Sins of the Mother

by B K Johnson

  Loke’s fist struck Tommy in the face, hard. It reopened the quickly healing forehead wound suffered in the fall.

  “I will not have you defaming my son. He did not kill himself. He was murdered by that odious guard at Koolau, Willi Akau. He strung him up to make it look like Kekoa hung himself, and you know it. Kekoa had no reason to kill himself. He was doing very well at Koolau. I visited him there once, and Maile told me so many times. And you were supposed to be on his side. You should have saved him.”

  Flinging this terrible accusation at Tommy, Loke struck her again and again. Blood was pouring from the still open wound, and now there were other sources of the scalding hot red liquid, as taut skin broke on Tommy’s face after each repetitive blow and scrape from long fingernails. Finally, spent from her efforts at beating the chained boxer, Loke took a breather. She spit on Tommy’s bloodied face and left the room, only to return minutes later with a pitcher of water. She flung it in Tommy’s face and wiped up the copious blood once again. She began interrogating Tommy about Kekoa’s trial, and his sentencing and what was said in chambers, and why Tommy wasn’t there at Koolau to save Kekoa’s young life.

  Tommy was incapable of response. Salty tears that stung her open wounds streamed down her face. She wept, for Kekoa’s inability to accept himself as a gay young man, his suicide at 17 years of age, and for the woman inflicting pain upon her. For Tommy could empathize. She knew what it was like to lose your child.

  Tommy felt Loke’s pain, and it brought back all of the pain she had suffered herself at Cecilia’s death. Tommy knew what it was to feel righteous anger, not just at being wrongly accused, but searing hot anger at God for taking that precious life from the woman who gave it first breath. She could not be mad at Loke right now, no matter what she did to her. Tommy almost felt she deserved it, because she had let Kekoa down. What Loke did to Dave, however, was another matter. He did not earn the punishment inflicted upon him. And Tommy would be his avenger and protector to her last breath.

  Tommy had not been able to bring Kekoa to accept himself, and his lover, and the gay lifestyle he could have chosen. God knows, she tried. Maile accepted Kekoa. And Tommy had accepted Kekoa, as had Julie Olsen. She told him she had several friends who were gay, and that it was not an aberrant lifestyle, but perfectly normal. She posited that some people were truly born that way, and should not bear any guilt. And that others learned to love someone of the same sex along their path.

  But the poor, torn child had been so insistent he could not offend his mother by being a homosexual that he had to invent an alternate reality. That meant he was not gay. And his affair with his kumu hula was just like a monogamous, heterosexual relationship because he was the only lover Kekoa would commit to. Previous homosexual and even heterosexual flings proved he was not gay. Believing so firmly in this alternate reality is what had caused him to react so violently against his friend, Paul, the boy who’d accused him of being a mahu. For Kekoa never thought of himself as such. He couldn’t afford to, having the birth mother he had.

  Raising her slumped and battered head up, so that she could look the standing Loke in her eyes, she sighed. Kekoa had been dead for over ten years, and her continued silence couldn’t do him any good any more. She confided, “Your son had an affair with your kumu hula, Leleo Apau. He couldn’t tell you about it because he was so afraid at how you’d react. And then, when Leleo visited Kekoa at Kooalu, he told Kekoa he’d fallen in love with another young man, named Kawila. Leleo said he could no longer wait for Kekoa to be released from his sentence or to come around to accepting his sexual preference.”

  “I don’t know what all was said, but that much Willi Akau explained. Kekoa yelled and swore at Leleo, and Leleo yelled back and slammed the door when he left.”

  “ Hours later, Willi found Kekoa hanging from a steel bar at the window, a tangled sheet strung around his neck. The medical examination showed the abrasions on Kekoa’s hands from tying the sheet, and the other injuries were consistent with suicide, not homicide. The physical evidence included the box he’d filled with his pillow and blanket to stabilize it for him to stand on, and then kick over. It was irrefutable, Loke. He killed himself because of the loss of his lover, his incarceration, and his inability to accept himself as a homosexual. And for that, you are to blame!”

