“Good fight, girl.” Al was behind me, his lopsided smile long and sweet. His nephew was judging this round.
“Thanks, Uncle.”
“You ready fo’ go up ’gainst Mr. Oh?”
“As ready as I eva be.”
Al reached out and gave me a hug. When he pulled away, he looked at me for a long time, until I became embarrassed and stepped from him toward the truck. “I tell you someting, girl. Mr. Oh, he run an honest fight, but dese days I give anyting fo’ have yoa papa back.” Al kissed me softly on the cheek, as my father had once done. “I miss him. He was one good friend, no matta what.”
I watched Al make his way back to the pit. He paused to shake hands with a couple of men, another he clapped on the back. The way those pitters watched him, I could see they respected him. They trusted him. Men didn’t used to look at Al like that. They had never looked at my father like that.
I thought back to what the Indian had said about my father, and I wondered if I had been told the truth. Had my dad really been throwing fights? Switching bands? And had my uncle known this all along?
I felt confused, unsure of what I knew and didn’t, of what was right and what wasn’t. I wanted the Indian with me to tell me what to do, what to listen to. I longed to finger his short, wiry hair, to stroke his earlobes, soft as a chick’s down and dotted with the old puncture marks of piercings. I wanted to hear him say “Poi Dog.” I wanted to hear him say “Wanle.” I wanted him to associate me with the dissipation of fear.
I looked around the tent for guidance or a sign, but all I saw was Mr. Oh on the opposite side of the pit holding his bird while his gaffer tied the knife. The other men watched Mr. Oh with awe and respect. I felt his power, and I wanted to take him down, for my father and my uncles. For me. What did it matter if my dad had been throwing fights? I asked myself.
I placed the black in his cage and brought out Keoni. He was restless, wriggling in my arms. I had to cover his eyes with my hands and sing to him before he’d calm down. Zoo wandered over to talk story. “Eh, Uncle,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.
“Can help.” He held his hands out to hold Keoni so I could tie the gaff. As I wound the leathers and checked the knife for its proper placement, Zoo chatted away, giddy with anticipation. Apparently, word had gone out that Mr. Oh and I were up next, and even the men who hadn’t previously known the significance of the fight knew now. Zoo watched me tie off the leather and grinned broadly.
“Jus’ like da dad, you. Mo betta even.”
“My dad, was he really da best?”
“Ah, babe. He one of dem.”
“You said he wen get help. What you mean?”
“Help is help. No mean yoa dad neva a great pitta, but. Jus’, you know, da dad and Al and all us, we go way back, since we kids togeda. Da dad like win, and Al, he like host. We all like when he stay host. Or we did befoa Mr. Oh.”
Zoo handed back Keoni. He brushed his fingers through the bird’s hackle gently, fondly. “You folks helping me?” I asked.
“No. Yoa uncle said dis one yoa way.” Zoo wrapped his arms around me, and Keoni pecked at the air. “Now go win ’em fo’ Uncle Zoo. Get plenny money on dis fight!”
I watched Zoo shuffle back into the stands, and I understood: My dad hadn’t been the greatest pitter after all, just a very good cheater. The Indian had been right. Uncle Lee and Zoo and Al all knew, were all part of my father’s indiscretions. But Mr. Oh had talked, and my dad had been killed. No matter what he had done in the past, his honor still rested with me.
I looked up into the tent again and found the Indian on every riser. I shook my head and took my place on the edge of the pit. Mr. Oh stood not five feet away in a pair of crisp brown slacks and a blue polo shirt. He looked out of place, a country club man lost in the country. When I glanced in his direction, he gave me a curt nod.
We carried our birds to the mat and held them above the center score. His rooster was already cawing and scratching for the ground. Keoni seemed to have retreated into a deep meditation. When Al said, “Get ready,” we both put our left hands on our hips. “Pit!” We dropped our birds.
Mr. Oh’s black went for mine fast, and Keoni started to run. But at the second score he turned and held his ground with a couple of well-placed pecks to the face. Mr. Oh’s bird responded in kind, and the first count went to them. Al called twenty seconds of rest, and then Mr. Oh and I lined up our birds at the second score. Keoni was more aggressive this time, pecking and using his gaff, and we took the second count. In the third ten, Mr. Oh’s bird got his gaff into Keoni’s breast feathers and was hung. I removed the knife and checked for a puncture wound. Blood had pooled beneath the feathers, but once I wiped down my boy with a damp washcloth, I could see the cut wasn’t deep, just long.
