This Is Paradise (8 page)

I clunked around in the kitchen for a while, pouring
myself water and mopping up spilled salad dressing, but the Indian didn’t say anything. Finally, I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “I like think you’re happy.” I leaned on the couch’s armrest, still dressed in my jeans and work shirt, reeking of bird shit and sweat.

“About what?” He had a bag of barbecue chips on the couch next to him, and he crunched on the chips without looking up from his book.

“I just gave my birds to Uncle Lee.”

“Oh?”

“I gave them away. All pau.”

The Indian closed his book. He looked up at me, his eyes clear and black as obsidian. “Done for good?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.” He rested his hand on mine. “You’ve given me the one thing I wanted most. I don’t know what I’d do if you went back.”

“Why go back?” I smiled, but I felt queasy.

“I’m going into town tonight. I have my poker game.”

“Really? I was thinking that was next week.”

I waited until the Indian left for town before driving to Uncle Lee’s. Al was hosting, and Uncle Lee had promised to announce this fight rather than participate in it. Uncle Lee drove us to Al’s along the back way, on a dirt road that wound for almost a mile through a dense forest of eucalyptus and New Caledonia pines before opening into a broad clearing. Al’s house was a well-kept, one-story bungalow with checked blue-and-white curtains in the windows
that spoke of a woman’s presence. I wondered if Al’s wife would be working with him. The smaller fights were usually all men, but the larger ones, like this one, drew out wives and girlfriends and even children. It was rare to see another woman by herself, but when one assisted with the weighing and banding, I was always glad. I felt calmer, and my birds seemed more relaxed as well.

The pit was set up behind the house beneath a large canopy the size of a basketball court. Stadium seating had been built with concrete blocks and wooden boards, and most of the pitters were already gathered near the pit, having their birds weighed and banded by Al and his nephew. I didn’t see Mr. Oh, but I noticed that the pitters banded in front of Al now.

Uncle Lee parked his truck next to the podium, where he’d be making his announcements. The other men took turns keeping an eye on each other’s roosters, or they kept the birds in cages under their seats. I kept my birds in the truck, where my uncle could watch them. I counted some two hundred entries on the matching board, meaning at least fifty pitters had come. The tent was crowded and misty with cigarette smoke, and I couldn’t see much of anything in the blue haze hanging beneath the tent’s eaves and along the top row of risers.

At around midnight Lono fought a runner, and we won easily. I had laid a sizable bet, so I collected nearly three
hundred dollars. An hour later the black I had borrowed from my uncle fought. He took the first ten-second count but got hung on the second ten, and my opponent, Hao, a man I had lost to the year before, had to pull the spur from his bird’s wing. Hao was short with a dark complexion and acne scars running like train tracks across his forehead. When he pulled the spur from his bird, he squeezed my black’s leg and the bird pecked at the air.

“Watch it!” I said.

Hao glared at me. I glanced up at Al, but he shrugged as if he hadn’t noticed, and I didn’t want to make a fuss. My black would win this fight, I felt sure. I heard Al say, “Get ready!” I held my black at the score and put my left hand on my hip. My opponent did the same. “Pit!”

I released my black and he went at the other bird, pecking at its face and neck. The other bird didn’t run, but it didn’t fight back either, just dodged like a boxer. My bird took the second ten count. The last ten count went much the same, but in the twenty-count my black hung himself on his leathers. He wasn’t bleeding, just confused, and he went back on the mat with a vengeance. The other bird looked tired. His wing was bleeding, but he was a tough rooster and didn’t run. Still, the count went to my black and we won the match. Again, I collected.

I carried my black to Uncle Lee’s truck and untied the gaff. I wanted to get him some water and a tablespoon of cornmeal with milk, but I needed to hold him first, calm him, thank him. I tucked him under my arm, humming
slightly, and he went still. This was the praise he had been waiting for. I looked at the mat, where a couple of battlecocks were pecking at each other, and then glanced into the stands. Men with cash in their hands were cheering on their birds. Other men were walking around outside, strolling to the porta-potties and back, or just taking a smoke break. To my left, I could see lights twinkling behind the windows of Al’s bungalow.

“Good fight, girl.” Al was behind me, his lopsided smile long and sweet. His nephew was judging this round.

“Thanks, Uncle.”

“You ready fo’ go up ’gainst Mr. Oh?”

“As ready as I eva be.”

