Sharks in the Time of Saviours

by Kawai Strong Washburn

  My teeth were clenching so hard my whole jaw was a balloon of hurt, something like my knuckles were, don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. “All you retards can do is punch,” I said. “You’ll be praying for McDonald’s jobs while I’m graduating from Kahena.”

  James’s feet shifted in the grass, I heard the hiss and crackle. “You guys hear this smart-ass?” James said to Skyler. “Maybe we both get a turn for the second round.”

  “No,” Skyler said. “Only me.”

  My hand was shaking then, all my fingers and my palm whumping with my pulse, but I closed the fingers, felt the pain stretch and burn across my bones. I put my fist six inches from Skyler’s again. He punched, harder, like a heavy door slamming closed, my hand still in the doorjamb. An explosion in my hand bones so big it blew through my eyes, everything white for a second, I fell back on my ass in the dirt. When I landed I made an awful wet crying sound, like a puppy.

  James and Skyler both laughing, Skyler flapping his punching hand, and out front on the lawn someone must have told a good joke, because all the adults were laughing, right at the same time.

  Kaui moved in front of me. “Cut it out, botos,” she said.

  “What?” James laughed again. “Wait, what?”

  “I said enough,” Kaui said.

  “Maybe it’s your turn, then, yeah?” James said to her. “You and me.”

  Dean stood up from his lean. “James, no be stupid,” he said, his pidgin dialed up since he wasn’t with Mom and Dad.

  “Do it,” Kaui said to James.

  “Both of you shut up,” Dean said.

  “Too late,” Kaui said. Then to James, “Do it, scaredy cat.”

  “Watch your mouth,” James said.

  “You gonna watch it for me?” Kaui said, all ten years old of her. “Do it, pussy.” She put her fist out, just as mine had been, her hand so much smaller and rounder, there almost weren’t any knuckles.

  James set his fist in the air, six inches from hers.

  Kaui’s face like something carved from koa, little brown sister, bushy hair pigtailed. I didn’t know what to say—part of me wanted her to try it, because she was always thinking she could keep up with me and Dean, even though she was five years younger than him and three years younger than me, she should know her place . . . and then part of me didn’t want her to try it, because I knew the only way it could feel when it was over.

  “Kaui,” Dean said.

  “Do it,” Kaui said to James. She kept her fist out.

  James shrugged, locked his arm, pointed his fist at hers. He twitched a fake at Kaui, she didn’t flinch. He shifted his weight and threw a punch from his shoulder, but when his fist met hers it wasn’t a fist, he opened his hand and grabbed her wrist, laughed. Patted her hand. “Come on, I not going hit a girl, specially not Dean’s sister.”

  Dean laughed, too, he knew he had won, James and Skyler liked him enough, probably because of what he let them do to me. I chose it, I wanted to say. I matter, not you. But the three of them shifted their positions, just a bit closer to each other, me and Kaui outside their loose circle.

  “Go,” Dean said, waving us away like bees at a picnic. They were all three laughing. I turned, I walked away through the trimmed bright grass, I heard Skyler’s voice, dimming—“I got some fireworks,” he said—and then I was out of earshot.

  “I hate that stupid game,” came Kaui’s voice next to me, and I jumped a little.

  “I didn’t know you were there,” I said.

  “Well, I am,” Kaui said.

  “You shouldn’t have come back there,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  If there was one thing Dean and I agreed on, it was that no one got to hurt Kaui but us. That was what it meant to be her brothers, but I knew what Kaui would say if I explained it that way, so I didn’t. Instead I said, “You got off lucky, they didn’t hit you. It used to be like that for me, too.”

  We’d made it back to the sidewalk, two houses down, Uncle Royce’s party. Skyler and his family would have hated it here—which is why they’d gone to another party up the street the other way—people here were just in jeans and T-shirts, camo board shorts, the tarry smell of cigarettes, no decorations, beer in cans from half-gutted cardboard boxes. Then another rolling pop of firecrackers.

  “If you’re tired of everyone picking on you, maybe don’t be such a smart-ass all the time,” Kaui said.

