The Ohana Part 30

Susan went to her first and only Diamond Head Crater festival with her girlfriend Cynthia and Cynthia's new boyfriend, Tommy. A naked, pregnant woman writhed to the music of Sonny and Cher's catchy hit song, "The Beat Goes On". Acid freaks flipped out; people rushed to restrain them. Love beads, puka sh.e.l.ls, and long hair flowed above Indian bedspread dresses. Smoothies, organic vegetarian fare, and nothing else were for sale in makeshift booths. Pakalolo filled the air.

Finding an open spot near the stage, the trio dropped down in the gra.s.s. Cynthia began making out with Tommy. All around Susan, people were hugging and kissing each other. Love was in the air, but Susan felt like an alien.

Suddenly she spied Cynthia's ex-husband, Craig, plowing through the crowd, heading toward them. She nudged Cynthia and pointed.

Cynthia shot up, saw her ex, and tried to pull Tommy up by his hand. "It's my ex, run."

Tommy remained sitting. "Easy. We'll just talk to him. Calm him down."

Craig raised his arm. Silver metal glinted from his hand.

"He's got a gun. You talk to him." Cynthia shouted and sprinted away.

Tommy and Susan weren't staying around to find out whether or not Craig really had a gun. They took off in opposite directions. So much for the love generation; even pot couldn't mellow out a jealous ex.

Susan's last year at college was an orgy of pakalolo. She and her friends smoked dope in the HIC arena where famous rock stars jammed. They smoked on the beach. n.o.body cared, not even the cops.

Once she got caught in a sudden cloud burst over Nuuanu on the way to a party in Kailua. Her guy friend forgot the top of his banged up MG back home and the rain made puddles on the floor of the car. Stoned out of their minds, they laughed and waved at the people staring at them at the stoplights. Before driving off, one young couple gave them the 'way to go' shaka sign, their thumb and little finger sticking up with the rest of their fingers curled into their palms.

They arrived soaking wet at their party in Kailua. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Boxes of Chinese food, plate lunches, and bakery goods were strewn on the floor in the middle of a circle of people smoking pot, drinking, and eating.

When a girl in their crowd, Marianne, walked in with a cop in uniform, silence greeted them. Her friends tried to hide the weed.

"Hey, don't worry, Norm's cool." Marianne and Norm flopped down next to Susan. The cop picked up a roach in an ashtray and sucked on it. Within minutes, everything was back to normal.

Later, a beautiful groupie named Tina dropped by with a well-known rock star who had a concert at the HIC Arena. The cop shook his hand. It was a party to remember.

Susan tried mescaline for the first time on her graduation night. The rush was unbelievable. She mellowed the high out with cheap wine and gra.s.s. Suddenly, she found herself giggling uncontrollably as she sprawled on a cushion in the corner of a dark, empty living room.

A tall blonde stood over her. His faint Southern drawl floated down to her. "Can I get you a wine cooler?"

"No thanks," Susan said as she sat up. "You never know if the punchbowl is spiked with acid.

"In that case ..." He pulled out a joint and lit it. "What about some Kona gold?" He eased himself down next to her.

He was bearded, rather good-looking, and haole. With perverse satisfaction, she thought of how p.i.s.sed her dad would be. Not that she cared what he thought. She fumbled with the joint before putting it to her mouth then took in deep hits. Although the harsh weed burned her throat, she held the smoke in, coughing as she pa.s.sed the joint back to him.

She exhaled. "I'm Susan."

"Andy." He took a big hit and held his breath. He tried to pa.s.s it to her but she declined. She was too loaded already.

"Where are you from?"

"I grew up in Alabama," he smiled and she noticed a gap between his top front teeth.

Susan barely paid attention as Andy rattled on about Alabama. She only cared about getting loaded to smoke out thoughts of Jimmy, Steve, and her meaningless existence.

"My best friend is dead and my other best friend might as well be," Susan said as she buried her face in her knees before turning her face to the side to look at him. "Jim Morrison's dead, Janis Joplin's dead, and so is Jimi Hendrix. I saw Jimi at HIC just before he died. He was so high, he almost fell over his guitar." Dabbing at her tears, she asked. "What do you do?"

"I'm a bartender," he replied.

"So did you graduate in Travel Industry Management?" Susan leaned back on her elbows.

"Marketing. And you?"

