Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place'

by Robert Vaughan

  Chris paused in reflection, taking in the idea as he regarded Noelani with warm appreciation, an affection of a son toward a mother, not so much a maternal one, but an Earth mother, one who was benign and benevolent and caring. He smiled slightly, dimpling on one cheek and shook his head in introspective contemplation.

  “Ohana, wow. There's certainly not much of that where I come from. You'd think that New York City would be the center of the universe, but Manhattan- It's a lot like your island, just a lot more desolate.”

  Noelani smiled wistfully and looked at Chris with a slight frown of acknowledgement, “I wish ‘Lani could hear what you just said. It would help her understand her place. And you. She's got what we call 'rock fever'.”

  “'Rock fever'?”

  “It's the feeling of being trapped- Caged, like a tiger, pacing, always pacing, constantly looking for a way out, and never finding one. You'd have to live here all your life, like Alani, to understand. All she ever sees- the tourists, TV, movies- is the world away from here. Her friends, most of them go away, and most come right back home. But ‘Lani, she doesn't see that- all she knows is that she wants something more, and she’s convinced that she isn't going to find it here.”

  Chris replied, “She doesn't know what she'd be missing... I mean- if I could choose, I would easily trade what passes for my 'family' for this- all of this; your ohana, your sense of community- your way of life. I don't have any of that where I come from, or where I’m going. I envy her, and you.” Chris extended his hand, and then the other, this time taking both of Noelani’s in his as she had done with him. “Thank you so much for your time. I hope Alani finds her way back.”

  After a brief pause, each of them looking deeply into the others’ eyes in contemplation and silent understanding, Chris broke away, fishing a small business card from a pocket. Hastily scribbling a single word on its’ back, he handed it to Noelani with a wistful smile. “Give this to her, please, in case I don't see her again before I leave?”

  “I will. And thank you, for saving Buddy.”

  “You're welcome.” Chris raised a hand in farewell. “Alo- Good-bye.”

  As Chris pulled open the door, it tinkled magically again, and Noelani leaned on the counter and addressed him one final time, “I hope- perhaps maybe I will see you again before you leave- okay? Anyhow, you have a nice visit here. Aloha. And Mahalo- for everything.”

  The Jeep flew along the deserted road, Alani staring stolidly ahead, her lips pursed tightly, almost painfully holding back the volumes contained within her mind.

  Sonny held on for dear life as Alani wove and swerved violently on the damp, twisting road, finally speaking as they nearly clipped a rusty mail-box with the passenger-side mirror, “Hey! Careful! What the hell you so pissed off about?”

  Alani replied with a tight tension edging her voice, her words lapsing into a smattering of pidgin and English as the emotion boiled over into her speech, “I was watching you, from the store- and I saw you buy that dope, right there on da beach…”

  Sonny scoffed in feigned indignation, “Girl, you dint see nothin'. All I was doing was surfin'. And why you watchin' me anyway?” His eyes widened in realization, and then he continued smugly, trying to turn the tables, “Oh, okay, I know what you were doin'. You were checkin' out the Haole tourist, huh?”

  “Quit changing the subject! I'm talkin' about you! Why you do that, why you smoke that pakalolo?”

  “Yo, you serious? You askin’ me about dat now?”

  “‘Dammit, Sonny, it’s one t’ing fo you to buy from Reg, one t’ing fo you to smoke like wit’ ohana, but now you gotta go an’ buy from that pig Manolo? In public? You wanna get arrested? That happen, you gonna go to jail an’ your life will be over. If the coaches ever find out you smokin’…”

  “How they gonna find out, you gonna tell them?”

  “If I have to- yes! Dammit, Sonny, you got a chance, a real chance to get out of here, go anywhere you want. You gonna throw it all away for some stupid weed?”

  “What's the big deal? Mos' guys I know, we all smoke, an’ we do just fine.”

