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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Fear and loving
>> Big Island
Fear and loving, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, described Cruz MacKenzie's relationship with helicopters. He'd flown in all kinds of choppers, from double-prop Army Chinooks to two-man whirligigs. They were wondrous machines, allowing people do and see things that would otherwise be impossible. But they scared the you know what out of him, especially after what happened to the late Maui Coroner Pat Ohara.
But here he was, floating over the coffee fields of the Big Island with Nick Ornellas, the ex-cop turned insurance salesman. He'd rented the four-man Bell to inspect damage to fields and homes done by a new lava flow, the first on this side of the island in 100 years. Sitting in the back, Cruz again found it exhilarating and flew with eyes wide open, taking in the once-in-a-lifetime views.
They were passing Captain Cook when his cell phone rang. It was the intern Mei Lin from the office. Cruz had asked her to check on the birth records of Daren Guy, expecting nothing more than proof of his parenthood, and apparent reason for -- it was Cruz's theory --trying to scam Ornellas' company. Cruz listened as Mei Lin told him what she'd found, thanked her for her good work.
"Eh, Ornellas," he said, grateful that they wore headphones so they could talk without shouting. "You want to hear something weird?"
"Seems to be a regular thing with you."
What a comic. "I think you'll be interested. One of our interns checked Daren Guy's birth records. Turns out the birth date is correct, but the late Mrs. Guy, his mother, did not give birth that day at Kapiolani. There was, however, a baby named Daren born then, one of twin boys. The records show that he was immediately adopted by the sister of the birth mother, and that's how he became Daren Guy."
"Nice story, but not that weird, even for back then."
"Jeez, can't you wait for the punch line? The other twin, Daren's brother, is Virgil Root."
"The guy he listed among the beneficiaries as his cousin!"
"Sonya told me Daren always said he was an only child and had seen his only cousin just once, when they were 9 or 10. Sounds like he doesn't know he has a brother."
"OK, that is weird. But so what? Daren Guy is dead."
"There it is," the pilot said. Dead ahead they saw smoke rising. Soon a black streak of fresh lava came into view. They followed it from the source, a new pu'u at about 3,000 feet elevation, noting the homes and farms it smothered and burned. "Look over there, the lava is just crossing the road. Those folks down at the beach are in trouble."
"Yeah, but they have a sailboat," Cruz said. "Omigod, it looks like ..."
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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