The Kai

The Kai

Beach towns like this one always have a few of what my friends and I used to call “kais.” I’m not sure where the term comes from, but a kai is the type of person who from whatever series of choices/occurrences came to be homeless, or nearly homeless, but lives a decent life because of mild, coastal weather. Kais are also mild in demeanor, and friendly if not partially insane. The younger ones might surf, but the older ones are too beaten up by the roughness of life outside to do much physically demanding activity.

In this quiet town on the pacific, enveloped by mountains green in the rainy season but brown otherwise, I met a kai named “Charlie Brown,” supposedly. He would alternate between Charlie Brown and “Byron Black,” occasionally looking me in the eyes but only when he grew particularly excited about something.

He was older, and had a right hand which I inferred since birth had been missing its middle knuckles, making it significantly smaller and weaker than the other one. His hair was red and his face freckly; he wore a blue hat and dirty blue shirt bearing the name of the town we were in. His khaki cargo shorts were baggy but fairly clean. He rubbed his face a lot, but never coughed or slurred.

We met on a day where the high mountains held at bay a huge cloud bank, a day which began sunny but ended with thunderstorms. Those types of day hold the most violent storms, the kai told me, and that ocean storms are quicker and easier. “The tropics,” he said, shrugging with a childlike smile of excitement. We spoke at a point when the dam of coastal mountains approached critical mass, threatening the land at sea level with great inclemency.

I was walking down the street after buying a health water at the convenience store. Another kai had asked me to buy him toilet paper in the store, but I refused on principle because last time he had grown upset at me that my alms weren’t enough and yelled. I left the convenience store contemplating if I was right to refuse because of the past, but felt my decision ultimately respectable.

The walk back to my co-work spot was pleasant in cloud’s shade, and I felt thankful for the sand beneath my feet. The day had been difficult, one of my projects received heavy criticism and this filled with discouragement. Walking freed my thoughts, fueled my creative spirit, and with earbuds in I sauntered towards the co-work. That’s when he saw me.

I knew or had seen most of the kais here, but never seen this one. “Charlie Brown” waved me down and for some reason I stopped, and even backtracked steps to stand by him and see what he wanted; pesos, for a can of beans.

I walked several steps towards him and he seemed surprised by the reciprocation and perked up. I asked several questions to learn about him and thought of an old rabbinical hypothetical: is it better to converse with a beggar and give him $10, or walk by and give him $50? I always thought the latter but lately I had grown less convictive and wanted to see if $10 and conversation might be better.

He was born in Texas, had a family, and a place to sleep—in the hammock of an airy, beachfront restaurant next to us. He knew the founder of the restaurant who had died from covid a year or two ago, he claimed. Then the kai, Charlie Brown, began to open up as I toyed with a ten peso coin hidden in my pocket.

His family back home was rich but he hadn’t spoken to them in seven years. His sister was a “b!tch,” he told me, raising his eyebrows enthusiastically. It felt like he expected reciprocation and agreement, but I remained silent and he kept talking. His father had died years ago, leaving him $100,000. His first action afterwards was taking a new girlfriend to the motel with a big sack of cocaine, amongst other drugs. But his new girlfriend had other plans, and invited some men Charlie Brown did not know. Soon the police were knocking, claiming to look for these men, but nothing else. Meanwhile Charlie ushered them out the back before answering the door.

“Liars,” Charlie began to mutter from his perch on that Mexican bench, before suddenly snapping his head up from looking at the pavement. His wrinkling face was stretched back and his eyes bulging in that serious expression people get when they are struck by whatever they perceive as an absolute truth. He urged me to look up on the internet how they’d cuffed him, put him behind bars and mercilessly betrayed him. I lied that my phone was still at the co-working space because I felt uneasy diverting my eyes from him.

After bail Charlie went straight to Mexico, to this little, remote town on the Pacific. “Whenever something went wrong in the USA, I would flee down here and stay until I felt better,” he explained. But the last time he ran here was 25 years ago, and he hadn’t left since. “Funny how life can get really hard,” Charlie said while staring out over a stretch of ocean empty until reaching the Philippines. “You know, I could always keep it together. Never completely lost control with that stuff. But they didn’t care.”

