by Paul Theroux
“You ask all the unimportant questions.”
“What are the important ones?”
“About his kokua,” Frawley said. “You know kokua?”
Fonoti said, “It da kine, like help.”
“Alex?” Frawley said.
And the other fat man, who had been silent all this time, nodded a little and wheezed and heaved himself out of his chair. He stood unsteadily and said, “Not so, Fonoti. It mean more than help. It mean give everything, make sacrifice—you do something and want no more nothing in return. It mean unselfish, really caring for people, never ask for nothing.”
The man was passionate, almost preaching as he’d risen from his creaking beach chair, gesturing while Sharkey and Olive backed away. He was still talking.
“Some people Max kokua never know his name. But the people who matter, big people, they know him.”
“Alex, he know,” Frawley said as the man tottered and sat down again. “This is why I’m kind of surprised. You asking about him. Funny you don’t know all about him, asking these questions.”
“Like I said, we’re just making inquiries.”
“Computers to the high school,” Fonoti said. “Max geev ’um. Money to the community health center. Max geev ’um.”
“He give me these,” Frawley said, tapping the lenses of his aviator sunglasses. “These real high-end.”
“And plus,” Alex said, as the others joined in.
The competing voices, hectoring, growing shrill, praising Max Mulgrave, some of them strangely scolding, seemed to berate Olive for not knowing about all the good that Max had done. They went on listing his accomplishments, and the worst of it was that they did not seem to know the man was dead. He was still alive, spreading joy, uplifting the poor, easing pain. Each assertion of praise Sharkey took as an accusation, something physical in it, like a slap, turning him sideways, pushing him away.
He found himself shuffling down the dune of salt-bitten grass and cast-off beer cans. To rest his eyes he looked ahead to the shoreline, where the wash of waves lapping the sand caught the last of the sun, the fire on the sea, a flash on each small wave like the memory of light.
A fisherman stood on the beach, whipping a line from his long pole, casting it in successive slashes until with a scissoring sound it looped and plopped in the trough beyond the surf zone, where the water glittered like fish scales. Nearer the shore, small children pretended they were drowning, screeching for help, startling the plovers strutting at the edge, where the slop of the small waves seemed to speak to Sharkey in cautioning stammers.
Seeing the swirl of the bits of broken coral, Sharkey backed away. Rolled in the agitated shore break, the coral was smoothed and made small, knuckles chalk-white from the beating of sun and sea, sluiced together in a great mass, and not like coral at all but a gathering of sea-whitened bones separated from a lost body, a skeleton somewhere, and smashed and smoothed in the greenish stir of a tide pool, among sea blooms and the gray fur of algae on the slabs of lava rock.
It was a broken skeleton rattling in the black sea wrack of the shore break. Sharkey stepped away from it. The push of small waves beat a froth of bubbly spittle in a ridge that straggled along the dark sand near the chips and splinters of bone-white coral. Sharkey was startled by the accusatory sound of the bones in the water, lisping at him. The sea had always spoken to him, but never so severely, nagging with the monotony of malice.
“No,” he said distinctly, shielding himself with his hand. “Never.”
But the single syllables of the slop and the sight of bleached bones and clicking knuckles were inescapable. He stepped back from what he took to be the complaint of a broken man he vaguely knew, his corpse washed ashore, all his bones scattered.
“Joe, you’ve got to hear this,” Olive said as he approached the little camp from the beach.
“Going home,” he said in a haunted voice, and walked past her to the car.
9
A Dog Off His Leash
In the morning, exhausted by the shocks in his dreams—always over the falls into heavy water, under the wave, and suffocating just before he woke—his body was like clay. But he was grateful for sunlight. After he got up and sat in his rocker on the lanai, soothed by green tea Olive had brewed (“Cuppa,” she said, and kissed him), he became alert to the sounds of the morning, the roosters’ crowing, the twisted chirp of the myna birds, and the geese fussing, a chorus of competing squawks beneath the house. The fragrant breeze rattled the bamboos, in the blaze of sunshine the dew winked on drooping grass blades. But he thought, Why am I so sad?
