This Is Paradise (21 page)

The farther they were from the house, the more both Pili and Albert relaxed, and the conversation took on more intimate tones. They spoke again of their families, but also of their schooling and college years. Pili described his first boyfriend and those initial exhilarating forays into clubs in the Castro District. Albert talked about the men in his
nursing program who, while straight, learned to be supportive of him. “It was an education for all of us,” he said.

Albert grew more pensive when he described former patients. “I did hospice care for a gentleman in Honolulu who was dying of AIDS. I shouldn’t have been hired for the job. I was just ten months out of school, but I was the only nurse willing to take the position. This was when I realized how important white lies are. Here’s this guy, who’s dying, and he asks me if everyone is afraid of him. I said, ‘No, I fought for this job.’ The pay was great, so he might have believed me. And if he didn’t, at least he didn’t have to face that fear—to know that he was a pariah.”

“But he had to know how the word ‘AIDS’ affects people. It’s no secret.”

“Yeah, but in some ways it doesn’t matter if it’s AIDS or cancer or any other disease. Dying is what makes someone a pariah. For some people, all they have at the end is their nurse. No one else will face death with them.”

Pili wondered if he would have the strength to face death with his father. Maile certainly would. He hoped he would be like her at the end.

When they reached the access road to the winter pasture, Pili unlocked the cattle gate and drove the truck through. He had expected the herd to be in the ravine, hidden from view, but they were up by the road, their usual spot abandoned for reasons known only to them. “Will I scare them?” Albert asked.

“They won’t know either of us. If my dad or Joe or Keo
were here, the cows would come to say hello. Especially to Keo ’cause he brings them mango skins and pineapple scraps.”

“They eat that?”

“Sure, it’s sweet. Keo spoils them.”

“Will they stampede me?”

“You say something like that and I begin to wonder if you’re really from this island.”

“I grew up in Kona. I’m a city slicker.”

Pili laughed. “Just keep away from the high-headed ones.”

“High-headed?”

“The cows that lift their head when we step out of the truck. They’re skittish. They can’t be trusted.”

Pili grabbed a blanket from the back of the cab and a plastic bag filled with pineapple cuttings and apples Maile had collected for them, a sign of her forgiveness. Albert followed Pili in an exaggerated tiptoe. “You can walk normally,” Pili told him.

“Won’t they hear me coming?”

Pili began to laugh again, but Albert was serious. “They’ll hear you,” Pili said. “They’ll smell you. They’ll see you. They know more about you than you know about you, but if you approach slow and cautious, they won’t scatter.”

The cows watched them. The animals lying in the grass turned their heads in the men’s direction, and the ones standing shifted their bodies. Only one kicked back
her chin so Pili could see the thick brown hair of her neck, and then she ran to the back of the herd. The rest were calm, but they kept their eyes focused on Pili and Albert, and when the men moved, the cows’ eyes moved with them. “It’s like
Children of the Corn
,” Albert mumbled.

They reached the first few cows, one of which lowed, and one of which took a step in the direction of the ravine. Albert paused and looked at Pili as if to ask if anything was wrong, but Pili smiled and held out a handful of pineapple scraps. A Charolais stepped toward him and wiped her long tongue along his hand and wrist. “Take some,” Pili said, opening wide the bag of fruit scraps.

Albert took a few pieces and held out his hand with hesitation. A heifer moseyed over to him and licked up a piece of pineapple. “Their tongues scratch!”

The rest of the herd surrounded them then, the animals all wanting a taste of the fruit. Pili could feel the heat of their bodies and the rhythmic expansion of their sides as they breathed. Beside him, one of the animals quivered, her hide rippling like the surface of water in a breeze. Another swatted at a fly with her tail. Everywhere he heard the cows jostling for space, the soft, crunching sound of their hooves in the grass, and beneath him the sweet scent of their droppings rising in waves. Pili held out another bunch of scraps. An entire apple disappeared from Albert’s hand. One cow tried to wedge herself into the center of the crowd, her head like the tip of a piece of pie and her backside sticking out, wide and round.

“Will she come after me?” Albert backed away, pressing his body against Pili’s.

“We’re out of fruit, so they’ll lose interest in a minute.” Pili scratched the ridge of a cow’s back. Her belly was hanging low and her udders were engorged, so he knew she would be birthing within the month. She was early. The rest of the herd wouldn’t begin to birth for at least another forty-five days.

