Shark Fin Soup

Chapter 1 ~ Call Me. It’s Mel.

(May)

Cannibal Days

Fiji

Monq’s marlin spun, pulling the line tight around his arm and snap, sliced it off quick and clean below the elbow. He panicked with barely time to apply a makeshift tourniquet before he passed out. The young man, barely out of his teens, lost half of his right arm.

Days later, he would wake up in his tiny canoe, hungry. There was no food aboard and his fishing gear had been taken — along with his orphaned limb — during the battle with the great fish.

Monq pondered a handful of linkia sea stars tangled in a piece of net in a puddle on the bottom of his dugout canoe.

His ancient tribe had used sea stars to regenerate missing body parts for thousands of years.

Lanikai Point, Oahu, Hawaii

______________

C.O.E.D. — MISSION STATEMENT

(Interpol’s Crimes of Exotica Division)

COED was created in 2011in an effort to preserve and protect the world’s ‘threatened tiki culture’ and support its proud sentries who have stood guard over our Ooh-ooh-ooh, partying planet since the beginning of recorded time.

* * * *

Originally, the protection of COED only covered Pacific tropical island nations, their indigenous peoples, gods, and totems. Coverage was expanded in 2013 — with a twenty-five billion dollar superfund — to include protection to all who enjoy lawn flamingos, surf and tiki music, tropical clothing, barbecue, luaus, beach parties, pupus, cocktails — and their accoutrements (e.g. swizzle sticks, leopard print g-strings, and paper umbrellas).

#

T.K. Betelnut, the agent in charge of COED, always wished that his job was half as exciting as the lives of the secret agents in the movies. But he had learned to accept his place in the world. He knew what he was. He was a living, seven-foot-tall tiki. A curio. A half human stick. On a normal day’s stakeout, Agent Betelnut would spend hours standing statue-still while tuned into the latest mostly fair and no longer completely ad free, news broadcast by the world’s oldest Wi-Fi, which is the…

The Telepathica Pacifica Network (TPN)

Thousands of years ago, as any sap will tell you, the TPN was set up as a web of psychic protection for plant life around the globe.

The TPN does not accept monetary donations from plant-loving humans. Throughout the history of plant systematics, the TPN’s green members have all witnessed friends, relatives, seedlings, and saplings chopped or mowed down, mashed into paper currency for humans.

Today, T.K. was listening to the plant-based network while on a stakeout for his carnivorous friends at Interpol. His assignment was related to the protection of front yards everywhere. Specifically, he was there to protect the prestige of the original Don Featherstone lawn flamingos produced by Union Plastics.

Interpol believed North Korea intended to flood the free world with cut-rate birds. If left unchecked, the commies could ruin lawns everywhere with cheap knock-offs.Until now, the free world’s front yards—the ones blessed by genuine Featherstones—had been worth defending against marauding juvenile delinquents — the ones whose parents never lifted a hand to smack some goddamned manners into the noisy little bastids. Yeah, the same little bastids who made life a living hell for half human half log T.K. by tipping him over in public, just because they thought it was funny. Brats.

Waiting. Waiting.

Beneath the hot afternoon sun on a quiet Tuesday, T.K. tilted himself a few more degrees to the east, to help improve the reception on the grassy slope.

#

If a stranger — than fiction — calls…

A seemingly harmless cell phone call from Louisiana beamed across the friendly skies to Hawaii.

Agent T.K. Betelnut listened carefully as he stood at a cockeyed angle beneath Lanikai Point trying to avoid the ground termites swarming around his feet. His assignment was to listen and record the phone calls between two smugglers, the mysterious Mr. Li Jun and the slimy Mr. Mel Asada. The mysterious Mr. Jun was living fifty feet above the spot where T.K. had planted himself. Jun lived in the highest house on the Lanikai hillside. Mr. Asada, the second smuggler, had been pinpointed living in New Orleans.

Li! Call me back A.S.P.C.A! (Mel was known for using incorrect acronyms.) "We need to talk. We’ve got about 500,000 birds ready to migrate in June." Next, Mel used his signature code phrase: I love New York in June. How about you?

