Monday, December 25, 2006

The Christmas Spirit... and How to Get It

Everybody listen. I, of all people, whom a shrink once sent packing because I was so “cynical”—tireless opponent of fluff and false comfort and the idea of “good people”—(to be fair, I don’t believe in evil people either—I just believe in me—Blowup Suzie and Me, ‘cuz that’s reality)—even I have found the Xmas spirit. So much so, in fact that—well, first I should probably tell you how I found the Xmas spirit, or rather how it found and then ambushed me—subduing me like a caveman w/ a club, before dragging me off to have its sweaty, lock jawed way with me in some dank cavern. (The archetypal anecdote would have the Xmas spirit/caveman dragging me by my hair of to his groovy, filthy bachelor cave, but if you’ve looked at my pic, you can guess that ain’t happenin’, ‘cuz what hair I still retain, I wear really short, which is to say that I shave it off.


But so we were talkin’ ‘bout the Xmas spirit and how it cold cocked before hot cocking me. Which is, of course, a metaphor, because I’m sure you would agree that

1) They didn’t have the Xmas spirit yet when we were cavemen, because a certain Great Man named Santa had not been born yet; and

2) The idea of the Xmas spirit beating and then raping me—‘tho to be fair, simply everyone was doing things that way back then—(Club=Rohypnol!)—well, that’s a pretty fucked up & tasteless idea.


Nope. I didn’t get the Xmas spirit that way. That was just a metaphor. How I really found it—and I’m sooooo grateful for this—was by sitting up late Saturday night, flipping channels. There, amidst endless Xmas-themed ads and/or promo spots for bankruptcy lawyers, phone sex lines, and convenient order-by-phone type tools of various sorts—there it was.


I know what most of you are thinking. You’re patting yourselves on the back for making like Sherlock—or let’s get the Hanukkah spirit too, since I’m talking about a secular-type Xmas spirit—not that we don’t have room for you Christians too!!!—let’s call him Shylock Holmes—well, you’ve used yr. limited powers of deduction (and let me tell ya that this is what separates amateur sleuths like you from the pros like me) to deduce that I got the Xmas spirit from Saturday night’s SNL Xmas episode repeat, in which Jack Black did pull on the Santa suit, Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg (god he’s cute—my Xmas wish is to fuck him forever) rap about getting’ high n’ eatin’ snacks n’ goin’ to the movies, and Neil Young sings about Elvis kissing Santa Claus or some such shit in a ratty sweater, surrounded by a small army of aging hippies who play gentle country-inflected adult rawk—Neil was dressed and accompanied that way, I mean, not Elvis. I bet you think I found it there. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.


Nope. Hilarious as that broadcast was, it just fed my growing (and completely misguided) feeling that quo the human race is the human race at Xmas time, when we all aggressively wallow in our masturbatory love of luxurious junk and of what swell and generous people we are and how close we are to other people who really bum us out the rest of the time, and meanwhile some little kid in Palestine is eating artillery shells amidst his family’s exploding home. What was I thinking?!


No, this came a little bit later, when my blind casting about through the airwaves happily connected w/ the frighteningly withered visage of Gary Coleman.


Fuck, said I to my bottle of gin, Gary Coleman looks like shit.


And here’s where morbid curiosity has an upside, ‘cuz I felt compelled to hang out and study poor Gary for a spell.


It didn’t take long for me to recognize the aphrodisiacally sleek n’ pouty form of Tori Spelling next to him—she of the planar face and the enormous gelid lips.


Now this, I told the bottle, is pretty great.


Turns out that I had stumbled upon a made-for-TV movie w/ the devastatingly witty moniker of A Carol Christmas. If you’re missing the gag, it’s not because you’re completely dumb. Necessarily. It’s ‘cuz I haven’t told you yet that the character Tori plays is named Carol, and that the proceedings are yet another re-hash of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.


You might be thinking that putting Tori in the Scrooge seat undercuts one of the more effective devices in the original fable—that is that Scrooge is this repulsive old reptile, making the end of the story where he cavorts about, raving about the joys of the holiday and of life itself, and where he invites himself to the Cratchet family dinner, whereat he enforces good cheer on a bunch of slum dwellin’ folks, who’d prob. just as soon beat him and take his pocket watch as look at him—it makes alla that so grotesque and bizarre as to almost make that bitter spoonful Xmas cheer go down easily. You’re so distracted by this ludicrousness that you fail to notice what bullshit it’s putting over on you. (Or at least I thought it was bullshit.)


