoid uneasy small-talk, and let them enjoy the silence with no undercurrent of apprehension.
The young blonde waitress with thin, black spectacles dropped off another round of bright red Shirley temples at the table.
“Extra cherries in yours,” she smiled down at him. He gave a shy smile in return without making eye contact.
“Thank you,” his grandmother acknowledged for them both with a polite and slightly beleaguered smile. She gave out a small yawn as she absentmindedly doled out her cherries into his drink. He combined the cherries from his empty glass with the plethora in the newly procured concoction, and spread the mini umbrella over the glass opening as though hiding a treasure from the outside world. He held the glass with both hands leaning over the wooden table and took a large sip out the pink straw. He hovered over the glass for a lingering few seconds like a leprechaun guarding a pot of gold. With a knowing smile his grandmother closed her eyelids and rested her wary eyelids for a few utterly calm moments. It had been a long trip for them both. He had dragged her from one end of Oahu to another with his youthful exuberance to see everything, mesmerized by sights so new and different from the granite solitude of New Hampshire. Oftentimes she would find him pulling her across town or up jungle paths like a young black lab on the scent of a squirrel pulling its owner here and there, chafing against the ever too short and taut leash. It had been a new and exciting experience for them both, however.
Most of all, though, it had been a much needed break from the emptiness that the previous few years had left in them both. The planning itself had given them distraction from life. Neither looked forward to returning. Although they did not have much to escape–he was still years from entering the pressures of adult life and she was at relative ease in retirement–a weight still hung with them that both feared would return when the vacation ended. They had been all over Oahu in the proceeding days including Pearl Harbor where they bonded over stories of how her brother had survived being bombed on the day that lived in infamy. Looking at the crosses in the Diamond Head cemetery, where his Great Uncle’s many shipmates lay buried, he no longer wondered whether his Grandpa might be there. He had slowly come to realize that his grandfather was nowhere. There was nowhere to see him and there was no amount of waiting that, at the end of which time, he could be seen again. He was gone and that was all there was. His own life would continue on with its ups and downs, but all that would remain of his grandfather were the slowly fading fibers of his memories. This slow understanding of death was both a harsh reality and a helpful truth. For though he must live forever with the loss, he was no longer in a perpetual waiting in the hopes of seeing him once again. However, the leaden sadness of such realizations pulled at them both.
“A jelly donut for your thoughts,” his grandmother let out with a chuckle, alluding to one of their favorite Magnum lines.
“I miss grandpa,” he suddenly blurted out.
“I do too, honey, I do too,” caught off guard, but typically candid.
A knowing, mourning silence proceeded. The rising moon lit a thin strand of rippling ocean just off the now deserted beach. Each glanced at the evening sky filled with stars of varying degrees of intensity whose light was being reflected and refracted throughout the immense infinity of the unknowable cosmos. Distracted by thoughts of the working of tides and the interplay of galactic objects, his fast paced mind moved on.
“Do you think we’ll see Magnum’s Ferrari tomorrow?”
The ephemeral brooding passes as quickly as it came. His grandmother let out a relieved sigh, amazed by the complicated turnings of a child’s mind. Adults were much simpler with their predictable linear plodding from thought to thought. She followed his unpredictable lead and let the moment wash away like a sandcastle assailed and carried off by crashing waves of a rising tide.
“You never know. The tour brochure says we will see all sorts of highlights from Magnum. We get to see Robin Masters’ Estate and his favorite surf-ski beaches. Are you excited to go swimming where Magnum swims?”
“Yea. He’s a good swimmer. I wish I could swim like him.”
“It takes practice. If you keep trying and practicing you’ll be just like him. But Magnum has nothing on your smile.”
He blushed and took the last sip from his drinking, sucking out every last droplet, causing a minor ruckus of slurping and clinking ice cubes.
“That’s what my mom says. Can we get ice s’cream?” His eyes grew wide and pleading.
“Of course, but don’t tell your brother how spoiled you were this week.”
“I promissssse.”
She paid the bill and the two sauntered down the steps onto the soft uneven sand. They slowly made their way down the quiet beach, his arm propping her up slightly–just as he had promised his mom before leaving–as their feet slid down the mini sand piles and flicked arcs of golden dist behind and before them with every step. Thoughts of impending peaks of creamy delights the only thing occupying his swift moving mind.
