My Kind of Town
>> Arizona Memorial Hands on the remote
Exiting the visitor center, Muhammed Resurreccion turned right just past the security check -- such as it was -- toward the water. He walked carefully across the green lawn, as if through a minefield, seeking a place from which he could watch his three females boarding the boat, but they could not see him.
Muhammed nearly turned and ran when he saw three teenage boys sprinting up a sidewalk behind the theaters. His first thought was that someone had discovered the truth about the flowers he'd given to his niece Elizabeth, that they were evacuating the theater, and people were panicking. But no, he realized a moment later, this was merely people disembarking the boat that had just come back from the memorial.
Muhammed found his spying place in the shade of a monkeypod tree, behind its angled trunk. A moment later, he saw another group of people exiting the theater, lining up at the dock. Yes, there was Rosalita, widow of his late cousin Jesus. But her 6-year-old daughter could not be seen, nor Muhammed's driver Wilhemina Orlando. Ah, but here they came, last one's out of the theater, Elizabeth carrying his flowers. Perfect. No, wait, they were not the last one's out of the theater.
Muhammed leaned against the tree as the three females went aboard the boat -- boat No. 13. In his right trouser pocket he felt what appeared to be a radio-control car door lock and glanced at the watch on his left wrist. Minutes, that's all, just minutes until the world was forced to take his people and their cries for independence seriously.
>> "They're too heavy," Elizabeth said, handing the flower bouquet to her mother. Wilhemina intercepted them. "Here, let me hold them for a while." The little girl was right. The bouquet was too heavy for just flowers, and heavier than it had been when they bought it back at Foodland in Aina Haina. Appearing to sniff the flowers' tropical sweetness, she saw the stems planted in a gray putty. The same stuff she'd seen her cousin Rey playing with recently. "Boom boom," Rey explained, making a little pun.
So that's why Muhammed had purposefully forgotten the flowers in the van, so he could go back and place this gray matter in the flowers.
Realizing that she was holding a bomb, Wilhemina panicked, jumped up, drew back the bouquet to throw it overboard.
>> What the hell is she doing? Muhammed thought from behind the monkeypod tree, reaching for the remote control.
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