But no. They got somethin’ else to distract you here, and that’s how spankingly hot Tori is. When you get bored or irritated by the story or acting, you can study Tori’s ass and think, Hmm, I’d like to explore that. Or if it’s a close-up, you can salivate over rubbery lips and all their malleability, or if you’re of a more soulful bent, you can look into her wide glossy eyes and think about Truth and Beauty and Love.


Oh yeah. And Gary Coleman is playing the Ghost of Xmas Past. And William Shatner is the Ghost of Xmas Present. And as a Shatner enthusiast, even I was getting sick of his omnipresence until I saw what a warm, spot-on comedic performance he gave here.


BTW the one and only place where A Carol Christmas disappoints is in its handling of the Ghost of Xmases to Come. As you’d guess, I had mighty high expectations of which TV personality they were cast in this role. What I got was some gaunt dullard I didn’t even recognize as talk show host Tori’s limo driver. I woulda gone w/ Betty White driving a hearse, but then I guess that’s a little silly. Couldn’t they’ve at least gotten somebody predictable, like that tall guy from Night Court?


Anyway, that doesn’t matter, ‘cuz the rest of the production was incredibly moving. It’s pretty much by the book after Tori visits her own virtually abandoned funeral and is thrust into her lace-lined casket, wherein she shrieks and weeps and insists that she can still find the Xmas spirit and that she’s really a good person, et. al.


She awakes in her dressing room and immediately launches herself upon her crew—to whom, presumably, she was a bitch earlier in the movie, but I can’t confirm that, ‘cuz I came into things a little late—and unleashes a storm of gifts and apologies and charitable donations and promises and encouragements—man, to’ve been on the receiving end of one of those bone-crushin’ hugs she gave, so I could cop a feel—and I’m guessing she wouldn’t even’ve gotten mad, enraptured as she wuz, might’ve even extended a token of Xmas generosity like 15 min. in the broom closet. I’d’a been OK w/ that.


And she’s just as overbearing as Scrooge was as she rushes over to her much-shat-upon sister’s place to enjoy the Xmas goose (one assumes—they never gave you a good look at what was being consumed)—except isn’t she, like, a vegan or something—but then who cares? And she repeatedly chucks the chins of a dewy-eyed niece and nephew.


Then her estranged boyfriend, who—get this—runs a soup kitchen, shows up. He’s given a place at the yuletide table. (Here’s hopin’ sis made extra tofu!) And he’s seen Tori’s broadcast of the afternoon, and tho they’ve been apart for years, he could just tell that Tori was completely rehabilitated. ‘Fact, he asks her just what excavated her good n’ true real self that had been buried for so long, and she just winks and sez she had a little help from her friends. At which point, I half-expected the Ghost of Xmases Hallucinated, as played by Ringo Starr, to show up and pass her a sheet of blotter acid—or maybe it shoulda been John or George, since although they didn’t do the vocals on that Beatles fave, they are, at least, really dead. But instead we cut to Gary n’ Will n’ Whassisface smilin’ beatifically outside the window and tellin’ each other how Carol’s gonna be just fine.


And then Tori tells the boyfriend she’s gonna go w/ him to work the Xmas shift at the soup kitchen right after dinner, and they smooch a lot—and I was impressed that in such a family-oriented outing, they made it clear that Tori’s slippery tongue was sliding into and outta her beau’s mouth w/ each slurping kiss. See how they kept putting special stuff in for everyone—even us older folks?!


And then the most surreal thing I have seen in a very long time: Tori n’ family n’ boyfriend adjourn to a couch whereat the man of the house reads aloud from A Christmas Carol! Which was very weird because all thru the picture, Tori showed no awareness that she was reenacting the classic story. I’d assumed that this whole thing was set in a parallel universe in which Dickens’s fable was unknown. So how the hell could she have avoided knowing about it? Up until Saturday night, I had always hated Xmas. It has filled me w/ self-loathing and to unhappy speculation about everyone else, and I have avoided references to it whenever possible. Still, having never read A Christmas Carol, even I have experienced, like, thousands of retellings of the story, w/ protagonists ranging from Mr. McGoo to Beavis & Butthead. (OK—just Beavis. Butthead played Jacob Marley.) But Tori was somehow unaware of the story?!


