Bill’s jelly eyes were bright behind his glasses, but his claim that bikes came in and out all day, seemed off. A bit annoyed, I had to ask him about his assertion.
“Oh,” Bill said, as he rubbed his greasy hands on a red rag, “you know, it get’s slow from time to time. But I’d say I get probably two bikes dropped off per week on average. Usually people leaving the island, but sometimes college kids.”
“You see Bill,” I said, my left eyebrow raising, “That’s quite different from in and out all day.”
“Yes, but every morning I wake up and tell myself that it’s going to be the most prosperous day. I’ve read a couple books on business, and know that your outlook is 90% of all success or failure.” Bill was grinning as he pointed to his head. “Success, see?” The black streaked red rag hung from his fist, and I squinted.
“Bill, did you know that I’m Jesus?”
His eyebrows pinched together, inflating the space of skin between them. It looked like a pea sized balloon under his unibrow was raising his spectacles a millimeter. The wrinkle of Bill’s incomprehension, was what I wanted. After all, no one liked being misinformed about reality.
“I suppose we all have delusions,” I explained, “but I kinda wish you’d have told me it was two bikes a week, on average, instead of recruiting my ears into your business manifestations of unprecedented success: everyone just walking in and out of here all day with their bikes, but shoots. All I know is that I really wanted a bike, but banking on that twice a week figure you confessed to, I suppose I’m gonna bounce back to Puna.”
“In and out all day, my brotha,” Bill said with enthusiasm, not picking up what I had just laid down. “Take care out there. I heard it’s gonna be a hot one.”
“Right, and may your business prosper. But let’s go forward with integrity, and delude ourselves, but perhaps let’s not be guilty of murmuring such misleading mantras of manifestation to others, yeah?” I waxed, but Bill’s brow bubble popped out with confusion again, so I said, “I’m only playing. You get em bra. For both of us, shoots.” I spun around, passing phantom bikes, ghosts of Bill’s will that floated in and out of Da Kine, like his sighs of gratefulness. He had the opportunity, and took it, as he wished upon the tail lights of prosperity. As unto a star of mercy, Bill called upon success. Always ahead, just ahead, a few car lengths was all. Tomorrow was only a day away, and Bill’s Mercury was always hopeful from where it sat, pinned in retrograde.
Why deal in the snail slime of reality’s sticky pace? The morning sun will come with infinite wheels and escargot for chain grease. Customers will sell their bikes, trade them, buy them and ride them away, and Bill will be there as a competent middle man. He will be as pavement to the Cardinal which slams the exoskeleton of a millipede on the roadside. Again and again, the slams, the bikes, in and out all day. Tomorrow, or starting now. Or now… how about now? Ever the optimist, ever in retrograde, the tail lights on the horizon were so close now.
Jared was two blocks away, and as I made my way along bayfront, I kept thinking about the influence books could have. I’d never cracked a self help book, but the Bible erected an enormous rickety tower in the metropolis of my subjectivity. That had been before Gabriel smashed it with a wrecking ball of realization, but there was something about the written word which could impact the very foundation of one’s identity.
“Yo, I'ma head up to Walmart. You wanna cruise?” Jared asked, still sitting as before. Trying to imagine his mashed nose in a book was difficult.
“I came for a bike, but the bike found another, so fuck it,” I said. The sun scorched with an oppressive soul sucking swagger. “I’m kinda pissed at this whole day right now.”
“Apparently you don’t want one that bad,” Jared smirked and tapped two black toes together.
“I don’t know what ethical pinata you’re trying to slam, but you can see that shoplifting at Walmart, or any other giant corporation, is different than stealing from an actual person, right? I’m no saint, and I’m not saying its possible to mess up your continuum, but I got to hear you say you were joking about the bike thing. If we’re gonna kick it, that is. Even if it’s a lie.”
“I ain't gonna jack your shit, but if I saw some rich bitch leave her purse in a car with the window down...” He shrugged. “But anyways,” he shifted and yawned. The way he got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head, made the muscles beneath his skin crawl like a stalking Puma.
