THE FILE ON STORMY FOSTER
A Cartoon Movie Serial in Twelve Chapters
CHAPTER ONE:
“KID BOMBAY"
TIME AND PLACE:
HAWAII, 1990 (and in flashback, 1942)
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
IRENE BANG, the NARRATOR
KALPESH BEN-ABSALOM, the ADULTERER
NIRMAHL BEN-ABSALOM, the REFUGEE
PUMA, the RESCUER
PRISSY STOCKDALE, the MANAGER
MRS. TRICKS, the BROTHEL MADAM
WILBUR von SCHWEISS, the BUND LEADER
and
THE WEDNESDAY GURU
Stormy’s real name was Nirmahl Ben-Absalom. He was primarily of Tamil heritage, born in the Tamil Nadu region of India; but his paternal grandfather was Jewish, an employee of the French embassy. Stormy didn’t remember him; his family left India shortly after his birth. But Moishe Ben-Absalom raised his son Kalpesh as a practicing Jew, and Kalpesh did the same with Stormy.
He was given a bris and a bar-mitzvah according to Jewish custom. Stormy never tried to hide his mixed heritage. “Everybody’s mixed in Hawaii,” he used to say, “so when we moved here, I fit right in!”
His FBI file reveals that Stormy’s impoverished parents immigrated to Hawaii in 1923. They came in search of a better life, and Stormy told me their intention was to settle in the mainland United States. Kalpesh and Aishani Ben-Absalom planned to stay in the islands only long enough to earn some extra money. Those funds were going to finance the rest of their trip west.
However, after Kalpesh became a laborer for the Stockdale Pineapple Company, he demonstrated such a strong work ethic that his supervisors promoted him. He rose to the status of a department manager, and ended up staying with the company for twenty years. He made an altogether decent salary for the time, so he and his family lived comfortably through the Great Depression.
However, all was not well in his marriage. Aishani was unable to give Kalpesh any more children, and for that and other reasons, he seemed to lose interest in her. Stormy remembered how distressing this was for his mother; but that was nothing compared to her despair when she caught his father in bed with another woman! This happened when Stormy was nineteen years old.
Kalpesh’s mistress was Priscilla “Prissy” Stockdale, the daughter of the Stockdale Pineapple Company president. Blonde, beautiful and spoiled, Prissy had a preference for tall, dark-skinned South Asian men. Kalpesh was all that, as well as very handsome; he walked into her father’s office one day when she was there, and she immediately set her sights on him. Obviously, this information doesn’t come from Stormy’s file; it was told to me by Prissy’s friend Trixie Ball. I’ll say more about Trixie later on.
NIRMAHL BEN-ABSALOM
SEEKS HIS FUTURE
Long story short, Kalpesh became totally infatuated with Prissy Stockdale. According to Stormy, the two of them shamelessly paraded their sexual relationship before Aishani, making her miserable. Naturally, Stormy was outraged when he found out! He always had a bad temper – that’s how he got his nickname - and this was much more than he could stand.
He and his father were having a knock-down-drag-out fight about Prissy when they heard a gunshot come from Aishani's bedroom. By that time, his parents were sleeping separately.
Stormy rushed in, and to his horror he saw his mother lying on the floor with a smoking gun in her hand; blood was splattered everywhere. Aishani Ben-Absalom had committed suicide!
The date was December the 7th, 1941. Everyone else who was alive on that day remembers it for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that pulled the United States into World War II. Stormy remembered it as the day his family was destroyed! He swore to me that he didn’t know anything about Pearl Harbor until days later; the chaos in the streets of Honolulu paled in comparison to the chaos playing out inside his home.
Enraged and grieving, he refused to speak or even look at his father anymore. They were irreconcilable, so after Aishani’s funeral he packed up and left home. He didn’t know where he was going or how he would live; he just had to get as far away as he could from what he called “a house filled with pain”. He knew that Prissy Stockdale would return at some point, and he didn’t want to be there when she did. Stormy told me he might have killed her and Kalpesh both if he’d stayed!
