Aloha Hell
Before she was Mrs. Bum, Annene Kaye was a beachbum in her own right. Here's the story of her days as a nineteen-year-old down and out in Waikiki, originally published in the January 1981 issue of New York Rocker magazine.
On October 11, 1979, Annene Kaye left New York City for the islands of Hawaii. Six and a half months later she came back. This is her Hawaiian diary.
GLOSSARY
- Surfer joints
- Ugly, expensive studio apartments made out of concrete. They are run by surfers and contain surfers.
- Ala Wai Canal
- Separates Waikiki from normal neighborhoods.
- Fort DeRussey
- Had a great beach. It was a family beach as opposed to a singles beach. Singles beaches suck unless you want to hear a lot of rude comments about various parts of your anatomy. The locals think such talk is suave and use it to pick up tourists.
- Haole
- Means “outsider,” but is used specifically for whites.
- Kailua
- One of the nicest suburbs on the island. It's about 20 minutes away from downtown Honolulu.
- Touri
- Local lingo for tourists.
- Prossies
- Prostitutes.
- Rosicrucians
- Some nationwide secret society or something. I read the booklet and I didn't get it at all. I guess you understand after you join.
- 747
- Local lingo for giant cockroaches. Some of them are two inches long.
Nov. 29, '79
D. and I are gonna put a bunch of stuff in a bottle and bury it somewhere on the island. The apartment is ten by twenty and you can't fit two people in the kitchen or the bathroom at the same time. It was the cheapest I could find at $275 a month. I have to live here in Waikiki 'cause it's only dangerous at night and it's convenient. I just don't go out after dark. Other parts like Makiki and Pearl Harbor I don't even like to go through on the bus. I liked the surfer joint that I lived in when I first moved here but they were gonna raise the rent to $400 in December, which is the beginning of the hot tourist/surfer season. Living here is not cheap.
Nov. 30, '79
After the movie we strolled down Kalakaua Ave. trying not to look like a couple of professional girls (they go about in twos). They were cruising around in their bright disco clothes (they're color-coded). There was a pair of brunettes in purple, Koreans in blue, blondes in pink, etc.
Dec. 2, '79
There was a woman screaming hysterically outside tonight. I think she was getting beat up. Just like home. There's a girl where D. works who screams out the words to the songs when she dances and then curls up in the corner and goes to sleep. She wears a grass skirt all the time. Quaint.
Dec. 7, '79
I got a job working in a kosher deli 'cause I was the only applicant who knew what pastrami was. We're having a fucking hurricane. There's water coming in all the windows because they don't believe in glass here, just screens. Goddam fresh-air fiends. It's 65 degrees and I'm freezing. Maybe all the roaches in the kitchen will drown.
Dec. 9, '79
PAYDAY! PINKEYE (I think)! What next — malaria? Beriberi? Why the hell am I living in Waikiki? I must be out of my mind. Last night someone set off a firecracker and it shook the whole building. Getting ready for the new year, I guess.
Dec. 11, '79
If the clouds don't blow over from the mountains we'll go to the beach. We have to walk to the other side of the Ala Wai Canal to get food. D. is going to send her boyfriend on the big island a letter in a bottle. She was telling me about the Japanese tourists who are loaded and like blondes. Maybe I should bleach my hair and grab one before I run out of money.
Dec. 12, '79
I'm getting real tan and my hair has sun streaks. We were walking down by the Ala Wai and there was all this trash floating in it because of the garbage strike. I almost got brained by a falling coconut. Sometimes tourists get gang-raped and thrown in the canal, or maybe in a cane field. There's a lot of that here. You can't talk back to guys on the street. Our next-door neighbors are extremely weird. They have one of those little novelty laughing boxes that they set off periodically. Last night they turned it on when D. was coming home from work at 2:00 AM and she was so scared she started screaming. I was laughing at her to shut up so the others in the building probably think we're a bit wacko ourselves.
Dec. 13, '79
Everything is wet and mildewing at an amazing rate. I threw up.
Dec. 14, '79
Met a cute designer of unknown foreign origin who wanted me to come up to his workshop and try on dresses, but I'm playing impossible to get these days. There's a lot of people out singing and screaming tonight. They're all coming from Hula's. (Hula's and the Lava Lava disco are the only real gay bars in the entire state. I don't know what the guys on the other islands do.) The shower curtain was pink but now it's turning brown.
Dec. 18, '79
I'm living on Borden's eggnog. I'm too sick to go to work but not too sick to go to the beach. Met one of those pedicab drivers at the Fort DeRussey. I was lying down on my little mat under a tree and away from the sand 'n' surf so no one would bother me. He plopped down next to me and said, “Hi! I bet you're lying over here so no one will bother you, right?” Clever. Those boys are out in the sun too much. I was so charmed that I went home.
Dec. 20, '79
My skim milk is no good and sunk to the bottom of my mod pink cup. It's lying there in lumps. Likewise for me. Threw up my Pop Tarts. Life in the tropics is so exciting. The walls are so thin I can hear the guys next-door burp.
Dec. 24, '79
My parents are here.
