Stanley waved to the flight attendant. Jack watched her breasts heave as she walked toward them.
Stanley ordered a glass of skim milk.
...
Wilson drove his father down the road toward Honolulu. Verdant hills, deep green and jungled up, rolled along, spilling down from the Kolekole Pass heading for Pearl Harbor and the ocean. Sid Tanumafili, a man with a body built like two linebackers gone to seed, adjusted his bulk in the seat of the Ford Explorer, brushed some donut crumbs off his XXL University of Hawaii sweatshirt, and turned to his son.
“What you know den?”
“No one can get in.”
“We bust in.”
“Alarms.”
“Since when did dat stop anyone?”
“And dey got dogs.”
“Give ’em some Spam an’ Seconal.”
“It’s just some fuckin’ trucks, Dad.”
Sid Tanumafili knew it wasn’t just some fucking trucks. He wasn’t born yesterday. He didn’t maintain his grip on the business through blind luck. He knew who Jack Lucey was, and he had a pretty good idea what he was up to.
“You talk to Joseph?”
“He went out fo’ a run.”
“What he say den?”
“Nobody gonna drive fo’ dem, man. Nobody gonna cook fo’ dem. Dey’re fucked.”
“He say dat?”
Wilson shifted in his seat. “Not exact like, no.”
“What he say den?”
Wilson’s face flushed. “How come you only care wot fo’ Joseph say? Don’ I count?”
Sid didn’t answer. What was he going to tell him, No, you’re my son but you’re an idiot? Better not to say anything. Sid pulled his cell phone out of his sweatpants and speed-dialed his nephew.
...
Francis could smell her from down the hall. What was she wearing, burnt patchouli? It made him want to light a clove cigarette just to counter the stench. He watched as Yuki came bounding down the corridor, a bright smile on her face and some kind of grotesque chunk of rock dangling from her neck, banging into her flat chest. Francis checked to see if she was wearing Birkenstocks. She was.
“Good morning!”
Francis grimaced. Only a retard is this cheerful. “Let’s go.”
“Sleep well?”
Francis didn’t respond.
“Is your room comfortable?”
“It’s fine.”
“I slept great. Must be the fresh air, all those ions from the ocean. Did you see the ocean? Can you believe the view? Isn’t it fantastic?”
It was going to be a long morning.
They entered the hotel restaurant, with its sweeping view of the ocean and landscaped lawn, and sat down in a blindingly sunny booth. Francis couldn’t take the brilliance while his brain was still struggling to escape the full nelson of a World Wrestling Federation–sized hangover, so he popped his sunglasses on. That was better. He toyed with the idea of ordering a Bloody Mary for breakfast, hair of the dog, but thought better of it. That would be like admitting he had a problem.
The smelly girl pushed her menu away and looked at him. “I already ate. I had some fruit in my room.”
Francis looked at the menu.
“After I do my meditation, I like to eat fresh fruit.”
“That’s nice.”
“It’s good for your body, you know? Gives you a fresh feeling.”
Francis wondered if he could fire her. Send her home with a severance package and a couple of pineapples. Take her high-fiber, low-fun, sunshine-fresh feeling and send it packing.
“Don’t you just love it here?”
He looked over at her and forced the sides of his mouth to rise up in a creaky, painful imitation of a smile.
“It’s great.”
Although it was an almost superhuman effort, Francis was glad he’d done it. It made her day. She positively twinkled, like a disco ball.
“The papayas are superdelish. Try one.”
“Okay. I will.”
...
Hannah pulled her long black hair back into a ponytail and wrapped a rubber band around it to keep it that way. She turned, revealing the golden-brown nape of her neck, faced the blackboard, and wrote the word KAMAPUA‘A on the board. She immediately heard titters from her class of ninth-graders. It was like that every year she taught this section of the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation myth. Certain stories in Hawaiian mythology were funny, but the myth of Kamapua‘a, the Hog God, was the one that got the kids going. Hannah knew why. The Hog God had been a playboy. Naughty and hedonistic, licentious and lustful, allegedly endowed with a “snout of great size,” he was the one—along with Kanaloa, the evil-smelling Octopus God—that captured their imagination.