Counter to the efforts of the bronzing sun, his torso remained shockingly white. The perplexing thing was that I’d never seen him in a shirt, and he was often wandering about under the sun. If it wasn't for his pug nose, that appeared to have been broken several times, he might have been considered handsome. The nose, however, was a deal breaker. If not completely, his teeth severed the intrigue of all self respecting womyn.
An archetype of sorts, Jared could be found in the center of any city, fiddling with something on his lap. Watching the struggle against entropy, aloof, he would dawdle his days of prime employability away in lackadaisical aplomb. Sometimes he'd weave yarn, or macrame hemp bracelets, but would only halfheartedly attempt to hawk his worthless crap on the passing crowd. Rolling remnant tobacco flakes, all from the butts he’d gathered from ashtrays, was his primary occupation. To entertain his fingertips, in the center of things, was the Tao of a Jared. Other than rolling papers, his needs were few, and met by what others cast aside. With trash cans all around, the scavenger sat around more than Buddha. Jared waited, as a keenly observant yet despicable central hub, for America to toss out their doggy bags: styrofoam boxes full of the finest meals money could buy. And so it was that Jared’s belly never called upon Federal assistance. Perhaps it was a felony or two. Maybe a bench warrant, here or there, prevented him from sinking his teeth into the meal ticket. Other than when housed in a jail cell, he wasn’t on the receiving end of any tax distribution. How his six pack abs remained so chiseled, was all part of his nonsensical contribution to the human experience. The fact that a Jared existed in the first place, was a societal paradox. His willful poverty in the district of the rich, spoke of a lack of empathetic cordiality--less fucks given than was genteel. He wasn’t overwhelmingly hideous to behold, but no pharisee looked down to a Jared on the sidewalk. Wafting up postmodern effluvium, the sun reflecting off his bare torso was blinding as a the snowy cap of Everest. But Jared was perceived as nothing but a white headed pimple on the lip of commerce. The cash confident citizenry, all about the pariah, had no tolerance for his Buddha like detachment. Most rats in the race wanted him popped, like the oily zit Jared aimed at being. Police were often called to have him stand up and move on down the line. But he’d be back, and they all knew it. He was a pothole to go around, a disgrace, and though his publican ways differed from my own, Jared was always the guy I sought out when I needed to hear the ins and outs of a new city.
“Fool, what about Walmart, why don't you just gank a bike there?” Jared asked.
“They've got cameras everywhere.”
“I’ll do it. You got twenty bucks for a Walmart piece of shit?” Jared sounded as if it would be easy.
“They're the heaviest clunkers, and they break instantly, so I’ll pass.”
“You heard that from Tree, right?” Jared looked up the sidewalk to where a young mother was bending over to tend to her baby in a stroller. He whispered a “damn” of his approval.
"Yeah, Tree had his bike for--what--like a month? So no man, I’ll save my twenty,” I said. “Besides you'd get busted.”
“Bitch, please,” Jared scrunched up his face as if hearing me say that bacon wasn’t delicious. “Those rent-a-cops never caught me and ain't never gonna catch me.”
“Okay, well that may be true until you get some big braddah by the door. Say that big Samoan dude at Fox’s Landing filled up the door, now tell me, how exactly would you get by him?”
“No, I’d ride out through the exit in the gardening section. You know that big warehouse entrance they use for the forklifts? Damn fool, you thought I meant the front door? Please, I’m talkin about some straight up gangsta shit, and I ain’t playin. I’m a hustla for real.”
“They still have security guards over there. You’d get swarmed.”
“See, you’ve never seen me ride a bike, cuz I’d just tear ass right out of the store. Like hall balls and build up speed, down that aisle with the fertilizer, and then cross the street to the mall. I’d be out before those fools knew what hit em.” He sounded so sure, and I wondered how his tobacco caked lungs would do, cardio wise. Despite the body of a star athlete, his habits had to have some effect, didn’t they?
“So, you’ve got this all figured out. Twenty bucks, huh? Just to see that would be worth it, but I can’t do that to you. Aren’t you already on a first name basis with the cops around Hilo?”
“Never been arrested in Hilo, but don’t worry about me bra. I’ll be fine. Sounds like easy money. What’s the bitch ass security team gonna do with their walkie talkies? They ain’t got no guns, no tasers, no pepper spray, no nothing.”
