Before I could enter the store, the greeter told me I needed a shirt. I was taken aback. No doorman had ever before suggested a shirt, let alone speak of its requirement. The greeter’s gray eyes were genial behind wire rim glasses. There was no malice there. In fact, I thought him to be an employee with the sunniest of dispositions.
I’m afraid shirts have always been required in Walmart. That’s store policy. He was well aware that the shirt policy had been overlooked before now, but management was making changes.
In the end, his rejection came with a smile, one as broad as the shiny yellow smiley over his heart. The Walmart logo button stood out like a single merit badge. Bright and pinned on his blue vest, it looked like the emoji postmodern irony. Have nice day, said he and the button in unison. This new demand was a deplorable one. A shirt?
Hawaiian culture was being whitewashed. Soon enough management would say it was illegal to ride in the back of trucks without seat belts. Management was rolling over the island like a tsunami. But times were what they were, and I supposed gentrification being expressed in such a way could only be expected with more and more frequency.
It took me a stunned moment before I could fully acquiesce to the smiling greeter and started rifling through my backpack for a shirt or some piece of fabric to wrap around my bare torso. But there was no scrap of cloth to be found. The two big compartments had nothing but a spare tube and patch kit. I thought I might have stuffed a tank top in somewhere, but came up empty.
With a shock, I felt that the front compartment of the backpack was empty. My heart sank to my toes. My stomach clenched. I unzipped and peeled back the flap to get at the little interior pocket. Blood rushing to my cheeks, I tried to deny what I already knew. Unwilling to fully accept the ugly truth, I began feeling around in the pouch like a blind raccoon.
Empty, gone, pau, no mo fo da kine.
I was shaking my head, muttering, no no no, when the greeter clucked his tongue. He told me it was unfortunate that I had forgotten a shirt.
“No, my wallet.”
His smile never wavered as he nodded. I wasn’t getting in, not without a shirt. That was what he knew. There were other customers to greet. For him, I was but a passing shadow of obscurity. I was just blurry smear on his day--a day which was festering with meaningless interactions. He was here to represent that smiley button, and so I didn’t hold his nonchalance against him.
I couldn’t fathom his position in life, dealing with hordes of humanity. In my case, he was a gatekeeper and faithful upholder of the shirt policy. For everyone else, it was a pleasant hello or goodbye. It seemed such a sorry hand to be dealt in the sunset years of life, but did it like a champ.
Without a trace of animosity, I begged his pardon and ran outside through the glass double doors to the bike rack. Feeling sick, I searched the milk crate on the luggage rack over the rear wheel of my bike. Empty. I patted my boardshorts. No pockets. That was the problem. The previous pair of boardshorts had had a pocket. I could secure my wallet with velcro, but it did no good to reminisce. Those boardshorts had been retired.
Last Friday, when a gust of wind informed me that my cheeks were exposed, I knew I couldn’t wear them on the Hilo run. The nylon seat had completely worn through. And now, the boardshots I was wearing didn’t have any pockets. Although they fit like a dream for something found in a freebox I should have sewn on a pouch or holster the minute I got them. Instead of my cheeks feeling the breeze, I was ass out of a wallet. I chided myself for thinking I could remember to zip the wallet in the front pouch of the pack--of course not. Not when it counted, but neither hindsight nor self abasement would help the wallet emerge from the ether.
In contrast with my dark mood, which slowly settled into a bog of sullen futility, the stream of people flowing in and out of Walmart looked at ease in the lively current of the moment. The untroubled customers moved by one another as complacent as fish circling in an office tank. They all wore shirts, had arrived in cars and lived in houses. They all had remembered their wallets.
Perhaps I had left mine on the end table. That would be the best case scenario. Even the most adventurous hiker in Mackenzie Park didn’t veer off the main trail. If they did, they would never find the lava tube I chose to shack up. Yes, I must have left it there. Didn’t I take it out of the pack for some stupid reason last night? Surely the wallet was sitting next to the Tom Robbins novel. But what if I left it on a table in Pahoa? My memory started to roll dice, and all the ‘could-bes’ were considered. That wallet had to be clipped on my person. A green hemp lovely little thing, it had tried to leave me several times for a park bench or log next to a camp fire. The wallet was ready to move on, but the shoelace I used as a leash made leaving impossible. Tied to my other boardshorts it couldn’t get away, but that was then.
