Putting the Mean Back in Meaningless (Part 2)

They told me it was BYOB. So because it's what Jesus would do, I secured the last bottle of merlot from my last trip to the continent along with a huge corkscrew bottle opener concealed in my beltline like a weapon. I jammed the wine in my front pocket and wandered around like it was perfectly normal, daring anyone to question my reasoning.

We were greeted at the balcony by Chris after passing an unconscious hippy with a plastic rubbish container bound around his neck, dripping vomit from his chin and looking ready to be tossed curbside for a morning pickup. The sharpie marking on his hand read, "don't ever do this again, it could have been much worse. -CC"

In a t-shirt and tie he hugged me with obvious love, demanding to know where I had been and babbling on about another 80s party. I told him I'd been hiding from lawyers in Nogales Mexico for obvious reasons. But never mind, here I was now full of righteous anger with a bottle of red wine that I would either open when I was seized by inspiration, or use as a weapon. At this point it didn't matter. It would be hard to resist tossing it down to street level unopened just to see the explosion.

Chris' tie and t-shirt set off one of Alvarez' people immediately like a police siren in a bat cave. That sort of unkempt metrosexuality was more than the redneck could handle in one gulp at the first onset of a Friday evening. But I told him not to worry about it. Shut up and blend in, or someone would surely find the means to toss him to the street where the urchins would empty his pockets and make off into the night with his slippers. The metrosexuals were as ruthless as any gang and always waiting to make an example of an enemy.

"But he's gay!" the boy spat at me, his lips blubbering with cottonmouth terror and pure ignorance.

I slapped him hard across the lips twice. Left and right with grim determination that I would only have to make this point once. "What do you mean by that? You're upset that he's limiting himself to one sexual preference? Unlike you, so obviously highly evolved in your own bisexuality?"

"But I'm not-"

I growled at him from my gut in complete frustration, pulling the corkscrew from my pants and ready to spear him in the hand and uncork a metacarpal when Chris grabbed me from behind, wanting to know the story behind the wine in my pants and leading me off to the dark side of the roof.

"Look who's here," he said to Christa who I had evidently not seen since December. She was busy with a crowd of Japanese businessmen obviously negotiating some kind of merger for Jewish/Japanese control of Oahu.

I let her have it for her newly bleached blonde hair, recalling the last time I'd seen her when she couldn't stop berating me for shaving my own skull. And told her she ought remedy it at once before some right wing WASP coalition descended with barbed-wire bats and chainsaws and tried to adopt her as their poster child. I wasn't here for the fashion show, but fair was fair. I never claimed to take criticism gracefully. An eye for an eye.

Evidently it was someones birthday, and the boss had given her the keys to the office. I surveyed the roof area looking to the left just as someone made contact with a huge pi�ata shaped like a dogfish. The pink eyesore exploded right in front of me like a roach bomb and the air was snuffed in a deluge of flying vials of designer drugs and pez dispensers. The frenzied mob scrambled like eels from all corners of the deck squealing in feverish glee hoping to get their hands on the worst of it, trampling awful holes in the illiterate along the way and not bothering to pause for things like good form, safety or reason.

I dodged several waves of crazies and reached the parapet wall, wiping someone else�s blood from my forehead where I spotted a known and foul import/export tycoon camped out nursing a surgically enhanced hip, with a black steel cane and what I assumed was his wife. I slapped him on the shoulder and shook arms demanding to know her name. Right away his eyes went glassy and evasive at the question and she giggled and blushed.

"You son of a bitch!" I barked, grabbing him by the collar insistent to know where were his wife and kids, how much had he paid for this Thai prostitute, and what the hell was he doing pinned to this wall. The hooker howled in protest but the tycoon grinned at her, shaking his head to let me go. I told him it was a wise choice to keep her silent, if I could remember in the morning I would report him directly to the right people, after all I told him, our children went to the same school. I wandered off to the toilet listening to him asking a small crowd if I had any children and how did I afford to send them to Waldorf?

"He does it by extorting guys like you!" I heard someone shout. It was Jack the Mormon who had arrived late. As I turned I saw him grab the hooker in his huge sunburned meat hooks and plant a kiss on her face, harshly smearing her lipstick then lumbering off in the other direction, leaving her clueless and forlorn.

In the toilet my phone rang. It was someone from the student loan society named Guido. He wanted to know my current address. I laughed at him asking if he had the right number but drunk beyond reason and incapable of real deceit. He assured me that I just confirmed my own identity and where could he send my statements. I told him it would be paid in full at once, grabbing a business card from one of the architects from the rubbish. I had him send a one-time payment option directly to Smith Street and we would take care of this thing right now. In the heart of my lie, I noticed I had inadvertently pissed down my own leg from crotch to boot heel like a fool. I cursed absently and kicked through the crowd of women assembled at the door.

