by C. McGee
“What is that, a .22?” Yukio said, unfazed. “You think that is going to scare me off? That’s a kid’s weapon. I’ve had members of the Yakuza point Uzis at me. Your little air rifle doesn’t even qualify as a deterrent.”
“A .22 to the skull will leave you just as dead as an Uzi,” I quickly retorted, an attempt to disguise my surprise at his cavalier response.
“True, true,” he said coolly, while easing down into one of my chairs. “But you’re too soft to actually shoot me, so that’s a moot point.”
Unsure of how to proceed, I gave Ethan a what-the-fuck-should-I-do look. In response he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, evidently more flummoxed than I. Having received no guidance from my boyfriend, I offered the same appealing expression to Lana and Charlie. Neither of them noticed. She was too upset. He was too busy fiddling with his phone.
Aware that he had me thrown, Yukio continued on, presenting his case in a deliberate but calm fashion. “Let me explain it to you as plainly as possible,” he said. “You cannot pull your money out. If you do then that pathetic protest by that sad little independence group will be seen as a success. An actuality that will inspire them to stage further protests, which will lead to more investors pulling out, which will eventually lead to the death of the project, and that is a result I cannot allow. Such a conclusion would leave my Japanese investors quite dissatisfied, which is something that I am very keen on avoiding. It’s also something that you should be keen on avoiding. They’re not the type of men that you want to disappoint.”
“Seriously, that’s how you’re going to play this? Scare me with some vague threat of organized crime. You’re ridiculous.” I spoke with conviction but part of me wondered if he was telling the truth. Yukio was obviously a dubious individual. Ties to organized crime did not strike me as beyond the realm of possibility. Plus, there was that time I saw him strong-arming some people alongside that well-dressed, tattooed, Japanese guy. Shit, maybe he was connected.
“I would not dismiss my words in such a casual manner,” Yukio asserted. “Perhaps you should talk things over with some of the local politicians. A number of them have had the pleasure of meeting my foreign investors.”
Still unsure of what to make of Yukio’s claims, I looked appealingly around the room once again. Ethan was staring out the window, his mouth agape. Charlie was leaning forward in his chair, forearms on knees, phone in lap, a contemplative expression on his face. Biggie Smalls was asleep on her back, showing off her corpulence. Lana was shaking her head, tears of anger and disappointment welling up in her eyes.
As I looked at Lana, she spoke. Each word was a struggle. “Part of me thought maybe … but I never really believed … I mean, he’s my father … I just didn’t want …” She faded out.
“Fuck, so this is for real,” I said, attempting to process everything.
Reading the room well, Yukio remained quiet, letting the gravity of the situation sink into us. The more overwhelmed we were by the circumstances, the more likely we were to defer to his will, he knew that.
The silence was finally broken by the sound of a rattling cage. Only I knew that it was the mongooses.
“What was that?” Yukio asked.
“Probably a chicken,” I lied. “Sometimes I forget to close the side door and they get into the garage.”
Everyone nodded their head in understanding. Chicken problems were a shared experience.
Capitalizing on the broken silence, Yukio stood up out of his chair, buttoned his suit jacket, and said, “So I’ll see you all at the next investor’s meeting. I believe it’s planned for the first of the month.”
Not waiting for a response, he made his way to the door, turned the handle, and stepped out. None of us said a word. We just watched him leave.
As soon as he exited the room a sense of shame washed over me. I had been bullied into inaction and that was unacceptable. Looking to rectify the situation, I followed after Yukio, gun still in hand.
“No, no, that’s not how this ends. Get back here you son of a bitch. I’ll—”
I didn’t get to finish my threat. It was unnecessary. Tiny had Yukio in a headlock.
