I had thoughts on topics I planned to write about today, but during my “contemplation time” I got a call – my cousin died this morning. Needless to say, that changed things.
He was the closest I had to a brother growing up. We were only a few months in age apart, and spent a lot of time together when we were younger. We used to bum around Hawaii together when we’d spend time over the summers visiting family. In fact, he and I were together when we had our first hooker experience, walking down Kalakaua checking out shops (and the haole tourist girls).
As we were walking down the avenue checking the scene, two very elegantly dressed older women (we were like 14 or 15 when this happened, so older was early 20s, maybe?) approached us and asked if we were looking for dates. At first we both were all for it… then our horny teenage brains started actually working and we realized they didn’t mean a walk to Rainbow Drive-In for some Loco Moco. We skedaddled out of there and continued our quest, which if I remember correctly was for something I’m not going to put out there.
We would do that a lot, either bike or take the bus down to Waikiki and check out the tourist girls. We didn’t look much alike though – give me a couple weeks in the sun around the locals and I’d pick the pidgin back up and be able to blend in, my cousin, not so much. While after a couple weeks in the sun, I’d start looking like a local, he would look like a lobster. Still, it was fun flirting with and picking up tourist girls who thought we were lived locally, rather than two guys from the mainland.
He was even with me when I met my “first true love.” It was just after Thanksgiving, and we went to a Queensrÿche concert together. I was seeing someone so I wasn’t on the prowl, but there were two girls in the back of the crowd straining to see so of course my cousin and I offered to seat them on our shoulders for the show. After the show as we were starting to exit the venue, we all ran into another old guy friend of mine from high school and chatted with him briefly (this will be important later) before we all left and went our separate ways – I never asked for either of the girls’ numbers because I was seeing someone at the time.
About a month goes by and the girl and I were on the decline, but we went to a New Years Eve concert in a group together (Steve Miller Band if I remember correctly). The relationship was already falling apart, but it didn’t help that since this was a group event, I had invited a female friend from high school. It especially didn’t help when we all ran into the guy friend from high school and he started going off about the girls from the Queensrÿche concert and how he bumped into them at another concert and one gave him her number to give to me. My soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend at the time stomped off and barely spoke to me the rest of the show.
A day or two later I was single and I called the girl from the show – we ended up dating for years and was the first woman I cohabited with. And that likely would never have happened if my cousin wasn’t with me at the show.
I wouldn’t say we completely lost touch with each other, but we did drift on into our own lives. We both went on to have our own families (his wife passed a couple years ago) but after reconnecting at my father’s memorial service, we started texting more often. Earlier this year he had been diagnosed with throat cancer and we had talked a lot about the process and that. I’m reluctant to say, but the conversation kinda fizzled out and with all the other bullshit going on I didn’t make much effort to keep it going. I had reached out to him a couple weeks ago to check in and see how he was doing, but never heard back.
So that’s it for today, I’m going to listen to Queensrÿche (one of his favorite bands) and embrace all the memories that are flooding back.
Love you, cuz…
Song of the day: Anybody Listening by Queensrÿche
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