Alvarez was waiting, sobering up and sipping at some kind of carbonated pink cup. I confessed my dilemma to him at once. He laughed and dumped the drink in my crotch, drawing an immediate gasp from the crowd. I believe for effect, he slapped me in the face and folded his arms. It was quick thinking though and I appreciate that. Problem solved.

Somewhere on the dance floor Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Schilling started playing. I decided this must be the moment to open the wine before it bore a hole in my pocket. I demanded Alvarez sing the chorus with me but he looked at me with all the grim understanding of seven dwarves in the way of an avalanche and turned the other way in shame.

I struck out for the center of the commotion, jamming the corkscrew in and opening the bottle in under 3 seconds, a personal best. No one near me understood the reason for the wine. Was it new years or some obscure eastern holiday? But they went along like dumb beasts, and while they nodded, dancing along stupefied, I topped off their mai tais with several ounces of vintage red until the smart ones started shrinking back in horror and I was forced to toast myself straight from the bottle.

Gagging on the rotten wine I made a mad rush to the ledge where the Tycoon was still camped out immobile with his prostitute. I barked a horrible garbled Japanese battle cry and smashed the bottle over his surgically repaired hip, showering us all with wine. He crumpled to the floor at once, grimacing in pain asking why had this happened to him as his hooker pounced on him, a weeping and jumbled mass of misplaced emotions.

"I hate that question. Just accept your fate." He writhed on the ground more in humiliation than actual pain but I felt a little bit bad for him. "Hmm. For the record I just wanted to see if you could move off that wall. You make a horrible wallflower by the way, but a fine step-stool for anyone brave enough to think they can fly."

The last words he could get out before surrendering to a monsoon of wretched sobbing was something along the lines of how I smelled like urine. But I cut him off with a wave, telling him to take his hussy home and go feed his kids.

Because I've seen it all, it's all bad, and it never ever gets better. We learned this the hard way making a dumb pilgrimage to Lulu's for nachos and heartburn where I passed out at the table only to be woke by my phone at an empty table where they had left me. A cruel joke to play on such a good and humble person especially this far past last call. I staggered outside where the pack had assembled, laughing like hyenas at my expense. Jack the Mormon crammed me into his car like cream filling and returned me to Chinatown where I collapsed in the $5 parking, a prisoner of Friday night and my own horrible filth.

Putting the Mean Back in Meaningless (Part 1)

My first Friday back from the continent, I was brimming with hate and bad habits. And the stink of the valley of the sun and Mexican whores clung to my clothes like kookaburras and one week on top of the roof on my latest project for Chevron had my face blistering like corn tortillas.

I was busy in Kailua, studying for a midterm on the endocrine system with several of my peers. They all look up to me like a cultural icon and I feel that it's all I can do to show up on a Friday evening once a month to grace them with my knowledge. I don't necessarily know that much about the endocrine system, but I can lie with the best of them. And after all it was Friday night and a good idea to touch base with them as far as The Plan.

Coastguard Joe was nursing a hangover like a mangy dog lapping its own wounds after beating day and crazy Shane was headed to Kaneohe for god knew what kind of freakishness with his people back at the commune. Everyone else was either pregnant or locked in to study for the night. So with lack of better prospects I dialed local thinking globally for jack the Mormon. One of my estranged contacts and current treasurer of the local rugby club. He answered the phone sounding of death but explained that it was just the surf, jammed in his nose with sand and nori. He demanded that I meet him and his people at the green room of Indigos with Alvarez and Tim the social chair for some weird architect party on the 4th floor off Smith Street.

For some reason I'm always the first one to Indigos. But I had no room to complain. Five dollar parking until 6am and red stripe bottles on special, I ordered one for myself and set about looking for Alvarez near the remnants of devoured happy hour pupus.

Someone reached out touching my red QN Electric shirt, looking like she'd just made contact with complete enlightenment with a glazed look that positively screamed of over-the-counter narcotics. "Sorry," her friend said, "She just thinks you're hot."

"Huh. Thanks," I grunted pleasantly. "But I'm not really and soon I'll be drunk and not even recognizable. Don’t waste your time with me."

I wandered away from them looking for friendly faces but finding none I headed back for the green room and took a chair at the bar hoping not to be spotted and labeled a social leper. The mood was calm for a first Friday with the art walk remnants drifting through and the happy hour delinquents sauced to the rafters glaring at the green lanterns and wondering where the time went.

"Could you hate this place anymore?"

It was a blonde woman easing onto the rail in tall black boots and leather mini skirt looking for all intents like some kind of artist ran off the main drag of first Friday and caught up in the frivolous maddening concept of too many martinis. She glared a hole through me to a gang of dopey looking goons of six foot plus hovering in the entryway.

"Are you kidding me?" I replied already regretting joining the conversation, "I'm capable of more hate than you could ever imagine."