He was actually homeless for a few weeks. Eventually, he made his way to the induction center at Fort DeRussy and tried to enlist in the Army. However, he’d been exposed to tuberculosis while living on the streets and was rejected. He got treatment, of course, and he was asymptomatic but back then there was no definitive cure for TB. Stormy told me that, after the diagnosis, he felt like “the scum of the earth!” There’s always been stigma attached to TB, but it was bigger back then. He said that if hadn’t been for his friends at the boxing club he belonged to, he might have done himself harm.
Spectator sports were and still are a big attraction in Hawaii, but Stormy didn’t like to watch. He’d rather participate! Boxing was his sport, and he’d joined a club several years before leaving home. As a kid, he’d gotten into a lot of fights; boxing was a way to channel his hotheadedness. He showed a lot of promise, and the owner of the club had been urging him to try and go professional. Now that he was out on his own, he gave the prospect serious consideration. What decided him was a strange offer that he found impossible to refuse, although he’d come to regret accepting it.
Somebody wanted to manage him! A third party came to him with the offer. He couldn’t find out who the manager was, but if he agreed to sign up he’d get one of the best trainers in Hawaii as well as an apartment, a classy wardrobe, and a stipend to live on while training. Stormy said he was also offered women, but he rejected that part of the deal. “It sounded like they wanted to buy me hookers, and I considered that an insult,” he told me. “I didn’t need any help finding girlfriends!”
So he became a fighter on the lightweight circuit and won a few matches. The manager branded him with a flashy name: Kid Bombay! Stormy hated it, and he said so; but he wasn’t in any position to refuse his mystery benefactor. That is, not until the day a retired Native Hawaiian boxer pulled him aside, claiming to know who his manager was. “She’s the daughter of one of the big planters,” he said. “She used to manage me.”
This man warned Stormy that winning fights wasn’t enough to please this woman. He told him that, sooner or later, he’d have to “put out” for her! Apparently, she had a thing for dark-skinned Asian boxers, and their performance in bed was more important to her than what they did in the boxing ring. The ex-contender confessed that he hadn’t been able to meet her “stud standard”. Before he even said the woman’s name, Stormy suspected who she was. Then the guy said her name and he knew for sure!
KID BOMBAY KICKS ASS!
Stormy went ballistic, and he confronted his trainer. He forced the guy to admit that his secret manager was none other than Prissy Stockdale! He’d been boxing for the homewrecker who caused his mother’s suicide! He was still fuming when he told me about it. “Prissy had seduced my father, and now she was after me,” he said. Just the thought of it made him sick to his stomach! But a short time later, Prissy came to him and denied having any prurient motive. She said she was only interested in the money he could make. Of course, that didn’t cut any slack with Stormy: He refused to box for her ever again!
She threatened to retaliate by cutting off his stipend, changing the lock on his apartment and blackballing him on the boxing circuit. He countered by threatening to make a public scandal over her affair with his father. He talked about how badly that revelation would reflect on the Stockdale Pineapple Company.
Prissy was infuriated. He said she called him an “elephant jockey”, which is an old racial slur for Indian men. Then she accused him of being a “pansy”! She said she knew that he slept with guys because she’d had him followed. “Get your queer, darky ass back in that boxing ring,” she warned him, “or I’ll turn you in! You'll go to jail.” Stormy didn’t take the bait; he denied Prissy’s accusation. Their confrontation ended only after more threats were exchanged.
They never came to terms. After two weeks of standoff, Prissy’s attorney notified Stormy that she’d sold his boxing contract. His new manager was someone named Mrs. Tricks. The lawyer directed him to meet her at a certain address in East Honolulu. He remembered that it was a big, fancy house with a butler, servants and lots of pretty Hawaiian girls sitting around. “I was shown onto the lanai and served a cocktail,” he told me. “A few minutes later, this redheaded dame in a green evening gown appeared. She was wearing a black mask!”
The masked redhead confirmed that she was Mrs. Tricks. She told Stormy that she’d intervened in his dispute with Prissy Stockdale because she wanted to become a big wheel in the boxing world. His skills in the ring were going to facilitate that. She claimed to have a rich and powerful husband who didn’t approve of her ambitions, so she was going to pursue them in secret like Prissy did; that was her explanation for the mask.
