Christmas Traffic and Pigs on a String ... A Few of My Least Favorite Things

There are few things more dangerous and more menacing than Holiday traffic - especially for the working man. And double that much so if that working man happens to live on a damned island in the Pacific. Compounded with the influences of Oxy 80s and cocaine, it becomes a total hell.
"Chinatown. The closed off fucking CHINATOWN for this parade." I said, feeling the burn of the setting sun in my eyes. "Who the shit closes off fucking CHINATOWN during peak traffic hours?!"
It was the natural order of things on this island to schedule traffic interruptions and detours at moments when it would maximize the impact upon the island as a whole. The last four years on this island have been plagued with unmentionable closures of major roadways for work during peak traffic hours - I can imagine the board of directors sitting around in a dark lair right now, cackling like menaces from a horrific B action hero movie:

So I told the City Councilman that we should close down the entire highway in the middle of the day and divert traffic into two sidestreets. AND HE BOUGHT IT! Pass the champaign boys, we've managed to artificially inflate gas prices yet again!

As much of a conspiracy nut I may sound like for mentioning such a scenario, it's the only sound and firm explenation for such asinine and troublesome inconveniences to the good, decent taxpayers drivers of Hawaii. 

I took advantage of the red light to fumble around my glove box for my sunglasses... A few discarded parking tickets and a bag of the crushed remains of a mesculine tablet or two fell into the fuzzy brown floor of the Green Machine and the sunglasses somehow got themselves intertwined with a knock-off opium pipe I got from the swap-meet. I pulled off my glasses, tucking the glazed shades over my dialated eyes to shield them from the downbeating sun.
The sun. Yeah, fuck that too.

It was then I became aware of the traffic honking around me at this red light, I glanced over and saw, much to my dismay, cars going about me. I looked over to my right, and looking at me was a rather tedious-looking Traffic Cop.
"Sorry officer," I said, paranoia bracing the back of my skull. "Bright sun, long day, you know - da kine."
It could be attributed to the gripping influences I was under, but the mound of evidence could not be heaped up anymore against me. This was it, I was done for. 10 unpaid tickets, expired registration and safety, no insurance, drug paraphinelia... He even saw me take off my prescription sunglasses. Even with my bad eyes and the shades of the lenses, I could see the officer calculating the current scenario.
"Move along, sir," The fine young man of the HPD said. Or woman, I couldn't be sure - it was the closest pig to a pig I could describe. I guess the officer decided that he didn't want to deal with the bullshit of looking me, and figured that with that many tickets and drugs I would just drive off anyways. Probably do something insane, like drive on the sidewalk or careen into the empty oncoming way (all of which I would have done without hesitation. Cocaine makes everything a great idea).

"Thanks, Officer." I said, giving him a proper salute with my right hand. "And a Merry Christmas to you."
"Merry Christmas... And buckle your damned seatbelt."

No need to ask me twice. Second gear and two streets later I'm parked on a One-Way street, bound for the gripping insanity that is Chinatown Hawaii and dodging a marching parade to chase all sorts of demons and devils that lavish this crooked side of Paradise.

Merry Christmas indeed.
Humbug.

Straight to Hell - A Brief Intro to Paradise... And Public Smoking

Let me first start off by getting this right off my chest:
I am - by no stretch nor means - a sane, stable individual.

There are no excuses nor exchanges that can make this statement any less valid. It could be argued that, in principle, everyone is a bit insane. Some philosopher or politician out there would sling that everyone has had hardships in their life that cause them to be stigmatized to society.
Doctors and psychiatrists will spin stories, arguing that drugs are the solution to outliers such as me, and that would be true...
I am no doctor, nor philosopher, nor politician... But I think it is far more likely that everyone is on Drugs. And no more a truthful statement could be said of the wonderful island of Oahu, Hawaii. A hell shaped paradise sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
No man alive gripping in their search of the great American Dream can even fathom the thought of how truthful a statement I had previously made can draw itself into context. A man without context and a few bills in his pocket could easily find himself just about any drug in the world purchased from anyone not wearing a badge at the time (and a few select of the population that were badge-carrying pigs of the Honolulu Police Department that would sell on the side just the same).
Being in the rather unique position on the Earth of having 7/8ths of it's total annual population being tourists and visitors, if it can be placed in your system and cause abnormal effects you can - and will - find it in Hawaii.

