About “All Revved up with No Place to Go”

Everyone has places they frequent, and one of the places I like to go on the weekends is a coffee shop in Waikiki, mainly because there’s always a lot going on and it’s nice to sit down with nothing to do and watch everyone run around like madmen. The only problem with going to Waikiki to relax is that I will often get approached by some oddball. Each oddball has a different oddball reason for approaching (someone they think is) a tourist, and I don’t know those reasons. This story, however, imagines a reason for one of those oddballs.Meth started to be a problem in Hawaii a few decades ago, and it still is, as far as I can tell from my own observations. I don’t know if they do this every year, but in the parking level vestibule at the Capitol building I’ve seen displays of artwork done by pretty young kids illustrating what happens when you so much as try meth. I don’t know if this campaign to educate children is only in Hawaii or if it’s across the U.S., but there’s a slogan associated with it: “Not even once.” It’s also sad and scary when some young crust/gutterpunk (or just some regular person) comes up to you on the street with a jacked set of teeth and looks 10 or even 20 years older than they probably are and is out of their mind—they can’t find the beach or the mountains or the street that they’re on, or they are talking and don’t make any sense at all.
Ginger Jay hasn’t quite got to that point yet, but that’s kind of at the center of things. I know it is probably very disorienting to read, but hopefully he is a character who is intriguing enough to capture your attention for as long as it takes to read the story. That happens, you know—sometimes an oddball will talk and talk and you listen for a while until you realize you should probably be scared and run away, or everything he or she is telling you seems questionable to the point where it's not worth listening, even if it's to try to help. It happened to the Flannerys, it has happened to me, and maybe in reading the story you’ll feel like it has happened to you, too.