I don't know why I threw the pizza, but it was done all the same. The pizza missed her and sailed over the railing to the parking lot below.
Our room in the hotel was on the upper floors and we moved our fight into the hotel.
How did it turn so badly so quickly?
We were an odd couple - married briefly, separated and now trying to save that marriage. I had invited her to visit me in Arizona and she seemed more under control and possibly sane.
It was the volatility that made her so exciting. When she drank, it was if someone had thrown a switch. The small petite lady became a fuzzy eyed demon who seemed to leave violence and chaos in her path. Perfect.
She had gone to jail on our wedding night , which might have given a reasonable man a clue to the ending of such an affair - but alas the allure was just too strong.
One night in Nevada we had married and partied the night away. However, as was often our pattern, we quarreled. The neighbors called the police about the two nut jobs screaming in the house next door.
If she had not thrown the ashtrays at the cops things would have worked out better. Or if I had of gone and bailed her out instead of waiting until the next afternoon. But it went down as written and here we are.
After a few months of mutual assured destruction I had moved to Arizona and drove back and forth to Vegas to play cards.
But I had missed her and I understand if you are doubting my ability to make rational judgments, however I did.
She came to visit and it was not crazy or anything so I suggested we take a trip to Hawaii to see how it goes.
She flew to LAX from Reno and I from Phoenix. We met and went to the airport bar (I am reasonably certain that my motivation was relaxation and not any subliminal desire to destroy the civilized world as we know it) and shockingly we both got hammered.
On the flight over we put away our share of the miniatures and landed on a windy night in Paradise.
Went to the hotel and then for a pizza. Somewhere in that innocuous time line we tried to see just how many hot buttons we could push before someones head exploded.
It turned out that it was mine.
Never before and never since have I ever raised a hand to a lady or a child, but for some unknown reason as we walked on the outer walkway on the upper floor of our hotel it was too much. Just one too many biting, vicious comments by my lovely wife - and I threw the damn pizza at her head. She ducked and hardly seemed surprised. After all she is the expert in getting a bar into a full blow riot.
But I was surprised and not very pleased.
The next morning I gave her a proposition. If you will go on Antabuse then I will let you stay in Hawaii as long as you care too.
We stopped drinking that morning and got an apartment on Paoakalani Avenue in a fully furnished condo that overlooked the Ali Wai Canal.
It lasted a year. This was my fourth and last marriage and she was now fully vested in a local law firm, while I had lost all misconceptions about the islands.
So we went our ways. I went to New York and she stayed on to handle the divorce and continue her sober and sane professional career.
But, in all honesty, I must say she was never the same creature when sober and all business. The memories of our combustible lifestyle remain like typhoons blowing thru our shared days. It was never good or right, but it certainly was different.
The lady from Akron Ohio called me in New York when our divorce was final and that is the last I ever heard from her