THUGLIT Issue Twenty-One

by Rena Robinett

When we arrived at Codi Point, there were no other cars around. I parked in a far corner above the overlook, in the shadows of nearby pine trees.

  "Why are we hiding?" Jamie said.

  "Just look at the sky," I said.

  I reached for Jamie's hand. Our fingers laced together. I looked at the stars and knew none of their names.

  "This is really nice," Jamie admitted.

  I leaned across to Jamie's seat. I made an awkward show of navigating the gear shift between us, and we kissed. I tasted beer and opportunity.

  When our mouths parted, Jamie said, "Back seat?"

  Leading the way.

  More than I could have hoped for.

  We got out of the front doors and into the back. The windows were already fogged for our privacy.

  Jamie tried to pull me horizontal, but I was reaching for the ring.

  "Wait," I said.

  Our ordinary roles reversed.

  I pulled Jamie to sitting.

  "I have something for you," I said, showing the box in the muted light of the moon and the stars.

  "A graduation present?"

  "Something like that."

  I handed over the box, and Jamie clawed at the ribbon, perhaps drunkenly.

  "Here," I said, "I'll get that."

  I reached over with the knife and cut the ribbon.

  "What could be so small?" Jamie said, lifting the lid off the box.

  "It's a ring," I said, almost breathless with excitement.

  Jamie lifted the band of paper clips out of the box.

  "Paper clips?"

  "I made it myself, just for you," I said.

  "A graduation ring?"

  "An engagement ring," I said. "Here, give it to me."

  I took the paper clips and slid them onto the ring finger of Jamie's left hand. Jamie looked at the ring, pleased but somehow perplexed.

  I said, "Does this mean yes?"

  "Yes to what?"

  "Marriage!"

  "What?"

  "Just kiss me," I said, and I pushed Jamie back to horizontal.

  Only later did I realize how drunk Jamie must have been with all those parties and all that beer. Like I told you before, it was never my intention to get anyone drunk, and certainly I would never take advantage of anyone's drunkenness. Jamie must have been confused, and I regret that now. We were engaged to be married, but only I understood that Jamie belonged to me now, in full. Jamie didn't understand that. I wish that I, too, had drunkenness to blame, but I was completely sober when I did what I did when Jamie wouldn't give me what was finally and unambiguously mine.

  As they say, it happened so fast. Jamie was flat on the back seat, and I was on top of him, and we were kissing when I went for his crotch. The moment I touched his zipper, he protested.

  "Please, stop," he said.

  "No, no," I reminded him, "we're practically married."

  But he kept on begging me to stop, kept on calling me by name over and over again: "Karen, stop, please. Karen, please, stop. I don't want to do this, Karen. Stop, Karen. Stop."

  But I wouldn't stop because now was my chance. Jamie is bigger and stronger than me—he's always been in the back row of class pictures, always played linebacker on the football team—but this time he was drunk and I had a knife. The ring on his finger meant nothing to him, but he understood the knife.

  "We're doing this right now, once and for all," I told him when I put the blade to his throat. I hiked up my skirt, pulled off my panties, and then finally, at long last, Jamie let me unzip his pants.

  He was drunk all right, too drunk to do me any good. Nothing I did could get a rise out of him, and the whole time he kept whining, "Stop, stop, Karen, please stop." Eventually, I stopped like he wanted me to, but I still had the knife, so I went ahead and took what was mine. But at least I didn't kill him, right? You've at least got to give me credit for that.

  Paradise

  by Rena Robinett

  When you fly into Maui, the first thing noticed is the smell of fresh air. Air scented with flowers, ocean, and trees, with no taint of urban decay. Air wafted across a thousand miles of ocean and traveled another thousand miles before it mingles with the fouled breath of mainland life. That's the first thing you notice, and no matter how many years you come, that first breath is magic.

  I hadn't been back for a few years. When I landed and smelled the air, I remembered all I'd had here, and all I'd lost.

