The End of the Dream (4 page)

Steve was very thin in those years.

He had black beetling brows that gave him the look of a darkly brooding artist. Kevin looked a lot like Steve, though it was as if they were opposite sides of a coin. Steve’s side was shadowy while Kevin’s was bathe in sunshine. After learning everything he could in Germany, Steve Meyers moved to Norway to a village in the Telemark Mountains.

There, he restored antique furniture so deftly that even a trained appraiser could scarcely detect the places where the old pieces had been renewed. He loved the precious woods and sanded and smoothed them with care. Eventually, Steve moved to Oslo and, at last, had his own studio where he designed furniture. He also returned to sculpting.

Critics were enthusiastic about Steve’s work. It would have been difficult for them to picture him as one of Joanna Meyers’ four rowdy kids the kids who ate dog biscuits for cookies when times were lean and who had moved from one place to another while their determined mother searched for a secure home. Steve Meyers had blossomed into an artist who seemed capable of creating anything, whether he coaxed his pieces from wood or from marble from glass or from steel. All the bad times seemed to be in the past. In Norway, Steve met a woman who made him abandon his austere, rather lonely life. Her name was Maureen Lockett.

They lived together and, with Maureen, Steve moved to Carrara, Italy, in 1978. In 1980, Maureen and Steve had a baby daughter Cara.

Steve was almost shocked by the love he felt for the tiny, perfect child with a cherub face. And she worshiped her father. Cara looked like a Botticelli painting, and, early on, she showed talent for dance just as her Aunt Dana had. Steve never planned to return to America not for good. He was in his element in Europe, where the masters had studied and painted and sculpted. He would visit his mother, certainly, but he never planned to go home to America to stay.

He had everything he needed in Italy. In the middle years of the seventies, all of Joanna’s children had taken steps toward the forefront of the art world. It seems hardly possible that two parents could have produced four children with so much talent, but Joanna and Gordon had.
 
Beyond the fact that the children shared a tremendously creative sense, they also looked like one another.

A woman who met Kevin and Dana many years later recalled that she was shocked to see how much they resembled each other. “She was a beautiful girl, and he was a handsome young man but their faces their faces were like twins .. .” Dana was beautiful.

She went to New York to study dance and joined the chorus line of the Rockettes, the famous Radio City Music Hall dancers.

Ironically, though Dana was the first of the Meyers to become a professional in the arts, she was the one who cared the least about her career. All she really wanted to do was marry and have children. Dana longed to care for children, her own and others’.

* * * .. \ Kevin Meyers graduated from Herndon High School in 1972.

Ed Zuraw helped him decide which scholarship to accept, and he settled on Tempe Junior College in Arizona, where he continued to excel and break records. One day, however, in the last meet before the Arizona State finals, Kevin misjudged his speed and the height of the bar when he sailed over at almost fifteen and a half feet. It would have been another record, but he kept on going and crashed into the bar’s standards beyond the pit. He ruptured both his ankles. The tendons were almost snapped and his ankles hemorrhaged. It would be six weeks before he could stand, much less pole vault, so he wouldn’t be able to compete in the state finals. But he was young, he healed as good as new, and his extraordinary talent as a pole vaulter returned. He spent some time in the summer of 1974 with his father, painting houses to earn some money.
 
When he told his father that his greatest wish was to go to school in Hawaii, Gordon Meyers surprised him. He not only didn’t laugh, he said he thought he could do something to make that happen. “My dad went inside the house, made a few phone calls, and within a day, he told me it was taken care of.

I had a scholarship to the University of Hawaii! “ The offer exceeded all of Kevin’s dreams. He accepted at once. The kid who had bounced off walls back in Kansas would now live in paradise.

He would receive room, board, books, and tuition. Back in Reston, Kevin ran into Scott Scurlock at a party. Scott was with an absolutely beautiful girl named Corrinne. That didn’t surprise Kevin scott usually had a fabulous-looking woman on his arm.

Although they hadn’t seen each other for years, they talked and caught up and Kevin mentioned that he was on his way to Hawaii.

Scott said he had been in Israel, living in a kibbutz, and that he’d always wanted to go to Hawaii. Kevin wondered what a Baptist guy would be doing in a kibbutz, but Scott had always been up for some new adventure. “How much is the plane fare to Hawaii? “ Scott asked. “I only know the one-way fare, “ Kevin said, “and that’s two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I might come over someday, “ Scott said. Kevin didn’t think much of his comments.

