Litara - Paradise Lost

American Airlines' "Red Eye" flight 1953 was set to depart from LAX at 9:55 p.m. With my paper ticket in hand, I boarded and settled in for the last leg of a very long flight originating in Honolulu that morning.

The layover in LA had been almost six hours. I passed the time in an airport pub with a burger, a few beers, and a book I’d had for a long time but never had time to read…Red Planet, by Robert Heinlein. When I was a teenager, I loved science fiction.

Lambert Field was now only a little over five hours away. I decided to have a beer or two, or three, then close my eyes and sleep for a few hours. I hadn’t had much sleep in the last three days.

After a smooth takeoff, the stewardess made her rounds, and I ordered my first two beers. I was happy to see the two cans of Budweiser brewed by Anheuser Busch in my hometown. Most of my beer consumption has been Primo, the Hawaiian brand, for the last year and a half. It was cheap and crappy, but it was the choice of the locals I hung out with, and the price was right. When in Rome…

The first beer tasted good. I looked down at the book cover but couldn't get into it. I was at a crossroads. A new chapter in my book of life was beginning, but I couldn't shake free from what I had been through.

My three-year stint in the US Army ended with little fanfare. One day, I was an olive-drab soldier at the end of the Vietnam era, and the next day, I was back in civvies.

I never served in Vietnam. Thank God for that. I knew lots of guys who went to "the Nam" and came back different. It was like they were shell-shocked some of the time. There was a distant look in their eyes, sometimes only to be brought back to awareness of their surroundings through interaction with their Army buddies. To a man, they found refuge in either booze or marijuana. Sometimes, even heroin. Sometimes, all three.

My active-duty time was spent at Ft. Benning and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. I was in the Military Police. But I wasn't much of a cop because I had very little respect for military cops. My favorite joke was that most of the guys I worked with couldn't even spell MP. Being an MP on an army base was worse than being a rent-a-cop. There was very little crime to crunch. We rode around in Jeeps and hassled soldiers for uniform violations…you know, shirttail out, tennis shoes with fatigues, not wearing a hat with the uniform while outside a building.

Once in a while, on the night shift, we would hassle a drunk GI coming from off-post who was unlucky enough to encounter us. Inevitably a belligerent soldier would be put in handcuffs, and sometimes a redneck Spec4 would trip him, causing damage to his pretty face. I hated that shit.

Over time, I found ways to get off the road in Georgia and Hawaii.

I told the Staff Sergeant I could type thirty words a minute in Georgia. Thanks to my high school typing class in my junior year, I was selected to work in the MP Investigations Section as a clerk-typist. What a gig. I got to live off-post and wear civilian clothes. Most of the investigators were southern boys, full of testosterone and themselves, but I got along. This is where I learned that you go along to get along, or as the lifers said, to 'get over.'

Only luck and a one-night stand with a girl who worked in the overseas levy board got me orders for the cushy sixteen-month assignment at the base of Kolekole Pass on the island of Oahu. Thanks, Roberta, for the intimate liaison and the transfer. Have a good life.

Once I got to my new duty station in tropical paradise, they put me back on the road for a while. It was the same old stupid stuff. Within six months, I saw an opening and convinced the company commander to bring me into the office, where I could be more useful. I had been the clerk/typist for the MPI Investigation Section back at Benning.

I was assigned as permanent ‘Charge of Quarters.' That meant when the day crew went home, I oversaw the barracks. I'd go into the office at 4:00 p.m. and stay overnight until 8:00 a.m., a sixteen-hour shift. During my shift, I'd make my rounds through the barracks four times, rubber stamp a report, and then watch TV or sleep. I was able to make regular trips to my cubicle during the shift to have a beer and take a couple of hits of smoke.

When the MP shifts changed, I’d accompany the troops to the armory and issue their weapons. Then I’d sleep some more. One sixteen-hour shift on duty and two days off. Such a deal. Sixteen months left to go. Let the games begin.

A haole in Hawaii can only go to the beach and attempt surfing or body surfing so many times before it gets old. Don't get me wrong. It's a fucking beautiful place, and I enjoyed getting out and about when I wasn't working. But with all the free time I enjoyed with my new gig, I thought I should be more productive and could make a few bucks on the side.

I decided to get a second job off-post since I had a lot of free time. I applied for an open part-time position as a display artist at a Liberty House Department Store at the Ala Moana Mall, about twenty minutes south of the base and just west of Honolulu.

I told them I had been an art major at my junior college, which was a stretch since I only took one art class during my one semester, and that was actually pottery. They bought it, and I got the job.