Chapter 40
A Fait Accompli
The Top Three Most Uncomfortably Awkward Moments I Have Ever Experienced:
• During the summer of my sophomore year in college, I interned at the state capitol in Bismarck. One of my fellow interns that year was blind. He was very upfront about the whole thing. He wore gigantic Ray Charles–style shades and carried a stick with a big loop on the end. His appearance basically said, “Hey, I’m blind, got it? Okay, now let’s get on with shit.” Unfortunately, the Speaker of the House didn’t pick up on the visual cues. Distracted by the loop at the end of the kid’s cane, the Speaker paused a floor debate and said, “Sorry to interrupt the proceedings, I just want to know what a dog catcher is doing here.” Everyone in the place cringed.
• One night in college, I told my roommate that I was going out to party. She said, “cool” and headed to the dining hall. While she was away, I started to feel a little sick so I changed my plans. Instead of going out I took some cold medicine, climbed into my top bunk, and went to bed. Later that night her and her boyfriend came charging into our room in a sex-crazed frenzy. Groggy from the medicine, I didn’t speak up right away, which ultimately meant that I didn’t speak up at all. By the time I got my faculties in line, it was too late, I had seen and heard too much. Resigned to my fate, I consoled myself with comforting words. It will be fine, I thought. It’s just sex. I’ll get rocked back to sleep. I was wrong. They chose that night to try anal. The next hour was a lot of “Ow ow ow’s,” “No, no, slower’s,” and one “Of course you got poo on your honk, it was in my B.” Which is all quite funny in retrospect but was so not funny at the time.
• In 1997 the entire town of Grand Forks flooded. Somehow this flooding led to a fire, which led to more fires, which led to half the city going up in flames. This always struck me as hilariously ironic. I mean they couldn’t put out the fires because the buildings were surrounded by water, hysterical. Unfortunately, the one time that I decided to share this amusing thought it was not well received. Evidently, a fundraiser for flood victims was not the proper venue for that particular bit of comedy. I severely misread that room—too soon.
In terms of awkwardness, the minutes that immediately followed Koa and Tiny’s capture of Yukio were easily on par with all of the events mentioned above. The only reason that I excluded the incident from the list was because it was not exclusively awkward. Indeed, if asked to provide a list of adjectives to describe the scene, “awkward” would barely crack the top five. Tense, hostile, vociferous, and violent, would all occupy superior positions … Still, it was awkward. Really fucking awkward.
Tiny ran Yukio’s head into my front door on the way into the house. Once inside, the massive Hawaiian continued with the punishment by punching Yukio in the face, throwing him on the ground, and then berating him in pidgin. We all listened to Tiny’s furious rant, but save Koa, none of us understood. Well, Yukio might have. He did seem to respond to the words being yelled at him, albeit not in the way I would have expected. Bloodied face, swollen eye, he looked up at his humongous antagonist and laughed. Finding no humor in the situation, Tiny responded to Yukio’s hysterics with another punch to the face, and then another, and another, until finally Koa stepped in and put an end to the violence. Had he not intervened, I suspect that the big man would have continued to deliver blows until Lana’s father found laughter impossible.
“Stop, stop, stop, calm yourself, you are not helping,” Koa said in clear, slang-free English. I suspect that he was trying to lead by example, inspire Tiny to employ more mainland-friendly language for our benefit. It’s scary to deal with an enraged four-hundred-pound man, but it’s really scary to deal with an enraged four-hundred-pound man that you can’t understand. Koa knew that so he sought to fix it.
“My apologies, bruddah,” Tiny
replied through deep breaths, only a trace of pidgin left. “But this buddahead had it comin’. Fucking asshole, ruining our island.”
“You’re right, he did, and you gave it to him, and now it’s done.”
Tiny exhaled heavily through his nose and shook his head in reluctant agreement. He then paced slowly across the room, calming himself, while everyone watched in quiet shock. I could hear the mongooses rattling around out in the garage but no one else seemed to notice, the events that had just transpired dominating their attention.
After a minute that seemed like ten, Ethan said, “So what the hell just happened?”
“A lot,” I replied. “But nothing really. I mean we’re still where we were before.”
“Huh?” Ethan said, more confused than ever.
“What?” I replied uselessly.
“Babe, you’re not making any sense.”
