The Queen of Tears (31 page)

When they’d first started going out, it was like he was trying to balance a tray full of cocktails, being careful not to spill one drop. In turn, she’d peel his oranges and shrimp, and when they finally started to sleep together, she’d tickle his back to help him fall asleep. It took years before he started to throw beer bottles against the wall. She wondered if all men were like this. She wondered if her son was going to grow up and be like this.

When she got off the elevator and entered the apartment, she was surprised to see how little it had changed. The fish tank was gone, of course, but the glass dining table, the television, the leather sofa, all of these things were in the same spot. Even Kenny seemed like an unmoved piece of furniture. He was sitting at the table, reading the sports section and drinking a bottle of water. He looked up. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

She sat down. “So about what I told you on the phone.”

Kenny put down the paper and shook his head. “Dumb kid. I told him about condoms.”

“Maybe you should have had the same talk with Crystal.”

“You seem to be taking this well.”

“Don’t comedians always say humor masks pain?”

Kenny took a gigantic swig from his plastic bottle, finishing off the water. “Listen, drop the kid off tomorrow. Let him spend the weekend with me. Maybe I’ll take him to the Club to have lunch or something. I’ll try to talk with him.”

“I’ll ask Kaipo if he can drop him off.”

“I would pick him up, but I have business stuff to do, and Waianae is so far away.”

“That’s O.K.”

“So she’s keeping it?”

“That’s what Brandon says.”

“What did your mother say?”

“Not much. But Donny said she stopped by the restaurant today, asking where Crystal was.”

“Your mother is nuts. Gotta love her. So are you guys ever going to come home?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re welcome anytime.”

“Thanks.”

“The kid will be O.K. Jeez, I wish I had that my first time.”

Kenny winced. Won Ju stared at him. “Don’t start,” he said. “It’s not a me thing, it’s a gender thing.”

“I think he’s sad.”

“I’d be sad, too. Stop! Stop! Don’t leave; I’m just joking.”

Won Ju sat back down. “Why do you take everything so seriously?” Kenny asked.

“There’s a baby involved, Grandpa.” She hoped the word would hurt his vanity.

Kenny’s face turned serious. “Are you willing to work with me on this?”

“What?”

“I have connections. What Crystal did was illegal. Statutory rape. I think I can get custody.”

“And Crystal?”

Kenny slapped his palm on the table. “Fuck Crystal.”

“But she’s Kaipo’s sister, and Kaipo has been so good to us.”

Kenny slapped his palm on the table, this time even louder. “Fuck Kaipo. Listen, this is the way the world works. You want something, you take it with the law on your side. This is the real world, not the boondocks. Do you really want a stripper raising our grandchild? Do you want the kid? I know your mother must be going nuts. I know she’d agree with me. We can get custody, and we can adopt. I already talked to John, you remember, John from the Club? He’s a big time lawyer, and he thinks we have a good chance if we stay married.”

“And Brandon’s role?”

“C’mon, Won Ju. He’s still a kid with his whole life ahead of him. Finish high school, college. We take care of the kid; he doesn’t have to worry about it.”

“What if he wants to?”

“Sure, he’ll be like an affectionate older brother. Then off to the mainland for college.”

Won Ju sat quietly. Kenny was on a roll, and she felt herself being persuaded. “A couple of things, though, Won Ju.”

“What?”

“We wait until Crystal has the kid, then we move legally. I don’t want anything to upset the pregnancy. And we don’t tell Brandon. I mean, we may not get our hands on the kid for another year or two. Let him grow out of it. A year or two more in high school, girlfriends, driver’s license, he’ll forget about the baby.”

Won Ju nodded. She still had one more question. Who were they doing this for? But she kept the question to herself. Maybe she knew that Kenny had an answer ready to fire back. Maybe she was afraid that the real answer would somehow emerge if she asked.

-5-

Kaipo had no idea what he was doing with these people. When he’d first seen them at the Club, at the get-together after his sister’s wedding, he’d decided that he didn’t want anything to do with them. Private haole clubs, old Korean women with earrings that were worth more than his truck, Hawaiian guys who were trying to be haole, unemployed Korean guys who were momma’s boys, spoiled college girls, and sulky mothers and sons, none of it appealed to him. He’d gone to the dinner because his sister asked him to, but he figured that’d be it. He didn’t know why his sister was getting mixed up with these people, but he didn’t say anything. It was her life.

