Super America

by Anne Panning

  The new husband still paced up and down the beach, and Rob noticed his wife, a short, suntanned woman in a geometric-print bikini, lying face down on their beach towel, shoulders shaking. Her hair was poorly dyed a yellow-blonde and revealed dark roots, which Rob would’ve liked to get his hands on. Rob approached the husband, uneager to give him the bad news. “Hey,” he said, calling over to him. “Sorry, I couldn’t find anything. No luck here either, huh?”

  The man stood, hands on his hips. His nose glowed red from sunburn. “Nah, we looked and looked. Just—nothing.” He shook his head and dug his toe in the sand. “I suppose it’s impossible. I mean, it’s—” and he gestured toward the horizon, purple and pink with streaky clouds. “It’s the damn ocean. I mean, what we say in the navy is, it gives and it takes, so you gotta respect it.” The man fixed his eyes on Rob for what seemed to be the first time and held out his hand. “I’m Collins, by the way.” They shook hands and then stood back awkwardly. “So, you live here or what?” Collins asked, and crossed his arms, looking back periodically to check on his wife lying on the towel. Rob noticed his jagged teeth, with small spaces between each one.

  “Yeah,” Rob said, “it’s my day off. I like to get out and enjoy the water when I can.” He swung the snorkel mask as if to illustrate.

  Collins stuck his hands underneath his armpits and stood tall. “Yeah, I hear ya. So what do you do?”

  “I’m a hair stylist,” Rob answered, and anticipated Collins’ dismissal.

  But Collins surprised him by rubbing his fuzzy head and scratching the back of his neck. “Oh yeah? That’s funny because I was thinking I could probably use a trim. Getting a little long.” Suddenly, the sirens rang again, long and shrill and disconcerting. Rob wondered if it wasn’t the first Wednesday of the month, testing time, but it was definitely Monday, his day off for the past twelve years.

  Collins stuck a finger in his ear. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” Rob watched people gathering up their beach chairs and coolers, staring out at the water and then toting off frantically to their cars. Then it hit him. On the way over, he had heard about the big earthquake in Japan on the radio but hadn’t put two and two together until now: the vibrations rippling secretly underneath the Pacific Ocean, brewing potentially giant waves that could hit the Hawaiian Islands with a fierce slap. A tsunami warning. The two lifeguards began making the rounds, clearing the beach, and soon Collins’ wife came scrambling over with all their stuff in a huge tote bag.

  “There’s a tidal wave warning!” she said, and grabbed Collins’ elbow. Her eyes were puffy and pink from crying, and her diamond ring glittered brightly. She seemed to take note of Rob warily.

  “This is Trish,” Collins said, and grabbed her around the waist. Her skin looked healthy and rich and dark, and soon she began crying again.

  “It’s just so symbolic!” she said, talking through sobs, wiping her made-up eyes with upturned palms. “I mean, we just get married, and he loses the ring? It’s just too awful! How can we go on after this? I mean, it was his dad’s, and it’s just not replaceable!” She turned and looked out at the ocean, as if it might respond and spit the ring back out at her feet.

  “Hey, I don’t mean to be unsympathetic,” Rob said, startled now by the evacuation going on behind them. “But I think we should probably clear out of here. You just never know with these tsunami warnings.”

  Collins looked uneasy and eager to leave, but Trish held tightly to his arm. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Hey, baby, we better go call a cab. We’re just not gonna find it, okay? We’ll get another one, somewhere, I promise.”

  “But we can’t go until we find it!” she said, and ran a hand through her short yellow hair. “Oh, it’s just too awful. It’s no way to start a marriage!” She kicked the sand as sadness turned to anger.

  Rob, growing a bit tired of them, offered a suggestion. “Well, I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but when my grandparents were honeymooning in Hawaii, a long, long time ago, my grandpa lost his ring in the ocean, too, and instead of buying him another, my grandma decided to throw her ring in, too. So they were joined at sea. Kind of romantic, huh?” Rob was chilled now and wanted to get showered and dressed. He felt his hair drying in ridiculous spikes.

  “That’s a great idea!” Collins said. “Trish, let’s do it.” He grabbed the bulging red bag from her shoulder, threw it to the ground, and reached for her left hand. But she pulled away.

