Aloha's End Chapter Twenty-one: But not as sweet as you

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari
© 2007 with all rights reserved.
Chapter Twenty-one: But not as hot and sweet as you.
“Thank you Mr. West” says Duck.
“Call me Palani” says TrueWest. “It’s on the magazine.”
“Gracias” says Patita.
“That was a treat” says Duck. “You know the ahi are disappearing from Hawaiian waters, we’re getting fished out by the Japanese trawlers, just outside the boundaries of the islands. It’s a really a treat when we get to eat them wild. Most of the fish are farmed.”
“Sounds like there’s a real vanishing fish story here” says TrueWest. “Like the buffalo disappearing from the prairie under the skinner’s guns, or harpooned whales in the waters off Lahina.”
Patita offers duck the last bit of mango salsa on her fingers. It’s as red-orange as the flame flower in her hair and the lipstick on her thick lips. The fingernails are sharp and red too.
TrueWest looks at Patita’s eyes as Duck goes for the jelly-like goo on her finger tips and licks it off.
TrueWest feels a little pang of jealousy.
He’s just out of his five year thing with his side-saddling paramour, the glitzer, supermodel Shannon Baang.
The Big Baang.
Six foot two with long legs out and the all business mind on box top and banter.
Patita has her eyes squeezed shut and is smiling as Duck takes her hand and kisses it. His tongue flicks out under the rubber nose and touches the goo. His mouth follows quickly, kissing and sucking the salsa off. There is great fondness when their eyes meet. Heat. “This stuff is almost as hot and sweet as you are” he says to Patita.
TrueWest hears a slow burning Mariachi in his head.
He looks Patita over, the big boobs on the table as she leans in to kiss Duck.
He waits for her them to break seal.
He leans back in his chair and says it in Spanish, “Dulche y desa, brido para alguien, que nunca lo ha probado…”
He looks straight into Patita’s maple-syrup eyes.
The long black lashes go down shyly.
“What was that?” asks Duck, “Como?”
“Hotter and sweeter still” says TrueWest, “To one who has not tasted it before.”
He tips the glass at Patita. “Saluda” he says.
Patita and Duck take their glasses and toast back.
Patita looks down embarrassed.
Duck stiffens up a little, and then relaxes.
“Sorry” says TrueWest. The senorita is a very beautiful woman.”
“Oh, I agree” says Duck. “Men like her.
Patita slaps Ducks arm. “Stop that.”
She’s embarrassed.
“It’s the na-nas.”
She pulls up her pueo.
“You speak a Spanish?” says Patita.
“Yes” he says. “Way down Texas ways, it helps get you where you are going.”
Patita smiles and nods. “Accent” she thinks. She is a little surprised.
“Habla un poco Espanol. Portuguese es su idioma.”
He looks at Duck.
I speak mostly Portuguese. He says. “I learned it from my mother. She was as pure a guese as they come, from an educated family that was among the first families brought to Maui as laborers. The rest of my family was Hawaiian, except my grandfather. He was as tar black a man as you’ve ever seen, from Florida. They say he was so black he was purple.”
Patita laughs.
“He was a marine,” says TrueWest, “He fought with the Rough Riders in the Philippines and Cuba.”
“That’s an interesting discussion” says Duck. “The role the marines played in the overthrown of the monarchy in 1898.”
“I know a little” says TrueWest. “I know a small group of marines stopped the massacre of Hawaiians after the revolutionaries stormed the palace. The Hawaiians thought the marines were there to support the revolutionaries. its part of the reason the Queen chose not to fight.”
“Yes” says Duck.
“I also know the Africans tended to bivouac separately from the white soldiers. The Hawaiians noticed this and call them po’polo. Outcasts. They hung out and traded music. That’s how slack key and the hula blues were born, out of campfire jamming and moon light hula.”
TrueWest gets chills thinking about it.
“That’s right” says Duck. “You’re Hawaiian.”
TrueWest smiles proudly.
“Patita and I were talking about the color of your skin. How beautiful it is. They say that the skin color is unique from island to island throughout Polynesia.”
TrueWest looks at his wet, sand colored hands.
His amber eyes light up and flicker like candle light.
“I don’t think about it much” he says.
“You know the Portuguese were not allowed to immigrate if they could read” says Duck. “They wanted to keep people ignorant and malleable.”
“Yes” says TrueWest. “May family is very proud of our literacy. They love that I’m a journalist on television. It means a lot to my mom.”
“I grew up in Texas” says TrueWest. “My family couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii so we moved. My dad was blacklisted for being a union activist in the 1950s. We got threats and all of us could have been killed. So we moved. Mom and Pop never looked back.”
Patita furrows her brow and listens. Her hands folded prayer like in front of her lips, her elbows covering her breasts on the table.
“My father had to learn to speak English without his Hawaiian pidgin. When he did it was a delight. I don’t sound very Hawaiian, do I?”
“I’m not one to say what Hawaiian is and isn’t” says Duck. “I’m Italian. You’ve got the blood. That’s what counts. To some that’s everything, not the way you speak your pidgin. You know the Hawaiian race was reduced by 90% after the missionaries came. There is a time predicted when the Hawaiians will be uda pau, gone.”
Patita laughs. “The population is up again” she says.
“My father said that you never really get the salt of the Pacific out of your blood. I had to come here to find out what the Pacific salt smells like. I want to separate things out. I had to come here. I am going to have to learn how to be Hawaiian now. It’s time. I’m just coming to terms with the tragedy of the history. I want to join the struggle for nationhood, by being a good role model and a knowledgeable spokes person on the news.”
“You need to move out into the country” says Duck, “Out to Pahanuinui where we live. You’ll taste a little Hawaiian salt out there” says Duck.
“It’s very salty” says Patita giggling softly to herself.
She looks up at TrueWest and says “Ud habla un Espanol muey bien. Es un placer eschar Espanol.”
Duck gets it. She is complimenting his Spanish.
Duck looks at Patita. “My Spanish isn’t very good.” He says. “Patita is afraid that if I learn I’ll use it to pick up Latina in Honolulu. She won’t teach it to me.”
Patita grimaces.
“You should come to dinner tomorrow. It would be nice to see Patita get a chance to speak Spanish. There are not many Spanish speaking people where we live.”
“Thank you” says TrueWest. “I will”
Then to Patita, waiting for her eyes to come up.
“Gracias”
“Da nada” she says back to him sweetly.