The Tattoo (13 page)

I think back on it now, all of it, this entire chapter in my life, and I trip on how this part of my life was much like that day in the mountains, how I shot the pig without even thinking, how the ranchers chased us, and how we ran down the mountain, not looking, not caring where we were going as long as we were going down. Koa taking the point, the position of lead blocker, and me following, trying to keep up. I don’t believe that I kept picking that boar up every time I dropped it. I often ask myself why I couldn’t just let it go and leave it, but I can’t really come up with any concrete answers. All I know is that it was almost like I needed to, like if I didn’t, the entire bad experience was a waste, like it was just senseless running into oblivion. Dropping that pig would have been like surfing straight down a wave, not juicing the ocean for a long ride. It would have been like diving in the ocean, not to catch fish, but to swim around aimlessly, dangling on a hook like shark bait. The pig was a load I didn’t want, but felt I needed to carry.

It’s like my imprisonment. I can’t think of it as a senseless end, even though I can’t remember carrying out the specific crime, the one act that brought me here. As if it were just one event. I stopped believing in one events. Sure, the first drag from a pipe, the pulling of a trigger, the whispering of a lie, these at times can be monumental events, but there is always history behind them. They can’t be picked apart standing alone. It’d be like trying to split an atom with a machete.

The other thing I think about when I remember that night with the pig is what happened after. The beating I took. How I escaped the clutches of one threat, and how I ran straight into the arms of another. I figure that’s how life is sometimes. Just when you think you’re out of the shit, when you’re running, looking back, and laughing, you run right into another pile, slip, and fall on your ass. You never even see it coming, but the only thing you can do is pick yourself up and head for the next pile. I felt like staying down once, but never again. Life is gonna have to hold me down and drown me in it.

They had missed
lunch and had Cal’s two cigarettes for a meal instead. Cal was almost finished filling in the symbol when he tapped Ken’s shoulder. Ken stood up and stretched. It was time for dinner.“Okay, let’s take a break.”

Cal put down his gun and plopped down on his mattress. He cracked his knuckles. Ken laughed.“That’s the only sound I’ve heard you make, besides the buzzing of your gun.”

Cal shrugged and scratched his head. He looked at his hand and saw dandruff flakes underneath his fingernails. He smiled. This place is breaking me up piece by piece, he thought.

Cal lifted his arm and stuck his thumb up. He closed his eyes and pictured the Windward side. He had been through there years before. He remembered the dark green of the mountains and the hot sticky air. The coastal waters of Kahaluu had been brown even back then, but Cal thought it was because the mountain streams mixed with the ocean, bringing fertile soil into the sea. He never attributed it to pollution. Evidently things changed, because Cal remembered the Windward side as a beautiful place.

Cal opened his eyes. Ken was staring out the rectangular window of the door. “I hate the fact that they can hear us from that box whenever they want,” Ken said.

Cal was surprised that Ken wanted to limit his audience. Cal knew that Ken took pride in his story, and that it probably irritated him that no one would read over it or make a movie out of it. Sure, if you take all the pidgin out, exchange Ken with some white guy from West Virginia, then there’d be an audience. But Ken was Japanese and brought up in “paradise.” Paradise was never the compelling setting unless it was falling or lost.

Cal knew part of the reason why local guys hated white guys so much was because white guys got all of the attention. He smiled. But then nobody will hear my story, too, he thought.

“Claudia’s coming to visit me the day after tomorrow,” Ken whispered. “She’s bringing the kid.”

This stung Cal. He thought of his children, a daughter about Ken’s age and a son a couple of years younger. He took their mother away from them in one act of jealous rage. Cal shook his head.

“You got kids?” Ken asked.

Cal shook his head again. He was not their father. What kind of father would take away their mother?

“You should see Claude,” Ken said.“Beautiful.”

Cal walked to Ken and tapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I’m ready,” Ken said. Cal looked at Ken’s back and noticed the blood and ink were beginning to dry. There were also a couple of big bruises where Ken’s back had hit the wall that morning. Fuckin’ Tavares. Cal wet a wad of toilet paper and wiped Ken’s back when the door buzzed for dinner. Cal did not want to see Ken interact with Nu‘u or Tavares.

When they got to the cafeteria, Ken and Cal sat alone at a table. Nu‘u was sitting with Johnny and a few of the others. He was harassing Johnny while the others laughed. Ken was quiet. He picked at his food, but did not eat.