  “Yeah? For how long? Tell you what- nex’ time you're wit your gang, you take a good look at them and try to see them in five, ten years- Where they gonna be- anywhere? Or dey still gonna be stuck at the bus stop, watching life pass them by?” Sonny stared silently into the distance, his lips pursed tightly together, and Alani continued, “You decide. But I tell you this much- I ever catch you doing that again, I'll tell Buddy, and let him deal with you.”

  Chris started the car, the engine rumbling to life. As he slowly swung around and merged onto the street, he took in the village with a slow, sweeping gaze, committing the scene to memory; the beach, now considerably less crowded in the late afternoon light; the store; the various small businesses and random houses huddled among the green. With a saddened frown of disappointment, he punched the gas, rumbled back across the vine-encrusted bridge, and disappeared down the road in a gently roiling cloud of soft, red dust.

  Chris drove slowly down the nearly-deserted road, almost as if unable to let go of the day, the car humming, the radio silent, his mind whirling with the flickering images and the echo of words of what had been a full and almost overwhelming adventure.

  Rounding a tight, blind corner, he suddenly screeched to a stop, a dirty and mud-spattered ‘Detour’ sign having inexplicably materialized right before him. As he looked past the sign to the road beyond, he saw a bustling road crew with back-hoes and front-end loaders busily cleaning up what was obviously a huge mud-slide that was still blocking the whole road in either direction. Looking to his right, he saw a narrow, muddy track and a small sign hanging slightly askew from the barricade. Without giving it a second glance, he turned and hit the gas and the Mustang disappeared around a bend, the sign swinging slightly in the breeze as it passed. And if Chris had bothered to read it, he would have noticed the now-familiar words and their still-mysterious implications…

  For the sign read- ‘Menehune At Work’.

  The ribbon of russet was muddy and slick and the powerful car slipped and slewed along it, growling and spraying fans of bright red mud onto the towering walls of green that lined its course. As he twisted and turned along the narrow path, Chris pondered in silence the strange events, and the even stranger side-bars that had comprised his first day in paradise. He had had strange dreams before, but never with the odd clarity of his visions in the ‘Menehune’. He thought back to that moment, and for an instant could even smell the whiff of cordite from the artillery, feel the shock of heat from their blasts and the sudden cold of the night air rushing over him as it flooded the damaged craft. And then his thoughts shifted again, to the bizarre event in the glider, the sound of the thunder still ringing in his ears and the lurching fall from the sky reminding him dimly of another time, another place, all fractured and lumped together kaleidoscopically, images of bright color and smeary half-tones overlapping and jumping without focus or direction.

  And the of course… Alani.

  Granted, it was a small island, and his first reconnoiter had merely been an accident. Or had it? He wondered, almost aloud. He had always been a bit of a believer in the mystical underpinnings of the Universe, no doubt a by-product of his mother, to whom these things were almost mundane, but to encounter her again so soon? And it wasn’t even the randomness, or lack thereof, of the two chance meetings, it was that same strange, nagging feeling of- familiarity, that he felt, somewhere deep within, whenever he looked at her, and almost, somehow- remembered.

  Chris shook the distracting ramblings from his mind and concentrated on the road. Looking about to gain his bearings, he furrowed his brows and frowned. No luck, it all looked the same. Just as he resigned himself to being lost in a dense, tropical forest of green, the muddy path suddenly ended, rejoining the curving asphalt track he had been forced to abandon earlier.

  Chris slowed and stopped, forced with a left or a right, and thought it slightly odd that th
ere were no other tire-tracks leading onto the road to give him a choice of direction. Shrugging his shoulders in resignation at this new and unexpected adventure, he punched the gas and turned to the right, fish-tailing the bright red car and flinging the remaining mud from his tires as they gained purchase and rocketed him forward, propelling him onward towards his unknowing destiny.

  As he wound his way back around the island, bits of ocean peeking through the tangled mat of green, he fumbled with the radio, silently cursing himself for not bringing an auxiliary jack for his phone, and out of the corner of one eye nearly missed the rusted yellow sides of an all-too-familiar Jeep standing seemingly abandoned along the side of the road. He slammed on the brakes, his heart racing and his mind spinning on the timeliness of yet another coincidental meeting, and he backed the Mustang up quickly to stop beside the Jeep, tires chirping on the wet asphalt as he did.