They were making small talk at a party. Although the University of Hawaii supporters were far more enthusiastic about football and baseball than they were about track and the money allocated for track facilities was minimal by comparison, Kevin Meyers figured he’d died and gone to heaven when he got off the plane in Honolulu in the autumn of 1974. He loved Hawaii, the coaching staff, and the chance to turn out for the sport that consumed him. He cashed his first scholarship check at a bank near the Puck’s Alley shopping mall in Honolulu, and he was tucking the money into his wallet as he walked out of the bank into a fine misty rain. Just at that moment, a bus arrived from the airport and pulled up in front of the bank. Kevin looked up and saw a familiar figure alight from the bus. The man wore frayed shorts, an old Tshirt, and he was barefoot. He had a faded Boy Scout knapsack on his back.

It was Scott Scurlock. Scott had always had a way of turning up in the oddest places, as if he had dropped out of the sky. Kevin would learn never to be surprised to find Scott tapping on his door or rapping at his window. Now, Scott stepped down, as casually as if they weren’t thousands of miles from Reston.

“How you doing, Bubba? “ Scott said. While they had been good acquaintances before mostly for the purpose of gang tag when they were in junior high school they were about to became best friends.

They were fated to be the best of buddies, true friends, and mischievous partners. Scott dubbed Kevin “Thunderbolt” because he was aggressive and fearless especially about approaching women. He had long since lost his shyness. Scott called himself “Light foot” because he had a certain athletic grace and stealthy ability to seem almost invisible. For as long as he could remember, Kevin had wished for a friend who would be as close as a brother.

Somehow, his own brothers had never filled the empty space he carried inside. And, from the moment Scott Scurlock stepped off that bus in Hawaii, acting as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world for him to be there, he and Kevin Meyers formed a bond so strong that it would stand the test of time and good and bad fortune. Nothing short of death or a cataclysmic metamorphosis in one or the other could ever break it. Scott Scurlock quickly landed on his feet in Hawaii. His main employment was with a company called Hawaii Plant Life and Privacy Fences. He worked for a man named Warren Putske, who quickly realized how competent Scott was and made him a supervisor. Putske shared a huge house with several others, and he turned the basement over to Scott.

Warren Putske was an entrepreneur and sometime politician who was ten years older than Scott. Besides owning Hawaii Plant Life, Putske ran for public office as “The Uncandidate, “ who promised “If elected, I promise to do nothing! “ He always got his share of votes from people who appreciated his honesty. Scott didn’t have enough money for a car at first, so he bought a bicycle to get around. “The fact that he picked up women for dates riding a bicycle didn’t bother them at all, “ Kevin said. “He found another beautiful girlfriend right away. He used to tell me that riding double on a bike only warmed his women up good’ by the time they got to the movies.” Scott applied for modeling assignments and was hired often. He was certainly handsome enough to make it as a modelor even as an actor. He was a man having a love affair with movie she saw almost every film that came out and he would have jumped at the chance to act, although he didn’t pursue it. Aside from his gardening job, most of Scott’s employment came about because of his looks and his innate charm. For a while, he also worked at the Honolulu Airport as a “lei greeter.” His assignment was to kiss female passengers as they walked through the arrival gates, and put leis around their neck. For Scott, it was like stealing money, he adored women, all women or so it seemed.

Kevin Meyers concentrated on track. He vaulted sixteen feet that first year at the University of Hawaii. The son of the Reverend Bob Richardsthe legendary track star visited the University of Hawaii and taught Kevin how to vault over seventeen feet. He was reaching heights that would have been unheard of even ten years earlier. And then, suddenly, after only a year, it was all over. Maybe it had been too perfect to last. The university cut the track program out of its budget so that they could build the Hula Bowl. They had no reason to pay a pole vaulter’s tuition and expenses any longer even if he was one of the five best in America.

Kevin Meyers was not only terribly disappointed, he was stuck.

He didn’t want to go back to the mainland, and, if he had, he had no money for airfare. A kid named Leon, one of the other pole vaulters, told Kevin he was renting an A-frame out in the jungle.