Ah well. Why nitpick such a beautiful production?


BTW, when the reading of A Christmas Carol had ended, Tori n’ friends did all say “god bless us everyone” to each other in a round-robin sorta way. So I guess this Xmas was not necessarily secular—just non-denominational.


Proceedings end w/ everyone present lustily belting out some secular Xmas toon or other. Don’t remember which one. It might’ve been “Deck the Halls,” but don’t quote me on that. The gin was running low.


And that was that.


I wiped tears from my eyes. I considered calling all my friends and relatives and maybe even some strangers and apologizing for what a cur I have been, but it was 1:30 a.m. CST, and it wouldn’t do to turn over a new leaf by waking people up like that.


But I resolve to get on it presently, and onto yelling, god bless us everyone! Whilst I run up & down through Printers Row, buying geese and hurling gold coins at newsboys and working in soup kitchens. I’ll get onto all of that and so much more, just as soon as the hangover I’ve had since ever since that night clears up.


Then once these wonderful holidays have passed, I resolve to shove my double barreled 12 gauge in my mouth and send powdered bone and pulped brains and hair and teeth and, of course, blood onto my ceiling, because I am just so fucking happy that I don’t think I’ll be able to stand another Xmas. Or another day, for that matter, because after all, shouldn’t the spirit of Xmas live in us everyday, all year round?


Happy Holidays to you & yours!!!

Thursday, November 30, 2006

The Vast Anal Wart of the Gods


So there I was, cruising in my rental car. Here's another unusual thing about Hilo International Airport: a lotta airports are located on the outskirts of a metropolitan area—I assume to cut down on air traffic hazards and on noise disturbances for local residents. Hilo International Airport is located very near to the middle of the city, where the two main highways, 11, running north-south, and 19, running east-west, meet. (Highway 11 starts at Hilo, running due south. 19 switches to north south once it passes through Hilo.) Since the airport is so small, you clear it quickly. I didn't see a single vehicle on my way out, so it was a bit of a shock when I emerged from the place and found myself in the middle of heavy city traffic.

As if that wasn't disorienting enough, headlights glared everywhere in the rainy darkness. They crisscrossed all around me, as, accustomed to the relative darkness of the airport, I tried to see just where the fuck I was and where I should be going. I alternated between blinking at the road and looking at the map and printed directions that I had spread out on the passenger seat.

I didn't crash, but I did get turned around almost right away. Highway 19 splits as you come into town, with one branch becoming Kamehameha Drive, the main street of downtown Hilo. I went this way, losing the highway as it hugged the Pacific on its way out of town. If you're unfamiliar with the roads, it's easy to go the wrong way. You don't get a lot of warning before the split happens, and it's difficult to merge back over once you've fucked up. In a vain attempt to get back over, I compounded my mistake with several others, switching back and turning.

I wasn't helped by the fact that, to an outsider, the names of Hilo's streets are similar to the point of being virtually identical. Strings of vowels, intermixed with only a few different consonants lead to names like Kekuanaoa Street or Wainuenue Avenue. Before long, I'd be able zip through the city without much trouble. But at this point, I was completely disoriented.

Both the guidebook I'd brought and the rental car “magazine” given to me by the rental clerk were more or less useless. They only listed the main roads, and the further I went, I found myself on increasingly obscure side streets. They were murky, rain-slicked and frequently very steep. I was caught in a strictly residential area for a while, rolling aimlessly past clapboard walls, tin roofs, and darkened windows.

And the rain just went on and on, making those anecdotes about how it always rains at night in Hilo seem less like colorful exaggerations and more like hateful facts. I was tired, and, by this time, enraged at my situation. I cursed out the rental car and threw the maps into the back seat. Fortunately I was still rational enough to leave the directions where I could read them.

When I finally made my way downtown, it was getting late. I was surprised by how crowded the rainy streets were. Everything was moving at a very relaxed pace, which, of course, pissed me off. I crawled through clusters of cars and pedestrians, getting caught at like every fucking traffic light in the city. Under the circumstances, I didn't pick up much of the city's geography or character.

