by Austin Aslan
The truth of his words lingers like cigarette smoke; it stinks, and I’m not ready to breathe it in.
Dad squeezes my shoulder. “Mine’s charged and still works.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have any music.”
“What was the last song you listened to?”
“I don’t remember. Why?”
Dad shrugs.
I force a smile, try to make light of it. “Oh, now I remember what it was.”
“What?”
“John Denver. ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane.’ ”
“That’s not funny.” Dad shakes his head.
“It is when you try to sing it.”
We both laugh.
It’s just dead weight, but I place the phone in my backpack.
Now and then it rains for several minutes at a time as dark purple clouds drift quickly by, but mostly it’s stayed sunny and humid in the strange light filtering down through the sky. Occasionally, a bus offers to take people—mostly families with young keikis—to the nearby beach. The kids and their parents love it. Dad and I never go. Even though it would be good to replace running laps and dribbling soccer balls with actual swimming practice, we don’t want to miss a flight while we’re away.
If they were taking folks to the Kailua beaches, maybe then I would go. A chance to surf.
When the “beach bus” returns on Saturday afternoon, the families file into the camp, looking fresh and rather cheerful compared with the rest of us. We should have gone this time, I think. Only one flight was called all day, not for the Big Island. A little dip in the bay, in spite of its floating trash heaps, would have done my spirit a lot of good.
Two keikis run by me—a small Hawaiian brother and sister—covered in mosquito-bite welts. Their mom chases after them. The mosquitoes have found her, too. They settle into their space a few yards away from us and the mom says, “I said stop scratching! They’re making you bleed. It’s gonna get infected!”
I watch the three of them for a moment, grimace at myself, and unzip my backpack. I pull out my smaller can of repellent. I hesitate, put it back, and take the larger one.
Before I can change my mind, I trot over to the mother and present her with the bug spray. “Here, take it.”
“Fo real?” She reaches for it.
“I’ve got … you know … I got plenny,” I whisper.
“Mahalo.”
* * *
The weeping at night has been replaced by coughing, and every day that we’ve been here, older people have been carried away on gurneys. One body is taken away beneath a sheet, the lumpy, shrouded gurney hauled through the gate over a muddy path and out of view.
CHAPTER 14
We’ve been in camp for a full week. This morning the soldiers are wearing masks.
The masks are the soft, white kind—the type dentists wear. But where’s mine? I feel like the only passenger without a parachute on a plummeting plane.
I sit down on the cot, lean over, and draw a map in the dirt with my finger. Kaua`i, off to the left. O`ahu, bigger, right in front of me. About the size of those masks. Moloka`i, a long finger to O`ahu’s right. Then Maui, a figure-eight shape, slightly lower. Then the Big Island. Mom. Kai. Grandpa.
I study the distances between the islands. Can I do it? Can I swim that? No way. But could Dad and I row it?
The answer has to be yes.
I start my next set of push-ups, my eyes fixed on the gap between O`ahu and Moloka`i. One island at a time. If we have to, we’ll do it. We’ll make it work.
One. Two. Three.
I’ve seen Grandpa canoeing like a frigate bird over the water in Hilo Bay. He could do it. Then so can I.
Four. Five. Six.
Moloka`i—once famous for the old leper colonies. The government’s quarantine policy ended in the sixties, but before that, people were sent there to live out their lives. Never to return.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
Moloka`i doesn’t like outsiders. Surfing, for example—don’t even try it if you don’t live there.
But you have the right to belong. Fight for it, like Pele.
Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
We’ll make it work. We’ll get there even if we have to paddle on surfboards.
Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
And then we’ll keep going.
* * *
On Thursday I see Aukina patrolling the perimeter of the far side of the fence. He’s. So. Hot! It’s still obvious how young he is compared to most of the soldiers. In my mind’s eye I catch a glimpse of Grandpa—straight out of high school on a battleship. Looking like that. It makes me smile. I head toward the fence.
