MATCHLESS
Short Story
By J. Strauss
MATCHLESS
Short Story by James Strauss
The bike wasn’t much, certainly nothing that any islander would buy. Kam counseled with his dad about getting the Harley but the old man was no help. “Sell the damn thing to one of those dumb Haole’s down at the base,” was all he said. Without selling the Matchless Kam couldn’t make the down payment on the Sportster. It would take him another year of waiting tables at Trader Vic’s to come up with the money.
“Don’t have nuthin’ to do with the Hoales at Kaneohe,” his best friend Lee advised him.
“They comin’ to the island from those wars. They all crazy. Crazier than regular Haoles, I mean.”
Kam thought about it for a couple of days. The Caucasians from the mainland had come hundreds of years earlier to steal the land and take everything over. The house he lives in with his parents was leased from the Castle family. Those Haoles were direct descendants of one of the preacher families who’d like the islands so much they’d simply taken them. But working at Trader Vic’s had loosened Kam up a bit. The tourists who came to Waikiki were not bad. Some drank too much. Some acted out, but by and large, they were okay, if you could get past the thieving some of their numbers had done so many years before, which neither his Mom or Dad could.
But he had no choice, really. Either the Matchless sold to some service guy, and they weren’t all Haoles, or the Harley would remain ephemeral…except for the ones he saw touring around the island every Sunday, driven by guys he’d gone to school with but mostly didn’t have much chance to see anymore. The Harley would change everything. He’d learned that you couldn’t hang out with anybody riding a Matchless. The English bike had been built in England sometime during the second world war. It’d never made it around the island once without breaking down. Kam had a garage full of spare parts to prove it. Harleys never broke, they just leaked a lot.
Lee came with him to keep him company outside the main gate at Kaneohe. The Marines looked at them sitting on the grass by the bike but, since they were outside the base property, they could do nothing. None of the cars leaving Kaneohe stopped, or even slowed to study the ‘For Sale’ sign hung from the bike’s handlebars, and the foot traffic was sparse to non-existent.
Late afternoon came and went, Lee departing with the falling sun. Lee worked in the kitchen of the Royal Hawaiian on the other side of the island, not far from Trader Vic’s, but he had to be there promptly by four a.m. every morning or else.
One man came through the gate as Kam was folding his sign up and getting ready to kick-start the difficult English bike. Kam decided to wait until the Marine passed by so he wouldn’t take note of how many times it took to kick-start the thing, but the man stopped.
“You selling that thing?” the guy asked his English rolling from his mouth all buttery.
Kam studied the Marine for a few seconds before answering, finally figuring out he was from the Deep South. His pronunciation was called a drawl, Kam knew but hadn’t heard anyone use it since he was an elementary school kid.
“Yeah, if you got cash,” he replied, waiting for the Marine to walk away.
“How much?” he asked, without hesitation, surprising Kam. The Marine was not much older than Kam was.
Kam had only recently dropped out of high school, unable to compete with the service brats and rich people’s kids who’d taken over the institution. His resentment at Haoles suddenly overcame him.
“Don’t know if I want to part with it that bad,” he replied, giving the Marine his best ‘stink-eye.’
The man ignored him, walking around the bike and examining it closely as if Kam wasn’t sitting atop it.
“Two thousand,” Kam said, finally, doubling his price because the Marine was Caucasian.
“Kamaina price,” the Marine shot right back, “and it better be good because those tires are shot and the gas tanks dented.”
Kam needed nine hundred, and even at that, he was going to have to sign a financing agreement to pay a monthly amount. Fortunately, his age and credit didn’t matter to the Harley dealer as there was no place to escape on the island. But he didn’t like the Marine. The man seemed too self-assured and too ignorant to pick up on Kam’s obvious hostility.
“Nine hundred. That’s it. I’m getting a Harley and I need that much to cover my down payment.” Kam told him the truth, so he’d simply move on. The light was beginning to go, and the Matchless front light was out. He didn’t want the Marine to take note of that in addition to the other things he’d already spotted.
“I’ll take it,” the man said, instantly. “I’ll be here at this hour tomorrow. If you show up, we got a sale partner,” he said with a great smile, pronouncing the word ‘pardner.’ He held out his right hand.
“I’ll be here,” Kam responded, ignoring the smile and the hand. “Cash, no hundreds.”
The Marine’s smile died, and his hand went down, almost if he wasn’t quite used to such treatment. After another minute examining the bike, he walked away toward the main road.
Kam waited a good fifteen minutes to begin working on the bike. His right leg ached by the time the Matchless fired up. He drove it as fast as he could down Kamehameha toward His house in Haiku, trying to beat the dying light.
Kam got the bike home without it quitting and without getting killed by some blind tourists. His father was unimpressed with the sale. “Told you to sell it to some dumb Haole. Not that he’ll show up. Shoulda got a down payment. If you’d finished high school, you’d known that.”
