Kilometer 99 (24 page)

I don't remember the substance of the conversation so much as the soda and the cigarettes. But toward the end, she scooted her chair a bit closer to mine and put a hand on my knee.

“Listen to me, Malia. This is important.” Once she stopped smiling, thick lines showed at the sides of her face. “You'll hear bad things about me as you grow up. Plenty of them are true; I've made mistakes. But keep this in mind: I love you very much, and I do the best I can. Okay?”

I nodded. She took me back inside and we said our good-byes.

*   *   *

I didn't know it at the time, but the haoles were a couple of evangelical Christians who had met my mother through a church. She'd enjoyed a short period of recovery while staying with them. I never understood how my father knew that she was there, especially at the moment I asked to meet her.

That was the last time we spoke of her in my father's house. The rest I picked up from rumors, eavesdropping, and a few candid questions at Tutu's.

My father was good about keeping my mother's mother in my life. I often spent Sundays and holidays in her Makiki home, eating big meals and visiting with uncles and cousins I knew moderately well. During middle school and high school, Tutu came to all of my volleyball games, and cheered louder than any parent.

In hindsight, my understanding is that my mother was a full-time alcoholic, and opportunistic in her use of other drugs, depending on the company she kept. My father supported her initial attempts to beat the disease. The final reason for my parents' split, according to Tutu, was not addiction, but infidelity. My mother ran off with another man not long after I was born. Tutu described him as “one haole motorcycle man.” To my younger mind, that description conjured up an image of a part-human, part-machine lover straight out of science fiction—some bionic Caucasian cyborg with chrome arms and wheels for legs, able to steal my mother away faster than anyone could stop him. They spent time together on the mainland but eventually split up. My mother went back to Hawai‘i, but not back to her husband and child.

I'm almost certain that I spotted her a couple of times in my teenage years. Once was on my way back from surfing in Waikiki. Obviously drunk, a woman cackled loud near the far end of Kalakaua Street. I turned and saw a leathery-skinned, red-eyed Hawaiian lady. She hung from the arm of a shirtless haole with an ugly handlebar mustache. I was with friends, on our way back to the zoo parking lot, and insisted we cross the street.

The last time was downtown, near the bus stop on Fort Street. I saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk, her back to one of the storefronts, lifting her head and then dropping it back down to her knees. She was older—her hair a tangled mess, lines so deep in the skin of her face that they looked like they'd been etched there with a chisel. She wore rubber flip-flops. Her toenails were long, yellow, and crooked.

I considered approaching her, maybe saying hello. For most of my youth, I'd been angry and resentful over her abandonment. Those emotions left me once I saw her in that state. What I felt then was pity, followed by something more like repulsion, or fear. I told myself that it wasn't her at all—just another homeless woman. Again, I walked away and caught the bus elsewhere.

She died the summer before I went to college. Tutu and her side of the family tried to protect me from the details. I aggressively eavesdropped on their conversations. My uncles mentioned several times that she was found “half inside, half outside” a minivan left in Kapiolani Park. I heard that phrase repeated through closed doors and thin walls, as if there were some enigmatic explanation wrapped up inside it somewhere.

At nineteen, I took some comfort in that image: my mother half inside an icon of American domesticity and half on the street, caught between two worlds, being birthed by the automobile.

The official cause of death was listed as alcohol poisoning. As a college freshman in the months that followed, I would pay special attention to that topic during the mandatory information sessions. Almost everything I learned about it could be distilled down to this single fact: Alcohol poisoning has as much to do with copious drinking as it does with the lack of anyone close by to call for help.

My father sent me to the funeral with Tutu. Having prepared many years for the event, the family members shed few tears. Afterward, we went to the Makiki house for a long afternoon of eating and talking, less festive than normal.

My father picked me up later that night. More than any emotion related to grief or mourning, I felt excited about my first year of college, doubly ready to leave an island that suddenly seemed unbearably small.

 

23

In the morning, I wake feeling paralyzed, tethered to the bed. I summon the force to feel the spot beside me but can't find Ben. I close my eyes again for a long string of minutes.

