by Don Winslow
Chon guesses that’s supposed to mean something, but he can’t keep the smirk off his face. “Okay.”
“You think that’s funny?” Gabe asks. “You won’t be laughing in a minute, kook.”
“I’m not looking for any trouble.” Chon goes to move around him again.
“But you found some,” Gabe says, blocking him again.
They say that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.
(Ignorance being bliss.)
They’re wrong.
(O notwithstanding.)
By way of example, Gabe doesn’t know that Chon has an innate violent streak.
Doesn’t know that Chon is a highly trained fighter.
Doesn’t know that Chon has used that training to hurt and kill numerous people.
Doesn’t know that Chon actually likes to fight.
Doesn’t know that Chon isn’t used to letting himself be pushed around.
Doesn’t know that Chon has a temper.
Doesn’t know that Chon is about to lose that temper.
What you don’t know can hurt you.
Badly.
“You’re in my way,” Chon says.
“Move me,” Gabe says.
“Is this me and you?” Chon asks. “Or me and you and all your boys?”
Now Gabe smirks. “You call the wolf, you get the pack.”
Chon nods.
Before Gabe can move (or blink), Chon grabs him by the front of the shirt, lifts him and throws him into two guys behind him. Then he pivots and hits the fourth guy three overhand rights to the face.
Another moke comes up from behind, wraps his arms around Chon and lifts. Chon hooks his left leg around the guy’s left leg, then brings his right foot up hard into his scrotum.
The guy lets go.
Another guy charges, shooting for Chon’s legs to take him down. Chon plants his legs in the sand, digs his thumbs into the guy’s eyes, forces his neck back and hammer-fists him to the ground.
He turns around just fast enough to see another guy coming at him. Chon steps to the side and plants a front kick into his groin, turns again to forearm a charging guy in the bridge of the nose.
Two of the Palala are on their knees in the sand, grabbing their packages. Two more are flat out, unconscious. Another is on his back, holding his shattered nose.
You call the pack, you get the (lone) wolf.
Which is why Gabe walks to his truck and comes back with a gun.
* * *
O never really had a father.
She had one, of course—even Paqu couldn’t pull off a second Virgin Birth, despite her doubtless best efforts—but O never knew him, never even knew who he really was until recently.
O had seven stepfathers that she did know, but she never really bothered to learn their names after the first one or two, so she just gave them numbers.
Sometime after Three, O presented her mother with a Hitachi Wand.
“What’s this?” Paqu asked. “Some kind of vibrator?”
Yes, O thought, and Ferrari is some kind of car.
“Just make this Four,” O said. “I’m begging you. It won’t move a bunch of its personal shit into the house, it won’t set a bunch of new rules, and it won’t try to be my father. Best of all, when you’re done with it, you can just turn it off. No lawyers, no court appearances, no conflicts over assets.”
Paqu took neither the gift nor the advice.
She married Four, who was a real dildo, a born-again doofus in Indiana with whom she was going to open a Christian jewelry business. O thought they should have opened a used jewelry business so it could be “Born Again Jewelry.” But apparently neither the business nor Four worked out, and Paqu moved back to Orange County, closer to her cosmetic surgeons.
Anyway, O never had that paternal figure until Pete.
Pete teaches her to fish.
Pete listens to her.
Pete gives her egg-and-onion-bagel sandwiches.
She falls deeply, daughterly in love with Pete.
* * *
Chon has his Chon up.
He sees the pistol in Gabe’s hand and only thinks, Bring it, motherfucker. Get close enough to me with that gun and I’ll take it from your hand, stick it down your throat and make you swallow whatever comes out.
But Gabe’s too smart for that.
He keeps his distance.
Points the gun at Chon’s chest.
Chon goes through a mental process.
People think it’s easy to shoot someone with a pistol at close range. It’s not—it’s hard. Most shooters, even trained cops, usually miss with the first shot. That’s part of Chon’s calculation as he edges forward.
The next part of the equation is time versus distance—Chon’s trying to calculate if he can be on top of Gabe before he can get the next shot off.
Because the second shot usually hits.
One thing he knows for sure:
Standing there waiting for Gabe to shoot isn’t an option.
He’s about to launch, when—
* * *
“Pau ana!”
Kit yelling “Stop!” in Hawaiian.
Gabe stops.
Lowers the gun and turns to look at Kit, standing at the edge of the beach.
“He aha ana la?” Kit asks him.
What’s going on?
“This haole disrespected us,” Gabe says. “He was trespassing on our break. We needed to teach him a lesson.”
Kit scans the scene, sees some of the Palala trying to get up, others just stretched out asleep. “I’m not sure who did the teaching. It took six of you? To not get it done? And a fucking gun, Gabe. Is this who we are now? This is pono?”
Chon notes the “we.”
“We’ll get it done now,” Gabe says.
“No you won’t,” Kit says. “He’s with me.”
“Say what, bruddah?!”
Chon sees the dynamic—Gabe is way pissed, but he’s not going to go up against Kit.
Kit Karsen is the A-male here.
“It’s pau,” Kit says.
Over.
