I’m sick.
It’s seven in the morning. My damned internal alarm clock won’t let me sleep this hangover off. It’s the only one I’ll have on this Island. I promise.
I pace through the kitchen. I pace through the living room.
I run to the toilet.
I’m sick.
It goes on like this for an hour or two until Anna and our Host are up. I lie in bed and my stomach churns and flips and acts the indignant gymnast. I had too many Irish Car Bombs and Duck Farts on an empty stomach last night. I just wanna die. No. I just want to sleep. I can’t sleep. I drank coffee. Let me lay here. Wait, let’s go do something so I can take my mind off this. No. I can’t get up. Uh…wait….Toilet run.
Our Host, his name is David, stands in the living room, fairly bemused. I don’t drink much. Not like I used to. He’s Australian and drinking is like the sun there. It just is.
“Care to go to Jeremy’s for sunrise Mai-tai’s?” He asks.
“That sounds fun.” Anna says.
“I just want to lay here.” I say. A beat passes and I feel the disappointment in the room. “All right, damnit all.” I get up. We drive a little way down and up the hill.
Jeremy is a 90’s New Yorker. That is to say, he belongs at the wild clubs and parties of New York during the 90’s. When New York was wild and free and you were just as likely to be involuntarily kissed by a drunk policeman as a girl or maybe it was man dressed as a neon robot from Spaced Invaders who lives in a van down the street. Now Manhattan is gentrified and expensive. It is full of Versace, Starbucks, Trump Tower, suits and no soul. He got out while the getting was good and found his new love, he’s staked a claim here and it welcomes him, like it will welcomes us all. If one can make it.
Jeremy is new to hosting people in his lovely house. It is bordered by a cul-de-sac and a wild stream. He has a deck we sit on as I drink coffee and one Mai-tai. They enjoy screwdrivers, Mai-tai, snack food and anything else. My stomach is a rebel but I put down the rebellion harder than the unionists put down the confederates in the American Civil War. We sit and I learn while they talk. It is good here in the shade. We have been here long enough that the mornings are cool to us now. We swat annoying flies but mostly miss and give our thighs welts. David finds heart sunglasses and a Captain’s hat. We call him Admiral of the Love Boat and there are probably jokes about Kangaroos but he is a patient man thus he tolerates us.
We decide to go to the beach after picking up a couple of girls who are here on a yoga retreat. They get one day off and want it special. Anna and I go for a quick shower while the boys pick up the girls. We meet in Wailea for a quick lunch and to snag beers and sit on the beach. I’m mostly beyond sun burning now. But my chest instead resembles a molting lizard so I leave my t-shirt on. I don’t want to scare the children, you see.
It doesn’t matter anyway. The girls are beautiful and so are we because how can we not be? We are in paradise and that makes us beautiful. Of course Anna always is. She goes for a quick swim and it is good for her to have female interaction. I can hear them talking about things that are always important to women during the conversation, but then after are silly and trivial but please, like men ever really say anything of importance. I’m drinking a beer on the beach and relaxed and right now I don’t really want a conversation because the sun is giving me energy but it is always taking it, so let me sit here and sweat. One of the girls goes snorkeling and David shows her the ropes. They hear the whales under the water and she is in love with it. Everyone is in love with Maui, most just don’t know it yet.
Anna laughs and I watch her a little because she is happy. When she is happy the world is better and good for now. She is an angel and this is heaven for her. So it must be heaven for me too.
The day passes into afternoon and then evening. The sun will set soon. The boys get the bright idea of climbing a hill to watch the sunset and goddamnit how do they have this much energy? They’ve drank three times as much as I have but it is Maui and the weekend so an adventure must be had. I acquiesce reluctantly. We will meet there.
There is a trail to climb up the hill as a human was intended too, but we miss it and climb up the wild side of the hill in our flipflops or “Slippers” as they are called here. We avoid the thorns that have the thickness of finish nails, somehow. The volcanic dirt and rocks slide in between my slippers and my feet. They tickle terribly. I sweat, Anna sweats, David sweats and we make it to the top before the others. Jeremy is a close fourth and the fit Yoga girls are last. We give them a hard time about needing cardio during their retreat. They laugh it off. The heavy cooler got a ride up on my back, so we open it and talk and cajole and drink beers as we watch the sunset. The Yoga girls take pictures for everyone. We mocked them for it but now I am very glad they did.