  “No!” she said. “I love this ring! You worked so hard saving up for it, and I’m not going to throw it in the ocean. I’m sure!” She glared at Rob, turned away from Collins, and began combing the beach again, head down, body bent at an almost perfect right angle, hands clasped behind her back like an inspector.

  Rob apologized to Collins, said good-bye, and walked up to his little beach spot: striped mat, fold-up yellow chair, small mesh bag for his fins and snorkel, large bottle of mineral water, book. But when he’d gathered his things and was turning toward the parking lot, he saw Collins and Trish standing in the water, arms wrapped around each other, staring out at the stormy surf, the color now of spit and bullets. Her breasts curved into his ribs; his knees nudged her thighs, and the water threatened to take them down, but didn’t. It was a snapshot honeymoon moment, but somehow, Rob could not turn away. He felt a deep, hollow ache inside of him, not necessarily for what they had, or didn’t have, but for what he knew did not exist: a true union of human spirits, a binding of two souls forever, without fear or pain or loneliness pending.

  He breathed in the salt air and was transported, through memory’s passage, to his first lover, Cesar, a wealthy, mustachioed Brazilian he had met years ago in San Francisco, when Rob was not so much a prostitute as a companion, a paid accomplice of sorts. Cesar, with his flashy eyes and black felt hats, flew Rob to Brazil, where they had lived in a luxurious tile-floored mansion in the middle of the rain forest. Rain dripped upon the shiny blue roof and slid like oil; monkeys laughed with abandon, far off. It was the jungle, Cesar had always reminded; he would then twirl his thin brown cigarettes in the air and shout, “Green!” in Portuguese. There was a maid to empty the chamber pots, a boy to cook sausages and onion with rice, an uncle to drive them to town; Rob had lived there for ten long years—a beautiful, tall, blond North American boy with aviator glasses—until something fell apart. Cesar had begun trying to control his every move. There were family riches to hold over Rob, and Cesar would sometimes punish him by withholding money for something as simple as postage stamps. He’d sought to keep Rob isolated and removed from the rest of the world, all to himself, like a bribed best friend. But Rob began slowly dying inside, withdrawing in anger and suffocation, until he finally, secretively, convinced Cesar’s wealthy father to buy him a ticket back to the States, promising to stay away from Cesar for the rest of his life.

  As the tsunami siren quaked across the island, the few remaining cars drifted onto the narrow highway and sped away. Even the lifeguards, after stabbing “Dangerous Swimming: Tidal Wave” signs into the sand, began to close up their orange towers. Rob stood in the middle of the deserted beach and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Collins! Trish! How about a ride?” He watched them break apart, argue, negotiate, and approach. They stood in front of Rob, beach towels saronging their hips. They were out of breath and seemed to cross their arms stubbornly, as if challenging Rob.

  “Yeah, we’ll take a ride,” Collins said, “if it’s not too much trouble. There’s no way we’re getting a taxi out here now.” He reached into the red tote, which was back in Trish’s possession, pulled out a crumpled white T-shirt, and put it on. It said: “KOOL, Kool Radio 98.5 Des Moines” in orange letters, and Rob began to make assumptions about his background.

  “Thanks,” Trish said, “we really appreciate it, you know, your being so nice and everything.” She seemed more subdued to Rob now, as if she had given up on the ring. They all toed through the sand, burdened with heavy bea
ch gear and regret.

  They brushed off their feet and got into the small gray car. Rob shifted into reverse, hung his sunglasses on the rearview mirror, and made a right. “So, where are you staying? Waikiki, right?”

  “Yeah,” Collins said, and touched his lip in a way Rob found sexy. “But what’s our hotel called again, honey? The Outrigger? Or Surf Rider or something like that? Or no, it’s Waikiki something.”

  Trish leaned up from the backseat, which comforted Rob. She smelled like Coppertone and vanilla and hung her arms between the two men. “No, it’s the Waikiki Grand. On Kapa—lua—God, what’s that street again? I forget.”

  “Oh, right,” Rob said, relaxing finally and sliding down in his seat. “On Kapahulu. It’s not too far.” With that reassurance, Trish sat back, staring quietly out the window; Rob glanced at her in the rearview mirror and made no more attempt at small talk. Collins, in the seat beside him, radiated warmth from sunburn.

