Reefdog

“Webbed” was slang for glass that’s been fractured by a hard object. Webbing had displaced keying as de rigueur in minor vandalism. Breaking a window or windshield seemed just as hateful as trashing a paint job and more practical. Most cruisers could take a key down either side to no noticeable effect. Who cared? She still run.

But go broke da windows. For starters, the glass dribbles out in little pieces. Besides that, if a thief breaks in, and you get robbed, that goes to shit happens. No big deal. But webbing means you did somebody wrong. A webbed window means revenge.

Minna Somayan’s cousin Darryl couldn’t be certain if the guy who went webbing his windows was the dude on the bicycle whose ear he barely tickled with the side mirror, or was it that skinny haole suck wen try fuck his woman? Hey, that bicycle guy was just for fun, and hey, the mirror missed, not even one little tickle. It was the haole suck, he knew it because of seeing the guy walk to the place where Minna guys like go for coffee and stuff and then mumbling so the guy can hear him, You fockeen haole suck. Then he go inside for find the bitch and set her straight but she not there yet, and then he go back out not ten minutes later, get all webbed already.

Ravi remembered Darryl too and his truck and reaching the windows with his back scratcher, which wasn’t a back scratcher but a billy club.

Danny Blackwell gave him the billy when he quit sport fishing. Danny wasn’t even thirty and could name the boat he wanted to work on because he knew the currents, tides, shoal water, lures, baits, combos, seasonal changes, what birds worked what fish and what birds lied, hooking, gaffing and boating a fish, any fish. It ended one morning at five. Danny didn’t give notice but took his billy club and faded like a big one into the depths or what was left of the night. He didn’t want the billy club but didn’t want it clubbing the snot out of another fish, either.

Farther down the dock, he told Ravi that he had a dream starting around midnight, with this big blue marlin swimming up alongside eye to eye and not saying anything but cruising for hours. It had to be the marlin he’d killed the day before—not a record, but a big sumbitch, six-fifty, seven hundred pounds. The deck ran red. “This fat fucker’d been shooting orders all morning, like I was his boy. That’s okay. You know it’s the fat fuckers tip good cause you took their shit. Anyway, this marlin came on playful, batting the bait, teasing us, like it was time for water polo, not fishing. The fat guy missed three times, so I took the rod and set the hook for him. He reeled for a minute and turned purple, so I got the fish to the boat. Took an hour or so, and the fish didn’t look too good, not ashy gray like they get but not much gold or green or blue left. But some, so he might have made it if the sharks weren’t around. Didn’t see any, but you don’t know. So I was ready for the measure and release happy horseshit they go through, and the guy yells, ‘Put him in the boat!’ I stood there looking at him, but it’s his nickel, and he wanted a murder one, so the fish came on board with my regular expertise, quick and safe, nobody stabbed with the bill or crushed underneath. Usually I can take a fish out with a few good shots.”

“But this fish didn’t want to go. And the fat fucker starts yelling where to hit him, and not so hard because he wants it to last so he can take more pictures. I killed the fish quick. I wish I’d killed that fat bastard. I wouldn’t feel so bad today, I can promise you that.”

Danny Blackwell frowned like a child on the verge of tears, shaking his head and blurting. “It ain’t even tired. It’s what I seen about that fish and that fat fucker. Man, that fish was my brother, and that fat fucker… that fat fucker…”

“The fish seemed more worthy of living than the angler. I believe he had a better life,” Ravi said.

“Hey, Danny.” Ravi took the billy club. “You did great, man. That fish didn’t die for nothing. Think of the great fish out there that your fish saved by showing you what was up.”

Danny Blackwell tried to see this greatness but could not, just as Ravi could not see why he got the billy club. Danny calmed down and said: “You’re from Israel. You’ll know what to do with it.” Ravi nearly made a joke about clubbing Jew baits, but he held back; the moment seemed so adequately resolved. So Danny added, “Whack some assholes with it.”

Ravi laughed, “The world’s got way too many assholes for me to make a dent.”

Ravi heard it before: Send in the Israelis. They know what to do. He didn’t respond because he knew what to do—learned what to do in military training from age fourteen in the Sayeret Matkal. A boy or man is scared shitless, dropping from a chopper forty feet over the Red Sea a few miles from Eilat. After so many times, fear becomes a petty anxiety. Training missions were good for that.

Training taught him that reason rules the survivor’s mind. Emotion kills. A military stealth diver learns practicality—nothing personal, just business. Every mission needs a method. Adding emotion was like smoking near a fuel tank, not a behavior of the naturally selected. Nobody gets revenge.

Danny Blackwell quit fishing five or six years ago, and the back scratcher proved handy for webbing. Why would a guy carry the back scratcher to coffee and Danish? Ravi wondered on his way out and picked up the back scratcher because having a thing on hand often precludes a need. And he felt ready to out-asshole the best of them. Hey, it was a game, harmless and playful and maybe useful. It scratched an itch now and then. So he looked both ways before crossing, then whacked a starburst. It felt like a little bang in his universe, and he felt better than usual and knew why.

Or maybe he was wrong—willful and vindictive, caught in an undertow. But some guys need webbing so they have to hang out the window so everyone knows of their bad behavior. Ravi stood up to it, not as a reaction but for truth. Okay, maybe a little bit reaction, but nobody was perfect. Like when a guy came out for a dive and pegged Ravi’s accent. “Israel!” Ravi nodded. The guy said, “I got nothing against the Jews. It’s the Zionists I hate.” Ravi stepped up with his back scratcher, and the guy ducked and screeched, “Crazy fucker!”

Ravi tossed it over. “You see? You think that mask has value. I just proved that it doesn’t. Don’t worry. I’ll get it for you.”

So the guy couldn’t dive and got a refund. Ravi paid it because the guy couldn’t dive from a Zionist boat anyway. The guy said he didn’t need any charity from a you-know-what. Ravi stepped up again, this time with a fist and question, “No, what?” But everyone aboard stopped the detonation.

The mask, a Sea Hares Deluxe with fancy icons favored by divers who go rarely and want to look good, was lost. Cruising at eighteen knots left a huge area to search. Ravi won, kind of, pointing out that the mask was a toy, not quality goods. Besides that: The guy was a Jew-hating son of a whore. So what? I should apologize? I should pave the way for this hate-mongering bigot? I will not.

