JoAnn Bassett - Islands of Aloha 07 - Moloka'i Lullaby

by JoAnn Bassett

  “He does the same thing as Richard. Art stuff.”

  “Oh. Does he work for Richard?”

  “Sort of.”

  Getting information from Amanda was like pulling teeth—my own teeth, without Novocain. I chose to take a different tack.

  “Have you ever been to George’s place on Moloka’i?” I said.

  “No. This is my first time to Hawaii. Richard and I mostly live in LA.”

  “Can you give me George’s address?” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to Moloka’i tomorrow and I’d like to go by and get a sense of the place. You know, do reconnaissance.”

  She bit her lower lip, which left me wondering whether I’d stumped her with the word “reconnaissance,” or if she was merely unsure of the address.

  “Let me call Richard,” she said.

  Ah, the infamous “lifeline.” But before I allowed myself to get too smug about it, I remembered she was on the verge of scoring more dough than any winner of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

  She took out her phone and made the call while I pretended to be occupied with a file in my lower desk drawer.

  “Gimme a pen,” she said, wagging her fingers in a “hand it over” gesture.

  I rummaged through my pencil cup, which was closer to her than me, and fought back the urge to roll my eyes. After all, half of the pens in there were dried out. Just my luck she would’ve selected a dud.

  She made the “gimme” gesture again; this time saying “Paper?” in an annoyed tone.

  I used one finger to slide a yellow Post-It pad across the desk.

  She painstakingly wrote down the address, digit-by-digit and letter-by-letter, as Richard spelled it out over the phone. I had to wonder if maybe half the reason this relationship worked was they both moved at a snail’s pace.

  ***

  Hatch had worked on Friday, so we’d be heading over to Moloka’i as soon as he got off duty at eight o’clock on Saturday morning. He’d be coming back on Sunday in order to be back at work Monday morning. He’d tried to trade shifts, but hadn’t found a taker. That was strange, because the guys did it all the time. In fact, Hatch had a go-to guy on C-shift who already owed him more than a few switcheroos, but the guy claimed he couldn’t rearrange his second job.

  Unlike large city departments, Maui Fire and Rescue doesn’t pay their firefighters the big bucks. Most of the guys have second jobs. Some have jock jobs like teaching surfing or taking tourists out on deep-sea fishing trips. Jobs like those can often be rescheduled as circumstances dictate. But other guys have more-or-less “real” second jobs, like delivering for UPS or working construction. Those gigs aren’t as forgiving.

  Hatch doesn’t have a second job because a few years ago he lucked into the proverbial “deal you can’t refuse.” He manages a vacation estate for an Australian film director in return for a rent-free bungalow. Our housing situation is something we’ve talked about—ad nauseam.

  After we’re married we definitely want to live together, but neither of us wants to give up our current digs. I contend I have the stronger argument since my house is my own, free and clear. I don’t pay rent and I don’t have a mortgage. Besides, it’s roomy: three bedrooms, two baths, with a free-standing garage and a charming, albeit somewhat scruffy, private yard.

  Hatch likes my house, but he complains it’s too far from the fire station where he’s currently assigned. And, he argues, with his free ride in the bungalow on rent, taxes, and a gratis blazing-fast Internet connection, he gets to stash most of what he makes in the bank. But my ace in the whole is my house is mine. Nobody can take it away from me. Ever.

  ***

  On Saturday morning I drove down to Kahului to pick Hatch up from work because his fire station is only minutes away from the airport. I waited in the station parking lot because if I’d gone in, it would’ve tacked on at least another fifteen minutes of hugs, wise cracks, advice, and farewells.

  Hatch came out and threw a big duffel bag into the back of the Mini. I started the engine as he ducked his head and slid into the passenger seat. I love my car, but I have to admit it feels pretty cramped when my six foot-four fiancé’s filling up the passenger seat.

  “How was your shift?” I said. I started to put the car in gear, but Hatch reached over and laid a hand on my arm.

  “Oh, come on, we’re not that jaded with each other yet. Are we?”

