The Godfather
Wheels for Caveman Chapter 8
Dawn found me on top of the lava tube along with some rice sized honey colored ants, confused by the sleeping Gulliver in their trail. The Ironwood needle mattress was even more comfortable than my lounge chair, but after leaving Frank, I hadn't gotten into the realm of unconsciousness. I watched the sky lighten through the fabric of my bandanna wishing the dream voices would speak up and get me there. Only sleep could remove me from the tickles of ants that got stuck in my leg hair as if it were a bamboo forest.
I kept thinking of the rat. Maybe it had confused my foot for something it had smelled in the ice chest, but I couldn't quite bring myself to give the evil rodent the benefit of having misjudged my toe for oats, raisins, honey or anything else in there. But what if it had never seen a human in the park and thought my toe meat smelled good? But no, they were too smart. It had to have known I was alive. Rabies. I tried not to give any credence to the explanation that checked all the boxes.
As more ants struggled through my leg and now arm hair, it was clear that a circuitous route wouldn’t be taken. Unfortunately, having chosen to forge a path up and over the giant, they lost all sense of their original coordinates and were scattering in all directions. At least they didn't bite. In fact, I had never seen them carrying anything, but sleep was out of the question with them marching one by one, playing Marco Polo all over me. The heaviness of being pinned by almost-sleep was all I wanted. Couldn’t I dip into somnolence--just a taste of oblivion--until the sun zapped away the last of the morning chill?
Coming back to the lava tube specifically for the refreshing rest was less of a lesson than meaningless irony. I thought about my aunt who yelled “rats” instead of cursing. Recalling her face with vivid nostalgia almost whisked me away to dreamland, but an ant swinging through the jungle of my shin hairs had my consciousness tethered. Resigned to facing another day, I lifted the bandana and peered out. The sun winked through the trees with a grin, but I felt like flipping it the bird. I stood up and brushed off. Mangled exoskeletons fell to the floor and writhed about in agony.
“Back on the trail now you bitches,” I said.
Although I’d only been gone a couple nights, it was nice to be home and not waking up in the baseball dugouts. It would have been nice, but I wasn’t really waking up, was I?
The sleepless night had the effect of an eyelid enlargement procedure. The bottom pair were now puffed out, swollen and heavy. The ocular massage felt so nice as I pressed my fingers into the sockets. Crust and goo were wiped away, but the itching afterwards made me realize I had rubbed a little too long, pressed a little to hard.
My leg muscles were also complaining. They weren’t sore, but grimaced as I considered my morning exercises. Knowing the nocturnal devil would be asleep, I thought about crawling down into the cave for a nap. But it was hopeless. I knew I wouldn’t be able to drift off at this hour. Maybe after town.
I definitely needed to get up to Pahoa and get some antibiotic ointment, batteries and... wasn't there something else? Oh yes, a lighter, and what if I just stole a bike? Fuck it. My head didn’t hurt, but the synapses were firing slowly in my brain as I blinked. The neurons were peeved at being asked to connect the dots when I tried to consider what else I needed. That’s what lists are for, moron.
Were there any rules? Life had its ups and downs, but the past week had been a black hole. To break through, maybe I needed to let go of all my conditioning. Gabriel had gone, and maybe that was because I was playing societies game, and playing it fair. Was it my ego that drove me to work for the bike?
But the feeling was a dark one as I considered taking a bike from the side of a house in a neighborhood like Nanawale. I hadn’t done anything like that since high school, but why not? Gabriel had shown me that anything I did, was. Once it was--had happened--there was absolutely no reason to judge it one way or the other. There were consequences, but right or wrong was delusional. Judgment was a sin because no one knew anything--not really. To worry about the future or the past was the opposite of enlightenment. Of course, believing in fate was much easier in theory than in practice, and there were only brief moments when I felt the freedom of having let go, completely. With money in my pocket, I knew I was holding onto the illusion of control. Was this my punishment?
As I recalled the week, I saw that judging Jared was stupid. Having considered my moral standards higher than his, I was obviously losing my Zen connection. In fact, hadn’t my ego been building since Nona? Perhaps working for cash was an act of defiance that made the puppet master let go of my strings. Realizing that all my ruminations were circular, I gave up.
Of course I hadn’t sinned because what was, was--and regret was retarded. But then where was Gabriel?
Stretching down to touch my toes, I saw there was a small scab where the rat had bitten my toe. How long would it take for rabies to inflame my brain? Maybe tonight I would be foaming at the mouth, running around like a zombie and biting people. Hydrophobia was the only symptom of rabies that I knew of, so the moontribe should be okay as long as they stayed near the ocean. I pictured everyone along the Malamaki shelf of lava with the leaping waves behind them as I paced and howled at the full moon. Rabies, what a way to go.
