Chapter Forty-Five: One More Small Bump

"Welcome to your life
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you Acting on your best behaviour
Turn your back on mother nature
Everybody wants to rule the world..."


The Long and Winding Road

As I cruised ever so slowly up California Highway 101 from Ventura, towing the U-Haul trailer behind with my poor little Maverick, I had time to think. Every mile under my wheels brought me closer and closer to Lani and the kids. I was excited about getting back to more contact with PJ and Jessi but feeling a knot in the pit of my stomach over being so close to Lani again. She was my Kryptonite, I was powerless against her. I had such a burning desire for her that being summarily dismissed as I was had not stilled my beating heart. And it came down to physical proximity. I could talk to her well enough on the phone but face to face I started turning into a puddle of goo.

Didn't matter. Man's gotta do what he's gotta do.

The New Grind

I had rented an apartment in Walnut Creek for cheap and I moved right in. The reasons for the cheapness were two: 1) A home nearby had recently burned to the ground and had caught the roof above my place on fire as well. The firefighters got it out quickly but the place smelled like mildew and burnt wood. Yum. And 2) In a year the whole place was going to be torn down to put up an office complex.

The one hazard the property manager didn't tell me about was the squirrels. Damn things had found their way into the attic through the burned spot and had set up housekeeping. Memories of the dancing rats of SMA ran through my head when night after night the furry bastards would run across my ceiling, apparently bent on driving me insane. One early morning I had had enough and stood on a chair screaming at the fuckers, pounding on the ceiling. "Aaaaagghhh! Get the hell out of here, motherfuckers!" BAM BAM BAM CRUNCH! The "crunch" was my fist going through to the attic. While it was pretty unsightly, the squirrels were gone for good.

The guys next door were not much help either. I worked the night shift, so I had to try sleeping during the day. It was hard enough without the drunken frat boys waking up at the crack of noon and partying til dinner. What did they do for a living? I didn't think the "fist through the wall" maneuver would work as well with them. Grin N bear it.

The lab job was...another lab job. No more, no less. The work flow was identical to the place in Hawaii, the machines carbon copies of so many others. The people were tolerable, but it takes a certain kind of person to work the graveyard in a production job. If you were willing to hang out after work and watch the sun come up over breakfast/dinner, trying to have some kind of social life with a very limited group of people the job was great. I wanted to split my time between that world and the daytime one to be with the kids. Sleep? I'll do that when I'm dead. Believe me, I heard that a lot from my co-workers.

The layout of the place was kind of funky. Where the Hawaii lab had been spread out over a large single floor, this one was split between four floors of an old office building in downtown Oakland. The elevator was right out of 1929, with a folding gate and no door. One had to reach up and manually disengage the kill switch, then press the floor button. The elevator would take off and only stop when the switch was released. With practice I was able to step on, rise, and step off without hesitating or closing the gate. That was the most interesting part of the job. The rest was the same boring crap that I tried to look interested in.

One evening I was slogging through another shift when Mike the Manager called me up to the exec offices on the fourth floor. When I entered the office I saw Grady the general manager there with him. Uh-oh. This was getting all deja vu-y on me. Right on schedule I had worn out my welcome. This time it only took a few months for them to get tired of my act. And it was such a good act! Another exit interview, another severance check, another slow ride home. But you know, this time I didn't feel panicked at all. I was relieved. They had seen something I was denying: This crap was not for me, not at this time. It was time to simplify, pare down. No more management jobs. I was happiest as a worker bee and that's what I would go for next.

Keep On Smilin'

Dad always said that to me. Now it was time to start living it. Next day I got the paper and scanned it for photo jobs in my area. I came upon one in Walnut Creek and decided to go for it. I called the manager and we had a brief phone interview. He told me to grab a resume and come on down. So I hopped on my bike and hit the road. As I spun along the Iron Horse Regional Trail
I smiled at the thought of going back to good old lab work, nobody to answer for but myself. The early Spring weather had me feeling alright, maybe just a bit too good. As I whipped between a couple of poles set in the trail to keep cars off, my hand nicked one and went flying out behind me. I felt a jab of pain and I pulled over to check it out. Oh my. Middle fingers aren't supposed to jut out at a 30 degree angle at the center, are they? No. Guess the interview will have to wait. I pedaled slowly home and drove myself to the emergency room, where i got a quick tug to match the bones back up and a splint with a cast. Now for the interview.

