I'm going to read The Black Velvet Girl.
And this is kind of a playful bittersweet story.
And the language that people speak in here--
the hoods, the mokes--
is Pidgin English.
And Pidgin is a polyglot tongue, which is spoken in Hawaii.
Its base is English, but it's part Japanese,
part Chinese, part Hawaiian.
So The Black Velvet Girl.
"Just after I vowed to be true to my wife, no more messing
around, I go to a party at Olomana
and get tangled up with the Black Velvet girl.
You know the Black Velvet girl?
She's the one on the billboards.
For the whiskey, Black Velvet.
Anyway, I've got no business up at Olomana Golf Course,
except Roy's going to hele-on up there
to collect Sunshine, who does a cocktail number.
Roy is out of his room.
Coming?
I decide I'll ride along for the hell of it.
Atuana, my wife, says, don't be too long,
haole boy, I'm making something special.
Back in a twinkling, I say, I'm yours forever.
The pots are steaming away on all four burners.
The wok gleams with peanut oil.
The vegetables have been cut and chopped into elegant mounds.
There's ginger here, green onions, sesame, soy,
oyster sauce.
The trade wind fills the kitchen, picks up my wife'a
stewardess uniform.
It floats in the wind on its hanger.
After a day in the Hawaiian sky, Atuana is in one of my shirts
and a pair of cutoffs.
Her long coltish legs are golden in the last sunlight
and the kitchen window.
She is a Hawaiian-Chinese Lauren Bacall.
I am always struck anew by her elegance.
Come on, says Roy.
Right, I say.
I hesitate one moment more to admire her hands.
They are the supple tapered hands
of the Thai dancers on the Ramayana murals.
I kiss her fingers.
I love you, I say.
Cut this shit, my wife says.
I don't begrudge you a few drinks, just don't be long,
tonight.
I spark you later.
Outside, I pause for a second, gaze out
at the beach, the ocean, Makapu falling into blue shadows.
I hele-on, catching up with Roy as he
pulls his rusted shit-bomb Rambler around
between the houses.
I move a surfboard out of the way, hop in, slam the door.
When I slam the door, the rust flies
and I spend the next few minutes blinking the flakes out
of my eyes, spitting them out of my mouth
as we hele-on up the K highway to Olomana.
We walk into the clubhouse at Olomana
and there are these big mother inflated plastic bottles
hanging from the ceiling and standing on the corners.
They are pale gold and say, Black Velvet.
I squeeze one.
As we head for the bar, we are intercepted by Sunshine.
She holds up a loaded tray and says, have some Black Velvet,
it's free.
Promotional.
She holds up the tray of Black Velvet and giggles.
Roy and I look at each other, free?
Shrug and start belting it down.
Sunshine, who practices TM every morning on the beach at sunrise
and who is always preaching the beauties of vegetarianism
and informing us, all of us, Roy, Atuana, myself,
how we have poisoned ourselves, giggles now
because Black Velvet isn't natural either.
It excites Sunshine, makes her nervous to see us poison
ourselves with such joyful and reckless abandon.
Her eyes, a murky yellow topaz, move back and forth between us.
Then, secretively, she moves her head
toward a subdued mob of beefy guys in aloha shirts
and white shoes huddled before the picture window.
Beyond them, like the panorama of a Chinese screen,
I can see the golf course, the twin peaks of Mount Olomana,
the black cinder cones of the Koolaus,
and the low winter rain clouds socked in against the Koolaus
and Pali.
Sunshine says in a breathless voice,
it's the guys from the syndicate.
Harry Chin, Talofa Talofa, Thunder Lono, Aku Kim,
Vitamins Wong, Fat Sonny Ho.
She knows them all.
[LAUGHTER]
When she is finished, Sunshine is flushed pink under her tan.
Being around so much organized violence and crime,
dormant now, but with a long past, simply saying their names
turns her on.
TM and vegetarianism cannot hold a candle to organized crime.
[LAUGHTER]
Roy says, Harry Chin?
He looks at me.
I look askance at Sunshine, but Sunshine only
nods smugly, Harry Chin.
Right over there.
I say the Sunshine, I read yesterday
in the Star Bulletin the cops picked up Harry Chin for income
tax evasion.
Sunshine, who doesn't read the newspapers because there's
nothing in them anyway, but wars and politicians and all
that crumbling capitalist degeneracy Maya
And because that stuff would jam her TM transmission
says, what's so bad about income tax evasion?
Roy says, it's not income tax evasion.
Sunshine says, then why call it income tax evasion?
Roy says, because that's the way the cops and syndicate play
the game.
What games, says Sunshine sulking.
Roy looks at me, makes a funny helpless gesture
with his hands.
See sunshine, I say, it's just a polite way
of saying the heat knows Harry Chin had Talofa Talofa dynamite
Chocolate Joe Hondo's Cadillac with Chocolate Joe in it.
But they can't prove it yet.
So they call it income tax evasion.
I recall the picture on yesterday's front page.
The exploded white Caddy, the crumpled hood hanging down out
of a palm tree.
Sunshine says breathlessly, well, maybe they
were in jail yesterday, but they're out on bail today.
200,000 she says.
Roy pastes up a weekly advertising rag, The Windward
Shopper, has splotches of rubber cement on his Hush puppies,
and takes home a cool one 110 a week.
I think that's after taxes.
We don't say any more so Sunshine
says, I don't care what they've done, look at them.
You can see yourself.
They love to laugh and drink.
They've got the aloha spirit.
They're all good guys.
Every time I go over there, they're all smiles.
They tip me $5 every time.
Sunshine reaches into her pocket and pulls out
a huge wad of crumpled fives.
That Talofa, he's cute as a baby.
Roy and I look at each other.
The syndicate is not noted for being charitable organization.
Roy reaches back and nervously smooth the elastic
on his ponytail.
Something passes between them, and Sunshine
says, petulant and stubborn, I'm not giving it back, Roy.
Any of it.
We have some more Black Velvet.
Then Sunshine leans between Roy and myself, so close this time,
that I can smell the herbal essence cream rinse
in her hair.
