My Hero, I Mean, You Know?

Wait a minute.

“Webbed” was current slang for the web-like fractures in glass that’s been struck by a hard object. Webbing had displaced keying as most popular in minor vandalism, for its newness. Besides that, breaking a window or windshield or back window seemed no less hateful than trashing a whole paint job. And on most cruisers you could run the whole ring of keys down one side or the other to no noticeable effect.

Who cared? She still run. But, go broke da windows. Well, that’s a nuisance of a different stripe. For one thing, the glass will most likely dribble out in little slivers and pieces that don’t cut you but feel like they could. Besides that, a thief breaks all the way in to get your stuff. Anybody can get robbed. No big deal. But getting webbed meant you got it back for doing somebody wrong, which cast anyone behind a webbed window as the victim of his own foolishness.

Minna Somayan’s cousin Darryl couldn’t be certain if the guy who went webbing on his windows was the dude on the bicycle whose ear he tried to tickle by barely touching the side mirror to it, or was it that skinny haole suck went 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, because of seeing the guy walk to the place where Minna guys like go for coffee and drinks and stuff and then mumbling so the guy can hear him, You fockeen haole suck. Then he went inside for find the bitch and set her straight but she not there yet, and then he went back outside not twenty minutes later, get all webbed already.

Ravid remembered him and his truck and the challenge of reaching the windows with his backscratcher, which wasn’t a backscratcher but a billy club. Ravid was given the billy by his friend Danny Blackwell on the occasion of Danny’s retirement from sport fishing, not that Danny was anywhere near retirement age, or age thirty; he could in fact name the boat he wanted to work on because of his local knowledge, including currents, tides, shoal waters, lures, baits and the best combos, seasonal changes, what birds worked what fish and what birds lied, hooking, gaffing and, if necessary, boating the fish, any fish. But his fishing career ended when Danny Blackwell showed up on deck one morning just before first light and said he quit. He didn’t explain or give notice or respond in any way other than stooping to retrieve his billy club. Then he turned and jumped back to the dock and faded like a big one that got away, into the depths, or into what was left of the night. Danny didn’t want the billy club but didn’t want to think about it clubbing the snot out of another fish, either.

Farther down the dock, he told Ravid that he hadn’t exactly woke up with his eyes open but had them opened in a dream that must have started around midnight, with this big blue marlin swimming up alongside till they were eyeball to eyeball and not saying anything but just staring and cruising for a few hours. Well, it had to be the same marlin he’d killed the day before: not a record by any means, but a big sumbitch, maybe six-fifty, seven hundred pounds, who bled till the deck ran red. “This fat fucker’d been shooting orders at me all morning, like I was his personal boy. That’s okay. As you well know, it’s the fat fuckers tip the best ’cause you took their shit. Well, you probably don’t get too many fatties, but anyway, this marlin came on playful, batting the bait around, teasing us, like it was a good day for water polo, not fishing. The fat guy misses three times, so I take the rod and set the hook for him. He reels for about a minute and turns purple, so I get the fish to the boat in about an hour, and the fish don’t look too good, not yet gray and ashy 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 never know. So I’m ready for the measure and release and all that happy horseshit they want to go through, and the guy yells, ‘Put him in the boat!’ I stand there and look at him, but it’s his nickel, and he wants a murder one, so the fish comes on board with my regular expertise, quick and safe, nobody gets stabbed with the bill or crushed underneath. Usually I can take a fish out with a few good shots.”

Here, Danny hefted the billy club.

“But this fish didn’t want to go. Then the fat fucker starts yelling at me 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 after that. I wish I’d killed that fat bastard. I wouldn’t feel so bad today, I can promise you that. Ravid, I’m tired of killing...”

Danny Blackwell frowned like a small child on the verge of tears, shaking his head and finally 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 seem to be more worthy of living than the anglers. I believe they have a better life,” Ravid said.

“Yeah, man. That’s exactly how it is. I’m done. I don’t want to... I won’t...”

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

Danny Blackwell wanted to see this light but stayed distraught, so Ravid didn’t press the issue, namely: What was he, Ravid, supposed to do with a billy club? Danny got his composure in a minute and explained anyway: “You’re from Israel. You’ll know what to do with it.” Ravid 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.” And Ravid laughed, saying the world was way too populated with assholes walking freely on the streets in need of whacking with a billy club for one guy to make a dent in the problem. Danny said, “Hey, man, you’ll know what to do.”

Ravid had heard it before and plenty over the years, especially his years in the United States, where casual reference to any problem, threat, situation, unrest or anything in the Middle East led to, Send in the Israelis. They’ll know what to do. He’d made a habit of not responding, just as he crossed the street, figuratively speaking, to avoid confronting any trouble, whether anti-Semitic trouble or trouble in general. Because he did know what to do — learned what to do in his military training beginning at age fourteen for the Sayeret Matkal. A fourteen-year-old boy or a grown man — either one is naturally scared shitless when dropping solo from a chopper hovering at forty feet over the Red Sea a few miles out from Eilat, till he’s done it so many times he loses count and his fear is down from shitless to low-grade apprehension and focus. The heaviest burden was the workload, with two guys given a task that a platoon could take a half-day getting done. The training missions ended on relief and withdrawal, with every adrenaline junkie pining for one more little fix.

But reason must rule the survivor’s mind. Straying into emotional danger zones killed more good men than the elements or the enemy. What a military stealth diver learns later or sooner is practicality — nothing personal, just business. Every mission had components to complete with method and dispatch. Adding emotion was like smoking near a fuel tank, not a behavior of the naturally selected. Neither Ravid Rockulz nor any survivalist could tolerate a reputation as ultimate avenger preceding him.

Danny Blackwell quit fishing five or six years ago, and the billy club Ravid now called his backscratcher proved a handy tool for webbing. Ravid had been a webbing pioneer, an original webber thriving anonymously, like the Scarlet Pimpernel with a different accent and a day job on a dive boat. The Turquoise Pimpernel? The Snorkel Pimpernel? Never mind — why would he carry the backscratcher to a solitary outing for a coffee and a Danish? He asked himself that very same question on his way out from home then picked up the backscratcher, because you never know, and besides not knowing, you sure enough needed a thing just when you left it behind. Conversely, having it on hand would most often preclude its need. Most importantly, he felt confident in his ability to out-asshole the biggest assholes out there. So he carried the backscratcher, to ensure that it wouldn’t be needed, or something. Hey, it was a game, harmless and playful and, on any given day, instructive.

He’d used it now and then to reach an itch on his back, though he used it mostly to administer justice. His technique was to hold the Billy straight out from the window an inch from the glass with his back to the car. He would look both ways before crossing, then thrust it back into the glass for a beautiful starburst or, if you will, a lovely bang in his little Universe, so life could unfold anew. He’d laughed at the goofy truck with the big wheels — he’d have had to jump up to the running boards to gain his normal position. But coming to his senses, he’d reached up for an easy tap, which didn’t do much, so he’d whacked each window for webbings all around, which felt better than usual, and he hadn’t even known why.

Or maybe he was wrong — willful and vindictive, facilitating a dark undercurrent. Or maybe webbing only appeared wrong on the surface. Some guys needed webbing to slow them down, to show them the error of their ways. You web a windshield right in front of the driver’s seat, the guy has to hang his head out the window for a dose of self-consciousness, with everyone knowing he got somebody pissed off enough to web him.

But the important point here was standing up to what was wrong. That wasn’t a reaction but an application, which just so happened to be a fundamental tenet of Ravid Rockulz’s belief system. Was that so bad? Did that make him a mental case?