While I was waiting for the doctors to set me up I was thinking about all the ways I could still do a lab job with a cast on my wrist. By the time I got to the interview I had it all figured, and I impressed the manager with the stuff I could do. He was curious about why I wasn't looking for a managerial job myself, worried that I might jump at one and leave him high and dry. I told him not to worry. I was done with that gig for a good long time. A little Ed's Recent Adventures with Three-Part Harmony and he was convinced. Welcome back to the hive, little worker bee.

"Its my own design
Its my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world"

New Digs

I also needed to get out of the stinking, squirrel-infested apartment. I saw an ad for a room rental that would knock $100 off my rent payment so I took it. The young girl, Chris, who rented the place had a spare room and I was a sublet, less than legal.

What a setup. She was 19 and, I found out later, a meth head. We never got close. In fact, she told her friends that I was a loner type who didn't like talking to people, so none of them ever had a word to say to me. She had two cats, one a female tabby and the other a friendly, tuxedo-clad fellow named Mervyn. I loved that cat, though it was maddening when he raided the trash can, knocking it over and scattering stuff like a raccoon. Chris insisted he should never go outside, and he worked tirelessly to defy her. Whenever he made it out she would drag him back in and scrub the bejesus out of him in the bathtub, slapping him and shouting the whole time. It was a crime. One she would not get away with.

So my new day to day became simpler. Wake up, nice breakfast, bike to a job I loved, bike home, rent a movie. Weekends I would spend time with the kids. They stayed with me for overnights and we spent a lot of time at parks and the mall. Malls are a divorced Dad haven. Lots of cool stuff to look at and a center court for play in any weather. I couldn't afford much more but that wasn't the point. I felt a great sadness every Sunday night when I would have to drive them back to Lani's folks' place and drop them off. It was hardest on PJ, who would cry and hold tightly to my leg or try to block the door. I found myself sitting in my car with tears in my eyes, trying to drive away without running into anything.

A Fortuitous Meeting

My only real entertainment besides long bike rides was watching videotapes. My buddy Jim had introduced me to his friend Rick, who managed a video store. Rick had been with us the night I left Lani and he and I had bonded over the many lines of coke and cans of brew consumed that night. We also had a great barter agreement: I would develop and print film for him and he provided me with a never-ending video rental account. I would stop in once or twice a week and pick up three movies: a new release, a classic and a porno. Once I had them all memorized I would get a refill and start all over again.



One day I was returning my tapes and a cute girl was working the counter. I had seen her there before from time to time. Her name was Jan and she was the company's relief manager, on duty at various locations when the regular manager had a day off. She took a look at the movies I was returning and gave me a grin. "Airplane, huh? You have to have a pretty weird sense of humor to like a movie like that."



"Is there something wrong with having a weird sense of humor?"

"No, no. I like weird people."

OK, time for the Mr. Suave act, voice included..."Really? So, what are you doing on Friday night?"

"Nothing, really."

"Ah."

Then I took my new videos and went home.

I was about halfway through dinner when the thought suddenly hit me: "Nothing, really." So...she...was saying...that she...would like to....go out with...me? Man, I had taken this laid-back approach way too seriously! What the hell was I thinking?

Next day I was off, so I waited until the place opened at noon and pedaled on down there to follow up. God only knows what she had been thinking. "Is he gay or something? No, I see he rents all hetero porn so that's not it. Is he slow?"

Yes, I was slow. On the uptake. But now I was oh so confident and ready to jump back into the pool. I glided on up to the store and walked in like Alexi Grewal. And she wasn't there.

