The Ala Wai Rotary Club

Omigod, thought Wanda, it’s already five! And here’s Soul Patch Sid strutting them
skinny bowlegs into my ABC Store. Always wears black: isn’t he a picture?

Wanda ducked behind the cash register, hosed down her halitosis with a Listerine
PocketMister. Checked her hair, lips, straps, then jack-in-the-boxed up just in time
to see the back of him bob back to the coolers to fetch his two Paniolo Pale Ale and
a half gallon of milk.

“Hi, Sid,” said Wanda, showing her gums. “Looks like it’s Friday again.” She put
her fingers to the base of her throat.

“That a fact?” said Sid, checking the date on his clamshell. Wanda wondered, where
were the eyes behind them silver shades pointed just now? She hitched up her tank
top.

Sid pushed his tongue into the pouch of his lower lip. “Don’t forget –”

“Your Luckies?” Wanda whisked out a carton of cigarettes. “Picked you out a
brand new box.” She held it under her nose, inhaled its sweet smell. “Yum. Fresh
today.” She put a knuckle to her lips. “No wonder you got such fine bone structure,
Sid. You do drink a lot of milk. Nice choppers, too.”

“I got me a expresso machine so’s I can make my own lattes.” Sid horked into his
fist, wiped it off on the left armpit of his t-shirt.

“Oh, Sid,” said Wanda, “I do love a nice latte. But I don’t get one any too often.
Can’t even afford Starbucks, never mind buy one a them machines. Must be
sweet.”

“Sweet it is.” The cash register showed sixty-eight-twenty-eight. “Ayyuum,” said

Sid and passed her a fifty and a twenty. He jammed the nail of his pinky into a crack
between a couple incisors and gave it a good wiggle.

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 Wanda laid Sid’s money on the cash drawer. “I seen you mixing one up once at
your place on Ala Wai. Through the front window. Looked real yummy. All foamy
and creamy on top.”

“Did it now?” Sid looked out into the street. Wanda could see the shadow of Sid’s
buddy, Shithouse Rick, who never came into the store.

“I just might drop by sometime and get you to fix me up one,” she said, smiling
big and tugging at a wine-red earring. She squinted at the monitor, took a single
from the drawer, rubbed it between her fingers as if it might be counterfeit.

“Don’t stay there much.” Sid slid his lower jaw back and forth a few times.

“Well, you live there, don’t you?”

“I guess.”

She put her voice in the microwave again. “Well, suppose I was to walk by, and
you was to ask me in for a drink, I’d have you make me one of them striped drinks
that comes in a tall glass, with all them bubbles on top.” She gestured bubbling up
with her fingers. “I’d probably start off by sucking off the foam. She looked at him
hard but got no response. “Or does a girl save the foam for the end?”

“Could you say whether I got any change coming?”

“Oops.” Wanda snapped him the clean smooth single; the silver and copper luged
down the coin return. He scooped the coins without counting them.

“I seen you and Shithouse Rick and Jingle hanging out on the south end of the
canal lots. Playing cards and lawn chairs and flicking cigarette butts into the water.”
She closed the cash register drawer, and leaned on the counter, fixing to chat for a
piece. “You want your receipt?”

“That’d be the Ala Wai Rotary Club.” Cuter’n a sand crab, Rick fast-walked out
without cracking a smile, his spine tipped a tad. Didn’t look back, neither. Had

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enough chit-chat for today, probably. She tucked his receipt into her back pocket.
She’d been saving them, but why, she didn’t know.

Sid was starting to warm up. She would work her magic yet, but it would take
some time.

__

Afternoons around two or three o’clock, four men meet near the bridge where
McCully Street cuts across the Ala Wai Boulevard over the canal. They bring folding
chairs and a card table, play paiute or hearts. None work, except by choice. They
are the Ala Wai Rotary Club.

Somewhere nearby there is hidden a backpack of Kona Big Wave Ale from the KTA
Superstore or Long’s, from which the gentlemen discretely refill their insulated mugs
as they wait for the sun to set.

There is one great tradition at Rotary. Cigarettes are smoked right down to the filter
– creating a whiff of burning cotton is a big plus – then expelled from the mouth into
the canal, with the goal of making ripples. The police don’t like this much, but the
members of the Ala Wai Rotay Club neither harass tourists for money nor catcall
the women.

__

On a moonless night, the beach at Lanikai looks like an inky rug studded with little
glowing stars, except they don’t twinkle, just pulse gently, left on the sand for some
mysterious prank. No sooner would you find your favorite constellation when a
bright blue wave breaking on the shore’d wash away the old star map and fill the
spaces between the grains of sand with a fresh new universe of phytoplankton.