Ravi got probation, termination pending, for three days, to calm the customer, who called the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs—groan. Who cared? The hiatus allowed for composure rejuvenation on a man worn thin from hard work and personal issues. With many errands complete, he returned to work, no hard feelings. The boss reminded him that the tourist went away, but the issue might not go away. Ravi said, “So what? I’ll call the ACLU or the Anti-Defamation League. Or B’nai B’rith, or Hadassah… Might not go away? Fuck, man. Wake up and smell the halvah.” Then he walked away because it’s a free country, where anyone could kiss his tuchus if they insisted.

But Ravi’s fuse had always been short, and it glowed. His own mother—she who would lay down her life for her only begotten child—admonished long ago: “Nobody gets revenge. That is not what we do. Revenge is not justice.”

She had a point: a Jew is not a Christian to turn the other cheek, but if taking a punch or two can lead to peace, then why not? But some people don’t like a punch. Or two. Especially from punk idiots. Better to tap their windows to slow them down in their hateful ways. Squint through this, you inbred midget.

Ravi laughed because satisfaction is a terrible thing to waste. Besides, he would grow out of this foolishness and mellow out. In the meantime, a youthful prank didn’t hurt anyone.

Well, he wasn’t as young as he used to be and the fun seemed less lovable than it once did. And his fuse felt longer. Sometimes he waited for days to get revenge—make that parity among assholes, which often requires patience, just like love.

Epiphany in series can be overwhelming, like glimpsing the face of God then turning abruptly to Satan’s grim puss. In staggering succession, answers came to a hapless waterman who could not remember the questions. In ghastly perspective, he grasped the window shade and the tortuous nature of paradox. Like the smartest fool on earth, he saw that love is willful—and uninformed. The squat fellow waved a gun in the air. The object of marital devotion squatted between them for a peek at her cousin Darryl, armed and dangerous—and comical. Cuz Darryl looked like the spawn of Yosemite Sam and Cheetah the chimp. What a joke, but looking funny was not humorous. Ravi longed to rejoin the laughing.

“What a fool,” Minna said, grinning up at her husband, as if the moment would be remembered for fun. Ravi gazed in disbelief and pity—in pathos and best wishes for her future. “He goes to all these hearings and what not, where people want to stop this and that and what not, like gill nets and aquarium collecting and everything. Darryl guys go out all the time. He can make six hundred dollars in four hours, so he goes to these meetings where these pussy haoles cry and moan, and he threatens to shoot them, and they shut up.” She giggled at the notion of educated white people afraid of her cousin Darryl. She watched out the window.

Then came the crux, full circle from only last week when Ravi got struck by love lightning. The next bolt turned the frieze to ash. Objects held form, even the fleshy one of his dreams, who chattered on, as if unaware that she would soon crumble. But she knew. How could she not know? How could she be blind to love departed? Odd looking as her former boyfriend, she grinned. He winced at her smudged lipstick. “You look like Monica Lewinsky.”

“I mean, like the president. How awesome is that? I mean, yeah, it was gross, but now she’s a household word. She can do anything. Jenny Craig, political whatchamacallit, analysis and what not.”

“I just think it would be awesome to have people listening to what you say and… I don’t know. I was too young then. But maybe.”

La vie en rose faded to gray. He was a modern man, free of jealousy. And so he would be because this woman, Minna, was so thoroughly…soiled.

The fellow outside would not step up and knock on the door, but he’d rocked Ravi’s world. Images rolled on other needs at play, as the little guy blasted away, chipping a fascia, taking out a window, yelling, “I know you, muddafucka.” Cuz Darryl paused to reload.

Actually, the ruffled boyfriend did not know Ravi Rockulz. Maybe he meant I know who you are, or I know what you did, but not I know you. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, not even two men jilted on their notions of love or jealous pangs ricocheting like stray bullets.

As a realistic man, Ravi knew where experience came from, and it wasn’t the tooth fairy. Cousin Darryl appeared to be swinish and psychotic, and not just some of the time. Darryl combined the worst traits imaginable in a true love’s ex. Then again, the poor fellow was equally pained. How likely was he to get another date? Then again, wild imagery stung like a branding iron.

Of marginal consolation was the old world waiting, without the turmoil. Soon he could reclaim a demanding but satisfying schedule, good work, good friends and good times. Time heals, and that would be the key. In a few weeks or months, a stable man could stabilize, leaving so much flotsam in his wake. An appetite would return in a day or two, or five, anyway. In the meantime, falling free of emotion already felt better. So what was the catch? For one thing, no more heavenly Minna—not that she was still heavenly; she only looked that way, and memories would linger. She tricked him—him, the willing fool. She told him nothing till they were married, then she swamped him on one wave, a breaker out of nowhere. She played him for all he was worth, which wasn’t much on the material side, but as a beacon of light, he shone somewhere.

Hey, who was kidding whom? What difference did it make? He could never see her again as he’d seen her before—no makeup and mussed hair was nothing compared to this. Sinking in quicksand, he reached for vines that snapped like false happiness every time. A fool rushing in doesn’t take the time to learn because he’s a fool. So the images broke with pain and loss no matter what angle the camera took. Love could fool, and a fool is most easily fooled.

At least Ravi Rockulz would never feel so certain again—good thing, maybe it would be the big benefit of this whole nasty affair. Let’s face it: women are no different than us, with the sexual drive and pornographic needs, except for the aftermath when they want to have babies and convenience instead of fun, as life goes to seed.

Worse yet was the certainty of never getting laid again, not really laid by a woman he cared for. How could he care after this? The angry fellow outside muttered epithets and whose bitch was whose. He shuffled off to leave before the cops came. Then again, that would be rational, so maybe he was only tired. At any rate, Darryl climbed back up and left, leaving no doubt that the havoc had only begun and that he would win her back with his unique attributes.

He’d get no challenge here. Ravi slumped onto the couch and stared at the walls, still as an empty bucket. Skinny jumped from the dresser to the chair and over to the sofa to sit and stare and then walked onto his lap and purred because the crazies were beginning to end. He said, “I want to be alone and what not. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” She stepped clear of the shambles like a witness at the scene of a tornado. This burg was leveled.

Already out the door, she stopped when he called: “Minna.” She waited, bracing for the executioner to speak the finality between them. “You have a child?”