"Check the Concord store, dude", said the slacker at the counter. Back on the road.

I enjoyed the sight of myself whizzing past the store windows at the Concord store and strode forth, my longish hair blown out behind like a freak flag. There stood Jan, admiring my form in those tight cycling shorts.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"So, were you serious about being free on Friday night?"

"Yeah. Were you serious about asking me out?"

"Yeah."

"OK"

"Well then, um, I guess I'll see you at around 7 on Friday. OK?"

"OK"

"OK. Ah, see you."

"Bye."

This is the stuff of great literature. But hey, I had a date for the first time in too long and it was looking good for Mister Ed.



Chapter 46: Some Endings, New Beginnings, Three Dates and a Wedding

Chapter Forty-Four: The Human Trampoline

"Keep on rollin'...keep on rollin'...oooooooooooooo"

Roll with the Changes

With renewed energy I decided I'd spent enough time watching TV, reading dime-store sci-fi and whacking off and now it was time to get out into the world again. Where to start? To be truthful, the dating scene had been a complete disaster. I remembered thinking while I was still married that I "wish I knew then what I know now". I had this idea that I was so much more sophisticated and confident around women. Getting one (or more) to come home with me would be easy. Right. I dated more than a dozen women over the course of six months or so...once each. No matter how smooth I thought I was or laid back or whatever, the night would end quickly. One young lass slammed the door in my face so quickly I almost kissed the doorknob. There was that damn red light on my head again.

So much for that. Instead I bent my energies toward diversifying my interests. I saw an ad in the paper for an internship at a local cable TV station. They wanted people to learn camera work for sporting events and meetings. Perfect. I attended the orientation class and got signed up for the program. I joined Big Brothers as a way to get back in touch with some day-to-day fathering experience. I rode my bike competitively. I resolved to make myself healthy again and show Lani and the kids that I would not give up trying to be a better person.

And then Life came along and set up those stupid orange cones you so hate to see out on the road. "Detour Ahead", said the big sign and oh, shit what a left turn it was.

One Exile to Another

I was at the lab one sunny morning talking to my pal Peggy. I was telling her about all the cool things that were happening in my life. I knew she worried about me and I wanted her to know that the whole killing myself thing was in the past. I was bubbling over with joy at all the possibilities laid out before me. Peggy seemed oddly detached, as if something were bothering her.

"What's the matter, Peg? Aren't you happy for me?"

"Yes of course I'm happy. You seem to be trying to do an awful lot at once, though."

"Yeah, but it feels good to have something to do. For the first time since all this crap started I feel like it's all coming together again. Like it's going back to normal."

Just then the owner, Pete Jaffe, came into the lab. He passed Peggy and me with a quiet "Hello" and went into the manager's office. I puttered around the lab, putting film into the processor and cleaning up. The manager came out and asked me to come into the office.

I'll spare the dialogue, since after all it's always been the same. I'm not fitting in with the new manager, I'm depressing the coworkers, my attitude sucks. Take your pick. Bottom line: Fired again. Some nice severance in the form of three separate checks that will keep me from being immediately broke. But with that my five year, on and off again relationship with Jaffe's Camera came to a screeching halt.

I rode my bike home through the cold, my mind alternating between anger and fear, trying to see the way out of this newest smackdown. I went home and immediately checked the paper for jobs in my field. No dice. Over the next several days I knocked on every door, followed every lead I thought would get me on my feet again but it just wasn't going to work. I had definitely worn out my welcome in SoCal. As I saw it, it was time to go North again and get closer to those kids, be some kind of Dad.

So Long and WTF?

I started checking the out of town papers and found a few promising leads in the SF Bay Area. Over one long weekend I went to visit four different photo labs within a 100-mile radius. I got a really nice job offer from a place in Petaluma, just an hour from where Lani and the kids lived. That would maintain some small separation from her but be close enough that we could exchange the kids in a central place when they visited me.