[[makau and makai – mountain side and ocean side remind]]

“You like this towel, Sid?” Wanda spread out a colorful oversize terrycloth map of
the islands on the white sand. “I got it with ABC store receipts. It’s kind of our towel
because I used a bunch of your receipts.”

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Sid glared at Wanda. Was he offended? “You never take your receipt,” she said
apologetically.

“Well, then.” Sid smacked his lips. Guess that makes me a majority shareholder,”
said Sid. He dragged his tongue across the word ‘majority’. He’d seen her tucking
his receipts down the back of her hot pants. “You reckon?”

He was teasing. So hard to read that man. She lifted up her nose, but also teasing –
flirtatiously. “Well, that’d depend on how many of them smokes and beers ended up
with Shithouse Rick,” she said. “The way I see it he smokes a hell of a lot but never
has any of his own. He never brings any beer neither. Which, possession being
nine-tenths of the law, may make him the rightful owner. What do you reckon?” She
looked at Sid for approval.

Soul Patch Sid pulled a pouch of drum and started making a rollie. “Well, I’d reckon
he’d be right pleased his holdings were being safeguarded by his best buddy from a
conniving businesswoman friends.”

Wanda watched him pause to tongue dart the cigarette paper. Lord help her!

__

“Where the heck is everyone?” said Wanda, nestling into Sid’s side

“Well, for one thing, it’s late,” said Sid. “A lot of folks have gone home. The surfers
prefer Sandy Beach or Makapu’u because the reef breaks up the waves a long way
out. And the tourists would rather cut their feel on coral in Waikiki and buy junk at
the International Market Place.

“So fuck them. That’s a good thing,” he said. “When the sun goes down, this here
place is paradise abandoned. And it’s ours.”

Tonight reminded Wanda of a Star Wars comic book cover or something. A wet
February moon giving the Molukua islands horns.

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“Shithouse Rick says he slept here one nights and the noctiluca’d made a
perfection reflection of the night sky.”

“Gosh, he knows a lot of shit. That why call him Shithouse Rick, Sid?” Wanda gave
her underwire a tug, and pressed her breasts against him.

Sid spat out his cigarette, and sat straight up. “What the hell, Missy? Suppose you
tell me right now why you’d bother to ask such an ignorant question? Why’d you
think they call him Shithouse Rick?”

“How would I know that, Sid? I don’t know many folks in Waikiki yet.” Wanda’s
voice quavered. “No need to get all upset and stuff. I just like to learn about your
friends.”

Sid’s eyes fired up like twin laser pointers. “So how about I make it real simple for
you, Miss High-and-Mighty-Works-in-an-ABC-store? They call him Shithouse Rick
because he lived in a shithouse for a couple of seasons.” Wanda whitened. “Happy
you asked?”

“Sid,” she said. “It wouldn’t make no difference to me if your best friend lived in
the Waldorf Astoria or a second hand chicken coop.” With her Marilyn voice: “I
wouldn’t care if he still lived in a shithouse.” She took his hand, traced the spaces
between his fingers. “You got such nice long fingers, Sid. Bet you could play ukulele
like that guy on YouTube if you put your mind to it.”

“Pansy-ass instrument,” said Sid, “for playing sissy songs. I was a serious
shredder before my hand seized up.”

“If I’d ever saw you making music, Sid, I’d be wishing I was the guitar.”

__

Wanda and Sid bathed on Lanikai in the moonglow behind Mol

Sid had gotten into a habit of making random chewing motions. After he’d got off
the crystal meth, he’d flown to Columbia on a fake military passport to get himself a

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two thousand dollar set of dental implants and smoke a shitload of dope. Between
that, the anesthetic, and the language barrier, the son of a bitches were set all
wrong, and he’d had to see the beach dentist from the university’s free clinic half a
hundred times to get them ground down.

“Them choppers still bugging you, Sid?” said Wanda kindly. It was a warm still
Oahu night and she and Sid were spread out on the fine white sand of Lanikai
overlooking the Mokula Islands, backlit by a gibbous moon. Oops. Sid hated talking
about his teeth.

“Get out to Waimanalo much?” he asked.

“Been to the beach,” said Wanda. “Don’t swim, though. All those breakers.”

“Rick worked at Waimanalo Muffler and Auto Body for a piece, but he couldn’t
afford the rent out that way, even after he quit drinking. So every night he’d buy
himself a hamburger and a shake, then trudge out to the beach to sleep.