Hannah wasn’t that much older than her students, and she remembered her own grueling hours spent attempting to memorize the lineage of the Hawaiian gods. Who gave birth to whom and when and what form of animal, vegetable, or mineral they became. It was complicated, difficult. She was glad they could laugh and enjoy it.
Hannah had studied Hawaiian history and language in college; it had made her feel special, proud to be Hawaiian. She decided to make it her personal mission to keep the culture alive and that’s what she was doing; she was teaching Hawaiian. Her father, a former navy pilot who had gone on to fly commercial jets for Aloha Airlines, was always offering to put in a good word for her, and frankly she could’ve earned twice the money working as a flight attendant. But she believed her work was important, which gave her a feeling of satisfaction a big paycheck couldn’t match. All the classes at Ke Kula Kaiapuni‘o Anuenue were taught in Hawaiian. It was a pilot language-immersion program, one of only a handful in the state, and she was one of the dedicated teachers working to make the experiment a success.
Hannah turned just in time to see Lisa Nakashima, the troublemaker, trying to pass a note to Liliana Morrison, her accomplice in class disruption. Hannah intercepted the note and unfolded the paper to reveal a crude drawing of Kamapua‘a, the Hog God, looking a lot like Porky Pig with a gigantic erection. Hannah couldn’t help herself; she smiled.
...
The union reps arrived, one of them looking like that guy in Goldfinger who throws the hat—oh, yeah, Oddjob—the other some weasely Caucasian dude in a shirt that looked like it was made out of irradiated hibiscus blossoms. Francis was glad he’d kept his sunglasses on.
“You Frank?”
“Francis.”
“People call you Frank?”
“Not really.”
The two men stood there, Teamster tough, glaring at the faggot from Hollywood and his smelly assistant.
Francis pointed to Yuki. “This is my assistant.”
He kicked himself for not remembering the smelly girl’s name. But she helped him out; she stood up and extended her hand.
“Yuki Sugimoto.”
The Caucasian spoke. “Joe Ward.”
They all shook hands. Then it was Oddjob’s turn.
“Ed Huff.”
There was nothing friendly or open in the greetings. It wasn’t nice to meet them. It wasn’t a pleasure. Joe and Ed came with one mission in mind: to get the full hourly rate for their union members. They were sick and tired of constantly cutting deals and dropping overtime or—worse—eliminating golden time, where the union members made double their hourly rate. This time they were going to dig in their heels. Pay full freight or film your stupid movie-of-the-week in Thailand.
Francis wasn’t intimidated; he had dealt with men like these many times. They represented the grunts, the boots-on-the-ground of movie production. The men who drove the trucks, unloaded the equipment, and then sat around eating and playing cards until it was time to pack everything up and drive off to the next location. They were the first to arrive and the last to leave. You couldn’t do a shoot without them, and if you didn’t keep them happy they could really fuck you over. They could start running late; there could be a problem with the trucks; they could get lost or, worse, just
slow down. These kinds of things could cost a production tens of thousands of dollars in lost days. The last thing a producer like Francis—a line producer whose job was to see that everything is where it should be when it’s supposed to be—wanted was to lose a day of shooting because of grumpy grips and pissed-off Teamsters.
“Please, have a seat.”
Yuki got up and moved around to sit next to Francis, the proximity to her fragrance sending a volcanic rush of bile into his throat, almost killing him with aromatherapy, as Joe and Ed squeezed into the booth.
“Hungry? It’s on me.”
“Just coffee.”
Joe leaned in. He didn’t want to waste time. “What’re we lookin’ at?”
“Six weeks prep, twenty-eight-day shoot.”
“How many trucks you think you’re gonna need?”
