by Lisa Freeman
“Hello. Oh Mike, is that you?”
She put her hand over her chest and fell back on the couch as if she had never gotten a long distance phone call before.
“It’s Uncle Mike,” Jean whispered, covering the receiver with her palm.
I liked Uncle Mike, but he had gotten way too chummy with Jean since Dad died. Not like they were together or anything, but something about their new friendship bugged me. They talked day and night.
Uncle Mike was Dad’s business partner. His full name was Michael Kei. Dad always said Mike’s only vices were tailored silk shirts from Singapore, tall blondes who liked to party, and four packs of Lucky Strikes a day. Uncle Mike was only five-foot-four in his slip-on loafers, but his ego was huge, and his house was even bigger. On his mailbox in front of the long drive leading down to his private beach was the Hawaiian word kahuna, which means “king.”
Uncle Mike bought up land in Kahala when it was nothing but pig farms. He turned it into multimillion-dollar estates and made so much dough Dad used to say that the title Kahuna actually fit him. You see, Uncle Mike’s a bubbly Aries. “Generous to a fault,” he’d tell you.
I loved Uncle Mike’s house with its tennis court, pool, sleek marble floors, weird Eames furniture, and black lacquered counters. Best of all were his two Hyacinth macaws from Bolivia, Sonny and Cher. When anyone tried to figure out how he got those birds into the country, Dad would grin.
“Uncle Mike is resourceful,” he’d say.
Jean hated “the birds,” which is probably why I loved them so much. The night Sonny bit the nose of an overly friendly guest, she said they were “hideous creatures” and “filthy beasts.” Jean threw up when Sonny flipped the fleshy chunk of skin in the air and swallowed it whole. All I could do was laugh and think about what a badass that bird was. Dad thought it was funny, too. “Ain’t no big thang,” he told Jean.
Dad always thought the things Mom got upset about were funny. “Opposites attract, and then one of them gets pregnant,” Dad told me. Jean didn’t think that was funny either.
She pushed away the TV tray, listening to Uncle Mike, slowly drawing each word out into a question. She said, “Really? Really? Really?”
“What?” I mouthed.
Like I was the little maid, Jean handed me her plate to clear. I rolled my eyes and wondered if she had completely lost it. Jean made me super stressed, but stress causes zits so I sucked it up. Think smart and just play along with her, I told myself. The lineup was the only thing that mattered.
I set the plates down in the kitchen. Jean kept a lot of liquor in there: vodka, rum, brandy, tequila, scotch, dry gin. The brandy was for making Fog Cutters, and the dry gin was for Singapore Slings. The bottles reminded me of Dad. I took a deep breath of vodka, clanged the bottles together, and started to clean up.
I could hear Jean babbling to Uncle Mike. She would talk to him for hours because it was on his dime.
She told him, “I want to know everything.”
She sounded excited. I didn’t really care.
Jean hated Uncle Mike’s new girlfriend, Bibi Caprice. She was from Scandinavia by way of Las Vegas. I’ll never forget the way Jean groaned when she saw her at our going-away party. The chick towered over Uncle Mike by at least a foot. It was really twisted. Bibi had on black stiletto heels and a one-piece fishnet bathing suit cut so low her giant tits almost fell out.
“Thank God your father doesn’t have to meet this one,” Jean whispered. But I knew Daddy always got a kick out of Uncle Mike’s dames. Trust me, he would have split his sides laughing at Bibi’s boobs jiggling up next to Uncle Mike’s ears.
Everybody on Oahu knew Uncle Mike. People loved to talk about him. The talk wasn’t always good. They said he was in the back pocket of The Big Five. They were a bunch of rich haole families who owned more of Hawaii than the military ever would.
Even so, Daddy loved Uncle Mike. They grew up together and were best friends since the days they worked side by side as beach boys for the Royal Hawaiian. Daddy said Mike was a “good guy, a real Kanaka,” even though he didn’t approve of his friends or his plans to build up and down the coast. Uncle Mike was getting rich by developing thousands of acres of beachfront property into condominium complexes and hotels. “The unavoidable future of Oahu,” Uncle Mike would say, and then he’d laugh about how every inch of the island would soon be covered with cement. Nobody else thought it was funny.