My new boss was a flaming homosexual named Chuck, who drove around the island in a ’67 white convertible Chevy Corvair. I quickly learned that one of his first rules was that he didn’t do the displays of women’s lingerie, though I always thought that he might enjoy wearing a bustier in the right setting.

My job would be to display women's intimate wear. Chuck was only into the high fashion displays near the all-glass elevators on level two. I could also do linen and towel displays and houseware displays — exciting stuff.

Chuck’s gayness was somewhat overpowering at times. He was a true queen, and others of his ilk recognized it. All of the boys who did display for Liberty House in the three other Oahu stores were gay and they all looked up to Chuck as kind of a creative mentor. I convinced him that I was straight, and he fortunately warned off those who might have questioned my sexuality.

Soon after I started work, I noticed a petite local female working in the Women’s Fashion Department. I chatted her up and learned that she was the department manager. After a few sessions of light chit-chat and flirting, she seemed receptive to my limited charms, so I asked her to lunch in the mall one day. Her name was Dorothy, but everyone called her Doty.

Doty was a little older at twenty-seven. She had an elegant air, and a smile lit up the room. I wasn't sure what she saw in me, a twenty-year-old GI from Missouri, but one lunch became two, and then two became a regular occurrence on days that I worked.

She was married but was in the process of separating from her husband Mel, who was a Japanese flight attendant for United Airlines. She had a six-year-old daughter named Lelani.

After one meal, we walked over to the garage overlook so she could smoke a cigarette. I kissed her for the first time, and we had a long embrace. After a few more post-lunch trips to the garage overlook, I knew we would soon make love. She seemed to want me as much as I wanted her. Figuring out where to do the deed was the issue. Her husband had moved out of their condo, and she lived there with her daughter and a friend. I lived in an army barracks with a couple hundred men.

She suggested we go to a hotel in Waikiki for a little tryst one evening. She told me to meet her in front of the Outrigger Hotel. I knew it well because there was a bar in the hotel called the Sandcastle where many GIs hung out drinking cheap pitchers of Primo Beer. The military got free parking just down the main drag from Fort DeRussy. I got there early and waited on the sidewalk. A white 1967 Mercedes 280SL pulled up to the curb and honked. The woman driving the car wore a floppy hat and oversized dark sunglasses.

I hardly recognized her. She said, “Get in. Let’s go park.”

She pulled into the adjacent garage and found a parking spot on level two near the elevator. We were alone on that level, and as the elevator door closed, we embraced, and the torrid sexuality overcame us.

The door opened onto an alcove leading to the street, and we separated but still held onto each other. As we walked up to the front of the building, she said she would check us in and that I should stay in the lobby. Once she had a key, I would follow her to the room. That all sounded good to me.

She checked in and moved to the elevator, with me following closely behind. We hit the button for the third floor, exited the elevator, and as we moved left toward the room's door, two men in suits approached us.

They identified themselves as Vice Cops with the Honolulu Police, and they had some questions.

“What are your names?”

“What are you doing?”

“Where is your luggage?”

I was more than a little dumbfounded. The cops apparently thought that she was a hooker and that I was her John. Doty took the lead with the answers. We were there because she was married, and we wanted to be together.

I told them I was an MP stationed at Schofield Barracks, and they both laughed. With our IDs in hand, they radioed the station and found no wants or warrants for either of us. They snickered, then apologized and told us to have a good night. And we did. We didn't get much sleep that night, but it certainly was memorable for more reasons than one.

That was the beginning of a year-long affair. Doty completed the separation from her husband and moved in with friends, allowing the husband to take the condo. Her daughter went to live with her in-laws until the whole mess was sorted out. As time went by, I learned more about her interesting past.

Her father was an American businessman from Sacramento, California, who married a Samoan woman and owned a small hotel in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Although she was raised in California, her parents now lived full-time in Samoa.

She met her husband when she was nineteen. A year after they met, she got pregnant and decided to get married. Then, they moved to Hawaii. He needed to supplement his airline income, so he started making extra money smuggling drugs from Asia to Hawaii. In those days, there were no bag checks made on airline employees, so it was easy to transport drugs without fear of searches.

The couple began using some of the drugs he was transporting, and she got addicted to heroin. To make even more money, the husband started selling the drugs on the island. This went on for more than four years. Finally, she realized that addiction was a dead end and that she needed to be present for her daughter. She quit using heroin, getting clean, and going "cold turkey."