  When Rob reached Waikiki, there was pandemonium everywhere. Cops redirected traffic, banning all cars from the Waikiki strip. Official yellow tape was wound around large white sawhorses, making the entire beach area off limits. Rob’s head pulsed with a smashing headache, and he began to wish he had not been so friendly, had not gotten involved in this couple’s plight. It was just as Jeremy said: Rob was a pushover, he had to learn to say no, he had to keep to himself more. Still, Jeremy sat at the other end of the spectrum: he was a yes-or-no man, had clear-cut divisions of what was right or wrong, didn’t believe in saying hello to strangers on the street, and still clung to harried, frantic East Coast habits in the middle of the Pacific. It frankly worried Rob, Jeremy’s life speed: he would run across the street on red lights, finagle his way into the grocery store’s express line with more than nine items, and worst of all, would give slow drivers and befuddled rental-car drivers the finger and lay on the horn if they so dared to hold him back a fraction of a second.

  “It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to get you to your hotel,” Rob announced, and was surprised that neither of them took the news with any apparent stress or disappointment. Collins shrugged his shoulders and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Well, wait,” Rob said, rolling down his window and turning off the A/C. “Let me ask this guy over here what’s up.” In the lilting local accent he’d picked up over the years, Rob asked a cop what he should do.

  “Tsunami,” the man said, and jammed his walkie-talkie into its pouch. “Nobody’s going into Waikiki. If these guys are staying down here, they’re evacuating to the high school in Manoa. They can get a bus by the zoo. Over there.” He pointed to a group of tourists dressed in pastels.

  “How long will it be until it opens up down here?” Collins asked, ducking his head low to peer through Rob’s window. The cop laughed, tuned into his walkie-talkie, responded in code, turned it down, and took a step away from the car.

  “Never know,” he said, and started to wave them away. Traffic was building up behind them, mostly shiny new rental cars. “Gotta move along now. Could be thirty-, forty-foot waves. Never know.”

  “Thanks for the info,” Rob said, and rolled up his window. He was starving and hoped the tsunami warning meant Jeremy had not gone out to work the dinner cruise. Perhaps he’d even be at home, cooking something Rob loved, like lemon fettuccine, or broiled salmon with that wonderful tarragon sauce Jeremy had invented. “So, I don’t know what you guys want to do ...” Rob asked, cocking his head back to address Trish more than Collins.

  She seemed startled out of a daydream and ran her hands through her hair before answering. “Well, it seems pretty hopeless at this point. It’s just not anything like I’d imagined it would be, you know?” Rob watched the tears well up in her eyes again, but she fought them back this time.

  Rob murmured quietly in response. Collins sighed. The traffic moved so slowly, Rob held the steering wheel with two fingertips. He tried to get a station on the radio for an update on the tidal wave, but it was either slow-time hula or classic rock. “You know, I guess you guys could come to my place until this blows over,” Rob offered, knowing that bringing two unknown guests into his home would illicit a silent but obvious irritation from Jeremy. “I don’t live far, and I’m out of the tsunami zone, so it’d be safe. Sometimes these things blow over really quickly. They just have to take precautions. You could come over until it’s all clear. It’ll be better than the high school gym, believe me.” Traffic lurched forward a block, two, then stopped. Tall, now-empty hotels flanked the street on either side, creating a tunnel-like dimness.

  “Oh, we don’t want to bother you,” Collins said, and placed his big flat hands on top of his knees like a king. His fingernails were square and healthy and pink; his leg hair was golden, curly, and delicate. Rob could clearly imagine him naked, could see the firm buttocks flexing with muscle power, hollowed out on the sides where Rob would sink his hands and press deeply.

  “Oh, it’s no bother. My roommate, Jeremy, is probably whipping up dinner as we speak.” Growing impatient, Rob changed lanes and wove his way to the right, grinding into third, and finally turned off on Hinano. Sometimes Jeremy was his “friend,” sometimes “partner,” sometimes, rarely, his “lover.” In this case, “roommate” seemed appropriate, although anyone could guess the nature of their relationship, considering the blatant kiss Jeremy enjoyed smacking on Rob in public.

