Chapter Forty-One: Hard Rain

"Hello, it's me
I've thought about us for a long, long time.
Maybe I think too much but something is wrong.
There's something here doesn't last too long.
Maybe I shouldn't think of you as mine..." -TR

Weirdness on the North Shore

I got a call from my buddy/co-worker Jim asking if I wanted to camp out at Point Reyes, California over Fourth of July, 1984. His friend Kenny the Glassblower was coming along and it was a great way for me to get out of the funk I was in. Wild Bill at the lab said we didn't have to come back to work until the following Monday, and I was going out to Milwaukee soon, anyway. Things at old School Products were just too strange and unreal for me. Time to get away.

I took the VW bus Lani's folks had sold us and made for the open highway. It was a beautiful summer day in the Bay Area and I enjoyed every mile, tuning in the newest classic rock station on the radio dial. About an hour out from Point Reyes I saw a fellow traveler thumbing for a ride. He seemed like a likely sort so I stopped to pick him up. He jumped into the van and turned to face me. Long, scruffy, dirty hair, missing a couple of teeth, body odor like a dead skunk and talking a mile a minute from the moment he sat down. Oh, crap. Honestly, I couldn't understand half of what he said to me and when I could it was nothing but non sequiturs. I asked him where he was going and he asked me where I was going. I told him I was camping on the beach and he said "Cool, sounds cool. Yeah, cool." We were driving along the park road out to where my friends were staying and the guys asked what kind of trees those were. "Pine, I think." "Whoa, you really know trees, man. Tell me something about pine trees."

"Well, some guy once said many parts are edible."

"I gotta eat some pine tree. Yeah, cool."

We got out of the car and I grabbed my backpack. Now I have lived on or near the beach most of my life so I know how to make time walking on sand. The poor hippie guy was lugging his loose bedroll and duffel bag, saying "Hey, man, wait up." I got to my buddies' campsite well ahead of him and told the guys about how I couldn't shake him loose. The hippie came up, well out of breath and dropped his stuff. "Man, I am so hungry. Can I use your fire and cook some, like, stew man?"

Kenny, Jim and I walked around the beach scrounging up firewood. There was a ton of driftwood lying around and it gave Kenny an idea. "Follow my lead", he said, giving us a conspiratorial wink. He took all the wood we had gathered and began setting it on the fire, which grew dramatically. By now the hippie dude had opened his can of Dinty Moore and was trying to heat it up. The three of us kept gathering wood and tossing it on, choosing larger and larger pieces until finally we dragged a pier post across the beach and threw it into the flames, causing sparks to shoot thirty feet into the air. And as we threw the driftwood on we began to chant "Kill, kill, kill", softly at first but increasing in volume and intensity. By now it was full dark and I'm absolutely certain that our bonfire could be seen from space. The dude finally got the hint and moved off beyond the dunes. I was half-imagining as I dozed off that night that he might return and kill us all in our sleep. Next morning he was gone, perhaps to annoy another group of campers.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

So back to Concord and next day a flight out to Chicago. I was flying on Jet Blue, a brand-new airline at the time. I got into my big, comfy seat in First Class and waited for the other passengers to arrive. And they did. All three of them. Yes, there were a grand total of four people flying in a 747 from San Francisco to Chicago. We each had our own personal airline hostess, ready to fill our free drinks and food upon our whim. It was heavenly.

I got to Chicago at about 5AM, having taken the redeye. My sister in law was coming in about four hours after me so I had to wait for her in order to get a ride from Neal. Chicago's O'Hare Airport is the second-busiest in the world, but you wouldn't have known it that day. I wandered through the nearly empty corridors, my footsteps echoing in the vast chambers, reminded of the movie The Mouse That Roared. I sat and played my guitar for a while, entertaining no one. Finally the time came for me to meet up with Neal and Maile and we cruised up I-94 to Beertown. Time to meet the relatives.

The Shit Really Comes Down

From the moment I walked in the front door at the Klug House in Milwaukee I felt like Uncas walking through the enemy camp. Lani was cold, distant. Merle ignored me. Other relatives were kinder, though I felt ill at ease in their presence. It was as though they all knew something and were keeping it secret from me. PJ and Jess were having a ball. There were people fussing over them all the time, from aunts and uncles to great-grandparents. I was the nineteenth tire on this 18-wheeler.