[LAUGHTER]
She whispers, Harry Chin digs the Black Velvet girl.
She's over there.
Sunshine adds begrudgingly, the Black Velvet girl
is beautiful in a plastic kind of way.
Roy measures the distance to the door and says, let's hele-on.
Sunshine says, oh, can't we stay a little longer?
Do you have to be such a snob?
You know, maybe Talofa's one of those guys who's acting
mean because everybody treats him mean.
Roy says, maybe.
Yeah, and maybe you and Talofa, once you got to know each other
could be great friends.
Maybe.
And how do you guys know they blew up old whosey face's
stupid Cadillac, because the stupid paper said so?
It wasn't just a Cadillac, Roy says.
What's a Cadillac?
Sunshine says.
Chocolate Joe was in the Cadillac.
That shuts her up for a minute.
Then she says, well, how do you know that Talofa did it?
Were you there?
I recall the other picture in the Star Bulletin.
Talofa walking between two Nisei detectives.
The pictures captioned, Talofa Talofa in custody
maintains innocence.
And in quotes, "I have not done nothing,
please address a lot of questions to my lawyer."
Finally, I say, in honesty in fairness to Talofa Talofa we
don't know for sure he did it.
Yet.
A man is innocent until proven guilty.
Sunshine smiles at me and giggles.
But I told Atuana I'd be right back.
Sunshine says, oh pooh, have some more Black Velvet.
There's plenty of time.
I stare at the glasses of Black Velvet.
It's free.
I see Roy might dig another drink too.
And looking across the room at the wall syndicate beef,
I realize I have not yet caught a glimpse of the Black Velvet
girl.
I am just a little curious.
One last drink, I say.
Then we go, says Roy.
We're drinking up when there's a stir and suddenly
just like that, the wall of Aloha shirts part.
And there is the Black Velvet girl set like a jewel
amongst the syndicate beef.
Any of Harry Chin lieutenants who are not out
pistol whipping up pimp or bookie,
beating a call girl who stepped out of line,
collecting on a cockfight bet, wiring up a car,
or screwing on a telescopic sight
are here gaping at the Black Velvet girl.
[LAUGHTER]
The overhead spot hits her blonde hair.
Her shoulders are creamy and smooth.
The black velvet dress is like the backdrop
for the Hope Diamond.
The Black Velvet girl is the collective genius incarnate
of a corporation of overpaid, tanned,
and pressured ad executives with incipient heart conditions.
The best the organization has to dish out.
The syndicate loves her.
They know the goods when they see it.
They give way, parting before her
like the waters of the Red Sea.
She is coming toward us.
She looks at Roy in such a way that Sunshine takes hold of Roy
at the elbow with both hands.
[LAUGHTER]
Then the Black Velvet girl looks at me
in such a way I take hold of myself
at the elbow with one hand.
[LAUGHTER]
I see Harry Chin over there.
Is he in love?
The syndicate looks wistfully after the Black Velvet girl.
If they were Ohio State fraternity boys,
they would break into song and serenade her.
[LAUGHTER]
A song in four-part harmony full of awakened longing,
melancholy, and love.
As it is without the numbers of Halewa State
Prison under their chins, they seem a little lost, perhaps
forlorn.
They gaze wistfully after her at the closing door wahines
before their eyes light on us.
I feel Talofa's eyes wiring me up with a bundle of dynamite.
Thunder measuring me with sartorial
gaze to see if he can fit my body
into the trunk of a stolen '58 Impala
without first having to chop off my legs.
Oh, it is time to go.
But here comes the Black Velvet girl again back
from the wahines.
The dress is a silhouette, a blind spot, zone 10.
Something drops from her hand.
Then she's across the room.
The aloha shirts close back around her.
I lean down to pick up whatever it is she dropped.
Roy says, I wouldn't do that if I were you, man.
It's a neatly folded paper towel.
I open it.
Handwriting.
Sunshine says, what is it?
I read.
"The window is too small, dress too tight.
I can't fit.
Please get me out of here.
Can you meet me on the 18th hole and do you have a car?"
[LAUGHTER]
Roy says, we do not have a car.
[LAUGHTER]
Sunshine says, sure we do.
The 18th hole is the one out near the beach.
Roy says, don't point.
Sunshine says, it's a message in a bottle.
Roy says, let's hele-on.
I said, let's consider this.
It's a human distress call.
We can't just leave her to Harry Chin.
Roy says, yes we can.
Roy and I stare at each other.
He searches my face and shakes his hand.
He's known me a long time.
Yes we can.
He repeats a little more emphatically.
I look across the room, I want to get closer, a little closer
to the Black Velvet girl.
Even if only to help her get away.
Roy says, boat's leaving.
Now.
Wait, I say.
Roy shakes his head, nope, pulling up the gangplank.
Wait a second, I say.
I head for the kane's.
With shaking hands I tear the note into tiny pieces
and flush it down the toilet.
Destroy the evidence.
When I get back, the tray of Black Velvet
is there alone on a chair.
Roy and sunshine are gone.
I realized all I really want to do
is touch the black velvet dress.
Just once.
I am staked out at a neutral table staring drunkenly
between the aloha flower backs of Thunder and Talofa,
Sumo wrestler backs.
When Talofa, acting on his gangster third eye
backs up soft and swift, the way you
back-peddle a surfboard to carve a bottom turn.
I look up into his ripe mango colored face.
He is not cute as a baby.
[LAUGHTER]
It is Gauguin gone wrong.
He says--
[LAUGHTER]
He says, what you want haole shark bait?
Nothing.
I blurt.
Then completely rattled I hear myself blurt,
if I'm haole shark bait so is she.
I point nervously at the Black Velvet girl.
I see the White Cadillac Coupe de Ville of Chocolate Joe Hondo
exploding in Talofa's eyes.
Talofa clinks the ice in his glass.
The glass is tiny in his hand.
He says in a faraway voice, you shark bait, she shark bait,
me shark bait.
We all shark bait, shark bait.