Take the guy, for example, who came out for a dive and in five minutes made no mistake about Ravid’s accent or its origin, which was Israel, not France. The guy said, “Israel?” Ravid did not respond verbally but kept the guy in view, much as a snake handler would keep tabs on a viper, because the question could lead to extremes: on the one hand, tedious good cheer, on the other hand, equally tedious ill will. This guy said, “I got nothing against the Jews. It’s the Zionists I hate.” Ravid stepped up with his backscratcher over the guy’s head. The guy ducked under his arms and screeched, “Crazy fucker!”

“I’d say you have a problem. All Jews are Zionists.”

“No, they’re not. You think the Jews in Damascus are Zionists?”

“Is this your mask?”

“Yes.” The guy peeked out from behind his arms for what he correctly anticipated would be a foolish lesson in politics.

Ravid tossed the mask overboard. “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 demanded a refund, and Ravid said he would gladly pay it, because the guy couldn’t dive from that boat anyway, because it was a Zionist boat, obviously. Then the guy said he didn’t need any charity from a you-know-what, and so ended the unfortunate incident with each of the principals more firmly entrenched than he had been, confirmed in his distrust and seething anxiety required to balance the nastiness so freely engendered by the other side.

Everyone on board had known the score. The practical problem was that the boat had been near the dive site but not yet on it when Ravid had tossed the mask overboard, a Mares deluxe model with extra-fancy mythical icons typically favored by those divers who don’t go so often but want to look good when they do. Cruising at eighteen knots less than a minute from the dive site still leaves a huge area of ocean bottom to search. The mask was not found. The guy got a refund on the dive and got his mask replaced, which didn’t make him feel any better, which was at least some consolation to Ravid. 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.

Ravid had been put on probation, termination pending, for three days, which proved good for calming the irate client, who had threatened to notify the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs — groan. More importantly, the brief hiatus had allowed Ravid to reclaim a composure worn thin from hard work, giving him time to run errands long overdue and return to work refreshed with no hard feelings for his boss, after all. When reminded by the boss that the tourist had gone away but the issue might not go away, Ravid asked, “What’s he going to do, call the ACLU or the Anti-Defamation League? Or B’nai Brith, or Hadassah?” When the boss couldn’t answer, Ravid said, “Oh. No. Wait — that’s me who’s supposed to call those guys. Might not go away... Fuck, man. Wake up and smell the halvah.” Then he walked away in a huff, so much as saying that it was a free country, where anyone could kiss his ass if they insisted.

Ravid sensed his greater problem, of an internal fuse kept dangerously short. He doubted himself when his own mother expressed her doubts — his own mother, who would lay down her life for that of her only begotten child, had declined to defend him on hearing of his vindictive behaviors. He had beat another boy for name-calling. He had committed acts of vandalism for what he called “cultural vandalism.” He had earned his mother’s disappointment. “Revenge is not justice,” she’d chided. “That is not what we do,” she would say to nearly anything he did, reminding him that a reactionary is not a judge, that revenge seeks satisfaction and justice becomes compromised.

Maybe she had a point: that a Jew is not a Christian to turn the other cheek, but if soaking up a punch or two without throwing a punch in return can lead to a lasting peace, then why not try that? The obvious answer was that some people don’t like soaking up a punch. Or two. Especially from punk idiots at the bottom of the evolutionary totem.

No.

Better to tap their windows with a backscratcher to remind them how wrong they are in their hateful ways. Squint through this, you haole suck bait.

Ravid laughed, enjoying his own stubborn character, because it was fun, because satisfaction was not a thing to avoid, because it felt good. Besides, this was foolishness, and he would grow out of it and get mellow some day, and in the meantime a little youthful prank wouldn’t hurt anybody.

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 a bit longer; sometimes he waited hours or even days to get revenge — make that justice — make that parity among assholes, which sometimes requires patience — like love.

Epiphany in series can be overwhelming, like glimpsing the face of God then turning abruptly to Satan’s grim puss. In those staggering moments, answers came easy to the hapless waterman who could remember none of the important questions. With ghastly perspective, he grasped the window shade and the tortuous nature of paradox. Suddenly feeling like the smartest fool on earth, he knew that love is blind — and uninformed.

Peeking around the shade, he saw the squat fellow waving a gun in the air. Glancing back inside, he felt the chaos balance, as the object of his devotion and indifference also squatted for a peek under the bottom edge at her irate cousin/former boyfriend Darryl, armed and dangerous — and comical. Cuz Darryl looked like the spawn of Yosemite Sam and Cheetah the chimp. What a joke, but Ravid grunted, because looking funny was different than being humorous. He longed to rejoin the laughing.

“What a fool,” Minna said, grinning up at her husband, as if the moment verged on something else, say, fun and laughter and good times. Ravid gazed down in disbelief and pity — in revulsion and best wishes for her future. “He goes to all these hearings and whatnot, where the haoles want to stop this and that and whatnot, like gill nets and aquarium fishing 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 come up with this scientific huhu, and he threatens to shoot them and stuff, and they shut up.” She giggled at the notion of educated white people going mum in fear of her cousin Darryl. She watched her former boyfriend out the window.

Then came the crux, full circle from only last week when Ravid got struck by love lightning. This next bolt was not love but blinding truth, turning the frieze to ash. Objects held form, even the fleshy one of his dreams, who chattered on, unaware that she would soon crumble. Except that she knew. How could she not know? How could she be blind to love departed?

As odd looking as her former boyfriend/cousin, she grinned, her lipstick smudged with a streak of man snot clinging to her jaw. To hurry the ashes in crumbling, he said, “You look like Monica Lewinsky.”

She felt her jaw. She wiped it, wiping her hand on her shorts. She half laughed again. “She’s my hero, I mean, not my hero, but you know.”

“What is it that I know?”

“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 whatchacallit, you know, analysis and whatnot.”

“You want to do that?”

“I just think it would be awesome to have people listening to what you say and everything. I mean, for one little blowjob? I don’t know. I was too young then. But maybe.”

Ravid’s kaleidoscope turned again, way past la vie en rose to perversion in purple and brown. Belaboring the imagery was unnecessary, because he couldn’t stop seeing it. He’d fancied himself 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 of his girlfriend’s beau — make that husband — but he’d successfully rocked Ravid’s world. Ravid sensed this fellow’s need, so the images rolled and squished, moaned and slurped, drooled and spewed as the little ogre blasted away from the hip, chipping a rotten fascia, taking out a window, and yelling, “I know you, muddafucka.” The jilted cousin gave no quarter, except briefly to reload.

Actually, the ruffled boyfriend was not acquainted with Ravid Rockulz. Maybe he meant I know who you are, or I know what you’re doing, but not I know you. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered, not life itself or two lovelorn men jilted on their notions of sweetness and light, or whatever notion the son of Sam and Cheetah nurtured. The scene was too much to sort, jealous pangs ricocheting like stray bullets. Did she giggle and wipe her chin for a small crowd of former beaus?

Well, a realistic man ought to know where experience comes from. Certainly not the tooth fairy, but reality needs filtering through reasonable manners and taste, and don’t forget the etiquette. Cousin Darryl appeared to be swinish and psychotic, and not just some of the time. Darryl combined the worst traits imaginable for a true love’s ex. Then again, the poor fellow was equally pained. How likely was he to get another date? Then again, sizzling chin spunk stung like a branding iron.