  I got the call from a friend of a friend. "Cici, we haven't been able to get a hold of Trelani. No one's seen her for over a week. Has she called you? Is she over there with you?" My stomach clinched when I realized I hadn't heard from my daughter, either. We usually Skyped at least once every few days, and she would text me or call, but I'd been busy the last week.

  I immediately reached out, calling friends and friends of friends, panicking as person after person answered:

  "No, we haven't seen her lately."

  "Saw her last week at Hookipa. She seemed fine."

  "Ran into her at the mall, guess it was last week or the week before."

  "No. I tried to call her, but no call back."

  After a day or so, I broke down and called her dad. "Have you seen our daughter lately?" The sound of his laid-back fifty-year-old surfer dude drawl sent stabs of irritated anger though me as I paced back and forth across my kitchen, clutching my phone. "No one's heard from her in over a week."

  "Shit. Okay. I'll go over to her place and check things out. I'm sure she's fine. Maybe she went to Hana and her clunker broke down."

  "Call me right away." I wished I was there so I could give him my best dead-eyed stare.

  "Yeah. Okay, I'll check it out." Years of togetherness had taught him that putting me off would only exacerbate my OCD and create more hassle for him.

  Trelani adored her dad, following him around like a lost puppy most of her life. If he hadn't heard from her, I was really worried.

  I was going into full-on, head-piercing, heart-pounding panic, stomping around trying to figure out who else I could call, what else I could do. The dark visions came suddenly: Girls who had bad stuff happen in Hawaii. The lost girls. The stories you never read about in the censored-for-tourism media. Flash frames reeled through my brain.

  I stopped pacing when the thought blasted through the sludge. Call your sponsor.

  No preamble needed when Raila answered. "Trelani's missing. No one's seen or heard from her in over a week."

  A long pause. "You'd better book your flight."

  Simple, no bullshit, clear direction. That's what I love about my sponsor. I've been around too long for the "Disneyland" version of recovery…if you do everything I say, walk my walk, talk my talk, all your sins will be absolved and everything will be hunky-dory. Horseshit, as my granny might have said. I've learned the hard way, recovery is not magic.

  "Okay," I said. "I called Zak. He's going over to check her place. I'm freaking out. I'll book a flight and start packing just to have something to do. As soon as I hear back from him, I can confirm."

  "Call me anytime. I'm here for you. Just remember to try and stay out of the ‘what if's’ with that brain of yours."

  "I know. Thanks."

  I spent the next hour cussing my ex for every minute he hadn't called me back while I booked a flight and sorted through stuff to pack.

  Finally, he called. "I went to her place. Her car's there, but it looks like it's been sitting for a while." His voice was quiet, scary for him. "There's no sign of her. I drove around all her spots, up and down the coast. No one's seen her for ages. Fuck. What should we do?" It was always back to me, deciding what to do in real life.

  "Go to the cops. Report her missing. I'm flying over in a few hours."

  "Okay…okay." Not loving the idea of dealing with cops on his own, skittering around in his board shorts, wanting to ride his way off this wave.

  There he was, with his sun-cragged face and still-muscular body, pulling his Maui cruiser over to pick me up curbside at
Kahului airport. Before he'd even got my bag lifted into the back, "Shit. The police were a-holes."

  "What did you expect?" I settled in the front seat, gritting my teeth with annoyance at his messy car. A Taco Bell wrapper stuck to the bottom of the floor beneath my flip-flops.

  "I finally talked them into filing a report—because she's been out of contact for over 72 hours—after I bullied my way past the tita at the front desk. The officer I talked to agreed to go take a look at her house." I looked over at him, impressed. Zak loved his little girl.

  "Great. Good job," I conceded. It was the usual humid, hot Maui day, with clear blue skies and some white clouds skittering over the ocean past the harbor. "Take me to Ena's. She's away at her mom's, so I can hang at her place for a while."

  I was pacing on Ena's lanai the fourth day after I'd arrived, gulping coffee and watching the waves wrap around the North coastline. A head appeared around the corner of the house.

