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.

"Aloha's End" Chapter 20: He Bites The Fish

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari
© 2007 with all rights reserved.

Chapter Twenty: He Bites the fish

“I am gordita” says Patita. “Patita Gordita. She pushes the plate back and picks up her water glass, sipping at it, embarrassed. She looks over the rim of the glass as she sips with big brown eyes that spark like Fourth of July sparklers. She holds a soft amused focus on TrueWest, who leans back appreciating her.
Duck has his hand on her leg. He squeezes it softly, feeling the familiar tingle of contact. Patita looks at him from the corner of her eyes and smiles.
“You’re not fat” he says quietly. “Preciouso.”
The waiter returns sweating. There’s sand on his cheek and his cloths are rumpled.
“Can I take your plates?” he asks.
“You touch my plate and I’ll kill you” says TrueWest with a little too much force. “And that’s a promise.”
“Slow down Tex” says Duck. “You’re not being rousted. Eat. Enjoy.”
The waiter says “Not done yet, eh?”
“No” says Patita. “He’s still eating it.”
TrueWest is embarrassed.
“Shaka” he says, doing the loose hang loose sign with his thumb and pinky extended from his fist.
“Shaka plenty, brah” says the waiter. “Never mind.”
He curtsies and moves back from the table raising his tray above his head like an umbrella. He twists around and he is gone.
Duck brings his rubber beak down over his nose again.
Patita leaves hers on her forehead.
TrueWest smiles weakly as the waiter turns and leaves.
‘I’m not done” he says weakly to the couple.
“Got it” says Duck.
TrueWest plays with his food with his fork before spearing it and eating it. He chews happily. Still embarrassed.
“I’m going to try again to be a good little journalist” he says. He goes again for the tape recorder and slips the pause switch off.
“You worked with kids, right?”
“Yes” says Duck. “And teens.”
TrueWest considers Duck.
“You should wear a dinosaur suit or something” he says. “The duck thing doesn’t quite make it.”
“He was very successful” says Patita.
“It might help with your credibility problem” says TrueWest.
Duck squeezes her thigh again.
“Great idea” he says.
“You’ve made a point of saying that there is a big effort to destabilize and discredit you” says TrueWest. “You’ve gone as far as to say that ‘they’ve” TrueWest pauses dramatically, and continues “tried to kill you.”
Duck nods, the rubber beak going up and down slowly, seriously. “Anthrax” he says.
“Why would anybody go to all that trouble to harass an ex-employee?”
“Money” says Patita. She is serious too.
“I had a feeling there were some yankee doodle buckaroos riding around and hooting in the background” says TrueWest. “Let me get this straight. The whole rig-a-ma-roll is about Saturday night on the town, I mean, somebody taking money ear marked for children’s service being diverted and spent on other things.”
Duck raises his eyebrows and smiles.
“Where exactly did you work?” TrueWest asks.
“The roller rink” says Duck.
TrueWest waits for the rim-shot that never comes.
“The roller rink?”
“Yes” says Patita. “The Rolling Donut.”
Duck smoothes his hair back and raises his eyebrows sincerely.
Patita and Duck nod together.
Waiting.
TrueWest slides the pause switch on again and thinks.
He shrugs, and pushes it back on. What the hell.
“That’s one part of it.” Says Duck. “How services are funded and how the money is delivered.”
“In a bowling bag” mutters TrueWest.
“It’s not a bowling alley” says Patita. “That’s next store. That’s another story.”
“More to the point, the place is toxic” says Duck.
TrueWest looks at the duckbill on Patita’s forehead.
“Poison?”
TrueWest looks at the couple. “I’m here on vacation” he says. “Don’t you something softer to talk about, more human interesty?”
Duck adjusts his bill indignantly.
“There’s a lot of money missing” he says. “It’s that simple and dull. To some wild eyed accountant out there with a fondness for finding crooked figures, these books would be better than sex.”
He spears his last piece of ahi with his fork.
“Human life is cheap” he says.
“Better than sex, eh?” TrueWest considers this. He sucks the fish juices off his fork, then goes for the last bit of fish.”
“Yeah” says Duck. “A little hard core pulp accounting.”
“Pulp accounting?” asks TrueWest, “What in God’s holy turnpike name is ‘Pulp accounting?”
“You know” says Duck, “ You kill a couple of figures here. You kill a couple of figures there. Strange figures appear and disappear. The lights go out. When they come back on, a few more figures are missing. And still the rollers in the rink go round.”
“Embezzlement is really boring as stories go” says TrueWest. “Even when you are stealing the money from impoverished Hawaiian children and other roller skaters.”
“It’s where the money is going that’s interesting” says Duck.
TrueWest fork pauses in front of his mouth.
He’s getting interested. Damn it.
He bites the fish.

Aloha's End by Michael F. Zangari, Chapter 19: Fish Don't Moo

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari
© 2007 with all rights reserved.