“Yeah, but Walmart will sick fifty of them on you at once, and then they’ll call the cops.”
“They’d have to catch me first, and good luck on that.”
“Think so? Damn dude, you shouldn’t tempt me like this--just to see it. But no, after talking to Tree and lifting his bike--that shit was like 40 pounds or something, right?”
“Beats walking though, don’t it?”
“Yeah, speaking of which, let’s get to stomping down the highway to hell.”
“Nah man, to hell? Walmart has some dope ass AC, all temperature controlled and shit. It’s the highway that’s gonna be hell.”
We made our way through town, adjacent to the bay, and didn’t bother trying to hitch a ride from the corner. Ken’s House of Pancakes made my stomach pound its fork and knife on the table, and my mouth watered. Realizing I was running on mocha fumes, I retrieved the bag of granola from my pack.
The endless sidewalk always felt longer than two miles to reach the corporate colony of big box stores, but with nothing but bedding, my pack was light. Without so much as a shirt to weigh him down, Jared’s single piece of luggage was a cardboard sign. WILL WORK FOR FOOD was scrawled in black and blue crayon. He'd considered HOMELESS HUNGRY GOD BLESS, but then people could accuse him of asking for a hand out. Thinking he'd found some jargon loophole and shouldn't be ticketed for panhandling, I asked him to extrapolate.
“It's not even spanging, if I’m asking for work.” he said, as we walked passed HPM. The concrete sidewalk ahead rippled like a white sheet on a clothes line, stretching onward until cars along side it looked the size of Hot Wheels.
“Have you ever thought about flying a blank piece of cardboard?” I asked. “Everyone would get it. You could stand out by an intersection with it held up by your chest, and then what could a cop say? People can stand all day with signs about Jesus, and the end of the world, so if they can do it, and your cardboard is just an accessory, what’s the problem? It wouldn’t even be a sign. You could say it was a fan for the heat or--hold on dude, I got it, you could even say it was a sun umbrella, with how white you are.”
“Nah, I gotta stick with the classics. Besides, I do want a job.”
“You've got no shirt, no shoes and copper antenna sticking out of your dome.”
“I can still work.”
“Yeah, but I mean, a sign? Who picks up a guy with a sign for work?”
“Horny bitches that want to get fucked, that’s who.”
“What?”
“Shit fool, my game is strong, you don't even know. Last year this MILF in Reno picked me up and made me take a shower. Then she had me go to work on her, if you know what I’m sayin. So, you never know.” Jared had a thrill of the shivers and hopped over a line in the sidewalk.
“Yeah, well now you have antennae, your pants are in tatters, and to top it off, you’re white as a marshmallow. Well, not to top it, because, well… Jared, honestly, when’s the last time you checked your grill in the mirror?”
“Fool, I ain’t talking about your little nipples, so why you gotta bring up my teeth? It’s not like I can afford a dentist, you bitch made little bitch.”
“Whoa man. No offense, I was just talkin shit. Too far, huh?”
“I’m just saying I’ve knocked fools out for less.”
As we walked along Mamalahoa Highway, I wondered where we would be plotted on the graph of the public’s perception. Most definitely, between ‘disdainful blot’ of the X axis, and ‘curious freak show’ of the Y axis, but where would a democratic consensus of the passing traffic place us if surveyed? The placement of most people’s opinion probably would run straight along the X. We were a blot, if not disdainful. Unlike the mainland, there were smatterings of spun out hippies on the roadside, thumbs extended, all just wasting away in tropical apathy. Former freaks might place us along the Y, but they were so few that thumbing for a ride didn’t seem to be worth the effort.
My dreadlocks weren't completely formed. The loose matted clumps of hair would have stood up, like crumpled raven feathers, if I didn't keep my doo pressed flat and tied back with a bandana. Eventually, I wanted the combination of bandana and locks to look like Pharaoh’s hat, but for now my hair puffed out the back of my head. Webster sought me out for a picture, and now my 2002 head is immortalized in the dictionary next to the word ‘unkempt.’
“Hey man,” I said, breaking a five minute spell of silence, “do the big holes in the knees of your pants give you ventilation, or is it a swamp up in them jeans?”