Of marginal consolation was that the old world awaited, without the turmoil. Soon he could reclaim a demanding but satisfying schedule, beautiful work, good friends and good times. Because time heals, and that would be the key. In hardly a few weeks or months, a stable man could stabilize, leaving restless nights, preoccupation, craving and longing in his wake. An appetite would return in a day or two, or five, anyway. In the meantime, falling free of heartfelt emotion already felt better. So what was the catch? Well, for one thing, no more heavenly Minna — not that she was still heavenly; she only looked that way, and the memories would linger for a while.

But why would any man so devastated still taunt the gods of foolishness?

Never mind. She was very good. But she tricked him, which was easy with such a willing fool. She told him nothing — till they were married; then she swamped him in debris. It was devious, calculated and methodical. She’d played him for all he was worth, which wasn’t so much on the material side, but he was a titan of spiritual light, which counted for something in many places.

But who was kidding whom? What difference did it make? For starters, he could never see her as he’d seen her before — no makeup and helmet hair was nothing compared to this. Like a man 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 and know, because he’s a fool. Who has time when the quicksand is in the middle of an open space and lightning strikes? So the images contrived toward pain and loss no matter what angle the camera took. Love could fool anyone, and a fool is most easily fooled.

At least one Ravid Rockulz wouldn’t feel so certain ever again — good thing, maybe a steep ascent on the learning curve of love would be the big benefit of this whole nasty affair. Let’s face it: The women are no different than us, with the sexual drive and pornographic needs, except for the aftermath, when they want to start having babies instead of fun and ditch the old life for the oppressive suburban conveniences and life goes to seed.

Worst of all was the certainty that he would never get laid again, not really laid by a woman he truly cared for. How could he care for anyone after this?

The angry fellow outside muttered parting epithets on racial deficiency and superiority, following up on whose bitch was whose. He shuffled from the door, perhaps motivated to leave before the cops came. Then again, that would be rational, so maybe he only tired of this game. At any rate, Darryl climbed back into his truck and left, leaving no doubt that the havoc had only begun, and that he would surely get her back because of his unique attributes.

Well, he’d get no challenge from the most recent ex-boyfriend who slumped onto the couch and stared at the walls, lifeless as an empty vase. Skinny jumped down from the dresser to the chair and over to the sofa to sit nearby and stare at him, then she walked onto his lap, sat and purred, relieved that the foolishness was beginning to end.

Ravid said, “I want to be alone and whatnot. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, stepping clear of the shambles like a first witness arriving on the scene after a tornado. This small town was leveled.

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

She turned back to face him. “No. A miscarry. I told you. Darryl still... I told you, nothing. He’s lolo. It was you.”

He didn’t question her denial or belabor the immutable change between them but rather wondered, to press a delicate point, how her vagina could be so picture-perfect after so much...traffic. In fact, given her forthright stance and the apparent honesty of her confession, he nearly asked how that could be, the pristine situation between her legs, but no... Her magical snatch was only another trick of nature, to which he slowly nodded comprehension.

Then, like an injured songbird who can’t understand why nature was no longer balanced, she struggled for the old magic. As if digging out from a sordid mess under blue skies and seas, as if a little tune and a clever lyric would best highlight the tears in her eyes and so ease her to the next sunny moment, she sang, her voice breaking on stifled sobs.

She smiled sadly, turned away again, and left.

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

Then the practical, emotionless world made its equally difficult demands. Ravid got word from the sullen captain, who murmured like a lost spirit, “We got audited.”

“We?”

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 that he, Ravid, was illegal? Maybe he meant illegal as in off the books, but he said illegal was the reason why the payroll came in cash. But Ravid was no longer illegal, since he’d... But then...

“The boat. The boat got audited. And Steve.”

Steve was the owner. Steve was beyond sullen. Steve was despondent. From the gloom, Steve spoke with difficulty, explaining the State’s demands 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 lien the boat, which would ease the debt on paper but would also 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 the money to make its payroll. “Look. You guys keep working the boat. I’m going to be busy with this for a while. Anybody comes around, just grunt. You don’t know shit. Ravid, I can give you two weeks — unless the state guys come around.”

Ravid chewed on what had come up, verging on a hurl. Did Steve mean two weeks, as in notice? Ravid looked at Steve. 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 seemed sincere, hardly expecting Ravid to hang out with no job for six months, legal or otherwise. Ravid had been counseled on annulment, but that might annul his legality too. Who knew? His counselors were boat crew who weren’t lawyers, but a few had been to jail.

Ravid shrugged, a man in a bind, resigned with his mates to another round of adaptation. Then the passengers arrived for the adventure of a lifetime on such an amazingly beautiful morning with plenty of good cheer and big aloha.

Hey!

Ravid’s distraction could not reconcile with a wonderful time on the water. Events played back in sickening detail. The handful of days since a casual evening to plan his future swirled in a vortex of hearts, emotions, delusion and failure. He’d held up admirably till his mood and the sky went cloudy, and the adventure of a lifetime got mechanical — 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.

Got that?

Yes?

Okay?

Okay.

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 showed his forefinger and thumb forming a circle to indicate okay. “Or no, not okay.” He shook his head and drew a slice across his throat. “Or eh, maybe.” He held a hand out horizontally and tipped it side to side. The tourists laughed, though nothing was funny; “eh, maybe” was a legitimate answer underwater, meaning that it wasn’t time to abort, but it wasn’t okay. They knew this, or should have known this. They were certified to know this. So why were they laughing? Never mind. As he spoke, his mind tallied two more weeks, twelve more days of pay added to his savings before he would need to...

To what?

To begin walking across the desert is what. Another thousand dollars clear shouldn’t be too difficult. He wouldn’t need any groceries. He could eat the canned stuff he had stocked up. Pick a few avocados and papayas.

Then he jumped in. The tourists followed. Everybody responded okay, and down they went, perhaps relieved that under water a dive leader wouldn’t seem so morose, because the mask hid his face, and his bubbles seemed to fill with happier thoughts. So they cruised the coral-encrusted lava and outcropping boulders, through the nifty arches and along the steep walls, each tourist stopping here and there to check things more closely, one or two kicking someone in the head. Ravid watched his air and kept an eye on a tourist who profiled as likely to suck his tank dry. Intuitive skills came from leading dives and seeing bad stuff shape up. Profiling was based on body language, body fat and water comfort. It was like rock, paper, scissors, with any of the three components able to cancel one of the others. A skinny, nervous man with no dive experience and apparent fear would suck a tank dry in forty minutes, or fifteen, depending on warmth and movement, while a plump woman with seasoned dive experience and visible relaxation could go ninety minutes on the same tank that any shop would rate at sixty minutes.

Hardly rocket science. The formula worked every time, though it was rare that all three factors went the same direction in a single diver. So it was easy to spot the guy who’d go empty first, a skinny guy flailing and kicking, a guy named Ray who tipped his hand side to side when Ravid gave him the okay signal. As Ravid reached for Ray’s gauges to check Ray’s remaining air, Ray reached for Ravid’s octopus — a panic move that every dive leader knows to counter. Ravid did not react, but let Ray breathe on the dive leader’s spare regulator.

Except that Ravid saw that Ray still had a thousand pounds in his tank, and looked up to see Ray moving Ravid’s spare regulator in and out of his mouth in a suggestive fashion that was compounded by Ray’s bulging eyes and apparent grin. Ray offered Ravid his own regulator, but Ravid declined.

Well, it was a bad day in a bad week in a bad phase of life. Ravid gripped his octopus, subtly bracing a heel against Ray, and yanked his octopus from Ray’s mouth as he pushed off, tossing Ray’s regulator back at him. This parting felt like one more in a series of departures from gentle understanding. Ray wasn’t the first man or woman tourist to suggest intimacy with Ravid, but the timing and place were unfortunate. Ray seemed to have had the air kicked out of him, as he gave in to melodrama on an emergency free ascent, surfacing with threats of litigation for incompetence and...and assault! You saw it, didn’t you?

