by Brad Manuel
“About a mile?” Dan said when they were in sight of the house.
“Yeah, that’s what I’d guess, maybe a little more, but a mile give or take.” Hank felt better after the walk. The fresh air helped him forget the rancid smells at the farmhouses. The walk stretched his legs and back, both tight from the twelve hour flight the day before.
They walked down the road to Rebecca’s house. She and Avery were in a discussion. The men waved, and went into the water, clothes and all.
“It’s the way it is Rebecca. I’m sorry. This isn’t a private Greg and Rebecca vacation. We are all in this together. Living in a big house by yourself, well, it’s not happening. I know you and Greg love each other.” The comment made Rebecca blush, but she did not drop her gaze from Avery. “And I know you value your privacy, but we are part of a cooperative now. You can have the first floor master. Hole up in there whenever you want, but you have to live with people. Unless you start your own family, and even then you’ll probably want people to help you, you have to accept all of us are in your life. We are part of your family. You’re not an only child.” Avery made it clear to her friend that other people were going to live in her house. Meredith and Avery were definitely moving into the home.
“But there are homes right next door. Why do you have to live with us, when you can live in the same community, but in a different house? That doesn’t make sense.” Rebecca did not argue as fiercely as Avery expected.
“We need to eat meals together, work together, help each other. I can’t be there for you if I’m living ten homes down the road by myself. That’s not a community. No walls like the old days. No locking yourself in your house and shutting out the world.” Avery put her hand on her new friend’s arm. “Besides, I’m moving in. You want this house? You’ll share it with me and Meredith, and anyone else who wants to live here. You don’t want to live with me? Move, but I’ll probably move with you.”
Rebecca believed Avery, that she would follow Rebecca and Greg from house to house. Rebecca also believed in the fundamentals of Avery’s position. This was a community. Moving into twenty different homes was against the fabric of what the tribe was trying to build.
“We get the big bedroom on the first floor, and if one of you is a slob, you’re out, or I’m out. I will live with people happily. I will not live with a slob.”
“Deal. Believe me, you’re making the right decision.” Avery was used to getting what she wanted. It might take more tenacity now that she was not the beautiful tennis princess, but Avery had plenty of tenacity.
Hank came up from the water. He felt refreshed from the awful job he just completed. “How did you two get out of unloading?”
“I don’t know.” Rebecca told him. “Honestly, we were just standing here, talking, and everyone left, and Ahmed told us to stay here and keep things under control. We were both like, ‘okay.’”
“We didn’t want to be total slackers, so we gathered fruits and vegetables from all around the homes. We started a map of the local fruit.” Avery pointed towards a table with a bounty of fruits, peppers, avocados, and a large white paper. “Then we became slackers.”
“We even found some onions.” Rebecca added.
Hank walked to the table and looked through the vegetables and at the map. He could not believe how much food was available. Flocks of wild chickens wandered around, fruit fell off the trees, fish almost jumped into the nets. Kauai was a Godsend for their group.
“We cleared the homes. The farmhouses might take a few days to air out, and we’ll have to move new beds into the bedrooms, but everything is done.” Hank sat down at the table, grabbing a banana from the basket. “What are you two talking about?”
“Community.” Rebecca said. “Avery convinced me of the idea that we need to stay close, live in a tight community rather than spread out. I’m willing to give it a try.”
“So you aren’t keeping the big house for just you and Greg?” Hank looked at Avery. “You’re good, well done.”
“I usually get what I want.” Avery put her hands behind her head as she lay back in the chair and closed her eyes.
“Well, I’m still impressed. We looked at the houses on either side of this house. Each home has a separate guest house and four or five bedrooms. We can all live very comfortably in this area. The farmhouses are more spread out, but the people who want to live down in the fields will be happy in two of those homes. They are just down the road from each other.”
“Hello!” Greg said, rounding the corner of the house and into the backyard. He was dirty with green flora stains, dirt, and what appeared to be blood. “I need a little help. Mighty hunter bagged himself a pig, or a boar, or something that resembles a pig but with tusks. It was mean.” He held up his hand and showed a cut running across the back. The cut was not deep, but it looked painful.
“How big?” Hank asked. He walked towards Greg and made a motion that he would help, holding his arm up above his head and pointing to the front yard.
“It’s going to feed us.” Greg assured him. “For a few days I suspect.”
A large hairy beast lay in the back of the truck. “I would guess it weighs at least forty pounds, maybe fifty on a good day. I had a rough time getting it into the truck by myself.”