My legs seemed happier after I stretched, but even afterward they felt like weak rubber bands as I retrieved the ice chest from the cave. It took a couple flicks with my dead lighter before the flint ignited the propane. The ball of flame singed my wrist hair, and my nose wrinkled at the pungent smell that lingered about. After mixing a heaping tablespoon of instant coffee into a pot of water, I watched the purple flames in a daze. When the first bubbles formed, I shut off the stove and climbed up to the hilltop. Once there, I looked down to the puka at the base of the hill and thought about where the rat was right now. Maybe it had left the lava finger and gone back to its original nest. I hoped so, but for all I knew, it would be curled up on my sleeping bag while I was gone in town today.
The coffee was thick, black and bitter as I sipped and considered the rat. My eyes felt like itchy scabs and I had to stop myself from pressing the heels of my palms into them. The caffeine kick never came, and one of my feet had fallen asleep and tingled as I made my way back.
In the process of lowering myself down onto the kitchen dimple from an Ironwood branch, I dropped my mug. It tumbled and nearly fell into the skylight, but the handle stopped it from rolling. As I looked at the logo of a corporation I didn’t recognize, I thought about where I was. How had life become so mundane? But the smile felt a forced as I reminded myself that I was living the dream. Tired, I was just so damned tired.
My morning situps and pushups felt depleted, and I decided to skip the pullups and dips altogether. After a few curls, I let the hefty beach stone fall with a thud and sat down. The air felt hot and sticky, but it couldn’t have been past 9am.
After a couple minutes on my head, I kicked down feeling ready for breakfast. Unfortunately, I had eaten my last papaya before going to work for Nona. Sullen, I boiled another pot of water for the oats, but even with extra honey, they tasted bland. Bland was the morning, and without the disposable papaya bowl, it was time for dishes.
I tried to make the most of the walk, and though the pot didn’t have the same rich tambor of the Menehune jug, I could tap in triplets with my spoon. Walking through the Field of Death, I began to fiddle with a rhythm, but the noise did nothing to dissipate the cumbersome brain fog.
At the base of Knob Hill, I climbed over a fallen Ironwood. A few weeks earlier, a windstorm had yanked it down, and now its flat roots stuck up like the blade of a bulldozer. The trail led up and over the log, where the elephant’s ears would have been, to the flat skullcap. Knob Hill was twenty feet high and shaped like an enormous elephant head. Its tusks and trunk were lava stones, most of which had been rounded by the waves, and were sticking out into the ocean. The hilltop had a few coconuts and Ironwoods surrounding it, but like a Franciscan monk, the crown was bald except for the mat of needles. From on top, the view of the ocean was different than the cliffs. With big boulders and a sea level gulch, the waves really put on a show as they tumbled in. The little hill had been taken for granted once I found The Lion’s Den, but it would have been my chosen bedroom if the park were truly my own.
Once over the hill, the park transitioned. Malamaki, which translates as ‘leaping water’, was considered separate from Mackenzie by most of the locals. Ironwood trees continued a hundred feet further from the base of Knob Hill, but then feathered into the coconut grove. The park elevation dropped with the cliffs nearly at sea level--a lava shelf that stretched a hundred feet, or so, before the Malamaki. Black sand was blasted off the shelf and washed into the grove with the high tides that flooded the entire area a few times a year.
Planted before the first automobile, there were corridors of coconut trees which continued for a half mile. The grove ended at a pitted access road that led to the red road at the southern end of the park. Some of the trees rose upwards of seventy feet and were lined up about fifteen feet from one another in a dozen rows.
A month earlier, I explored the area between the grove and the red road, and found that the jungle was thick, but not impenetrable. I ducked under fronds and weaved my way inward through guava and under an enormous monkey pod tree. Although there were pukas I needed to watch out for, it was nothing as treacherous as the a’a Field of Death without the Ironwood needles.
Halfway to the red road, I came across a flat strip of land lined with Ironwoods. It stretched 100 feet before the jungle took over. I walked to the center, and felt like I was on a secret runway for faeries and their interdimensional space crafts. There were many other portions of The King’s Highway in the park, but finding this hidden leg, felt like stumbling upon something much more ancient. I thought about camping there, but it was too far back, and the Lahaula trees and coconut fronds, strewn about the area, had pockets where rainwater gathered. The only thing worse than getting wet at night was the sound of a whining mosquito that targeted the ears, so I stuck to the Ironwood side of Knob Hill.
