Category: Dale

Dale and Poahi wore their togs under trousers, and Poahi wore leggings below that. They came to the beach in big puffy coats. It was, of course, deserted. Wind-swept waves battered the beach, and the sun beat down on the sand, adding bright light but not a mote of heat.
They brought tarps too. So did Keith and the other dudes in the 504 Crew. They arranged the tarps over the top and openings of the showerhouse on the beach, then they put lawnchairs in, turned on the hot water and rolled some joints. Heat from the hot water was trapped in the showers by the tarps. The heat reacted with the cold to create a billowing cloud of steam that stayed beneath the tarps.
So that was the annual beach sauna tradition. They sat in the heat, drank beer from an ice-filled cooler and smoked joints, had a real-man korero and, eventually, if they got drunk enough, they’d go for a brief swim before scurrying back into the warm sauna.
That was a tradition Poahi loved. He wished the others would quiet — it seemed meditative, Poahi thought. It should be meditative. The steam was relaxing. If this were a Maori tradition, it would have a spiritual side. People would be silent mostly, interrupting it with an occasional waiata. But Americans do not have a spiritual side, and they simply chatted and drank beer and dared each other to enter the freezing cold ocean.

From Poahi the Lackey