“Holy crap, Greg.” Hank was stunned. He did not expect the boar to be so big.
“I know. I’ve gotten pretty good with the bow. It still came at me, so I hacked it down with my machete, right in the head, like it was a zombie or something.” There was pride in Greg’s voice. “I cleaned it in the woods, which lowered the weight enough so I could pick it up and put it in the truck.”
Hank put his arm around his nephew. “Well, it’s not as big as the moose Paul and I killed, but it’s a nice sized animal for you.”
“You mean the moose that wandered into town and stood still while you and Paul shot it twice?”
“Yes, Greg. The ton of animal with large antlers that I killed. The animal that fed all of us for weeks, and is still feeding us, like the moose fried rice you had this morning.” Hank could one up the kid all day.
“I give.” Greg said. “Unless I catch a great white shark, I’m never going to out do you and Paul. You win.” Greg did not care about the good natured ribbing. The boar was a prized kill. Like the fruit around them, and the fish they so easily pulled from the ocean, this boar was proof that they would not just live on the island. The group was going to thrive on the island.
The airplane unloading party pulled up an hour later. Tired, sweaty people poured out of their SUV’s. Emily was at the head of the pack. “It is five degrees cooler up here, maybe ten degrees cooler.” She found her husband on a lounge chair.
“It’s done.” She told him. “Half of us probably have heat stroke, but it’s done. All the supplies are in the truck.” She sat down on the foot part of his chair. Todd sat up and crossed his legs in front of himself.
“The houses are cleared of bodies. Greg killed a wild boar. Avery and Rebecca gathered fruit. I think we can relax, if we can figure out where we are sleeping tonight.”
“Where do you want to live?” Emily was a mess. Her hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail that stuck through the back of a baseball cap she wore to block the sun. The cap was soaked with sweat. A thin white line of salt ran across the brim at the top of the sweat. A few strands of her hair stuck to her forehead. Her arms were streaked with grease and dirt, as were her legs.
“Hawaii?” Todd replied. “Kauai?”
Emily ignored him. “John is going to live here, by the water for Craig. Solange and he are going to stay together, obviously. Matt wants to live on the farm. Mel is going to live on the farm with Cameron, Jackie, and Jacob. Kelly is joining them to care for her animals. I am leaning towards living down in the valley.”
Todd looked behind his wife to the ocean. “All of this is new. The way we’re going to live will be new too. I understand your need for stability. I know you want a permanent room for the ki
ds. You want them to grow up with friends their own age. What is Bernie going to do? She has little ones too.” Todd thought for a second before continuing.
“Maybe we live both places. Maybe the village is where we end up some nights. If Craig has a big haul, the farmers will come up here, and instead of walking down the road in the dark, they stay in this location. Maybe when Greg kills another boar, instead of walking it all the way to the ocean, we cook it at the farms, and the ocean people stay down there. Jay and Brian need to know how to fish, hunt, and farm, and be comfortable in both locales.”
“We can’t move them around every day or week.” Emily did not like Todd’s answer.
“Then my answer is I don’t know.” He took her grimy hand. He flipped it over and saw blisters on her palm and fingers. “Ouch.” He said to her. “I might not like the farm. I might not like the sea. The great thing is, I’m telling you we don’t have to make a firm decision. We won’t have a mortgage. We can move.”
“I’d like to try the valley first.” Emily took hold of his hand. She squeezed it like a person in love.
“Works for me. The real question is. Will it work for Hubba?”
Emily leaned in to give Todd a hug.
“Are you nuts?” He said, pulling away from her advance. “You’re filthy. Go in the ocean or take a shower.” Todd let go of her hand. “Yuck.”
Emily did not back away. She pushed her husband onto the lounge chair, grabbing his hands and pinning him down. She kissed him. Todd feigned a struggle, but kissed her back.
“Get a room.” Melanie said a few feet away as she toweled off from her swim. “There are impressionable children and jealous widows nearby.”
The house was equipped with a grill, and like the other high end furnishing, it was a top of the line wood drawer model.
Ahmed flipped pork chops, now sizzling above the flames.
“Fried mango rice for breakfast. Ceviche for lunch. Pork for dinner. I think we’ve adapted to life in Hawaii quite nicely.” Ahmed took a sip from his glass of water. He held the glass up to the group sitting in front of him. “To our first full day.”
“Hear hear!” Was the loud reply.