For some reason, talking to Uncle Mike was getting Jean all revved up. She sounded hysterical. When I went back into the living room, she was stomping her feet and squealing like she had swallowed air from a helium balloon. Then it got even weirder because she started chanting, “We’re rich, we’re rich,” and couldn’t stop. She had finally lost her mind.
Jean was laughing like I’d never heard her laugh before. She floated around the room holding onto the long phone cord.
“Mike, call me tomorrow,” she said.
She was acting totally mondo bizarro, jumping up and down like a cheerleader, clapping her hands when she said, “Uncle Mike sold the bar.”
She chirped in my face, smiling and shaking me as her hands clawed into my shoulders.
“What?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what she had said.
There was no way it could be true. Uncle Mike wouldn’t sell the place and Jean couldn’t do it without him. Everyone knew that Annie Iopa was running the Java Jones until I turned twenty-one, when I would legally take over. So it couldn’t be sold. There was no way.
“We’re rich, honey,” Jean said. “Uncle Mike is cutting us a check tonight for one hundred thousand dollars.”
Jean took my face in her hands and kissed my cheek. When I didn’t respond, she snapped her fingers a few times around my head.
“Wake up!” she shouted. “Don’t you get it? You can get braces now. You can go shopping and have a birthday bash at Trader Vics. We can even go to the Kahala Hilton someday and sit front row at the Danny Kaleikini Show.”
I didn’t say anything. “Why the stink face?” Jean asked. She sounded all surprised.
The inside of my throat closed, and my tongue felt too big for my mouth. I heard my heart pounding beneath my ears and a burst of heat rushed through me. There was no time to think. It had to be said, right then and there. The room was spinning. I could barely get enough air. But I had to say it and say it strong.
“The Jones is mine.”
Jean laughed. She tried to make me laugh, too, twirling my hair and using it to make a pretend moustache across my face.
She said, “Honey, we’ll be ladies of leisure.”
She had no idea that I was boiling inside and that every move she made or word she uttered made me feel like my bones were being blown apart. The scent of her lipstick and ketchup on her breath were making me sick. She was still laughing but then, finally, she realized that I was for real.
“You’re not even sixteen yet,” she said. “We couldn’t keep the bar, honey.” She patted my arm and turned away.
It was the way Jean said “honey” that pushed me overboard. I liked it when my dad called me “honey,” but Jean’s tone made the word fester and stick like tar.
“We? Who said anything about you owning the bar? Daddy left me the Java Jones.”
“Kids don’t own bars,” Jean laughed.
That bar was my ticket home. I wasn’t about to lose it. I couldn’t. It was my main tie to Dad, the only one I had except for his ashes. Annie was counting on me and, besides, all my tropical fish were still in the tanks.
Jean stepped away. There was no hint of a smile on her face anymore.
“How do you think we got this great house, huh?” She waited for me to answer but I had nothing to say. “Uncle Mike fronted us the money so we could have a place to live.”
Again, she waited for me to say something. There was silence in the room, but the screaming in my head was epic until I finally said, “Get it back.”
“No,” she said.
“Get it back!
” I yelled.
“No,” she said.
“Daddy said it was going to be mine,” I screamed.
I felt like I had stepped on a bomb and fell to the ground. I imagined my guts, fingers, and blood spewing into the air like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but I couldn’t control myself. Tears streamed out of me and felt unstoppable. I shook, kicked, and scratched at the air, but Jean didn’t seem to care.
“Here’s the deal,” she said calmly. “The bar is gone. Mike and I decided.”
She stood there staring at me. I cried like I have never cried before. I wanted to yank her hair out, stomp on her head, crushing her brains with my bare feet.
“Honey, please …” Jean tried to touch me, but I slapped her hand away and crawled into a corner.
“I hate you, bitch,” I said.
I had never sworn in front of my mother, let alone cursed at her.
She walked away. I stayed there, in the corner plotting my next move. This was not going to blow over, and I would never forgive her. It was not a little family feud, but a full-blown vendetta. I swore to myself, someday I’d get the bar back—somehow, someway.