Some of us younger adults were cut loose to go to the River Fest, where the Stray Cats were playing and Paul Rodriguez was doing his standup stuff. It was so surreal...I was there on a beautiful summer day with my wife, her sister, Neal's younger brother (much younger..oops) and his wife. The Cats were amazing, the comedy dead-on. And my heart feeling like a cold rock in my chest. What was going on? Lani could hardly look at me, wouldn't even hold my hand as we walked around the grounds. The beer and carnival food tasted like water and sawdust. There was some serious shit coming down and I could feel it. It was a Wile E. Coyote moment: Here comes the anvil. You know it's going to hit you. Fuck it.

That night in our room I finally asked Lani to tell me what was going on. It was more than obvious that she was unhappy and I needed an explanation.

I wish my powers of recall were strong enough to see through the fog that began to descend on my mind as I listened to her pour her heart out. It had started back in Hawaii, when she saw how I was killing myself to make a buck. Then it continued to the mainland and nothing had changed. I was so wrapped up in my angst over being the Man that I ignored a growing concern Lani had. The one that was telling her she might have made a mistake. The same little voice of fear that had clawed at me these four years and set the whole situation up. The only quote that survived in my emotionally charged mind was: "I don't love you now, and I don't know if I ever really did." How could I argue with that? What was to love about a monster like me? An unworthy fuck-up who couldn't do anything right?

We talked a little more, made love, fell into fitful sleep. Jess woke up while it was still dark and I went to her, rocking her back to sleep. A storm blew up in the middle of the night, the shutters of our room bursting open as if we were at sea in a gale. The gods were restless, this I knew.

The next day was Sunday and we went to church in Green Bay. I looked up at the guy hanging on the cross and with my own emotions boiling over I sent him a silent message: "I feel you, brother." Lani sat a few feet away, separated from me by her parents. That irony was not lost on me. She kept sneaking glances at me but I couldn't meet her eyes.

That afternoon it was time for me to fly back to California. It had been a very nerve-wracking stay and I felt as lost as ever. Neal drove me down to the bus station where I would take the Greyhound back to the airport. Lani and PJ came along and a summer rainstorm soaked the pavement. PJ laughed and jabbered, pointing out signs and funny people on the street. The rest of us were quiet. When we got to the station I got out and pulled my stuff from the trunk. I shut it and went to the side window to say goodbye to Lani and PJ. Just as she rolled down the window, Neal gunned the motor and drove off, leaving me standing in the rain. Alone again, naturally.

It was one lonely-ass trip back home. Some lady behind me on the bus talked non-stop for the whole trip. I got fairly liquored up in the airport bar and listened to a song called For the Good Times, crying into my drink. Yeah, it was all so dramatic. But also very, very real. I was losing this girl I never deserved in the first place, just like I knew I would.

The Eye of the Storm

Got back to the house and wallowed in self pity for just a bit. On my first night home Lani called to say that she had had a change of heart. She wanted to make things work. I was filled with hope and joy. "First thing we need to do is move out of your parents' place", I said. She agreed, and told me she could hardly wait to see me again. I felt an energy rising up in me. We could do this. Together. Just us. She couldn't come home soon enough for me.

42: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Chapter Forty: Hawaiian Sunset

"It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights
There in the darkness with the radio playin' low
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
Till there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove

And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then" -Bob Seger

I heard this song one morning as I drove home and I couldn't get the thought out of my head that it was time for a change.

So Happy Together

We wanted to baptize Jess at the local church, but the priest there was not all that willing to help us because we weren't church-going types. He interviewed us and told us he was interested in counseling us before he could perform the ceremony. We saw no harm in it and I thought it might be a nice way to reconnect with my spiritual side and with Lani, too. Over the course of our visits Lani and I talked more about our feelings toward each other than at any time in our marriage. We decided that we could attend services more often. We also agreed that our wedding had felt far too hasty and that a renewal of our vows would be nice. Before any real planning started, though, things got a little hairier on the work side.

Desperate Times

By late winter, just after Christmas, I decided I'd had enough of this bullshit at the lab. I suppose that even with all the other crap that John was throwing at me and my struggles with fatherhood I probably could have kept my head together. But then one night I went out to the parking lot after another grueling day and my car was gone. I stood looking at the parking space dumbly, as if I could will my eyes to see it there even though it was clearly gone. Maybe I parked it somewhere else...OK, let's look around the parking lot. Nope, no car. On the street? Nada. Yeah, it's gone. It was a 1979 Nissan B210, a real beater. The exhaust was bad and the thing sounded like a Harley when I started it up. What the hell would anyone want it for? The cops told me thieves stripped cars like that for the seats, battery and other usable parts before trashing it. I called Lani and she had to wake the kids and come all the way over to pick me up. She wasn't obviously angry at me but there seemed to be an air of tension coming from her.

