Alani frantically honked the horn in an attempt to get the attention of the unseen pilot, but the plane continued to accelerate. In a move of dangerous desperation she swerved directly in front the craft, narrowly dodging the spinning propeller as she continued to lay on the horn, flailing an arm over her head as she fought to keep abreast of the plane.
The note of the engines abruptly dropped, and the propellers softly whirred to idle as the plane fish-tailed and braked to a sudden, lurching stop. The engines shuddered to a stop with a ‘Bang!’ and a final puff of smoke, and the port-side window slammed open as an immense Polynesian face popped out.
“Lani! You crazy! You tryin’ to get yo’self killed? Wha’ da hell’s yo problem, girl?” The angry glare of Buddy Nakamura slowly turned to one of curious puzzlement as he saw the unexpected cargo in Alani’s Jeep.
“Buddy, stop! You gotta help me!” Alani cried with despair as she whipped around and stopped next to the side of the now-still aircraft.
Buddy gazed to the heavens and slowly shook his head. He sighed with resignation and muttered to himself, “It’s all I evah seem to do…” Pulling his massive head back through the tiny opening, the window slid closed and a moment later the plane began to lurch and groan from some unseen force. The port-side cargo door popped open and slid aside, and the force that had rocked the plane was now revealed.
Buddy Nakamura, three-hundred and seventy-five pounds of brown Hawaiian flesh, filled the tiny doorway and then stepped wearily down from the plane, which creaked and moaned on tortured springs as it was relieved of its’ burden. Staring into the Jeep with a look of bemused irritation, Buddy stifled a guffaw and then asked, “So- where’d you fin’ da Haole?” He gestured a question to the unconscious occupant of her Jeep and continued with a puzzled tone, “An’ how come he wearin’ Sonny’s Gear?”
Alani replied with a note of desperation, “Buddy, he’s hurt! I think he needs to get to the hospital!”
Buddy straightened and then responded with annoyance, his hands on his hips as he glared at his flustered sister, “How come you no take him yo’self?”
Alani snarled in frustration, “If I coulda done that, you t’ink I still be here arguing wit’ you? Buddy, dammit, da whole road is blocked! You gotta take him for me.”
Buddy gazed at his Alani with a roll of the eyes, a shake of the head and a lopsided smile slowly creasing his face. Finally, he idly scratched his generous backside and said, “Aw’right, awright already! Sheee, da t’ings I do for you!” He stooped to the sagging, lifeless form of Chris, peeled off the jockstrap with a look of barely concealed disgust and effortlessly hauled Chris from the seat, tossing him casually over his shoulder like a blond and muddy sack of potatoes.
Alani cried in alarm, “Aieeee! Hey! Be careful! He might have internal bleeding!”
Buddy shrugged the weight of his package and blew a loud raspberry. “Sis, you watch way too much TV.” He grasped Chris’ face in one massive paw and considered it for a moment, “Nah, he’s aw’right. He jus’ got knocked goofy, dat’s all.”
“How can you be sure? How do you know he’s not hurt bad?”
Buddy turned the unconscious face of Chris toward Alani and laughed softly. “Because dis face I know- I grew up makin’ all kinds o’ guys look jus’ like dis.” And without another word, he dumped the limp and sagging form of Chris into the plane.
Alani growled in annoyance and stifled a reply, flung her hands into the air and dashed back to her still-idling Jeep, noisily ground it into gear and flew back down the hill in a cloud of reddish dust.
Buddy watched his sister disappear into the distance with a wry smile on his wide, brown face, and then wearily climbed back into the plane as it rocked and groaned anew in protest. He paused as he delicately stepped over the unconscious form of Chris and glanced with a weighted sigh at the remainder of his cargo- haphazardly piled boxes of coconut purses, gently swinging stalks of green-yellow bananas and other various and sundry things all awaiting their destination, all of which were now delayed in their arrival by the unconscious form of the golden-haired stranger that lay in a heap among them.
Buddy looked back at the sleeping form of Chris as he climbed through the cockpit opening and said calmly, “You gonna be okay, bro, just relax...” Chris’ head lolled drunkenly to one side in response, and Buddy continued with a smile, “Nevah mind.”