* * * *

For thousands of years, carved tiki statues had been the earth’s steadfast sentries. T.K. Betelnut was tuned in to the Telepathica Pacifica Network because, though part human, he was also part tree. T.K. was a giant 60-30-10 human-plant-god infused hybrid. His mother was a princess from Ami Ami Oni Oni, while his father had been a sacred dildo carved by the gods from a Morning Wood Tree on Malakamokalu. The human half of him allowed him to be mobile. Both his parents disappeared during a Category 8 hurricane. While floating in the sea, the young sapling, T.K., was picked up, and raised by, a curio dealer traveling on a schooner near Fiji.

In the early days of the Telepathica Pacifica Network, tiki outposts circled the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire.

When the Easter Island Moai walked the earth centuries ago, the TPN’s men and women on the street — the tikis — had been the far-flung polytheistic gods and flora of the tropical pre-human Pacific region once known as Pollenesia.

Today, tiki messengers are everywhere. Tiki bars have popped up around the globe and the TPN’s web of communication has been vastly improved. Frequent plant-based vibrations monitored by the Telepathica Pacifica were never shared with humans, until now. Tikis and plants have always been wary of the destructive human race. In recent years, the TPN has been concerned with a growing number of veggie-obsessed grazing humans and the exploding population of young whippersnappers who defiantly walk across freshly cut grass, despite the finger-wagging warnings delivered by rare and wise elderly humans, who do know the spiritual value of a well-maintained yard, dammit!

You punks are gonna end up buried under my lawn next time I see you walking on it!

T.K. Betenut and his guardian ‘buds’ —pun intended — had promised to protect the little grassies.

* * * *

Despite the serious side of tiki gods, their specialty has always been their ability to quickly relay the hottest gossip from around the volcanic Pacific Rim. Within the tiki community, gossip has always held priority above all other useless forms of information. Tikis look forward to all the latest gossip involving some knothole that they all know. Total fabrications are welcome, even if they are easily disproved. Dripping sap and syrup is all that matters in the sultry world of the Tiki tropics.

The TPN is now the most reliable communications network on the planet. The network has always been very busy as tiki gods and goddesses chat incessantly — like teenage mall rats. There are also the days when the houseplants, who share the TPN, also get busy on ‘the horn.’ Sundays are especially hectic, when offshoots call their parent plants to assure themselves that they will remain in the will.

#

Salad Days

* * * *

Waiting. Waiting.

Oh! What is this?

T.K. was scoping in on a fine little gynoecium growing on the hillside among the lowlife weeds and kudzu. She stood proudly above the shoreline.

It was a Monstera deliciosa. Not your average dime-a-dozen split-leaf philodendron. She was beautiful. T.K. was hypnotized. He’d never seen such lush foliage. Her big leaves swayed gracefully in the breeze, exposing a good portion of her divine stems. Movie star material. Play Plant centerfold.

T.K. soon realized: OMFTikiG, it is her! From television! I’ve got to alert the network! Marilyn Monstera! Someone has discarded Marilyn Monstera on the hillside! Dumped her like a slutty areca palm. And though she faced a scenic vista that any silly human would be glad to pay $2000 a night plus airfare for—just the idea that she had been treated like common pond scum or athlete’s foot fungus—discarded like a boring fern, was an insult to her eminence.

Some ROFS (rich old farts) had simply left her there, no doubt, when they were redesigning their fancy ROF home on the gated ROF section of Lanikai’s hillside.

The very patient, constipated, angry stick became angrier.

Marilyn Monstera (Lot#6532uhgy12) was the daughter of Hollywood royalty. A result of Plant Parenthood, her parents were famous as well. Marilyn’s mother, ZhuZhu appeared in nearly every scene in the Thin Man movies of the 1940s. Her father, Moe, acted throughout the 1960s in the Anette and Frankie Beach Party films. Both parents still live in the executive offices of Warner Bros. and had been featured on over two hundred and fifty movie sets. They also were fixtures on Hollywood’s best buffet tables where they sometimes rubbed stems with Bogart, Bacall, Cooper, et al.

