“Don’t tell me you would have.”
Alex didn’t answer right away.
“Maybe,” he finally shrugged.
“Call me shallow, but if I’m going to sleep with a woman, I want to wake up with her in the morning, and I’d like to know that she’s not only gonna be there in the morning, but the next. And while we’re at it, I’d kind of like her to stick around for the fiftieth wedding anniversary.”
“Yeah, you’re shallow. Chivalry is dead. Me, I’m open minded. I say do what makes you happy, so long as it doesn’t hurt others. Why would God give us something like a baby maker, a sexual organ on the outside of our body that demands thrusting and pounding, pleasurable stimulation and all around physical aggression in order to release, always release, only to hold it inches from our fingertips and forbid us from partaking?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Figures.”
“All I know is, God examines our hearts and He rejoices when He finds integrity there. Maybe it goes against the current of nature, but I believe that. There’s a road for right living, and I’m doing the very best I can to keep on the path, even as it winds through the privacy of my home, where it counts.”
“I sense a sermon on the horizon. Jeez, Joshua. What I do in privacy doesn’t concern or hurt anyone.”
“How does Gracie feel about that?”
“What did you say?” Alex growled. He sat up in bed.
I let the front two legs of my chair return to the patio. “How does Gracie…?” I didn’t finish my sentence. I turned around.
“I know what you said.” His face had apparently reeled into the dark and ugly abyss while I was looking away. “Don’t ever bring Gracie into this again, do you understand me? My private life does not concern her.”
“But Alex.” I probably should have kept my mouth shut. “What if she was doing the same to you? How would that make you feel?”
“I’d hunt down whoever did it, every single one of them, and I’d fucking kill them.” He rose to his feet, beet-faced, and thrust his finger in my direction like one of those exterior sex organs that he’d been talking about. “And if you ever say any of this to Gracie, then God help me, I’ll do the same.”
“Alex, I’m….” I stopped myself from saying sorry. I wouldn’t have meant it if I’d tried. But he wouldn’t have heard it anyhow. He’d already slammed the door. Not even two weeks into our relationship and the affliction that had propelled him into months of anger management had already lifted its ugly head. Apparently paradise wasn’t so perfect after all.
16
Another jog through the rustic streets of Kailua-Kona was in order. I built a good sweat, and I worried about my old friend. Alex clearly wasn’t the same guy I’d once known in college. But now that I thought about it, there had probably always been a jagged streak teetering alongside the edges of his soul. Back in the day we treated it like the dark side of the moon; if you couldn’t see it then it must not be there.
He was my roommate for the first two years of college before finally disappearing from the scene. I knew now that his father was murdered. And then September Eleventh happened. It wasn’t a very good time for either of us. But what I remembered most about him were his passions for the Christian faith. We both attended the same college group at a church in Westwood that catered to UCLA students. The college pastors name was Robert. Robert Collins. But everyone called him Bob. Alex and I were both discipled under him. We spent hours at his house learning everything about theology and philosophy and music and culture and fashion and history and how being a disciple meant flowing through all of it with Christ as one’s focus and passion.
Alex and I even prescribed each other as accountability partners. You know, pornography for starters – the young man’s bane. We’d have nothing to do with sex until marriage. There was this one time at Bob’s house when he actually cried over a recent viewing of porn. Guilt could often overcome him like that. What had happened in the seven years between?
His father was murdered for one (or so he claimed). Next came the attack on the world trade center. And then Alex was seemingly forever gone from my life (just like that)… except he was back now. I wondered if he’d ever really returned. I missed my accountability partner. But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? He did return in one form or another. Sure, he’d fallen off from his spiritual stride, and work with his father-in-law was morally questionable at best, but he was seeking his footing, and he came to me. Perhaps I couldn’t save my marriage. Maybe my marriage didn’t want rescuing. But Alex, it was evident from the beginning that he wanted something more, something weightier than photography. He wanted a taste from the Holy Grail. He came to me, and I was going to give it to him.
I slowed my jog and finally halted, dripping of sweat. Lungs aching, I handcuffed both hands behind my head to catch a breath. I strained my eyes over a volcanic wall of stone winding alongside the road, past several palm trees and a warm bank of sand to the crystalline Pacific. Dozens of snorkelers made use of the water. I recognized two of them. It was Ellie Alexander and Jack, America’s favorite naked atheist and her main squeeze. I was certain of it. They were straddling waist deep in the coral water, goggles and snorkels crowning their heads and laughing together, arms embraced, like two amateur lovers, and wearing bathing suits, thank God, despite the fact that there was so very little of it.
I smiled. And then I thought about Elise. It was Tom, friend of this Jack fellow, who was having adulterous relations with my wife. Maybe Jack was a kind person, probably not, but I disdained Ellie for dating this guy. By doing so she condoned my wife’s destructive choices. Then again, her religion was survival mutations void of an architect, with selfishness crowning the totem pole of its champions. An unpleasant build-up of saliva had formed in my mouth. I spat on the road and kept on jogging wishing I’d never seen Jack or Ellie at all. The rest of the way to my condominium I tried to spit the thought of them out like a bad build-up of saliva. The bookstore that I passed, with its window display of Babies Are Atheists(and announcement of an impending signing by its author), certainly didn’t help. But not even the Humuhumunu could erase the imagery of them playing in the water.
