Along Came a Diver

     From Hilo, the 200, aka the Senator Daniel K. Inouye Highway, cuts and curves through the middle of the Big Island past the Mauna Kea Ice Age Reserve and Mount Mauna Kea. It eventually connects with route 190, or the Mamalahoa Highway, and from there it's a straight shot down Hawaii Belt Road to Kailua-Kona, the Gold or Kohala Coast on the northwestern side of the island.

     I don't remember getting there, but I do recall staying in a somewhat cushy hotel room for the first few days. It was only three or four stars, but well-appointed and very close to the sea, somewhere along Alii Drive near the Coconut Grove Marketplace.

     Depressed to the point of isolation, I spent too much time in that comfy room, ordering delivery from restaurants in the area and overeating. I was feeling way too sad and out of sorts for a guy who'd landed smack-dab in the middle of paradise.

     Deep down, I knew I was living beyond my means. I was also jonesing for cocaine and methamphetamine, my drugs of choice when it came to my sexual addiction to pornography. I was one jolly-seeking son of a gun!

     I took my first swim in Kailua Bay down by the pier. The water was lovelier than I could've ever imagined. I also located the dive shop I'd be training with, Eco Adventures, in a small retail center next to the swimming pool of the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel.

     I quickly found a relatively cheap place to live outside of town about 12 miles up Alii Drive near the town of Kealakekua. I rented a studio on a small coffee plantation owned by a single woman in her late 50s. The apartment was ground level but underneath the woman's house, along the side and at the back of her slanting property.

     The panoramic view was spectacular. From the sweeping lawn outside my room, it was nothing but 180 degrees of shimmering Pacific Ocean far below and beyond my very own Kona coffee and Koa tree wonderland.

     It was the perfect place for cane spiders. Scientifically speaking, cane spiders are termed Heteropoda venatoria, a species of spider in the Sparassidae family, called huntsman spiders.

     The main house was surrounded by either apple or Cuban red banana trees, and there were plenty of cane spiders that came with them. At first, the sheer size of this arachnid scared the bejesus out of me. In fact, cane spiders are the largest species in Hawaii and can grow up to 4-6 inches, legs included.

     The year was 1999 and Google had only been around for a year, so I didn't know how to Google the spider to find out how dangerous it might be. I also had no idea that cane spiders, also nicknamed large brown spiders, giant crab spiders, and even banana spiders, are commonly found inside homes and that some countries even consider them welcome houseguests.

     Rather than spinning webs to catch their prey, cane spiders hunt for food directly, eating mostly moths and butterflies but also indoor pests including ants, roaches, and silverfish. They inject their prey with venom containing the toxin HpTX2, a potassium channel blocker. Although not deadly to humans, their bites are said to be plenty painful.

     Based on the cane spider's behavior, I soon learned they prefer to run away rather than put up a fight and defend themselves. Unfortunately, my first reaction was to squash the terrifying creatures on sight, so I killed several of them before eventually just shooing the creepy crawlers out of my room with a soft bristled broom.

     Luckily, I never got bit by one. My landlady, a stout woman with short silver hair whose name I can't remember, told me to leave the spiders alone and they wouldn't bother me. She was right, but it still creeped me out every time I saw one crawling along the low pile carpet or across the walls and windowsills.

     The landowner was a nice lady who pretty much left me alone the whole time I lived there. I was only inside her house a couple of times, once to sign the month-to-month rental agreement and the second time to get my deposit back and say goodbye. I stayed in her studio for only two months before moving into an ocean view house on Alii Drive with another diver from the shop.

     While living up on the plantation I binged twice on my stimulants of choice. The first was a solo coke and porn party with two grams of decent blow, a fifth of Southern Comfort, and several porn videos I'd rented from an adult bookstore in town. The second was a meth and beer all-nighter with several other druggies I'd met in town.

     The back of my apartment was separated from another studio on the other side by a very thin wall with one crack in the corner closet big enough to see through. At first, I kept the volume on my Panasonic 9" TV/VCR combo on the low side, but eventually I was too fucked up to care and cranked up the sound a lot higher. I'm sure my neighbors heard the moans and groans of those sex scenes all night.

     The night I did coke, the studio on the other side of the plywood partition was occupied by a couple in their early 20s. The entrance to their studio was on the other side of the main house. I never actually spoke to either one of them, but I did see them coming and going from time to time. Occasionally I heard them talking in their apartment. Although they spoke in hushed, keep-your-voice-low-he-can-hear-us tones, it was almost like they were in the same room.

     The girl was a Polynesian hottie. Just the thought of her behind that drywall made me horny. I tried to peek through the crack in the closet a few times, but I never saw or heard any action between them.

     In the wee still hours of that morning, my young neighbors must've heard me snorting lines and jacking off, but I got lucky, and the cops were never called. By the time the sun came up I had only two terrible things to contend with: a guilty conscience for blowing the money and a horribly morbid coke hangover making me wonder in forlorn fashion what the fucking point of being alive even was.