They searched him for discharge papers and his bango, but they only found shards of coconut. Raulito said he was Vicente Vega, and he gave them the name of Vicente’s plantation in Hilo. They looked confused. Their questions were in English.
The guard clanged the door shut, leaving Raulito in a crowded cell. Men slept, talked, urinated in a galvanized metal pail. It was more or less like the other jail.
A big man, negro like Raulito, greeted him en español.
“Vicente Vega de Utuado, a la orden,” Raulito said.
“Abraham Báez de Guánica, a la orden,” he said. “Where did you come from?”
“The Big Island of Hawaii,” Raulito said.
“You swim here?” Abraham said. “You a shark?”
“Something like that,” Raulito said.
Abraham laughed. “Tiburón. That’s what I’m going to call you.”
It was then that Raulito thought of going to Marco first; together they could find their way to Vicente.
“Everyone, meet Tiburón,” Abraham said. “Let me present our fellow countrymen.”
Miguel Romero was a skeleton with a lazy eye. Nobody believed that fifteen-year-old Chico Álvarez wasn’t full grown. Luis Compañero swayed as if he were about to fall, and when Raulito looked down at his tiny feet, he understood why.
“What kind of place is this?” Raulito sat on the filthy floor. “Some kind of stone mountain?”
“It’s a fortress, stronger than El Morro in San Juan that the Spaniards built,” Miguel said. “It’s Oahu Prison.”
“I’ve never seen El Morro,” Raulito said.
“And you never will,” Luis said.
“Welcome to the Reef, Tiburón,” Miguel said.
“ ‘Reef’ is American for infierno,” Luis said.
“I wouldn’t wish this place even on los españoles,” Abraham said.
“I would wish it on the Spaniards,” Miguel said.
“I would wish it on the Americans,” Luis said.
“Sí, los americanos,” Abraham said.
“I worked on a chain gang before.” Raulito leaned back against the wall; it was sticky with something he hoped wasn’t blood.
“You’re going to look back on that time like you was in heaven,” Luis said.
Chico cried out.
“Tranquilo, muchacho.” Abraham patted Chico’s shoulder.
“There are four different kinds of prisoners in the Reef.” Luis held up four fingers from a hand that was missing its thumb. “First kind—only the very lucky are this kind and they are always haoles—is in charge of the storeroom and the hospital and the cooks. These white men eat all the food they want and have real sugar in their coffee.”
“Next kind takes care of the stables and horses, they eat second-class food and drink real coffee with real sugar, too,” Miguel said.
“Gardeners, shoemakers, tailors, men like that, are the third kind,” Abraham said. “Then there are the work gangs—the Makíkí and the Kamoilllli and the Normal School and the Waikiki gangs. These kinds don’t eat so well and they don’t get sugar with their coffee.”
“What kind are the Puerto Ricans?” Raulito held his breath for the answer.
“We’re the fucked kind,” Luis said.
“No sugar for the Puerto Ricans,” Miguel said.
“I can live without sugar,” Raulito said, “but I wish I didn’t have to.”
“You won’t get any wishes granted here,” Abraham said.
“Judge Wilcox sends us to Captain Henry,” Miguel said. “Captain Henry sends us to the Hot Box.”
“We call it the Sweat Box,” Luis said.
“Sweat Box, Hot Box, infierno,” Miguel said.
“The Hot Box? I don’t understand,” Raulito said.
“You will,” Abraham said.
“Is Captain Henry the governor?”
“The grand jailer,” Abraham said.
“We call him Satan,” Luis said.
“Because he likes to send Puerto Ricans to hell,” Miguel said.
“Judge Wilcox hates Puerto Ricans more than murderers,” Luis said.
“More than negros and Chinamen?” Raulito thought there was no one more hated than negros and Chinamen.
“More than negros and Chinamen,” Abraham said. “Not even God can save you and me.”
Raulito knew that nothing could be worse in Hawaii than to be un negro puertorriqueño.
In his office at the Reef, Judge Wilcox liked to say to High Sheriff Henry of Oahu, “Give me a Porto Rican and I’ll make that boy sorry he ever been born.”
