The Islands at the End of the World

by Austin Aslan

  Maybe we should be on one of those buses.

  The Kalaeloa Airport is bursting at the seams; there’s nowhere to park. We’re sucked into a vortex of aimlessly circling traffic. Dad fumes. I stay quiet. All the parking lots have broken barrier arms at their entrances and exits, but there are security guards to stop traffic.

  Finally, Dad double-parks along a maintenance alley a quarter of a mile away from the terminal. “Let’s go. Grab your stuff.”

  “Wait, we’re just going to leave the car parked like this?”

  “Yes.” He hands me a bag.

  We enter the terminal with our bags draped around us. Dad muscles through the crowd and we wedge ourselves close enough to the counter to hear a clerk talking to the guy ahead of us.

  “We’re already booked up through Tuesday morning.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Put us down.”

  “That’ll be three thousand. Cash.”

  “What?”

  “Each. That’s three thousand each.”

  “Here,” the man says. He leans over the counter and passes the clerk a watch. The clerk inspects the watch closely. He jots down the man’s information. The customer now has a bright tan line on his wrist.

  “Three thousand each?” I gasp.

  Dad shakes his head. “Hey,” he shouts over to the clerk. “We’re trying to get to Hilo.”

  “We don’t fly to the Big Island. Moloka`i’s the best we can do. We’re booked up through Tuesday. We’re charging—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Dad waves him off. “What do you mean you’re booked through Tuesday? There’s a half dozen choppers sitting on the pad right now!”

  “Most of those have tungsten circuit boards. Fried. Besides, the military is restricting our airspace. It won’t be long before they commandeer our whole fleet and gut our molybdenum parts. Now, you have cash?”

  Dad grimaces. The clerk turns to another couple.

  “You should go to the Marine Corp Base,” someone sitting against the wall says to us. He’s also sporting a strong tan line on his wrist. “I hear they’re collecting folks for transport. You’re in much better shape than the people who want to get back to the mainland. A few of the army planes work; they’re always landing in Hilo. You could hitch a ride on a cargo flight and be home in time for dinner.”

  I perk up, but Dad frowns. “And what’s your plan?”

  “I’m booked on a flight to Kaua`i later this evening. I’ve been here for two days.”

  Dad gives me a grave look. “I don’t like it, but he may be right. Maybe we should head over the mountain to Kāne`ohe.” The guy who was ahead of us in line overhears and moves closer. “No, no. Bad idea. I just escaped from there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not flying a damn soul anywhere. I’ve been trying to get to Maui since Tuesday morning. I left Honolulu International on the first army bus Wednesday night. And I waited, and waited. Meanwhile droves of tourists are filling up their gyms and soccer fields. If you think this place is a zoo …”

  “They’re … they’re just shuffling people around?”

  “It’s like a refugee camp over there. I wasn’t supposed to leave. No one is. I escaped.”

  “What?” Dad says incredulously.

  “If they’re trying to help, why are they limiting private copter travel?” the escapee asks. “Every day the Orchid hangs there, taunting us, the panic multiplies by ten. We all know this island’s in deep trouble. They’re just collecting homeless people to keep us from going apeshit. They didn’t even evacuate for the tsunami. The military’s interests are not ours. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass how long it takes you and your daughter to get to Hilo. The gas has stopped arriving, you know. What, you think they’re going to expend all the fuel that’s left to schlep around civilian families?”

  Dad hangs his head, studying his shoes.

  “I don’t know. Maybe transport flights will start. But I was there. If you want to be back home in a couple days, or weeks—not months—I suggest you stay the hell away from the military.”

  Weeks? Months? I ball my hands into fists around the duffel bags I’m carrying.

  “Well, dammit, what else are we supposed to do?” Dad says.

  The man shrugs. “You could always try one of the ferry companies.”

  The Kaua`i-bound listener guffaws. Dad slouches. We’re all in on the bad joke: it’s been years since ferry companies ran between the islands. Environmental lawsuits and bad politics shut them down. And the water’s too rough.

  The jokester pats Dad on the shoulder. “Hey, I’ve helped you all I can. That watch will have to get me and my wife out of here. Best damned investment I ever made. We may still be in the same boat as you, if the army siphons off private fuel. Same boat. Ha ha. Ain’t that the truth!” The man drifts away.

  We stand and stare at the floor. There’s a lump in my throat threatening to burst free. I choke it down.

  Home. I just want to be home.

  “Come on, Lei.” Dad elbows me. “This isn’t going to work.”

  We return to the car with all of our belongings. Our rental’s almost boxed in to its parking spot. Dad jumps into the driver’s seat. “You okay?” he asks, wiping sweat off his brow.

  “I’m fine. You?”

  Dad turns on the car and cranks up the AC. He bounces in his seat for a second and then pounds the steering wheel. “Dammit!” he shouts. “Son of a bitch!” He wipes his forehead and leans close to the air vent.

  I don’t say anything. He shifts the car into drive and bangs out a ten-point exit. We leave the airport.

  He turns the AC off and rolls down the windows. “Everyone wants to be voted off the island.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I croak.

