Expect the Unexpected

by John A. Broussard

  Finally, the tallest of the Tongans knelt opposite him, grinned and extended his open palm. Luelu met the challenge, gradually forcing the giant Tongan’s hand flat to the sandy ground. The men surrounding the pair cheered. Then someone said, ‘There is only one uma wrestler left. Others immediately shouted, “Tupou! Tupou!” and the tall son of the chief stepped through the crowd.

  Without a word, Tupou knelt, firmly planted his elbow in the ground and stretched his palm out to meet Luelu’s. The count began. At the third beat the muscles of the two contestants rippled in the noon sun. Sweat stood out on their foreheads. The veins bulged on their hands and arms. Slowly, ever so slowly, Luelu forced Tupou’s forearm back and back. Then, suddenly, with a supreme effort, Tupou recovered. Tupou’s arm followed through the full arc and slammed Luelu’s to the ground.

  The onlookers shook the palm trees with their cheers. They praised both contestants. Soon afterwards the crowd had turned to playing the game of maika with circular stones. While the others were engrossed in their game, Tupou called Luelu aside. “I know you allowed me to win,” he said, “so I would not be shamed before my people. Now I owe you a favor. I do not know who you really are, stranger, but once I have repaid my debt, beware! I know you harbor only ill will for me and my people.”

  “You are mistaken,” Luelu replied. “I bear neither you nor your people any ill will. Nor did I allow you to win, but I will accept your favor. I ask only you relieve me of a burden.”

  “What burden?”

  “Why, O’onane, of course. You mean you did not know? All she does is speak of Tupou. It is Tupou this and Tupou that. She is enamored of you, but cannot admit it even to herself. Talk to her, and you will see I speak truly.”

  Tupou’s face took on the look of a storm cloud. “You know I cannot do that. During the day, my rank would never allow me to speak to her. At night, I cannot enter the women’s house. Only if she comes to me willingly can I know what you tell me is true.”

  “Surely you must have some way of getting a message to her. Could not your sister be your messenger?”

  The darkness slipped from Tupou’s face. “Of course. Tupala will deliver the message.”

  “You must be cautious. O’onane does not know her own heart. Tell your sister to warn O’onane how your father, the chief, has selected her as bride to the greatest of his warriors, and she must therefore no longer slip out of the woman’s house at night. Now, if you will have your sister meet me tonight, I will tell her how to persuade O’onane to read the true message of her heart.”

  Tupou’s frank and open face glowed. “If you can give Tupala the words to persuade O’onane to come willingly to me, then you will be able to ask your own price as reward.”

  Even before the last pink of twilight had disappeared, Luelu waited nervously in the shade of an enormous kukui near the women’s house. It wasn’t until the eastern horizon began to silver with the light of the rising full moon a tall, slender figure emerged.

  “I come at my brother’s behest,” Tupala said, looking at the face now fully illuminated in the moonlight.

  The two walked toward the beach as Luelu called upon all his gifts of speech to entrance the lovely Tupala. His words were convincing because he himself was convinced. Soon, they were laughing together. Still, Luelu never lost sight of his true quest.

  Amidst the whispers of lovers he discovered the old chief was indeed ready to pass along the power of his office to Tupou. The date was set for the very last crescent of the moon, the time would be in the early evening after the last pink shade of twilight had faded, the dark moon had set, and when the evening star first appeared above the low hill behind the village. The place would be the chief’s stone shelter, with no one else present but father and son.

  Luelu’s mind raced. Tupou was becoming impatient, reminding Luelu of his promise. The stories Luelu fended him off with had to be carefully fashioned. And there were other plans to be made, and more to be learned in order to carry out those plans. His words to Tupala became sweeter and more seductive than ever. Intoxicated with the sounds of the husky voice, she knew only she wanted to be this handsome, loving stranger’s bride, to go with him and to share in the love and homage of his people.