Raulito was sentenced to three months’ hard labor.
As Raulito was escorted out, High Sheriff Henry poured the judge a glass of his favorite pineapple juice concocted from the sweetest pineapples, sent to him specially by his pal Dole, the owner of the biggest pineapple plantation in all of Hawaii.
The Puerto Ricans squatted in the prison courtyard. They ate bread and drank foul-smelling liquid that was supposed to be black coffee. The guards prodded the prisoners with their rifles, forcing them down a dirt road. Sunlight streaked through the dark sky; soon it would be dawn. The wind sprayed flecks of rock on their skin and clothes. The perfume of this terrible place, this Oahu, took Raulito back to Puerto Rico, where, in the early morning fog of Cerro Morales, he listened as the tiny coquís croaked their last refrains. He’d never hear coquís again. Raulito wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. It was ridiculous to cry over frogs.
“Move it!” A guard’s rifle jabbed Raulito’s ribs.
The blast was like dynamite. Though they were still some distance away, they felt the earth shake. It reminded Raulito of the small earthquake after Hurricane San Ciriaco. Raulito tried not to piss on himself. When the wind blew, bits of stone fell through the foliage of the trees. When they reached the quarry, they saw a mountain broken open, revealing a world of stone the color of bones. The noise was like that of a small avalanche. They ducked the flying rocks.
“The Hot Box.” Abraham pointed.
Smoke escaped from the monster’s gaping mouth. A slab of stone the size of a train caboose dangled from its iron teeth.
The guards fed the Puerto Ricans into the monster, one by one. Sparks singed their hair, burning pinholes on their skin. The monster’s jaws crushed slabs of stone, swallowing the rocks before spitting them down the chute. Inside the belly of the stone crusher, Raulito and the other men stuck out their bare hands to catch the hot rocks and toss them aside. Raulito screamed, but no one could hear him over the din, not even himself.
His hands stank like charred meat.
“You survived,” Abraham said.
“Bet you wish you hadn’t.” Miguel’s hands hung from his wrists like trowels.
Someone placed a tin bowl of slop in Raulito’s hands. The bowl fell. The prisoner cook yelled at Raulito.
Raulito stared down at the unfamiliar things that dangled at his sides.
Abraham picked up the bowl and the prisoner cook spooned in some more slop.
“Don’t try to guess what it is,” Chico said. “It’s better not to know.”
“You! Porto Rican!” The guard pointed his rifle at Raulito. “Eat!”
“You’re no good to them dead.” Luis shoved brown mush into his mouth. “They’ll make you eat even if you don’t want to.”
Raulito scooped up some slop with the thing that was once his hand.
Raulito slept on the floor with his hands on his chest like the dearly departed; he was dreaming.
The guards clanged their iron rods against the machine. Rocks tumbled down the chute faster than they could catch them.
“Stop the machine!”
“Too many rocks!”
“Stop the machine!”
”¡Ayuda! Help!”
The stones hailed down on the Puerto Ricans; they couldn’t move, the stones trapped them up to the waist and still they didn’t stop. The Puerto Ricans stretched out their arms toward the Hot Box opening, where t
hey could see the guard’s uniformed legs.
“Vicente! Marco! Save me!” Raulito shouted.
“Shut up, you bastard! Shut up!” Someone shook him.
Raulito opened his eyes.
“Sleep is the only time I can forget this hellhole, so shut the fuck up.” Miguel’s huge hand gripped Raulito’s shoulder.
Raulito closed his eyes.
Marco, wait for me.
On Sundays, the prisoners didn’t work the stone quarry because it was the Sabbath and the missionaries didn’t think it godly. Instead, Raulito and his fellow portorros attended a religious service in the prison yard. He gave thanks for religion, because it allowed him to get out of his prison cell and sit in the sun. He knew nothing about religion; his mother had never spoken about God, only about los espíritus and dead relatives. He had never gone to church or opened a Bible. He knew the fog of Cerro Morales that crept in during the night, and the sun that warmed the mountain after the fog had left for the day. He knew the birds that twirled in the sky above the creatures that made la tierra their home. Raulito knew his mother’s rare smiles and the sweetness of his brother’s love, a sweetness he savored like the taste of sugar in his coffee. He knew that he hoped more than anything to make it out alive so one day he would see Marco again. Was that God? If so, his heart ached for God, ached like a hot stone buried inside him.
