Product Placement

“Everybody loves romance on a tropical beach under swaying palm trees, don't they?” 

It was my publisher on the phone. 

“You like to travel,” she added. “You were in Hawaii for a month last year, remember?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I like Hawaii. Who doesn’t?” 

“Exactly!” said my publisher. “Travel! Get it?”

She calls every week reminding me if I’m working to work harder and if I’m not working to get started. Then she reminds me that writing for her is the luckiest break I’ve ever had in my entire life.

Which is true to some extent. She’s a terrific publisher. Half my age but twice as smart.

“Huh?” I said.

(Which ain’t so hard to do, sometimes, be smarter than me.)

“Travel’d be perfect for you!” she went on. “Maybe that’s a subject your readers will enjoy… instead of your usual stuff about the animation business and how many cartoon rabbits you drew way back before computers were invented.” 

“Okay,” I answered, winching in silent pain at her accurate remarks. “Maybe a change will do me some good.”

“Right!” she agreed. “And would it kill you to work-in a little product placement this time? Travel offers us a chance to finally monetize this thing! Just think! Airlines, hotels, restaurants, automobiles. Vodka brands!”

I perked up.

“C’mon Rusty!” she said. “Vodka! Can’t you see the potential?!”

She’s very persuasive, my publisher. That’s probably one of the reasons she’s so successful. 

That, and her great white shark approach to life. With her as the shark, of course. I knew that whatever resistance I managed to put up today, I would be writing a travel blog tomorrow.

And trying to work-in something about General Motors or Apple Computers or Rolex wristwatches without looking like I’d sold out.

Because goddammit Bob Dylan! You wrote Mr. Tambourine Man, man! You gave us Blowin' in the Wind, and Foot of Pride and Mississippi and Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. And a hundred others, you magnificent bastard! But you broke my heart in 2013 during Super Bowl halftime when you tried to sell me a stinking motorcar!

“You’re a writer, aren’t you?” my publisher reminded me. 

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Well, write!”  

It was that easy, according to her. You just sat down and wrote it.

Just like Bob sat down and wrote Mr. Tambourine Man, I suppose.

“Try it, will ya?” she pleaded. “Travel. For me? Just one.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try.”

“Good! And don’t forget a Ferrari or something! Something cute!”

“Right. Sure. Bye!”

“In Paris maybe,” she added. “Or Bangkok. You know, somewhere nice.”

“Yeah. Well. We’ll see.” 

“In a ritzy hotel! With a casino and a spa and a big pool and …”

“Okay. Will do. Bye!”

“And for god’s sake, no swear words this time. Please?”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” 

“Travel is a family thing, Rusty. C’mon.”

“How about if I travel to some fantastic brothel in the fucking Arabian Casbah and report on the fellatio, anal, and ménage à trois technique of the local harlots?” I answered. “Would that be family friendly enough for you?”

“Please Rusty!” she said. “No fellatio!”

“Women, men, AND camels!” I added for good measure.

“Not again!” she exclaimed. “Please!”

“Well. Okay then,” I said, being agreeable in my magnanimity. “As long as we’ve got that straight.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “No camels, please! Thanks.” 

I laughed to myself to hear the relief in her voice.

(I was relieved too, for on a personal level camels are beasts of things.)

“Talk to you Tuesday,” said my publisher. “Please work on the travel thing. And Rusty, no brothels. Okay?”

“Okay. No brothels. Cross my heart.”

She couldn’t see me not crossing my heart, so what did it matter?

“Well,” I said. “Talk to you later. I’ll send in my expenses. Bye!”

“Your what?”

“Yeah. Great. Shouldn’t be much. Ferrari or two. Gotta go. Bye!”

“Your expenses? We don’t pay …”

“Got a plane to catch!” I interrupted. “First class all the way! I’ll call you from the Ritz! Bye!” 

“Hey! Rusty! You can’t …”

I hung up and started looking for my passport.