“Our first crop should be rice. If corn is possible, we do corn, but I know we can grow rice here. Right? We’re practically in Asia.” Matt strategized with Melanie.
“We need a grain, that’s for sure. We can grow sweet potatoes or something easy like that in pots. We’ll check the books at the library. It should have local knowledge and information we could not access in Hanover.” Melanie listened to Matt while combing Casey’s hair. She liked Matt, and knew he would be a great partner. She needed to harness his enthusiasm. Farming was a long term project. Matt wanted crops to grow ‘tomorrow.’
Similar conversations occurred across the lanai, decisions about where people would sleep that night and live the next day, decisions about what supplies needed to go to the farms and what stayed at the beach, decisions about how often the groups would gather.
At 6:30 the sun was still high in the sky, but everyone was exhausted. The early wakeup by the roosters at dawn, working in the heat and sun, and the five hour time shift caught up with the tribe. Cameron, Bridget, and Wendy were curled up on couches, taking quick naps before dinner.
“We need tables.” Bernie said to Kelly and Jamie.
“There is one inside.” Jamie pointed to the dining room table visible from their seats.
“No, we need a couple of long tables, and we need a few sets, one set for here and one set for the farm. We need to eat together at tables.” Bernie referred to an ongoing communal eating area, not their immediate dinner plans. “I’ll ask Ahmed to find a library or high school to locate long tables and chairs. We need our dinners to be social and in one locale.”
Kelly described the lanai at the farmhouse. “It will accommodate tables for all of us, and enforce rule number two.”
Jamie looked puzzled. “What is rule two? And what is rule one for that matter?”
“Rule two is never go two days without eating together. John and Paul are setting up loose tribe rules, and they want to make sure we stay unified. We never go more than one day without gathering for a meal. We always come together every other dinner or lunch. We can eat every meal together if we want, but never two days apart.”
Jamie was tickled. “I could not agree more with rule number two. What’s rule one?”
“It’s more of a way of life than a rule.” Bernie told her. “Rule one is to always remember that we are in this together. I believe it is being referred to as the ‘thick or thin’ rule.”
Jamie understood rule one. She survived a bleak and hungry winter in New York City because of rule one. Her eyes filled with tears. She raised her water glass and barely got out an “amen.”
“That’s my line.” Bernie chuckled, clinking Jamie’s glass in agreement.
61
Rebecca woke to the sound of roosters. A week had passed, and she still had no idea how to get rid of the roosters, or keep them from crowing at sunrise. She did not move. She was on her side in a king bed with her eyes open, staring at the wall. Greg lay next to her. “Just go back to sleep.” He mumbled. “They’ll stop in a little while.” He pulled a pillow over his head.
“You know I can’t fall back asleep once I’m up.” Rebecca sat up in their bed. She wore a U.N.H t-shirt. She brought several of them to remind her of her home. She put her feet in slippers next to the bed and left the room.
It was cool in the mornings, dropping into the high 60’s overnight. Rebecca poured herself a glass of water and walked out onto the Lanai. She sat in a chaise lounge chair. The pillow was cool, but not wet from dew. She made sure to keep the chairs under the roof so they were dry in the morning. The coop she brought from Concord was in the yard, and several roosters strolled around the fence surrounding her mainland chickens. They kept eight chickens at the house for eggs. She planned to incubate and hatch dozens of chickens. She wanted fresh eggs each morning without making the long walk to the farm.
“Morning.” She nodded to the roosters. One crowed at her before strutting away. Greg came outside and sat down in the chair beside her. He wore an orange hooded sweatshirt. The hood was up to keep his head warm.
Lapping waves and an ever present wind created a constant din. The price they paid for living less than twenty-five yards from the ocean.
He put his hand out, and she took it, intertwining their fingers. He leaned back in his chair. Rebecca and Greg sat and watched the roosters walk around the yard.
“I believed you when you told me we’d make it, that you’d keep me alive.” Greg’s head was turned, looking at her. She focused on the chickens.
“I know.” She squeezed his hand.
“I don’t know why I did. You were some teeny bopper, skipping back and forth from your house to the trash cans on the street, but for some reason, I believed you.”
She looked at him. His skin was a dark tan from the week under the tropical sun.
“Thank you.” He said to her.
“Anytime.” She smiled.
They heard footsteps come down the stairs in the front hall. The roosters claimed other victims. Rebecca and Greg did not move. They held hands and watched the Pacific Ocean break against the sandy Hawaiian shore.
Table of Contents
Book One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Book Two
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Book Three
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