  Luelu gave her his unqualified promise, and also appeared to devote himself to fulfilling her brother’s fondest dream. The scheme unfolded, and Luelu gave Tupala her instructions. O’onane would be told to go to the high cliff and wait there for Tupou early on the night of the ceremony. Luelu would himself guide Tupou to the spot, and afterwards would return to meet Tupala at the beach near their trysting place.

  On the appointed day, Luelu took Tupou aside, told him O’onane would meet him and what spot had been chosen. Tupou was unable to suppress his excitement, asking only what he could do in return for his benefactor. Luelu at first seemed unwilling to make a request, but finally said, “There is one small favor I would ask of you. Could I for one night only wear the whale-tooth ornament?” As he spoke, he pointed to the royal emblem hanging at Tupou’s neck.

  With a smile, Tupou removed from his own neck the pig gut strung through the giant tooth and hung the badge of royalty about Luelu’s neck. As the skies darkened, Luelu waited along the path leading to the cliff. The first to come by was the impatient Tupou, striding swiftly along the trail. Moments later O’onane, staring disconsolately at her reluctant feet, followed the same path.

  Luelu stepped out of the surrounding brush. Even in the swiftly darkening night, the radiance of recognition shone in the young girl’s face. Luelu assured her he had pined for her, and only the mad infatuation Tupala had showered on him, with all the threats of her royal position behind it, had kept Luelu from invading the women’s house and spiriting O’onane away.

  Shocked though she was at the mere mention of such a terrible sacrilege, O’onane was too overwhelmed by the return of her handsome and loving Luelu to do anything but acquiesce to his wishes, and he made one known immediately. Would she, for him, keep Tupou on the cliff’s summit until the morning light? “Tomorrow,” he continued, “I will ask the chief for a canoe and a crew of his warriors to take you and me back to my land. Now I truly know I have reached the end of my quest.”

  As he watched O’onane’s small form disappear into the dimness along the path, Luelu knew he had only one more rung to climb on the tall ladder. Quickly he turned and raced to the chief’s stone shelter, arriving just as the evening star broke over the crest of the hill.

  “Is it you, my son?” A feeble voice in the darkness, broken only by the light of a single string of burning candle-nuts, greeted him as he stepped through the door.

  Careful to speak in a low voice, Luelu answered, “Yes, father.”

  “Come closer. My feeble eyes can only deceive me. My ears no longer can be trusted. Only my fingers still maintain some of the wisdom of their youth. Let me touch you.” The gnarled old hands moved up the muscular chest and found the whale-tooth ornament. “It is indeed you, Tupou. Tonight you become the chief of the Tongan people.”

  Luelu listened well as he rehearsed and rehearsed the phrases pouring from the withered lips of the old chieftain, committing every word and nuance to memory. There followed the list of duties he would now assume, the demeanor he must cultivate to command the loyalty of his people, and finally the intricacies of this force he now possessed which would make him a person apart.

  The ceremony over, the old chief handed him the rod of state, saying, “Go now to the men’s house. Awaken them, and warn them you now carry the sacred force which has guarded us since the ancients came to this island. Know now how no longer may anyone touch you with impunity. Go! Go!”

  Luelu could hardly believe the night had passed so quickly. The first pale color of the morning was showing when he emerged from the stone hut. Racing to the beach he found the patient Tupala still waiting, and far out at sea he could make out the Samoan canoe, the equally patient crew waiting for a signal from shore.

  “Come, Tup
ala,” he said. “My warriors are coming to get me. If you wish to return to my country with me, you must come now.” Bewildered by this sudden turn of events, torn between her love of her own people and her love for this stranger who promised so much and promised it so sweetly, Tupala took a last look back at the island of her childhood, then followed the beckoning form into the waves.

  Both were powerful swimmers, and the racing canoe, with its crew throwing their weight behind the paddles and the sail catching the first feeble onshore breezes of the morning, moved swiftly toward them. Behind at the beach, however, Tongan warriors were racing even more swiftly to man their own sea craft. The couple reached their goal when it was but a long spear-throw away from the war canoes.