She giggled sheepishly and covered her mouth.

One of the apes grabbed a steel chair and smacking it down in between her and me picked her up and plopped her down saying, "It is chair. You sit." In a dirty eastern block accent. He loped away and we exchanged names. She was a German mobile correspondent for the New York Times called Annah. Apparently she had accepted the wrong drink from the wrong guy and now the goons were closing in

"What do you do?"

"I am a project coordinator. I coordinate the rape of the land out here for the Chinese." I explained, knowing I might have to do it several more times depending on how much longer she stayed on board.

"My husband owns marks garage." She announced for no good reason at all.

"What does that mean? That he can have me killed? You don’t scare me. Is he some kind of Joey Buttafuoco mechanic?"

"It's an art gallery."

"Don't lie to me. I know what a garage is. Is that him? The one with the chair. He seems like a real gentleman. Well spoken and cultured to the yellow teeth."

No she said. Those were some Russian mobsters. She couldn't get away from them. They felt they owed her a little something after the drink. And I told her I had to agree. Nothing is for free young lady. Obviously they knew this brutal truth. Chivalry is a long dead pastime of fools. We are all thriving in a give and take ritualistic society and to buck the tide is like standing in the way of a train. Better to get in line for it, grit your teeth and have your ticket punched.

She laughed again and told me to stop making her do it on account of she just had gum surgery. I shook my head and dared her to repeat what I'd just said.

"What do you do?" she repeated with chemically induced amnesia.

I’m a massage therapist specializing in the removal of evil spirits from your shoulder blades and also hand and foot reflexology. She nodded and gave me her hand then wanted to know what I was drinking. Couldn’t she read? It was right in my hand in front of her. Why so many questions? How many fat short brown bottles are there in this place? Where was Alvarez?

Red Stripe of course. It was on special. It tastes like steel drums. She headed for the bar for two more, dropping her martini glass with a crash that silenced the crowd. I brandished my beer at them and they went back to murmuring at the lanterns.

The Russian mob moved in on me. The ring leader approached with a loping gait, semi threatening and steaming like hot vodka.

"What do you think about staying away from her?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "What do you think about the rising cost of mail order brides out of Moscow?" Was the only reply I could muster. “I think its stupid personally, but I'm just sitting here. Leave me alone.”

He laughed and stuck his fist out for me to smack my own against, nodding his head all the while in some kind of twisted show of communist brotherhood. I responded by grabbing his wrist and planting a sopping red stripe kiss on his knuckles. He shrieked and fled back to the breezeway.

Just then Tim showed up with his blonde woman bursting at the bra seams. I introduced them to the German reporter and explained that I may have drawn unnecessary heat from Russian gangsters, but that it was nothing I had any fear he couldn’t handle. Sick your military goons on them and be on your way…

Alvarez was in the next bar where the atmosphere was cooler and better to curb my hot blood for the moment. I told Annah she could stay here or come. It didn’t matter to me. She struggled from the stool and followed us next door where Alvarez was seated around a table with several of his fresh faces smoking dried apricots from a huge glass hookah bong with rose inlays and devouring a mountain of French fries he had apparently lifted from the kitchen on his way back from the toilet.

“Where is your husband anyway?” I wanted to know finally, “I keep expecting some huge deranged mongrel to spring from the shadows with a monkey wrench and massive bleeding hemorrhoids.”

"No, we're separated."

I see. You say you're married to keep me honest when I’m minding my own business and saving you from the Russian mob, but get a few red stripe in my stomach and the truth is revealed. A mistress of deceit.

I headed back to the Green Room, leaving my phone with Annah to field all calls, to fetch one more round of the fine Red Stripe and close my tab before things got out of hand. I got two for the road, as Tim was itching to leave and get to his roof party. He had provided the sound system and was showing obvious signs of concern. I returned with the brown bottles, stuffed with maraschino cherries only to find Annah gone with the wind. Alvarez explained.

“She started telling us we were all stupid compared to you. I told her you would probably kill her for saying it but she wouldn’t give up. She said she was off to find you and take you home. I said it was bullshit, it’s only 8. but there was no talking to that bitch. She’d made up her mind. So I said you went out the back way for a chew.”

I knew the rest before he finished. The Russians were lying in wait like serpents in the muck. They snatched her up in their talons and bolted for higher ground. Even as Alvarez wrapped it up, we all knew exactly what cruelness was befalling her as we spoke. It was the law of the jungle, which we weren’t here to enforce or practice. Just take note of. We’d done all we could to protect her but there comes a time to let all things go. And that time was now. We exited onto Nu`uanu and scattered in the hot evening trades to our vehicles to retrieve the second B in BYOB feeling better than everyone, unfaltering judgment and the blasé arrogance to do or say just about anything to wash the horrible memory of Indigos, the Russians and criminal intent from our heads.