by Lisa Freeman
Don McLean’s voice blasted out of the windows above. Maybe Jean would find the secret “American Pie” message today but I seriously doubted it. Nothing could save her. No pop star or God. She was a lost cause. I swore to myself that I’d never depend on her again. She had become a memory even though she was still alive.
The sun was intense. It was the end of August and finally felt like summer. I had an hour before the lineup expected me. There was only one more thing to do before I claimed my permanent spot at State. The sooner I got it taken care of, the better off I’d be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Funny Kine Honey Girl
This was it.
Channel Lane was a secret street. More of a low bridge, really, that went over the aqueduct leading to State. I ducked down it, checking over my shoulder as I went. The plan was simple: sneak through the creek, zip up to the Jetty, and let Dad go on turtle turf, make it back without anyone seeing me, and cruise onto State. The Jetty, my first beach, would be Dad’s puuhonua. I think that’s what it was called. It was getting harder and harder to remember the exact translation for Hawaiian words, but I think it meant “sanctuary.”
I shuffled through my purse looking for a snack. All I found were a few squares of Bazooka bubble gum with sand-caked wrappers. I stuck all four pieces in my mouth at once. It was like chewing a tennis ball. I sucked down the sugary juice, looking at the glass jar filled with teeny bone fragments and ash, trying to get up my nerve.
No matter what it took, I had to keep my balance and get my mojo under control. I hummed a Kui Lee melody. My voice sounded strange to me. It seemed deeper and older. It wasn’t the way I remembered it from school assemblies or sailing with Dad. Something in me had really changed. It was as though I found the missing piece to a map and finally knew exactly where I was going. When the gum went soft, I knew it was time. Dad had to get to the ocean and I had to get to my permanent spot in the lineup.
My towel was wrapped tight around my waist as I walked into the tall dill weeds, looking for a way under the bridge. I was just stepping around the chain link fence that divided the hillside from the street when I heard a mini bike blasting down Entrada Drive.
There they were. Rox and Jerry, swerving slow and wide down the street. Her hands were hidden under his waistband. They were coming directly toward me. Rox’s towel flew open behind her like wings, and Jerry looked like he had just woken up with his dark shades, wild hair, and crumpled navy blue trunks. Rox sat snug against his back, leaning over his shoulder. Obviously they were together again.
Before they got to the bridge, I jumped back and tripped over the roots of a giant eucalyptus tree. I grabbed my purse and huddled low, holding my knees. I watched them get off the bike. They were just a few feet in front of me. Jerry stepped up onto the sidewalk and pulled Rox to him and kissed her. Watching their tongues swish around each other’s made me sick. They were practically doing it in front of me. And did Jerry have my necklace on?
I stood up, keeping my head low. Jerry did have my necklace on. The red coral and ivory fit snug around his neck.
I couldn’t catch my breath; my stomach sank. I was so crazed, I lost my footing again. I teetered back and forth, but there was no stopping my long slide. I grabbed two big handfuls of ivy that laced the sharp incline but couldn’t get my balance. I slid a few more feet down and reached out for another bunch of vines. I tugged too hard, and they snapped out of my hands as I fell under the bridge.
It was only a couple of feet, but my bag strap broke and the glass jar pitched into the air. It plunged into the creek and shattered to pieces on the bank. My whole body went stiff. I wanted to scream but couldn’t, so I stuck my hand over my mouth. There was nothing I could do but watch my dad’s ashes explode into the air and fly away, sparkling like gold dust into the sky. It was as though there was a funnel or a force in that aqueduct that took him away in a single gust of wind.
“What was that?” Jerry asked. I peered up and saw him looking over the bridge just a few feet above me. He had Rox sandwiched in front of him, cupping her breasts.
“Rats,” Rox said, pulling Jerry away. “Let’s go to our spot.”
After I heard them drive off, I ran to the broken jar. A sound came out of my mouth like a high-pitched hiss. I was crying, “No, no, no.” Gasping for air, I threw my towel down and kneeled over the broken glass. I clutched my hair to one side and huddled as close as I could to the half-submerged jar. It was awful. What was left of my dad stuck to the bottom. I took a stick and scraped it out, making sure every muddy bit was released.