She turned back. “No. A miscarry. Darryl still… I told you, nothing. He’s a lolo head. It was you.”

He didn’t belabor but rather wondered how the pristine situation between her legs could be so picture-perfect after so much… traffic. He nearly asked how that could be, but no. Her magical snatch was another trick of nature, to which he slowly nodded comprehension.

Then, like an injured songbird with a broken warble, she struggled for the old magic. As if digging out from a sordid mess, in which a little tune and clever lyric would ease the tears in her eyes, she sang on stifled sobs, “Your love was my relief…” She smiled sadly, turned away and left again.

The days following would have been good for work, to forget. But images buzzed like mosquitoes till he swatted them away. The crew traded glances over the pitiful remains. A woman who worked the deck of another boat came over to Ravi’s the following week to help. He said no, but she tried anyway. Alas, she could not help and, in fact, heard Ravi sob as he rolled away.

Then the practical world made more difficult demands. Ravi got word from the captain, “We got audited.”

First mate Randy said, “Not you. You’re illegal. That’s why you get cash. They don’t know you exist. You can’t get audited.”

How did Randy know Ravi was illegal? Maybe he meant off the books, but he said illegal was the reason why the payroll came in cash. But Ravi was no longer illegal since he got married. But then… “The boat got audited. And Steve.”

Steve was the owner. Steve was despondent. Steve spoke from the gloom, explaining the State’s demand for unpaid taxes, even though the taxes had been paid. The State wanted more taxes, ninety-eight thousand dollars more because Steve had called himself a consultant on his tax return, so he owed four percent on his income, even though he’d paid four percent on the boat’s revenue. The State was willing to put a lien on the boat, which would ease the debt on paper but make the State a partner—a partner pressing for liquidation to clear the debt.

Hawaii has had more state employees per capita than any other state in the United States since it became a state. Steve said the state needed money to make payroll. “Look. You guys keep working the boat. I’ll be busy with this for a while. Anybody comes around, just grunt. You don’t know shit. Ravi, I can give you two weeks—unless the state guys come around.”

Ravi chewed on two weeks. Did Steve mean two weeks, as in notice? Steve shrugged. “I been paying you cash. That’s illegal. You got married, so now you can come on the payroll, but I got to let you go for a while. Maybe two months—but maybe six. We have to see.” Steve didn’t expect Ravi to hang out with no job for six months, legal or otherwise. Ravi had been counseled on annulment, but that could annul his legality too. Who knew? His counselors were boat crew, not lawyers, but a few had been to jail.

He also shrugged, a man in a bind, resigned to another round of adaptation. The passengers arrived for the adventure of a lifetime on a beautiful fucking morning with plenty good cheer and big aloha.

Ravi could not deliver a wonderful time. Events played back in sickening detail. The handful of days since a casual evening to plan his future swirled in a vortex of broken hearts, delusion, and failure. He’d held up admirably till things got cloudy, and the adventure of a lifetime went dry—no anecdotes, jokes, repartee, site review, nothing but booties, wetsuit, BC, reg, mask, fins, snorkel, weights. Oh, and tanks, with the air turned on and the pressure checked.

On arrival at the dive site, he said, “Okay, stay close by me. Watch my signals. If I ask if you’re okay, you say yes, okay.” He made a circle with forefinger and thumb: okay. “Or no, not okay.” He shook his head and drew a slice across his throat. “Or eh, maybe.” He held a hand out flat and tipped it side to side. The tourists laughed, though nothing was funny; “eh, maybe” was a legitimate answer underwater, meaning things might not be okay. They knew this, or should have known this. They were certified. So why were they laughing? Never mind. As he spoke, he tallied two weeks, twelve more days of pay added to his savings before he would need to…

To walk across the desert on a horse with no name is what. Another thousand dollars should clear. He wouldn’t need any groceries. He could eat the canned stuff. Pick avocados and papayas.

Then he jumped in. The tourists followed. Everybody signaled okay, and down they went, perhaps relieved that underwater a dive leader wouldn’t seem so morose because the mask hid his face, and his bubbles could fill with happier thoughts. So they cruised the coral heads and boulders, through the nifty arches and along the walls, each tourist stopping to check things more closely, one or two kicking somebody’s head. Ravi kept an eye on a tourist who profiled likely to suck his tank dry. Profiling was based on body language, body fat, and water comfort. Like rock, paper, scissors, any component could cancel another. A wiry, nervous man with no experience and apparent fear would suck a tank dry in forty minutes, or fifteen, depending on warmth and movement, while a plump woman with experience and comfort could go ninety minutes on the same tank.

It was hardly rocket science. So he spotted the guy who’d go empty first, a wiry guy flailing and kicking, a guy named Ray who tipped his hand side to side. As Ravi reached to check Ray’s air, Ray reached for Ravi’s spare regulator—a panic move that every dive leader knows to counter. Ravi did not react, but let Ray take it.

Except that Ray still had a thousand pounds in his tank and moved Ravi’s spare regulator in and out of his mouth in a suggestive fashion. Ray offered Ravi his own regulator, but Ravi declined—on a bad day of a bad week in a bad phase of life. Ravi gripped his octopus, bracing a palm against Ray, and yanking it from Ray’s mouth, pushing off and tossing Ray’s regulator back at him. It felt like one more exit in a series of departures from gentle understanding. Ray wasn’t the first man or woman tourist to suggest intimacy with Ravi, but the timing and place were unfortunate. Ray seemed to have had the air punched out of him, as he gave in to melodrama on an emergency free ascent, surfacing with threats of litigation for… assault! “You saw it, didn’t you?”

So the morning adventure became another round of foolishness. Another tourist on board told Ray to shush—to no avail till the follow-up: “I’m a lawyer and a material witness. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

The ride back went from glum to glummer. Partly cloudy skies bunched up in scud and a squall line and a weather tantrum drew nigh. Moist and rhythmic went to wet and bumpy on mutterings of spurious good cheer.

They huddled and shivered. The dive leader smiled forlornly, his heartache fitting into a world of gale winds and showers.

Then came farewells, “See you next year. Gee, it was great.” A scowl implied threats of legal wind and showers, followed by no tips and offloading twenty tanks. Comfort came cold, on faith that life’s milestones can be for the best and nearly always show up in hard times. Like a critter in winter finding a few breadcrumbs, Ravi nibbled on faith, muttering yes, all for the best and tomorrow. Well, next week at any rate. Or next month. Or year.