Mrs. Tricks said she wanted to build a stable of top prizefighters, and he was her first recruit. Actually, she already had a stable; in fact, she had two of them! But there wasn’t a single boxer in either one - at least, not yet.
As they talked, Stormy started to feel woozy. Too late, he realized that his cocktail was drugged! He passed out, and when he woke up he found himself chained to the wall in some kind of underground torture chamber. A few minutes later, Mrs. Tricks and a bunch of rough-looking guys came in. He couldn’t believe what he saw: She had exchanged her evening gown for a dominatrix outfit, complete with black leather boots and a spiked collar!
Everything she’d told him was a lie; she’d just been playing for time until the drug took effect. Mrs. Tricks was really a whorehouse madam! She ran brothels that catered to high-class clients, and her boy brothel was the “stable” she intended to recruit him to.
She told Stormy in no uncertain terms that his boxing career was over; he’d been blackballed. She promised that he’d never work anywhere again if he so much as breathed an unflattering word against Prissy Stockdale; and, like Prissy had done, she accused him of having homosexual lovers.
She gave dates, times and names of men he’d slept with, so there was no use in denying her charges. He’d gone to bed with lots of girls, but occasionally there had been boys on the side.
Stormy was frightened, groggy, confused and demoralized. Seeing that she had him completely off guard, Mrs. Tricks offered him a job: How would he like to work as an escort for rich ladies? He could make lots of money, she said, more than he could ever have earned as Kid Bombay. Then she sneered: “You’d never have won a title; Prissy told me you were a good boxer, but not great.”
That set off his temper! He told Mrs. Tricks to go to hell and he lunged at her, trying to break his chains. She immediately set her gang of thugs on him. She left the room while they roughed Stormy up; after half an hour or so, he was begging for mercy! When she returned, she extended her job offer again. He had no choice but to accept. She warned him not to change his mind, or he’d have another go-round with her “enforcers”! And she reminded him that evidence of his “nasty secret life” could always be turned over to the police. Having sex with someone of the same gender was illegal in the '40s and actually, it still is in many states. The difference between then and now is, those so-called sodomy laws were almost always enforced!
MRS. TRICKS, THE DOYENNE OF DICK
So, against his will, Stormy became a star attraction in Mrs. Tricks’ boy brothel: The ex-boxer who was now a paid stud! Soon all of her wealthy clients were clamoring for Kid Bombay's “services”. He was hunky, handsome, charismatic, and most important: He had a dark complexion. That was a major draw for Mrs. Tricks’ millionaire haole clientele!
Officially, though, Stormy was a “student” at one of what Mrs. Tricks liked to call her “colleges of conversion.” The mere suggestion that they were brothels would send her into a fury! Nobody was allowed to say that. She referred to her sex workers as “trainees”, and it wasn’t a false claim: She had a paid staff whose job was to train them in the fine art of pleasing her high-toned patrons. Not only were they shown how to satisfy clients in the bedroom, they also were taught how to chit-chat, tell jokes, dance, hold dinner utensils, etcetera. It was literally a charm school for whores!
Those who could carry a tune even got voice lessons and a book of popular songs to learn. It turned out that Stormy had an excellent singing voice, so Mrs. Tricks frequently had him entertain guests at her invitation-only soirées. He described these parties to me. They were where all the hooking-up took place; the White upper-crust of Honolulu couldn't be seen fraternizing in public with common islanders, and definitely not with people of color!
Stormy spent about two months in that brothel, and not a minute passed when he wasn’t thinking about ways to escape. He didn’t follow through because interacting with rich dowagers made him see how corrupt Hawaiian society was behind the scenes. Mrs. Tricks had access to powerful people who could ruin a person’s life! Stormy’s chances of ever holding down another job or renting a place to live would be zero if he crossed her; all she had to do was pull certain strings.
He never got used to the life of a high-priced rent boy. Sleeping with rich White women reminded him of his father’s relationship with Prissy Stockdale! That said, he didn’t have any moral objection to doing sex work and it was good money for the early ‘40s. Of course, he was paid a fraction of the fees Mrs. Tricks pulled in, and that led to some tense moments. He boldly demanded more money and got it, because he was such a valuable property to her.
