There was no one to wake him up this time, but Chan did come to in the dark. His head pounded. The luminous hands of the clock read 12:30.
Damn, he thought, this is going to be a long night.
Lying there, he knew he was alone. He missed Kathy. Looking at the clock again, he decided it was better not to call her this late.
Chan got up and headed out to the kitchen. After downing a couple of aspirin, he poured himself a hefty shot of Jack Daniels, admitting that these dreams were a little too real. Did that make them surreal? Or would they become that if he came face to face with Jasmine Komine and Harvey Wong and recognized them both? Or even one of them? Yes, that would be surreal.
Why did he not know them, yet seem to know them so well?
Sitting down at the dining room table, he could see the Honolulu city lights. They were beautiful in their own way. He could see how patterns of lights lit up the streets. Lusitana ran toward downtown. A long string of light lit up Vineyard Boulevard and Fort Street. Off in the distance, down by the ocean, Nimitz Highway snaked east, transitioning to Ala Moana Boulevard.
And then, if you thought about it, you could see that besides the street lights, you could follow the patterns by stoplight changes. The synchronization wasn’t perfect, of course. The various red, green, and yellow lights switching among each other reminded him of the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree. But if you watched them long enough, you could see a pattern emerging in their rotation of colors. They were a random display, yet they were not. All were timed. The red, green, and yellow sequences kept on going, as regular as if each were a heartbeat. And all together, well, they were one big beating heart.
Traffic lights, dictating, constantly, when drivers from one end of the island to the other would stop and go. Another kind of order. All those cars running around like ants, yet following in orderly fashion the constant red, green, and yellow beats making up that single big beat.
Chan got up and went over to the phone. Picking up the telephone book, he returned to the dining room table. Another sip of JD, and he was ready to look up the woman and man of his dreams.
There were no Jasmine Komines in the book, but there was a J. Komine. Lots of women didn’t want to advertise that they lived alone, but because Hawaiian Telephone required, if you had a phone, that you be listed using at least your first initial along with your last name, those who wanted to maintain some anonymity gave a first name initial.
J. Komine lived on Nehoa Street. Judging by the address, it was somewhere just Diamond Head of Chan’s alma mater, Roosevelt High School. He wrote down the phone number as well, even though this meeting would have to be in person. He wanted to see whoever this person was, and if it was a woman, absolutely, a face-to-face interview was imperative.
There was a Harvey Wong. He lived on Algaroba Street near Honolulu Stadium, the Termite Palace, so called because, depending on the time of year and the weather conditions, once the stadium lights went on the termites would swarm the whole place. They’d be in your hair, in your food. It was gross, but that was part of the package if you wanted to see a football game or the Hawai‘i Islanders baseball team.
There were also three H. Wongs, but Chan, of course, wanted to try Harvey first. He needed to see this man in person as well.
Yes, he had to see the faces of both these people. And if he recognized either or both of them? Then what? Stranger than fiction, life.
Ghosts, he’d seen. Possibly. His dead partner, Victor Yamamoto, had visited from time to time for a chat. But Chan was a little skeptical about these encounters. They occurred at night when he was tired and had been drinking. Who knew for sure?
Chan poured himself another healthy shot. Sliding open the lanāi doors, he stepped out and walked to the railing, half expecting Victor to be waiting for him. Alone, however, he leaned against the cold wood and sipped.
All those lights. At first glance, the whole scene did appear to be a random jumble. But if you looked at them long enough, the patterns emerged.
Staring at them, analyzing them, you could see a kind of order in the apparent chaos.
Lanning Lee 