Pili tucked the empty plastic bag in his back jeans pocket. The herd moved away slowly, the nervous ones first and then the others. Pili felt a soft tap on his buttocks, and when he looked, one of the yearlings was trying to get hold of the plastic bag with all the sweet juice on it. She scooted when he spun around, stopping ten feet away to observe him with Albert. Pili laughed, looking from her to Albert, and then Albert laughed, too.

Pili led Albert to the ravine. Behind them, the cows lowed, one to the other, or perhaps called for more sweets. He followed the edge of the ravine as it widened and deepened into a tiny canyon. The sun had passed behind the volcano, and the grass no longer resembled bronze but was a deep red river coursing down the incline of the field.

Amid the tall needle grass, Pili spread the saddle blanket so they’d have a place to sit, the blue one with the turquoise waves. Just the sight of it made him feel weightless, and he smiled again.

“Why are you smiling?” Albert asked.

Pili didn’t know how to answer Albert’s question, how
to explain the blanket’s significance. “It’s one of my dad’s favorites,” he started, then paused. “It’s beautiful.”

Pili wanted to add that it had been his mother’s engagement gift, a sign from Harrison to Mahea that he was ready to interweave his life with hers, but he couldn’t think of a way to introduce the story. After several seconds passed in silence, Albert sat unceremoniously on the blanket and motioned for Pili to join him.

Pili laid back and spread his arms. They hung over the edges, in the high grass, and he could feel its sharp tips poking into his skin. When he rested his hands upon his face, thin scratches wound like bracelets around his wrists and forearms, and spots of blood gathered at the end of each cut.

He turned on his side to face Albert and noticed for the first time the sprinkling of silver in Albert’s hair and the way his nascent beard curved over his cheeks and chin just as the grass curved over the topography of the land. A gust of wind blew through the ravine and Albert’s hair stirred with the grass, and Pili laughed. He reached out a hand and let his fingers nestle in Albert’s beard. Pili kept his hand there, longer than he intended, too long, until it seemed as awkward to draw away as to leave it against the side of Albert’s face. Albert laughed nervously, perhaps feeling the same awkwardness as Pili did, or perhaps at Pili’s unease, and then Albert took Pili’s hand in his and lifted Pili’s fingers to his lips. He wrapped his mouth
around Pili’s thumb, and his tongue was softer than Pili expected. Albert sucked gently. Without ever taking his eyes off him, he moved the thumb to Pili’s forehead and rubbed a spot above Pili’s left eyebrow. “You had some dirt there,” Albert murmured.

The wind swept down Mauna Kea hard and fast now, and at first they were cold. But as the grass beneath the blanket yielded, they sank lower and lower to the ground, until they were shielded by the grasses and could no longer feel the wind. They pressed their faces next to each other, their mouths so close Pili could smell the fish Albert had eaten for lunch and see the delicate lines of red that flared through the whites of Albert’s eyes. They kissed. Then they kissed again, more carefully this time, their tongues softly exploring each other’s mouths.

Pili sat up suddenly—he wanted desperately to speak, to put into words his hesitations and fears, his hopes—but the wind stole his breath from him, and Albert lazily slung his arm around Pili’s shoulders to pull him toward the ground again. Pili hesitated but then lowered himself and pressed his chest to Albert’s and kissed him hard.

Albert’s arms coiled around Pili’s neck, and Pili’s hands searched Albert’s chest and shoulders, as if looking for handholds, for a way to better fit his body to Albert’s. For a long time they pawed at one another like adolescents. The grass sliced into Pili’s back and arms, but it didn’t matter. He struggled against his shirt, the wind, even Albert, and the struggle felt exhilarating. But even as
they writhed on the ground, hands caressing skin, mouths pressed together, Pili felt himself drawing away. Albert began to unbutton Pili’s shirt, and Pili thought of Harrison clothed in those white sheets like a mummy.

He rolled onto his back, away from Albert. They were both breathing heavily—Pili watched Albert’s chest rise and fall—but the wind took away the sound of their breath. “Are you okay?” Albert asked.

“He’ll die soon, won’t he?” Pili felt gripped by despair.

“Yes.” Albert spoke without emotion.

Pili began to button his shirt. “Will he be in pain?”