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Sweating profusely, fatigued from the early afternoon heat and humidity, and slightly bored with the prototypical and cliché tourist trap, forced shopping excursion, they made their way across the vast empty, steaming parking lot. Sick of the knock-off Hawaiian shirts and Kukui bead necklaces that they had seen at every one of the stops along the route, they returned to the bus only a few minutes into the scheduled half hour stop. The bus driver smiled his bearish grin as the odd couple in matching fluorescent fanny-packs made their way across the asphalt towards the bus door. He pressed the open button causing a thin whir of the compression air joints in the door. They waited for a moment as the door slowly pivoted. A fresh blast of exhilarating cold air rushed past their sweaty noses, and was soon consumed by the downtrodden outdoor heat.
“Didn’t find anything you liked?”, the bus driver bellowed out from atop his throne-like bench. He exemplified the stereotypical Hawaiian Islander. Dark skinned, he handled his massive girth with an air of indifference as he liberally spilled over the constraining sides of the driver’s seat. Bedecked in a sheet-like bright red Hawaiian shirt covered with green and blue floral patterns, he was at ease in the comparatively arctic air of the tour bus. He lifted the Ray-Ban aviators that barely fit around his large shaved head to reveal a pair of large brown eyes. His goofy smile never waned, which matched his unremitting insouciant attitude.
“We are more Magnum-philes than shoppers,” his grandma answered for them. “But we managed to pick up a little treat for ourselves.”
Timidly the boy lifted the medium sized box of chocolate covered Macadamia nuts–that he had been clutching under his right armpit, as though it would somehow protect the chocolate from the unrelenting heat–and presented it to the driver. He proceeded to rush to his front row seat–the leather of which felt like permafrost on his bare quads–and sat down before the driver could attempt to address him. His grandmother slowly followed behind carefully managing the steep bus stairs.
“Need a hand,” the jovial driver asked politely.
“Oh, I’m fine. Just takes a bit more time on these 70 year old trunks.”
“A’ole pikilia. Dis Hawaii, all we have is time, no matter what these overburdened tourists seem to think. I like you two. You aren’t like the other Haole. You know how to shaka; you know, take it easy.”
“Thank you, dear. At my age it’s about all I can do. We do what we can and let everyone else worry about doing the rest. This little rascal keeps us on the move, though.”
They both smiled at each other with a communal, timeless happiness as she negotiated the final step and took her seat next to her grandson. He scooted over leaning against the frigid window as her oversized derriere spilled across the seat dividers. He reached beneath the seat and pulled out the small cooler bag that they had carried with them throughout the trip. He pulled out the Capri-sun in its silver pouch and handed his grandma her bottle of sweet ice tea. After some misplaced prodding he managed to get the yellow straw through the small foil entrance. He proceeded to suck hard, gulping down the sweet grape nectar, while simultaneously squeezing the bag to hasten the hydration process. His belly jiggled slightly with a controlled laugh as he delighted in slurping out the last bits of the fruit juice cocktail and the bag shriveled in his hands as he drained the pouch of air and juice. He attempted to contract it as small as he could, giving rise to a loud sucking noise as the last bits of air and liquid were hastily extracted through the thin plastic straw. They both let out a relieved sigh that could only come from the quenching of an intense thirst on a bitterly hot day.
“Macadamia nuts!” he exalted upon catching his breath. He greedily ripped open the plastic wrap surrounding the box and pulled out the plastic tray in which each was individually inserted. With uncharacteristic gingerness he picked one up and plopped it in his watering mouth, while simultaneously holding the tray up for his grandma to scout out her perfect choice. After a few moments chewing on the succulent candy coated hard nuts, she motioned towards the driver.
“Why don’t you see if the nice man would like one?”
He shook his head in hesitant declination with a slightly frightened frown.
She gave him a stern look of disapproval.
“He won’t bite. What did I tell you about sharing?”
He bowed his head and shimmied past her towards the front of the bus.
“Would you like a chocolate?” he asked the beaming bus driver, holding the tray out in front of him with slightly trembling hands–his forefinger and thumb stained with the semi-melted chocolate. The whole time he stared down at his sunburned feet in cheap plastic thing flip-flops.
“Mahalo, little buddy,” and he proceeded to pick up and drop a chocolate in the tray. His sausage like fingers, steep sided container, and melty chocolate conspiring against his attempts. Both let out a brief giggle.
“An opae ula can’t escape his fate,” he stated while diving back into the tray of chocolates with renewed vigor.