The thumping of the bass pumps on TrueWest’s stomach like the kind of sex that Momi says she likes, up there on top of old Smokey humping her chosen like a small wave on a long board,. With all get-out de-light. Not that there are a lot of small waves. She says she like paddling out, too.
TrueWest is sweating like a gin tonic in a frosted glass.
He’s beading and sweating thinking about it.
People on the dance floor are undulating in groups of twos and threes all around him. Heck, everyone dances in Waikiki, even alone. They ride the humping bass like a buckaroo on a Brahma bull as it dives down and syncopates and comes up again.
The waitress bumps through the crowd holding on to her tray.
The sun prisms on the clouds and sifts through colors and shades as it goes down.
At sunset everything stops. The crowd moves towards the beach and sits on the sand. It’s a great orange ball on the horizon, sinking into a flame colored sea.
“When the sun drops completely into the ocean there’s a green flash of light before it disappears. It’s only there for a half a second or so, but if you see it, the kahuna buzzer is that you are granted a wish.” Says Duck
“Damn” says TrueWest.
It’s a mighty flash, and mighty wishes are made on it, all across the darkening beach.
“What causes the flash?” asks TrueWest.
“Probably pollution” says Duck.
Patita nods.
The flash is in her eyes. Her forehead is strained and sincere.
The last light dissolves into an orange and peach fizz against the clouds. The sky slowly blackens and one by one the stars wink on.
There is an unmistakable chill coming in from the ocean on the wind as the waves break gently on the beach.
“I’m hungry” says Duck. “Let’s eat.”
They head back up the beach, tearing themselves away from the stars.
Duck has his arm around Patita.
Their bare feet leave intertwined foot prints in the sand.
TrueWest stays with the stars for a few seconds then heads back to the table.
They settle in.
The palm trees over head rustle as the trade winds take them and shake them gently like pom poms.
The waiter brings several files to the table.
They are Duck’s and Patita’s.
He hands their medical records to TrueWest and then to the couple.
“Told you so” said Duck. “They’re going all out to discredit me.”
Patita looks up from the record she is reading. She looks around. She goes into her purse for her dictionary. She looks up the word she is stuck on.
Her forehead furrows.
She looks at Duck from the corner of her eyes.
They get menus. Duck orders the seared ahi, a bow fin tuna with mango salsa.
“It’s a red fish” says Duck. “It’s a lot like steak, only better.”
TrueWest looks skeptical. “Don’t talk to Texas about meat” he says.
Patita goes after some poki, cubed raw fish marinated in Soya, garlic and onions with a little sea weed chopped into it. She also has a plate of sashimi from the bar. She brings it with a small bowl of hot mustard,
“I like it raw, more better” she says, setting it on the table.
TrueWest pokes at it. “If it moos, shoot it.”
“Fish don’t moo” says Duck.
TrueWest thinks about it. “Right.”
They eat the fish and chips with a hot Hawaiian salsa.
It’s good.
“You don’t know the half of it” Duck says. “You should taste it right out of the net, cut up on deck and washed down with iced beer.”
TrueWest imagines the scene.
He fishes around the salsa and comes up with a tiny pepper.
“What’s this little pecker?” he TrueWest.
He holds up a little chili pepper about the size of the tip of his little finger.
“Pathetic” he says.
“That’s Hawaiian” says Patita.
“Go easy” says Duck.
TrueWest laughs. “I’m from Texas he says.”
He pops it into his mouth.
His face goes red and purple immediately.
The paper umbrella in his drink almost goes up his nose as he grabs his drink to put out the fire.
“Hot, eh?” asks Patita.
“Yes.” He barks out.
After awhile dinner comes. More fish dishes go around the table.
The Mahi Mahi is fresh and stuffed with crab meat.
TrueWest got the nod of approval from the waitress on his order.
Most tourists like that. The Mahi Mahi.
Patita orders the bakala. The shark.
Everyone is polite for a few seconds then they dig in.
It’s a long couple of minutes before they surface again to the company.
“Iye” says Patita.
TrueWest and Duck smile.
“Yes.”
They eat quietly, making pleasant conversation.
As the meal is ending, TrueWest says “I suppose I should ask a few questions.” He looks into Duck’s eyes. “So I can write the meal off.”
Duck and Patita smile.
He gets out his tape recorder and sets it on the table.
“What do you want to know?” asks Duck.
“I want to know if I can have the rest of your ahi” says TrueWest.

Aloha's End by Michael F. Zangari, Chapter 18: The Dog That Did It In Her Yard

Aloha’s End
© 2007 by Michael F. Zangari with all rights reserved.

Chapter Eighteen:

