The Tattoo (23 page)

When I first saw the house, I figured Claude would change her mind about the beauty of this area. It was more like a shack than a house. Half of the house was built with unpainted wooden planks, the other half was a skeleton. The unfinished half looked like it should have been three more rooms, instead it was a series of wooden beams, roofed with shingles, but without walls. The hollow space was occupied by a picnic table. The house was surrounded by a field of wild California grass. The long, thick stalks of grass stood at least three to four feet high. It was as if the house would be buried by the invading grass within a month.

At least the driveway was clear. A path of gravel led to the house. But even on the driveway I could see the grass struggling to grow from beneath the rocks. There were patches of grass between the tire marks. I looked over to Claude. She looked back at me. “When did they start building?” she asked.

“Like five years ago.”

Just then two children came running out of the California grass. They appeared on the driveway about ten feet in front of me. I stopped the truck. The older one, the boy, fearlessly looked through the windshield. He looked like a Puana, only he wore Kahala’s thinness. He was shirtless and his shorts drooped down his skinny waist so that the waistband of his briefs was visible. The younger child was a girl, shorter and fatter than her brother. She also looked into the windshield, but her look was more inquisitive. She was wearing stained, lavender corduroy pants and a red, long-sleeved cotton shirt. Both were barefoot. After standing still for a few seconds, they ran toward the house. Their feet scurried across the sharp gravel and they left a dust trail. I looked over at Claude. Without looking at me, she said, “More than anything else right now, I want to take a washcloth to those kids.”

I smiled. She seemed to be getting it.

I parked behind the Puanas’ blue Ford truck. There were three bumper stickers on it. One read,
Hope Chapel
in blue letters. The second one,
Keep Da Country Country
.And the last one, in rainbow letters,
There’s No Hope in Dope
. Claude and I stepped out of the Pathfinder and we were greeted by the smiling face of Kahala Puana.

She had exaggerated on the phone. She did not look bad at all. In fact, in a way she looked better. Her body was still the same, thin, waifish. But her face looked more mature. It held sharper features. I looked at those green eyes which she was famous for in high school and they seemed less playful and more interesting. She ran up to me and kissed me on the cheek. Then she did the same to Claudia. At that moment they looked almost like sisters. They were both thin and about the same height. They were both tanned. And both had that hapa look. Though Kahala’s hair was brown and Claude’s black, and Kahala’s eyes were green, while Claude’s were brown, I don’t know what it was, but to me, for an instant, they looked like two swordtails, like two sisters. Evidently, country living hadn’t beaten all of the Ahuimanu upper-middle class out of Kahala yet. After Kahala kissed Claude, I noticed that she still hung on to Claude’s hand. Kahala looked at me. “It’s been so long,” she said.

I smiled. “Yeah, about five years.”

Kahala looked at Claude. “So how long are you guys staying down this side?”

Claudia looked over to me. “Oh, I don’t know. Until we get enough money to move to the mainland.”

Kahala laughed and let go of Claude’s hand. “Wow, Ken, planning to step up in the world? First town, now the mainland.” She looked back at Claude. “In high school, you should have seen, he was so smart.”

Claude looked at me. “Yeah, he’s a regular smart-ass.”

We all laughed. “Where’s the Hawaiian?” I asked.

Kahala sighed. “Still sleeping. He didn’t come home till about four in the morning last night.”

Just then the house door opened. “Hey, neva mind talking shit about me behind my back.” It was Koa. He threw me a cold beer and waved us into the house.

“It’s fuckin’ eleven in the morning,” I said. “You must be outta your mind if you think I going drink dis beer now.”

He laughed. “Why, you one fuckin’ townie now? Rememba you stay country. On dis side get no such ting as too early.” I cracked open the beer and followed him into the house.

The four of us ended up sitting on the picnic table on the skeleton side of the house. I sipped my beer and looked at Koa. He had changed. His hair was longer, especially in the back, where a rubberband held a big bush of it together. He had a goatee, which made him look even meaner. But the biggest change was in his body. He was even larger, maybe even larger than his father. He must’ve passed the three-hundred- pound mark. I looked down at his forearm, which rested on the table, and I saw that he had a new tattoo. His entire right forearm was covered with a black, triangular pattern. It was a Hawaiian tattoo pattern. I looked at his enormous hand and saw it wrapped around his beer can. I looked at his SYN tattoo and noticed it was faded, but not sour-green like mine. He didn’t look like the same guy who graduated with me. It was like those flower leis which covered his neck on graduation day died and wrapped around even tighter.