I lined up Keoni at the third score, and at the call of “pit,” Mr. Oh’s bird went at my boy again. Keoni sustained cuts to his left wing and thigh. Mr. Oh’s black took the count.
In the final rest I held Keoni under my arm and hummed. He was upset, in pain, snapping his beak in the air. I had only twenty seconds to calm him, to remind him I was there, waiting for him after he completed the fight. I smoothed his comb and patted his hackle. I cooed to him, then tugged gently at the gaff, testing its tightness, reminding him where it was. I walked to the center score, and at the call, dropped him on the mat.
For the first eight seconds the birds pecked at each other’s faces. Keoni took a bad one to his right eye. Mr. Oh’s bird had a deep cut beside his beak. Both birds raised their knives but neither could get a good hold on the other, and they mostly stabbed the air. At twelve seconds, Keoni managed to get his gaff into his opponent’s breast, and he was hung. Mr. Oh’s bird lifted its wings and tried to back away, but Keoni was stuck to him, tied by a knife and a will to win. Mr. Oh held his bird while I removed the gaff, and only then did I see how long and deep the gash was. Keoni had lunged the other bird. Mr. Oh righted his black on the mat and we let them go, but his bird was dizzy, blood filling the lung where my boy had stabbed. Keoni went at the other bird’s face, pecking at its eyes and cheeks, and by the time the fight was called, Mr. Oh’s black was on the ground, huffing, his eyes already turning misty and blue. Keoni continued pecking, relentless.
I lifted my boy off the other, who was trembling and shaking. Mr. Oh didn’t even bother to look down. He held out his hand to shake mine. “You are not your father’s daughter,” he said in careful English. He paused before adding, “I will be honored to meet you again.” Finally, he bent down and picked up the body of his bird. Then, on the mat where everyone could see, he gave his bird the screw. Its body went limp, and Mr. Oh walked off with the dead animal in his hands.
All around me I could hear men yelling and laughing and cursing. Some had won big, some had lost big, some just wanted me to leave the mat so the next match could start. As I walked off men clapped me on the back.
Zoo was waiting to hug me and give me a big, wet kiss on the cheek. Uncle Lee called me his baby girl and embraced me. They both told me the amounts of their bets, how much they had won, but I didn’t hear them. I couldn’t even feel the weight of their hands on my shoulders.
For Mr. Oh, what had this fight been? Just one among many? He had lost a bird, maybe a few hundred dollars, nothing more. He hadn’t lost a father. And I hadn’t regained one.
After I washed and taped Keoni’s wounds, I secured his left wing so he wouldn’t flap it. I caged him and secured the others, leaving them in my uncle’s truck. I walked down the long driveway to the highway, and then toward my uncle’s house. I wanted to go home. I was done.
I picked up my car at Uncle Lee’s and drove fast down Haleakalā Highway, taking the curves with urgency. When I arrived home, the lights were off, the windows black. I parked and climbed out of the car, exhausted in every way. The Indian’s truck wasn’t parked in the driveway so I figured he was still in town with his buddies.
I dug in my purse for my keys, and when I found them, I p
ushed the diamond-shaped one into the keyhole. The key didn’t fit. I tried my other two keys, and neither of them fit either. Confused, I walked around to the back of the house and tried my keys there, but again none of them opened the door. I looked around, suddenly unsure if in my weariness I had driven to the wrong house, but this was it. I was home. I didn’t understand why my keys weren’t working. I looked up at the windows and then behind me, at the cock yard, and that’s when I saw what he had done.
The Indian had stuffed all my belongings into the roosters’ coops. My clothes poked out between the wooden slats like errant feathers; photographs of my father and my uncle and me were piled in the feeding dishes; incense from my grandmother and a Carhartt jacket from Uncle Lee lay on a teepee; and my ledgers, all of them, where I had tracked my birds’ diet and exercise regimes, their weight and moods, were stacked outside the nearest coop.