"Psychology. Doesn't matter, all my college friends are stewardesses, waitresses, bellhops, or bartenders." Susan stared at the dis...o...b..ll hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room throwing off fragments of light.

"I only stayed in college to stay out of 'Nam."

"You and every other guy in this room. What happened?"

"This is my 4F deferment, my ticket to safety." Andy showed her two disfigured fingers on his right hand. "I messed up my hand in a motorcycle accident."

"It's messed up all right," she sucked on the joint again. "Well it's better than drinking a bottle of soy sauce, dropping acid, or pretending to be gay."

"What?"

"The soy sauce hikes up your blood pressure. The rest speaks for itself."

"Maybe you can tell me more about it," he said. "I live near here."

Susan checked him out. He was kind of s.e.xy in his embroidered muslin shirt and blue jeans. He wore a puka sh.e.l.l necklace around his neck and a blue kerchief was tied around his blonde hair, Indian style. He looked good to her.

"I need to tell my ride I'm leaving," she replied.

"Have you ever been on a waterbed?" he asked.

Susan's heart raced. She couldn't believe she was doing something so bad. "No," she answered. "But I'd like to try."

Much later, Susan wondered where everyone was going at 4:30 on a Sat.u.r.day morning. From outside the studio window came the sound of cars roaring down the highway. Occasionally a truck or a motorcycle went by. It was too early for heavy traffic. A dog barked.

Susan rolled off the waterbed slowly so as not to rouse Andy. She found a beanbag chair and snuggled in, her knees tucked under her chin.

Daylight crept into the room, giving it a sad and tawdry look. Wooden planks were placed on cinder blocks for tables. A silent stereo's green power light blinked. Dozens of alb.u.ms were strewn nearby. Cushions lay on the matted, s.h.a.g carpet. The psychedelic posters tacked on the walls reflected images of bad acid trips. Bare bulbs of blue, red, and green hung from the ceiling. Ashtrays, matches, rolling paper, roach clips, rolled up match covers, and homemade water pipes were strewn around the floor and on top a dirty, makeshift plywood board coffee table. A sleazy zodiac poster with various s.e.x positions had been sh.e.l.lacked onto the tabletop.

Last night she was stoned out of her mind. This morning, she felt horrible. Her surroundings disgusted her. Still, she wasn't going to make excuses for her behavior. She wanted to get laid and did. Her pick-up lover made Jimmy look like a fumbling schoolboy.

The very thought of Jimmy made her feel instantly disloyal. This hippie was the only other man she had ever been with in bed. What a stupid mistake.

She vaguely remembered crying while they got it on. He was so wrapped up in his own pleasure he didn't notice.

Her eyes darted around the room and came to rest on a poster with the street sign, Haight Ashbury, dominating the picture.

"What a b.u.mmer," her friend Donna said of the famous street corner in San Francisco, "just a bunch of pathetic panhandlers and runaways. Some of them living on the streets."

Meanwhile, the war machine kept cranking and her generation became increasingly more disillusioned and disgusted with lying politicians.

People used to be proud to be an American. JFK stirred up national patriotism when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." The Peace Corps started. America was respected.

She wondered what happened.

The Third World Liberation Front she once thought she wanted to be a part of advocated seceding from the union.

"There's too many haoles moving into Hawaii," one of the leaders p.r.o.nounced.

"Yeah," a radical local girl Susan knew spat out. "Big mainland corporations are buying out local companies and replacing management with mainlanders. We're losing our islands to mainland haoles."

"Where are you going?" a sleepy drawl cut into her reverie.

"Home," Susan said.

Andy rose up on one elbow. "Man, it's still dark out there. Stay for breakfast."

"No."

"How can I get a hold of you?"

"You can't."

"Why not?" He sat up.

A lone tear trickled down Susan's face. She thought of what Th.o.r.eau said. "Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song still in them." She was tired of living her life that way. She hated her life and what she had become. Being a stoned-out hippie and sleeping with strangers in a frenzy of free love wasn't who she was.

She wanted a slice of American pie. She wanted a man who loved her more than anyone else-a house, two cars in the family, and kids. She yearned for a boring, capitalistic life. This hippie existence was not for her. Suddenly, all her angst and disgust over her lifestyle erupted and she spat out, "Just because I balled you doesn't mean I want to see you again."

She grabbed her purse and went out the door. She felt like the morning trash left outside on the curb for the garbage men to take away. Even so, she knew there was a song still in her waiting to be sung. And if it took her to the end of her days, she would sing it.