“I promised we’d go back,” Olive said.
Sharkey shut his eyes as though to expel a memory. He said, “Fonoti, from long ago. Crazy Samoan.”
“He told me what happened to you at school—the gang. He said he was sorry.”
“Apologies are funny shit. I laugh whenever I hear one.” He looked at her with a faint smile. He said, “Those punks made me strong. They made me want something better. They gave me a purpose. All my life I wanted to get away from people like that—to swim out and catch a wave. And dismount before I got to shore, and paddle back and find another wave. Stay in the water, live in the water.”
Olive knelt and took his hands to comfort him, not submissive but concerned, a gesture Sharkey always took to be a nurse’s reaction, steadying an anxious patient, and his hands had a patient’s tremors and sick pallor.
“And now I’m afraid of the water,” he said, not consoled, feeling trapped by her touch. “That guy Frawley knew it. He dared me to surf with that crappy board, all those dings on it. I couldn’t do it. He knew I was chicken.”
“I talked to him, the roly-poly one,” Olive said. “He’s down on his luck, he pongs something awful, but he’s pretty clever—a bright spark. He kept saying Max was hamajang. What is that?”
“My life these days,” Sharkey said.
Olive kept her hands on his. She said, “In his telling, Max was a boffin. He wants to show us where he lived, introduce us to people he knew. Fill in the Max Mulgrave details.”
“Max was a boffin?”
“Techie,” Olive said, and squeezed his hand, “Supersmart.”
Sharkey went quiet after that. Without any further explanation or prodding, he allowed himself to be steered to the car.
On the way back to Wai‘anae, Olive stopped at Zippy’s in Wahiawa, leaving Sharkey in the car. She came out carrying three Styrofoam boxes, which she put in the backseat. When they got to the camp on the beach she presented them to the men, who hooted when she handed them over.
“Plate lunch,” Frawley said, flipping up the hinged lid. “Spam musubi. Portogee sausage. Two scoops macaroni. Egg something. Good grinds, sister.”
They ate, Fonoti laughing softly, pushing aside the food he could not chew, Alex stabbing at the meat on Fonoti’s plate, Frawley grunting as he swallowed. Sharkey stared at the sea.
“The tour,” Olive said, seeing them finishing, gasping with satisfaction.
“The walkthrough,” Frawley said, cocking his head. “I show you the whole Max thing. Due diligence.”
At the car, Alex saw them off, standing at attention and saluting. Frawley snatched open the front door and sat next to Olive, so Sharkey took the backseat with Fonoti, who elbowed him, saying, “Like old times, brah. Too bad Wilfred and Nalani not here. Nalani, she liked you, man!”
Sharkey turned to the sea again, for relief, though Fonoti went on chattering. His stink filled the car as he scratched his scabby knees.
Frawley reached for the dashboard and fumbled with some knobs, bumping them with his knuckles.
“What are you playing at?” Olive said.
“Turning on the AC. Hot in here, sister.”
She resisted remarking on the fact that he had just come from pigging it in his ragged tent on the beach, exposed to the morning sun. She said, “I’ll be delighted to turn it on, but in that case you can’t smoke. If you insist on smoking, we keep the w
indows open and the AC off.”
Frawley shouted into the backseat, “The wahine one hard-ass!” He lit a cigarette and said to Olive, “You see the original house?”
“That two-story house—yes,” Olive said.
“Was one story already when he bought it. He put on the second floor and made a major renovation.” And as they passed it, Olive driving slowly, the black dog stalking them along the chain-link fence, Frawley said, “He lived up top. He let all kine people crash on the first floor—surfers, homeless people, families from the beach. Was like a hotel.” He leaned out the window and yapped, mocking the dog’s bark. “Back then was no fence.”
“He didn’t charge them anything?” Olive said.
“No charge. He had overhead costs and they sleeping and sitting on his tangible assets! Some stayed for weeks, for months. That’s how he got the name.”
“What name?”
“Uncle, the rich haole.”
“They called him Uncle?”
