I was 16, my hair was bleached-blonde and gelled into micro-spikes: I looked like the missing Power Ranger. It was the summer after my High School graduation. To celebrate my father decided that the Keith Family Men needed to go to Hawaii for one last hurrah of sand, surf, and all-you-can-eat dinner buffets before I left the nest for good.
In preparation for our trip, to the Islands birthed by a couple of Gods’ fiery assholes, my father suggested that we “get a base coat” at a tanning salon. I initially resisted the idea, “tanning salons,” I explained, were “reserved for the scum of the earth: mini-skirt and ug-boot wearing slutty Eskimo wannabes.” Note: when away from the company of my NorCal friends, I find the look kinda hot. My father, an aging surfer sidled up to me with an unexpected factoid “Did you know that after just one severe sunburn, you increase your chances of developing skin cancer by 15 percent?” he asked. “No.” I replied. “Well, if we start tanning while we’re on the mainland we’ll be impervious to sunburns when we get to Hawaii.” “Impervious?” I replied. “Well, at least you won’t be so damned pasty.”
Eventually the thought of impressing California dream girl, and my best friend, Emma won me over and I caved. My dad bought me a giant tanning package, over two weeks of 8-hour work days under an artificial sun. Always one to equip myself with the latest and the greatest, I picked up some tanning lotion (not to be confused with sun screen) and those little plastic specs that I’ve come to associate with Christian Bale in “American Psycho”.
Every day after my classes at the local community college in art history, I went to “Tanner’s Cove” - located in unincorporated San Leandro and a solid 20 minute drive out of my way. I’d go to the front desk, and check in with the girl who was named “Stephanie?” or “Kimberly?” – she seemed as unsure of her own name as was of this enterprise.
She’d remind me of the number of hours I had remaining in my account and I’d remind her that I was too good for this shit by grunting as I passed. I’d walk into my personal tanning booth and sheepishly disrobe. To achieve my dream tan, I would lather up my entire body with “Dreams of Hawaii,” a lotion that made me smell like a pensioner at an open Pina Colada bar. Bold enough to want a tan ass, but reserved enough to fear public nudity, I would hike up my boxers until I had a wedgie so bad I’d have to power through the flash backs to my days hanging out in the sand box. Once my light-blocking spectacles were secured, I climbed into my tanning bed.
For 22 minutes every day, I would sit in my casket of vanity and NorCal Liberal shame and listen to the buzzing of tanning lights. The enclosed capsule with the long lighting tubes always reminded of scenes from “2001: A Space Odyssey”. The thought of Hal 9000 being my friend would entertain me for about 27 seconds. “Great.” I thought, “Only 21 minutes and 33 seconds left.” Eventually I made my escape.
I come from solid but pasty stock. My mother’s family was composed of giant Swedes who immigrated to Texas some time shortly after the May Flower. They had a nearly translucent sheen about them, and if left under the sun you would be within your rights to call them Red Necks. As a product of this long lineage, I suspect that I’m missing some essential b-vitamins or have faulty melanin production glands. Over the course of a couple months logging about 3 supine hours each week I had a tan. This was a miracle of the highest order; I wanted to nominate “Stephanie? Kimberly?”at the front desk for canonization.
A few weeks in, I noticed my father had been following his tanning regiment a little too seriously. He was a shade of burnt reddish brown normally reserved for pool cleaners living off disability checks. I was wary of walking down the street with him for fear of offending a member of the Ohlone tribe. My Father was to Indian Chiefs what Yule Brenner was to Asian Kings. When I brought this up to him, his dismissed me saying “You and the rest of the world are just jealous of my tan”.
Convinced that we could now weather the equatorial sun, we embarked on our summer adventure. We arrived in Oahu looking like the couple of mainland yokels we were. Having packed more bags than your average caravan of drag queens, my dad and I were breathing deeply, sweating profusely and in an all around unattractive state as we dropped the last of our luggage on the floor of our rented bungalow. It was now officially time to “call your mother.” My mom, lovely woman that she is, somehow let my father convince her that a two week trip to see her family in Texas was somehow equitable to her husband spending three weeks in a tropical paradise with her son. Once the obligatory pleasantries were over with, we set about being manly men, kings of our domain. We sat in our lounge chairs and lounged with a vengeance.
That lasted all of about 3 minutes before I came to the smashing conclusion that tropical paradise was hot, ass-sweatingly so. My rayon Hawaiian shirt clung to me like a geriatric pervert to his last German Sheister film. Schvitzing whilst cooped up in a bungalow with my father did not strike me as the best way to spend the day. It was time to hit take off my shirt and hit the beach.
My mother taught me the lesson of “Safety First” with statements like “Lock your door. You don’t want to get us car jacked and me raped do you?!” or “No, you can’t be a Boy Scout. They molest young boys there. If you join, bad men will touch your peppie.” Despite never being in the Order of the Arrow, I strive to always be prepared: I applied sunscreen liberally, to all parts of my body.
I was now on a quest to do what any insatiably horny 16 year old boy is wont to do. I took off my aloha shirt, flexed my mini-pecs, and went in search of someone to stick my penis in. Never having successfully done so previously, I had yet to perfect a way of approaching women about the matter. This however, did not stop me from trying.
My strategy was to walk up and down the white sand beaches looking calm, cool, and collected. I was unsuccessful on all fronts. Girls have a way of smelling the “want” on you . I had the sort of nervous energy about me that comes only from the thought of engaging every girl that passed me in idle conversation and breast fondling. Mind you, if I was a 22 year old co-ed, I don’t imagine I’d have The Love Jones for a barely post-pubescent 16 year old boy either.
At the time, I was Gob smacked that “the stare down” failed to illicit insatiable muskrat fuck-lust from droves of women. I retreated back to the bungalow, my astrobright green water socks sloshing and scuffling all the way. Once home, I discovered a lobster red splotch in the middle of my back between scapula #1 and scapula #2. An amorphous fiery burn whose borders were clearly defined by hand prints groping for the missed spot. “Fuck.”
The crimson blotch on my hide served as the bane of my existence for the rest of my trip. It was clear to every inhabitant of the island that I was a Howlie from the mainland. Howlie is Hawaiian for Gringo, and Gringo is Spanish for “Get the fuck out of my homeland.” Worse than that was the dawning realization that my mother’s first words upon my return would be “I love you, it’s a shame that you’re going to die of skin cancer.”