Chapter Forty-two.

Honolulu: 1972 Jackie Han Myers was blessed with a rich husband who adored her. They lived on the slopes of Diamond Head in a magnificent home that commanded spectacular views of Waikiki, Kapiolani Park, and the Pacific Ocean. Although their home didn't qualify as one of the mansions of Noela Drive, it was suitably chic and sprawled over almost an acre.

Both her children attended elitist Punahou School. She shopped at the Crest Room, had a condo in Aspen, and lunched at the Outrigger Canoe Club. She knew many society women thought she was a sn.o.b. But the truth was she was afraid they would discover she was nothing but a fatherless b.a.s.t.a.r.d from blue-collar Kaimuki. She wondered if they knew and gossiped about her past as a centerfold. Her aloofness hid her insecurities.

Jackie confided in her mother-in-law, Meg, who took Jackie under her wing despite her past. She envied the ease in which Meg moved through society. But then, Meg had a clear advantage. She was from one of the most important families in Hawaii. When she was with the kamaaina elite, Jackie felt like a party crasher.

Meg was bathed in mystery. Jackie wondered if it was true she used to be a half-mad recluse. All Meg told her was when her depression hit rock bottom, she started going to church and met Danny. Seven years younger than Meg, he came with a package. Before his sister died, he promised to take care of her children. Gerry, Jackie's husband, was only ten-years old when he got not only a new father, but a new mother.

"Did you ever want children?" Jackie asked while brunching with Meg on the lanai of the gracious and beautiful Halekulani Hotel on Waikiki beach. The sea wall in front of them provided the most fascinating people watching in town. An obese bottle-blond woman strutted by in a tiny bikini. Jackie wondered if the woman knew how ridiculous she looked.

Meg's eyes misted over. "Of course."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Things happen the way they're supposed to."

Jackie broke off a piece of popover. "I don't believe that. I believe we're the captains of our fate."

"What about G.o.d and destiny?" Meg asked.

"People make their own destiny," Jackie replied.

"So you don't think G.o.d is in control of our lives?" Meg sipped her coffee.

"No," Jackie said.

The waitress came by and Jackie ordered a Mimosa. She knew she was drinking too much. Her days began and ended with a drink. She should have been happy, after all, she had chosen this lifestyle herself.

Instead, Jackie's life was an elegant disappointment crowded with shopping, ladies luncheons, facials, manicures, bi-weekly visits to hair salons, more shopping, and a very busy social calendar. Somehow, she managed to squeeze her children into her busy schedule, but wasn't as involved in their lives the way her mother had been.

She realized how amazing her mother had been when rearing her children. How did she balance a full-time job and still have the time to be involved and available to her children? Her mother had no household help. Realizing how much she had taken advantage of her mother in the past made her feel guilty. Jackie had done as little as possible to help her at home. She never gave a thought as to whether or not her mother was happy or tired, for that matter.

Jackie was miserable. Though grateful to her husband whom she kind of sort of loved, she didn't feel the way she felt with Stefano.

Jackie never stopped thinking of Stefano. True, he had been narcissistic, selfish, and arrogant. But he was also unpredictable, spontaneous, exciting, and magnificent in bed. Just thinking of Stefano aroused her. Would she die without ever feeling pa.s.sion again? The thought of living without it saddened her. Her body and soul longed for the excitement Stefano had brought into her life. Maybe it wasn't undying love, but she loved him and everything he represented. To make matters worse, she l.u.s.ted after him.

She drank because when she did, she no longer cared that her body had been dead for years. She wanted to wake-up every morning antic.i.p.ating the day instead of drinking away the dull ache inside of her.

When the Mimosa was placed on a lace paper doily in front of her, Jackie raised her gla.s.s. "Here's to being mistress of our own universe."

Chapter Forty-three.

Honolulu 1972 Susan's hand paused in mid-air, inches from the ma.s.sive door in front of her. She turned to Miss Ching, Sean Duffy's executive secretary.

Miss Ching smiled. "It's okay, he knows you're here."

She knocked.

A commanding voice boomed, "Come in."

Susan stepped through the doors. Sean Duffy sat behind an enormous desk. The huge paned windows behind him framed the fronds of tall palm trees outside. His smile dazzled her.

Susan thought it strange Steve's dad was everything Steve and many of their generation professed to despise. Steve used to mockingly call his father a capitalist in pursuit of the great American dollar.