Mahu Fire

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “Let me guess. You stole it.”

  “Not exactly. He caught me reading it and he and Lui laid into me. You know, snooping in their personal stuff, what a sneaky little weasel I was, that kind of thing. I was mad, so I told them I was going to go away, and they’d never find me, and they’d sure be sorry. They both laughed.”

  “Brothers. You gotta love ‘em. Otherwise you’d kill ‘em.”

  “So I left. I went out into the woods for a while, but then it started to get dark so I came back and hid behind some bushes across the street from my house. I watched my parents go out in their cars to look for me. My mother cruised around St. Louis Heights, and my father went down to Waialae Avenue and drove up and down, checking out the bus shelters and the pinball arcade and the drugstore and so on. They made Lui and Haoa go out into the woods with flashlights, looking for me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “As soon as I saw them all leave, I went back into the house. I fixed myself a TV dinner and ate, and then I was watching TV when they all came back. Nobody said a word about it. I found out later that my father had laid into Lui and Haoa—not about beating me up, but about bringing the magazine into the house in the first place. Of course, by the time I was old enough to get that kind of stuff for myself they didn’t care any more.”

  “Some comic once said, my parents were protective of my older brothers, but by the time they got to me I was playing with knives and they didn’t mind.”

  “That’s about right.” I looked over at him. “How about you? You ever run away?”

  He leaned the seat back as far as it would go and pulled his knees up to the dashboard. His legs were so long and skinny it was hard to connect them to the rest of his body. “I remember once,” he said. “I was about sixteen, I think. I was still in high school, for sure. We lived a mile or two from this rest stop on the Jersey turnpike, maybe an hour outside New York. I was hating my life then, and one day, I just couldn’t take it any more, so I walked over to the rest stop and tried to hitch a ride into the city.”

  I pulled into the park and we started driving real slow along the road, seeing if anyone was out. “I hung around by the men’s room for a while, trying to spot somebody who might be gay. I must have been a real piece of work—I was as tall as I am now, but skinny, no muscles at all. I had a ponytail—you believe it? Bell-bottomed pants and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Finally this one guy says to me, You waiting for a ride somewhere? I thought I was real cool, I said, Yeah, where you going?”

  He laughed. “He said, Come on, little buddy, I know just where you want to go. He was this big fat guy, beard and a pot belly, drove a big truck. I followed him out to the truck and climbed up in the cab with him. He pointed down at his crotch and said, Right there. That’s where you want to go. And you know, it was.”

  “You ever make it into the city?”

  “Nope. Not that time, at least. I blew him, and he gave me twenty bucks. I mean, that was like a month’s allowance to me. I couldn’t wait to get home and figure out what I wanted to buy.” He sat up. “You better pull up and park. We’re not going to hand out any of those flyers sitting up here in this truck.”

  We walked around the park for half an hour or so, threading our way between cabbage palms and kicking up small sprays of sand. The ocean was a constant murmur there, slapping against the shore in the background, fading in and out among the traffic noises on Ala Moana Boulevard and the sound of a car radio somewhere in the parking lot. The fronds of the palms moved mysteriously around us, dancing to an almost hidden breeze, and every so often we found a homeless person camped beneath a banyan or kukui tree, stumbling on signs of humanity in what otherwise was dark and natural.

  We handed out copies of the sketches, but either nobody recognized our sweaty bomber, or nobody wanted to rat out a good customer. We were just about to head out when I saw someone step out of the men’s room, and even in the dim glow of the street light above the entrance I recognized him as Frankie, one of the kids from the Teen Center. His brightly-patterned silk shirt hung funny on his shoulders, as if he’d buttoned it hurriedly without looking, and a few wisps of dark hair had come loose from his ponytail.

  I motioned silently to Gunter, and we hung back in the shadows for a minute or two, waiting to see who’d follow Frankie out of the men’s room. I felt protective of the kid, and I was worried what I’d do if the john turned out to be some closeted old toad who could only handle sex with young boys in public restrooms.