Buddy squeezed his bulk into the squeaky pilot’s chair and re-started the balky radials, slamming the throttles forward with a roar and a blast of blue smoke. The Electra accelerated swiftly and leaped off the dusty runway, the wind of its passing scattering the remaining wisps of low-lying mist into the early-morning breeze. Turning lazily in a slow, rising circle, Buddy grabbed the mic and keyed a toggle. “Waianae tower, this is Yankee Zulu X-ray Two Two Zero.” An unintelligible squawk replied and he continued, “Hey bro'! I got me a stupid haole tourist that done busted himself up out on Lualana Road…” Buddy listened for a moment and then replied, “No, no he not bleedin' or nothin'. I think he just got like a concussion or somethin’. Anyway, you wanna let Doc Onagawa know I on my way wit' him so I don' waste no mo' time today? Mahalo, bro, see you in about twenty, Aloha!”
Buddy clicked the mic back onto its holder and reached above his head to a document pouch that bulged nearly to bursting with what looked like literally hundreds of music CD’s. Rummaging casually through them with one hand as the other rested lazily on the wheel, he selected one almost at random and slid it into a nearly invisible slot above the instrument rack. As the plane bounced noisily above the pastoral landscape, Buddy tapped a key, and the lilting strains of ‘E Ala E’, a traditional Hawaiian ballad, drifted softly from the speakers, a gentle serenade to the passing scenery below.
Chris awoke in the darkness of the cargo hold, the dull throbbing hum of the engines and a warm tenor voice greeting his return to consciousness. As his blurry vision cleared, his eyes suddenly focused on the other living occupant of the plane’s cargo hold. It was an enormous, furry brown spider, its tiny eyes glittering in the semi-darkness, slowly crawling towards him on a stalk of gently swinging bananas.
In stumbling panic at this frightening sight, Chris reeled and scrambled backward as he sputtered, “What the f-! Oh- my- God...! Ohhh SHIT!” and tumbled backward onto the flight deck, his elbow striking the throttles in the center of the console and knocking them askew as he toppled awkwardly into the co-pilot’s chair, crashing into the control yoke and pinning it into the dash. The engines roared and the plane dove sharply and tilted to one side as Buddy exclaimed, “What da hell?!” and scrambled to regain control as Chris flailed helplessly beside him. Now thoroughly awake, a mask of confusion crossed his face as Chris patted his head and his hand encountered the cold, hard plastic of the helmet, and then creased further in puzzlement as he looked through the face-guard and saw the shoulder-pads.
Buddy guffawed and righted the plane as he casually addressed his accidental co-pilot, only adding to Chris’ bewilderment at awakening in this alien environment, “Hey! You awake! Welcome back, bro!”
Chris could only sputter a reply as he pointed to the sight of the giant spider still framed in the cockpit opening. “There- there- there- there's a- a- A-!”
Buddy inquired lazily, “C'mon, bro, spit it out- There's a...?”
“A spider!!!”
Buddy raised a sardonic eyebrow and queried casually, “A really big, fat brown one...?”
“Yes!”
Buddy waved a hand in dismissal and laughed. “Oh, don't worry about him, that's jus' Arnold,” he said, pronouncing it ‘Ah-nuhld’, as in Schwartzenegger, and continued, “He prob'ly jus' curious. He ain't nevah' seen no Haole before.”
Chris struggled to remove the helmet, the effort clearly painful on his bruised and tender skull, and asked with a note of temerity, “What? Ow! You have a pet spider named Arnold...?”
Buddy replied, matter-of-fact, “Yeah. He's in charge of pest control.”
Chris squeaked, “He's what-? Oh- my- God.”
Chris struggled out of the shoulder pads, which to Buddy’s silent amusement was like watching a neophyte illusionist trying to remove a straightjacket. Finally casting the pads aside, Chris checked out his new surroundings as he turned and settled into the co-pilot’s chair.
The flight deck of the antique aircraft was festooned with a myriad of knobs and cranks, toggles and switches, all of which were stuffed and strewn with what looked like a veritable family album of photographs. Glancing out the window with a perplexed shake of the head, Chris turned back to Buddy. “Man, it's like travelling back in time... exactly what am I flying in?”
Buddy responded proudly, “Bruddah, you on a Lockheed Electra 12-A, only one of its kind on Hawai'i...”