  "Mrs. Becker?" A big blond guy in khaki pants and an old Reyn Spooner shirt came up on the lanai, his hand reaching out. "I'm Detective Royce. I've been looking for your daughter." Shaking his offered hand, I saw it in his face before he spoke. My eyes filled with tears. I felt hot and cold pricks all over, while his voice faded in and out. It was like someone was pulling down a shade.

  Missing.

  Trails.

  Sighted.

  Hana.

  Clothing.

  Identify.

  Words crashed into me as I fell back on my chair and felt his hand on my shoulder. I looked up into a world without my girl.

  I don't remember much about the next few days. I know Zak and I looked at some clothing an old guy had found off Keanai by the waterfalls. Ena came home and made me endless cups of tea while people flowed in and out of her house muttering words meant to soothe a wound that would never heal. My sponsor flew over from Kauai. I remember her holding me while I sobbed. The rest of me went somewhere safe.

  I'd gone to that place before. It was a destination I'd discovered as a child. The county of no pain. I had perfected the art of being there while everyone around me thought I was still here. The only two people I couldn't fool were Zak and Raila.

  "I don't know what to say." Raila held my hand. She'd been crying. We'd been friends since I'd first met Zak, before Trelani was born.

  "I can't feel this." I stood up to walk away. Walking off the lanai onto sand, I plopped down by the waterline. It was another beautiful day in paradise, and I wanted to die. I knew bad things happened to good people in beautiful places, just not to me.

  Detective Becker came a few times with reports I had to sign, and more questions. It was a week or so later, he was sitting at the table with me and Raila sipping iced tea. "Your daughter was seen hanging out with the Rasta boys at Hookipa. Did you know she knew those guys?"

  Raila answered, "No. Trelani grew up here. She wouldn't go within ten feet of those guys. Who told you that?"

  Becker looked at me, then down at this glass. "Some friends of hers. They said she started messing up about six months ago. Her friend, Kyra, said she was good at hiding it." He looked at me, and away to the view out the window. "We found a pipe stashed at her place."

  "Shit." Raila grabbed my hand. I had felt so immune. I'd insulated Trelani from my past, even on Maui, even with her dad. Some dogs never die. They rise up, snarling back at you years later.

  The Rasta brothers were a pair of mangy-haired creeps whose main purpose in life was hanging out at surf spots and selling drugs, mostly weed and crack cocaine. My old group had opened its doors to the local criminal justice system and had prisoners mandated to meetings. I knew some guys who knew some guys who could reach out to the world I no longer fit into.

  Both brothers sat across from me on the picnic bench at the local fish place in Paia. With their long matted hair, faded surf t-shirts and dirty board shorts, they were a pair of burned-out beach trash. I'd bought them lunch, watched them breathe in their fish tacos.

  "So when did you last see Trelani?" The taller one looked like he might have a brain cell or two left, so I shifted my gaze to him. "Did you see her here, Trey?"

  "Yeah. We hooked up with her about two weeks ago down by Mama's. She got some weed from us. Said she was going to Hana with friends. Like we told that Becker guy. That's the last time we saw her." They were both two steps away from a hard detox, glassy-eyed with tremors.

  "What friends?"

  "Some guy she met. A tourist, I think. She met him in Kihei at Kam III, on the beach. She said he had money because he was staying in Wailea."

  Trey's brother fidgeted on the bench, staring out the wide doors and jerking his legs under the table. I knew the signs. I had to pull information out fast before these guys took off.

  "Trey, did she say where they were going in Hana?"

  He was shifting in time with his brother. "I think they rented a cabin at the campgrounds. Some friend of her dad's who worked out there." They both slid off the bench, leaving their stuff for someone else to clean up, as usual. Then they were gone, popped out of existence, like my girl. I sat in front of dirty dishes surrounded by happy, chattering islanders living the dream, while I tried to figure out the nightmare my daughter had slipped into.

  I've been clean for decades. No drugs, not a drop of alcohol, including that near-beer crap they peddle to people who want to pretend they're still normal. I've gone from the cult-like enthusiasm of early recovery, when I was terrified of using again, to the mostly happy cynic that I was before the past few weeks. 12-Step rooms are filled with addicts and, as much as we all try to live by spiritual principles, the optimum word is "try."

