The Curse of Lono - By Hunter S. Thompson Page 0,61

you know, and they take their legends seriously. Which is understandable, I think, in the minds of people who still shudder at the memory of what happened when they bungled Lono's last visit.

It was not surprising, in retrospect, that my King Kong-style arrival in Kailua Bay on a hot afternoon in the spring of 1981 had a bad effect on the natives. The word traveled swiftly up and down the coast, and by nightfall the downtown streets were crowded with people who had come from as far away as South Point and the Waipio Valley to see for themselves if the rumor was really true -- that Lono had, in fact, returned in the form of a huge drunken maniac who dragged fish out of the sea with his bare hands and then beat them to death on the dock with a short-handled Samoan war club.

By noon the next day these rumors of native unrest had reached our friends in the real estate bund, who saw it as the "last straw," they said later, and reached a consensus decision to get me out of town on the next plane. This news was conveyed to me by Bob Mardian at the bar of the Kona Inn, which he owns.

"These guys are not kidding," he warned me. "They want to put you in Hilo Prison." He glanced nervously around the bar to see who was listening, then grasped my arm firmly and leaned his head close to mine. "This is serious," he whispered. "I've got three waitresses who won't come to work until you're gone."

"Gone?" I said. '"What do you mean?"

He stared at me for a moment, drumming his fingers on the bar. "Look," he said finally. "You've gone too far this time. It's not funny anymore. You're fucking with their religion. The whole town is stirred up. The realtors had a big meeting today, and they tried to blame it on me."

I called for another brace of margaritas -- which Mardian declined, so I drank them both -- while I listened. It was the first time I'd ever seen Mardian take anything seriously.

"This Lono thing is dangerous," he was saying. "It's the one thing they really believe in."

I nodded.

"I wasn't here when it happened," he went on, "but it was the first thing I heard about when I got off the plane -- 'Lono is back, Lono is back.' " He laughed nervously. "Jesus, we can get away with almost anything out here -- but not that."

The bar was quiet. People were staring at us. Mardian had obviously been chosen -- by his own people -- to deliver an ugly message.

July 1, 1981

City of Refuge

Dear Ralph,

(24 hours later). . . I must be getting old, Ralph, eight pages is about all I can do in one night; so I took a break and got some sleep. I also felt I should back off and have a long look at this I am Lono business, because I was wary of being fooled by another false dawn.

That was the problem, Ralph. We were blind. The story we wanted was right in front of our eyes from the very start -- although we can be excused, I think, for our failure to instantly understand a truth beyond reality. It was not an easy thing for me to accept the fact that I was born 1,700 years ago in an ocean-going canoe somewhere off the Kona Coast of Hawaii, a prince of royal Polynesian blood, and lived my first life as King Lono, ruler of all the islands.

According to our missionary/journalist, William Ellis, I "governed Hawaii during what may in its chronology be called the Fabulous Age". . . until "(I) became offended with my wife, and murdered her; but afterwards lamented the act so much, as to induce a state of mental derangement. In this state (I) traveled through all the islands, boxing and wrestling with everyone (I) met. . . (I) subsequently set sail in a singularly shaped 'magic' canoe for Tahiti, or a foreign country. After (my) departure (I) was deified by (my) countrymen, and annual games of boxing and wrestling were instituted in (my) honor."

How's that for roots?

What?

Don't argue with me, Ralph. You come from a race of eccentric degenerates; I was promoting my own fights all over Hawaii fifteen hundred years before your people even learned to take a bath.

And besides, this is the story. I don't know music, but I have a good ear for the high white sound.