Buck and the Hawaiian Maiden

(Auckland, New Zealand, 1970)

Buck and I got stuck-in and cleaned up the offices. 

Me working, him supervising.

With the Auckland Northern Motorway extensions, our depot was growing and we were soon to have our own survey staff. The surveyors were due to start next week, so before that the offices would have to be cleaned up and painted. 

They’d lain unused for years, Buck said. 

I hauled out the junk while Buck rolled and smoked cigarette after cigarette, telling me which junk to put where and what to throw on the bonfire that was always burning in the yard out back by the mounds of gravel and road chip.

I had just been promoted from a laborer digging ditches with the work gangs to a ‘Chainman, Second Class,’ which is a sort of an assistant to the surveyors. 

It was still manual labor, only now, I was promised, with arithmetic.

That ought to make it fun, I thought.

I was sixteen-years-old when I’d started at the depot, where men were men and the work was rough. Buck had taken me under his wing and shown me the ropes. Now, almost a year later, he had become like a profane, kooky old uncle to me.

An uncle always ready with a tall tale. 

We stopped for a smoke and I asked him about a tattoo he had on his forearm. It was a sailor’s tattoo of a hula girl complete with grass skirt and suggestively out-thrust hip, coyly strumming a ukulele which barely hid her magnificent chest. I thought her charming, and a little sexy. The tattoo was faded now, and spotted by little scars and crusts as a man’s arm might accrue over time, but somehow it had not lost its allure. 

“Meet Aolani,” Buck said, glancing down at her. He clenched and unclenched his fist, making her shake and dance.

I settled myself down in anticipation of the coming story.

“I got that tattoo in Honolulu, lad. Before the war. Ever been to Hawaii, Rusty boy?” 

Before I could say yes I had (for the ship that had brought my family to New Zealand from California had docked there) he continued, “Too bad, mate, it’s a beautiful place and the girls are willing!”

Buck removed his glasses and while absentmindedly cleaning them squinted up into the bright summer sky. “I was a sailor on a tramp steamer out of Hong Kong, bound for Suva. Back in thirty-eight. 

“That’s nineteen thirty eight. Blast it all! I’m not that old!” 

I laughed with Buck. He was teased a lot at the depot about his age. Nobody knew how old he really was, but he was older than anyone else at the depot. He’d had an accident many years before that had left him somewhat crippled, so he didn’t go out with the work gangs, but remained behind at the depot making tea for smoko breaks and cleaning up around the place. ‘The tea boy,’ he called himself.

“Anyway,” he continued. “Six days out of Hong Kong, we was shipwrecked. A freak wave from nowhere caught us and over we went! She must’ve been ninety feet tall, that wave!

Buck described the shipwreck, with plenty of exciting details.

“Ever heard the saying about a captain going down with his ship, lad?”

“Sure.” I answered.

“Well, the bloody captain went down with his ship that day, but blast him, he bobbed right back up again!” Buck changed his tone, becoming more reflective. “He was a right bloody bastard, he was. Drunk all the time… We were the most overworked and underfed crew in the East!” 

Buck grimaced in disgust at the memory of the detested captain. 

I hope to god that no one ever grimaces about me like that.

That captain sounded like a real so-and-so, I said.

“Blast it all, lad, watch your blasted language!” replied Buck with a laugh. Buck was secretly delighted with my profanity. Between him and my father-in-law Mick, I was learning a new imprecation or blaspheming insult almost every day.

As the morning wore on, Buck regaled me with Hawaiian tales of love on the beaches and brawls in the bars, complete with grass skirts and the women of loose morals who wore them, a cast of crazy shipwrecked sailors and an older brother out to avenge his sister’s deflowering. 

Buck insisted that the girl in question was vastly experienced and certainly no virgin when he met her, “If she ever bleedin was one!” and painted the brother in extremely comical terms.

“Finally, him and his whole blasted family tracked me down and cornered me! They were going to throw me into a blasted volcano, lad, after first cutting off little Bucky, but I was too quick for ‘em and escaped to tell the tale!” 

