KAHANA HULA TIKI BAR by Joris K. Huysmans


The bar car gave a sudden lurch, sending most of Ed Hastings' martini flying toward the seat in front of him, where it splattered a newspaper picture of LBJ and Humphrey at a barbecue in Texas.  There were only half a dozen passengers on this late night run, the last train from the city to the western suburbs, so Ed didn't have to worry about having ruined another guy's suit.  He was sorry for the rest of the martini, though.

The train sat for a few minutes, nothing happening.  A few nervous jokes were made; the buzz of a fluorescent lamp seemed to grow louder with time.  Ed looked out the window, but couldn't even tell where on the line they were.  Finally, a shrunken old conductor came meandering up from the next car.  "Engine's broken down," he said.  "We radioed Central, a bus should be coming out to take you to your stations."

"How long will that be?" someone behind Ed yelled.

The conductor shrugged.  "An hour.  Or more."

Others groaned.  Ed thought about it for a minute, then said to himself, the hell with it, I'll take a cab.  He went to the doors, pulled the emergency latch, and hopped down onto the tracks.

 *  *

Somewhere along the tracks he got to wondering just how far it could be from one station to the next.  He still wasn't sure where he was-- Forestville, Lyons, Mackinall?  Some little town of little houses full of little people, before you reached the much grander suburbs like Greendale where successful downtown men like himself caught the 7:40 every morning.

He came to a crossing and saw lights in the distance suggestive of commercial activity, so he left the tracks and started walking that way.  There wasn't much-- an Esso station, an Italian restaurant with green and red neon in the windows, a tiki bar called Kahana Hula.  The tiki bar looked marginally more lively, so he went in.

There were half a dozen tables, half of them occupied by older couples, and the usual Polynesian accoutrements-- thatched roof over the bar, primitive statues, exotically-patterned wallpaper.  The jukebox was playing Jo Stafford, not quite with the theme.  But what caught Ed's eye was the bartendress-- six feet tall and built like a football player, broad shouldered, jutting breasts, a wide backside carelessly wrapped in a flowery sarong, flowing black hair over her bark-colored skin.  She wasn't a Negress, though-- the bright white eyes and delicate facial features suggested the South Pacific.  Samoan, perhaps, they were known to be big.  She smiled at him and the eyes and teeth seemed to glow out of her mahogany flesh.  "You look like you could use a Scorpion," she said.

"Scotch and soda," he said automatically, then changed his mind and said "Naw, hell, that sounds great, make whatever you like," he said.  "I'm sure it will hit the spot."

"My kind of man," she said.

"Yeah, a man who does what a woman tells him," an old timer at the end of the bar joked.  

Ed stiffened slightly, then he told himself to relax and get along.  "Don't we all, if we know what's good for us," he said, forcing a laugh.

He watched the bartendress mix his drink and pour into one of those silly Easter Island-head mugs.  She handed it to him and her fingers lightly brushed his hand as she did.  "Enjoy," she said, giving him another smile of neon-bright teeth.

He took a sip.  Too sweet for him, but he wasn't going to complain.  "You're going to think this is a silly question, but... what town am I in?"

She smiled knowingly, leaning into the bar and giving him a nice view of her large breasts as they shifted heavily within her top.  "Have a few too many on the way home?"

"No, it's actually not that," he said.  "My train stopped on the tracks, I walked over here to catch a cab rather than wait for them."

"Well, you're in Quohonnic," she said.  "Where are you trying to get to?"

"Greendale," he said, and he could see that the instant he said the name, everyone had him pegged-- the job at a white-shoe firm, the wife, the fancy house, the two cars, summers on the Cape, everything.

"Cost you fifteen bucks to get there," the old timer said.

"Well, I don't have any choice," Ed said.  "Do you know where I can get a cab?"

"I said it would cost you fifteen bucks to get there," the old timer said, and when Ed still didn't get it, the bartendress said "Deke is a cab driver, he means he's gonna take you there.  You in a hurry?"

Ed looked at his drink, then he looked at her, then he thought of home.  "No hurry," he said.  "Drink up, we can go when you're ready," he said to Deke.

