It was good to see a young man striving to make his mark. Even in that kind of business.
Every day my nurses forced me to get out of the bed and walk across the room and down the corridor. And back.
All four of my nurses were there to support me. I returned from each excursion and fell exhausted into the deep feather cushions of the bed.
John Caine, action hero.
Every day they made me try again. From time to time, inertia took over and my body didn’t want to leave the comfort and safety of the big old bed. When that happened, Angelica insisted, and so, in fact, would my conscience. Together the two of them guided me out of the bed and across the room and into the living room of the suite and down the hall again. I tottered around as if I were three hundred years old, and then wobbled back to bed, feeling as if I had accomplished something.
The doctor came to visit later that first day and fussed over my wounds and drains, telling me that he would take the drains out within a few days. He seemed pleased that the incisions were healing, as if he had anything to do with my improvement.
The bullet wound in the back and the incision in front gave me a hole that went all the way through me, in one side and out the other. The image both appalled and fascinated. It wasn’t the first time my body had been holed. But this was one of the worst. And in one of the worst places.
But I was getting better, steadily improving in tiny increments. In a few days the nurses let me wander down to the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian and out to the lawn, a distance of maybe a couple hundred meters. A little farther than the Wright Brothers flew that first day at Kitty Hawk. My accomplishment was nowhere near as momentous, but seemed a true milestone.
Finally, the day came when I could venture outside and walk along the beach. I must have looked a sight, a big pale haole, skinny as a stork, his clothes too big for him, accompanied by a bevy of beautiful little nurses in their crisp white uniforms and odd little hats, every one of us barefoot.
With a nurse on either side I slowly meandered along the sand where the gentle waves lapped the shore. The warm water washed over my feet and caressed my ankles and then rushed back out to sea. I looked down and laughed because it felt good to be here, it felt good to be outside again, on the beach of my island, in the sunshine. It felt good to be alive.
My little nurses laughed, too, because they knew that I was healing. Their merry laughter reminding me of a mountain stream rippling over smooth stones.
That night, after Felix went out on his round of errands for Chawlie, we had a little celebration. Three bottles of Dom had been sent up from the hotel bar. We drained them before dinner and got a little giddy. Angelica looked at me as if I were some kind of conquering hero.
“You are a good patient, John,” she said.
“The word is interesting,” I said. “Patient. As in wait.”
She giggled. “You must wait. Your body is healing. You will be well, soon.”
I nodded. “Now tell me why they call what doctors do a ‘practice’?”
She smiled a crooked smile. “You have lost a lot of weight.”
“I’ll gain it back.”
“But a lot of it is muscle. It will be difficult for you. At your age.”
“At my age?”
“You are not a young man. It will be difficult.”
“You mean when I return to working out?”
“Yes. It will not be easy.”
“Angelica, honey, if I shied away from things just because they were hard, I would have done something else with my life.”
She shook her head. “Chawlie said that you are a good man, that you are like an ancient warrior. Chawlie said that you must once again prove to yourself that you are a man.”
It took a moment before the subtext registered. “What are you saying?”
“Chawlie is worried about your manhood. He says it will be a problem for you if you cannot … do what a man has to do.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“Chawlie told me to make you happy. Tonight I think I will see what we can do.”
“Wait a minute. That’s not a part of your duties.”
“It is if I want it to be,” she said. “I am to make you well, and to make you well I am to make you happy.”
“It’s all right, Angelica. I’m old enough and tired enough I don’t need you to do anything for me.”
“I am not one of your American women who think sex is bad, or something merely to be bartered. I am a healing woman. Sex has much to do with healing.”
“Thank you, but—”
“I notice when I wash you, your member doesn’t even stir.”
“Well, that’s just …” I had no answer for that. I had noticed it, too, and it did bother me, but only a little. It had happened before, after major trauma. But she was a beautiful, healthy young woman, and when she touched me it should have caused some reaction. Even wounded, I wasn’t dead.
“See, I can tell that it bothers you.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to …”
“I don’t have to. That’s the point. I want to.”
What do you say to that? The other nurses were watching and listening intently, keeping quiet, their warm, dark eyes following every nuance of the conversation. I had no idea what they were thinking. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I felt like an object in a museum.
“I, ah …”
“We don’t have to do anything right now, if it makes you uncomfortable, John. Drink your champagne. It will help you.” She filled my glass again.
“Therapy, huh?”
“Chawlie wants to know that you’re still a man.”
“Tell Chawlie it’s none of his business.”
“He says that it is. If you cannot be a man in that sense, then he says you cannot be a man in the other.”
“That’s nonsense.” Now I was getting angry. Chawlie had his ways and his culture, but he didn’t have to impose them on me.
“I have to tell Chawlie what you do.”
“That’s even worse. You’re a beautiful woman, but even if I were inclined to bed you on a moment’s notice, I couldn’t now because I’d know that Chawlie would be getting a blow-by-blow description.”
She blushed. “I don’t usually do that.”
“That’s not what I meant, Angelica.”