Steve advised after the tanks were humped and pumped that today would be Ravi’s last because, because…

Never mind, Mr. Steve. Finality was expected and understood. You can’t punch the customers, even if they deserve it.

That his car wouldn’t start seemed consistent with life’s new message, whatever it meant. Long a source of fond association—Ravi and his beater—his Toyota Tercel nearing its fourth decade showed more rust and webbing than not. Massively non-existent on the inside from saltwater dripping off scuba gear, it was hailed for excellence in ventilation and drainage capacity—and its superior view of the road between your feet, no matter where you sat. If the seats had too much cacka for your lily-white bottom, no problemo: Just peel off the towels for a wash and lay them back down on the springs. Ravi’s beater was iconic to an era, the Time of Ravi, when fun, adventure, random love, and transport on the lowest possible budget equalled happiness. Then it ended, as if scripted by chance.

So Ravi at the wheel went nowhere, a driver of stillness in the aftermath of the wheezing death throes of the vehicle of choice.

Hail Atlantis! It’s a fockeen car! A material object gone the way of all else, proving that we win again!

Seeking meaning or coherence as feebly as his tired car tried to start, he too sighed and wheezed, as if he and the car had thrown off the yoke together, cogs missing their niche, metal clanging, teeth chipping, springs chirping, stuff breaking up to the last belch and dying breath as the spirit left the body. Metal, rubber, flesh; all slumped to eternity. Sitting still in his still, dead car, he wondered and waited to see what would die next. Perhaps his own frail pulse would cease, making him part of the pile, ready for the scrap yard. He felt comfortable with that, and relieved because some days must be endured, and tomorrow would be a brand-new start—and the shit stacking up relentlessly could be sorted with fresh energy. Oh, boy.

Numbness filled the afternoon, and a terribly long day felt like days in passing. The awful series of events had been a collision—make that a pileup, into the aftershock… shock, shock, clanging like the trashcan lid they put over Tom the cat’s head and banged it with a sledgehammer because Tom was the cat, and people love the underdog, who was Jerry, the mouse. But that was a cartoon and over in minutes.

Bleak and foreboding, at least the events of the last few days felt fixed—beyond control of the players, especially the main guy, absolving him more or less from responsibility, relieving him for that matter from the clutches of assessment and decision. Be reasonable—what else could a stand-up man, a mensch among tourists, do in these situations? Cave in to tourist whim? No. Not now or ever.

The heavy wind and squalls whipping and slashing on the home stretch had felt fucking perfect, like the denouement in a tragedy with an overture composed by a German, taking the man down to remnants: breath, tactile sensation of salt, sweat and weight, and of course, the ultimate burden—pride, not in sinful measure but in fortitude, in asserting what was right, drawing the line on the wrong.

I win. It doesn’t feel so good. If death is the ultimate depression, this must be the threshold.

Mates and friends passed by Ravi in his beater. They passed on foot or rolling out of the gravel parking area, slowing for their friend sitting dumbfounded in his piece o’ junk car. They mumbled, See you.

He looked beat, without resources, without hope, solitary and done. Maybe later that evening those friends truly concerned and not too buzzed up would stop around at Ravi’s place for solace and to review the options. And remember the great good times they’d had.

Twenty minutes of catatonia seemed to do it, maybe providing adequate rest for the bunched muscles that clamored to move lest they stiffen with the wreckage. It was time to hobble home. So he got out, pausing with gratitude for the hunk of junk and the great good times they’d had. He set a hand on the roof to feel the energy. He got none. Hey, what do you expect? It’s a car. But still, it’s hard to think so many miles and such good fun could not be felt by the vehicle of his youth, what was left of it.

He began the struggle of peeling off his wetsuit for a change into his shorts but fell short once the shoulders and arms were wrenched free. The reserves felt tapped out, and the wind, gray sky, and fatigue chilled him anyway. So he looped the sleeves around his waist and wore the damn thing, stuffing his street clothes into a net bag for the long walk home, or rather the long walk back to the crummy little hovel that would give shelter till the end of the month, next week.

Passing the Kiawekapu General Store, he recalled his plan to save money on groceries as an exit strategy. That seemed like a long time ago, and he headed in for two beers—the liter bottles that stay cold long enough to drink them if you hurry—and some cat food. Fumbling with his net bag, digging for a pocket in his balled-up shorts to find the money, he stopped when Gene, the big woman behind the counter, said, “Hey. Forget it, Sugar. I got this one.”

He looked up, more curious than grateful. Then came the flood of comprehension—of gratitude and regret. She knew. The word was out. The coconut wireless had buzzed with the speed of light. All the words were out. Ravi Rockulz was out of here.

Which felt like perfect timing, but then timing was also the biggest challenge. Gene gave such a small gift on such a hard day that no sooner did Ravi smile halfway and try to say thank you then he cried. He turned to cover his face, to get past his weakness, as she walked around and pulled him to her massive bosom, assuring him that we all have tough days, and he had more friends than he could ever imagine. “Don’t think about anything. You’ll know what to do tomorrow. Just drink these and take the day off. Take the night off, anyway. Take it easy, Honey. Take a break.”

Just as a knotted muscle can let go by the touch of a caring hand, so can simple guidance be a godsend, a loosening agent to reveal what can be known. Relieved by the outflow of pent-up emotion, Ravi walked out and down the sidewalk fifty yards, where he stuffed the can of cat food into his net bag and sat on the curb to drink the first beer. He must have been having fun; the sun was so much lower than usual at this point of his journey home. He pondered destinations briefly, what waited where, what he would leave behind, where he would go… and opened the second beer. It went down quicker than a second beer usually does, but the day called for stronger dosage of available antidotes.

He looked up to a twinkling star and looked left and right to affirm its firstness in the evening sky. He could make no wish because of the futility of wishing. But he watched it, as it seemed to ask, What are you staring at? He had no answer but felt refuge in its singular twinkle, hardly a wish come true, but a reasonable destination for a wayward soul stuck in life. Soon came a few more twinklers, till any more refuge would have brought on the nausea.

