We are honored to present another BRILLIANT creation from Kyle Metcalf
Aloha Kyle
Sunny who helped Barry in the store many years ago.
Driving up Kapahulu Avenue, the red surfboard leans up against the silent blue wall like an unlocked bicycle waiting to be borrowed. The faded paint means nothing except to vintage and novice surfers who see it as a bookmark for the Inter-Island Surf Shop.
Billed as the oldest local surf shop in Hawaii, the current proprietor Barry Morrison offers his struggle and love to keep the ghosts of Mickey Lake, Joe ‘Kitchens’ Kuala, and Robert "Sparky" Scheufele alive. The names of dozens of local Inter- Island shapers and surfers live in the folds of Barry’s memory.
Originally founded at 620 Kaka’ako Street in the bowels of Kaka’ako’s light industry backstreets in 1959, a street that no longer exists, the store moved a few times before parking at 451 Kapahulu Avenue in a postage stamp-sized mini-shop of maybe four hundred square feet. The interior aura of the shop is defined by a large display of new old stock vintage Sparky surfboards that belong in museums but never in the ocean where a coral head or beginner surfer might ding these beauties. A large black and white David Darling photo of Conrad Canha at Bowls shares the makai wall with a technical drawing of John Kelly’s hydroplane surfboard while one of John’s vintage hydros hangs over the inside of the shop’s front door. A Greenough-style kneeboard hides in one corner while a large Grateful Dead framed poster jumps out from the back wall over the obnoxious music coming from the KTUH radio station. A large photo of John Kelly flying down a Sunset Beach wave hovers over a 1962 beach photo of surfing kids: Harry Sonoda, Herbert Chun, Rodney Gerard, Frances Aiona, Barry Kanaiaupuni, David Nu’uhiwa, Jack Eberly, and Roland Sonoda, all boys that passed through the tutelage of Inter-Island.
Barry revels in this private den where he has sheltered the surfing stories of his life which he shares with anyone who comes into the store. Whether a septuagenarian who has lived the surfing life or a young girl looking for a bar of wax, this is where the adrenaline flows like catching your first wave. Don’t expect to buy a t-shirt or ding repair kit without a half hour spiel and a long look at the surf camera aimed at Ala Moana Bowls.
This store has become the Pump House Gang Clubhouse where five or six regulars come in to shoot the shit, share a brew, and remind themselves of all those early morning sessions at Threes or Queens or Garbage Hole. Each has his story of sunburn, of the growing crowds, of the threats hurled from the older regulars at the newbies who risk one sucker punch or a broken skeg for not understanding the etiquette of surfing. Heck, it ain’t no etiquette. It’s a god’dam pecking order an you bettah learn it quick.
The Sparky boards have stood like attentive soldiers for many years with price tags that might well say NFS. The modern surfboard game in size and design leave these relics completely out of the modern shortboard competition world. You can file them under ‘vinyl’ at Tower Records. But the shop gang doesn’t care. Their memories are cast in Clark foam, 10 ounce Volan cloth, and ‘D’ skegs. A laminated wood tail block with a one inch redwood stringer down the center of the board gives these old guys chicken skin.
A peg leg zebra dove nicknamed Sparky hops into the shop just after lunch each day waiting for Danny to crush up a potato chip for his lunch. Several of the Kapahulu homeless peek in for the charity of Barry to charge their cell phones or beg a few dollars for whatever. Barry and Bernie share the scalpel scars of skin cancer that have ended their surfing careers. Fooj, tanned a dark brown from head to toe from hours of surfing every day at Ala Moana, pops in smiling brightly as he restocks his beach bag with leashes and a tank top shirt. Fooj often leaves local kine food goodies before he leaves. Fooj and Kyle still surf every day. Kyle with his hippie hair still barely attached attempts to keep his cynical sarcasm in check but fails every time. His humor runs the fence line between comic hyperbole and rude negativity. Kristian, once embedded in the salt water of Waikiki, has allowed the crowds to curb his love for longboarding. He still buys a board now and again, an addiction that all surfers can’t suppress. Surfboards live in a transactional world between artistic beauty and hydro-function. And every old surfer wishes he had more storage space.