“Dat’s da kine,” he proclaimed, tossing the chocolate back like a popcorn kernel.
He turned to scurry back to his seat, but before he could disappear next to his grandma the driver called back to him.
“Have you learned any Hawaiian on your trip?”
He froze in his tracks, paralyzed by fear of conversation, but drawn to the affable driver. His grandma watched him motioning with her expressive eyes to turn around and answer the man. Slowly he turned and made his way back to the front. The box of chocolates still locked firmly in his wet palms.
“No, sir,” his voice quivered ever so lightly.
“Well that won’t do. I can’t let a smart young’n like yourself, who so kindly offered me the world’s most delectable treat, and the best brand, too, not that Haole rubbish,” he winked into the overhead mirror at the old lady, “leave my homeland without learning some local words.”
His grandmother watched on with pride and gratitude at the seldom seen public interaction of her grandson.
“Well, I know you have the basics down–aloha, mahalo. Let’s see. Are you into animals? I bet you love animals. You like fish?”
He nodded vigorously. The fear of conversation with a complete stranger melted away by his intrigue of learning about the local fauna. He couldn’t wait to describe fish names to his parents back home. He knew they would beam with pride when he explained his new found knowledge.
“Have you been snorkeling yet?”
“No,” he choked out afraid at disappointing his new found friend.
“Hmm, I see.”
“Maybe we can go tomorrow,” his grandma spoke up.
“Ahh, your grandma sure is a kine lady, you better take good care of her.”
He nodded again, alight with anticipation, forgetting for the moment his weak swimming skills.
“Now, have you heard of the reef triggerfish?”
“It’s the state fish! It’s white with a black stripe, a yellow back, and blue fins.”
“I see you are familiar with my favorite fish.”
The truth was he has marveled at its regal brilliance in hundreds of brochures and guides which he had perused with his grandma in the months preceding the trip. It always seemed to carry itself with a stately, majestic air that contrasted sharply with the almost slovenly plainness of the fish he grew up with from the Gulf of Maine when he went fishing with his dad.
“Now do you know what us Kanaka maoli call that fish?”
He shook his head.
“Well it’s the humuhumunukunukuapua’a.”
His mouth dropped in awe, fascination, and dismay, knowing he would never be able to repeat it.
“We joke that the name is longer than the fish. It sort of translates into ‘fish put together like a puzzle with a snout of a pig’. It even acts like a pig sometimes. It eats so much that it will get itself stuck in crevices between coral heads. It’s kine of sad really, but enough of dat. Want to know how to say it?” He grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from the dash and wrote the name along with the phonetic spelling. He handed the slip to the perplexed boy.
“Now repeat after me. Whoo-moo Whoo-moo.”
“Hoo-mooooo Hooo-moooo.”
“New-coo New-coo.”
“Ni-cue Ni-cue.”
“Ah.”
“A.”
“Poo.”
He giggled.
“Pooh.”
“Uh, Uh-ah.”
“Uhh-ahh.”
“Now the whole thing. Humuhumunukunukuapua’a.”
“Hoomnehoomnewnooknookaplahhh…” His tongue twisted in knots and he gave up mid way through.
“It takes some practice, but you’ll get it. Now if you want to see one head over to Hanauma Bay. When you get to the beach go to the Northern edge just under the shadow of the cliff face, swim out about 30 feet and explore the circular opening just past the inner reef. Remember look in the crevices you never know how piggy one might behave. I’ve seen them steal a whole banana from an unsuspecting beachgoer. Jumped 2 feet out of the water and stole dat banana right from da sunburned Haole wading in the water.” A huge grin enveloped his face as he imitated the jumping fish with his bear paw hands.
The boy gasped, but before he had a chance to ask any of the multitudes of questions that filled his head, the first of the fellow tourists swarmed the bus, arms laden with Hilo Hatty bags of every size. Forced back to his seat he spent the next few minutes fervently practicing the name of his new favorite fish. Eventually he was lulled to sleep by the gentle jerking of the coach bus. Shortly after his grandmother fell asleep also, content and happy. Their heads piled atop each other like a tenuous jenga tower, while the sublime coastal scenes slipped by outside.
As the bus lurched to a slow halt back in Honolulu, the pair slowly awoke. He wiped a thin strand of saliva from his exhausted mouth. Despite being in the front row, they waited for the other passengers–in a seemingly endless hurry–to disembark. Finally his grandma stood up gingerly, letting her grandson out in front of her. The driver swiveled in his chair as they approached.
