The Tattoo

by Chris Mckinney

  I looked around. My father’s truck was gone. I looked at the boar, smelled it, hated it for making me shoot it, making me carry it all the way down that mountain. I pretended it was my father. I let out a loud “Yahhh!” and lifted the blade over my head and swung down with a quick slice. Before I could even step back, the intestines dropped out of the boar’s belly and splattered on my bare feet. Steam rose from the bloody mess. I heard Koa yell, “Holy shit! Lemme try.”

  I handed the katana to Koa, and without hesitation he swung at the neck of the pig. The whole pig fell from the force, and the head rolled a few feet away. I couldn’t believe it sliced cleanly through the thick spine. He began to laugh. “This fuckin’ sword is so cool.”

  That’s when we heard the truck pull up the driveway. We were the deer in the headlights, unmoved, maybe longing to hear a loud cry of warning, a “Hey, stop!”

  I heard the bloody blade drop from Koa’s hand.

  No explanation attempted, no questions asked. He walked straight up to me and said, “Koa, get your ass home.”

  I looked over and saw Koa take several steps back. Then before I could look back at my father, I already felt the fist hit the side of my jaw. My body spun, but I didn’t drop. Then I heard his voice. “You fuckin’ kid! You disrespect da sword, you make me hit you!” Bam, another fist to the head, this one on the temple. “And now you no drop! Who da fuck you tink you are!” Another one hit me on the jaw.

  After I spun from that one, I looked up at his face and saw the crinkle in his forehead, the devilish arch of his eyebrows, and the enlarged whites of his eyes. I smiled. Gave him my best sixteen-year-old smile, and spit out fragments of teeth at him. Another hit. “So you lifting weights now, tink you hot shit, “ he yelled. “C’mon give me one shot! I fuckin’ kill you, you fucka!” I stood there with my hands down and stared at him. Finally he said, “Get da fuck outta here before I fuckin’ kill you!”

  Actually, I don’t really remember any of this. It’s what Koa told me had happened the next day when I woke up in his room. I figured that was the way it went, though, considering I couldn’t talk for a week, and when I slid my tongue across my teeth, I cut it. I had to drink Slim Fasts all week long. I didn’t go home, I didn’t go to school. Koa picked up some clothes for me. His parents let him stay home for a couple of days to keep me company, and when he went to school I just read more because I couldn’t talk. After I got a little better, Aunty Nani stopped giving me pitying looks, and began teasing. “You betta start fuckin’ eating cause I not going give you any mo’ Slim Fasts. Bumbye you get even mo’ skinny.”

  Uncle James stayed out of it. I suppose it’s a code that exists around the world: Never interfere with the raising of someone else’s child. You have no right. A week and a half later, my father picked me up and took me to an oral surgeon. Uncle James and Aunty Kanani stayed in the house while Koa shook my hand outside by the truck. My father nodded to Koa and drove off. Puana Castle got smaller and smaller. It was a quiet ride. The quiet rides I had in that truck. They always occurred, it seemed, when he was picking me up from someplace else and taking me home. I guess most quiet rides occur when you’re heading for someplace you don’t want to go. I looked toward the Koolaus and again thought that I had to get over the mountains, out of the Windward side.

  This thing with the sword, it was the worst beating I ever got. That sword never did seem to do me any good. My beating was bad because I didn’t fight back, didn’t demand respect, a presence, but there was always something in me that refused to hit him back. I was trained well. On the bright side, to this day I have whiter teeth than anyone else I know.

  The memory loss bothered me more than the physical discomfort. It was like losing a cursed heirloom that I didn’t want but felt I needed to have. I hate that frantic feeling when you lose something, know it’s somewhere around, but can never find it. He’d hit me before, but it was the first time I couldn’t remember. It scared the shit out of me. For days I tried to dig deep down in my mind and search for a shred of memory. It seemed even further away from my conscience than my mother’s last words to me.

