The Atomic Hula, Mike Marino [best novel books to read .TXT] 📗

Mickey showered the kind of long lingering shower a gruff, filthy, leather faced Kansas cowboy craves after ridin' and ropin' and wranglin' and swearin' on the lone prairie with nothing but a harmonica, a can of Skoal and bellowing cattle to keep him company. The shower felt good, he stepped out, dried and put on the Confucian cloak. The incense scent was like a trail of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs leading him from the bathroom to the living room, now clean, and ready for mystical Tao, tea. & tiki's!
In later years, Mickey would hang up his Catholic frock of high mass and low mass to no mas, and explore Eastern philosophies to find one that would fit snugly, like a new pair of crotch hugging Levi's. He walked through the crowed marketplace where various religions were laid out on display, slabs of fresh theological meats in a farmers market of deities. Old crippled women in bhurkas, old brown-faced men with wisdom carved into their faces and the kid from the Midwest, squeezing philosophical tomatoes for freshness and the firmness of believability. Only zen he felt, gave him more spiritual big bang for the buck.
In a split atom second it seemed, a yin-yang was about to be revealed in one hell of a shell shocked existential moment powered by its own Newtonian momentum. Kim fixed both of them a cup of tea, in tiny Japanese teacups and sat down on the chair across from him. She spoke. "I don't know if you noticed or not, but I did notice that you keep looking strangely at me. Like something is out of sorts, off kilter, not quite right, right?" Mickey held his breath, throat and tongue got desert drought dry and of course, he lied. "Uh, no, not really." Kim laughed, "I know better so let me just put my cards on the table. I am a woman, but, also, I used to be a man. Played football at the University of Washington and moved here, back home, to work. The problem is I never felt comfortable as a man, and well, one thing led to another, and made some changes," she laughed, "Big changes!" Mickey did notice a sizable rack on her, him, it. Big indeed. "My voice is still in the lower range but will change eventually," laughed again, "And I still enjoy football and can get rowdy with the best of them and still out drink and out fuck anyone in the locker room." Now the adrenalin of fear began to flow quietly, a runaway kayak on the Colorado River doing number five rapids. Out fuck, he thought. Where the hell is this going? Great, I'm about to be devoured by a sexual carnivore. In a nuclear flash, he was projected onto the sci-fi screen, he was now in Patricia Neal's shoes facing Gort the Robot alone in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." The military helpless to stop him, Michael Rennie out cold. No, only three words could stop the madness of outer spaced out obliteration of the planet...Klatuu, Barada, Nicto!
Sensing sensory overload on the kid, Kim interjected the punctuated look of dread on his young face. "Now I'm not some damn Nelly queer you see hangin' out at Prince Beach and quite frankly that's why you're here. I saw you walk into the restaurant and you looked scared and lost, like I was when I was confused about who I am, or rather was. I saw that same fear and loneliness and you were too close to the edge by that damn beach, no telling what could happen there. So, that's why I wanted to meet you and see if you were a stray and didn't stray into the wrong area, or hands. I have a boyfriend who treats me well and that's that, and I hope it answers any unanswered questions you have. Has it?" Relief sighed and the color once drained returned to his face, the drought ended and the waves of fear subsided to placid calm. It was yin-yang, the duality of life, the taijitu filled with summer and winter, and other neo-Confucian confusion, only this one was Dr. Gender Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde. "I appreciate you telling me that, and yeah, I got scared for a little bit." He sipped his tea, looked at her/him and let out a sincere, "Thanks. No, I really mean that. Wow, Doc told me about that beach and thought it was just Doc ramblin'." At least it was all explained and out in the open and he could let down his guard. Damn, he thought. Mrs. Kuramoto and Doc watching out for him and now a bent gender trans angel of mercy. He felt more protected out on his own at 15 then he ever did back in what he referred to now as "that other world."
They both laughed and talked in high speed animation until the sun began it's rise to prominence over the domain of the day, and she told him he better get a little bit of sleep, and then some breakfast when he wakes up to give him a full tank of fuel to face the day, his first real day as a son of a beach! He fell asleep, feeling strangely safe and guarded by a guardian angel with opaque wings, one the yin, the other the yang. Mickey began to drift off to sleep and hoped, honestly, that he hadn't offended her, him, what the hell was it? He knew however that he had acted as a perfect gentleman, as he was taught, because she was a lady after all. As he drifted off to sleep he was cradled in the imaginary arms of Patricia Neal, who sang him a strange lullaby to rock him to sleep...she repeated the same words over and over again as he drifted off. Klattu, Barada, Nicto!