 *  *

It was a little town between Liege and Aachen, not long after D-Day.  Nearly half of Ed's unit had been killed in the last week and he felt alone in the universe, running like a clockwork machine instead of a man.  Now they were getting a bit of a break from the fighting, helping build up a supply center a few miles back of the line.  
One night Ed found a little bar open.  He and another captain, Meacham, went in, watching their backs because you didn't know in that part if they were going to act French or German on any given day.  There were a couple of mademoiselles or frauleins at the bar, desperate enough to fuck for a pack of cigarettes or GI chocolate.  There was also an older blonde behind the bar, with the big sturdy build of an opera singer in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, who seemed amused to have GIs in her place.  Probably hadn't been that long since she'd hosted the SS in the same spot.

He thought they were doing all right with the two girls, but when the time came Meacham went off with his and Ed's blew him off and sat down with a local.  Cursing his shitty luck, he turned back to the bar and ordered another.  The bartendress just seemed amused by his plight and he had to admit, it was pretty fucking funny, Sad Sack loses again.  They hardly spoke a word, communicating more in nods and laughter, but when the time came to close up she motioned for him to stick around.  His danger meter went off a little but he was too horny to listen to it.

He went upstairs with her.  He tried to kiss her but she didn't seem to want that, she didn't need to be romanced by some GI, she just pulled out her big floppy tits for him to play with, then reached down into his pants and started jerking him.  When he was getting close she pushed him onto his back and sucked him to a climax.  He didn't object, he was glad for the release, but at the same time, he was disappointed that it was all so functional, that she wouldn't let him be with her.  Probably she thought no young guy would want to really make love to a fat old bag like herself.  But over the years, Ed had often found himself thinking of her, of what it would have been like as a young man to spend days in her bed, learning all she had to teach in the sack.  A few days later they moved on, and now he couldn't even think of the town's name.

*  *  *

An hour later Ed was buying Deke a last one for the road.

"I thought you were in a hurry to get home," the bartendress said.

Ed gripped his glass.  "I'm in absolutely no hurry," he said, stressing the middle word.  Deke, relieved, took a drink.

"Is this the part where you say your wife doesn't understand you?" the bartendress asked, smirking a little.

"My wife understands me fine," Ed snapped back, his harshness surprising even himself a little.  "She understands exactly what I'm there for, and I understand exactly what she's there for."  He finished his drink, set the glass in front of the bartendress, and nodded to indicate he wished another.

"Which is what?" the bartendress asked, this time minus the cynical edge.

Ed thought a moment.  What indeed?  "The American dream," he said.  "No, the Greendale dream.  The beautiful house, the job of power and prestige, the wife you're proud to have on your arm, who's proud to drop your name in society.  So very proud.  All that... is mine."

"You're a lucky man," the bartendress said.  (Deke added, pointlessly, "Lotta money up in Greendale.")

"So it is often said," Ed replied to the bartendress.

"You don't think so."

"The thought has crossed my mind," Ed said.  "Okay, enough about me.  What's your story?  I get the feeling you're not from around here."

"Oh come on, old Quohonnic stock, can't you tell?" she laughed, and moved in closer to him, where he could smell the mix of perfume and cigarette and sweat, and couldn't help but stare into her ample cleavage, now thrust even closer to him.   "Daddy was a palagi seaman, he married Mom and brought her back here, started this bar for her.  She moved back to Samoa when he died, and now it's mine.  Well, if the bank doesn't take it back."

"You in trouble?"

"Hey, what's trouble," she said vaguely, waving her strong, thick arms in a way that suggested island peoples for whom money was still a little too abstract a thing to worry about.  "I'm no good with figures, just with showing people a good time.  Like that happy-go-lucky guy from Greendale who walked in here the other night."

"Okay, I get the idea," Ed said.  "I know, I'm a killjoy.  Don't mind me.  I'll be on my way soon enough."

"Don't go," the bartendress said, suddenly putting her hand on Ed's wrist.  The act sent a shock wave up his arm.

"Okay," Ed said, uncertainly.  "I guess I could ask you your name."