‘We are in real trouble here” says Duck.
TrueWest thinks Will Rogers. The only people who should say “we” are editors and people with bugs.
“I’m broke. I can’t get work. We are being squeezed like an empty bottle of ketchup.’
Rosa squeezes duck thigh. He smiles sadly.
TrueWest shrugs. “That’s what happens to whistle blower” he says. “It’s a grand Yankee tradition. Don’t mess with the cash flow. I think it’s one of the devil’s Ten Commandments. It cuts two ways, like most devil law.”
“I’m not whining about this, it’s my choice. But it’s hard to watch your life being torn apart from the core. It impacts the family first. I may have to leave my wife and kids so they can survive.”
Rosa smiles sadly. “Duck is the dog that did it in my yard’ she says. “I am angry at him.” She looks at him and shakes her head. “Life was very simple before this happened. Now things are very complicated.”
She turns the ring on her finger.
TrueWest looks at the piece of cheap costume jewelry.
He appraises it.
Two bucks, Candy machine booty.
Duck smiles and cover her hand with his. The fingers slip in twine like puzzle pieces making a picture.
“I gave Patita that ring. It cost me a couple of bucks to get it out of the machine with the wheelie claws. I liked the color of the plastic stone. A dark ruby garnet.”
TrueWest imagines Duck at the machine, entirely intense and focused, wheeling right and left before the drop, nudging a little right and hipping it to shake things up and settle the ring.
“I had planned to get her a better ring before all this happened.” He says.
“I like it” she says, looking aside and down, then up again like she’s been caught at something. “It’s my hoodoo ring. I call the spirits to protect.”
“She twists it when ever she worries. Lately she twists the thing like the steering wheel of a hot rental car taking the curves on the way down the volcano to Hana on Maui.”
“He is obsessed.”
She looks at the rubber duck nose.
“He will not give it up or wait until we are strong.”
It’s a very old argument.
“I want justice” Duck says, with a little too much emphasis.
TrueWest takes it in.
It is intense, but loose at the same time. They are a good couple. He likes them.
He dips the sashimi in the bowl of hot mustard and slops it into his mouth. It burns before the raw fish cools his tongue.
He eats a sliver of ginger.
He drinks his drink.
He picks up another limp slice of ahi, yellow fin tuna and dips it in the mustard.
“In Mexico, making love is more important than ideas” says Patita. “Ideas change.”
“Imagine that” says TrueWest. He does.
“She needs less hoodoo and more honeymoon” says Duck.
He looks aside.
‘You are a dog, duck” says TrueWest, “Get another kind of job, any job, and forget about this crap. It can’t be that important.”
Another round of drinks comes.
The band goes into the second set. They play Hawaiian reggae and R & B.
La Patita makes it obvious that she wants to dance. She’s doing it in the chair, making both Duck and TrueWest nervous.
“She’s got more joints than other people’ says Duck, looking at her move in the chair and noticing TrueWest’s interest as well.
“Musica Latino” says Patita. “Katchi katchi.”
The congas and timbales ricochet off one another. The beat moves fast like hula drum rhythms.
“That’s Hawaiian….” Says Duck.
“Enough gibble-gabble” she says.
She grabs Duck by the shirt, then TrueWest.
“You gonna dance?”
“Do we have a choice?” asks TrueWest.”
“No” says Duck.
La Patita parts the crowd on the dance floor like Moses at the Red Sea. She’s about five two, but assertive. She’s in there fast, stripping off her top to the pueo underneath.
She’s into a hot little skank before TrueWest and duck can straighten their shirts.
“How does she keep that thing on?” asks TrueWest.
“She doesn’t always” says Duck as his duck nose slips down.
Patita looks at them like they are dirt, then smiles them down to smile.

Aloha's End by Michael F. Zangari, Chapter 16: That old black magic called propaganda

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari
© 2007 with all rights reserved

Chapter Seventeen: That old black magic called propaganda.

“Listen, if you’re in danger then I don’t want to have dinner with you. I’m on vacation” says TrueWest. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Nobody wants trouble Mr. West. But it seems to find you anyway” says duck.
TrueWest shrugs. Yes, it’s true. That’s the news.
He looks around carefully, casing the place for evil doers, peg legs and eye patches. The atmosphere is more balloon head, Hawaiian shirt and lava lava.
He brings tape recorder to his mouth, and speaks to the microphone grid on his digital. “There must be seven ways to wrap a sarong around a women’s body. The drape emphasizes the hips or the breasts or the waist. It brings out the curves in the feminine form and highlights the trade winds that ripple the cloth like water…”
He looks around for suspicious characters.
The dudes usually sit at the bar and harass the waitress about her tattoos. They usually don’t tip, except for the Peter Lorrie type of nogoodnic.
He tips.
Sometime he falls.
He is morose and alone. Not unlike himself.
He can’t help but be evil.
He has been stuck in the ass with the devil’s pitchfork. They always have a bad day, even when it’s good. Something’s always missing. They have stolen it. That’s not news. That’s life.
‘Pitch fork editorial” says TrueWest into the microphone grid.
Several people are looking back at him.
He smoothes back his hair and sucks at his teeth to get the pineapple rind out from between the cracks. He lowers the tape recorder. He nods at the Ducks. They know about getting it in the ass with the fork.
Patita is smiling at him, almost laughing. “It’s not that complicated” she says. “You have to understand the situation.”
Her eyes sparkle alive.
“They probably won’t hit us in public, unless they want to make a point” says the Duck. “We’re safe here.”
“I’m not comforted” says TrueWest.
“I’m not crazy, paranoid or delusional Mr. West’ says Duck, adjusting his beak. “Several people have already been killed.”
“Great” says TrueWest.
“You maintain that your medical records aren’t accurate” says TrueWest, “That they have been twisted to make you look bad.” He looks at Duck. “That someone falsified your medical records and released them. That’s down right nasty.”
“It hasn’t done much for my social life” says Duck. “They did the same thing to Monica Lewinski. In fact the medical records aren’t even mine.”
True West considers this. What is the impact of opening up someone’s medical history?
“They are yours.”
TrueWest lets that one sink in then blanches.
“Don’t mess with me Duck” he says. “I’m nervous enough.”
Patita laughs.
“Just kidding” says Duck.
“Go on.”
“Look, its island style. You can be killed with rumors. They call it “stink talk” around here.
“Stinky talk” says Patita.
Stink Talk thinks TrueWest.
His mom talked stink about stink talk. How bad it was.
She gave him stink eye too, a real “you’re in trouble plenty” kind of stare when he did something wrong. People give stink when they are evil, angry and jealous.
People stink in general.
“Once the coconut wireless starts to throb like turbine it’s a hard thing to stop. The stone drums begin to sound. The strings on beer can telephones begin to unravel and hum. The message goes out over phone lines and comes through open louvers. On the coast, it doesn’t take long for rumors to become facts in the mind. It becomes a telepathic ripple that goes tsunami.”
‘Telepathic?”
“Islands are an interesting place to live. They are surrounded by water. The water produces a lot of negative ions.”
“Yes?” says TrueWest.
“Negative ions increase the audibility of thoughts.” He says.
TrueWest makes a note and squinches up his eyes up in thought.
“I heard that Mr. West” says Patita.
TrueWest looks back and shakes his head.
“Look at the 80 year plus Berkley study on negative ions” says Duck. “You’ll never think again.”
“I didn’t think I thought in the first place” says TrueWest. I’m a down to earth sort of guy.”
Duck shakes his head sadly. The beak drifts left than right than left again.
“That’s how lives and careers are destroyed, by cocktail innuendo, pillow talk and beach and back door gossip. It doesn’t take much. And whit it’s done as an organized, intelligent tactic, it can be lethal thing.”
TrueWest has seen it.
“On the islands it is against the law and punishable by death. It’s a form or sorcery called wai’wai’ko’ko’ola. It’s still on the books.”
“Sorcery?” says TrueWest.
“Yes, says Duck, that old black magic called propaganda.”





