Aloha's End: Aloha's End Chapter Six "A Place Where the Heart Beats Congregate

Aloha's End: Aloha's End Chapter Six "A Place Where the Heart Beats Congregate

Aloha's End Chapter Six "A Place Where the Heart Beats Congregate

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“Aloha’s End,” the cyber-novel is a work of fiction. It is copy-righted in the year of our lord 2006 A.D by the author, Michael F. Zangari with all rights reserved. Any resemblance to any living person or event is purely the product of his twisted imagination and should not be viewed as depicting real events.

Aloha’s End

by Michael F. Zangari

6. A Place Where the Hear beats Congregate

In the morning Benny Aloha is leaning against the wall waiting when the elevator door slides open.
TrueWest looks out into the lobby.
“Is this the right floor?” he asks.
“Depends on what you’re looking for” says Benny Aloha. The words wa-wa out of his mouth like his using a trumpet mute on them. His syllables are soft and rounded.
TrueWest steps out of the elevator and looks him over. “You’re a man of few syllables.” He says.
“Am I?”
“You’re a tough guy to pin down, “says TrueWest.
“Maybe” says Benny Aloha, “Maybe not.”
He walks with TrueWest through the lobby past the waterfall.
They stop at the big stone idol to talk.
TrueWest tells him where he is going. “A place called the Big Bean.”
Benny raises his eyebrows when TrueWest says the name.
“Yeah, the beans a hip little spoon.” He says. “They brew their coffee the right way.
In a pot with water.”
He looks at TrueWest to see if he is connecting.
“That’s the way I like it” says TrueWest.
“I use to hang out there with the Rat Pack in the 60s.”
“The Rat Pack” That catches TrueWest’s attention.
“They’d do Honolulu every so often. We’d go there to get away from the noise and talk about life and the deep stuff.” Benny smiles to himself. “It was a dive. It still is.”
“You knew Joey Bishop?”
Benny ignores the question.
You don’t ask questions like that to an intimate of the famous unless you’re a journalist. It’s a lead in, a hook.
TrueWest fishes air for awhile.
“You’re a cube in a cowboy hat” says Benny Aloha. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’d understand” says TrueWest, “I’m famous by all indications.”
“Not really” says Benny. “You’re known. Like a commercial jingle.”
Benny looks at him “No offense.”
TrueWest isn’t offended. He’s embarrassed for saying the obvious.
“The Big Bean carries a lot of history in it’s booths. In the pack we used to call the booths berths. They always had a berth reserved for us. Always.”
“You still go there? Asks TrueWest.
“In my mind” says Benny Aloha.
TrueWest looks at his face, the lines on his face. He is Hawaiian-Chinese, mostly Chinese.
“I bet you hang out there a lot.”
“Not so much. That dream is pau.”
Benny’s eyes go wide and inside, like they see all things at once. They come back. “Everything changes, you know? That’s the essence of things.” My bean is gone. Your bean is coming.”
“But I’ll think about your bean now” says TrueWest. “It’ll color my bean.”
“Your bean doesn’t smell as good. They are using a new kind of oil in the dining room on the wood. The torches don’t stink as much as they use to. They burn brighter though. You can actually find the light switch in the bathroom so it’s not as dark as it use to be. It’s a lighter dark. The ghosts don’t come out as much.”
“Ghosts?”
“The night Walkers, you know. Spooks.”
“I understand” says TrueWest. “Poltergeists.”
Benny Aloha scoffs then doesn’t bother.
“Yeah.”
Benny leans against the wall and puts his hands into the pockets of his shiny jacket.
“Memories.” He says.” In the nightclub of the mind, the music is the best you’ve ever heard and the food always tastes great. Your best friends are there when you need them. Everything in the nightclub of the mind is better than it ever was, or ever will be again.”
“Poetry” says TrueWest.
“Yeah,” says Benny Aloha. “Poetry.”
Benny looks at him. “You know Frank Sinatra’s music?”
“Of Course” says TrueWest. He’s hip.
He looks at Benny and tries to imagine Frank Sinatra standing next to him, maybe leaning against him with his arm around his shoulder. Frank would be taller, but not much looser.
“You actually hung out with Sinatra and the rest of those guys?”
“I still do” Says Benny Aloha. “In a late nigh berth in the back of my mind.”

