Flame Angels

by Robert Wintner

  Besides using distraction to avoid sadness, it was important to see how growth was good for everyone, because more people meant more money on yet another layer. More money meant more material comfort, along with the good life in Hawaii. And why not live in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world and still make the money? With the Internet, fax machines, cell phones, streaming data, a wireless world and ever-broadening bands, it could be done. Is this a great time, or what?

  But the magic of Maui was sinking in a bog of discovery on a flood tide of chic, hip, cool and the new hot thing. Spontaneous raves could erupt at any time over whales, or movie stars spotted in the offing. Often nothing remained to be seen but the ruffled surface of a recent sighting, yet people stared tirelessly in hopes of another view, with disbelief that such potential in nature and celebrity could converge in one place, and that normal, working stiffs could see these things so freely. Ah, Maui. “Lucky we live,” and so forth and so on.

  The place felt more like somewhere else, somewhere generic, convenient and crowded. After all, anyone stepping onto the tarmac as a resident could claim victory over the freeway, drive-by, suburban miasma: Every commuter wins the dream-come-true competition on arrival in the tropics, where the commute can continue in better weather. No one could doubt the glory when the Matson container arrived with their car only two weeks later. More Californians were taking the plunge, indicated by more Mercedes on the road with those clever vanity plates: MAWIBNZ. Feel the perfection: a Mercedes on Maui...

  Could it get any better? Yes, it could, if the top could go down. Wait! Is that a Ferrari? Oh...God!

  Maui...

  Ferrari.

  With fantasy fulfillment ratcheting upward, the tropical magic faded. Ravid remembered his own first blush, comparing this landfall to the foothills of his youth. This seemed as lush, promising, teeming and alive — and as inviting to a man with an abiding reef instinct. The newly arrived compared Maui to Orange County, Sacramento or anywhere, USA, because this gridlock/strip mall aggregate was called Maui and fabulous.

  Honolua Bay in the mid-90’s was full of living coral and reef fish. Ten years later, it was 90 percent dead from red dirt runoff — construction of mega-million mansions over the gulch left only a thin strip of live coral. On his last visit, Ravid saw a charter boat pull into the center with eighty passengers from a Christian dental convention. The first kids jumped in, then came up sputtering, “Oh, gosh! Wait till you see this! It’s unbelievable!” And so on, unbelievably, compared to Cincinnati, trending downward.

  The recently landed took the degradation as collateral damage for the greater good. Burgeoning four-lane freeways with dividers replaced the country roads — with a certain je ne sais quoi compared to the 10, the 110, the 210 and the 405. A cane field converted to tract housing — known locally as “track” housing — was quaint, like Orange County just after the oranges went away. And genetically modified organisms cleverly arranged in rows looked just like corn but better, like a lifted face or tucked tummy, without a single worm or dark kernel. It was never so good in LA, and if more and bigger houses blocked the panoramic view of the biggest ocean in the world, at least they ran 6.5 to 20 million. Or 22. Or 29.9. Wow. It must be really perfect.

  With markets so strong, prices so high, and demand practically bursting at the seams, this appeared to be it — the dream roll that would never end.

  Ravid had landed nineteen years prior, hardly a moment on the geologic calendar that the mossback old-timers used to measure their originality, opening every harangue on how it used to be by establishing authority on time served: “I been here twenty-seven years, and I — ”

  “Well, I been here thirty-three years! And I...”

  Very few tenured veterans could say what they’d done, or contributed, or helped protect of the natural character in all those years. True seasoning was thought to occur by osmosis; the more years lived on the rock, the greater the legitimacy. Time spent and soulful connection varied directly, along with insight and authority on right and wrong. Annotation was mostly anecdotal, with relevance measured in beers, shots, doobies, odd encounters, easy snatch on long odds, repetitions and the like. The verbal resume was an invariable mix of alcohol and fun in the sun and on the sea, including bawdy adventure and cocaine back in the day, when an original old-timer could still take that punch.

  Time recalled from the olden days was a source of pride: We used to get so...

  Or, One time we had this...

