Mahu Box Set

by Neil S. Plakcy

  Of course, the irony was that I would be lying as I pretended to be unable to lie.

  But what else could I do? Six years of work with the Honolulu PD had shown me that being a cop touched something deep inside me. It was a privilege and a responsibility, and I could not turn my back on either of those things. If I had to make a few personal sacrifices for the public good, tell a couple of small lies to my family and friends in order to catch a killer, that was nothing compared to the men and women who had given their lives in the line of duty. To pretend otherwise would demean them, and the badge I believed in.

  It was time for me to make a decision, and there would be no going back on it. While my father waited for my answer, I felt that my senses were magnified. I smelled the chickens roasting in the back kitchen, and the pineapple an elderly couple were sharing next to us. The sun streaming in the front windows was almost too strong, hurting my eyes. When the door opened, I heard a siren outside, police, fire or ambulance rushing to provide help to someone who needed it.

  “Sampson said we’d talk about that,” I said. “But I have a feeling I won’t be reporting to work at the headquarters downtown any time soon. And if that happens, I think I might just go surfing for a while.”

    

  I met with Sampson again the next morning, ready to make a deal. “Who will I report to up on the North Shore?”

  “No one up there will know you’re working on this case. I’ll give you my personal email address and my cell phone number, and that’s the only way I want you to contact me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Any particular reason?”

  “I have no idea who’s behind these murders,” he said. “But I have to be suspicious when two good detectives in District 2 can’t come up with any information. I’m not saying that I think there’s a cop, or cops, involved in this, but something doesn’t smell right.”

  The thought that someone on the North Shore could be sabotaging the investigation made me uncomfortable, but it was just one more problem heaped on my plate, a plate that had gotten fuller and fuller since the day my closet door opened.

  We mapped out a strategy. I would tell my family and friends that I had decided not to accept the department’s offer, in order to sit back and think about all that had happened to me in the last few weeks, not just my coming out but the man I had killed in the course of solving my last case. I was going to take my severance check and head for the North Shore, to surf while I thought about my next move.

  Sampson would issue a press release to local media indicating that while my name had been cleared, I had chosen not to return to the force, and he would field all inquiries regarding me. He would work out the details to ensure that my salary would continue to be deposited into my bank account, and that my benefits, including health and life insurance, would continue.

  One of my brother Lui’s reporters, a Korean guy named Ralph Kim, had followed my story from the beginning. After I left headquarters, I called Ralph to break the news of my resignation from the police force.

  I had to leave a message on Ralph’s voice mail, but he called me back as I was walking into my apartment, excitement and feigned outrage in his voice. “I knew this was going to happen,” he said. “That department is never going to accept a gay cop.”

  “It’s not about the department. It’s about me. That’s why I want to talk to you.”

  “Have you hired an attorney? You know that series we ran last week, about gay cops around the country? There’s some big money in discrimination settlements.”

  I stretched out on my sofa, the phone at my ear. “I need some time off, Ralph. That’s the story. It’s not about discrimination or how the HPD treats its cops. If you want to talk to me, those are the ground rules.”

  “I want to talk to you, but that’s not much of a story.”

  “Sure it is, if you pitch it right,” I said, sitting up. I found myself waving my free arm around, even though I knew Ralph couldn’t see it. “What effect does coming out have on somebody’s life—career being one part of that? You could talk to that guy at the power company, and that top salesman at the big car dealership near the airport. Some other high-profile gay men and lesbians. You might even get another series out of it.” I paused, giving Ralph a chance to think. “This could be a big career move for you, Ralph. But the story’s got to be about me, and my decisions, not a smear campaign against the HPD.”

  “It’s still a so-so story, but I’ll pitch it to my news director and see what he says. In the meantime, let’s schedule something.”

  I didn’t want to do the interview at KVOL, because I didn’t want Lui to know about it until it was over. I knew he’d waste a lot of time trying to talk me out of it, or putting obstacles in my way, out of a misplaced sense of family loyalty. Once he got over that, I was sure his newsman’s instincts would take over, and he’d run the story. So Ralph and I met just after lunch at Kuhio Beach Park, with the squat, single-story Waikiki station right behind us. I wore a pair of khakis, a dark green polo shirt, and brown leather sandals, trying to look relaxed and confident.

  Ralph knew something was up, but couldn’t figure out what. “You’re just walking away?” he asked me. “After all your years on the force?”

  “I need some time to think about my future.” We strolled along the beach together, the cameraman walking backwards in front of us. “My life has been in turmoil for the last couple of weeks, and I need to process everything that has happened to me. Remember, I solved a high-profile murder case, acknowledged my sexual orientation to the world, and killed a man with his own gun. That’s a lot for anybody to handle.”

  Ralph found a dozen ways to ask the same question, but every time I gave him a variation of the same answer. Finally he shifted tactics. “What about that murder case? Will you be testifying?”

  “That’s up to the Prosecuting Attorney,” I said. “I’ll make myself available whenever the department needs me.”

  “And yet you don’t want to be a cop anymore?”

