My Kind of Town
>> Ala Moana Beach Park Beyond the reef
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes quickly looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what he, Dr. Laurie Tang and Jimmy Ahuna were seeing. Normally the sight of a 6-foot-4, brown-skinned woman walking around the park stark naked would get at least a sideways glance. But nobody in the crowd gathering at the water's edge to see the WWII-vintage Japanese mini-sub that had beached itself seemed to notice the woman Jimmy called Ho'ola, goddess of life. Nor did a local couple jogging toward Magic Island, and Ho'ola walked across the paved path right in front of them as she beckoned to a guy who was jumping on a moped and vrooming away from her as fast as he could.
"That guy was running from her," Gomes said. "Maybe she wasn't in a blessing mood?"
"No no," Jimmy said. "Blessing, helping, saving, preserving -- that's who she is, it's what Ho'ola does. But not everybody wants the blessings of a goddess, or a god. So foolish to run from her. That one ..." Jimmy nodded in the direction of the disappearing moped. "... something bad going happen."
The guy on the moped wore wrap-around shades and a Dodgers cap pulled down low, and neither Gomes nor Laurie recognized Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka.
Ho'ola watched the moped disappear with hands on hips, head tilted, the international sign of an unhappy woman. The goddess was disappointed that a man who needed her help had gotten away. If ever there was man who needed to be healed and saved it was that one. Well, he'd had his chance. And she was only a goddess, after all, she couldn't force her blessings. Humans were humans and could freely choose. Ho'ola did not twist arms.
Still, Gomes saw, nobody else had noticed the big, brown naked woman. Although the guy fleeing her on the moped obviously had. How weird was that?
Ho'ola, turned, beckoned to Jimmy Ahuna.
"See you," the Pearl Harbor Shipyard retiree said. He was glowing as he shook hands with Laurie and Gomes. "I'm going to live with Ho'ola. In her valley."
"Which is where, exactly?" Gomes said.
"It's where you never grow old," Jimmy said. "Aloha."
Gomes and Laurie watched as Jimmy joined Ho'ola. After he picked up two fishing poles and a tackle box he'd left on the beach, she took him by the hand and they walked across the water. And just beyond the reef, Jimmy and Ho'ola walked into another realm and disappeared from view.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com