I attempt to brush my fingers through my tangled black hair, for all the good it will do, as I catch up to him. “Hi, Aukina.”
He turns. His mouth is covered with a mask, but the smile shows in his eyes. He waves. “Hey, Leilani. Howzit? Been watching you on the soccer field. One mean forward.”
“Really?” I float into the air, a flush rises into my neck. “Um, thanks. You should play!”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you: I asked around about your meds.”
“Yeah?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry. Nothing like that on base. What’s it for?”
I shrug uncomfortably. “No worries, just …” Only forty left. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”
I change the subject. “Hey, what’s up with the masks? Why do you get to wear them and we don’t? It’s creeping everybody out.”
Aukina looks down at his feet for a moment before a muffled answer comes. “There’s a nasty flu spreading at the other camp. I don’t like that we’re supposed to wear them in front of everyone.”
“It’s not more than that, is it? Like, radiation?”
“No. That would mean creepier masks. The day we march out here with those … it’s all over either way.”
I slouch forward against the fence. That’s encouraging. “Hey, trust me,” he offers. “Folks are monitoring radiation. This isn’t about that. People are getting sick in that camp. You can’t put thousands of people in one place in the tropics without issues, yeah?”
“Well, even so, didn’t your mother tell you not to bring out your toys if you weren’t willing to share?”
He studiously scrapes his muddy boot over a patch of grass. “I’ll mention it to the sergeant, Leilani.”
“Good.”
“Dang, are all girls from Hilo as tita as you?” he asks.
He just called me tita. Does that mean I finally belong? I laugh. “ ‘No. Just me, baby. Just me.’ ” That’s a line from the film Army of Darkness.
He doesn’t seem to pick up on the reference, and I’m mortified. Dad and his movies! An awkward silence falls. My cheeks grow warm. Of course he doesn’t know that movie, stupid. “I was joking,” I try. “I’m actually the nicest person from Hilo. In Hilo, I mean. I’m not from Hilo. Well, I am now, but …”
“Lei,” Aukina says. I fall silent. “It’s all good. I was just teasing you.”
“Oh, yeah. Well … anyway, I better go.”
“K’den. See you around.”
“I’ll be … here.” I turn to leave but whip back around when my stomach grumbles. My embarrassment fades. “Hey, Aukina?”
“Yeah, Lei?”
“I’m so hungry. Do you have any real food?”
Aukina shakes his head. “I’m hungry, too.”
I turn, but whip again as he adds, “Hey, Lei?”
“Yeah?”
“You see this?” he says, hefting his rifle with a wry smile.
I frown. “Yeah. So?”
“ ‘This is my boom stick,’ ” he begins. I laugh. That’s the most famous line from Army of Darkness, when the time-traveling hero Ash shows off his twelve-gauge Remington shotgun to King Arthur and a crowd of “primitive screw-heads.”
Aukina continues, grin widening, “ ‘S-Mart’s top of the line. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?�
�� ”
I march away, beaming. Oh. My. God. He’s an even bigger nerd than I am!
In the early afternoon, the rest of us are issued masks. I doubt I had anything to do with it. Apparently, someone dredged up a dusty box of medical supplies. They look like they’ve been in storage since the days of Pearl Harbor. Most people eagerly strap them on, and now only their wild eyes show their fear.
Dad and I put them on.
I pace for a bit, then disappear into my book. I read about King Kamehameha, who united the islands and abolished the bloodthirsty kapu, or system of taboos. And he won his later wars with a little help from Captain Cook and the other Europeans who “discovered” Hawai`i. Kamehameha’s rule was foretold, and the kahunas prophesied that his arrival would be marked by a fire in the sky. Turned out to be true. Halley’s Comet.
Maybe the Emerald Orchid is just a sign of good things to come.
Yeah, and maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.
I laugh out loud. Another quote from Army of Darkness. Where’s Aukina when you need him?