In the meantime, I would make the rest of my mother’s life a living hell. And I would follow every rule and regulation laid out by Annie Iopa to get in with the lineup. I was going to become the gnarliest girl on State Beach. That was my destiny. From now on, I would take no prisoners, show no mercy, and become a new legend in the world of surf. That way nobody would ever jerk me around again.
II
Iulai
July 1972
Leo
CHAPTER TEN
Crossing Over
There was no trace of Jean when I woke up, but she had tacked another small picture of Jesus, this one with lambs, next to the cross on my wall. A sign, I thought. Today I needed all the help I could get. I didn’t give a flying fig where it came from.
I reviewed my mission and pulled the covers over my head, closing my eyes tight. I wanted to make it dark and calm in my head. There was no turning back. I was marooned on the mainland permanently. The only thing left to do was erase that round little Haunani with too much “milk” in her dark Kona skin. The girl that played with Little Kiddles and dressed in muumuus that matched her mother’s had to be banished forever.
I got out of bed, hugged Mrs. Beasley, and brushed my hair so it hung straight. Then I begged the great mother Pele on my knees, “Please make me cute, make me strong, and most of all make me cool.”
Somehow the local girls were going to test me. I knew that because Annie Iopa told me what to expect. She also told me exactly how to respond.
“No matter what the challenge is,” she said, “let the home girl win.”
She looked directly into my eyes and said all seriously, “Just barely, but let her win. Understand?”
I nodded but didn’t have any idea what she meant. Today I was going to find out.
To get onto State Beach, I had to get past Lord Ricky and his gargoyles. That’s what Mary Jo called his sidekicks, the two guys that guarded the tunnel entrance. I had seen them and knew they’d be on watch with him. They’d all require payment of some kind. I had the perfect bribe: five excellent joints with no seeds.
I decided to keep wearing Annie’s mismatched North Shore bikini. The one with the crocheted top that looked like a spider web and the black and white bikini bottoms. I looped my lucky rabbit foot around the side and tied my halter top good and tight. For extra mojo, I wrapped an oversized black and khaki bandana around my neck. A soldier at the bar had given it to me for good luck.
I wore drawstring shorts over my bikini bottoms and filled my suede tote with the necessities: a key to the house, a fold-up brush, a five-dollar bill, a butter and sugar sandwich on Wonder Bread, a thermos filled with vodka for good luck, cinnamon Fireballs, and the Band-Aid box filled with Dad, just in case they gave me permission to swim.
Finally, I put on the black wraparound shades Mr. Ho gave me after Dad died. He told me I was beautiful and I could call if I ever needed anything. Don Ho liked haole women like my dad did so he thought I was the coolest. Jean called Don Ho tropical tacky and said he was Mister Kisser because he loved sucking face with old tourist women who stunk of gardenia perfume and Dole pineapple. They had one too many slushy bourbon drinks with double umbrellas in coconut shells. “Good for tips,” Dad would say.
I popped one of Jean’s Valiums and headed for the beach. She had offered them to me before, medicine to calm down. She had been trying to get me to calm down for a long time. Today I finally took her advice.
I estimated it took ten minutes to get from my house to the tunnels. I walked on West Channel Road past the famous Natural Progression, the number one surf shop, and got a couple hoots from the guys inside. That was a good sign. NP was the board mecca for locals. The further I got from 33 Sage, the deeper I was able to breathe, the clearer I was able to think, and the more confident I felt.
After crossing the street, just before the stairs down into the tunnel, I joined a pack of moms and little kids heading to State. I held hands with one of the little buckaroos while chatting with his mom about the possibility of a babysitting job I knew I’d never do.
At State’s entrance, Lord Ricky was sitting on an upside-down garbage can. Before my feet touched the sand, he held up a golf club and stopped me. He let the moms and little kids pass but made me wait. He looked about twenty-five or so and wore plastic Mickey Mouse sunglasses, a yellow bathrobe that was too small, and white tennis shorts. Typical of surfers like him, a dark shadow was looming under the fabric, which meant no underwear. He had a giant hickey on his neck. He sat there, dripping wet and fastening a pith helmet under his scraggly beard. The guy was hard-core and most likely a Gemini.