  “I don’t know what I want, Ralph,” I said, and something about the honesty of that remark made him finally believe me.

  “So what’s next?” he asked. “There are forces on the mainland where you could work, aren’t there?”

  “There are. But I haven’t looked that far ahead. Right now I just want to step out of the limelight and think about what’s right for me.”

  “Going to hit the waves?”

  “You bet. I’ve got a long board and a short board, and they’re both calling my name.”

  “I’ll let you answer that call, then,” he said. The cameraman moved around to get a beauty shot of the waves. Ralph said good-bye, wished me luck, and told me to keep in touch. “You have a lot of fans here in town, Kimo, and I’m sure they’ll all be looking forward to your next move.”

  I felt funny walking back to my apartment after the interview was over. A little depressed, maybe. A part of me liked the spotlight, even though most of me didn’t, and so I was torn between being happy that I could slip into anonymity and knowing that my visibility might be helping others.

  And of course, the fact that I had lied through my teeth during most of the interview didn’t help.

  Northern Exposure

  My cell phone rang late that afternoon, as I was packing my truck with everything I would need on the North Shore. “You trying to get me killed?” Lui asked, without preamble. “Because you know that’s what Mom is going to do if I run this story.”

  Our mother still had not let Lui forget that he had broken the news of my sexuality, and my suspension from the force, without calling either me or our parents before the story ran.

  “I’ll take care of Mom and Dad. I’m going there for dinner. Before the story runs, I’ll tell them.”

  “But why, Kimo?” he asked. “If you’re going to leave the force, fine. But why make more of a story of it? I’ll square it with Ralph, we’ll forget you had the interview, and you can go up to the No
rth Shore and surf. Nobody will even notice you’re gone.”

  “That’s the point. I want people to know I’m leaving the force, and I love the way Ralph is making the story more than just about me. I know a lot of people have been following what’s happened to me, and I want them to know how it all has come out. You have to run that story, Lui. You owe me.”

  “You’re crazy, brah, but it’s your own special kind of crazy. It’s a great story and a good interview, so I’ll run it, but you make sure and tell Mom that I didn’t want to.”

  “I will.”

    

  I decided to spend the night at my parents’ house before leaving for the North Shore, and pulled up at the house where I grew up late that afternoon. St. Louis Heights is a nearly vertical suburb of Honolulu that backs up against Wa’ahila Ridge State Park. The houses are older bungalows or split-levels stacked at a forty-five degree angle down the streets.

  “Your father said he had lunch with you yesterday,” my mother said, as I kissed her check. “I wondered when you were going to come and see me.”

  My mother has always stood in sharp contrast to my father. Where he is casual, letting his hair get sloppy before he cuts it, or allowing half a shirt tail to escape his pants, my mother is the picture of perfection. Her black hair is cut and styled and sprayed into submission, her skin smooth and wrinkle-free even in her sixties. As a teenager, she was the Pineapple Festival Queen, glittering in a rhinestone tiara and satin sash, and she has retained that aura of poise and grace. She only comes up to my father’s shoulder, but she exerts a subtle force that easily allows you to forget her height.

  My parents and I sat in their elegant living room, in elaborate armchairs imported from France. It was an odd room to find in a Hawaiian house, one dropped in from the pages of Architectural Digest, circa 1975. As kids, we never set foot in there, for fear we’d break something. My mother folded her hands in her lap and gave me the look that had terrified all of us, my father included, for years.

  “You know I had a decision to make about work,” I began. I realized my mouth was very dry, but it was too late to ask for a glass of water. “And it was a really difficult one to make, but I thought a lot about the way you brought me up, the things you taught me mattered, and I’ve decided that I’m not going back to being a cop. At least not right now.”

  “I don’t like to see you quit a job. We didn’t bring you up that way.”

  “I know.” I squirmed in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position, finally giving up. And there was no way she was letting me stretch my legs out and rest them on the glass and gilt coffee table. “But you didn’t bring me up to lie, either.”

  “What exactly do they want you to lie about?” she asked. “Being gay?”

  “That cat is out of the bag. It’s something else. I don’t want to go into it.”

  “But…”

  “Let the boy be, Lokelani,” my father said. “If this is what you need to do, then we support you. Being a cop is a bad job for a gay man, anyway. You go surf for a while, then you come back, maybe you’ll work with me. You could go back to school, learn about decorating.”

  That thought horrified me. I missed that gay decorating gene; my apartment looks like the “before” picture from some reality TV show. It was killing me to have my parents think I was a quitter, that I couldn’t do my job any more just because I’d come out of the closet.

  My mother clearly wasn’t happy. Short, petite, and pretty in a china doll way, she has ruled her big, tall husband and three sons with a raised eyebrow, a tone of voice, a deep sigh. It’s rare that she comes out and takes a stand so definitely, but there was nothing I could do at that point. Once I’d made my decision, chosen my wave, so to speak, all I could do was ride it until it crashed to shore, doing my best to manage the fear and exhilaration, and avoid getting crushed on the coral that always lurked just below the water’s surface.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  My mother looked wary. I could only imagine what was going through her head, after all that had happened. “What?”

