far out to sea,
that he felt lucky just to be there.

When he stepped from the plane, the light perfume of plumeria and the
warm breeze were like old friends. He had credit cards and a few bucks
in the market, but he might have been thirty again, driving a cab,
hoping for a load to the Kahala and a big tip. He rode the city bus
into Waikiki, the Filson bag on his lap, and rented a room for a week
on Kuhio Avenue--a concrete block room with a four foot lanai, a tiny
refrigerator, and a hot plate.

An hour later he was beneath the banyan tree at the Moana beach bar.
Gilbert was still tending bar. "Gilbert, you haven't changed a bit."
Gilbert was from Honolulu, medium sized with dark hair and dark eyes.
He could have been from anywhere. His square features were
professionally neutral; his smile was quick and ironic, under control.

"Your eyes going," Gilbert said.

Joe ordered a mai tai for old time's sake. Sunset is a three hour show
in Waikiki. Joe stayed until the end--the last high smudge of crimson
snuffed out in darkness, the Pacific reduced to the sound of waves
collapsing along the beach.

On his way back to the hotel, a woman in a mini skirt asked if he
wanted a date.

"Not tonight. But if I did . . . "

"I'll be here tomorrow." She had large teeth, a big smile. He didn't
want a date, let alone that kind of date, but he felt a rush of warmth;
it's hard not to like someone who is willing to hold you, even if only
for money. The warmth followed him into bed and softened the sounds of
car horns and distant sirens.

In the morning he had a solid hangover. He trudged out of Waikiki to
the shopping center and ate breakfast in a coffee shop that served the
best Portuguese sausage on the island, made, he was told, by an elderly
couple whose identity was secret. He bought a bus pass valid for the
rest of November. The Honolulu bus system reaches around the island,
across the island, up the ridges, and deep into the separate valley
neighborhoods. Workers and students commute by bus. Kids give up their
seats to the elderly.

Joe quartered around the city like a hunting dog. Twenty-five years
earlier the State bird was said to be the crane. Now, it was an
endangered species. The city was quieter. He found himself returning to
Makiki, a neighborhood of low rise apartment buildings and condominiums
on a steep hillside, half an hour's walk, in different directions, to
the university and to the Ala Moana Shopping Ce