There wasn’t any water there or even any windows, but it had four walls, a roof and mosquito netting over the holes where windows were supposed to be. Leon offered a room to Kevin while he tried to figure out a way to survive. It was almost impossible for anyone to starve in Hawaii, although the variety of food available to someone on a tight budget was limited. Kevin was subsisting mostly on bananas. “I moved in, and then I came home one day and found the place was overrun with goats! Big goats, baby goats.” Kevin laughed. “They were standing on each other’s backs trying to eat the last of my stalk of bananas.” Kevin went over to see Scott, and Scott got him a job landscaping for Hawaii Plant Life.

Scott’s basement bedroom had bunk beds and Kevin moved into one of them.
 
This would be just the first of the many times that Kevin and Scott shared living space. The arrangements certainly weren’t lavish, but, for Kevin, it sure beat fighting goats for his dinner. Although Scott Scurlock had the bearing of a man who feared nothing, there were things that frightened him. Dark things. The first time he told Kevin that he sometimes felt that a kahuna was stalking him, his friend thought Scott was kidding.

But he wasn’t. Scott had heard of the Night Walkers who roamed the islands when the moon was hidden and there was no light at all. He had heard that one had to get out of their way or he would dieonly to be swept up in their path and become one of them, doomed to walk forever in the dark. Scott always kept some sort of weapon nearby a club or a knife.
 
One night, he took a shower, after setting his club just outside the curtain where it was . handy.

As he turned on the water, the basement went dark. Terrified, he raced to the light switch and flipped it back on. No sooner was he back in the shower than the basement went dark again. When Kevin came home, he found Scott waiting outside, his club held close.

The “dark things” had frightened him, but he could never actually describe them. Kevin didn’t laugh at Scott. Whatever haunted him was real at least to him. Warren Putske had a lot of trust in Scott and gave him quite a bit of responsibility in carrying out big jobs for Hawaii Plant Life. Although Kevin was a good worker, he was, by his own evaluation, more of a “wild man” and Putske viewed him with a wary eye particularly after he rode a few times in the company truck when Kevin was at the wheel. Kevin drove a truck the way he pole vaultedthrottle wide open. When he got out alive, Putske vowed never to ride with Kevin again. Despite his unique personality, people had always liked Kevin Meyersbut for different reasons than why they liked Scott Scurlock. Scott mesmerized people where Kevin was as friendly and sincere as a puppy dog. Bill Pfiel, who had been one of his track coaches at the University of Hawaii, was also a tomato farmer. He had leased five acres of prime agricultural land and two houses on the north end of the island of Oahu. He knew that Kevin’s living arrangements were tenuous, and he offered the smaller house on his acreage to him for $270 a month. Even better, he said he would give Kevin the first four months free if he r painted the house and landscaped the hard-packed earth that surrounded it. Kevin grabbed the place, and he asked Scott if he wanted to go partners on the project.

The house sat on the opposite end of the ranch from Pfiel’s place. It had a magnificent view of Waimea Bay and the salt breezes stirred the coconut palms so that they almost sang. The place would be nearly free if they both chipped in. No rent for four months, and then only $135 a piece. Pfiel loaned them a dump truck to move their belongings over to the farm. They gathered up bits and pieces of furniture, books, and personal belongings and moved onto the barren-looking spot. Things began to look up almost immediately. The men who thought of themselves as Thunderbolt and Light foot were about to embark on a lifestyle that any young man in his early twenties might aspire to. They were both handsome and smart and healthy and without a care in the world. Both of them were in peak condition. They were tanned, their hair and beards were thick and luxuriant. And they were still utterly fearless daredevils. They had no bonds no wives or children, no parents within five thousand miles. It was 1975, an era of adventure and free love for many young Americans, but for none as much as Kevin and Scott.

They were on an endless vacation. “We had four rules we lived by, “ Kevin said, “See Beauty, Have a Blast, Do Good, and Be Free! “ The tomato farm grew whatever was in season, tomatoes, of course, and squash and green beans. Shark’s Cove and Waimea Bay were only a couple of minutes away. Bill Pfiel’s agreement with Kevin and Scott also included work in the fields for the mat minimum wage whenever they wanted to make a little extra money. They dubbed their end of the ranch “The Shire Plantation” after the Hobbit fantasy in The Lord f the Rings. Their life was as close to perfect as that of the fictional Hobbits whose homes were cottages surrounded by flowers and who lived in peace and harmony.
 
Hobbits never fought or argued, they farmed, ate six meals a day, and simply enjoyed life. “We had everything we might ever want, “ Kevin recalled.