Before I was completely flummoxed, I tried to remember an idiom that seemed applicable. It was something about God granting me the wisdom for things I could change and what I couldn’t change, but I forgot the words. I couldn’t remember a damn thing, could I? Hopefully, I left it on the table. I pictured it there in the dark next to my book. I willed it to be in the lava tube. What more could I do?
Resigned to my fate, I considered what had to be done next. Fuel for the return trip to Puna, that was the main issue. The bowl of oats I had eaten for breakfast had been burnt off long ago. Somewhere around Keaau I began to feel light headed. On the last six mile stretch of highway there was nothing but helium in my skull, and I had coasted into Hilo.
I was about to grab some macadamia nuts and a pack of lighters at Wally World, but the game had changed. There was a shirt policy, and then I felt cheated by my own forgetfulness. With a grimace, I flung the empty pack into the milk crate, nearly toppling my poor steel steed. Wishing I could leave a streak of burnt rubber, I pushed bike my out of the stream of customers and rode out of the parking lot. I didn’t get far before my head began to ache. It felt like a splitting crack ripping down the center of my brain. Dizzy, I knew the helium fumes wouldn’t get me far. Across the street, I popped the bike onto the sidewalk and sat in the shade of Sears.
My legs felt limp as overcooked ramen noodles. I couldn’t make it back to the lava tube. Twenty four miles was out of the question. Should I consider heading downtown? The terrain was nearly flat, and the roads were smooth in Hilo. If I took it slow, I might be able to ride downtown without passing out on the roadside. Then I could beg for a bite to eat, for spare change, for a miracle.
First, I’d have to swallow a gagging amount of pride. The deadly sin had grown into a behemoth. No way, I couldn’t do it. I was too damn proud to beg. Even though it was a desperate time, there were less degrading options--options that didn’t require eye contact to voice my pathetic situation. The first option that popped into my head was the transient credit card. If I could find a marker and scrawl something on a piece of cardboard, no eye contact would be needed for a sign that did the begging for me. But that required humility I didn’t have. Starving, I needed another option.
No stealing. That was a rule I had imposed on myself after meeting a formidable orange lava goddess on psychedelics. She felt real enough to scare the shit out of me, and so I told her I’d never steal again. She seemed to want some sort of instant ethical improvement--or else. And of course later, when I knew that I mustn’t steal, I wondered what kinds of tricks the mind can play. I wondered about different deities and the degrees of varying opinions when it came to rules about the game of reality.
Famished now, even if I were willing to break my vow and steal food--which I wasn’t--I figured that without a shirt, I’d get caught. Too many eyes would follow me around the store. Besides, without pockets, where could I stash a piece of fruit or a marker for a sign? Surely it would take a lot more than an apple to get me back home to Mackenzie Park, so I needed to think outside the box of commerce.
There was one last option. Not only would I not have to beg, but more importantly, kissing ass and humility wouldn’t be needed. If all went well, no one would see or miss a thing. All that, and I was pretty sure the orange fiery goddess would be stoked about option three.
The sun glinted off the cars in the lot with a menacing glare. The light had teeth and bit into the air. It bit and chewed and swallowed. As I sniffed, a ravenous sort of hunger began gnawing at me. There it was, the hint of an aroma. A mysterious culinary concoction came wafting by, and my mouth watered. How was it that a bouquet of animal bits scraped off the bottom of some factory farm floor could smell so divine? This marvel could only be attributed to the genius of modern alchemy. Instead of lead into gold, savants in lab coats discovered a sensory trick. They could spin pure evil into calorie dense sinfully deliciousness. Once it was reconstituted and slapped in a to-go bag, no one cared where it came from.