The ceiling fan spins and oscillates from above. The sound of Kristy's broom scraping the tiles carries in. I rise, get dressed, and open the door. With one hand, I shade my face from the sun. Across the courtyard, Ben and Pelochucho sit in the dining room. Ben waves me over.

Still foggy and confused, I walk toward them. Has Pelo forgiven me as well? Did I only dream the events of the previous day?

“Morning, Chinita,” Pelo says.

“Sit down, Malia,” Ben says.

I do as I'm told. “I'm sorry,” I say to both of them, “about yesterday.”

“It's okay,” Pelo says. “Water under the bridge. Anyway, Chuck Norris and I have come up with a way to solve all our problems.”

Kristy drops a mug of hot milk and the jar of instant coffee in front of me. Ben must've ordered it on my behalf.

“Come again?”

“A midnight run,” Ben says. “Out to the cove at K Ninety-nine.”

“I've been talking to the guys here in town,” Pelo says. “There's a shipment coming in tonight. They need a middleman.”

“What?” I ask, still confused.

“Or middlewoman, as the case may be.”

“The bales,” Ben explains. “The cocaine.”

I look each of them in the eye and wait for a punch line. They're serious. I nod, then scoop a spoonful of instant coffee into the mug of warm milk.

“We all need the dough,” Pelo says. “Buying the rest of those houses out there cost me everything I had stashed. If this hadn't come through, then I'd be sitting on a bunch of land and cement, and no cash to build with. It's perfect timing.”

“We'll make all our money back,” Ben says. “Pay off our tab here. As soon as your passport comes, we can get on the road.”

I take a sip of coffee but don't say a word.

“And I'll tear up your contract with SalvaCorp,” Pelo says. “Water under the bridge, like I said.”

“It's a one-time thing.” Ben isn't asking for my permission on this. “The crack trade here is the reason our money got stolen. It's only fair we get it back through the crack trade.”

That's an interesting bit of logic.

“I'll give those guys the green light, then.” Pelo stands up. “Glad we had this talk. No worries about yesterday, Chinita.” He heads off to the shared toilets.

I sip desperately at my coffee.

“You okay?” Ben asks.

“Okay? Yeah. It's just … happening fast.” I'm not sure what to say. This sounds like a terrible idea. But Ben is no longer angry. After what happened with Alex, the robbery, and the way I blew the hotel job, I hardly have the right to put my foot down.

Across the courtyard, a flush sounds from the shared toilets. Pelo opens the sheet-metal door with a clang. He studies the too-high stack of cement, as if surprised to find it there.

“Do you want to get out of here for a minute?” I ask Ben. “Take a walk or something?”

*   *   *

It's obvious that there is no surf; we don't even bother with watching from the steps. Instead, we walk into town, heading toward the pier. La Libertad wakes up and comes to attention before our eyes, at an hour we usually spend sleeping in or surfing. Fishermen have breakfast in the alley eateries and food carts along the streets. Hotel employees mop seawater across the concrete floors of their establishments. Toothless old men—with faces so exposed to sun and wind, they look as though they've been carved from wood—repair holes in fishing nets for the millionth time.

After a couple of blocks, we come to the pier. I follow Ben out onto the raised concrete platform, several meters above the ocean. Small wooden boats line either side, from which fishermen and their families sell their wares. Women with thick forearms and bloody aprons await customers. For a few cents extra, they'll scale, fillet, and eviscerate the catch of the day—working fast with a razor-sharp knife and a grooved plank for a cutting board. The most coveted of the local catch are corvina and red snapper. Rumors abound of fishermen coloring lesser fish with red chalk to pass them off as snapper. Live crabs shift and wriggle inside five-gallon buckets. Fresh scallops lay on the half shell, carrot-colored egg sacks resting beside their flat columns of white flesh. Tiny dried fish, like grains of rice with eyes, are sold by the plastic bagful, mainly as a condiment for
pupusas
or fried yucca. Vendors explicate the virtues of shark fin oil—a sludgy, viscous yellow packed in mismatched glass bottles—as a cure for pneumonia, headaches, and general malaise.

During our honeymoon phase, Ben and I used to come here and buy a whole fish. He had a method of checking freshness based on the clarity of the eyes. We'd take it back to Kristy to cook. Today, we figure she has her hands full.

