Aloha's End (c) 2006 By Michael F. Zangari Chapter 7: An Ordinary Man in a Box Set of Gods

Aloha's End

By Michael F. Zangari (c) 2006 with all rights reserved.

Chapter Seven: An Ordinary Man in a Box Set of Gods

“In a late night Berth in the back of my mind, Francis let go of being Frank Sinatra for awhile. He watched the smoke rise from his cigarette and contemplated the way the paper burned. He was a pal to someone who needed a pal, someone who was as common as a bamboo mat, someone not famous.
Me.
Benny Aloha.
Franks puts his arms around me and plants a kiss on my cheek. He tells me with tears in his eyes that fame is just another level of lonely and that I wouldn’t want it.
Not for all the anything in anywhere.
He tells me that I’m lucky to be on the outside of the rat pack looking for awhile.
That doesn’t sting as much as his tears on my cheeks.
When you are famous there is no way you can escape from yourself.
You’re everywhere.
Every moment is played back at you like a bum studio track. Everything is out of time.
That’s the rat trap known as fame.
Frank says that love is almost as bad as fame at reminding you of how much you’ve failed.
He says the feelings that follow love are harder to escape from than Alcatraz in winter.
He says love and fame is the worst combination there is.
There’s much hub-bubbing about it, but the others agree.
It stinks.
At the berth at the back of my mind, I am the ordinary man in a boxed set of Gods.
We drink good coffee to sober up and say so as the hours turn over each other and fall away.
Later, after it gets quiet, I look across the table at Mount Rushmore, Dino, Sammy, Joey and Don Ho.
I don’t know what Frank sees when he looks across the table at them, but the duet he does with the silences blows my mind.
At the berth in the back of my mind, you never have to go home and deal with anything.
You can stay all night for the price of a cup of coffee and still make cast call on the set.
They let me buy sometimes.
It’s like dropping money into a juke box.
I’m surrounded by voices and eyes that I knew before I knew them.
Voices and eyes I’ll know long after everyone’s gone and I’m alone, playing bone dominoes with myself in a berth in the back of my mind.