For more information on Wai'wai'ko'ko'ola visit the zblog.

Aloha's End: Chapter 16 Like Peanuts at Honky-tonk happy hour

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari

Chapter sixteen: Like peanuts at honky-tonk happy hour.


TrueWest waits at a bar on the beach at Wai’ki’ki.

A red catamaran is tethered in the water and bumps against the sand as the tide comes in.

It’s calm.

The trade winds are light in the trees and flicker the palms.

TrueWest talks to a little digital recorder he holds in the palm of his hand.

“Its late afternoon, and I’m sitting bar side on the beach of Wai’ki’ki. We are down in Hula town, in a place is called “Dukes.”

The colors are an intense, blues and greens against the cream of the sand. Diamond Head, the crater of the big extinct volcano is off to the right. I had to drink a couple of Cuba libres to dull my senses enough to be her. My eyes aren’t use to this kind of color. I’m completely overwhelmed and slightly snockered. There’s a crow building for the band. It’s a party atmosphere. People stand around dancing to each other’s conversation while the sun warms things up. There are lots of bathing suits and oiled up skin around here. It’s like a mud wrestling match at Virginia’s Secret. Only there are no secrets here.” TrueWest nods in irony. “At least not in the bathing suits. There are a few local people here and lots of tourists and honeymooners.”

TrueWest bites into a piece of rum soaked pineapple and listens to the band tune up. ‘The only place you can hear falsetto singing like that and a steel guitar is the West Texas panhandle and Hawaii” he notes. “About the same amount of oil too.

I am waiting for the duck to arrive.

I have confirmed what he told me yesterday morning, more or less. There’s been a general effort to discredit him. They are passing out his medical records like peanuts at a honky-tonk happy hour. It’s unbelievable the amount of information available. It’s like a tour package brochure. It’s got lurid pictures and graphics in it. It’s as lurid as a postcard.

According to what I’ve read, he’s a sociopath, a chronic liar, a manic depressive and a child abuser, a violent and unpredictable man with a penchant for wearing rubber duck noses.

All in all he’s the kind of source I dream of. He has Instant credibility.

The progress notes are extensive. The sex is great TrueWest looks up. “It’s a great read.”

“The duck says the records have been falsified to make him look bad and they do. Meeting in public in broad daylight seems to be the safest way to proceed.” He says.

“This weird scenario keeps popping into my head. In it he shows up with a large machete and hacks several tourists to death before he turns on me, “Here’s your story you bastard…”

The bartender and beach boy are comply rapt.

They keep drying the same glasses over and over again.

TrueWest looks over to the archway. “That’s him now.”

The bartender and beach boy whip their attention to the left as the duck appears. He slides through the oily, sun-baked crowd. He is holding a woman’s hand. She is small, about 5 foot 2, with classic Mayan features and raven black hair long , kinky and springing out from under a Balata “Z” hat. She’s got Big Island black Neptune sunglasses on, dark suckers with chopstick black frames. Her lips are big and sensuous and glistening red in the sunlight. TrueWest notes the tight jeans and the t-shirt tucked in with rolled up sleeves.

She has big breasts.

The duck bill she is wearing is identical to the Ducks.

“Noted’ thinks TrueWest, letting the detail go slowly as the trade winds come up.

The Duck holds her hand up as if getting ready to twirl her as he comes through the dancing crowd in front of her.

The Tiki bar is packed.

“Aloha” says Duck and TrueWest says it back to him.

“This is la patita” says Duck. He is wearing a matching black Balata hat and sunglasses.

‘Pleasure” says Duck, taking her hand.

Patita does a diminutive curtsy and smiles. He big brown eyes open and one him.

La patita furrows her forehead and looks at duck from the corners of her eyes.

“She doesn’t trust her English” says Duck. “She speaks four languages.”