“Check it out.” Ben points to the far end of the pier. There, one archaic chain winch lifts a small boat up from out of the water. A lone fisherman—aboard a blue-and-white vessel packed full of nets and silvery piscine flesh—hangs in midair, suspended by a thick rusty chain at the bow and stern.

“I've never seen them do this before,” Ben says.

“Me, neither.”

The boat reaches the top, and a few other fishermen help unload.

Ben and I walk to the rail of the pier and look down at the calm sea below.

“Some swell, huh?” I say.

Ben shrugs. “Surfing's a way of life, you know.”

The tide is out. The ocean looks at least two stories below our feet. Behind the bar at La Punta, there's an old black-and-white photo of a giant set hitting La Lib; in it, monster waves break over this end of the pier. Today, such a thing is impossible to imagine.

“Are we really going to do this?” I ask Ben, staring out at the horizon.

“You want out?” he asks gently.

“I want to go to South America with you. I want to rewind our lives to a few days ago, before we met Pelo and lost our money and everything else.”

Ben nods. “Me, too. The trip—it's our dream, right? It's worth fighting for. This little errand is just a way to make it happen.”

“So the ends justify the means,” I say.

He nods again. We stare over at the hapless point.

“You know what's weird about all this?” I ask. “If I'd helped Pelo out with that hotel, helped him displace all those poor Salvadoran farmers, then it would've been fully legal, just as lucrative, and probably good experience on my damn résumé.” I look down at the ocean. “This other plan, it's like a major sin in the eyes of the world, and the truth is, I don't feel that bad about it. Scared, sure, but not guilty.”

Ben nods. “It'll happen, with or without us. Somebody will get that money. Why shouldn't it be you and me?”

“You don't think we could get into trouble? I don't like the idea of a Salvadoran jail too much.”

“Malia, have you ever heard of any gringo having any problem with the police here that couldn't be solved with a twenty-dollar bill? Hell, we'll be working for the guys who give orders to all the local cops.”

I nod. “It's a one-time thing, right? We get paid. We get my new passport, and then we get on our way.”

“Absolutely.” Ben puts a hand on my shoulder. “I'm not greedy; I just want my trip. We earned it. This town owes it to us.”

Out toward the point, a lone pelican dive-bombs into the calm water with a splash, surfaces a second later, and then rises up again.

“Fuck it.” I reach down and take the rubber flip-flops off my feet, tuck them between the middle and index fingers on each hand. “Let's do it.” I turn around, take two steps, and dive off the pier.

The drop is greater than I anticipated, but it feels safe compared to other dives I've made back home. This is open ocean, after all—no boulders or rock shelves to negotiate.

My sandals split the water first. My body slips deep down, into a colder layer of sea, before I finally turn and paddle upward. Despite all the boat fuel and fish guts in the vicinity, the water feels amazing against my skin, like an embrace from an old friend.

I surface, sandals still on my hands. The fishermen make all sorts of chatter—some cheering, others ranting about the dangers of such a stunt. Somebody claims that a jump like that could “explode the lungs.”

A grin grows across my face, bigger and giddier than any I've felt in days. Ben looks down at me and laughs. Shaking his head, he removes each of his own flip-flops.

I shout, “Do it!” from below.

Feetfirst, hands and sandals cupped around his balls, Ben jumps. To the delight and horror of the audience along the pier, he makes a giant splash just inches from me. I scream.

He surfaces with a whoop and a holler. His eyes turn big and round. With the sole of his sandal, he pushes water at me.

I squeal and splash back. Both of us laugh. Ben wraps one arm around my shoulders—dog-paddling with the other—and kisses me on the lips. Groans and giggles come from the fishmongers above.

*   *   *

It takes a while to reach dry land, even with the tide coming in. The flip-flops on our hands slow down the swimming. By the time we come ashore, I'm starving, and still not eager to return to La Posada. Soaking wet, we find seats at one of the food stalls near the pier, a place that sells breakfast to fishermen. I dig a few wet bills from the pocket of my cutoffs. We order beans, eggs, and fresh cream. The woman behind the counter fixes our plates and serves us tortillas but provides no utensils.