“Yup.”
“Dear god. Get your shit together, Ingrid. Tell us what the fuck is going on.”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” I said, snapping out of my own thoughts, appreciating for the first time the fact that Ethan, Charlie, and Lana were probably even more bewildered than I. Shit, at least I knew everyone that was there. They certainly didn’t. Koa and Tiny were complete strangers to them, just two random guys that burst into my house and beat up Lana’s father for some unknown reason. Seeking to rectify this dearth of knowledge, I introduced Koa and Tiny, stated that their arrival was expected, and then mentioned that they were in the HLF. “Oh,” was Ethan and Lana’s reaction to this last bit of information. The HLF connection explained the beating. Everyone knew that they hated the resort project, and, by extension, the person spearheading it. Afforded the chance, I suspect that every single member of the HLF would have capitalized on the opportunity to punch Yukio in the face.
“Now that you know about us, it’s our turn to learn some stuff about you,” Tiny asserted as my friends processed. “Like why the fuck you’re here with this kanapapiki.”
“Son of a bitch?” Yukio retorted, a smug look hiding behind the blood on his face. “No, no, I’m not a son of a bitch, I’m a businessman.”
“You’re not a businessman, you’re a bringer of destruction, a culture killer, a—”
“Creator of jobs, a herald of the inevitable.”
“You shut the fuck up.”
Tiny went in for another punch but Koa intervened. The big man turned away frustrated, cracking his knuckles as he paced the room once more. Violence diverted, Koa spoke. “But that is a good question,” he said, returning to the initial point. “Why is this man here at your house? Are you friends with him?”
“Oh god, no,” I quickly replied.
“Then why?” Koa asked once more, a knowing and disappointed tone in his voice.
An awkward silence fell over the room. Shame—warranted or not—weighed on my shoulders. Sitting down as I hunted for an explanation, I placed the rifle on the floor next to me. “He’s here because … Well, because …”
“He’s here because Ingrid wanted to defund the resort project.” Lana asserted firmly, ending my search for words.
I flashed her an appreciative look. She was telling the truth but it was the version of the truth that placed me in the most flattering light, the version that I was either unable or unwilling to express.
“Yeah!” Koa said, an avuncular expression of pride on his face. “That’s my haole girl.”
I attempted a smile and a nod.
“Judging by the way he left your place,” Koa continued, “it must not have been too successful.”
“No, not really,” I replied.
“Yeah, not at all,” Yukio amended. “It didn’t work because my daughter and her friends here are pragmatists. They deal in reality, not pipedreams. If you really wanted to help your community out you would try and get locals involved in the project, help them reap some of the rewards, not encourage them to futilely pursue a rose-colored version of the past.”
“Stay quiet, old man,” Tiny said, starting once more in Yukio’s direction.
“None of that,” Koa said firmly, arresting Tiny’s advance. “You can’t beat him up just because he is advocating for a position that you don’t like. He didn’t say anything wrong, he just said something different.”
“Something right,” Yukio added.
“Don’t push it,” Koa replied.
“I’m not pushing anything,” Yukio continued, unable to help himself. “I’m just explaining reality. You try and make me out to be a villain, but I’m not a villain—selfish maybe, abrasive yes, cunning absolutely, but not a villain. You are the real villains, the selfish ones. You deny reality and you want everyone else to deny it with you. You assert the moral high ground and then stand there in judgment while others get things done. The doers are the ones that move the world forward, not the judgmental idealists. The idealists do nothing because they don’t want to do anything. They would rather keep their hands clean. They would rather maintain their sense of superiority by not taking action or, worse yet, by taking faux-action: championing ends that never were and never will be. You guys don’t want to make a difference, you want to play at making a difference.”
“If we’re not making a difference, then why are you so scared of us, huh?” Tiny asked, defiant in his tone.
“Because your little group might prevent my resort from getting built.”
“Exactly,” Tiny stated victoriously.
“But that doesn’t actually change the final result. If my resort doesn’t get built, another will in its stead. That actuality was decided long before you picked up a picket sign.”