“An Electra Junior? Like the one in 'Casablanca'? But the 12-A's only had a range of about 800 miles. How on earth did it get here?”
Buddy’s face creased in puzzlement. “Dey flew it here, bro. How else you gonna get a plane out here?” Buddy nodded to the instrument rack and gestured proudly about the plane, “Anyway, welcome aboard 'The Mighty Menehune'.” Buddy extended a meaty palm in welcome, “I'm Buddy...”
Chris returned the gesture and replied, “Chris. Chris Matthews.”
Buddy looked at Chris with furrowed brows. “Dude, you look way different on TV.”
“It's the makeup.” Chris smiled and continued, “Sorry, I get that a lot. Just call me Chris. So how did you get this plane? It's amazing- beautiful. I've never flown an- an antique before, how does it handle?”
“You fly? Then you gonna love this. She like a rock, bro. Check it out...” Buddy let go of the wheel and placed his hands casually behind his head. “Give it a try...”
“Seriously...? Okay- Sure!” Chris grasped the wheel-
And the world suddenly flashed and changed…
…The sounds of Flak reverberated in the cockpit, the sky outside dotted with puffs of black smoke. The plane shuddered and swayed from the force of the blasts and then rocked violently as several anti-aircraft rounds blasted through the fuselage just behind the cockpit. Chris hunched down in reaction as the plane lurched sickeningly downward, the dark landscape below exploding with silent puffs of flame and smoke-
And the world flashed again.
Chris blinked rapidly, clearing the disturbing vision from his eyes, only to see Buddy pulling back forcefully on the control yoke with one hand, bringing the plane back to level as he reached over to Chris and gently shook his shoulder.
“Yo, Chris! Dude, you okay?”
Chris blinked again, “Whoa! What just happened?”
“I think you blacked out again. Your eyes went all funny and you kinda like slumped over.”
“No. I mean…” Chris shook his head, still confused, and then went silent in contemplation of the unexpected vision.
“Hey, no worries, this ain't no wimpy little 10,000 pound Cub. It take way more than dat to crash dis plane.” Buddy pointed out the starboard window and said with a smile, “Hey! Check it out, looks like we made it in one piece.”
A small rural airstrip, carved into the tiny point of land at the island’s edge, showed itself to Chris as Buddy rocked the plane to the right.
Chris exclaimed in astonishment, “What?! There? Are you kidding?! That scratch doesn't look big enough to even land a paper airplane...”
Buddy made a rude noise and dismissed Chris’ concerns with a casual wave of his hand. “Dude, that's nothin'. You think that’s tight, you should see the strip on Kalaupapa out on Molokai. In the winter, you gotta time your landing with da waves. This one's a piece of cake. We just gotta make a quick pass to clear da space-”
Chris interrupted with alarm, “'Clear the space'-? Of what?”
Buddy laughed. “Usually there's a whole bunch o' wild boar jus' chillin' on the runway…” Buddy shuddered and then continued, “Trus' me, you no wanna hit one o' them things- it give 'spiral sliced ham' a whole new meaning.” And with that, Buddy casually banked and dived, leveling out barely a dozen feet above the narrow dirt track.
As Chris watched in amazement, several dark shapes suddenly leaped to their feet and fled into the surrounding jungle. Buddy laughed again and casually slapped a red ‘Staples’ button that was glued to the dash.
The Button responded, “That was easy.”
Buddy tweaked the throttles and twisted the wheel and the Electra rose and banked up and around, gliding with a dull rumble of engines near the lush green cliff-sides that enveloped the tiny airstrip. Buddy reached for the gear lever, flipped a seemingly random toggle to his left-
…and suddenly SCREAMED in pain, writhing and grasping at his chest with his free hand.
“AAAAAAAH! SH-!” Another wracking spasm of pain hit Buddy, and he abruptly let go of the yoke as he now clutched his chest with both of his hands, pitching forward into the wheel and crushing it to the dash. Immediately, the horizon disappeared and was replaced with the dark green cliff-side that filled the tiny windscreen.