Al reached out and gave me a hug. When he pulled away, he looked at me for a long time, until I became embarrassed and stepped from him toward the truck. “I tell you someting, girl. Mr. Oh, he run an honest fight, but dese days I give anyting fo’ have yoa papa back.” Al kissed me softly on the cheek, as my father had once done. “I miss him. He was one good friend, no matta what.”

I watched Al make his way back to the pit. He paused to shake hands with a couple of men, another he clapped on the back. The way those pitters watched him, I could see they respected him. They trusted him. Men didn’t used to look at Al like that. They had never looked at my father like that.

I thought back to what the Indian had said about my father, and I wondered if I had been told the truth. Had my
dad really been throwing fights? Switching bands? And had my uncle known this all along?

I felt confused, unsure of what I knew and didn’t, of what was right and what wasn’t. I wanted the Indian with me to tell me what to do, what to listen to. I longed to finger his short, wiry hair, to stroke his earlobes, soft as a chick’s down and dotted with the old puncture marks of piercings. I wanted to hear him say “Poi Dog.” I wanted to hear him say “Wanle.” I wanted him to associate me with the dissipation of fear.

I looked around the tent for guidance or a sign, but all I saw was Mr. Oh on the opposite side of the pit holding his bird while his gaffer tied the knife. The other men watched Mr. Oh with awe and respect. I felt his power, and I wanted to take him down, for my father and my uncles. For me. What did it matter if my dad had been throwing fights? I asked myself.

I placed the black in his cage and brought out Keoni. He was restless, wriggling in my arms. I had to cover his eyes with my hands and sing to him before he’d calm down. Zoo wandered over to talk story. “Eh, Uncle,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Can help.” He held his hands out to hold Keoni so I could tie the gaff. As I wound the leathers and checked the knife for its proper placement, Zoo chatted away, giddy with anticipation. Apparently, word had gone out that Mr. Oh and I were up next, and even the men who hadn’t previously known the significance of the fight knew now.
Zoo watched me tie off the leather and grinned broadly.

“Jus’ like da dad, you. Mo betta even.”

“My dad, was he really da best?”

“Ah, babe. He one of dem.”

“You said he wen get help. What you mean?”

“Help is help. No mean yoa dad neva a great pitta, but. Jus’, you know, da dad and Al and all us, we go way back, since we kids togeda. Da dad like win, and Al, he like host. We all like when he stay host. Or we did befoa Mr. Oh.”

Zoo handed back Keoni. He brushed his fingers through the bird’s hackle gently, fondly. “You folks helping me?” I asked.

“No. Yoa uncle said dis one yoa way.” Zoo wrapped his arms around me, and Keoni pecked at the air. “Now go win ’em fo’ Uncle Zoo. Get plenny money on dis fight!”

I watched Zoo shuffle back into the stands, and I understood: My dad hadn’t been the greatest pitter after all, just a very good cheater. The Indian had been right. Uncle Lee and Zoo and Al all knew, were all part of my father’s indiscretions. But Mr. Oh had talked, and my dad had been killed. No matter what he had done in the past, his honor still rested with me.

I looked up into the tent again and found the Indian on every riser. I shook my head and took my place on the edge of the pit. Mr. Oh stood not five feet away in a pair of crisp brown slacks and a blue polo shirt. He looked out of place, a country club man lost in the country. When I glanced in his direction, he gave me a curt nod.

We carried our birds to the mat and held them above the center score. His rooster was already cawing and scratching for the ground. Keoni seemed to have retreated into a deep meditation. When Al said, “Get ready,” we both put our left hands on our hips. “Pit!” We dropped our birds.

Mr. Oh’s black went for mine fast, and Keoni started to run. But at the second score he turned and held his ground with a couple of well-placed pecks to the face. Mr. Oh’s bird responded in kind, and the first count went to them. Al called twenty seconds of rest, and then Mr. Oh and I lined up our birds at the second score. Keoni was more aggressive this time, pecking and using his gaff, and we took the second count. In the third ten, Mr. Oh’s bird got his gaff into Keoni’s breast feathers and was hung. I removed the knife and checked for a puncture wound. Blood had pooled beneath the feathers, but once I wiped down my boy with a damp washcloth, I could see the cut wasn’t deep, just long.