It grows dark and we decide to head down, via the trail, Jeremy insists. So we do. We go to the infamous nude beach of Maui. Jeremy calls it the last free place on Earth. “But you will get a 50-year-old dick in your face.” He cautions. I’m not scared of penises so we trudge on to see, not the wrinkled members, but the idea that they can be shown without shame. We get there and the first thing that greets us is a man who is naked and very impressive. Women stop and talk to him like clock work.
I go to the ocean and let the waves clean my extensively dirt covered feet. The salt water cleans my scratches, it soothes my sore arches. David and Jeremy jump in the ocean and begin swimming. This is their home.
For a little Anna and I go and watch semi-nude fire dancers. There are drummers with beats and the crowd smells skunky and it is beautiful in the way only hippies can be. One of the Yoga girls must leave in order to attend a meeting of stretchable bodies and minds so we leave. Two people hold hands on our way back. The Island is magic if you let it be. I think they did.
We eat dinner at a cheesy Mexican place that calls its toilets “turlets.” It’s cute to someone, I’m sure. The food isn’t expensive and it fills us. I am exhausted.
We call it a night after dinner and head back to our respective beds. We promise to meet one more time before Anna and I leave in two days.
The next morning, after breakfast, I meet a woman I had met two nights ago when I was inebriated. She tells me that I had trouble putting my cigarette out. She tells me this with much amusement. Her name escapes me now, but she mistakes me for a local, and apologizes for the ruckus her adopted children make. Their maternal mother is addicted to meth and unfit to bear children. This woman, their adopted mother, feeds the homeless sometimes. The state asked her to take the children and when she got them they were feral. They are improved now but still unruly. They were born with chemical induced disabilities. She’s doing her best to raise them.
She’s from San Diego. She grew up in the poor ghetto, so she is tough. She wants to know how long I have lived here. I tell her I am on vacation. “Oh that’s why you were having such a good time.” She laughs. I tell her that it was a poor idea and that I paid for it the next morning. She tells me that “ice” is a problem on the Island. She sees it when she goes to feed the homeless. Sometimes she sees the Mother of the children when she feeds the homeless every Monday. It used to be hard to see the Mother at first. She said that when she first saw the woman she would be tempted to pull her around Kihei and to Lahaina by the hair.
Now she just feels sympathy for the Mother. And she makes the children say hello to her sometimes. The daughter hates her Mother and this shows. “Paradise is paradise. Until it isn’t.” She says.
We talk for two hours and I get an insight into the messiness that follows all humans. I tell her she is an angel. But really she isn’t. She is a warrior. Only the very brave, the very strong can do what she does. Her Humanism outshines mine. I am selfish. I give her my time because it is obvious that she needs sober, adult interaction.
Eventually her phone rings and I leave to find Anna and David. They say they were about to rescue me but decided not to. I tell them thank you.
We meet one more time at a fancy Italian place and drink again. A lesbian and I take turns checking out women until it is no longer in good taste. It is Anna’s turn to become a little drunk so I drive. We do all the things that people do when they are together. One more time, we head to Jeremy’s home. It is more muted this visit because there is work to be done the next morning. After a few beers we retire to David’s. It is our last night here. I give Jeremy a hug. He tells me that I must come back. Of course I must.
The next morning we are slow to pack. It is a tragedy to leave. David seems as forlorn as we are. He hugs us for a time before we leave. A girl who we met a few days ago also sees us off. She is beautiful like Maui. She hugs us too. Goodbye, my friends.
As we drive I say goodbye to everything I see. There is a sign that I bid farewell to, a man walking down the street, a bush, a flower, an Island. I look at Anna as she drives. She is sad but beautiful. How can she not be? Paradise makes us all beautiful. Even me, I think.
Storied By Josh 