Chon picks up his board and walks past Gabe.
They get into Kit’s truck and sit quietly for a minute as Kit drives back toward Hanalei. Then Kit says, “Yeah, maybe it’s better if you don’t surf there anymore.”
* * *
“Who are these guys?” Ben asks.
He and Tim are sitting on the lanai of Tim’s house. Chon leans against the railing.
“The Palala,” Tim says. “A local gang. Started as surfers protecting their turf, now it’s evolved into something else.”
“What something else?” Ben asks.
“Word is they’re dealing dope,” Tim says.
Ben shrugs. Like, we’re dealing dope.
“It’s not just weed,” Tim says. “It’s ice, coke and heroin.”
“Ice is killing the islands,” Malia says, walking out from the house with Kit.
“And these are friends of yours?” Ben asks Kit.
“I grew up with them,” Kit says. “Went to school with them, surfed with them. And yeah, I helped them patrol the beaches. Keep the haoles from trashing everything.”
“Aren’t you a haole?” Ben asks.
“By blood, yes,” Kit says. “By blood, though, I’m Hawaiian. These guys are my brothers, my ohana. I’d trust them with my life—”
He points toward the ocean.
“Out there. If I got caught in the impact zone, who would come in to save me? You, Ben? Some tourists? Some real-estate developers? Gabe would. Gabe has.”
“So that makes it all right for them to sell ice to your other brothers and sisters?” Malia asks.
“They’ve taken a wrong turn,” Kit says. “I’ll set them straight.”
Tim’s worried.
You set someone straight, you have to go on the crooked road yourself. Sometimes you get lost.
Besides, he’s heard that Gabe is hooked up with the Company.
* *
*
O savors another bagel egg sandwich.
“What did I tell you?” Pete asks.
“I’m hooked,” O says. “I’m obsessed.”
Pete bends down, reaches into his tackle box and comes out with a new lure. O says, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?”
“I never had the chance to grow up,” O says.
“Or you had the chance,” Pete says as he carefully fixes the lure to his line, “and you never took it.”
Fuck you, Pete, O thinks. But she thinks about that for a minute, wipes a bagel crumb off her lip and says, “You’re right. I guess I never wanted to grow up.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
“I guess I wanted someone to raise me,” O says. “When no one did, I just got mad and refused to raise myself.”
Pete says, “You’re a smart young lady, O.”
“And what did I do with all this intelligence?” she asks. “I’ve wasted my life.”
Pete’s quiet for a long time. Just looks out at the ocean. Then he says, “So did I.”
“I don’t believe that,” O says. “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
Now, Pete thinks.
* * *
Almost everyone who comes to an island, Pete thinks as he watches O walk back down the pier, comes as a refugee.
We don’t so much arrive as we wash ashore.
I’m no different, he thinks.
I fled a life that was no longer livable, left behind a person I could no longer live with.
Myself.
Every refugee, by definition, needs a refuge.
The lucky find one.
I’ve been very lucky.
He hopes the same for this young lady.
* * *
Gabe’s pissed.
Pissed that his back hurts from this haole tossing him like a Frisbee. Pissed that this same haole made them look like a bunch of clowns. More pissed that his palala K2 took the haole’s side.
What is that about? he wonders.
* * *
Ben sits on the lanai reading a Borges novel.
Chon scoffs. “Magic realism.”
“What about it?” Ben asks, setting the open book on his lap.
“Which is it?” Chon asked. “You can’t have both. It’s either real or it’s magic. Magic realism is an oxymoron.”
Ben says, “It’s a paradox.”
“There is no such thing as magic realism,” Chon says. “There is no magic in the real world.”
“But there’s no realism in the magical world,” O says.
“This is the real world,” Chon says.
“How do you know?” O asks.
She’s got him there.
* * *
Kit is up in the tree house fitting floor planks when he hears a car engine, looks down and sees Gabe in his truck.
“Up here!” Kit yells.
A minute later, Gabe climbs the ladder. “I need to talk with you.”
Kit pulls over two three-legged wooden stools and gestures for Gabe to sit down.
“What was that about yesterday, brah?” Gabe asks. “Why you take that haole’s side?”
“Six guys against one?” Kit asks.
“You call the wolf—”
“Yeah, I know,” Kit says. “But that’s not who we are. Guns aren’t who we are.”
“Who we are?” Gabe asks. “I’m starting to wonder who you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you were a Hawaiian,” Gabe says. “A kanaka. A palala.”
“I am.”
“Then why you helping these haoles move in?” Gabe asks.
“They’re in business with my dad, not me.”
“But you’re protecting them,” Gabe says. “That has to stop.”
“Says who?”
“Come on, brah. You going to make me say it?”
Kit shakes his head. “I heard it, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“What?”
“That you’re hooked up with the Company,” Kit says.
“The Company is for Hawaii.”
“Then why are they selling poison to Hawaiians?” Kit asks.
“If they don’t, the haoles will,” Gabe says. “Better to keep the money home, no?”
“No,” Kit says. “Better not to sell that shit. If the Palala wants to strap up and throw the ice slingers off the island, I’m on board. One hundred per. But hooking up with them? I’m not doing it. You shouldn’t be either, Gabe.”
