Thomas Erickson
August 2023

I am free.

I have spent a week at a the Hawaiian International Conference on System Science. I ran a half-day workshop, and then a full day session in which twelve people presented papers. I welcomed people, introduced the session, introduced each talk, held up time cards as time ran out, shot meaningful looks at people who did not appear to be heeding the “stop” time card, and, should the audience sit mute at the end of the talk, asked the first question. As an introvert, I find all this quite exhausting.

There is an architecture – or really many architectures – that underly social interactions. Scientific conferences are designed to facilitate certain types of interactions between people. Talks, panels, poster sessions all have their own sets of rules that structure their interactions, but regardless of what the architecture is, there needs be a person in charge of conducting the interaction. Ideally, participants would simply follow the rules of each interaction, but, caught up in the moment, they tend to lose track of times, and occasionally tempers. Thus people like myself, session chairs, must be on hand to serve as discrete enforcers, gently guiding the interaction to the desired conclusion.

Once my chairing duties were completed, there were the regular challenges of simply attending a conference: Strangers everywhere. Endless introductions and what-do-you-do’s. To this is added a frisson of fear – is this someone I should know? I have terrible face recognition – I might well have met this person several times before and not recognize them. Name tags are helpful in theory, but in practice their print is usually too small to read from a distance. Being observed trying to read the name tag of someone you ought to know feels like a bad thing; an admission of social incompetence or worse. And of course there is the awkwardness of staring for too long at a female colleague’s chest. If only we had our names tattooed, in large high-contrast letters, on our foreheads. That would work.

Receptions are the worst. Hundreds of people. Dim lighting, apparently intended to create atmosphere. The murmur of conversation, steadily increasing in volume as each person tries to be heard over their neighbors. Let us hope that the organizers did not arrange for background music to create a festive air. That only adds to the cacophony.

I look out over the dim, muttering landscape of people. It seems like an apt depiction of the Hades of the Greeks, of the underworld filled with the restless shades of the dead. Yet I can see that they have coalesced into small groups; they chat cheerily with one another, gesticulating, with drinks in hand.

My challenge: choose a group; approach it; hope that someone with acute peripheral version will notice me. If so, there will be a subtle shift to open a space for me. I will hope that I can join subtly enough that the conversation does not stumble to a halt, all eyes turning enquiringly upon me. I will hope that the conversation will proceed, and the territory will be familiar enough that, after a bit, I can figure out a question to ask, or a cogent remark to interject, and become a part of the group. Sometimes my hopes are fulfilled; other times not.

I would prefer to just go back to my room and decompress. But I take conferences seriously. They are part of my job. My company pays me for my time, and pays my expenses, and I take it as a moral obligation to attend every conference event I can. I look askance – although I try to conceal it – at those who skip out for an afternoon at the beach. So, I gird my loins, as the Greeks put it, and march off into the reception, or the poster session, or the conference banquet.

But it’s over, and I am free. No schedule. No duties. No rules to enforce, or to abide by. No need to deploy social tactics to join a group, or employ ruses to conceal a faulty memory.

I have extended my trip by a day to see the sights. I’ve not been to Hawaii before, and am curious. I said my farewells last night, and have out early, in part to head our early, and in part to avoid any further interactions with conference people. I’m done with that.

I drove across the island – Maui is small and ‘across’ is about half an hour – and took the road to the top of Haleakala, the principal volcano, to watch the sunrise. When I arrive at the top the parking lot is nearly full. A crowd awaits the rising sun. It is chilly, but we wait quietly, as the horizon brightens. And then, as the rim of the sun edges above the horizon, a syncopated chaos of clicks swells as a hundred cameras try to catch the moment of sunrise.

The crowd disperses, disinclined to linger after the climactic moment. I tarry to watch the light move across the volcanic vales of Haleakala, its grey and orange sands vivid in the morning light. As I walk back to my car, I see several vans, and dozens of bicycles. Ah yes, this is a popular activity: hauled up to the top of the volcano, tourists coast down the mountain on rented bikes, the only effort required being to put on the brakes. Although I am not a fan of group activities like this, I feel a bit of envy: there are few things that equal the feeling of coasting downhill, on a bicycle, leaning into curves and moving through the distinct layers of air that cloak the mountain, warm, cool, warm, warmer, cool, chilly!

I get in my car and head down the mountain. It is not quite so visceral as being on a bike – though I do not envy them sharing the two-lane road with cars – but I coast downwards, applying the break when necessary, and feeling the shifts in temperature as the air rushes through my half-open windows. The grass – only grass at this altitude – is vivid green, and the sky blue, and the sunlight bright but muted by a humid haze.