I didn’t mind that Buck’s tales were mostly untrue, it was the telling of them I enjoyed.

“Yes mate!” affirmed Buck. “Those island girls had me going like a one-armed paperhanger in a hurricane!” 

After a moment he added, as if to himself;

“Ah, those beautiful brown-skinned island girls.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. My wife Ethne was part Maori, so I understood the allure of a beautiful brown-skinned island girl.

Ending his story, as all fairy tales must, with a moral, Buck finished by saying, “Cut us in half and what do you find, Rusty lad?” 

He paused for effect, then added; 

“We’re all pink inside, mate!”

With that, Buck hobbled off downstairs to start the tea brewing.

Sunsets and Turtles (Part 2)

   In Hawaii there was always a new beach to discover and more turtles to see.

   This pattern was broken only once while we were in Kona. That was the day we went by coach to the top of Mauna Kea, the tallest of the volcanoes that make up the Big Island. Don’t worry, it’s safe enough, it hasn’t erupted since 2460 BC, although how they would know that is a mystery to me. It’s close to 14,000 feet above sea level and giant astronomical observatories, a dozen of them, reside at the top. Private vehicles are not allowed up there because of light pollution caused by the headlights. That, and because the road is almost impassable (we were in a specially designed diesel bus that seated sixteen passengers). On our way up we stopped at the tiny Visitor Information Station (called The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy, a name bigger than the place itself). At the station we ate a boxed dinner and watched a score of amateur astronomers begin setting up their telescopes.   

   After this modest dinner we continued on our way, reaching the summit just before sunset. The sky was aflame with rich reds and purples. We were so high up there was no sense of land, just you and the sky, with the clouds way below. At 13,796 feet (you see, I check my figures, sometimes) you are affected by the lack of oxygen. Both Saucy Boy and I were exhausted merely from the short effort of walking up a gentle rise to the lookout. After filling my eyes with the sunset, I turned around to look away from the setting sun. Behind me, clearly defined on the cloud-cover below was the giant, pyramidal shadow of the very volcano I was standing upon. It sloped from horizon to horizon, entirely filling my field of vision. For a moment I felt the reality of the earth as a rotating sphere under my feet, my mind briefly comprehending the cosmic state of things, suspended as I was between sun and shadow. 

   Saucy Boy had an uncomfortable moment, feeling dizzy and short of breath. 

   “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

   “You look good baby,” I replied. “Good enough to eat!”

   “You! Don’t you think of anything else?”

   “Nope,” I answered.

   Saucy Boy had altitude sickness. She was panting and a little panicky, so I pulled a funny face and took her picture, then handed her the camera so she could take mine and we laughed it off.

   She’s game for anything, Saucy Boy. I like that about her. 

   We watched the sunset until darkness enclosed us and the stars came out. Millions of them.

   On our way down we met another bus and stopped for some thermos coffee and stargazing. With nightfall it had gotten quite cold, so we were issued fleecy jackets. Everyone had a chance to look through a couple of 12-inch telescopes the drivers had set up. Saucy Boy enjoyed that, she’s very curious about things, and how often do you see the moons of Jupiter? 

   It’s a long drive back to Kona from the top of Mauna Kea and I fell asleep during the trip, warm at last, snuggling under a blanket with my wife.

   The next day was our last full day on the island. No more blankets for us, it was back to the beach. We returned to a favorite, Kahaluu Beach, and got our usual spot. Funny, it doesn’t take long to become familiar with a place, does it? Just a few days before, I’d seen it for the first time. Now I was right at home and even nodded to some locals who seemed to recognize me. I was dressed as usual for the beach, in dark glasses, flip-flops and Speedo, wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt with a towel over my shoulder. Of course, it makes you conspicuous if you are with a pretty girl, and Saucy Boy is all that. She stood in Spanish sandals, her brown, shapely legs and arms exposed by a short, gaily colored chiffon wrap over her bikini. The sun gilded her short blonde hair, while her dazzling smile was set off with a touch of lipstick. Most likely we were a memorable couple, visually speaking. A sort of Beauty and the Beast. 

