First night in Hawaii

Those of you who know me, know about the time I was in the Navy stationed in Hawaii. Those of you who don’t know me, guess what? I was in the Navy and stationed in Hawaii. This is a story about my first night out on Oahu and pretty much sums up my love life.

It’s 1995 and I’m a 22 year old sailor with a nice car, bright future, money in my pocket, no commitments and a libido the size of…well a 22 year old guy. My submarine had just changed homeports from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. This was our first night out in town and were looking to meet some of our new neighbors, preferable the female type with low moral standards.

Some of the older guys I knew told me all about the bars and clubs in Waikiki and which ones were worth going to. I had settled on a place called The Wave. Apparently this was the place to go if meeting a nice, well rounded young lady with good family values and a high intellectual capacity was the exact opposite of what you wanted. Remember I was 22 at the time. To be specific, the Hawaiian Board of Health should have made it mandatory to issue birth control with the cover charge. It was the place to go.

I shared the information with a few buddies of mine, who actually salivated at the description I gave them, and off we went. I was a man on a mission. The guys I was with were good to go out with. They were funny, big drinkers, anti “high fivin’ white guys” and did fairly well with the ladies on their own. I was excited but calm and thought I had my entire game plan in order.

We get to The Wave and have no problem getting in, which was odd for a group of Sailors traveling in what could be best described as a wolf pack. It was easy because the tourist season hadn’t started yet, the live band couldn’t carry a tune even if it had handles and the club needed the cover charges.

I pay up the cover, go inside and case the terrain looking for where the restrooms were, good lighting, bad lighting, bar and beer bars, spots you could talk and those you couldn’t were. You’d think I’ve done this before. The place was only about half full at the time and there were 10 minutes left in the Happy Hour. Game on boys, we got some drinking to do.

After about an hour of heavy drinking and telling lies to each other, I was a little buzzed (sailor, remember?) and the place was starting to fill up. I looked around the main room where the band was playing and the off season tourists were attempting to drink their body weights in Mai Tais. That’s when I saw her. She didn’t look anything at all like the type of woman I’d tend to go for in these situations. She looked like she could be the future Mrs. TommyT.

I could not ever, not in a million years, dream up a woman that beautiful. Imagine the cutest, nicest girl next door type you knew in high school and then give her a body that would make the Pope consider leaving the priesthood for. All of my selfish, penis originated plans had left my mind and I really just wanted to talk to this vision of beauty. That’s exactly what I tried to do.

I eased my way over to where she was standing. I was impressed that she choose to stand close to the dance-floor, but not right in front of the P.A. system so talking would be easy. She saw me about halfway there, which just so happened to be on the way to the guys restroom so I had an out if things went wrong, and gave me just enough of a smile to let me know she wouldn’t bite. I was in like Flynn, all I had to do was not say anything ridiculously offensive and keep her smiling.

I just simply walked up to her and said, “Hi, I’m Tommy”. She smiled and told me here name. I tried to drink in every aspect of her face. The way she smiled, they way her eyes talked more than her mouth did. I swear to God that she even had the cutest ears. A little bit of friendly chit chat, a little flirting and I decided to use the one and only line that works for me. “I like those shoes you are wearing, can you dance in them?” Cheesy I know, but it works for some reason and it worked then. She just smiled at the line and said that she’d like to find out if she could and lead the way to the dance floor. That’s when all hell broke loose.

In hind sight I should have seen the waitress standing at the next table clearing off about 20 highball glasses and 10 full ashtrays. I was standing to Beauty’s right side and the waitress was on her left. As Beauty took a step to the floor, she was looking over her shoulder at me with this “come hither” look in her eyes and never saw the waitress, or the tray.

The waitress had just cleared the table and was in a hurry. She spun around to head back to the bar, raising a full tray of semi empty glasses and ashtrays up to the standard carrying height and just smacked that tray right into Beauty’s nose. Beauty fell backwards, hitting her head on the floor and was starting to bleed from her nose. On top of that, the tray, the glasses, the backwash from the glasses, the ashtrays and the cigarettes butts all landed on Beauty. I couldn’t believe it and tried like hell to get my knees to function properly so that I could bend down and help out the woman I wanted to marry. Things get worse.

As I bend over to do my best to help, a friend of Beauty’s comes flying in and, I shit you not, screams, “Get off of her, you’ve done enough” Now everybody that didn’t see what happened thinks I knocked her over. The waitress was in a desperate scramble to recover the money she had dropped and wasn’t about to set the story straight. I guess her rent was due or something because she said nothing and focused on the cash flying around. She didn’t even say anything when the very large Polynesian bouncers come over with that certain, “you’ve done fucked up buddy” look on their faces that only very large bouncers have.

Beauty’s friend and the rest of her group got her up and out of the club. By the time I made it out with the assistance of my two new friends, she had already climbed into a cab and was gone. Now my two new, very large bouncer friends were going to introduce me to the loosing end of an ass whooping. I can’t blame them, they thought I had just knocked out some girl in their club. If I were them, I’d want to kick my ass too.

At that point I realized that this was the night I was going to die. I had always thought I was going to die in a tragic fishing related accident, eventhough I don’t go fishing. However, I was certain at that time I was going to die at the hands of two of the biggest motherfuckers I had ever seen.

The funny thing about facing mortality is that, when it happens, people usually have two choices, cry like baby or go out swinging. I chose to go down like a man and at least try to get a few good licks in before the fatal strike was received by my head. I took a balanced stance, raised my fists and thought of the last scene in True Grit for a bit of John Wayne inspiration. I was ready. Thank God the waitress came out when she did and explained that I didn’t hit Beauty and was completely innocent. I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to talk to a girl.

That is how my first night in Hawaii went. Since then I have learned a lot of things about myself and who I want to be. If I could pass on some advice to other 22 year old males, something I’ve learned from this experience and many other like it over the years, it would be the following. Watch out for waitresses with their rent due and never try to kick a Polynesian bouncers ass, it’s not going to happen.