  “You know,” I said, “just because you learned a few swear words, that doesn’t make you grown-up.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “Bet they’d still be wrecking you if I didn’t step in.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Things like that with Dean,” she said, “it’s almost like you want to get beat up.”

  She was right, that’s exactly what it was, but how could I tell her? She didn’t know, no one knew, how after the sharks I could feel Mom and Dad holding their breath so hard it was almost like they were holding mine, they talked about the ‘aumakua, how me having been blessed by the spirits, chosen, meant something. Already I was lucky for them, had brought them things, the donations they got from my story that made our move to O‘ahu so much easier, certificates and awards from Kahena Academy, shaka respect from every local that heard the shark story and felt the old gods in it, everything, it was me.

  Dean saw it. And he heard, too, from Mom and Dad, could I be the new Hawaiian scientist, or some senator, or the whole renaissance. We all heard, and there were things growing in me that made me believe I could turn into those dreams.

  Still I shrugged at what Kaui said. “He’s always mad at me. I figure maybe if I just let him get in a few good lickens he’ll get over it.”

  She snorted. “Dean’s not so good at that.”

  “At what?”

  “Getting over things.”

  Then there was an awful whimper, a human sound you just know is bad, me and Kaui both stopped talking. We saw Dean, dark skin shirtless, walking slow toward us on the sidewalk from behind Skyler’s house; Skyler was with him, their shoulders bumping. My brother had used his shirt to wrap Skyler’s hand and now cradled it. I noticed a new, black smell, almost like after firecrackers, burned paper, but more sweet and smoky, grilled pig maybe. And Skyler had his eyes clamped shut, tears squeezing out in between, him whimpering, my brother telling him that everything was going to be all right, James behind them looking sick.

  All the parents and the party shut up.

  Dean said, “He tried to let go but the fuse was too short.” Skyler was shivering like a horse coming up out of a river.

  Dean whispered something to Skyler, Skyler shook his head. But anyway Dean started to pull the cloth back and showed us something like a hand, three fingers that wiggled white, two others that didn’t, there were yellow chunks and shreds of skin, then splinters of bone gone gray in the light. The sweet pork smell blew again across our noses. People hissed and turned away.

  Then voices came up again, loud and urgent, someone’s keys jingling, while I stepped forward and touched Skyler’s hand, I didn’t know what I was doing, even Dean asked me that, What are you doing, but I didn’t answer because there was too much in me to speak: I felt the prickly growth of the grass in the lawns all around, as if it was my skin, the beat of the night-bird wings as if I was the one flying, the creaking suck of the trees breathing in the firework air as if the leaves were my own lungs, the drum of the hearts of everyone at the party.

  I touched Skyler’s hand, my fingers traced the splinters of bone and shreds of skin. And in the space between our hands, something pulled, like magnets, and there was a warmth. But Skyler’s dad arrived, pushed me back, and closed the shirt over his son’s hand—it was better already, I swear, the skin closing back, the bones stitching themselves, I saw it was better—and suddenly my head felt fizzy, filled with helium, like after running too fast for too long. I stepped away, I tried to lean against the folding table with the mac salad and musubi, but my hand missed the tab
letop, touched only air, I ended up on the ground, on my ass, for the second time that night.

  From there I watched as two fathers took Skyler into a truck, the square sound of the doors closing, the chatter and roar of the engine starting, and, somewhere more distant, pop pop pop.

  Kaui nudging my shoulder. “Wake up,” she said, and she said it again and again until I did. Who knew how long it had been. “What did you do?”

  I wanted to say, but my eyelids were heavy, trying to make my mouth muscles open was like trying to open a refrigerator with a slug. I didn’t know what I had done, exactly. Only that there was a feeling from Skyler’s hand, a feeling of wanting to correct itself, and I was part of that feeling, made it larger, if only for a minute.

  Dean arrived, looking down on us. “We gotta go.”

  I could see something burning there behind his eyes. Scared and angry and shamed. This was when it really started, wasn’t it. “Sorry,” I said, hoping that would be enough, this time, and I think I was also saying it for everything since the sharks had first saved me.