Lee was more supportive. “You gonna have a Harley by the weekend Bra!” They knocked their knuckles together in celebration, both laughing. “The Haole’s a Marine Bra, and Marines don’t lie, even the Haole ones.”
They both waited at the gate the following afternoon. Lee drove his ancient small bed Toyota pick-up so they’d have a ride if the Marine took the Matchless on the spot. Kam had the title ready to sign over.
The Marine walked past the gate. No sweater covered his rank. He was a staff sergeant, Kam realized. No mere recruit. And a young staff sergeant. Kam didn’t like the man even more. “A high school graduate, probably some college too,” he whispered to himself.
“You got the money?” Kam asked, slouched across the body of the bike.
“Yeah, but I got some questions,” the staff sergeant replied. “What kind of bike is that and where was it made?”
Kam answered, but the Marine was not done.
“Where do I get it serviced? And where can I get parts?” he inquired.
Lee started laughing. “Parts and service, Bra! For a Matchless? You gotta be kidding us,” he said, his laughing growing in intensity.
Kam frowned at his friend. The man had the cash. All they had to do was get the cash, sign over the title, and get the hell out of there.
“No service. Nobody on the island except Lee and me knows anything at all about the bike. But I got a garage full of parts.” Kam waited after saying the words, hoping Lee had not blown the sale with is derision.
“I only have nine hundred. I can’t afford to buy the parts,” the staff sergeant stated flatly, making to turn and walk away.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Kam said, in desperation. “You can buy parts on payday. I know how to put them in. I’ve had the bike for five years. Deal?”
“Deal,” the Marine replied, holding out his hand once again.
Hesitantly, Kam shook with him, noting the man’s restrained strength. Kam squeezed a bit harder to let the Marine know he was no weakling either.
“I’ll ride the bike. We’ll go to your garage so I’ll know where to come on payday,” the sergeant said, walking toward it.
“Hard to start,” Kam blurted out.
“Yeah, I know. I watched you from the hedge over there. Magneto’s shot. Hope you got a spare. We’ll put it on next payday, along with a headlight and some tires.”
Kam worked at starting the bike. Surprisingly, it fired up on his twentieth jump down on the lever.
The garage looked like termites would finish consuming it in the next few days, but the inside was immaculate. Kam proudly showed the Marine, bin after bin of parts, pamphlets, and books. “I ordered them all, over the years, from England and from collectors on the mainland. Someday the bike will be worth real money, they said.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. Nine hundred bucks is a lot of money, but everyone on Oahu wants a fortune for a real bike.” The Marine counted out nine hundred dollars in twenties from a credit union envelope. “You don’t seem real fond of selling the thing. I thought you wanted the Harley pretty bad?”
Kam counted the money three times and examined the bills before leaning down to work on the title.
“He’s Hawaiian,” Lee said, into the silence. “He hates you Haole’s for taking his land and everything else. He’s a sovereignty warrior. Not like me. I’m half Chinese and half Japanese. I don’t like Haole’s like you, but I don’t hate ‘em.”
The Marine stared from one man to the other, all three stilled by Lee’s candor. Kam held out the title with one hand.
“The names Warren Earl,” the Marine said, his voice gone cold. “I was raised in a part of the country where people think like you more than not. I understand it and I know how to deal with it.” He took the title from Kam’s outstretched hand. “I need a ride back to the base. We don’t have time to change the headlight and I don’t have the money to pay for it yet.
“I’ll take him,” Lee replied, whispering to Kam as he walked by him “they have Hawaiians back where he was raised?”
Nice one James, a great story with which I can identify from two angles.
Having grown up in Rhodesia we saw more Matchless, BSA, Norton and Triumph bikes than Harleys. The four cylinder Japanese bikes were starting to get popular by the time I was in my late teens. I started with a small Italian 2 stroke then graduated to a Suzuki GSX 750.
We had tension between blacks and whites, but until terrorism started in the 70s, never the degree of animosity one-on-one or between small groups that I observe here in North America. Even during all the political upheavals most individuals of the different races got on with others relatively well. There were many examples of people from both the major racial groups putting their lives at risk to help people in need from the other group.
Perhaps because black people of Bantu origin had only moved into Southern Africa a few hundred years before the first Europeans arrived. A very short period in human history but one which sadly displaced the original San and Koi people, the remnants of whom now survive in the arid Kalahari desert.
All three of those native peoples are extraordinary.
In fact, I’ve never met a native tribe out there in the world or back at
home that did not give me feelings of warm comfort and some strange measure of accepted wisdom.
I have always been taken in by such outlying tribes and my life saved by more than one.
Back in the mainstream of my own culture, I am not accepted much at all.