Previously at
Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari

Chapter One: A Tall Man In A Big Shirt
Famous cowboy journalist “TrueWest” (as he is known on the internet) has gone completely Wai’ki’ki. He’s in his new aloha shirt. On his chest and across his back Diamond Head is erupting pineapples onto a crowd of fleeing hula dancers. He’s got his jacket over his arm.
He’s as red brown as a coffee bean.
Momi, the dark-eyed desk clerk stops what she is doing as the escalator brings TrueWest up and into view. The golds and reds of the print look fantastic against the tan of his skin. The material ripples against his chest and across his belly as the air conditioning comes on. It throws motions into the curling of his hair like the wind does on the ocean.
He has star quality. That’s what the magazine says that she has tucked down behind the counter with her box lunch. His picture is on the cover. Those words are for the readers of magazines. Like the tourist trinkets and painted puka shells. How do you describe the raw energy of a man? Momi has touched his hand and felt his warmth. TrueWest, live right out of the tube is more than the words can possibly contain.
Momi feels him in her belly and in her chest, like her voice when she is singing a Hawaiian song. It carries the words of a song. It is like is the tremble in the vibrato before it suddenly goes falsetto in an old songs. It has depth and emotion. Momi likes the way he reads the news. It’s in his voice too. It is deep inside his chest near his heart. He shows his emotions. Momi can see it when she watches the news, the way he gets shocked or tears up when he reads a story. He goes beyond words into the realms of spirit and feeling.
Momi has watched the news at 6 for many years, as she eats dinner, with her eyes.
He is sunrise when he comes on and sunset when he goes. She turns the TV off after the news and goes out into streets and clubs of Wai’ki’ki or reads, or works.
Now he is here.
Speaking with him of little things, of wake-up calls and room services is like swimming underwater naked in summer. It is the cool of the water on her with the heat of the sun primed on her skin. She breaths out jeweled bubbles of joy. She misses him on the news. It is just news. No heat or retreat from heat.
Momi touches the wild ginger blossom in her hair absently.
He is like, like…..da kine.
Hot.
Momi looks down.
A little electric tizzy discharges and runs the rim of her piko before it heads south towards her Tahiti. Her eyes go wide as TrueWest comes up into view on the escalator. He lifts his boot onto the moving silver step above him, the pant leg pulled up a little to give a peek at the smooth tooled grooves in the polished leather of his boot.
She goes falsetto inside.
In her mind she fingers the grooves of the boot as she pulls them off his feet. She rubs his feet and pulls at the cloth of his pant leg to tease him. She wants to take him downtown and dance him around, hand feed him sushi from a box and love him.
Everything about him makes her sweat.
TrueWest looks up at the skylight as he moves under it. Then down into the crowd of tourist moving in and out from the lanai.
He brushes off his pants.
Momi’s eyes follow him up.
He pushes his sunglasses up on his nose.
The boots are broken in and soft-shined, not exactly cowhand, mind you, but plain walked, wind worked and rubbed up with leather butter. TrueWest has worked his image into his being like he’s worked his boots, from the bottom to the top. From the boots to his trademarked mirrored sunglasses there riding the hump of his nose. The old rose gold lenses are dull like antique jewelry. He looks good.
It’s TrueWest ladies and gentlemen, in the flesh of his fleshly flesh.
“Howdy ladies and gentlemen, here’s the news.”
The television never clicks off for this guy; it never goes to dot and black.
The camera is on him like a West Texas pan-handle tick. Even when it’s not there. It keeps him straight.
He nods at Momi as he steps off the escalator. He walks lanky between the huge lava rock idols that bracket the entrance to the lobby. He is taller than everybody else by at least a hand. He walks into a bank of potted palms and ferns and comes out near the place where the water falls from the cliff into a pool filled with koi. The fish are the color of the copper pennies on the blue tile at the bottom of the pool. They swim steady, but erratically, in and out of each other’s figure eights, evasively, like they are dodging the coins and wishes tossed by the guests.
Momi’s eyes are waiting for him when he emerges from the forest. He flashes teeth coyly, his eyes averted.
Momi’s eyes are pools filled with shadows. Inside them; the copper sparkle of fish as they skim the surface.