The old kai shook like he was warding off a chill or apparition. “25 years I have been here, and I hate it! How long have you been here? Your type never stays here long, you co-worker types.” Lightning flashed and then four seconds passed before thunder echoed out from the mountains.

“The storm is getting closer,” I nonchalantly mentioned. Charlie ignored me and stood up. He was taller than I expected, and more gaunt.

“I’m tired of it, but you never know when it will end.” He glanced at me then continued, “I have been watching all the changes happening, and I think they are about to get even bigger. People are getting sick here, they are all changing so much in the past years and I am staying my distance. People don’t hardly talk anymore. And I don’t hardly talk to them.” Then he softly plopped down and dropped his head into his hands.

At this moment I felt compelled to tell him something, “We might all leave tomorrow, if G.od wills it.” He jerked his head up and peered at me through irate, squinted eyes, and jeeringly remarked how I looked like a religious guy to which I shrugged and replied “ya.”

“You are out of line!” He said in an erratic, elevated tone. “I don’t usually say this, but you are out of line…” I almost liked him—as much as one can truly like a washed up old kai. He was entertaining, had a bit of fire left, and had opinions. I pulled my hand out of my pocket and held the ten peso coin in a closed hand. “You look at me like you know something, like there’s a secret you are keeping. But I don’t care.”

I realized he had never shared his real name, so I asked, insisting that “Charlie Brown” could not possibly be the name he was born with. The kai slowly stood while turning his head all cockeyed at me, “you got a real weird vibe, you know that? What kind of guy just talks to someone and asks for ID?” One of his eyes was narrower than the other, or maybe it was the weird angle of his head, but I grew uncomfortable and postured ever so slightly after chills forced me to prepare for a hostile leap.

“I like to know the names of people whom I converse with,” I said, trying to diffuse the situation with a gentle smile. He sat down again and muttered something looking at the ground, then gazed innocently at me. His eyes made me want to impress upon him that people here did not want to arrest or harass him, that a traumatic event did not have to define his life, and that the world would only chase him so long as he fled—that planet earth has a corner for anyone daring enough to venture into the unknown to find it. I thought about urging the kai to leave this beach-and-mountain cradle, by any means possible, and to heal his spirit by leaving everything behind in favor of the road, meeting people with open hearts, and proving he can still live a good life if he only shed the burdensome shame he carried.

Charlie must have sensed my thoughts, for he rose one last time and for the first time looked at me like we might be friends. He wanted to know my name, so I told him in full, and he reached out his stronger fist to bump. The first raindrop hit cement and made a noise, but our eyes never left one another. I handed him the coin and he extended his weak fist for another bump, I obliged then requested he take care of himself.

I took a few steps backwards, and to my dismay watched the kai’s face slowly distort itself. He told me ten pesos was short of a beer, and I shrugged; he urged me to follow him to the store but I waved and began to walk away. Then he began yelling:

“You co-works are all the same! Yuppies, damn yuppies who claim to find meaning in multicultural experience across the world; you are the lowest type of traveler. Your travels represent only the impulse to display scalps in a teepee! I am the real traveler, the real vagabond whose life you try to emulate sitting on airplanes and sipping overpriced lattes at tourist cafes. I travel exist as human did for all of times prior! Mark my words, your time will come! Fornicators, fabricators of experience, manipulators of thought! Live like me, in filth and destitution, in the shadows of public areas and then maybe you will glimpse what travel is; abandonment to the wilds, complete loneliness and survival without anything. Hear me, coworker, you are fake and the world will expose you as soon as you rest for just a second! Hear me…”

But I put my headphones in and fled as quickly as possible.

The walk back to my co-working spot was exceptionally quiet as everyone was seeking shelter anticipating the rain, and I enjoy the deserted, sandy path. I could see the low, heavy cloud bank finally spilling over the mountains bringing its imposing wall of rain to the beaches, and began to trot. I arrived back to the co-work just in time to watch the skies pour down, soaking the salty coast with fresh water and lightning.

From below the green, neon light advertising the co-work to the world, I watched the rain cascade and wondered to myself if that old kai would be able to weather the storm.