CHAPTER 2
.2.
After one slightly burnt rarebit, a mango, and too many hours of drinking coffee and staring at a blank page, the evening edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin hit the porch with a dry thud. The newsboy’s bicycle tires had stopped crunching the gravel before I reached for it. I wasn't expecting much – maybe some news about the rising tension in the sugar plantations or another raid on a speakeasy in Iwilei.
Then I saw the headline, and the coffee I’d been sipping turned to lead in my stomach.
LOCAL YOUNG MAN SAVES SON OF MILLIONAIRE
There it was. My name, laid out in ink that was still fresh enough to smell and smudge fingertips: Horatio O’Neill. They’d even dug up the pedigree – son of History Professor David O’Neill, University of Hawaii graduate. It made me sound like a Boy Scout with a transcript.
The article didn't pull any punches on the other side of the story, either. The "wealthy idiot" finally had a name, though not the one he liked: Jeppe Karlsen Jr. It turned out Junior wasn't just another tourist; he was the crown prince of the Royal Danish Pastries empire. Millions of dollars built on flour and sugar, and it had almost all gone to the bottom of the Pacific because of a few too many gins on a moonlit boat.
The paper said he’d been released from the hospital that afternoon. “The fortunate young man is expected to return home to California in the coming days,” the ink chirped, as if he’d just survived a mild case of the flu instead of having death’s fingers around his throat.
I leaned back against the screen door. The "little monster" on my desk was still silent, but the world outside was starting to make a lot of noise. A University of Hawaii man saves a Pastry Prince. It was the kind of story that sells papers and makes people feel like the world is a fair place.
But the paper didn't mention the sound of his lungs fighting for air, or the way the dark water felt like when I jumped in. It didn't mention that Jimmy hadn't even been conscious enough to say thank you.
I looked at my name again. Horatio. My father had a habit of naming things after the past; he lived in his history books, and he’d saddled me with a name that belonged in a museum. But out here, in the salt and the heat, I was just Ray. Stingray, back when I was a waterman. All of them had just pulled a million dollars out of the surf for free.
The sun was dipping low now, casting long, bruised shadows across the sand. Jimmy Karlsen Jr. was going back to California to live a life of comfort. I was staying here with a blank page and a name that looked like a literary pun on the front page.
I folded the paper and tossed it onto the wicker table. The story was out there now, and in a town like Honolulu, a story like that doesn't just go away. It usually comes looking for you.
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