Hotel Honolulu

76 Buddy's Big Night

When our rich friend Royce Lion berg, after making so many plans, buying a titanium watch and a new car, and putting a down payment on an African safari (gorillas in Uganda), saying how happy he was, how he loved life, how he had the perfect present for that girl he loved, Buddy's niece Rain in Nevada, then killing himself in the most deliberate way — not much ambiguity in the death of a man who drives himself to Pali lookout and hangs himself by slamming his tie in the door of his Lexus — when all that sank in, Buddy stopped talking about the future and was much happier. It was the past that mattered.

"I want you to help me write my life story," Buddy said. I reminded him of the episode he had dictated to me, with the moral "Never jack off a dog." But he said that was just the beginning. There was so much more. This mood of reminiscence suited him. He had chosen to be among people who could remind him of witty remarks he had made or outrageous things he had done. He stopped talking about his campaign to hold a topless hula competition, or start his own radio show, or open a gambling casino on a ship anchored offshore or a revolving restaurant on top of Koko Head crater.

"That's asking for it," he said. "Lionberg, when he made all those plans. That was bachi."

The local word for a self-inflicted curse — asking for trouble.

Nowadays Buddy went to bed very late or sometimes not at all. He was the worst guest I had known at the Hotel Honolulu: the last one to leave the bai the hardest to please at the coffee shop, the noisiest, the most demanding, and along with the departed Madam Ma, the most childish. But he owned the place, so what could I do?

Another thing about drunks is they repeat themselves, so for the third or fourth time Buddy was saying, "I want to go dancing."

Usually these nights he was too drunk to stand up straight, much less dance, but I stifled a yawn and humored him. It had been a long day, and I cringed whenever he spoke of his memories.

"With Stella," he said after a while.

Stella had been dead for years, but I took the remark to mean that he would dance holding the small heart-shaped jar that contained her ashes.

"Do you think dead people can see us?" he asked.

Like a child, he pleaded to be comforted at bedtime, though it was way past that. The Paradise Lost clock said two-fifteen.

"Maybe it's not a question of seeing. Maybe they know without looking. Kind of a consciousness thing."

What was I saying? Perhaps just hoping to soothe his troubled mind. He considered my explanation; I knew he was thinking of Stella. Alcoholic tears brimmed in his eyes.

He said, with a remembering whisper, "One time I was driving to town with Stella and she says, 'Let's stop and buy some mochi crunch.' I said no. We had an argument. Then it was over. We got to town on time."

I didn't understand it, yet I nodded as if I did.

"Why didn't I do what she wanted? Mochi crunch. It wasn't much."

He heaved himself against the bar and tipped his glass with a sigh — adenoidal, rueful. "Now she's dead."

This night, like most nights lately, he was regretful. I could not see any memoir here, yet he insisted he needed me to tell his amazing life story.

I said, as though to a sleepy fretful child, "Why don't you think of the good times?"

"I could tell you a million stories!" Seeing Pinky entering the bar, his face fell. He said sourly, "Look, here she is, the wind beneath my wings."

Even I could see that Pinky was sulking. Scowling, her fists clenched, wearing a purple jogging suit that was shapeless on her small frame, she had one of those pinched shadowy faces that hid nothing — indeed, exaggerated the truth in shadows, especially when she was low. What was she doing up at this hour? Perhaps suspicious, wondering whether he was womanizing.

"Cannot find the clicker."

Buddy turned away from her. "Try using the buttons on the TV."

"Then I have to get up and get up and get up."

"So that's a big hardship," Buddy said.

Seeming to squint at the word "hardship" like an insect in the air, fluttering past her face — she twitched, didn't recognize it — she scowled again, and I knew a fight was starting.

"Find me the clicker."

Buddy said, "I wouldn't piss up your ass if your guts were on fire."

The time was now two forty-five, and I dreaded the long day that was about to dawn.

"I think the room girl lose it," Pinky said. "Give me Diet Coke."

Tran had long since gone home. It was for me to fetch the drink.

Buddy said, "Don't give it to her unless she says 'please."

I was so agitated and overtired the glass shook in my hand, the ice cubes clinking. Pinky extended her arm in silence.

"Don't give it to her!"

"Give me — now!"