Hele-on, haole boy, before it too late.
The aloha shirts part to receive Talofa.
I see the Black Velvet girl, she's looking right at me.
No car, I lip.
Man, I want to touch that black velvet dress so bad.
Thunder and Vitamins Wong merrily
start barking each other over the heads with those big mother
plastic bottles of Black Velvet, ey, Tundah.
And I decide, Talofa has a point, black velvet
dress or no, girl in distress or no, it is time to hele-on home.
I grab a last glance off the tray on the way out.
It's almost dark in the parking lot.
The flickering drive-in screen up on the Pali
glows a pale ghost in the bellies of the clouds.
200 odd years ago the victorious Kamahameha
drove a load of defeated warriors over those cliffs
to their deaths in the rock below,
then crowned himself King.
Shitty, I guess, but what was he supposed to do,
invite them home to dinner.
The moon tumbles out of the clouds, lights the fairway,
disappears.
I'm wandering drunkenly through the parking lot,
bouncing off the tail fins of the affluent,
breathing in the fresh air and plumeria,
slowly returning to my senses when I see
a shadow move between the cars.
I take a last belt of my drink and toss the glass on the lawn.
It bounces without a sound.
The blond hair, the black velvet dress and the underwater light.
I glance back at the clubhouse and move toward her.
No car, I whisper.
She looks around nervously.
I can't help it, I say.
I'm hitching myself.
Roy took the car.
It's Harry Chin she says.
He scares me.
I know what you mean, I say.
[LAUGHTER]
Then I can't help myself.
I reach out and touch the black velvet dress.
Jesus, I say.
That's exactly what Harry Chin did.
Harry Chin did that?
First thing.
I touch the black velvet dress again.
Oh, Jesus.
Can you help me?
Got to.
Do you mind hitching?
No.
She turns loses her balance slightly stumbling against me.
I put my arm around her waist to steady her,
just as I hear voices.
I turn.
Talofa.
Thunder.
In the doorway pointing at me.
Run, she says.
Run.
She's out here boss with the shark bait haole.
Run, she says.
I see the white shoes start to flicker in the pale light.
Man, I run.
They're coming right at me.
I run between them.
Get going the other way.
They whirl.
Talofa grabs the back of my shirt.
I scream howl blurt.
I didn't do nothing.
As the back of my shirt shreds off in Talofa's hand and I fly.
They're pouring out of the clubhouse now.
Vitamins Wong, Fat Sonny Ho, Aku Kim.
It's the Black Velvet girl with the fucking fucker.
I'm on the fairway and I'm running.
I run right out of my Nanakuli suedes.
My shirt's torn off.
Man, I'm running barefoot.
Behind me I can hear Thunder and Talofa puffing.
I run, where?
For the beach.
I see ironwood trees coming up.
I dive into the trees.
The branches whip my face.
I stumble barefoot on roots sprawl flat on my face.
Get up.
Stumble out onto the beach.
The roar of the surf rises to meet me.
I stagger into the surf, stumble, get up, stumble again.
And finally dive into the black water thinking vaguely, man,
these Polynesians were so good natured before we showed up.
[LAUGHTER]
When I surface I see white shoes running,
then walking up and down the beach.
Finally several cigarettes glowing in a circle.
I work my way down the beach staying offshore.
And when the last cigarette has dropped to the sand,
I get in where I can touch.
The moon comes out of the clouds.
I see no one on the beach.
Hiding in the trees I watch a while longer.
Work my way further down and finally wade ashore.
Though it will be miles, take hours,
I decide to stay close to the water
and follow the beach home.
Safer, I hope.
At least I'll get there in one piece.
Though when I think about how pissed
Atuana will be at the other end.
I start the long walk home.
For some reason I kept thinking about Maz.
Maz and I had been at it hot and heavy until Atuana.
Then I started sneaking around on Maz,
finally fading altogether.
One day, not too long ago.
I'm happily married.
Maz shows up at the building site.
We're roofing condos.
I'm looking down from the roof and there's
Maz in a bikini standing among the building debris.
She's smiling up at me.
Except for the rumble of a cement mixer, all hammers stop,
the roofs fall silent.
The whole crew looks down at Maz.
There are some whistles.
Maz is what can only be described as a lush body.
I'm sorry, but that's the way it is, lush.
[LAUGHTER]
Though she's been to the legislature
to testify in discrimination against women
she doesn't seem to mind the whistles.
She points at a rolled beach mat--
she points her rolled beach mat up at me.
Her eyes are greenish blue.
The color of the ocean.
Time for a beer after work?
Married man.
I hesitate, but no harm in a beer for old time's sake.
Sure, I say, real cheerful.
Think you can find your way?
She doesn't wait for an answer but turns
and picks her way back through the building debris.
I watch her so does everyone else.
Maz has one unusual feature.
Her back has a slight curve to one side right above her hip.
It makes a kind of upside-down question mark.
I love my wife.
I once fought her old boyfriend, an airline pilot.
He picked the fight.
He came looking for me.
And he picked the fight and we fought
on the lawn of what had started out
to be a quiet party until we were both covered with blood.
Well, none of that's necessary for me to say I love my wife.
But I found my way to Maz's a few times.
One afternoon, my wife had been driving by Maz's, quite
by accident, and caught sight of my truck parked
under an African violet tree in full bloom.
I got that later from the neighbor kids.
Inside all I heard was a crash, which
made my heart pound so hard that Maz
had lifted her head from my chest
and looked at me in wide-eyed alarm.
Jesus Christ, what's the matter with your heart?
[LAUGHTER]
Nothing.
You're too young for a heart attack.
I wouldn't want you to die here.
I'd have a hell of a time getting you dressed and dropped
off somewhere.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I know.
I'm not going to check out, Maz.
When I walked out to my truck it was with no sense of surprise
more with a sense of déja vu, that I'd seen my claw hammer
sticking through the windshield of my truck.
[LAUGHTER]
Of course, I said out loud.
I deserve this, I said.
A couple of kids were watching me
from the other side of a low picket fence.
Did you see what happened?