They found my car two days later, stripped and totaled about 10 miles north of town. A tow company had hauled it in. My insurance agent inspected it and gave me a check for $500. I used it to buy a 1970 Ford Maverick. Loved that car.

But back to my state of mind. I wanted to leave the confines of the lab, but the employment situation in Hawaii was horrible. Even for the $3 per hour night shift jobs we offered, a hundred people or more would show up. I struck out everywhere I looked. Lani told me that she was feeling a little lost living in Kailua, that her friends were never around and it just wasn't the place she remembered. So I expanded my job search to the Mainland.

One day Merle called to say that she had seen an ad in the local paper in Concord, CA advertising for a lab supervisor in Oakland. I called the number and had a long chat with a gentleman named Bill Thompson. He agreed to hire me at a salary of $20k but couldn't help with the moving expenses. No sweat. We had saved a little and Lani's folks helped with the rest. In fact, we were going to move in with them until we could find a place of our own.

It was easy to walk into John's office and tell him that I quit. I gave him two weeks notice but he told me he would pay me two weeks and I could just go. Mighty nice of him. I drove away from that place like it was on fire. The guy he promoted to my position was the chronically late guy I had written up. The guy who also accidentally cut off a fingertip on one of the film splicers. It put me in the mind of checking out the guy your girlfriend dates after you. This is better?

Aloha

We built our own packing crate, a sturdy beast made from 2x4's and heavy plywood, and packed it full of stuff. A big truck came by and hauled it off to the docks. Then I drove my car down there and dropped it off in the Matson Lines lot for shipment.

The big day came again and we were on a plane and winging our way back to California. PJ, now 3 1/2 years old, looked out the window as Oahu drifted beneath us. I saw sadness in his eyes and asked him if he was OK. "No", was all he said and he rested his head on my shoulder, asleep in minutes.

New Home in CA

Now we were in Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area. A beautiful place, with dramatic views and perfect weather. I looked forward to biking on all the cool trails around Concord and Walnut Creek. And of course, starting the new job. Lani was talking about going back to work as well, which would get us on our feet quicker.

I went to work at the lab and met the quirky cast of characters there. I made a fast friend with Jim Burnette, a funny guy from the Midwest who'd just moved to California. There were Randy and Peggy, a strange couple who collected TV shows on tape. There was Carlos, the Mexican working stiff who was technically the Lab Manager, but turned out to be more of a whipping boy. I met Barb, the mousy secretary. Then there were the photographers and sales people.

Our specialty was school portraits, class pictures and sports team packages. you know the type: vanity baseball cards, rows of kids' portraits around a school crest. Before the digital age all that stuff was done as a photo composite. Without going into detail I'll just say that it was a mother$%#ker to get done right. And every finished piece had to be approved by The Big Guy before we could mass produce it.

Ah yes, "Wild" Bill Thompson. Here's his idea of priorities: One day the outside temperature topped 90 degrees and we had no air conditioning. I looked at a thermometer we had in the lab area and saw that it was 82 degrees inside. Looking up, I spotted a big fan suspended from the rafters. I switched it on and it started recirculating air, at least creating some kind of breeze. It hadn't been on five minutes before Bill came storming out of his office. "Who turned on that goddamned fan?" he shouted. I told him I had done it to try to cool us off. He said "It'll put dust all over the prints! Turn it off now!" And he returned to his lair.

Birthdays were bizarre. Bill would drive us mercilessly to get orders finished, sometimes berating the staff even when his demands were physically impossible. Then, in the middle of the fray, he would announce that it was somebody's birthday and now we would have cake and ice cream. Seriously. We were to drop whatever we were doing immediately and go to the break area for a party that lasted exactly 15 minutes, the federally-mandated time for afternoon break. We had to wear paper hats and sing Happy Birthday. The very second that 15 minutes was up he would growl "Back to work!" and we would take off the hats and shuffle off. One day Carlos made the mistake of not finishing his treat in time. "But I steel have some lef'" he said. Bill took the plate from his hand and tossed it into the trash. "Not any more", he said. And that just scratches the surface.