“This is my only pair,” Jared said.
“Yeah, but I mean, you obviously have no qualms about stealing, so...”
“I don't need another pair, these work.”
“And the fact that you don't wash them is--what? Some sort of fashion statement?”
“Fool, why you trippin on my jeans?”
“Well, I used to hitchhike around in the same pair of jeans, all up and down I-5. I had nothing to change into and nowhere to wash them. After a month, I ended up with acne all over my ass, so I started washing my underwear in gas station bathroom sinks. That helped, but until I was able to get a clean pair--”
“I don't get zits on my ass, and I don't wear underwear, so stop trippin. Worry bout your own goddamn ass, I’m straight.”
As we crossed the road, I saw Jack and the rest of the Border’s Books & Music crew. They incorporated the entire goth element on the east side of the island. The heat did nothing to dissuade them from wearing black long sleeved hoodies and baggy black Hot Topic pants. As always, they lounged about like a murder of crows on the metal chairs, chain smoking and drinking coffee in the shade.
“Sup Jack?” Jared said, and the two bumped knucks. “You fools checking the full moon from Malamaki?”
“No, it’s at Fox’s Landing, get it straight, son,” Jack said. With a missing tooth, his blonde hair dyed red, Jack could have submitted his head shot to be on the cover of Mad Magazine. With the good nature of a golden retriever, he said, “Trillium told us the DJ lineup, and we’re stoked, but it’s going to be out on the flow again.”
“Shit Jack, you’re lucky you seen me. Helluh fools gonna get tripped up but listen,” and Jared explained Dean’s diversion tactic. Jack was thrilled to be on the inside loop. His nods were deep as Jared got to the part about the recent sketchy interactions with the braddahs.
“Yeah, Dean's da mastah!” Jack said, after Jared finished. “I'm definitely going. Malamaki then? That’s the beach by Mackenzie, right?”
Jared nodded, and Jack looked to Sarah.
“Most definitely,” Sarah said, before relishing in another drag off her cigarette.
Jack looked over to Devine, who was sitting off to the side by himself. The look he returned Jack was a sulky one, then he nodded, and looked back down to his art project. A safety pin was his tool of choice for etching a detailed anarchy sign on the green plastic coating of a Border’s table. His canvas had already been tatted up with offensive, and much less ornate, totems of gothic wisdom. Boners, and zero fucks given to the man, all stated in anachronisms common to inner city middle school bathroom stalls. But I didn’t suppose the profane scratches to be the work of Devine. The flaming Filipino artist flip flopped between diva and dejected, rarely pausing betwixt the two. Normalcy was a balanced state that so obviously bored him. However, at any place along his mood’s rapid pendulum swings, Devine expressed himself in ways which were always more sensitive than crass.
Jack was explaining to Jared that all the ashtrays in the plaza had been picked clean, when we all looked up to the sound of a piercing whistle.
“Hey freaks, you hungry?” Slow Eyed Steve’s head was visible over the parked cars. We couldn’t see the grocery cart but heard it rattling. As Steve rounded the rear end of a golden SUV, we saw a stack of more than a dozen plastic wrapped submarine sandwiches sitting at the bottom of his cart.
“Steve, what happened to your hand?” Sarah asked. As she stood up, one of the black buckles hanging outside of her cargo pant pocket caught on the chair. She careened, narrowly avoiding what could have been a domino effect of table, chair, and Sarah. “Jesus fucking Christ!” Her yell was lunch lady loud, and Jack laughed.
“Don't worry about it,” Steve said. “My hand is fine." He held it up, pivoting his forearm like a trophy. The stream of blood had traveled from knuckle to elbow before scabbing up. There was still some fresh blood oozing from the gash, but although it was glistening like a ruby, the cut didn’t look so bad.
“This poser drove around on one of those security golf cart things, and then he tried to tell me that I couldn't dumpster dive. Can you believe that shit? I told him to fuck off, and then he stepped out of his cart so--” Steve laughed, and looked at the wound with a grin--“I punched the fence and said, 'come on motherfucker, I've got AIDs!'”