“So what, you fat shit,” I asked, “how much you weigh now?”

“Shit, look at you,” he said, “all pumped up from da weights. Hah, pretty boy. You see dis here.” He rubbed his stomach. “You see, real men have bellies.”

Kahala playfully slapped his stomach. “Yeah, you should see, Ken. The last time I was pregnant, he was still more fat than me.”

I felt Claude’s silence. When I looked over to her, I noticed she was pre-occupied with something by her legs. I looked closer and saw a swarm of mosquitoes circling her calves. “Hey Koa,” I asked, “you no more mosquito punk?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kahala said, “let me get one.”

Koa smiled. He looked at Claude. “You know why da mosquitoes biting you? Fresh blood, das why. Like you get haole blood. Shit, Ken was gone fo’ so long, da mosquitoes probably biting him, too.”

Just as he said it, I became conscious of mosquitoes buzzing around my legs, too. I took down a gulp of beer and tried my best to ignore it.

Koa laughed again. “No try fool me, you Japanee fucka.” He looked at Claude. “You should’ve seen, young kid time when I used to take him surfing. Dis guy was always pretending he not scared of sharks. And he taut he was fooling me. But I used to catch him looking ova his shoulda. Shit, I neva even like surfing dat much, but was worth taking him out jus’ fo’ watch dat fucka pretend.”

I looked at Claude to see if she caught the story. But she was still pre-occupied with the mosquitoes. They must’ve really been going after her. I grabbed her hand and held it. Just then Kahala walked out with a lit mosquito punk. I saw the tip of the green coil glowing orange. Kahala bent down by Claude’s feet. She put down the punk. “The mosquitoes used to really go after me at first, too,” Kahala said.

“Thank you,” Claudia said.

We talked all afternoon. Koa called out his kids and introduced them. The oldest, the boy, was named James, after Koa’s father. The second oldest, the chubby girl, was named Ariel. Both politely greeted us and ran off. Kahala told us their youngest, a baby boy named Kealii, was staying with Koa’s parents for a while. Throughout the conversation, I pitied, but was also amused by Claude. She sat there, trying not to scratch her mosquito bites while trying to pay attention to the conversation at the same time. After the mosquitoes were chased away by the mosquito punk, the smoke began irritating Claude’s sinuses. Every so often she’d sneeze and pull a tissue out of her purse.

Finally, when the sky’s lightness began to dull, and I was drunk off my ass, Koa asked the inevitable question. “So why da fuck you moved back here anyway?”

I looked over at Claude. She was silent. I was wondering if she wanted to hear me tell the story, wondering if she wanted to hear the details of the night I killed at the pig farm. And for the first time, I wanted to tell it. I was drunk and began feeling proud of what I did. But something kept me from telling it. Instead I told them, “We were kicked out.”

Koa sighed, not satisfied with the answer. “What about you,” I asked. “What happened to you? How come you got fired from work?”

“Cause I neva show.” He paused, then said, “Come, I like show you something.”

I got up, kissed Claude on the cheek, and followed him into the California grass. I felt Kahala’s eyes on me. After we got about twenty yards around the house, I saw a clear patch. In this bare patch was a cement block with an iron handle attached to it. The top of the block was level with the ground and only an iron handle protruded from the surface. Koa reached down and pulled the handle. He pulled up the cement block. The smell quickly followed. “You see dis,” he said. “Me and your fadda dug dis cesspool while you was in town. Took us ages. But every Saturday, we would wake up early and dig dis fucka. Sometimes my dad, my uncle guys would come down and help. But you know dose fuckas, dey drink every weekend, so most of da time dey was too hung over to come down and help, and when dey did dey was so sick and lazy dat dey neva do shit anyway.”

Koa put the cement plug back in the ground. “Look at my fuckin’ house,” he said. “It’s one fuckin’ joke. Funny too, cause when my dad gave me da land, I taut only easy build one house.” He squatted down and took the last sip of his beer. He crushed the can and threw it. It disappeared in the tall grass. “What, you going work wit’ your fadda?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Fuck I need da money, I need da benefits. Claude stay pregnant.”