So the morning adventure of a lifetime became another round of foolishness, in which fools were fooled and behaved foolishly. Ray was finally squelched on board by another tourist who told him to be quiet — 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.

As if cued by the common mood, partly cloudy skies went mostly cloudy to gray scud and a squall line. All eyes watched the little weather tantrum threaten to pounce. The ride got wetter and bumpier. Mutterings between wave crests filled in with spurious good cheer, with inanities like:

Good thing we went early.

Yeah, good thing.

Yeah.

Glad we’re not headed out now.

Hmm. Yeah.

All of which underscored the inconvenience stacking up against the once jovial service-oriented dive leader, whose heart echoed simply “Hmm” because he was headed in from mostly cloudy and bumpy seas, then headed out to a mostly cloudy and bumpy world threatening gale winds and showers.

Then came the farewells, “See you next year,” “Gee, it was great” — the scowls, disappointment, implied threats of legal wind and showers, lack of tips, followed by offloading twenty tanks, taking the Hmm to a steady Umph as each tank delivered its awful weight to tired, waiting arms. Incremental consolation came from faith that life’s milestones can be for the best and nearly always show up in difficult context.

Like a forest critter in winter happening upon a few bread crumbs, Ravid nibbled on these crumbs of faith, muttering yes, ah, yes, all for the best and then there’s tomorrow. Well, next week at any rate. Or next month. Or year.

Steve softly announced after the tanks were humped that today would be Ravid’s last day, because, because...

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

Glum was the balance of the afternoon.

That his car wouldn’t start seemed logical and consistent with the continuing delivery of life’s new message, whatever that message could mean. Long a source of fond association — Ravid and his beater — his Toyota Tercel was well into its third decade with more body rust and window webbing than not. Massively nonexistent on the inside from saltwater dripping off scuba gear, it was hailed for its excellent ventilation and drainage capacity — and its superior view of the road between your feet, no matter where you sat. If you thought the seats had too much cacka for your lily-white bottom, no problema: Just peel off the terry cloth towels for a wash and lay them back down on the springs. Ravid’s beater was icon to an era, the Time of Ravid, when value was measured by happiness, fun, adventure, random love and any form of transport available, all on the lowest possible budget. Then it ended as if scripted by chance.

So Ravid sat behind the wheel going 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!

Or something.

Attempting to find meaning or coherence as feebly as his tired car tried to start, he too could only sigh and wheeze, 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. Well, he felt comfortable with that, comfortable and relieved, reminding himself that some days are meant to be endured, that tomorrow would be a brand-new start — that all the shit stacking up relentlessly could then be sorted with fresh energy. Oh, boy.

Numbness filled the afternoon of that terribly long day that seemed to have taken days in passing. The awful series of events had been a collision — make that series of collisions — head on and head on and head on, and here was the aftershock...shock, shock, shock, reverberating like the trashcan lid they put over Tom the cat’s head in the cartoon and then banged with a sledgehammer, because Tom was the cat, and people favor the underdog, Jerry, the mouse.

Fuck.

Although bleak and foreboding, at least the events of the last few days felt orchestrated — beyond control of the mere players, especially the main character, 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, have done in these situations? Caved in to tourist whim? No. Not now or ever.

The heavy wind and squalls that whipped and slashed faces 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 fundamental remnants: breath, tactile sensation of salt, sweat and weight, and of course, the ultimate burden — pride, not in sinful magnitude but in simple fortitude, in asserting what was right, drawing the line on what was 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 Ravid in his beater. They passed on foot or rolling out of the gravel parking area, slowing with concern for their friend sitting dumbfounded in his piece o’ junk car. They mumbled, See you.

Or, A hui hou.

Or, Later, man.

Hey, it’s beer thirty.

Pau hana, brudda. Time for suck ’em up.

Ravid!

Yes, he looked beat, without resources, without hope, in need of something, though that something appeared to be solitude. Maybe later that evening would be time for those friends truly concerned and not too buzzed up to stop around at Ravid’s place for solace and a review of the options remaining, and don’t forget the great good times they’d had.

Twenty minutes of catatonia seemed to do it, maybe providing adequate rest for the muscles bunched low, clamoring to move lest they stiffen with the wreckage. It was time for a slow hobble home like a feeble old man. So he got out, paused for a moment of gratitude to 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 on fortitude 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 provide shelter till the end of the month, which would be next week.

Passing the Kiawekapu General Store, he briefly recalled his idea of saving money on groceries as most beneficial to his exit strategy. That seemed like a long time ago, he thought, heading in for two beers — the liter bottles that stay cold enough for the time you need to drink them if you hurry — and a can of cat food. Standing at the counter, fumbling with his net bag, digging for the right pocket in his balled-up shorts to pull out the money, he stopped when Gene, the big woman behind the counter, said, “Hey. Forget it, Sugar. I got this one.”

He looked up with more wonder than gratitude. Then came the flood of comprehension — of gratitude and regret. She knew. The word was out. The coconut wireless had carried the news as quick as the speed of light. All the words were out. Ravid Rockulz was out of here.

Which seemed to be timed perfectly, but then timing was also the biggest challenge. Gene had given such a small gift on such a difficult day that no sooner did Ravid smile halfway and try to say thank you than he cried. He turned around to cover his face, to get past his moment of weakness, as she walked around and pulled him to her massive bosom. She assured him that everyone has tough days and that he had more friends than he could ever be aware of. “Don’t even 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, Ravid walked out and down the sidewalk fifty yards, where he stuffed the can of cat food into his net bag and then sat down on the curb to drink the first beer. He must have been having more fun than he’d imagined, because the sun was much lower than usual at this point of his journey home. He pondered his destination briefly, what waited there, 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’s off-timing called for stronger dosage of available antidotes.

He looked up as if right on cue to see a star twinkling. He looked left and right to ascertain its firstness in the evening sky. He could make no wish because of the futility of wishing. But he watched it. What are you staring at? it seemed to ask. He had no answer but felt solace and refuge in its singular twinkle, which wasn’t exactly a wish come true but seemed like a reasonable destination for a wayward soul clinging stubbornly to life. Soon came a few more twinklers, till any more solace would have brought on the nausea.

So he stood up, 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 reached for the fortitude and squirm required to peel his wetsuit down to below his pee-pee and then make sure he didn’t dribble on it. He could just as easily have pissed in it and rinsed in the shower down the beach walk where the tourists rinsed. Except that pissing in your wetsuit is disgusting 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.

Well, a man’s 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, just prior to pulling his wetsuit back up to waist level from where it had slipped down to his knees, Ravid knew that the pickup truck passing slowly behind him was local — and way undersized, on tires that were way oversized, in a compensatory display that was way overplayed and entirely tedious.

Then he knew it was slowing and would stop, just as he knew who was inside.

Of course he nonetheless reacted to the strip of duct tape covering his mouth, but it was a nominal resistance, especially with so many hands on him. Jarred, confused and fatigued, he gave in to what nature had in store for him because he had nothing else to give, and because it hadn’t made a difference anyway, no matter what he gave. So the rough boys who seemed like Cousin Darryl’s other cousins muscled Ravid into submission. They bound his knees with more duct tape and so on around his ankles. They taped his wrists behind his back, and finally, they heaved him way up into the truck bed, where he landed like dead weight, no bounce.