I got a call from another lab after I had agreed over the phone to take the Petaluma job. This place was in Oakland, much closer to the kids and the pay was better. After talking to Mike, the plant manager, I decided to go with them. They even threw in moving expenses. Sweet!

With so little stuff to my name it didn't take long to pack everything up and get ready to go. The day before I left I was back in my room when there was a knock on the door. Dale, the crazy guy who owned the place, answered and I heard him say: "He's right here. Do you want me to get him?" I heard a soft female voice but couldn't make out the words. The door closed and Dale came back and handed me an envelope.

"Some Asian girl just dropped this off for you."

Asian girl? I don't.....wait. The only Asian girl I knew was the young lady at the stationery store next to the lab. I had gone in there many times to buy paper, envelopes, stamps and little books and such to send the kids. I had spoken with the girl at the counter and we shared stories of our lives but I had never gotten the idea that we were more than platonic friends.

The letter begged to differ. I cannot quote it now, but in reading the two neatly-penned pages I saw that she had grown quite fond of me and was heartbroken that I had not told her I was fired or that I was leaving. I went to the store but they told me she had left for a few days. Man, just how blind could I be? It had been a heartbreaking experience for me to have to call my Little Brother, Terry, and tell him that yet another man in his life was walking out on him. He had said, "Yeah, great, good luck man" and hung up on me.

So my mood was anything but festive as I gunned the motor on my 1970 Ford Maverick and pulled away from the Ventura city limits, bound for points North. How do I disappointeth thee? Let me count the ways....


45: The Oxi-Clean of the Melodramatic Blog!

Chapter Forty-Three: Standing Against the Wind

"Who's gonna drive ya home.....tonight?"


Back to Basics

I was feeling like an empty shell, doing everything on automatic. Eat, (though I had little appetite) Sleep,(fitfully) and wander through the day. Peggy brought me down to earth in short order. "You can stay here for a couple of weeks but then you're moving out." Got it.

Peggy Williams was truly my best friend during those first really fucked-up months after the breakup. She sympathized but never patronized me. And it gave me the strength to get up off my ass and start the survival process. A week or so after I got there she did a complete astrological birth chart on me and came up with some fascinating things. There was an awful lot of personal stuff in her interpretations but the one thing that interested me most was her prediction that I would meet the "great love of my life" within the year. I didn't know if she was just saying that to make me feel better or what, but it piqued my curiosity.

I needed a job. What more logical thing to do but go back to good old Jaffe's Camera one more time? So I found myself once more having lunch with Paul and telling him my whole sad story. He hired me back on and that was that. My buddy Bill Stewart came out from Virginia and helped me furnish my new digs, a room I had rented in a small boarding house. Now I had my own furniture! Dresser, bed, my bike, a lamp and an alarm clock. Bachelor City.

And back to work at the lab. While things looked the same there, people treated me differently. I believe to this day that I must have had a flashing red strobe light right on top of my head, with a siren screaming: "This guy is in pain! He fucked up his life and he'll do the same to you if you get too close! Stay back!"

Sundays

Nearly every Sunday during my time down South I would visit with cousin Joe and his wife Suzanne. It would mean a hot, home-cooked meal, drinks, good conversation and usually some leftovers to take home for the week. Those guys were so good to me. Sometimes other people would come by and we'd all play Trivial Pursuit. I love that game! It was a relief to use my brain for something other than self-pity for a change. Old friends would stop by as well. The Jorgensen brothers, Chip and Greg. Big Al, the guy who got me busted at Point Magu Naval Base. The usuals. This was part of a slow healing process, but every now and then the scab would rip away and all that pain would come right back fresh.

1984 Olympics

With the Olympics being held just down the road in LA, there was a huge amount of local interest in the Games. The rowing events were being held at Lake Casitas in Ojai. I would see team buses rolling along 101 with police escorts almost every day. I watched every event I could during my days off from the lab. I was an avid cyclist by then which was good, because I had very little cash for gas. I followed the exploits of the USA Cycling Team, which won several medals due to the absence of the Eastern Bloc countries.