   I’ll let you guess which is which.

   We enjoyed another wonderful day at the seaside, swimming and sunning and laughing.

   That night we made love, our sunburned skin warm and tingling.

   The next day, as the airplane lifted into the sky to take us home I looked out the window and fell to musing. It’s sad to leave a place you’ve come to know and love. How wonderful that Hawaii, with its Aloha spirit, its gentle climate and tremendous natural beauty, had lived up to my romantic ideal of paradise.

   Had this vacation changed my life, I wondered? 

   After all, anything can change a life that’s ready to be changed. 

   Not really, but I wasn’t looking to change my life, just enjoy it in a new location for a little while and make some pleasant memories. One mustn’t entertain too grand an expectation of things in this world, that can only lead to disappointment. 

   But you still have to dream. 

   That’s one of the contradictions of being human.  

Midnight Garden Supply

   There’s a freeze warning on for tonight. 

   I live in central Florida, so a freeze warning is not unheard of. It usually happens once or twice a year, but last year we didn’t have any. I put that down to global warming, as I do most things, but I could be wrong. It’s supposed to drop to thirty degrees Fahrenheit tonight, which may not sound cold if you’re from Boston or Chicago, but it’s cold to a Floridian. So my wife is concerned for the Areca palm in our backyard. It’s a tropical palm, and could be damaged from the cold.

   She’s already covered every plant in the yard that has any kind of sentimental value to her, whether they were cold-sensitive or not. These include specimens transplanted from her childhood home in Alabama (where they’d survived uncovered for decades in colder temperatures than we ever saw), plants taken from every botanical garden we’d ever visited from Miami, Florida to Victoria, British Colombia (she’d take a cutting or pull up a choice specimen while I nervously kept a lookout, acting casually by whistling a tune with my hands in my pockets) and even plants taken from our trips overseas, including Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, France, etc. How she was never caught smuggling them back into the country, I couldn’t say.

   It was something I found impossible to understand, her compulsion to steal plants. For that’s what I thought it was, stealing, and of course she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more understanding.

   “You smoke dope, don’t you?” she asked sarcastically. “That’s illegal, isn’t it?”

   “Yeah,” I answered. “But I don’t dig it up from my dealer’s front yard, do I? Besides, it’s not whether it’s illegal or not, it’s the morality of it.”

   “You read too many books!” she snarled. That was her answer for everything. Like I was a fool for reading books in my attempt to wise up and not be a fool.

   “Why don’t you just buy them?” I asked her. “Why steal them?”

   “It’s only a plant,” she answered. “I’m not hurting anyone. Nobody will miss it.”

   “What if everybody did it?” I replied. “There’d be no plants left.” I looked around the botanical garden she was pilfering from and gestured, adding, “This beautiful garden we’re standing in would be reduced to rubble.”

   “Oh, you’re being silly.”

   “How would you like it if someone took one of your plants?”

   “It’s not the same thing!” she insisted. 

   “What about the golden rule?”

   She had no answer for that, not believing herself bound by anyone else’s rules, golden or not, but I knew what she’d do if she caught someone digging up a plant from her yard. She’d kill them! Then she’d hang the mutilated body in a prominent place as a warning to others. Her yard and garden, unlike everyone else’s, were sacrosanct. You should have heard her tell off a neighbor who had dared to let his dog do some business on her grass! (The grass which I tend and mow, by the way.) After discovering some droppings, she’d got down on her knees, inspecting and counting them, noting how many times some dirty rotten so-and-so had allowed his mutt to despoil her property. 

  “I know who it is!” she told me. “It’s the fat guy with the big Alsatian.” 

   “Are you sure?” I teased. “Maybe it’s the old lady with the Dachshund. Or the kid with the Yorkshire terrier.”

   “Don’t be an ass,” she accused me. “No Dachshund poops that big!”