  Alani looked up at him with a murderous gleam in her eye as she turned and glared at him. As she pulled out from under the hood of the recalcitrant vehicle, Chris could see why she was pissed, and this time, not even at him. Her long dark tresses were tangled and dripping and her thin white plumeria-printed dress clung to her like a wet sock, dirty and grease-stained from obvious hand-wipings after what were clearly several futile attempts at reviving her antique vehicle.

  She pushed the sodden cowboy hat back onto her head, revealing sparkling jade- and hazel-flecked eyes that now narrowed in suspicion at Chris’ appearance, and she said with slightly more than a hint of malice, “What the hell are you doing- stalking me?!”

  Chris rolled his eyes skyward with a slight shaking of his head, a lopsided grin denting his face and replied, “If only it were that simple…”

  Abigail wagged her club over her ball, her tongue again peeking out of her lips as she looked down-range in concentration.

  Walter leaned on his own club and asked, “Okay, lucky lady, what other tricks have got up your sleeve? Oh, oh, wait, I know, I know! You still need a hole in one to get a 'Yahtzee' bonus, don't you?”

  Abigail playfully stuck out the remainder of her tongue at Walter and replied, “Smart aleck.” She slowly took the club back and swung, sending the ball straight to its target, holding the club over her shoulder as she fixed her gaze on it, watching its flight as it arrowed down the fairway.

  The ball landed softly on the distant green and rolled a sinuous curving track straight at the gently waving flag-stick, striking it in silence and rolling a few feet away. Abigail exclaimed, “OH! I almost got it!” She turned to see Walter, pale and shell-shocked, nearly fall from his leaning perch. “Scared the crap out of you, didn't it?”

  Walter didn’t reply, staring at yet another in what was becoming a litany of near-miracles on this most unusual of days.

  Abigail walked back to him with a slight swagger, brushing past him as she slid her club back into her bag and said with just a bit of whimsical mysticism, “Just goes to show you, be careful what you say…”

  Chris turned off the engine, the growl of the beast fading into silence, and slowly climbed out of the car. Crossing to Alani, who held a tire iron limply in her hand, he ventured the obvious, “Uh- Car trouble?”

  Alani smiled thinly, “No, I'm practicing to be a mechanic. Want to watch?” And then her smile turned to a scowl as she turned back to the vehicle and proceeded to beat the crap out of it, all the while uttering muffled curses in Hawaiian, Japanese, and who knows what else, punctuating each blow with an “Arrgh!!! Nhh! Nhh! Nhh! Errrgh!! You- stu-pid piece of -!!” Finally, her anger spent and frustration weighing on her shoulders, her blows lessened and she ended her assault with a groan of defeat, her head slumping limply between her hands.

  Chris leaned in over her shoulder and mused with a querulous frown, “Wow, I never tried that before. Is it working?”

  Alani whirled on him in frustration, raising the tire iron like a weapon, conking her head on the hood of the Jeep and knocking her hat from her head. “NO!!!” she wailed, tears of frustration welling just behind her limpid green orbs.

  Chris backed away slightly, raising his hands in defense. “Whoa! Easy there...”And then he gestured toward the inert Jeep, asking, “May I?”

  Alani flung the tire-iron into the rear of the Jeep and leaned wearily against its’ side as she gestured toward the open hood. “Help yourself,” she said dejectedly.

  Chris poked his head into the engine compartment- checking wires and palpitating hoses, opening caps and sniffing their aromas, whistling all the while. He finally pulled out the oil dipstick and sniffed at the end like a chef sampling a stew, nodding sagely as a single drop of oil formed, and then dropped off. Replacing the dipstick with a look of satisfaction, he pulled back out from under the hood and said to Alani without looking at her, “Get in and try it...”

  “WHAT!?”

