Waimanalo Bay - A Story of Friendship

[seymoure]

Waimanalo Bay

On the islands, in the surf, all men are equal.

The ocean doesn’t give anyone special treatment.

That’s where they met, Gary and Shandar. Two young boys, swimming, laughing, splashing – just being boys.

Shandar was a prince of one of the great houses of Europe, but his family always found their way to the Waimanalo Bay in Hawaii. The boy was especially fond of this place because here he could just be a nobody. Oh, he feasted with the royal family of the islands on a few nights, but for most of his days no one knew who he was.

Gary’s father was a salesman for an American Corporation. Even he didn’t know what it was his father sold, but it didn’t matter – they were in Hawaii and he had the freedom of the ocean.

The ocean was less than a hundred steps from the beach, he had a shower in his back yard to wash the sand off him before he came into the house.

That beach is where they met.

               
                    The beach was where they became nearly brothers. Until the proposal. When the Royal family came to Gary’s family and proposed that he join the prince at his Swiss school, all expenses paid.

To the credit of his parents his father came to the kid with the idea, though he wasn’t enthused. The boy was scared. Not by the prince, he was his friend, he didn’t worry about that. He was worried, what if he fell out of favor? Stranded, with no money, in a foreign country. He certainly couldn’t ask his folks to fly him back, and he wasn’t old enough to work his way across on a tramp steamer.

Besides he had never been a fan of skiing or ice skating. And, he was going to go to the beach every day he could.

They parted without a word. He wasn’t sure if Shandar was offended, but he did look hurt. He wouldn’t have done that for the world, but the truth is the truth despite who cares not to hear it.

The beach wasn’t as much fun without his buddy.

A few months later they moved to the main land. There wasn’t enough work to keep his father on the islands. At least that was the story they gave him.

The truth was a scandal involving his mother, the kind of thing that would soon break up the marriage.

Everything that had made his home wonderful was gone.

Soon his father began drinking, every since his mother left the old man had been in a spiral.

The kid left home the first moment he could. He kicked around the country for years, looking for a purpose.

Then the papers were full of war in Europe. A small Balkan country was having a revolution. Loyalists against anti-Monarchists. They were going to throw off one of the last Royal families in the world who held absolute power over their people. The Loyalists were brutal and were cruel to those they captured.

This was a cause he could get involved with, never getting the obvious irony that you have already perceived.

Now he was old enough to work his way across the ocean, waiting tables on a cruise ship. As soon as he hit the English shore he began networking with the Batachian rebels. Within a month he was training for battle. Within two month he was knee deep in mud, carrying a gun and fighting for his life. He was the favorite of his comrades, fearless and valiant. He would volunteer for everything dangerous, for he was an idealist.

Three more months and he was wounded and capture after what would prove to be the turning point in the war.

For the last four months of the war he was tortured by a Colonel Romani, a man who was so angry about the impending loss he had to take it out on someone, and this dashing young foreigner was just perfect.

The word was that the Royakl Family know nothing of the atrocities this butcher was committing, and when they did they ordered him removed from any kind of command. But such is the case in crumbling governments that he remained at his post, dishing out hurt, until the day he was executed by the rebels.

Eventually the wound in Gary’s leg had turned septic and had to be amputated. The torture had resumed as soon as he could stand it.

The Colonel continued for an eternity.

When the rebels rescued the young American, it was in the wave of liberation. He was hailed as a hero, but he could think of nothing but going home.

He was given the honor of watching from the reviewing stand as the Royal family was kicked out of the country. They were lucky not to be hung in the main square as most were, but the people hated the monarchy, not these monarchs.

That was when they saw each other again.

Shandar was marching at the head of his family and turned as he passed the “Heroes of the Revolution.” He saw Gary as Gary saw him. The quickest of smiles played across his face as he recognized his childhood playmate.

The kid thought about how the world would have changed if he had spent his time in Switzerland rather than with his decaying family. Might he be down there on the street marching, with two legs, to an uncertain future? Rather than what he was doing, standing here, on one leg, looking toward an uncertain future.

There was only one thing he wanted to do now.

The people who backed the war, and made a lot of money out of it, gave him a pension and paid his airfare to take him anywhere he wanted to go.

So he landed in Honolulu and drove over to the small house he now owned, but had once rented, in Waimanalo.

Someday he might get some prosthetics that would look like nothing had ever happened to him, but for now he walked on a simple fake leg, but pretty well. He wasn’t going swimming, but he could hobble out to the beach.

The sound of the waves was incredibly comforting. He pulled a lawn chair with him and sat in the sun. He sat back and watched the children in the surf.

The cliché of a single tear was something he refused to recognize.

Then he looked beside himself, as someone else pulled up a similar chair.

Shandar sat.

They looked at each other. There was no rancor between them. They were together, on the same beach as their childhood happiness.

They both sat back and felt the sun on their faces.

They looked as far in the opposite direction as their heads physically permitted.

Shandor reached out and offered his hand.

There was a moment of pause. Gary looked Shandor’s hand.

He didn’t refuse.

THE END