"Wen' sleep when I got tired," he said. He was one of those big laughing Hawaiians who float like buoys, heads up out of the water.
Joe strolled through the zoo. The gorilla was famous. He sat near the front of his cage mugging at tourists, carrying on, drawing them closer as they took pictures. Locals grinned from the sides. When enough people had gathered, the gorilla would sneak one hand behind and below him and without warning blast the tourists with a shit ball that hit the bars and scattered for maximum effect. He would leap to his feet mightily pleased, as the crowd screamed and the locals bent over laughing.
The elephants were patient and knowing. Joe trusted elephants. And dolphins. Sometimes he walked all the way to the Kahala to watch the dolphins zoom around their salt water pool. They came right to him at the edge of the pool, wiggling, excited as puppies.
He walked up Kapahulu Avenue and stopped at Zippy's where he had a bowl of saimin and worked on the description of the two girls. At home, in the mail, there was a card from Mo announcing a show of her photographs. The print on the card was deeply silvered. It showed the base of a banyan tree by a bus stop: high roots radiated out and sank below the sidewalk; a man was asleep, cradled between two roots, a lunch box by his waist, one arm stretched out along the top of a root, fingers dangling, the angles of his knees and elbows blending with the bends in the roots.
"Not bad, Batman," Joe said. "Next Friday."
The days before Mo's opening passed quickly. On Friday, Joe walked down Ward Avenue to a gallery and camera shop, and, for once, he wasn't early. Empty wine bottles, a few pupus on bare trays, a glass punch bowl, paper cups and napkins were scattered across white tables. Conversation hummed and collided around the room. A blues guitar kept time in the background. Mo was smiling down at a bearded professorial type.
"How do you do?" A young Japanese man shook Joe's hand.
"Thanks for the invitation," Joe said, flashing the card.
"Are you a friend of Winifred's?"
"Yes. Joe Burke."