The Tattoo

by Chris Mckinney

  My stay with Grandpa was filled with trips to the Honolulu Zoo and Sea Life Park. He also took me to matinees at the Kaneohe Twins. The theaters were conveniently close, but the movies we saw were always released later than the movies which played in town. Sometimes we’d even drive all the way to the North Shore, to Haleiwa, just to eat the best shave ice on the island.

  Wherever we’d drive, he’d tell me old stories of the places we passed. When we went to the Zoo, we always took the Pali Highway up through the Koolau Mountains. The first time he took me, as we neared the tunnels at the top, he told me, “You see dese cliffs? Dis is where King Kamehameha da First pushed da ali‘i, da chiefs of Oahu, off when had one big war. Kamehameha went chase da army all da way up da Honolulu side of da mountain and finally da ali‘i got stuck ova hea.”

  I looked over the cliffs from the moving car and felt the goosebumps rise on my arms. It was so high. I imagined hundreds of ancient Hawaiians pouring down the side of the cliff like a human waterfall.

  “You know, boy, neva have da Pali Highway when I was young. Instead we had fo’ take da Old Pali Road if we wanted to go town. We couldn’t go through da mountain, we had fo’ go around.”

  When the car entered the first tunnel, I heard everything outside get louder. My grandfather had to speak up. “You know, get all kind ghosts around hea. Das why, I tell you now, neva take pork ova through dis tunnel. The ghosts goin’ get mad and bad stuff goin’ happen to you.”

  I nodded. I wondered if my mother had become one of these ghosts. I hoped she had. It seemed like if she was a ghost on this mountain, at least it meant she wasn’t gone. I looked out the window hoping to see her. Then I realized it was daytime, and I probably wouldn’t. Everyone knew ghosts came out only at night.

  Except when we took the Pali to town, staying with grandfather that summer really kept my mind off my mother. I wonder if that’s part of the reason why he told me all those stories. It was always about things that had passed. Olden times, from feudal Japan to World War II. Or maybe he knew he’d be passing soon, too. History was important to him. “It’s who we are,” he’d say. While other children dreamed of fighting dragons and saving princesses, I dreamed of sharks and the killing of men. Their dreams were fake, mine were real.

  Two months later, Grandpa packed my bags and my father drove to Kaneohe to pick me up. It saddened me to leave. I stood in front of the glass case which held the two swords as I heard the tires of my father’s truck roll across the gravel. I felt like reaching into the case and taking the swords with me. My father’s footsteps approached and Grandpa opened the door. Suddenly I heard my father’s deep, aggressive voice, a voice I’d thought I wouldn’t recognize, coming from outside the door. “Hey, kid, you ready to go home?”

  I turned around and looked at Grandpa, who stepped toward me, put his hand on my head, and gently guided me toward my father. My father grabbed my bags and paced toward the truck. He came back. “Tanks, Dad,” he said, “I hope da kid wasn’t too much trouble.”

  “Eh, was great having him. In fact, maybe on weekends you should bring him ova.” My grandfather looked at me and gave me a wink.

  “Maybe, maybe,” my father said.

  The ride to Ka‘a‘awa was a quiet one. I rolled down the window and let the wind blow my hair back. I looked at each familiar thing we whizzed past: the Hygienic Store, the brown shoreline of Kaneohe Bay, the mangroves, the Hawaiian boys riding their bicycles on Kamehameha Highway. We passed Tang Store, Coral Kingdom, Kualoa Beach Park, and Chinaman’s Hat, my favorite little island off the coast. “Hey,” my father asked, “so what? Grandpa went spoil you plenty?”

  I shrugged.

  “Shit, you should’ve seen when he was raising me. Da fucka used to beat me like one drum.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  After a couple more minutes on the highway, we reached the house. As we pulled up, I said, “Wow, da house no look different.” My father pulled the keys out of the ignition, then turned to me. “Listen,” he said, “I no like you talking like one fuckin’ moke. Drop da pidgin. Talk like how your madda talked.” He got out of the truck and walked to the door, not looking back. This is how I spent the remainder of my summer vacation, seeing the back of my father’s head.