Marilyn’s first TV appearance was with her father, Leif, on the Surf City Sinners series (1961–1965), which is still considered a classic of the Swingin’ Sixties.

In the first Surf City Sinners episode, A Ding in My Heart, Marilyn’s father is observed flipping the stamen. This gesture took Leif Monstera over four hours to complete during forty different takes bungled by two so-called teen idol actors, Hanky and Panky. Many of the Monstera’s friends and relatives saw the episode from their Southern California living rooms and let out a laugh that was only heard by other plant life over the TPN — Telepathica Pacifica Network. A plant laugh can register among the botanicals for over a month.

After the stake-out, maybe he’d ask ‘Sugar Roots’ to take a spin with him in his new photosynthetic Chia sedan. I could use a little fiber in my diet.

Since he first saw Marilyn on TV in1961, T.K. ‘Beaver Bait (nicknamed for his tree-like appearance)’ Betelnut, like all other healthy male saplings his age, wanted to toss her salad with a fine vinaigrette.

#

You wanna make a Telepathica Pacifica Network call on an important holiday such as Mulch Day? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Sexting is not allowed on the TPN. Networkers follow a strict code of user conduct. Networkers are asked to avoid references to four-letter words such as wood, leaf or bark. Some seedlings were recently banned from the network because of their frequent references to huge flopping stamens, hot steamy pistils, and the phrase, Go pollinate yourself!

#

Waiting. Waiting

One angry, very patient stick.

Staking out a crime scene required patience.

T.K. could stand anywhere, unsuspected, for very long periods of time. Sometimes, he stood motionless for days. On stakeouts the agent only wore a loincloth and a radioactive glow-in-the-dark plastic tiki charm around his neck. It looked very much like a self-portrait. Due to an accident in 1966 near the atomic testing site of Moruroa, T.K., himself, retains a faint red glow.

Most passersby would think that T.K. was just some old weathered Polynesian pop decor. In Hawaii, he was nearly undetectable.

On his stakeouts, drunks would often stop to talk to T.K. just like they used to talk to the old jack-in-the-box clowns in the drive thru lanes in the 1960s. Once the still and silent tiki began to speak to unsuspecting humans, they would either pass out or run away screaming. Today there were none of these gullible victims nearby to keep him entertained.

Beneath the bright sun, the agent looked almost handsome - chiseled and powerful.

He had a long, broad, flat nose and one heavy eyebrow which stretched above his deep set but good-natured beady little black orbs that reflected light as though they were made from cut black diamonds. T.K.’s ears were elongated. As long as his four-foot noggin. Add to that, an almost comically short torso and tiny, squatting bowed legs to completed the picture. Legs that were no longer than a small child’s.

Today T.K. wore a scowl, the result of indigestion caused by an addiction to Ultra Bloom, which contains ten percent nitrogen, fifty-two percent phosphate and ten percent soluble potash. Some really baaaaad shit. (Chicken manure and a bong were also involved.) T.K. hadn’t been able to relieve himself in over two weeks. Although sixty percent of his waste had been released into the atmosphere as CO2, his scowl grew uglier by the hour.

#

T.K. was an angry, patient, constipated stick.

Sometimes on a stakeout, he’d think about his lost father’s family in Sumatra. The Mourning Wood trees of his ancestors were waging a losing battle against man and machinery in the rain forests of the world. People destroying forests! Destroying the earth’s beauty!

Offa my lawn! Offa my lawn.

I’ll fetch my dogs.

Get offa my lawn.

—From the poem The Lord of the Hose by Roomie

#

THE CRIME

Waiting. Waiting.

Romance will also have to wait. Get back on track, T.K.! he told himself.

At first T.K. was alerted to what he thought was serious forgery and smuggling operation in the works. Great universal tiki laws were about to be violated within the world of Exotica. A phone call between two gentlemen associates of a power-hungry madman named Edwin MacHeath was what grabbed the big trunk’s attention.

There was something bigger going on here. T.K. could feel it deep down in his very sap.

The birds that the two creeps Li Jin and Mel Asada were smuggling were expensive, though bogus, lawn flamingos; a cheap breed known as lawnus plasticus.