But nothing bothered Stormy more than the weekly religious ceremonies he and the other rent boys were subjected to. I couldn’t believe it when he told me about them: Sermons inside a brothel? But he swore it was true. An Indian guru, wearing a hooded robe and a face mask like Mrs. Tricks would come to the house every Wednesday and lecture them. Anybody who wasn’t servicing a client was mandated to attend!
This guru sounded more like a preacher of the fire-and-brimstone, Billy Sunday variety. He loudly demanded that they surrender their souls to God. However, the main thrust of his sermons was stern warnings against homosexuality. He seemed to reserve a singular hatred for Gay men, so much so that he declared: “Selling your body to a woman for money is righteous in comparison!” According to Stormy, he also claimed that heterosexual prostitution could cure “a predilection for sodomy”.
Week after week, the guru hammered home this insane anti-Gay doctrine. Many if not most of the attendees seemed to buy into it. Stormy would accuse them of acting like robots but he knew the reason for their acquiescence: Their food and drink was drugged with some kind of will-destroying chemical! For that reason, he and a handful of others avoided eating meals in Mrs. Tricks’ dining room whenever they could.
Drugged or not, the absurdity of a self-described holy man preaching behind a mask wasn’t lost on any of her “students”. Some called him "Reverend Pussy Pusher", snickering among themselves. Stormy didn’t find any humor in the situation: Those sermons were the most outrageous bullshit he’d ever heard! He’d get in trouble for clapping back at the holy man's homophobic edicts. Then he got in more trouble for defying them.
Stormy admitted that he didn’t seduce other rent boys strictly out of spite. He told me he’d been “dicking around” with guys all through his teens; but weekly condemnation made him bolder and more reckless. Sleeping with his “brothel brothers” was strictly an act of rebellion, he insisted. It felt empowering to him in that oppressive environment; he craved the sexual freedom he’d lost. “It felt good to have sex because I wanted to,” he said, “not because I had to.”
Several times, his same-sex liaisons were reported to Mrs. Tricks, and each time she sanctioned him. He recalled how furious she’d always be. When withholding pay and privileges didn’t cool his lust for men, she used more drastic measures. Donning her dominatrix costume again, she had Stormy dragged back to her secret “discipline room”!
Her “enforcers” chained him to the wall and stripped him below the waist. Then they left the room while Mrs. Tricks herself abused him. She lashed his bare buttocks with a bullwhip and used a cattle prod on him, too. Stormy recalled her quoting repeatedly from the Bible: Thou shalt not lie with males as with females!
He told me this torture happened on three separate occasions. The second time, he had the distinct feeling of people observing from a hidden location. Stormy had heard about some of Mrs. Tricks' kinkier clients: Voyeurs who got their kicks from scenes of bondage and cruelty! Watching a naked Asian boy get flogged would've been catnip for them! However, the only time he knew for sure that there was an audience was when "Reverend Pussy Pusher" was in the room.
I still remember him seething over that. He said the guru got so agitated at watching him get stripped and beaten that he left after just a few minutes. When he slipped out of the dungeon door, his robe flew open and Stormy noticed that he had a raging erection in his pants! The significance of that observation would dawn on him in the months to come.
“THOU SHALT NOT LIE WITH MALES!”
That third torture incident marked the end of Stormy’s time as a rent boy. He refused to service any more clients; he told me he “turned that fucking whorehouse upside-down!” His FBI file confirms that he caused a lot of property damage until Mrs. Tricks’ bully boys managed to forcibly restrain and drug him. When he regained consciousness, he was strapped down to the bed in his room.
Stormy remained imprisoned for about a day and a half, and at one point he heard muffled voices outside the locked door. He managed to squirm out of his bonds, stagger over to the door and press an ear to it. He heard several people discussing him, and one voice he recognized: It belonged to "Reverend Pussy Pusher". His thick Indian accent had disappeared but Stormy knew it was the same man. The guru was talking about killing him and disposing of his body!
Another voice, that of Mrs. Tricks, sounded horrified and argued against this course of action.
Stormy wasn’t about to wait until that argument was resolved! That evening, he found a way to sneak out of his room. On his way downstairs, he slipped into an alcove he thought was vacant; he came face-to-face with Mrs. Tricks, and she didn’t have her mask on. He didn’t stop to try and figure out who she was. He just ran for his life!