Cal wondered why he was so vocal in the cell, but quiet in public. Public, Cal would laugh if he could. Halawa was definitely more private than public. His longing for laughter ended as he saw Tavares’ giant ink-covered forearms underneath the hands which now gripped the table.

Tavares sat next to Ken, ignoring Cal. “You knew Koa Puana?”

Ken nodded. “He was my cousin,” Tavares said.

Hawaiians. Everybody was related to somebody. Cal then knew that Tavares had been in the control box listening to Ken’s story all day, too.

“He was my brother,” Ken said.

Tavares nodded, then stood up. He wiped his hands vigorously against the legs of his blue jumpsuit.

As he walked off, Ken smiled. “Cleanliness is godliness.”

Cal looked at Ken, puzzled. “It’s prison guard syndrome,” Ken said. “I heard about it before. If you were to go toTavares’ house, you would see. A perfectly cut lawn. An impeccably clean house. They’re around prison so much, and feel so dirty that they become obsessed with cleanliness. You know, they try to wash that locker room, animal smell of prison off themselves. I heard some of their wives hear it if the house isn’t kept perfectly clean. In other words, they always hear it. There’s no such thing as a perfectly clean house.”

Cal nodded. “Cops aren’t that different,” Ken said. “Cops feel like college professors trying to teach a class full of ten-year-old retards who look like men. Sooner or later, you’re either going to beat the retards and take their lunch money because you know you can get away with it, or go home and beat your wife out of frustration. I ran into a couple of corrupt, pig mother-fuckers. At the time I probably wanted them to go home and fuck with their wives like most good cops do. But now... Ah. Women, they should know, but they can’t be blamed. Stay away from any man involved with the law. Either side of it.”

Ken dumped his spoon in his tray of mashed potatoes. Cal dug in his tray for the rubber glove and cigarettes. Just then, Nu‘u sat by Ken. “Hey, tough guy,” he said.

Cal wanted to close his eyes again, but just before he did, he saw Nu‘u’s face screw up in pain. He seemed to be trying to get something off his lap under the table. He was acting like there was a tarantula on his lap or something.

Ken smiled and leaned towards Nu‘u’s ear. He grabbed the spoon and held it handle up. “You keep fucking wit’ me,” he whispered, “and you’ll be talking about as much as Cal does.” He showed Nu‘u the handle of the spoon. “It would take me less than one fuckin’ second.”

Cal didn’t doubt at that moment that Ken could bury the blunt handle of a spoon in Nu‘u’s throat. Every ounce of Ken’s face said he could. But instead, Ken let Nu‘u’s balls go. Cal could see that Nu‘u was wondering if he should hit Ken. But he paused. Ken didn’t take his eyes off him.

Tavares walked to the table. “Problems, gentlemen?” he said. Nu‘u stood up and gingerly walked away.

Ken put down the spoon. “He ain’t no Koa.”

Tavares smiled as he walked away. “There was only one of him.”

“How’s Uncle James and Aunty Kanani?”

Without stopping or turning around,Tavares said, “Good, good. I heard.”

Ken picked up his tray and looked at Cal. “It’s like Musashi said. ‘When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the ‘Way of the Void.’ Nu‘u is ignorant of this.”

Cal smiled. This pycho thought he was living in feudal Japan. But then again, jail did seem like a more primitive place. Maybe Ken was approaching it with a healthy attitude.

Before Ken walked away, he said, “I thought I knew all of Koa’s cousins. I guess not.”

Cal knew that that was about all the friendliness Ken could expect from Tavares. Tavares was a guard, Ken was a felon. But at least it probably meant that Tavares would stay off of Ken’s back. Cal hated Tavares. He was the kind of guard who took it in his own hands to make sure prisoners were doing hard time. Even Cal almost got beat when Tavares had found out that the state government was buying computers for the prisoners down the hill in middle security. “What about my fuckin’ kids!” he’d yelled. “Das my money, da taxpayas money buying dat!” He was anti-rehab, pro-punishment. And having Sergeant Miranda as the supervisor was both a good and bad thing. The smaller but tightly built Portagee-Hawaiian did not get emotionally involved with the issues. This job was just a paycheck to him. This meant he never abused prisoners, but it also meant that he didn’t care if guards like Tavares did. But Tavares had a connection with Ken now. He wouldn’t beat his dead cousin’s best friend.