“These white people want to save our souls,” Abraham said.
“What’s a soul?”
“Your mother or father never talked to you about your alma?”
“I never really had a father,” Raulito said. “Is it important?”
“Only as long as they keep talking,” Abraham said.
The prisoners set up wooden benches around a massive banyan tree; its blooms perfumed the yard where six days a week, rain or shine, they sat on the cold, wet ground and ate their wind-dusted meals. During the Sunday service, the sun shone on the prison yard as if it were the plaza of Any Town, Puerto Rico. Men in black suits and ladies in hats and long gowns sat opposite the prisoners. Armed guards watched from sentry towers. The missionary waved a black book and talked on and on. Raulito didn’t understand a single word, but he hoped the man in black talked all day long.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
HEAVEN
The butterfly landed on her open palm and she made a house for it with her cupped hands. It was gold with iridescent blue stripes; the flutter of its wings tickled. She brought her hands to her lips and whispered the words she wished she could say to her little girl. I hope what they say about heaven is true and that you are in a happy place with your brother. I hope that you know Sonia and that she can be a mother to you both. I love you. I miss you.
Valentina opened her hands and set the butterfly free. She watched it fly away up in the sky until the yellow disappeared into the blue.
CHAPTER SIXTY
FUCK SHERIFF HENRY
Fuck the rain that turned dirt roads to mud and made people want roads paved with pieces of coral. Fuck the fucking inventor of the rock crusher! Fuck Judge Wilcox! Fuck Sheriff Henry! Yes, fuck Sheriff Henry, Captain Henry. High Sheriff Henry of Oahu, maldito Satan Henry! Fuck him for feeding Puerto Ricans into the Hot Box! Fuck Oahu! Fuck!
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
PAU HANA
They were back in Puerto Rico in their little wood house with the corrugated-iron roof. The rooster crowed in the batey and the birds sang. He lifted a strand of his wife’s hair and pressed a kiss on her naked shoulder. Valentina could sleep until midmorning if he or the children didn’t wake her. He decided to brew the coffee and bring her a cup before he went to the finca to check on his coffee trees. He stopped in the children’s room to peek at his trio of little angels, tiptoeing so as not to wake them. In the kitchen, he took the lid off the large tin filled with his own coffee. He brought the tin to his nose and breathed in the greens of the mountain.
The morning siren shrieked over the plantation and into the hovels and broke into Vicente’s dream.
Valentina wrapped the rice in tí leaves. She placed the rice and pasteles, also wrapped in tí leaves, on an enamel plate, draping a dishcloth over it. They walked with the children and Paco, who had come by for something to eat. It was a Sunday and the weather was fine. At the Japanese camp, they stopped to ask directions of a japonesa in a sky blue kimono.
“Con permiso, señora,” Valentina said. “¿Dónde vive la señora Mikioki?”
La japonesa shook her head.
“This won’t be easy,” Vicente said.
They heard someone playing a ukulele.
“It’s pretty, not the cuatro guitar, but pretty.”
“Maybe I should learn to play el cuatro since you love it so much,” Vicente said.
“Maybe you should,” Valentina said.
They walked down the row of shanties.
“I’m sure we’ll find her.” Valentina walked on ahead.
“Can we play with them?” Lourdes pointed to a group of children who had gathered.
“I don’t—” She stopped to consider.
“Let them,” Vicente said.
“Paco, stay with las niñas,” Valentina said.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Vicente said.
“Tú verás,” Valentina said. “Everyone will come out.”
Vicente smiled. “Are you saying that the Japanese are nosy like the Puerto Ricans?”
Together, they went down the row of shanties. Men and women came out and watched them without speaking; some bowed. Vicente and Valentina returned their bows.