Ravid’s eyes frantically searched for the star that had been first, to wish belatedly for a little cyanide ampoule that he might gratefully crush between his molars for an express ride to the sweetest sleep any man had ever imagined. But the truck bounced so badly he couldn’t stay focused on any single star. The bouncing and the effects of two liters of beer made him glad he’d at least taken a giant piss in the nick of time. Not that a piss would matter, taken or not taken, and maybe the best thanks to show these abductors would be a nice piss in their truck bed, not that Darryl’s cousins would notice a truck bed full of piss. They wouldn’t have noticed, because they were pissy boys.

What’s that smell?

What? What smell?

Oh, yeah. The truck.

What, you?

Born & Raised assured him from the rear window that no matter what he did or thought or who he was, it didn’t mean shit, because he’d never been born or raised.

At least the most miserable ride of that most miserable day was brief as the backtrack route to the boat launch. The place was empty in the early evening, except for a little aluminum boat with a single outboard idling at the dock and another cousin standing by, waiting officiously for the unsavory but necessary task at hand. When the truck was expertly backed down to within precipitous inches of losing traction, all four cousins dragged Ravid from the bed to a staggering position and from there to the dock, where he was propped alongside the boat. He noted from his precarious position that the little boat had no kicker motor in case of primary motor failure, no anchor to hold the boat in place, to hook the bottom in the event of power failure along with weather or current stronger than the muscle power available on board, and no deck or scuppers, meaning this little sardine can would not self-bail but would sink soon after the first breaking wave broke over the rail. Of course, practical safeguards were incidental to these racially superior seamen.

Besides that, neither safeguards nor practicalities would soon 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. Ravid was given over to gravity, to topple the last four feet of the boarding process, noting with disappointment and glee on his way to yet another impact that this little tin vessel was an Opala brand, famous for its skill requirements in heavy seas — meaning it was known to swamp and sink at the slightest provocation — and equally notorious for its singular flotation mechanism, which was hollow seat wells. The biggest hollow seat in the center was fronted by a plug in the bottom of the hull for easy drainage once the little boat was back on the trailer.

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

When he came to, he could tell that things were underway. Rolling over onto his back on the roly-poly waves that felt far from the placid waters near the boat launch, he wiggled himself into place. The little drain plug jabbed his sacrum wantonly, mere inches from the figurative jabbing he’d felt in the last few hours — never mind, because the drain plug was also mere inches from his hands. Nobody minded when he sat up to see, because what he saw made no difference either. He saw McGregor Point way to starboard, Makena to port with Molokini just forward of that. With the great looming shadow of Kahoolawe dead ahead and the faint outline of Lanai off to starboard, it didn’t take an ace navigator to inform in a heartbeat that the cousins did not intend to dump their nemesis simply overboard. They meant to deliver him overboard at the aggregation buoy — the primary aggregates of which were the complete ocean food chain, from the bottom, including algae and plankton clinging to the buoy, chains, and netting, growing there to host the next step up, little shrimp and fish and so on to the top of the predatory hierarchy. That meant sharks, including tigers and oceanic white tips, who craved man meat in the minds of fearful people and who, like these cousins, lacked normal behavior patterns but would attack and feed as soon as not. So he lay back down, grasping the little drain plug, twisting it to test for movement, wondering if in fact his new friends might not crave a satisfaction far 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, their code by rights, and at their fondness of the honest brutality of the thing. Darryl called them stupid, telling them to look over the side and count the rocks they could see. “Foa hunned feet already. Fockeen lolo heads. Fock.”

Of course he had a point, and with wind and seas mounting, the other cousins turned to other concerns. They spoke of the five-mile rule, delineating the proper distance from shore for bad people to go over the side. They agreed that the white-rock/black-rock rule had no meaning this far out, and likewise the five-mile rule seemed equally moot. They didn’t actually call the point “moot”; they merely reached consensus on the key question: “Da fuck?” Why go the full five in these conditions? Hey, three and a half already. Four miles out was way da fuck out there — no more land already from down in the trough, between the crests. Surely four miles would do it, or even three. Their courage struggled against their apprehension, not to mention their practicality, as if racially superior watermen had every right to be scared shitless for their own survival in a little tin boat this far out this late. But never mind — too late already for three miles, but four miles would be perfect. The cousins muttered affirmation on da kine. Except for Darryl, mum at the helm, with an expression calling for the full five miles, since nobody here was more qualified to make the call, on account of da kine.

Ravid had wondered from time to time how he might fare in the face of imminent death, not as grist for his masculinity mill but as an exercise integral to his job. Most dive instructors avoided complacency by knowing and respecting the particular hazards of any dive on any given daily adventure. And all had been trained to think and act and repeat as necessary to the bitter end. A dive leader could never lose sight of his daily presence on the outskirts of mortality, in the risky suburbs of tourist instability at depth.

Ravid had actually welcomed complacency as a blessed relief from stealth commando action with explosives and mortal enemies at hand. He sensed that nobody could actually foretell the calmness they would bring to death’s table, but he viewed his job of leading tourists on dives as a walk in the basil.

He felt composed, posing questions to his inner self at this difficult juncture — tough questions, like, Why would he cry over the gift of beer yet when facing death remain tearless? Or, How could the truest love he’d known come to this? Or, What could possibly make these guys tick? Or, What could they hope to achieve? Ideas also drifted near and were shooed away, like flies on carrion not yet dead. He pondered a strategy of taunting Darryl with nasty images, complimenting him on teaching his sex pupil so well. This too was discounted quickly. Darryl was a brush fire in need of water, not gasoline. Besides that, another strategy seemed to be firmly in hand — hardly a strategy for survival, but one that would elevate the final play to a level of extreme satisfaction. And that made sense, because a man must reach for the greatest return available, especially with odds so low.

A wave broke nearby, its outer lip coming into the boat with enough water to alarm Darryl and his cousins. Two sawed-off Clorox bottles floated among them, so two cousins grabbed and bailed. Darryl at the helm said, “Cross sea. No worry. No scared. Hey, you.” He nudged Ravid with his foot. “You scared?”

Yes, Ravid was scared, but whether Darryl knew that or not was of little consequence, because a man with sea time and a few thousand dives knows that the game is not lost till the last bubbles rise. He had only one tool, a blunt-tipped dive knife stashed inside his booty alongside the left ankle. He kept it hidden, because the worst of the macho-burdened tourists wore calf-wrap dive daggers, sometimes in the seventeen-inch Bowie style, as if Jaws VI would be theirs to bag. Seeing the dive leader with a knife only encouraged continuing folly. Most wore more conventional knives, most with points, so they could stab themselves or poke a hose inadvertently. It hadn’t happened yet, but seeing the worst of the knife guys had compelled him to hide his own knife, which he carried by habit to cut fishing line that had snagged on reefs, and to cut himself free of drifting gill net fragments invisible to the human or fish eye, like the one that nearly drowned him early in his career.

But having a knife stashed alongside his ankle would have no value with his hands taped behind his back. So yet another idea emerged on a ray of hope, on a gossamer thread of maybe, just maybe: “Darryl,” he croaked.

Darryl would not respond to the man who had caused him so much pain.

Ravid continued, “I want you to know that...that in...in private times, Minna spoke your name. I mean, she called me Darryl. I asked her, ‘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. Could you really expect this half-baked psychopath to see the light and turn back for the dock? To ease up on a haole suck no better than the rest, coming in here and taking everything? No, you could not. So don’t blow this one chance to survive, maybe not for long but for long enough.

“Can I...have a cigarette?”