  He leaned in and turned my chin so I faced him, and then kissed me. Ah, yeah. Another perk of marriage. Coffee-tinged kisses from a guy who was Mr. August in last year’s Maui firefighter calendar. He smelled like shave cream and Ivory soap. Sign me up for that, too.

  When we got to the Kahului airport it was surprisingly empty. Seems the jumbo jets heading back to the mainland don’t normally start loading until afternoon. Fine with me. The TSA workers always seem a lot more “aloha” when they’re processing kama’aina—that’s the word for locals—heading out to the neighbor islands, than when they’re herding throngs of grumpy tourists homeward bound after their annual trip to paradise.

  But we weren’t going to be flying out of the jumbo jet terminal that morning. We’d be using the inter-island terminal, which is about a block away. We got to the open-air building and parked. Walking up to the counter, I was surprised to see no TSA presence.

  “Aloha,” said the agent at check-in. “Name?”

  We gave our names and she asked us how many bags we had. I pointed to my small roller-bag and Hatch hoisted his duffel.

  “Just carry-ons,” said Hatch.

  “No room for carry-ons on these planes,” she said, smiling. “Everything gets checked. Please step up on the scale with your bags.”

  We each got on the scale and she typed our weight into her computer.

  “You’ll be in row one,” she said.

  “Wow, first class,” said Hatch. “Does that mean we get free drinks?”

  The clerk gave him a weak smile signifying she’d heard that one, and a hundred other lame attempts at humor, many times before.

  “Wait over by the chain-link fence,” she said. “Your flight will be called in a few minutes.”

  We waited by the tall fence, watching for our aircraft. Soon, the air trembled with the thrum of what sounded like a million bees. A half-minute later, a tiny single-engine plane dropped down onto the tarmac and taxied to a stop. A door opened at the back of the plane and a spindly metal ladder unfolded from the open space.

  “You ready for this?” Hatch said.

  “You bet,” I said. “I love flying.”

  Actually, I don’t really love flying. What I love is looking down on the islands from a bird’s-eye view. The sight takes my breath away. Trusting my life to the skills of a mechanic who had to pull an extra shift ‘cuz he’s behind on his rent, or to the good judgment of a pilot who probably would rather be home watching college football, was merely a regrettable means to the end.

  We trudged out to the waiting aircraft and the pilot, who looked like he’d started shaving a week and a half ago, greeted us. He offered me a hand as I stepped up onto the impossibly tiny metal steps.

  We got aboard and took our seats. Row one was directly behind the cockpit. There was no door to the cockpit, only two fake wood panels on either side that served as bulkheads. Since I could see everything—the instrument panel, the flight controls, and even out through the cockpit windshield—it was going to take some heavy duty self-discipline on my part to avoid back-seat driving.

  We took off and the plane took its time gaining altitude. We seemed to graze the tops of the palms at Ma’alaea Harbor before heading out over a rippling expanse of lapis blue. I often get an uneasy feeling when I see Maui disappearing from view, and this was no exception. For almost ten minutes we were out over water with no land in sight. I felt a sense of limbo: with nothing solid below, we had merely the thrust of a solitary engine between us and twelve fathoms of deep blue sea.

  It was odd for me to r
ecall that for more than four months I’d spent most of my waking hours in that same ocean-sky limbo. Maybe that’s why I self-destructed as a federal air marshal. My conscious mind wouldn’t acknowledge my fear, so my unconscious mind took control.

  I developed what was later diagnosed as narcolepsy: a strange malady that causes perfectly well-rested folks to suddenly drop off to sleep for no discernable reason. In my case, being in flight over water brought it on. I’d get about an hour or two into a twelve-hour flight from Honolulu to Taipei and boom! it was lights out for me.

  Needless to say, the Department of Homeland Security wasn’t amused. After two warnings, I got caught catching z’s by a dead-heading pilot (but I was the true “dead-head” in this case) and my glorious one-hundred-and-thirty day career as a federal employee came to an abrupt and inglorious end.