  My father and I never discussed what had happened, even when I returned home. I hid in the cradle of books my mother left me. I read about foreign places, places I wanted to go to, but didn’t think I’d ever see. Sometimes I’d put a book down and wonder why my great memory was not able to dig up such a huge corpse. I thought, if I blanked out once, I could blank out again. How could I lack control to such a degree? I probably wanted to find the memory because I didn’t want to believe it. How could I get so crazy that I didn’t care anymore whether I lived or died? It concerned me greatly that I could get to the point where I just didn’t care anymore, that I’d just give up, crawl under a rock and accept death. I wanted to be a fighter, to go out in a blaze if necessary. I did not want to be the kind of person who just accepts his fate with a defiant grin. I knew the grin was just a feeble attempt to save face. My behavior, the accepted futility that Koa had told me about, scared me. My attachment to memory is strong, but perhaps my desire to never go out quietly is even stronger. I like to slam the door.

  When Koa and I didn’t go surfing, diving, or hunting, we got into more trouble. We gambled, fought, drank, got high, sometimes all in the same day. We used to steal chickens and take them to the derbies. Koa always had good knives, those clean, razor-sharp, sickle-shaped blades you tie on to both legs of the chicken, lending each gladiator bird the power to kill with one stroke. We, the Romans, low-income degenerate gambling mother-fuckers, looking down into the colosseum, watching the feathers fly with each furious charge. It was amazing to watch a usually timid and weak creature suddenly turn blood-thirsty, angrily leaping up at its opponent. Both would be suspended in mid-air for just a second or two, wings flapping violently, claws extending in quick offense. When both landed back onto the pit surface, their stay ended in a flash because they’d leap back up as soon as they possibly could, unsatisfied until one yielded. In this case, surrender and death were the same.

  The first time Koa took me to a derby, before the first contest began, he leaned over to me.“Watch dis.You rememba when you went drop Mike? Da way you went beef reminded me of one chicken. Attack fast. Land. Attack fast.” I thought, if this was true, then it was my father who’d tied the knives to me, he who’d made sure they always stayed sharp.

  Koa looked around. “Look at dis place, Ken, you gotta love it. My kind of place.”

  I looked and saw boys and men of all ages drinking, smoking weed, anticipating the next fight. “See,” Koa said, “on dis side of da island, we no fuck around when we break da law. Look at dis. Gambling, smoking out. And you know no one goin’ call da cops. Nobody like cops come.”

  I watched as two men let their birds go, one had white feathers, while the other wore brown. The roosters charged each other. They were moving so fast and flapping their wings so hard that their feet seemed to barely touch the ground. Right before they met each other in the center of the ring, they lept foward and led with their claws. Koa leaned over to me.“Fuck, good ting still get places dat da tourists no see. Good ting we keep most of dose fuckas in Waikiki.”

  The two birds landed on the ground, seemingly unharmed. They jumped up again. White and brown feathers fell like leaves below them.“You know why it’s good dat da tourists no see dis?” Koa asked. “Because if dey did, da fuckin’ cops would crack down on dis shit.”The birds landed and jumped again, but this time the white rooster jumped higher and the brown one was forced into a defensive position. One of the white bird’s knives pierced the breast of the brown one.

  After the derby, which was held in WaiaholeValley, the valley which sits between Koa’s Kahaluu and my Ka‘a‘awa, we went to Freddie’s place. Koa had won a hundred bucks, so he wanted to celebrate. He told me about Freddie, this guy he knew, who always had stuff. We hopped on our stolen bicycles and I followed him deep into the valley. When we got there, we dropped our bikes in the front yard. I look
ed at the house briefly, it was this audacious pink, but other than that it was nothing different. Screen door, wooden-planked walls, shingled roof. Old. I followed Koa as he walked toward the backyard.The yard was pretty big.Two plumeria trees dropped wilted flowers on the bermuda grass. I stepped on them as I followed Koa. Before he turned the corner, Koa stopped. “Ken, no talk too much. Da fucka stay kind of mental. Jus’ let me talk to him.”

  In the backyard sat a big square shed, walled and roofed with smoky corrugated fiberglass. It must have been about twenty feet wide and fifteen feet tall. On the way to the front, I saw a few little patches of fur sticking up from the ground. Then I smelled the good smell and knew someone was burning. Suddenly I heard a loud blast of music from inside. It was some hard rock group, maybe Slayer or something, one of those groups whose music never makes it on the radio or MTV. I followed Koa as he stepped inside.

