Breaking Good

by Mike B. Good

“We’re going socializing?”

  Ray laughed at that one, but left me guessing. I had seen some huge locals on the Big Island, but the Waianae bruddahs, to their diabetic credit, were even more gargantuan. Signs in store windows advertised: T-shirts! Sizes from XL up to XXXXX-L! A t-shirt in the window said Luau Feet! and showed a life-sized Hawaiian foot (size 16EEEEE) stomping a life-sized haole. Now that’s a big t-shirt.

  The Hawaiian/Samoan mixes, as featured in the NFL and local organized crime, were particularly daunting. They had the regrettable but well-earned reputation of being so hardheaded they were impossible to knock out—despite prolonged and enthusiastic billy club attacks by the police. Something they proved nightly on Channel 5’s ReActionNews at Five. Ironically, many of the police were Hawaiian/Samoans who knew the futility of whacking their invulnerable siblings and in-laws. Not that it diminished the fervor at which they went at. They were professionals, after all.

  As for us haoles, we liked to give the locals a lot of room. It was the wise move. Not like we had a choice with people wide enough to fill an entire grocery store aisle. Seeing a four-hundred-pound housewife charging towards you in the Waianae General Store’s inexplicably narrow aisles made shopping as exciting as an African safari. No wonder Ray’s shirt had epaulets.

  Chapter 13

  Makimaki Road

  Shopping done, my excitement level ratcheted up. We were heading to the farm now, the place where my philanthropy would finally blossom. At least, I hoped so. If not, I could find myself in law school, my dreams unfulfilled, the world unchanged. Reaching Nanakuli, we hung a left on funky Makimaki Road. This was Hawaiian Homestead territory, and as I’d learn, no other haoles lived around there. For good reason

  “What’s Makimaki mean?”

  “In practical terms,” explained Ray, “Makimaki means die, haole, die.”

  I was sorry I asked. The armored personnel carrier with the Channel 5’s ReActionNews at Five logo parked on the corner further intrigued me.

  “Why is that there?”

  “Live-action crime is great for ratings.”

  “Right. Hey, wait a second, is something dangerous going on?”

  “All the time,” he said, like it was no big deal.

  “Oh boy. . .”

  “You knew that before you came out here, right?”

  “Of course not,” I answered. Except I left out the “not” part to seem more cool. “In fact, I live for danger. Hey, doesn’t this truck have seat belts?”

  Makimaki Road, narrow, bumpy, and paved with pot-holes, lived to murder cars. The road only ventured a couple of tortuous miles, but for ambiance, gigantic scowling felons lined it. The looks on their faces suggested they lived to murder haoles. They resided in squalid wooden houses raised on concrete blocks. Apparently, so their dogs, chickens, and disfavored in-laws could have some shade. Rusted-out wrecks on blocks, broken appliances, and piles of debris served as landscape features. On sagging porches, enormous men and women glared at us, their hostile faces familiar from news broadcasts. Ray explained they were the parents of the enormous young honor students I’d seen and been threatened by in Waianae. I got the feeling any tourists turning on this road would die knowing they’d made an enormous mistake.

  “Enjoying your tour of legendary Makimaki Road?”

  “Legendary? How come?”

  “You kidding? Channel 5’s ReActionNews at Five calls it the most dangerous in the state.”

  “In that case, why are we on it?”

  “Lucky for us, this is the only way to get to the farm.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Keeps away the riff-raff.”

  “I don’t think you know what that means.”

  “Riff-raff or lucky?”

  “Either one.”

  The coastal plain ran back from the ocean a few miles before reaching the Waianae Mountains. The Waianaes, with their steep eroded peaks reaching 4,000 feet, formed the western half of Oahu and separated us from remote Waialua and Mokulaiea on the northwestern corner of the island.

  Ray pointed at a pronounced dip in the mountains. “There’s the famous Koli Koli Pass. It’s infamous.”

  “Which one is it?”

  “That one right there, man. It’s the only pass in the whole range.”

  “I meant, why is it so famously infamous?”

