JoseZ and Me

Living on a small island means that you get to know your surroundings pretty quickly. After two months I am at a point where I can actually pronounce some of the main Hawaiian street names without butchering the hell out of them. Try "Kamehameha, Kaahumanu, Haleakala, Makawao." Living on a small island means that you get to know the people around you pretty quickly too. I'm not just talking about the people you work with or the people you live with. I'm talking about that homeless guy with the long blond hair that sits across the street from the laundry mat place all day, every day and stares into nothingness. I am talking about that 80 year-old woman who always puts her hair into pig tails and tries to sneak into Charley's Bar without paying. I am talking about the old black man with the tight jeans and the Shaman like beard who is always, always hitchhiking. I am talking about JoseZ.

The first thing JoseZ (Jose-Z) ever said to me was "Fuck You!" I was driving a teenage client back up to my office and I waved at JoseZ. He was hitchhiking, of course, and did not appreciate me not stopping to pick him up.

I was immediately affronted by his language and yet could not help but laugh. I told an acquaintance about my experience with the strange hitchhiker. "Oh, that's JoseZ," he said and he proceeded to tell me the story of my accoster.

(Side note: Everyone on Maui has a story. And better yet, everyone has a story about everyone else. Living on a small island means that you and your life are now open to the examination of others. They will then pass on their experience of you through a new-age technology called "Coconut Wireless." For example: Let us say that you happen to drink a little too much tequila one night at Charley's and happen to kiss a boy at the bar. Within a few days everyone on the island will know about it, especially the guy's fiancé (who he did not tell you about by the way) and all of a sudden someone who you have never met will be telling you a story about yourself with added accouterments. "Did you hear about that girl Casselle? I heard she is a swinger." WHAT?)

JoseZ's story, as told by those within the Coconut Wireless Network, goes a little something like this: "He makes magical potions in his big home Up-Country and is the heir to a fortune from his families coffee plantation in the jungles of Central America." Due to my own personal experience with Coconut Wireless I am led to doubt 95% of what I hear. Nevertheless, I was intrigued.

It was a few weeks later that I decided to let bygones be bygones and pick the man up and give him a ride. He stood on the side of the road with his white hat atop his head filled with years of dreadlocks. His outfit consisted almost entirely of skin-tight denim including a jacket. His black face and blue eyes peered through a large expanse of white beard. His only possessions were a cloth grocery bag stretched to the max with papers and scarves and god knows what else. There he was, his arm stretched lazily at his side with a dark long nailed thumb poking out of a fist.

I pulled over in my red jeep and he walked up to the window, peering at me suspiciously.
"Makawao?" he asked. "Sure," I said. I was supposed to be heading back up the hill to do paperwork and was excited to have an excuse to put it off for another hour. JoseZ climbed into my squeaky car and spent a few minutes adjusting himself and his bag before taking me in. He then began to talk to me about his business of making pure oils from the plants and fruits of the island. He spoke with a lisp and a highly animated feminine voice as he described the sweat and labor that goes into making his "potions" as he calls them. "Could the Coconut Wireless information be true?" I thought.

As we drove up the hill he reached into his bag ceremoniously to bring out several samples of his scents. Each one he would take out with great care and place under my nose for not one, not two, but three sniffs. I must admit, they smelled good. I immediately decided to buy one and as we pulled up to his drop off point he ruffled through his bag of plastics and glass and cloth and papers to find a small vile of my selected scent. I purchased the oil and said my goodbyes but not after having given JoseZ my phone number and the promise to see him again.

My next encounter with JoseZ was on the full moon. He called me and invited me to go with him to watch the moon rise. "It isth a very austhpicious time," he said in a dreamy lisp. I picked up my new friend and we drove down to the beach where he showed me a place behind a tree where he had lived for several months, quite happily. Most of the night was JoseZ talking and me listening. I had figured out earlier on in my conversations with him that he could not hear me. It was confusing because he was able to hear everyone elseand yet when I spoke he had to ask me several times what I was saying and then would just nod his head feigning comprehension. I had secretly tried out different volumes and intonations of my voice but to no avail. I simply gave up talking.

As I listened to him I was constantly weighing the Coconut Wireless information with the present stimuli I was receiving. "Could this guy me a millionaire?" I asked myself. I did think it strange when he asked me what I would do if I had a lot of money. His answer to the question…"If I had a lot of money," he said "I probably would not tell anyone about it and would live just as I live now." Curious response, don't you think?

The night under the moon provided me with a great deal of entertainment as JoseZ told me stories of his family (which he is completely disconnected from by the way), and his desires to move back to the jungles of Central America to get away from all the "fake and materialistic people of Maui."

Most exciting was his story of Willie Nelson coming up to him at Mana Foods (the grocery store in Paia) and dancing with him in front of the organic bananas. (Does everybody get to meet Willie, except me? For crying out loud!)

At the end of the night I brought JoseZ back to his home which is a quaint, clean Ohana studio. There he informed me he would need to move the next day due to not being able to pay rent. Atop his mediation pillow which doubled as his "soap box" he informed me how awful it is that people have money and that when the planes stop bringing food to the island everyone will start cutting each others throats. As he continued a diatribe into how horrible everyone is these days for demanding full rent and for not controlling their dogs (among other atrocities) I made a choice to not spend anymore time with JoseZ.

Millionaire or not, I don't care to spend my precious hours with people who think the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And I don't particularly enjoy not being heard. I have a lot to say, if you haven't noticed, and I enjoy saying it to others who are able to take it in. I don't think it was a coincidence that JoseZ could not hear me. I think he didn't want to hear me.

This thus concludes my experience of JoseZ. I would like to say this will be the end of the relationship all together but I doubt it. Living on a small island means that you are not able to avoid anyone for very long (nor their fiancés nor their fiancés friends who want to punch you). So the chances of JoseZ and me crossing paths again is imminent. Also imminent in this equation?

Small Island + Willie Nelson = Casselle meeting Willie Nelson. Oh yeah!