The Ohana (19 page)

Sean held his position. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

“I no lie! I tell you, she no stay!” Fumi wrung her hands.

“Where is she?” Sean grabbed her wrist through the opening in the door.

Fumi tried to pull free from his grip. “I said she no stay.”

“I have to talk to her,” Sean insisted.

“Missy went mainland,” Fumi said. “She stay sick so she go away.”

Sean let go of Fumi’s wrist and shook his head in disbelief. “When is she coming back?”

“Missy no say, but long time, I think,” Fumi said.

Sean blew out a breath. “Thank you, Fumi. I’m sorry I frightened you.” Slowly, he walked back to his car.

Several months later, he received a garbled letter. It was over. He was not to even try to see her again. She was terribly sorry.

And for a while, Sean Duffy felt like his life was over.

George Han rarely came home anymore. He lived with his family, his pregnant sister-in-law Mary, and her firstborn child in a small house in Kaimuki. He slept on the bed in the screened-in porch or on the couch in the living room when it was too cold.

Every time he looked at Mary and her swollen belly he felt ill. He avoided looking at her, even when they spoke to each other. His brother had won again. Sometimes George imagined he could hear them loving each other at night through the thin walls. Just thinking about it drove him to bars and good time girls.

He never found himself alone with her because there were always a lot of people in the house. So when he returned home at noon one day after an all night binge, he was surprised to find her curled up and alone on the couch in the living room. She was pale and trembling.

Alarmed, he crossed the room and asked, “Mary? What's wrong?"

Mary's face was pinched; her breath came ragged and sharp. Her big eyes looked hollow and perspiration beaded her brow.

George knelt beside her and took her hand in his. “Is it time?”

Mary pointed to a pool of water on the floor. “My water bag burst,” she gasped. “Dr. Friedel, Kapiolani Hospital, please hurry.”

“Is no one else here?” he asked. Surely this was not his place.

Mary shook her head, no, and George knew she was now his responsibility. He took her by the elbow and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll get you to the hospital in time.”

The nurses swaddled the new arrival and slipped his name card into place at the foot of the bassinet. “Boy. Han.” George stared first at the words, then at the baby who looked like all the other Oriental babies in the nursery with angry, red skin beneath a shock of black hair sticking straight up from his head. George tried to get rid of the anger, frustration, and jealousy rising up in him.
He should have been mine
, he thought. Then he turned and left the hospital.

The birth of his grandson filled Chaul Roong with optimism. Great things were happening. The war was over and the first grandson to carry the family name was born.

“I teach him to read and write Korean,” Chaul Roong said as he tickled his grandson. “My children speak bad Korean. They no like learn. But this one smart boy. You see, I teach him everything.”

Mary smiled, then asked, “Have you heard from George?”

Chaul Roong frowned. “That one nevah home.”

Three months after the baby was born, George showed up with a wife. While visiting old friends in Hilo, on the Big Island, he met Sarah Miyamoto, a shy Japanese girl without a family. Her mother died when she was two years old, her father when she was thirteen. A resentful aunt and uncle had raised her. She was now twenty-three years old. They married a month after they met. She quit her job and joined him in Honolulu.

“Where are you going to live?” Dok Ja spoke to her son in Korean while eyeing her new daughter-in-law. Dok Ja had never learned to speak English. She only knew a few words, mostly Pidgin English, along with some of the words common to the people of Hawaii, a mix of Chinese-Hawaiian-Japanese and Filipino.

George stuck his thumbs in his belt. “If Mark can stay here without paying rent, so can I.”

Dok Ja sputtered.

Chaul Roong silenced her with a look and turned to his oldest son. “I won't put my grandson in the street. Why can’t you get a job?”

George crossed his arms. “What about your other grandchild?”

“What grandchild?” Dok Ja shook her head.

“The one my wife is having,” George grabbed Sarah’s hand and squeezed it. Sarah smiled. As everyone had been speaking in Korean, George knew Sarah hadn’t understood a word said.

Chaul Roong pursed his lips. “When are you having this baby?”

“Soon,” George looked his father right in the eye.

Mark slapped George on the back and said in English. “We should celebrate. Mary, the kids and I can share one room, Katy, father, and mother can take the master, and you and Sarah in another. No problem.”

Mary took Sarah’s other hand. “It’s only for a little while. When Mark and I get enough money, we’re moving out.”

George pulled Sarah closer to him.

Chaul Roong walked off muttering to himself.

George wasn’t surprised. His entire life, he had been treated like a stepson.

Honolulu: 1946

Sarah and
Omoni
battled constantly. George left the house just to get away from their fighting. It was amazing how two women who didn’t speak each other’s language could still manage to argue.

Mark couldn’t stand the bickering either. He told George it was the reason he no longer wanted to be at home. Mark also hated his job as a taxi driver. He complained about the traffic and the men he worked with. George tried working as a cab driver but the time between customers, or what the drivers called loads, drove him crazy. The taxi drivers had nothing better to do then sit around playing cards, harassing one another.

After George quit driving taxi, he got a job delivering soda bottles to vending machines and grocery stands in Kaimuki, Kapahulu, Moiliili, and Waikiki. At least he didn’t have to put up with grouchy people. But for once the brothers were in the same boat; both at dead-end jobs and they knew it.