Cal and Ken dumped their food and made it through the strip search without any problems. They went to their cell. As Cal readied the gun, Ken started his story again. His voice carried more enthusiasm. He looked toward the control box. He knew he probably had an audience of two now. Cal cracked his knuckles and started on another moonlight session which would take them to early morning.

chapter three

“Each time Honolulu city lights,

stirs up memories in me.

Each time Honolulu city lights,

will bring me back again.”

Honolulu City Lights

Beamer Brothers

LOOKING AT MUSASHI

H
onolulu.Town. It was the place I took refuge in when I was eighteen years old. The day I left, I took the uphill drive with my suped-up eighty-three Toyota Celica. It was designed with oxidized black paint, bondo patches, and surface rust corroding the bottom of both doors. I drove up the Pali with an old twin mattress and a surfboard, a Town and Country gun strapped to the roof. Boxes of clothes and books were stuffed into the back seat, oozing socks, long flannel sleeves and denim pant legs. My diving equipment, thirty-thirty and twenty-inch television were riding shotgun. I had nine-thousand dollars folded in my pocket. Connected to the rear view mirror dangled my Bronze Star, the one my father had given me. Every time I looked in back of me, I saw it there. It was dark compared to the light which shined through the windshield.

I looked ahead and saw the winding asphalt in front of me. It looked almost like the road was poured down from the top of the mountain, winding down like a cooled stream of lava. As I drove, one hand was on the vibrating wheel, the other was holding a greasy roast pork sandwich. I listened to the whine of my engine in fourth gear. My exhaust system was letting out a loud, sputtering sound as I climbed the mountain range.

My great escape was a half-an-hour drive through the Koolau Mountains. The climb started with a steep, uphill drive on the Pali Highway. I took the hairpin turn. I saw the green mountains on the left, the cliff on the right. Looking over the cliff, I saw all of Kaneohe and its Bay. The suburbia spread under overcast skies. The atmosphere bled shades of gray. Looking down into the Bay, I saw the breaking waves, which looked like suspended white brush strokes on a blue canvas.

These were the cliffs where King Kamehameha the First drove his enemies into free fall. He pushed the
ali‘i
, the chiefs of Oahu, into oblivion. Using guns and cannons brought from the West, conquering, killing. I thought about the blood that must’ve run down the mountains that day. The people, the blood, pouring down the cliffs like waterfalls, emptying into a pool of death below, perhaps running so far, perhaps reaching the Bay itself. But it was all gone. In that place where the pool was, instead sat a golf course. The path of the river of blood was covered with houses and asphalt roads. History dried up, and in its place rose an imported way of life. A new history, a foreign one. I never fooled myself, my ancestry was a part of this new history, too. I looked over the short cement railing and waved goodbye, taking a bite from my roast pork sandwich before I entered the first tunnel through the mountain.

After I passed through the second tunnel and began my gentle descent down the mountains, I was greeted with rain. Heavy showers, which the Koolaus are known for. I turned on my wipers and the blades squeaked against the windshield, the sound of children jumping on a box-spring mattress. The rain was really falling and, although my wipers were at max, visibility was becoming a problem. I scooted my face closer to the windshield, squinted my eyes, and saw the brake lights of a car rapidly approach in front of me. I down-shifted, then pressed down on my brake with a nervous foot. The car hydroplaned for a couple of seconds and my hands, dropping the pork sandwich, worked on the wheel. Finally the tires grabbed the asphalt, jerking my body forward. The gun was fired. I saw the surfboard fly ahead of me, almost hitting the car ahead. It cracked on the road. Regaining control of the car, I sped up and ran over it. I felt the tires leap. Well, I thought, since I’m going to town, a gun’s no good anyway. I needed a longboard to surf the small waves in town. Then I wondered if this was a warning from my mother. Waving away the absurd, child-notion that my mother’s spirit drifted in these mountains, I picked up the sandwich from the floorboard. My eyes remained squinted until I reached the bottom of the gentle downhill ride.

I found myself in Makiki, home of the high-rise condominiums and ugly three-story apartment complexes. My crummy studio apartment was directly north of Ala Moana Shopping Center and Keeaumoku Street. It was close enough to the mountains so that vegetation blossomed, close enough to the Ala Moana district so that the green looked out of place. For almost two years I had bled my nine grand, paying for tuition at Kapiolani Community College, paying six hundred dollars a month in rent for my studio in one of those crummy three-story apartment complexes. When I first got to town, the only two costly things I ended up spending my money on were my paulowina tattoo and this framed Otsuka print of Miyamoto Musashi, the most legendary samurai of feudal Japan.

