Ch 1: Beyond Repair on the Island of Malaise
by Simon Henderson
It has been said that there are no random encounters in the fatefrolic tantrums of the universe. The first time I saw him, he wore a bell tethered on his brawny ankle, and tight butt cutoffs with a scanty tank top muscle shirt taut across his chest.
There was a cross tattooed on his upper arm with a spoke of rays radiating from it. A homeboy job, like kids did on humid Honolulu evenings in the 1950's. Especially on King's Street. Especially hapahaole kids with prostitute mothers.
Bobby wore a corona of golden yellow hair, in a Polynesian afro, like an electric ethnic crown. His skin was cafe-aux-lait mocha colored and smooth as a ti leaf. His beauty was so exotic and gender confusing that I was fearful of meeting his glances as I frequently passed by him doing the strut and truckin' on Haight street. Fearful of being consumed by his seductive visage.
With dark, soul- piercing eyes that fluttered beneath doe-like lashes and botox, bee-stung lips, it was a task in perception to meld muscular frame with such feminine facial features. When Bobby looked at you--as if a vast laser was momentarily scanning the interior of your psyche--you knew you had been looked at. Otherwise it seemed as if he were always dreaming. Lost somewhere in the cerebral deep chasm of a parallel universe.