TrueWest feels the heat her eyes are giving. He sunbathes in it.
She bites her lip.
He raises his sunglasses to his forehead. He holds eye contact in a loose, friendly way as he walks to the desk.
“Howdy Momi” he says.
“Aloha” she says
“Any messages?”
She does a little hula behind the desk as she turns, and gets professional. “A few.”
She has them ready. She hands them to him.
He takes them and shuffles through them, looking at who called and when.
He looks up at her and smiles, his forehead wrinkled in sincerity.
“You are from the West side of the island, aren’t you?”
Momi smiles. Yes, from where else?
“Do you know anything about a guy named Franklin Bravanati? They call him “the duck?”
Momi doesn’t answer right away.
She gauges his intentions. She looks down.
She knows about duck. Everyone does. She considers what he is asking.
“Duck?”
“Yes. Quack, quack.” He flaps his arms a little. “Duck. I think he’s a radio announcer.”
Momi laughs. “Yes. I’ve met him” she says. Then she gets sad. “He is older than when I knew him in school” she says. “He has the most gentle, old, koa wood eyes and a soft voice. He talks a lot slower than he did. I remember him as fast and funny. He’s not funny anymore.”
“Where did you see him?” TrueWest in interested. Almost excited.
”On the bus. I don’t remember how we started talking. We were standing up because there was no place to sit. I walked to the back of the bus. He was there. In the middle of the bus holding on. He had on his rubber duck nose.”
“He actually wears the nose” says TrueWest.
Momi is surprised. “Of course. How could you miss it, brah?”
Momi recovers and pads her hair. “Yes. You can see it. It is yellow and orange. It is big.”
Momi suddenly tears up. She looks away.
TrueWest catches the tide as it comes in.
“Momi?” He wants to hear everything.
“I just looked at him. I wasn’t sure if I should apologize or not. I was embarrassed. It took a while but he recognized me. He smiled at me. There was lightness in his eyes. He had the same understanding smile he always had for me; you could see it in the shadow of the beak.
It took a while for him to recognize me. But he did. I was glad. “Hello Momi” he said.
I just started talking to him. He said that everything would work out. One way or another. That everything did. “Everything changes” he said. He smiled again. He spoke slowly, rhythmically, like every word was a flower he was picking for a lei. Each one must be right. The color. The size.”
“What else did he say?” asked TrueWest.
“I don’t know” says Momi. “All I know is that it was over in seconds. My hands burned where he had taken them and squeezed gently. He was gone at the next stop. I saw him get off the bus near the Federal Building.”
“I hear he was some kind of psychologist, a good guy. One day he was OK. The next day he was changed.”
“Yes” says Momi, “It was like he drank a beaker full of goo in a Big Island thermal nuclear factory. They say he snapped all of a sudden. He got the Jeckle and the Hydes. He got wild and became a hairy drooling monster.”
Momi’s eyes get wild thinking about it. “He is an outcast now Mr. West.” she says.
“The duck beast” says TrueWest.
She gets angry.
TrueWest feels the energy shift.
Suddenly she gets defensive. “All of us have a wild beast inside of us, Mr. West” she says. “A hungry angry part of us that fills with lava and smelt and overflows.”
She looks up to see if TrueWest is listening.
He is.
“I am no different. The Goddess Pele lives inside of me. She longs and fears for release.”
Pe’le, the Goddess of the Volcano and creation, thinks TrueWest. “The fire Goddess.”
He eyes come up from the desk slowly, up onto TrueWest’s shirt.
She looks at the spewing volcano on his chest and at his tan arms.
“I can see the Pe’le in your eyes” says TrueWest.
Her eyes come up like flames and burns.
She looks away from him.
“You didn’t have to say that Mr. West.”
“I know,” he says. There is an awkward silence.
He hands his messages back to her. “Could you put these back in my box?” he asks. “I’m on vacation. I’ll get them later.”
“Of course.”
She puts them in the box.
“Thank you Momi” He says.
They are face to face.
“This is for you” she says.
It’s a pencil.
She pushes it over to him. “To write with.”
It’s sharpened to a fine point. The graphite shines like gunmetal.
TrueWest picks it up and looks at it.
“Write about Hawaii Mr. West” she says. “Write true things.”
TrueWest looks at the pencil. It’s special. A number two. He rolls it between his fingers. The barrel is blue foil. It has a yellow fish on it.
“What a great pencil” says TrueWest. “Thanks.”
Momi looks down and blushes hot.
Pele rises in her cheeks.
“I knew you’d love it” she says.


