The Land of the One-Room Mansion
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HAWAII PUNK Raoul Vehill Enlightened Pyramid Publications This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2009 by Raoul Vehill All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to the following address: Enlightened Pyramid Publications 17 Ger Y Mynydd Bangor, Wales LL57 1AG United Kingdom www.enlightened-pyramid.com Cover art by Kit Grant Editing by Pigrôt De la Clíve Copy editing by Slag Shamshaft Typesetting by Chimp Whitman Advance reader’s edition ISBN 978-0-9815550-1-0 Hawaii Punk GIRL PROBLEMS 1 The sun shoots thru the louvers, hits me in the face and I wake. Worms slither thru my head, eels crawl in my stomach, hangover. An arm lays across my neck. Outside the glass slits of window brite white clouds float across the brilliant blue Honolulu sky. I slide out from underneath the limb. I stand in a purple pair of surfer shorts, and look down at Sid, a half Korean/Hawaiian mohawked way Punk chick who believes that when Sid Vicious died, he reincarnated into her body. Whoever else slept at the party last night must be in the bedroom. I look around the apartment, dirty beige carpet, green chair and couch, TV and coffee table littered with empty beer cans. I walk, sick, to the fridge and open it. This reveals 2 and a ½ cold slices of pizza, some mangoes, and bingo, 1 final beer, which I crack and chug. Ambrosia! When I finish I check the empties on the counter, TV and coffee table and find like 3 more ½ empty warm beers. These I drink. Soon my hangover cures itself. My black Chuck Taylor Converse All Star basketball shoes, or ‘Chucks’, sit under the couch, so I put them on. I head for the bathroom, go to the sink, kick the door closed and turn on the cold water to splash my head and face with cold water. Before I do I notice that dried blood stains my fingers. I smell blood and pussy on them. I open my velcro fly and look at my penis, clean of blood. My mind draws conclusions. I almost fucked Sid last night but couldn’t because I got too drunk. I don’t remember. No toothbrush, shit. It’s in my backpack in the living room. I’ll brush my mouth and teeth out later at the beach but steal some mouthwash from the counter to swish around in my mouth and gargle before I spit it down the sink. My reflection looks back at me from the mirror with big black eyes, a full-mouthed sneer and a black buzzed hair cut with a white skunk stripe bleach-dyed in. I turn to the door hung with a full-length mirror draped by hung beach towels. I’m still kinda skinny, but getting a hint of a beer gut, and a little too pale for Hawaii. Oh well. I turn my arm to check out my big blue full dog profile tatt. A t-shirt waits in my backpack out in the living room, and a shower at the beach, so I exit the bathroom, find my bag, open it and grab a sorta clean t- shirt, a sleeveless Exploited one with a big red mohawked skull on it. I look at Sid who glares tazers, lights a cigarette and looks away. She wears a black ‘Sid Vicious died for you’ sleeveless T shirt, thrashed, in which the dead punk star snarls 1 Hawaii Punk and plays the bass in white. She wears a safety pin thru her bottom lip. Short, crazy and built like a Frank Frazetta jungle queen, Sid hangs out mostly by herself, lives on the streets I figure, doesn’t shave her armpits and slam dances harder than lotsa dudes. I can tell she hates me so I walk out the door without saying anything. Romance. My shirt flows in the breeze as I walk down from the 3rd floor apartment, out past the parking lot and onto Wilder Street. I’m heading for the beach after I get a beer. There should be enough change in the front pocket of my backpack plus 35 cents that I found in my back pocket. I turn west on Keeaumoku Ave, walk on the freeway overpass and watch the traffic zip by in 2 directions under me. It trances me out a little so I shake it off and continue down the Avenue to the liquor store. I add up all my change. $2.37, enough for a 40 oz. Too conspicuous. Maybe a tall can and a shot, which I buy from the old Chinese proprietor dude and continue past Tower Records and thru Ala Moana Shopping Center, across the Boulevard and park to the beach. I wish I had screwed her. She’d be a way rad girlfriend except she probably doesn’t shave her legs either, plus she spins in a different orbit than the rest of us. Maybe someday soon I’ll run into her again when I’m not as smashed. After a swim in the relatively flat clear blue water, I grab my bag and hit the beach shower with a ½ bar of soap wrapped in a baggie from my backpack. I shower in my shorts. When I finish I use my hands to squeegee the water off of myself before pulling out my towel and drying off. I brush my teeth in the water fountain. The sun climbs a little, 10:30, 11:00 am. I lay my towel out to dry, before picking a space on the low, stuccoed beach wall that separates the park grass from the beach sand, and lay on the wall. Who am I? Paul Cruz, Punk rock singer, California Mexican, college dropout, between jobs, cribs, bands, no girl friend, total social outcast. Fuck it. This is Hono-fucking-lulu HAWAII. Who needs an apartment? I sneak a peek at the orange lifeguard tower and fish the beer from my bag, crack and swallow. Then I hide it between my bag and the wall in the sand. The lifeguard, a brown skinned Asian woman, like 25 maybe, watches swimmers in the opposite direction. So sneaking drinks every few minutes ain’t no big hassle. Soon after the beer a real buzz creeps on. Sleep creeps, but I stay awake and let the sun do its thing till my shorts and towel almost dry. The sun lowers past 2 o’clock. I put my shirt on, grab my bag, carrying my towel to fully dry, and head for Ala Moana Boulevard. 2 Hawaii Punk I sit at the bus stop just to pass time. Then I look at the sidewalk. No way! A big assed roach lies on the sidewalk. I snatch it up, get up, cross the Boulevard back to the park and sit with my back next to a Palm Tree. I dig matches out of the bag and light up the thumb sized prize, keeping an eye out. The thing has 4 or 5 good sweet hits that I puff. Pakalolo, Da Kine. It’s enough. My head feels light and the world slows. A couple plays Frisbee. Beyond a row of Palm Trees I watch the beach and beach people. Some teenage white girls run into the water, splash and play. Maybe I should go and get a closer look,...nah. Across the park, Boulevard and traffic the city hustles. I jump in and crawl thru, south down the strip, past apartment building condo complexes and offices, 10, 15 stories high. I think of that movie, Earthquake. Half a mile up the Boulevard curves kind of east. I hit University Avenue and hang a left by the Varsity Theater, Mama’s Pizza and the liquor store. I continue under the H1 overpass almost to the University of Hawaii, dead action on a Saturday. Now I’ve got to choose between the dorms and the Manoa Hilton, a 5 bedroom house up in the Manoa valley north of UH. A bunch of DJs from the college station live there and I’m allowed to hang, or even sleep on the couch. Plus they’ve got a big TV, cable and a can of leafy spleef and bong on the coffee table. Up the winding road I take a couple of rights and yet another into the parking lot road which bends again and opens into the lot space which slopes up towards a lush green hill past the carport underneath the house to the backdoor where the asphalt has climbed so that the back end of the building is now the ground floor. I enter and walk thru the hall. Jay, Kat and Jimmy pass a spleef as they watch music videos in the living room. “‘S’up?” I ask The trio lethargically turn their lizard heads and look at me. “Was’up Paul?” answers Jimmy, short skinny dark Indonesian dude. His long black hair shines.