Most people who come to the Big Island fly into Kona on the island’s western coast, where the resorts and the beaches are. But in the interest of the job, I needed anonymity, not to mention frugality. So Hilo it was.

One advantage to staying in Hilo, if you're interested in this sorta thing: the volcanoes are damned close. Another: Hilo has a kickass farmer's market--like nothing I've ever seen. I was here to work, but I might never return to the Big Island, so I planned on taking some time to check this stuff out. And later, I discovered at least one more advantage: Hilo has character. It feels very real and settled and solidly what it is. By and large, the people there seem happy. It's relaxed, unpretentious, with all kinds of shit to discover beneath the surface. I spent only a little time in Kona, but it seemed to be more about slick surfaces—and money.

Anyway, on the night in question, I finally made my way back to Highway 19. Outside of town, the two-lane highway grew very dark. I was mostly alone on the road. The long day and various fuck-ups had left me fried. I wasn't dealing with my situation very well as I said before. I was running really pretty late, and due to its low-key nature, I was worried the bed & breakfast might shut down before I found it.

Akiko's B&B is 15 miles north of Hilo and about the same distance from Honoka'a in the north. To get there from Highway 19, you have to drive about 2 miles along a side road to the sleepy village of Wailea. My lodgings allowed me to maintain a very low profile, which as I’ve already said, is more or less essential when you're on a missing persons case.

I can't speak for any other dick, but generally, people end up missing because they don't want to be found. I can count on one hand the number of parties I've sought, who'd been kidnapped or murdered or something like that. Nope, usually, these cases involve someone who's hiding. The trick is to find them before they've made you. If you're too conspicuous, they'll really disappear, and you may not ever find them again.

In this case, I was being paid to do more than just find the guy—or to find out what had happened to him in the event that he had died or been abducted. I was supposed to watch him for a while, then consult my client before further pursuing the matter. My client was not the sort you'd want to fuck up on. So I was gonna be for damn sure that this Wendell fucker didn't slip under my radar. He'd be looking harder than some. I had a feeling he was especially paranoid. Given my client, I know I would’ve been.

Incogntion aside, I thought I could use the peace and quiet myself. Chicago is my home. I'm settled there. But sometimes it gets to be a little much. And lately it had gotten to be a lotta much.

I have this vein at my temple that pops out when I'm mad or stressed. The fucking thing had been on display around the clock for about a month before I flew to Hawaii. It had expanded to the approximate thickness of a length of nautical rope. The noise, the traffic, the general hostility, the crowding. (Try walking through the cock-knocking Loop at any time of day without bumping into about 7 people per block, not to mention getting very nearly mowed down by turning cars every fucking time you cross the street.)

I couldn't afford to take a vacation anywhere, let alone Hawaii. I hadn't even thought about going there until this case came up. For once, my luck was better than bad or OK. The client would pay for travel expenses, food and lodging. I figured I could fit in a little rest n' relaxation (if not recreation) while I was there. Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast generously furnished the first two things. I only had time for a little recreation of my own, though as it turned out, the case provided me with some along the way.

On purely esthetic terms, the location appealed to me as well. The color of the area was pronounced. I can honestly say that the atmosphere—its feel—was unlike anything I’ve experienced.

You'd think that someone as savvy as Steve Forceman, P.I. would've thought to write the place's phone number down where it would be easy to find. Somehow, in the midst of traveling, I'd misplaced it. So I was pretty much on my own as far as getting there went. And even if I could find the place in the dark, I knew it might take a while.

Aside from the lateness of the hour, I had a couple of other worries about the bed & breakfast. I'd put them aside, largely, before I'd left. I figured what the hell? Good or bad, a little life experience can't hurt.

Still—there was that "Buddhist" in Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist B & B. See, I've always been attracted to Buddhism. Being a person who finds it difficult to relax, (to say the least—shit, most of the time, I find it difficult to sit still for more than 10 minutes, which, I'll tell ya, can make a stakeout a bitch, but that's why god invented booze,) I find the peace that Buddhism is supposed to offer has to be a terribly appealing idea.

