We’re both in the Kupuna Program at UH Mānoa. They allow senior citizens to take classes for free. Now that we’re retired, we have time. I’m taking Hawaiian History. Jim’s in a creative writing class.
This evening, Jim wants feedback on his latest story draft. I sit down with him at Mānoa Garden, beer in hand and ready to hear the saga.
“All set?” Jim asks.
“You bet.”
So off we go. His working title is “The Story of a Story.”
“I like it,” I tell him. “Very meta. Sounds like you’re writing a story about how you tell a story.”
Jim nods. “Yes it is,” he says, kind of rolling his eyeballs, then begins to read:
The two of us, me and Naka, were driving around O‘ahu on a day trip, looking for something to break up the monotony of our retired lives. It’s tough to get old and sort of waste away. We’re not going to do that. That’s an attitude for sad people, and Naka and I are not sad people.
All of a sudden, “Stop,” Naka said. “See the man on the pier? Try pull over.”
I did and we got out. A middle-ish-aged man was fishing on the wooden pier. The pier’s made of weatherworn planks and appears as if it’s been burned once, looks like it’s survived a fire.
“Let’s go down and ask him what he’s fishing for,” I suggested to Naka.
Naka nodded his head, but I could see it was his thinking nod, not his ‘yes’ nod. “No. No need. I think I know what he’s fishing for. It’s the same thing he fishes for every time he comes here. Pāp – No, it’s Ulua. He’s trying to catch a big one. And he’s here to think, too.”
“About what?” I asked.
Naka nodded, said nothing. Then “Yeah, it’s about his son. He could be going to college next year, but doesn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
Naka closed his eyes. Then “His son’s very good at playing poker. He’s so good at online poker that he’s won enough money to buy his own car. An expensive one. A Porsche 911 Carrera.”
“Whoa!” I exclaim, interrupting Jim’s reading.
Jim pauses. “What?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean stop whoa. I meant, wow whoa because that’s a whole lot of money to win in online poker.”
“Well,” says Jim, “I told you he’s good.”
“Really, really good,” I say.
“Yeah yeah yeah. No break my concentration, brah.”
I ask, “Sorry about that, but are you sure want to make in a 911? 911, that’s a loaded number.”
“Yeah,” says Jim, “I know,” kind of rolling his eyeballs again.
“You realize it’s going to make folks – at least folks who remember Nine-Eleven – think about it. A momentary tick at least. It’ll register tragedy in their consciousness.”
“I do realize that,” says Jim. “It’s like every time I see that number on my clock, I think about that day.”
“Well, okay,” I say, “just as long as you don’t beat the reader over the head with it. 911 this, 911 that. The reader doesn’t want you to think he or she is stupid. When you’re telling the story, just don’t overuse mentions of 911.”
“I don’t,” says Jim. “Not as much as you just did. It’s a one-time tiny hint at something tragic.”
“All right. But a Porshe 911, we’re talking serious money. Don’t you think that’s stretching credibility a little? A high school kid winning a hundred grand plus?”
“He did,” says Jim.
“Who did?”
“The high school kid. One hundred grand. More than that.”
“Wait,” I say, amazed. “You’re telling me you know a kid who did that?”
“Yeah,” says Jim, “the son of a friend of mine. But he didn’t buy a 911. He bought an Audi R8.”
“Geez,” I say. “Maybe he should forego college.”
Jim laughs and resumes reading:
“So, rather than go to college, the son wants to move to the continent and pursue a life of professional poker playing. There are smaller stakes tournaments all over, all the time. His idea is to enter those and do well enough to grow his bank, then gradually move up to higher and higher stakes games.”
Interrupting the reading again, I say, “I still think that’s kind of a pipe dream. Obviously the kid is good, but out there in professional gambling land, don’t you think sooner rather than later, he’s going lose?”
“No. In this story I don’t think that. And can you please let me read my story already?”