“The beach had no security back then, not even a lifeguard. Mosquitos were
terrible that year, so between them and the rain, he started sleeping in the change
building. So Rick slept on a concrete floor, got up every morning, showered,
freshened himself up.

“I tell you, that man was real clean. Tidy, too. You know in his younger day there
was women in this city who loved nothing more than to watch that man shave?”

“I believe it,” said Wanda.

“Well, Rick’d met this great big girl named Phoenicia in Waimanalo. Pranced
around the beach in a little string. Real Queen Bee she was. Ever see dough
hanging out the top of a mixing bowl? The two of them cozied up for a while.
Anyways, she got to complaining about getting too much sand in her underpants
and such and dumped Rick for a guy in Waikiki named Jingle.

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 “Jingle had his own room on Kalakua Avenue above the joke shop; he’d rented it
from the owners. Phoenicia’d bus in from Waimanalo to shack up with him. She
talked like it was the Waldorf-Astoria.

“I’d been there. It was a hole. Anyway, Rick took it hard. Fell off the wagon.
Drinking and smoking both.

“I tell you, that Phoenicia was downright ungrateful. A man who doesn’t smoke or
drink or pay rent is in a position to be mighty generous to a good woman. But, oh
no. That wasn’t enough for her.”

“Shame on her, Sid. I wouldn’t complain if I had me a boyfriend like you, Sid. Or
Rick.” She gulped guiltily.

“Well, it was stinking hot one night and he got piss drunk and stripped himself buck
naked and rolled in the sand and yelled at the ocean and shit like that before he
conked out in the change room. Which would a been fine except for two things. The
first was that some old lady at Waimanalo Baptist Church decided to take her girls’
Sunday School class to the beach that day.

“The other problem was that Rick’d went into the women’s side of the change
house by mistake. Not to mention that he threw up his hamburger and milk shake
looked like dog brain on the way up. So the first of them little girls running into the
change house got quite an eyeful.

“Can’t blame the church lady for phoning the authorities, though I wonder whether
she would have if he’d regularly attended services with her. It’s a kind a prejudice in
reverse, if you get my meaning.

“Anyways, the judge felt sorry for him, seeing as everyone out that way is related.
Sentenced him to 90 days for indecent exposure, but let him out on weekdays so’s
he could work. His boss and the muffler shop said they couldn’t do without him.

“But every cloud has a silver lining. Jail turned out to be great for Rick. He couldn’t
smoke or drink, plus he wasn’t paying rent or meals. He could’ve treated Phoenicia

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like a goddamn queen. He would’ve, too. But, oh, no. She was in love with Jingle
the joke store guy.

“The pair of them just threw it in Rick’s face. She and Jingle spent all their money
on jokes and ‘d do card tricks and shit all goddamn night pulling chickens out of a
hat, setting money on fire, pick-a-card-any-card and all a that shit. After they got too
drunk to do their tricks, they’d hit the couch and get amorous as all hell right in front
of him.

“Poor Shithouse Rick.”

“That’s so mean of her, Sid,” said Wanda. “I can feel it still hurts you.”

“Yah, but what’d I just tell you?”

“Huh?”

“What comes around goes around. Phonecia’d inherited $800 when her dad died,
and a nice set of china. Once Jingle spent the 800 loading up his room with plastic
snakes and magic wands and marked cards, he dumped her like a box of hot dog
shit. Hocked her plates, too.

“So she went to the jailhouse to visit Rick, but he wouldn’t have nothing to do with
her. She even said she’d stay with him in the shithouse once he got out of jail.

“Was ever a feather blown so to and fuckin’ fro?” She had her chance.

‘Haven’t seen Shithouse Rick in a while, Sid. He back in Waimanalo?”

“No, he’s staying with his Mom. And he’s gonna be staying inside for quite some
time.”

“Why’s that, Sid?”

“Dumb sumbitch tried to bite the end off an egg he’d just microwaved. The
goddamn thing exploded in his mouth like a gernade. Never seen anything like it.

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Them eggshells was just like shrapnel. Blew both his cheeks out. Can you pitcher
it?”

“We were halfways between the vetanarian hospital and the Waikiki Health
Center. Rick figured the vetanarian’d be cheaper, and he’d seen it done in the
movies, in fact, so had I, but usually the vetanarian was in a situation of duress, so
we drug him to the regular hospital. After they stitched him up, damned if his head
didn’t looked just like a baseball. and he’s been too embarrassed to come out.

“’Course you wouldn’t want some slap hitter with a Louisville slugger who’d had
one too many mistaking Rick’s head for a brand new Rawlings and try to hit it out of
the park.”