Slowly, my body shaking, I rode two blocks to the Panda Express. The fabricated fragrance of what counted as food, all fried and scrumptious, was maddening. Looking around the parking lot, I spotted the red wooden fence. It was ornamentation concealing the chain link which housed the giant lunch box.
But the line of cars in the drive through, they were going to be a problem. The dumpster cage was behind the outdoor menu, and from every angle, someone would be able to see me. The sight of someone trespassing in the forbidden zone would bring the kind of attention I would rather avoid. In the night, maybe I could slink over the fence undetected, but I still needed to make the twenty four mile trek back home. There was no time to wait.
Perhaps I could pull it off in broad daylight. I needed a certain amount of pluck, that was all. If I didn’t get something in me, I would collapse and die under the merciless sun. Just as I considered making my way between the building and quarantined dumpster, an employee in a black visor and polo shirt opened the back door hauling two translucent bags of trash. The chain link gate swung open with a jingle, and the bags were tossed out of sight.
A man sitting in a Chrysler had also witnessed the employee. He was parked in a stall on the corner of the building, and hadn’t noticed me notice him. The employee, an attractive girl, made an adorable expression of concentration as she flung the bags. Both bags had been light, stuffed with paper towels. By the leer on the man’s face, I could tell he had dirty little thoughts. Would he care if I walked up and investigated the dumpster area? I hoped him to be an unflappable man. His jowls made him appear to be in a mood of perpetual irritability, but with any luck he would mind his own business and leave me to mine.
I let my bike, leaning it against a street light near the entrance of the parking lot and walked past the Chrysler. The man inside was working on a fist full of fries, and I could hear talk radio mumbling through his passenger side window. As if I had pertinent business to attend to, I walked up to the gate, lifted the latch and--I tried lifting the latch, but no. I didn’t expect the little black lock with the four number combination. I pulled down on the lock, but it was fastened shut. The lock was locked. The employee had opened the gate so quickly. The combination couldn’t be more than one number off. In my peripheral vision, I tried to gauge the expression of the man in the Chrysler, but the glare of the sun off his windshield made seeing him impossible.
Then after watching a woman cross the parking lot to her vehicle, I lost my nerve and decided to abort the mission. She hadn’t seen me, but there was no sense in sticking around. It was all too exposed. From every angle, someone in the horseshoe line of cars could spot me. Having remembered to bring their wallets, they were all headed for the the drive through window, ready to pay with their credit cards in hand. To watch me climb up and over the fence might upset their sense of the world. I had no doubt that someone in line had children they had to stop from grabbing things out of the trash. A misguided paternal impulse could domino out of control. From a car honk to fifty eyes locked on me, there might be calls to the cops and then sirens. I didn’t want to face the law or an angry mob of disgruntled employees and customers seeking to lynch the vagabond.
It was humiliation I feared more than any legal repercussions. The embarrassment of getting caught, talked to, scolded--all that had to be avoided. It wasn’t that I felt what I was doing was wrong. Not in the least. In legal terms this might be trespassing, but I considered dumpster diving to be the highest calling of any human living among modern civilization. Rescuing food doomed to decompose and break down into methane gas was the job of a saint. Methane poked holes in the ozone which was bad new for everyone. Society might not be able to see the goodness in what I was trying to do, but society had crucified Jesus.
At the moment, Panda Express was too risky. If I had an employee outfit, maybe the mission would have been feasible. A shirtless guy with dreadlocks didn’t stand a chance. I could expect to run across policy upholders around every bend. What if I was tackled and beaten to a pulp, or worse? The crime of dumpster diving was a subjective one. Some vigilante might get their panties twisted if they saw it transpire. They might feel compelled to do something to stop me.
So I propelled my bike across the street to Burger King. There were only two cars in the drive through, and I found myself agreeing with the majority of people on their lunch breaks. Why go to Burger King when Panda Express was right across the street? Scarfing down a plastic container full of noodles and rice and chicken and beef with all the experimental additives and fillers would be so much better than a burger. I could inhale an egg roll.
My stomach growled in disapproval. Any kind of preferential discrimination worked against me at this point. It didn’t matter if it was kung pao or a whopper; I had to look at it all as fuel.