They had.
Can you tell me?
Yes.
They could tell me that a beautiful lady,
a tall, a stewardess had driven by, slammed on her brakes,
backed up suddenly, walked into the middle of the street.
Looked at the White bungalow over there
and looked at the truck, and done the job on the windshield.
[LAUGHTER]
I looked over at Maz's.
What could she have seen.
I checked the windows.
A lot, a hell of a lot if we've been walking around.
Had we been walking around?
Couldn't remember.
I went back into Maz's.
Maz had showered, and dressed, and looked
very cool and elegant.
She was sitting on a high back wicker chair.
She was smoking a cigarette.
I slumped in a chair.
She crossed her legs.
Maz, did you hear a crash before?
No, but I wasn't listening.
I was busy if you haven't forgotten.
Oh, I was too, Maz, but I heard it.
My truck, my windshield, Maz.
My wife.
She made a funny kind of move with her head
and pursed your lips.
She had on a thin--
she had on thin silver earrings.
Finally, she said, it serves you right you bastard.
[LAUGHTER]
I would have done the same thing.
You would have?
You're damn right.
Maz will you make me a drink?
Make your own drink.
You're right.
Absolutely right, I will.
I started to push myself up out of the chair,
stared at the rumpled bed, fell back.
Maz regarded me sadly for a moment.
Stay there, I'll make it.
She brought the drink.
Here, she said softly.
You are a big bastard.
I know, Maz, but it's not what you think.
[LAUGHTER]
What is it then?
I don't know, really, honest.
And if I'm a bastard you would have done the same thing, Maz.
She nodded.
What's going on?
She shrugged.
I like you even though you are a bastard and you are.
It's not what you think, I said weakly.
Not at all what you think.
On the way home I'd been given a ticket
for driving a defective motor vehicle.
[LAUGHTER]
With the ticket still in my hands,
picking glass splinters out of my crotch.
I climbed the back stairs and hesitated.
No, it wasn't what she thought.
What it was I didn't know.
But before getting married, I'd sneak around on Maz.
Now I was sneaking around on my wife to see Maz.
But it wasn't what she thought.
I walked into the kitchen.
My wife had been standing there.
She's always a little more beautiful
than I can really believe.
I saw her and froze.
No, no, it's not what you think, I said.
I love you.
Her eyes had been flat and hot with hurt and fury.
You have funny ways of showing it.
Sunshine was standing in the door with a towel turban
on her head.
She had just washed her hair.
She was always washing her hair.
I looked at her and she giggled.
I tried to smile at my wife, a nervous smile.
So nervous it turned into a laugh.
My wife let out a strange scream.
And it's funny too, you shit.
If it feels good, do it.
Any woman who shows any interest in you at all and you're
hooked, anyone.
You're a pushover and easy lay.
Don't you know anything about women.
Maz, she was just trying to see if she could get you back.
You're a pushover.
[LAUGHTER]
Sunshine had stood in the doorway, the loom behind her,
eyes wide, face flushed under the tan
till Roy's hand had risen above her shoulder,
pulled her back into the room and closed the door.
Then my wife had burst into tears.
I crossed the room, put my arms around her.
She'd thrown them off.
Get away from me.
I can still smell her goddamn perfume, you bastard.
I'd fallen to her feet, grabbed her ankles kissed her feet,
and she'd stumbled slightly against the stove.
I'd held on to her feet mumbling apologies, kissing her feet
until she'd said between sobs, oh for Christ's sake get up.
[LAUGHTER]
Then she cursed me for a while in pidgin, which
was language of her childhood.
I went on walking down the beach toward home.
If I could map my body like the world,
or a satellite photo of Mars, or some solar system, then
that part of me beyond perversity, cussedness,
and lechery, those uncharted tropical islands,
mute continents, faraway planets.
Those parts of me which are always
lighting the fuse in a yin yang fuck up,
then there would be a region, the kind of place
some wonderful hack like Edgar Rice Burroughs
would describe as a lost continent or forbidden planet.
[LAUGHTER]
The air of the lost continent would
echo with mysterious drums, and jungle chatter,
and be stained with violent sunsets.
The forbidden planet would have no atmosphere whatsoever,
a close horizon.
And if it were in National Geographic,
there would be a caption with some phrases
like, with no atmosphere the sky is the eternal night of space
itself.
Which would be which, the lost continent,
the forbidden planet, I don't know.
But there is one part of me which wants in, wants out.
Out of what?
Out to where I can't say.
It just wants out.
The feeling is in block caps, I got to get out.
Out.
Probably the forbidden planet would be out.
Then, once I am out, away, extricated, on the lam,
I become forlorn, morose, feeling sorry for myself.
I want in or in again.
I don't care at all what I have to do to get in,
or in again, or back in again.
I just want in at all costs.
I know that this time in again will be different.
[LAUGHTER]
But of course, once I'm in or in again,
the whole cycle of lapses and I start scheming ways
to get out or out again.
Oh, out was really great.
Those were the days.
That was the time.
The only place to be, et cetera.
In the meantime, the process of getting from out to
in and in to out is wearing and it is hard on the body,
hard on the feet, hard on the hide.
Everyone only sees you in between,
which is an inexplicable state.
You become a bastard, target for invective's of all kinds.
Moreover, in between is hard on the spirit.
None of my quick spun theologies work.
And most of all it is hard and sometimes dangerous,
this mysterious from in to out, and out to in.
Just getting from one to the other and arriving,
hello again, safely.
More and further, it is hard on my wife when I have to get out.
It is hard on people like Maz when I have to get back in.
But then when I am finally with Maz, and the out of Maz
has become in and now my wife is out
and I have to get out or get back out,
then it is hard on Maz, my wife, myself.
And tonight thinking about the Black Velvet girl
it could have cost me my life.
Yes, and again, I see the Gauguin gone wrong face
of Talofa flashing by me in the pale light of the parking lot.
Feel the shirt choke my neck before it shreds.
See Chocolate Joe's Cadillac starting to explode.
When I finally spot the house behind the ironwood's
I think maybe I am wrong.