Genuine, signed Featherstone lawn flamingoes were icons to a large population of enthusiasts who worshipped the birds. There were many rich collectors who would pay anything for a genuine, hand-signed Featherstone. Over five-hundred thousand were on their way from North Korea to New York, by way of Gen-Italia Airlines (owned and operated by Jewish-Italian mob kingpin, Gianni Katz, who, as a young student, invented cat litter). The genuine non-recycled plastic birds would be bearing the forged signature of the late Don Featherstone. The crime was not so much the theft, but the psychic damage perpetrated upon universe after the two-million year evolution of the perfect Featherstone birds.

T.K., the very patient, constipated, angry, love-struck, crime-fighting stick became even angrier. They’ll never get away with it. Even if the bogus birds are made of the highest North Korean quality genuine plastic!

#

Though he had millions, Mel Asada was living in a sweaty dive in Louisiana called the Nawlins Flamingo Arms Hotel. The phone rang. T.K. was ready to listen in. Mel picked his phone up and a voice on the other end said, My name is Li Jun.

Jun’s bodacious abode, above the rocky shore where T.K. stood, overlooked both Kailua and Lanikai beaches. It was more of a castle than a home. Li’s fortune was built upon the backs of the legitimate hardworking Featherstone flamingos. Every one of the birds was about to lose their soul, their rightful place in the heavens, as well as their self-respect due to the repulsive greed of Mel Asada, Li Jun, and their boss Edwin MacHeath.

Riiiiinnnnnggggg!

What is thy name? asked the mysterious voice.

My name is Li Jun. We are many.

Many? How Many?

No! It’s secret code, you moron. We are five-hundred-thousand -many’ to be exact— approximately —exactly.

What the heck are you talking about, young feller??

The birds that will be landing at JFK on New Year’s Eve, you half-wit! Wait...is this Mel?

No, this is the Reverend Insipid Blatherchatter from the Cafeterian Church, in Cheeseurg. Is this 555-4563?

Get offa my phone, ass wiper! said Li Jun.

Meanwhile T.K.’s elongated ears had heard enough. Birds? Flamingos? he thought. Dollars! Five million. For what? They’re setting up something big in New York. New Year’s Eve big.

#

Whether he called himself Mel Asada or Ben Gay or Ben Yeh (pronounced ben-yay) the guy was still a sugarcoated doughy little grease ball.

Below a calendar of Betty pinned to the wall above his headboard, Mel was drinking a cup of Cafe Du Monde coffee when he finally reached the right number, thousands of miles away in Hawaii.

#

"We’re all set then?" asked the mysterious Mr. Jun from his sinister lair upon the hill. I love New York, in June, I mean December, how about you? Moonlight and motor trips. How about you?

Ah-hah! thought T.K. More references to the old song How About You, except he changed the month to December. The lyrics revealed that the their payday would be delivered on the evening of a full moon, which, sure enough, would be at its largest on New Year’s Eve.

More lyrics came from the mouth of Li Jin: James Durante’s looks give me a thrill. Potato Chips.

Yes! Jimmy Durante’s schnoz, thought T.K. It looks like...like Long Island! Potato chips! Yes! Uncle Louie’s Famous Potato Chips are made at Hamilton Beach, on Jamaica Bay next to the JFK airport!

T.K. was on a roll! Figuratively...and literally.

While he had been deep in thought, two little Lanikai criminal-punk-skateboarder-bastids had tipped him over like a dumb cow.

Crap!

T.K. was tumbling downhill toward the water and another nasty case of gooseneck barnacles while wishing that he’d gone to this year’s Balolo festival in Fiji, instead.

The Balolo (Mbolo) Worm Eating Festival — which begins at sundown in mid-May — starts with the centuries old chant:

Everyone likes us.

Everybody loves us.

Let’s go eat some worms!

Short fat slimy ones,

Long thin curly ones,

See how they wiggle and squirm?

The Balolo Festival is held by islanders near Kupaio when the rising, spawning sea worms attract great schools of fish.