On the other hand, I've always had some problems with Buddhism, as I understand it. Admittedly, my apprehension is very general and very limited, and I realize that ascribing ideas to Buddhism as a whole is sorta like linking the Book of Mormon to the Greek Orthodox church. Still, that stereotypical Buddhist ideal of doing away with desire seems akin to eradicating yourself as an individual to me. And I guess I'm most fond of people as individuals—each his or her own self.

Though my efforts to recognize and understand the individuality of others have been awkward and imperfect, they’ve given me some comfort and brought a certain richness to my life. Often through the expressions of others, I come to identify with them, even, sometimes, to admire them. (Thus the overlong, embarrassingly earnest "Cage Match: Ema Saiko vs. Peter Cottontail!!!") As groups, people tend to interest me more in an abstract, anthropological way. Less emotionally and certainly less viscerally.

I also don't like that whole "physical reality is an illusion" horseshit either. I know Buddha sat there under that tree laughing his ass off at the "illusory" suffering of those around him, but I guess I'm just not that enlightened in this life. I find the pain of others, (not to mention my own pain, of course,) to be, well, painful. Can't quite get past that.

But then my impressions were–and, I’m sure, still are—monumentally simplistic. So maybe we should just move along here.

The information I'd found about Akiko's place mentioned some optional activities: meditation every day (@ 4:45 a.m.!!!!) tai chi on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and a morning walk through an the adjacent Kolekole Beach National Park--complete with peaceful forest, a sparkling river and a supposedly beautiful stretch of Pacific beach. All of these seemed like they might be cool experiences, and probably conducive to relaxation and clearing the mind, et. al., and if my work allowed for it, I thought I might indulge in some of them.

At the same time, they implied a sorta communal type atmosphere, and I wasn’t sure how communal I wanted to be. I was glad to have the option of doing all this shit, but I hoped my desire to participate or not would be respected. The online info made it sound like that wouldn't be a problem—even allowing space "for someone on a personal retreat."

Still, I was kinda maybe looking for a little community with my privacy, rather than the other way around. Fortunately, I needn't've worried. Mostly. There was one exception. On the very first morning I was there, fried and exhausted, I had a responsibility thrust on me that seemed like a lot to expect. But I'll get to that later, and otherwise, the atmosphere was friendly, but unobtrusive.


Friday, November 03, 2006

Hello, Hilo


OK so when we last left our hero or anti-hero or whatever the hell he is, he'd just come in for a landing at Hilo International Airport, from whence he would conduct the search for a missing person named Wendell. So w/o further ado... ("Ado" huhuhuh...)

Once we’d deplaned and were walking toward the terminal, (this being a puddle jumper and all, there was no fancy corridor connecting you to the gate,) the air was warm and gelid. The intensity of the wind and rain surprised me. The water seemed to cling to things in viscous drops, instead of sinking in and dampening. (Tht was just an impression, I guess, because by the time I left Hilo International Airport, my bag and myself were pretty well soaked.)


The airport’s single terminal is about the size of the lobby of a large Howard Johnson’s. Come to think of it, it even feels like a Howard Johnson’s, or maybe a small convention center of some sort—though it’s hard to say why, exactly. There’s nothing specific— just glimmers in the hard, clean light (which makes everything seem too defined, too solid,) or in the shallow industrial carpet. Here and there are self-consciously "rural" handrails made up of unfinished logs and branches.


It took me a minute to figure out that there were no luggage carousels in the terminal. I was starting to worry that there weren’t any at all, which seemed impossible. So I just followed the crowd, and that proved to be the right thing to do.


Here’s one more unusual feature of Hilo International Airport: the luggage carousels are outdoors. There's a roof over the area, and it’s thoroughly illuminated by ugly fluorescent lights. Underneath them, there' s a chaos of moving shapes—particularly disorienting thanks to elongated shadows. The lamps do a fine job of attracting a wide assortment of the island’s many, often quite large insects. Not a bad thing, cause you better start getting used to them as quickly as possible. You’re going to run into them fairly often.

All of my fellow passengers seemed familiar with the whole procedure here, and had already scooped up their luggage and disappeared into the rain. Pretty soon, I was the only one left, watching the belt of the one operating carousel wind past me. A few bags lay on it, but none of them were mine. I waited, refusing to allow the slightest doubt. At some point, my luggage would join the other shit on the belt. It was an immutable fact. Except truth be told, the first time the belt went around without any sign of my luggage, I knew it wasn't going to show. I am pessimistic by nature, but somewhere in the back of my head I knew. The luggage, most painfully, my beloved flamenco guitar, never showed.


