The Hawaiian Tour Guide (Part II)

After revealing the plane crash tragedy that had defined his life, our Hawaiian tour guide turned the van around and we headed back toward our ship. Since we were taking the same road back that we had just been on, there wasn’t much left for him to tell us about Kauai, so to make conversation, he posed us a question. “Are you religious people?”

Although I confessed that my beliefs somewhat deviated from the norm, for the most part, we all confirmed that, at the very least, we all had Christian upbringings. After further inquiry, he determined that our friend Ocamie seemed the most open to his next question, so he directed it to her. “Do you believe in the Book of Revelations and the coming of the Anti-Christ?”

We were all familiar with various interpretations of this, so he was comfortable going on. “I know who the Anti-Christ is,” he confirmed confidently.

“He is alive now?”, Ocamie asked. Our ears perked up for the answer, kind of like my dog when you ask him if he wants a treat.

“Yes.” He explained that Revelations says the Anti-Christ will come from the “east”. Well now, I deduct that “east” is a relative term and can be applied to anything: Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the east coast, heck, even east LA for that matter. He needed to narrow it down a bit.

He then explained that we would also be deceived by this Anti-Christ. Made sense. After all, many people would deduct that it would have to be a foreign dictator, someone like a Saddam Hussein or that crazy guy from Iran. God is too cool to be that obvious. Besides, in order to have power over the entire world, he would need the support of the strongest nation, which obviously means he would need the people of the US to support him.

Now, as the conversation progressed, I was not too convinced, but I was oddly aware of how I was hanging on every word coming out of Eduardo’s mouth. I am a sucker for a good conspiracy theory, especially when the person presenting it is thoroughly convinced of it’s reality. I was also very conscious of the fact that I tend to like people, even crazy ones. Like my fellow tourists, I was also very aware that we were paying way more attention to the road than the guy driving.

Then he just blurted it out, “Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Anti-Christ.”

Now this was all very logical, at least to Eduardo. After all, Arnold’s roots are Eastern European. He has even had to defend his family’s past ties to the Nazi Party. Eduardo also explained that Arnold is well loved by both Democrats and Republicans (well, evidently not so much the religious wing of the Republican Party), and even has ties to American Royalty, the Kennedys. When we pointed out that in order to become President, you have to be born in the US, he replied that there was already a bill in the works to overturn this. When I pointed out that I was pretty sure that would take an Amendment to the Constitution, these facts were just arbitrary annoyances to Eduardo.

Arnold would prevail. Now, in hindsight and after spending some time on the internet researching Arnold the Anti-Christ, I found this was not an original prediction Eduardo was making. But Eduardo was persistent and he had an in. Eduardo had premonitions and gave some interesting predictions to share because of them. Eduardo had already seen it all unfold in his own mind.

Eduardo claimed that in April of this year, Barack Obama will be assassinated. (I couldn’t help but wonder if we would see Eduardo on TV that day, holding the gun.) Hillary will be swept into office due to over-whelming sympathy for the Democratic candidate. During her single term of office, Eduardo’s premonitions told him that there would be four or five major terrorist attacks on US soil. Then, riding the tide of Americans’ desire for a “tough guy”, Arnold would be swept into the White House. (Eduardo was quick to point out that Americans are too dumb to tell the difference between Arnold the person and Arnold the actor.)

Armageddon would start the day after the elections in 2012.

Interesting guy, this Eduardo. And when the van finally pulled up to the ship and we piled out, he assured us that, even though we were filled with doubt, we were more than welcome to come stay with him in Kauai when his premonitions started to prove true. We thanked him for the entertaining tour, tipped him well, and said good-bye.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was already forming my own plans. I wonder if I should follow through on making those reservations for that hut in St. Johns.