17
Alex sat slumped at Kanaloa watching a UFC fight on the television.
“Care to go snorkeling?” I asked him.
Alex snickered.
“No thanks.” He never took his eyes off the two men brutally pulverizing the other. From the exterior look of it one pulp-faced fighter, eyes swollen, had his knee planted on the lobe of another. The crowd cheered as he was crushing his skull.
“OK, but the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa are waiting.”
“Whatever floats your boat, man.”
He sucked on his beer.
“Hey, Alex, I really do care about you and Gracie. I’m not trying to judge. I just want the two of you to be healthy and happy. And I want you to be successful in this field.”
“If you care anything about our friendship, don’t ever bring Gracie and recreational boy talk into the same sentence again.” Despite never looking at me, he didn’t seem genuine in his words. I really was noting a sense of disparity.
“I understand,” I told him, and stood there like a fool with a snorkel and goggles on my head before finally turning around to trudge onwards for my appointment with the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa.
“Joshua,” he said.
I turned around.
“I’m sorry. I have anger issues. I never meant to hurt you.”
This time he sounded genuine.
“I know you didn’t.”
“I owe you a six-pack,” he said.
Like the Venetian trade beads that purchased Manhattan from the Indians, beer was a serious exchange of business for Alex, and a six-pack too. I think that was the most genuine he’d ever been.
18
The Kona side of the Big Island had several good but crowded surf breaks. I couldn’t begin to tell you the best coas
tline but I decided to go with Banyans, just south of Kailua-Kona, where the inexperienced were rarely if ever welcomed and wise mainlanders heeded extreme caution. Featuring left and right breaks over shallow coral reefs, Banyans produced fast moving waves with plenty of room for maneuvering among competent long boarders and professional short boarders. For me, this meant settling on a long board. Summertime was never ideal because overhead conditions were rare, thank you Maui for blocking the northern swells and screwing it up for everyone, but on Sunday the incoming tide was impressive, and I couldn’t refute.
I actually managed to bring Alex along. He found a comfortable seat among the lava-laden coastline. I advised him to hold onto his butt because he was about to watch a pro in action.
“Kelly Slater is here… today?” Alex stood up and scanned the surf.
“Very funny, smart ass.” I bobbed up and down on my board. “Now sit back down on the rocks before you fall over and hurt yourself.” I paddled a little ways out, turned around and added, “And don’t forget to hold onto your butt.”
“And do what with it, captain?” He said.
After I paddled out to a couple dozen other surfers I waved to Alex on the shore. He looked around, swiveled over both shoulders, probably confused, and when he was absolutely certain that I wasn’t waving at a pretty girl or Kelly Slater in person he discreetly waved back (making sure no surfers were watching), like I was a dork or something. Maybe next time I’d wildly flap my arms above my head and call out Simon says.
It was actually a pretty good swell, better than expected, and I caught several sizable waves. I even managed to piss off the local surfers, which is always a good thing. After someone flipped me the bird (two surfers, if I’m being honest, or were there three?) Alex pretended like he didn’t know me. Then the biggest wave of the day came, and I caught it. I was riding it towards the shoreline when another surfer came seemingly out of nowhere like the sack of Rome by the Visigoths and cut me off.
“Watch it, ass-hole!” He cried.
Our boards clipped. Several bones collided and we both went spiraling forwards into the shallow water, head first. My hands and knees scrapped across the reef before the wave whirled me in an anarchic circle. I hit another jagged growth of coral and something stung or snagged my left leg. I came up to the surface and gasped for a breath. Saltwater poured in. I could barely keep afloat. My left leg weighed me down. Another wave barreled over and I went whirling into another unwelcome voyage through the chaos of the angry ocean – terrified and disoriented. It shoveled my body up and thrust me forward or backwards, I wasn’t sure of which, upside down or something. I managed to avoid two protruding pillars of coral but scrapped my hands and my knees between them. I came back up to the surface, gasping for breath.
For a moment I saw Alex rushing into the water, shirtless but with blue jeans. He was having a difficult time wading over the coral when he decided to belly flop on the padding of an incoming wave and swim after. My left leg hurt and throbbed like hell. I swallowed a heaping of salt water trying to keep above the next wave, and my surfboard bashed into the back of my head. I went under.
When I came to Alex was helping me out of the water. Both of us were severally cut, though I imagine his jeans gave him some padding (not nearly as good as my wet suit), and blood was everywhere. I was lightheaded and pale, and the throbbing in my left leg, I finally observed, was from a sea urchin that had drilled into my flesh and defiantly remained there. I pressed a hand to the back of my head and then swung it around. It was covered in blood. Alex set me down on the smoothest rock he could find.
“I hope you have good insurance,” he said.
“Don’t even think about putting me in an ambulance. They’ll probably stitch up my head and then cut off an arm and a leg simply to pay for the cost of needles and string,” I said, growing weaker and fainter by the moment. I choked on the salt water.