  As the two clambered aboard, the giant Tongan who had challenged Luelu in the game of uma stood in the prow of his canoe and hurled his spear with enormous force. It arced through the air toward the fugitives, turned full circle before reaching its target and returned, burying itself in his chest. Tupala’s eyes went from the toppling figure in the war canoe to the handsome form of Luelu taunting his pursuers, who had now stopped paddling as they sought to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade.

  The wind rose. The racing canoe tacked against it, rounding the high point of the land. The passengers turned to look at a small figure standing at the edge above them. Shading his eyes, Luelu recognized the form of O’onane. For a moment it hesitated, then it plunged down the face of the cliff into the rocks and breakers.

  MS. CHIPS

  With a name like Cecilia Chips, and a degree in computer science, it was inevitable I would go into electronics, which I did immediately after leaving college and joining forces with Mike Southie, a fellow graduate. Those early years of running our own business weren’t exactly prosperous ones for Southie Chips, Ltd. But fortune finally found us and almost smothered us.

  I’d like to say Mike and I had thought it all out and then carefully fashioned the fusion-diverter method, but it wasn’t like that at all. We’d been working on something completely different and, like Goodyear, who discovered vulcanizing when he accidentally dropped sulfur into his vat of hot rubber, we just blindly stumbled onto the technique. Even then, it took us weeks to realize what we had. The end result was our small and struggling computer chip company became a multimillion-dollar industry. Success didn’t go to Mike’s head. It did go to mine.

  I went through a period of drinking too much, gambling too much, and just generally dissipating too much. Two disastrous marriages in rapid succession about did me in. But, with the help of a first-rate therapist, my life came back into balance over a year ago. I’m happy to say my drinking’s now almost completely social, my gambling—even though I’m an outrageous gambler at heart—is confined to an occasional trip to Vegas, with unvarying upper limits in what I risk. My other dissipation, if it can be called that, is limited almost entirely to a workaholic attorney who is definitely not the marrying kind.

  As for the fusion-diverter method, it really did come as a complete surprise. It wasn’t a new chip—something we’d actually been working toward—but an entirely new technique of producing chips which turned them out ten times faster than traditional methods. What with competition from the Big Boys getting increasingly intense, and with profit margins becoming razor thin, we needed something to give us the sharpest possible edge. The fusion-diverter method was the edge. Early on, and with the advice of a cabal of lawyers, we decided patents couldn’t really protect the method and the best policy was to keep it secret, the way Coca-Cola guards its formula.

  The major players in the industry quickly took notice of this upstart Canadian company which was giving them a run for their money, and they were soon in a frenzied competition to buy us out. Mike and I agreed the way to go was to sell the formula, keep the business going on a much-reduced scale, and just generally enjoy the fruits of our long and hard labor. Hayataka Electronics, Inc. came into the picture about then. They were by far the most frenzied. Carl Rink, their New York marketing executive had flown up to Toronto and treated us to half-a-dozen lunches, and we were approaching a tentative deal with him as an intermediary.

  Carl was a native son who found working for a company located on the other side of the globe suited him just fine. As marketing manager for Southie Chips, Ltd., I was the point person in negotiations, and Carl and I hit it off from the first. Partly, it was because he’d gone through much the same success-driven horror I’d faced. Two bitter divorces, a long spell of drying out in an upstate sanitorium, and the ceremonial burning of all his racing forms had gotten him over the worst of his problems.

  We shared our experiences. I told him I was now living Aristotle’s Golden Mean. No booze before six in the evening, never more than two drinks, an occasional look-in on Vegas, but only when business trips to the West Coast allowed it, and always with the self imposed thousand dollar limit. Eventually, after baring our personal lives, we crab-walked toward a possible business agreement.

  Hayataka was willing to talk seriously about buying the fusion-diverter formula. In fact, their CEO was coming to California, ostensibly for a quick survey of their North American plants, but in reality to negotiate with Southie Chips. Carl tried to play down Hayataka’s long history of industrial espionage, and I played along.