  Recollection still passed for social currency in some quarters, like Lahaina, where extreme inebriation twenty or thirty-five years ago was special, because boats and palm trees outnumbered cars and people. Many younger immigrants envisioned a future when they, too, would speak knowingly to the new arrivals, so they garnered their own rare times with all-night kink, nonstop drinks, reefer to sunrise and ocean time. These pursuits became tradition. The newest new crowd was younger, hipper and more chic than the last. The young’uns had a leg up on the latest look as seen on the hottest new stars of the screen, surf or sideshow.

  Nothing changed, really, except for another crowd moving in, “going native.” Worse yet, besides the hormonally urgent kids coming for the action, their hot-flashing elders migrated with equal fervor; Macy’s went Tropicana on three floors with severely chic labels on hundred-dollar silk shirts and subtle palm tree knits. Wait a minute — make that a hundred and eighty...now two, two hundred...two, two, two...gimme two-fifty, two-fifty...okay, two and a quarter... Tropicana garb from the Johnny Mambo collection went fabulously well with Johnny Mambo furnishings in pineapple, banana and hula girl motif to underscore a feel for the new place and its fabulous lifestyle potential.

  Parking became a problem, so the lots were expanded, then elevated. So much apparent goodness brought more tourists in need of cars, till the rock had two cars for every woman, child and man all the time. Shriveling quickly was the tropical wilderness and rural society — the old island style that defined and redeemed those days and nights of youthful indiscretion once upon a time, long, long ago, when people bonded to the place and each other.

  Growth begat growth. The Chamber and the Visitors’ Bureau raised a cry of victory when a magazine in New York, staffed by residents of New York, called Maui “The Best Island in the World.” Maybe the magazine staff commuted from Jersey, or any part of the megalithic region. Sorely missing from the “best” criteria was a measure of the magic that had spared some islands from the ratings competition — the magic of no airport with connecting flights from New York, precluding assessment for a nebulous determination of “the best island” as judged from that most chilling of islands, Manhattan.

  The flood of people, strip malls, parking lots and gridlock had displaced the old feeling. Making ends meet soon became a communion in itself, an unholy one. Coming up with rent money and then groceries while immersed in beauty and wonder had seemed like a trick, a good one, till resources waned and aloha became a useful word to compensate for what had gone away.

  Ravid remembered Pu‘u Olai not so long ago. Pu‘u means “foothill.” Pu‘u Olai is the cinder cone on the shoreline, between Makena Beach and Black Sand Beach — make that between Oneloa (onnay-loa), or long sands, and Oneuli (onnay-uli), or black sands. A small bump at the base of the volcano, Pu‘u Olai is a steep trek for the physically fittest. The payout is the wide world pulsating with mana — energy and life force — from Kaho‘olawe to Alenuihaha, to Molokini and McGregor Point, spanning the glittering sea. In a beautiful balance between glory and bounty, Pu‘u Olai had wild tomatoes in vast tangles on top, sweet and tart, till the top got as crowded as the beach and tour boat traffic near shore got as thick as the Foodland parking lot. No more wild tomatoes at the summit, with so many tourists following written directions to the secret tomato grounds that you simply must see. No freshwater shrimp in the aqueduct higher up Haleakala. No more guava or lilikoi to pick freely along the roadside for miles, no more noni, avocado or lemon. All for sale now, th
ey became a topic for a few people mumbling about “not so long ago,” and many more chattering, “fabulous, unreal, you simply must...”

  Kapu means “forbidden” — or “keep out” when posted on a gate; the land is private, accessible by invitation only. The guidebooks advised visitors to ignore those signs, and so they did. They’d spent so much to come so far, and look at all those other people in there, wandering around, revealing themselves as a terminal nuisance.

  Kihei Road was sparsely traveled for years, except for traffic to Paradise Fruit and that first funky snorkel place. Now hundreds of refugees from a world gone to seed paid daily rent on a few square feet of concrete under a canvas canopy for the chance to separate tourists from a few more dollars, often for seashells taken live from Indonesian reefs and sold as Hawaiiana.

