Aloha Mannequins Read online

  Why even say such a thing?

  Asshole.

  I feel ugly but keep up the façade. At least act like it doesn’t bother you. You’ve been acting on public access for over 5 years, acting shouldn’t be a problem. My friends try to cheer me up by saying: “You’re so handsome, you’re so pretty.”

  Pretty?? Is that supposed to make me feel better? I laugh, and we head inside. A naked man wearing a tight leather mask with a zipper mouth is on a wooden, mini stage, tied to cross. A woman tugs on his penis with pliers while hunched over and scanning the area, grinning. I expected myself to be thoroughly appalled, but instead I am moderately interested. It helps that the “slave” seems to be enjoying this odd “act”. We move to the rear of this wondrous place.

  There are bottles of Zima everywhere: On vibrating speakers, the ground, in the bathroom, the tables. We just stand in the back, outside under the moonglow, looking in. My girlfriend gyrates to the music. I touch her back and she feels it...smiles...and I feel so lucky. I feel very very very lucky and normal. We go back in and she scolds me for drinking a stranger’s discarded Zima bottle. I’m told that I could get hepatitis or something. They’d know, surely, both being in the medical field.

  I’m embarrassed at the scolding. That’s what I get for trying to look cool. Like, “Hey, look at me drinking some stranger’s bottle of beer! I don’t care, since I’m so hard!”

  Come to think of it, that was pretty stupid of me.

  We stick toilet paper in our ears to soften the pounding bass. Now we’re dancing. I feel like an idiot. No one seems to care though, and soon enough I’m too drunk to care as well. The female DJ is topless. My girlfriend’s homosexual friend is dancing shirtless. My girlfriend grazes her fingers across his sweaty, muscular chest. I do the same…WHAT AM I DOING?? Get a grip, man. Don’t start going sideways on me now.

  I’m just jealous that she touched his muscles (at least I hope I’m just jealous). I’m such a child.

  Later, we’re by a staircase that’s painted black. She speaks with an older, white fellow, looks like he has money and a decent job, but ugly-ass hair. I grow jealous. Next to him, I look like a 16-year-old with far away dreams.

  I don’t want her talking with him. I KNOW what he’s thinking. I know what he’s thinking! I wanna kill him! Did mention she was wearing a black leotard?

  Uhg.

  Not thirty minutes later, we’re in her SUV with her homosexual pal at the wheel. I have no idea where we’re going. We end up in a place in Waikiki called Fusions. I only see men in this place. There’s happy, techno music and many platforms below us to dance on. There are a lot of tiny, happy lights. Is that a disco ball? Nice people here. One fellow buys me a Cosmopolitan, and it’s good.

  My girl/woman stands over a railing, looking down on barren platforms that move in disco lights. Must be a slow night. I stand next to her, dazzled by all these lights. She’s pretty…looks a little saddened by some mysterious problem. I touch the small of her back and she says, quite suddenly: “No, I don’t like that. Not here.”

  I catch my breath.

  Yeesh. I was just trying to be romantic.

  I retreat to the bar and hope some fool buys me another drink.

  Doesn’t happen.

  That night we argue in the kitchen: Trust me, love me, free me, have make-up sex with me.

  I’m growing increasingly afraid of her. Does she love me, really? One day I’m going to get hurt in a bad way, I can feel it.

  Watch out.

  2 Years Later...

  I open my eyes: The girl has vanished – thank the Lord. Taki is here with his friends (their faces are blurred – as if I’m looking through some cheap JVC camera). I stand and make my way into the bathroom, eyes low to the crazy ground. CORNER OF EYES: The dance floor is empty, save for lone dancer male. Is he dancing, or having a vertical seizure?

  BATHROOM.

  Man pisses...I make my way to the urinal...so close now...BURST OF NAUSEA RUNS UP MY BELLY AND INTO MY BRAIN.

  Uh oh. I’m falling.

  Darkness.

  Voices, distant.

  “Hey hey glasses wake up water....”

  ***

  Smell something familiar, stimulates memory…something from the past comes into my mind, something I read: Cat's urine glows under a black-light.

  Freezing wet tiles on my cheek.

