Throwing Shadows at Fire

Chapter 2

We returned to Makani Tours—Makani meaning wind, and which the boss advertised as, Go with the best; go with the wind!, and which I mostly called, Go with the mahu!, meaning gay. The boss didn’t know. Anyhow, I landed, and Sam shook my hand and gave me a ten dollar tip, which was nice of him, if a bit cheap and unnecessary. He was as excited as a little kid with a new toy and took off almost at a run to his car. I parked the rig, as I called it sometimes—my father had been a truck driver—and it pissed off my boss, Mr. Emrick. I called him Mr. M or just M, for short.

I don’t know about Sam, but I was hot, sweaty, and covered with ash. I’d flown closer to the hot stuff than I was comfortable with, but I knew my rig, and I knew my stuff. But, boy, did I want a shower. As I drove home, I wondered again about the man I’d seen. And I mean home as in sharing half a condo belonging to my best friend, two miles from Makani. My own home was the upper floor of one of the houses that might yet be taken by the volcano, thirty miles away. If worst came to worst, I could land in the road, run in, and get some more of my things. I had my important stuff, family pictures, heirlooms such as they were, and important papers with me. And my computer and cameras and all that electronic stuff, of course.

My roommate, Steve, was on the couch, in his underwear, holding a beer. A local brew, but still very untypical and non-stereotypical for a gay man. Whereas I…except I’m not bitchy. Okay, I’m tired and probably dehydrated, and at least he wasn’t in the shower, so who cares how typical a gay man I am. I did have great hair, bronze—well, brown with a touch of L’Oréal—and great eyes, dark and mysterious, and, uh, usually great skin but filthy now.

“Ew, go wash that crap off! You look like you rolled in ash!”

Good old Steve.

“Dinner’s ready when you are, Buddy.”

Good old Steve, for reals. I realized I was starving.

As I thought about the man later, the whole scene burned into my mind. I sat, full of dinner, leaning back with a cold beer in my hand, on the floor, my back against the couch. Steve was playing some computer game with gun sounds, and he whooped and yelled. I thought of the thousand pots of fire I had seen, and the black trees burning, their tops naked, already gone. I thought of a lone man, leading a dog to safety, while Hell broke loose from the ground behind him and a two-hundred-foot-tall wall of fire spewed burning rocks and hatred from a deep, deep rift in the ground. I thought of my house, just beyond a stand of trees, and wondered how long it would last.

I wanted to know that man and why he was there. I wondered if I’d ever find out and if it even mattered.