"Sharon."

"Hello Sharon.  I'm Ed," he said.

 *  *

Ed was pretty tight, he knew it and he didn't care.  Deke didn't care either, Sharon didn't care, neither did the other folks who'd come up to the bar and were laughing at Ed's war stories (not the one about the big old woman, never that one), more than anybody had laughed in years at his stories.  Nobody cared about anything, they were just having a great old time.  "You're pretty funny once you loosen up," Sharon said.

"Yeah, that's what they told me the last time it happened.  In 1947," Ed said.  "It's good to talk to people who don't have a Greendale stick up their ass.  I'll have to get off the train more often."  He leaned close to Sharon, savoring the air of unabashed physicality she gave off; his wife was a walking clothes hanger, more image than flesh, Sharon radiated waves of ripe womanliness with every bump and grind she made behind that bar.  "Not that I have any god-damned idea how I'm getting home tonight," Ed stage-whispered.  "I wouldn't get in his cab to save my life."

"Maybe you won't have to," Sharon said.  She stood up straight and addressed the crowd.  "Well, good friends, I'm afraid it's closing time.   Time to go, come back tomorrow, liquor still good then, money still good then, me plenty good then.  Up you go, Deke."

"Are we off, partner?" Deke croaked, his eyes barely pointing in the same direction.

"I'm catching another ride," Ed said.

Deke suddenly looked worried.  "Well, now, I been holdin' my cab for you, gave up a lot of business--"

"Will fifteen cover it?" Ed said.

"You're all right," Deke said as he tucked the ten and the fin in his cap, gave Ed a two-fingered salute, and staggered like a sailor fresh on shore out the front door.

 *  *

They pulled up in front of Sharon's bungalow.  "So, how about that nightcap?"

"Sure," Ed said, as he jiggled the handle of Sharon's beatup Pontiac, trying to figure out how to open the door.

They walked up the steps.  Or rather, Ed thought, I'm walking and she's sashaying.  Sharon was big and it didn't bother her a bit; she shimmied and shook with every step, and all of it was warm, maternal, and hot as hell.

She opened her door and nudged a cat back inside.  The small bungalow wasn't much different from the bar-- wood paneling and lots of South Pacific art, grotesque-faced idols and sea paintings.  She turned around to look at him, and took his hands.  "Well, here we are," she said.

He didn't say anything.  They looked at each other.  He felt his head swaying a little and he moved toward her to kiss her.  She didn't resist and in an instant he felt like he was falling into a warm and soft place that was enveloping him.

A moment later he found himself in her bedroom and he had his arms around her, all the way around her ample waist, her big breasts pushing back at him as their lips mashed together, warmly and hot-breathedly.  A muscular tongue darted toward him and he sucked it in, then he nuzzled her round cheeks, the soft flesh under her face and around her neck, as he felt around her broad hips and her curvy ass.  Nothing like his thin, trim wife.  This flesh was welcoming, abundant.

He fumbled with the back of her blouse.  Then an instant later it was gone.  A moment after that the bra was gone as well and two fat, dusky brown breasts dangled before him.  He mashed his face in between their bounty and reveled in the sweet sweat smell.  Her meaty leg extended from the sarong rubbed up and down against his crotch, finding an active response.  She began to undo his belt.

His head was still swimming and he was grateful to find himself on the bed, kicking off his boxers and socks.  She was nude now, all of her, a Gauguin painting of unabashed South Seas carnality, a fertility goddess with her strong thick limbs, her ample breasts, her rolling belly, the wiry black brush over the rounded mons.  And again, those teeth, those eyes, that smile, glowing white from their dark setting.

They embraced and he found himself engulfed by her size, the warmth and softness of her big strong body.  This was how he dreamed of it in Germany all those years ago... to be caught up in the movements of a woman larger than himself, to feel her strength equal to his own as they rolled and bucked together.