  All during this recitation, Loke stood with eyes widening in disbelief, body tensed for action. “You sorry excuse for a woman, a lawyer, or any kind of guardian. You will change that story, and tell me the truth.”

  Loke’s mouth had taken on an ugly sneer, and her body now shook with anger. She grabbed a skewer from the adjacent chair and stuck it into Dave’s toes while Tommy was forced to watch. Dave’s screeching screams from behind the duct tape permeated the air. Then something even more unthinkable happened. Loke took a large bottle of fingernail polish remover, and poured it over Dave’s swollen and punctured toes. His wails were so high-pitched they pierced Tommy’s eardrums. Loke was convinced Tommy would say what she wanted to hear if Dave was so grievously tormented right in front of her.

  Tommy figured that Loke would continue to torture Dave until she relented and made up whatever story Loke would accept. Tommy had endured similar experiences in her childhood, and she used the only effective tool she knew would work to stop Loke. She willed her mind out of her body and into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  “You will tell her that you and my son were not lovers, and that you would never have sexually assaulted my son. I want that bitch to recant her incredible story. Kekoa had no reason to kill himself, and every reason to stay alive. Tell her that,” demanded Loke.

  Rousing herself from a deep unconsciousness, Tommy heard these words puncturing through her dreamless fugue state. They were angry, loud accusations not leveled at her, but at someone else in the room. Long ago Tommy had perfected the art of leaving her body when pain and threats became too much to bear or to defend against. Her brother, Jerome, used to tie her up in the basement, and inflict all kinds of torture upon her while she was defenseless. He would repeatedly threaten to kill her father, or her brothers, and said he would force her to watch.

  Once, Tommy had been brave enough, even at 9 years old, to tell him he could not make her watch, and that she’d save them. Whereupon he grabbed strips of adhesive tape and taped her eyelashes up to her eyebrows, forcing her eyes open for hours at a time. And he used it on her mouth so she could not cry out. She learned she had no tools to defend herself. For months, no one but she even noticed she had no eyelashes or eyebrows anymore.

  The only thing that saved her from complete insanity at that young age was “going away,” or so she named it. One psychiatrist she’d seen, who’d put her under with hypnosis, told her she’d suffered psychotic breaks, and that the fugues that plagued her were bound to occur again. She refused to accept his analysis, even after listening to the recording he’d made of her revelations while hypnotized.

  Even though she trained for year to defend herself, to be physically strong, quick, and accomplished at martial arts as well as boxing, she never let her past be forgotten. To that end, she continued to hone the skill of “going away,” never sure when she might need to use it again. And as she practiced it, she learned that only loud noises would bring her back to reality. She used radio alarms at home in order to safely practice the art of willed unconsciousness. Those alarms would force her brain to return to normal functions.

  Now, the strident voice flinging accusations at someone else brought Tommy around. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw a man in the periphery of her vision. Her swollen eyes notwithstanding, and though he had aged greatly, Tommy had no trouble immediately recognizing Leleo Apau. He was not chained, or physically restrained in any way, but rather moving around and protesting Loke’s version of reality.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Loke. This whole place defames Pele. Her lava stones must be returned to the Big Island. I can’t believe you actually hired Hiwa Hook
ano to enter your home, much less build a shrine to evil. Pele will take her revenge on you, not on those you seek to harm. This man you have chained to the floor will stand tall again, with Pele’s strength, and throw off the humiliation you have heaped upon him. This woman you have chained to the chair will rise up against you and conquer all the forces of the godless you have invoked. Change it now. Unleash them, or suffer the consequences!”

  So spoke the aged, but still handsome kumu hula. Leleo was well versed in the legends of Pele. He revered the Goddess and her sister, Hiiaka. He taught his halau to have respect for them. At the Merry Monarch festival, just before they were to dance, he always had his students ask for Pele’s blessings. Their prayer to Pele was to allow them to dance to her honor with grace and ability and to touch the hearts of the unbelievers who watched their presentations. And as far as Leleo was concerned, Pele’s intervention and blessings were the reason his halau had won, for many years running, the most coveted awards at the festival. He was not about to disavow Pele’s strength, or her goodness, although he was now retired. Everything he saw around him at this moment in Loke’s garage was an anathema to him, and a travesty.