Patita nervously turns an emerald ring on her finger and looks around. Her lips pout out, as if she’s thinking hard about something.

“There aren’t a lot of duck noses here” says TrueWest, “You two are easy to spot.”

“That’s the idea” says Duck. “On the other hand, this is Waikiki. Nobody notices beaks in this crowd. Look around. People dress pretty casually here.”

TrueWest does. Most people are wearing as little as possible or are upholstered like couches or sundeck chairs.

La Patita laughs stifles a laugh until it bursts out musically.

TrueWest becomes self conscious of the day glow aloha shirt and matching shorts he’s wearing. He knows they don’t go with the cowboy boots. That’s why he took the boots off when he got there. They stand independently on the table. The drink he is sipping on has a pineapple, twisty straw and umbrella in it. They stand out behind the boots. It looks like the fruit and the parasol are stuffed into one like a giant mai tai glass with tooled leather piping.

Duck and Patita pull out chairs, duck rests his hand on the back of Patita’s and scoots it in. He flips his around and straddles it, duck style.

Duck adjusts his nose and smiles at TrueWest, his sunglasses sparkling.

“I have to admit it’s hard to take you seriously with those rubber noses on. I mean, this isn’t a game show you are pushing. Its hard news” says TrueWest. “Frankly, if you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol it cuts into your credibility.”

Duck eyes the boots with the parasol in it.

TrueWest flags down a waitress and orders another drink. “Want something?” he asks.

La Patita orders a mineral water with and extra lime, and Duck gets an iced papaya juice.

“The only thing we are under is a gun” says Duck. “I mean, we got the nose and the hats, sure, but we’ll take a duck test if that’s what you want. We are sober as a judge that’s sober.”

Patita looks wryly at him. “Who’s dat?” she says.

Interesting thinks TrueWest, that’s not what I’ve heard. He supposedly favors a tab of LSD nestled in a psychedelic mushroom stuffed with cream cheese, heroin and cocaine. He supposedly breaths marijuana smoke out when he speaks like a dragon, whether he has a joint in his mouth or not. He says he’d drug test.

The stuffed mushrooms arrive with the drinks.

“Compliments of the gentleman over there in the balloon hat” says the waiter.

Balloon guy squeezes the rubber sausage he wears around his head like a hoku and smiles. “Pou Pous” he yells. “For the Ducks and the Cowboy.”

TrueWest raises his mai tai in salute.

Duck and Patita wave to scattered applause.

Interesting. Thinks TrueWest. He orders another drink before the waitress leaves. He watches the butt wiggle through the crowd in black shorts.

“Welcome to the tropics” says Patita. “The heat is hotter than not.” She speaks slowly, her consonants hard and separated. Hot-ter. He smiles at her eyes. The hot comes on hard and the ter comes softly on the second syllable. “Nice” He thinks.

He looks at Ducks beak.

This guy is a goofy looking, He thinks.

The alcohol is rubbing his goose.

TrueWest goes for his network interview style. “I’ll give you the benefit of the duck, er doubt” he says. ”You’re really serious about all this RICO stuff?”

The Duck hesitates before answering. He looks for something in TrueWest’s eyes, perhaps some openness, some willingness to believe, some comprehension. “I’m serious enough to wear a duck nose” he says.

TrueWest can see that.

He squeezes la Patita’s hand.

“We are in danger” says the duck.

Aloha's End by Michael F. Zangari, Chapter 15: Moe Is In Control (Edit)

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari
© 2006 by the author with all rights reserved.