  “That’s the spot the Japanese flew through on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Nope. People out here in the countryside had no idea what was going on till they started getting strafed.”

  My imagination got the best of me. “Incoming. Duck!”

  He did. We both laughed.

  “You’ve got a sicker mind than I realized,” complimented Ray, sitting up and steering us back onto the road.

  “Thanks, brah.”

  “I had my doubts about you. Well, with you switching names all the time, who wouldn’t? But I think we’ll get along fine.”

  As we cruised up Makimaki Road, I waved at the colossal people frowning from their overburdened lanais. Happy to see me, they gave me stink-eye and heaved empty Primo bottles.

  I rolled up my window. “Your neighbors have powerful arms.”

  “A word of advice, don’t make eye contact.”

  Up ahead, a flagman waved us to a stop so we could watch a jiggly five-hundred-pound Hawaiian wield a jackhammer with just his mighty stomach. He needed his hands free to hold a joint and a Primo. His tummy rippled like tidal waves of Jello. His impressed pals applauded the skillful trick.

  Pulling a joint from his pocket, Ray lit up. “This usually takes a while.”

  “Usually?”

  “They’re here every day.”

  When the jackhammer guy finished making a big hole, he moved about five feet and began destroying an adjacent section of recently-repaired road. His “co-workers” spent the time leaning on shovels, guzzling their own beers, and commenting on how professional the destruction appeared. The moon had a smoother surface than Makimaki Road.

  “Am I really seeing this?”

  “You mean destroying the repaired road to make fill for the fresh hole?”

  “Doesn’t that seem crazy?”

  “Job security, Mikey. Nothing crazy about that.”

  After making us wait ten minutes, the flagman remembered we were there. He laughed to himself, shrugged, and made us wait some more. A mile up the road, I got assaulted—this time, by a horrible odor. Thinking Ray had cut a gnarly one, I rolled the window down and stuck my head out. The smell got worse.

  I rolled the window back up. “Jesus, Ray, what is that?”

  “You mean the overwhelming stench?”

  “Good guess.”

  “Half comes from the state’s largest chicken farm on our right.”

  “Half?” I rolled the window back down. “You need to see a doctor, get that checked.”

  “No, man, the rest is coming from Compost Jimmy’s farm.”

  He pointed at the ten-foot-high mountains of chicken excrement, each sculpted into the shape of a fifty-foot turd, lining the road ahead for the next hundred yards.

  “Wow, that is disgusting. Also, evocative. Does Godzilla live here?”

  “Jimmy’s attempt at humor,” explained my host. “Here’s a fun fact, Mikey. That shit you’re smelling? You can enjoy the reek because tiny particles of the real thing are flying into your nose like mini-stink bombs.”

  “Thanks for sharing that. You’ve scarred me for life.”

  “By the way, Jimmy’s compost is da kine. I use it myself.”

  “You smoke it?”

  Ray gave me a look and shook his head. What was I? Crazy? But with pidgin English, it was easy for newcomers to get confused. To hippies, da kine usually meant excellent pakalolo, but in general usage, da kine could and did mean virtually anything. Much easier than remembering all those bothersome nouns.

  “We’re fo
rtunate to live so close. Wanna take a tour?”

  I gave Ray a look. He appeared dead serious. Did he have no sense of smell? Or just a sense of humor so dry I kept missing it?

  “I’ll pass on the tour. Also, how close?” He left it as a surprise. “I gotta tell you, Ray, this is not how I pictured the lovely Oahu countryside.”

  “You won’t see Makimaki Road on a postcard.”

  “Not unless they want to scare tourists away.”

  “That’s the beauty of this place.”

  A half mile ahead, a wrinkly mob of feisty old Filipinos carrying chickens in wire cages blocked the road. They were yelling and hacking at each other with machetes, and only then, paying off bets.

  “Chicken fighters,” said Ray, parting the distracted crowd like a modern-day Moses.

  “Looks more like they’re fighting each other.”

  A couple of them pulled guns, pretended to shoot us. Either that or their guns jammed.

  “Friends of yours?”

  “Not exactly. But not enemies, either.”