He sucked at her fat nipples, squeezing her breasts like they were basketballs while rubbing himself against her vast belly.  Then he moved down, spreading her legs apart and licking her brown pussy till it opened to reveal the ripe pink slit inside.  He licked her deeply while gripping onto her meaty thighs, riding up and down with them as she rode her pussy over his face, until finally she stopped him and, moaning loudly, her legs clamped together around his head violently and he could feel her pussy, her entire lower half throbbing again and again with the cycles of her orgasm.

Eventually she let him go and he lay back against the bed.  Then she began to rub her hands over his body, leaning over him, her large breasts grazing him as she did so.  They rubbed against his cock and she lay them down around it, until he seemed to be engulfed in tit, all around his cock and his balls.  The sensation was amazing, the warmth of her soft flesh all around his most sensitive parts as she began to lick at the head.  Strange-faced demons made of wood stared down at him, wild patterns of island fabric surrounded him like waves, somehow stepping off the train on the way to his home he had found himself a world away, worlds away, being ravished by an island goddess.  The sensation of her body enveloping his, her mouth on his cock sucking it lovingly and enthusiastically, was incredible... and then in an instant he remembered how it had ended that time in Germany.  No, not this time.

He pushed her away and rolled her onto her back.  God, it was sexy just watching how when she moved, all of her body moved differently, breasts lolling to either side, belly jiggling, legs sinking back into the bed, all of her moving with weight and gravity.  He spread her legs apart but before pressing into her he gave her a long, slow kiss, savoring the moment that had come at last.  Her legs spread apart to welcome him and he entered that soft, warm place where she was ready for him and he was so ready for a woman like her, had been for so many years.  He had just never dreamed that one lay in the straight line between one end of his world, and the other.

 *  *

The young man in the Ramones T-shirt opened the door for his friend.  "You won't believe this place, man," he said.

"Wow," the friend said.  "This is sweet.  What a time warp."

They looked around the faded interior, thick with the smell of stale smoke and decades of hard drinking.  "I always passed this place as a kid, but I never went in it," the friend said.

"Well, it's going to take some cleaning up," the first one said.  "But an old school tiki place like this-- wouldn't this rock as a coffeehouse?"

The friend looked at some old snapshots, framed and yellowing behind the bar.  "Check this out, dude," he said.

They looked over the rows of old photos.  Black and whites, professionally shot, of a tough-looking sailor and a native woman, very pretty in her flowery dress and carefully coiffed hair; and then a younger woman, a teenager, dark-skinned but looking like a mix of two races.  A little older and then she was posed in this bar with a tall, pepper-haired man with big horn-rim glasses who looked out of place in this setting.  More candid shots at the bar, images of long-ago nights of drunken revelry charting the passage of fashion from 60s crisp to awful 70s leisurewear.  The pepper-haired man and the woman posed on a boat, the changes in background suggesting many trips to many different places over the years.  The man with his shirt hanging open, leathery skin, a Hemingwayesque beard.

The front door opened and a large old woman pulled herself up the stairs, a cane in one hand helping.  The first young man moved forward to help her but she waved him away cheerfully, and she made her way to a seat at her own bar.  "Well, boys, what do you think of the old gal?"

It took them a moment to realize she didn't mean herself but the bar.  Now they were a little more guarded, business was in the air.  "It's promising," the first one said.  "We're looking at a couple of properties in the arts district, but this has potential, sure."

"I love the whole tiki theme," the second one said, then kicked himself for using a word like "theme" to the old woman.  "Must have been a lot of good times here."

"Oh yes, my yes," the old woman said, smiling and revealing a couple of teeth gone from a broad white smile.  So many good times... not that it hadn't been hard.  Most people thought he'd cracked up.  It was a joke, that he'd taken up with some big brown bartendress.  None of his old friends would have anything to do with him, his wife got a fortune out of him in the divorce (and married her lawyer a year later), but there was enough to pay off the bar, buy a boat, set themselves up comfortably.  There was always enough to live simply together.

The second young man pointed to the man in the pictures.  "Was that your husband?"

"That was Ed," she said.  "Passed away two years ago this August."

"I'm sorry," he said.

She looked at him and her wrinkly brown face opened up in wonder.  "We had 33 wonderful years together.  He was a happy man.  What's there to be sorry about?"