“Genius!” Jared shouted and applauded. Steve glowed with pride.
“Do you have AIDs?” Jack asked. He eyed the maroon trail on Steve’s arm with suspicion.
“No Jack, I don’t have any STDs.” Steve looked to Jack, disappointed by his gullibility. “But that pig just sat in his cart as I rescued these sandwiches, so you’re welcome. Now I get to feed you.”
“Well Steve, you’ve been wrong about what food is worth saving before, so I dunno,” Sarah said.
“Sarah, just to let you know, I was in the store and personally watched as this corporate slave, forced to wear a ridiculous blue apron, took these off the discount rack and bagged them up. That poor fuck had chuck out sandwiches worth more than his entire day of kissing ass.”
“Fuck the man,” Jack said, chiming in with the sentiment, and I pictured him with a safety pin doing work on Devine’s table.
“So anyways,” Steve continued, “I know they're good. Feel them, they're still cold.” Steve had a sandwich in each hand and looked puzzled by our lack of enthusiasm.
“So the security guard just let you wheel those off with their grocery cart?” Sarah asked. Although born and raised in Hawaii, she had somehow fostered the drawl of a valley girl.
“No, this is a Walmart cart. I parked it on the outside of the fence of the dumpster, so I could toss the sandwiches up and over. You think I’m stupid enough to try and leave with a Safeway cart? Come on Sarah, you know me. I’m returning to Walmart with the one I borrowed, just so I could feed you vampire wannabes.”
“Sorry Steve, but it still seems kind of sketch,” Sarah said, and stubbed out her smoke on the edge of a table.
“Well the security dude was pissed,” Steve said. “He was all like talking shit about me on his walkie talkie, but I was climbing the fence, so I couldn’t hear what the dude on the other end said. I’m thinking that whoever he was talking to must have told him to leave me alone.”
Using his index finger under the blue styrofoam tray, Steve spun a sub before asking, “Anyone?” He cocked it back like a football. Tentatively, every hand went up, and Steve started to toss the sandwiches.
“Don't you think they called the cops?” Jack asked as he peeled back the plastic.
“Why? I mean really, what did I do wrong? I rescued food.”
“Well they could litigate in all sorts of ways.” The word ‘litigate’ was garbled, as Jack took a bite, but Steve caught it.
“Litigate, litigious, ha man! You're funny,” Steve said, dismissing the possibility.
“No seriously,” Jack said. “They could say you stole these, or trespassed, or make up some shit. Like they could even say you assaulted that security officer.” He winced as Steve picked at the scab forming on his middle two knuckles. Jack looked at the back of his own hand with a frown.
“Bullshit,” Steve countered. “I'd say the officer--I mean security dude--assaulted me. I’d claim he yanked me off the fence, and that's how I got cut,” Steve said. “But yeah, thanks for the idea. I’ll leave blood on my arm. I was gonna wash it off in Borders, but it looks bad ass, right?"
It didn’t, and Devine rolled his eyes to indicate as much.
“But dude,” Sarah said, “What about all these sandwiches then? Huh Mr. Smartie-Smart over there? You can’t say you were pulled off the fence if they catch us eating these.”
“So come on, hurry up everyone. Help me destroy the evidence,” Steve said. Sarah smiled before biting into the end of one.
“What the fuck Steve? This isn't cold,” she said, frowned, and started flipping through the pages of meat, cheese and what counted as vegetables.
“Colder than it would be if it had been baking in the black plastic bag they were in. But don’t worry Sarah, I got them like literally right after they threw them out.”
“Ha,” Jared said, “Now I call bullshit! They use clear plastic bags at Safeway. I've raided their dumpsters, and you said black plastic bags. You must mean the clear ones unless they changed shit up.”
Steve was about to toss him a sandwich and said, “Bullshit huh? Actually Jared, they throw everything else out in clear plastic bags. It’s only the deli items that they put in black ones, so dumpster divers can’t see what’s up. Your call on bullshit is bullshit, so mind your P's and Q's, because I’ve been at this game longer than anyone in Hilo.” Steve’s spiral throw almost spun the sandwich apart, but the plastic held till Jared caught it.