Even though it is midnight, maybe Atuana
will just think I missed my ride home with Roy
and she'll have dinner waiting in the oven.
And after it will go up to the tower room
and lie in each other's arms and listen
to the palm fronds clicking in the wind, after all,
I haven't really done anything.
Yes, that's the way it will be.
Everything's going to be OK, I say.
I tell myself as I walk in from the beach.
Pick my way through the litter of broken surfboards, junk
cars, and poi dogs snoozing under the stars.
Sure, right-o, I say, as I swing on the rusting banister
and climb spiral stone stairs to the back door.
Three steps below the back door, I abandoned optimism
and hit the deck dropping to my hands and knees
and crawling up the last steps.
I stretch my neck up and around.
I peer in the door.
First thing that hits me is the scorched smell.
Then the water and tracks on the floor.
I peer through the kitchen into Roy's room.
Sunshine is sitting over her loom big as a baby grand piano.
Roy behind her smoking a cigarette
and staring at a Japanese glass ball hanging in the window.
Roy, what reserve, what composure.
Sunshine is weaving.
Her hands are flying.
Her feet are working the treadles,
the shuttles are whirring.
Sunshine's hair is hanging in her eyes.
Her forehead glistens with sweat.
Incense is smoking up beside the loom.
Sunshine's eyes are yellow, flat, and impenetrable.
Roy holds a cigarette like some vestigial organ in his fingers,
which extend like the paw of a raccoon
about to rinse something.
Sunshine is feeding all kinds of shin
into the loom from a pile on the floor, pieces of driftwood,
rags, twists of cloth, an old bikini top.
She's after texture.
[LAUGHTER]
Behind her, previous hangings cover the walls.
They are like animals or cuddly protozoa,
like faces that can almost say something.
I ease back out the door, stand up, and walk in.
The loom goes on whirring.
Roy's eyes don't flicker.
I know, and Roy knows I know that he is watching me
out of the corner of his eye.
The loom stops for a moment, Sunshine
moves her head toward me, but doesn't look.
The pot-- the loom starts again.
The pots are welded to the burners.
The bottoms black and crusted with fossilized vegetables.
There's the knife stabbed in the wall.
I wander through the smoky guts of the house,
shouting my wife's name from room to room.
I get halfway up to the tower.
The silence is too much.
Back in the kitchen Roy and Sunshine
are standing shoulder to shoulder,
American Gothic harbingers of the news.
Roy says it.
She left.
Sunshine blushes.
Roy says, there was a fire in the tower.
The firemen got it before the flames spread.
It doesn't look too bad just scorched part of one wall
burned a hole in the mattress and another in the roof.
Roy anticipates my next question.
The guys next door were burning some stuff.
The firemen thinks some of it floated up through the windows.
Sunshine goes out for a minute and I say to Roy,
why did you leave me like that.
I was coming.
Roy shrugs, no you weren't, man.
I saw you face.
You weren't coming and I figured it wasn't a healthy place.
You were right about that.
Tell me one thing Roy, what did you see in my face?
Roy shrugs, that you weren't coming.
I mean was it an in look or an out look?
Roy looks at me.
In or out?
Forget it.
I look around the kitchen and start cleaning up.
Roy gives me a hand.
The loom is whirring in the next room.
We mop and scrub.
I throw out two of the pots.
The wok is baked.
I debate, then throw it out.
Roy says, it was an in look.
I think about it, in look.
Roy clears his throat, hesitates.
We go on mopping.
Roy says, maybe it was an--
the loom stops.
We look toward the bedroom door.
Roy drops his voice, maybe it was an out look.
We look at each other and nod.
The loom starts whirring again.
The tower room isn't too bad.
There's water all over the floor.
Smoke is still heavy in the air and I
can look up through a poka in the roof and see the stars.
But it's not that bad.
I head down for a shower.
Sunshine is just stepping out of the bathroom.
She has the towel turbine around her head and smells of Jean
Naté.
The mirror is steamed up.
The entire bathroom is dripping with condensed steam.
Clouds of steam rise off Sunshine
meeting the cooler night air.
When the vegetarian goes in for a shower it's for keeps.
As though she is entering a time warp, a space capsule.
This time she will alter her chemistry.
[LAUGHTER]
She stops in the bathroom door.
I can't squeeze by so I cut my engine by two thirds
then full stop.
The bath towel slipped so I can see the top of her nipple.
She says in a whisper, what happened up there?
Where?
Olomana?
With the Black Velvet girl?
Oh, everything.
Sunshine looks at my shoulders.
I shake my head, you won't be able to see anything,
it's no use.
She didn't leave any marks.
I told her I was married and so she was careful.
But she did other things.
[LAUGHTER]
Sunshine purses her lips as though to say something.
Her eyes fasten on me.
She purses her lips and swallows.
I whisper.
Don't even ask.
The Black Velvet girl doesn't leave marks
but she can do fantastic things.
Things you can't imagine with her fingers and lips,
and her teeth.
I click my teeth together.
Sunshine reaches numbly for the towel, stares at me.
I click my teeth at her.
She makes a faint whimpering sound turns and quickly tracks
across the kitchen to Roy's.
I hear the door slam.
I sprawl on the shower and lie under the steam,
get out, spray my feet with mercurochrome
and notice the bruises starting to come
into my body, especially around my neck where my shirt jerked,
and puzzle my face in the mirror.
In or out?
I ask the steamy reflection.
I can't tell.
When I step out of the bathroom I
hear a strangled cry coming through the poka to Roy's room.
Like a chicken getting its neck wrung and singing
an aria at the same time.
The vegetarians love ecstasies.
I hobble quickly up to the tower room and out of earshot.
I fall on a smoky mattress, I'm almost asleep.
Reach over to hug my wife, not there.
I doze.
The trade wind funnels through the jealousies, the windows,
the lampshade knocks, knocks.
The stars drift through the hole in the roof.
Then the sun is in my eyes and I'm late as hell for work
I hobble, stiff, and sore.
Downstairs, no one at home.
