Calico Pennants

RELAX
—
it’s just a planet...”

That was the handwritten message at the bottom of a black and white photograph that hung on the wall of Song Cajudoy’s Sunrise Café in Lahaina. The faded print was of a sun-browned Oriental with a full face, long black hair, a wispy little goatee, and a big smile on his lips. Though at a loss to understand why, Julian Crosby could not take his eyes off the picture.

He was also keenly interested in the girl working behind the counter. She was a petite Filipina with delicate but determined features. Her silky black ponytail hung down over her flower-print shirt all the way to her waist. Her movements were nimble, like the sparrows and finches that flew from perches in the mango tree just outside the café’s open doorway.

Normally not a deliberate eater, Julian lingered over breakfast today, and before he’d drunk his coffee and finished eating his banana-nut muffin, a willowy blond wearing a very revealing bikini over a volcanic figure came sauntering into the diner. Obviously a friend of the Filipina, she casually ordered a glass of passion fruit juice, then inquired, “Where’s Kamehaloha this morning?”

For the first time in over a year Kamehaloha Kong was not sitting at the Sunrise as the day dawned over the mid- Pacific. (It was his enigmatic smile that beamed down from the picture on the wall.) Song Cajudoy shrugged as she poured the drink.

“Our friend is sailing his boat from Shipwreck Beach to Lahaina Harbor,” she said. “I think he wants to sell it.”

“Next time you see him,” said the blond, “tell him there’s a haole in town looking for him, okay?”

“Sure,” Song agreed. Her unappreciative opinion of Kamehaloha Kong was based primarily on the fact that he owed her money for meals eaten at the Sunrise.

From his corner table Julian Crosby eavesdropped on the conversation. Shamelessly, he admired the bikini girl. As she turned to walk out of the café her shoulders rocked gently and her long arms swayed like palm fronds touched by the Trades.

He paid his bill and needlessly left a tip. Out the door and onto Front Street he sauntered, past the Pioneer Inn and all the way to the far end of the pier where the Carthaginian sailing ship was docked. There he stood out on the launch, watching rays of golden sunlight dance over the straight that separated Maui from the Island of Lanai. A colorful dragonfly whirred round his head.

On this splendid Hawaiian morning, Julian took a moment to acknowledge his friend and stockbroker, Kevin Miles, who had first suggested and then facilitated this Maui vacation. You were right about this place, my friend, he silently acknowledged. Here a decrepit attitude doesn’t stand a chance for survival.

Driving his rented car, Julian spent most of the morning exploring the leeward side of the West Maui Mountains. He stopped at a busy farmer’s market in Wailuku to buy mangoes and a pineapple then drove mauka to Pukulani and Makawao, where Hawaiian paniolos worked on upcountry ranches. Later, on the eleventh floor balcony of Kevin Miles’ ocean-view condo, he cooked ahi on a gas barbecue and assembled a salad made from tropical fruits. He drank an entire bottle of Chardonnay to toast his arrival in Hawaii.

The view from the balcony of Kevin’s condo was sublime. Molokai Island appeared distant and surreal at sunset as the billowy clouds concealed its conical summit. Its leeward canyons were cast in fiery shades of pink and mauve. As dusk fell Julian heard the sound of waves breaking onshore. The white foam was oddly luminescent in near darkness. In the distance, a sugar train whistled as it chugged through the cane fields from Kaanapali to Lahaina Town.

The ocean breeze kept the eleventh-floor apartment cool, and Julian slept more soundly than he could remember sleeping in years. It was barely light when he opened his eyes. For a moment he lay in bed trying to recall a dream he was certain he’d dreamed. A curious image presented itself.

SITTING ON A BRIDGE near a rainforest waterfall was the round-bodied Hawaiian he’d seen in the photo at the Sunrise Café. With bare feet and busy hands the ‘fruit juice philosopher’ was weaving baskets out of freshly cut palm fronds. Aware of the haole’s presence, he extended his thumb and little finger. “Aloha, brother!”

“Aloha,” said Julian.

“A little out of your element, aren’t you?” said the basket weaver.

Julian shrugged. “I think everybody’s looking for a little piece of paradise...”

“True, brother. But Paradise is nothing more than a state of mind. Don’t you agree?”

“Come on now,” said Julian. “Who could argue with splendor like this?” Of course he was referring to the prolific natural garden, as well as to the emotional comfort it seemed to impart.

“The rainforest is beautiful, but it’s also very dense,” said Kong, “The haole can never fully understand its mysteries…”

“What’s a haole?” Julian asked. “I keep hearing the word, but I’m afraid I don’t know it.”

The Hawaiian laughed at him. “You are haole!”

“The blond girl at the Sunrise said we would meet.”

“Could be we have important business,” the weaver speculated.

“With all due respect,” said Julian, “business is the farthest thing from my mind.”

“A poor choice of words on my part, brother. I’m sure that your trip is intended for pure pleasure!” The Hawaiian laughed so hard that he nearly fell off the rock on which he was sitting.

“So where do you fit in?” Julian wanted to know.

Kamehaloha’s black eyes suddenly went serious as he surveyed the newcomer from head to toe. “Kahuna’s power is very curious,” he said, nodding. “I search your soul. I uncover your dreams and fantasies. Then I work through your sense of possibility.”