So he stood slowly, carefully, too late to avoid the stiffening, too full of beer to walk farther than the nearest hedge, which would be okay that late in the day with so little light because it would have to be because a man can’t very well walk home with a two-liter piss sloshing around inside. So he squirmed to peel his wetsuit down below his pee-pee and to make sure he didn’t dribble on it. He could have pissed in it and rinsed in the shower down the beach walk where the tourists rinsed. Except that pissing in your wetsuit smells like piss and marks you as a tourist. Besides, a two-liter piss once begun is harder to stop than a mountain stream, which this piss was, except for the missing mountain.

Recovery can gain momentum on basic relief. No matter what was happening in the world, it was a better place after a major piss. The day still seemed endless in its onslaught, but that was mostly the onslaught of bad events replaying. He’d endured the worst and had only a few more hours till sleep. Then he could start over, in faith.

In the act of rearranging his essential self back into his Speedos and pulling his wetsuit back up to waist level from where it had slipped down to his knees, Ravi knew that the pickup truck passing slowly behind him was local—and way undersized, on way oversized tires, in a compensatory display, way overplayed and entirely tedious.

Of course he reacted to the duct tape covering his mouth, but only with nominal resistance to so many hands. Jarred, confused and fatigued, he gave in to what nature had in store because he had nothing else to give and because it wouldn’t make a difference, no matter what he gave. So the rough boys who seemed like Cousin Darryl’s other cousins muscled Ravi to submission, binding his knees with more duct tape and so on around his ankles. They taped his wrists behind his back and finally heaved him into the truck bed, where he landed like dead weight, no bounce.

Ravi searched for the first star, to wish belatedly for a little cyanide ampoule to crush between his molars for an express ride to the sweetest sleep a man could have. But the truck bounced so badly he couldn’t focus on any single star. The giant piss had been just in the nick of time. That was lucky, or not, possibly depriving the best thanks to show these abductors. But then Darryl’s cousins wouldn’t notice a pissy smell.

Born & Raised assured from the rear window that no matter what, it didn’t mean shit if you weren’t born or raised. But he was, but never mind because the miserable ride was brief as the backtrack route to the boat launch. The place was empty at dusk, except for a little aluminum boat with a single outboard idling at the dock and another cousin standing by, waiting officiously for the unsavory task at hand. With the truck backed down to the last inches of traction, all four cousins dragged Ravi from the bed to the dock, where he got propped near the boat. He noted no kicker motor in case of primary motor failure and no anchor to hook the bottom in case of power failure on a lee shore or strong current in shoal water. And no deck or scuppers—this little sardine can could sink on the first wave over the rail. Then again, practical safeguards are incidental to superior seamen.

Besides, no safeguards or practicalities would matter to the fucking haole on board, with the scene shaping up as one more spot on the evening news, taking a minute for the who and the what, with the when and where as yet to be determined. On a nudge, Ravi toppled the last four feet of the boarding process, also noting on his way to one more impact that this little bucket was Opala brand, notorious for bad behavior in heavy seas and for its singular flotation mechanism: hollow seat wells. In front of the biggest hollow seat in the center was a plug for easy drainage once the little boat was back on the trailer.

Ravi’s head banged the same center seat athwart the little boat, so he passed out, not quite with the same relief of the cyanide ampoule of his recent wish on the little star he could no longer find, but it was a reprieve in any event.

He came to when they were underway. Rolling onto his back on roly-poly waves he wiggled into place. The little drain plug jabbed his back, inches from the figurative jabbing of the last few hours—never mind because the drain plug was also in his hands. Nobody minded when he sat up to see because what he saw made no difference: McGregor Point to starboard, Makena to port with Molokini just forward of that. Kahoolawe loomed ahead, Lanai a faint shape to starboard, so it didn’t take an ace navigator to know the plan. They were bound for the aggregation buoy, around which aggregated the complete ocean food chain. Algae and plankton clung to the buoy and to the chains and netting. Little crustaceans and fry made a home there, and so on to the top of the hierarchy. Tigers and oceanic white tips would feed as soon as not. So he lay back down, grasping the drain plug, twisting to test for movement, assured that his escorts craved a satisfaction more complex than brother shark ever did.

The cousins spoke of the old etiquette, by which a hated enemy was sunk with a black rock so family and friends searching wouldn’t see the body. A respected enemy was sunk with a white rock, so the corpse could be more easily spotted. The other three cousins laughed at the brutal simplicity of the code and sighed for its honest brutality. Darryl called them stupid, telling them to look over and count the rocks. “Foa hunned feet already. Fockeen lolo heads. Fock.”

Darryl had a point, and with wind and seas mounting, the other cousins had other concerns. The five-mile rule delineated the proper distance from shore for bad people to go over the side. They agreed to forget the white-rock/black-rock rule this far out, and the five-mile rule seemed equally moot. They didn’t call it moot but reached consensus on the key question: “Da fuck?” Why go the full five in these conditions? Hey, three and a half already. Four miles was way da fuck out—no more land already down in the trough, between crests. Four miles would do it, or even three. With anxiety showing and practicality gaining momentum, they claimed their right to be scared shitless in a little boat out so far in the dark. They agreed on da kine, four miles, but Darryl steered and restated the full five miles. Nobody else could make the call, on account of da kine.

Ravi had wondered how he might face imminence, not as grist for the masculinity mill but as part of his job. Dive leaders must respect the hazards of a daily adventure, must think and act and repeat as necessary to the bitter end. A dive leader lives in the risky suburbs of tourist instability at depth.

Complacency never happened in stealth commando action with explosives and mortal enemies, but leading tourists was a walk in the basil—and that was the hazard. Nobody knew what calmness he would find at death’s table. Posing questions at this difficult juncture, he wondered: Why would I cry over the gift of beer but stay tearless in the face of death? How could love come to this? Could these guys be so stupid? Images drifted in and got shooed away, like flies on wounded carrion. Should he taunt Darryl on sexual perversion with Minna? Darryl was a brush fire in need of water, not gasoline, but developments warranted drastic measures. At any rate, another strategy was firmly in hand—one that would take the final play to extreme satisfaction. That made sense, with odds so low.

A wave broke, its lip sloshing water on board, alarming the seafaring cousins. Two sawed-off Clorox bottles floated among them, so they bailed. Darryl said, “Cross sea. No worry. No scared. Hey, you.” He nudged Ravi. “You scared?”

