C.D. Payne, �Civic Beauties�
This is part nine of an eleven-part story about Kaua�i, which begins here. Part six of the story is here. The rest, you�ll have to find on your own.
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Every time I go to Hawaii, I come back and people scan my skin for some sort of cancer, thinking that the only thing people are supposed to do in Hawaii is soak up the sun�s murderous rays. Since I couldn�t give a shit if I have a tan (as my soul, and probably my lungs, are black enough), some of these folks express reservations on whether I actually went to the islands. I�m of the opinion that some chicks actually dig skinny white guys, and I have the second part down pat.
But what the hell. I�m tooling around in the back of a convertible, and we�re headed off to some beach on the north shore. So I lather on the lowest-end of the sunscreen that I think I can get away with, take off my shirt, and lay back to read my book, waiting for my turn with the snorkel equipment.
And look, I know it�s a cheap joke to talk about overweight Italian males wearing speedo shorts. But the reason everybody makes cracks about overweight Italian males wearing speedo shorts is because it�s so disgusting! It�s like a train wreck — a soft, squishy, broiled red train wreck. With nipples.
Auugh, it�s grossing me out just thinking about it now.
So of course, where we decided to sit had three of these men nearby, overexposing their fleshy hides to the world. This is why I spent my formative teen years in Hawaii wearing long pants and a leather jacket at all times. There are a lot of horrible things that people see in a single lifetime, and the male body is one of those things. Women, like the two we passed on the way to our spot, are just more ascetically pleasing then the billowing mounds of business that appear on your average overweight Italian male.
Any tan that I did get that day had the distinct outline of a book pressed to my face. There�s more things you could do with a book besides read it, you know. It can help shield your eyes from the horrors of the world.
Come to think of it, they could have used some books to hide their shame. Of course, hauling around a 20 volume set of the Oxford English dictionary might have been more of a hassle then they thought it was worth.
Believe me, it would have been worth it.