This is Gabrielle Andersen-Scheiss, a Swiss women's marathon runner. I was sitting at home watching what looked like a fairly boring win by Joan Benoit. She ran away from the field and never looked back. I was going to turn off the TV when the cameras caught Gabrielle entering the stadium. The announcers were actively debating what should be done about her. One was imploring the officials to help her as she lurched onto the track, obviously dehydrated and disoriented. The other insisted that if anyone as much as touched her she would be disqualified. You can see the man in white actively avoiding her. I found myself on my knees in that God-forsaken living room, yelling at the screen "Don't touch her! Come on, baby. Stay on your feet! Do it for me, Gabrielle!" Tears streaming down my face, I watched as she finally fell into the arms on the track officials at the end. I knew that if she could make it, so could I.

Gotta Get Up

Every day I woke up alone, feeling farther from reality. I worked through the day and went home at night. I watched TV, wrote letters to Lani, the kids, my folks. When things got too much I would hop on the bike and spin a quick 30 miles or so. One day a fat envelope arrived, bearing the official divorce papers. "Irreconcilable Differences" listed as "Reason for Divorce". Really? What were we arguing about? Whatever. The tone of the attorney representing Lani was pretty much "Here it is. Sign it and return it immediately. Failure to do so will result in complete emasculation." Cool. What else can you take?

The truly nice thing that Lani did for me was to ask for a fairly small child support payment and no alimony. Believe it or not, I hung some tiny little hope on that, thinking she might some day want me back. I signed here, initialed there, mailed the thing. And it was done. Now just a judgment and a waiting game.

In October I decided I needed to see the kids again, so I asked cousin Joe to come along on a road trip back to the Bay Area. Moral support badly needed. I might have "accidentally" run off the road if I had gone alone.

It was so great seeing PJ and Jess again. I hugged them for all I was worth, my heart bursting at the seams with joy and sorrow. We went to the park, out for lunch. Another day we visited some friends who ran a cattle ranch. Here's a picture of us there:

Sweet kids, and they still are. On the way back from the ranch PJ asked me: "Dad, why don't you love Mom anymore?" That hit me like a hammer to the forehead.

"I do still love Mom, PJ. We just can't live together any more. I can't really tell you more than that."

Kid's just four years old and it's breaking my heart. Jess was a beautiful little chatterbox who loved the Kool Aid Popsicles we were eating. Joe and I turned back for SoCal, me feeling like I was leaving an even bigger piece of myself behind.

Happy Holidays

So now Christmas is rolling around and I am feeling lower than whale turds. My boss, Paul, had just gotten fired. It was inexplicable to me but I soldiered on under the new manager, a total tool who treated me like the contents of a litter box. I was missing my wife, my kids, my life. People around me were happy, excited about the holidays. I felt my perspective shrinking down to what I could see in front of me, and that sucked.

The folks at the lab had swung a deal with the local Holiday Inn to get a room for our Christmas party. Perfect. The same hotel where Lani and I had spent our wedding night. So I would go, have a few drinks and then kill myself. Seriously, I was going to go out on the balconey and jump.

The party night came and I was excited, jazzed up at the fact that I would finally be at peace. I went up to the room and started drinking. I talked and talked, laughed at jokes. Well, time to go now. I slid the door to the balconey open and slipped outside, alone. Music and laughter were muted by the closed door. The fresh sea breeze cleared my head a little as I tried to figure out where would be the best place to land so I wouldn't just be a vegetable, but truly dead. Hmm. Why did I care? Suddenly, the faces of PJ and Jess appeared in my mind, their smiling faces distorted into grief and anger. Lani trying to explain to them why they would never see Daddy again. Having them grow up thinking, no, knowing I took the coward's way out. At that very moment I actually heard my ass hit bottom and rebound. I was not going to do that to them.