   She was scientific about it, I’ll give her that.

   Then she’d lain in wait, getting up early to peep through the curtains at any passersby, hoping to catch them in the act.

  “There he is!” said called one morning a week later. “See! I told you!”

   “Where?” said I, sipping my tea. It was early in the morning. She pointed through the window. It wasn’t the guy with the Alsatian or the kid with the Yorkie, but our new neighbor, a thin, quiet young man with a Dalmatian on the end of a leash. Sure enough, about two feet from the sidewalk on the grass of our front yard was the Dalmatian, hunched over and straining, crapping it’s heart out.

   Why do they name dogs after regions, I wonder?

   Boy, did she tear him a new one! Our new neighbor I mean, not the Dalmatian. She rushed out in her housecoat and slippers and scared him half to death. I stayed inside, too embarrassed to show my face, peeping through the curtains and drinking my tea. 

   Afterwards the neighbor slunk away, turning back occasionally with a quizzical look. His dog apparently couldn’t have cared less, and trotted merrily along at his side. 

   “See! I told you!” said told me when she returned. She was proud of herself to have caught him, and happy to have the chance to give someone (other than me) a piece of her mind. 

  

   As I mentioned earlier, it’s going to be cold tonight. 

   So she wants to cover the Areca palm. It’s a big, clumping palm with many trunks, and impossible to cover with just a sheet.

   “I know you don’t want to help me,” she said. She’s always telling me what I am or am not, or what I’m thinking or feeling. But she doesn’t know. We’ve been married fifteen years, and I believe she knows less about me now than when we began.

  “What?” I answered. “Didn’t I come out here and ask if you needed any help?” That was true. From my office window I’d seen her struggling with it by herself, and had come out to help. “You certainly didn’t ask for help, did you? No, you’re too proud for that.” She really is proud. And stubborn, too. 

  “I know you don’t want to help me,” she’d said. This was after an hour of us pulling and lifting and climbing and cursing, without result. She had no plan as to how the palm might be covered, and so we had had no success. As my old boss at EMI Records in South Africa used to say; “To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.” He was full of sayings like that. But that’s another story. 

   Regarding the Areca palm, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. My wife hates being told anything, even if you’re trying to be helpful.

   The only note of levity all afternoon was when I fell off the ladder and knocked over a bird feeder. 

   You should have seen her rush to see if the bird feeder was alright!

Twenty to a Pack

   From Orlando to Honolulu via Los Angeles is a long way. 

   By the time we’d sorted ourselves out at the airport we didn't arrive at our Waikiki hotel until 11PM. We were kindly received and shown to our room. Saucy Boy (a nickname for my wife) quickly unpacked and put away her things. 

   “I don’t like people touching my things,” she said as she unpacked.

   “That’s not what you said last night!” I boasted. 

   “You!” she laughed. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?”

   “Nope!”

   Believe me, with Saucy Boy, it’s difficult not to. 

   “Good!” she answered, and we embraced.

   Then she made us gin and tonics. Within minutes Saucy Boy can work miracles in any kitchen. And a good gin and tonic is a miracle of sorts, don’t you think? Her eyes sparkled as she handed me the drink. She loves to travel. It’s when she’s happiest. 

   With our stuff put away and drinks in our hands, we felt at home on our travels.

   Ah, those gins hit the spot and eased out some of the kinks! 

   We stepped through the sliding door. The night was warm. I bumped my head against a tree limb that overhung the patio, and we laughed. We sat in chairs beside the pool and spoke of things we hadn’t spoken of in a long time. After awhile we dropped into a comfortable silence, both of us staring into the shimmering black water of the hotel swimming pool. 

   It was well after 2am. They had turned off the pool lights hours ago. I lifted my tired eyes from the water. 

   “I need some sleep,” I said. 

   Saucy Boy did too. Her sparkling eyes had dimmed and were slowly closing.

   “C’mon,” she said. 