Chapter Fifteen: Moe is in Control


TrueWest in saffron colored Australian swimming trunks stakes the sand with his gun, a short red surf board with a long skank. He reeks of the coconut oil Momi slathered on him at the front desk, rubbing his shoulders and tweaking his nipples. “For good luck” she said. TrueWest jumped like a bell hop at the sound of a desk bell.
“That was purely in the spirit of Aloha,” she said, “Of course.” She massaged the rest of the oil into her hands and dabbed some behind her ear, her eyes big and brown on TrueWest, as he rubbed his nipples, and hula hopped from foot to foot.
Benny Aloha looked on, shaking his head. “Momi,” he said softly, “That was about as subtle as Burlesque.”
Momi smiled sweetly. “Watch it brah” she said under her breath.
Benny stuffed his hands into his gabardines and leaned back against the pillar. He brings out a quarter and tosses it into the koi pool under the waterfall. “Yeah, luck.” He smirks like there’s an encyclopedia in the word. “Luck.” He says. ‘You’ll need it.”
TrueWest stretches out on the sand with his toes touching the place where the waves peter out and sizzle into the sand. Every so often one pushes past his feet and cools his hot back before withdrawing, dragging a river of sand through his toes.
The oil begins to get hot.
He fries like tempura.
He heat dozes, and goes someplace southwest of delirium, a place of total muscle release and deep breathing that coats his body in a little sack of sleep.
Through the warm whiz and hiss of the water he hears the drift of trade winds transit through palm trees. In it, the voice of the Duck, far away is coming out of a song on the Little Radio Station at the Back of Your Mind.
“The Little Radio Station in the Back of Your Mind” he says. He pauses to sip at his drink. His style is informal, quiet and direct. ‘Duck” he says. ‘I’m coming at you again, from the belly of my containment here at Aloha’s End.”
Containment Thinks TrueWest.
“Getting through the days here is like walking across the Sahara in flippers” he says. “Where every day is an endless piano move by the Three Stooges, and Moe is always in control.”
TrueWest is reminded of Bob Hope’s correspondent reports from his shows in Viet Nam. A kind of thanks for the memories report that comes from memories you can’t forget.
“The weather?” Duck says. “Ocean grayness under the dull blue of post storm sky. From up here in the valley, the waves are rough coming in onto the beach. The wind is a steady blow, tearing eyes with salt and sand. It takes the looseness of cloths and hair makes them flag back from being you and your being. There is a feeling of leaving this place, sadness in the burn of focus.
He takes a deep breath.
I know again that last years delusions have fallen in.
Innocence is a postcard from a dream.
My lips have been bitten in the middle of a kiss swelling them with dryness and desire. What is gone is gone. And what is becoming is obvious.
It’s the mind again.
Back to what it was before it was.
There’s a puff of smoke from which illusion appears to applause.
I wonder what you’ve heard about me, held hostage by organized crime, the NSA, the Al Quida network or the bored, hungry vampires of cyberspace. At least I hope there are rumors about me. So that I exist somewhere outside the battles I fight, alone and out there against the unseen.
I don’t know what to tell you. One day I opened my mind and Moe was there, with the stooges of control. They hooked on and boarded and now are everywhere. I am over-run without fight. There is no escape. But there is sanctuary. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, doomed but in love after fruit.
But inside, where the jewels of your tears are seen as the form by everyone who has ever lived, there is something that shines like starfire in the darkness.
When all the words are redefine by whoever does the ruling over in the future, the Moes, and meanings change shifts. It will still be there burning at the center on dark nights when it is visible in the eyes of those we love and respect (though love and respect are words too, and will change meanings.)
Even Freedom changes meanings. It is deleted from computer disks, becomes an idea, nothing important. The Bill of Rights is preserved in comic books only by an underground which is outed and nullified by commandos who don’t read comic books.
They are as sleek as otters in their uniforms. There are many fancy tools on their belts to punish free brains by whipping them with magnetic slashes and electric waves. They get nervous if things are not just so.
It’s about control, remember?
They finger the handles of the pistols in the holsters, snapping and unsnapping the strap that holds the gun in.
I think they’re brains are bleached too.
They don’t remember what they are doing. Not sure anymore if the whats or the whys jive.
They are not sure anymore of anything except the mistakes they’ve made in care taking.
The animals they guard look at them with hot angry eyes, reminding them of what it’s like to be on the other side of the cage, to be hungry and angry and hurt. They remember the shear power of it when you can hear the echo of the rumble in the belly of those you love.
In the City County building clerks go through newspaper archives deleting details, a drudge job. It’s in their eyes as they do it.
If they tell you that you have silence on your side, don’t believe them, because silence is a word like all words. It can be defined by a dominating mind.
Don’t trust the words you pause from. Find something without words to believe in. Trust in free-fall. And God as you see god.
And heck, even if you don’t see a divinity out there working in all this chaos, look in the gaps where you name things you don’t believe in.
All we can do is silence the mind as those in control move to erase it.
I still meditate, though being a Buddhist is illegal, because in peace there is no need for roadmaps and guides from the past. Freedom is born again from its own lightness and takes over the dream we are stuck in.
It drives and sustains things. Even in shackles.
Sure the skin breaks and bleeds and pain dominates. That’s the flesh. It’s just hum drum to prisoners like me.
The idea that has no form survives in the eyes when the world blanks out is outdated. . It passes between people sometimes when we are awake.
Sometimes, enough to see it.
It’s like the wave that goes out in blissful highlights to the receptive.
Freedom survives recycled into something not born. It is in our hopes as we wait for rescue.
Out in the world the great world religions contrast and come back against each other and the resistance between all holds us in flux and tensions and we are helpless in hate.