He would stand at the door on payday, handing each worker an envelope and saying something to each one: "Don't spend it all on booze....Next week let's try to earn this....Pretty good job this week...Don't forget your landlord...", ad nauseum.

So it's no surprise that I felt somewhat...panicked at this point. Shit, out of the frying pan and into the fire. What is it with these lab owners, managers, whatever? Are they all just nuts?

Day to Day in Concord

Merle and Neal were cordial to me, but it was clear that more had been expected of me on the supporting the family front. I was still "meathead", and I still got the occasional silent treatment from Merle. I tried to carve out time for myself now and then, cycling around town or taping sci-fi movies on Neal's Betamax. I wanted a clear copy of War of the Worlds, so I set myself up in front of the TV with remote
in hand, ready to cut out the commercials. I had snacks, beer and a nice Saturday afternoon to kill. Lani and Merle were packing the RV for a trip to Milwaukee, where Neal's family still lived. I was going to stay and work a few extra days while they drove then fly out to Chicago and get picked up and driven down to Neal's parent's place.

I had only gotten a few minutes into the movie when Lani came in and asked if I could help put a bike rack on the RV. "Can it wait a bit?" I asked. "I really want to tape this show." She left, a look of mild contempt on her face. I felt put down, but a little voice in me insisted that I had the right to this "me time". Lani came back in about 30 minutes later, looked at the screen and asked how much longer the show was going to last. "It's a movie, Lani. It will be about another hour or so." She stalked out. Now I was feeling pretty low. I stewed for a while, muttering defensive statements and sulking. Finally I found my heart wasn't in the project anymore and I went out front. Merle and Lani were just finishing the rack as I came out. "Oh, you're done. Anything else I can help with?" I got cold stares from both of them that I have only recently recovered from. And this was 1984. So...

The next day they all took off for the open road and I had the place to myself. It felt more than empty. Something very tangible was missing and I felt a deep sadness I couldn't put my finger on. I needed the company of friends right now, but I hardly knew a soul in the area. What to do?

Chapter 41: Tragedy tomorrow, Comedy tonight!

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Aloha means three things...

Movin' Again

Back home in Ventura after my adventure in the tropics, now we were wrapping things up for the move. Sold my cool old car to a nice Mexican family and Lani sold her little brown pickup truck to her sister. We pretty much got rid of everything we owned, including the majority of my burgeoning record collection. I had accumulated over 1000 LP's at garage sales, flea markets and Salvation Army stores over the years but they were way too heavy to transport to Hawaii. So I had to make the hard cuts and get the stack down to a reasonable number. I hated to see those hard-won prizes go but there was no choice.

The people at work were happy for me, though my boss expressed some reservations about the company I was going to work for. Apparently they didn't have a great reputation amongst middle management in "the business". He and I went to a photo processing convention in Las Vegas before I left and I heard the same story from other folks in the know. Cool. I'm uprooting my family, selling everything we own and moving what amounts to a foreign country and it looks like my job will be a drag.

Then Lani decided to tell me that there was just one little thing that bothered her about moving back to Oahu. She told me that she had been at a party and had had too much to drink one night at a friend's house, a family she had known and worked for in high school. She passed out and when she awoke the next morning it was apparent to her that a son in the family had taken advantage of her during the night. I can't describe how angry I was at that moment, but I told her that it was OK and was she still angry at him. She said that while it was disappointing, she didn't harbor ill feelings about him. But inside my head I was thinking "Gonna knock that bastard flat if I ever see him."

We shipped our stuff out, got on a plane and headed West. The flight attendants seemed dubious when they saw Lani's advanced state of pregnancy but they let us fly anyway. Thanks!

Playing House

We were lucky enough to be offered the use of a home belonging to Lani's grandparents. We lived rent-free, only having to pay utilities and keep up the place. The house was in a neighborhood called Enchanted Lake in the little town of Kailua. The town is on the windward side of the island, so all we had to do to cool the place off was open the windows. No air conditioning required. Good thing, too, because even then, in the mid-80's, electricity on Oahu was outrageously expensive. We had few lights, hung wash out to dry and never needed to heat or cool the house artificially and still paid $100 or more per month. Gas was so expensive they had to post the price per liter to make it look cheaper. Median price per liter then was 35 cents. That's $1.40 per gallon and we were not much better than poor.

