Get Zombie: 8-Book Set (65 page)

There
must be some kind of nodule under my eyelid. I bet it’s because
of that damn weed. I should check my medical dictionary when I get
home.

My
bus arrives. I go in and lean against a window, covering tears of
extreme PAIN due to my shit eye. Must be around 4am, since buses
don’t start up ‘til around this time. I take the long
walk home and lay in bed, praying that my eye will feel better in the
morning.

“Broken
Surfboards & Ugly Rent”

HOLLYWOOD
HAS FED you a major lie. Hawaii has fed you a major lie. We don’t
all surf. We don’t all enjoy wearing slippers. We don’t
all live in the North Shore. I was born & raised here and I’ve
never even BEEN to that side of the island.

What
many humans across the globe don’t know is that Honolulu, the
heart of Oahu, is a city with a taste for the modern and the
sophisticated and the glam.

I
wouldn’t be surprised if many still think we have goddamn
volcanoes everywhere that go off in a panic every 5 seconds.

People
are ignorant. They’re told what to expect of us and they don’t
ask questions for some disturbing reason. It’s because they
want to believe the fantasy, I’m sure. Believe in The Fake
Hawaii. Yay.

And
the majority of Hawaii is happy with it, seeing how we feed off the
tourists. So nothing changes. They’re happy with how things
are. Just fine and dandy. Because it’s what humans all over the
wonderful world want, right? They want to believe this dribble. They
see the postcards, the commercials of women dancing in grass skirts.
They want to come to a paradise that’s away from the computers
and the automo-biles and the “Interweb” and every fancy
doodad and nasty, dagnabbit contraption. Like automatic doors.

This
is why the typical tourist visits here, wearing irritating-to-see,
rattan hats and unflattering shorts. But what they see are kids
dressed as gangsters and old people wearing Gucci and little girls
carrying Toki Doki bags. “Yeesh,” they think, unbuttoning
their Hawaiian shirt. “Why does it feel like I never left
home?”

Oahu
has always been modern…up with the times.

There
are plans for a monorail.

Rent
is skyrocketing up the ying-yang.

The
bus has jacked up the fare for adults from $1 to $2, and complain
about how their jobs are more “dangerous” than cops'.
Very good. I’ve yet to see a bus driver stop a speeding bullet
with a dive. Driving a bus more dangerous than being a cop?

The
island is changing.

I
look around today and see five construction cranes all huddled
together. More condos. More people. More cars. Possible monorail
(which won’t solve the traffic problem…won’t take
the CARS off the roads).

Hollywood
and Hollywood Hawaii can’t live the lie for very much longer.
Soon the world will see Oahu as it really is: A mini-version of Cali.
Or, and this is just my wish, a mini-version of Japan. God, I love
that place.

For
now, outsiders will see Oahu like they see Rednecks. In any case, if
one still desires for the good ol’ days…there’s
always Maui.

For
now.

“Shite
Darts”

I
WAKE UP. It’s 3 in the evening. I don’t work today at the
coffee company. Good. My eye still hurts, but it’s getting
better. I check my caller ID. Taki didn’t call. Might as well.
I wouldn’t call me either.

There’s
a mysterious number on the caller ID. Uh oh. Did I give my number out
last night? Hope not. Sheesh. If YES, then I hope it was to someone
whose ying yang hasn’t gone topsy turvy.

Whoever
this strange caller is, called 25 times. Warren and I take the #1 bus
to Honolulu Community College. During lunch I wait for him outside
the library.

I’m
not sure, but I think the chubby girl from last night walks past,
dressed in black. Should I say hi? She did stick her tongue in my
ear.

Naw.

Doubt
she even remembers me. We make eye contact. Then she looks away, not
seeing anything of interest. I suddenly feel pathetic. Did I take my
St. John’s Wort this morning for my Social Anxiety Disorder?
Think so. To feel better, I remind myself that I have friends.

I
wanna go back to that dingy Goth club. Not sure why. Guess it seems
like a haunted house: I might find something exciting.

Besides,
I might find something interesting on the ground, like a used condom
or a dead crab or nasty panties or a troll or maybe even forgotten
weed. If I did, I’d smoke it alone in my room: In a controlled
environment, haha.

