I got a $250 ticket one way to Hawaii.

“Are you new?” he asked. “Here, I am,” I said.

PAIN IN HAWAII BY REBECCA GEARHART 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 51

I got a $250 ticket one way to Hawaii on the morning of the first night of Sukkot. My mother wasn’t happy, but there was no fruit harvest in Arizona to celebrate properly anyways.

The airport was hot and sticky, so as soon as I got my bags from the luggage carousel I bought a hibiscus-flavored shaved ice. It was bright red and it tasted like battery acid.

I hailed a bike rickshaw to get to my hotel. The crowded streets went from cracked pavement to thick, black mud. We slowed down a little when the roads went soft, but the rickshaw driver kept going—he had monstrous thighs. Some mud got on the bottom of my pants in a chunky, splattering spray, and a little got underneath the fabric, onto my skin. It was cold, it felt good.

The first Paradise Inn we tried was one-storey and painted the putty color of raw white fish. It had a shredded yellow flag with a bright pink sun in the midd…