The worms, not the fish, are the real delicacy at the festival. Fijian natives paddle out in their canoes with nets and torches to catch the millions of writhing worms that are called the 'Caviar of the Pacific.’ Locals scoop the Balolos, saving the majority to take home.

The Kupaioan celebration coincides with the similar Worm-a-thon hundreds of miles away in Hullapalu’u, New Guinea — home of the cannibal Hotats.

Either way, the feast was an ideal time for the wise sage of Kupaio, Lupta, to announce Queen Dauna’s upcoming wedding.

* * * *

JUNE

One sunny morning, California police captain, Bernie Benedict and his new bride, Sylvia, left Suva, Fiji, on a small boat heading toward the island paradise known as Kupaio — a former cannibal enclave now dedicated to growing the most powerful coffee on the planet, due to its blood rich soil). They would be together for two romantic evenings in Kupaio.

In their hotel room they found a menu for...

*Dauna’s Kupaio Cafe!

Serving the fine people of Micronesia for over 3000 years!

(*The menu can be viewed in its entirety in the edible appendix of this book)

The only other choice of restaurants on Kupaio was an Indochinese cafe, Phee Phi Pho Phum, specializing in Bloody Mary-Queen-of-Scotchtails and Pol Pot Pie.

#

NIGHT DIVE

Bernie booked a night dive one the evening, while his spouse, Sylvia, claiming exhaustion, stayed back at the hotel.

He awoke the next morning to find that Sylvia was gone.

She must have walked into town for some breakfast, thought the groggy police chief. So he walked a few blocks into town expecting to find her. Maybe she went shopping.

The chief decided to return to the Kupaio Flamingo Arms Hotel, where he packed both their bags and checked out. He left a message for Sylvia at the front desk, then went to wait for her at the Nyah-Wassup Dock, where their ride back to Suva would to pick them up at noon.

#

Chapter 2 ~ The Inimitable Dauna (meets Bernie)

He dresses like an idiot

The first time Bernie Benedict, the chief of police from Bolsa Chico, California met the shark goddess and queen of Kupaio was when he walked onto the beach in search of his wife, Sylvia. There he came face to face with the ‘café au lait beauty.’ Dauna, born three-thousand years ago, with the Fijian name Daucina which means ‘the light giver.’

In the 1960s, the Daucina shortened her name to Dauna after deciding the long version of her name was too tiring to write when signing checks.

#

Dauna would not have taken a second look at the colorblind tourist, if not alerted by his ‘screaming’ Bermuda shorts and mismatched aloha shirt upon which hung a tag announcing, "Bula! My name is…Bernie."

Dauna removed the sunglasses from the belt of her parreo and put them over her eyes, afraid that she might be blinded by his clothing. Bernie became uncomfortable when he felt the beautiful woman staring and giggling. He became confused. Wait. I’m at the dock waiting for what’s-her name. Wife? Yeah, what’s-her-name. Sylvia something. Bernie stood still while trying to decide whether the woman in front of him had a skin tone of butterscotch or caramel. He didn't realize that he was drooling on his name tag.

The village sage, an ancient crone named Lupta, approached Dauna and whispered into Her Majesty’s ear, The white meat’s name is Bernie Benedict, Your Heinous. His great—great —-grandfather, *Samuel Beans Benedict was the name of the sailor who brought the coffee beans to our island many years ago. When you turned two-thousand and seventeen years old, the magical coffee grounds predicted that a man named Benedict would carry your family jewels and save your empire.

SHUT THE באַרען up, לאָך WAFFLE! screamed Dauna, shocking other tourists rushing back to Nyah-Wassup Dock, some of whom dropped their free cups of Outtamywayasshole Coffee. Oh, sorry, all. That was my Tourette’s speaking. What I meant to say was ‘Shut the באַרען up, לאָך waffle!’

No offense taken, my queen, said the crone.

The crowd were now focused on Bernie’s shorts, staring at his bizarre clothes as if he were a tragic car wreck.

"That...schlub, said Lupta, employing an old Fijian term, will someday bear your fruit, Dauna, I meanYour Heinous."