“Out of respect. Even later, when he had no receivables, like the past few years, always Uncle. Maybe he got money now, passive income or something. Smart buggah.”
“The cop said he was bulletproof.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Why would he say that?”
“Ask the cop,” Frawley said. “The cops know him.”
Fonoti spat out the window and said, “Kind of insane, us showing you the Max world here. More better he showing you himself.”
To fill the silence that followed, Olive said, “But we’re here.”
“Keep going straight,” Frawley said. “To Makaha.”
“He lived in Makaha too?”
“No—we pay respects. Uncle Buffalo stay there. Plus his keiki.”
“Buffalo Keaulana?” Sharkey asked, lurching forward.
“Was his kupuna,” Frawley said. “Take this right.”
As Olive drove slowly through a grid of sleepy streets to a back road of small flat-roofed houses, Frawley leaned over to look out her side window. He squinted and said, “His car not there. Maybe in town. Keep going.”
Sharkey said, “Buffalo. I met him a few times.”
“He respect Max so much,” Frawley said. “And Max, he respect him back. Go mauka here.”
It was a side road, which after fifty yards became a country lane, jogging the car with its potholes, a scattered herd of cows swinging their tails and chewing behind a wire fence as they watched the slowly passing car.
“That van,” Frawley said. “Max stayed there for almost one year.”
A blue van was parked under a tree at the edge of a field of wet greasy clay, its tires flat, the rims sunk into the dirt, its side windows punched out, shards of glass glinting on the ground beside it, cardboard stuck into the window frames, the windshield painted black.
“The rich haole,” Olive said.
“This van was later—I’m giving you evidential matter. He stay here around the time he got busted.”
“What was he arrested for?”
“Never got booked, as such,” Frawley said.
“Cops respect Max big-time,” Fonoti said.
“Even though drugs maybe a significant factor,” Frawley said. “Or speeding, or vagrancy, or whatever. Always gets off. If you do due diligence, you’ll see he got no rap sheet. If you ask him, he’ll tell you. He didn’t even get a misdemeanor. Me, like I said, after the external audit, I ended up with a fraud case. Fonoti here, he got a felony. But Max, he’ll tell you straight, ‘I’m clean, brah.’”
“Hang a U-turn here,” Fonoti said; then, in an affronted voice, “They calling it a felony. It was a bad rap, relating to the so-called abuse of a family member. Would have been one misdemeanor, but they claim it happened in the presence of a minor.” He spat out the window again. “Making it upgrade to one felony. But that part about the keiki watching the beef was bullshit.”
Back on the highway, Frawley pointed to a compound of yellowish buildings with red roofs behind a chain-link fence and said, “Wai‘anae High School. The Seariders. Max gave them all computers, he set them up with software.”
“Buggah should be doing one victory lap,” Fonoti said.
“Maybe that’s why the police gave him a pass,” Olive said. “Because he was generous.”
Frawley said, “Sister, a lot of people generous. I did estate planning, way back, when my life was normal. Before bad choices.”
“White-collar crime, Fraw-boy,” Fonoti said, and giggled, his discolored gums showing greenish in the car. Something in his slushy toothless delivery made the expression even more mocking in its absurdity.
“Back then I knew plenny generous clients. They still had to face the music. But Max—he never. Go ask him.”
“Drugging?” Olive said.
Frawley shrugged. He looked peeved, he sighed, he blew out his cheeks. “All kine.”
“What happened to his money?” Olive asked.
“What always happens to money? It goes away. Doesn’t stay still.” He lit a cigarette as though to allow himself time to reflect. “Gave a ton of it away. I set up trust funds for him. Some of his money got cockaroached.”
“That little humbug house,” Fonoti said—it was a small weathered shack, surfboards propped against it, a Hawaiian flag flying upside down on a pole in front—“Max stay there for a lilly bit.”
“After the van?”
“Was before,” Frawley said. “We not giving you chronological sequence. Like Makaha—he lived in the nice hotel there for a long time—luxury, writing checks. He had a big life.”
“What about his family?” Olive said. “A wife?”
