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.

The End is Always Near

The End is Always Near!

Part Two of Aloha's End is On The Way