“No. When the time comes, I’ll administer more morphine. We’ll make him as comfortable as we can. And then, eventually, he’ll just stop breathing.” Albert reached out his arms and drew Pili to him.

Pili pressed his face into Albert’s neck. “I’ve never seen someone die,” he admitted. Albert’s skin was warm and soft and smelled sweet-sour like rice vinegar.

“It wouldn’t matter if you had. It’s different every time, and this is your father.”

Pili wanted to ask Albert for a description of death—what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like—but he knew preparations were useless. If death was as individual as the life it took, then it would look, sound, and smell unique, too.

The sun dipped into the water and, with a final flash, slid from view completely. They stood and wiped the dust from their clothes and hair. Pili folded the blanket, and
together they walked through the pasture toward the car. The cows watched them as they passed, and Albert waved as if the animals were old friends. Pili laughed and took Albert’s hand. He felt light again, lighter than he had for weeks. On the drive home they listened to the radio play old paniolo favorites, the men’s voices crooning softly in Hawaiian and the twang of their steel-string guitars filling the air.

“Joe and Keo bin hea yesterday. Dey stay talk story fo’ long time, and I tol’ dem I like fo’ you help run the ranch.” Harrison lifted the ledgers in his lap as if to hand them to Pili, but when Pili reached for them, Harrison set them upon his legs again.

Pili and Harrison were alone. Albert’s shift didn’t begin for another four hours, and Maile was in Kona to have brunch with a girlfriend. Pili felt proud of himself for having convinced her to go. He also felt giddy still from the evening before, from touching Albert and kissing him and the promise of what might follow. He had felt that same expectant nervousness while they ate dinner with Harrison and Maile, and he worried Maile might have sensed it. But she, too, was excited, happy to eat together as “one real ʻohana” and pleased to be cooked for, even if she did ask why Pili had purchased chicken when they had plenty of beef in the freezer.

“And what did they say?” asked Pili.

“Joe tink it akamai, da plan. He like if you check da money, da way it come and go. Keo, he no say much, but. He jus’ like know you and da sista neva gon split da ranch. You know Keo, he wit’ us folks since small kid time, and his papa, too, and he like see da ranch stay da kine. Same fo’eva.”

“I would never let the ranch be split. Neither would Maile. Did you tell Joe and Keo I’ve got a job in San Francisco, and a life there, too? I won’t be here to watch over things.” Pili tried to sound firm, but part of him was wondering what might happen if he moved back to Waimea. Would Albert come out to his family in order to start a life with Pili?

“Ah, boy. You tink I no know dat?” Harrison looked down at his ledgers, and then up again. “But one day, in da future, you gon tink, ‘Eh, I like fo’ be dere, at home,’ and den you gon come back. Until den, you help da sista. Approve da purchases, try make mo’ sales, help wit’ da marketing—dat what you do awready—and maybe you look into da kine organic beef dem uddeh ranches like do. You gon do evryting I do now.”

“Dad, you do a lot more than that around here.”

“Not so much anymoa.”

“Maile’s not going to like me taking over your role.”

“You tink I care what she like?” he boomed. “Son, dis stay my ranch. I get fo’ decide how it run. I no care what you or yoa sista tink. You go change it all when I ma-ke.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“What? When tell I go ma-ke, or when tell how you suppostu run da ranch.”

“The ma-ke part.”

Harrison snorted. “Mo bettah fo’ me talk ma-ke dan tink you two no care fo’ da ranch how I tell you fo’ care.” Harrison shifted in the bed, and this time he let Pili take the ledgers and place them on the other chair in the room. “Remember when you jus’ one keiki? And da cousins come hea fo’ da summer and you kids run everywhea. Ho, I tell you. I like give da whole lot dirty lickins, always in my way. But I neva trade it fo’ nutting. All you, wit’ auntie and da uncles and Joe and Keo. Dey still young den, too, and wild, dem.”

“Those were good years.”

“I like see dat fo’ you and Maile.”

“One day she’ll remarry, Dad. She’ll find a good man, and they’ll have kids, and I’ll come back in the summer to spoil those rascals.”

“Ho, son, one day you gon have da kids and she gon spoil ’em. You bring yoa wahine hea, and da keiki, too, and teach ’em fo’ ride. No, you let Maile teach ’em. Dat way dey stay on da horse.” Harrison laughed so hard he began to cough.