  I thought he was okay at first. Just quiet, just distant. He was on vacation too, and as the last summer month waned, Hayashi Contracting Company waited for his return. This was what we did, both of us waiting, hoping, afraid of the specter of continuity. He spent most of his time on the beach. Every morning he gathered his fishing pole and tackle box, walked across the street, and stuck the sand spike on the beach. He sat there for hours, every so often looking at the erect fiberglass rod, checking whether the bell was ringing. Every evening I would look out the window, across the street, wanting to hear the bell ring. Instead I’d just see his silhouette sitting against the setting auburn sun. I wondered if he was actually fishing for fish, or something else that he seemed to lose.

  During this time, most nights he would drink. On the third night I came back, I sat on the picnic table with him and watched him drink a bottle of J&B. He talked for hours. Like me, my father was an only child. He had grown up in a Hawaiian community and raised hell. He boxed, he surfed. He went to Vietnam right after I was conceived, enlisted the year after the Tet Offensive. Long Range Recon Patrol. Bronze Star. Purple Heart. Didn’t finish his tour due to a bullet he took in the leg. He and I were actually in Tripler during the same time. “I had to get shot to see you born,” he said.

  He didn’t tell me about the men he had killed, his stories about war were happy tales. The big haoles he had knocked out, the officers he wanted to kill, the friends he made. “Some of the best days of my life,” he said. My father told me how much he hated the chopper pilots. Often because of some heavy fire, the pilots would not make their pickups. “Fucking haoles,” he said. “Only haoles flew.” He told me about the huge snakes he sometimes saw. Dangerous reptiles that supposedly devoured children.

  He told me about a nerdy-looking Japanee in his platoon, thick coke-bottle glasses, skinny, weak. This guy who nobody liked or respected jumped on a live grenade and saved the whole bunch. “Bravest fuckin’ guy I eva seen,” he said, as the fumes of alcohol floated from his wet lips. He handed me his empty glass. “Go refill dis. Put ice, put half J&B and half wata.”

  I ran into the kitchen, put fresh ice in the glass and filled it half empty with scotch. Then I filled the glass with tap water. I mixed the drink with a chopstick, then ran back outside. He took a long sip and put down his glass. “I eva told you about da time one fuckin’ Navy guy went grab your madda’s ass?”

  I shook my head.

  “We was at one bar, me, your mom, Uncle Sonny and Aunty Jana. Was when you was about one. We was at dis bar and one fuckin’ haole sailor went grab your madda’s ass. She tried to ignore him. I turned around and dis fuckin’ Navy guy, wit’ his faggy white dress uniform was cracking up wit’ da rest of his buddies. Dis fuckin’ guy was on one fuckin’ boat when I was in Vietnam.”

  He stopped to take a sip of his drink. “I turned around and I could tell what his eyes was saying. ‘What, Jap?’ Ho, I went fuckin’ unload. Nex ting I knew, fuckin’ haoles jumping all ova me and Uncle Sonny. We went take ‘um. Dis fuckin’ haole, da one dat went grab your madda’s ass, I had ‘um on da ground. Fuckin’ pounding him. Nex ting, his eyes went roll in da back of his head. I taut, ‘Ho, I killed him.’ Uncle Sonny looked down, and he went grab me. All four of us ran out of da bar.”

  He stopped again and looked at me. After the pause his voice rose louder. “When we was driving away, your madda was giving me da silent treatment, so I was still kinda piss off. Fuck, I went clean da guy cause of her. I looked down at my hand cause was kinda sore. ‘Ho shit!’ I went yell. My hand had blood all ova it, and at first I taut might of been da odda guy’s blood, but den I seen da teet. We all had to go hospital to get da teet outta my hand.”

  He let out a thunder l
augh. I squirmed on the bench. I licked the front of my own teeth. I looked at his hands. His knuckles looked funny. Some stuck out a lot while others looked pushed in. As I looked closer, I saw several pale lines on both hands, right across his crooked knuckles. My father sighed. He got up and stumbled toward the house. After I heard the door shut, I picked up his glass and took it to the sink.

  This went on for about a week. I’d watch him fish all day and drink after dark. Then one evening, or early morning, I think, my eyes suddenly opened. And for the first time in my short life, I remember feeling comfortable in the darkness. Almost untouchable. I felt adventurous. I quietly got out of bed and walked toward the hall. I wanted to see if I could move without making a sound. I peered through the open doorway of my father’s room. The bed was empty. Curiosity urged me on.

  Carefully I walked through the rest of the house, peeking around each corner I passed before moving forward. The house was empty. I suspected that he might be on the beach, maybe night fishing. I peered through the window, but the street lights weren’t strong enough to illuminate the sand. I went to the front door and slowly pulled it open. I saw him.