I lined up Keoni at the third score, and at the call of “pit,” Mr. Oh’s bird went at my boy again. Keoni sustained cuts to his left wing and thigh. Mr. Oh’s black took the count.

In the final rest I held Keoni under my arm and hummed. He was upset, in pain, snapping his beak in the air. I had only twenty seconds to calm him, to remind him I was there, waiting for him after he completed the fight. I smoothed his comb and patted his hackle. I cooed to him, then tugged gently at the gaff, testing its tightness,
reminding him where it was. I walked to the center score, and at the call, dropped him on the mat.

For the first eight seconds the birds pecked at each other’s faces. Keoni took a bad one to his right eye. Mr. Oh’s bird had a deep cut beside his beak. Both birds raised their knives but neither could get a good hold on the other, and they mostly stabbed the air. At twelve seconds, Keoni managed to get his gaff into his opponent’s breast, and he was hung. Mr. Oh’s bird lifted its wings and tried to back away, but Keoni was stuck to him, tied by a knife and a will to win. Mr. Oh held his bird while I removed the gaff, and only then did I see how long and deep the gash was. Keoni had lunged the other bird. Mr. Oh righted his black on the mat and we let them go, but his bird was dizzy, blood filling the lung where my boy had stabbed. Keoni went at the other bird’s face, pecking at its eyes and cheeks, and by the time the fight was called, Mr. Oh’s black was on the ground, huffing, his eyes already turning misty and blue. Keoni continued pecking, relentless.

I lifted my boy off the other, who was trembling and shaking. Mr. Oh didn’t even bother to look down. He held out his hand to shake mine. “You are not your father’s daughter,” he said in careful English. He paused before adding, “I will be honored to meet you again.” Finally, he bent down and picked up the body of his bird. Then, on the mat where everyone could see, he gave his bird the screw. Its body went limp, and Mr. Oh walked off with the dead animal in his hands.

All around me I could hear men yelling and laughing and cursing. Some had won big, some had lost big, some just wanted me to leave the mat so the next match could start. As I walked off men clapped me on the back.

Zoo was waiting to hug me and give me a big, wet kiss on the cheek. Uncle Lee called me his baby girl and embraced me. They both told me the amounts of their bets, how much they had won, but I didn’t hear them. I couldn’t even feel the weight of their hands on my shoulders.

For Mr. Oh, what had this fight been? Just one among many? He had lost a bird, maybe a few hundred dollars, nothing more. He hadn’t lost a father. And I hadn’t regained one.

After I washed and taped Keoni’s wounds, I secured his left wing so he wouldn’t flap it. I caged him and secured the others, leaving them in my uncle’s truck. I walked down the long driveway to the highway, and then toward my uncle’s house. I wanted to go home. I was done.

I picked up my car at Uncle Lee’s and drove fast down Haleakalā Highway, taking the curves with urgency. When I arrived home, the lights were off, the windows black. I parked and climbed out of the car, exhausted in every way. The Indian’s truck wasn’t parked in the driveway so I figured he was still in town with his buddies.

I dug in my purse for my keys, and when I found them, I pushed the diamond-shaped one into the keyhole. The key didn’t fit. I tried my other two keys, and neither of them fit either. Confused, I walked around to the back
of the house and tried my keys there, but again none of them opened the door. I looked around, suddenly unsure if in my weariness I had driven to the wrong house, but this was it. I was home. I didn’t understand why my keys weren’t working. I looked up at the windows and then behind me, at the cock yard, and that’s when I saw what he had done.

The Indian had stuffed all my belongings into the roosters’ coops. My clothes poked out between the wooden slats like errant feathers; photographs of my father and my uncle and me were piled in the feeding dishes; incense from my grandmother and a Carhartt jacket from Uncle Lee lay on a teepee; and my ledgers, all of them, where I had tracked my birds’ diet and exercise regimes, their weight and moods, were stacked outside the nearest coop.

I started to put together what must have happened: The Indian had heard in town that a fight was on and he had returned home and seen me gone and known I had lied to him. Or he had known all along. Maybe he had even come to the fight, for a minute, to confirm his suspicions. Maybe I had actually seen him in the stands.

I walked around the yard, some small part of me impressed with his righteous anger. I would have to beg for forgiveness, I realized, and the opportunity to laugh this all away. I had, just an hour ago, truly given up the birds. I was finally done with the fighting, the men, the violence—all the things the Indian detested. If I asked him, he would take me back.