Blaine Shibuya grew up in the neighborhood just past the Fort Shafter on-ramp on Ala Mahamoe Street.
He was a member of the first graduating class at Moanalua High School in 1975. Sitting on the rim of Alia Pa'akai or Salt Lake Crater, the school served a community comprised of Filipino, Japanese, Okinawan, Caucasian, Chinese, Korean, African-American, Hawaiian, and part Hawaiian, Samoan, Hispanic, and Pacific Islander backgrounds. Blaine liked the dark ones. There was something about the skin tone and the aroma that came with it that made him flush to the point where his cheeks took on a rosy glow. Then he'd start to perspire in beads of sweat, not trickles. By his senior year, he'd trained himself to endure as much overwhelming lust as he could before running to the boy's bathroom to relieve himself. Because he'd grown big-boned and tall, people often mistook him for being fat, which he wasn't. Many of the best fat jokes were wasted on Blaine because he didn't see himself that way. Blaine was by no means a pushover. His father trained him in Iaido, drawing the sword from the sheath and making a killing blow. If people wouldn't leave the fat jokes alone and persistently harass him, he'd retreat to his car to get his trusty boken and make short work of the offenders. After graduation, Blaine took day classes at Leeward Community College for his AA, and in the evenings, he worked at the old Gibson's store in Mapunapuna. Blaine was only employed for less than a year when he was introduced to a new hire, fresh from South Korea. Her father was stationed there, but he got transferred to Fort Shafter. Her name was Doralei Jones; she was part African-American, part Korean. She was stunningly beautiful and very warm and friendly. She extended both hands, grabbed Blaine's hand, and gave it a generous squeeze. His erection came to full attention, and he nearly fainted. He mumbled something incoherent and excused himself to the employee bathroom, where he plopped himself down on the closed toilet seat and locked the door. He removed a small bottle of Three Flowers Brilliantine pomade from his pocket. Scooping out a sample with his two fingers, he applied it to his erection. In a few seconds, it was over. Standing at the sink now, washing his hands, he saw how drunk red his cheeks had become, how the beads of sweat just sat there on his forehead and the space between his nose and his upper lip."Disgusting," he heaved his disappointment at his reflection. "If anyone knew, you'd be fired; no one would talk to you. Then you'd have to go work for the state!"
*
His fifteen-minute dinner break could not have come at a more welcomed time. His homemade bento consisted of rice, natto, ume, and several pieces of chicken katsu with homemade sauce on the side. In his thermos was iced cold exchange orange juice, his favorite. He half-paid attention to the old nissei ladies who worked in the warehouse. They babbled on about night marchers who came through the store and processed into an opening that resurfaced at the end of the reef runway.
"Wea da ting go?" Margie Shirai asked her friend Sally.
"Right in da middle of da store!" She affected. The other two women held their hands over their mouths and gasped. "Why you tink get sink hole all da time!" Sally claimed to have seen the unearthly procession one evening when she had to work overnight for inventory. "So many tall Hawaiian warrior; dey go down into da puka!"
Blaine scoffed a bit too loudly because the conversation stopped, and when he turned to look in their direction, all the old nissei women were glaring at him. Margie Shirai threw her rice canister at Blaine, hitting him square on the shoulder. "Futotta baka!" She shouted, calling him a fat idiot. Blaine did nothing except bow his head, collect his bento and thermos, and leave. As he was going, Doralei was coming in for her break. "Hey, Blaine!" She smiled. "Where you headed?"
"Gotta go somewhere else to eat," he gestured his head toward the old women. "They're not such good company,"
"Oh well, let me join you," she offered. "I got my dad's big boat of a car; there's plenty of room. We can have our dinner in there," she leaned in closer and whispered. "Just don't spill anything because then I gotta kill ya'," she nudged him and winked. Doralei was on her way, and Blaine had no choice but to follow. A nice breeze came through the parking lot and wafted Doralei's perfume at Blaine, who made a monumental effort to control himself. The whole time that they sat in the car Doralei went on about herself, her travels, her parents, and how things were going thus far in Hawai'i. Blaine listened attentively while placing his bento over his crotch so as not to reveal his raging hard-on. He laughed and giggled at the appropriate time, and winced when Doralei talked about being bullied by some Korean kids on base for being half Black and half Korean.
"It's not like that here," Blaine said. "Everyone is chop suey, so you get accepted for who you are, not what you look like." Looking at his watch, he saw that he only had a minute left on his break. "Oh, I have to get back, my break was only for 15 minutes, and I have only a minute left."
As he left the car, Doralei reached out and grabbed his hand. "Thanks for hanging out with me; I appreciate the company,"
"Yeah, sure!" Blaine held his finished bento box in front of his lap and bowed. He made a beeline for the clock so he could punch in on time. Then he popped his head into his boss's office. "I'm back, boss; you need me for anything?"
"No, in fact, going pretty much be dead until closing, so you can punch out," Creighton Higa said. "See you tomorrow,"
Blaine went home and lay in bed for the rest of the evening, thinking about Doralei Jones and remembering her lingering perfume and the ease at which she touched him. Her constant appreciation and thanks, for little things. He fell asleep with his erection in his hand and woke with another, which was soon made flaccid by his father pounding on his door. "Blaine! Your boss is on the the phone! Hurry up!"
"Hello? Shibuya?" Creighton spoke in his affected yakuza voice.
"Hi, Creighton," he moaned, still half asleep.
"These old Nissei ladies don't want to work tonight; they're afraid because it's no moon tonight and supposedly get night marchers come through the store. I need you to work inventory overnight. I pay you time and a half and get somebody to help you, so don't worry!"
Creighton left Blaine with no choice; he had to work the overnight shift for inventory. To his surprise, the person who showed up to help him was Doralei. It was just the two of them and one big warehouse, so they agreed they had to start from opposite ends of the warehouse and work toward the middle. They started at midnight, and the droning click from the hand-held counter frustrated Blaine because they also had to write down the count on a clipboard. It was two thirty in the morning when the clicking sound from Doralei's end suddenly stopped. Blaine walked over to see if everything was okay. Rounding the corner between a high shelf of cardboard boxes, he saw Doralei with her top off. Her white shirt lay on a box, soaked in perspiration. She was putting on a lite green shirt. She put the green vest on and adjusted her hair when she was done. She nearly caught Blaine staring, but he disappeared just in time. Blaine stumbled back toward his part of the warehouse, trembling in disbelief at how perfect Doralei's breasts were and how her nipples stood up when the material of her shirt brushed up against them. For Doralei, there was an eerie quiet that came over the warehouse, and it gave her goosebumps. Then she heard the sound of conch shells, the drone of deafening drums, and the aroma of something horrifically dead. She had to find Blaine; something was wrong, and she needed the protection and company of another human being. It was too late when she got to his side of the warehouse. Much too late.
....to be continued
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