  To my surprise, the next guy out was Lolo, the sulky tough guy. I stepped out into the light and said, “Hey, guys, howzit?”

  Both of them turned toward me in alarm.

  “Anybody else in the men’s room?” I asked.

  They stole furtive glances at each other, and finally Frankie said, “No.”

  “Hey, it’s cool. I know what it’s like to want to play around and not have any place to go.”

  I turned and introduced Gunter, who was holding the pile of sketches. “You a cop, too?” Lolo asked, surveying his lean build and buzz-cut hair.

  Gunter laughed. “Hell, if I was, I’d have to arrest myself every other day for something.” He poked me. “Only reason Officer Kimo here doesn’t lock me up is cause I’d want to fuck every guy in lock up.”

  “Detective Kimo,” I said. “Why does everybody get that wrong?”

  Everyone laughed. “Either of you guys seen this guy?” I asked, showing them both the sketch.

  Lolo nodded. “Just a looker, though. I see him cruising sometimes on Kalakaua, but he never actually picks anybody up.”

  “Maybe you’re just not his type,” Frankie said.

  “I’m everybody’s type,” Lolo said. At the youth center, he’d always worn baggy clothes, oversized sweatshirts, the kind of pants that hang off your hips. But that night he was wearing a form-fitting tank top, and tight bike shorts that rode low, exposing a band of taut flesh. He was hot, and he knew it.

  I gave them both my cards. “Either of you see him, you call me right away,” I said. “Day or night, any time. This is a bad guy. You don’t want to mess with him.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Lolo reached out for the other boy’s hand and said, “Frankie, too.”

  “I’m sure you can,” I said. “But even so, you call me, all right?”

  Both boys nodded. I was about to turn away when Gunter said, “Here, take a couple of these,” and he pulled some foil packets from his pocket. “They glow in the dark. Pretty cool.”

  Frankie and Lolo grinned, and I wondered where they’d go to try them out. On the way back to the truck I said, “You’re a sweetheart, you know that, Gunter?”

  “Yeah, but don’t let it get around. Bad for my image.”

  We spent the next couple of hours bar-hopping on Waikiki, showing the sketch around, having a few drinks, even dancing a little. Around three o’clock Gunter said, “Well, it doesn’t look like I’m gonna get lucky tonight. Hanging around with a cop tends to turn away romance.”

  We were sitting on stools at the Rod and Reel Club, the seedy outdoor bar where we’d first met, some months before. A club remix of a Barbra Streisand song was playing in the background, and a few men gyrated athletically on the dance floor. The tables around us were littered with empty glasses and beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays. “So am I gonna get lucky with you?”

  I thought then of Mike, and how much I wanted him there with me at that moment. I wanted to be able to kiss him at the bar, hold his butt while we danced, let everyone in the Rod and Reel Club know that he was my boyfriend.

  And that meant that I couldn’t have sex with Gunter, even though he was hot and sexy and I knew we’d have fun. I had to follow my heart, and my heart had latched onto a closeted firefighter with a dark mustache and dancing eyes.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Gunter said, smiling. He finished the last of his Primo, draining the bottle. “You’re in love. With that fireman.” He turned to look at me. “There’s a d
ifference between sex and love, you know. You can have sex without love, but you shouldn’t have love without sex.” He put his arm around me. “And I love you, man.”

  I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing, and Gunter looked a little offended. “If you’re going to talk like a bad beer commercial you’ve got to expect me to laugh,” I said. “Come on. Let’s start walking.” I had parked my truck back at my building before we started drinking. My legs were rubbery but I managed to keep my balance as we walked down Kuhio Avenue under the stars. Gunter leaned into me a little more than he probably had to, but I didn’t mind. It felt good.

  We stopped at my apartment building. “You want me to walk on with you for a while?” I asked.

  “If you’re not going to take me upstairs, rip my clothes off and make passionate love to me, then who needs you?” Gunter asked. “Gimme a kiss, at least.”