I found him in some gallery at Ala Moana Shopping Center. There he was, covered with a glass sheet, hanging on the wall, looking like he was about to shatter the glass. The lights were on him. The glass absorbed the fluorescent glow of the bulb which hung above it. This gave the glass a mirror effect, and when I looked at Musashi I saw my reflection. I recognized Musashi immediately, his messy, long black hair, his shaven angular face. I looked into his dark slanty eyes, which somehow coupled both serenity and rage. He had that look, that “I’m going to kick your ass and there’s nothing you can do about it” look. The print had this animated, cartoon quality to it. I had read about him before, read his
A Book of Five Rings
. I liked it even though, at the time, I didn’t understand much of it. He was the ronin, who, by the age of thirty won over sixty duels. Shit, the crazy mother-fucker sometimes fought with sticks while his opponents had swords. He’d still kill them. He was the fucking man. I looked up to him, hanging there in the gallery. I had to have him. I walked up to the lady who was working there that day. She was a Chinese-looking lady dressed in a smart-looking lady’s suit. I asked her how much. She looked at me skeptically and said, “Framed, five hundred and fifty dollars.” I pulled out my wad of cash. “Well,” I said, “take it down, I don’t have all day.”

I loved the print and the tattoo, but together they cost me about seven hundred dollars. Out of fear and guilt, I immediately got a library job at K.C.C., shelving books. Got paid five-something an hour, pulling twenty-hour weeks. I spent hours in that library, hiding in the cubicles, reading novels instead of my assigned textbooks. Slowly what was left of the nine grand bled, and through those two years I attended classes which I hated. But I was determined to make it to the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, determined to do it without any help or returning home.

Sitting in those one hundred level courses is what killed me. No, paying to sit in those one hundred level courses is what killed me. I took courses on subjects I had no interest in, courses which I was forced to take in order to meet requirements. Classes like logic, classes which were a pain to sit through, classes which forced your eyes on the clock above the professor’s head. It seemed every time I eyed the clock, I’d think, I can’t fucking believe I’m paying for this.

Suddenly, I found my life very boring and tedious. Besides, I was sitting side by side with some of the most uninteresting people in the world — college students. I began to long for something real, something threatening, something that made me feel alive again. I longed to make stories, do things that were interesting, new things I could tell the people back home. Every time I got back to my shitty apartment and saw the ronin Musashi look at me, I’d say to him, “Yeah, I’d like to roam the country and look for trouble like you did, make my life legendary, but I gotta do this college thing.” For almost two years I didn’t roam, though, I just did what I thought I was supposed to do. I managed to muddle through two years of school, two years I’ll never get back. I might have made it to U.H. Majoring in what or doing what, I have no idea. But two months before my fourth semester ended, opportunity knocked. At first, I thought of it as a way to continue my education, but some of the things you get yourself into, they’re not only jobs, they’re lifestyles. Sometimes when you open the knocking door, you have to step through it, too. This doorway led to Keeaumoku Street, the main road which led to the heart of Ala Moana Shopping Center, the road peppered with hostess bars, massage parlors, and strip bars. These were places owned by first-generation Koreans and Vietnamese immigrants, bars which were always changing their names.

I was nineteen, having beers one night by myself at Club Mirage. Over those two years I was in school, it had changed names three times. First it was Club Oasis, then Club Fancy Dream. Finally, Mama-san settled on Club Mirage. It sounded French to her, and she thought anything French or Italian was just the shit. She was an amazing old Korean lady, all four-ten of her. She was smart and tough as hell. Every night she crammed her one hundred and fifty some-odd pounds into a gaudy, tight, sequined dress. She didn’t shop with an eye for style, brand names and price tags determined what she wore. Her thinning hair was always permed, displaying an ineffective attempt at thickness. Her face was always painted heavily, false eyelashes and all. She wore a huge two-carat diamond ring on her left hand, while gold and jade bracelets crawled up both forearms. When I first saw her, oddly enough, she kind of reminded me of my father. It was the angry look she always wore, the look like one wrong word would send her into a frenzy. She was a genius at running that bar, though. Despite all of the neighboring competition, a river of cash flowed through Club Mirage for years. It became the most famous strip bar in the state of Hawai‘i. Hell, guys on Kauai, Maui, and the Big Island knew about Club Mirage, and often on weekends we’d get patrons who’d fly over just to see the show.