Everyone at work.
I'm at the refrigerator when I hear a shoe
scuff on the back stairs.
Atuana, I turn and there are two huge guys wearing down
turned sailor hats over lurk-some eyes.
They look like packaged hams wrapped in Lucky You Live
Hawaii and Luau feet T-shirts.
[LAUGHTER]
Talofa Talofa.
I jump.
Freeze.
The gun is in his hand.
Freeze.
I freeze.
Talofa.
No, not Talofa.
I his cousin, Aloha.
[LAUGHTER]
Aloha, I didn't do anything.
It was the Black Velvet girl's idea.
I never laid a hand on her, I--
Aloha says, we're looking for a Patsy Sakamoto,
he escaped prison three days ago.
Robbed one bank already.
We got reports he'd been hiding around here.
Mind if we look?
I'm not hiding anyone anywhere.
Maybe he come in without you knowing.
You're cops.
Aloha, flashes his badge.
Help yourself, I say.
Aloha and his partner guns drawn, sneak from room to room.
Yank open closet doors.
Cover each other while they kick closets
and kick clothes in the closet, poke behind the shower curtain.
Then we're back in the kitchen.
Know Patsy Sakamoto?
Sure.
He used to hang out with the guys next door.
Hapa haole guy.
Right.
He armed and dangerous.
Spot Patsy no approach him.
Just give us a call, yeah?
And keep that door locked.
Then they're gone.
In the yard I see similar beefy vice squad
guys gents slipping out from behind trees, stepping
warily out from behind cars.
They've got shotguns.
So I'm later still for work, but finally I'm
in the truck, brown bag and thermos on the seat.
I reach for the key, pump the gas and freeze.
I detached my fingers from the ignition key.
Chocolate Joe.
[LAUGHTER]
I sit a long time.
I reach for the ignition key.
I look at my face in the mirror.
In or out look, I can't tell.
I can't turn the key.
I decided to raise the hood, dispel all unreasonable fears.
But when I go to lift the hood I think maybe
that's where they get you.
[LAUGHTER]
It blows when you lift the hood or if you
see nothing you hop back and turn the key,
and then it blows.
Suddenly I see my truck with all of its panels and compartments,
and think Talofa Talofa, demolition expert.
I'd have to dismantle my whole truck
and even then I couldn't be sure.
I get my tools out and hele-on over to the K highway.
I start hitching.
It's hot and bright up here.
Everyone's hammering and there's the noise inside and outside.
The rumble of Jets taking off and climbing
fills the air overhead.
We're still roofing condos for the aspiring middle class.
I see the silver flashes rumbling off
from Maui and Kauai and think of my wife sealed up
inside the belly of the pressurizing cabin.
Her ears popping while she smiles
at the tourists in matching aloha shirts and muumuus.
The newlywed couple from Des Moines,
the nearly dead septuagenarians from Omaha or Topeka.
She smiles her beautiful smile while inside in her guts
she is bearing my beastly behavior, my inconstancy
and flux.
She bears up under the dull witted flirtations,
the pawings and maulings, the stewardess jokes, air pockets,
turbulence, spilled drinks.
Old Filipino plantation workers trying
to open the windows for some air.
She climbs against the aisle steepened
and by take off and climb.
Her body is punished by the cabin pressurization
and depressurization.
Her ears are destroyed by the constant thunder
of the engines on takeoff.
All day she's like some angelic Sisyphus
who climbs through the sky only to come home to me.
I am her reward.
I go on roofing feeling both rotten and tender.
On the way home I stop off for a cold six pack
and there's the Black Velvet girl on display in the window.
I stand gazing at her for a long time.
Back home I get in my truck take hold of the ignition key
but it's no dice, I can't turn it.
I sit-in the cabin and sweat.
Finally, I get out and close the door carefully.
No one's home.
So I take my six pack out to the beach,
throw myself on the ocean and then wander down to the woods
at the end of the beach.
I'm sitting there when I hear a voice behind me.
Ey, bro, got a beer.
I turn, it's Patsy Sakamoto.
I freeze.
I don't know whether I should show I recognize him or not.
He's in tank top, and shorts.
And he sure doesn't look dangerous.
So I say, how's it, Patsy, help yourself.
He recognizes me and sits down.
We have a couple and then I say they were looking for you down
at my house this morning.
What are you doing down here?
Come for a look at the ocean that's all.
So we drink and look at the ocean.
And then Patsy gets up, looks around, waves to me,
and slips back into the woods.
Back at home I call around for my wife
but no one knows where she is.
Every morning I get up, get in the truck,
take hold of the key, freeze.
Get out, hitchhike, to Hawaii Kai.
Now that Atuana is gone I can do whatever I want.
So after work I hitchhike into Maz's a few times and we mess
around.
One night we get kind of loaded and she decides
she wants to paint my body.
So she paints me a dusky yellow orange.
Paints black spots on me.
I say, what is this shit.
But then I get into it.
I paint her all over.
Paint her nipples into flaming suns with smiles on them
and planets revolving around.
It's not enough.
Not enough.
We get drunker.
It's almost dark outside.
The African violet trees blooming.
We climb up the side of her bungalow up to the roof,
and with a beach umbrella we take
hold of the stem with both hands and jump off the roof.
[LAUGHTER]
Land heavily on the grass.
I go on drinking from a bottle on the grass.
Later come to as a jet rumbles low over the trees.
Red lights flashing.
Passed out again.
Wake up covered with mosquito bites.
The sound of Maz down on all fours vomiting in the bushes.
[LAUGHTER]
Then it is in the paper about Patsy Sakamoto.
The pictures of the ambulance attendants
lifting his body onto a stretcher.
They'd cornered him in a house up in Kaneohe.
He wouldn't surrender so they'd said
at least let the girls come out, we won't hurt them.
So Patsy's girls had come out.
Then his buddy had gone in trying to convince Patsy,
it was no use.
But Patsy wouldn't give up.
He had shot it out and died in a hail of gunfire.
That's the way they'd said it in the Star Bulletin.
A hail of gunfire.
There was going to be a grand jury investigation
though because one story had it that Patsy had tried
to surrender, but the police had gone in to nail him once
and for all.
Patsy had a long record and the police
felt he was making them look like turkeys.
A few days later I read the grand jury investigation
had been quashed.
There would be no investigation.
Sunshine is in the kitchen saying, guess
who I heard from today?
I can't even begin to guess.
Guess.
Henry Kissinger.
No, the Black Velvet girl, Sunshine says in a rush.
She's just come back from a whirlwind promo tour.
Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines.
How did she look?
I didn't see her.
She was on the phone.
She wanted to know where she could find you.
You didn't tell her?
Sure, she sounds nice.
Guess who else I heard from?
The Maharishi.
No, Talofa Talofa.
Talofa?
Yeah.
They didn't like what happened that night with the Black
Velvet girl.
They wanted to know where they could find you too.
You didn't tell them?
Nope, I said, I didn't even know you.
What did you do that night anyway that everyone's
looking for you?
Nothing.
Sunshine flushes.
Nothing, I'll bet.
Talofa didn't try to rough you up or anything, did he?
Sunshine raised her hand.
Oh, pooh, Talofa?
He's a sweetie.
He tipped me $5.
You know what the Black Velvet girl said?
She said she might be able to get me one of those dresses.
How do you think I'd look in a Black Velvet dress?
Sensational.
Suddenly I run to the window and look out.
What kind of car does Talofa drive anyway?
Talofa?
A silver Grand Prix.
Oh, you mean did he follow me?
He went out to play golf.
He's got those cute red golf pants.
What'd you do that night, anyway?
Nothing, I'm telling you.
Nothing, I'll bet.
Sunshine giggles.
When my wife appears in the doorway the next afternoon
I forget Maz, the Black Velvet girl, the syndicate, the cops.
Atuana is tan.
She's wearing a new dress.
A pikake lei, a white shell necklace,
a gold chain on her glowing skin.
The trade wind lifts her hair.
The sun turns her eyes a warm golden color.
As always I'm aware of her long slim legs.
She walks in and sits down on the stool and looks at me.
Hey, How's it.
You look good, haole boy.
So do you.
Where have you been.
I took some time off.
Had some leave so caught a fight over the big island
and went up to Kamuela with some of the girls.
Had a ball.
Visited some friends of Penny's.
Went horseback riding, swimming, went to the Parker Ranch
one night for steaks and cocktails.
It was great.
Before I can say a word she says,
and I thought about you lover boy.
I don't know what happened that night and I don't want to know.
Maybe I had caused the first suspicion and maybe not.
But let's just forget it all, put it in the past,
and start over from right now, OK?
That includes Maz, OK?
Man, what relief.
What a woman.
We hug, and kiss, and make up.
Atuana hangs a gold chain around my neck
with the Chinese character for good luck on it.
We hug, and kiss, and stumble up the tower room
in each other's arms.
My wife and I are lying quietly together looking
at each other's eyes, and at last all is calm and peaceful.
The sun is slanting in over the Koolaus
and through the jalousies.
The doves are cooing in the palms around the house.
Then sunshine is calling from the foot of the stairs, someone
here to see you.
Before I have a chance to yell don't let anyone up,
I hear footsteps.
I grabbed my shorts, my wife her muumuu.
The golden head appears at the top of the stairs.
She's wearing black velvet hot pants and black velvet blouse.
She smiles and says, I just wanted to thank you.
She was holding two half gallons of Black Velvet
and has a kimono draped over one arm.
She sees my wife.
Looks startled.
Says, oh, I didn't mean to interrupt.
But now my wife is up.
She's standing in the middle of the bed with their hands
on her hips.
Oh, that's quite all right.
Come in and make yourself at home.
Can I get you anything?
Sunshine appears at the top of the stairs.
Her murky topaz eyes are wide.
She is drinking it all in.
The Black Velvet girl says to my wife
I just wanted to thank him.
My wife says, I'll bet you did.
Don't mind me.
Go ahead.
The Black Velvet girl says, but he was only trying to help.
My wife's eyes are narrow and flat with fury.
I'll bet he was.
I didn't do anything, I say.
My wife snatches for the necklace
and pops it off my neck.
Now you're bringing them into the house.
No, not true.
Our bed.
No.
My wife is off the bed.
She dives for the bottles of Black Velvet
and throws them one after the other out the window.
The Black Velvet girl says, no.
My wife belts me.
She can really punch.
She was once challenged to fight, fought, and beat up
the toughest Samoan tita at Aiea High School,
and that's saying something.
She belts me and I see black and sparks for a second.
That's what it is, sparks, not stars.
The Black Velvet girl grabs my wife.
My wife belts the Black Velvet girl.
Jesus, Atuana, don't hurt her, I yell.
She's got 20 corporation lawyers behind her.
I try to separate my wife and the Black Velvet girl
and get clawed by both of them.
I back off, push past the vegetarian, and run downstairs.
The Black Velvet girl and my wife
curse and snarl at each other.
Then follow.
Maz appears as I reached the kitchen.
She is at the back door with her beach mat, a picnic
basket, and a six pack.
She looks flushed and relaxed from the beach in the afternoon
sun.
Maz.
She smiles at me.
I run toward her.
She drops the picnic basket and opens her arms.
I duck under her arms, push her aside,
just as my wife and the Black Velvet girl
reached the kitchen.
Maz takes a look at the Black Velvet girl on my wife.
They take a look at Maz.
Maz get's the picture.
My wife and the Black Velvet girl get the picture.
Maz throws the picnic basket after me.
Sandwiches, olives, cookies, and cakes,
napkins, forks, knives, and spoons
unfurl in the air above my head like a banner.
I stumble down to my track, jump in, there is the ignition key.
[LAUGHTER]
Maz, my wife, the Black Velvet girl
are charging down the stairs hanging on
to each other's shirts, muumuus, blouses.
The vegetarian is right behind them.
I don't care.
I yell get back.
But they keep coming.
The ignition key is between my fingers.