Eventually, the husband found out about our 'affair' and came looking for me. He was known to carry a handgun. He told Doty he was going to kill me. I asked her if she wanted to break it off, and she said no, but we needed to be careful.

When Doty learned he was coming to the department store looking for me, she told me to leave early. Discretion was the better part of valor, and I beat my feet immediately, with my boss Chuck’s approval.

Though we had never met, Mel arrived and walked the floors looking for me. Chuck was on a ladder doing a display when he walked up and shook the ladder.

“Are you Jack?” He asked.

“No, I’m Chuck. Jack is gone for the day.”

"When you see him, tell him Mel is looking for him."

“Can I tell him what it’s about?”

"Tell him he's a dead man," he growled as he walked away.

***

Doty introduced me to some of her local friends and we spent a lot of time socializing in and around Waikiki. Two of her closest friends were a married couple named Dane and Suzi Sasaki. Dane was Japanese, and Suzi was Chinese, but both were born on Oahu. Suzi worked as a nurse during the day, and Dane sold small quantities of marijuana, speed, and acid to make ends meet.

Ever the entrepreneur, Dane liked to have two or three types of pot at all times for his customers, usually Kona Gold, Maui Wowie, and some Thai Stick for the more discriminating smoker who could afford it.

Once in a while he’d get turned onto a shipment of Turkish Hashish. I had never experienced the high from anything that potent before. That stuff never made it all the way to Missouri.

He was really into packaging and would break down a pound into ounces, then break down the ounces into dime bags to satisfy his lesser-paid GI customers. He would even provide smaller packages of only five professionally rolled joints for $25.00.

As for speed and acid, well, you had to buy a minimum of ten hits at a time, and he would meticulously cut pieces of aluminum foil and fold them neatly with the little pills, all in perfect rows. Then, he would crimp the ends using hemostats, which doubled as roach clips when the party started in the evenings.

He didn’t deal in the hard stuff…no coke or heroin. Getting busted selling those drugs would put you away for a long, long time.

The four of us spent many long nights lounging in their shag-carpeted living room on beanbag chairs with the stereo blasting Grand Funk Railroad, The Doors, and The Grateful Dead.

There was little serious conversation during those nights of getting stoned and listening to way too loud music. But at some point, Dane took me aside and warned me about Mel. He said that Doty's husband had started by running a few small loads of H from Tokyo to Honolulu in his carry-on bag. It became a regular thing, and when the Yakuza boss heard that one of their new mules was successful, he was recruited for bigger shipments. Soon, ounces became pounds, and he went back and forth so often that he moved heavy weight onto the island.

Dane suggested that I be very careful. I needed to watch my back. Mel was not someone to fuck with. He had dangerous friends he could call on for muscle if needed.

Again, Doty and I discussed splitting up, but we agreed that the risk was worth it. Without her knowing it, I bought a .32 revolver from one of Dane's buddies. I went to a pawnshop in Wahiawa, near the base, and bought an ankle holster that would allow me to travel with it unseen. I practiced shooting at pineapples in the fields near Makaha. I secreted it over my locker in the barracks above the drop-down ceiling tile. I thought I should be ready for anything.

The stewardess came around again, and I ordered one more beer. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep after this one, I said to myself, but my thoughts were still back on the island.

I remembered the night we left La Hacienda, our favorite Mexican restaurant next to the Ala Moana Mall, one clear evening as the sun was setting. We thought we'd take a drive. Doty pulled a preloaded hash pipe out of her purse and passed it to me.

"There's a lighter in the glove box," she said. "Fire it up, Haole."

We loved tooling around the island in Doty's convertible Mercedes, particularly in the higher elevations along the Pali Highway to and from Kailua. At night, the lights of the small town on the windward side of the island can be seen from the Pali Lookout.

The pipe was passed back and forth twice; that was all we needed. The buzz was immediate and intense. We hadn't noticed the white Econoline van that followed us from the restaurant's parking lot.

Traffic was light this early evening, and the van followed, with two vehicles sandwiched between us. We got to the lookout and turned into the parking lot, finding an open space at the far end facing the view. We decided to stay in the car and enjoy the dusky view since the city's lights had yet to be fully illuminated.

I leaned over and gave Doty a passionate kiss, and she put her hand on my crotch, massaging it softly. I cradled her small breast with my right hand and pulled her close with my left arm.

The steamy embrace continued for several minutes until I heard two men approaching the vehicle, laughing loudly.

“Are you two lovebirds going to fuck right here in the car?” a heavyset Hawaiian man said with a chuckle.

We separated, and I looked to my right, where he stood, and then to the left, where the other man stood with a baseball bat in hand.