I started to put together what must have happened: The Indian had heard in town that a fight was on and he had returned home and seen me gone and known I had lied to him. Or he had known all along. Maybe he had even come to the fight, for a minute, to confirm his suspicions. Maybe I had actually seen him in the stands.
I walked around the yard, some small part of me impressed with his righteous anger. I would have to beg for forgiveness, I realized, and the opportunity to laugh this all away. I had, just an hour ago, truly given up the birds. I was finally done with the fighting, the men, the violence—all the things the Indian detested. If I asked him, he would take me back.
I spotted a turquoise negligee ballooning up from the back cage, and I laughed to think of the Indian stuffing all my underwear into a rooster coop. I would admit that his revenge was perfect, and I deserved it. I knew he would eventually forgive me, make keys to match the new locks, wash the smell of rooster shit off my clothes.
I was still smiling when I spotted a white, downy roll beneath the final coop. It looked like an old sweater of mine, and I bent down to pick the thing up. Only when my hand grazed its side did I feel the feathers and the remnants of body heat coming off the dead chick.
I ran to the hen house. The wire door was ajar, its wooden base bent and misshapen as if it had been kicked in. Hens lay strewn across the yard, and bullet casings littered the ground, the red plastic blending with the blood. Everywhere I saw feathers. White, ochre, orange, the peculiar blue-gray color down turns when wet: the feathers carpeted the ground. Black feathers melted into the shadows. Brown feathers blended with the dirt. Some of the hens looked like they were nesting, their feet tucked beneath their heavy breasts, while others had their wings spread, as if in flight, silhouetted against a muddy sky. I picked my way to the coop, careful not to step on any out-flung wings. Several had fallen on their backs, legs sticking in the air like two flags of surrender, and these I took the time to turn over, on their sides, in a show of respect.
In the coop, every egg had been smashed. The wooden walls were yellow and glossy with yolk. I backed out slowly. I didn’t want to touch anything in the coop, didn’t even turn the rest of the birds on their side. I felt filthy. I felt dead myself.
I didn’t bother to retrieve any of my clothes or belongings. I just climbed into my car and drove away.
I’ve had six years now to think about vengeance and forgiveness, to ponder my nature and those of the men I’ve known. These days I live in Honolulu, where I run little risk of seeing family or old acquaintances from Maui.
Three years ago I earned my Culinary Arts degree at Kapiʻolani Community, and I now work downtown as a chef in an upscale French bistro. In my spare time, I write. At college I found an affection for the rigorous academic English the Indian had once imposed on me. Now pidgin is a translation of sorts, the speech of my past.
In my last semester at college I took a course in poetry and read the writers who once influenced him: Bashō, Issa, Buson. They write about the beauty and majesty of nature, and I understand why he loved them. But the Indian failed to understand their work in its fullness, how their poems at times celebrate the violence, loss, sadness, and cruelty inherent in the natural world.
When I left the Indian, I ran to the only person I knew who wouldn’t ask why I was without my birds. My grandmother paid for a one-way plane ticket to Oʻahu, and she helped me start my life here. In the months after I fled Maui, rumors spread that I had come to Oʻahu seeking Mr. Oh’s bosses, the men who had arranged for my father’s death. Some claimed I murdered my hens because my win had meant so little to Mr. Oh. Others said I left the Indian because he had refused to help me kill Mr. Oh. I ignored everything. It belonged to another era, another life.
In the intervening years, my grandmother and I have found our way into the sort of relationship I suspect she had hoped for after my father’s death. In our phone conversations, I describe the restaurant’s patrons, the meals I create, the friends I’ve made. She gives me the news from Maui. Zoo died of a heart attack last spring, but Uncle Lee and Al are still around, fighting birds and taking bets as they’ve always done. They ask after me, but my grandmother tells them little.
The Indian still lives in Makawao, alone. He keeps the rooster coops just as they were when I was still living there. He is not the same man he was, Uncle Lee tells my grandmother. My uncle thinks my leaving broke him, but I know this isn’t true. The moment the Indian killed that first bird, he returned to his childhood home, his father’s child.