  “There we are,” Rob said, and felt relief to be on the nearly empty, quiet street where he lived. “This is the home stretch. Boy, you guys must be exhausted. It’s been quite a day for you.” He hadn’t meant to remind them of their loss but knew instantly he had. Collins fingered his left hand again and squeezed the emptiness. In the back seat, Trish brushed out her hair frantically; Rob parked downhill, turning the wheels to the right, so as not to roll away.

  His apartment was actually more of a double bungalow—the owner, Webster Ming, a small, old, nosy Chinese man, lived in one half, and Jeremy and Rob in the other. A narrow concrete stairway ran up between the dwellings—Rob’s door to the left, Mr. Ming’s to the right. There were always rows of shoes and slippers lined up like an offering outside Mr. Ming’s door. He and his wife, Letta, in addition to being landlords, also worked a souvenir stand just down the street at the weekly Kodak Hula Show. Rob guessed they probably had plenty of money, though, considering the steep rent he and Jeremy paid and the shabby, threadbare frugality evident in the Mings’ clothing, car, and furnishings.

  As Rob ascended the stairs, Mr. Ming stuck his head out the door, with his usual plucky gray crew cut, and beckoned. “There’s a tsunami warning, you know!” he said, and hung back in his dark doorway, barefoot, wearing khaki trousers and a white T-shirt. He glanced warily at the two strangers and thumbed at them. “Who’s that? You have visitors during the tsunami? That’s too bad for them.” Mr. Ming clucked his tongue, and Rob saw Letta Ming peer out from underneath his armpit, to see what was going on. By now, the Mings were used to a steady flow of mainland visitors lugging bags to and from Rob’s apartment, though that had tapered off once they’d been in Hawaii several years.

  Rob enjoyed the Mings, even though they kept increasing the rent, little by little, every six months. “No, these two are on their honeymoon—” Rob stopped and made brief introductions. “They were over at White Beach when the tsunami warning started, and they didn’t have a car, so I brought them here. Their hotel’s been evacuated.”

  Mr. Ming looked disappointed for them. “Oh, that’s too bad for you. Don’t worry. It will get better. The water will calm down. It always does.” Sometimes Mr. Ming spoke like poetry, but other times, he swore viciously, as he did when he was losing at poker. Rob could always tell when he was losing, too, because he could hear Mr. Ming slam his hands down on the table and start shouting, “Dammit! Goddammit already!”

  Trish leaned against the railing, looking exhausted and fried, still wearing nothing but her bikini top and a towel. Bits of white sand stuck to her chest, and Rob wanted to wipe her
off briskly with a towel. “My husband lost his wedding ring in the ocean today,” she said, as if Mr. Ming could help her somehow. “We’ve got to go buy him a new one when this big storm is over. Although, it sure doesn’t look like a storm to me.” She glanced up at the sky, which was void of clouds and still bleeding a strong white sun.

  “Sure doesn’t,” Collins said, and looked bored, as if he regretted accepting Rob’s invitation to his home. “Looks like maybe they’ll open up our hotel soon.” He crossed his arms over his huge chest and seemed ready for a long delay, despite his hopeful statement.

  “No,” Mr. Ming said, “with the tsunami, you never know. You can’t tell if it’s coming or not. Once, a whole two hundred houses were swept into the ocean, just like that.” Mr. Ming raised his arms high, miming the disaster, then brought them crashing down. Mrs. Ming, meanwhile, disappeared, then returned with an old cigar box. Mr. Ming, confused, turned to see what she wanted. “What? What is that?” They spoke briefly in Chinese to each other, and Rob made a motion to leave. Often, as much as he enjoyed the Mings, these exchanges in front of their doorways lasted too long.

  “Well, we better get going,” Rob said, and couldn’t tell if Jeremy was home or not. The screen door and the interior door were both closed. “See you later.”

  “Just a minute,” Mr. Ming called, and nudged his wife over to Trish and Collins. Her gray hair was wound up like braided bread in back and fastened high with a metal clip. Her dark eyes shone, and she wore red lipstick in the middle of the afternoon. She displayed the cigar box with a small, curious grin on her face. “Rings,” she said, and opened the box up like a mouth. “I’ve had these for so many years now.”