"Rats?" I asked, "Why not mice?'
"No. It gotta be rats."
"Mickey was a mouse for a reason. Mouses---mice, are cute."
"Whadda about da movie with the little chef. He was a rat! A French rat."
"Ratatouille. Disney," I conceded. "But he wasn't cuddly. He was ugly and grey."
"He was blue!" replied the old islander.
"He was dirty."
"So are my rats!"
I was speaking with Akoni, a potential client. (His name has been changed for confidentiality.) Living in Hawai'i, one needs four to six jobs just to keep the raft afloat. One of the many jobs I do is to illustrate things. Whatever you need. As long as the check clears and we fly within a wide moral airspace of ambiguous decency, I am for hire. Books, comics, how-to manuals, greeting cards, religious coloring books, whatever. Designing is one thing, illustration is another. To place charcoal pencil to paper requires an emotional investment. To succeed, you have to be into it.
Illustration is a dying craft. Computers have empowered anyone to be a designer and an artist, regardless of talent and good taste. The cruel Internet has delivered cheap and talented Chinese and Indian labor to your doorstep without a plane ticket. Frankly, I can't even name an American amigo who calls one's self an illustrator anymore. Illustration is now a hyphenate. "I am a waiter-military sniper-illustrator." It's hard to pay the rent with pencil and paper. 
Fortunately, my hopeful client was too old to be computer savvy. He was an elderly local with a leonine mane of white hair and a sweet smile. Akoni was such an enthusiastic storyteller that he knocked over his tall latte with a sweeping gesture and a laugh.
"Rats! You know de International Marketplace?"
"Yeah. Old school Waikiki. They're knocking it down."
"It's gone! They rebuilding already. Maybe they done already."
I laughed, "Yeah, they got the architect's renderings up. It could be a mall in Texas."
"You got that right, brudda. Get rid of the Hawai'ian. Fast fo' we can say anything. That's where da story takes place. In Waikiki. Dats where da rats live."
Fortunately, I have had little experience with the legendary rats of Waikiki, but a recent memory flashed before me and I actually, physically, shuddered at the thought. I was hobbling along Piikoi Street, swinging slow on crutches and a broken leg. It is a wide street with nine lanes at one point. An anomaly on the far, far side caught my eye. A little animal was making a run for it. As a lover of creatures great and small, I looked both ways. Unbelievably, the coast was clear. This little thing was charging, making a real run for it. "Puppy!" flew across my mind. Then, "Kitty!" As the thing hit midway, I realized it was a rat! A big rat! And it was galloping in my direction.
I didn't know if I should dodge to the right or to the left. The elephantine rat was charging at me. I looked down at my sandaled feet and bare legs, an easy lunch. The rodent was bearing down. I balanced evenly on the crutches, ready to react. Surely, the animal would see me as a force to avoid and make a maneuver. But it didn't. Or chose not to. It was coming at me! A beeline.
As the rat hit the gutter and leapt the sidewalk, I hopped on one leg, pivoted on a crutch and swung the other, aiming for a right field drive. I missed and fell hard on the supporting crutch to stop a somersault. The rat, the size of a fat housecat, ran through my legs, leapt a lava rock wall behind me and vanished into the sanctuary of overgrown ivy. I exclaimed the Lord's name in vain.
"Rats, you say?" I asked the old man.
"Rats!" he exclaimed triumphantly, "Big, talking rats!" The gentle old man had written a children's book and he wanted color illustrations. "You see, they all live at the International Marketplace. They old, old rats. The oldest is a Polynesian rat who came on da first canoe. He become the Hawai'ian rat. A cute little rat. Everybody like the little fellow and they call him "Uncle." Then along came the big rats, the tough sailor rats on the sailing ships. The Boston Wharf Rat, he come with the missionaries, long, long ago. The Liverpool wharf rat, he sail on over. Uncle say, "Welcome to Hawai'i. Here is food, land and aloha." The haole missionary rat says, "Thank you. Let's have a luau and call it Thanksgiving.
"Then more American rats, like from San Francisco and all over the Eastern seaboard, come on the whaling ships. They bring a lotta rats. Then the Canton wharf rats and the Manila rats and the Busan wharf rats come with all the labor workers. And the Yokohama rats. Then a few Russian rats and some German rats stay for a while but not so long. They all come to Hawai'i. And they all live together in harmony. And they watch Waikiki grow and change. Many people come and they build the International Marketplace."
"So, it's a happy story?" I asked.
"Yes. No. They tear down the place and everyone have to move. And there's no where to move to!" said Akoni, "All the land is taken!"
"So, how does it end?"
"Well, I'm not gonna tell you that yet until my copyright rat, I mean my attorney, get it all done. But in the meantime, we gotta draw the rats. The Hawai'i uncle wears a malo and he's always smiling. He the only really happy one. The Yokohama rat wears a Tori Richard's Hawai'i shirt. Missionary rat wears Reyn Spooner and his girlfriend gotta Princess Kaiulani dress on. Everybody got a style and maybe I get a licensing deal."
I looked into my coffee cup. There was a sip left, but it was swimming with too many grounds. Besides, I was thinking I might need something stronger. The old man was handing me a hot potato. I asked Akoni, "You sure they can't be mice? Everybody loves a cute little mouse."
"Naw."
"Happy geckos? Sea turtles?"
"No."
"How about sharks?"
"I thoughta that too. No."
I've learned from hard experience, never argue with a client.
Aloha says Hello and Goodbye.
Gordy Grundy is an O'ahu based artist, arts writer and libertine. His visual and literary works can be found at www.GordyGrundy.com.
A collection of HULA MOONs can be found here on the Huffington Post or on Facebook.
