By Cynthia Morihara, July 30, 2020 — It was 8 A.M. Saturday morning. Feeling the aftereffects of Friday night at the Vineyard Tavern, BC was walking down the hill towards the Wailuku industrial district. When he approached the shop where he worked Monday through Friday, he noticed that its windows were shaded and its doors were locked. He realized that he had mistakenly thought that today was a working day. BC never missed work unless, of course, he was detained in the County Clink. The shoeless, unshaven BC next dropped a quarter into a payphone and called his buddy Steve. He wasn’t about to do any more walking, and he had to find his car.
“Hey, Steve! Could you pick me up? I can’t find my car.” Steve was an acquaintance of BC of one year and knew of his antics. After a short drive to BC’s spot on the beach, his car, which resembled a topless green army Jeep, was located. It was out of gas but otherwise okay. The next day was Sunday and BC hitchhiked to Kihei for the 3 P.M. happy hour at La Famiglia Restaurant and Bar. By 6 o’clock, he was smashed and needed another ride home, but he had lost his T-shirt and could not hitchhike in his condition. He called John, a sympathetic older man who also liked to frequent La Famiglia’s Sunday happy hour. “John, I can’t find my T-shirt! Could you pick me up and give me a ride?” John not only gave BC a ride home but gave BC one of his T-shirts.
Monday was a working day for BC and he appeared as usual at the Na Ka’oi Body and Fender Shop to sand and bond/hold. Bodywork was his life. He had studied body and fender in a Community College in Marin County, California, and he was one of the best in his field. It took an incredible amount of perseverance and patience to move his arm back and forth all day. It was no fun, but BC rarely missed work. He lived for payday, which was every Friday. Monday was passed on the Barrel. Usually on Tuesday BC was already out of money. He had to pawn off his friends for a meal or a ten-spot. His money lasted only because he had the office drawer hold $100 of his Friday pay until Monday when he would be broke from his weekend of heavy drinking which he did religiously every Friday and Saturday night. After all, a guy that worked as hard as he did, deserved a little fun, and drinking was what he liked to do best. BC wasn’t the type to buy all of his liquor from the grocery store. He liked to go to the bars, and this was expensive — so expensive, that he didn’t have any money to spare for rent, car, or food for the latter part of the week.
He was pau hana at four, and it was Wednesday afternoon. BC had $1.95 in his pocket. He bought a bag of sunflower seeds and a Millers at the minute shop and headed for his spot at the beach, slurping the Millers while it was still snug in its brown paper sack. When he reached the beach he sat down and began to work on the bag of sunflower seeds. After he had enough of those, he scouted the beach for branches and discarded lumber. He was going to have a fire tonight. It was one of his rituals. He would enjoy it more than usual tonight because of the chill that was beginning to settle in the air. BC was alone as the sun began to set. He was used to spending time alone. He sure had done enough of it in jail, but being on the beach, his fire was like heaven compared to twenty-four hours in solitary. BC was an optimist and always looked on the bright side. He had incredible resilience and could bounce back from every episode of his life without a sign of nervousness or regret. He was one to get on with his life. Life for BC was a drink of booze if he had the money. If he didn’t he would wait patiently, sometimes a little impatiently, until payday. It looked like rain, so BC got the pup tent out of the Jeep and set it up in the light of the fire. He set his wristwatch alarm to go off at 6:30 A.M. and went to sleep.
Thursday was a good day for BC. After six months of working in the sun, his boss offered him a spot in the garage. One of the other men at the shop who had a riff with his boss, gotten cocky about his pay or something, and lost his job. One thing about BC: he could smooth up to people real well. He could get along with everybody when he was sober. When he was drunk it was another story. People could misunderstand his attitude for belligerence. The guy was like night and day.
On Friday BC’s stomach was growling at 10. He was really ready for his $400 pay. He had gone the last two days without eating anything except the remainder of sunflower seeds and a cheese sandwich he had bummed off Paul, his coworker. He had also been without substantial alcohol in his system, and he was ready to get back into his high again. When he went out to check his car at 12, he found a parking ticket on it. It said: “for failure to register vehicle, $15.” BC took the ticket and shoved it in the glove compartment with the six other tickets that were there. He didn’t care because the car didn’t belong to him anyway. The expired registration was in the name of Sook Quac Mac, a Vietnamese refugee who had abandoned the vehicle at the body shop when he had left Maui for the mainland. The immigrant had been commuting in the seven-year-old Jeep, a VW thing, and found it too unreliable to carry him back and forth steadily to his place of employment in Lahaina. BC adopted the thing because he had lost his license back in California, he was never able to register in his own name. For BC the thing was an ideal beast car. Although it had battery problems at first, it was working alright now. The thing had one setback: it couldn’t go into reverse. Now with the tickets on it, BC had second thoughts about using it anymore. He decided just to leave it in its parking place outside the body shop and let the police do whatever they wanted with it. Walking was so much healthier anyway.