There is something there that will help us.
It’s in that wind I was talking about, the one that will be in all our faces soon.
Remember it when the monsoons of many things takes over and dulls you down.
Remember.
Through a trap door within I hide between the walls and search my mind for answers. I know this much; they want us to forget. They bleach the mind white with low frequencies and high intensities as we sleep.
I can not sleep.
In my pj’s, one night, with a cereal bowl cupped in my hands, mouth open for the spoon, my mind went white as milk.
And my sight blew open.
I saw what I saw.
I saw a dimensional bleed over and invasion from within.
In ten years a take over.
It’s in the wheels of what is happening now.
Across the dimensional drift that pollutes our future with energies beyond what we understand
There is a chance to fight the take over, to live in a different future.
I am broadcasting day and night now, from the little Radio Station at the Back of Your Mind. This is the Duck, with this message from our sponsor:
Learn from each other and pull from each other’s strengths. Form inner schools and networks in myth circles and fight with peace.
The warning lights flash as hot as lasers with urgency now. There is a spooky déjà vu now as you fight.
The cries of pain from those dearest to you whips the feelings raw and blood and neon merge into a bioelectric surge until the words are spelled out plain.
Moe’s knowledge is complete.
There’s nothing a slap across the face, the poke of the eyes and a conk on the head won’t solve.
He knows you can redefine the words that mean freedom. But you can’t hold what you don’t own. He owns it all.
Privacy is a thing of the past.
And if I can tell you one thing from what has happened it is this: The only thing worth having is peace of mind, and ownership of same.
It’s ok to suffer.
It’s ok to fail.
It’s ok to feel hopeless and beaten.
It’s ok to want it all to end.
It’s ok to close your eyes and shut it out.
It’s ok to pray and not to pray.
It’s ok to believe and not to believe.
It’s ok to live out every second of your humanity in what ever flashes of energy that comes, but fight. Don’t ever stop.
Remember how to fight. If you are bleached out again don’t let those wild nasty powers fool you into thinking that you’ve achieved a pause through brainwashing, a pause that is filled with their words.
Whether you win or not is not important, because in this life not everything works out even for the good.
What is important is unspoken and untouchable in your being.
It orbits the heartbeat and drifts between the thoughts. It makes the nanoseconds tick. In the mind it is as real as the recognizing of it.
I say the same thing to everyone.
Do the right thing at the right time and don’t give up the interior territories to enemies.
Don’t give in to anger and impulse (your thoughts will be wild and destructive.) Let things go and stay awake. Go beyond the cruel and senseless onslaught into ocean flux and bring your boat about gently with love. It’s been written in the bibles of all times for a reason. It is as common as a period at the end of words. The small, flat moment where things end is coming. It always does.
Your thoughts may buckle and fall and you may feel like you have failed. You may have to do things you don’t want to, things unimaginable.
You may be ashamed and have to cover yourself with leaves.
But we live as we breathe.
Free.
So here I am at the tail end of this phase. Decisions are being made that will color and shade the future. I am following my heart as it races against my head. As I look out from the ivory tower and broadcast my show this morning I will play a song that reminds me of you. It will help me remember the best stuff in the midst of the worst. I am touching on the touchable in the mind in long hours alone shadow boxing with thieves. In real worlds money is tighter than the shut, crying eyes of my new daughter. I am redlined and blacklisted from work. My health insurance is gone and I am sick.
You know stress always brings bronchitis with me.
I’m getting to know the bill collectors by their first names.
In ten months of job search I’ve had four interviews.
There is nothing new rising from the obviously wrong and though hope eternal we might remember what is right, as Moe snoozes and wake up.
Their brains are bleached whiter than snow.
I want to remind them of what is right, and warn them.
Practice for the future. Change. Tell everyone what you know, and that I am still alive in the windiness of the Makuna Valley in Hawaii.
I’ve talk long enough.
I am tired. Sitting here like a gargoyle with the Moe’s of Control on my shoulder.
I am remembering again between bleaching that what unfolds and is ironed out will be fulfilled in a million different ways, again and again.
Until we return again to the silence from which we are born.
On the radio, I am sounding like Bob Hope remembering the faces of solders on USO tours in battle zones, trying to keep faith and detail straight. Afraid to forget.
I can hear his voice in my own.
“So when it’s time to fight (and it’s time again) remember how you won last time if you can.”
Goodbye to the spirit of expansion.
Compression is next on the agenda.
It’s a smaller, safer place to be, a cage.
Or so they tell me.
Especially when we are as willess as we become under a magnetic thrush.
Many other futures watch this one in horror because they know when the eyes close freedom erodes like sand on hurricane beaches in riptides and silence.
They know when freedom fails for one, it fails for all. And time after time in other dimensions there will be flashes of knowing this, knowing what you know.
Pay attention.
Because it is not born of the brain, and when we suffer together (and we all will) enemies and friends, it will be the dot from which we go forward again.
My focus is fading now.
Memory is torn linen paper on which my love is written in disappearing ink.
So as it goes twilight I will say what it says here I always say before sleep.
To who?
I’m not sure.
Maybe to all.
God bless you for listening. And thanks.
This is the Duck, doing it.
The laps his voice and goes to chorus, then fades as TrueWest wakes up.
Low tide ends with a flush and overwhelm of water and foam.
TrueWest sits up sputtering and coughing, the briny taste of the ocean in his throat. .
He gets up with his wet towel and stumbles up the beach and sits on the sand, breathing like he’s in a furnace pulling air.
He’s been dreaming.
But he can’t remember what about.
The only thing he knows is that his nipples sting like crazy, like they have been whipped and pulled by the tentacles of a Portuguese Man of War.

