Post #537021 by White Devil on Thu, Jun 17, 2010 5:14 AM

It's 1951, and William Bendix, Humphrey Bogart and Leo G. Carroll have converged on The Hale Tiki for cocktails and obligatory shop talk. They don't come here often, but from time to time the exotic lure is just too much to resist. Besides, what kinda nutcase would want to live here? If you weren't nuts already, the incessant drumming would soon make ya nuts, I tell ya, says Bill. Humphrey espies the loveliness of the wahines from behind the rim of his hopped-up martini. Says nothing. Carroll, for his part, segues from his career woes to speculation about the architectural origins of the cavernous A-frame soaring above the bar.
Each man loves the contours and hypnotic motion of those sarongs as much as the other. Each man has his own troubles, both professional and personal, but they didn't bring them here to dump on the backs of other men. Each man generously supports his charitable concerns, and more than one ex-wife and who knows maybe a girlfriend or two and their brats but then who's to say: it's not the stuff of polite conversation. And it may very well be that each man finds the overuse of bamboo inside the Hale a tad ostentatious, but none is gauche enough to criticize the architect for that. In the big picture, it doesn't matter, and isn't that what these drinks help them focus on...the big picture? The smog clears away and those far-off horizons loom into view once more, reminding them of why they got into this silly game to begin with. Bogey twitches to get to his boat, and maybe chase down those horizons for a few weeks. Bendix contents himself with his third fog-cutter, and fondles the peculiar anthropomorphic mug they keep refilling. Carroll ponders, over one cigarette after another, the mysteries of Pele and why any man would let his hair get sloppy.
Before the evening disperses, they've each entertained and finally rejected a few illicit offers, because part of being a man is distinguishing fantasy from real life, even in the middle of a Polynesian haze. Each has resisted the constant temptation of self-boosterism and one-upsmanship, as a courtesy both to themselves and to the other men. By the time they take leave of their comrades, there's been far more left unsaid than broached, and their mutual respect remains intact.
They will do this again. Not soon, perhaps, but then infrequency lends plausibility to fantasy, and leaves a little room for more thirst. Thirst for the rigors of life, and for the escape from it. They will leave this place and go back out there to maneuver their way through the real jungle, working their way with invisible machetes through the circular trail that leads them, always, back to this smoking, dimly-lit womb of the unknown.