Aloha's End Chapter Twenty-O Da Kine

Aloha’s End

© 2007 By Michael F. Zangari
With all rights reserved.

Chapter twenty-three

Momi hold the two balls of yellow and green lilikoi fruit in front of her breasts and offers them to TrueWest. With her long black hair hanging down her back, she looks like a different woman. The chop sticks holding the coconut oiled bun are out, and unpinned her hair falls freely from her head like a waterfall. Her hair flows into the trade winds.

She fingers it out of her face.
In it, on the left side, there is the purple passion flower, a complicated purple orchid-like flower with yellow stamen.

With the burgundy blazer gone, her breasts are like shiny hills in back of the offered fruit. TrueWest skims them with his eyes, and returns to hers. They are like rainbow obsidian, dark and reflective.

The tapa print on her red dirt colored pueo accentuates the color of the fruit. Behind her the sky is blue and cloudless. The beach sand is white and glistening.

TrueWest moons at her.
She looks a lot like the pictures of his mother and aunts in the country.
The black and white photos were taken In much younger, happier days on the Big Island. Like the post-cards from the early 1900’s of lei sellers and hula dancers.

He is dizzy with the smells of the flower, the fruits, the oil in her hair and her.
“Gauguin” she says, “Right?’
TrueWest laughs big. “Right’ he says.
“The lilikoi fruits make you relax.” She says. ”I hope.”
She looks down again at the valley between her breasts. She smiles to herself.
”And it increases testosterone levels.” She says.
Her eyes travel across her breast to her nipples.
“Right on time” she thinks. She feels the heat of her blush.
TrueWest takes the fruit from her hands and holds them, one in each hand.
They are the size of small grapefruit.

He looks at her like she is the wicked stepmother in Snow White offering him an apple with little brown needle marks on the skin.
He’s a little nervous at first.

“It boosts da kine... neurotransmitters” She says. ”Makes you sharper.”
She looks down shyly. Then back up like a scamp, a wild one. Her smile broadens then drops serious. “Not that you need that Mr. West.”

I might. He thinks. “By all means let’s have a little breakfast” says TrueWest.

He can’t help smacking his lips a little.

“I like surf on an empty stomach’ says Momi.

My name is “Palani” he says.

She looks at him.

“You’re still Mr. West to me” she says.
She fingers the hair out of her face again. Then blows the rest out of her face, laughing. “The hair is a pain in the okole” she says. I should cut it.”

TrueWest says ‘Don’t you dare.’

She had to be growing the stuff for her at least ten years.

He feels a little nervous in his surfer trunks. They are a little large and hang low on one hip. He digs his toes into the sand.

He has a t-shirt over the top, the one that says “Surf Texas” on it. It’s Red on grey.

“Where are we going/” he asks. “Sandy’s?”

Momi laughs again and shakes her head. She feels like she’s at the courtesy desk again. “No, that would be a little chancy:” she says. “Most of the neck and spinal trauma cases come at the Queen’s Hospital come from Sandy’s. You have to know the currents, the way the waves break and the surf patterns to survive there. Or anywhere…”

TrueWest looks disappointed. “I listen to the surf report this morning” he said. “It’s pumping.”

“You are peddling” says Momi. “We’ll stay in Wai’ki’ki and see how you ride.”
“Don’t tell a cowboy how to ride” says TrueWest. “You don’t have to tell me how to get on or get off.”

Momi smirks and ties back her hair.
She lets the pueo drop to the beach.
“Ok” she says. “I’ll see you out there.”
She grabs her board from the beach and trots down to the wave line.
Out of the straight skirt she really has a butt.
TrueWest watches the waves rise as Momi dives under them and paddles out.
He gets out of his t shirt and runs after her.
The water is warm on his stomach as lays himself out and begins to paddle.
His arms hurt already.