  The veteran residents stopped counting time on the rock. Resigned to degradation, decline and humans’ inhumanity to nature, many went mum. Whether transplants arrived decades ago, a year or two ago, six months ago, or last week, their experience foretold what would come next. People see what is happening, or they move away from what they can’t abide only to see it again. The veterans on Maui took refuge in the soft-spoken humility that is necessary and available to island culture.

  Nineteen years ago was fairly recent on the tenure totem. The time passed fast and slow, reminding Ravid how long it was since the rock felt tropical, since the spore growth of opportunity had shown its toxic fuzz, then smothered the beauty and drowned out the repose. The Ford dealer moved from a modest, aging showroom on Main Street in Wailuku to a massive outdoor facility covering two acres in Kahului for both new and used inventories that Must Move this Month! A man on the radio yelled at everyone to Get a car! Get a truck! Get an SUV! Those cars, trucks and SUVs were stickered at MSRP plus six grand, or nine, and the salesmen would nod sanguinely if a white guy offered MSRP, because the sticker price was for your average Filipino, proud of the dollars in his pocket representing his skill and endurance to get them.

  Ravid had told his salesman that the sticker-shock game could make a guy want to move to a tropical island. The salesman had asked back, “So? When you leaving?” then stepped up to remind Ravid that he, the salesman, was of Hawaiian descent, and with one more marriage on the right side of the genetic fence, his grandchildren would have “blood quantum.” He personally agreed that the place had been ruined, and he wanted nothing more than those fucking airplanes to stop bringing the fucking haole tourists over, and Ravid could get the fuck out whenever he was fucking ready.

  Haole is a Hawaiian word introduced soon after Western contact. Its literal meaning is “without breath,” deriving from Captain Cook shaking hands rather than touching noses in greeting — rather than sharing the essence of life, which is breath. Ha is “breath.” Ole means “without.” Haole came to connote “outsider,” meaning those whose families originated outside Hawaii, whose greetings were without breath. Then it came to focus on outsiders of beige complexion and not on those of Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Tongan or Samoan descent. Then it was meant to denigrate Caucasians.

  Well, Ravid didn’t want a new Ford, anyway, but he had felt the sting. The exchange convinced him how nice life would be on a tropical island — an island with no car dealers. But what could he do, stay on the run from a world outrunning its headlights? And who was he to scorn a world out of pace? Every day seemed to end in a dead heat, with fulfillment and pessimism crossing the line in a photo finish. Ravid had a recurring thought: Tahiti. His more recurring thought was his job, which he loved.

  Some nights he got laid, which trumped all analysis in the short term. A young man staring up, fatigued from an honest day’s work and hormonal depletion, feels good, like a man fulfilled. Besides that, a floating angst based on over-development could cloud whatever beauty was left to encounter. Should he stay angry, forfeiting happiness? Ravid had related his car salesman encounter to a Hawaiian friend who had assured him that the car salesman in question immigrated to Maui via Honolulu from Rarotonga. The car salesman got fired in Honolulu. Besides that, his family descended from a genetic line that included ample Caucasian blood and many other car salesmen, and the car fellow’s hatred would find another focus if white people weren’t so convenient. Aka Leialoha had the power to calm the space around himself and anyone near it, to put smiles on faces and warmth in hearts. Aka had laughed, “You do da work. Nevah mind.”

  Smart man, Aka, with sound advice. The work was the best antidote. A man of true kuleana must view Maui as evolving and still soulful, as a place easing into the peaceful aftermath and small death of human penetration. Still magical, rife with flowers, mad with color and scent, termites, centipedes, red dust and heat ripples, the place must still be loved for its wrinkles, its wear and tear, its ultimate surrender to gravity. Just look at this ambient femininity, this context, this immersion in beauty and nature, this life of effusion and greenery.

  You want to talk about a place gang-fucked and left for dead, just look at LA. Millions called it home and had to fly back to it — had to nose under the yellow-brown cloud one more time to live like mites on a scab spanning the horizon. Sure, orange groves used to be there, but time marched on, and you had to value the chic bistros, swinging hot spots, dazzling cabriolets and hard bodies of surgical precision — or you were left with naught. On the bright side, the standard for sanity itself adapted to LA, proving people all the more capable of enduring, after a fashion.