“Haole boy gonna get some local flavor, right haole boy?”

“We don’t want any trouble,” I said.

“Trouble? You don’t want no trouble?” the big man said. “If you don’t want no trouble, you shouldn’t be fucking around with another man’s wife.”

Doty sneered at the man and said, “What the fuck business is it of yours?”

“Mel said to make it our business. Mel said that if you two keep this up, a ton of hurt is gonna befall both of you."

“You tell Mel to go fuck himself. We are separated. He doesn't own me. You tell him to leave us alone.”

The big man said, "Get out to the car, haole boy. We got something to give you from Mel."

“Don’t get out,” Doty said.

I stayed seated for a long moment. The big man put his left hand on the back of my neck and yanked the car door open with his right hand. Then he began to force me forward and up out of the car. As I moved, I reached down and pulled my piece from the ankle holster. Now standing, I turned quickly and pointed the gun directly at the man's face.

“You don’t want to fuck with me,” I said with all of the bravado I could muster. Then I pointed the gun at the other man and said, “Drop the bat.”

He did.

Both men backed away from the car with their hands raised.

“Mel is not going to be happy,” the big man said.

"I'm through trying to make Mel happy," Doty said. "I tried for years, and all he ever did was yell at me and smack me around. I'm done with that. I got a lawyer. You tell him that."

The men continued to back away, then quickly returned to the white van. I sat back down in the passenger seat and holstered the gun as Doty started the car. She spun the tires on the loose gravel and guided the car back onto the Pali highway toward Honolulu. The van did not follow us.

After a few minutes, Doty asked, "Where did you get the gun?"

“A friend of Dane’s. You know him…Squeegee from the north shore.”

“How long have you had it?”

“I got it after Mel came looking for me at the store. When you said Mel had a gun, I thought it might come in handy.”

“How did you know those guys didn’t have their own guns?”

"I didn't. Just lucky, I guess. But I don't think they wanted to do more than play a little hardball."

“Were you scared?” she asked.

“Shitless. You?”

“Not anymore. You’re a badass. I like tough guys,” she said, smiling broadly and putting her hand back on my crotch.

***

I sat on the plane, my eyes closed for a long time, just thinking about my time in Oahu. There had been so much going on that I never made it to any of the outer islands. Who does that? Spend eighteen months in Hawaii and never visit Maui, Kauai, or the Big Island?

I stayed busy for the last nine months. Busy with the damn army. Busy with the second job at the mall. Busy with Doty and her friends. Busy trying to stay out of a jealous soon-to-be ex-husband's way and not get killed.

That part came to a head at the Kuilima Hotel on the north shore. The job at the mall didn't pay much, but I had more pocket change than most GIs at the Specialist 4 level, and I could afford to splurge now and then.

I made a reservation at the hotel for a long weekend where Doty and I could get away from the bustle of Honolulu, lay by the pool, drink a little, smoke a little, and fuck a lot.

We checked in, this time with luggage and without fear of Five-O stepping in to see our IDs.

I brought a bottle of Cold Duck with me. I removed the plastic cork, and we sat on the balcony, sipping the sweet wine from plastic cups. The view of the ocean and pool deck from the room was spectacular.

Doty retreated to the bathroom and, within minutes, returned, telling me to turn around. There she was, completely naked and beckoning for me to join her in the bed.

Yes, Ma’am! You do what you are told when a beautiful, older, naked woman invites you into her bed.

As the sun set, we found ourselves physically spent and hungry, but neither wanted to put on clothes and go down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I found the Room Service menu on the credenza and suggested we dine in.

I was a little worried about the menu prices, and she could tell by my expression, but she said dinner was on her. I pointed to the cheeseburger, and she said, "Absolutely not!" Then she suggested the crab rangoon as an appetizer, the Imperial Beef, and the Volcano Chicken, all Hawaiian specialties.

The order taker said the wait would be about forty minutes. I put on my pants and T-shirt, anticipating the arrival. With the order in the kitchen, we decided to sit on the balcony and break out the hash pipe.

Ten minutes later, there was a knock on our door.

"That was quick," Doty said, standing quickly.

She reached the door and stood on her tiptoes to look through the peephole. She turned and stood silently, her face worried.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s Mel.”

It was quiet for a long moment, then Mel shouted, "Bitch. I know you are in there with your limp dick haole.”

I was pretty high and took offense at the term "Limp Dick?"

I started to move quickly toward the door, but Doty stopped me.

“What if he’s got the gun?” she asked.