I’d
be safe, exploring the club during the day.

There’ll
be no one there.

They
only use the place every once in a good while (I think every other
Friday, or something like that).

Hmm…where’s
Warren?

Sure
is taking a long time. Maybe he’s making friends with that
graphic design teacher, the one we call Mr. Rogers. I hope he didn’t
get in the middle of a fight with his goofy school chums: A tall
black guy and a Japanese husky guy. I don’t know why they can’t
just get along. How hard is it to just chill out? Last time our
Japanese pal got so mad at our black photographer friend that he
punched a wall…came back the next day with a cast and
everything. Pity, the things children do.

I
check my watch, which I keep in my bag and never wear because it just
hangs off my thin wrist, embarrassed of me. Where is he? Maybe class
dragged on a bit.

Better
check if he’s okay. Besides, I might walk past an attractive
schoolgirl.

So
I walk to the design building to greet him, and as I do so, I feel
eyes on me. And I start to get the Fever: Are those girls, sitting on
that bench, looking at me? They laugh. Are they laughing at ME now?
Grr… I don’t know!

Silence,
brain, silence.

Brain:
Ok, ok, can I at least smoke a cigarette later?

Me:
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

A
janitor, riding a golf cart full of trash cans, stops suddenly and
all the trash cans go flying out. The girls scream in a laughing way
and scurry off, just watching and whispering as the smiling janitor
cleans his filth.

I
look away and take a step…and walk into a wall. Is someone
crying? It’s the chubby girl from the other night (or this
morning). She says she remembers me. I ask if she’s okay. She
goes into a long story of how her mum scolded her when she got home.
When she jumped in the shower, she noticed there were hickies all
over her left arm – from the shoulder down to her pinky.

Did
I do that, I thought?

Gross
me out.

She
proceeds with her tale:

Then
her mum found an Aspirin bottle full of weed and all Hades broke ass.
Her mum turned into a werewolf and kicked at the stove and broke it.
The oven door fell off. She picked it up and spanked her daughter
with it…slow, heavy hits cutting the air – woosh woosh.

This
Japanese mother, who can’t speak English very well, was
shrieking, “No mo waking up at the crack of ass! No mo waking
up at the crack of ass!”

I
feel for the girl.

Beware
the Japanese temper.

Aside
from boyfriends that bruise their girlfriends (or vice versa), the
one thing I will not tolerate is a parent that attacks their child.
That’s a nono in my book-o.

When
she tells me that her mum ran into the room crying and whipped out ye
old samurai sword, I flip – my mouth just hits the grass, like
WOMP.

I
repeated what she said for dramatic effect.

“She
got out the family blade? That’s heinous.”

Her
mum attacked her. Chased her daughter with it. They both ran through
the house – up and down the place – shrieking
hideousities. Upstairs, the daughter jumped into the baby room and
locked herself in the bathroom while her infant sister, House, cried
on a dead mechanical baby-swing.

The
mum kicked the door down. She chopped down the bathroom door in 2
amazing blows and the daughter retreated to the bathtub, barking like
a dog to try and scare her away.

As
punishment for being “disobedient” and weird, this mother
cuts her back. Chubby girl turns around lifting her shirt and shows
me and the sight makes me want to cry. She says that she needs my
help. I ask her, “What do you need?”

She
wants to runaway to her cousin’s apartment, near Waipahu
Racquet, but she has to go home first to get some clothes. She’s
afraid to go there alone. There’s a good chance that the mum
will be home, seeing how she doesn’t work and lives on
government checks because she got injured on the job, working as a
phone operator at Sprint.

I
look at my watch.

We’re
on Dillingham right now.

She
lives behind Kalakaua Intermediate.

Warren
should be out soon.

The
housing behind the school is silent. The sun blasts. When she jiggles
the key into the lock, panic sets in. What am I doing? Am I drunk?

I
should turn around right now!

So
we sneak into the place and go up into her bedroom where she throws
her stuff into a garbage bag. As we leave and reach the middle of the
stairs, we see the mum below us, sword in hand.

She
has crazy eyes.