Slowly, my dulled wits began questioning the wisdom of placing the carousel outdoors. Might not that lead to a higher incidence of theft? And like, why was there fucking no one here to monitor the area? (Not that it would've done much good. If someone was going to walk w/ yr. luggage, it would be fairly easy to do at any airport I'd visited.)


And then I saw this stall at the edge of the roofed-in area. It was about the size of a toll booth, and inside it, a young, reasonably good looking Hawaiian man was talking on the phone. I wasn't sure if he'd even noticed I was there, watching that goddamn carousel go round and round.


I sashayed over, preparing myself for the usual airline service rigamarole. Once I was closer, I noticed a small set of black and white security monitors. The guy gestured for me to wait, then after a moment, told his party goodbye. He wrote something down on a piece of paper. Then he looked up at me, smiled and nodded. I told him my luggage didn't seem to be there.


He said, "Oh," then began ponderously writing something else down. It seemed to take around three minutes—though I'm sure it wasn't really that long—for him to fill out two lines of stuff. He passed the document to me—a report form that I needed to fill out. In the meantime, he said he'd see if my bags could be found in Honolulu. His theory was that the bags had been placed on a later flight.


I was writing out a description my luggage when it occured to me that he might very well be right. Back at O'Hare International Airport, when I was checking in, a seemingly robotic clerk had cooly told me that she could only send my bags as far ahead as Honolulu. It wasn't very clear why. Something about switching airlines to Aloha, which seemed odd to me, since in my experience, they'll forward your bags even if you switch. This automaton wasn't particularly willing to explain or discuss it beyond that—she just opened a can of DW-40 and began slurping the stuff down. It pissed me off, but eager to move things along, I said yeah whatever, figuring it'd be only a moderate hassle really.


OK, so then, when I got to Vegas and had to check in again, a much friendlier clerk asked me about my luggage. When I told her about the cybernetic bitch at O'Hare, she shook her head and said that whole thing was bullshit. She asked me what my bags looked like, then disappeared through a door behind the counter. She was gone for a little while, and although there were several other clerks there, I could feel the eyes of my fellow passengers boring into the back of my head for holidng things up. When she came back, she had my luggage with her. She put new tags on it and said it would be sent on to Hilo. I thanked her profusely and moved along on my way.

So now, in Hilo, I figured that maybe somehow in this modified luggage arrangement, my stuff had gotten delayed, or worst, sidetracked, or really bad, lost. I wasn't happy, but not generally the sort of person to take it out on everyone around me, I didn't lay into the guy in the booth—nor this other guy—fatter, shorter, paler, in some sort of dark blue uniform—who kept going through a door next to the carousel. He pissed me off more, because I knew he'd watched me standing there, as he'd gone into and out of the door several times and hadn't said a single word to me.


The guy in the booth was put on hold. He gave me a sympathetic smile, so I asked him what it was like to work as the luggage guy. He seemed surprised, (maybe a little grateful?) that I'd asked this question. He said it sucked—as I'd expected he would. He said that people were always pissed off, and he understood that, but they just like freakin' attacked him half the time. And I could just picture the poor fucker surrounded by fat white tourists, ready to flay him over their missing bags. Since he was young and Hawaiian, I figured he probably caught even worse shit than he would've otherwise. I resolved, to the best of my ability, to be patient with this kid, slow moving as he was.


He hung up, and without a word, started typing some shit into the computer. I asked him what was up with the luggage. As he typed, he told me that they hadn't found it in Honolulu. It was probably on the next plane. Unfortunately, mine was the last flight of the day, so... no luggage till tomorrow. (And of course, it might've been lost for good.)


He printed up a receipt for me, and then nodded, as if to say goodbye. I said, "So, like, how will I know if my luggage turns up, and when might I expect to hear from the airline about it?"


He told me they'd call—probably in the morning. In yellow, he highlighted a number on my receipt. "Call them if you haven't heard anything by noon or so."