  We leaned up against my truck and kissed, his tongue searching around in my mouth, finding mine, the two of them doing an intricate little dance. Then he started sucking on my upper lip, and reached down to my crotch to grope me. Of course I had a hard-on; I’m only human. But I pulled away. “Hey, you got any more of those glow-in-the-dark condoms?”

  “You want to try one out with me?”

  “Well, not with you.”

  “Jesus. What a tease you are.” He pulled a couple of the foil packs out of his pocket and handed them to me. “I’m going to be thinking of you,” he called, as I started climbing the steps.

  “Think of this.” I pulled down my pants and mooned him, and he laughed.

  “You bet I will,” he said, as he staggered off into the night.

  THIEVES AND MONEYLENDERS

  When I woke up Sunday morning I was feeling pretty rocky. My head hurt, and the healing burns on my back itched, and I felt profoundly lonely. I wanted to see Mike Riccardi again, even if only to discover that we’d had a great one-night stand that wasn’t going anywhere. I just wanted to know. I was also sorry I had been so strong with him the night before—I should have just arranged to meet him after my club-hopping with Gunter was over. If he’d have agreed.

  I couldn’t concentrate on the morning Advertiser, and I couldn’t go surfing. I’d gone through all the paperwork at the office the day before, so I had no reason to go there, and it was still too early to go the hospital. I prowled around my studio apartment killing time until I was to meet Kitty for church, throwing away junk mail, washing the dishes in the sink, even making my bed.

  When I reached the Church of Adam and Eve, I realized that my father owned the strip shopping center on Waialae Avenue where it was located, sandwiched among a dry cleaner, video rental store, real estate agency, and a funky beauty salon called Puerto Peinado, its interior walls painted with lavish tropical murals. The salon was owned by Robertico Robles, a gay man who was my sister-in-law Tatiana’s best friend, and I knew my father cut him a deal on the rent. I wondered if Liliha had called in the same favor for the church.

  I met Kitty outside the storefront chapel. She’d swapped her typical college-kid T-shirt and sweats for a blue and white sundress and matching sandals. A gold cross on a chain hung around her neck.

  “You ready for this?” I asked. “Because you can back out if you want. No problem.”

  “I’m in.” She smiled demurely. “Aren’t you going to open the door for me, honey?”

  The room was simple, twenty rows of folding chairs facing a pair of lecterns at the far end. Inside, about fifty people milled around talking to each other or sat, reading their Bibles. It was a lot less impressive than the mass gathering I’d attended a month before, but I figured this was the core congregation.

  I looked nervously around for Liliha and Lui, but didn’t see them. I’d worn my clear owl-rimmed glasses, a short-sleeved striped shirt and chinos. Usually when I dressed for an undercover operation I aimed to look like a moke, a Hawaiian criminal. I had a false gold tooth, torn t-shirts and tattered shorts. I had always been able to pass; I hoped I could do the same at the church.

  Behind the lecterns were a couple of folding screens; I assumed that the ministers used that area to prepare before the service. Both side walls held a collection of posters made by children, with a variety of sayings on them. Some held Bible verses, while others quoted phrases like “The love between a man and a woman is the most sacred thing on Earth.”

  We went inside and slipped into seats next to a mother, father and two small children. I sat to Kitty’s right. The mother sat next to Kitty, with the little girl’s head resting on her lap, blonde hair splayed against the sunburst pattern of the woman’s skirt. Kitty smiled at them.

  “I’m Fran,” the woman said. “I’d shake hands but I’m afraid to wake up Caitlin.”

  Kitty introduced herself. We’d decided to use our real names; it would be easier, and frankly, every fourth or fifth guy in Hawai’i is named Kimo. Kitty started talking and giggling with Fran in low whispers until the minister and his wife came out from behind the screens and the room hushed. “Welcome, friends,” the minister said. We stood so he could lead us in an opening hymn.