  Stink of urine around sides of my mouth.

  I’m lifted up.

  I hope my black shirt’s not wet. It is, all around the right side. It better be water. My face is in the sink, hands helping me. Water blasting: Cold...splashed onto my face.

  “Are you okay?”

  For some reason, I mumble:

  “…xoowh…my name is Bomb…qiff-93-yaw…my name is Rrrrr…daoc-super 3-a….” (or did I just think it?)

  There’s a popping sound in my ears – feet dancing on bubble wrap.

  Sledgehammer punk is at my side, splashing water continuously into my face and repeating: “Are you sure, are you sure, are you sure?” I think: Please Lord, pound him with the Fist of God. Someone hands me my glasses (I don’t put them on) and I hear fats say, “Sorry, dude, but you gotts ta go.” He sounds genuinely concerned. I head outside...and…they’re following me, aren’t they? (no) And judging me, and eyeing me out, giving me the stiff one-eye: Staring at meeeeeeee!!!! (no, no one’s following you)

  Where’s Taki? Keep walking...don’t make eye contact with anyone. A few years from now, no one will remember this.

  Really?

  No.

  Fireworks go off over my shoulder, and I’m shook-up for a good 3 seconds. Where’s the fuckin car? Taki’s car? I don’t see it. What time is it? Don’t wait for him, boy. Take the bus.

  I’m a good length away from the club. Good. I sit at the bus stop and get up abruptly and vomit on a fence. I’m impressed by the volume of my regurgitation. I feel sooo much better. I smile at myself, and nod my head in approval. I hope passing cars don’t honk at me and laugh. I’m at the wrong bus stop. I cross the street to the other one, and lay back and close my eyes. My head isn’t spinning anymore. Think back on bathroom: Feelings of anger. I know that everything happens for a reason. This is no exception. All proper emotions...much to learn from this. And what did I learn? Trust your gut. I shouldn’t have gone out after that movie: I should’ve gone home, home, home. I’m really angry with that one guy. I hate feeling this way. What kind of human being feels so much anger toward a fellow human? A bad one. I’m bad. I’m bad and ugly and disgusting and disgusted at myself and so very skinny that my mum makes fun of me and looks at me in repulsion many times when I walk past her while she watches the Filipino channel. My eye hurts. Is there a pebble inside?? It really hurts. I cry, which is the body’s natural way of washing out unwanted articles.

  There must be some kind of nodule under my eyelid. I bet it’s because of that damn weed. I should check my medical dictionary when I get home.

  My bus arrives. I go in and lean against a window, covering tears of extreme PAIN due to my shit eye. Must be around 4am, since buses don’t start up ‘til around this time. I take the long walk home and lay in bed, praying that my eye will feel better in the morning.

  “Broken Surfboards & Ugly Rent”

  HOLLYWOOD HAS FED you a major lie. Hawaii has fed you a major lie. We don’t all surf. We don’t all enjoy wearing slippers. We don’t all live in the North Shore. I was born & raised here and I’ve never even BEEN to that side of the island.

  What many humans across the globe don’t know is that Honolulu, the heart of Oahu, is a city with a taste for the modern and the sophisticated and the glam.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if many still think we have goddamn volcanoes everywhere that go off in a panic every 5 seconds.

  People are ignorant. They’re told what to expect of us and they don’t ask questions for some disturbing reason. It’s because they want to believe the fantasy, I’m sure. Believe in The Fake Hawaii. Yay.


  And the majority of Hawaii is happy with it, seeing how we feed off the tourists. So nothing changes. They’re happy with how things are. Just fine and dandy. Because it’s what humans all over the wonderful world want, right? They want to believe this dribble. They see the postcards, the commercials of women dancing in grass skirts. They want to come to a paradise that’s away from the computers and the automo-biles and the “Interweb” and every fancy doodad and nasty, dagnabbit contraption. Like automatic doors.

  This is why the typical tourist visits here, wearing irritating-to-see, rattan hats and unflattering shorts. But what they see are kids dressed as gangsters and old people wearing Gucci and little girls carrying Toki Doki bags. “Yeesh,” they think, unbuttoning their Hawaiian shirt. “Why does it feel like I never left home?”