  Shaking off his queasiness in this environment, Leleo went to Tommy first. He wanted to ensure himself that she was alive, for she looked dead. Just as he reached her, Loke yelled, “Stop now, or I will not hesitate to shoot the young man on the floor right this minute.”

  Leleo turned to look at her, and see that indeed, she had moved closer to Dave and had a gun pointed right at his head. He did not know this man, but knew in his gut how he would feel to be so enslaved. His heart went out to Dave, and he vowed to Pele in that instant that he would be her instrument of vengeance against the violence Loke had wrought.

  Quietly, he spoke cajolingly. “Loke, my sister, I cannot believe what you have come to. You had so much promise as a young woman. You danced like a flower in the breeze, naturally and sweetly. I’ve always known you had an evil side, and have heard the rumors of how you hurt others. But I could not bring myself to banish you from my halau, because of your outstanding grace and beauty. And then, you had your wonderful son, and everything changed.”

  He continued, “For too long I have kept a terrible secret from you. Pele demands that I break my vows of silence now. I promised Kekoa never to let you know our secret, no matter what happened. But you are transgressing against God and the Goddess, and though I may not save your soul, I will risk troubling Kekoa in the hereafter with my tardy confession.”

  “Your son and I became lovers.” At this pronouncement, Loke’s eyes grew wide with disbelief and alarm. She gasped audibly, and started to interrupt. “No, Loke, please hear me out. You must stop this folly and know the truth.”

  Sadly, and with tears in his voice and on his face, Leleo told the story of how Kekoa, as a young adolescent, kept questioning the kumu hulu about his sexuality. He wanted to know how Leleo could love a man, since his mother told him it was the worst thing a man could do. Yet Kekoa knew Loke forgave Leleo this sin, and Kekoa wanted to know why. And how. And when. And where.

  The incessant questioning grew burdensome for Leleo. He explained that as a surrogate older brother to Loke, she allowed him to be a homosexual with impunity. Loke loved him platonically, and his sexuality was no threat to her. But she had experienced betrayal from one she loved that caused her immense suffering, and for that reason she could never allow her son the same freedom as she gave her kumu hula. Leleo told Kekoa to continue to seek a woman he might want to bed, because heterosexuality was his only choice, if he wanted to continue to have the possessive love exhibited from his often absent mother.

  On a trip to Japan, during a period of time when Leleo was not involved in a relationship, Kekoa asked to share a room with him. Loke thought it was a good idea, since it would save money for the halau, and free her up from any matronly responsibility. She liked to have her cake and eat it, too, and knew that Kekoa would be safe in Leleo’s care while she gadded about the streets of Tokyo, looking for a one-night stand.

  For two nights of the visiting show, Leleo and Kekoa shared the same room, each in his own separate bed. Late on the third night, after a particularly invigorating and spectacular performance, Leleo and Kekoa stayed awake into the night, talking about everything. They talked about God, and Pele, and right and wrong, and peace and war, and religion and agnosticism, and the rape of the Hawaiians and their land by the haoles. Kekoa was by now a thoughtful, but somewhat turbulent seventeen-year-old with a violent temper. Leleo was his idol, and he worshipped him as knowledgeable beyond any other influence in his life.

  Finally, the two went to bed. Leleo curled up into his pillow and turned out his light, seeking a pleasant sleep. His dreams encompassed a sensuous lover stroking his legs and buttocks. He purred in his sleep and tried to envision the lover’s face, but it escaped him. Undulating visages of Kekoa interspersed with those of his previous boyfriends, and when he tried to shake off any sexual interest in Kekoa, he woke, startled to find the youth’s lips on his stomach.

  “Stop, Kekoa,” he urged. “It feels too good and I won’t be able to resist you. This isn’t what we should be doing.”

  Kekoa responded, “I have wanted to love you physically for so long, and I am not going to deny myself pleasuring you, and having you pleasure me. We are soul mates, and our age difference doesn’t matter, not to me.”

