"....I've got to run to keep from hidin',
and I'm bound to keep on ridin'...."
Ted and Nancy were touristing from San Marino located in northern California just across the golden gate bridge. They wanted to go to see Pearl Harbor but they decided to cheap it, well, Ted did. Nancy thought it was better and quicker to drive there in the rent-a-car. Ted insisted on catching the city bus from the Hilton. Needless to say, they got turned around and somehow ended up in the depths of Manoa valley. Nancy figured out that they were going in the wrong direction the second the city bus passed the Shriner's hospital.
The light didn't go on for Ted until he saw the looming mountains fast approaching as they got further into the well-known neighborhood. He and Nancy were seated in the front so it wasn't difficult to lean forward and ask the driver if they were on the bus to Pearl Harbor. The massive Hawaiian man sitting behind the wheel chuckled for a second and looked at Ted and Nancy with a smile.
"I'll let you off here," the driver said as he slowed the bus down to a safe stop. Pointing across the street he continued. "I'll give you a transfer, catch the next bus from that stop, it's going to Pearl Harbor."
"Are you sure?" Ted asked. "I just want to make sure that you're not giving us the wrong directions."
"You're the one who's on the wrong bus," the driver's expression changed to one of irritation.
"Thank you, sir," Nancy interrupted while standing up and pulling Ted off of the city bus. "Thank you for the transfers as well!'
The driver half waved and shook his head as the doors shut and slowly moved on. Nancy was infuriated at how assinine Ted had become lately. "What is wrong with you saying something like that to the driver?"
"You never know," Ted replied in an arrogant nonchalant tone which only pissed Nancy off even more. "Especially these Hawaiians, you don't know how they feel about people like us."
"People like us?" Nancy couldn't believe what she was hearing. "In spite of all the shit that's going on in the world, people are still intrinsically good at heart. You treat people the way that you want to be treated. You treat people like shit and shit is what you get back! What the hell's gotten into you?"
Walking across Lowery street to the next bus stop, Ted huffed it while trying to keep up with Nancy who trotted along faster the more angrier she got. "You remember the Inverness yacht club where that black kid wouldn't let me in when I couldn't find my ID right away?"
"What about it?" Nancy moaned as the two of them finally made it to the stop and sat on the concrete bench.
"That was reverse racism, that kid singled me out just to give me a hard time because of how I was dressed," Ted's face turned red while he insisted upon his claim.
"Ted," Nancy began, as she put her hands out in front of her. "Please don't talk, I don't know who you are anymore and I don't know what kind of bug you've got up your ass. For as long as I've been married to you, you've always been a beautiful kind man who loved everyone and everything. Then, you get a membership at Inverness and you......" Nancy paused. It all made sense now, the change came when he joined the club. It had nothing to do with the club, of course, it had more to do with the young perky blonde who worked as a hostess at the club. She wore her skirts too high and she never wore a bra under her one size too small polo shirt. Her name is Paige Nobel and she comes from a very rich family who has influence in local business and politics. They were also known to be members of a white supremacist organization for the longest time. Nancy turned slowly toward her husband of twenty years and glared at him.
"What?" Ted shrugged his shoulders.
Nancy made sure that when she balled up her fist that it was the left one, the one where her large encrusted diamond engagement ring and wedding ring rested on her third finger. She punched Ted right below his right eye, opening up a deep cut on impact. "Is Paige's twat that good that it turned you into a racist you miserable piece of shit?!"
She stormed off across Lowery and marched down Oahu avenue. Ted sat there at the bus stop completely stunned and bleeding profusely. Taking off his oxford which he wore over his Abbey Road t-shirt, he balled it up and applied pressure under his eye. He knew he'd be stupid to try and redirect Nancy's attention to the wound she put there in the first place. All he could do was follow after her. "Shit!" He thought to himself. "How did she figure out the thing with Paige Nobel?"
The two were not even halfway along Oahu Avenue, Ted huffing and puffing to keep up with Nancy, Nancy walking with a purpose as if she were in a marathon race when a black 1966 Cadillac Coupe De Ville pulled up alongside them. The interior was tuck and roll white leather and the vehicle had that new car smell like it was fresh off the assembly line. Behind the wheel was a Hawaiian man about middle age with a shock of white hair. He wore a white linen suit with a black tie and black waist belt. The contrast of the black socks and white shoes gave the man the appearance of an old Waikiki ne'er do well who frequented the old bars like the Tahitian Lanai.
"Are you in need of a ride somewhere?" The Hawaiian driver asked neither Ted nor Nancy, but in general.
"No, " Ted waved him off. "We're fine thank you."
"You don't look fine, you're bleeding all over your oxford and your abbey road there," the driver's observation was keen and humorous. He was completely different from the bus driver, a bit more cultured and sophisticated. "I'm David Waikiki, and I am a gentleman of the house of Pahulu. You can trust me."
"I'll take a ride," Nancy turned and walked toward the Cadillac and reached for the door handle.