Chapter Two: Fears Flip Inside


“You can’t write true things unless you know true things” says Momi.
“That sounds right” says TrueWest.
“That’s why you should spend time with Benny Aloha.” Her dark lashes fall across her dark eyes. “He know everything Wai’ki’ki.”
TrueWest glances over at Benny Aloha.
He leans against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his shark skin jacket. He is watching people go by. His face is relaxed and amused. His eyes are soft and aware of what passes by them.
“Benny Aloha is a legend” says Momi. “The name “Aloha” is written all over this town.”
“I’ve seen it” says TrueWest.
Momi gives him a knowing look. “But you are akamai aren’t you Mr. West?
Someone has clued you in. That’s why you are here. You know about Benny Aloha.”
TrueWest is staying at the hotel because he got a deal on the room.
“I’m just here on vacation” he says.
‘You are an investigative reporter” says Momi. “You are use to working undercover and alone. You work between the shadows in the dark, in the cracks and crevices of things. Men like you don’t reveal much, especially to a woman like me, a woman who longs to know the things that you know. You keep your cards close to your chest and your shirt over your cards.”
TrueWest’s foot itches in his boots. It must be the boot socks in the humidity.
Listening to Momi talk is like reading someone else’s horoscope.
“You are here to uncover the dark side of our little tropical island. I will be afraid to read what you write.” Momi’s eyes go big than squint down at him.
“It scares me to be so afraid.”
Momi looks off into the distance, past the waterfalls and the idols.
“A man like you wouldn’t understand that.. You are driven by passion. You dive into knowing. You are are naked in it. I know only fear, and fear’s flipside, desire.” She looks away. Then she brings herself back to TrueWest like a rubber ball elastic strung to a paddle.
Her eyes come on to his. “I want to know things too, Mr. West. Many things. But I have not done what you have done. You make me want to know things I’m afraid of knowing.”
TrueWest looks at her. His que is empty of words. “Like I said, I’m on vacation” says TrueWest. “I’m here to forget what I know. The less I know the better.”
Momi’s eyes drop away.
“But what if I know them? What then?”
TrueWest is thinking he should give the pencil back before it’s too late.
“What was before will be over forever, finished, no more” she says. Those big eyes go saucer. “I will be like the duck Mr. West” she says, “changed.”
True West considers this.
“That’s right.” He says. “Then you can deal with the hard part of that, what never was and will never be again.”
TrueWest wrinkles his forehead in significance.
Momi’s not ready to go there yet, but she’s getting ready to pack in the spotlight of her mind.
She whisper echoes his words. “What will never be again...”