  Many people could not adapt to life on a scab but felt the madness and corruption as a festering sore; society in any modern urban center was a ruse for money, promulgated by media deferring to advertisers and their values. Family values, petroleum values, investment conglomerate values; these things worked together for the good of society according to the tenets of the profit motive that first motivated mom ’n’ pop. Movie stars often ranted against the death of nature, children going hungry and social injustice. They could raise scads o’ dough, but few things changed, except for the number of problems, challenges and bad situations brought to light. More people looked for someplace else to move to. But where could they go to avoid the onslaught?

  How long before they think of Tahiti? How long before LA takes over French Polynesia and ruins it, too? What am I talking about? I’ve never been to either one.

  So thoughts schooled, frenzied, faded and ended on any given night. Anxiety and gratification hummed their yin-yang mantra of work and play, of life and nature, of worry and a woman more willing than a man needs her to be. How sweet it could be, with any option open to a fellow who could roll his head across the pillow to the soft, fuzzy purring nearby. Then he and the cat drifted to dreamland, her little outboard purring a sweet, soft wake.

  Sometimes she woke him in the night, licking his forehead or touching her nose to his. Hers was cold. If he opened his eyes, she purred again, which set the world to rights. In her little font of love, the madness shrunk from foreboding magnitude to one tiny problem in an imperfect world, a problem profoundly solved by a gentle scratching of her chinny chin chin.

  He hoped that what’s-her-name, the other female in the bed, was comfortable.

  A Picture-Perfect Paradise

  Each day began with the slate wiped clean on a bolster of caffeine and sugar, launching the conscientious dive instructor into boat prep as his mind massaged the second, third and fourth steps of the day’s work: the aloha, the stowage, the launch. The welcome aboard and getting underway were easy enough, barring no-shows, declined credit cards, stumbles and stubbed toes, engine trouble or big wakes from boats whose drivers should not have been licensed, and maybe they weren’t. But even that stuff got resolved, and besides, some of the licensed guys drove like Cap’n Crunch.

  All the morning stuff was like bubbles in the wake soon enough, with blue water, sunshine, warmth and interaction and really some of the best of life. Come on; clear weather, good health. Laughter helped a day begin in the right spirit. A man who woke up thinking gray would rise
to a gray world, to shadows on the morning, stretching across the day. Or he could look up and down at blue sky and sea and open his heart to the light and warmth and the great good fortune upon him.

  The format was sound, the problem obscure, till the pattern of optimism, blue on blue and all’s well, seemed rhythmical, not repetitive, and hardly annoying when compared to the alternative, which was what? A conservative suit, a modest sedan, a reasonable commute, an airless office, benefits including health insurance and a pension for the years of decrepitude? Fuck.

  But even an enviable life of harmony with nature in a tropical latitude had its share of tedium, with the same predictable postures, claims and questions every day on depth, distance and the desirability of each dive site. Day in, day out, the routine altered only in destination and in weather and sea conditions. Business boomed because of deep fear nurtured in America — fear of traveling outside the “homeland,” which as a concept seemed disturbingly similar to that of the “fatherland.” What the hell, job security never looked so strong. Bookings often went four days in advance. And a hardworking, happy man can indeed waste energy on a very minor anxiety, when in fact the place still blossomed with dynamic potential on a daily basis.

  The fleet got bigger to accommodate more business, and the boat launch required more time, more patience and tolerance, as the effort to get things underway doubled, along with fuel prices, which certainly was not the crews’ concern but tended to undermine prospects for a raise or bonus. More competition kept revenue down. So the crews were called upon for more service with more aloha, more attention to detail and generally more of everything else, too, to make the same pay. The first economic downturn would surely bring attrition, taking the fleet back down to a proper size. Only those boats with repeat business would survive the next recession or pandemic or act of terrorism or airline strike or mortgage crisis or any significant ripple in discretionary spending, because an outing to Hawaii would get scratched quicker than a bad Starbucks habit, if times got tough.