  “No. Stop. That’s not what I meant. Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, right? We would have been acting crazy if we had upped and fled a couple days ago. We may be crazy now. All of this may still end at any moment.”

  And what? I think. We all just wake up and look around at each other and scratch our heads? We just agree to forget this ever happened? I wasn’t really robbing a grocery store at gunpoint. Can I have my Rolex back?

  We drive in silence. On our way back into Honolulu, we pass by Pearl Harbor again. A battleship and an aircraft carrier creep toward the bay from the open ocean.

  “Maybe they know what’s really happening,” I say. “They’re in contact with the mainland, and they’re just not telling anyone.”

  “I can guarantee you that they have a good idea what’s going to happen.”

  “I wonder if that carrier is coming from the mainland.”

  “A little soon for that, maybe. They’re probably returning to port from somewhere here in the Pacific.” Dad is silent for a while, but then he says, “I doubt they know what’s happened. It’s been five days. The panic is coming fast. If the government knew what this Emerald Orchid was about, they would have announced when things would be returning to normal, to keep everyone calm. If they knew things weren’t going to get better, they would have declared martial law by now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When the military says, ‘We’re in charge now, folks! Fall in line! What’s that you say? You have rights? No, you don’t!’ ”

  “Sounds like they’re already doing things their own way,” I point out.

  “Ten percent of this island is armed forces. That guy who told us to stay away from there is totally right. He was an angel come from heaven. We just avoided a colossal mistake.”

  My guess is that while all of these terrible scenarios could happen, the military is filled with normal people, in the end. People like Grandpa. They’re Americans, after all. They’re not going to be monsters.

  Right?

  CHAPTER 9

  We turn back into Waikīkī shaken. Silent. We’re going to see if anyone will take us to the Big Island on a yacht or sailboat.

  It’s either that or take up paddling.

  T
he Pacific Ocean builds so much force between Alaska and here. All that power grows and grows, pushed by strong winds, pulled by the moon, fed by currents, and then it hits these islands in the middle of nowhere. The only place that energy has to flow is between the islands. You don’t mess with that power unless you know what you’re doing.

  Really strong athletes sometimes row from Moloka`i to O`ahu—Grandpa did it once, long before I was born. But the current’s in their favor. No one rows in the direction we need to go. Dad once said we’d need tons of training before attempting something like that.

  We approach a park swarming with pedestrians, cyclists, and clogged traffic, prophets with placards commanding Repent, and large prayer circles. Police and National Guardsmen patrol. Makeshift canvas tents have been set up in every direction, offering medical care, palm readings, cash for gold, emergency kits, political flyers, dried ahi, poi. Three separate guys are selling toilet paper for five bucks a roll, and people are buying. One guy is even selling silk-screened T-shirts of the Emerald Orchid. Someone who was trying to sell guns out of the back of his truck has been pinned to the ground by guardsmen. He screams about his Second Amendment rights. The strumming of ukuleles and the sound of singing float from beneath several shady banyan trees.

  A grizzly old man wearing a placard covered with scribbled biblical passages catches my gaze and shouts as he reads from the last pages of his Bible.

  “ ‘When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a horse whose color was pale green! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind.’ ”

  He drops the Bible to his side and holds a cross. “Repent, you forsaken! You sinners! It all comes to pass! The horsemen ride. Conquest, civil war, famine, death! The pale green horse rears up to trample you!”

  I shrink away even though he’s on the other side of the street.

  “Tune him out, Lei.” Dad squeezes my hand.

  “What if he’s right, Dad?”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. The end of the world …”

  “Really? Hon—”

  I interrupt. “No, I’m serious. Why is this happening? Why would God let this happen?”

  Dad believes in God, but he has no patience for organized religion. He wants us to meditate each night before dinner, but he doesn’t make us do it a certain way. I believe in God, but I’ve found sanctuary in the gods of Hawai`i. I pray and I learn the chants and I talk to them. Sometimes, on the wind and in the waves, He—they—will whisper back.

  Dad twists in his seat. “Can I get back to you on that, Lei?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. The truth is I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ll get back to you, okay? Promise.”

  A thunderous crack startles me. I scream and jerk backward. The windshield on my side has shattered into a spider-web. Dad screeches to a halt. A large cinder block tumbles from the hood.

  “Jesus,” Dad says. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. What the …?”

  Something strikes the car from behind. We both turn. A second cinder block slides off the hatchback onto the street. I hear cackling and whoops of delight from above.

  Someone’s bombarding us from the trees. “Dad, go!” I bark.

  He punches the gas and our Civic peels away.

  “What was that about?” My heart is pounding.

  Dad races down the hill, turns a corner, parks along a curb. “I’ll take that as a lesson.” He jumps out of the car, opens the hatch, and rummages through his backpack. When he returns to the driver’s seat, his camping utility knife is open. I freeze in surprise. What are you going to do to them? But he uses the blade to scrape the two bar codes off either side of the windshield.

  I get what he’s doing.

  Every rental car in Hawai`i can be identified by white bar codes on the windshield. Tami is good at pointing them out each time we go surfing. If we were the wrong type of people, we could make a killing with all the cameras and wallets that we know are hidden below that towel cleverly placed in the footwell.