I am looking for a town called Haiku. For no reason except that I love the name. Here is Kula. Here is Makawao. Here is Hailiimaile. The names seem like they could be chanted or sung. But I do not find Haiku. And that is fine. I am moving effortlessly down the mountain, like a drop of water trickling down the furrows in a great green leaf. When I come to a fork in the road, I randomly choose one or another. That’s the great thing about islands – there are only two directions: uphill, towards the elevated center of the island, or downhill, towards the ocean. “Makua” and “makai” are the Hawaiian words. So I have a general direction, towards the ocean, but I can navigate without forethought. Any path, as long as it is makai, will get me where I’m going. I can just go.

Aloha. Aloha is the Hawaiian word that is commonly used as in greeting and parting. But, as I understand it, it has a deeper meaning. It signifies the fundamental force, a blend of love, compassion and peace, that binds the elements of the universe into a unity. Everything is connected; everything is part of the web of being. Any path can get you anywhere.

I have just pulled into an open space along the main road in a beach town called Paia. The day lies before me. Perhaps a hike. Perhaps a beach. Perhaps a botanical garden. Perhaps brunch. Perhaps a tour along the coast. It is lovely to have possibilities before me, and not have to choose.

I’ve spied a newspaper rack that looks like it contains tourist fliers that tell you where to go and what to do. I hop out of the car, intending to grab a flier. I swing the car door shut, and its slam is punctuated by an odd ‘thunk.’

I have an awful feeling.

The car is locked. Inside my keys dangle from the ignition. This was not what I had in mind for my last day.

I try the door to make sure. It is locked. I try the back door, just in case. It, too, is locked. I try the passenger door. Locked.

This sort of thing must happen pretty frequently, really. No doubt lots of people lock their keys in their cars.

I call the rental company. I explain a little. The manager is summoned. I explain more. No problem. They don’t have a spare key, but they can make one. They’ll have a key cut, and will send it out in a taxi. About forty minutes.

I am parked in front of a small shop. I enter the shop, and nod to the shopkeeper. I browse to pass the time. I examine every object even though I am not especially interested in them. I try not to look like a shoplifter. I eye the walls for clocks. There are no clocks. Time passes slowly.

After half an hour I go out and stand near the car, keeping an eye out for a taxi. It’s hot. The sun is bright; the haze has burned off. My sunglasses and sunscreen are in the glove compartment. In the locked car. I must wait.

There is no address on the store. The taxi knows only that it should cruise the main street of Paia, looking for a waving person. Me. Time passes. Forty minutes has come and gone. There are a few false alarms – airport shuttles, police cars – but no taxis.

Finally, a taxi. I wave frantically. The taxi pulls in. He has a key for me. He is a friendly old man of Japanese descent. He gives me the key, I give him some money. In a moment of caution, I ask him to stay a minute. Surely the key will work.

I hurry across the street. I try the key. It goes in reluctantly. It does not turn. I jiggle it. No luck. I try it upside down. No luck. I try the passenger door. No. I wave frantically at the taxi, who has decided his minute is up. He stops, and pulls back in.

I explain the problem. He gets out his cellphone and calls Hertz. Gets the manager. Hands me the phone. I explain. The manager sighs. The car is very new. Just got it in. The key codes that factory gave us seem to be mixed up. Very sorry. Why not come back to the office while we’re working on it.

So I ride back to the office in the taxi. The taxi driver is very friendly. He has much aloha. He keeps up a running stream of commentary, about half of which I catch. He and his wife have their own two-cab company. Their family has been here for generations. He works for the rental car company all the time. They should have a key that works! Make sure they pick up my fare! When we get to the rental car place he comes in with me and tells the manager all this.

The manager is a Hawaiian man named Rick, with a last name that you can only pronounce by singing it. Rick is mellow, and overflowing with aloha too. He is apologetic about the key. He has called the factory; they too are confused about the key codes. But Rick has a solution: We will give you a new car, and we’ll send someone out Monday to take care of that one.

This is not a good solution. Fortunately, I have a good excuse: My luggage is in the trunk and my plane leaves tomorrow. Monday is too late. Rick agrees, saving me from having to mention an embarrassing aspect of the situation that I have concealed until now: the car is still running.

The car gets very good gas mileage. How long will it run on idle? I speculate on the effectiveness of the car’s cooling system. The car is air cooled. It has a fan that pulls air through the engine, but, really, it is designed on the assumption that a running car is a moving car. The movement creates the air flow that keeps the engine from overheating and turning into a very expensive lump of metal. How good is the cooling system, in the idling car, on the sunny side of the street, on this very warm Hawaiian day? Thus go my ruminations.