Aloha's End Chapter 14 "A Donut Wrapped in a Napkin"

Entry for January 10, 2007 A Donut Wrapped In a Napkin
Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari

A Time of Tiki

Chapter 14 A Donut Wrapped In a Napkin

TrueWest walks out of The Big Bean café followed by the Duck.

The boogie board fins on the Duck’s feet slap the linoleum in the entryway with a series of wet ka-thwacks. It has a mucky primal sound. TrueWest suppresses and urge to look back over his shoulder, where his cream colored sport coat is draped like a bull fighter’s cape.

The Duck is shorter, and walks like Groucho Marx behind him.

“Why a duck” Duck mutters.

“What?” asks TrueWest.

“Why a duck” says Duck. “That’s what I thought you’d ask. I had a whole routine worked up around it.”

“That’s what I thought” says TrueWest.

They reflect on their missed opportunity.

They pause at the wooden Tiki in front of the café.

Duck places a donut wrapped in a napkin at his feet.

TrueWest looks on skeptically.

“A Ti leaf and a volcanic stone would be more appropriate” says the Duck. “But I’m leaning to make do with what I have. I use everything,’ he says.

TrueWest thinks about it before he says it. “I’m part Hawaiian” he says. “I come from a long line of temple keepers.”

“I thought you said that you’d never been to Hawaii before” says the Duck.

“I haven’t” TrueWest says. “This is my first time. In fact I don’t know much at all about the islands, or the temples my ancestors kept. My dad was a union organizer. He fled Hawaii in the 1950’s to save his life. Most of his family is dead.”

“Most of your family is dead” Duck says.

“I think of my nuclear family as my family” says TrueWest. “I have a hard time connecting to notions of extended family. We were always isolated in Texas. People thought we were Mexicans. The Mexicans thought we were Africans. It goes on and on.”

Duck doesn’t say anything.

“The family name is “Ku” as you know.”

“Not “Coo” like a dove?” asks Duck.

‘No, the war god Ku” TrueWest says, embarrassed, he knows Duck knows Ku.

“You should come out to see us. Near our house is a temple that was originally dedicated to Ku. It’s been restored. Maybe it is one of your family’s temples.”

TrueWest eyes widen. He agrees quickly.

He feels the blood rush his veins.

“I’ll introduce you to Patita tonight at the club.”

“Patita?” TrueWest asks. “That’s Spanish.”

“Yes” says Duck. “She’s Latina.”

“Ah. Buenos. Home.” He says.

“And Hawaii?” asks Duck.

TrueWest looks at the Tiki. It’s foreign and fierce looking. The mouth is open wide in a scream, the teeth, the clenched eyes howl. It almost drools into its coffee cup as it screams.

“I don’t know” says TrueWest.

Duck goes silent again for a second.

“Good enough” he says.

The End is Always Near

The End is Always Near!

Part Two of Aloha's End is On The Way

Aloha's End (c) 2006 By Michael F. Zangari Chapter Thirteen: A campfire Tale With Attribution

Aloha’s End by Michael F. Zangari

Chapter 13: A Camp fire tale with attribution

The duck navigates the coffee cup carefully under the rubber beak to his mouth. He kisses the coffee and sucks. The coffee is as hot as cooling lava. It steams his sunglasses.
TrueWest looks at him.
Everyone is looking at him.
“Why does everyone in this café wear sunglasses? He asks. “It’s as dark as pitch tar in here.”
He takes off his sunglasses and tosses them on the table.
The duck smiles under his rubber nose.
“It cuts the glare from the torches” he says.
TrueWest shakes his head. He takes out a pad and a small tape recorder. “Do you mind?” he asks.
Duck picks up the recorder and turns it on. He holds it close to his mouth. His voice deepens and clarifies.
“It’s the little radio station at the back of your mind” he says.
TrueWest startles.
It the back of his mind, he hears the duck, like he’s talking over a tin can telephone. It buzzes a little.
“It’s true” he says softly.
“A lot of things are” says the duck.
“I believe it” says TrueWest.
He thinks about it. “Sort of.”
The duck actually laughs at that one. “I’m encouraged” he says.
“I know there’s a story here” says TrueWest. “The nose.”
Duck touches the nose. The rubber has been softened by the heat.
“It’s a dead give away.” Says TrueWest
Duck shakes his head. “There’s a story alright” he says. “But you’re going to go after it. You are going to need attribution for this one, but people have gone clam mouth when it comes to “Aloha’s End.”
Aloha’s End. Thinks TrueWest.
“But as I understand it, aloha has no end. It’s love.” Says True West.
“It’s also hello and goodbye. It’s love alright. Deep as the ravines in the middle of the ocean. And twice as spooky.” The duck thinks about aloha. “But it has an end, Mr. West. Like everything.”
Attribution thinks TrueWest. The duck did some journalism in his radio career. Obviously.
The duck sips at his coffee, wetting his beak.
He sponges it off with the napkin.
“My life is being destroyed before my eyes. I can’t get work. My home has been broken into. My life has been threatened.”
“Do you really think that wearing a rubber duck bill will protect your identity?”
“No” says the Duck thoughtfully. “Nobody’s safe.”
TrueWest nods just like the disaster guy he is. “It’s true” he says.
“I’m not hiding” if that’s what you mean. “In fact I’m doing the opposite. I’m in your face. “He leans forward so the duck bill is inches from TrueWest’s nose.” I’m not going to let people forget me. On this island, if you become invisible you become dead.”
“I heard your comments on the radio” says TrueWest. He chokes a little on some emotional gristle in the back of his throat.
Duck shakes his head. “I’m not on the radio” he said. “I’m being deleted”
“Deleted?”
“The people who believe I am their enemy are erasing my life. All my media work is being destroyed. My newspaper articles are missing from the archives and libraries. My tapes and videos are gone. I don’t have any photographs left in my home.”
“You’re comments are very powerful on air” says TrueWest.
He’s on the radio alright. The coconut wireless.
“I’ve heard that there are still some tapes going around. Mostly on the main land” says the duck. “Mostly under someone else’s name. I guess the electronic surveillance has a bright side. It makes for interesting audition tapes.”
“You’re singing the standard whistle blower’s song about how people get lazy, greedy and mean” says TrueWest. “I’ve made a career out of telling those kinds of tales.”
“I know” says the Duck. “I saw your show. What is it called? Forty minutes and some Commercials.”
He smiles.
“You should light your face from underneath, like you’re holding a flashlight.”
“Campfire stories” says TrueWest.
“With attribution” says Duck.