Yes, Ravi was scared, but a man with sea time and a few thousand dives knows the game is on till the last bubbles rise. A blunt-tipped dive knife snugged his ankle inside his booty, hidden because some tourists wore calf-wrap dive daggers, as if to kill Jaws VI. A dive leader with a knife only encouraged their folly. Pointed knives could stab flesh or a hose, so he hid his stubby knife until pulling it to cut fishing line from reefs or himself free of invisible net fragments.

But a knife at his ankle was worthless with his hands behind his back. So another idea emerged on a ray of hope that maybe, just maybe: “Darryl,” he croaked.

“Darryl, I want you to know that… in private times, Minna spoke your name. She called me Darryl. I asked, ‘Who is Darryl?’ She said, ‘Darryl is a man I love. I mean, used to love.’ Darryl, she’s young. We meant no harm. If you…”

Wait, wait, wait. Do you really think this half-baked psychopath will see the light and turn back? Will ease up on a haole suck, coming in here and taking everything? No, you don’t. So don’t blow this chance to survive, maybe not for long but for long enough.

Darryl called cousin Kevin by name, but Kevin shrugged, da kine all wet. With the wind and waves, they never get one lit. Never mind. Ravi didn’t smoke and bumpy seas are best for cutting back. Still, it was a test, showing mercy in small doses.

“One last wish.” Nobody turned. “Can I scratch my nuts? Please? I’ve had this wetsuit on all day. I’m getting a boil. Please.”

That was ridiculous in a little tin boat on boiling seas, with all hands bailing, steering, or hanging on. Itchy nuts? Go fish…

And a big moon peeked over Haleakala, lighting the froth. In a minute, Darryl hove to and put the engine in neutral, so the little boat turned sideways and another load of water sloshed aboard. The engine sputtered and died.

Sliding down the face of the next swell, Darryl gained steerage using the outboard as a rudder, pulling the starter rope to no avail. Winded, he kept the stern to the swell, cursing the motor like it was another thieving haole. He pulled and pulled for nary a sputter. Fuck it; let the execution begin—better to ditch ballast to work da kine.

The cousins pulled Ravi to his knees. How could he resist? By grasping the drain plug—that’s how. So they jerked him free, and nobody noticed the easy flow in. Ravi gripped the plug. Darryl handed a knife forward. A cousin cut the tape from Ravi’s mouth. “No need scratch your nuts, haole. They stop itching pretty soon. You like sing one star tangle banner? Have at. I no like you sink wit da kine air hole tape up. Make you float too soon. I like you stay sink.” Darryl nodded again. They lifted Ravi’s ankles, yelling to keep from going kapa kai and maki—from turning over and going dead. With knees grinding and belly banging the rail, Ravi Rockulz was over and into Kealaikahiki Channel. He’d never felt quite so old.

But this was no time for reflection. He sorely wanted to call out a friendly suggestion that the born and raised among them could take turns sticking their dicks in the drain hole. Maybe they’d figure that one on their own. Meanwhile, a waterman could dead man’s float, face down, turning up to breathe as necessary, easing the drain plug into a working grasp and hoping the metal tab was sharp enough to cut the tape on his wrists. He couldn’t feel his wrists and didn’t want to feel them, and he laughed at the paradox facing a depressed survivalist. He’d hold off for now on cutting his wrists because bleeding to death would take far longer than Mano and that gang if they got wind of the hoedown at the aggregation buoy. But a feeding frenzy was a source of fear, so he set it aside and followed directions as written in the manual.

Drifting beyond recapture or hoping they would try it, he breathed. The cousins watched, enjoying sweet revenge at last. Then the tape on his wrists was cut. Should he toss the drain plug at them? No, a pissing contest at that point could have no winner. So he reached into a breaststroke and pulled away as the engine sputtered on another indictment: “Fockeen suck! Stole a drain plug!”

How strange life seemed, awash in a rowdy sea at night, smiling at revenge, evenly served. Was this sweet? The engine died again. The odds on two beaters dying the same day were actually good because beaters die every day, and one of these was doused with seawater. So he retrieved his knife and cut the tape from his knees and ankles to begin the next struggle, pulling the top of his wetsuit back onto his arms and zipping the front.

Another passing image crawled up his spine to snuggle with his brain, the one where George Orwell wanted to know his prisoner’s greatest fear. It was rats, so a cage door got pressed onto the man’s face, and the rat got him—it was scary and unfair to rats. Ravi Rockulz could set fear aside on the technical level if he had to surface swim at night. But he knew who worked this beat and what would trigger a feeding. The big signal was fear itself, a unique frequency in water, like a tiny dinner gong. He couldn’t stop the fear, but few people were better trained or prepared for these dire straits.

What? What was that sound? Oh, Mister Big Shot, better trained! The rueful chorus—Basha Rivka and Skinny—kvetched and mewed on cue. Who but a fool would count himself better off than most, up shit creek with superior treading skills? But it should be to laugh, and he would look back and laugh, God willing—

Okay, like the man said, it was down to practicality. Control your breathing and the fear will dissipate. But breathing could also ring the chuck wagon triangle; injured fish breathe at the surface, calling out for nature’s mercy. Or his breathing could sound like a baby whale or a monk seal. So he kept his breathing quiet, striving for a smooth, uninjured stroke—not a crawl but a breaststroke, easy, with minimal splashing and a nice rhythm. Oh, hell, the current would carry him out anyway, so what difference could it make?

Fear surged every minute or two, as it would in the strongest of watermen, till it subsided again to manageable level.

Fear filled in between heartbeats till it seemed steady, like part of normal. But how can a body sustain such emotion? It can’t because the baseline shifts, and by the wonders of adaptation, it is normal.

Until fear spiked at a surface layer of brown foam demarcating two different currents. One side of the foam line was quicker, the seas higher, as the wind bucked the tide. A tide rip was the fishermen’s action zone, where the food chain worked from the bottom up, with little critters trapped in the swirl and bigger critters feeding, up to apex, drawn to the diverse menu with the convenience of a buffet.

Thoughts and images swirled and thrashed. Ravi clung to the surest flotsam in the ink-dark sea, the twin visage of his mother and cat. Both chided: Look at you! After all I’ve given. After all her love and patience, he was still bull-headed like his father, that bum. What a waste for a boy with so much advantage, and for what, a little piece of babka? Go figure.

