Austin Aslan - The Islands at the End of the World

I shrink away even though he’s on the other side of the street.

“Tune him out, Lei.” Dad squeezes my hand.

“What if he’s right, Dad?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. The end of the world …”

“Really? Hon—”

I interrupt. “No, I’m serious. Why is this happening? Why would God let this happen?”

Dad believes in God, but he has no patience for organized religion. He wants us to meditate each night before dinner, but he doesn’t make us do it a certain way. I believe in God, but I’ve found sanctuary in the gods of Hawai`i. I pray and I learn the chants and I talk to them. Sometimes, on the wind and in the waves, He— they —will whisper back.

Dad twists in his seat. “Can I get back to you on that, Lei?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. The truth is I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ll get back to you, okay? Promise.”

A thunderous crack startles me. I scream and jerk backward. The windshield on my side has shattered into a spider-web. Dad screeches to a halt. A large cinder block tumbles from the hood.

“Jesus,” Dad says. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. What the …?”

Something strikes the car from behind. We both turn. A second cinder block slides off the hatchback onto the street. I hear cackling and whoops of delight from above.

Someone’s bombarding us from the trees. “Dad, go!” I bark.

He punches the gas and our Civic peels away.

“What was that about?” My heart is pounding.

Dad races down the hill, turns a corner, parks along a curb. “I’ll take that as a lesson.” He jumps out of the car, opens the hatch, and rummages through his backpack. When he returns to the driver’s seat, his camping utility knife is open. I freeze in surprise. What are you going to do to them ? But he uses the blade to scrape the two bar codes off either side of the windshield.

I get what he’s doing.

Every rental car in Hawai`i can be identified by white bar codes on the windshield. Tami is good at pointing them out each time we go surfing. If we were the wrong type of people, we could make a killing with all the cameras and wallets that we know are hidden below that towel cleverly placed in the footwell.

“You’re going to have to pay a fine for removing that.”

Dad peels back the last of the stickers. “They can have my Timex.” He folds up the knife and quickly drives away.

I can’t see anything out of the windshield now. The car is trashed. “This wouldn’t be another one of those ‘hindsight’ moments, would it?”

Dad laughs. “There’s nothing twenty-twenty about the state of this windshield.”

I clench my teeth. So much for feeling welcome on O`ahu .

Dad parks illegally along the seawall.

“Should I wait here?” I ask nervously.

“No. We stick close together.”

I jump out of the car. I reach for my pack, but Dad stops me. “There’s too much. Let’s find a ride first,” he suggests. He stuffs our packs into the trunk with the rest of our bags, glancing around.

“But what if we …?”

“If there’s no time, we’ll leave it. But I bet our hosts will be able to spare two minutes for the extra food.”

I fish out my meds and zip them into my pocket before he closes the trunk.

Ahead of us along the curb, a man and his son are siphoning gas out of a pickup truck. Dad watches them and then darts off to a sidewalk planter.

He returns with a few ` a`a lava rocks, opens the gas tank, and uses one rock to hammer another one into the shaft until it’s firmly jammed into place. He leaves the flap open as an obvious sign of uselessness to others.

We approach the marina. The sky is hazier than it was in the morning. It’s almost like an orange filter has been placed over the sun. “Is there a forest fire around here?” I ask.

Dad pauses, studies the sky. “Let’s hope so.” He picks up his pace.

The boats are moored all along the long rows of piers. Dozens of groups of people move along the docks busily.

“Lei, I’m making this up as we go. Feel free to offer suggestions.”

Okay , I think. But I’ve got nothing.

We step onto the wharf. There could be as many as two hundred sailboats. “Should we split up?” I ask. “Each take an end?”

Dad agonizes, finally shakes his head. “No. We’re not separating. We’ll just have to move quickly.”

The first ten sailboats are far apart and vacant. Only one of them is small enough not to require a crew. “Maybe we should just take it.”

“Don’t tempt me. But I know enough about sailing to know that I don’t know enough.”

At the end of the next pier, someone emerges on a top deck just as we walk past. He steps to the edge of his boat and urinates into the water. Dad pauses, embarrassed.

The sailor doesn’t let him begin. “Not interested. Unless you come with a barrel of rum, and when I say barrel, I mean a goddam oil drum.”

The rest of that pier is empty.

We walk along the next pier. A family of three exits as we enter. I meet the eyes of the mother, who holds a baby, and then we quickly look away.

Dad gazes ahead, measuring our prospects. Only fifteen boats bob at their moorings. He pats me on the shoulder and marches forward. We start a conversation with two captains, but both of them tell us that they’re already full.

“Maybe they’ll take us if we show them all our food,” I whisper.

Dad stops. “You keep quiet about that food.”

On the next pier we speak with a guy looking for crew. “We’re sailing for Maui come morning. But I could use another deckhand. I’ll take you both if you’re worth your weight. Do you sail?”

“Yes,” Dad lies.

The man throws Dad a rope. “Tie me a sheet bend.”

Dad catches the rope and smiles awkwardly. “Does it have another name? I’m good with knots; I just don’t recognize the term.”

The guy shakes his head. “If you sail, you know that knot.”

Dad hangs his head for a second. I can’t look.

“I’m a quick learner,” Dad says. “We both are. We’ll carry our own wei—”

“So am I.” The yachter snatches back his rope. “The waters between these islands kill. This boat’s no toy. We don’t have room for errors or time for training. Sorry.” He strides up his boat ramp.

Dad mutters.

Three boats farther along the pier, a sailor says that he would be happy to have us on board, but he’s sailing for Kaua`i, the opposite direction from the Big Island. He tells us about Rocky, who’s heading for Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. “Maybe he’ll offer to drop you off on his way out to sea.”

“Fingers crossed, Lei,” Dad says. “We may have to find another marina out of town if this doesn’t work.”

We spot the boat from a short distance and jog over to it. An older haole man with curly white hair and bronze skin stands shirtless upon the prow. He’s tall and skinny, but his arm muscles are big. He wears glasses, and the left lens is masked by a fitted eye patch. An older man, just as tanned, sits quietly at the tiller.

“Are you Rocky?” Dad asks.

The man with the eye patch grins briefly. “Where you going, and what’s in it for me?”

“My daughter and I need to get back home to Hilo.”

“Hilo! Naw, I’m not going that way. Water on that side will eat you alive. Rogue wave’s always capsizing ships. No way.”

“We’ll take Kona side. Just … can you get us to the Big Island?”

“When we set sail, it’s for Mexico. I’m not going close to shore over there. Get another twenty people like you screaming for passage? Forget it.”

Rocky’s gaze has drifted from Dad over to me.