Jim reads again:
“He wants to move either to Vegas or Atlantic City and use it as a home base. Lots of tournaments are played in those two areas all the time.”
I butt in again. “And so what is his father’s opinion of the plan?”
“Geez, enough with the interruptions.” Jim sips his beer. “Okay, well, that’s what he’s thinking about. I was just coming to that. He’d rather his son go to college. He never had the chance himself, and he regrets it.”
The reading continues:
“Naka, are we going over there to go talk to him?”
“No, no, no, we cannot. He wants to be alone. We shouldn’t interrupt him. It’s not a good time. He’d rather his son go to college. He never had the chance himself, and he regrets it. It’s not a good time. We shouldn’t interrupt him. He wants to be alone.”
At that instant, there was the sound of the line zipping out. The man jumped to his feet and began to play whatever was on the hook. It’s took some time for him to try to land it. Suddenly the line snapped. We heard the man curse as he began to reel the slack line in.
“Another one gets away,” Naka said.
The reading ends. Jim’s story draft stops right there.
“So what do you think?” Jim asks.
“I like the story,” I say. “You’re drawing a parallel, right?”
“A parallel?”
“Yeah, the son and the fish. The son’s going to get away, too.”
“Ah, no, that’s a teaser. A kind of red herring. That’s not the way the story ends.”
“Oh, so the son is going to go to college?”
“I haven’t finished writing the story yet. But I know where it’s headed.”
This doesn’t answer my question. I wait. Jim’s sipping his beer, nodding and smiling to himself, then frowning, smiling, frowning. It’s like the pendulum of a clock swinging the seconds away.
“And?” I finally ask.
“I’m thinking,” he says, “maybe that parallel is too heavy-handed. If the reader jumps to that conclusion, he’s missing the real point of the story.”
I nod. Since Jim thinks he knows the ending, I want to hear it and let him know how I feel about it.
“I need another beer,” Jim says. Standing up, he asks, “Would you like more?”
Crap. The suspense mounts and will have to hold right there. “Yeah, sure, I want more,” I say, reaching for my wallet.
“No no no,” he says, gesturing not to give him anything.
So I sit there. Somehow it seems too long. I check my watch. It’s 7:11.
Crap. Enough already. I get up and go through the glass doors into Mānoa Garden. The place is packed like a proverbial can of sardines. There at the entrance, I survey the scene. The line at the bar is long, but I don’t see Jim there. So where is he? It’s been so long, maybe he’s sick in the restroom.
The crowd around the men’s room door is large. Blended with the line for the women’s, the hallway is jammed. People are singing, some of them smoking under the No Smoking signs. Some have brought their beers with them. Pushing my way in, I find no Jim either at the urinals or in the two stalls with no doors. On my way out, many of the guys who were in line ahead of me give me angry looks. I smile and nod politely, pushing my way through.
Returning to the dining room area, I scan the scene again. Still no Jim. I take my place in the damn line because if I’m here, I might as well get another damn beer.
Finally, I’m able to get my order in, grab my beer, and squeeze my way back outside into the courtyard. I wonder if Jim will be sitting at one of the tables now. I wander around peering at all the faces in the dark. Here there is no light almost. The brightest dull glow emanates from the American Savings ATM.
Geez. I sit to drink my beer. By the time I finish it, Jim has still not appeared. If I had his number, at least I could try calling him. Why, I wonder, don’t I have his number?
That’s it. I’m tired, and I’m not going to wait for him anymore. On the drive home, I’m upset for two reasons. One, how does a guy just ditch you like that? I mean, if he were sick or something, the least he could do is tell me he’s going.
The other thing that irritates the hell out of me is that after all of that waiting and waiting, I still don’t know what Jim thinks the point of his story is. Where’s the small tragedy? The only way to tell would be if I could hear him say where it’s going, so I with no Jim to say, I don’t know how the story’s going to end.
Lanning Lee 