He had a bad attitude about people with money, and he knew it. He figured most people thought that his bad attitude sprouted from jealousy, but they were wrong. He didn’t have any desire to have a lot of money. He just took what he needed. He figured in the old days, it was probably similar, Hawaiians living off the land. But there was no land left, so he picked rich people’s stuff like he was picking taro. And most of the time it wasn’t like it was stuff they needed anyway. Jewelry, car stereos, golf clubs, and laptop computers. He could understand punishing people who took what people needed, but punishing for taking things like these? It didn’t make much sense to him.

So he didn’t dislike people with money because he envied the fact that they had money, he didn’t like money because of what it turned these people into. It made them think that they had power, protection, and freedom. The shackles of cash were invisible to them, and to Kaipo, there was nothing worse than talking to somebody who thought that they had more or were more than they really were. He wanted to punch people like that in the face. And sometimes he did. Just to show them that he had no money, but he had the power and the freedom to hurt them, maybe even kill them, if he wanted to. He couldn’t believe how people with money were fooling themselves.

So when he’d seen those Koreans, that one token Hawaiian with all the plastic-looking muscles at the Club who had the nerve to call him “brother,” and the haoles all around him, he saw a bunch of fools. The funniest thing was that they looked down on him, but they also feared him. What could they do, make spears, helmets, and shields out of green paper? They knew what was up, but none of them had the guts to admit it to themselves.

When he’d arrived and sat down that night, facing the beach and the docked outrigger canoes, which were modeled after what his ancestors had made centuries before, he knew this Korean family was talking about money. He didn’t have to understand the language to know that that was what they were talking about. Controlled anger in words was the language of money.

He’d stared out at the canoes, thinking how even though he was half-Hawaiian, he’d never paddled one before, while the family spat back and forth in sharp and loud dialogue. There was a song-like quality to it; the words all seemed to vary in volume, and some words had even more than one tone to them. While listening to them sing about money, he thought back to when he’d entered the club just five minutes before, when he saw the trophies from the Hawaiian Canoe Club canoe racing victories, and the pictures of the winning crews—mostly white. So with the Koreans going at it in their language about money, and thinking about Hawaiian canoe paddling, Kaipo felt like a foreigner there, on the beach, in Hawaii.

He thought about that first night as he and Brandon coasted on the freeway, heading for the Pali. Brandon stuck his head out of the window like a dog and smiled as the wind tossed his hair. It was a strong wind that shimmied his cheeks. He hadn’t said anything since they’d left. But Brandon’s quietness never bothered Kaipo; in fact, he liked it.

Brandon had been the only quiet one that night at the Hawaiian Canoe Club. He’d barely even noticed Kaipo, it seemed, and immediately Kaipo knew why he was so quiet. Brandon didn’t have anything to say to these people. He was a foreigner, too. So Kaipo liked him, and decided to sit there quietly, too, until Darian started to talk to him.

Darian. She was a sweet kid. Full of ideas and long, not necessarily big, words. Always reading books, talking about how there was so much reality and truth in ink and paper. At least her fake world wasn’t made out of green paper. At first, after he’d gotten the phone call from his sister offering part-time work, which he’d known would make his PO happy, he thought that he’d just be in and out of there on weekends. Then Darian came on to him, and he figured, why not? She was good-looking. He wasn’t stupid.

But something funny happened. He didn’t fall in love or anything like that; he thought of it more along the lines of flea infestation. You bring a dog into your house; you’re not only bringing in the dog, you’re bringing in all of the fleas attached to the dog, too. But he liked them. He liked Darian, Won Ju, and the kid; besides, they weren’t messy. They didn’t mess with his ghost mother, who had been a transparent spectre in that house as long as he could remember, either, so he saw no reason to put a flea collar on Darian. Besides, the entire family amused him, and it seemed like he had his own little flea circus.

“So what? Rough day, yestaday?” he asked.

Brandon pulled his head away from the window. “Nah. Where was everybody, anyway?”

