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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Dust in the wind
>>Kona
Cruz MacKenzie's reservation was for just two nights, and there was an IBM convention coming in, so it was out of the King Kam and into the Kona Surf, where fortunately he knew the GM.
Cabbing it out to the Kona Surf to file his column, Cruz's brain was running full-tilt, bouncing around ideas for a lead. Once he had his lead, the rest of the column would practically write itself. He was pretty sure it would not be Daren Guy's abbreviated memorial service.
That was the scene, not the significance. And the AP photographer who was there for the service got some good shots of the dead shark. There was that angle. But the real story was the public outcry for a shark hunt. Government's response. Opinions from marine scientists. Jonah Hancock was both. Cruz would need others.
And it's an emotional issue. Everybody in the state wanted to be Daren Guy after he won the Lotto. People identified with him. And the next day he gets eaten by a shark. Mm, how about the Daren Guy Memorial Shark Hunt? That's what it had become.
The cab turned onto the flowery drive that leads to the Kona Surf, and Cruz realized the radio had been on all this time and he hadn't been aware of it, which was good because it meant he'd missed all but the last five bars of one of the five worst songs ever recorded, Dust In The Wind.
What did that make Daren Guy, Shark Poop In The Sea?
That's when Cruz heard the news about the Boogie Boarder getting chewed to death on Oahu.
How could the state not call for an official shark hunt now? The state was losing tax-payers at an alarming rate. The state would not like that.
The skiff, Sonya Chan noted as she putted past, was tied to Wet Spot. Who was this old man in the white hair and blue blazer who spoke in a hoarse whisper?
What kind of news from Daren did he have?
Where was Daren?
Why did the old guy say that Daren needed her very much?
What happened to Paul, the boat's skipper?
And what about the new crewman Paul said he was training?
Sonya tried to think logically, but her heart ran ahead of her with love and hope. Maybe he was aboard Wet Spot! She wanted Daren alive, she wanted this nightmare to be over, and she wanted to hug him. And that's all she really wanted. She had learned something about what's really important in life, and it was more than money.
She cut the engine and glided up to Daren's boat, the Mokua Aina, to change out of her black mourning clothes. Daren was alive, and she wanted to look good for him.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