Chapter Three: A Place Where and Angel Fell


“I promise I won’t tell you anything” says TrueWest. “Even if I know something.”
“Don’t worry about me Mr. West. You must ell the news. It’s your job. The multitudes depend on your for the truth. You will have many scoops to tell them when you leave Hawaii. You must talk to Benny Aloha right away, even if I beg you not to. He will tell the stories that need to be told. Stories you have never heard before.” She looks down. “They are dark stories, Mr. West, stories about paradise after the angels fell.”
TrueWest notices a spot on his shirt.
A place where an angel fell.
It’s probably from the rainbow shave ice he had at the International Market.
He brushes at it.
“The forbidden fruit has been bitten and tasted in Hawaii.”
“I think I got some on my shirt” says TrueWest.
“The innocence is gone” she says.
“I rented Gidget Goes Hawaiian” Says TrueWest. “I can get it back.”
Momi looks into the face that hangs on TrueWest’s head. “But there is more to this story than filling your endless, dogged search for the news” says Momi. “Isn’t there?”
She squints her eyes down and evaluates him. She knows a little something she isn’t afraid of knowing.
“I have come to know a little something about you.”
She takes out TrueWest’s registration card. She lays it on the table like it is trump.
“Your real name is Palani Ku? You are Hawaiian.”
That’s not exactly a secret thinks TrueWest. The gossip columnist and feature writers mention it all the time. It makes him seem exotic and different to some people. “I’m from Texas” says TrueWest,” he says, “The genes I wear are a good part Hawaiian, but the dust all over them is Texas. This is my first visit to Hawaii.”
“There is a part of you that is missing” says Momi. “A part that you are seeking.”
“I pretty much know where my parts are” says TrueWest. “I know who I am.”
“”But there are parts you that you do not know about.” Says Momi. “You are new around these parts Mr. West. You might not recognize them. If you found them. Benny Aloha is a good person for you to talk with about these things. He knows about the parts you are seeking. He can help you put them in place.”
“How much does he charge for labor?” asks TrueWest.
Momi is taken aback by his famous wit.
He looks into her big sincere dark eyes. There’s a light in the dark again. She winks at him. “Benny Aloha will change your life.”
TrueWest hasn’t heard a sales pitch like this since the Fuller Brush guy came to the door in 1966 and wouldn’t go away. He talked through the screen in the window. His mom had to call the police.
“Are you his agent, or what?” asks TrueWest.
His eyes drop from her eyes to her moist lips.
They are kissing at him, slowly forming around the name “Benny Aloha.”
She blows the name at him like a bubble.
“I guess I should probably talk to Benny Aloha” says TrueWest.
“Yes” says Momi.
A hotel guest comes up to the desk. He is laughing to himself. “That Benny Aloha knows everything” he says shaking his head.
Momi smoothes back her hair and straightens her dress. “If you need anything else Mr. West, please feel free to give me a call.”
“I will” says TrueWest. “Thanks for throwing me a fish.”
Chapter Four: A Man Who Knows Everything
Momi’s hand comes out gracefully as he approaches.
“This is the special concierge, Benny Aloha. He knows everything. As you may know he was with the Rat Pack when they were in Honolulu.”
TrueWest introduces himself to Benny Aloha.
“I’m TrueWest” he says. He extends his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”
“I know” says Benny Aloha to the TrueWest part.
He takes it. They shake.
Benny Aloha drops TrueWest’s hand and puts his own back in his pocket. He looks at the nails on the other hand, just trimmed.
TrueWest stands with Benny Aloha in the lobby.
TrueWest has his cream colored Hank Williams suit on. It’s loose, like linen, with the subtle piping on the sleeves and shoulders of the coat. He has it over his shoulder.
He’s got his cowboy hat in his hands.
He flashes his teeth and his eyes.
The sparkle is in there.
“The Rat pack?”
“Yeah, “Benny Aloha says. His eyes get distant and misty, like he’s remembering a hang-over. “Yeah, “the pack.” I was a kid.”
He has a yellow silk shirt on under his jacket. His chinos are baggy and loose. His penny loafers are shined underneath the heavy fall of his pants.
People check in and out at the desk.
The blower on the fan comes up like the trade winds. Benny Aloha inclines his head up to feel it on his face.
TrueWest looks down at this boots for awhile, then up again. “Momi says you know things nobody else does. That you are holding onto secrets.”
“That’s what they say.” He sounds a little like Don Ho.
“You won’t tell me any?”
“Then they wouldn’t be secrets” he says.
TrueWest looks at Benny.
Benny looks back at him.
“Right” says TrueWest.
Benny Aloha looks him over. “You just rode into town?”
“Yes” says TrueWest. “Yesterday afternoon.”
“Your brain is probably filled with peach fuzz.” He says.
“Peach fuzz?”
“Yeah, you know, jet lag.”
“Yes. I’m still a little out of it.”
“Get yourself some Kona Joe” Benny says. “A couple of cups. It might help wake you up.”
“It cures peach fuzz?” asks TrueWest.
“No. Time is the only cure” says Benny Aloha.
He gets distant again, but comes back. “Don’t use a lot of sugar.”
“Do you recommend cream?” asks TrueWest.
“Not many places have cream” he says. “But a cream substitute, like half and half or milk is good. I don’t like the chemical creamers.”
TrueWest nods.
“Thanks for the lowdown” he says. “I’ll get some.”
“Don’t mention it” Benny Aloha says.