  “What about your mother, and her obsessive need for you to be a heterosexual?” queried Leleo.

  “You are everything to me, and always will be. Let me show you how much I love you,” replied Kekoa. And with that, Leleo gave up his protestations and luxuriated in the skilled and exuberant administrations of an adoring Kekoa.

  All of this Leloa now confided to Loke, with an alert Tommy as his witness. Dave was giving no sign of life. Finally, winding down with exhaustion, Leleo fell to his knees, just to the right of Tommy’s chair, and begged Loke her forgiveness.

  “I loved Kekoa,” he said, “but when he beat Paul up, and then denied he was gay, I became overwrought. I went to see him in Koolau. I told him I had to have a lover who was proud of his sexuality, and could live life openly with me. We argued, and I told him I had another lover before I stormed out of the room. I am so ashamed. I told him I hated him, and would never see him again. I didn’t know he would kill himself, Loke, I swear!”

  The report of the gun stirred even Dave from his stupor, and shattered Tommy’s eardrums. Shocked, Tommy looked down to see the bloody, gaping hole in Leleo Hookano’s head, and the murder weapon placed carelessly at his side.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  “Where the fuck is she?” yelled Rod. “There are too damn many streets around here with similar names. I don’t blame her for being confused when she tried to explain where this Loke, Rose, or whatever she calls herself lives. I know we’ve gone around the same blocks for several minutes and I haven’t seen any addresses with 462 in them. It’s too dark to see anything out here. Where the hell are the streetlights/”

  “Calm down, Rod,” soothed Manny. He had gone through all the maps in the recorder’s office, trying to match names with numbers in Kailua. When Tommy missed the deadline of meeting up with Rod, he had immediately contacted Manny. The private detective had little to go on, except the name Loke Cabotaje, and there were no listings of ownership of any houses on all of Oahu, much less Kailua specifically. Rod interrupted that task and asked Manny to go to the teahouse in Kaneohe with him, where they located the Porsche.

  Relieved to find his baby, but puzzled as to where Tommy was now, he finally checked his cell phone. The only message he had, from over an hour ago, was from Tommy. Unbeknownst to Loke, Tommy purposely left her purse in Loke’s car, and had excused herself to go retrieve it with the express intention of leaving a message for Rod. She only had a moment to pull out his loaned flip phone and call his number saying “This woman is strange, and I’m feeling weird vibes. If I don’t come back in time, her address is 462 on s
ome street in Kailua. We passed several Kai named streets, and I got lost. I think she purposely confused me. Gotta go.” She kept the cell phone on and tossed it under the seat, then grabbed her purse, threw it quickly over her shoulder and shut the car door. She’d then fatefully walked up the sidewalk to the beckoning Loke.

  Rod made Manny park his car in the teahouse parking lot, and they jumped into the Porsche. They began searching the Kailua area in earnest. Manny had assigned an associate of his, Pete, with the task of running down relatives of a Loke Cabotaje. While Pete went through high school annuals, newspapers, and other sources of information, Rod and Manny drove past every Kai named street in the growing area of Kailua, looking desperately for a 462.

  Normally, knowing Tommy as he did, Rod would not have become anxious at her missing their arranged time. He would have just figured she got sidetracked, or was running down some new clue she’d gotten from the mysterious Loke. Maybe she’d even taken a run on the beach to clear her head. But because they were on Oahu, and this woman had called his home within minutes of Tommy’s arrival, Rod began to think they had been followed from the airport. And that spooked him. With Dave missing, and Loke being central to his disappearance, Rod was feeling an eerie sensation of desperation. Tommy’s odd message increased that feeling.

  Even the Chief of Police had been stumped, determining that the Loke who had attended Dave’s class was an invisible person without any registration of any kind on Oahu. No driver’s license, no car registration, no voter registration, no deeds, no lease rental agreements, or anything to lead him to his main witness into the disappearance of Dave Lee. Only her signup sheet at the registrar’s office for Dave’s class attested to her existence. And that had proven to be false information, so the Chief classified her as a person of interest.