Maui Wowie

11/10/1995 

The night had begun to sour an hour or so before…with the rancid tropical drinks laced with rum, complete with the obligatory orchid and tiny umbrellas.  The drinks were served by howlies, pretending to be natives, to the patrons, pretending not to be tourists.  Neither managed to pull off the bluff.

My first mistake was eating the orchid.  The group that had gathered around me, happy to be led through the streets of Lahiana by a man of my supposed stature, began to cast long, suspicious looks in my direction.

Fair weather fools they were.  Without me, they would be perfectly content to see Maui perched atop the stools of one of the tourist traps with a cheap string of shells around their necks.

Not me.  I was searching for the real Hawaii…home of the most beautiful people in the world.  I wanted to dig deep into the depths and find the bones of those who lived when Lahaina was just a sleepy little whaling village…and before…when King Kamahamaha ruled the sand and surf.

To get there, sacrifices had to be made.  I explained this as quietly as possible to the rookie sitting on my left.  He was dressed in a newly purchased authentic Hawaiian shirt that was made, of course, in Hong Kong.  His wife, a dainty little waif who clutched his arm and smiled at everything, hung by his side and onto my every word.

I pulled the guy close.  “You understand, some of our group must die.”

All the blood drained from his face.  The waif choked on her Mai Tai.  The crushed ice streamed out of her nose.

“How’s that drink?” I asked

“Tolerable,” she managed.

Her husband leaned closer.  “What did you mean by that statement?”

I waved my hands around.  “Yee, God,” I whispered, “sacrifices, of course.  They’ll be stripped naked and staked to the sands, eaten by crabs, their bones used to make trinkets.”

The waif threw up on her shoes.  The husband stood up and backed away cautiously, his eyes never leaving my face.

I took another shot of rum.  Thinning out the heard is a process one must go through to get to the true core.  And no one is better at turning a large group into a small one than me.  I am a professional.

I jumped up and headed for the door.  “To the tunes,” I shouted.

Half the group thought I said, “tombs,” and we lost them.  Better still.  There wasn’t room for all in the karaoke bar.

I ordered another drink and listened half-way through some Japanese businessman trying his hand at Bon Jovi’s “Wanted: Dead Or Alive.” When I made my move.

“Somebody grab the mike,” I yelled as I tackled the would-be singer.

Nobody did.  As the businessman’s friends came to his defense, my “friends” headed for the exit and the safety of the street.  I found myself there shortly, helped by two able-bodied security guards on the look-out for people just like me.

“Perfect,” I grinned.  “Two survivors.”

My compatriots, Burt and Christine, were waiting…for my company or because I had the keys to the car? I couldn’t tell, but they had been through much worse with me before.

“Where to now?” Christine wanted to know.

“To the tattoo parlor,” I answered.

Burt immediately hailed a cab.

To hell with all of them.  I staggered down Front Street to the parlor, fell inside and demanded service.

“What would you like?” the tattooed tattoo proprietor questioned.

I pulled myself up to attention, or as close as the rum would allow.  “I want,” I said indignantly, “a gold stake in my left ear, just like King Kamahamaha.”

“No problem, mate,” he said.  “But you’ve got to understand that I do body piercing here.  We don’t use a gun.  I want you to feel the total piercing experience.”

With eyes gleaming, he pulled out a long, shiny ice pick and waved it in front of my eyes.

I didn’t waver.  “You’re going to stick that in my ear?”

He grinned.  “Anywhere you like.”

“Does it hurt?”

A bigger grin.  “The pain is tolerable.”

I asked for the ice pick.  He handed it over and leaned on the counter.  I hefted it, checked the weights and balance as I checked him out.  The dude was pierced all over…holes in each ear, both nostrils, tongue, everywhere except…

I slammed the pick through the back of his hand, nailing him to the counter.  His screams followed me out of the door.  I surmised that his tolerance of pain wasn’t as high as he suspected.

I managed to make it to the beach before my legs finally gave out.  Rum has that effect on me.  I inhaled sand for a while before passing out completely, waking up hours later in a puddle of slobber and sea water.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it,” a voice rumbled behind me.

I rolled over on my back and saw King Kamahamaha himself, outfitted only in a thong made of leaves.  In one hand he held a crude spear…in the other, what was left of my bottle of rum.

“Are you him?” I asked.  “Kamahamaha?”

He nodded.

“The King!” I cried.

He laughed and sat down beside me.  “No, I’m Ken Kamahamaha.”

I frowned.  “Any relation?”

He shrugged.  “Some.”

I contemplated his answer for a while and reached for the bottle.  Together, we emptied it. 

“What’s that matter, brudder?” he asked.  “You look sad.”

I was.  “I wanted to get my ear pierced with a golden spike, just like King Kamahamaha.”

“You mean like this?” He held out a huge hand.  In his palm was a golden spike.  It glistened like a diamond in the light of the full moon.

I lay back on the sand.  “Put it in.”

He shipped out a large knife with a dull point and went to work.  When he was done and the blood had dried, he asked, “How does it feel?”

I fingered the golden spike imbedded in my left ear.

“Tolerable.”