Koa smiled and spit on the ground. “Shit, working wit’ your fadda is buss ass you know. You seen him? Last yea, he had fo’ get surgery on his knee. Das why he limp. Fuck, you should see dose old guys at Hayashi’s. Fuckas drop like flies. Bad knees, bad backs. But man, you hurt yourself, you get fuckin’ paid. Your fadda got fifteen grand for his knee, and he neva even lawya up. I told him, ‘Uncle, get one fuckin’ lawya, sue da fuckin’ company fo’ big bucks.’ Da fucka went jus’ look at me funny and said, ‘Shit, I not li’dat. I not goin’ make like one haole.’ He said dat, and I taut about it real hard. I taut,‘Fuckin’ haoles, dey get ‘um. Fuckas no give a shit. Dey smarta den us.’ You should see, none of da old timas dat get hurt sue da company. Dey jus’ take whateva settlement dey get.”

He stopped. I thought about the possibilities. For a moment I found myself wishing I would blow my knee when I started working with my father in construction.

“Hey,” Koa said, “go grab couple more beers and come back.”

I walked back to the picnic table and Kahala and Claude were gone. I found a note on the table. In Claude’s handwriting it read, “Kahala and I took the kids and went out for dinner. Be back in a few hours. Love, Claudia.” I walked over to the cooler and took out a couple of beers.

Koa and I cracked open the beers. We moved back to the picnic table. Koa lit a lantern and put it on the table. He went to his truck and turned on the radio. The dial was on one-o-five-point-one, the Hawaiian station. Makaha Sons of Ni‘ihau’s
Take Me Back to the Country
was playing. Koa sat back down. “You know, your fadda probably told you, I was good for a while. I would work my forty-hour weeks wit’ one smile. I would work on da house on weekends. Man, I taut, I married now, I cannot fuck around. Dis was when Kahala was pregnant wit’ James. I figured, I one family man now, I betta provide fo’ da family. Man, I used to buss my ass! Shit, da boys at work used to tease me, call me pussy-whipped and shit. But I would jus’ smile, and tell dem, ‘I get betta tings for do den get drunk.’ But half da time I wanted fo’ stay. Shit, I was eighteen years old, I wanted fo’ party, too.”

He stopped to go take a leak. I thought about what he was saying and felt sorry for him. Then I realized that the job he was describing was going to be mine. I felt the loss of a college education. For the first time, I regretted dropping out of school. I felt lost.

Koa came walking back and sat down. I looked into the light of the lantern and saw termites flying toward the light. They were bouncing off the glass. Then I heard Koa’s voice. “So, what happened wit’ you in town?”

I told him the story. I told him about the crazy money I had been making there. I told him how I had met Claude and how I was eventually banished from Mama-san’s world. I told him about Mr. Yellow Teeth and the other two nameless Koreans I had killed and left for the pigs. Koa listened to the story like a child would a bed-time fairy tale, eyes wide open.

When I finished the story, he gulped down the rest of his beer and reached in the cooler for another one. He cracked it open. “So actually Claudia fucked it all up for you.”

This surprised me. “No, no,” I said, “fuck dat. Da pregnancy thing, that was both our fuck up. But what happened next, dat was all Claude’s madda’s bad. I tell you Koa, I wanted fo’ kill dat bitch so bad. I had da fuckin’ gun pointed right at her face. I neva give a shit about da cops. I would’ve killed dem too. If wasn’t for Claude, I’d be in fuckin’ jail right now. Besides, we going have one kid. Maybe das one fuck up, or maybe not. Why, you regret having your kids?”

Koa took a sip from his beer. “Shit, you sound like me when I found out Kahala was hapai. One side of me was worried, I taut I fucked up, but da odda side said, ‘Right on, I going have one kid.’ But I telling you, it’s not all dat it’s cracked up to be.”

I didn’t really want to hear it. I mean, I knew he loved Kahala, but in my mind, they couldn’t match me and Claude. Koa and Kahala were high school sweethearts, Claude and I were soul mates. I shrugged.

Koa smiled.“I know what you tinking,” he said.“You tinking you all in love, and das enough. But I telling you, sometimes not enough. Your fadda told you I was going church? You know why I was going church? Because I was beating up Kahala. When Kahala told my madda and fadda about it, all three of dem walked up to me one night and said, ‘You betta go church.’ So I went church twice a week.”

He paused to take a gulp of his beer. “Fuck,” he said, “I was into it too. I fuckin’ believed. I stopped hurting Kahala, I worked on da house even harder on da weekends. I figured, hard work and all, it going make me one good person and den I going heaven.” He laughed. “I was one fuckin’ mess.”