I felt complete joy wash over me, a happiness I hadn't felt for a very long time. I was made of stronger stuff. I could fucking well do this. I was so happy I wanted to tell somebody. I looked around and saw a champagne bottle sitting on a chair. I picked it up and swung it back, ready to toss it into the air in my place. It knocked over a glass which shattered on the balconey. The music and conversation in the next room suddenly stopped. People came pouring out onto the balconey as I stood there with the bottle in my hand. "Oh my God", said one of the ladies. "We thought you had fallen off the porch!"

"No, no, I'm fine. I'm OK, really."

I was ushered back into the room, fussed over. Wow. Am I George Bailey or something? I smiled and reassured all that I was OK, then left to tell my friend Peggy what I had (almost) done. She had a gentleman guest, and we three smoked a bit o' ganja before I told her: "Peggy, I almost killed myself tonight. I wanted to but I decided to stay alive for my kids."

She was shocked. The dude was confused. It was their first date. What a thing to drop on them. Well, got more people to see.

I drove all the way down to Joe's house, to a party I had not planned to go to, seeing as how I'd be dead and all. I walked in the front door and spotted Greg Jorgensen, a big, lanky, redneck Swede who was also my auto mechanic. He saw me and walked across the room. "NEWB!", he shouted, and gave me a huge bear hug. I nearly lost it, so full of joy and cascading emotions. I recovered nicely, and the party went well into the night.

The first night of the rest of my life.

Chapter Forty-Four: "...and there's more, Yes there's more. You hear and you see yet you do not believe that there's always more. There is more."

Chapter Forty-Two: Once in a Lifetime

"And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful Wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Countdown

In the couple of days that followed Lani's call I tried to come up with a Plan. How to make our marriage work? I really didn't have any close friends to talk to in California and I did not want to call my parents for advice. Having been an avid reader all my life I figured the best thing to do was read a book about it. I went to the bookstore and browsed through the Self Help section, looking for anything that could speak to my situation. I found Beyond the Marriage Fantasy: How to Achieve True Marital Intimacy, by Dr. Daniel Beaver. After reading the first couple of chapters it was clear to me that Lani and I needed real help. We had been living together in two separate worlds and it was time to see clearly. I hoped that when Lani read the book she would see we needed that kind of help as well. Just a couple of days more.

Olympic Torch

So I still had to hold it together and get some real-world work done back at Wild Bill's Photo Lab O' Horrors. It wasn't easy. Orders were few and far between so I didn't have enough to keep my mind off the feeling of impending doom. I found myself sitting in a printing room one day hiding out from the boss, feeling desperate. I got a legal pad and composed a long note to God asking him for help. I was trapped by my own pity, hoping something would turn around for me. It was a heartbreaking letter that I simply finished, read back to myself once, then hid it away in that dusty back room.

One day that July somebody at the lab told us that the Olympic torch relay would be passing through Oakland, just blocks away from us. I took my lunch break early and drove up 14th Street in search of a relay group. I found one pretty quickly and the fellow who was to be the bearer was happy to let anyone who wanted to hold the torch.

It was beautiful, with the Los Angeles Coliseum in relief and the words "Altius, Fortius, Citius" inscribed around the top of the bell. I felt a real connection with the history of the Games at that very moment. Then the relay approached and we all cheered as the flame was passed and "our" bearer ran off happily to the next station. It was a very bright spot in my day and in my life. And that part of the story wasn't over yet, either. The 1984 Olympics took on a whole new meaning for me in a short period.

"And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!"

Letting the Days Go By

The day Lani and the kids came home I had a dozen red roses on the table and a nervous hope that things would work out. She seemed distant again, unsure what to say to me, but she read some of the book I had picked up and agreed to see Dr. Beaver with me. I asked her why she was avoiding me and she told me that she had been thinking a lot about our marriage and her feelings. Just before leaving Milwaukee she had found a note penned by a favorite cousin who had passed away at an early age. The note described "what love is". In reading it Lani realized that she did not have many of the feelings expressed in this note and considered it a sign from her cousin that she needed to reassess things. So down went the roller coaster again. I couldn't take it. Just as I had done when things turned to shit between my parents and me I got in my car and took a drive around the Bay. I was out for hours, yelling at myself, at Lani, at God. Trying to come up with a Plan again. I could fix this. I'm not a bad person! I'm an idiot! You deserve this! Fuck it all!

