Paul Theroux - Hotel Honolulu

Buddy poked my arm and told the mayor, "He wrote a book!"

A microphone was brought over. Buddy said, "It's getting drunk outside," and farted. The mike picked it up and amplified it, making it sound like a car backfiring, so percussive that people jumped.

The mike also picked up Buddy's explaining to the mayor, "I had an intestinal bypass, your honor. My table muscle."

Buddy turned his big serious doggy-jowled face to the camera as the bystanders laughed.

On another public occasion, the Waikiki Hotel Association's Annual Prize-Giving, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom, Buddy stepped up to receive an award for the Hotel Honolulu: honorable mention for dessert, Peewee's coconut cake. He stumbled, took a fall, knocked over a tub of anthuriums, and landed near the first row. Snatching at the flowers for balance, he ended up on his back with fistfuls of blossoms. That was the memorable detail that made people laugh.

He became famous for his public stumbles. He fell at a Christmas party, collapsed on the beach at a surf-meet blessing ceremony, keeled over at the Merry Monarch Festival. He was not hurt, but in any case his new fame as a clown outweighed any of the injuries.

Our Aloha Chili Cook-Off entry was Peewee's Serious Flu Symptoms Chili. Buddy went up and down the street among the chili stalls, sampling the competition. When a camera crew from KITV asked him for his comments, he vomited on their hand-held microphone. Claiming to be dizzy, he sat down on a small girl's origami. Hearing that we lost, he screamed abuse at the judges, one of whom was the governor's new wife.

He gained more weight. He let children poke his arm to show how they left dents and finger marks in his puffy flesh. With children around him, prodding his body, he seemed dazed but happy, like a big hairy toy.

"Pinky's agreed," he said to me. I knew what he meant. He added that, apart from the money, her only stipulation was that she be granted United States citizenship. She had now satisfied the residence requirement.

When her citizenship application had been approved, and the swearing-in day came, we all went to the federal building downtown, to make Pinky believe we were on her side, but in reality to support Buddy. Lester Chen, Kawika, Peewee, Tran, Trey, Wilnice, Fishlow, Keola, some of the girls from Housekeeping, Puamana, Sweetie, Bula and Melveen, his best friends Sandford, Willis, and Sparky Lemmo, and Rose and me — nearly the whole Hotel Honolulu family attended.

"Think of it as a farewell ceremony," Buddy said, helplessly farting, drowning out his own words with his backfiring.

We watched as Pinky, in a new dress and wearing a white hat and white gloves, took the oath and saluted the flag with a throng of others. She looked serious, no longer a young picture bride of long ago from the Great Expectations Agency video, but a grown woman, thin-faced, her big teeth bulging behind her lips like a mouthful of food.

Seeing Buddy staring, she turned away.

"Best sex I ever had," Buddy said. "Know why? 'Cause she's wacko." His eyes were glazed, perhaps with the memory of something unspeakable. Then, seeming a little jarred by this, he said, "I'm not going to get married again. Just play the field."

Even haggard, he looked happier than I had ever seen him, beaming at the prospect of his new freedom.

The citizenship ceremony was much more heartfelt and solemn than I had expected. I was impressed by Pinky's upright posture, the tremulous way she held her head, her nervous clasped hands. There was pride, too, in the others, an assortment of people old and young, mostly Asian, with a sprinkling of Pacific islanders and a few grateful-looking Europeans. Their seriousness and close attention made the simple occasion into something momentous and gave allegiance — a word that was repeated — a powerful meaning. New Americans — Pinky, of all people!

I prayed that Buddy would not pull one of his stunts, to upstage Pinky. I was so intent on this prayer and the progress of the ceremony I did not hear him fall, though I heard the loud laughter and "It's Buddy!"

In the commotion I saw Pinky staring in fear. The citizenship candidates looked alarmed, as if a protester had invaded the ceremony. I did nothing. I felt only annoyance, the sort a repeat offender inspires in his long-suffering friends. I raised my eyes and sighed.

But Buddy's closest friends were laughing hard. There was a variety of laughter peculiar to people who found Buddy's stunts funny — the rowdy hooting of oversize boys. The explosive, defiant sound of it was intended to irritate anyone not in sympathy, those who found Buddy childish.

Pinky bit her lip. She turned away from Buddy and toward the Stars and Stripes, her hand raised to complete the Pledge of Allegiance.

Buddy lay among the metal folding chairs he had brought down with him in his fall. He was vaguely smiling, as though in triumph: froth on his lips, his cheeks splashed with his own green slobber.

"Give him mouth-to-mouth," someone said.

"That's just what he wants you to say. Stop encouraging him."

"Cut it out, Buddy. It's not funny anymore."

The risk taker, madly signaling for attention, is always preparing you for his death, and as time passes, this interminable anticlimax is more maddening than morbid. When death finally comes you just feel angry and want to blame the sadistic son of a bitch. That is what I had thought. It wasn't true. I wasn't prepared. It was worse than I had ever imagined, and I badly missed Buddy from the moment he was gone — missed him more because in his place was the strange, starvedlooking, alien figure of his widow, Pinky.

Years before, Buddy had devised his own mendacious obituary. After his death, this was printed in the Advertiser exactly as he wrote it. From the outside he seemed a clown, a fool, an incompetent, but deep down he was very serious, often weeping on the inside. He was proud of his ability to fix anything that was broken. He was proudest of being able to mend a broken heart. .

Pinky presided over the funeral, which was a mockery of the pointless pantomime we had rehearsed when Buddy had vanished for the sake of a practical joke. Bula pronounced a eulogy: "He a people person.

He real nurturing. He like talk story. He a communicator. He a class act. He break down barriers. He so rich."

Hearing this, Peewee began to sob. His whole body shook. He covered his face and said sorrowfully, "Buddy go dancing."

As Buddy's friend and manager of his hotel I had been asked to say a few words. Peewee's sobbing embarrassed people, so I tried to strike a lighthearted note.

"Who was Buddy?" I said. "He was the man in the baseball hat who always sat in front of you in the movies, his head blocking the screen. The man who laughed out loud when an accident happened. The man who stopped to stare at horrible car crashes. Who spilled his drink in his lap and yelled, 'I'm not housetrained!' Who pushed the shopping cart too fast at Foodland, saying, 'Beep! Beep!' Who held up the line to tease the checkout clerk. Who shouted into his cell phone in the elevator. Who always wanted extra whipped cream and four sugars and extra cheese. Who argued with the man passing out leaflets. Who was the first to buy the newest gizmo, and the first to break it. Who hated the government and never voted, and maintained he was a good American. Who was always unconsciously auditioning for a part in a novel."

A stillness had settled over the ceremony. My eulogy had fallen flat. I sensed they felt I was being disrespectful, and yet that was what Buddy loved most — insult and anarchy.

Lamely, hoping to satisfy the mourners, I added, "Buddy was a man who never failed to pick up a hitchhiker, or loan money, or take in waifs and strays. I was one of those."