“You gotta ask Max.”
“He had one?”
“Maybe still has one,” Frawley said.
“Plenny wahine,” Fonoti said. “The wahine like him.”
“Because of his money?”
“Because he’s a good guy,” Frawley said in a stern correcting tone.
In that mood, Frawley was the dominant CPA again, his pen tapping a ledger, niggling at a detail, not the fat man in the dirty T-shirt but an authority figure, strict and forbidding. Olive was reminded that the man he had been was the man he was now, in spite of torn clothes and sweaty arms and tangled hair. He still saw the world in terms of “receivables” and “passive income” and “evidential matter.” Beneath the dirt and sweat and cracked fingernails, a certified public accountant.
“I wish Max was here now, so I wouldn’t have to explain. You’d see, you’d know.” Frawley hitched in his seat as though suddenly finding the car too small for his body, his knees jammed against the glove box. “Past couple of years he came, he went. But never mind—good guy, pono guy.”
Back on the highway, in traffic, halted behind a bus picking up passengers, Olive said, “Where do you think he is now?”
Frawley folded his arms and frowned and did not look at her. He said, “I think I showed you enough. Pull over here at the stop, after the bus go.”
“What about the rest?”
“Max can show you the rest.”
In the backseat, Sharkey began to stammer, half-formed words like urgent breaths failing in his throat.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Olive said, hesitating, then pulling forward and parking at the forward end of the bus stop.
A berm at the roadside formed the edge of a dune, and when Olive switched off the engine, killing the fan, they sat in heat and glare. Even with the windows open the car was hot. Just ahead, beside the berm, an old woman trawled through a trash barrel, selecting soda cans, while two boys on dirt bikes seemed animated by having something to watch—the car of gabbing people, pretty haole woman at the wheel. A shirtless man wearing a wool hat and surf shorts lay on the sandy berm, his body perfectly still, only his toes twitching, tickling the air.
“Not a lot of time,” Frawley said mimicking Olive’s English accent, smacking his lips, fingering a cigarette, preparing to light it. “You know we say, ‘Try wait’?”
But Frawley cut him off. “We’re not like you, sister.” He lit the cigarette and savored the pause he was creating and blew smoke out of the side of his mouth. “We stay waiting. We do nothing but stay wait. Our whole life is wait—from little keiki to big adult, always wait. I sometimes try due diligence to figure out the difference between locals and haoles. The simple answer I come up with is, haoles no wait. And all we kanaka maoli do is, what? Fricken wait. Even when I stay in my office on Bishop Street, the haoles come and go, never wait. And Frawley at his desk—wait. You got no idea what it’s like. You always have what you want. We never. Fonoti?”
“We never,” Fonoti said, amplifying the word like a cry, Nevah.
Olive allowed them a respectful silence, and then said, “I didn’t mean to rush you.”
“And plus, the other thing,” Frawley said. “What are we waiting for?”
Fonoti said, “I waiting for Max.”
“Ass right,” Frawley said. “We used to say ‘Max—he to the max,’ like an expression. Maybe we waiting for him.”
In his aggrieved rant about waiting, his talk had shifted from his accountant’s precision to a blunter lingo, more local, especially on that last word, heem.
He sat grunting, as though digesting the meaning of what he’d said, the echo of it rumbling through his big body.
“In the meantime, we ho‘omau,” Frawley said, and looked at Olive. “Push on. Persevere for Max sake.”
Sharkey turned to look out the window, seaward, where the surf had risen, chest high, and beyond the gouts of foam in the breaking waves a boy at sea, swaying on top of the water, too far out for Sharkey to discern his board, the disjunction making it seem as though the boy was dancing in the ocean.
“Hot like hell,” Fonoti said, breathing through his nose, a crackling sound.
“Give me twenty bucks,” Frawley said.
“For what?”
“For the”—he puffed his cigarette—“for the indenture. What we call the agreement.”
Olive fumbled in the bag at her feet and brought out the money.
Crushing the bill in his hand, Frawley said, “And Fonoti. For his knowledge. His mana‘o.”