"P’leeeeease. Fruit? You know that I pass out at the sight of juice. That slob? Really? Dauna’s curiosity about Bernie had been aroused. My ampullae of Lorenzini (sharkie sensing organs) have never felt like this, she thought as her tail end began to sway.

Bernie, in return, could not take his eyes off the luscious, shifting form beneath her lucky parreo. Lucky? Lucky? Why did I think the parreo was lucky, as if it were somehow alive? He watched ‘Dauna, Her Heinous’ draw down an entire cigarette in a single slow breath while she took an uncomfortable, yet thrilling inventory of the silly human. Her intense eyes seemed to go ‘click click click.’

Bernie had never seen anything like her. She in turn, seemed to be looking right through — him!

Bernie hoped for a memento, so he aimed his new Nikon. The camera flared, fell and melted in the sand. Dauna began to circle the hypnotized tourist. Bernie had a feeling that either he was going to be eaten by, or married to, the captivating queen.

Same damned thing.

Dauna’s spell was broken when the captain of the dive boat called the tourists back on board. Bernie’s heart was racing as he turned for one last look. She was gone. He would never forget her.

Nor would she forget him.

Every so often, in the silence of the tropic night, a mysterious breeze carrying the name Bernie would gently jingle the chimes of Dauna’s fun foyer. Berrrrrnie. Berrrrrrrrnie. Bula! My name is Bernie

(Sad violin music.) But forsooth, dear readers, for after Bernie had left the island, Dauna was to be married.

An arranged marriage…

…to a gold-plated schmuck-on-fins named Bunji.

Dauna, upset, drove off in her golf cart, running into some stuff along the way. Human stuff.

Bernie's wife Sylvia was sitting inside the boat's cabin, drinking, when he boarded the boat to Suva. He didn't ask questions. Bernie knew that he was losing his marriage. Before their trip, Sylvia often came home drunk, late at night.

(*See more of the history of Kupaio, facts about Dauna and Bernie’s father Sam ’Beans’ Benedict in the appendix.)

Days later, the Benedicts returned home to Bolsa Chico, California, where Bernie would have to face his domestic nightmare. He’d lost all faith. That was, until he went out for breakfast on Monday morning. There was something familiar about the waitress. The way she moved.

Donette’s Cafe

Bolsa Chico Pier, Southern California

Donette’s Cafe, formerly Rosie’s, was built on the end of the Bolsa Chico Pier, in Orange County, California, in 1956. Recently, it had been purchased by the dark, sultry, and gutter-mouthed shark goddess Dauna Robinson, who’d bought the cafe to promote her native Fijian coffee products: the high-octane Getthefuckouttamyway and Outtamywayasshole coffees, grown on her blood soaked island of Kupaio. Dauna was also the one and only waitress at Donette’s. When she had to go back to Fiji every few weeks, the diner would remain closed.

Dauna, disguised as a frumpy waitress, stood at the center of her newly acquired diner. The one thing that Dauna could never hide was her Tourette’s syndrome, and it was ‘kicking in’ big time on this morning. While addressing no one in particular in the middle of the cafe, she broadcast, Nice try! But it won’t make your tiny winkie any bigger! Forks dropped. Time stopped, even for Reynaldo the cook and Sol, the loose-bladdered seagull who waited outside for scraps.

Dauna’s sparse clientele that morning numbered two defeated men: a hung-over fisherman named Hector, and the soon-to-be-internationally-humiliated chief of the Bolsa Chico Police Department, Bernie Benedict.

Bernie’s Wife Story

Sylvia didn't come home on Sunday and Bernie was in a panic. He was lucky to get himself an appointment, though it was the weekend, with the area's best Psychaitrist, Dr. Beinhöcker Geilehund.

The psychiatrist told the Chief that it might take years before he would emerge from his deep depression. The eighty-two-year-old Dr. Geilehund, stroking his goatee asked if he could to talk to Mrs. Benedict, privately. Do you haff your vife’s phone number? A snopshot of her, Bernie? A sext perhops?

That afternoon, new information about Sylvia's behavior began to emerge.

As chief of the Balsa Chico Police department, known as