“Did you practice, my man?”
“Humuhumunukunukuapua’a,” he blurted out, beaming with a rare self-assurance.
The driver and his grandmother were unable to hide their surprise at the perfect pronunciation.
“Wow! You are now an official kanaka maoli. You passed the test. I have never heard a Haole say it so perfectly, seriously.” He raised his hand for a hi-five and the boy responded in kind, putting his full strength behind the gesture.
“Ouch.” He feigned a stinging pain in his wide hand. “Now good luck finding your banana-snatching trigger fish. I sense that ku’ula-kai is with you.”
“Thanks!” he joyously declaimed as he hopped off the bus back into the sapping heat.
“Thank you so much,” his grandma stated whole-heartedly as she dropped a bursting tip into the largely ignored tip jar, which was decorated with a miniature lei and presided over by a small tiki deity suctioned to the windshield.
“You are a godsend.”
“No thank you, tutu.” They smiled and parted ways as she slowly descended the stairs.
“And don’t worry so much. He is a smart one. He’s gon be jus’ fine. Jus’ fine.”
The pair waived graciously from the sidewalk as the bus pulled back into the chaotic traffic opposite the green leafed entrance to the international marketplace. They turned and were soon lost within the hectic bustle of the open air market, on a focused search for a cheap mask and snorkel, bursting with excitement for the penultimate day of their vacation.
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The sun rose vividly above Diamond Head. Sitting in the uncomfortable arm chair of their upper story hotel room in one of the many prototypical high rises in downtown Honolulu–a couple blocks from Waikiki–he waited impatiently. Every few minutes he peered past the heavy, drab curtain hoping to see the sun protrude above the curve of the earth. As it finally made its star-studded appearance, he slyly pulled back the curtain edge so a sliver of sun illuminated the pillow of his grandmother’s bed. He raced back to his seat pretending to be deeply ensconced in his new book, “Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands”. He put on his most nonchalant facial expression when he heard the slight rustling of his grandmother’s bed sheets.
“I saw that,” his grandmother groggily exclaimed out.
His eyes wide, he put on his most injured face.
“Saw what?”
They were soon headed out, down the massive elevator, past the confusingly non-existent 13th floor, and across the overly polished and eerily quiet marble lobby. Still drowsy at the early hour, they were ignorant of the few smiling hotel workers lingering here and there who loved watching the pair on their early morning missions. They proceeded through the deserted streets directly into the ‘Hole in the Wall’ diner. It wasn’t the type of place that a couple vacationers, the like of who did not even have drivers licenses–let alone a DUI–would typically be seen. With their typical ignorance they had stumbled into the breakfast joint early in the trip, and, although the service had been brusque, they were treated well and fed even better, so they returned every day.
The windowless restaurant was dingy, grungy, and smelled like a smoke filled dirty towel that had been taken to the beach then left in a moldy damp pile. The patrons looked like they were attempting to rid themselves of a two week hangover or, perhaps, just starting a new one. It was difficult to determine what end of the wagon they were falling off, tripping onto, or being run over by. The waitress brought over a cup of decaf and a carafe of orange juice, which she practically dropped on the table, splashing the contents on the linoleum table.
“The usual?” she spoke out with a deliberate and monotone voice. They nodded and she was gone. He felt strangely at peace in the odd setting as it reminded him of the fishermen diner his dad occasionally brought him to back home. They sat in tired silence sipping slowly on their respective drinks, mentally preparing for the excitement of the upcoming day. His white and red T-Rex tank top and her pink flowered straw hat a venerable sea of conspicuous color; peacocks amid a barn yard full of leery mallards. Their food came and he piled back the fluffy mounds of scrambled eggs and crunchy bacon like a greedy chipmunk hoarding acorns.
Content and overloaded, they paid the bill and slowly stumbled out to the street, not unlike other patrons, but their legs uncertain for vastly different reasons. The sun was still just a few fingers above the horizon, but the stark contrast from the black hole of the restaurant forced them to shield their eyes. They scurried for their sunglasses like a pair of juvenile prairie dogs emerging into daylight for the very first time.
They made their way down the street to the Hanauma Bay bus stop, and had no sooner arrived then a black, dilapidated limo slowly rolled up. The window rolled down, while his grandmother grabbed the strap of his backpack with a surprisingly iron grip considering her arthritic fingers.