“I took your madda fo’ meet your grandmadda. Den I took your madda fo’ meet your fadda. I tink Darian and your grandmadda went work wit’ your uncle.”

“You’re like a taxi. They don’t piss you off?”

“Nah. Whatevas.”

“Yeah.”

They took the Pali Highway cutoff. The ascent up the Ko‘olau Mountains sloped up gradually, unlike the descent, which would consist of steep drops and a notorious hairpin turn. To both the left and right there was foliage so thick that the ground seemed to consist of tops of trees. Far to the right, the mountains were veined with the faint white lines of waterfalls from the heavy morning showers. Though the news had said nothing about a hurricane or tropical storm, Kaipo sensed something coming. The sun seemed to be fighting with the clouds over whether there would be rain or shine. A vortex of air blew through the open window, into the cab of the truck, twirling old receipts, empty cigarette packs, crumpled gum foils, and loose clothing. “Roll up da window. I tink going storm.”

Brandon obeyed. As they traveled further up, a sunny drizzle started. “Only in Hawaii, can be sunny and rainy at da same time.”

Brandon didn’t say anything. He was staring out the window. Just then, it seemed as if someone dumped a bucket of water on the windshield. It poured heavily for just a few seconds, then the rain completely stopped, and the sun shone strongly. The wind was getting more and more powerful. Leaves were being ripped from their branches.

As they neared the top, the tunnels, Brandon cleared his throat, then looked at Kaipo excitedly. “Hey, Kaipo, let’s check out the Lookout.”

“What if we late?”

“Just for a few minutes. Look how strong the wind is.”

The windshield wipers were vibrating. A weak drizzle started again. “Nah, raining.”

“It’s only drizzling.”

“O.K., O.K. We go.”

Kaipo took the Pali Lookout cut-off. There were tour buses and rental cars in the parking lot. Both Japanese and haole tourists were walking toward the Lookout point, toting cameras and children. Charges of wind rippled through their clothes and hair as they leaned forward against the wind. The tourists with children began turning back. “Must be one good day,” Kaipo said.

They got out of the truck. Kaipo looked up. He could see that it was raining, but raindrops were not hitting them. The wind was blowing the water back up, creating a cloud mist suspended a couple of stories above their heads. It was the first time Kaipo saw anything like this. The wind at the Pali Lookout was almost always strong, because it was a small gap at the top of the mountain range, much like a gap between two front teeth constantly causing whistling, but he never saw the wind stop rain before.

They walked past the defeated tourists. As they neared the cement railing, Kaipo had to lean more and more forward to move through the whistling wind. Brandon walked beside him, smiling as he squinted. A faint trail of tears was streaming toward his temples. They walked down the old cement stairs. More and more tourists passed them, complaining about the strength of the wind. Some children were crying. Some had scraped knees. Kaipo was amazed at how much effort he had to put into the last several paces to the edge of the cliff.

By the time Kaipo and Brandon reached the cement railing, and held on to the top of three horizontal safety bars above it, they were the only ones left. The sun was winning its fight with the clouds, but Kaipo could not tell if it was hot or cold. The sun rays warmed him, while the wind chilled his skin.

Over the railing, right below the cliff, was a thick canopy about a hundred feet below. Beyond the canopy, further out and down, was a golf course. Beyond that, Kaipo could see an ant line of cars on Kamehameha Highway, all of the suburbs of Kaneohe town, and Kaneohe Bay. The Bay was a mixture of warm, shallow, coral-reef greens and deep, cold-channel blues. Coconut Island was there. Kaipo pointed to it. “That’s Gilligan’s Island,” he said.

The wind made his voice practically inaudible. Brandon seemed not to hear him. He tapped Brandon on the shoulder. “We betta go,” he said.

Brandon smiled. “How many leaves to you think are down there on all those trees?”

Kaipo looked down. From that angle, the trees looked as if they were made entirely of leaves. “Billions,” he said.

More tears streamed toward Brandon’s temples. They looked like transparent crow’s feet. “They all look the same, don’t they?”

Kaipo looked down again. He supposed Brandon was right. “We so high, dat’s why.”

“My science teacher told me, you know, about all that genetic research and stuff. He told me all human beings were ninety-nine-point-nine percent like each other.”