“Whoa cuz!” Jack yelled and clapped his hands, “Damn Steve, you da mastah!”
“I don't know about “da mastah” when it comes to Steve and dumpster diving,” Sarah said, as she pulled out a possible corrupt innard of her sandwich. “I mean this looks alright enough, but Steve got pretty famous when he brought that fish--”
“It was shrimp,” Steve interrupted.
“Yeah, so shrimp. Anyways, you brought that dumpster dived shrimp back to Sumland, and everyone thought someone had died. God damn, that shit stunk! Ol' Steve doesn't have a sense of smell, do ya Steve?”
“Nope, but I saw these get bagged, and I've been watching Safeway’s patterns for months.”
“Steve's a fucking Ninja,” were Devin’s first words, the syllables lilty. Steve grabbed a Sandwich to toss to him.
We were all contentedly chewing when a woman walked out of Borders, and told us that the cops were on there way.
“What the fuck do those Nazis think they're doing?” Steve was irate. His blue eyes opened wide as gallon jug caps, and though he had said it to us, his arrow of implication was unclear. The Border's woman put her hands on her hips.
“I'm sorry ma'am, we'll be on our way. He's talking about the police and not you or--” Sarah was saying when Steve interrupted, excited, flecks of spit flying as he preached.
“I'm talking about anyone who thinks that rescuing food is wrong. If we don’t eat it, you know what happens, right? It breaks down into methane and poisons the atmosphere. Food we don't eat is worse than CO2, worse than any car driving down the--”
“Jesus Christ, would you shut the fuck up, Steve!” Sarah roared, and rose up to her full six feet.
The Border’s woman smiled, and Steve shut up.
“I'm so sorry,” Sarah said to the woman. Maple syrup slathered her tone, thick and obsequious. “You know us. We're good kids, but Steve here isn't--”
“Don't use my fucking name!” Steve yelled, his voice cracking. He yanked his grocery cart back. “I can’t believe you can be so… so--,” he started to say,and gave the cart’s wheel a kick of frustration, as it caught on a curb. The Border’s woman was about to scold him, when he jerked the cart free, and rattled the remaining sandwiches away, headed off toward Walmart.
We got up and dispersed in varying directions, everyone clutching their rescued sandwiches like sleeping kittens from the pound. The Border’s crew headed toward the Waiakea Center food court, and Jared wanted to head back downtown to spange. His patterns were circular ones, but I needed to get back to back home.
I missed the Lion’s Den. With one night to rest up before the full moon party, settling in the dugouts, or anywhere other transients might happen along, wouldn’t give me the peace and quiet I’d need. Sleep was something I couldn’t risk if I wanted to rage it.
“Oh hey, Jasper!” Jared hollered. He was 100 feet down the sidewalk, and I turned around. “Do you want any woodrose seeds?”
The name brought about a flood of ecstatic memories, but I made a reprimanding expression, as if he had yelled out LSD.
“Dude!” I said and brought my finger to my lips.
“Fool you trippin,” he said in a loud voice, closing the distance between us. “No one knows what they are. They're not illegal. They're just seeds.”
“You might be right, but still… anyways, where’d you get them?”
“The fairy.”
“Are you selling them?”
“Listen,” Jared said and reached into his pocket to retrieve a folded up piece of paper which contained about a dozen seeds. “I'll just give them to you. I know you got cash, but I just want you to know that just because I'd jack some rich dude's wallet doesn't mean that you can't trust me. Aight fool?”
"Honor among thieves, is it?”
“Something like that,” Jared said as he dropped three seeds in my palm. “You've got to scrape all the dark brown stuff off.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “The fairy gave me some at Kua Bay last year.”
“Right on fool, so I'll see you at Malamaki? Friday night is gonna be killaz.”
“For sure, but just one question. These seeds have been seasoned in your ball sweat, shielded by only that little piece of paper, and your pocket lining for… how long now?”
“Let's see,” he said and looked up.
“Well, if you have to think about it, I suppose I don't even want to know.” I said. “See you at the party.”
“Scrape those seeds good. You hear me fool?” Jared winked, and then turned on his heel to mosey back toward bayfront, cardboard sign dangling from his hand in lackadaisical aplomb.