“Take you to the Bay for $15 a piece,” the slovenly dressed driver bellowed across the front seat.
“No thanks, we’ll take the bus,” his grandmother replied, slightly confused.
“The bus won’t be here for half an hour and takes another 45 just to get there. I’ll have you there in 20. I already got 2 passengers in the back. 10 bucks a piece. Won’t find a better deal in the city.”
“Please, grandma!” The thought of riding a limo on his way to their snorkeling adventure was almost too much excitement for him to bear.
“Eh, I’m not sure.”
“Just take a look inside and decide,” the drive exclaimed while jumping out and opening the back door.
A Japanese couple peered out with wide eyes and half-hearted smiles, apparently just as bewildered and confused, but seemingly fine and there of their own recognizance.
“Hoonooma Bay?” They asked almost pleadingly.
Her fears slightly melted and feeling bad for the dumbfounded tourists she remitted.
“Ok.”
He jumped through the door and she made her way gingerly behind him, taking seats opposite the camera laden couple. The door quickly slammed behind them and seemingly just as fast they were tearing off again as everyone tried to catch themselves in the back of the extended cab. The partition began to come down, but stopped halfway, hung up at an odd angle, apparently broken.
“I have to pick up a few more passengers, then we’ll be off.” The partition rose again, just as slowly.
Antsy and amazed at being in a car big enough to walk in, he was soon exploring every nook of the extended limo. His grandmother implored him to sit down, slightly overwhelmed by the whole experience. The couple watched on with quiet dignity, smiling politely. The limo was soon crowded with beachgoers and an assortment of boogie boards and inflatable paraphernalia. The last passenger loaded, the crisp 10s and 20s exchanged with the driver, and the car was quickly rocketing up the Kalanianaole Highway towards the beach. As they crossed the ridge leaving Waikiki behind them, he ached with determination to find the fish whose name he whispered to himself over and over. As endless beaches raced past the window he mused that there was only one fit for his mission, and he knew exactly where to go.
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“All alone in the universe, sometimes that’s how it seems.
I get lost in the sadness and the screams.
Then I look in the center and suddenly everything’s clear.
I find myself in the sunshine and my dreams
And I’m looking for space and to find out who I am, and I’m looking to know and understand.
It’s a sweet, sweet dream, sometimes I’m almost there.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle and sometimes I’m deep in despair.”
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John Denver subduedly crooned over the radio as the limo came to a stop aside the tall bluff overlooking the large emerald bay.
“Hanauma Bay,” the driver coarsely announced.
People piled out of the limo like a herd of Pee Wee soccer players hopped up on Gatorade and fruit snacks unloading from a sweat stained post-game minivan. Piles of bags were tossed to the curb spilling towels and bottles of sunscreen on the early morning sidewalk. By the time his grandmother reached the low door, most of the fellow tourists were long gone snapping photos of one another in front of the wide vista. The Japanese couple waited graciously in front of the door waiting to offer a hand to the elderly lady. She offered them a hand and pulled slightly as her grandson gave her a light push from inside the cab. Much like Winnie-the-Pooh being freed from the Rabbit hole, she flew forward lightly as the couple stumbled backwards. Finally extracted from the limo, they thanked one another, and his grandmother offered to snap a photo of the small couple. They smiled and accepted with a small bow. After snapping a few photos, he was alone again with his grandmother. She nimbly grabbed a small bottle of sunscreen from her oversized fanny pack and grabbed his skinny wrists as he tried to writhe away knowing what was coming.
“Grandma!” he whined.
“Shush.” She scolded him as she applied liberal doses of the thick white goo over his nose, ears, arms, and legs. When she was done he looked like he had had a sledding accident with a large snowbank.
“Now rub it in.”
“Yuck,” he complained as he did his best to spread the SPF 50 onto his already burned skin. Halfway done he quickly lost interest, leaving large splotches around his ears and neck, and ran over to the knee high granite partition at the edge of the hill.
“I see it!” he exclaimed, pointing to the far end of the half moon shaped beach, still covered in the shadows of the overhanging cliff face.
“Do you think I’ll see one?”
