Chapter 6 No.6

If a globe is turned in just the right way, nothing can be seen but the Pacific and the far off edges of continents. The Hawaiian Islands are specks in the middle of this immensity. Kauai is a hundred miles from Oahu, practically next door. The Aloha Airlines jet climbed and then descended into Lihue before Joe had time to finish a glass of juice. Green sugar cane and red earth swept past lowering wings. A bump, a screech of tires, and they were down, taxiing to the small terminal.

Mo put away a small day planner in which she had been making notes.

"Canyon first?" she asked.

"Banana pancakes? Hard to explore on an empty stomach."

"I brought some fruit," she said. They rented a Toyota sedan, and Joe drove into Lihue.

"Too early for saimin," he said. "Too bad. There's a great place-Hamura's-biz people from Honolulu have been known to fly over for lunch to cure their hangovers." He parked by Kenny's. "O.K., this won't take long." They ordered breakfast.

"When I lived here," Joe said, "there was only one traffic light on the island, and it wasn't on a highway; it was in the middle of a cane field, for the trucks."

"It's changing fast," Mo said. "Too beautiful not to be discovered."

"If they stop the sugar subsidies, it's all over." Joe pushed his empty plate away. Mo was wearing a black sweatshirt, tan jeans, and running shoes. He had on his Filson bush jacket, Levis, and his all purpose Clarks shoes. They looked good together, he thought, Mr. and Ms. Competent.

"Did you notice the Kentucky Fried Chicken place on the way in to

Lihue?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I helped landscape it. Me and Whistling Ed Swaney. He was a sheriff in L.A.; he quit after the Watts riots. He had a whistling show on a radio station over there, fifteen minutes a week."

"Really?"

"Yup. He was a mighty muscle man-thirty years older than I was. I could barely keep up with him. The good thing about Whistling Ed was that he didn't talk much."

"Giving you free rein . . . "

"Yok. No. I didn't talk either, so we got along well. Anyway, we went from one posh house to the next, cutting grass and trimming trees. The owners treated him with great respect. I finally figured out why-he was always sweating. I gave it a name: Swaney's Law. If you're sweating, they can't shit on you."

They drove down to Nawiliwili Harbor and along a back road through cane fields that followed a line of mountains. Narrow green valleys cut into the mountains, mysteriously shaded. There was a sense of two cultures, of a border at the edge of the sugar cane that was crossed cautiously, if at all.

They came to the Poipu resort district and then headed up to the canyon rim where Joe had picked plums. They stood at the lookout, above a three thousand foot drop and ten miles of rugged red and gold walls flecked with green. Mountain goats, bits of white, chased each other up and down vertical slopes. "Incredible," Mo said, focusing her camera.

"It looks like they're playing tag," Joe said. "So free."

They drove to the end of the road and peered into the mist obscuring Kalalau valley where Koolau, the leper, remained buried. Clouds swirled and lifted, revealing glimpses of tree tops, steep ridges, and once, a small curve of beach far below. "I almost like it better this way," Mo said, "when you can't see it all at once. Brrrrr!" They piled into the car and drove back down to the sunny fields on the leeward side. They passed through road cuts, hundreds of yards of flaming bougainvillea on both sides, and by small plantation houses painted green, corrugated roofs rusted to the same red tones as the soil. "Stop!" Mo commanded from time to time. Joe stretched while she took pictures.

They drove through the built up area between Lihue and Kapaa and parked outside a medical complex. "Five minutes, ten maybe," Mo said. "The client," she explained when she returned. "Rob Wilcox. He's a fan, buys my stuff for his clinic and for his own collection."

"Great," Joe said. "Is there a Mrs. Wilcox?"

"No." She flushed slightly. They parked by the beach in Anahola, ate bananas and an orange, and decided to stretch their legs. Mo walked strangely on the sand, holding her shoes in one hand. Her pelvis tipped back; she shifted her weight stiffly from one leg to the other in an exaggerated prance that said, "You should be so lucky as to even look at me." But no one else was on the beach. She didn't seem conscious of the change. Joe looked away. Three-footers curled peacefully along the beach as far as he could see.

They sat on the soft sand, and Mo took off her sweatshirt. Joe lay back with his head on his shoes and admired her breasts, high and shapely beneath a gray T-shirt. Steady, he said to himself, the woman barely likes you. Who was she, anyway? She took good pictures; he knew that. He fell asleep for a moment.

Mo took over the driving. They were well around the island, past

Kilauea, when Joe asked, "The Tahiti Nui, do you know it? In Hanalei?"

"A restaurant, bar?"

"Yup. With a porch. I want to have a beer on the porch." Mo looked at her watch. "Plenty of time," Joe said. "Which flight are you on?"

"Four-thirty," she said.

"Mine is quarter to six . . . We still have time. Maybe I can get on the early one." They drove over a stream that curved through sparkling green rice paddies. Shortly afterwards, they stopped by the Tahiti Nui.

They sat on a wooden porch and looked across the humpy patched blacktop road to a steep hillside, densely green and silent. "Happiness," Joe said, touching Mo's glass with his. "By some accounts, Hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world. Kauai is the farthest out of the inhabited islands, and here we are at the end of the road. It stops right over there, can't make it around the Na Pali coast." He drank his beer and waved at the view. "Isn't it great, Mo? End of the road. Can't go any farther. How relaxing can you get? Nowhere to go but back-when we feel like it."

"At three o'clock," Mo said. She took a picture of the road and one of an orange cat curled on an old sofa next to the table.

"I had a cat like that once-'Jeremy,'" Joe said.

She turned and took one of him. "Joe Burke, at the end of the road," she offered in explanation.

"A long way from where I started."

"You were from Woodstock, right?" Joe nodded. "Were you at the festival?"

"No. I was running a laundromat that year. I leased it from an old friend whose wife was sick of cleaning it. I couldn't get away. It was no big deal. There had been little festivals for years-'Soundouts,' we called them-music all night, sleep in a field. I had no idea it was going to be so huge. And anyway, it wasn't actually in Woodstock; it was about forty miles away. Did you go?"

"I couldn't," Mo said. "I was in Vienna in a convent school. My father was on sabbatical. It was awful. My sister Beth was already in college. I wish I could have heard Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner."

"A major moment," Joe said. "When Hendrix died, the hot radio station in Honolulu scheduled that piece for twelve noon. They asked everyone to open their windows and crank up the volume. That was when I was driving a cab; you could hear Hendrix blasting all over the city."

Mo looked at her watch again. "It's that time, Joe."

"Damn shame," he said. They said goodbye to the cat, and Mo drove them back to Lihue where Joe had no trouble changing his flight.

"Fun day," he said as they parted in Honolulu.

"Bye, Joe." She smiled.

"I'll call you."

She lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Thanks for the warmth and commitment, he thought.

He had given up chasing women some time after Sally and before Ingrid. A kind woman had taken him in hand after a heartbreak and explained: "Joe, you can't earn love. Love is free. Someone loves you or they don't . . . God knows why." She had been so sad and so earnest that he knew it was true. Shortly thereafter a flashbulb went off. If you can't earn love, then, if someone doesn't love you, there's nothing you can do about it. What a liberation!

He wasn't going to run after Mo. A relationship might be around the corner. Or not. He wasn't all that sure he wanted one, anyway. He'd call her in a couple of weeks.