George and Mark used to think only of today’s pleasure. A new sense of responsibility combined with Sarah and
Omoni
’
s
constant battles were a reminder the days of living at home with their parents were at an end. It was time to grow up. But both their prospects looked bleak.

Spending time at pool halls became their escape. Mark was a hustler who sometimes made a lot of money. Of course, he had done a lot better during the war because there were always new GI’s in town to scalp. Not many of locals were willing to play against Mark anymore without a heavy handicap.

When Mark strode into his favorite haunts rank with the stale smell of cigarette butts and Primo beer, he was transformed. Everyone knew and respected him.

One night, George’s army buddy from San Francisco, Tommy, entered Joe’s Pool Hall with two friends. Mark was leaning over his cue stick assessing his shot when Tommy rushed over to George.

“Hey, brah! Long time no see.” Tommy slapped him on the back and turned to the two men behind him. “Kawika, Danny, dis the guy who when take on the MPs in Frisco!”

“Howzit, Tommy,” George greeted.

Mark’s ball went into the pocket. He straightened up and chalked the end of his cue stick. “You took on the MPs?”

“Ain’t no big thing.”

Tommy put his arm around George and turned to Mark. “Let me tell you, this guy something else. He went to the USO dance full of
haoles
and demanded they let him in.”

“Then what?” Mark leaned over the pool table, eyeing his shot.

“He when keep going up the stairs and they when keep throwing him down. He never quit until shore patrol when take him away. George no scared of nothing.”

George was now the center of attention. Some of the men in the pool hall came up and shook his hand. It made him feel good. It made him feel like somebody.

A month later, Mark sought his brother’s advice as he drove them to a pool hall. “I’ve got a thousand dollars. I can either put a down payment on a house or I can invest it.”

George lifted his eyebrows. He only had twenty dollars. But then, he wasn’t a hustler. “What do you want to invest in?”

“I got an offer to go to Hong Kong and pick up some merchandise for a business man here in Honolulu. If I throw my thousand in, I’d make at least another thousand or more. We split the profits plus he pays me a courier fee of $500. Or I could just invest in the venture.”

George whistled. That was big money. “What’s the merchandise?”

“Opium and hashish.”

George grabbed his arm. “Are you crazy? Leave that stuff to the Chinese.”

“Why?” Mark shook off his hand.

“You have a wife and a family.”

“Don’t lecture me, George,” Mark eyes glittered as he glanced sidelong at his brother. “I know what I got. I know what you got. I know what mother and father got. I don’t want just a taste of the pie. I want a nice house, a snazzy car, and early retirement. You think I’m going do that driving a soda truck or a taxi?”

“You could end up in prison!” George flicked the ashes off the cigarette he was smoking out the window and let his arm dangle outside.

“So you tell me where I can make $1500 or more in five days.”

“Sounds like you made up your mind,” George said.

“Join me. Instead of chicken feed, we can make real money.”

“I don’t want to get involved in that stuff,” George puffed on the cigarette and blew it out the window.

Mark shrugged. “Up to you, George. Let me know when you change your mind.”

The salty taste of sweat ran into George’s mouth, irritating his dry throat. His hands shook and he tried to steady them by gripping the handles of his suitcases. He didn’t enjoy his first trip to Hong Kong. All he could think about was getting caught.

He should never have listened to Mark. The only reason he did was because his brother made the trip five times without any problems and had enough money to put down on his own home. George wanted his own house more than anything. He had to break Sarah and his mother apart before they drove him crazy.

Mark gave George detailed directions on how to get to the room above the fish market where old man Chang sold the stuff. It should have been easy. But George was jittery the entire time. He felt a thousand eyes on him constantly. He didn’t even enjoy the expensive Eurasian whore he bought for the night. He was insane to have made this trip.

“Anything to declare?” the customs agent asked.

George placed his suitcase on the table in front of the agent and handed him his declaration form. “A watch and a camera,” he said, his eyes searching the room.

“How much?” the agent glanced at the form.

“What?” George turned back to the agent.

“How much did you spend?” the agent put down the pencil he was holding and looked at him-really looked at him.

“Fifty dollars, no, a hundred.” George shifted his feet from side to side.

“You got receipts?”

“What?” George’s hand shook.

“Receipts brudda, receipts,” the custom agent tapped his fingers on George’s suitcase. “Maybe I betta see your bags.”

The agent opened the bags and sifted through his clothes. George mopped his sweat with a handkerchief. His heart beat faster.

The agent picked up a shirt, “Pretty flashy…”

“Hey, Walta, what’s happening brah?” Mark’s voice came from behind the agent.

The agent turned and saw Mark standing behind the rope.

“Remember me, Walta? I went to school with your kid brother, Lefty,” Mark gestured to George, “this my older brudda, George. Maybe you knew him at Honokaa?”

“My name not Walta.”

 “No act!” Mark hit his chest with one hand. “You look just like Walta from Honokaa! You from Honokaa?”

“No.” The agent closed the suitcase. “I look like this guy Walta?”

Mark put up one hand. “Swear to God. Exactly.”

The agent scratched his head. “Maybe I go ask my motha whether or not we got relatives in Honokaa.” The agent shoved the suitcase back to George. “Okay, go.”

 “Nice meeting you anyway,” Mark waved.

The agent waved and turned to the next passenger.

When they were out of earshot, Mark turned to him. “You almost blew it.”

George walked on in silence.