I reached into my duffle on the side table next to the bed, found my .32, and then moved back toward the door. A quick glance through the peephole showed him standing firm, staring angrily at the door.

With the gun in my right hand behind my back, I pulled the door open slowly and stood facing him. I said, “I thought you’d be taller.”

That made him even more angry, and he came at me, pushing me back into the room. Doty screamed. I almost lost my balance but sidestepped him, and he fell to one knee. I swung the gun in my right hand at his head and connected with a glancing blow, stunning him. He was dazed but started to rise, reaching into his pocket for what I thought might be his gun.

He was facing the sliding glass door leading to the balcony, and I was behind him. I put my right foot into his butt, pushed hard, and he went sprawling onto the carpet. Then I moved to his right side and put my foot on the wrist that held the gun. I remembered something I saw in a movie on TV.

"Give me a pillow," I yelled at Doty, who cowered on the bed.

She tossed me one, and I nestled my gun into its middle and pointed it at Mel's head. If I had to pull the trigger, the sound would be muffled. At least, that's the way it worked on TV.

"You move, and you die," I said with false bravado.

Mel let go of his gun, and I kicked it away. Then I dropped down, planted my knee in his back, and said, "So you're a tough little man, are you?”

He didn’t respond.

“What did you expect to accomplish by busting in on us?”

“You are fucking my wife. And you are fucking up my life and my family.”

“I think you fucked that up yourself.”

“What do you know? What did she tell you? Did she tell you that she was fucking around with other guys for over a year before she met you? No. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. Did she tell you that she’s been in therapy for two years because of her sex addiction? New news, huh? How about that she has all but abandoned our daughter?”

I was more than a bit shocked by all that. I remained silent but kept the gun pointed at his head while he lay on the floor.

“You’re a fucking liar!” Doty yelled.

"What am I lying about? Specifically, her sex therapist is Dr. Conrad at the medical building next to the mall. I'll give you his phone number. Isn't that true, Dorothy?" Mel said. "And when was the last time you visited your daughter?"

“I saw her last week.”

"You saw her last week. You stopped by my mother's place and tried to buy her off with a stupid stuffed rabbit. You gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek, and you gave my mother a hundred bucks before you skipped out. Some fucking mother you are.”

“Well, you aren’t exactly father of the year either. A fucking drug dealer.”

"I told you I was getting out of it. I need to find the right time. We were gonna take Lelani and fly to Samoa, where they wouldn't find us. Remember. I've been telling you that for six months since I scared away your last boy toy. What was his name? Bruce? At least this one has some balls.”

"I don't believe you. The mob has got their hooks into you so deep you'll never escape them. Do you think they are just going to let you walk away? You think they won’t find us?” she said.

I removed the gun from the pillow but kept it pointed in his direction. Then I tossed the pillow onto the bed and said, "I'm gonna take your gun, and then I'm going to leave. The two of you still got lots of shit to work out, and I'm not going to play any part in the outcome. Get up slowly. Sit in that chair and don't move."

He rose slowly and took a seat. I slipped into my sandals and tossed the guns into my duffle. On the way out the door, I grabbed the half-empty bottle of Cold Duck and took a big swig. Then I made my exit, bottle in hand, without another word.

I took a cab back to the base and sat in my cubicle for a long while. I believed Doty. I bought into the whole 'poor me' story she told, blaming her breakup on a drug-dealing husband. I thought the great sex was just because she really liked me. Little did I know that great sex was her thing, that she probably had great sex with just about anybody she bedded.

We had yet to make any long-term plans to be together after I exited the army. I have three months left to go. In my own mind, I had just thought I'd stay in Hawaii, get a job, and move on with my life. If that included her, that would be all the better. I thought we were in a relationship. I really liked her. Maybe I loved her. Now, I thought it was all a sham. But damn, the sex was good.

Things just floated along for the next two months. We would see each other from across the store as I did my display work, though Chuck continued to handle the women's fashions in Doty's department. I would look over and see her staring at me. I'd smile and wave, and she would look down. I did miss being with her. What a dumbshit I had been. Messing around with a married woman. It was depressing. Beer, lots of it, and marijuana eased the pain somewhat.

As the date of my separation got closer, I resigned from Liberty House and prepared for the next chapter in my life. I hadn't saved much money, so my choices were limited. I could get to Australia or New Zealand if I got a passport. Hell, I was halfway there already. But what then? If I went back to the mainland, where would I go? I had relatives in New Orleans. Maybe eventually, but for now…I guess I should get back to Missouri.

Perhaps I’ll write a book about my Samoan princess…someday.