Hawaii

Native  girls  in  grass  outfits  line  up  together  at  baggage
collection.  They're  young,   plump,  with round brown  faces,  a
garland  of  tropical  flowers  at  the  neck,   and   they   move
suggestively  to a familiar  electronic twang,   their hands   and
arms   outstretched to the side in a waving motion of ocean  surf.
My   brother  and  family are there with a  large  steamer  basket 
making  elaborate Alohas as well. Embarassed at the attention  and
tired  from the long flight,   I go along for the laughs and  make
fun  tearing   away impulsively  at a green and  red  fruit,   the
sweet  orange pulp  and juices overflowing at my lips and  soiling
my jacket.

In the turmoil of war her family is run out of the  country by the
Reds.  The  result  of a fortuitous alliance  between  nations  in
conflict, they find shelter in an ancient city in Japan. When it's
over they emigrate to modern  Turkey  where  the Tatar people have
taken  refuge.  Women are liberated and she goes for fun with  her
girlfriends  to  the Officer's  Club downtown where she  meets  an
American on holiday from his job in an oil field. At the beach she
wears a swimsuit from the States.

The whirlwind romance ends in marriage and they  go live in luxury
at  air-conditioned  quarters on a Persian drilling  outpost  with
three in help. A rough place,  degraded from its mythic past,  the
contrast  inspires in her a momentary sense of privilege and  good
fortune.  At  a dusty stall she finds an  elaborate  neckpiece  of
stamped silver and dark beads down to the waist.

The job runs out and she goes with him to a neighborhood in Queens
by a boulevard, two bedrooms in a postwar glass and brick with all
new people on the way up.  Her eyes are not right and she stumbles
at the language. Looking around for a job he strikes up again with
his college  buddies  on  the  Island,  afternoons at the trotters
and nights at pinochle into the hours.  Convinced he's seeing  his
old  girlfriend,  she  goes crazy and keeps  phone   tabs  on  him
wherever  he's at throughout the day. He  takes her  to his  Mom's
for Sunday dinner and she tears  her apart like a fish.

He finds new overseas employment at a pineapple plantation on  the
big island.  It goes with a car and an upscale  suburban home on a
landscaped plot. She fits right in with two Hawaiin-American kids.
On a visit to the cultivation fields purple blooms extend up  from
the spiny vegetation en masse to the horizon.  She speaks with the
farm labor in foreign phrases recollected from childhood.  In  one
idyllic moment, at a volcanic mountain they find a clear  pool for
swimming  with a high waterfall,  gardenia,  hibiscus  and  lavish
fern.  Light glitters on the black eyes and hair in the  snapshot.
Later  by a hard coral beach with a blue sky palms grow  right  to
the surf at waters edge.

His  girlfriend  works double shift at a coffee  shop in a wornout
neighborhood  in  Hollywood,  a hangout for  recent   arrivals.  A
sleazy  talent  broker keeps shop at the window table.  She  wants
money and makes him crazy.  She pours coffee and chats with a porn
actress who can't keep her hands off her.  Desperate for  anything
he gets work at a studio on the fringe where they write him in for
straight  parts.  Typical for the genre the plots are sparse,  the
stories without suspense.  Shaved and hard,  with a gothic  tattoo
that bears a motto, he has no trouble with the lines. He takes her
on her day off to La Brea for the sights and dinner at a place  on
the Boulevard.

Their apartment is a one bedroom with lanai her mother helps  them
buy  from her wages as a longterm domestic for a senior couple  on
Fifth  in  the  high sixties.  He finds something  at  a  Plymouth
dealership for a Mandarin warlord who takes a liking to him. There
he programs the accounts, trains the girls in Excel, and runs huge
amounts of cash for the boss' enterprises. He fastwalks Diamonhead
to keep in shape.  I stay at the new Hilton in a full-service  hut
on a fake lagoon. He takes me on the airboat to Maui for the black
volcano  and  a burger lunch on the bay.  Later with  my  Nikon  I
explore a tropical paradise for the extoic blooms and chance  upon
a  traditional Oriental wedding with hundreds in attendance at  an
elaborate canopy with tiger decorations.

He  comes stateside to see his Mom in her last days at a  home  on
the Island with a hidden agenda. In reality it's an open secret as
his wife at home reads his  mail for years and gets his phone  log
through  a  connection.  She places nuisance calls and  tells  her
story  over  again to the whore on the line.  In San  Diego  as  a
junior officer in dress khakis a girl picks him up at the base  in
a  convertible.  She has on immense costume jewelry at  her  ears,
neck and wrists but carries it off well with her exuberant  animal
energy.  Hair blows at her face and her skirt rises up working the
foot controls.  At the deathbed he asks what she thinks it will be
like.  Saving  motel  expenses on the way back late  at  night  in
Nevada he drives off the road. 

Unable to get it up, he leaves her the TV and moves to a furnished
efficiency.  Employed  in  social  services  for  the  state,  she 
continues  the marriage on her own.  He gets the health  benefits. 
They  breakfast at a fastfood place on the street and have  Sunday
family  dinners at a Chinese restaurant on Waikiki where the  boss
takes their food orders with unctious good cheer.  Traveling daily
to her clients in hell, she dreams of escape to Turkey in a stream
of  emails  full of vitriol to her list.  They save  expenses  and
travel  as  a  couple  to Las Vegas  for  holidays,  enjoying  the
plentiful  free food.  He gets into an argument at the  slots  and
fractures an arm.

A handsome man he suffers from cardiac disease undergoing over the 
years every possible procedure.  Artery swapping,  under the glare
of lights with all of them in face masks,  in a terrible stroke of
bad  luck,  circulation fails in the extremities and  he  is  made
invalid.  He  continues to trust his doctors  and  experiences  in
addition  a flourish of faith in a certain lord.  Poor  of  health
herself  with  a host of complaints she  nevertheless  takes  care
daily,  cleaning,  providing food and transportation for rehab and
family  events.  I have difficulty with the emails  in  which  she
continues to rail interminably against him and I file them unread.
When  I  relent  her limited mailbox is full and  my  response  is
returned undelivered.  He wakes up with a scream but I don't  hear
him as my bedroom is 6,000 miles away.

2/4/10  Honolulu HI