Chapter Five: Even the Heart Is a Time Bomb


TrueWest gets his Kona Joe and newspaper and sits down at a table near the pool. There’s a big yellow and blue striped umbrella opened over it.
He pulls at the coffee and pages through the paper.
A young woman’s voice cuts into his reading and thought stream.
“You’re the disaster guy” she says.
TrueWest looks up.
The young woman is standing at his table in a black bikini with pink polka dots all over it. It reminds him of the zip-o-tone in 1960s comic books. In fact she looks a little like Betty from the Archie comics only she looks like she’s pushing twenty.
The shadows from the palms fall across her shoulders and into the cleavage of her breasts. They move back and forth over her skin when the trade winds go, moving the palms. Between the shadows her skin glistens with coconut oil.
She’s sweet with it.
In the shadows the gold belly button ring, half in and half hanging out of the bellybutton goes twinkle.
“I watch you on TV and then, like, “Surprise!” right out of the blue sky here you are. TrueWest. I’m like, “That’s not really him,” right? So I start watching you closer for some kind of sign it’s really you. I look at the cowboy cloths. Then I see the cowboy hat on the table. Then I’m like, “It’s really him, Eek, you know? All of a sudden I’m watching you live in Hawaii.”
TrueWest manages a smile. “Yikes” he thinks.
“Then, I’m like thinking, “Wow. When I see him on TV he’s usually at the scene of some really awful disaster, like minutes after it happens, you know? Walking through the debris and rubble in his cowboy boots, shaking his head going like, “oh the humanity….the humanity.”
“That’s my job,” says TrueWest. “Ratting on reality.”
“When I’m watching you I’m thinking to myself, “anything can happen at anytime,” you know? Like you think you’re safe but nothing is really safe. One minute things are normal, you’re going to college and stuff, then WAMMO , something happens. Your life is dust. The next thing you know you’re a refugee standing in line for government cheese.”
“I can’t argue with that” says TrueWest. “That’s the way it is. Reality is a control freaks worst nightmare.”
“So here I am, on spring vacation, right? And I’m looking at you from across the pool, and I’m like getting really nervous. I’m thinking, like “What is he doing here?” Like maybe something is about to happen. Like you got the tip off about a major catastrophe and you are hanging out waiting to get the scoop.”
“Catastrophe’s are usually a surprise” says TrueWest, “We don’t usually get press releases before they happen.”
“But you know more than most people do. Press people get tips from people who give tips” she says. “When something is about to happen you sense it in your nose for news.” TrueWest takes a deep breath.

He lets it out again through his news hose, a bigger than usual sighing. “Something’s always happening” he says. “That’s what the news is all about.”
She looks frightened.
“I have to know” she says. She isn’t kidding. “Is something bad going to happen?”
TrueWest looks at her. “I hope not.”
“But something bad could happen, right?”
“Even the heart is a time bomb” TrueWest says.
He looks into her eyes. They are like television cameras. She quivers in her bikini as he talks to her in his deep network news voice. He still has a slight drag to his syllables. Part of his Texas accent. “I can’t guarantee you that nothing bad will happen. I can’t.”
The young woman is upset. He can see it. He looks into her eyes again. They are a turgid blue cool. “As far as I know,” he says, “everything is all right. I’m doing pretty much what you’re doing, I’m here on vacation. I’m enjoying the tropical balm. I’m doing sunshine and waves. Checking out hula, papaya and sea life, you know, hanging loose. I’m on vacation.”
She manages a giddy smile. “Cool” she says nodding. “I feel better.”
“I’m glad” says TrueWest.
She is embarrassed. “I’m like bothering you, right?”
“No” says TrueWest. “But you’re blowing my cover.”
“The cowboy hat and boots are a great disguise” she says “like, nobody knows you’re here. Your secret is safe with me.”
TrueWest doesn’t have an answer for that one.
Her observation was as sharp as a nail file.
“I’ll just slink away now and like, um... be embarrassed.”
He smiles.
“Stay safe” says TrueWest.
“You’re making me nervous again” she says.
“Sorry.”
She looks back over her shoulder coyly. “I’m like talking like this on purpose, you know?” She says.
“I figured you were in control” he says.
“I am” she says. “See you on the news.”
TrueWest watches her polka dots pad on back to the pool.
She slips in and swims to the other side.
TrueWest folds his newspaper.
He toasts her with his coffee cup before sipping it again.
It’s good, sweet with raw cane sugar and milk.
In the news room it is usually black.

For Aloha's End in Context visit 360.yahoo.com/michael_zangari