  It was like a thick, reefer jungle inside. Dozens of potted cannabis plants were spread out, many of them growing to the ceiling. In the middle of the hothouse was a workbench with paraphernalia scattered all over it. Scales, mirrors, plastic, ashtrays, tweezers, scissors, spoons. A boom box blasted in the right-hand corner. Next to it I saw a high-caliber revolver, a three-fifty-seven, I think. Freddie’s back was to us, as he was concentrating on something on the middle of the bench. It was a broad, well-muscled back, a twenty-five-year-old back, dark and lumpy. A huge tattoo stretched across his shoulder blades. In jailhouse calligraphy letters it read, Lunatic Click. He wasn’t that tall, about five-eight, but he was wide, carrying the kind of frame that can be achieved only with heavy weights. Below his shirtless torso, he wore dark-blue Levi’s, which drooped down so his tan line and the top of his ass crack were visible. I looked up at the back of his head and saw the outrageous bushel of hair. It was the kind of wavy hair that grew out, not down, defying the laws of gravity. Clouds of smoke billowed from the front of his mane and hung there just long enough that he looked like he was wearing a twisted halo. I was scared of him before I’d even seen his face.

  “Hey, Freddie!” Koa yelled, attempting to be heard over the rapid guitar solo that screamed from the tape player.

  Freddie put his hand on the gun and slowly turned around. A joint dangled from his lips. He smiled and waved Koa over.

  “Hey,” Koa yelled, “no shoot me ah, you fucka!”

  We both walked to the bench. Freddie was sealing ounces. After he finished packaging the one he was working on, he grabbed a bud and a Zig Zag, and began rolling a joint. About thirty seconds later, he passed it over to Koa.

  We got stoned. I looked at Koa and laughed. His glassy, blood-shot eyes peered at me, squinting as his mouth broadened. Suddenly we heard Freddie say sharply, “Hey, shut up.” We froze and it looked as if he was trying to hear something. He held his hand up at us and remained still. After a few seconds, he reached for the volume knob. The screaming music dulled to silence. I thought he was having some kind of bad trip. He reached under his workbench and pulled out a handful of cat food.

  I was tripping. I was fascinated, though, especially because I was so stoned. I looked over at Koa, and he was just as captivated. Freddie quietly stepped out of the shed. He began to make clicking noises, calling noises. Koa and I walked out and saw him crouched down, beckoning, sometimes pausing to throw a dried gem of cat food into the thick bushes.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, a cat reluctantly emerged. It was a gray one, one of those short-haired gray felines that have squiggly black stripes running all over its body. A real stray, ugly and skinny. Freddie patiently called. It was a sweet call, full of calming emotion, like a soothing song. The cat wasn’t immediately taken by it. At first it was smart, paranoid, like most cats are, but soon the food and call harmonized together, making the cat come closer and closer. I was amazed at how patient Freddie was, his rhythm never became strained or anxious. He just crouched there, motionless, singing his call. Finally the cat rubbed against his leg and purred. Freddie gave it a gentle stoke down its spine, then suddenly clamped his hand around its tail.

  The cat tried to run, but Freddie just stood up and let the cat dangle from his grip. It went crazy, contorted its body in violent spasms, scratched at his hand, but Freddie unflinchingly strolled back into the shed with a big smile. He motioned for us to follow him. I knew the cat was in deep shit.

  Freddie swung the cat over his head, spun it around and around like it was a sling and a stone. He let go and it crashed onto his workbench. Before it could recover, he quickly ran over and grabbed it by the neck. “Hey Puana,” he yelled, “go grab me dat rope in da corner ova dea.”

  Koa looked at me with this “holy shit” look, walked over to the corner and picked up the rope. It was a short, thin nylon cord that already had a noose tied to the end of it. Koa threw it over to Freddie, probably not wanting to get too close. “Hea, you crazy fucka.”

  We watched as Freddie tied the rope to a high, thick branch. He put the cat’s neck through the noose, and lowered it until the rope tightened around its neck. He let go of the cat. The branch bent down from the cat’s weight so that it swung at our eye level. At first the cat went crazy, clawing and kicking the air. But soon it settled down, exhausted and defeated. Freddie rolled another joint, lit it up, and passed it over to us. When we took our hits and handed it back, he pushed it in the cat’s mouth, clamped his hand down on the cat’s muzzle, and we watched it get stoned. After several hits, the cat began to make this low, pitiful, meowing sound.

  He let it hang there while he talked to us. “So what, Koa, who dis?”