Neither Tiny nor Koa offered a rebuttal. The former was quietly fuming; the latter was contemplative. I don’t think Koa agreed with what Yukio said, he just refused to dismiss it out of hand. Koa is good that way, he always gives his opponent’s arguments due consideration. I, on the other hand, didn’t want to give Yukio’s argument due consideration. I wanted to dismiss it out of hand. But I couldn’t. Yes, he’s a dick, and yes he sounded a bit too much like John Galt, but he had a point, and judging by the looks on Lana and Ethan’s faces they agreed. Charlie might have agreed as well, but I can’t say for sure. His face was hidden from view, head tilted downward, staring at the floor next to my chair. Curious as to what had him transfixed, I followed the trajectory of his gaze to its point of termination. As it turned out, he wasn’t staring at the floor; he was staring at my rifle. A realization that struck me at the exact same moment the cops arrived.
Chapter 41
More Than a Rockwell Redux
The moment that the police arrived is indelibly etched in my brain. Not the entire event, just that split second in time when everyone simultaneously noticed their arrival. If I had any artistic ability whatsoever, I would draw a picture of the scene, but I don’t, so I won’t. Instead, I will go to my crutch. Here is a bulleted list of everything that unfolded at that exact moment:
• I reached for the rifle, surprise and confusion on my face.
• Charlie reached for the rifle, focused and determined.
• Tiny reached for the rifle, flushed and struggling.
• Yukio ran away from the rifle, toward the back exit, flushed and bloody.
• Koa held both Tiny and Yukio by their respective shirt collars, arresting their forward movement, strangling them slightly, causing their faces to turn red, causing his own face to turn red, his arms pulled in opposite directions like a medieval torture victim.
• Ethan headed toward the front door, obviously pleased about the arrival of the police.
• Lana stood still, frustrated, unsure of what action to take.
• Cops, visible through the living room window, threw open their car doors.
• A single rooster, also visible through my living room window, stood in the middle of the yard with its chest out like an arrogant douche.
• Biggie Smalls laid on her belly, her head tilted in mild curiosity.
; Taken as a whole it was a crazy scene, something Norman Rockwell would have painted after a line of crushed Adderall and a hit of kush: “Breaking Home Ties in the 21st Century.”
Tiny ended up winning the three-way battle for the gun. Charlie and I arrived first, but we clunked our heads together like a slapstick comedy duo providing Tiny with the extra second he needed to break free of Koa’s grip. As soon as the big man laid his hands on the gun, the contest was over. Both Charlie and I are in decent shape but we didn’t stand a chance against the gargantuan Hawaiian. The best I could do was hit the safety as he yanked the rifle away.
“What the fuck, Charlie?” I asked as Tiny picked up the .22 and turned. “Why did you go for the rifle?”
Charlie offered no response. My words didn’t even register. All of his attention was still focused on the gun, the gun that was now pointed at the back of a fleeing Yukio.
Unable to look away, I held my breath as Tiny took aim at Lana’s father, and pulled the trigger. Nothing but an empty click followed. I exhaled.
In search of an explanation, Tiny tilted the rifle on its side and looked down. The answer was obvious. He had used a gun before. He knew where to look for the safety. In less than a second he moved his thumb to the switch, flicked it to red, returned the rifle to shooting position, and fired. This time it worked. The doorframe a foot to the right of Yukio’s head splintered at the impact of the bullet as the crack of the rifle reverberated off the walls. The sound caught me by surprise. I had fired that .22 hundreds of times before but never indoors. The closed space amplified the volume of the high velocity round more than I would have expected—not painfully loud, just commanding.
As the crack of the shot rang in the air, Tiny pumped another round into battery, Yukio threw open the screen door, and Charlie stood up. Instinctively, I moved my hands toward my ears, bracing for the next crack of the rifle, but it didn’t come, at least not right away. The sudden presence of Charlie on Tiny’s grizzly-sized back delayed the trigger pull.