The Morning Baggage:
I go to bed at a decent time. It’s a little after ten, I know I’ll have enough rest, and I’ll meet Randy at Dunkin’ Donuts on time.
I wake up lying in my bed, it’s still dark out, and I tell myself to look at my watch to see what time it is. I don’t know how, but it seems like all I do is blink, and now there’s full blown light entering my room. Motherfucker! It’s 0650, my body’s not doing the natural alarm thing as expected.
After getting all my shit together, I go to the gas station first. Instead of making the right turn where I’ve been missing my brother’s directions, I make a left, and another left. Fuckin’ A, I find the shortcut; it’s a small moment of triumph. Traffic is light since it’s Sunday morning, and I’m dumping my throttle the whole way to Dunkin’ Donuts. I slow down, take a look, and Randy’s bike’s not there. On to Balangan. I know I keep on saying it, but each day I feel more and more confident on the moped, and I’m taking more risks. Instead of hesitating, I’m gassing it in the opposite lane and passing cars, just moments before vehicles pass me head-on. It’s kind of unnecessary, maybe even a little stupid, but riding a motorbike here has been an experience itself with its own forms of progression.
Randy’s sitting at Froggy’s. He says he had a late start as well, and that he’s only been there for fifteen minutes. It’s a beautiful day. There’s no wind, and the sun shines down on us where we’re sitting. From there we have a serious talk to start the morning. We talk about what’s going on in his life right now, and I get my reasons for leaving his home out in the open. It all leads to us discussing the shortcomings of our personalities. I don’t want to speak on Randy’s behalf because . . . well, this is kind of personal, so in respect, I’ll just speak from my experience alone.
Living on Maui with my grandparents, I had an uncle that assumed we were trying to “de-throne” him. He was always over protective of our grandparents, thinking that we were trying to take advantage of them. I only had to deal with it for four years, but Randy was under his influence since age five. My uncle was controlling, and I lived life walking on eggshells every time he was around. Home life during high school was never stable. It’s either I was on his good side, or I was being scolded about something. I came home to notes on my door with threats about being kicked out because I’m not helping around the house, or I’d come upstairs for dinner with a cold piece of chicken waiting for me on my dinner plate, and then the ridiculing began as I ate.
I was never physically abused; the damage was all psychological. I’m struggling to find the words with how controlling he was. I was being policed all the time for all my actions. His ideal nephew would be one who didn’t have a life outside of helping my grandfather with the cattle, all day on the weekends, and every day after school. On top of that, I was to clean the fucking house, a six bedroom house every weekend all by myself, and that’s not including all the yard work outside of our house and empty lot next door. I remember he put his hand under the cushion of the couch one day. When he pulled out his hand, it was dusty. He asked me if I was cleaning. I said yes. Then he said, “You’re cleaning is like shit!” I was in ninth grade.
Naturally, I didn’t want to be home. My escapes were school, cruising on Front St., hanging out with a bad crowd, experimenting with drugs, drinking at the beach at night, and just doing the wrong things. If I wasn’t around, he’d get pissed, but it was all because of him, so it was a vicious cycle.
I was finally kicked out during my senior year, or should I say that I came home on a late morning to find another one of his motivational and inspiring notes on my door, telling me to get the fuck out of the house after I graduate. That was the routine . . . wait for him to come home and get the verbal version of the note. I left, my aunt Elsie and my uncle Tim took me in; I’ll always love them for that.
I have personal issues, and I’ve known it for the longest time. I’m a control freak, and sometimes I hurt the ones I love with this part of my personality. Everything has to be done a certain way, I’m always thinking ten steps ahead, ready to correct something that hasn’t even gone wrong yet. Only recently have I finally realized that, as much as I hate my uncle, I’ve become like him. I guess sometimes, against our wills, we become the things that oppress us.
Also, I had the world’s greatest grandparents. My grandfather raised cattle even before I was born, and Randy and I were always his little helpers. As young men, we were his grown helpers. All of my best memories of him, lessons of life, fatherly influences, they all took place on those days after school, and on the weekends. He had seven different pastures. We’d drive past Honolua Bay on a daily basis to give feed, fix fence, fix a water line, maintain the corral, or to just check on the cows. I can see my grandfather now. The rich, orange, Maui soil coats his jeans and flannel. We’re crouched at the side of his work truck for shade. He takes off his blue construction helmet and tells me to take a break. We sit on the grass, and he hands me his red Coleman thermos for a drink before taking a drink for himself. He lectures me on the importance of breaks and not doing everything at once. “Little by little,” he says. We finish our work and drive back to Napili. The truck shakes, the bottomless pit of tools in the cab rattles the whole drive, and the sun’s low over Kapalua as we take the lower road home.
My grandfather passed away from cancer after I moved back to Los Angeles with my mom. My uncle pushed me away from home, reducing the time I had with my grandfather. Those days with him were limited, I didn’t now, and I’ll never get them back. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him; his memory still makes my eyes water.
All that being said, Randy and I talked about forgiveness, and maybe I need to have the official man-to-man talk with him in order to get some kind of closure. I haven’t talked to him since my grandma‘s funeral, and he probably doesn’t feel like he’s done anything wrong, but I’m carrying the baggage anyway. I’ve been trying to change, it’s not easy, but maybe making my resentments known to him can at least help me move on.
Peanut Butter Jelly Time:
It’s a morning filled with our own stories from years ago. Ghosts are resurrected and summoned, and old memories I’ve stashed away are relived. It’s a deep morning, too deep, so we get ready for a good surf to capitalize on removing the morning weight. I decide to bareback it to get some sun on my skin.
I’ve said this before, but once again, it’s even smaller than the last time I said, “It’s the smallest day I’ve seen at Balangan yet.” The high tide has the smaller waves breaking closer to shore. The bigger sets are closing out, so we decide to catch the smaller ones which actually have shape.
Mostly everyone is at the top of the wave, so we have the inside to ourselves. To our surprise, we’re catching fun little two foot rides (Randy scale). No, not throaty, vertical drops but shoulders to turn on for a change. It’s a playful morning. I mess around, walk the nose longboard style to keep momentum, and even do a couple failed catwalk spins on my board.
Way out on the ocean, there are a couple boats. There are a couple plastic bottles in the distance. It’s a shame to have such a beautiful place with random trash floating around, I think to myself. I finish catching a wave and paddle back out. I see a plastic bottle, some wrappers, trash, and then trails of an oily brown substance floating about. I paddle further and realize that a swarm of jellyfish are feeding on the trash. Immediately, I’m stung in different places simultaneously: my arms, my leg, my bicep.
I yell, “Fuck, motherfucker! . . . Shiiiiit!” I’m trying to pull the tentacles out and escape, but everywhere I turn, I see more jellies. Without my rashguard I’m defenseless, which makes their presence more sinister. Those once harmless little bastards that I’d splash away are now unleashing their fury on me. It’s unavoidable. They’re right there; I’m getting stung. Fuckin’ boats. Those assholes dumped out their trash and sewage line; we’re in the middle of a trash and shit pool. The brown water looks like dissipating peanut butter, there are trails of it everywhere, and they’re connected. Randy’s stung, and everyone near us starts flailing their arms. In unison, everyone catches a wave in.
Back at Froggy’s I shower off and think about all the nasty, invisible bacteria that’s coating my body. Randy and I look over our wounds, and the stings are starting to puff up.
It’s a short sesh stopped short, right in the middle of having fun. We’re unfulfilled, so we sit and wait for another.
