CASE FILE #383-6617.02
KUAOKALĀ TRAIL 2007
Before
I know what deep-seated insecurity feels like and I know what it does to a person over the long term. Someone would have to have a very thick layer of skin to not be bothered by the negative thoughts and feelings that are put upon them day in and day out by other people.
Some are people they work with or know in a social setting, but the ones who inflict the overall amount of physical, spiritual, and psychic damage are members of their own family. Most of us come out of it being none the worse for wear, while others suffer the residual effects of it, somewhat like PTSD. Yet, there are the rare few that have within them the constant need to be wanted, to be loved, and matter. They want to belong so badly that they are willing to sacrifice what little is left of their own humanity to obtain it.
..............
Simone was a gifted Channeler. Of the generations of family members that were chosen to learn the skill of channeling or what her Hawaiian family called 'Noho,' she was the chosen one of her line of siblings and cousins. When the spirits of her ancestors and family gods would appear, they would sit on her shoulders and relay their messages to the family through Simone. Over time, everyone would come to know Simone by her nickname, 'Kimono.'
She was of the generation of Hawaiians who were given western names instead of Hawaiian names in the hopes of acclimating to the new way since the Hawaiian ideas were looked upon as antiquated and the work of the devil. Needless to say, Simone's training was done under clandestine circumstances, far from the eyes fellow Hawaiians who lost their way. It was an uncle of Simone's mother who awakened the practice of the young girl; however, no one was aware of the advantage which the grand-uncle took of Simone once she left the years of her childhood behind her and began to blossom into the beauty of youth.
Simone was brilliant. She could channel the spirit of any deceased family at will. The messages were clear and concise and very detailed. Many of her older family members were given relief when they would find out that a husband regretted dying so young, or that a mother who fought with her daughter a day before she died was not at all angry at her only child. Even a distant aunt whose husband passed suddenly was destitute because of the money that he promised to give her, but he'd never told her about where she could find it. Through Simone, the widow finds out that the husband had hidden the money in the book cover of her bible. Those are the moments when Simone was most happy. She was alive, and she felt like she was worth something. Those feelings caused her to be brave enough to confront her decrepit grand uncle when he would make his advances toward her. When Simone would not comply with the grand uncle's advances, he would beat her, or he would threaten to let the devil possess her and take her to hell.
"Imagine what your parents would think of you if they found out?" The uncle said. "I didn't want to teach you, but my niece, your mother, forced me to do it!"
The training eventually stopped once Simone turned seventeen. The uncle's wife didn't like the idea of her husband spending such a significant amount of time with his grand niece. "It looks wrong, and the last thing you need is for your congregation to start talking."
Did I fail to mention that Simone's grand uncle was a pastor of his own church?
The grand uncle, in all his graciousness, convinced his wife that he would have to inform Simone of his decision to discontinue her teachings and that she would have to go elsewhere for more studies. The wife wholeheartedly agreed and also insisted that she would accompany her husband for moral support. The grand uncle did not flinch; instead, he agreed with his wife and suggested that the meeting should take place at the home of her parents.
"My niece will understand and fully support this decision," the grand uncle assured his wife.
..................
The evening came when Simone was called to the dinner table to join her parents and her grand uncle and his wife. She appeared a minute later and took her seat at the opposite end of the table from her father. Simone spoke first before the grand uncle could make the announcement, "Mom, Dad, I'm four months hapai and grand uncle Alfred is the father."
Everyone sat at the table completely stunned, the grand-uncle showed no emotion on his face whatsoever. The parents were only beginning to digest what they'd just heard, By that time, Simone walked out the door with a small suitcase of her clothes. Her friend from the science class waited outside in his car while it idled. Climbing in, Simone said, "Straight to the airport....fast."
In an hour, Simone was on an airplane to Maui, where she stayed with a friend she'd met during explorations. They managed to keep in contact, so when Simone explained her situation to her friend, and the friend spoke to her parents, they agreed to let her stay until Simone could figure things out. Simone's friend lived on a ranch, and that's where Simone ended up working. She did well for a while until six months later, while sitting at the dinner table, she suddenly channeled the spirit of one of the old ranch hands who died on the property. Everyone thought he was thrown from a horse and killed, but the ranch hand who spoke through Simone said that he was murdered by none other than the father of the friend who allowed Simone into his home. She was kicked out that same night.
...........................
2007
"I just tooled around since then," Simone told me. "A bunch of different jobs, alcohol, drugs, men, men, men, and more men. It got to the point where I felt like one big hole like that's all I was to these guys."
"Simone," I winced at what she said. "Don't think of yourself that way, you're not just your body or sex."
"I mean, I lied about being hapai so I could get my grand uncle in trouble and look? He lost his church, his wife, my parents never spoke to him again." She shook her and laughed. "I destroy lives, that's all I do."
"That's the guy who they got killed by the night marchers, right?" I asked just to confirm the story because I told it a few times.
"Yeah, that's the one, talk about bachi? What a way to go, huh?" She shook her head.
The bathroom parking lot at Keawaula was quiet, and the night sky was a dark blanket with a sparkle of stars here and there. They were so bright, like giant clusters of the creamy white insides of an oreo cookie. At least that's what they looked like to me, I hadn't eaten, and my stomach was audibly growling. There were cars parked on the beachside while Simone was parked next to mine in the emptier part of the lot.
"So, what's going on back there in the tall grass?" I asked with a considerable measure of concern.
"Sone new paranormal investigative team; they want to flesh out some ghosts, so I'm going to help them," Simone shrugged her shoulders.
"There's more than just ghosts back there; I mean there's....." I never got a chance to finish.
"I know what's back there, I don't have to be told," she waved me off now like I was a migraine.
"Then, why even call me?" I was irritated now.
"I wanted you to know my story so that people.....people would know I was here and that I mattered," her voice was softer with a small hint of finality in it.
"You fucking matter right here and now!" I shouted. "Those people waiting for you? They don't give a shit about you! They just need you for proof of evidence, and you know that going in there to do 'Noho' for them might get you hurt, and anyone willing to let you get hurt for their own means doesn't give a shit about you!"
"They need me," it sounded like she was saying it more to convince herself than to convince me. "They need me."
"No, people like that only need people like you until you are of no use to them," it was my last attempt to make her see the light.
"I'm not talking about the group," she said as she started walking toward the high grass.
"Then who are you talking about?" I replied with my arms spread out to my sides.
"Them," she pointed to the ridgeline, and I instantly knew who 'them' was. The long line of red torch lights accompanied by the sound of conch shells and drums told me everything. By the time I tried to stop her, she'd already disappeared into the tall grass. All I could do was run back to the parking lot and yell for her to come back, but the sound of the conch shells and the drums drowned me out. I couldn't even hear the screams of the investigative team that waited for her. She'd never intended to come out of there alive, and in her own insane kind of way, she took some company with her.
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