   We returned to our room, undressed and fell into bed.

  “KA-TWANG!” 

   “What the…?” I asked.

   “Ice-maker,” explained Saucy Boy.

   “KA-BOING!” The ice-making machine next to our room was making ice. “KA-THUMP!” it groaned. I lay awake and listened to it. Where does all that ice go, I wondered? “KA-TWANG!” it croaked. Saucy Boy had closed her eyes and looked to be asleep. What had they done to cool their libations in times before ice machines, I wondered? “KA-BOOM!” it crashed. Saucy Boy didn’t move. Once she was asleep she could sleep through anything. “KA-PHOOEY!” it sputtered. What is it about some machinery that it must be loud to get the job done?

   Ha! Ha! We humans are often guilty of that. 

   “KA-THUMP!” it coughed. It continued to rattle and sputter and crash through the night.

   Somehow, I fell asleep…

   I was awake before daylight thinking about breakfast.

   But before food, a smoke. 

   You cannot smoke within and around buildings in Hawaii, so I got up and threw on some clothes and went out. Saucy Boy was asleep so I left her in bed. The ice machine was silent, so I left it there too. Within a few minutes I was puffing contentedly along as I ambled toward the all-night Denny’s. 

   A pair of drunken young men lurched up from the opposite direction. 

   “Got a spare smoke?” asked one. 

   I was startled and without thinking I answered “No.” Which was pretty stupid considering I was smoking at the time. My answer also surprised me. Why had I refused?

   Why is it so difficult to be a kind person all the time, or even most of the time, or even more than barely some of the time? 

   “There’s twenty to a pack, asshole!” said his friend. He was very intoxicated and slurred out his words with a grand gesture more to the street and the towering hotels all around us, rather than at me, the actual asshole.

   How bitter this retort rang in my ears! 

   “Hey guys,” I answered. “Hold on a minute.”

   We stood together and shared a smoke. Extracting one for later, I handed over the packet, telling them to keep it.

   “Mahalo plenty, man,” they said as they walked on. 

   Mahalo means thank you in Hawaiian.

   “Sure,” I answered. “Aloha!” 

   They waved and turned back on their way. 

   I watched them go with a smile on my face. Phew, I thought, that was a close one! I had almost been that worst of bastards, a cheapskate bastard. Funny how life throws up these cosmic moments. You’re walking down the street minding your own business when suddenly wham! 

   Hey You! To be or not to be! Are you a decent human being capable of sharing, or are you something else? Time to choose! 

   “Show us what you’re made of!” demand the gods, and they lean in, ready for a laugh.

   For a moment my soul balanced on the edge.

   Then the wise man said, “There’s twenty to a pack, asshole!”

   Bringing me back to my senses.

   That day Saucy Boy and I sunbathed on the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian. That’s a hotel, not a person, by the way. The ocean was warm and clean. We splashed and played in the surf. Later, we ambled up the beach and stopped for a beer to cool off. On the ground by some giant bamboo I found a small, overturned bird’s nest and gave it to Saucy Boy. 

   (She brought it home carefully wrapped in her luggage and has it to this day.) 

   At sunset, sitting together under a Banyan tree with a wonderful view of Diamond Head, we sipped $15 Mai-Tais and watched the waves rolling in. It was very romantic, but we couldn't drink long at those prices, so we left to walk the beach hand in hand. 

   As darkness fell we were on the beach, watching Venus rise out of the crashing ocean. A sliver of moon hung in the sky over our shoulders.

  Later we swam in the hotel pool together. Petals fell in graceful arcs from the nearby plumeria trees. Some of the petals landed in the water. One of them stuck to Saucy Boy’s shoulder, perfect and pink against her smooth brown skin.

   After swimming we went to our room. 

   There we kissed and made love. 

   Soon afterwards we fell asleep, not hearing a sound from our mechanical ice-making neighbor, as if it understood that tonight, right next door, the night was young and the stars were old. 

   Shhhh, nighty-night, little tourists.