Chapter Four
Treasure Island had now become a sandy Skid Row beach

1963. Cruise ships and hula hips. The nation mourned its dead president, while Mickey was being born in a placenta backbeat of beach bums, booze and boobs.The beach was bitchin' to paraphrase the day. Its cup began to overflow with tourists trying to fill a beach bra two sizes too small to handle the load. Catamarans awakened from overturned slumber were being readied to cast off to paddle out into the sun drenched Pacific. Surfboards getting a wax job for aerodynamic precision on the curls and rolls to cut a Fellini swath through a waiting tube, the seas legs spread wide for a hang ten lusty entry.
Mickey's eyes took in a beach feast of visual stimuli including cabana after cabana erected with colorful cloth making it look like a Bedouin village that even Lawrence of Arabia would feel at home in, sans camels. It was a movie set staged, lit, camera's ready to roll..action! The players stood their marks, the same kids on the beach Mickey had seen everyday since he arrived in beach bum paradise, only now their forms took on new meaning as he was now one of them. He left the trans-angel apartment just after dawn and breakfast and made his way back to familiar territory by the hotel across from his old studio apartment in Waikiki, not knowing what his next course of action or in-action would be. That was when he met Porkpie Sam who set in motion the promiscuous roller coaster journey he was about to embark on for the next year and half in an amusement park of sex, bums, drunks and thieves, all in collision orbits in a solar system of heavenly bodies, fueled by a sexual revolution rapidly revolving and spinning out of control. Mickey thought to himself.."It's true, there is no gravity. The Earth sucks!"
The under aged boys of the beach (Mickey now one of the little Oliver Twisters) seemed to float by on reed rafts in a stop motion morphine dream, while back home in Michigan it was Friday night lights and the gridiron grind of pigskin, marching bands doing a Sousa march to the sea towards victory and of course, more importantly, the state championship. The go-team-go cheerleaders getting go-team-go banged under the bleachers. Let's face it, everybody scored, on and off the field. Touch down!. Mickey crossed the 20 yards of sand to meet the curious man with the porkpie attitude. "Sam," he said, island born and bred. A Polynesian James Cagney, cocky, short, with a gold tooth gleaming while grinning. "Hey", said Mickey cleverly, "Hey, back at ya," porkpie volleyed across the conversational net. "Been noticin' you comin' to the beach ever day for a month or so and was wondrin' when you'd introduce yourself. Names Sam, good to meet ya." Mickey nodded and felt one of those shitty nervous grins emerge that wears like a mask at a ball that you have to remove at midnight. "I noticed you too, and those other kids over there running down the beach. Though you might be a school class or something so didn't want to butt in." Sam gave out one hell of a hearty, almost piratical laugh. "Now, dammit, that is a good one. Yeah, school, that's what it is and those are my students. Always got room for one more for the honor roll you know. If you're interested that is." Mickey was now kill the cat curious.
Mickey didn't know where to start, so in typical Midwestern fashion, began in the present. "I ran out of money and lost my apartment so I need to find a place to sleep and stuff like that." Sam's eyes got big as coconuts, "Well, you've come the right place me boy. Tell you what, you can stay with a few us and I can teach you the ropes, the ropes of survival in this so called paradise. Game?" Game. Set. Match. Mickey took the bait. Hell, he had no choice. 'Sounds good but where d'ya'll live?" Sam simply pointed upwards, to the god's on thrones, Zeus and Company, high in the sky, and also to the roof of the Reef Hotel. Mickey tried explaining he had no money to kick in to share expenses and just wouldn't feel right doing it. Shit, the porkpie has a penthouse! Sam, had heard it before and started that laugh of wisdom and been there done that before. Porkpie laughed until he choked this time. "No, no. Not there man. Here! This tree, this tree right here, ain't got no room service but each room has a view." Now it was time for Mickey's eyes to get saucer big. "The tree? How the hell you live in a tree?" Once again, Porkpie divined wisdom from atop the mount of the homeless and the helpless. "See those beach mats over there, the ones the haoli's use to lay on the beach, so she don't burn their skin from the heat? Well we each have our own, stashed during the day down in the garage here and at night, we grab 'em, climb up and make a sort of nest, a hammock in the limbs and sleep with the stars," he said as he stared at invisible starry heavens not due for another 12 hours. Mickey saw the mats stacked on the beach and Porkpie nodded to him to go get one, which he did and returned prize in hand. Then Porkpie motioned to follow him through the small openings on the beach to the inside of the parking garage of the hotel and led him to a stash of mats hidden on top of the steel beams at the far end. "We keep 'em here so's nobody steals them." That's irony don't you think he thought, but what choice did he have. Had to protect his stolen property from being taken back by the rightful owners, and what better place to stash