more about my neighborhood

The other night, I walked down to Foodland. The stars were dripping in the dark tropical sky, huge trees overhanging the quiet streets. I live near the top of an extinct volcano. Foodland, brightly-lit green-and-white glowing vision, open 24 hours, with highly-pleasant and competent staff--some of whom are my neighbors--lies at the bottom of the volcano and at a bit of a tangent toward Diamond Head.

Getting the food was easy. Walking back across the parking lot began the adventure.

I knew what lay ahead in the next few blocks-- the Masonic temple--lit-up, angular, and merry, like an occult movie theatre, dark parking lot overflowing (It was Wednesday)--green-screened ball park even more halogenic to the right, dark guys in white running bases like stoned rabbits, way-local corner grocery and barber shop across Makiki Street, light streaming beneath the awning, where the elderly Japanese guy in the white shirt always sat in the folding blonde wood chair by the black metal newspaper rack, reading esoteric Japanese novels. Following the now-dim single-chair classic sole proprietor barber shop, towels appropriately draped, there would be the nocturnally dark steaming popular little fan-blown laundry tucked into 200 square feet beneath the iron-screened apartments-- Space shortage in Honolulu makes strange bedfellows, sometimes. Witness the psychedelic and earnest art gallery tucked into a tiny former office of a busy auto repair garage. "BY APPOINTMENT PLEASE." And the extremely serious sign on King Street: "PARKING FOR BAKERY AND ACUPUNCTURE ONLY!!!"

Okay, so all of that was cool and familiar and way-local, if a bit surreal. Standing in the Foodland parking lot, I knew I was going to trip on the atmosphere, and the facts, as always. Glancing right, I noticed that the white Deco Mormon Tabernacle was lit up like a floating clean-cut birthday cake and that the worshippers within were evidently worshipping something involving the anatomically disproportionate huge fresco gold-haloed floodlit Jesus on the Beretania Street side of the Tabernacle.

I looked left.

There's an auto repair shop, which contracts with dealerships and rental agencies, to the left (Ewa side) of Foodland, sweating guys working there in the brightly lit bays until late, if not early, hours. Gleaming steel hydraulic lifts sometimes vented in sudden ~PUFF~!!!s, weird anthem to a post- and still- industrial age. The white concrete back wall of the bays forms the border of Foodland's warm frontier.

The wall had a hole in it.

Jagged, about the size of a stretched udon bowl or the platter your grandma used to serve Thanksgiving turkey on, bright hot light streamed through the hole into the darkness. An invisible boom box boomed, "WHERE'S THE ALOHA...?"

I didn't remember seeing the hole before.

It seemed to connect the energy of the torque-spinning mechanics with the wholesomeness of Foodland. It made the concrete look like a surreal ruin, still functional, like a tunnel to a different civilization.

So I stared at the warm hole in the living concrete ruin in the dark tropical night. It served a purpose for me by creating some wonder at the divine auto that had smashed with sufficient force--orchid head-wreathed godly driver and passengers, festive, merry, and singing--into the wall, all observers subsequently benefiting from the light glowing through the ruins like Greeks divining an oracle--dreams and wild inspiration and all manner of strange and beautiful occurrences happening.

I walked home after that.