Chris grabbed frantically for the control yoke and yelped in alarm, “Oh MAN! Not AGAIN!!” Chris seized the wheel, the tendons straining in his arms, and again his vision suddenly- shifted. Twisting and skewing between reality and something else entirely, between bright Technicolor and smeary black-and-white, Chris suddenly found himself somewhere- strange, but also- familiar.
The brightly colored Hawaiian landscape shifted and changed, becoming the fractured and garish nightmare of Dresden on fire, and then snapped back again, then slid elsewhere, again in a strange monochrome of light and dark. Chris looked to his left, Buddy having somehow changed into the dark, still bulk of another, less familiar figure, its pilots cap askew, dark blood crusting around a scorched and shattered face.
The Electra lurched downward, and-
The world snapped back to the ‘now’.
Chris tugged with all his might on the wheel, desperately trying to right the plunging craft- but it didn’t budge, having been pinned forward by the crushing bulk of Buddy. Chris gritted his teeth and jammed his feet into the floorboards and tried again, now desperately looking around the cockpit for a solution to their inevitable demise. His gaze locked on the twin throttle controls, and suddenly, the tiniest germ of an idea came to him from- somewhere…
…The ground raced towards him, smeary black smoke streaking across the windscreen, and Chris attempted a desperate ploy, one he had only tried before in the comfort of altitude, but one which, if it worked-
And again the world shifted…
There-! Chris Grabbed the throttle controls with his left hand and pulled them all the way back, at the same time twisting the prop knob and reversing props as he simultaneously pushed the throttles back to full. The unorthodox maneuver forced the plane to attempt to stop in mid-air, the tail dropping like a stone, and the sudden reversal of acceleration caused Buddy to pitch back into his seat, finally releasing the wheel. Chris scrambled to reset the props, this time without changing the throttle- a move that in any other aircraft would have ripped the engines from the wings.
But the ‘Mighty Menehune’ was made of sterner stuff.
With a roar and groan of tortured metal, the twin radials of the Electra grabbed air again and Chris yanked the yoke back, forcing the nose of the plane up. He quickly looked out through the narrow, slot-like windscreen, only to see the side of the mountain still racing toward them through the glass. Twisting the wheel to the right, Chris hunched his shoulders and braced for the expected impact, watching the approach of fate with one eye as the other closed tightly in anticipation of their impending doom.
The Electra banked smoothly to starboard, the roar of engines ringing in Chris’ ears, and Chris watched the hill-side approach, so close he could count the leaves on the trees clinging to its’ side. Gritting his teeth anew and straining to bank and pull away from the mountain, Chris breathed a sigh of relief as the view changed from green- to blue. But to his renewed alarm, it was not the comfor
ting blue of the sky, it was the foam-laced and turquoise streaked blue of the ocean; the plane was still going down.
“Son-of-a-b-!” He hissed through his teeth, and attempted to level out the craft with a jerk of the wheel to his left as he stomped on the right rudder pedal. The twin tails of the Electra responded quickly, and the nose of the plane finally centered and rose as the kelp-strewn wave-tops disappeared beneath the plane, the tires skimming the water with a blast of spray. Chris breathed another quick sigh of relief and exclaimed, “WHOOO-! Dammit! That was close!”
As Buddy writhed in tortured silence beside him, Chris quickly turned to him and said tightly, “You just hold on, okay? I'll try to get us down as fast as I can!”
Pulling the throttles back nearly to idle, Chris swung the plane around above the waves and prepared to land. Only to realize one small detail- he had no idea how to do it.
As he frantically cast his gaze about the unfamiliar craft, his vision again fuzzed over, and in a strange, smeary sort of black and white montage, he fell again into the dreamy world he had just returned from.
The shattered debris and pock-marked tarmac flashed beneath him as Chris, a truncated sigh of relief escaping his lips, leveled out mere inches above the ground…
The Electra flashed toward the last trees lining the runway, and Chris looked at the air-speed indicator- 140. Too fast. Way too fast. He needed to slow down, and quickly. “Okay... here we go. Flaps. Flaps? Ohh- GREAT! Where the hell are the flaps?!” Chris closed his eyes, and then suddenly- remembered… Chris’ eyes snapped open, and his left hand darted to the bright-red crank wheel just behind the throttle cluster. As he fought to maintain a straight line, his hand quickly spun the wheel as he counted out, “Twenty…”
Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' Page 6