  Oahu has always been modern…up with the times.

  There are plans for a monorail.

  Rent is skyrocketing up the ying-yang.

  The bus has jacked up the fare for adults from $1 to $2, and complain about how their jobs are more “dangerous” than cops'. Very good. I’ve yet to see a bus driver stop a speeding bullet with a dive. Driving a bus more dangerous than being a cop?

  The island is changing.

  I look around today and see five construction cranes all huddled together. More condos. More people. More cars. Possible monorail (which won’t solve the traffic problem…won’t take the CARS off the roads).

  Hollywood and Hollywood Hawaii can’t live the lie for very much longer. Soon the world will see Oahu as it really is: A mini-version of Cali. Or, and this is just my wish, a mini-version of Japan. God, I love that place.

  For now, outsiders will see Oahu like they see Rednecks. In any case, if one still desires for the good ol’ days…there’s always Maui.

  For now.

  “Shite Darts”

  I WAKE UP. It’s 3 in the evening. I don’t work today at the coffee company. Good. My eye still hurts, but it’s getting better. I check my caller ID. Taki didn’t call. Might as well. I wouldn’t call me either.

  There’s a mysterious number on the caller ID. Uh oh. Did I give my number out last night? Hope not. Sheesh. If YES, then I hope it was to someone whose ying yang hasn’t gone topsy turvy.

  Whoever this strange caller is, called 25 times. Warren and I take the #1 bus to Honolulu Community College. During lunch I wait for him outside the library.

  I’m not sure, but I think the chubby girl from last night walks past, dressed in black. Should I say hi? She did stick her tongue in my ear.

  Naw.

  Doubt she even remembers me. We make eye contact. Then she looks away, not seeing anything of interest. I suddenly feel pathetic. Did I take my St. John’s Wort this morning for my Social Anxiety Disorder? Think so. To feel better, I remind myself that I have friends.

  I wanna go back to that dingy Goth club. Not sure why. Guess it seems like a haunted house: I might find something exciting.

  Besides, I might find something interesting on the ground, like a used condom or a dead crab or nasty panties or a troll or maybe even forgotten weed. If I did, I’d smoke it alone in my room: In a controlled environment, haha.

  I’d be safe, exploring the club during the day.

  There’ll be no one there.

  They only use the place every once in a good while (I think every other Friday, or something like that).

  Hmm…where’s Warren?

  Sure is taking a long time. Maybe he’s making friends with that graphic design teacher, the one we call Mr. Rogers. I hope he didn’t get in the middle of a fight with his goofy school chums: A tall black guy and a Japanese husky guy. I don’t know why they can’t just get along. How hard is it to just chill out? Last time our Japanese pal got so mad at our black photographer friend that he punched a wall…came back the next day with a cast and everything. Pity, the things children do.

  I check my watch, which I keep in my bag and never wear because it just hangs off my thin wrist, embarrassed of me. Where is he? Maybe class dragged on a bit.

  Better check if he’s okay. Besides, I might walk past an attractive schoolgirl.

  So I walk to the design building to greet him, and as I do so, I feel eyes on me. And I start to get the Fever: Are those girls, sitting on that bench, looking at me? They laugh. Are they laughing at ME now? Grr… I don’t know!

  Silence, brain, silence.

  Brain: Ok, ok, can I at least smoke a cigarette later?

  Me: “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

  A janitor, riding a golf cart full of trash cans, stops suddenly and all the trash cans go flying out. The girls scream in a laughing way and scurry off, just watching and whispering as the smiling janitor cleans his filth.

  I look away and take a step…and walk into a wall. Is someone crying? It’s the chubby girl from the other night (or this morning). She says she remembers me. I ask if she’s okay. She goes into a long story of how her mum scolded her when she got home. When she jumped in the shower, she noticed there were hickies all over her left arm – from the shoulder down to her pinky.

  Did I do that, I thought?

  Gross me out.

  She proceeds with her tale:

  Then her mum found an Aspirin bottle full of weed and all Hades broke ass. Her mum turned into a werewolf and kicked at the stove and broke it. The oven door fell off. She picked it up and spanked her daughter with it…slow, heavy hits cutting the air – woosh woosh.

