The Atomic Hula by Mike Marino (novels in english txt) 📕

to feed the thigh high hungry population with exposed flesh and fantasy while Bob Dylan revisited Highway 61. The "my generation" couldn't get no satisfaction except on the music charts and Mickey noticed that more GI's were flooding the island like maggots on a carcass. Most of these troops would not be staying long on their Honolulu stopover enjoying grass skirts and swaying hips. In short time they would pack aboard a transport and become part of the humidity soaked, drenched in country that would be stationed on the ground that year in Vietnam. Some would later trade the cocky khaki for a black body bag as they would begin the body count countdown of the 50,000 plus dead that war would spit up in our faces by wars end. Hardly a fashion statement to compare with a mini-skirt and thigh high white go-go boots.
Somehow, miraculously, Mickey had made it to 16 and had spent two birthdays and Christmas times two on the island. Vietnam was not on his mind that day, but as he left the library his thoughts were consumed by the prospects of the evening luau he was taking Tina Soretto out to. Tina was a nympho from Monterey, aren't they all? In Monterey I mean? She was a bonafide sterling silver Daddy Warbucks girl whose father owned a string of auto parts emporiums up and down and up again on the California Coast. Tina was 19 when he met her visiting the island for a week with her parents and when he met her on the beach it was as though Ike had landed at Normandy and Mickey was now in retreat from advancing forces to powerful and determined to stop. Most girls he had met had been a blur, Tina was a classic sculpture that you couldn't ignore and wanted to possess. She had a boyfriend (or two or three) back on the mainland and Mickey knew he was a vacation diversion for her. They would meet again within the year when they were both in California, re-igniting the flames, only this time fanned by Santa Ana Winds hot from Baja. He knew he was just a passing fancy for the moment to her, as every car has a spare tire. In this case, he was it.
He did not know however that tonight events would occur that would have his life spiral out of control, sending him into a fiery tailspin, a jet shot down over a meaningless rice paddy in meaningless old French Indo-China.
He waited for her at six and she made her grand entrance down the walkway heading towards the beach and the bum wearing a blue floral print bikini with shirt tied at the waist making a pirate princess fashion statement. The combination was Monet meets Gaugin for an aperitif at a sidewalk cafe in Marseilles near the docks. Dark freighter waters and voyeurism smacking against the pilings. "Let's luau, Mickey" she said as she approached his airspace. The words fluttered from her mouth, flower petals leaving a beautiful trail of scents and promise. He followed them where they would lead as she took his hand and the walked down the beach to an already crowded scene of tourists and locals alike, pig in the ground, and a big beach bonfire casting golden glows on the sand as the sun began to set. These luaus where informal, but relatively structured to give a palm frond feeling to the visitors and nothing Waikiki like more than a reason for a beach party.
While they joined the crowd someone was passing around a bottle of wine, beer flowed from all directions, a meteor shower of Japanese brews, not to mention the marijuana Mickey had brought with him. In the past year he gave up drinking and instead, preferred to puff, inhale and exhale. He needed the exercise anyway, and decided he didn't like waking up with a Honolulu hangover hovering over him all day long. Marijuana was just what the doctor ordered, so when he began to drink that night, his now intolerant system rebelled and was getting drunker by the minute as Tina played Eve to his compliant Adam in the garden feeding him the wine of grapes, beer and also joined him in smoking joint after joint after joint, jointly.
The uke's strummed, the drums drummed, the pig was served, pasty poi, oy! The moon was full and Mickey and Tina strolled off to find seclusion in this unimaginable fairy tale land of enchantment, They made love at a deserted spot, not many of those around, and it was a sexual Kodak moment to be preserved in his photo album memory forever, and then it was time for Tina to leave the ball and return to her room and family before the clock struck twelve midnight and her carriage turned into a pumpkin. Mickey walked her to her hotel lobby, kissed her goodnight and made his way down the beach to his "tree home", staggering, stumbling like one of those drunken sailors downtown. Everything was spinning, gyrating, twisting, all at the same time and when he reached home base, he found he had lost his sober super powers...and couldn't make it up the tree to the safety of its canopy, so decided to sleep under the overturned catamaran instead. That would have been a good idea, except, he didn't make it and passed out just three feet from it. He lay there obviously oblivious until he felt someone poking at him, yelling at him and then yanking him hard by his arms to get him on his feet.
