day six through eleven: (the toothache)

i wake up and it feels like ive been grinding broken glass across my back tooth all night. my gum is the size of a small, bloody marble. im drooling all over the pillow because i can hardly close my mouth it hurts so bad. i try to talk and i have a lisp. i keep slurping back spit. im a fucking mess.

i take two percosets and by afternoon were at a surf shop buying t-shirts for christmas presents and i feel no pain. before that we stop on a dock and watch the crabs crawl along the rocks. i smoke a spliff and she points to the ocean and tells me what it looked like, how it was changed, during the great hurricane of ninety one. how it was loud and violent. much more vicious than it was right then. we went into the store and the sales people were young and casual and helpful but not aggressive. we bought a couple t-shirts for christmas gifts. for the men in our lives who just want something simple.

we go to the beach and dive into the ocean every day. we go to different parts of the island, chasing the sun and running from the rain. we drink every day at happy hour, mostly at the bars in the hotels. the ones on the beach that have the cheap mai tai's. every sunset we drink and watch the sky change colors. i eat a palmful of painkillers every four or five hours and still grimace every time i take a bite from a fish taco.

we spend the first few days shopping for christmas gifts. she effectively ditches me one morning, leaving me to sleep in, while she shops for my present with her sister. i clumsily arrange for her sister to take me to a shop to get her gift after awkwardly announcing to her that i needed a little time to do some things alone. on christmas morning everyone is pleased and after going to brunch at another fancy restaurant on yet another fancy golf course, we go to the beach and swim a mile and a half, to a black large rock and back. it is exhausting but fun. while sminng there are dolphins herding fish ten feet from us and when we are underwater we can hear the whales. just in the distance, mating.

the next few days we follow a local routine of beach bar beach bar dinner and then drinking bud lime on the back of her dads pick up truck while staring at the stars on hanalua point.