  Chris said gently, “Get in and turn the key.”

  Alani climbed into the driver’s seat, all the while looking at the back of Chris like he was a strange but harmless lunatic. Shaking her head with a skeptical frown, she turned the key- and the engine roared to life. The unexpected action startled Alani, and she flung herself back into the seat with a look of shocked amazement frozen on her face.

  Chris merely put his hands on his hips, and waited. After a brief pause, he counted out to no one in particular, “Three- two- one…”

  And the engine coughed- and died.

  Chris smiled ironically, and said, aside, “Yup, just as I suspected.” Then he called back over his shoulder to Alani, “Your fuel pump's shot.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I had a Jeep just like it in high school- same thing happened to me. Twice.”

  Alani said, raising a singular sardonic eyebrow, “You're kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “Can you do anything to fix it?”

  “Not here, not now.”

  “Why?”

  Chris turned to Alani and scratched his head idly with one hand as he gestured vaguely toward the rear of the vehicle with the other, “Because the fuel pump's inside the gas tank. It's not exactly an easy fix.”

  “Great, now I'm gonna be late for work.”

  Chris smiled his lop-sided grin, “Your other work? Bummer. Where are you headed?”

  Alani hesitated, and then stated flatly, “The Honu-Kai. I dance there every night.”

  “Really? What a coincidence. That's where I'm staying.” Chris smiled in chagrin and tilted his head as he continued, “At least, I was...”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well- I'm, uh- I’m kind of lost, actually. You want a ride? You could show me the way.”

  Alani looked skeptically at Chris, and then at his car. A sardonic smile crossed her face as she asked, “Are you sure it's safe?”

  “What? Oh, very funny. Yes, it's safe.”

  “With your track record? I wonder.”

  Chris shrugged, “Best offer I have. Unless you want to walk. Come on, you'll be fine- I promise.”

  Alani looked at Chris with a long, considering glance. And then without a word, she snagged the yellow backpack from the Jeep and flung it into the Mustang and turned to Chris with an odd sigh of resignation, “Okay- Let's go.”

  Chris strode quickly around the side of the car and gallantly opened the door, ushering her in with a theatrical sweep of his hand.

  Gingerly stepping into the car in an awkward attempt to not expose an embarrassing amount of her anatomy, Alani slipped on the muddy road, and with a sharp cry she began to topple backward.

  Chris reacted swiftly and grabbed for her hand to stop her fall, but the moment he touched her delicate brown wrist- the world suddenly whirled and shifted…

  Alani looked up. Chris stood above her, perched on the side of an idling P-38, his hand clenched in hers, smiling brightly down at her. He released her hand with a quick, reassuring squeeze and sprang jauntily up the remaining rungs of the ladder affixed to the side of the p
lane. He gave her a short, mocking salute and flashed his trademark lop-sided grin, and then closed the multi-faceted canopy with a sharp ‘click’.

  Chris looked down through the dusty canopy glass at Alani, but noticed that she looked- different. Clad in a dun-colored WAC’s uniform, her long, glossy hair concealed under an Air Corps cap, this Alani smiled tightly up at him, a crease of worry marring her porcelain features. Chris waved another reassuring salute and gunned the engine of the P-38, and Alani hunched her shoulders and held her cap in the blast of prop-wash as the aircraft began to slowly move off.

  Chris’ gaze swung to the long, narrow runway as he gave the plane a quick burst of acceleration- when suddenly a HUGE EXPLOSION rocked the scene, the front of the P-38 exploding in a blast of SEARING WHITE…

  And the world went dark.

  Below – Part One

  The world slowly faded back to normal, the soft sounds of late afternoon birds lending an almost ‘Looney Tunes’ like quality to the bizarre occurrence that had just passed. Alani stared up at Chris from beside the car, open mouthed and silent. Chris stared back, his face reflecting the same. Shaking his head to clear the disturbing vision, the echo of the explosion still faint and receding, he called down to Alani, dazed and sprawled at his feet, “Hey! Are you okay?”