Time and a Ticket

by Peter Benchley

  "Have another drink," said Charlie. He yawned and closed his eyes.

  The plane leveled off and flew straight for two or three minutes. Then suddenly the nose dropped, a little at first, then more, then still more, until it was perhaps twenty degrees off level. I heard a crash, and three trays flew down the aisle and clattered against the barrier between first class and tourist. A woman across the aisle from me dropped her purse. It snapped open, and a lipstick and rouge and coins and keys rolled forward.

  "Hi, there!" said the voice on the loudspeaker. "This is your captain again. For those of you who haven't flown Pan American Jet Clipper Service before, I'd like to say that this is not a normal landing procedure. We're descending at approximately four thousand feet a minute. By the way," he added, "in case you think we're going a little fast, I'd like to say that we've got all the garbage possible out there on the wings to slow us down."

  I tried to grip the arms of the seat, but my hands were so sweaty they kept slipping off. I nudged Charlie. "Hey, did you hear that? Four thousand feet a minute."

  "Good," he said, sleepily. "That must mean we're almost there."

  For the first few hours in Honolulu, Charlie and I didn't fully realize that we were back in the United States. We took a room at the YMCA, which is like the Hong Kong YMCA only slightly more elaborate, and we walked around the city, as we had done in every city we visited. Then we decided to get something to eat.

  "What'll it be, Jack?" said the pock-marked young man in the soiled waiter's jacket.

  "Two cheeseburgers and a Coke," I said.

  "Same for me," said Charlie. "Only, no cheese."

  "Have you got enough money?" I asked Charlie.

  "I better have. I've got two or three bucks."

  We ate our food, and asked for the bill. "Two-ninety!" said Charlie. "Two-ninety for what?"

  The young man looked at his pad. "For two Steerburgers, two Special Cheese Supremes, and two Cokes, that's what," he said.

  Charlie left three dollars on the table, and we stood up.

  "Thanks, big-timer," said the waiter.

  We knew we were home. Taxis started at fifty cents and jumped a dime every fifth or sixth of a mile. Movies cost a dollar or a dollar and a half. Shirts cost twenty-five or thirty cents each to launder. And we couldn't get an edible meal for less than four dollars apiece. It was the wrong place for us.

  The next morning, we went to Waikiki. Waikiki is a long, curved beach in a shallow cove. At one end of the beach is a huge pink hotel. At the other end is Diamond Head. Between the two sprawls an unbroken line of hotels— white hotels, blue hotels, yellow hotels, pink hotels, hotels named Princess Kaiulani and Moana and Hilton Hawaiian Village. The hotels do not go all the way up to Diamond Head—yet. But trees have been cut down and land cleared, and within five years the whole beach will probably be one sprawling hotelopolis.

  Charlie and I walked to the shore on a narrow path between two hotels. At the beginning of the path was a sign, "Private walk—for hotels guests only," but no one stopped us. We spread towels on the crowded beach and rushed toward the water. On my first step into the water I opened the sole of my left foot on a piece of coral. On my second step I twisted my ankle on a rock and fell forward on my face in two feet of water. We found that the only safe way to get to deeper water was to sit with our hands under us and slowly propel ourselves with our hands until we reached swimming depth. As I worked my way away from the beach, scuttling across the coral like a deformed crab, a man who was floating in a chartreuse inner tube called to me. "Hey, bud," he said, "watcha doing?"

  I settled down gently in the water and looked at him. He was fat and extraordinarily hairy. He had hair on his stomach, his chest, his shoulders, his back, his neck, his legs and his toes, and hair sprouted from his ears and nose like tufts of grass. He carried two cigars stuffed into the elastic of his bathing suit. "I am trying to get to less dangerous waters," I said.

  "Should have got yourself an inner tube," he said. "If you sit right, it saves your ass, too."

  "It's a little late to think of that. I'm at the point of no return. I might as well keep going."

  "Why don't you tell the old lady to throw you a tube?"

  "There is no old lady. If I had a wife, you can bet your life I wouldn't be here."

  "No wife? Now there is a lucky man. Bud, I wisht I was in your shoes. Some of the ginch on this here island is well worth the trouble. But not with a wife. No sir. I'd never bring my wife here again. I'll come alone next time."

  "Does your wife enjoy it here?" I said.

  "Sure. She enjoys any place she can get away with spending a hundred bucks a day. Don't matter for what. Right now she's having a hula lesson, fa crissakes! She should do the hula like I should do a goddam ballet dance. An American beauty rose is one thing she ain't."

  "And what about you? Do you like it here?"

  "You know what this is? Atlantic City with palm trees. Sure, it's all right. It's warm, and I get a tan. It's a change from Miami, anyway."

  "Well, nice to meet you," I said. I pushed myself forward on my hands.

  "Yeah," he said. "Don't forget to get an inner tube."

  I spent the afternoon skinning my chest and swallowing salt water in a grotesque attempt at surfboarding. I gave that up as a bad job when the board got away from me and narrowly missed decapitating a young girl. I returned the surfboard to the rental booth and bought a sandwich and a Coke with the dollar and a half I had planned to spend renting the surfboard for another hour.

  The next night, after spending ten hours on the beach, we decided to leave Honolulu and go to some of the outlying islands, reportedly less developed and less expensive. In principle, it was a splendid idea. In practice it turned out that transportation to the other islands was more expensive than two days' room and board in Honolulu.

  Four hours later, when my system had given up trying to adapt itself to the three zombies I had had at Don the Beachcomber's and was letting balance, reason, and digestion go their own detached ways, I bought six rolls of nickels, shut myself in a phone booth, and gave the long distance operator a number in Alexandria, Virginia.

  "Hello," said the voice of my lost lady love.

  "That will be ten dollars and forty cents for the first three minutes," said the operator. I started pumping nickels into the machine, and I could hear laughter on the other end.

  "There!" I said, triumphantly. "Hi!"

  "I knew it was you."

  "I knew you'd knew—you'd know. Anyway, I knew it, too. Hey, are you free for dinner tomorrow night?"

  "Yes," she said. "Where are you?"

  "I'm not altogether certain," I said. "The last time I had any conscious knowledge of anything, I was in Hawaii. Right now it's anybody's guess."

  "Hawaii!"

  "Hawaii. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. I'll call you from the airport. Farewell." I hung up.

  I went upstairs and packed.

  "Well, I'm going to the Seattle fair," said Charlie when I told him of my dinner engagement.

  "Enjoy yourself," I said. "I just can't see going all the way up there for a fair. A circus, maybe. A fair, no. When do you leave?"

  "I think I'll leave tonight, too," he said. "I'm not all that sure why I'm going to the fair, but I'm going. All there'll be are exhibits from the countries we've just seen. There won't be anything new."

  "There won't be anything new," I repeated. I stood up as straight as my inner ear would permit, raised one eyebrow, and said in a most sententious tone, "Beware. This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey."

  "Come on," said Charlie. "Let's get to the airport before you fall down and hurt yourself." As he led me out of the room, he mumbled, " 'An arrant jade on a journey.' What are you, some kind of nut?"

 

 
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