  “Not enemies? They tried to kill us.”

  “They’re just having a little fun. You’ll get used to it.”

  Makimaki Road soon petered out, terminating at a jungly stand of overhead wild grass and small trees. One last, hard-to-spot dirt driveway on the right led through the grass and brush, then disappeared around a curve. A couple of mailboxes, almost invisible in the foliage, hid at the entrance.

  “Are we lost?” I asked with a glimmer of hope. Ray shook his head. “That’s too bad. Hey, what’s that smell? Another chicken farm?”

  “Haven’t you ever smelled a pig farm?”

  “Pig farm?”

  “Yeah, don’t you hear that squealing?”

  “I thought that was me. Wait a second—you have an organic pig farm?”

  I probably should have double-checked before coming out.

  “No, man, our place is a veggie farm.”

  “Whew. Hey, you sure we’re not lost? I don’t see any other driveways.”

  “Don’t worry, brah, this is our turn.”

  “That’s exactly what worries me.”

  “Take it easy. Our place is right next door.”

  “We’re next door neighbors to a pig farm?”

  “Told you we were lucky.”

  Fifty yards ahead, we passed a rundown house. It seemed kinda, well, squashed. Despite it being the driest part of the island, the pig farm’s driveway featured big mud puddles. Except for some tall kiawe trees (Hawaii’s sadistic answer to mesquite), the mud puddles, and a decorative crop of stinking turds, the pig farmers hadn’t bothered much with landscaping. The free-range hogs had long ago gobbled up anything growing there. The farm, where not crammed with bad-tempered pigs, violent dogs, and deranged chickens, was jam-packed with rusted farm implements, dead pickup trucks, car bodies, exhausted refrigerators, and, oddly, dozens of crushed toilets. Even some junk.

  “Check it out,” said Ray, pointing beyond the ruined house. “Those are our neighbors.”

  As we cruised through the slop, two monstrous boars came into view. Except they were wearing overalls, rubber boots, and standing on their hind legs.

  “Jesus, Ray, when you said pig farmers, I thought you meant, well, farmers of pigs. Not this. That George Orwell really knew what he was talking about.”

  “Those aren’t pigs; those are the Hogg brothers.”

  “What an ironic name.”

  The Hoggs were bent over, intently at work, holding tight to something big, pink, and anguished. It squealed like Ned Beatty on a backwoods canoe trip.

  “Oh my God. What are they doing? Please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”

  “You sickie. You think they’re molesting that pig?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It’s no big deal. They’re merely whacking off its nuts.”

  I was impressed, though not in a good way. I guess being a corporate lawyer prepares you for such cold-bloodedness.

  “But that’s worse. Or is it?”

  Getting tag-team backdoored by a half ton of rampaging pork couldn’t be much fun, either.

  With a straight face, Ray said, “It’s not like they’re perverts.”

  “Depends on your standards, I suppose.”

  “You really don’t know much about farming, do ya?”

  “You telling me we’re gonna have to castrate the veggies?”

  Ray looked at me with new, um, respect? Whatever.

  “Well, long as it’s not us, right? Heh heh.” He didn’t chuckle along with me. “Right?”

  The Hogg brothers, noticing me gawking, finished up what they were doing and gave me shaka signs. It freaked me out a little to get a shaka sign and a tusky smile from someone holding pig testicles in his hand. My own hand lacked the traditional testicles of greeting, but I gave the Hoggs a nervous shaka anyway, hoping they wouldn’t find me discourteous. Ray gave them a shaka of his own and drove on as if nothing weird was happening.

  “Try to stay on their good side.”

  “Or what?” I joked, “They’ll eat me?”

  “Let’s just say, we have a lot of unexplained turnover at the farm.”

  Recalling Louie the Flake’s disappearance, I looked again at the brothers, wondering if their immense tummies might be the Lost Continent of Mu. Wherever I went: cannibals. Sharks with feet. But if I couldn’t outrun the Hogg brothers, I deserved to be eaten.