But on days like this when I cooked, I made the journey to Malamaki to do dishes. The tide pool I chose was about a minute walk from where the elephant tusk boulders of Knob Hill extended into the ocean. After a while it felt like a chore, and I had to remind myself that it was just a walk in the park.
There were swirls of coarse blond sand made of pulverized coral which was interspersed with the black lava sand at the bottom of the tide pool. Combine, the varying grit was just what I needed when scrubbing the pot, if I burnt my rice. Today the rinse would be quick and easy.
The tide pool was only a stone’s throw away from the crashing waves, but the surface of the sea was obscured by two boulders on the lip of the lava shelf. Watery claws roared up and smashed, sending up salty splashes and rivulets that fed the pool.
Of course I hadn’t been the first to think that the pool would suit my needs, and Mr. Moray had taken up residency long before I arrived. He had been in the deep end, and darted under a crag of the shadowy far wall, when we first met. The size of a male porn star member, I decided to let the eel have the deep end to himself. Other than Mr. Moray, there were a handful of nickel sized charcoal colored fish that were thrilled with my plans to make the pool my dish pit.
Instead of tossing the pot into the pool, something I usually did before climbing over the VW bug sized boulder, my groggy brain had me flopping onto the cool side of it, leaning for a moment. Just as my breathing seemed to find the rhythm of pre-sleep deepness, a frothy spray of brilliant ocean water rose up after hitting the cliffs a hundred feet away. The bright white of it stabbed at my retinas and I closed my eyes. A bubbly smack sounded as it landed, followed by an offshore misty breath. Normally I avoided these sprays as if they were radioactive, but at the moment, I needed to wake up. As always, the tingling sensation of wetness was more annoying that revitalizing. Rolling over the boulder, I frowned at the stinging sensation. Apparently my toe hadn’t scabbed all the way over.
I looked at the tidepool as the shimmering water cleared and saw an orange smudge beneath the service. Taking a couple steps to the water’s edge, I saw what looked like an orange and white striped easter egg that darted toward the deep end.
“Mr. Moray!” I tried to warn the newcomer as he went into the danger zone.
This poor little fella was in the tank now: Fish prison until a supertide offered an escape wave big enough to pull it back to freedom. That could be months from now. Either he'd learn the rules, or the eel would be the worst imaginable cell mate. Better to kick it with the school of grays, but I suspected Mr. Moray had his way with them as well. They came in with the smaller waves, but how they disappeared--I tried not to dwell on the vanished class members. My dish buddies loved me.
There was an orange blurbble if I stood up and cocked my head to avoid the morning sun which reflected like tinfoil off the water, a hot flash on my face. It was difficult to see anything but the fuzz of my squinted eyelashes as I looked for the orange fish.
Another big wave pounded against the cliff, jetted up, and splattered into the pool, obscuring my view of the fish and soaking me. Unpleasant, but I smiled. After a couple sweaty days of scraping paint and walking through Hilo, the splash swayed me. It was time for a bath. It would do me some good because although I wasn’t as filthy as Jared’s jeans, I had a layer of grime that I could part with--just a pound or two.
The water might actually be nice once I was in, and defunking my stank, but something about getting wet always befuddled my sense of contentment. I could trace my distaste back to the monastery where showers had been forbidden. Or perhaps it was even earlier, when I had almost drown as a toddler after running into the ocean in San Francisco. Perhaps the myriad of other near death encounters with the life giving stuff, but something about feeling wet--especially once out of the water--was disagreeable. It wasn’t as bad as chalk, but the viscous droplets hung about even after toweling, and I didn’t even have a towel. Life can be rough, but I stepped in the ickiness anyways.
My pinky toe tingled in the water, and I imagined the rabies virus family trying to flee as the salt stormed the scab gates, slaughtering all it met. A liquid whale of a wave rolled over the boulders into the deep end, and once again the surface of the pool was all bubbles.
I peeled off my board shorts and scoured them with the coral sand in the bottom of the pool. With a sharp inhalation, I lowered myself into the pool, head and all. Exfoliating, and using the shorts to tussle about my junk and stuff, I felt clean enough after a violent rub down.
With so much to do, the day's itinerary required urgency, and if anything, I thanked the water for waking me up. The Pahoa run would take an inestimable swath of time out of the day, and then I hoped to squeeze a nap in before sundown.
As I thought about getting out, I dreaded the idea of slipping into the cold wet board shorts. Underwhelming when naked, I got out and quickly draped them over a big boulder outside of the splash perimeter. The boulder provided some privacy, but NASA sent me a psychic message to inform me that my tan lines were visible from space. The fresh snow in Antarctica was getting jealous of my shockingly white ass, so I was quick at getting back in the water before the space aliens could also chime in.