  “Dis my bradda, Ken. Ken, dis Freddie.”

  We shook hands and smiled at each other. Our eyes met, then suddenly I looked away, looked over his shoulder, and involuntarily looked at the cat which let out another pitiful meow. He put his arm around my shoulder, led me to the cat, and slapped it in the face. “We go paint ‘um,” he said.

  Koa and I watched as he meticulously sprayed blue paint on the cat. The cat meowed as it became more and more blue. I looked at Freddie’s face. It lacked emotion. The joint dangled from his lips and he squinted so the smoke wouldn’t tear his eyes. He looked like a carpenter painting a chair or something. Patient, crafty, like he just wanted to make sure that he got all of the empty gray spots with smooth stokes.

  I looked over at Koa. He smiled and shook his head. Freddie yelled over the blasting music. “Eh! Let’s go in da house and grab one beer!” We left the hanging cat out to dry and walked in Freddie’s house to have a cold one.

  When we returned outside to the shed, the cat was still alive. It was making this violent, gasping sound. Freddie rolled another joint and put a Metallica tape in his radio. The Four Horsemen blared through the speakers.

  “Koa,” Freddie said, “run in front of da house and grab my shovel.”

  Koa shook his head and stepped out of the shed. Freddie lit the joint and held it with his lips. He lifted the cat and loosened the noose. He grabbed the cat by the skin of its neck and took off the rope. He stepped out of the shed and said, “C’mon.”

  I followed him out. When we got behind the shed, Koa met us there with the shovel. “Koa,” Freddie said, “give da shovel to Ken. Ken, dig one quick hole.”

  I dug a small hole about a foot and a half deep. “Kay, nuff arready,” Freddie said.

  He handed the joint to Koa and got down on his knees. He wrapped his hand around the cat’s neck and put it in the hole. “Ken,” he said, “hurry up and bury da fucka.”

  I looked at Koa. He shrugged. I shoveled dirt on the cat. “Koa,” Freddie said, “put your foot on da cat.”

  Koa put his foot on the cat and Freddie let go. The cat started scrambling. Koa tried to keep it in the hole with his foot, but he was having a hard time. He had to hop around on his free foot so the cat wouldn’t get away. He looked like he was dancing to the fast beat of the Metallica tape. I tried to help him by shoveling the dirt quickly on the cat.

  Suddenly I heard Freddie laughing.
Koa lost his balance and fell down. The cat jumped from its grave and shot away. Freddie fell down, laughing. “Hard, ah,” he said. “Fuck, imagine doing ‘um by yourself.”

  So after that Freddie was our source. We used his stuff, and sold some for him. When he graduated to coke, we walked with him. I used to blame the coke for the beginning and end of my separation from Koa. He stayed hooked, I didn’t. As we got older, the surfing turned into going to Sandy’s, smoking joints in our cars, blowing a few lines, getting stoned out of our minds, and looking for fights. Not in the surf, not even really looking at it, we just blasted the stereo, drowned out the sound of the crashing waves, and sat in cars bought with money we made with Freddie. The hunting became taking coke and beer chasers up to the mountains with our guns in tow, getting drunk, and shooting at trees like a couple of drunken hillbillies. Soon Koa saw hunting as a long, boring walk, too. We still went to the cock derbies, not to watch or gamble, but to sell. Sometimes we’d over-charge just to cover what we skimmed. The dumb ones would still buy, some of the others needed persuading. The threat of violence is sometimes the most convincing form of discourse.

  During the football seasons, we told each other we’d clean up our acts. And at first we did. I made First Team All O.I.A. my junior year, Koa made All State. But by the summer before our senior year, Koa was a coke fiend. “The hell with football,” he said, “not even fun anymore.”

  I’d had enough. Coke wasn’t for me, at least as a user. I began to think about what my grandfather had told me about the Chinese, how they were broken by the drugs the haoles gave them. I figured I didn’t want to be broken. I looked at the powder and began thinking, “Jeez, it’s pure white.” I also began looking at Koa and seeing in his place a hanging blue cat with a joint crammed in his mouth. I quit coke that summer. Funny, it wasn’t hard, really. Even though I really liked coke, I guess my body never embraced it. Genetics, I guess. My father never turned out to be a great alcoholic. He drank a few days a week, what is that? Social drinking.