The Burger King dumpster was surrounded by three cinder block walls. Employees had access, through a chain link gate which faced the building. Unlike Panda Express, no one was watching, so I rode my bike up to the gate. I smiled. There was no lock. The gate was silent as I swung it open.
Inside the walls it was warmer and I could smell grease. Far from appetizing, the smell was a rancid one. I sniffed around and found the odor radiating from a stack of white buckets. The buckets were streaked with black grime. It looked like fry oil, but who knew what biohazards simmered within?
Wishing I had something to protect my skin from the muck on the lip of the green metal bucket, I looked around for wrappers, cardboard or anything else I could flip over the rim. There was nothing, so I grabbed the sticky lip of the dumpster and pressed myself up to peer inside. The metal was hot, but not scalding. Unfortunately, the bin was nearly empty, and it was too far to reach down and retrieve a bag. I was going to get filthy if I had to deal with the interior walls, but what else could I do? Strewn about the bottom of the dumpster there were at least six clear plastic bags. They were from the bathrooms. In a corner were what appeared to be two bags that might contain what I was looking for. They were both black, and I hoped at least one was filled with paper wrapped burgers.
Gingerly as possible, I brought my feet up onto the rim and jumped down onto one of the clear plastic bags. The paper towels condensed like the stuffing of pillows, and my landing was a soft one. Other than a dark streak of grease on my forearm, I had made a clean entry.
Ripping open one of the black bags, I was pleased to find a variety of sandwiches. French fries had rubbed on the wrappers like greasy packing peanuts, but not so much as a dirty napkin contaminated the food. This haul was straight from the kitchen. I reckoned the sandwiches hadn’t been rejected for being anything but a few minutes old. That said, it was difficult to gauge how much time had past since they’d been cast out here. Everything inside the bag was warm, but the sun could have been responsible for that.
I had chosen three cheeseburgers and a spicy chicken sandwich when I heard the chain link gate clang. I froze.
“Hello?” I heard the voice of a woman.
“Who in dea?” she asked. Her pidgin English had a husky rasp to it.
My bike. It had given me away. Propped up against the dumpster, I realized my mistake. Why hadn’t I leaned it against the wall of the building? The gig was up. What could I do? A sinking feeling made my heart do backflips. I didn’t make a noise thinking that perhaps she’d go back inside.
“I know you in dea!” she shouted with aggravated conviction.
I let out a sigh.
“Alright,” I said. “I guess you caught me.”
“What? Who in dea?” By her accent, I guessed her to be of Filipino or Samoan descent. In my mind I envisioned a giant auntie, her gray hair pulled back in a bun, a glint of ancestral fire in her eye. Perhaps her lineage had a justifiable prejudice against the whites. I was tan, but not brown enough to pass for Hawaiian and that could mean trouble.
I was defeated, and yet I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the sandwiches. I needed a to-go bag. I ripped a big square from a clear plastic bag and wrapped the sandwiches up in a bundle. After tying the four corners, I tossed the fugitive burger bag up and over the lip of the dumpster. The projectile caused the Burger King woman to squeal in an alarmed protest.
After emptying the rest of the paper towels out of the bag, I used the rest of the plastic to form a barrier between myself and the dumpster’s interior, and then I hopped out.
“Throw dat away!” said the woman. I thought she would be bigger, but she was short as she was thick. Imposing for her stature, she was pointing at my package of rescued sandwiches with a sour countenance. I felt her rebuke, but I was not yet ready.
“Okay, I will put them back, just give me a second to say goodbye,” I said. Thinking of policy I picked up the burgers. Then I thought about methane. I thought about the ridiculousness of it all and wondered if I could get away. She was positioned between me and the gate. Would she scream for help if I tried to get past her?
Realizing I might not have much time, I ripped open the plastic, and unwrapped the chicken sandwich. Mayonnaise had seeped into the bun a little, but other than that, the fillet was still crisp and smelled like heaven.
Taking an enormous bite, I watched the woman’s eyes narrow.