Darryl called cousin Kevin by name, but Kevin shrugged, indicating da kine all wet. Besides, the wind was up with the waves. They’d never get it lit. That’s okay. Ravid didn’t smoke and knew enough of those who did to know that this wind and these waves were the best time to cut back on smoking and overeating. Still, it was a test, showing that mercy would be doled out in molecular doses.

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

The request seemed ridiculous in that little tin boat on those boiling seas, where all hands were busy bailing steering or hanging on, and itchy nuts did not compute. On that note, a three-quarter moon rose from behind Haleakala, lighting the chaos of waves. In a few more minutes, Darryl hove to and put the engine in neutral, so the little boat quickly turned sideways to the wave and nearly hulied right there as another load of water sloshed aboard.

The engine sputtered and died.

Sliding down the face of the next swell, the little boat gained steerage when Darryl used the outboard as a rudder, steering and at the same time pulling the starter rope repeatedly to no avail. Winded from the effort but keeping the stern to the swell, Darryl mumbled malediction, as if the little outboard was also haole and guilty of theft. Never mind; the waves weren’t breaking, so the execution could begin — better to ditch the ballast, lighten the load and get the task over to better work da moddafockeen boat.

Darryl kept an eye on the swell and maneuvered to keep the stern to it as the cousins struggled to lift Ravid to his knees. How could the haole resist? Of course: He grasped the drain plug till their efforts pulled him and it free, which nobody noticed because it allowed water into the boat in an easy flow rather than a splash. Ravid gripped the plug. Darryl handed a knife forward with a nod. A cousin cut the tape from Ravid’s mouth. “You 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. Then you float too soon. I like you stay sink.” Darryl nodded again. They lifted Ravid’s ankles, yelling at each other to counter balance or they’d go kapa kai and maki. With his knees grinding into the bottom of the boat and his belly banging the thin tin rail, up and over and into Kealaikahiki Channel went Ravid Rockulz, a tired man who’d never felt quite so old.

But this was no time for rest and reflection, not just yet. He sorely wanted to raise his voice in triumph with a friendly suggestion that the born and raised among them could take turns sticking their dicks in the drain hole. Well, maybe they’d figure that one out on their own. Meanwhile, it was up to a waterman and survivalist to dead man’s float, face down, turning up for a breath 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. This would take far longer than advisable, because he couldn’t feel his wrists and really wanted to avoid cutting them, because he wouldn’t likely have time to bleed to death before Mano and that gang got wind of the hoedown at the aggregation buoy. Or maybe the imagery of a feeding frenzy was only a panic reaction, so for the moment he followed directions as written in the manual.

Drifting beyond the range of recapture, he looked up to breathe and saw the cousins watching him, apparently more taken by their sweet revenge than the peril surrounding them. Then the tape was cut, presenting another temptation of tossing the drain plug back at them. But no, what use could a pissing contest have at this point? So he let his arms loll in front, and in a slow subtle breaststroke pulled away into the darkness, from where he heard the little engine sputter on a few pulls of the starter rope and an urgent accusation: “Fockeen suck! Stole a drain plug!”

How strange life seemed, awash in a rowdy sea at night, smiling at his own sweet revenge. Was this as good as it got? Or as bad? Well, no matter the motivation or the result, events still didn’t make him as bad as them. Did they? The engine sputtered and died. The odds on two beaters dying the same day were actually good, considering that beaters die every day, and one of these was doused with seawater. So he bent to the task of finding his knife and cutting the tape from his knees and ankles to better begin the next struggle, of pulling the top half of his wetsuit back onto his arms and zipping up the front.

Another passing image was shooed away but crawled up his spine to nestle firmly in his brain. It was the scene where George Orwell wanted to know his prisoner’s greatest fear to better taunt him with it. It was rats, so a big rat in a cage was released onto the man’s face, and yes, it was scary. In his countless dives — day dives and night dives — Ravid Rockulz had never lost his fear of surface swimming at night. He avoided it — had been taught as much. He knew who worked this beat and what signals triggered a feeding. Which is not to say a man could avoid danger by knowing the signals, but that he should avoid the signals. One of the signals was fear itself, a unique electronic frequency emitted by the fearful person through the depths, maybe not so resounding as the bloody dinner gong, but then maybe so, if the fear stunk loud enough. So what could he do, stop the fear?

No, he could not. But he could assure himself that few people anywhere were better trained and prepared for such dire straits as these — okay, better trained at any rate. Who could ever be prepared?

What? As if on cue, the rueful faces of Basha Rivka and Skinny kvetched and mewed their scolding chorus, that only a fool would count himself better off than most, up shit creek with superior treading skills. Well, it should be to laugh, and sometime soon he would look back on this vision and laugh, God willing —

What?

Did you say God?

Okay, like the man said, it was down to practicality or default to death. Control your breathing and thereby control the fear, or at least rein it in. Yet breathing too could ring like a chuck wagon triangle, since the only fish who breathed at the surface were injured, calling out for predatory dispatch. Or maybe his breathing would sound like a baby whale, or a monk seal. So he kept his breathing as quiet as he could, maintaining the most important cover of all: a slow, smooth, uninjured stroke — not a crawl, never a crawl, but a breaststroke, nice and easy, with minimal surface splashing, and don’t forget the rhythm. Oh, hell, the current would take him to the open ocean anyway, so what difference could it make?

The fear surged to horror every minute or two, as it would have done in the strongest of watermen, till it subsided again to reasonable management.

There.

Fear filled the spaces between heartbeats till it seemed so steady as to resemble normal feeling. But how can a body sustain the highest levels of any emotion? It can’t, because a new baseline is soon established, and by the wonders of adaptation, things feel normal again.

Then the fear spiked to new heights at the arrival of a surface layer of light brown scuz foam demarcating two different currents. One side of the foam line was notably quicker, the seas jumping higher as the wind bucked the tide. The other side could have been a reverse current, but that seemed unlikely. At any rate, a tide rip was the fishermen’s action zone, where the food chain worked from the bottom up, with the little critters trapped in the swirl and bigger critters attracted to the feed, on up to the apex predators who appreciated the selection and diversity of the menu along with the convenience of the buffet.

With thoughts and images swirling and thrashing freely as a feeding frenzy, Ravid clung to the surest flotsam in the ink-dark sea, which was the twin visage of his mother and his cat. Both chided him for winding up like this, after all she’d given him, after all her love and teaching. But he was so bull-headed, just like his father, that bum. It was such a waste for a boy with so much advantage to end up like this, and for what, a little piece of babka? Go figure. Who knew?

He laughed, wishing Basha Rivka could meet Skinny and wondering if they ever would but doubting it; it was so many miles, and Skinny was a cat, so she couldn’t travel out of Hawaii without facing mortal risk in quarantine on her return, and Basha Rivka was a kvetch, asking nearly audibly that very minute, “You want me to what? Travel halfway around the world to meet a vacocta cat?” He could see her click her tongue at the shame and waste of it all, could see the other one, the cat, staring at the immutable truth, emitting her silent meow. He wanted to tell them what a rich and creamy babka it was, it was. But he kept his mouth shut so the one could ramble while the other watched from atop the dresser as he pulled through the next two miles, which wasn’t too far at all, 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 each and he can’t feel his legs, and then he has no choice but to slow down. And if it’s a four-mile swim, the last two become very far and worse.