I asked him if he knew where the rental car pickups are at. He pointed off into the rain beyond, where I could now the airport parking lot. There was a long line of booths along a raised strip of concrete. It was thoughtfully covered with a little overhang, so that you, the non-booth having party, would not get completely doused while conducting your business.


It occurred to me that I'd had some good luck also. Not only had I packed my essential overnight shit in my carryon, (a change of clothes, some personal "toiletries," etc.) but I'd just missed having the rental car places close on my ass. I really had been on the last flight of the day. The whole fucking airport closes down around 10, and the rental places only stay open for another hour after that.


The only soul in sight, I approached the long line of stalls. All of them were lit, and most of them were populated by young Hawaiian women. They all seemed to be reading or talking on the phone. The stalls appeared claustrophobic, but definitely more expansive than the space that poor fucker in the luggage booth was allowed.


My place was about half the way down the line. The girl behind the counter was friendly and more effusive than my friend from the luggage booth. She was thin and pretty—with a bad blond dye job that had left an orangish brown tint in her long, wavy hair. She wore dark red lipstick and smiled with very white teeth. Holy fuck, she was young! All of them—the rental car and clerks—like barely 20, if that. I wondered how safe a girl like her really was, alone in this place at night—though she was one of many clerks located up and down this line of booths.


The light inside the stall was florescent—pale, harsh and depressing. It isolated us in the dark and the rain, like we were on some sort of island. She tapped away at a computer that appeared to consume half the space inside the stall. She pulled up my reservation and began compiling a sheaf of papers, printing up some and producing other carbon-copy type forms from somewhere else. In the end, the stack was approximately 3' tall. She x-ed the various points where I was supposed to sign or initial, then pointed out other blanks I was supposed to fill in with information.


I got to work, while she explained the various insurance options available to me. I said thanks but no thanks, and was just finishing up with the paper work when the villain from Godzilla vs. Gigan swooped down onto the counter. “Gleeagh!” I said. Shocked ‘tho I was, I had enough presence of mind to be surprised that the booth had not collapsed under his (its?) weight. The clerk glanced at this gargantuan horror, then, somehow, brushed it away with her hand. "Termite," she said.

Later, upon reflection, I decided that my mind—over-taxed by surprise and exhaustion—had exaggerated the size of the insect. Still, it had been pretty fucking big—maybe 3"? And the longer I was in Hawaii, the more I realized that a lot of the classic insects that you found on the mainland came in economy sizes here. (The ants I saw—and I saw plenty of them—were the only exception. They were of that tiny red variety that one seems to encounter pretty much everywhere in the continental U.S.)


But so anyway, I checked, signed, filled in blanks, and then passed them on to the young lady. She handed me my copy of the receipt and a mass of other papers. I was tired and it would’ve been awkward to set down my carryon, so I just kept the scraps of paper wadded up in my hand. They quickly amalgamated into a soggy mass. One form she didn't point out to me was that little diagram of the vehicle that you mark up with dings and scratches and dents and such, after examining it at the time of rental. Not sure if this was more potentially implicating for me or them, but I didn't notice the white, yellow and pink copies of this form for some time. They remained joined and unmarked, as I carried them with me on my travels.


The clerk asked me where I was staying, how long I was gonna be on the island, etc. I answered: Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast and about 2 weeks, respectively. To her credit, she didn't so much as blink at the name of my lodging place. She'd never heard of it, and so had no clear idea where the it was. I showed her the directions I'd received by email, and she produced a crappy little magazine-type guidebook. It contained a pretty skeletal map of Hilo and its environs, which a few landmarks, as well as the grocery stores, department stores, and restaurants the average tourist would want.


On the map, she traced a path with a ball point pen. That would get me to the general area of the B&B at least. After that, I'd have to rely on my directions and my luck. It was a rural area, and the streets might be a little weird.


Before I left, she asked me if I was vacationing. I said, "Well, it's sort of a working vacation." I told her about my luggage, and she was genuinely (or so it seemed) surprised and sympathetic. She wished me a pleasant visit, and I thanked her. Then she directed me toward the area where all the rental cars were parked. I found my crappy Neon in its numbered, rainy spot. Then I orientated myself inside the car and was on my way. All I had to do now was find Akiko's #1 Best Buddhist Bed & Breakfast.

More on the way...