  “There’s going to be a story, on KVOL, on the evening news.”

  “No, Kimo. No more stories!” She reached for the phone. “I’m calling your brother right now.”

  “You can’t, Mom.” The words rushed out, in my haste to keep her from spoiling those carefully-laid plans. “It’s not about me, so much. It’s about the decisions gay people have to make when they come out, about who to tell, and how to tell, and what you have to do once the secret’s out.”

  I leaned forward. “The reporter interviewed other people, too. I mean, I’m the hook, the reason for the story. But they’re making it into another series, like the one on gay cops around the country. This is about gay and lesbian people in Honolulu, and how they live their lives every day.”

  My mother looked at my father. Some kind of unspoken message passed between them, and finally my father said, “The news is on soon. We don’t want to miss it.”

  We moved out to my father’s den to watch the news—there was no way my mother was letting a television set into her recreation of Versailles. My parents were both tight-lipped during the interview.

  After the interview with me, Ralph gave the audience a preview of what was to come in this new series: gay men who had lost their jobs after coming out, lesbian moms who had lost custody battles, gay ministers who had been forced to leave their churches. There were other, more positive stories coming too, about people who had found faith, given up addictions, chosen new careers and established new families. It was going to be a good series, I thought, one that might change minds and move hearts. And it was going to do all that because I had told a lie.

  The segment ended with a shot of Ralph framed against the surfers at Kuhio Beach Park. “This is Ralph Kim, in Waikiki with former Honolulu PD detective Kimo Kanapa’aka, who has just announced his decision not to return to the force after his very public coming out story. Stay tuned to KVOL, “Erupting News All the Time,” for more stories about ordinary men and women and their experiences coming out of the closet.”

  When the news was over, my mother stood up, said, “Dinner now,” and we went into the equally formal dining room and ate, talking carefully about my brothers and their wives and children. I could tell the story had moved them, though we didn’t talk about it. That didn’t change the fact that I had lied, and I would have to live with the consequences of that lie, particularly when it came to light, but it did make me feel better.

  We watched TV together after dinner, and then I went up to my room, just the way I had as a teenager. It was frozen as it was when I was seventeen, leaving Hawai’i for college on the mainland. The walls were lined with surf posters, the shelves crowded with every trophy I ever won in a surf competition. I sat on my twin bed and tried to remember that boy, or the young man he became, who returned to the islands with the idea that he could be a champion surfer. I remembered the day my parents picked me up at the airport, how I told them I was moving to the North Shore to surf even before we had left the parking garage.

  In many ways I’m lucky to be the youngest. By then, my oldest brother, Lui, was married, a father, and moving up in the hierarchy at KVOL. Haoa, two years younger, had just gotten married and started his own landscaping business. Their success bought me freedom, and my parents agreed to let me take a year to surf. My father hired me on as a laborer and carpenter until the fall, letting me bank every penny I earned to fund my North Shore adventure, and I surfed every morning before work, rising in the pre-dawn darkness, and every evening. I left them in September, as the North Shore waves began to improve, and didn’t return until winter had passed and I had given up that dream.

  I tried to read but I couldn’t concentrate. I checked my gear again, waxed my short board, reorganized the books on my shelf, which I hadn’t read since high school and wasn’t likely to ever again. At eleven, I turned the lights out.

  I couldn’t sleep well, hyp
ed up by the nervous energy of what the next day was to bring, but I did doze a little. I was grateful when light began seeping in my window and I heard the slap of the morning paper in the driveway. I pulled on a pair of board shorts, slippas and an old t-shirt that read, “Hug a Pineapple.” Before I opened the door, I looked outside for reporters lurking in the underbrush. Fortunately there were none.

  There was a breeze blowing up from Diamond Head, and I could smell just the faintest hint of saltwater. Down the street, I heard the soft whoosh of someone’s sprinklers, a dog barking, a siren passing far below. A yellow and orange sun was just coming into view over Wilhelmina Rise, to the east, and there were thin wisps of cirrus clouds high in the atmosphere. I picked up the paper and went back inside.

  Opening it, I saw that I had reclaimed the headlines I’d been so glad to relinquish only a few days before.

  “Gay Cop Resigns,” they read. Someone, identified only as an “unnamed police source,” said that while gay men and lesbians had been successfully integrated into police forces around the country, there was no formal policy at the HPD prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and that some officers might not feel comfortable serving with someone who was openly gay. Sampson himself was quoted as saying, “Mr. Kanapa’aka has gone through a very difficult time in his life, and the Honolulu Police Department wishes him only the best in whatever the world brings his way.”

  My father was up at first light, too, and while my mother slept in we read the paper and he made scrambled eggs and Spam for both of us. We Hawaiians take pride in the fact that we eat more Spam per person than any other group in the United States, something like five and a half cans per person per year. Hormel has even made a special limited edition hula girl can for us, available only in the islands.