The creek was only a few inches deep, but it flowed steadily out to sea. This would have to be my father’s puuhonua.
“Aloha, Daddy,” I said. “Thank you for making me Hawaiian. Sorry about the Jesus stuff. I hope your spirit makes it home to warm water. Amen.”
I guess you could call it a prayer.
“Who are you?”
I turned my head quickly and gasped, swallowing the wad of gum. My eyes went wide looking up at Lōlō the bum and his dog towering above me. Lōlō wore an orange crate on his head, a wine cork necklace, and smelled like burnt popcorn or something unearthed after the rain. Armpit stains seeped through his coat, and up close I could see his face was layered with thin red lines the size of veins on a shrimp’s spine. I tried to stand, but the dog growled and sat on my long hair. I knew better than to move. The dog’s skull was bigger than mine, and his mouth was right beside my face. My flip-flops were squishing into the moss that lined the water’s edge. When I talked, I couldn’t move.
“I’m just a nice Hawaiian going to the beach.”
“I didn’t ask what you are. I asked who—who are you?” Lōlō sounded like a professor, not some nut with a crate on his head.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Lōlō dipped down into my face. He had crusty lips and beer breath. I pulled back slowly.
“Don’t you know who you are?” he said with a frown.
Maybe it was a trick question. Regardless, I didn’t have time for this BS.
A dragonfly buzzed around the dog, Lōlō, and me. Staying perfectly still was hard. The dog’s cone-shaped face was moving closer to mine. Doves cooed and some ducks paddled downstream. This was bogus.
I wasn’t going to let a whole summer and lifetime of preparation, and years of growing my hair, go to waste now. I had to figure a way out of here. This wasn’t like some wave I could dodge. And there wasn’t anyone who could save me. Not a parent. Not a friend. And not Christ. As a matter-of-fact, at that very moment, I broke up with Jesus. How could a loving god stick me in a mess like this after I’d worked so hard? It wasn’t fair.
Fine. I got it. Life isn’t fair. Big whoop. But I had a place to go and that was State. So there was no way that ugly dog was going to stop me.
I looked up at Lōlō holding his walking stick and made sure I didn’t raise my voice. I bit down and just said it, “You wanna know who I am? I’m a Funny Kine. I do it with girls and boys.”
“Oh, everybody around here does that.” Lōlō added a lisp to his words and swayed to one side, holding one hand on his hip and dangling the other limp at the wrist, doing a stereotypical imitation of a gay guy.
I could feel the dog’s warm saliva dripping down my shoulder and his tail wagging through my hair.
Lōlō adjusted his crate as if it was a hat and said, “I just want to know your name.”
He dipped his head back and forth from one side to the other like a bobblehead hula girl. He unscrewed the cap off a bottle of Blue Nun and took a gulp of wine.
“Nani,” I said. “My name is Nani.”
“Well Bonnie, who does it with girls and boys …”
A cold fear gripped me. I was glued in place, trapped between Lōlō and his dog. Lōlō pointed at the rabbit foot hanging from my belt loop and said to the dog, “Wanna play?”
The dog’s thick body hunkered low to the ground, and his tail started wagging faster. His beady black
eyes fixed on me, and his paws, the size of my hands, reached out in front of him. Lōlō pointed at the rabbit foot again.
“Toss it, Bonnie,” he told me.
Without a second thought, I threw my good luck charm down the canal and ran in the opposite direction as fast as I could. The dog took off; the ducks scattered, and I scrambled up the hill, clutching my bag, telling myself not to stop running until I got to State. I didn’t know I could climb so fast or jump a fence. Entrada had a downward slant, and the sidewalks were uneven. I just told myself, Do not stop running. Regardless of what I looked like, I had to get safe. That was a new rule:
Safety before beauty.
