Lava’s Bar by Marisa Mangani

Sarah parked in the small lot beside Lava’s Bar on Lower Main not knowing what to expect. The ancient and industrial part of Wailuku looked the same as it had when she was a kid: non-descript dingy buildings, narrow alleys with the odd apartment sprinkled in, a snuffling dog on the corner. Despite the post-sunset, orangey sky, the area emanated an enticing melancholy, a feeling she remembered from the seat of her dad’s tow truck back in the early seventies en route to the junkyard, stereo shop, or TV repair. But now, there’s a bar! Maybe there was always a bar—or bars—here, but bars weren’t on her radar in those days, obviously. She’d always been curious about the dusty, mid-island pit of industrial Wailuku, compared to the tourist-dotted beaches in Kihei, where she had grown up a mere ten or so miles away.

 “Howzit? C’mon in!” the lady behind the small bar said when Sarah paused in the doorway. The bartender wore an oversized red and gold Aloha shirt and glowed with an island diet of kalua pork, macaroni salad, and Korean ribs.

Sarah smiled, nodded, and snaked through the newspaper-covered dinette tables and metal chairs to the eight bar stools. She sat two seats away from the only other patron at the bar, a burly bald white guy with a tattoo of an octopus encircling his head.

Sarah thought, how interesting. She had half dreaded that, in this part of town, this would be a locals-only bar, as in Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Asian. But here they were, two haoles: a scary biker guy (what’s his story?)  and a mainland haole gal who hadn’t lived on Maui for over forty years. The man nodded at her, as if saying, yes, this is the coolest place, and now you are here.

The bartender hustled up and said, “Sorry, we all gettin’ ready for a birthday party. Whatchu like for drink?”

Sarah then noticed the pink and white balloons clustered above the front door. “Um, I’ll have a Longboard Lager.”

“We out, how ’bout a Big Wave?”

“Fine, thanks.”

The chilled bottle was in front of her in an instant when Octopus man spoke with an accent Sarah detected as a pidginized, southern drawl, with notes of gay, “Well, what brings you in here?”

She tasted her beer and considered the man’s lispy voice: a southern gay guy comes to Hawaii, gets a tattoo of an octopus on his head, adapts to, and is accepted into, the Hawaiian life. Not your typical California surfer guy who comes out here to ‘live the beach life.’ She felt jealous that he fit in when she never could, and she was born here, for heaven’s sake.

“Huh. Oh, well, I don’t know,” she said. “Curious, I guess.” Sarah loved not giving out any information about herself when asked benign questions. But obviously, this man was not trying to pick her up, (was she even pick-up-able anymore? She didn’t think so) so she softened up a bit. “Actually, staying in Wailuku at a friend’s and wanted to go somewhere close by for a cold one.” She pointed to her phone. “Google.”

He nodded. “It’s a good bar. Ohana style. I just live around the corner.” He jabbed a thumb indicating which corner.

“Yeah,” bartender lady said from the end of the bar, “and he’s in here all da time.” She put his drink in front of him. “Arncha sweets?”

“My second home. Mahalo, Lani,” he winked at her and wrapped a plate-sized hand around the plastic cup of clear liquid.

Sarah wondered if the octopus tat was part of him when he’d arrived in the islands, or if that came later. She also wondered why she felt self-conscious about being white, sixty, female, and widowed when this big southern gay guy just barrels on into the local community and gets himself to fit in. Maybe being beat up five times in grade school by Hawaiian teeta chicks had something to do with her apprehension.

Laughter erupted when some locals streamed in, and it was clear that everyone knew each other. A young man sat next to Octo Man whose attention was diverted from her to this guy, and they chatted together and waved their hands like co-workers.

Sarah drank her beer. Thought some more. She was rusty being alone now. It had been just over a year since Tom had passed, and Sarah had maintained her life as usual as sort of a salve. Running her wine bar, gardening, reading, and drinking wine with friends. Retaining life’s structure kept her emotional ropes tethered to the earth. Then her beloved Lahaina town was consumed by the fires, and she flew six thousand miles back to Maui to volunteer and to do this, although she didn’t know what this was. So she wasn’t tethered by much right now. The ropes of her past, the ones that keep you grounded no matter what life throws at you, were now singed, and the rest were flapping in the trade winds.

Outside, a lush darkness was swallowing the orange sky, and the wall-mounted beer signs made the bar glow like a red jewel. More people streamed in, and someone took the stool by Sarah, interrupting her thoughts. A Filipino man, older, well, probably her age, nodded at her and ordered a Bud draft and a cup of ice. Sarah lifted her nearly empty beer bottle and Lani nodded.

“Are you part of this clan?” Sarah asked him once their drinks were in front of them.

“Nah,” said the Filipino man, “Just live nearby.”

In one of those small apartments, and a neighbor of Octo Man, Sarah imagined.

The man put a few cubes into his cup of beer and politely asked, “Where you from?”

And there it is. Of course, she’s obviously from somewhere else, even though she’s not.

“Here, actually, born and raised. Left a long time ago and live in Florida now cuz I like to stay warm.”

He smiled, and Sarah saw in his leathery face etched lines from many years of smiles. “That was probably smart. Hard to live here. Much of my family lives Nevada now.” There was sadness in his voice.

“I still love it so much though, that never leaves you.”

“Maui always stays in your heart. I was lucky. After working the plantation, I joined the Air Force. Got to travel a lot, but always came home.”

“Puunene sugar mill? Didn’t it just close?”

“Yep. I worked it, my fadda worked it, my grandfadda worked it. Closed in 2016.”

“Right. I remember driving by it in the seventies, going up to school. We’d plug our noses at the rotten egg smell.”

The man smiled. “What school?”

“Private school upcountry.”

“Ah, I wen Maui High.”

“I was lucky. Got a scholarship. Haole girls didn’t fit into public schools so well back then, ya know?”

“I can imagine.”

Sarah thought about this. How this man was lucky because he was part of the generational fabric of Maui. How she was also lucky because she got an education and got to leave. Who was luckier?

“Name’s Nelson.” He put out his hand.

She shook it. “Sarah. Nice to meet you, Nelson.”

“You grew up here in the seventies?”

“Yeah,” she tipped her beer to Nelson’s iced Bud. “Good times, yeah?”

He lifted his cup for a formal toast. “To Maui in the Seventies.”

They both drank then fell into a camaraderie of remember whens:

When the Maui Beach hotel had ten-piece Filipino bands (“My cousin played trumpet,” said Nelson.)

When Mokulele Highway split the sugar cane fields in half. (Now it’s called Veteran’s Highway? How stupid is that?” said Sarah.)

When Kihei was considered ‘that wide spot in the road,’ with only a ’76 station, Suda’s Store, Azeka’s Store, and Fuku’s Suck ’em Up Eats. (“We neva wen Kihei, no-ting there!” said Nelson. “And now there’s too much there so still no go Kihei!”)

 “When you could sleep on the beach and no one bothered you,” said Sarah.

“When you could drive all the way from Hana around da backside da island and get back to Kihei,” said Nelson, his voice dreamy with nostalgia.

Their parallel remembrances of Maui in the Seventies were interrupted with a loud, “Surprise!!!” and Sarah looked toward the front door to see a crowd of locals dressed in drag. The supposed birthday man, the only one not dressed in drag, holding pink and white balloons, looked happy and also somewhat afraid.

The friends in drag crowded around the dazed man and posed with all hands formed in shaka signs, and a girl snapped a photo.

Sarah felt a rush of longing, and said, “Oh my god, perfect.”

Marisa Mangani

Image by M from Pixabay – Sunset over the water with an orange sky and dark trees in the distance in Hawaii.