I started working at the lab a few days after we got there. I had to drive over the mountains that loomed above Kailua by way of the Pali Highway. Then down through the outskirts of Honolulu to the airport, where the lab was just a few blocks from the freight area. Pretty nondescript building and neighborhood, but there was a "plate lunch" place within walking distance that served hardy Island fare for cheap. I met the night crew I would be working with: a typical collection of locals. Hawaii is a true melting pot, with Asian, European and Polynesian mixes all calling themselves Real Hawaiians.

My management partner on these shifts was a "Portegee" fellow named Willie Medley. His uncle was Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. Willie had never left the Islands and was not too interested in ever doing so. Much as I had been warned about the feeling of confinement called "rock fever" some people felt living on an island, some island folks were terrified by the thought of living in the "wide open spaces" of the Mainland.

This was my job: Film came in from delivery drivers. We sorted it by film size and order type. Film processing orders went first to the splicers. They spliced film together into big reels. The reels of film were run through a developing machine like the first one I ever worked on years before. The developed film was printed using automated printers that transferred the images onto huge rolls of photographic paper. These were run through a paper processing machine. We ran the rolls, sometimes five lanes across, along a manual inspection station. If a print looked like it needed to be re-done due to machine error we put a black sticker on one side of it using an instrument that looked like a price gun. If it was just a garbage shot we marked the other side and it would get pitched. The inspected paper rolls were matched back up with the film and order envelopes at a packaging station, where the individual prints were slipped into envelopes and the whole thing tossed into a bin where it was sorted by driver route and priced. Then we filled the big plastic delivery bags and the drivers came back in the morning to ship 'em out.

I had to know how to do any one of the jobs in the production chain in case people called in sick and believe me, they did that often. Just another Island way. I also handled personnel issues, mixed photochemistry, tested the chemistry in the machines for proper balance, picked up deliveries at the airport and performed routine and emergency maintenance on the machines. All between the hours of 6 PM and whenever the hell I was done, usually between 4 and 6 AM, Sunday through Thursday. Every now and then I would stick around on Friday long enough to pick up my check before going home around 10AM. Long-ass days to be sure.

Why did I work those kinds of hours in the stink and mess, with no real acknowledgment from John Lee of the sacrifices? Why did I put up with his condescending attitude and veiled threats whenever I questioned his methods? What the hell kept me going once I realized the warnings I had gotten about the company started coming true? Two things: Coming over the Pali at sunrise with the windows down, the warm, salty breeze in my hair, and my family. I had an Irish Catholic mentality about What One Does to support his family. Even if it's killing you, you keep doing it to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Trouble with that is it doesn't leave the mind open to other possibilities. It just slowly starts killing your desire and rotting things from the inside out. And that can lead to disaster.

Good Times/Bad Times

We had only been there a couple of weeks when we got an invitation to go to a party at the home of "that" family friend. I could feel my blood warming to a boil as the day of the party approached. Lani was nervous, asking me what I was going to do. "I don't know", was all I could say, though I pretty much knew what I wanted to do. The day we were to go she finally took me aside and admitted she had made up the whole story. I was crushed that she would do such a thing and relieved that I wouldn't be acting the fool. Did I believe her? What could I believe? My trust in her took a blow then and to this day I still don't know the real story.

We had a great time at the party, though. The guys took me out to the garage where they turned me on to some major-grade "pakalolo", the Hawaiian word for home grown ganja. It absolutely kicked my ass, and that particular guy and I were best buddies by the time I left that night. Hawaiians have this cool custom of leaving their "slippers" at the front door before entering a house. After a party you might have to sort through dozens of pairs to find yours, so you usually end up wearing any ones that fit. It's a wash.

I also loved going to local luaus at places like the Lions Club and elementary schools. Pot luck at these soirees included lomi salmon, kahlua pig, chicken long rice and all the rice and macaroni salad you could eat. The hula dancers always entertained, from the little wahines to the old ladies in their muumuus.

The beach in Kailua was never crowded, and PJ and I went there often to play in the sand and make sand castles. The sand was as fine as dust, and mixing it with a little water allowed us to dribble it out of our hands, making spires that looked like soft-serve ice cream cones.

Another Bundle of Joy

After a couple of false alarms, Lani finally went into labor on the morning of July 1, 1983. By that evening she had delivered Jessica Pi'ikea Virginia Newbegin into the world. There was a scary moment when we saw the umbilical cord around her neck, but she came through like a champ and I now had a son and a daughter. "Please", I implored Whoever Was Listening, "Keep that fucking Beast in its cage this time. There has to be some strength in Love to overcome this!"