I didn’t think anything could hurt more about Dad, but I totally blew it. I left his ashes in a swamp with a crazy old man and his carnivorous, fang-toothed dog. With a prayer he’d get to warm waters. I gathered my nerves to go into the tunnel alone. Echoes pitched from below mixed with the sound of water dripping and traffic above. I freed my hands, lit up a cigarette, took a deep breath, and charged forward.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Fire with Fire
I heard the mini bike still zipping around the bluffs. I had made it to State before Rox and Jerry. My hair blew off my face, and I lowered my shades, ready for what would come next. Lord Ricky dropped his golf club down like a gate. He adjusted his bathrobe and tipped his cowboy hat back.
“Howdy,” he said, extending his hand palm up.
I put the joint in it and waited.
“That is not necessary, ma’am,” he said, handing it back to me. He touched Nigel’s Saint Christopher with the tip of his metal club. It was cold against my chest.
I took my thumb and pushed the golf club down. Then I leaned in close enough to feel the prickle of Lord Ricky’s day-old beard and looked directly into his Ray Bans. The reflection was of a fifteen-year-old woman. Not a girl. I knew how to play by the rules and, better yet, how to rewrite them.
“You can’t touch mine, unless I can touch yours.” I reached my finger toward his dog tags. Not even his dog tags. The coward wore his best friend’s. Lord Ricky gave me a dirty look, and I stopped just before he let loose.
He said, “No way, José.”
I removed my finger and told him, “Then don’t touch mine.”
There were several boards leaning against the stone wall. State was going off. I had to get to the lineup fast. One of the little NP groupies looked up at me like I was a goddess walking on air. Strangely enough, she was playing a string game called “Rock the Cradle.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of me. This child deserved a note of advice.
She practically bowed to me when I told her to come closer. I cupped her ear and said, “Watch out. Lord Ricky has the clap. You know what that is?” She shook her head no. “Gonorrhea. Be careful.” I tore up the joint and tossed it in the trash. I had made it.
Whatever kind of hysteria I was on the verge of, whether it was laughter or tears, stopped when I saw Claire by the shower, blonde strands blowing across her face. She was back to her normal perfect self, wearing dangling turquoise earrings and her favorite turquoise bikini so low her butt crack showed when she bent over to rinse her foot.
Claire yelled, “Come here. I think I stepped on something.”
The shower was on full blast, and water flowed all over her little flat feet. I caught myself thinking, What a stupid haole. Why doesn’t she wear her slippahs? Then I remembered how bad that sounded when Annie had said it to me. My nerves were rice paper thin. I was only picking on Claire because I felt like such a two-timer. If I could have unzipped my skin and climbed out of it to disappear, I would have, but there was clearly no more running away.
“Do you see glass in my foot?” she asked, placing all of her weight on one leg and lifting her foot so I could examine it. Damn. Even Claire’s feet smelt good. I caught whiffs of jasmine mixed with peppermint as I got closer to her heel. There was a stinger or something like it sticking out, just a speck, not in deep.
“I see it,” I said and told her to lean on me. I pushed my thumbnails together and squeezed it right out. I had to tell Claire about Shawn before the damsel in distress could shower me with hugs and kisses. I hated myself, hated the way I felt and glanced away quickly so I didn’t have to look her in the eye. I just wanted everything to be okay, but telling the truth was a risk I had to take. It would never be right until I told her what happened.
“Claire, I accidently kissed Shawn,” I said.
“No you didn’t,” she said. “Shawn told me what happened.”
“Really?” I asked.
Claire wrapped one arm around me and rested the other one on my hip. She said, “Now don’t get freaked out, but …” she took a deep breath and rattled on. “Nigel pretended to be Shawn, pretending to be him, so he could test your loyalty.”
I wanted to say, do you have bats in your belfry? Are you out of your mind? But her eyes started to tear up, and she plastered a grin on her face bigger than I’d ever seen. She just looked at me and made sure not one tear fell from her eyes.
“That’s what Shawn told me, and that’s what I need to believe. Okay, Nani?”
I didn’t know what to say, but she looked like she was hanging by a thread or beginning a fall that would never end unless I stopped it. So I took both her hands in mine and looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I’m so relieved it was Nigel. Can we keep this between us?”
That’s when I rewrote an important rule:
Never let a local lose face, especially when she is your friend.