“So we just let the haoles take everything?” Gabe asks. “They already stole our islands, now we let them cockroach our land, our beaches, our waves, our breaks, our businesses? That’s what you want?”
“I want my dad left alone.”
“No one wants to hurt your father,” Gabe says. “We want to work with him. We’ll let him distribute our weed on the island. We’ll buy his land, provide capital or just market his product, if he wants. He can partner up with brothers, not strangers.”
“He won’t partner with ice slingers.”
“Talk to him,” Gabe says.
“I agree with him.”
Gabe stands up. Finishes his beer and sets the bottle down. “You got to decide whose side you’re on. You gotta decide who you are, a haole or a Hawaiian. So what you gonna do, K?”
“I’m going to work on my house and surf,” Kit says. “What are you going to do, Gabe?”
Gabe doesn’t answer.
Kit watches him go down the ladder and get into his truck.
I know who I am, Kit thinks.
* * *
I’m my father’s son, Kit thinks.
Not “Bobby Z,” the guy who abandoned me and my mother, but the guy who rescued me from all that, risked his life to keep me by his side, and brought me here.
To this place I love.
Tim is my real father.
Like Elizabeth is my mother.
He knows that his biological mother was the daughter of a Mexican drug lord. That she died of a heroin overdose after Z left her. That she had left him in Elizabeth’s care when she went off on one of her last drug binges.
Kit barely remembers her.
He never met his bio-dad.
He was six when Tim showed up. A six-year-old kid living in a desert compound with a bunch of drug dealers and Elizabeth when Tim took him out of there. It would have been a lot easier, a lot safer, for Tim to have just left him like everyone else did—but Tim didn’t do that.
It was Tim who took care of me.
Tim who put me on a surfboard.
Tim who brought us here, built a life for us.
Did all the things a father does.
Like Elizabeth did all the things a mother does. Tucked me in at night, made breakfast in the morning, hugged me when I came home from school after the Hawaiian kids had beat me, sent me right back out there to make them my friends.
Who explained to me that “father” and “mother” are verbs before they’re nouns.
I know who I am, Kit thinks.
* * *
The next morning in the lineup at Lone Tree.
Kit takes off on a wave, is coming down the face when Israel Kalana breaks in on his line and cuts him off.
Kit has to bail out.
Next wave same thing happens.
This time it’s Palestine Kalana, Israel’s twin brother.
Next time it’s Kai Alexander, who jumps into the wave right in front of Kit, forcing him to pull up.
They’re crowding him out.
After his fourth bailout, Kit paddles over to Gabe. “What the hell?”
“You made your choice,” Gabe says. “You decided you wasn’t one of us. So you ain’t one of us. You don’t belong here.”
Kit looks around.
The other guys in the lineup, Israel, Palestine, Kai and the others—his brothers—can’t look at him.
“So that’s how it is,” Kit says.
Gabe shru
gs. That’s how it is.
Kit paddles over the shoulder, turns and takes off on the second wave of the next set. Gabe comes in from his right to cut him off again.
Kit doesn’t bail this time.
He drives down, cutting a straight line right at Gabe. Game of chicken on a fifteen-foot macker as Kit sets the point of his board right at Gabe’s head. They collide at this speed, both of them are going to get hurt.
Gabe bails at the last second.
Kit’s board grazes over him, the fin almost slicing his neck.
If there’s going to be blood in the water, Kit thinks, it ain’t going to be just mine.
Having made his point, Kit paddles in and puts his board in his truck. There are lots of other breaks on the North Shore—Tunnels, Kings and Queens, Dump Trucks, Cannons.
If they don’t want him here, he doesn’t want to be here.
It hurts him, though.
A lot.
* * *
O is walking up the pier to see Pete when a big Hawaiian man steps in her way.
“Aloha, wahine,” he says. “Howz’it?”
“I’m fine,” O says.
“Oh, you’re fine all right.”
O moves to step around him. “Excuse me.”
“I’m just trying to be friendly,” he says, stepping in her way. “What, you don’t like me? You don’t like me, maybe you should leave. You and your friends. Maybe you should leave the island.”
“Who are you?” O asks. “What do you want?”
“It can get dangerous here,” the man says. “Big surf, big sharks . . . things can happen to a pretty young girl.”
“Everything all right, O?”
It’s Pete.
“What you want?” the man asks him.
“Leave the young lady alone.”
The man laughs. “What are you going to do about it, old man? What are you going to do if I don’t?”
“I said leave her alone.”
There’s something in Pete’s eyes that O hasn’t seen before.
It scares her.
The Hawaiian man laughs again. “It’s all right, old man. It’s cool. S’all good. You remember what I said, though, wahine. A hui hou.”
Till we meet again.
A promise and a threat.
* * *
Ben walks out of the Big Save market, a shopping bag in each hand.
A big Hawaiian guy bumps into him.
“Excuse me,” Ben says.
“Watch where you’re going,” the guy says.
“Right,” Ben says. “Sorry.”
“What you say?”