  After driving through the pig farm and splashing through a muddy taro patch bordered by thorny kiawe and scrubby haole koa trees, we reached the edge of the organic farm. Blocked by a grotesque pig farm, trees, and ten-foot-tall elephant grass, our destination was invisible from Makimaki Road and landlocked by a neighboring corn farm reached by another road. Without a brave escort, no one would ever know the organic farm existed. And if they did, they’d choose not to go there as if their life depended on it.

  Speaking of brave escorts, the moment we came out of the taro patch we acquired two of them. On either side of the drive, huge white German shepherds, attached to leads on long overhead wire runs, waited to greet and attack visitors. As trained, they flanked the pickup until we parked under a mango tree near a long row of funky-looking farm buildings. The frisky one on my side put his head through the window to get a better look at the visitor. He sprayed me with welcoming drool as he snapped and growled. It appeared blood red. Same color as his eyes.

  “Nice demon doggy,” I said, almost wishing I was back in Volcano.

  The nice doggy growled deeper.

  “He looks hungry, Ray. Is he friendly?”

  Ray shook his head at my inane question. “No. Not to strangers, anyway.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “That’s Deputy Dog.”

  “You really a cop?”

  Deputy growled in acknowledgement, showing me his badge.

  “You’re not gonna arrest me, are ya?”

  Deputy wagged his tail, nodded his head with vigor.

  “Aw, man. . .”

  “He’s just messing with you; it’s only a nickname.”

  “The badge isn’t real?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s real.”

  “What about the dickish attitude?”

  “That’s real, too,” he said with a chuckle. “Best to hold dead still.”

  “Do you have to use the word dead?”

  He laughed because my fear was funny. Then he said something in Afrikaans and blew on a dog whistle. Deputy, now wagging his tail, put away his fangs and badge. He sat down, saluted me with his paw, ready to be pals.

  “You can get out now,” said Ray.

  “If I’m gonna stay here, I gotta get me one of those whistles. Also, learn Afrikaans.”

  Chapter 14

  The Farm

  With the escorts mellowed out, I took my first real look at the place. The driveway ran about halfway down the western edge of the prope
rty, ending near a series of decrepit sheds. Laid out perpendicular to the driveway, they divided the farm into front and back. The two acres in back lay fallow, but in front of the sheds, I could see a well-tended field of veggies, mostly lettuce, laid out in a grid of long, narrow beds. No lush landscape, no waterfall pools with cavorting wahines, but the scenic Waianae Mountains rising behind the farm provided a gorgeous backdrop. If not for the intimidating drive up Makimaki Road, the pig farm next door, and the hideous row of rundown farm sheds, the setting would seem more appealing. The sheds leaned precariously into each other, like a chorus line of crooked drunks holding each other up. Surely, the only reason they hadn’t fallen. I asked myself: Why hasn’t anyone torn those down? Then I wondered where the people lived. That’s when a little voice said: Uh oh.

  “Is that the, uh, house?”

  Ray smiled at the horror on my face.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Makimaki Road had the ambiance of a Twilight Zone episode set in a Third World barrio, and if they held a contest for Hawaii’s ugliest farmhouse, which apparently they did, this place would win hands down. That explained all the Worst Place plaques forming part of the outer wall.

  The farmhouse resembled a series of mutant Siamese-twins created from random building materials scavenged after a hurricane. Because it was. This is what a house would look like if Dr. Frankenstein had been a carpenter. I scanned the gardens, looking for the one thing sure to cheer me up. Instead, I saw a pack of ferocious white dogs charging me. A toot on Ray’s dog whistle and they wagged their tails.

  “Got any extra whistles?”

  “We’ll see how it goes.”

  There didn’t seem to be much worth protecting with a dozen military-caliber guard dogs. Not at first sight. Or second.

  “Whaddaya think?” asked Ray.

  I wanted to say something complimentary. “I’ve never seen so much lettuce.”

  “Yep, that’s our big breadwinner.”

  “Right.” Sure. I lowered my voice, got all confidential. “So, tell me, Ray, where’s da kine?”

  He sighed. “I keep telling you, a talented friend grew that stuff.”

  “Can you be more specific about where your talented friend grows it?”