I got back to the house just before dawn. I was so revved up emotionally that I couldn't sleep. I called in sick to work and got in touch with Dr. Beaver, the author of the marriage book. He seemed rather peeved by my insistence that we see him that very day but relented and agreed to meet us. I felt like I was down to my last shred of hope here. Dr. Beaver looked the part of a Modern Marriage Counselor, with a full beard, bushy, unkempt hair, brown polyester slacks and open-necked shirt. He listened as first Lani, then I poured out our stories, from our first meeting to the present day. He considered things for a few moments, looking thoughtful with his hands together and pressed to his chin. Then he said: "I get the picture of the two of you being in a swimming pool together. Neither one of you can swim and you're climbing on top of each other to keep from drowning. I don't think that's a healthy relationship at all. I don't know if there is anything I can do to help you."

So. That's it?

With little more to say he ushered us out the door and bid us good luck. Slam goes the door, see ya! Out in the bright July sunshine I felt like I was falling through space. We got in the car and drove back home. We discussed what we would do. I would move out because I didn't feel that sleeping in another room was a great idea. I needed time to clear my head so I was going back down to Ventura to see cousin Joe. I packed a few things in a suitcase, tossed my bike in the car. Lani was giving PJ and Jess a bath. I sat in the bathroom with them for our last moment together as a family. They were so happy, laughing and playing in the water. This was so unreal. What the hell am I doing? WAKE UP! I kissed my dear babies and told them I'd see them soon. I kissed Lani's forehead and told her I loved her still.

I paused at the front door, noticing the roses still in their vase. The petals had begun to droop and the arrangement looked a little sad. On an impulse I reached out and plucked one single petal and carefully pressed it in my wallet.

Then out the door and on the road.

One Last Stop

It was late in the afternoon and I didn't want to drive all night so I stopped in at my buddy Jim's house. He was very sympathetic and like so many friends have done over the centuries, suggested we getting totally pissed. I liked the idea, so we went out and picked up some beer, whiskey and cocaine. The substances flowed through my veins and I railed against Fate, women, artificial turf and whatever else my brain came up with. Late into the evening we went until all passing out.

"And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!...what have I done?"

I awoke some time later, the morning sun an angry spotlight through the window. "What the hell are you still doing here?" it seemed to say. OK, OK, I'm going. I found a scrap of paper and wrote "Thanks", leaving it on the coffee table. Then I snorted the last of the coke and split without looking back. Got to I-5 toward LA in a few hours. Considered throwing my wedding ring out the window for dramatic effect. Not yet. Burned down the highway through King City, Bakersfield, The Grapevine. Hotter than hell and I just kept going. CA126 at Santa Paula and down 101 to Ventura. What time is it? Time to stop. Call Joe's house. His mother-in-law answers. "Joe is at work right now but he'll be home soon." "OK, I'll call back."

"Where are you right now, Ed?"

"Oh, I'm in town."

"In town? We didn't expect you."

"I didn't expect to be here."

"Are you all right? You sound strange."

"Yeah. I feel strange. I'll tell you about it later."

"Why don't you come over now and wait for Joe?"

"I have some other people to see but I'll come over tonight. Thanks."

I went to the old photo lab and talked to one of the women I had worked with. Her name was Peggy and she was always a good friend, someone who could listen and then tell you just what she thought, no matter what you wanted to hear. She was getting off work later, so I went to the home of another woman and she fixed me a cheeseburger. The best, best cheeseburger I ever ate. The desert wind was still rattling around in my brain. I went to Peggy's house in Ojai later and she agreed to let me stay there until I found more a permanent place. Then on to Joe's to tell him what had happened and get drunk all over again.

Home away from Home.

"Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was..."

43: Same but not the same...

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.