It was after sundown. Darkness falls quickly on the Hawaiian Islands after sundown. I was walking down a beachfront road in Kailua-Kona, on the western shore of Hawai‘i Island, when out of the darkness a drunk called out.

“Do you know God?”

“Do you know Jesus?”

“Or”, as I kept on walking, “are you just vindictive?”

I walked on, reflecting on the true tales of living on the Hawaiian Islands for which “vindictive” is one of the milder words, tales which I myself had lived, and I heard him laugh. A crazy laugh, high-pitched, hysterical.

And I thought that I had never heard a more apt description of life in the 50th state.

This is Hawai‘i. Of course it’s hot here. Welcome to Hell.