Fortunately, Rick has another idea. A locksmith! Yes, the Leia Lock Company will solve the problem! He calls them. Yes, they will send someone. He gives a check to my very friendly cabbie, and we get back in the taxi and head back to my car.

We arrive. No locksmith is in sight, but he was coming from farther away, so this isn’t unexpected. I thank the cabbie, and find myself, once again, standing beside the locked but idling car, on the sunny, sunny street, listening to the fan switch off and then back on.

I await the locksmith. Of course, I couldn’t give him an address. So I follow Rick’s advice: ‘Don’t worry, just watch for him and wave. He has a brown van with a sign on top. You can’t miss it.’

I wait. Many vans appear in the distance. I wave at each one. Some of them wave back. Perhaps they think I’m a Hawaiian, famous for their friendliness to visitors. Perhaps they think I am overflowing with aloha. They would be wrong. My aloha is gone. Perhaps it is locked in the car, with my sunscreen and sunglasses.

The fan goes on again and whirs for a while. Then it goes off. Very soon it goes back on. I try not to time how long the fan is staying on. I try not to speculate on whether those intervals are growing longer, as the engine grows hotter and hotter.

Many almost-locksmith-vans pass by. The car has been idling for at least two hours. The fan is definitely staying on longer. Replacing an engine would be expensive. I fantasize about breaking the window. I fantasize about being dragged off to jail by very friendly Hawaiian cops, in vans that look almost but not quite like locksmith vans.

Finally, a locksmith van appears. I wave frantically. The locksmith does not bother to wave back. He is a bit portly, a bit unkept, in a bit of a bad mood. Not that he’s rude. He doesn’t comment on the fact that the car is running. He doesn’t enquire how I came to be in this predicament. He is used to his lot in life: to be at the beck and call of idiots. But he’s not pleased about it.

I pay little attention to his mood. He has said something hopeful: ‘Just a matter of cutting a key.’ He goes back into his van. The fan goes on. He’s talking on his cellphone. Five minutes pass. The fan goes off and then back on. He’s fiddling with a machine, perhaps cutting a key?

He comes out and crosses the street. Takes out a key, sticks it in the door, and… it doesn’t work. He takes a file and files at the key. Still doesn’t work.

He gives up in disgust, expressing his feelings in blunt if unimaginative terms. ‘The key codes are bad,’ he says, in tones that don’t quite suggest it’s my fault. ‘I thought they sounded screwy when the factory gave them to me.’ I decide not to mention that I already knew this. The fan whirs.

He goes back to the van, and comes back out, sooner this time, with a long thin tool. ‘I’ll just jimmy the door,’ he says. He taps a little plastic wedge in between the window and the car frame, and inserts the tool. I watch with interest. He glares at me. I pretend to look at something in the shop window. I sidle away, realizing I can get a good view if I stand just so and use the car window as a mirror.

From this angle the window reflects only the blue of the sky and the sweat-beaded crown of his head. He’s trying to hook something with his tool, and occasionally pulls up sharply. The mirrored sky trembles at each jerk, and sweat trickles down his head. But he can’t quite get it.

He curses. ‘This is a bitch,’ he says. He tries again. His pulls get more violent, but still the whatever-it-is resists. He wipes his brow. To give himself a little more room to work, he taps the wedge in a little more.

And then I see it. It’s a flash, a bright glint in the corner of my eye, like heat lighting on the horizon. And then, like a lightning bolt in a midsummer thunderstorm, a jagged tree of light crackles upwards through the blue of the sky. It’s the window, its safety glass shattering, catching the sun in a coral fan of light.

A moment passes. The locksmith utters a single word. The window sags a bit, and chunks of the fractured sky begin to fall to the sidewalk.

Well, that solves that. I knock out the rest of the glass, lean in, and turn off the car. The fan is still going, but I know the end is in sight.

The lady, in front of whose shop this little drama has occurred, comes out to the sidewalk and, with a smile, offers me a broom and dustpan. After two and a half hours of helplessness, I am grateful for the opportunity for constructive action. I sweep up. I empty the dustpan in the store. I thank the lady. I go back to the car.

The locksmith has left. The fan goes off. I feel peace descend over me. Aloha.

I drive back to rental place, enjoying the cool breeze playing through the window frame, and listening to the dull tinkle of shards of glass working their way through the innards of the door. I arrive and am recognized. ‘Aloha,’ say the people at the counter. Rick himself comes to help me. I explain. Rick nods sympathetically. We fill out paperwork. Rick says they’ll work things out with the lock company. They give me a new car, with no discernable hesitation.

I start the car and exit the lot. I am free.

It is only years later that I learn the truth. It was not that I was an idiot. It was that the car was smart. It knew that if it was running, and the door closed, that the locks should engaged. It was trying to protect me. Aloha.

# # #