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.