Robert asks if anyone needs another beer. His crew cut comes straight from the WWII military barber shops. He walks from the shop to the mini-mart sixty feet away. He used to be a house painter. He chain smokes outside and waits for his son to need a ride to baseball practice. The mini-mart proprietor, we used to call them bookies, hosts a regular parade of customers carrying small slips of paper. Now they pay off more on phone games than sports games. No one ever leaves the store with snacks.
Sirens scream from down the street as another fire engine and ambulance race up Kapahulu. A homeless gal yanks at each of the Biki bikes stanchioned across the street hoping that some hapless renter hasn’t fully engaged the electronic lock. Patrons of the store have learned not to step out without first looking to see if an electric skateboard, a bicycle, or Onewheel is flying down the sidewalk.
Tim pulls up on his scuffed black moped. He takes off his helmet and glasses and lifts the seat. Kyle asks him whether he is Asian or Oriental. He shakes his head and laughs not wanting to take the bait that Kyle has launched at him. He usually has a salad or homemade sushi for Barry. Tim parks his butt on one of the recharging chrome stools. He fits right in with the old-timers who need this club to jumpstart the rest of the day.
Bernie arrives late. His closet only has Inter-Island or Boys Scouts t-shirts and nylon basketball shorts. He hides a weathered scowl behind a waiting smile. He is the yang member of the group who delights most when he feels he’s gotten under Kyle’s skin with a zinger insult. He has acquired vertigo from years in the hotel service industry and is slowly riding his work comp. and sick leave into a nearing retirement. And despite his demeanor, he can let out the loudest genuine laugh of the group.
Kristian, a former premier Waikiki longboarder and now a professional Waikiki condo cleaner, double parks outside running in with another shopping bag of tourist-abandoned alcohol and snacks. The club members, each fiercely loyal to his own brand of tall beer, do a nose scrunch at the six pack of Modelos in Kristian’s gift bag.
Barry fidgets behind the counter with his credit card machine. His brown hair curls behind his neck screaming for a haircut. A new round of bandages cover his irradiated skin cancer scars. He wears vintage aloha shirts, vintage shorts, and top sider loafers without socks. Where Barry looks casual and comfortable in his straight from the dryer couture, Danny comes straight out of the Abercrombie showroom in commercially pressed Inter-Island t-shirts, crisp brand name shorts, and brand name laced shoes that never have the hint of wear. His bobble head neck has been crimped by numerous spinal surgeries forcing him to bobble at the waist.
Each member of this gang uses Barry’s shop as his ‘somewhere to go’, as his OCD behavior requiring at least one visit to justify living another day.
But a tension has begun winding itself around the club. They are all old including Barry. Like the group of fishermen casting for opelu at Ala Moana or the scrabble players at Kahala Mall, word has spread that Barry’s lease has come due with a considerable increase in the rent and a three year lock to renew. They all know that their Inter-Island Club House will become only an online presence, if that. Each has offered his own advice about how Barry should face the future. None have offered to pay club dues as part of the solution. But all are beginning to hover like vultures over carrion. What a horrible metaphor. Like polar bears without an ice flow. Like the Mexican Vaquita dolphin caught in a gill net. Like the Asian pangolins in Chinese herbal shops.
Will this group of old surfers become dust in the wind or the last feathering white caps blowing out to sea? Or will they find their new stools at the Elks Lodge on Kalakaua Avenue where they can cogitate about Old Mans, the Sand Bar, or Castles on a ten foot day?
Post note: The Inter-Island Surf Shop is now closed, and Sparky, the peg-legged dove, only flies by to see if the door is open or closed.
Barry's is working on his online store which is not currently active, but he intends to have it back online soon.
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