“Bend over,” he said.
“I’m not bending over.” I pulled the sea urchin from my leg, gasping.
“Joshua, bend over. You’ve got another sea urchin wedged into your ass.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I bent over. “Go ahead and get it over with. But if I even begin to suspect a wandering hand.”
“You owe me a six-pack for this.”
“But if you owe me a six-pack, doesn’t that make us even?”
Alex thought about it. “You owe me two-six packs for this.” He yanked it out.
“Hey ass-hole, you fug-ugly mainlander faggots. Find your own damn G-spot!” Someone cried. “Go back to Waikiki and get the hell off my fucking beach.” It was the other surfer. He was climbing up on the shore dragging his long board behind him, arms and legs equally battered by angry coral and somewhat waterlogged but no sea urchins or cuts on the back of his head to speak of. I didn’t get a good look at him while I was out on the water, but now that I saw him with more clarity, he was a good couple of inches taller than me, well defined and muscular. Hair hung down well beyond his shoulders, and his flesh was covered in tattoos.
“Whose the ass-hole?” Alex stood up. “I saw the whole thing. You came charging in like Custard’s Calvary and cut him off.”
The surfer pushed Alex over and kicked me in the leg…. the left leg…. the one that the sea urchin had vengefully wedged into. He swore several more times. “You think you mainlanders are some real hot fecal matter coming out here and crowding our beaches. You Manifest Destiny beach niggers can have fucking Pearl Harbor and Waikiki, but keep the hell away from Banyans.”
“Don’t touch him,” Alex stood up.
The surfer picked up my surfboard and cracked it in half over his knee. He threw both pieces on either side of him. They dashed against the rocks.
“If I ever see either of you mainlanders again, I’ll break more than your board, if you know what I mean. Consider this a warning.”
Alex didn’t take the warning. He charged in, beet-faced, and flailed his arms like an animal, rocking violent fists across the meat of his body. The two were down on the jagged rocks immediately, hot tempered and wheeling around in insanity. I hated fights. Veins protruded from the surfers muscles as he threw a couple punches at Alex’s arm and ribs, but Alex assaulted him in the neck, wound his knuckles back, and cracked him over the face. Blood immediately squirted everywhere. I think he broke his nose. A second pitch of knuckles rained down. A third followed, and all I could do was push my weakened body up against my friend, begging the violence to end.
The surfer grabbed his board, held his ribs, and limped away for his car. This time Alex didn’t pursue him, but from the looks of the surfers paddling towards shore, some of whom were likely his islander friends (none of them resembled mainlanders), it was quite possible that we were the one’s about to be pursued.
“Let’s get out of here like Don Juan on the morning after,” I said
“After you.”
He helped me up. The two of us were in the Mustang and speeding northbound towards Kailua-Kona by the time the first surfer reached shore.
“So, quite the show you put on back there. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time,” Alex said after a time, dialing through radio channels. I held a t-shirt to the back of my head. “Should I call up Kelly Slater and tell him about the new surfing standard or is he already in the know?”
“I’m just ahead of my time.”
Mm-hmm. Then Alex started to say something.
I interrupted him. “Alex, I just swam through a meat grinder. I’m bleeding my heart out. I’ve got a gash in my head with a headache that could knockout Russian fighter Ivan Drago and simultaneously end the Cold War. I’m seeing stars despite the fact that its daylight, and a sea urchin was wedged into my leg.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And I don’t like that you fought that creep. We talked about this.”
“I saved your ass, in more ways than one.”
I thought about it. “Thanks, Alex. I owe you one.”
“And if you ever tell anyone I had a sea urchin wedged into my seat warmer…”
“I’m sure it wasn’t the first time.”
“You’d know.”
“Any time,” he grinned.
“Now get me to the hospital.”
He squeezed his foot to the pedal.
THE BOSTON BRIDESMAID
1
In 2008 Delilah occasionally popped up in the story of my life. She was a stunningly gorgeous olive skinned woman with obvious markings of Greek heritage, and a flight attendant for JetBlue airlines, based out of Long Beach Airport, which meant we occasionally shared mutual flights to or from New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, and various other east coast cities, which is where I traveled most of the time anyhow.
I liked peeling my eyes over a book or magazine to admire those lovely hips as she swayed them up the aisle in that tight blue dress, looking adorable with her basket of snacks or tray of tea and coffee. Of course I enjoyed the rear view as she swayed them down the aisle also, but not nearly so much as the up-close and personal view when she stopped specifically to talk with me in person.
“How’s my favorite wedding photographer?” Delilah leaned over the headrest on the seat in front of me.
Alex was reading the newest issue of Rolling Stone. Coldplay’s Christ Martin was on the cover colorfully dressed like Sergeant Pepper and with a hand over his heart. Captions read: Confessions of an Anxious Rock God. An eyeful of breasts revealed themselves over the top button of her blouse, and she wore a navy colored scarf of silk around her neck to compliment them. Alex immediately lowered his magazine.
“Excellent.” I sipped on coffee. “Now that you’re here. Except if I had to put money on it, I’d guess you didn’t know a single other wedding photographer.”
Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1) Page 19