* * *
In the evening our soccer match is interrupted by the sound of gunfire from the camp across the road. Everyone rushes to the fence. I hear screams and shouting and see something that nearly stops my heart. A body is draped over the top of the other camp’s high fence. A group of soldiers scurries about, devising a plan to pull it down, while other soldiers push onlookers back.
Dad searches for his next words as we peer across the distance. “These camps aren’t going to hold together much longer.”
Our own wardens appear outside of our fence, blocking our view. “Turn around! Move away from the fence.”
I spot Aukina. “Hey!” I shout through my mask. “Did you guys shoot that guy?”
“Lei,” Dad begins, but his muffled protest dies as others around me take up the chorus. A yelling match ensues. The soldiers hold their position. Aukina and I share a glance before my view of him is blocked by another soldier. He looks sad … maybe even frightened.
Dad pulls me back from the fence by the sweaty collar of my raggedy blouse. “Someone tried to escape.”
We slouch back to our cot. “You okay, Lei?”
I force a smile, hoping Dad can see it in my eyes above the mask. I want to rip it off. It itches and it’s stuffy and it scares me. But I’m more scared to not have it on. I pat his arm. “Don’t worry, I won’t break into a seizure every time someone gets shot in the face.”
Dad presses his palms into his eyes, mumbles something.
“What?”
“Maybe you should,” he finally says.
“Huh?” A prickle of adrenaline shoots up my back.
Carefully, he says, “Have a seizure.”
“You’re asking me to go through that on purpose?” The question is calm, but I want to scream.
He presses forward. “I could play it up. We’d get shortlisted. Wake up in Hilo. This place is eating me up from the inside, Lei. I’m desperate. Aren’t you?”
“Dad.” My heart’s pounding. “I … I can’t just turn them on. We waited all that time at the clinic and …”
“You were on an experimental dose then. When you weren’t, they came fast and furious. Besides, I found this.” He pulls a pink artificial-sweetener packet from his pocket.
“Dad.” He didn’t just find that. He’s been looking for it, planning this.
“Or you could even fake one.”
“Stop it. Stop it.” I stand up and take a few steps away from him.
Dad closes his eyes, shakes his head. “I’m sorry. Forget it. I’m just … thinking out loud. It was dumb.” He tosses the sweetener packet in the dirt.
I sit back down on the cot. “Don’t … feel bad.”
“I’m sorry, Leilani,” Dad says with a crackly voice. “I haven’t handled this very well.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not James Bond. I’m … Mike.”
“Oh, Dad.” There’s so much I want to say. I remove my mask and I sit with him. I reach out and gently touch the raised skin on his hand, a scar he’ll probably always have as thanks for keeping me from choking.
“You’re … exactly the dad I want you to be. We’re in this together, remember? You said that to me. We’re both responsible for each other, okay?”
He nods, but I wonder if he heard. He pushes his mask up against his forehead. “I can tell you all you need to know about biogeochemical cycles, why rare Hawaiian plants aren’t getting pollinated anymore. What good is any of that? The birds and the trees won’t need my help once humanity dies off. I couldn’t even get us off O`ahu. God, I miss Malia so damned much. Kai, too.”
“Dad.” I bury my head in his shoulder. Humanity dying off?
“Day after next, it’ll be three weeks since we flew out here. Three weeks! We should have—”
“Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. Right?” I say. “Unless you’re one-eyed Rocky the Randy Pirate,” I add, laughing.
“Then it’s just … twenty.”
He cracks up, and it makes my heart sing.
“It’s still so surreal,” I say. “I just want to take it all back, go back in time, not get on that plane. Stockpile food and put up a fortress in time. Live somewhere else, where this nightmare isn’t happening.”
Dad wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I should have let you bring the board.”
“Huh?”
“Your longboard. I should have let you bring it. If I could go back in time, that’s what I’d change.”
“What?”
“Well, I’d change everything else, too. But—weirdest thing—that’s been on my mind. I was wrong.”