"Ah, well there's a catch," David cautioned. "I can only take one of you."
"It looks like you've got enough room for four other people besides yourself," Nancy said. "What's the big deal?"
Regarding the couple from out of state, he thought for a minute and then smiled warmly. "I guess I could take the both of you, climb on in."
Ted pushed the front seat forward and slid in the back. He was visibly irritated when Nancy took the passenger's seat. Ted, slid himself across the back until he was positioned directly behind Nancy.
"Don't worry Teddy," David said while eyeing him from the rearview mirror. "I'm not insulted. Goodness forbids someone sees you sitting in the front seat of a car next to someone like myself."
"That's not it at all," Ted fumbled. "I just feel comfortable sitting behind my wife is all."
"Bullshit," Nancy deadpanned. Ted was shocked considering that they were driving in a car with a complete stranger. Where was his wife's sense of decorum?
"Nance!" Ted hissed in disapproval.
David looked at Nancy and then back at Ted. "Everything alright Nance?"
"Hey! Don't do that!" Ted shouted. "Don't call my wife 'Nance' you're getting too familiar all of a sudden! I don't like it!"
"Alright," David responded calmly. "Nancy, instead of going to Pearl Harbor, would you just rather head back to the Hilton?"
"I'd like that if you don't mind," Nancy answered. "I'd like to go alone, you can take him to where he's supposed to go and fuck him off at Pearl Harbor. In fact, if you can drop me off at the Shriner's hospital I'll just walk back to the hotel."
Coincidentally or not, they had just crossed the Punahou overpass and were now nearing the front driveway at Shriner's. David pulled the Caddy into the roundabout driveway and let Nancy out. Ted offered his thanks and began to follow Nancy out of the vehicle when she spun around and screamed at him. "Stay the fuck away from me!"
Ted was too shocked to do anything except slink back into the Cadillac. David waved good-bye to Nancy and made his way out of the drive-way. The Cadillac took a right down to Punahou and then another right on Beretania. "Looks like it's just you and me Teddy."
"Don't call me that, my name's Ted," he insisted almost in a whisper. "Just take me back to the Hilton."
"Can't do that," David frowned. "This ride is meant for you and you alone, I thought I could take Nancy along but when I saw in her face just how much she was suffering under your yoke? I knew I had to let her go. So, it's just you and me."
The Cadillac takes a right turn up to Pi'ikoi and soon turns left where it merges on to the freeway. "You know, I just thought about something," Ted was still turning it over in his mind. "How did you know we were headed to Pearl Harbor and how did you know we're staying at the Hilton?"
"Aren't you concerned about where we're going, Ted?" David asked out of formality, not really caring what Ted's answer would be.
"Well, you're taking me to Pearl Harbor correct?" Ted asked.
"Right," David agreed. "Sure."
The Cadillac drove up the Pali highway until it took the right turn on to the Nu'uanu pali drive where it eventually stopped at a trail just off to the side of the road. David got out and walked to the front of the vehicle. Ted got out from the back seat and saw that David was already headed down the trail by himself. Ted followed behind him, shouting all the while that this was certainly not Pearl Harbor. He lost sight of David but still followed the trail until it came to a wide corner and led to a clearing. There was David in his white linen suit standing in front of a massive breadfruit tree that was whole and green and fruitful on one side, and dead, black, and rotting one the other. It was a looming contradiction to the unaccustomed eye, but to the Hawaiians who knew, it was a pathway to the realm of the dead.
"What the fuck?" Ted gasped in horror.
"I usually drive around gathering lost souls who don't have the proper credentials to get to the other side. But then I come upon you and Nance, more you in particular. You're a special case, you're the kind of man that friends of mine are always looking for. The penitent man who lets himself be seduced by his own base desires. That little Paige Nobel was born and bred to do what she does, she uses her special feminine talents to stray men and women to her side. Nance was close, but not on the mark. Paige's family are not white supremacists, they're Satanists." David raised his eyebrows and nodded.
"And what?" Ted mused angrily. "You're the Devil, here to ruin my vacation?"
"Far from it," David laughed. "Just a Hawaiian god who is going to make an exception because I like you so much."
David takes a few steps toward Ted and bodily picks him up over his head and walks him toward the dark, rotting side of the breadfruit tree. Ted is screaming and yelling to be let down, but David's strength is too strong to match. David tosses Ted into the lifeless tree where a black chasm opens up and swallows Ted into its deep black nothingness.
..................
LATER
Nancy has just reached the intersection of Kalakaua and Kapiolani boulevard. The crossing signal goes on and she is walking toward the convention center. Soon, she is about to cross the bridge over into Waikiki when a 2019 white Cadillac pulls up beside her. In it, is seated David Waikiki, dressed in a formal black suit. The window rolls down and David says, "I can take you the rest of the way Nance, to the Hilton I mean."
"Sure," Nancy smiles. "I'd like that."
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