“Young Lady,” Lord Ricky sang, dragging out the “a” to make it sound like he had an English accent.
Guys don’t like grumpy girls so I smiled. Lord Ricky dropped the golf club and let me step onto the beach. But I knew not to go farther.
My eyes drifted over to Lord Ricky’s sidekicks. They were real Blala, lowlifes. Lord Ricky introduced me to them even though he didn’t know my name. He put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me tight to his side. Pointing to one of the guys, he said, “This is Stu.”
Stu was at least six feet tall and waddled like a big goose. He had a baby face, giant blue eyes, a booming deep voice, and was wearing Hang Ten trunks.
“How do you do?” he said and curtsied formally. It was the kind of thing an Aquarius might do, but I wasn’t positive about him. I wasn’t sure if I should curtsy back. So instead I just smiled bigger.
“And this … this is Mr. Brad Jackson,” he offered up as though he were introducing someone famous.
Jean would have said Brad had a “misaligned eye.” While his right eye looked straight ahead and focused, his left one wandered outward. This was my first real challenge of the day. I knew that eye contact was very important to surfers when it was allowed, but I didn’t know which of his eyeballs to look at. I silently went through a round of eeny, meeny, miny, moes then picked the non-wandering eye and said, “Hi.”
“These are my brahs,” Lord Ricky told me.
It is so totally lame when haoles try to use pidgin or any kind of Hawaiian words.
Lord Ricky told me his brahs designed boards at Natural Progression and were part-time pool men for movie stars. Both guys stunk of chlorine, rubber, and disinfectant. They weren’t the least bit wet, but the chemical combination made them shimmer in the late morning sun.
With his arm still around me, Lord Ricky blew a saliva bubble off the tip of his tongue. I stood perfectly still, trying to look unbreakable, as the little spit bubble floated by me. I wanted to rub my rabbit foot to get Annie praying for me, but I knew that any sudden movement could set them off. So I didn’t try to make casual conversation. I just stood there and waited.
“Do you have an invitation?” Lord Ricky asked.
“Mary Jo,” was all I said.
Lord Ricky dropped his arm around my waist and shook his head side to side.
“No,” he said. “I need to see the invitation.”
It sounded like he had marbles in his mouth when he talked. I dropped my eyes past his pigeon chest and stared at his knobby knees. Lord Ricky didn’t say anything. I waited. If my dad was here, this wouldn’t be happening. Lord Ricky would be chewing sand before he got a paw on me. I didn’t move.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Initiation I: Gargoyles
“Who are you?” Lord Ricky asked.
“Nani,” I said calmly.
“Got a joint for me, chick-wa?” he said.
It wasn’t really a question. The way he narrowed his eyes, rolled his tongue, and accented the “wa” transformed his speech into a warning. Lord Ricky coiled himself around me. Before I could give him a joint, he turned my bag upside down.
I knew better than to bend over around these guys but kneeling wasn’t an option either. I didn’t want to be face to face with their crotches. Squatting would make me look like I was peeing so I decided to perch myself like a tiny bird on the sand. I quickly scooped up the Band-Aid box, but before I could get up, Stu and Brad squeezed in next to me, sealing us all together.
“We wanna joint, too, chickie-poo,” Brad said.
He had traces of zinc oxide around his nostrils and up close, I could smell his dog-mouth morning breath. Stu had a nicer edge to him. He just gave me a wink as I handed him a joint and put his arm around me, clicking his tongue in my ear.
“We wanna know your whole name,” he said looking down at my boobs.
“Haunani Nuuhiwa, but call me Nani,” I said just barely squeaking it out.
“How, Nani.” Lord Ricky said like an Indian on Gunsmoke. He dropped his voice deeper and raised his arm with the palm of his hand open.
He made me the morning’s “itty-bitty,” the girl who either got her butt kicked or stayed and played. There was no in-between. Lord Ricky kneeled next to me and helped himself to the other two joints like they were Halloween candy.