I hope he isn’t taking me to a strip club.
“Over there is the Tumon Sling Shot, a ride where people are strapped to a seat inside a caged ball and then shot into the atmosphere. Japanese tourists love that thing” He says, continuing the tour.
Driving past another row of bars Mr. Saru points out and says; “Those are hostess bars. You know, buy me drinky bars. Are you familiar with that?” Before I can answer he continues; “there are these girls that work there, hostesses, and they will sit next to you and say ‘buy me drinky’. The girls make a commission on the drinks it’s another damn rip off but they do a hell of a lot of business.”
We finally pull into a crowded parking lot. There are a few nightclubs, but the one with the loud live band and a long line out the door is a club called ‘Casa’. But we aren’t going to Casa. Instead Mr. Saru leads me towards a bar named Kitano Zaka. Fuck, it’s a karaoke bar and I hope he isn’t going to spend the night singing. As soon as we step inside we are greeted by several hostesses and seated in a private section at the front of the club. Everyone here seems to know Mr. Saru. The bartender comes over to our section to greet us and Mr. Saru introduces the bartender, Omar, to me. An older Asian woman wearing a kimono comes to our table and greets Mr. Saru. He introduces her as the Mamason, the owner of the bar. Mamason leaves our table and comes back with four girls; none of them look like they are older than twenty five. The one girl sitting next to me is holding a song book to choose karaoke songs, Japanese, Tagalog, English, Korean, Thai and even English. Her name is Mai and she is asking me to sing a song. Paging through the book surprises me, they have a lot of recent pop songs, songs that are currently hits on MTV and top forty radio. One of the girls sitting by Mr. Saru has chosen a song. Mai says that it’s a popular Thai song. Mimi takes our drink orders, I ask for a diet Coke, Mr. Saru asks for a blend of lychee, papaya and pineapple juice.
“I don’t drink alcohol” he says to me. “Never acquired the taste for it, you?”
“I like to drink sometimes. I drank a lot when I was in college, but the novelty has worn off. Besides, I am more health conscious now.” I say.
The bar girls are taking turns with the karaoke. Two of them are entertaining us by singing a duet of Say, Say, Say, the Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson collaboration which is fairly entertaining. Mr. Saru leans close to me, as if he has some very important, very private news to share.
“Chamorro have different traditions then mainland Americans; he says. “We have different cultures and languages.” I nod to show that I understand but where the hell is he going with this?
“We have a word ‘achatma’ that means girlfriend or mistress but it’s not a very nice word. But having an achatma is acceptable and in fact, admirable. But that word, ‘achatma’ is considered derogatory to the woman. They like to be called a girlfriend or fiancée.”
Okay, so he is teaching me a new word, a Chamorro word, achatma.
“So a mistress is an achatma?” I ask.
“No, no, not like a mistress. An achatma is a legitimate girlfriend.”
Amused and confused by his distinction but distracted by the bar girl who is singing the song “Mickey” and waving pom-poms in the air, my mouth is agape. Looking around at each booth there are men, older, well dressed men with several young women. It also seems like the girls of the Kitano Zaka are required to sing.
“Have you been to any of the hostess bars in Honolulu?” Mr. Saru asks.
“You mean the ‘buy-me-drinky bars?” I say with a laugh, “Yes, I have been to a few. And I understand about mistresses. I mean, not mistresses, but girlfriends. I understand the distinction between wives and girlfriends.”
Mr. Saru is smiling at my attempted empathy. Mamason escorts a chubby young woman to our booth and Mr. Saru introduces her as Adipo and tells her that I am the new general manager of Tropics Gym. Her chubby face suddenly flushes with anger.
“How can you do this to him?” Adipo asks. “Why did you bring him?”
Mr. Saru calmly responds; “I needed him as an excuse to get out.”
Adipo smiles at me and politely extends her hand.
I take her hand and say “It’s nice to meet you, Adipo.”
“Welcome to Guam” she says before turning back to Mr. Saru and asking; “Why did you bring him here? Why are you exposing him to this?”
“We already had this argument.” He turns to me and laughs, “She and I already had this argument earlier but I was right about you. You aren’t going to be bothered by my relationships. I bet this is somewhat familiar to you.” He turns to face Adipo and says “He has been around the block. He understands this part of our culture.”
Adipo turns away and begins browsing through one of the song books, obviously irritated. This is uncomfortable and I realize that this must be the woman that his son asked about back at the restaurant, she must be his atchatma. Mai, one of the bar girls, sits down next to me placing a drink in front of me. “It Diet Coke” she says. “He order for you, he say you don’t drink.”
“Thank you.” I say.
Adipo has a microphone and she is starting to sing as Chamorro words scroll across the screen overhead.
“I love when she sings this song” Mr. Saru says, “It’s a Chamorro love song. Adipo has been my achatma, my girlfriend for three years. She is my soul mate.”
Sitting here in the Kitano Zaka, my mind wanders back to the days I spent as a personal trainer at the prestigious Honolulu Club. Some years ago I was the personal trainer of Tomoko Tanaka, the fashion model, Ms Universe contestant and mistress of Mr. Fujikama, the owner of the Fujikama Golf Centers of western Japan. I also trained Mrs. Fujikama. It began one day when one of my clients, Mrs. Fujikama introduced me to her husband, Mr. Fujikama. All I knew about them was that they were Japanese Nationals living on O’ahu. Mrs. Fujikama brought her husband to meet me one day because he wanted to thank me for doing a good job of training his wife. He was very pleased with the results as she had lost 15 pounds and was now very toned. “Like a fashion model” he said to me, while admiring his wife. Mr. Fujikama thanked me and left us to our workout. After I finished training Mrs. Fujikama at 12:30 and would not have another appointment until 4:30 so I decided to go to the I Love Country Café for some food. As I walked past the front desk, one of the front desk staff called me over and handed me an envelope. It was one of the Honolulu Club envelopes with something bulky inside. I opened the envelope and there was a note that said to meet Mr. Fujikama for lunch at the Kahala Mandarin Hotel. Mr. Fujikama had left one of his cars for me on the 3rd floor parking level. Reaching into the envelope my hand felt a key; it was a black key with the Ferrari logo. In the far corner of the parking garage sat a brand new, bright red Ferrari 360 Modena. I remember my hands shaking when I opened the door and sat inside the car. Mr. Fujikama’s note stated that the 360 Modena has six gears with a semi-automatic F1 gearbox and that the shifters are actually paddles behind the steering wheel. It also instructed me on how to shift the gears by placing my hands on the steering wheel and reaching my fingers back to feel the shift paddles. The right paddle is to engage the transmission and up shift, the left paddle is for downshifting. The floor pedals are standard, brake on the left, accelerator on the right. I started the powerful car and stared at the dash as an array of gauges came to life. There were less than ninety miles on the odometer. The engine whined like an Indy car as I slowly engaged the right paddle and smoothly rolled forward. I was on my way. I instantly became intoxicated with power and I was sucked into the surrealism