  That’s when I recognized him. The sweaty guy. The same round face and dark hair, the same chunky build.

  But could I be sure? I hadn’t gotten that good a look at him at the party. Maybe I had just looked at that flyer too many times. Then I looked at his wife, and she looked familiar, too, though in a more generic way. She was slim, dark-haired like her husband, with the attenuated look of a career woman who goes to work in running shoes, swapping them for heels in the elevator.

  But there hadn’t been a woman with the guy at the party. How could I have seen her?

  The minister said, “And now a prayer for all our misguided brethren. For the criminals, and thieves, the moneylenders and alcoholics, the homosexuals and their perverted ilk. For all of these, Lord, we pray that you will shine your light to show them the true path. And continue to shine your light upon us, Lord, that we may see your path as well, and follow it to our everlasting reward.”

  It was a little creepy, the way he linked homosexuals to thieves and moneylenders. I wondered if there were any bankers in the audience, and if they felt as uncomfortable as I did. “Today my wife is going to read to us from Genesis,” the minister continued.

  She stepped forward to her own lectern. She wore a white blouse buttoned up to the neck and a straight, black skirt. I guessed her view of religion didn’t allow bright colors.

  “We begin with Chapter 19, verse 24. ‘Then the Lord caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.’”

  I looked at the paper program we’d found on the seats. The couple at the front were only lay ministers; they were clear about that. Their names were Jeff and Sheila White.

  Then it clicked. The Whites lived next door to Jerry Bosk and Vic Ramos, and I’d interviewed them when I canvassed their Makiki neighborhood after the murder of Hiroshi Mura.

  I felt better. I hadn’t recognized the minister from the sketch; I’d recognized him from the canvassing I’d done.

  Sheila White closed her Bible and looked out at the audience. “We have had our own Sodom and Gomorrah here in Honolulu. On Wednesday night, the Lord rained down his fire and brimstone upon a group of sinners even here in our own home town.” My mind, which had been wandering, snapped to attention. She went on to describe how those sinners who had challenged God’s word on marriage had been punished, how just as in Genesis the flames had devoured the habitation of this terrible group.

  I looked at her appraisingly. She was deadly earnest, no trace of irony in her voice as she compared the destruction of biblical cities with the bombing of an innocent office building. She decried the death of Vice Mayor Wilson Shira, a true friend of Christ, who had been martyred in his defense of the sacred institution of marriage.

  I knew for a fact
that Shira’s family were devout Buddhists. I wondered how they would appreciate his Christian martyrdom.

  “But friends, the battle is not over yet,” Sheila White continued. “There are still people here in our own community who would pervert the sacrament of marriage. They must be stopped, or God will not stop with Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis, Chapter 6, Verse 5: ‘And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth.’”

  She closed the Bible in front of her. “Now we all remember what happened after that. And we live here on an island, so we know how terrible the might of the wind and the ocean can be when the Lord harnesses them in his power. It is a matter of self-preservation, after all. If we do not blot out these sinners, but leave the task to God, who knows what revenge he will take upon us?”

  Who knows, indeed, I thought. The service dragged on for a while, and then finally we all stood and bowed our heads for the final benediction. “Christ our Lord, please shine your blessings on these, your children and your soldiers,” Jeff White intoned. “Help us struggle in your name for what is right and good and Christian in the world, and fight against evil and perversion with clean hearts and strong bodies.”

  Everyone joined hands and sang “Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching As To War.”

  After the service, Kitty and I stood out in the parking lot talking with the couple who’d sat next to us, Fran and Eli Harding, and their two little kids. Eli had the same earnest bland good looks as his wife—curly dark blond hair, a soul patch on his chin, hipster sideburns.

  Traffic was zooming by on Waialae Avenue, a couple of customers going into Robertico Robles’ hair salon. I didn’t like being exposed out there; suppose Tatiana dropped by to gossip with her buddy Tico and spotted me? What if Liliha stopped by to chat with Sheila White?