I am considered raucous and too loudly expressive. Don’t send me to an assisted care facility when I’m almost done or a
nursing home. Just get me a one-way ticket to the Santo Domingo reservation or the Bantu plains or even the Kalahari…
Semper fi,
Jim
Went to visit my brother on the main island when he was at I believe Trippler, mid-seventies. He had been wanting to circumnavigate the island and decided that while I was there was a fine time. I already knew that even in the tourist trap areas some smiled as they took tourist money, some made no bones about their dislike.
We were about halfway around the island when we stopped at a little store for something cold and wet. As we got out of his car we faced a group of a dozen or so islanders on their turf. It was just like black and white and 1968 in the deep south. They crowded around and were a little mouthy but like is often the case, none really wanted to be the one to open the ball when it was obvious we were ready and willing to rock and roll. We left without any real incident happening.
Generally the people born on the island, native or Caucasian, get along fine. They team up against us outsiders. A friend was born on Hawaii and from what he says things haven’t changed much even now.
Acculturation is tough. It takes centuries if it happens at all.
That’s the situation in Hawaii, and it’s partially racial. If you have any
kind of off color skin from white you are invariably considered an islander (Kanaka)
If you are white, no matter how long you and your family might have been there then you
are white (Haole) and that’s it. Thanks for some of your own experience and writing on here.
Semper fi,
Jim
James, as I’m sure you know, they still want to be an independent nation. I pointed out that this would mean no medicare, no social security, need a green card to work in the US, any money sent to Hawaii would be foreign aid and have to be approved by congress. No more automatic US funding of infrastructure. No automatic sheltering US national defense from countries that might be casting an eye on Hawaii’s wealth. On and on. At least for the people I was talking to, they realized becoming an independent nation wouldn’t be all benefits with no losses.
I feel the same way about American Indians. I don’t care if they are US citizens, I don’t care if the tribes are independent nations. I object to them being both!
Yes, Hu, you have gotten to the foundation of how social structures are forced to exist. They are not here out of choice
so much as vital necessity. When Obama talked about big corporations not being self-built he was absolutely correct although
run down for it. Without the roads and railroads to the businesses and the electricity supplied by the community structures, and more,
there would be no ‘independent’ businesses. The same is true for defense. You better believe that Hawaii, without U.S. support, would
rapidly become bait out there in the Pacific.
Thanks for the depth of your feelings as expressed here. And liking the story, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim
Another Good Read, James. I always enjoy a Heart String TUGGER…..You have a way with words, and Most Times when you string them together you knit a pretty good yarn. Matchless was another enjoyable piece. Thanks for sharing with us. You Did Good…~~~~’s
You are the best Kay. Right wing neocon but I love you for certain.
And you give me plenty of shit to consider I’d never get anywhere else.
Love,
Jim
As always, nice work, brother. About to order 30 Days from Amazon. Hard copy. Be sending it your way. Peace & Semper Fi.
Thank you Tim, I will stand by for the copy. And thanks for buying it and leaving a comment on Amazon.
Semper fi, brother…
Jim
Wow. Excellent story!
Thanks Neil, glad you like this one. Wrote it while I was teaching college out in Hawaii
and working at Kaneohe Marine Base there. Thanks for the read and he support.
Semper fi,
Jim
PS Don’t forget to buy the book and leave a review on Amazon. Please~
How many more of these do you have? Wonderful story, wonderful life lesson. Speechless!
Well, I do seem to run into stuff out here in life and then reflect for a bit before putting
it on paper. Some of the stories have more fiction in them than others but all have kind of a solid
foundation of reality. The Matchless was real, as were all the characters. The Harley was real
and the cultures in conflict too. The base was real and the sales outside the gate.
I think it would be harder to write a story like that without a pretty solid foundation of reality but then
that is me. Thanks for the compliment Walt.
Semper fi,
Jim
I did not know about the racial situation in the Hawaiian Islands but being from the southern USA, I have seen and heard plenty of racism. I will never understand it.
A powerful lesson in this story, James Strauss and amazing gifted writing.
Thank you Nance. It is nice to get such compliments. I know that reading my stories takes a bit of effort and
application of intellect to really get them so the compliment flies back at you. Nice to have readers who get it.
Semper fi,
Jim
I enjoyed this short read Jim! You surprised me with the ending, nice touch of sentiments… appreciate your thoughts that you put to paper..
Don~
Thanks Don, for the compliment. The short story genre can be tough, like poetry, in that putting
real meaning into such vignettes in the space allowed can be kinda tough. Thanks for like the story and
in your way, me!
Semper fi,
Jim
That confused me and then made my chest hurt I wont forget that.
Well, I don’t know what to respond to in that one line comment.
I didn’t intend to confuse or make anybody’s chest hurt. I was
telling a story about the racial situation that has permeated the
Hawaiian Island culture for some time and using this story to illustrate.
Thanks for commenting, which is always a good thing…no matter what..
Semper fi,
Jim