She
says something to her daughter in a very snake-like way, in Japanese,
softly. She spits on the ground. The daughter answers in English, “I
can do what I want, Mommy. I’m an adult. I’m 16.”

The
mum’s face turns sad and wrinkles and tilts a little as she
makes a scary whining sound.

Then
she whispers a word that I do understand: “Baka,” which
means idiot. The frightening thing is that she’s looking at me
when she says it.

The
mum SHRIEKS a samurai’s shriek and runs up the stairs in
little, quick steps – sword tailing behind her. We run back up.
I trip and fall. Chubs grabs the back of my shirt and picks me up
with one hand, throws me into the air and onto the landing. I
belly-slide over the wooden floor and SLAM into a wall like a bowling
ball screaming through a strike.

I
can see into the baby room.

The
child is sleeping on the swing, drooling. Only this time the swing is
working.

Mother
& daughter run toward each other – screaming while not
avoiding a single step on the staircase. They mum swings the sword
down on this chubby girl. Chubs is quick as a cat. She flies her
hands up and slaps her palms around the blade, holding it inches from
her brow. The mum pushes down, face nuts. They twirl, both of them
holding onto the sword. Someone takes a wrong step and they both take
a little tumble down the stairs and roll right out the open door. The
sword flies out of their hands and spins through the air and lands
into the grass with a SHEENK, swaying back and forth. The sun –
as if on cue – screams out from behind a cloud. The street is
busy. Mother and daughter have a kick fight and a fist parade on the
front lawn.

The
police arrive. I suppose, as I watch the fight in awe, that someone
heard all the screaming and phoned the fuzz.

I
yell out, “Jiggers, the fuzz!”

Mum
and daughter cry as they fight. The mum punches her daughter on the
cheek and it sounds like a loud, wet slap.

Before
the Honolulu Police Department can even get out of their fancy black
Mustangs, the mum does a baseball dive for the sword. All of a
sudden, HPD moves like God pressed fast-forward on his remote
control.

The
mum waves the sword at them and says something nasty in Japanese. The
cops – two Japanese men, a white woman, and a string-bean
Filipino male – try to calm the lady down, holding out their
hands and saying sweet things to her.

The
white officer offers her candy and begs her forth. The skinny
Filipino cop tells the Japanese cops to talk to the nuts-O, but they
shrug and don’t know how to speak Japanese.

The
chubby daughter begs her mum to calm down. I hold her back, away from
the bad news bears.

The
mum makes the error of taking a swing at the fuzz, and they all take
out their guns and shoot her in the kneecaps. She goes down with an
“Aieeeeeeeee!” and they wrestle the old cuffs on her.

Everyone’s
yelling something to someone.

Onlookers
clap.

Many
cars have pulled over, holding up traffic to watch, sitting on their
car hoods, sipping sodas and chatting on cell phones. I can feel the
Camera flying away, pulling back to reveal the scene as we Fade to
Black and the credits roll over classical music…

When
the police take the chubby girl and her mum away, I’m already
gone – snaked away from the scene during the wild mess.

I
make it a point with myself to hightail it back to HCC and meet with
Warren. Can't be late. He hates that.

I
step into the elevator and go to the 3rd floor. There’s a girl
standing with me in this yellow painted elevator.

She’s
ugly.

I
mentally punch myself in the gut for thinking such evil thoughts.

The
elevator opens and I walk down the cold hallway. The walls are lined
with “Art” behind glass, of handprints and abstract
blots. I pick up a discarded newspaper off the floor – The
Honolulu Advertiser – and read the headline.

THE
DOLPHIN MASTERS STRIKE AGAIN!

Apparently,
there are these Save The Dolphins! enthusiasts, The Dolphin Masters.
They believe that tourists AND local people pollute the oceans and
aid in the purposeful extermination of all dolphins. They believe
that THEY’RE the reincarnation of dolphins, and that humans are
simply jealous of their large brains. A criminal psychologist on the
morning news once said, “The worst thing we can do is
underestimate them. They may be plotting a world-wide takeover, for
crying out loud.”

Today
– in the wee moon hours of the morning – they jumped a
young couple carrying surfboards, hitting them with electric guitars.
Witnesses say the same bizarre thing in identifying these horrible
people: