chapter of novel

Hawaii  1961



    “Get me another beer, woman” A familiar request, coming from Adam’s stepfather, delivered in his usual sergeant’s bark.

    “Paul, you’ve had enough for one night!”  His mom was never successful policing his stepfather’s drinking and Adam didn’t understand why she kept trying. 

    “Besides, you’ve got to get up and go to work in a few hours,” His mom said with determination.

    “I bust my hump working two jobs to keep you up with the Jones.  Just get the beer!”  He neither moved nor changed expressions.

“No!” 

      Adam’s neck tightened.  Here we go again.  Mom! Just let it be and get him the beer!

    “You taking a job as a Bartender at the Officers’ Club is like throwing a fish in the ocean.”  She was better at comebacks than dodging the occasional hand or fist. 

    Adam wanted to walk away through the darkness of the yard, wishing he could leave the house and the chaos of their alcoholic family.

    It’s been six months and I’m graduating soon.  Maybe Senator Baxter doesn’t have as much ‘pull’ with the Academy as he said.  Every day I come home from school, and no letter.  I don’t want to stay in Hawaii.  If I do, they’ll make me go to the university.  And, I’ll have to live at home.



    “Oh, my God…” Standing on the Lanai in her red and white flowered Muu Muu, his mom never referenced God outside of an occasional Goddamn.

Bright daylight at one o’clock in the morning!

    The chatter of news reports on the radio went silent with the sudden flash of light.  In the hiss of static from the speakers of the Admiral Console Entertainment Center, Adam heard a thud.  Looking down he saw Paul’s beer bottle spewing foam in the grass.

    He looked into Paul’s face.  Eyes glazed, staring into the strange brightness, it was difficult to read Paul’s expression, an expression often indifferent to family around him.

    Adam looked around at the awe-struck people scattered in back yards, frozen in time.  Not a sound.  No movement from anyone.  The subdivision held its breath in disbelief of the bright daylight. 

    Looking up and out to the horizon, He stood spellbound for five minutes.  Under the pale blue sky above Pearl Harbor, Adam could see the runway on Fords Island; the concrete ribbon of the Arizona Memorial; ships of the 7th Fleet birthed around the full-moon bay of the famous Naval Station- The same naval station that had seen Armageddon almost exactly twenty years earlier, before Adam was born.

    But it all looked so odd with no shadows.  It was not a warm, soft light of the sun, but a bright, pale intimidating fluorescent omnipresence.  Artificial. Sterile.  No warmth and depth- like the light in the operating room when he had his tonsils removed.

    The landscape of the subdivision above Pearl Harbor seemed bleak and faded.

Like flicking two switches in chorus, the bright white light was replaced by a green glow, just as bright.  Again, no shadows- only shades of green lasting two or three minutes.

    Adam looked over at his mother’s pale green cheeks and the darker green oval of her lips. Her hair was a lighter green.  She had tanned in the first three months of their tour at Hickam Air Force Base, and her salon blonde hair glowed brightly in the strange green light.

    Just then, the green glow disappeared and it was night again.  But the sky was a deep angry red- like something out of a Tolkien novel- The Battle of Five Armies—Mount Doom.  Adam could see the silhouette of the harbor, mountains, and trees- all appearing in twilight time. 

    The sky, blood red, faded slowly into the southwest pulling the black starry night sky over the world like a blanket over a corpse.

    Silence.

    Not a murmur from the dozens of neighbors standing in the darkness, silently witnessing mankind on the edge of extinction.

    Seventy-two degrees with a warm trade wind blowing and young Adam was chilled to his soul. 

    He looked around to say something to his mother, but she and Paul had already gone inside.



    He stayed up two previous nights waiting for the “test.”  It was the talk of Kaimuki High School and had been in the news for days. Everyone on the island stayed up to witness the last United States atmospheric test of the hydrogen bomb.

    Once, they called it off due to weather over the launch site.

    Last night the missile was aborted due to a malfunction in a computer. 

Military and government official were technical and objective in their references: “Fishbowl,” the series. “Tightrope.” Nineteen miles south, southwest of Johnston Island (some eight hundred miles down-range from the Hawaiian Islands.) thirty-one miles up, delivered by a Nike Hercules missile.  Radio announcers said observers in Hawaii might see the glow of the explosion in the southwestern sky, but because of the curvature of the earth, no fireball would be visible nor the sound of an explosion heard.

    As the countdown passed “One” the radio went silent. 



    Adam’s mind went into a skid- with nothing but the infernal hiss of the radio.  Anger welled up inside.  No other sound but the hiss of the radio.  No night sounds- insects, birds, voices of the neighbors. 

    Silence. 

    The world held its breath.  He stood unmoving, angry at the hiss.

    Going inside, he walked to the radio and tried several of his favorite stations.  Nothing. He could not think.  Life was on pause. 

    Adam turned the radio off and, still with the chills and goose bumps, walked through the dark, deathly silent living room, down the hallway and into his bedroom at the back of the house. 

    He walked over and pulled out the guitar case from under the bed and set it on the mattress.  Thumbing the latches he felt a slight sense of relief hearing the familiar metallic ping from the custom-made Mark Leif case bounce off the cinder block walls of his bedroom.  Adam stared at the leaf imprint on the pewter gray lid, realizing that the sound of the latches was the first sound he had heard since his mom’s exclamation- other than the now silent hiss of the radio.

         Feeling hollow, not wanting to think, he pulled the Khono from the molded blue velvet interior of the case and rested the body of the guitar comfortable between his legs as he sat on the bed.  Assuming the proper sitting position, he plucked the E strings simultaneously to assure the guitar was in tune from the last practice session.  After some minor adjustments, he began slowly rolling a Fernando Sor arpeggio study in E Minor.  Within minutes he was warmed up.  Feeling the vibration of the concert classical guitar against his chest, and listening to the smooth pluck of fingernails against strings, Adam was again in familiar surroundings. He spent two hours each morning for the last nine years developing his hands with exercises and study’s for the classical guitar.  Along with thirty-minute lessons once a week, and prep recitals quarterly, guitar had become a major part of Adam’s life at seventeen.

    The chills and anger slowly melted as he concentrated on the sound of the familiar Sor Etude.



    “Go to bed, Adam.” His mother soft quiet voice jolted Adam out of his revere. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway.

    “Mom, would we really use that thing?” 

    Anger and despair came over Him again.  As he asked the question, he realized that he knew the answer.  He just did not want to think about it. 

    “Adam, you think too much.  It was just a test and, maybe a little saber rattling at the Russians.  We are in a cold war, you know.  Now, please go to sleep.  We can talk about it tomorrow, if you’d like.”

    His anger and feeling of despair continued.  His mother was intelligent and insightful.  She graduated High School at age sixteen and was the Base Commander’s Administrative Assistant and had been in the U.S. Civil Service for fifteen years.  She held a more prestigious position than his stepfather and had more respect in the military environment than Paul could ever hope for.  That was obvious.

    “Why do you stay with him?”  Adam asked.

    “Go to sleep,” she said, stepping back and quietly closing the door.

He put the guitar back under the bed, took off his tee-shirt, laid down and turned off the bedside lamp.  He closed his eyes and wept for an hour. The sight of the blast and the scene between his mother and Paul left him emotionally exhausted.