Get back.
This is it.
I scream, goodbye kingdom come.
It will be a mass consummation, a sati,
a gangster dynamite orgasm mass rub-out.
Chocolate Joe, I scream.
Chocolate Joe I see your eyes.
I turn the key.
The truck kicks over either in this life,
or the illusion of this life, the afterlife,
or a new incarnation.
Whatever it is there is no Chocolate Joe.
The view is the same.
Here comes my wife, Maz, and the Black Velvet girl running
after the truck as I back up, carve a turn in the sand
and fishtail it out for the street.
I come shooting out of the driveway,
still fishtailing, gaining speed,
cut another turn almost piling up into a silver
Grand Prix parked across the street.
[LAUGHTER] As I miss the car by inches
I get a good look at the gents inside.
Aloha shirts, beef.
They have been watching a white Jaguar, black interior Honolulu
license plate Velvet parked near my mailbox.
As I take off down the street I see the Black Velvet girl
jump in the White Jag.
A minute later my wife shoots out
of the driveway in her T Bird.
I see Maz's bear up VW fall in line.
Just as I turn the corner, the Grand Prix
flashes in behind Maz.
I tear out onto the K highway, the caravan
spaces out behind me.
I floor it.
We're up to Makapu in no time.
Now down at Sandy beach.
The usual traffic jam.
I jump up onto the shoulder disappear in a cloud of dust,
fly out.
Behind me the White Jag, Maz's VW, my wife's T Bird,
and the Grand Prix all come bumping out of the dust
more or less in that order.
At Hawaii Kai, I run two lights, fly through Kahala,
get on and off the highway.
And next thing I know, I'm on Black Point Road heading
for Diamond Head, and I realize that my mother and father
live on this street.
I spot the house.
They have a high hedge, a long driveway, and maybe
I can tuck in, and everyone will pass.
I hang one into the driveway almost lose it in to the hedge.
Just shoot down under the palms and into the garage jump
out, and yank down the door with a bang.
I hot foot it into the house, explode through the door
into the kitchen.
My mother is standing by the counter
with flour, eggs, butter.
She's making a cake.
On the counter she has her book on TM.
Then the sun is slant--
[LAUGHTER]
The sun is slanting into the kitchen.
Everything is golden.
The barometer says, fair.
My mother says, hello, calm down, son.
Have a glass of milk and some cookies.
[LAUGHTER]
No time, mom.
Through the kitchen window I see my father bent over his putter.
I run to the window.
He strokes the ball.
I follow its course through the cool green grass.
Right into the cup.
I whirl.
Mom, I might have some company.
Atuana and some of her friends if they show up, tell them I'm
not here.
My mother hands me some cookies on a plate.
No time, mom.
No time?
You're young, take your time.
She shoves some cookies into my hand
as I hear a screech of tires in the driveway.
I sprint down the hall, duck into my old bedroom,
and dive, squeeze, ooze like a Dali watch under my bed.
My old baseball glove in here.
A clamor of voices in the kitchen.
More voices.
Deeper voices.
Then footsteps running from room to room.
Suddenly loud in my room.
Around the bed.
Shoes feet.
All kinds of shoes and feet.
Bare feet, sandals, sneaks, wingtips, white shoes.
My wife and Maz grab hold of my feet
drag me out from under the bed.
I grab hold of a leg.
My mother and the Black Velvet girl yank at one of my arms.
There seems to be no order, allegiance,
or affinity to the yanking.
I hang on to the bed.
Enough, I shout.
My pants start to tear up the crotch.
Then Talofa, Thunder, and Aku pile in.
They grab the Black Velvet girl who kicks and flails.
Things start getting knocked over.
My father wanders in with his putter.
What the hell is going on here.
Oh, dad, you wouldn't know.
I look up at him through the kicking and scratching.
Dad.
How have you done it?
A life lived guilt free without the taint of suspicion.
The tearing of my crotch sets up a soft counter melody
against the screaming.
Mom, I shout.
How did he do it?
I look up at my wife, who is yanking at my leg.
Don't you know how to treat a wife?
Atuana, it's not what you think, I shout.
Atuana curses me in pidgin, heaving at my leg.
I hang on to the bed.
The Black Velvet girl is getting dragged toward the door
by Talofa, Thunder, and Aku, and suddenly the women
see what's up, let out a shout.
They won't get her.
And letting go of me fall on Talofa, Thunder, and Aku,
who, confused, duck, and let go of the Black Velvet girl.
I crawl naked between the legs and thread my way
through the door and down the Hall.
As I reached the front door, Talofa, Thunder and Aku
stampede past me.
I get up and stumble out after them.
The women are right behind us.
Outside there are cars all over the lawn,
they block the garage, spill out on the driveway,
and into the street.
Talofa, Thunder, and Aku hotfoot it for the Grand Prix.
My shorts torn off, naked, I run after them.
The women are right behind us.
Talofa, Thunder, and Aku pile in the Grand Prix.
I pile in on top of them.
[LAUGHTER]
It's a bum moment.
Talofa is even bigger than he looks.
He is not cute as a baby.
He looks down at me, his eyelids droop.
I'm not a stutterer but I start stuttering.
I didn't do nothing man.
I swear.
I never touched her.
All right.
I touched her.
Once.
No, twice.
Just the dress.
I didn't do nothing, man.
Talofa says, I didn't do nothing either.
[LAUGHTER]
The women are getting closer.
There is murder in their eyes.
The driver raises his head, looks in the rear view mirror.
Ey, Talofa, who the fuck a fucking fucker
and what you like me do?
Talofa's eyes droop in appraisal.
He puts his gangster third eye on me like a laser.
I'm naked as a baby.
I blurt, I didn't do nothing.
One of the women hits the Grand Prix with a croquet mallet.
Talofa--
[LAUGHTER]
Talofa, slams the door as the women surround the car,
yank the door handles, pummel the windows.
Talofa says to the driver, hit it bro.
He with us.
He hits it.
The women fly back from the car.
We lay rubber a mile long and get the hell out of there."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]