So there I was one night, having beers and checking out naked women. The black lights were low, and Prince’s
Erotic City
was pulsing in the cheap perfumed air. I was hiding out in one of the booths, nursing a Budweiser. I was watching a Japanese tourist stick his nose in between the naked legs of a tall haole dancer. After every move, she pulled on her garter, signaling her audience to deposit a tip. The tourist folded a bill and added it to the dozens of bills which wrapped around her upper thigh. I smiled as the tourist ran his hand down her leg after depositing the tip. No touching, I thought. I watched for the next two songs, watched the stripper soak the tourist for at least thirty dollars in ones. She made thirty dollars for about seven or eight minutes of work. But work it was. She contorted her body into all sorts of positions, always thrusting her naked crotch a mere inch or two away from the foreign spectator. I wondered if I could ever do it. Then I remembered that I was a guy and laughed at the mental image of me showing some tourist my hairy balls. After thinking about this, I decided it looked like some of the hardest work I ever saw.

As Guns and Roses’
Appetite for Destruction
began, I stepped out of the booth and watched as the stripper gathered her string stars-and-stripes bikini. She walked naked off the stage. A local girl took her place. She took off her panties before Axel Rose even started singing. The tourist sat still with a big wad of bills clenched in his fist.

Just as I was about to walk out, I heard yelling. I looked back and saw a naked Korean girl screaming on stage. She was being stalked by a big Samoan. He wore a white, v-neck t-shirt, which must have been a double-extra large. His arms filled the sleeves. One of these huge arms shot out. He grabbed her ankle, yanking her off the stage. Her body knocked over a row of chairs, and she hit the thin, gaudy red carpet. Her naked body was still. The Samoan turned around, seemingly expecting what was coming next. Two bouncers pounced on him, while a skinny Korean waiter shot a kick up toward the Samoan’s face. The kick hit one of the bouncers instead. On impact both the Korean and the haole bouncer lost their balance and fell to the floor. The last bouncer, an out-of-shape Hawaiian, didn’t stand a chance. He took two giant hits to the face and fell to the floor. At this point both the bouncers and the waiter were scrambling on hands and knees, away from the Samoan. They almost looked like a school of fish darting away from a three-pronged spear. I heard Mama-san scream from behind the bar. “I call police! You go now!”The Samoan smiled and strode toward her.

I don’t know why I did what I did. I must’ve been fucking nuts. This solé was huge. But action, for me, was a magnet. Since King Zoo, I guess it always was. I couldn’t stay out of it. There I was, acting on instinct while my brain was probably screaming, “Get the fuck out of here!” But once that instinct kicks in, all is quiet. Void. I didn’t hear my brain, the music, or Mama-san, who was probably screaming her head off, not showing fear, but showing anger. I ran behind the Samoan and kicked the side of his knee. When his knee buckled, I wrapped my left forearm around the front of his neck and locked on. That’s when my ride began. He lifted me off my feet and began swinging. My legs were swinging violently back and forth while he grabbed for my head. He pulled and scratched, but I didn’t let go. I hid my face in his hair. It smelled like smoke and cheap shampoo. I almost gagged. Once in a while, I’d release the lock for a second and hit him with my right hand. I don’t know how much good it did, every time I hit him, it seemed like his strength intensified. I knew I couldn’t let go, though. If I had let go, this guy would’ve killed me. Finally, I felt him tire. In a last-ditch effort, he grabbed a beer bottle off the bar and blindly swung it down at my head. He missed and the bottle shattered on his head. This killed more of the fight in him and, finally, while the nearing police sirens blared, I was able to drag him out.

The lights were on when I stepped back inside. Suddenly, I saw a collage of stretch marks and shy men. The men began leaving while the dancers put on their clothes. Mama-san was talking to a couple of cops at the bar. One was short, about five-five, and Japanese. The other was much bigger, Portuguese-looking. He put his big arm around Mama-san, looking like he was trying to calm her down. I looked at his big gut and wondered what kind of physical qualifications the Honolulu Police Department had set for its officers. He looked funny there, with his arm around Mama-san. She almost looked like a child next to him. The Japanese cop whispered something in her ear. She pointed at me. I waited, expecting to get busted or something, but instead the cops walked up to me and said, “You one crazy fucka.” They patted me on the back and laughed. When Mama-san approached them, they both went up to her and gave her a polite kiss on the cheek. After spending a moment catching glimpses at the dressing strippers, the cops began walking out. Just as I was about to follow them outside, I heard Mama-san’s voice. “You wait! What yaw name?”