CHAPTER 5
.5.
I woke to the sound of waves, a persistent heartbeat in my head. The clock on my nightstand showed a quarter past noon. This kind of indulgence my father would call sloth and my mother would call recovery. My dreams had been full of dark water and Mr. Kahanamoku's words. Kahu. Protector. As if saving a man once meant I'd signed a contract with the universe to keep watch over him forever.
The bungalow was an oven, the morning sun having done its work through the windows. I pushed aside the thin linen curtains and squinted at the day. Bright, blue, perfect like a postcard of Hawaii that tourists sent home to make their families jealous. Just another day in paradise. Except I wasn't on vacation; I lived here. And the paradise part was debatable, especially when you were the son of a history professor with literary ambitions that seemed increasingly laughable.
I stepped onto the lanai, then down to the sand. It was hot under my feet, but that was a feeling I'd learned to enjoy – the slight burn that reminded you that you were alive and standing on an island formed by fire. The beach was dotted with the usual collection of tourists and locals, all of them engaged in the complicated dance of pretending not to notice each other while being acutely aware of each other's presence.
Mr. Kahanamoku's visit still clung to me like sea spray. I'm not superstitious. One-eighth Hawaiian bloodline doesn't automatically make you believe in gods and spirits. But there was something about the old waterman's conviction that had rattled me. The idea that by giving Jimmy my breath, I'd somehow bound myself to him. It was the kind of thing that belonged in one of the stories my hapa-haole grandmother used to tell, not in the modern world of 1929.
I walked to the water's edge, letting the foam curl around my ankles. The ocean looked innocent now, nothing like the dark maw that had nearly swallowed Jimmy. I stripped down to my swimming trunks, folded my clothes on the sand, and waded in.
The water was a relief, cool against my skin. I started swimming with steady strokes, the kind that eat up distance without exhausting you. I'd been a waterman for four summers, not a champion like Mr. Kahanamoku or Buster, yet competent enough to save lives and teach tourists the basics. The teaching job had paid for books (the kind my father didn’t want me to read) and given me a confidence in the water that most haoles never develop.
I passed the buoys that marked the safe swimming area and kept going. Out here, past the point where most tourists dared to swim, the water was clearer, deeper, more honest.
I felt the familiar loosening in my chest that always came when I swam out far enough that the beach became a strip of tan against the green mountains. Distance gave perspective. From here, the Royal Hawaiian was just a pink smudge, and my problems seemed equally diminished.
But even swimming couldn't wash away Mr. Kahanamoku's words or the memory of Jimmy's lungs fighting for air under my hands. Some things, water can't clean. Or perhaps won’t.
I flipped onto my back and floated, staring at the sky. No clouds today – just endless blue, the color so intense it almost hurt to look at. After a while, I turned and swam back to shore with the same steady pace, feeling the familiar pull of muscles that had been neglected since I'd traded lifeguarding for writing.
Back on the beach, I walked the short distance to my bungalow and stepped under the outdoor shower – a simple teak frame with copper pipes that my grandfather had installed many years ago. The fresh water was warm from sitting in the pipes, but it rinsed away the salt effectively. I closed my eyes and let it run over my face, washing away the sleep, the swim, and maybe some of the lingering unease from last night's conversation.
I dried off with a frayed towel and went inside to change. The bungalow was small. One bedroom, a water-closet barely big enough to turn around in, and a main room that served as kitchen, dining room, and writing space. But it had windows on all sides to catch the trade winds, and it was mine, or at least on indefinite loan from my father, who saw my literary pursuits as a phase I'd grow out of eventually.
I pulled on a pair of canvas trousers and a white cotton shirt that had seen better days but was perfect for the heat. The fabric was thin enough that the slightest breeze could reach my skin.
In the kitchen, which really was just a corner with a hotplate and a small icebox, I made toast from yesterday's bread and brewed coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in. My breakfast ritual was nothing like the elaborate spreads my mother insisted on, but it suited me. Two pieces of toast, lightly buttered, and black coffee were all I needed to face the day, especially when the day had already reached its midpoint.
I took my meager feast to the small table by the window and ate slowly, watching the beach through the screen. A group of children was building a sand castle at the water's edge, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the tide would claim their work in a few hours. There was a lesson there, probably, but I was too caffeine-deprived to work it out.
I drank the coffee in large gulps, feeling the jolt as it hit my system. Coffee was my vice – not gin or whiskey like the tourists, or even the sweeter drugs of ambition and pride that my father indulged in. Just coffee, dark as sin and twice as necessary.
With breakfast finished and coffee in hand, I turned to the oak desk that dominated the main room. The “little monster”, my Remington Portable, sat in the center, surrounded by stacks of paper in various states of use. Some blank, some covered in crossed-out sentences, some crumpled into balls that had missed the waste basket.
The typewriter had been a gift from my parents when I graduated, their way of saying they supported my writing even if they didn't understand it. Or at least, my mother supported it. My father just wanted me to have proper tools if I insisted on this foolishness.
I sat down and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the carriage out of pure superstition. The new blank page stared back at me, just as white and accusing as the previous one. I'd been trying to start this story for weeks – a mystery set in Honolulu, with a detective who understood both the colonial world of the haoles and the older traditions of Hawaii. It wasn't going to win any Pulitzers, but it might sell, and right now, selling seemed more important than critical acclaim.
I typed two words: "Chapter One." They sat alone in the upper left corner, looking small and uncertain. What came next? A description of the setting? The discovery of a body? A character introduction? Everything I could think of seemed either too derivative or too pretentious.
My father's words from the previous night echoed in my head. "It's beneath the O'Neill name." As if pulp fiction was a stain that could never be washed out. As if writing stories people might actually enjoy reading was a betrayal of some sacred trust.
I stared at those two words until they started to blur. 'Chapter One.' My father wanted history, and I wanted a paycheck, but the typewriter wasn't giving up either. I didn’t know I wasn't going to write the mystery I was hoping could turn me into a professional writer, or that I had already signed up to play a part in some rum retelling of Hamlet. All I knew then was that the coffee was wearing off, and the heat of the day, combined with my lack of sleep, was making my eyelids heavy. I should get up, make more coffee, go for another swim – anything to stay awake. But the rhythmic sound of the waves and the warm breeze coming through the windows were conspiring against me.
My thoughts drifted to Jimmy again. Was he on a boat to California by now? Or was he still at the Royal Hawaiian, packing up his Hollywood sunglasses and failed surfing ambitions? Had he read about himself in the paper? Did he even remember being rescued, or was the whole incident just a blank spot in his memory, washed away by gin and salt water?
I don't know how long I sat there, hovering in that space between waking and sleeping, my fingers resting lightly on the typewriter keys. It might have been minutes or hours. But suddenly, I was fully awake, every nerve in my body alert to a change in the room.
There was someone at the door. A silhouette against the bright afternoon light, tall and lean. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, wondering if I was dreaming.
But the figure didn't disappear. Instead, it stepped forward, and the features resolved into a face I recognized – fair hair, now neatly combed back, skin still slightly sun-kissed despite the near-drowning, and blue eyes that seemed to be seeing me for the first time.
Jimmy stood in my doorway, looking very much alive and very much not on his way to California.
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