  “You’re going to have to pay a fine for removing that.”

  Dad peels back the last of the stickers. “They can have my Timex.” He folds up the knife and quickly drives away.

  I can’t see anything out of the windshield now. The car is trashed. “This wouldn’t be another one of those ‘hindsight’ moments, would it?”

  Dad laughs. “There’s nothing twenty-twenty about the state of this windshield.”

  I clench my teeth. So much for feeling welcome on O`ahu.

  Dad parks illegally along the seawall.

  “Should I wait here?” I ask nervously.

  “No. We stick close together.”

  I jump out of the car. I reach for my pack, but Dad stops me. “There’s too much. Let’s find a ride first,” he suggests. He stuffs our packs into the trunk with the rest of our bags, glancing around.

  “But what if we …?”

  “If there’s no time, we’ll leave it. But I bet our hosts will be able to spare two minutes for the extra food.”

  I fish out my meds and zip them into my pocket before he closes the trunk.

  Ahead of us along the curb, a man and his son are siphoning gas out of a pickup truck. Dad watches them and then darts off to a sidewalk planter.

  He returns with a few `a`a lava rocks, opens the gas tank, and uses one rock to hammer another one into the shaft until it’s firmly jammed into place. He leaves the flap open as an obvious sign of uselessness to others.

  We approach the marina. The sky is hazier than it was in the morning. It’s almost like an orange filter has been placed over the sun. “Is there a forest fire around here?” I ask.

  Dad pauses, studies the sky. “Let’s hope so.” He picks up his pace.

  The boats are moored all along the long rows of piers. Dozens of groups of people move along the docks busily.

  “Lei, I’m making this up as we go. Feel free to offer suggestions.”

  Okay, I think. But I’ve got nothing.

  We step onto the wharf. There could be as many as two hundred sailboats. “Should we split up?” I ask. “Each take an end?”

  Dad agonizes, finally shakes his head. “No. We’re not separating. We’ll just have to move quickly.”

  The first ten sailboats are far apart and vacant. Only one of them is small enough not to require a crew. “Maybe we should just take it.”

  “Don’t tempt me. But I know enough about sailing to know that I don’t know enough.”

  At the end of the next pier, someone emerges on a top deck just as we walk past. He steps to the edge of his boat and urinates into the water. Dad pauses, embarrassed.

  The sailor doesn’t let him begin. “Not interested. Unless you come with a barrel of rum, and when I say barrel, I mean a goddam oil drum.”

  The rest of that pier is empty.

  We walk along the next pier. A family of three exits as we enter. I meet the eyes of the mother, who holds a baby, and then we quickly look away.

  Dad gazes ahead, measuring our prospects. Only fifteen boats bob at their moorings. He pats me on the shoulder and marches forward. We start a conversation with two captains, but both of them tell us that they’re already full.

  “Maybe they’ll take us if we show them all our food,” I whisper.

  Dad stops. “You keep quiet about that food.”

  On the next pier we speak with a guy looking for crew. “We’re sailing for Maui come morning. But I could use another deckhand. I’ll take you both if you’re worth your weight. Do you sail?”

  “Yes,” Dad lies.

  The man throws Dad a rope. “Tie me a sheet bend.”

  Dad catches the rope and smiles awkwardly. “Does it have another name? I’m good with knots; I just don’t recognize the term.”

  The guy shakes his head. “If you sail, you know th
at knot.”

  Dad hangs his head for a second. I can’t look.

  “I’m a quick learner,” Dad says. “We both are. We’ll carry our own wei—”

  “So am I.” The yachter snatches back his rope. “The waters between these islands kill. This boat’s no toy. We don’t have room for errors or time for training. Sorry.” He strides up his boat ramp.

  Dad mutters.

  Three boats farther along the pier, a sailor says that he would be happy to have us on board, but he’s sailing for Kaua`i, the opposite direction from the Big Island. He tells us about Rocky, who’s heading for Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. “Maybe he’ll offer to drop you off on his way out to sea.”

  “Fingers crossed, Lei,” Dad says. “We may have to find another marina out of town if this doesn’t work.”

  We spot the boat from a short distance and jog over to it. An older haole man with curly white hair and bronze skin stands shirtless upon the prow. He’s tall and skinny, but his arm muscles are big. He wears glasses, and the left lens is masked by a fitted eye patch. An older man, just as tanned, sits quietly at the tiller.

  “Are you Rocky?” Dad asks.

  The man with the eye patch grins briefly. “Where you going, and what’s in it for me?”

  “My daughter and I need to get back home to Hilo.”

  “Hilo! Naw, I’m not going that way. Water on that side will eat you alive. Rogue wave’s always capsizing ships. No way.”

  “We’ll take Kona side. Just … can you get us to the Big Island?”

  “When we set sail, it’s for Mexico. I’m not going close to shore over there. Get another twenty people like you screaming for passage? Forget it.”

  Rocky’s gaze has drifted from Dad over to me.

  “Can you swim?” he asks me.

  I nod. He looks me up and down. His good eye pauses on my chest. I fold my arms and look down.

  “I could swing close enough for you jump off. You could take your chances on reaching shore.”