  This Japanese mother, who can’t speak English very well, was shrieking, “No mo waking up at the crack of ass! No mo waking up at the crack of ass!”

  I feel for the girl.

  Beware the Japanese temper.

  Aside from boyfriends that bruise their girlfriends (or vice versa), the one thing I will not tolerate is a parent that attacks their child. That’s a nono in my book-o.

  When she tells me that her mum ran into the room crying and whipped out ye old samurai sword, I flip – my mouth just hits the grass, like WOMP.

  I repeated what she said for dramatic effect.

  “She got out the family blade? That’s heinous.”

  Her mum attacked her. Chased her daughter with it. They both ran through the house – up and down the place – shrieking hideousities. Upstairs, the daughter jumped into the baby room and locked herself in the bathroom while her infant sister, House, cried on a dead mechanical baby-swing.

  The mum kicked the door down. She chopped down the bathroom door in 2 amazing blows and the daughter retreated to the bathtub, barking like a dog to try and scare her away.

  As punishment for being “disobedient” and weird, this mother cuts her back. Chubby girl turns around lifting her shirt and shows me and the sight makes me want to cry. She says that she needs my help. I ask her, “What do you need?”

  She wants to runaway to her cousin’s apartment, near Waipahu Racquet, but she has to go home first to get some clothes. She’s afraid to go there alone. There’s a good chance that the mum will be home, seeing how she doesn’t work and lives on government checks because she got injured on the job, working as a phone operator at Sprint.

  I look at my watch.

  We’re on Dillingham right now.

  She lives behind Kalakaua Intermediate.

  Warren should be out soon.

  The housing behind the school is silent. The sun blasts. When she jiggles the key into the lock, panic sets in. What am I doing? Am I drunk?

  I should turn around right now!

  So we sneak into the place and go up into her bedroom where she throws her stuff into a garbage bag. As we leave and reach the middle of the stairs, we see the mum below us, sword in hand.

  She has crazy eyes.

  She says something to her daughter in a very snake-like way, in Japanese, softly. She spits on the ground. The daughter answers in English, “I can do what I want, Mommy. I’m an adult. I’m 16.”

  The mum’s face turns sad and wrinkles and tilts a little as she makes a sc
ary whining sound.

  Then she whispers a word that I do understand: “Baka,” which means idiot. The frightening thing is that she’s looking at me when she says it.

  The mum SHRIEKS a samurai’s shriek and runs up the stairs in little, quick steps – sword tailing behind her. We run back up. I trip and fall. Chubs grabs the back of my shirt and picks me up with one hand, throws me into the air and onto the landing. I belly-slide over the wooden floor and SLAM into a wall like a bowling ball screaming through a strike.

  I can see into the baby room.

  The child is sleeping on the swing, drooling. Only this time the swing is working.

  Mother & daughter run toward each other – screaming while not avoiding a single step on the staircase. They mum swings the sword down on this chubby girl. Chubs is quick as a cat. She flies her hands up and slaps her palms around the blade, holding it inches from her brow. The mum pushes down, face nuts. They twirl, both of them holding onto the sword. Someone takes a wrong step and they both take a little tumble down the stairs and roll right out the open door. The sword flies out of their hands and spins through the air and lands into the grass with a SHEENK, swaying back and forth. The sun – as if on cue – screams out from behind a cloud. The street is busy. Mother and daughter have a kick fight and a fist parade on the front lawn.

  The police arrive. I suppose, as I watch the fight in awe, that someone heard all the screaming and phoned the fuzz.

  I yell out, “Jiggers, the fuzz!”

  Mum and daughter cry as they fight. The mum punches her daughter on the cheek and it sounds like a loud, wet slap.

  Before the Honolulu Police Department can even get out of their fancy black Mustangs, the mum does a baseball dive for the sword. All of a sudden, HPD moves like God pressed fast-forward on his remote control.

  The mum waves the sword at them and says something nasty in Japanese. The cops – two Japanese men, a white woman, and a string-bean Filipino male – try to calm the lady down, holding out their hands and saying sweet things to her.