Gallivanting on Guam
A Microcosm of Life in Micronesia
By Dave Slagle
Copyright 2011 Dave Slagle,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0308-3
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is dedicated to my big brother, Jay who helped me when nobody else could.
Gallivanting:
–verb
Wander about from one place to another in pursuit of pleasure.
Guam:
–noun
A United States territory located somewhere in the western equatorial pacific . . . .
The story that you are about to read is loosely based upon my real life experience gallivanting on Guam. I have changed the names of people and certain places for their protection and my own.
Chapter 1. Lost in Paradise
This afternoon finds me alone, sitting at Duke’s Barefoot Beach Bar Waikiki, pondering my future over iced coffee. Rotating the straw clockwise with the force of Coriolis, ice cubes and mocha latte swirl dervishely inside my glass. Bored and preoccupied with random thought all the while, staring out at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Through polarized Ray Ban vision I see glimmering sunlight reflecting off wave after perfect wave as another afternoon passes by paradise. To avoid everyone I know I have vanquished myself to a place where I am surrounded by tourists slathered in SPF 45 or coconut scented Maui Bronzing oil. I am surrounded by tourists who will always order exotically named tropical drinks, the variety adorned with a slice of pineapple and a mini paper umbrella. Unbeknownst to them, they are participating in the ritual of being lost in paradise. They are lost because they don’t know the geography of the island, the local dialects, the history and circumstances that comprise island culture. Lost because they thought it would be the same as back home, only on an island. Lost because they expect Hawaii to be as it appears in movies and TV shows. Lost because they expect to see sugarcane, rainforests and grass huts but found themselves stuck in the tourist mire of Waikiki or lost in downtown Honolulu, a modern American city. Every week brings another round of tourists ordering another round of drinks, engaging in another round of sterilized ancient traditions and shopping for Hawaiian souvenirs at the International Marketplace or any of the forty four ABC stores in Waikiki. Every week another round of tourists immersing into alcohol fueled pseudo-cultural activities to celebrate the island experience. Here in paradise, another week passes and another round of tourists is lost in the vortex of vacation.
Crossing into my line of vision I see Rabbit Kekai in the distance, leading a group of students as they paddle out for a surf lesson. Rabbit is one of the original Waikiki Beach Boys and a living legend. Taking lessons from Rabbit Kekai is a privilege that most tourists don’t appreciate. For most tourists the surf is safest in Waikiki and to be able to say that you surf’d Hawaii is some kind of major status back home, especially in the mainland USA. But the real surfers, the true believers can only be found at local surf spots like Point Panic, Makaha, Sunset Beach or the famous Banzai Pipeline off Ehukai Beach. I take out a pen and write on a cocktail napkin; “5/3/01 I have been pondering winter weather as it transcends into spring, considering a tropical concept and forthwith I will venture on an unknown adventure; from Bruce Brown's ENDLESS SUMMER to Dee Dee Ramone's ENDLESS VACATION. Summer vacations, inspiration, I only know that I want to chase the sun.”
Setting the pen back down on the cocktail napkin my gaze returns to the waves. 2001 has been pretty crappy, so far anyway. I keep trying to rationalize my hasty escape. This year began with me breaking up with my girlfriend of three years, Sweet Keilani, the Ulalena dancer with the little red flower in her hair, a tropical flower in long flowing hair, her trademark as she calls it. Wearing a flower in their hair is a common practice among local girls but Keilani is a woman of contradiction. After graduating with a degree in political science she became a law school dropout and joined a professional dance troupe where she became both a fitness fanatic and an alcoholic. A woman of complete conflict, she loves tall buildings and she's afraid of heights. She is prone to motion sickness yet as the girl in the aerial hoop high above the stage, she elegantly twists, spins and amazes the crowd with each performance. After three months of living together on Maui she had sunk into the bottom of the bottle, from heavy drinker to full blown alcoholic. I couldn’t live with her any longer and she couldn’t stand the thought of living without me. Under the influence of alcohol and fueled by anger, she attacked me on the night I was moving out, lunging at me with a knife. Drunk, passionate and pissed off is a lethal combination but I managed to subdue her without injury. She woke up the next day with a bad hangover and I woke up back on Oahu, an island away from her.
A few weeks after breaking-up with Keilani, my career as the general manager of six vitamin stores ended abruptly. It was just a few months ago when the IRS became interested in the business ventures of Cynical Dick, a steroid popping, 5’2” 155 lb self described bodybuilder who was my boss. He owned the vitamin stores I managed until he unexpectedly shut them down and disappeared. Dick is a real character, the type of guy that enters a room proudly announcing to anyone and everyone that he is “one bad mofo”. Dick is always talking. He’s like a non-stop infomercial for anything that he thinks might earn him a dollar. He began his career by selling steroids back when he was still in the Navy, a business that he continued as a civilian in Hawaii. Dick was using the stores as a façade for his money laundering schemes, a fact that I didn’t learn until it was too late. But it wasn’t difficult to learn the truth about Dick. I simply had to ask a few friends. On pacific islands, gossip, also known as the “coconut wireless” spreads fast. Dick was involved in something shady. I knew the vitamin stores made a profit. As the general manager, it was my job to make sure that happened but my friend Ray, a sergeant in Honolulu Police Department, told me that Dick was under investigation, suspected as a drug dealer. That conversation came moments after my final conversation with Dick. He had called me from the Honolulu airport. “S’pose yous heard I was gettin bagged for dust but it ain’t true, just can’t take this wicked heat no more so tell the rest of them guys I shut all them stores down and moved off island.” And that was the last I ever heard from Cynical Dick. Within a month I had lost both my girlfriend and my job. I was heartbroken, unemployed and 2001 had only just begun.
The melting ice has watered down the coffee so I slowly slide the almost empty glass away from me, moving it to the far end of the counter. Tomorrow I am moving physically to a place on the far end of the earth, Guam, the island commonly known as "America in Asia", “where America's day begins” or as it was named by the explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, Las Isla de Los Ladrones or the island of thieves. Guam is an island territory of the United States located in Micronesia, an island that is rich in culture, tradition, history and for me, a new adventure.
Today seems typical until I walk out of the bedroom into the kitchen where reality knocks me into Monday morning with the absence of my coffee maker. It’s in a box somewhere
