Polaroids 2022

 On my own at 19 years of age, I moved far from my little duplex hobble in Waipahu.

It was time to flee the nest, but only with the promise that I would come home for Sunday dinners, which I did. It was the early 80s,' and the low-level state job I got was not one I could complain about. The pay was more than I got from raking the yard and bagging groceries in Big Way. I was able to buy a car, which I will proudly tell you I could take excellent care of until the Chevy Monte Carlo came out in 86. This was my old 74 Sattelite Sebring that I passed down to my nephew. I lived in Kaimuki near the Diamond Head Theater at the end of Alohea.

Nice, quiet place, with lots of old people and a few KCC students for neighbors. So, here is the root of this story. I got a Polaroid camera, just in case. I wasn't a camera bug that took pictures of everything and everyone; it was something to keep handy in case the occasion required pictures. One night, I had a hang-out gathering at my place with food and drinks and lots of social interaction. As the night wore on, I got out the Polaroid and had everyone pose for pictures, which I handed to them for keeps after. By 1 in the morning, people were slowly filtering out of my place, while there were others that I insisted on staying overnight because of how drunk they were. The following day, people woke up and apologized to me if they'd done anything stupid, which I assured them they did not. Others were kind enough to clean up and insisted on making breakfast for whoever was still around to show their appreciation for my letting them crash in the living room. No problem; it was nice to have a good breakfast with some champagne. It was noon when everyone departed with well wishes and instances that we do something like this again. Of course, we did, but that's another story.

When I sat on the couch watching HBO, I noticed my Polaroid sitting atop the TV. I got up and retrieved it, and as I sat back down on my couch, I decided to use those last six pictures to take what is now referred to as selfies in 2022. When the images developed after a few seconds of drying out, I was confused to see that my big ugly face was not in them. Instead, it was three pictures of Doug Nohara going through people's wallets and purses while they were sleeping in my living room last night. The other three were of Doug groping some women while they slept on the couch or on my rattan rocking chairs. I took a while to comprehend what I saw, but once I did, I got out another cartridge, slid it into the Polaroid, and took more pictures of myself. Those came out fine. I was never able to repeat the process again. On Monday, I showed the photos to our division supervisor, Kell Tachibana.

"Doug took these pictures of himself doing this?" Kell asked, very confused and irritated.

"That's the only conclusion I can come to," I said. "These pictures were on my TV next to my camera; I don't know why he would take incriminating pictures like that and just leave them out in the open to be found,"

Kell called Doug into his office and showed him the pictures. Doug was shocked, but his mistake was saying aloud, "Nobody was there taking pictures when I did this; I was dunno how this happened?"

Doug wasn't fired; he was transferred to another division. That's how you work a county, state, or federal job. To this day, I cannot explain how those pictures developed like that, and I haven't questioned it since.