Jan. 1, '80
The beginning of a new stupid year. We went to a German restaurant for New Year's Eve and it sounded like WWII outside. There was a million dollars' worth of damage from all the firecrackers. Up in Diamond Head where Ma and Pa are staying, we were two miles away and we could still hear it. I wouldn't mind but I've been hearing it for two weeks now.
Jan. 2, '80
The parents are gone and D. is back. It's been raining nonstop for three days. D.'s cat ate a hole in her waterbed.
Jan. 11, '80
There's a puddle in front of the door and the wall is growing something green. It started raining again today, though according to the locals this is a light rainy season. A sniper on top of a hotel blew away a bunch of tourists. The cockroaches are invading again. I think I've spent about thirty dollars on spray and roach motels and hours squeezing their little heads off with tweezers. Retch.
Jan. 13, '80
Dreamed that we were trying to hide the Confederate grapes from the Yankees. No more reading Gone With The Wind before bed. They have “George Of The Jungle” and “Tom Of T.H.U.M.B.” and “King Kong” on TV every morning. This is where old cartoons retire to.
Jan. 17, '80
To the beach. Talked to surfers. Went out on a board with one. I wanna go home. “That Darn Cat” and “Filipine Fiesta” on TV. Living here is like living in Disneyland without the rides.
Jan. 21, '80
Dreamed that L.H. lost her baby. Not lost as in “miscarriage,” lost as in “we couldn't find it anywhere.” There's going to be a Hilo Vulcans game here next week and D.'s boy will be here to play. I don't want to go.
Jan. 29. '80
I'm moving to Kailua. Until I move I'm moonlighting in that sleazy cafe down the street. I wouldn't eat there for anything. D. got food poisoning the one time she did. I'm also peddling trinkets to the touri in the shop next door. The greasy spoon, incidentally, is called The Cheesecake Factory even though they have no cheesecake. Sounds like a strip joint.
Feb. 4, '80
Dreamed that I was Joanie on “Eight Is Enough.” Also dreamed that Sidney Rothstein, the conductor of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, was taping together plastic glow-in-the-dark Godzilla monsters. He hasn't been in the deli lately. Fifty-eight hour work week. Send in the No-Doze.
Feb. 6, '80
Dave's roomie tried to pick me up last night while I was working in the souvenir shop. Linda, the girl I work with, is 14. She's a haole too. She calls up the guys in the hotel across the street and flirts on the phone. They come out and yell at us to come over. Help.
Feb. 12, '80
Skeeter, that Navy guy who rides a unicycle, was hanging out at the Cheesecake with a couple of guys and these two prossies came over and sat down. Everybody knew what they were but him, so he was flirting with them and stuff. We told him after they left and he almost had a heart attack. Then he told us that he saw Telly Savalas in this bar up the street. It turned out he meant Hula's. Food poisoning from the Factory.
Feb. 16, '80
This guy that's friends with Linda was around tonight. He's my age, whatever that is. He wanted me to go drinking with him. He went into the deli and I ran away. Skeeter asked me to marry him and go live in a trailer in the jungle. I told him to get lost. My boss at the souvenir shop wants me to join the Rosicrucians. I'm moving on the 23rd.
Feb. 23, '80
Moved. Saw D.'s boyfriend play basketball on TV. Found out that Linda sings backup for an Elvis imitator in one of the big hotels. I moved in with the deli boss and his wife and they're my surrogate parents. She wanders around smoking pot, and she used to be a go-go girl for the Rivieras. He used to be a lawyer. They both used to be hippies.
March 7, '80
Bought Hello Kitty school supplies. Tried to make blueberry muffins but they came out flat and rock-like. Kay-sarah-sarah. There's geckos in the house. Hello gecko.
March 13, '80
Called a friend in N.Y. She got a social disease for her birthday. New cheap thrill: eating orange baby aspirin. I got my rent deposit money back. The only thing they charged me for was the shower curtain.
March 28, '80
Came to Hilo to visit D. Her boyfriend's in Japan on a basketball tour. Sat next to an old drunk smelly ugly surfer who wouldn't shut up. I almost got out of the plane at Maui to get away. D. and I decided to go to the movies and it was so creepy I couldn't believe it. We got chased coming back. Haole girls do not go out after dark without a male escort in Hilo, or else ... we have enough trouble walking around in the day. We're staying in tomorrow night.
April 3, '80
Saw all of these big cucarachas flying around. My boss goes out there and shoots them with his B.B. gun. One of my go-go dancer friends told me that the first time she told her boyfriend she's a dancer he thought she meant ballet. Duh.
April 8, '80
NOTHING. Ate too much and spent too much money. I feel sick. Tres tired. Everybody tries to make me feel guilty for having money and free time. Fuck them. There's a transit strike in New York.
April 13, '80
Jim called. Went to Holiday Mart for yet more Hello Kitty supplies.
April 21, '80
Had a horrible cockroach encounter. There was this huge 747 under the sink and I tried to kill it but it flew down my dress. I started screaming like I was being murdered and jumping around. I finally got the bugger. GAG! Home in eight days.
April 27, '80
Threw up a lot. D. called. I called a bunch of my N.Y. friends. Went to the beach. I asked all those guys on the East Coast what's going on and they said nothing. I'm all packed so I might as well go home.
