The Man from Oahu
Kat
He said the tan was from the Island of Oahu. He had just gotten back from a year long stint working at the Polynesian cultural center in Hawaii! He was choreographer and fire dancer. Legs like a plow horse and a face like a commercial pilot.
He talked for hours with all of us dripping on his every word. It was as if he had lived 9 different lives all in his 38 years. I’ve never seen someone captivate a room like that.
The bar had gone from a bustling friday night crowd to a silent, still audience. Each person clutching their beverage, perched on the fluid narrative and prose. He once slept in a tent with a tiger. For a month he lived on nothing but raw oysters and rainwater. He had no hair on his body because of a stage trick gone wrong. We laughed at his wit and cried with his truth.
He bought the entire bar a round and taught us all an ancient Hawaiian love song. I could see the the hurt, the pain, the adventure and the peace all in his eyes.
Once he excused himself to use the restroom the bar shook off the spell their were all under and got back to their groups. I on the other hand waited for him outside of the men’s room. He wasn’t at all surprised to see me standing there. It was as if he knew i’d follow him. Of course he knew! He wasn’t a normal man. He was a super man. Well not like THE superman, ok bad choice of words, he was a...Master Man. A Cool man? A Witch?
I don’t know what he was but there we were. Cramped in a hallway just the two of us. He told me he had a wonderful evening with all of us and that I was a special something, but he had to be on his way. He had a crate full of explosives he had to drop off at a train station.
I hugged him tightly. Probably too tightly for someone I had just met but he didn’t pull away. He rode away from the bar and I floated back to my chair. He had changed something inside of me. Tomorrow I would book my flight to Hawaii. Ok probably not tomorrow, my credit card just got cut up at a fancy restaurant last week, but soon. Soon. Aloha.