  The dates were set—August twenty-three through twenty-five. I was to show up at Hayataka’s San Francisco office. If all went well—which meant if we agreed on price and all the attorneys agreed on wording—the hundred-page formula would be handed over for something in eight figures. It was going to be up to me to negotiate the final amount.

  Mark saw me off at Kennedy, handcuffed to a special dispatch case, since Hayataka insisted on having a hardcopy of the formula delivered by hand immediately if the sale went through—and with me there to sign off. Faxing was out, since we were too familiar with the vagaries of all electronic media to trust our multi-million dollar formula to their tender mercies.

  All of which added to Mark’s anxieties, so my departure was accompanied by his voiced misgivings about my intention to spend August twenty-two in Vegas. I gave him a hug, kissed him on the cheek, assured him the data would be safer with me than it would have been if stored at Fort Knox, and once more guaranteed I would accept nothing less than forty-two million for the formula.

  It was a nice contrast to settle into the Inn Verness, a cheap motel on the outskirts of Vegas which held pleasant memories of my first honeymoon. Nostalgia and lingering frugality from a romantic period of my life weren’t the only reasons for my choice of lodging. There was another reason—an important one. And, since I had no intention of spending more than about five hours in the room, and those hours in comfortable sleep, more expensive accommodations truly seemed to be a waste of money I could more amusingly spend at the roulette wheel.

  But, before then, I wanted to clean off the dust, grime and tension of urban life in the fast lane, so I took a long, warm shower before leaving for the evening. After tossing a small package into the bathroom trash of a nearby service station, I continued on to the La Touche Massage parlor, where a sturdy Scandinavian lass, who regaled me during the treatment with her experiences as an au pair, pummeled me unmercifully. I wasn’t surprised when I made it back to my locker to find the stickum-once tape I’d placed unobtrusively on the locker door hanging askew. Hayataka’s reputation for espionage was well earned.

  With six approaching, I headed directly from the massage parlor to my favorite restaurant to be followed by my favorite casino. In the restaurant bar I ran into someone who introduced herself as Delia Johnson. By then I was sure Hayataka wasn’t about to give up the possibility of getting the formula for free, so I simply assumed Delia was one of their agents. I found all the attention rather charming, as was the opportunity for a free dinner and endless advice on how to gamble, from someone who was obviously a confirmed denizen of the local establishments.

  Near the end of a superb meal of steak and lobster tails, Delia cl
ued me in to what she insisted was an infallible system. Mentally, I listed it as perhaps the three hundredth infallible system I’d become privy too, but I listened nonetheless. She even made a point of writing it out in detail on a napkin, though the concept was simple enough—and rather mindless—so far as I was concerned.

  The key was to wait for three successive reds, and then to bet a Martingale series until three successive reds (or three successive blacks) showed up, and then a reverse Martingale until three successive reds (or blacks again) showed up, then back to the straight series, and so on.

  After dessert, she left for a hot date, and I went off to the casino with only a vague intention of even considering Delia’s system. But before long I was engrossed in trying it out. Surprisingly, it worked, though not especially well. My luck fluctuated, and by the time I was bleary-eyed and ready to call it an evening—actually a morning by then—I was ahead about twelve hundred dollars.

  It took only a moment for me to realize what had happened when I got back to my room. Delia had fed me a system that, whatever its merits, virtually guaranteed a long session at the table to provide enough time for some professionals to toss my room. Only the fact I’d carefully laid out everything ahead of time, including an open dispatch case to save them the effort of picking the lock, clued me in to how expert Hayataka’s hirelings were. I couldn’t help but admire their skill and wondered how much Hayataka had paid for it.

  I did wonder, though, how he would react to the hundred pages of gibberish his hired hands had removed from the case and undoubtedly run through a hand copier of their own before replacing. But, assuming they might not have been satisfied with the item. I checked out the rest of my room.