  Zak had been trying to stay clean for years, but he could never give up his stoner lifestyle. Growing up held no upside for him, and the cost of using, aside from losing me, had never been that high. If Trelani started smoking weed, it was probably with her dad. At that thought, I whipped out my phone, slammed it back in my bag and raced out through the crowd of smiling tourists.

  I pulled my car into the dirt driveway, parking by a beat up old VW and a newer Chevy short-bed filled with surfboards. My anger building, I ran up the steps and into the house. Some long-haired girl not much older than my daughter sat cross-legged on a worn cloth-covered sofa, rolling a joint. I ignored her.

  "Zak, where the fuck are you? Get out here."

  The girl stared up at me all big-eyed, indignant, but not interested enough to stop rolling.

  Zak came out the hallway with a towel around his waist, shaking his wet hair out. "What the fuck?" He looked good. Older, but good. My anger moved me past that first impression.

  "Were you giving our daughter drugs?" The girl lit her joint and started to say something.

  I turned. "Shut the fuck up and get out. Now."

  She looked over at Zak. He stared past me at the wall and shrugged. She pulled herself up, slipped on her sandals, and sauntered out the door, tossing, "Later" over her shoulder.

  I turned back to Zak. "Answer me. Did you give Trelani drugs?"

  Zak slid around me to sit on the chair by the sofa. When he sank down, years melted onto him. I saw the real him, the aging boy he was running from who had disappointed everyone who'd ever loved him.

  His shoulders sagged. "Yeah. We smoked a few joints, bowls together." He looked up at me with a spark of defiance. "She was sick of all the recovery bullshit and she came to me to chill out."

  "Oh you fucking idiot. She came to you to run away, and who better to take her side than the champion runner, her dad."

  My fists were curled at my side. I willed myself to not pummel him, my mouth acrid with the taste of how badly I wanted to beat him around the head. No use going over all the reasons drugs were poison for our daughter. He'd heard it all. So had she. They chose to ignore what they knew and now here we were, dead and dying.

  Zak dropped his head into his hands and sobbed, "God oh god oh god."

  Shaking, tears burning my eyes, I sank onto the sofa. I would not
comfort him. Ever. Forgiveness was not a country we would visit together.

  Like almost everyone on Maui, I had done my time working the hotel circuit. Housekeeping, Food & Beverage, Front Desk. I had a ton of friends who worked hotels. It's a small island, and everyone notices everyone. Tourists always think they're anonymous, but the truth is, you are clocked almost everywhere you go by somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows.

  Eventually we were able to track down my daughter's movements through a process of trailing every single person who had seen her—when, where, with who. I spent my last two weeks on Maui finding all those people. I still couldn't get a line on who was with her at the end.

  I decided to take a break and lay on the beach at Kam III. I was communing with my daughter's spirit, hoping she could give me a clue, when a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see Mana, an old friend of mine. We'd done some temp work together years ago, and worked a few conventions in Wailea. She had a full-time job there now.

  "I heard you're looking for your daughter's killer."

  Mana was a "right to the point" kind of gal.

  I sat up as she sat down facing me. "Yea. What else have you heard?"

  "I talked around. One of the maids told me a story about a guy who was staying with us around the same time your daughter disappeared. He had plenty of money, and seemed real friendly. One day this maid was cleaning his room when he walked in and offered her money for sex. She refused. Told him she was married."

  Mana looked out toward the sea, then back at me, her brown eyes filled with other stories. "He said that was fine, but he scared her, so she gathered up to leave. He followed her to the door, grabbed her from behind, put his hand over her month, and shoved his hand up her dress. She bit his hand, and was able to get out of the room. She never reported anything because she was afraid it was her word against his, and she couldn't afford to lose her job." Mana looked at me. We both knew that's exactly what this guy counted on. She shrugged. "Sounds like a guy worth looking into." She handed me a copy of his hotel registration.