“What shall I tell Chawlie?”
“Make something up. Tell him that I satisfied you eight times.”
The other nurses laughed, hiding giggles behind their palms.
“Eight? Eight is a bad number.”
“Okay, then. Tell him nine times.”
They all laughed again.
“You mean that, John? Is that what you really want? We shall just talk about it, and then I’ll report that to Chawlie, that you satisfied me nine times?”
“Yeah. It’s not something I like to discuss with everybody in the room, and it’s not something that I can do in cold blood. I’m sorry. I’m not turning you down because of anything you are, or because of anything you’re doing, but this is not me.”
She nodded, her face blank, and I couldn’t tell if I had hurt her. I hoped not.
During dinner she stared at me as if I was some strange alien she had never seen before. It felt uncomfortable to be under such scrutiny. When dinner was over I excused myself, took a careful sponge bath, and crawled into bed.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the music from the Royal Hawaiian’s luau on the lawn below, wondering what kind of fool I had become. Was I applying for sainthood sometime soon? If she wanted to do it, then who was I to play the blushing virgin? I’d been around the block a few times, and had nobody in my life at the moment. Why the heck not? The girl had her orders. Chawlie would know she was lying, and it might even be dangerous for her to lie to him, especially since I had said what I had said in front of the other nurses. One of them certainly would report what had actually happened.
Had I put her i
n an untenable position?
Would it be harmful to her if I refused?
Wow. That’s a new one. Man refuses sex, thinking it is noble, and puts the woman in a difficult position.
Well, I did not want, under any circumstances, my sexual life reported to Chawlie. It was an intrusion I was not prepared to endure.
That was only part of it. I wasn’t certain I could perform. In fact, I had my fears that I could not. There was no way to tell, but nothing had aroused me since the shooting. Little John just lay there like some disinterested Lotus Eater. I was male enough not to want to have that fact reported to my old friend. There’s no telling what he would do, given that information.
The door opened and a small figure slipped into the darkened room.
“Angelica, I—”
She put her finger to her lips and shushed me. I watched as she removed that ridiculous hat and shook out her long, lustrous black hair. She placed the hat on the chair beside my bed and continued undressing all the way down to her fine, taut, golden skin.
“I grow old, I grow old,” I murmured.
“What?” She unsnapped her bra and leaned forward to let it fall from her breasts.
“I was thinking of eating a peach.” My voice became husky, my throat constricted.
She smiled and shook her head at my foolishness.
The band on the lawn below began playing one of those soft, sentimental hapa-haole tunes with plenty of sliding steel guitar in the melody line. It was sappy enough to be pretty, given the Hawaiian ambience, given the warm tropical night and the beautiful girl undressing in my bedroom. Angelica swayed with the music as she undressed.
I watched, wishing I could be aroused.
My psyche was aroused as was my spirit—I was acutely aware of the wonders and the pleasures that a young woman’s body could provide—but my flesh was weak.
When she turned down the covers and climbed into the bed next to me, laying her soft warm breasts upon my chest, I wrapped her in my arms and held her close. She placed one smooth leg over mine, her knee nestled near my groin.
The music played on, but knee or no knee, nothing happened up here in the penthouse.
We lay quietly for a few moments, listening to the band. I could feel her sweet breath against my neck.
“Aren’t you going to do anything?” she whispered in my ear.
“I don’t think anything is going to happen.”
She reached down and touched me, her fingertips lightly brushing me. It was a pleasant feeling, very erotic, but my body responded to no stimuli.
“I think I can make you interested.”
“I don’t know …”
“You don’t have to try now. Maybe it’s too soon.”
“It was a good try, Angel. Damned pleasant, in fact.”
“I will stay the night. Maybe I can make you happy.”
“You have already made me happy, Angel. Not just in the way Chawlie means.”
She hugged me.
“You are very gentle for a big man.”
“I’ve learned to be gentle with angels.”
She made a small sound in her throat that I thought sounded like contentment. I stroked her back, her velvety smooth skin wonderful to the touch.
“What are you going to tell Chawlie?”
“I will tell him you were a tiger, that you satisfied me ten times.”
“Ten?”
“Okay. Seven. It’s a lucky number. Eight is not a lucky number. It is two times four. I wouldn’t want to give him the wrong impression.”
“Then seven it is.”
“Are you sure you can do nothing?” She raised up and moved against me, making both of very much aware of our nakedness.
“You would be able to tell.”
“Would you like me to do something with my mouth?”
“No. Don’t do anything. Just stay the night. If that’s what you want to do.”
“I think I’d better stay. The others will be watching.”
“You take your job seriously.” I mumbled my last reply, the fuzz from the champagne and the exhaustion of the walk on the beach catching up with me at last. Somewhere in the back of my mind I felt a stirring of something for the girl, a warm feeling, nothing more, and with that warm feeling a stirring in my loins. But it wasn’t much, and it wasn’t profound, and I was certain that she hadn’t noticed.