The coffee arrived. Francis ordered half a papaya to start and then, figuring he’d need some protein to replace what he lost last night, ordered an omelet and a side of bacon. He sipped his coffee and smiled to himself. The side of bacon had been an afterthought, a little fuck-you to his psychic nutritionist, his personal trainer, his dermatologist, his cardiologist, and best of all to Chad. Chad had a fear of pork. As if a little plaque in the arteries or an extra decimal point of body fat was the worst thing that could ever happen to a person.
“A full complement. We’re going to put a lot of your men to work on this one.”
Joe and Ed were instantly suspicious. “Yeah?”
Francis nodded and sipped his coffee. Joe and Ed sipped their coffee. Yuki took out a notepad and a mechanical pencil.
Joe shot her a look. “What’s that for?”
“I thought I might need to take notes.”
Joe turned to Francis. “We’re not making any concessions.”
Francis smiled. He’d been waiting for this. “I’m not asking for any deals.”
“You’re paying full freight.” It was not a question.
“Absolutely.”
Francis thought he saw Ed’s shoulders relax.
“The last time your studio was here they killed us with concessions.”
“That was last time.”
Joe continued to eye him suspiciously. Francis sipped his coffee.
“Look. I’ll level with you guys. This is a short job, an easy job, and the studio decided they didn’t want any headaches. This thing goes to series and we’re here on a permanent basis—well, then I’d imagine someone from business affairs would come and renegotiate.”
Joe and Ed nodded conspiratorially, as if they’d just been let in on some valuable corporate secret.
“What about overtime?”
“Overtime, golden time. We go over, you get paid.”
“Meal penalties?”
“If we owe you a meal, you’ll get a meal. We’re bringing in a catering company, one of the best. Your guys are gonna eat prime rib until their arteries explode.”
Joe and Ed exchanged puzzled looks. “You’re not using Sid?”
Francis looked at them. “Who’s Sid?”
“Everybody uses Sid. There’s only one caterer on the island.”
Francis adjusted his sunglasses. “Well, now there’s two.”
Joe and Ed frowned. “Our guys like to eat local.”
“Local? What do you mean?”
“Spam an’ eggs, loco moco, poi. You know? Local.”
Francis shrugged. “He’ll cook whatever you want.”
Yuki looked at the men. “Excuse me for interrupting, but wouldn’t it be better if your men ate a healthier diet? I mean, really, who knows what’s in Spam?”
Ed looked at her. “Belly buttons and assholes.”
Yuki made a face and went back to minding her own business.
Joe turned to Francis. “What’s the name of this outfit?”
“It’s Jack Lucey out of Las Vegas.”
Joe nodded soberly. “I’ve heard of him.”
The half papaya arrived. Francis squirted some lime juice on it, careful to shoot a little of it in Joe and Ed’s direction. He scooped up a spoonful.
“I’ve worked with him before. He’s quite a character.”
Seven
Hannah sat in Joseph’s kitchen and drank a cup of coffee. She was on her lunch break and still had time before she had to go back to work, so she relaxed, enjoying herself. She sat back and put her feet up on the table. Even though she was dressed in her schoolteacher outfit, a pair of navy slacks and a buttoned pink and white striped blouse, she slouched in the chair, letting wrinkles grow like weeds on her freshly pressed clothes.
She was Hawaiian, with black hair and beautiful brown skin, her black eyes twinkling out of a delicate moon-shaped face. Her body was thin—her mother thought this to be evidence of some Japanese ancestry—and she had small, beautifully rounded breasts like the Tahitian women in paintings by Gauguin. Stuffed into professional clothes, she felt like a fraud, not like a native Hawaiian but like any Asian salary woman working for a big corporation in Tokyo or Singapore.
Hannah had always chafed under the school’s dress code. This was supposed to be laid-back Hawaii, the Aloha State, where even the governor wore sandals and an aloha shirt to work. But the school administration wanted the faculty to appear crisp and professional. Perhaps there was some logic to it. If the teachers stood around chatting in Hawaiian dressed like hippies and surfers, it might give the wrong impression. They were under enough pressure as it was.
