With great respect to our responsibilities, I had curtailed early the shenanigans from the night before. Unlike my friend Dave, who perked up for a swan dive at 12:30 AM into the debaucheries of Honolulu's Chinatown. Last night, he had the look of a man possessed. Surely, he would be having a difficult time at the race this morning.
I arrived on time to the eastside beach of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The area was tented, set up and ready to help the swimmers cross the finish line. Water, Brio ice cream and cool HardcoreSport tees were awaiting them. Over 850 swimmers would brave the warm waters and gentle tradewinds of the Waikiki Roughwater Swim. At the Swim With Mike booth, we got ready, edged the brochures and sorted the tee shirts by size and style.
Swim With Mike had a booth and I was one of four volunteers to share the good word. For over 30 years, the non-profit has given college scholarships to young athletes who have been disabled. Their stories of this great life are incredible. When self-pity bites me, I think of Swim With Mike. The puncture wounds vanish, quickly and absolutely.
Hanging around, the swimmers of all worldly ages were easy to identify. All were tattooed by a thick felt pen of their race number falling down their biceps. It was less crowded than I had imagined, then again, it was early.
My phone blinged and a social media post popped up. The selfie showed that my pal Dave had arrived at Kaimana Beach for the start of the race. His smile was determined. His post read, "Ready for Roughwater." I was impressed. I didn't think he could open the dark curtains of last night's indulgence. He had been on a roll.
Looking 2.3 miles to the east, I could see waves crest white, racing to the shore. They looked big.
Along our finish line beach, there were rumblings of conversations. Parts of broken sentences began to intel that the race had been cancelled. With confirmation, we learned that twelve-foot swells had made it impossible to get beyond the breakwater. The race was cancelled. The roughwater race was too rough.
What a bummer. Each racer provided much anticipation, training and logistics to leap into the waters of Waikiki. I knew Dave, now off the hook, had to be relieved; it's hard to wake from a coma. Dave is a wake 'n bake kind of guy. Not a wake 'n swim. He's never seen a dawn in his life unless it was really, really late in his evening.
For a while, the area was bustling. Some of the swimmers, all disappointed, came for their loot. Brio ice cream was giving it away. Bottled water was flowing. This years Roughwater Swim tee was very cool and the Hardcoresport clothing booth was mobbed for all of their bright styles. The design was a sunny print, like a Henri Matisse cutout. Many swimmers had made a donation to Swim With Mike and we were thanking them with swag.
Every conversation with the sad swimmers sang with an upbeat reconciliation of Life Its Ownself. Sans crier gare! That's Life! So it goes! Aloha.
I was sharing the booth with Cindy Broc and her son Boe. They are devoted to Swim With Mike. Her older son Joe is a grad of Hawaii Pacific University on a Swim With Mike scholarship. Joe and his spina bifida were canoe paddling in the Queen Lili'uokalani Race off Kona at that very moment. He was racing with a group of physically disabled paddlers known as Pure Light Racing.
Soon, the crowd died quietly. Most of the swimmers who had touched the sand 2.3 miles away were loath to fight traffic and Waikiki parking to cross a finish line for no purpose and little avail. I was impressed with the swimmers I did see. I was surprised that some of them could make such a swim. Little old ladies had their arms numbered up. Portly old guys, determined to swim, were laughing in the face of a heart attack. If they could do it, so could I.
My phone blinged and up popped a tightly cropped picture of Dave, wet and happy, crossing the finish line. Dave's caption to the photograph read, "Victory! Rough water be damned. My time ain't bad!"
I looked up, at the deserted prairie. If Dave had crossed that finish line, I would have seen him. I believe my friend was acting automatically, thoughtlessly posting online, using old, duped pics. I could see him, prone on his couch, too pained to move a muscle, taking tiny fast sips from a Heineken bottle. The fantasy of his roughwater victory helped to ease his polluted pain. In his hangover haze, Dave had neglected to check local news for any race updates. He didn't know the Roughwater Swim had been cancelled.
I asked the Race Director Kaia Hedlund, "Is it time to pack up?" She was all business, with no time for regret. The cancellation of the race had repurposed the speeches, the awards, the handshakes and the long words of appreciation. The race was over and so was the show.
Thirty minutes later, I was trying to lounge in a dentist's chair, wedged between humming steel and burping plastic. The ocean view from the Ala Moana tower was bright blue and beautiful. A young nurse was inserting a large, shoe-like object into my mouth. I said, as best as I could, "I was at the Roughrider Swim all morning."
She said, "Yes. I heard they cancelled the race because of thirty foot waves!"
"Thirty?!" I garbled, "Wow." The size had jumped and a legend is born. I wasn't about to correct that.
Aloha says Hello and Goodbye.
Gordy Grundy is an O'ahu based artist, arts writer and libertine. His visual and literary works can be found at www.GordyGrundy.com.
A collection of HULA MOONs can be found here on the Huffington Post or on Facebook.