  “Sorry for what,” he said. “Not like you was the one grabbing a firework you couldn’t handle.”

  I shrugged. “I know. But still.”

  “But what, you thought you was going fix his hand or something, when you touched it?” Dean smirked and shook his head. “You didn’t do nothing.”

  Mom and Dad were calling to us from across the street. “We gotta go,” Dean said.

  We got in our dented blue Jeep Cherokee, me and Kaui and Dean in the back, Mom driving us home because Dad was four beers deep and, he said, didn’t want us to see him fondle a cop to get out of a DUI. His palm on Mom’s thigh and her fingers laced between. Headlights going past us the other way as we came down from Aiea, Dean looking out his side window and every now and then taking deep blowing breaths, all the signs and buildings along the H1. He looked even older, just since we’d got in the car, and I bet I did, too. Neither of us like the Dean and Noa from Big Island, before the sharks: I remembered us sprinting through Hapuna Beach big-wave advisories, surf booming to our knees, then our chests, we’d dive right under the foaming whitewater. We’d feel the rip pull us sideways along the beach, see who could get deeper under each wave, let the sucking current of the coming set drag us along, the grains of sand gathering and bouncing over our spines, and we’d feel the water start to bend and stand up, tugging on our board shorts, and when the wave crested and tossed its full force directly on top of us, we’d push deep and open our eyes and grin at the yawning curl of gold sand and blue ocean that couldn’t touch us. Underwater Dean’s eyes were as I think mine were, squinted with joy, and the air rushed from our noses and mouths in silver ropes as we swam back toward the surface, where we’d high-five at our bravery, at what we could beat. Now we were in the Jeep, coming home, Kaui in between us, both boys and our Bloody Knuckles hands, driving toward whatever would come next, while part of me kept checking the rearview mirror for what we were leaving behind.

  3

  KAUI, 2001

  Kalihi

  Okay, so, that whole year. It was like living on the edge of legend again, just like after the sharks, only bigger. Another numb-nuts boy blows his hand off playing with firecrackers like every other New Year’s. Only this one doesn’t end the same way. Blessing said that Keahi said that Skyler-them went to the emergency room that night. And the doctors unwrapped Skyler’s New Year’s hand explosion. Wiped away the blood, right, and underneath was nothing but clean strong skin. His hand like it had never played with fire.

  Oh, man. You can imagine, if Keahi was telling Blessing, then people knew about it all the way in, like, Saudi Arabia. Old news. Keahi’d talk about the invention of the wheel like it was hot rumor.

  But the arrivals were slow. Something about the news stayed quiet. Neighbors came every now and then. Steady but slow. Some local auntie with her just-woke hairstyle, two-year-old son riding her hip, the son with diabetes, and her saying, We heard some things about Nainoa. And can he help. Or the man who came another time, hapa Korean I think, a size-small shirt stretched over a size-large chest, rubbing his arm, saying stage four had spread all the way to his toes. And can your son help.

  Those first times I don’t think Mom knew what to do, she just listened. Eyebrows all crinkled up with sad and let in whoever was talking, went to find Noa in his and Dean’s room. Then the person would go in there with Mom, but soon enough she came back out.

  “He said he could only do it alone,” she said that first time.

  Later the person would come back out. I don’t know what Noa did but I know when people left they were practically reggae skanking. Every step a rubber-band bounce. Plus their eyes easy, not like before. So he was fixing something.

  And so of course people kept coming. Slow but steady. Never a crowd.

  One time I saw this: A grown-up lady, talking about early-stage this or that, when she got ready to leave after her visit, she stopped at the kitchen. Where Mom was. Handed her all this cash. I thought Mom would be surprised, like “I can’t possibly take this from you.” But no way. She nodded and took it so easy, like she was checking out a grocery shopper at J. Yamamoto.

  Me and Dean and Noa aren’t stupid, we knew there was always stuff Mom and Dad owed. Phone calls all the time where they were negotiating everything from credit cards to the house. It became like a prayer at our house, Our Father who art in debt collection, hallowed be thy pay. When I was in, like, fourth grade, I thought everyone had rent parties. Until I was talking about it at school and the teacher got all wet-eyed. Asked me some things after class.