  ***

  We approached Moloka’i from the east, dipping low over the steep sea cliffs of the Kalaupapa Peninsula. As we cleared the cliffs and began flying over land, I was struck by how different this island looked from the air than Maui. First, its topography is unique. On Maui, the mountain ranges were formed by two central volcanic zones: the southern mass topped by Mount Haleakala, and the northern mass crowned by Pu’u Kukui, in the West Maui Mountains. But on Moloka’i, the highest peaks are at the north edge of the island. This is because, millions of years ago, the volcano that created Moloka’i collapsed and half of it fell off into the sea. This created the steep sea cliffs along the north side.

  Once we passed over the cliffs, we swooped over miles of a flat plain divided into tidy square patches of green, brown, and yellow. I wanted to ask Hatch what he thought was growing down there, but the drone of the engine was too loud to talk over.

  We made a sharp turn to the left and dropped down quickly to approach the runway. Although the landing strip was tiny, with only one main runway with a second smaller runway dissecting it at an odd angle, the airport was hard to miss. Its red-roofed building was the sole visible outpost in a seemingly never-ending landscape of open fields punctuated by groves of trees.

  We bumped to a landing and the co-pilot came on the intercom and gave instructions on how we would de-plane. It was impossible for most of the eight passengers onboard to stand upright in the tight quarters. From our front row seat, Hatch and I watched as the others made their way to the back of the plane, hunched over like a small band of Neanderthals filing out of their cave.

  Once outside, we grabbed our luggage from the cart and walked across the tarmac to the terminal. It was a low, tan building with a couple of check-in counters and a small waiting area sporting a single low wooden bench. No frills, no amenities. I was reminded of the expression, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

  Landing in Moloka’i is a completely different experience than landing on Maui. First off, the Maui Airport at Kahului makes no apology about being a visitor destination. The shops, the décor, the airport workers, the signage—everything is targeted to the tourist industry. The whole vibe is vacation friendly, and visitor-oriented. That’s not to say there’s not a down-home locals’ scene on Maui, because there is. It’s just that a huge chunk of the economic pie comes from tourist-related activities, so it’s essential to dazzle and cater to travelers from the get-go.

  We wandered out to the small airport parking lot to locate the car Sifu Doug had arranged for us to use. He’d called in a favor and asked the guy who owns the local kung fu academy to rustle up some wheels for us. I’d fallen all over myself in gratitude, since rental cars on Maui County’s smaller neighbor islands are scarce and expensive.

  We spotted the car parked just where the guy said it would be: at the back, three spaces down from the end. I glanced over at Hatch to see if he was thinking what I was thinking, but it looked like I was alone in my nostalgia. The car waiting for us must’ve come off the same assembly line as my former ride, and longtime shame, a mid-nineties Geo Metro.

  “Look,” I said. “It’s the Phlegm-mobile. Only this one’s blue.”

  By now we were twenty feet from the car.

  Hatch still didn’t seem to be making the connection.

  “You know, my old car. This car looks just like the Mean Green Machine.”

  “Your car never looked this bad,” he said. “Looks like this thing’s been in a demolition derby.”

  He pointed out a two-foot dent in the right front fender. At the center of the folded metal, the paint had chipped away and rust had settled in for the long haul.

  “Looks like they hit something pretty big,” I said.

  “Not necessarily. I bet I could bend this cheap metal with my bare hands.” He put a hand on the fender as if he was about to prove it.

  “C’mon,” I said. “It’s fine. At least it’s free.”

  I was used to making excuses for my wheels. I’d done it for years.

  We looked around at the other vehicles parked in the lot. Most were foreign pick-ups, like Toyota Tacomas and Nissan Frontiers. And, most sported a light to heavy dusting of red dirt; with assorted dents and dings being the rule, rather than the exception.

  “See?” I said. “We’ll fit right in.”

  Hatch cocked his head. “Hear that?” he said.

  “What? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing. When was the last time you were at an airport this quiet?”