Alas, not to be. Lani was now aware of my "little problem" but like me she wanted to believe it could be managed. I had some very difficult days when Jess simply did not want to sleep in her crib. She would scream and cry for hours at a time, and my nerves would fray near the breaking point. All the old crap that circulated in my head from before all came back. "I'm a horrible person. Make it stop! Those people know what a monster I am. Stop crying!!"

But I did persevere. Barely. With the stress of my job on top of it I just didn't know what to do but to keep on keepin' on.

Train Coming at You

The days flew by, each much like the rest. There were cookouts on the beach, visiting friends, seeing the sights. I took up biking to stay in shape and clear my head. I would bike all over the windward side, through town and out by Lanikai, an exclusive community boasting homes owned by Don Ho and cookie magnate Famous Amos. We actually met him on the beach and exchanged pleasantries with him and his wife, who was also pregnant and due to deliver about the same time as Lani.

But there was also the relentless routine of working at the lab. I was feeling beaten down by the little fires I was always putting out. The staff couldn't give a damn whether anything got done as long as they got their hours. John was becoming a total prick, once lambasting me for being off on my paper roll inventory count by one roll. He harangued me about the value of the paper on the black market. Black market? Who the hell steals one roll of photo paper for profit? I once disciplined an employee for being chronically late by writing him up. John upbraided me in front of the staff for not respecting other cultures. I saw the writing on the wall. My time was short.

Then the weirdest thing happened. One night John called Willie and me into his office. He congratulated both of us for helping the company exceed mandated production goals. Whoopee! Then he handed us both our bonus checks. "This is money I keep hidden from my wife", he told us. "You should do the same. Have fun, buy something just for you. Tell you what...let's go have some coffee."

"Oh, thanks, John, but I really want to get some sleep and it's 2 in the morning. If I have coffee now I won't sleep all day."

John looked at Willie, who looked at me and said: "Ees just a code werd, man." Well, all right.

So we left right in the middle of the shift and ended up at a strip bar about a mile away from the lab, where it just so happened one could cash company checks to set up a tab. Then the balance would come back as change when you left. Pretty handy, that. We sat in a booth and talked about our lives, our families, artificial turf. The bartender had obviously clued the waitresses in to our monetary situation and they were....very friendly. One asked me "You want to buy me a bottle of Lancer's? Only five dollars." Even in my semi-drunken state I knew what was starting to happen. John and Willie were glancing at me knowingly and I could see my small-town naivete crumbling. I declined to buy the young lady a bottle and she gave me the bitch treatment for the rest of the evening. Finally I said "Shouldn't we be getting back to the lab?"

"Go home, Ed. Sleep it off and we'll see you tomorrow." I was there.

I was on my way home up the Pali, feeling a bit bleary but my head was OK with the fresh air replacing the smoke and heat from the club. Suddenly, as I rounded a curve, a woman came running right at the car in the middle of the road. I swerved, missing her, slowing down and pulling to the side of the road. She ran over to me, babbling about needing to find her purse. As I got out of my car I noticed hers just ahead, upside down in the roadway. Then I saw she was bleeding from several bad road rashes and her dress was torn. "Is there anyone else in the car?" I shouted. I say shouted because she was babbling and screaming alternately about needing to get her purse. Finally she calmed down enough to say no, nobody else in the car. The highway was deserted at 4AM, but finally a Honolulu cop pulled up on the other side. He shined his side light on us and the car. "Everything OK here?"

Sure. We're all fine. Nothing to see here. Move along. What a turd.

The girl was in her early 20's and definitely blitzed on something. She needed the purse because it still had a couple of grams of coke in it. Ah. That explains it. The emergency people and cops all starting showing up minutes later and she went completely batshit on them, trying to refuse treatment and calling the cops every name in the book. I stood aside, getting ready to slide away when a cop told me "You're girlfriend is pretty messed up." Whoa, partner! "Not my girlfriend. officer. I'm just a guy who stopped to help. She told me she had coke in her purse so you might want to see if somebody can find it." Yeah, I narced on her. I wanted out of this cluster fuck and that did it just fine. He took my contact information and I went back to the car, which I had actually left running through the whole ordeal. I got back home and had to shower off the blood on me from her grabbing at me out there. The end of a perfect night.

When we return for Chapter 40: Yes, aloha means three things.