My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Spirit to spirit
>> Waimea Bay
Meg Choy Primitivo crossed herself in front of her low-cut black swimsuit, whispered a prayer for Chookie Boy Kulolo as he paddled his board toward shore on a wave that rose before her like a blue frothing monster.
If he were God, Jake Peepers, P.I., thought, appreciating this confluence of religion and cleavage, he'd answer any prayer at all this woman offered. And not just because she happened to be his client.
God had other ideas.
The wave rose higher, then rose some more, and the crowd gathered on the beach for The Eddie knew instantly that this was not one of the mere 28-footers that had been thundering in. This was something more, something fiercer, a rogue wave that later would be estimated at 45 feet. It was the biggest wave seen at Waimea in years, and for a moment a hush fell across the beach as Chookie Boy in his yellow vest balanced his red needle-nose board at its crest.
And then Chookie Boy started down, slashing a streak across the immense face that towered above the crowd, and a roar went up, shouts and cheers and screams.
"That's insane!" three young guys who were cutting school hollered behind Meg.
And it was.
Chookie Boy crouched like a fighter on the red board. He wasn't one of those pretty little surfers who finessed a wave. Chookie Boy was thick as a bear, but quick like a cat, and it was his style to attack a wave, grapple with it and make it his own. And as he carved his way down the bumpy face of the wave it was his.
But then he went airborne, free-falling five, 10, 15 feet, and for what seemed like forever it was just him, the wave and gravity. He grabbed the rails, trying to balance himself at landing, and at first impact he held it together and the board skipped like a stone down the wave. With each bounce, falling feet at a time, he lost balance, tilting evermore forward, and on the fourth impact he fell free of the board and skipped on his back headfirst down the wave that now descended on him in a crush of blue and billowing white. Chookie Boy was the wave's.
Lifeguards on jet skis sped toward the impact zone, but nobody on the beach believed they'd ever see Chookie Boy Kulolo alive and breathing again.
Nobody except Meg. She prayed as she'd never prayed, for there was something about this young man that had grabbed -- not just her mind and her heart but -- her very spirit. She'd come here to die, and he gave her reason to live. Meg moved toward the surf line, her spirit calling to his. Come to me, Chookie, come to me.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com