  He was naked, crouching low to the ground and mumbling to himself. I squinted to focus in the darkness, and saw something shiny protruding from his clenched fingers. It was the barrel of a handgun, and it was resting on the tip of his nose. He looked like he was praying. I moved my head slightly forward, focusing on the sound he was making. He was mumbling something like, “Fuckin’ gooks... fuckin’ gooks... C’mon, you fuckas... Take my wife, you fuckas? C’mon, you fuckin’ gooks...”

  I felt my body tremble. For some reason he looked like a snake to me, the kind he told me about that devoured children whole. I cautiously shut the door and made my way back to bed.

  It was two in the morning when Cal rolled off a wad of toilet paper and wiped the dripping blood and ink off Ken’s back. Ken got up and stretched. He walked over to the faucet, took a long drink of water, then went to the toilet. Cal cleaned the needle while he heard Ken’s piss strike the water in the toilet bowl. He thought about Ken’s story and smiled. The alcoholic father, the death of family, these were images of his past, too. Just because he was white didn’t mean he didn’t experience similar things.

  Cal remembered his father used to take him hunting for deer in Texas. Cal had been afraid of guns, trees, and darkness. The chirping of robins and the wind against leaves were the only comforts for him. The explosion of his father’s rifle deadened the soothing sounds and made his ears ring. They walked toward the kill.

  It wasn’t a shark he was forced to touch, instead it was the hot red flesh of venison that his father had forced his hand on. The flesh spread on his hand, turning his skin red. He wiped his hand on his olive-green jacket. “Probably redder den a nigger’s blood,” his father told him.

  Yes, Cal thought, I’d been a student of hate, too. He looked at the soiled napkin he’d wiped Ken’s back with, seeing the red and black mixed together. He remembered earlier that day when Ken had said, “We all have tattoos we regret.” It was certainly true.

  When Ken sat back down in front of him, Cal inspected his work so far. He finished outlining the big symbol which was about eight inches long and six inches wide. He also finished half of the outlining for the smaller characters on the left. Cal wondered if he should do the conventional thing and color all the characters in after he was done outlining it all out, or if he should color in as he went along. He thought about Ken’s story and decided that he would do like Ken did, and add the color from the beginning.

  “Finished for the night?” Ken asked.

  Cal nodded. He wiped more blood and ink off Ken’s back then took the gun apart. He cleaned the needle and put the gun back in his mattress.

  Waking up for breakfast was a pain. There wasn’t much for the mute Cal to do in prison, so over the years while being locked up, Cal became a master of sleep. He had been there for years, so unlike the rookies, who slept restlessly and often woke up screaming when they remembered where they were, Cal’s sleep was usually deep and about ten hours long. Because he’d stayed up until two in the morning, he woke up exhausted.

  Ken, on the other hand, looked well-rested. He was standing in front of the stainless steel mirror when Cal opened his eyes. The outlined symbol on his back was slightly swollen. Ken turned around and smiled. “It’s good to come out of special holdings and have someone to talk to.”

  The buzzer sounded and the doors opened. Cal and Ken walked out and up the stairs, and waited for the second buzz to open the door of Quad Two. Nu‘u walked up to Cal from behind and put his arm around him. Nu‘u’s arm was so large, it felt like Cal was carrying a dead animal on his shoulders.

  “Hungry?” Nu‘u asked.

  Cal shook his head. Nu‘u turned to Ken and smiled. “California Joe neva hungry in da morning. He give half his breakfast to me.What about you, Japanee boy? You hungry?”

  “Fuckin’ starving.”

  As the buzz sounded off and the prisoners of Quad Two walked through the door, Nu’u said,“Well, if you not hungry, give ‘um to me.”

  The guards led them to the cafeteria. Cal, Nu‘u and Ken sat together with their trays at the same stainless steel table. Without Ken asking, Nu‘u began telling him the stories of the rest of the prisoners in Quad Two. “You see him,” Nu‘u said, pointing to a skinny Filipino kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty and a hundred forty pounds. “Dat’s Johnny Lazario.You read about him in da papers? Fucka raped dat chick on da Big Island right afta he went kill her boyfriend. First week he wuz hea, I made him my bitch just on principle.”