“Oh, with your luck, I certainly think you will,” she said rubbing in the remainder of the lotion as he chafed at her harsh touch. They stood standing looking out upon the calm sea. The steep cliffs extended in a steep semi-circle around the twinkling turquoise waters giving the appearance of a long collapsed volcanic caldera breached by the relentless siege of the ocean’s surf. Waves broke softly across the strong coral outcroppings at the mouth of the bay, gently continuing their slow rolling towards the beach, where they ended their epic 1000 mile journey at giggling feet of sunscreen lathered children in floaties and oversized bathing suits. The sounds of the crashing waves and the low hum of murmuring voices mixed with the occasional joyful shrieking of kids playing in the low surf and were carried up over the bluff to the expectant crimson ears of the two as they watched the scene in pure natural awe.
“Come on!” he whinnied, pulling his grandmother’s arm down the path towards the beach.
He spent the day floating in the shallows, too frightened to go much above his head, but still amazed at the brightly colored fish that darted nearby, occasionally stopping to take a quick taste of his long toes. He returned to shore every 30 minutes where his grandmother waited to apply more sunscreen, much to his dismay. She watched him nervously from the water’s edge, occasionally taking a short-lasted seat in the cool sand by the cliff’s face, as he flopped about like an uncoordinated dog in the shallow water. Amazed by his ability to entertain himself for hours on end with only a leaky mask and snorkel.
The sun soon reached its zenith and began its slow afternoon descent into darkness. A cloud of doubt and dismay soon overtook him as he realized his time was running low and he had yet to find a triggerfish or gather the boldness to venture out into the deeper water where he knew the coral opening described by the bus driver must be. A small school of black and gold butterfly fish circled him before slowly moving off lackadaisically towards deeper water. A small wrasse, colored like a neon rainbow furtively tailed behind the group, dancing back and forth like a honey bee. Intrigued by the straggler he followed its lead and tried to surreptitiously follow the motley band of fish. As he lazily hovered over the group, a raucous and careless pack of fellow snorkelers whizzed by ahead and behind him in a mass of fins and skin. They splashed loudly bumping slightly into his legs and filling his snorkel with bitter tasting salt water. Perturbed, he flipped on his back and cleared his snorkel, then quickly turned back into the water hoping to catch his fish cartel before they disappeared into the hazy blue oblivion.
To his surprise he found himself hovering over the corral cavity he had been searching for. The brightly colored red, orange, and blue coral created a natural cavern like space below him opening onto a calm, sandy seafloor. The sun shone sharply through the water illuminating the specks of sand and other small debris floating in the water column, barely reaching the seafloor 15 feet below. As his eyes adjusted to the depths he realized that sitting calmly, like a monarch of the reef chewing sublimely on a small chunk of coral protruding from the sandy bottom, was the stately outline of a triggerfish. Suspended there in the buoyant saline waters, the cacophony from the beachgoers nearby attenuated by the insulative properties of the water to a nearby inaudible, muted elegance, he felt alone with the sea’s ambassador. He hovered, mesmerized, in an almost catatonic ocean limbo. It felt like he was floating, not quite in water, but as though something had been taken from him that had been unknowingly weighing him down, and he was able to drift free. He thought to himself, ‘I wish I could show grandpa’, but soon realized he didn’t need to. Faintly he heard his name reverberating in pressure waves through the water, which jarred him capriciously out of his reverie.
Sticking his head up, much like a seal surveying the surface, he saw his grandma yelling his name and waving at him to come in. Oddly he did not feel his typical need to beg for 5 more minutes. He waved and flipped back to say his farewell to the fishy apparition. As he submerged his goggles he just managed to catch the tail end of his bright body as it dashed into a seemingly impossibly tight crevice. He was briefly worried that after feeding so voraciously it would never extricate itself from its hiding place, but knew it would all work itself out in Nature’s own time. Rotating his back he slowly propelled himself back towards the beach using his gangly legs as an inefficient pair of propellers. A pang of doubt filled him as the sun shone brightly down on his bare stomach from just over the top of the beach side cliffs. What if it wasn’t a reef triggerfish? What if it was just some parrotfish imposter?
As he washed up on the shallows of the beach, the waves gently splashing his eyes, the smiling face of his grandma blocked out the sun. Looking into her wrinkled round face and piercing, knowing eyes, he realized what she had been conscious of all along. It didn’t matter if it was a triggerfish, a pig fish, or even a bananafish. A rush of contentment filled him, and laying there like a tired sea lion, he grinned mischievously, and splashed his arms soaking his patient grandma.
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