The No Child Left Behind law demanded English proficiency as a sign of a good school—as if speaking a native language somehow meant you weren’t as smart as kids in Connecticut. It was a big bunch of mainland bullshit. But it meant they were constantly forced to test their kids, allow auditors to come and watch the classes, and put up with all kinds of bureaucratic indignities.
Hannah sipped her coffee and looked around the kitchen. She liked it when she stayed over at Joseph’s house. It was immaculate, almost compulsively clean, compared to her house; there were no mounds of dirty laundry dotting the landscape like those termite hills in West Africa, no stacks of magazines, books, and newspapers covering every available inch of counter space. Joseph’s house was antiseptically spotless, as if he expected the health department to arrive any minute for a surprise inspection.
Joseph would pick up after her. Put her laundry in the hamper, recycle the newspapers, and clean the dirty dishes that she stacked in the sink. He used to joke, as he put her sweatpants in the wash, that it was nice to have a woman’s touch around the place. Hannah liked him to pick up after her. It showed he cared. He spoiled her that way.
Hannah’s black eyes twinkled as she heard Joseph come into the house. “You want some coffee?”
Joseph shook his head and bent down to give her a kiss. “Sid just called. He’s flipping out about something.”
“Call me later.”
Joseph looked at her, slouching in the chair with her feet up. “You’re gonna wrinkle your clothes, sitting like that.”
Hannah smiled. “I know.”
...
Jack couldn’t believe it. Didn’t any white people live here? What was wrong with this place? Isn’t this supposed to be America? Everywhere he looked there were Chinese-looking island people going about their business. Even some of the signs were in Chinese or Japanese or something. They might as well be in Hong Kong.
The white people, people like Jack, stuck out like the sunburned Hawaiian-shirt-wearing bumpkins they were. They weren’t from around here. They were from Michigan and North Carolina, Kansas and Oregon, Ohio and Minnesota. They’d come all this way, to the middle of nowhere—the single most isolated group of islands in the massive Pacific Ocean—for some sun. They looked like they’d got it, too. Skin peeling off their noses, their foreheads and necks the color of boiled lobsters, Day-Glo gaudy shirts draped over beef-fed guts, and stick legs as white as a picket fence back home.
“We need to get some sunscreen.”
“I got some. SPF t
hirty.”
“Is that good?”
“Yeah. I think it is.”
“I don’t wanna look like these French-fried motherfuckers.”
“Wear a hat.”
“Drive, will ya? I’m roasting in here.”
Stanley cranked up the AC. “Better?”
“Just hurry up.”
Stanley was driving. This meant they crawled along as slowly as possible; stopping for every little thing they could stop for. Jack wondered if Stanley had ever run a yellow light in his life. The car lurched to a stop the nanosecond the light turned yellow. Nope. But then Stanley had never had an accident, either.
The constant stopping and painstakingly glacial maneuvering was tedious; in fact, it bugged the shit out of Jack. If he’d watched Oprah or had any kind of psychological training, he would’ve recognized that Stanley’s driving was passive-aggressive behavior designed to make him crazy. And it did; it drove him nuts.
“Drive. Please.”
“Look at the traffic.”
“I can see it. It’s all going past us.”
“You want to drive?”
That was a rhetorical question. In Las Vegas, Jack drove. He didn’t even like to have Stanley ride in the same car. But the car rental agency wouldn’t let Jack drive in Honolulu. Stroke survivors weren’t allowed on the insurance plan. This was news to Jack, and it really pissed him off. The clerk—she looked Chinese but her name tag said GAYLE-ANNE—had stood there, not a drop of aloha in her manner, not even pretending to be friendly, and told them that only Stanley could drive. She said the word liability over and over again. Loud and slow. Like Jack was a retard. As if he was the liability.
Jack made sure to bang his walker against the side of the Lincoln a few times just to show them what kind of liability a cripple could be.
So Stanley was at the wheel, the demonically sluggish pace giving Jack plenty of time to check out the city.
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