  Nu‘u looked at Cal. Cal knew what he was looking for, so he nodded. Nu‘u smiled. “Imagine if dat wuz your sista he went rape? Fuckin’ dog-eata asshole. Look ova dea, da guy sitting next to Johnny. Das Edwin Geranimo.”

  Cal looked at Edwin. He was another young Filipino kid, also skinny, only he looked tough and had a shaved head. Cal could see the jagged scars on his scalp from a table away. Cal liked Edwin. He did the tattoo of the Indian Geronimo on Edwin’s shoulder. He had copied it from a picture Edwin had found in National Geographic. Cal liked him because he knew Edwin shouldn’t be here.

  “Fuckin’ Geranimo,” Nu‘u said,“typical gang banga fromWaipahu. All he did was drive one car wit’ da wrong people in it. See da fat Hawaiian ova dea?”

  Nu‘u was talking about Sean Alani. Cal felt sorry for Sean.Tavares gave him a beating on a regular basis. “That fucka, child molesta. Das why he hea. Put him in middle security down da hill, those fuckas would fuck him up. He lucky he in protective custody wit’ us.”

  Nu‘u pointed to the rest of the group one by one. There were other Hawaiians, a couple more Filipinos, two Samoans, not counting Nu‘u, and a Korean and Vietnamese. There was even an ex-cop. Cal knew all of them. He’d tattooed them and listened to their stories.

  After Nu‘u was finished telling Ken about the others in Quad Two, he asked, “So what? Wea you from?”

  Ken put down his spoon in his still full bowl of oatmeal. He had eaten only a couple of bites. “Ka‘a‘awa.”

  “Why you hea?”

  “None of your fuckin’ business.”

  Cal’s muscles tensed as he readied himself to jump away from the table. He’d seen Nu‘u go off before, and was surprised this Japanee had the balls to piss him off. Ken just stared at Nu‘u while Nu‘u’s giant hands tightly gripped the table. The stand-off lasted only a few seconds. Then Nu‘u smiled and laughed. “You get balls, ah boy?”

  Ken smiled. “You don’t know it, but I know you.”

  “How you know? I not from da Windward side. I from Kalihi.”

  “I had a brotha a lot like you.”

  Nu‘u released his grip from the table. “And what?”

  “Keep your sense of humor. My brotha died because he couldn’t.”

  To Cal’s surprise, breakfast ended without violence. Cal dug into his half empty bowl of oatmeal and pulled out a ru
bber glove left for him by one of the kitchen workers. He stuffed a twenty in what Nu‘u had left in his bowl. He reached his hand down in his pants and carefully put the glove with two cigarettes up his ass.

  Before they were let back in Quad Two, one by one, all the prisoners stripped naked at the door as Sergeant Miranda and Officer Tavares watched. When it was Ken’s turn, and Tavares saw the unfinished tattoo, he said, “Eh, Hideyoshi, you get contraband in your cell?”

  Ken didn’t say anything.“Cal,”Tavares said as he grabbed Ken by the neck and led him through the door of Quad Two, “you get your ass in here, too.”

  Ken and Cal stood in their cell as Tavares searched through their belongings. “You madda fuckas. You try piss me off. I working ova-time all da way until two in da morning, and you fuckas like pull dis shit.”

  Tavares stopped looking and towered in front of the two prisoners. He was even bigger than Nu‘u. He looked like a professional wrestler. Cal stared at his tattooed forearms, waiting for a response. The python that Cal did coiled around Tavares’ right forearm. Tavares smiled. “Jus’ because you did a couple of mine, no mean you get free reign, you haole fucka.You tell me, befo’ you do dis. And you, you Japanee fucka, I read your file. Fucka tink jus’ because you grew up country you tough? I grew up Waianae, fucka. I tough. But I not one fuckin’ criminal like you.”

  Ken smiled and said, “Dad?”

  Cal closed his eyes. He’d been surprised that Nu‘u took Ken’s wise mouthing, but he knew Tavares wouldn’t. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know it was Ken’s body that hit the wall across the room. Tavares’ words crashed together like clouds. “You fuckin’ Jap. Feel sorry fo’ yourself. My fuckin’ fadda beat me probably worse den you, but I neva use ‘um as one excuse. I get one job. I get one family. I neva get sucked in. You fuckin’ weak ass madda fucka. I see you fuckas every day. Local fuckas dat get all da excuses in da world. Fuck you. Get one legit job. I neva turn out one criminal.”