“No offense,” said Julian, “but I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s my job to throw the world off its axis,” said Kong, and he again busied his hands with his task. “Kahuna may do a little mischief, brother, but I never make knots that are impossible to untie!”

AGAIN JULIAN HEARD the sound of the breakers rolling onshore, and redirecting his attention to more tangible circumstances, he quickly dismissed the memory of a strange dream, already fading. Putting on his bathrobe, he walked onto the balcony to assess the morning weather. A thin mantle of fog cloaked the velvety escarpments to the east. The sea was gray and foamy, bold but not cold looking. Though it was quite early he observed a young couple making their way, arm-in-arm, up the deserted beach, and he was momentarily overcome with the uneasy suspicion that too many opportunities had been missed, and good years gone by. How utterly absurd it suddenly seemed, for instance, that he’d never run barefoot along the seashore. Determined to correct this omission immediately, he put on his bathing suit and went downstairs to the beach.

One mile up and one mile down: he stopped periodically to examine his footprints on the fine sand. They were not unlike the others he saw, but the waves washing onshore erased his telltale signature almost as quickly as he’d made it. He stopped to watch two wind surfers flying over eight-foot waves with their sails unfurled, and he experienced a vicarious feeling of freedom, as if he were the one riding the thundering swells.

This ribbon of windswept beach separated the ocean from a life-size terrarium. Here blossoms of every conceivable shape and color—Birds of Paradise, Torch Ginger, and Heliconia—engendered within Julian a reformed sense of personal size and proportion. Such profusion shifted his attention away from the triviality of toil and replaced it squarely on the majesty of nature. Quite unconsciously, he’d begun the process of giving up a long-fostered, nervous and competitive perspective.

Walking inland he discovered a network of wondrous caves—cool, moist, and mossy—where patches of ferns grew out of cracks in the rocks and water trickled down the walls into limpid cave pools. Peering into the depths, he drew a startled breath and blinked his eyes in disbelief. Convinced that he’d rediscovered a place both secret and taboo, Julian thought he saw the image of a beautiful girl—not Polynesian, but fair-skinned—taking shape in the concentric ripples where his reflection most certainly should have appeared. Her cool, blue-gray eyes reflected a keen awareness of her circumstance and seemed to suggest mysteries beyond the realm of time. Her tensile body intimated both elemental conflict and natural harmony. She appeared to be endlessly searching some unfathomable horizon. Who was she?

Quite unaccustomed to revelation, Julian drew back. He made his way through the dense tropical vegetation back to the beach. Sitting upon the sand, he looked out to sea and contemplated the horizon.

Returning that evening to Kevin’s condo, he soaked in the Jacuzzi for an hour, trying without much success to come to terms with his newfound visionary propensity. That night he went to bed before it was fully dark.

Next morning he awoke early with the obscure feeling that he was late for an appointment. Considering the fact that he knew not a soul on Maui, such an impression seemed unfounded. Still, the sensation would not leave him. Having eaten nothing the night before, he was very hungry, so he dressed and walked up Front Street to the only restaurant open at this hour—Song Cajudoy’s Sunrise Café.

He ordered coffee and a cinnamon roll. The only other customer in the café at this hour was the ambiguous local in the black and white photo—the same rainforest basket weaver he’d encountered in his dream! With a glass of fruit juice before him, the kahuna meditated at one of the outdoor tables facing the sea, contemplating hibiscus corollas on a trellis as he waited for the sunrise.

“Mr. Kong,” said the haole, “my name is Julian Crosby.”

The Hawaiian nodded his big head in recognition. “Somebody said there was a haole looking for me.”

“I heard you have a boat for sale,” said Julian.

“You want to buy a boat?”

“I’ve been considering it.”

“You don’t look like a sailor,” said Kamehaloha Kong.

“I’m not, really,” said Julian. Then he explained, “I sailed occasionally in California. But that was years ago. I decided to come over to Maui for an extended vacation, and my friend in San Diego offered me his condo. But I’ve been thinking it might be great to get a boat. Nothing too fancy—just big enough to go from island to island. It’s probably a foolish idea.”

“Maybe the best reason to do it!” said Kong. Wringing his thick hands, he sermonized, “When you’re young, brother, you pay a dime and get a dollar’s worth of pleasure. But when you get older, you pay a dollar and only get a dime’s worth of fun. How old are you?”

“I’m fifty-two,” said Julian.

“So, brother, maybe you can still get forty-five cents on a buck,” Kong laughed.

“How big is your boat?” Julian asked.

“She’s a six-passenger, thirty-one foot Bertram Flybridge Sportfisher powered by twin four-cylinder, one hundred sixty-five horse inboards—a real beauty! She’s called Scoundrel. The engines are a little fickle if they’re not tuned just right, but you’ll get a feel for that.”

“How much are you asking for her?” Julian wanted to know.

“Twenty-five thousand cash,” said Kong. “I’m probably giving her away, but I’m hard up for money.”

“When can I have a look at her?” Julian said.

“Right now, if you like,” said Kong. “She’s docked in slip number thirteen over at the small boat harbor at the end of Canal Street. We can walk there in five minutes.”