  I pricked my ears and listened as wind softly stirred the branches of the Norfolk Pines lining the airport access road.

  “It’s almost spooky,” I said.

  The doors to the Geo were unlocked, so we stashed our stuff in the back and began a search for the keys. We checked the tops of the front tires and under the mats in the back seat. We even rummaged through the trunk. No luck.

  Hatch climbed into the driver seat and there they were—dangling from the ignition switch. The keychain was a single ring, decorated with a thumb-size Hawaiian warrior helmet made from the tough outer shell of a kukui nut.

  “I guess they weren’t worried about someone stealing the car,” I said.

  We both laughed.

  “The guys at the station told me that’s how they roll over here,” Hatch said. “Welcome to the land of ‘no worries’.”

  We drove out of the lot and I felt a flutter in my stomach. The last time I’d been to one of Maui County’s remote islands—Lana’i—I’d been alone and running for my life. Now I was with Hatch, leisurely checking out a part of my home state that I’d inadvertently ignored. I felt at peace, and secretly grateful to Amanda and Richard for giving me a reason to explore Moloka’i, the “most Hawaiian” island.

  I was pretty sure the wedding venue was going to turn out to be beautiful, and Hatch and I were getting along better than ever. Everything was falling neatly into place. After three years of shocking news and unforeseen tragedies, it was about time I got cut a break.

  Finally. I felt as if the black cloud of calamity was moving on, leaving me with nothing but blue skies ahead.

  CHAPTER 7

  In my discussion with Sifu Doug I’d learned there was only one town on the island: the small town of Kaunakakai, on the south side. It was about a twenty-minute drive from the airport. Since my primary objective of this initial visit was to line up as many local vendors as possible, Hatch and I had agreed it would be best for us to get a place in town for our short stay.

  The drive from the airport into town was downhill and uneventful. There were few cars on the road, and the passing scenery was mostly open fields or stands of trees: kiawe, and Cook and Norfolk Pine, along with a smattering of towering ironwoods. Once we got down to the coastal road, we passed a few modest houses with spacious yards, but even near the beach, there was nary a shopping mall or high rise in sight.

  We drove by a thick grove of coconut palms. They were some of the tallest I’d ever seen, but a few looked pretty scraggly. Toward the west end of the grove, some of trees were missing their crowns, making them look like sway-back telephone poles. They’d apparently ta
ken a hit, either by time or high winds.

  I squinted at a brown wooden sign as we drove by. It said, “Kapuaiwa Coconut Grove.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Have you ever seen so many palms in one place?”

  “This grove was planted in the 1860’s, by order of King Kamehameha the Fifth,” said Hatch. “Apparently they planted a thousand trees here.”

  “Where did you hear that?” I said.

  “I read it on a website back at the station. I was looking to see if there were any good surf beaches over here.”

  “And are there?”

  “Yeah, but they’re mostly on the west side. In the winter the waves are huge.”

  We took a left at a gas station and went into town. I was surprised to see Kaunakakai was much smaller, and a lot less hectic, than Pa’ia.

  We drove four short blocks past worn wooden buildings with false fronts and small, dark windows. There was a stucco government-style building with cop cars in the parking lot at the far end of town, across from a school with a well-maintained ball field. Beyond that, the town dwindled to a few blocks of small homes with tidy yards.

  “Was that the whole town?” Hatch said.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “There are only about seven thousand people on the whole island,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I only saw about ten of them on the street back there. Where is everybody?”

  We turned around and went back through town. At the intersection of the King Kamahameha V highway and Kaunakakai Street was a mile post marked, “Mile 0.” A tidy white building with “Molokai Burger” in big red letters on the rooftop occupied the corner lot.

  “Is it too early for lunch?” I said.

  The clock on the Geo’s dash read 4:30, but it was clearly wrong. I guessed the time was probably more like eleven. The clock in my old green car had stopped working the first time the car battery died, and after that it was prone to flights of fancy. It would start up again—sometimes ticking away for weeks on end—but it gave up entirely near the end of its life.