She said something I didn’t catch, and I fled this world for the one which we all share when we close our eyes and reach for those places in the corners of our minds that we keep hidden during our wakefulness.
And later I must have dreamed, but I remembered nothing of the dreams, and nothing of the rest of the night.
9
You are really improving, Grasshopper!” Felix grinned at me as I stood panting, leaning against the sea wall in front of the Halekalani, one of the opulent, giant hotels along the sugar sand of Waikiki Beach. The concrete structure towered over our heads, providing shade in the middle of an early summer day. Its surface was cold and wet, and it felt good to lean against the smooth concrete after our long hike.
Felix stood immovable as a wave washed in around us, his feet planted in the sand like a statue rooted on steel rods. I braced myself as the little swell struck, allowing for the backwash. Despite my exhaustion it felt good to be in the sea again, even if was only my toes. The taste of salt in the air was pleasant, too. The sun and the sounds and the taste of the ocean combined to make me feel alive again.
“I walked. You ran,” I grumbled. “And don’t call me Grasshopper.”
Felix had, indeed, run the whole way, from Diamond Head all the way to the Ala Wai boat harbor and back, sprinting ahead until nearly out of sight, then doubling back, ranging far afield and returning like a faithful dog.
We had covered a lot of ground, and Felix had covered it twice. It hurt me a little to see how effortlessly he stood there, letting the ocean burst against him.
“I’m pooped,” I said.
“You’re doing fine.”
I nodded, hands on my hips, bracing for another wave.
Then I looked out to sea.
“A week ago you couldn’t do this much.”
“Yeah, right.” I started moving toward the end of the sea wall, aiming at the wide sandy beach beyond.
“Not so fast. You’ve got to take it easy.”
I walked a little faster. It wasn’t a jog, and it wasn’t quick, but it was the best I could manage.
“Hey, Caine! You’re going to hurt yourself!”
I kept shuffling, waiting until I reached the corner of the sea wall and climbing up onto the stairs before I pointed out to sea, reaching the fourth step as a rogue six-footer crashed against the concrete, shooting white foaming spray high into the sky.
The surge covered me to my thighs, but I clung to the iron railing of the stairs and let the sea rush past, mindful of my incisions and the hysterical fit the doctors and the nurses would throw if I got them wet.
Water boiled in front of the concrete wall, a white raging maelstrom, and then washed back out to sea.
Felix had vanished.
I started to worry until I saw his form splayed like a starfish on the sloping sand, his eyes closed, his mouth open. I thought for a moment that he had been hurt until I heard his laughter rippling across the water. He laughed a belly laugh, a roar, a helpless release, a total abandonment to mirth.
He rolled over, swallowed water, choked, coughed, and rolled over again, so beset by his helplessness he couldn’t get up.
Another wave washed over him and he disappeared beneath the froth.
Now I really worried.
He burst from the sea, a young Neptune with a happy, sloppy smile pasted across his face.
“You saw the wave!” He shouted.
I nodded, backing up the steps.
“You didn’t tell me!” And he dissolved in laughter as another wave struck the sea wall.
I waited until he reappeared. “You seemed so sur
e of yourself!”
He pulled himself along the sea wall, suffering a continued battering, still laughing, but moving along in spite of the unexpected surge, the sea suddenly powerful.
He rounded the corner to the stairs and joined me on the sand where I had taken refuge. The sun baked my shoulders while I rested. It felt good sitting there, smelling the sea, hearing the sounds of the surf, feeling the tropical sun gently base me with its golden warmth.
It was good to be alive.
“You’re improving,” I said when he plopped down on the sand beside me. “Grasshopper.”
He laughed silently, shaking his head.
“You always have to keep an eye on the ocean. She’ll always do what you don’t expect.”
“She?”
“Like boats and old hurricanes. Figure of speech. From the old sailors.”
He shook his head. “Were you trying to teach me a lesson?”
I nodded. “Did teach you a lesson. Don’t get cocky around her.”
Felix smiled, white even teeth in his bright brown face. “No,” he said, “not cocky.”
I stood up. It wasn’t too difficult after all that exercise, or it wouldn’t have been too difficult if I had had a crane and a bucket. Our long walk had winded me, and I didn’t have much left.
“Time for my nap,” I said.
“You really are getting better.”
“It’s a long road back.”
“But you’re on it.”
“Stop with the platitudes, buster. I’ve done this enough to know how tough it is. I’ll make it. Your help makes it easier. But I still have to do it myself.”
He slapped me on the back. “Sure you do, old man.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, knowing I was being patronized, and knowing that I deserved it.
“It’s only a little farther,” he said.
“I know how far it is.” I limped across the sand toward the Royal Hawaiian. We’d been gone for three hours, had covered nearly ten miles of ground, and I’d walked the entire way. I was tired, but otherwise felt loose and agile, the walk the stimulus I needed to get my blood going again. Too many days in too many hospital beds had clogged my fluids, plugged my head, and made me logy. It didn’t feel natural not to be active. My body wasn’t used to it.
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