“You disgusting!” she said. The venom in her words made me squirm.
“No, it’s delicious, try some,” I said, extending the sandwich. When she recoiled, I shrugged and took an even bigger bite. The lettuce was still crisp, and nothing had ever tasted so satisfying.
With my mouth full, relishing the questionable sustenance, I tried to explain that I needed fuel for the ride home. She shook her head, not hearing a word of it.
“I call police,” she threatened.
“Fine,” I said. “By the time they get here, I’ll be long gone.”
The look of contempt on her face didn’t bring about the humiliation I had dreaded. Caught red handed--literally with ketchup smeared on my wrist as I unwrapped a cheeseburger--I was shaking with adrenaline, but I was also aware that I wasn’t hurting anyone. I was breaking a cultural norm, that was all.
If anything, food poisoning would teach me a lesson, but I doubted the sandwiches were more than an hour old. Thoroughly saturated with innumerable preservatives, the dubious ingredients of the sandwiches hadn’t yet spoiled. The sealed black plastic bag had protected them from any sort of dumpster muck. It was only that I wished I could have washed my hands, but with the angry Hawaiian woman glaring at me, I needed to wolf as much as I could as quickly as was possible.
“Hey!” she barked as I stuffed half the burger into my mouth in a single bite. “Stop that, now!”
She spoke as if I were a pest, as if I were a feral animal, and wasn’t I? This was completely inappropriate. She knew it, and I knew it.
“You better call the police,” I suggested.
“I will, now you stop!” she said. Something in her struggle to gain control of the situation struck my funny bone, and I began laughing so hard that I inhaled a bit of the burger and began to cough.
“You disgusting,” she said. Her words were laced with loathing that could wilt a flower.
“Yeah,” I agreed, my eyes watering from the fit of coughing, “but disgusting or not, I still need to eat. I have to ride back to Pahoa. Like an idiot, I forgot my wallet.”
She glanced at my bicycle, and for a moment, a look of understanding sparked in her eye. She might have begun to comprehend my plight, or so it seemed, before renewed repugnance replaced all sympathy.
“Okay,” she said, seething. “I call police now. Why you no listen?” Her upper lip curled in a sneer, and she muttered how disgusting I was again. Suddenly I recognized a few Spanish phrases. She said them in little more than a whisper, calling me a dirty pig--sucio cochino. As I took another bite, she called me a pendejo. Deriding me with a handful of Spanish insults, I realized she couldn’t be Hawaiian. Not that it should have made a difference, but it did.
“Do what you gotta do,” I said, swallowing the other half of the burger. I tossed the two remaining ones into the milk crate.
She scoffed and walked out of the gate. On the outside, she shot me a haughty look of victory, and swung the gate to lock me in.
“Nice try,” I said, stopping the gate in the knick of time with my foot. “Just go call the cops, but like I said, I’ll be gone in a flash. I’m fueled up now.”
With an exasperated sigh, she spun around and huffed to the door, opened it, and yelled inside.
I was halfway across the parking lot when I heard a man yell. His baritone voice boomed across the asphalt. He sounded like an angry tribal chief. He sounded much more powerful than any Burger King employee could be. In my mind I saw him on the shore of Kona. He stood with a suspicious gaze, watching Captain Cook’s ship growing larger on the horizon. His yell of rebuke rumbled down like thunder, but I never looked back to see.
I pedaled hard and fast to get out of the city. I pedaled to an earlier time where corporate policies were but a futuristic nightmare in some dystopian novel. I pedaled, fortified with the thousands of calories that would never get the chance to decompose and break down into methane gas.
And then I was back in Mackenzie Park. I was back in the lava tube, back in the cave I called home. I smiled in relief. There on the end table, sitting next to the Tom Robbins novel was a little hemp wallet on a shoelace leash. If it had a face, it would have been smirking. If it could have talked, it would have asked me what kind of day I’d had without it. It would have asked the question in a sarcastic tone, and so I set about sewing a pocket onto my new pair of boardshorts, pausing to take bites of a cheeseburger that tasted like heaven.
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