  Do you need help is what she asked, with this sad-serious face. Is everything okay in your family.

  And I said, “But you’re a teacher.”

  She said, “Now, what does that mean.”

  And I was like, “You’re a teacher. What are you going to do, split your food stamps with us?”

  But now, with people showing up to see Noa, it’s no more Ross Dress for Less at our house. We’ve even had, like, a family trip to Pearlridge. All of us got to pick out a few things from Gap and Foot Locker. We’ve had a few good ahi dinners at home, too.

  I guess mom let everyone know that we had a family life, they couldn’t just visit whenever they wanted. And, seriously, people listened. It was definitely a Lucky you live Hawai‘i moment: no one ever came around after dinnertime, or even just before, just Mom and Dad at the table running their numbers, envelope of cash. Then Dean coming back from his pickup games at the court, announcing himself with the tamp tamp of his basketball on the sidewalk, the beat of the ball like probably he was inside, bouncing with jealousy.

  Came a night like that when I went to Noa’s room. This was maybe four months after people had started coming to see him. He was lying there on his bed, arms limp and hanging. Staring at the ceiling and breathing slow.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He nodded his head. That was all.

  “You okay?” I asked. He rolled over away from me, toward the wall. Which pissed me off. Because it was obvious he wasn’t okay, but no one else seemed like they were asking. And it was obvious he wanted to be asked, and here I was. “Whatever, then,” I said, and started to close the door. Only he said something. Of course. Just as the door was about to close.

  “What?” I asked. I came back inside the room. All basketball posters and rap stars on Dean’s side, robots and sword dudes clutched by big-chee-chee princesses on Noa’s side. “You wouldn’t understand if I told you,” he said.

  I should have slapped him. “Sorry if the new King Kamehameha doesn’t have time to talk to one of the villagers,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You’re the king,” I said. “You tell me.”

  “I didn’t ask for this,” he said, and sat up. Made it seem like getting up took all this effort. “What do you know, anyway? You don’t know what it’s like. None of you do.”

  Oh, brother. It was like h
e didn’t understand how he sounded. “I know you’ve been going around with your nose in the air like me and Dean don’t even live here,” I said. Which was true. Like Mom and Dad didn’t even ask him to do chores, because he needed rest. There’d be times where just him and Mom would go off on a drive to talk about things, only it would also be dinnertime, and so me and Dean would get “treated” to Dad’s Hamburger Helper special. While Noa and Mom come back smelling like Rainbow Drive-In or Leonard’s Bakery, I swear.

  “There are—” Noa started. “It’s my head. I have all these things inside, they won’t stop.”

  “Like what?”

  He asked me did I know how we were living.

  I said I did: Mom and Dad were busting their asses, but we were at least better than we were on the Big Island, after the sugarcane plantation shut down. And obviously whatever he was doing now was getting us money, too.

  Noa rubbed his face. Hard. Like there was something there he couldn’t get off. “See, that’s what I mean, you don’t understand. ‘We’ doesn’t mean you and me and Mom and Dad. ‘We’ means Hawai‘i. Maybe even more than Hawai‘i.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What does that have to do with you?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out.” He shrugged. “I think I’m supposed to fix it. That’s what all this is for.”

  I squeezed my hands open and closed. Open and closed. “What, only you?” I asked.

  He was quiet then. I could see that he was ragged, run wet like the horses back in Waipi‘o Valley, the ones we used to ride that I can only remember by their smell and their feeling. The whole land coming up through their galloping muscles. That was what they were supposed to do: run. But when they ran for long enough they got just empty and blown out, right? Couldn’t even do the one thing they were supposed to. “Yeah,” he said. “Only me.”

  And okay, so he was tired. It was hard, because I felt sorry for him, but he was doing that thing where he wanted me to feel like it was my fault—that he was feeling the way he was, and that I couldn’t fix it, and that he was special—all of it my fault. He did that feeling to people a lot, I think. And it worked, mostly, even on me. Except that time it didn’t, because all I could hear was what he thought of me and Dean: nothing. Because he thought he was special.