“Thanks, Nani,” she said, no longer able to keep the tears from falling. She quickly added, “I need to hose off the sand. I’ll see you down there.” She turned away, dropping her hair, then her face, then her whole body into the cold shower.
“Okay, I’ll see you down at the lineup.” I don’t think she heard me.
It was a Monday, so State was locals only. To the left were a couple happy little gay boys in striped bun-huggers, rainbow Have-A-Nice-Day tank tops with dyed Hershey-brown hair and thin mustaches. Of course they were being hassled, picked on one at a time by some locals telling them to move farther down the beach, that they didn’t belong, and what would happen to them if they chose not to listen. Being gay on State Beach was really hard. That would never change no matter how many rules I wrote.
I was closing in on the lineup when someone yelled my name. I looked around, then up.
“Nani,” Jerry hollered from the bluffs. Next to him, Rox was waving her arms, crisscrossing them over her head. So that was “their place.” How romantic. I clenched my teeth together and curled my lips up into a smile and waved back, muttering, “Up yours.”
“Told you so,” KC sang out.
Rox pulled Jerry out of sight when she saw KC standing next to me. The mini bike revved up, and I knew they’d be at State pronto. I thought KC would keep walking to the courts, but she was basking in the satisfaction of seeing me dumped. She took a cigarette from behind her ear and a pack of matches from the side of her bikini.
“So?” KC smirked. “Now what are ya gonna do?”
I thought of Pele. I had to fight fire with fire and not turn the other cheek like Jesus. I leaned in ever so slightly. KC’s elbow rubbed up against mine.
“It’s not the end of the world,” I said sarcastically, fluttering my eyelashes. “We still have each other.”
“IYD,” KC said. In your dreams.
She looked tan and pretty and gazed into my eyes. It was kind of like a typical staring contest or a dare. Neither one of us moved or blinked. We just looked at each other for a long time and didn’t smile. I told her, “You’re funny.”
KC lifted her smoke to her mouth and inhaled deeply before she realized she wasn’t lit up. I never stopped staring at her even as she blushed, looking down at her fingertips.
“You dork,” I told her, not in a mean way but with a big smile. She wasn’t so bad. I took the matches out of her hand so she could see them. Then I lit he
r cigarette. Fire with fire.
She left her cigarette dangling from her mouth and laughed, shaking her head. She knitted her fingers together and cracked her knuckles loudly.
“You’re trouble, Nuuhiwa.”
It seemed we had an understanding. I left KC standing in the middle of State and walked toward the lineup.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Middle Ground
“Got ya,” Claire said. She snuck up behind me and put her arm through mine just like she did with Rox. She was totally Claire again, all smooth and shiny. We strolled together through a cloud of Nag Champa. The Topangas were smoking clove cigarettes and licking chocolate rolling papers. They had daisy chains in their hair and were trying to make music with their finger cymbals. Did they even know it was 1972 and the sixties were over? I was just about to remind them that Jim Morrison was dead when they said, “Morning, Nani and Claire.” I liked the way they chimed my name first.
Jenni and the Lisas lay stretched out on their towels. They lifted their heads and waved with just their fingers. Their bodies were golden-orange and gleamed in the sun thanks to a thick coating of Bain de Soleil. I couldn’t believe my eyes when they actually stood up and opened the line for me and Claire to sit in the middle, leaving a small space for Rox. I knew it was respectful to let Claire settle in before I did, so I stood facing the ocean.
The waves were pumping three to five with an offshore breeze. There must have been about twenty guys out. Just as I was tossing my bag into the spot next to Claire, I felt something in the lining. I reached in and pulled out the Band-Aid box holding what was left of Dad. Finding it was like getting a reprieve from the warden at midnight. I was going to get a second chance to put Daddy in the ocean where he belonged.
I clutched my purse and dug my feet deep in the sand. The ocean, waves, sun, and offshore breeze connected me to everything good about my dad, so why was I hesitating? I knew Dad would be more alive in the ocean where things breathed and flowed than if he were stuck in the bottom of my purse or some urn by Jean’s bed. My plan was finally going to work. When I swam at State, he’d be with me. All I’d have to do was follow the tide.
