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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Family values
>> 15,000 feet
The pilot announced that they were beginning the final approach -- an unnecessarily fatalistic term, Cruz MacKenzie thought -- to the Keahole Airport as Jasmine passed him two 1.5-ounce plastic bottles filled with golden nectar from his clan's homeland. She waved away his $10 bill.
"Never decline when a journalist offers to buy," he whispered.
But she winked conspiratorially and squeezed his hand. Coming from any other woman, he'd have called that flirting. It was all Cruz could do to refrain from jerking his hand away.
He'd known Jasmine since she was, jeez, 8 or 9. She was now a big girl, actually a beautiful young woman with a stunning figure that he couldn't ignore but wouldn't dwell on. Cruz had nothing against inter-generational dating, fore or aft, but he'd never get involved with the daughter of an old friend. Heck, Biggie Kanaka was one of the first guys Cruz met when he came over from the Bay Area.
They met at Olomana Golf Links, just happened to get paired together. It was Thanksgiving morning and most guys were busy with familial obligations.
Cruz didn't have any and Biggie had Pua to take care of everything at their Waimanalo homestead. By the 15th hole, Biggie hanai'd the new columnist and insisted that he come home for Thanksgiving dinner. It beat the heck out of the Swanson's Deluxe frozen TV turkey dinner Cruz had waiting at his Waikiki apartment. That's when he first met Jasmine, a shy kid then preoccupied with books and Barbies and horses. She called him "Uncle." Today was the first time she hadn't.
Of course, Cruz's high-minded morality had absolutely nothing to do with Biggie standing 6-foot-5 or weighing 275 pounds or being a former weightlifting champion or running the most popular nightclub in Waikiki or even recent allegations about his underworld connections. No, Cruz believed in family values, which do not include romantic images of your niece, hanai or otherwise.
Fact is, looking at Mauna Loa out of the jet window, it was Sonya who was on his mind as Cruz twisted the cap off one bottle, sipped it, shivered.
The plane banked over the sea, so blue and clear and inviting.
This was the first trip to the Big Island that Cruz hadn't packed fins and mask since -- when? -- 15 years ago when his old friend Scot Bishop introduced him to the joys of life below sea level. He loved the quiet of the deep blue, the deeper and bluer the better. But after what happened to Daren Guy, and to that Maui woman, Cruz would be staying dry until somebody could explain what was going on in the ocean.
Well, except for an occasional drink he'd be dry. He cracked the cap of the second Johnny Walker.
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com