“We’ll never find your friend this way,” Vicente said.
A man in a kimono walked toward them. He bowed, and behind him, Mikioki bowed, as did Valentina and Vicente.
“All this bowing,” Vicente said in an aside. “Can’t we just shake hands?”
“Buenos días, I would like to present my husband, Vicente.” Valentina pointed to Vicente.
More bows.
“Akihiko.” Mikioki pointed to her husband.
They held out their gifts of food. More bows. Akihiko pointed to a shanty. They sat down on bamboo mats and drank tea in tin cups and ate pasteles and rice in silence and smiles. Valentina wondered where she could get bamboo mats. Only after they were finished did Vicente and Valentina utter the word they had come to discuss, a word that contained their hope to make a better life.
“Huelga,” Vicente said.
“Huelga,” Valentina said.
Mikioki and her husband stared at them.
“Somehow we must overcome the problem of language,” Valentina said.
Vicente took a piece of charcoal and a scrap of paper out of his pocket.
“You’re brilliant!” Valentina smiled at him.
“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Vicente said.
He drew stick figures in a row of cane; a large stick man on a horse loomed over them.
“Luna.” He pointed to the man on the horse.
“Luna,” Akihiko said.
“Trabajadores de la caña.” Vicente pointed to the stick men. He wrote Puerto Rican and pointed to himself; he wrote Japanese and pointed to Mikioki’s husband.
Akihiko bowed.
Vicente returned his bow, satisfied.
On the back of the paper, Vicente drew a new picture. Stick men walked away from the luna on horseback.
“Huelga,” Vicente said.
“Huelga,” Akihiko said.
A machete hung on the wattle wall. Vicente pointed to it, then shook his head.
“Huelga,” Vicente said.
“Huelga,” Akihiko said.
“No work,” Valentina said. “Pau hana.”
“Pau hana,” Vicente said.
“Pau hana,” Mikioki said.
“Pau hana,” Akihiko said.
Akihiko said something to his wife, and she returned with a bottle and tiny porcelain cups.
“Saké.” Akihiko offered Vicente a cup.
“Saké.” Mikioki
offered Valentina a cup.
They drank.
“It’s alcohol.” Vicente looked in the tiny cup.
“It’s delicious.” Valentina took another sip. “Ono.”
Mikioki smiled and refilled her cup.
“I wish we had more paper.” Vicente held up the drawing.
Akihiko spoke to his wife and she returned with parcel paper smoothed into a neat pile and tied with string. Akihiko began to draw dozens of figures clearly recognizable as Puerto Rican and Japanese men walking off a sugarcane field. He wrote words over the men in Japanese characters.
“Huelga.” Akihiko pointed to the men, then to Vicente and himself.
“Pau hana,” Vicente said.
They bowed.
“Now the hard part,” Vicente said. “How to agree on demands.”
“Draw the luna hitting a cane worker and then cross an X over it,” Valentina said. “I’m sure they beat the Japanese, too.”
Vicente drew a stick-figure luna hitting another stick figure and then he drew an X.
“Huelga,” he said.
“Pau hana,” Akihiko said.
Akihiko drew a little schoolhouse filled with children; some wore pava hats, and others kimonos.
“This might work,” Vicente said.
They hurried to the Puerto Rican camp; the children had run on home to their hut. It was almost time for the 8 p.m. siren. But Vicente and Valentina didn’t want to return to their hovel after their visit with Akihiko and Mikioki; they wanted to stop and enjoy the night. They wanted to walk to the pond and skinny-dip in the moonlight, to look up at the stars, which were as brilliant as on any night in Puerto Rico.
“Can you smell that?”
“What is it?”
“Plumeria.” Valentina stopped at a bush covered with flowers. She plucked a bloom and held it up.
“They’re so many different colors. This one is yellow with a pink center. Isn’t it beautiful?” She tucked it in her hair.
“Beautiful.” Vicente looked at her.
“Do you really think striking together will do any good, Vicente?”
“We have to try,” Vicente said. “Pa’lante.”
“Pa’lante.” Valentina put her arms around his waist.
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