So it was that verging on first light, between a mile and two miles out, Ravid Rockulz, waterman, gave up in the water. Not by choice, because a survivor cannot choose to not survive, but by losing control of his arms and legs. He finally failed to answer the call for yet another stroke. Reduced again to a dead man’s float, he tipped his head sideways as necessary to lift the blowhole clear for another breath. Yes, a shark would be more attracted to a dead body than a live one, and with his half gram of energy remaining he focused on his intermittent breathing and lifeless-looking body as a graceful, deliberate and strong distance swimmer. He could not muster the oomph to laugh at this great joke on himself.

But strength ebbing to zero, even in a man resigned to the end, can spike on a shot of adrenaline, allowing the man to rise a few inches for the better view. There only a hundred yards away was an outrigger canoe, soon accompanied by the rhythmic harmony of five old men chanting responsively in Hawaiian to 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. They were called the Old Guys because they were so old: fifty-five, fifty-eight, sixty years old already, some of those guys. They had Uncle Walter Kanakaokelani and Keahou Lehuamoku, two old guys who had a pact with each other that each would paddle as long as the other one did. And Kimokeo Kapahulehua, formerly known as Bully because he was — in your face and stomping your feet — before he got discovered by his kumu, Kimokeo Manewanewa, who told him it was time to be Hawaiian with a Hawaiian name. But Bully said he had no name except for Bully, so Kimokeo Manewanewa said, “Here, take my name. Don’t mess it up. Don’t get it dirty. Represent.” The charter boat crews only called them Old Guys because Elemakule Mea Hoe Wa‘a was too hard to remember, and charter crews are simple by nature. The Old Guys garnered respect verging on reverence because they descended from the original watermen.

The Old Guys were seen more mornings than not, and if not, it was because they’d taken to the open sea on their way to Ni‘ihau or Papahanaumokuakea hundreds of miles out — in an open canoe to demonstrate what real Hawaiians did and yet could do. Some mornings they could be seen on their return, when they would pick up the pace to show what men who weren’t so old could do. It wasn’t macho but manly, because they worked together and loved the sea.

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

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

Whatever the motivation, it was a more merciful morning than yesterday’s. Ravid waved an arm and, in high falsetto to carry over the water, squealed, “Hoy! Hooooyeee! Hoy!”

So the canoe veered and drifted close, till the helmsman told Ravid to duck under the ama, the outrigger. Ducking under was easy enough, though Ravid knew he could not lift himself aboard. That was okay, because he wouldn’t be coming aboard — not aboard the canoe, anyway. He would go aboard the little tin boat, to return to the land of aloha. So all the boys and men sat adrift, listening to Uncle Walter read his indictment of wrong behavior along with the pardon and reconciliation required by 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 descendents goes seven generations back and seven ahead. We can have no kuleana without kokua, no responsibility without cooperation. We share responsibility as we share fish or bread, like Jesus guys, though we did it first. You guys. Shame. Shame. Shame. Shame. Do you hear what I say?

“My hanai daughter is a hula kumu, even though 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. These things were mean-spirited. They hurt her. They went against what she’d been taught, and so I knew I had not completed her lessons. So I taught her that Hawaiian gods 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 still live Hawaiian. You must trust the gods to take care of things, because it’s not your place to get angry and all huhu and swear at people. It’s not in Hawaiian nature to do that. By Hawaiian actions, you may live Hawaiian and know aloha. If you give way to anger, you allow rage and resentment in blood that is not Hawaiian. You will not see a true Hawaiian in a place of confrontation. You might see locals complaining. They have nothing to be proud of but being born here. We don’t consider this behavior Hawaiian. These people are often not Hawaiian, but we’re also aware of what’s been lost. We remember our loss, but we have faith in justice. You will hear what a Hawaiian thinks and feels only by talking softly and listening...”

He spoke in English and Hawaiian as the other Old Guys shifted in their seats, cooling off but not uttering the first groan because of the consequences at hand, just as it was on the morning when he, Uncle Walter, got picked up along with his friend Keahou Lehuamoku. Keahou sat one seat up as he’d pledged to do, but on that day long ago got saved along with Walter from another drowning and murder one. The details were long gone and mattered for nothing except to remember the responsibility of the people to the place and the people.

“You. Bring him up. Take care of him. Show him what you know, so maybe 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 Ravid Rockulz came aboard the little tin boat for the second time, hauled up like a balled-up ghost net, lifeless but for the spent flesh trapped in it. The three cousins’ best effort at aloha included no threats, no epithets, no hints of violence and no suggestion of bitterness or blame. Darryl’s head hung low, not rising for Uncle Walter’s sermon or Ravid’s coming aboard. He finally spoke when the motley tow party got underway again, with a crew of young, strong, but failed men riding free on the efforts of the Old Guys. The dishonor and disgrace grew as palpable as daylight, with the whole sky and ocean there as witness. The boat in the lead effused wisdom, fortitude and survival, crossing the Molokai and Pailolo Channels at night in an open canoe, while the boat in tow was derelict in attitude and buoyancy. Couldn’t even kill one fockeen haole.

Looking feebly up, as if beaten in spirit, Darryl made his crowning concession to peace with a question: “So, when you...when you make da kine with my girl, she say my name?”

Overruling this criminal’s spurious concession to anything, Ravid replied, “No. I made that up. That was a tough situation, with you about to kill me for fucking Minna. We fucked about — what — about fourteen days, say 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 and fuck to get the hot sauce out. But anyway, where was I? Fourteen days, say six or eight fucks in a day is — what — a hundred twenty fucks or so before I ever knew you existed. She didn’t tell me. You did, when you drove up in that circus wagon. She was sucking me off when you pulled up. Well, she’d just finished sucking me off. She was wiping her chin when you got there. I guess she couldn’t swallow the whole load. You know.”

The cousins looked very worried. But not Darryl. Old Darryl, seasoned veteran of the pissing contest to the death, only smiled the old smile. Ravid smiled back and in further concession to something or other said, “Hey. This is good, eh? We’re talking softly. And listening.”

Darryl nodded, as if agreeing to agree at last. “Let me tell you what she is capable of swallowing.” And softly he spoke with Ravid listening, as the grimace moved awkwardly to the face of paler complexion.

So the remaining distance was slowly covered, though not so slowly as by a man adrift. Darryl could twist the dagger deftly on sordid details. Squeamish reaction could not be contained, so bold and voracious was Minna’s appetite for the big banana. “I knew you was lying when you say about my name. She no care who, when she get the Portagee sausage go fump, fump, fump. Up here. Down deah. She no care.” So compelling was Darryl’s narrative in delivery and detail that a few eyebrows rose among the cousins, pondering personal prospects for the Portagee sausage go fump, fump, fump. Speculation ended when Darryl saw those wheels turning and asked, “Ey. You like die?” The cousins looked down, because no, they no like die.

They looked up to see Darryl’s skill in the shore break, keeping the tin boat’s stern to the breakers till the bow thudded sand and surged another eight feet up on the next wave to high and dry. All the cousins got out and slouched for the road. Ravid oozed over the side and crawled up, not like the first creature in the evolution of land-based animal life but like a waterman surviving attempted murder. To the tourists passing on their fabulous sunrise strolls, he looked like an early swimmer in a wetsuit. Rising on the third attempt to stand upright, he realized that the inky darkness turned gray had cleared to blue, the day’s radiance oblivious as the sun coming over the horizon. The early beach crowd stared at the temerity of such a long swim at sunrise. Nobody had seen him enter the water, but they assumed the swim was long, another wondrous event of life in Paradise. A few observers who’d actually bought real estate in recent months muttered, “Lucky we live Maui.”

Wobbling his head like a plastic pooch in a rear window, Ravid looked amiable and half drunk. Then he completed the task begun fifteen hours before, of walking home, this time on a heavier shuffle with a few rusty hinges in his gait.