He hoped Basha Rivka could meet Skinny and wondered if they would. No. It was too many miles, and Skinny was a cat, so she couldn’t leave Hawaii without mortal risk in quarantine on her return, and Basha Rivka was a kvetch. You want me to what? Travel halfway around the world to meet a vacocta cat? He could feel the shame and waste of it all, could see the other one, the cat, staring at the immutable truth on her silent meow. He wanted to tell them what a rich and creamy babka it was but kept his mouth shut so one could prattle while the other watched from the dresser as he pulled through two miles, which wasn’t too far, really, unless it was part of a four-mile swim. Because any waterman worth his salt can pull through two miles before his arms weigh a hundred pounds and he can’t feel his legs. Then he slows down because the last two miles are worse.

So it was near first light, two miles out that Ravi Rockulz gave up. A survivor cannot choose to quit but loses control of arms and legs—fails to find another stroke. Reduced again to a dead man’s float, he looked sideways to lift the blowhole clear for another breath. A shark would hit a dead body sooner than a live one, and with the last half gram of energy, he focused on his limp body as a distance swimmer. He had no oomph to laugh at this great joke on himself.

But with strength ebbing to zero, a man resigned can spike on adrenaline, can rise an inch to the better view. Only a hundred yards away an outrigger canoe came on to the harmony of five old men chanting in Hawaiian and a sixth old man in the stern.

Ia wa’a nui

Ia wa’a kioloa

Ia wa’a peleleu

A lele mamala

A manu a uka

A manu a kai…

Six old men? It was the Old Guys Canoe Club. Not that the Old Guys was their real name, but they were old: fifty-five, fifty-eight, sixty years already, some of those guys. Uncle Walter Kanakaokelani and Keahou Lehuamoku had a pact that each would paddle as long as the other. Kimokeo Kapahulehua used to be Bully when he was in your face and stomping your feet, before he found his kumu, Kimokeo Manewanewa, who taught him to be Hawaiian with a Hawaiian name and said, “Take my name. Don’t mess it up. Don’t get it dirty. Represent.” The charter crews called them Old Guys because Elemakule Mea Hoe Wa’a was hard to remember, and charter crews are simple by nature. The Old Guys garnered respect, descendants of the original watermen.

They paddled more mornings than not, sometimes taking to sea for Niihau or Papahānaumokuākea hundreds of miles out. An open canoe demonstrated what Hawaiians did and yet could do. On their return, they picked up the pace to show what they could do. It wasn’t macho but manly because they worked together and loved the sea.

And here they were, moving too slowly on such a unified stroke—but a second glance told why: the little tin boat and its forlorn cousins came into view, bailing, in tow, riding low.

The Old Guys could connect a few dots, so finding four boys in a tin tub with a failed engine and no anchor—and no fishing gear and no drain plug—was suspect. The Old Guys looked annoyed because the Molokai Channel was no sleigh ride. They’d crossed at night for easier wind and waves, only to ride the roller coaster Pailolo Channel and work on around, past Lahaina, Olowalu, Ukumehame, McGregor Point and into Maalaea Bay pounded like poi, only to find a boatload of bad boys adrift. They’d paddled a zigzag course to find Ravi, to save him from drowning while saving the bad boys from murder one.

Whatever the reason, the morning emerged more mercifully than yesterday. Ravi waved an arm and squealed, “Hoy! Hooyee! Hoy!”

The outrigger veered, till the helmsman told Ravi to duck under the ama. That was easy, but he could not lift himself aboard. Not to worry; he wasn’t coming aboard—not aboard the canoe, anyway. He would go in the little tin boat, home to the land of aloha. So all the boys and men sat adrift, listening to Uncle Walter indict wrong behaviors and enumerate the reconciliation required of these lands and waters.

“Our kuleana to care for the sea is no different than our care for ourselves. Our kuleana to our ancestors and our descendants goes seven generations back and seven ahead. We can have no kuleana without kokua, with responsibility we must have cooperation. We share as we share fish or bread, like Jesus guys, though we did it first. You guys. Shame. Shame. Do you hear what I say?

“My hanai daughter is a hula kumu. She is mainland born. I am her kumu, and my family is hers. She came to me troubled. She heard bad things from people who may have been Hawaiian or something else. Mean-spirited things. They hurt her. They went against my teaching because I had not completed her lessons. So I taught her that Hawaiians have a great sense of justice, besides righteousness and love of the land. These values take care of everything. If you are not Hawaiian, you can live Hawaiian. You must trust in the care of things and don’t get angry and huhu and swear at people. It’s not Hawaiian nature to do that. By your actions, you know aloha. Giving way to anger brings resentment to your blood, and that is not Hawaiian. A true Hawaiian will avoid confrontation. You see locals complaining because they are proud of being born here. They’re often not Hawaiian, but we know what’s been lost. We have faith in justice. You will hear a Hawaiian only by listening…”

He spoke in English and Hawaiian as the old guy crew shifted in their seats, cooling off but staying mum because of crimes recalled, like when he, Uncle Walter, got picked up with Keahou Lehuamoku. Keahou sat one seat up, as he’d done since the day he got saved with Walter from another drowning and murder one. The details mattered for naught but to remind of responsibilities to place and people.

“You. Bring him up. Take care. Show him what you know, so he won’t call the police, as he should but maybe won’t. Because if he doesn’t call the police, then you won’t be in prison for years. Unless you find another way to get in. Okay?”

So Ravi Rockulz came aboard the little tin boat for the second time, hauled in like a ghost net, as a lifeless lump with spent flesh trapped in the mesh. Three cousins attempted aloha by virtue of no threats, no epithets, no hints of violence and no talk of bitterness or blame. Darryl hung his head through Uncle Walter’s talk, as Ravi came aboard. He spoke when the tow party got underway again, with strong young men sitting, as the Old Guys paddled. Dishonor rose with the sun, with sky and sea bearing witness—as the lead boat found its rhythm and pulled, as it had across Molokai and Pailolo Channels at night. The boat in tow seemed derelict in spirit.

Couldn’t even kill one fockeen haole. Looking feebly up, Darryl asked: “When you… make da kine with my girl, she say my name?”