The center of the pool came up to my thighs, but I could float on my back and enjoy full submergence. I raked my fingernails across my greasy scalp, and closed my eyes. Now that I was in, the water felt comfortable. I knew I should probably indulge in the soak more often, but then again, the sticky aftermath of the bath was yet to come.
Feeling weightless, with only my heels touching the sandy floor, I thought about the coming night. Would coral sand look cool under blacklight? Some would be embedded in my newly forming dreadlocks, but I wondered if it would glow. Without soap, I would be a greasy guy after the salt bath, but perhaps the coral would light up like glitter on the dancefloor. Like most of the other heterosexual males I had met, I despised glitter. But coral sand was cool. The salt would tighten my locks up a bit, so most of the sand should stay. It wasn’t a costume party, but I’d be a sandy blonde brunette.
While contemplating full moon fashion, I ignored the little school. Some of the alumni were nibbling the calluses of my heels, but occasionally they would test a part of my foot that I could feel. The wound on my toe was no longer tingling, so when I felt a sharp needle prick, I tensed and sat upright, thinking one of them to be as rude as the rat. They knew me--what made that toe so damn attractive to everyone? But what I saw was the darting retreat of orange.
“Oh, hello and nice to meet you too!” I rolled to my stomach and one stroke took me to where the new guy had fled to. He had gone to one side of the pool but retreated to the deep end to avoid me. I considered herding him back to the shallows, but a geyser like blast tickled the pool into another fit of laughing bubbles. The unwelcome wave was a few degrees cooler than the sun baked pool, and I lost track of the little guy. He had gone a little too close to the dark shadow of Mr. Moray’s ledge for my liking. Sure, it had bit my toe, but I chalked that up to his disorientation. He didn’t know where he was. It was only a matter of time before the eel set him straight, and I wondered how much longer the noob would be able to go trespassing unmolested.
It took a backward arm stroke to get back to the center where my pot rocked about like a drunk duck. There were a couple cups of water inside, but it hadn’t yet capsized.
I had heard that small fish, like the school of finger tip sized fish, which now gathered around the bottom of the pot, have short memories. But this school knew what was up, and things got crazy at chow time. As I reached for the handle, they twirled in circles, and though their expressions didn’t change, the excitement was evident. I lowered the pot next to me, and as the honey sweetened oatmeal scent was detected, the whole class screamed in delight. Swishing a handful of sand around, a milky cloud arose from the pot. The fish dashed with centimeter attacks on the oat floaties.
“Oh hi,” I said to the clownfish that was making tentative progress toward the expanding murk.
“You got some other plans? Come get some breakfast.” And he did. At first he eyed me with distrust, and would only go for the far floaters, but after getting a taste, he orbited the milky galaxy with ravenous abandon. He dodged around nabbing frags until one of the school fish nibbled the edge of a whole oat. It was one of the biggest pieces left, and though it was on the other side of the expanding cloud, the new guy pulled rank. He darted around taking nips at the school which scattered, bewildered by the bullying. Fortunately, the milky way of oats had spread enough so that most of the class got at least a taste. Afterwards, it seemed that the clownfish looked up at me with defiance, but perhaps it was simply asking for more.
“Full moon buddy. Some freaky people might pay your little cell a visit tonight. You won't be such a tough guy when a couple hippies come to copulate in your little patch of wetness.” The fish kept eye contact, smirking even. “You think you’re taking over? Huh, good luck on that. You just wait till Mr. Moray wakes up, and then we’ll see.”
His expressive jelly eyes made it easy to fall into anthropomorphism, and I would have bet that he was giving me stink eye. Who knew? Maybe he’d present Mr. Moray with more of a challenge than I projected.
“You need a name. Since you pick on the little guys, maybe Nelson like on the Simpsons. You bully Nelson! Nah, that has no ring to it. It has to be something tough, but maybe more old school.”
The clownfish tested a few grains of sand on the bottom. It was indeed asking me for more oatmeal.
“So you’re obviously going to terrorize the school. Hmmm. How about Capone?--but he was more of a smuggler than a tough guy. A wise guy--who said that? Was that Don Corleon? No, it wasn’t Al Pacino or Marlon Brando… it was that little guy with the squeaky voice. Vinnie something? But no, for you my friend, I think The Godfather. How’s that sound? The Godfather, eh?”
I heard Mr. Moray laugh from his lair as The Godfather puffed out his chest, proud of the new name.