He drank a quart of water from the hose at the side of the shack but had no strength to pull off his wetsuit. So he cut it off, nearly cutting himself in the process but cutting nonetheless this object of his servitude, though it saved his life. Well, he might have made it without the wetsuit. The net bag with his shorts and cat food sat on the steps. Wasn’t it great to have friends?

Walking inside to the little red beacon flashing on his answering machine he pressed play in passing, on his way to the drawer for the can opener as little voices told of tomorrow’s charter, of 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: “Hi. Dis Steve Shirokiya wit da Immigration Natchazation Service. You don’t need one lawyer. Okay? You call me back. Okay? Plan to come right down. Okay? Oh! Bring your green card. Okay? We get one problem.”

So the hammers fell in sequence, giving the chaos a rhythm and banging numbness to oblivion.

Never mind. He opened the cat food to quell the incessant demand, as if she didn’t know where he’d been or how his rigors could possibly compare to missing a glob of cat food. In the hot shower, he shuddered uncontrollably. He cried again suddenly, and as suddenly stopped. He dried, rubbed oil on his body, brushed his hair and lay his beaten self down. He got up, made coffee, had a can of sardines with crackers and gave one to the cat, who chewed half of it halfway and walked away from it, underscoring the terrible indifference of love and nature.

He lay himself back down and dozed for what felt like three minutes, then woke to a knock at the door, which he opened on two people apparently arriving at the same time, staring at each other as if to ask, What are you doing here? Each held a fold of papers.

The first was a court-authorized server with a subpoena from Hundred-Grand Kreeger. Joseph Kreeger, attorney, was the skinhead ambulance chaser from hell, famous across Hawaii for suing the state over every accident at every beach or on any charter boat, citing negligence and claiming damages between 1.5 and 5.1 million, but most often willing to settle out for a hundred grand. The insurance companies invariably settled, since a hundred grand was the cost of defense. On this subpoena the plaintiff’s name appeared just below HG Kreeger’s: Darryl Omadang, seeking damages including, but not limited to, one million dollars, along with a demand for proof of legal entry and green card in order to answer charges of violation of civil rights. And so on and so forth to attempted murder by stealing a drain plug on the high seas, with a deadline date for discovery and deposition and on and on.

The server left halfway through Ravid’s reading of the first word.

The second person arriving, his once true love, stayed on patiently through paragraphs two through twelve. He finished and drifted back in. She followed, beautiful as a picture, smiling sweetly and promising that a love like theirs didn’t happen so often. “Maybe once or twice every few years is all you get, if you know what I mean, and, maybe, I mean, maybe, if you could give us another chance, I can show you a love like you never imagined.” With a strange movement, she stumbled over salacious potential on her way to innocence.

He laughed short, more of a snort or involuntary grunt than a laugh, more to catch his breath than express mirth or humor.

She slapped his back. He waved her off.

Breathing again, calmly as a man trying to swim under the shark radar, he asked her what she’d brought. “Oh, this.” She unfolded the newspaper in her hand to a story of natural destruction involving plastic garbage smothering a swath of ocean. “It’s nothing, really. I thought you’d like to see it. I mean, you’re such an enviro and whatnot.”

Squinting deeply, he focused on the ghastly obscenity: A “plastic soup” of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area bigger than the continental United States, scientists have said.

And so on, with a hundred million tons of free-floating plastic adrift between California and Japan, an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on.

A court subpoena on a lawsuit for a million dollars and news of a dying ocean were enough to darken the morning. At least the dazed survivor need not worry over the third installment in the bad news trio. It was there before him: It’s nothing really...you’re such an enviro and whatnot...

He saw what he hadn’t seen before, which wasn’t to say it wasn’t there before, or that she’d changed. External forces had not aligned till this juncture. The series of challenges now revealed their meaning, showing him what was up and the consequence of not paying attention. He’d chosen what any healthy young man would choose: a non-stop romp in the canebrake instead of reconciliation to a world gone awry. The path before him was not so different than what had seemed apparent these last few days and years. He’d recognized the correct path but had declined to take it. Now it opened clearly as a trailhead, onto which the first footfall would be imminent.

Muttering half to himself and half to an unknown presence or alter ego or former confidant, Ravid allowed, “Maybe it’s time to move to someplace better. Someplace not so crowded or pressured. Someplace still tropical.” He looked up, as if expecting a response from her. “You know?”

She didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t know. He turned the paper over to a listing of diseases on the verge of pandemic, with casualty estimates ranging from fifty million to a billion humans. “What is this, the Bad News Bugle? It’s enough to get a guy going. You never thought about that, did you? About going somewhere else?”

She blushed, as if she had thought of moving, or changing other fundamentals. “It’s so strange. I mean, the way you feel toward people. Toward society. You’re so good at what you do, and I think you like people once you get to know them on an individual basis. 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.”

Beautiful as ever, she waited, inanimate as a fence post — a lovely fence post, giving and generous, holding up the fence and providing a perch where the little birds could sing. But her landscape hardly attracted a waterman who knew the score.

Lest a compassionate man grow cruel, he chose to see her lacking what he needed rather than lacking intelligence. He also lacked this and that. She valued society like a good person, though some she’d valued seemed less than a bargain. Her devaluation would take time to sort out. Maybe the hind side of separation would grant perspective and credit them both with an honest mistake, for which nobody should remain indebted.

After all, he’d devalued too — had died in every cell a million times but not the one time that would have stopped his pulse.

So with the humble practicality of he who was spared and isn’t quite sure why, he looked around her, out the door, to see that she had driven her car. And he asked, “Can you take me to the airport, please?”

Stuck again between bliss and a wince, she said yes, of course she could take him to the airport and would — she’d do anything for him and will understand whatever he chooses to do. She told him that overnight he’d become her hero. Oh, she’d admired him immensely already, and it wasn’t the usual nighttime heroics that stole her heart. It was his great skill with people, especially in the water. She could easily see why so many sought him again, whatever boat he was working, one year to the next, and why the women came to him, even if that job performance made her self-conscious of being, well, up to par with those others. But the big thing was, “You swam in from the aggregation buoy! Fuck, man! Darryl guys are good with their little boats and whatnot. I’ll give them that much, but that’s all I’ll give them. They always showing off, taking stupid chances. They don’t know what they’re doing. They want to take everything so you don’t get any. That’s why.” She meant not any fish or puhehe, not one little speck o’ notting, because it’s theirs, all theirs and only theirs. They’d see it die first, and you along with it.

“But you! You swam in from the aggregation buoy,” she said again. “You do know what you’re doing. You know what it means out there. You know, and ocean spirits recognize you. That’s aloha, man. Da kine. From the ocean. You know that, don’t you? Not too many people have that. But you do. And I can say I know you. I can be proud of you. Maybe I cannot be yours, but I can love you. And I do, just like the ocean loves you, and for the rest too.”

Mildly peeved, he practically wished she’d said for the rest too and whatnot, to underscore his assessment, which had its spot failures, but then a strong, young man must forge ahead on his best shot, mistakes notwithstanding.

He half smiled and said, “Maybe someday I’ll be able to see better what got me back in from way out there. I hope so. I’m afraid for now all I can think about is what got me out there.”

His stern visage softened with truce and the emotional ceasefire required to maintain the truce. He asked if she would come back to pick him up in about three hours. He would call her to confirm, once he got a flight.

She said she would plan to be back in three hours and in the meantime would just be, you know, hanging out, so he could call anytime. She hesitated as if for a look, a nod or a touch.

A kiss?

Then she left.

And so our story begins.