Overruling this criminal’s spurious thoughts, Ravi dredged up a salt-hoarse voice that grated like a rusty hinge. “No. I made that up. That was a tough… situation, you about to kill me for fucking Minna. We fucked… what? Fourteen days, once an hour, hour and a half. But then when you wake up and want to fuck again, it takes so long to blow your chum, and then once you fucked, you know, six, eight times in a day, then you got to fuck and fuck to get the hot sauce out… Two weeks, six or eight fucks in a day is—what—a hundred twenty fucks or so before I knew you existed. She didn’t tell me. She was blowing me when you drove up in that circus wagon. Wiping her chin when you got there. You know?” The cousins looked worried. But not Darryl. Seasoned veteran of the pissing contest to the death, Darryl smiled. Ravi said, “Hey. This good, eh? Talking. Listening.”

Darryl nodded, agreeing at last. “Let me tell you what I know.” And softly he spoke, as the grimace moved awkwardly to the face of paler complexion.

So the shoreline came on as Darryl twisted the dagger. Squeamish reaction could not be contained, so Darryl honed on sordid details. “I knew you was lying when you say about my name. She no care who, she get one Portagee sausage go fump, fump, fump. She no care, she love one cornhole cozzin.” Darryl’s narrative raised a few eyebrows until the cousins pondered personal prospects for cornholecopia. Speculation ended when Darryl asked, “Ey. You like die?” The cousins looked down because no, they no like die.

Darryl’s skill in a shore break was another point of pride, keeping the stern to the breakers till the bow thudded and surged another eight feet on the next wave to high and dry. All got out and slouched for the road but Ravi, who crawled out and up, not like a first critter evolving from the sea but as a waterman surviving attempted murder. Tourists passing on their fabulous sunrise strolls said hello. Rising at last, he gazed up. The early birds murmured, “Did you see him get in?” These long-distance swimmers were truly remarkable, another wondrous part of Paradise. A woman said, “Lucky we live Maui.”

Ravi looked drunk, completing the task begun fifteen hours before, staggering home on a heavy shuffle.

He drank from the hose but had no strength to pull off his wetsuit. So he cut it off, cutting this bond of servitude, though it might have saved his life. The net bag with his shorts and cat food sat on the steps. Gee, it was great to have friends.

Walking inside to the little red beacon flashing on his answering machine he pressed play on his way to the drawer for the can opener. Small voices told of tomorrow’s charter and low pressure with a system moving in and high pressure from a tourist woman who wanted to get a drink or something to eat or something. Then came: “Hey. Dis Steve Shirokiya wit da Immigration Natchazation Service. You no need one lawyer. Okay? Call me back. Okay? Plan to come right down. Okay? Oh! Bring your green card. We get one problem.” Hammers fell in sequence, banging numbness to oblivion.

Never mind. He opened the cat food to quell the demand, as if she didn’t know where he’d been or how it compared to a glob of cat food. In the hot shower, he shuddered and cried again but stopped. He dried, oiled his body, and lay down. He got up, made coffee, had a can of sardines with crackers and gave one to the cat. She chewed it halfway and left it, underscoring the indifference of love and nature.

Laying back down, he dozed deep and woke to a knock at the door. Two people stared at each other as if to ask, What are you doing here? Each held papers.

A court server served a subpoena from Hundred-Grand Kreeger, the ambulance chaser from hell, famous across Hawaii for suing the state over any accident on any beach or charter boat, citing negligence, claiming damages of 1.5 to 5.1 but mostly settling for a hundred grand. The insurance companies settled because defense would cost a hundred grand. On this subpoena the plaintiff’s name below HG Kreeger’s read: Darryl Ito, seeking damages of one point five million, demanding proof of legal entry on charges of civil rights violations on attempted murder by stealing a drain plug on the high seas, and on to discovery and deposition and on and on.

The server left. As Ravi drifted back in, the once true love followed, saying that a love like theirs didn’t happen so often. “Once or twice every few years is all, and, I mean, if you could give us another chance, I can show you love like you never had.” She stumbled over salacious potential on her way to innocence.

He laughed short, more of a snort over one thing or another, till she slapped his back. He waved her off. “What did you bring?”

“Oh, this.” She unfolded a newspaper to a story of plastic garbage smothering a swath of ocean. “I thought you’d like to see it. You’re such an enviro and what not.”

The paper said: A plastic soup of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate in an area bigger than the continental United States, scientists said. It’s a hundred million tons of free-floating plastic adrift between Japan and California, an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on.

A lawsuit for one point five and a dying ocean could darken a day but felt like chaff in the breeze. Among those annoying flecks he saw what he hadn’t seen before. You’re such an enviro and what not…

Challenges aligned to reveal their lesson: failure to see bears consequence. A randy young man opted for a romp in the canebrake instead of a rightful path. He’d seen the way but held back. Now the trailhead opened. “It’s time to move. Someplace not so crowded or pressured. Someplace still tropical.” He looked up. “You know?”

She didn’t know. “It’s strange, how you feel about people. You’re so good at what you do, and you like some of them, once you know them. But you hate them as a group. They disappoint me, too, and I love you. I haven’t figured that out, but I think I’ll be here forever, probably down at the hospital in the worst of it.”

Inanimate as a fence post where lovely songbirds perched, she no longer beckoned. He needed time to sort and forgive—and to step away from blaming her or himself. Because dying many times through a night makes a new man in the morning, more or less. He looked out at her car. “Can you take me to the airport?”

Yes, she’d take him to the airport or anywhere and accept whatever he chose. He was her hero—oh, she’d admired him already for the usual heroics and his great skill with people in the water. She knew why so many sought him again, whatever boat he worked, one year to the next, and why women came to him, even if that part made her self-conscious, compared to those others. But the big thing was, “You swam the aggregation buoy! Fuck, man! Darryl guys are good with their little boats and what not, always showing off, taking stupid chances. They don’t know what you know. They don’t want you getting any of this.” She meant fish or puhehe, not one little speck o’ da kine because it’s theirs, only theirs. They’d see it die first, and you too. “But you! You swam the aggregation buoy. You know how. You know what it means out there. Ocean spirits feel you. Ikaika, man. You it. And I know you. I feel proud of you. Maybe I cannot be yours, but I love you like the ocean loves you, and for the rest too.”

He wished she’d said for the rest too and what not, but a strong man forges ahead, no regrets. “Someday I’ll know what got me in. For now, I think about what got me out there.” Tears welled in her sparkly, almond eyes. “Come back in three hours. I’ll call for a flight.”

Yes, she’d be back in three, and meanwhile, she would just, you know, hang out. She hesitated as if for a look, a nod, or a touch.