For a long time I missed him. I ached for him. I wanted to send him the essays I wrote in school or the menus I created for the restaurant or a picture of those boulders in Makawao bathed in the last light of the day. I wanted him to know I’d become the woman he wanted.
I dreamt of him as I once dreamt of my father. In every storefront shadow I saw the outline of his broad shoulders. In every dark bed I wondered if he was waiting for me. At times I was tempted to write to the Indian, but my grandmother always talked sense into me. In other moments I wished I could just write about the Indian, about my father, about my uncles and those birds. I wanted to commit them to paper and then leave them there.
That I have finally succeeded in speaking of those men—the most important in my life and the most disappointing—is, oddly enough, thanks to Mr. Oh. Not long ago, after closing up the kitchen at the bistro, I walked to the Blue Conch for a pau hana before returning home. I took a corner stool in the back where I wasn’t likely to be interrupted and ordered a beer. Diagonally across from me sat a man I almost didn’t recognize. He looked old and tired. His polo shirt was speckled with food stains, smudges browned his collar. A long scar ran from beneath his left ear to just under his chin. From the way he held himself, stiff and regal, though wary now, too, I knew it was Mr. Oh.
When I gave him the same curt nod he had afforded me at that derby so long ago, his eyes grew, and he scooted from the bar. I guessed that he, too, had heard the rumor I was seeking out his bosses, and he must have thought I had also come for him.
I followed him outside. “Wait,” I called from the bar entrance.
He was across the street and several storefronts down, but he paused. He looked over his shoulder and in that same careful English said, “It is over for me now. You know that, do you not?”
I wanted to assure him I meant no harm and the islands’ gossips were not to be trusted, but he didn’t wait to hear me. He hurried down the street and disappeared into an alley. For a moment I was frustrated by his departure, by his refusal to listen to me, but then I felt a great release. I can only describe it as the relief of loss. I now haunted him as once he had haunted me. This was my revenge: I had liberated myself from those men, but they could not be free of me.
As I looked down the empty street, the shadows hid nothing. I didn’t hope to see the silhouette of the Indian. I didn’t hope to return to the life I once had. Wanle, I said to myself. It is done. They are all gone.
THE ROAD TO HĀNA
He’d be happy with Becky forever, Cameron thought on their flight to Maui, and again when they re
nted the little Chevy Aveo, and even when they’d stopped for a late breakfast in Pāʻia and she poured shoyu on her fried eggs and the liquid left black streaks through the yolks. She had told him that she wanted to buy a condo in Honolulu, but now he wondered aloud if eventually she’d wish to return to Vegas because her parents and aunts and uncles were there.
“Never,” she said, reaching for his hand across the glass tabletop. They were sitting on the restaurant’s patio, close to the kitchen, and through the screen door he could hear the cooks’ laughter and the sizzle of the grill. “I came back here to stay.”
Cameron squeezed her hand in his. “But you should feel free to change your mind. Go where the jobs are or where the adventure lies.”
“You can be so silly sometimes!” she laughed. She stood and walked around the café table, then sat herself in his lap. Her fingers were cool against his temple. A stray dog wandered onto the open patio and sniffed along the bottom of the kitchen door. Cameron tossed it a slice of toast. “If you leave, I’ll go with you,” he promised.
Becky didn’t answer him right away, but later, in the car, she said, “It’s just you and your parents here, but for me there’s an entire ancestry. I’m not going anywhere, Cam. This is my real home.”
Cameron appreciated her reassurance. He loved her for it. And yet, he wondered what Honolulu was if not his real home. He had been born there, raised there. His parents and friends were there. He taught history at McKinley High, and his students respected him. Just because his parents were born in Minnesota didn’t mean Hawaiʻi wasn’t his.
She held out a bottle of sparkling water. “Because you’re always dehydrated after a big breakfast,” she said, and kissed his cheek. He smiled then because she was right and she knew him so well. He took a long sip from the bottle, and as they drove out of Pāʻia he turned the radio to her favorite Hawaiian music station. Houses gave way to cane fields, which ascended Haleakalā’s gentle slope. Dense clouds hid the crater’s upper reaches. All the plants were green, even the scrub beside the road, and it was hard to imagine he was ever thirsty here.
This Is Paradise Page 6