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.

Aloha's End (c) 2006 By Michael F. Zangari Chapter Twelve: The Wrong Movie

Aloha’s End
© 2006 by Michael F. Zangari

Chapter Twelve: The Wrong Movie

The morning chill burns offs quickly.
TrueWest is sitting on a chipped concrete bench of a small Buddhist garden that is thirty feet outside from the entrance of the Big Bean. The wall behind it is stacked lava rocks which are charred and burned black. Benny Aloha said that it is one of the few surviving walls from the great Honolulu China Town fire of the 1900s, the fire that destroyed the strength of the Chinese immigrants as an economic force in Hawaii. The rock themselves are part of the Hawaiian temple that originally stood here. The co-opted the rocks when they build the city hall building. There is a rock fountain. And a doorway frame that leads nowhere. The original building is gone. He says the doorway is haunted.
TrueWest loosens his bolo tie, tugging at the koa wood fish hook at his throat. The aloha shirt opens like the mouth of a fish at his neck. A thin silver chain lies against his newly sunburned skin.
He’s as red-brown as a coffee bean.
He pushes through the wooden door of the café into the wall of air-conditioned air. The smell of the freshly brewed Kona coffee and rotting bamboo come to him subtly like incense in a temple.
It’s lounge lizard dark.
There is not host of hostess or sign that says “seat yourself.”
It’s like the empty passenger car of a train of an old train.
His eyes adjust to the light as the torches flicker the darkness.
The torch light reflects off the polished wood of the tables like moonlight on the water.
The place is nearly empty.
TrueWest can see a woman in a leopard kin mini-dress sitting alone at a table.
She paddles at her coffee with a celery stick. It goes back and forth in perfect time with the lazy steel guitar on the sound system.
He takes a step into the club and stands wide, his boots firmly on the floorboards. Only the floorboards aren’t firm.
They yowl like a lone coyote as he steps.
The woman looks up.
She has dark sunglasses on, the lenses and frames as black as enameled chop-sticks.
TrueWest is thinking, “She must be blind” when she looks at him looking at her. She instinctively pulls her dress down her upper thigh. TrueWest notes the legs. They are as firm and strong, and pale as bull bone on the desert floor.
Her sunglasses slide down her nose.
She looks over the top of them at him.
He touches the brim of his hat and nods to her.
She touches her forehead and sends a little salute back.
He walks over to her table, creaking all the way.
TrueWest stands wide in front of her.
She sees his silhouette through the burgundy bottle wine of the glasses.
Then the detail of him slowly fades in.
“Howdy stranger” she says.
TrueWest nods again.
“I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy” she says.
She has hair like wet lava rock, as black as her glasses.
The top of one pale blue eye peeks over the rims of her glasses at him.
“Yes Ma’am” he says. “I am one.”
He cultivates the cowboy thing.
The mini-dress lady looks him over hat to toe.
He’s holding the hat over his crotch.
Then she looks at his eyes.
They are as clear as brown agate marbles in fried egg whites.
The have a gentle focus but they eat detail.
“Wai’ki’ki” she sighs “It’s got all kinds of people from all kinds of places.”
“Yes Ma’am” says TrueWest, “All kinds of people from all kinds of places.”
“So what brings you here cowboy?” she asks.
“I’m looking for a duck” he says.
“You’re looking for a what?” she startles and looks up.
Alert.
“A duck” he says, his consonants hard as flint He smiles. “At least he’s dressed like one.”
She looks at him for a couple of seconds, and then relaxes again.
“How does a duck dress?” she asks.
TrueWest has to think about that one.
He hasn’t considered it.
A wedge of light stretches across the room as the door opens and compresses shut.
A man steps into the club in yellow boogie board swim fins.
She takes “Never mind” she says.
She takes the celery stick out of her cup and sucks the coffee off of it. She uses it to point to the new kind on the block. “I’d say off hand that your duck has arrived.” She says.
It’s the duck. TrueWest is sure of it.
Hew has a rubber duck bill over his nose.
He has dark Neptune sunglasses on and a black Balata hat with the brim pulled down.
He goes profile to give TrueWest a clear shot at the rubber bill he’s wearing.
It’s quite a hooter all right.
“That’s the duck” says TrueWest. “I’d put money on it.”
“Let it ride cowboy” she says. ”Let it ride.”
“Thanks for the help” Says TrueWest.
He puts his hat back on.
“Thanks” for your help” he says. He touches the brim of his hat. “Ma’am.”
She touches her forehead again and pushes off with it. “It’s nothing” she says.
His eyes flicker over to her before they go back to the duck.
She watches the cowboy walk away from her table.
”Nice boots” she says, looking over the seat of his jeans.
The floor boards squawk and stretch with every boot step. He tries going slower and softer.
That doesn’t work.
He sounds like a pack of chickens as he traverses the floor.
Duck watches the whole show as it happens in front of him. The lanky legs in the cowboy boots, the hat, and the lady watching him as he does his funk walk down the wooden floor of the club.
“If you’re not TrueWest” he says. “I’m in the wrong movie” he says.