This was one of those moments of dazzling clarity when I knew without having to remind myself that I was fifty-seven years old, a former

writer and world traveler, a one-time literary success, who now lived on a small island with a simple wife and a small child, earning a low five-figure salary for managing one of the grubbier hotels in Waikiki, perhaps the only hotel manager in the world who was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with the rosette in the lapel of my aloha shirt to prove it.

And I was holding a Diet Coke in my hand, standing between a quarreling couple, each of them nagging me, in a bar at almost three in the morning.

Buddy raised his hand to hit her. Pinky flinched, ducked, and muttered a word that sounded like "Freeze."

"She was brought up in a hovel in Cebu City, shitting in a bucket and eating woof-woof, running around barefoot. And now she can't live without TV and Room Service and, hey, pass the clicker."

"You make me so shame in front of peoples."

"He's family," Buddy said, meaning me.

Pinky pursed her lips and worked on the straw.

"Let me ask you something," Buddy said, and put his face near hers. "What was the best day of your life?"

"Don't know."

"Maybe when you married Mr. Meal Ticket?" It was his own self- mocking name.

"Nuh," Pinky said.

"Maybe when you were little?"

"Then I was a little animal."

That was the image I had always had. It was easy to see her crouched on her dirty knees, sniffing and blinking in a foul hut on a hillside.

"Maybe when you first came to the States?"

Pinky just held her glass in both skinny hands and glowered, saying nothing.

"The best day of my life started off like this," Buddy said.

"Frustrating, things going wrong, guests on my case, the help going nuts, the plumber not showing up, checks bouncing. Everything sideways."

"What he saying?"

"Shut up. I want this in the book."

"What book?"

"Shut up."

Pinky sucked on her straw, silent but unafraid.

"But I was so used to it I didn't even realize how angry I was. You know me — I'm the one who doesn't take anything seriously. I'm the clown."

His attempt at making a funny face only made him look insane and possibly dangerous and more ill than ever.

"That night I discovered that the till was short about five hundred bucks. I figured the barman had stolen it, but how could I prove it? I was married to Momi then. She wasn't happy."

At the mention of Momi's name, Pinky became apprehensive. She was at her most animal in this mood, seeming to sense in advance when a threat was neai something upsetting about to be said or done — like a ground-feeding creature, spooked by instinct, a faint whir of peculiar molecules, a vagrant smell — and she made as though to flee. Buddy pushed her back on her bar stool.

"I was on Kalakaua, near the taxi stand. I had to get to the bank to drop the cash I had in the night deposit. Three thousand bucks in cash and traveler's checks."

He savored the moment, nodding at me, meaning, This goes into the

book.

"Just then, two guys came over. One of them held the taxi, the other walked up to me. They were grinning — I knew exactly what was happening. They were going to rob me and take off in the taxi."

Hearing this ominous prologue, Pinky gathered herself compactly, like a monkey on a rock, moved her elbows against her sides, drew up her knees, shortened her neck. She seemed to know that a vicious blow was about to be struck.

"They didn't know that I'd had a bad day," Buddy said. "The guy next to me said 'Hand it over' while the other one opened the taxi door."

"So did you hand it over?" I asked.

Making me wait, calling attention to himself, Buddy gargled with his ice cubes, cracked them with his back teeth, spat them back into his glass, and gave me a taunting smile.

"I didn't know what got into me. I pulled back as if to run, kind of sucker-punched him, and then swung — a roundhouse — and connected with the side of his jaw. I felt his jaw crack, the bone under my fist. I loved the snapping noise. My fist felt like a rock. Every bad thing in my body shot up my arm and passed through my fist into that guy's jaw."

He weighed his fist as though he were measuring a handful of sand.

"It was the best feeling in the world. I had never punched anyone before. And not just the feeling but the sound of the crunch, like a basket breaking and seeing his eyes go dead and his legs wobble. He just crashed down. It was beautiful."

"Lucky punch," Pinky said, but she winced as she said it, for she had been startled by the story.

"Maybe. But it worked. I wanted to hit him again, but he was gone — on his back. He cracked his head open." Buddy sipped his drink, loving this. "The friend jumped over and helped him. I thought of hitting the friend too. My fist was a weapon of destruction. But then they both took a hike."

He swilled and swallowed the last of his drink with a satisfied gasp.

"That was the greatest day of my life. Nothing can compare with that. What did you think I would tell you? Something about sex or money? No, this was better than anything."

Now Pinky was fearful, looking at him in alarm, silent on her stool.

"That's for the book," Buddy said. "I'll tell you the rest later."