Now that he’d seen her unmasked, Stormy knew she would no longer balk at having him killed. Later that day, he became aware of three strange men on his trail. He realized that he had to get out of Honolulu! Still suffering from the effects of drugs he'd been given, he couldn't move very fast. His pursuers caught up to him that night in the Waikiki hills.
It took more than an average man to overpower Stormy, but three hulking brutes proved to be more than enough: He said they were all haoles, and had the coldest, hardest eyes he’d ever seen. One of them spoke with a German accent; he heard the others call him “Wilbur”. This man struck him in the head with a blackjack! After that, he remembered being repeatedly punched, kicked, stabbed and throttled until he blacked out.
Some days later, Stormy regained consciousness in an old thatch hut. A young Native Hawaiian man was leaning over him. His caregiver said his name was Puma. He told Stormy that he’d found him drenched in blood and left for dead in a dumpster. Puma had managed to carry him to the tiny lean-to where he was squatting. Stormy thought it was somewhere on Kahala Beach, but he wasn’t sure.
He told me he never went to the hospital; Puma tended to his injuries with nothing but massage, poultices, acupuncture and a black herb potion that tasted awful! However, he felt stronger the more of it he drank. Puma cared for him in that hut for what must have been a week or so; then he asked if Stormy felt strong enough to travel. He didn’t, but he told Puma “yes” because he wanted to get away from there; he worried about those haole thugs finding him again.
THE ROUTE TO PAJARO ISLAND
The next morning, they walked about a mile down the beach to a thick grove of palm trees. These trees obscured a small canoe with a hull shaped like a bird’s head. Puma told him they were going to set sail, but first they had to remove what he called their “Maka Inana clothing”. He insisted that they discard their shirts and shorts. Puma pulled two brightly-colored loincloths from a knapsack and they put those on.
He also pulled out a strange looking purple root and a long ceremonial pipe. Stormy said it looked like a priceless museum relic. Puma lit the pipe, crumbled some of the root into it and began to smoke. Stormy remembered asking if it was pakalolo (marijuana). Puma shook his head and passed the pipe over to him. He instructed him to “inhale deeply”. At first, the mystery drug made him feel sleepy; then, suddenly, his senses became sharper. The surf smelled fresher, the wind felt warmer on his skin, and colors seemed to brighten.
They carried the canoe into the surf and climbed aboard. Stormy wanted to know which island they were going to. The Big Island? Molokai? Maui? Kauai? Puma told him: “All of them . . . but none of them, too.” Stormy said he got angry, grabbed Puma and demanded plain talk; but Puma just smiled and refused to elaborate. “You must trust me,” he insisted. Puma promised that they were going to a beautiful place where his enemies couldn’t find him. “No one can follow where we’re going,” he said. Naturally, that statement gave Stormy pause, but he felt he had nothing to lose.
They rowed until the sun was high overhead. Stormy was starting to get tired, but then he saw what looked like a mountain in the distance. One minute the island seemed miles away, and then it seemed to suddenly rise up out of the sea in front of them.
The sight of it took his breath away!
He described to me a beach of shimmering silver sand that seemed to go on forever; acres of the greenest, lushest vegetation he’d ever seen; tropical birds whose wings seemed to glow with neon color and, towering above it all, an enormous statuary consisting of three gigantic stone parrots!
Glaring down with stern eyes, these statues were like solemn sentinels, watching over an uncharted paradise that couldn’t possibly exist.
“What is this place?” Stormy gasped. A beaming Puma told him they were approaching Pajaro Island. “Did you think I lived in that hut?” he laughed. This island that looked like something out of a Dorothy Lamour movie was his real home. For a while, it was going to be Stormy’s home, too.
You've just read Chapter One! Click below to read
Prologue to the Stormy Foster saga
Then be sure to read
Second chapter in the Stormy Foster saga
Concept by HAMPTON JACOBS and PATTY BALL
Art by STUFFED ANIMAL
Costumes by HENRIETTA la del BARRIO
Project Assistance by RODERICK MACK and DAVE PEARSON
Text by HAMPTON JACOBS