Except smoking. A smoker will find himself in a poor position in this state.

This is the shining paradise I had been living in for four whole years previous. A sailor, stripped from the uncanned and desolate suburbs of Alabama found myself infatuated with the easy life and smooth living styles of this paradise... There's something about the beaches, the waves, and the exotic women that fly trap haoles ("outsiders" in Hawaiian. Or, realistically, "fucking white boys taking our land" in contemporary slang) like me to it's atmosphere. And I've found myself unable to leave.
I stepped off the plane, my eyes darting around visciously looking for an opening in the sidewalk beat for a place to smoke. I stood steadfast beneath a break in the overpass, weighed down by my several carry-on baggage containers that held the full berth of my travels. Five cartons of cigarettes, a half-full flask of rum, and a bottle of "ibuprofin" (and some Oxy tablets I picked up in a bar during a layover in Texas).
Sparking up a cigarette in Hawaii is rather risky business nowadays. The ticket for smoke wafting in the wrong face at the wrong time in this state is in the ballpark of $200. In my last ticket I had the unique privledge of lacking identification, so I'm sure there's a nice and hefty bench warrant out for a Doctor Thompson from Hawaii Kai still to this day for the infamous and unfathomable crime of Jay-Walking in Waikiki, but it's difficult to grasp how that would work in this scenario:

What officer? No, I don't have any identification on me. I'm the only person in the Land of the Free who managed to fly without any form of identification. They took me on my word, why shouldn't you?

I'd be jailed for terrorism as well, I'd expect. Then smuggling, if they caught me with those prescriptions.
No heat yet, though: no yelling, nothing. It was also somewhere around 2 AM, so I highly doubt any of these mokes felt like chasing off some perceivied tourist from smoking outside the baggage claim. Just ignore the white guy and smoke weed behind the pillars where the cameras can't see you.

That's when I heard the familiar sound of a vehicle, careening much faster and with a much deeper incline than it should have. My tired eyes gazed through the cloud of smoke and down the speedway to spot the Green Machine - an Audi, A6 - a rolling hell on wheels, spitting smoke from the sides and through the sunroof like a demon, barreling towards hell. My car, being driven by the madman that could only be my best man, Rico Suave.
The vehicle practically screeched to a stop, briefly climbing the sidewalk before thudding back on the road with a demonic thud of a bad transmission. Out crawled a short, built local white boy with cropped hair and the kind of facial hair that, in the mainland United States would be considered that of a preteen adolescent but passed as normal in Hawaii. And, as a topper, he was the most local white guy in all of Hawaii.

"What the fuck, dude. I've been waiting here for thirty minutes!" I spat out at him, walking forward.
"Why the fuck didn't you call me?" Rico huffed back, his eyes widening as he immediately dropped into tough-guy mode.
"Because my phone died in Texas, now make yourself useful and help me get this shit" I responded promptly, tossing him the briefcase in my hand as I lugged my other luggage to the trunk.
"I'm not your fucking maid," he backed at me, shaking the suitcase before chucking it into the back seat of the warped vehicle.
"It's got your present in there. Keep it careful."
I slammed the trunk and walked to the front seat, confronting him like a bouncer would confront a bulligerant drunk at a club. It didn't take long for both of us to drop our bullshit and the smiles cracked out.

"I missed you, man." I said, climbing into the car's driver seat.
"You too, faggot." Rico spit back my way.
Our little back-and-forth pacing into it's old style. He climbed into the passenger seat as I pulled away from the Arrivals section of Honolulu International Airport and into the dark Highway, H-1, bound westward towards home.