I laugh. “I actually think you were right.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. If I had brought it, I would have lost it. Now it’s waiting for me back home.”
“Good point.”
Dad absently draws in the dirt with his finger.
“We can’t stay here, Lei. These … meals … we’re getting weaker, not stronger. If we don’t get a plane tomorrow or the next day … things aren’t going to hold together here. So many people want out. I’m going to speak to some of them tomorrow, see if as a group we can … ask to leave.”
“What will we do instead?”
Dad releases an explosive sigh. “We waited too long in Honolulu, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
“They just made it real clear that we can’t leave.”
“We have to ask. If they still say no, then … I want to get out before things deteriorate.”
I look at the fence. The shouting has only gathered steam. “Before they deteriorate?”
Dad grins ruefully. “We’ll have a new moon in a couple days. It’ll be darkest then. We have to find a way out during that window.”
“Maybe we’ll get on a flight before then.”
Dad turns away. I reach down and snatch up the artificial sweetener while he isn’t looking.
When a new tank of water is put out, I take my epilepsy medication and a bottle of painkillers over. I’ve been having headaches, probably because I’m dehydrated.
As I wait for my turn at the water jug, my mind is on fire with escape plans and the echoes of gunfire. I imagine trying to row thirty-plus miles over open ocean against the current and feel sick to my stomach. Nothing comes to mind that isn’t high risk. It’s finally my turn at the water tank. I pop the ibuprofen. Only a few left. My epilepsy pills: forty total. Twenty days’ worth.
Leilani, I think. Do your part.
I put the pills away, my hands trembling. I pour Dad’s packet of sweetener into my cup, close my eyes tightly, and drink. Then I race back to be close to Dad.
CHAPTER 15
You are Leilani. I am Leilani.
It is a good thing. It passes on and my purpose is done. The kahuna warns King Alapa`i, “One day a boy will be born who will kill every chief, rule every isle. Look for the sign of your doom—a great fire in the sky
—and kill the newborn while he suckles.”
Suckle. Gather your strength.
When Halley’s Comet flares above the ocean, Alapa`i orders the baby Pai`ea murdered. But the infant’s parents secretly pass his care to a friend.
Leilani. It passes. Time to linger and grow strong on the heat. Pai`ea grows into a skilled warrior. Alapa`i dies, and Pai`ea slays the rightful heirs. He becomes the first to reign alone over the entire island of Hawai`i. He schemes with false gods to rule all the islands.
We are together now, but we will drift away, as I once did. For now, we linger.
He is forever known as Kamehameha, and of him the prophets sang:
E iho ana o luna
E pi`i ana o lalo
E hui ana na moku
E ku an aka paia.
That which is above will come down
That which is below will rise up
The islands shall unite
The walls shall stand firm.
I slowly come to. I’m lying on the same cot in our same muddy spot.
“Hi,” Dad says, muffled by a face mask. “You back? You’ve been in and out for a while now, dazed.”
I sit up. Dad’s cross-legged in the mud beside me. I lift my own mask over my forehead. “Hey.” After another moment of dialing in to my surroundings: “This isn’t Hilo.”
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“I’m so hungry.”
“Here.” Dad offers me a can of Spam.
My eyes grow wide and I peel it open and dig into it with my fingers. “Where’d you get this?” I ask between gulps.
“Well, it’s your consolation prize. I tried everything. Apparently grand mal seizures are pretty low on the triage list these days, if you would believe it.”
My memory grows clearer. The seizure happened Thursday night. “What day is it today?”
“Who cares?” Dad says. “It’s Friday evening.”
“Well, that was dumb.”
“No. It served a purpose.” Dad leans in close. “I’m convinced we’re really on our own.”
“What do you mean?”
“A bunch of us are going to petition tomorrow. And you’ll scan the perimeter while I’m with the others. Look for any weak spots in the fencing along the ground that you and I could crawl under.”