Hoping it was Tina coming back for more he smiled, at least until his vision cleared, and clearly saw two policemen, the beach patrol staring at him as though they had found Al Capone hiding out in their jurisdiction. "Got any i.d on you?" barked the German Shepard of the two. "C'mon, any identification will do. How old are you? You're drunk." Mickey was amazed at the astuteness of this obvious mental giant among men. He did produce nothing. He had no i.d., no driver’s license, no nothing so decided to come clean and fess up. "I'm 16 and yes, a little drunk, officer. No, my parents aren't on the island, and yes, I live on the beach, but don't usually sleep face down on it," refusing to give up the tree and his compadres. That was all they needed and picked him up and he was classified as an underage runaway and vagrant and taken to jail before processing and handed over to juvenile authorities. He quickly called Doc and filled him in on the recent turn of events.
The next day in that wayward home for wayward windward boys, Doc came by to visit and informed Mickey that he had contacted his parents and they were going to call the juvenile authorities, which was not an oxymoron as authorities are usually juvenile with decoder rings and badges and big belt buckles standing guard in fast food parking lots, jails, malls. They all started as hall monitors, the parochial and public school version of the Hitler Youth. Somewhere along the line the grow up to become attorney's general and FBI. "Damn, Doc, should have listened to you. So, what happens now?" Doc gave him that Yucatan grin, "Ya gonna stay awhile. Not long, a month me'be, depends on when your folks can get the money and ticket here to get you back home. Then you can leave here, but you have to leave the islands too." Doc laughed again, "Ya know, you was like a runaway Cap'n Cook discovering these here place, get hooked on 'er and when you have to leave, it leaves a hole in ya. That's why I never left here. No mainland for me, no sir. Nuthin' there that ain't here, and me'be less. Anyways, they gonna call today and you can talk to them and get every thing squared away. Jes so you knows, Sam got picked up for having stolen property, but he faces long time. Been busted before, and Chaiku is in here too so try to avoid him if you can. Could be trouble."
Both laughed and the JO waited aside at the boarding gate until Mickey got on, turning once more to look at Doc, a face he would never see again, but had taught him so much. "Aloha, Doc!" and waved. Doc aloha'd back and saluted. Mickey then took his seat, fastened his seatbelt and waited to lift off. It was crashing down on him now like a wave at Makaha crashing to shore in winter. It was time to bid aloha to Pele and her Atomic Hulas as the panoramic Pan Am panorama of deep sea blue ocean below swallowed Oahu whole. The island shrank as they reached altitude plus, reducing its image to a tiny dot, the size of a period on the page of a book. As it receded, it engulfed Doc, Kimmie, Sam, Kali and his own childhood, fading now and evaporating fast from his present into his past.
He drifted into deep dream sleep as the plane droned east towards California's west coast. Mickey dreamed of Michigan, its evergreens, birches, lakes and snow, but when he awoke the snow had melted and he could now see the haze on the horizon diffusing the bright LA lights, as the plane began it's descent and land in the City of Angels with broken wings, broken dreams, broken wine bottles. California, the stuff of myth and legend since the time of the conquistadores. The golden land of sandals, surf and sand, Hawaii's institutionalized half-sister.
Yes, he thought, it would be nice to get back to Michigan...but not right yet. the plane taxied onto the tarmac into Steinbeck’s promised land of milk, honey, and beaches. Mickey smiled. What the hell....Michigan will have to wait. California, here I come!

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Publication Date: 11-18-2009

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