Damned in Paradise

Ahakuelo said, “Plenty of witnesses saw us in there.”

“Yeah,” David Chang said, “like that wahine you slapped on the ass.”

Takai laughed. “Glad he did! That way she remember him.”

Chang said bitterly, “She remembered you were drunk.”

“Kulikuli,” Ahakuelo snapped at Chang with a scowl.

The landscape along Ala Moana had a marshy look, now; I had a hunch I could find those mosquitoes here that had been driven out of Waikiki.

“It does sound like a lot of drinking was going on that night,” I said. “How much did you boys have?”

“Benny hit the oke a little hard,” Ida admitted. “Joe, too. Rest of us, couple beers. Joe and Eau run into Benny and Mack at dance, then after while, Joe come out to parking lot and pass off a ticket stub to me. I go inside a while, and he wait in lot.”

To the left were tiny wharves where small boats were tied, mostly fishing boats, distinctive low-slung sampans, with a few sleek yachts interspersed, looking as out of place as white tie and tails at a country hoedown.

“Midnight,” Ida said, “dance over, stand around lot talkin’ to people maybe five minutes—then we pile in the Ford and go back to the luau.”

“How long were you there?”

“Ten minutes maybe. Somebody was playing music in the house, but no action, it was pau. They was singing ‘Memories.’ They was outa beer. Benny wanna go home, he have football practice next day, so I drop him off and he head home, over on Frog Lane.”

The buildings of Honolulu up ahead, the ships and lights of the harbor over at left, were distinct before us now.

“You must’ve had that little fender-scraper with that white woman,” I said, “along about then.”

“I show you where it happen,” Ida nodded, turning to the right onto Sheridan Street, the first opportunity to turn onto any street in some time.

Soon we were turning left onto King Street, a magnificent old plantation on the right, glimpsed through shrubs, foliage, a stone-and-wire fence, and the spreading branches of palms protecting it and its grounds from the tourists frequenting the Coconut Hut, a tacky grass-shack souvenir shop directly opposite—its sign boasting “A BIT OF OLD-TIME OLD HAWAII IN THE HEART OF HONOLULU.”

Before long, courtesy of the least likely tour guides Oahu might have provided, I was getting my first glimpse at the heart of Hawaiian government. Ida slowed down so I could have a nice look. At right was the Iolani Palace, set back far enough from the street to look like a dollhouse in the moonlight. A boxy Victorian affair with towers on the corners and in the middle (both front and rear) and plenty of gingerbread trim, almost ridiculously grandiose on its manicured grounds with its palm tree sentinels, the palace was a building that tried very hard not to look Hawaiian.

And across from the palace, on my left, was the Judiciary Building, another quaint monstrosity with balustraded balconies, Grecian pillars, and a central clock tower. Several schools of architecture seemed to be doing battle, none a winner, yet there was a comic-opera grandness about it.

In front of the building, on a stone pedestal, stood a golden statue of a native warrior, a spear in hand, a feathered cloak about him, his build powerful, his features proud.

“King Kamehameha,” Ida said. “Kinda looks like Joe.”

Joe Kahahawai, he meant; his murdered friend.

“Joe was proud he look like Kamehameha. Almost as proud of that big toe he kick football with…. That’s where they kidnap him.”

Yes it was: when Kahahawai had approached the courthouse that morning last January to report to his probation officer, he had walked in the shadow of the statue of the Island monarch he resembled into the false summons and waiting arms of Tommie Massie and company. There, next door to the Judiciary Building, across a side street, was the modern structure of the post office, where Mrs. Fortescue had parked, and watched, and waited.

We drove through downtown Honolulu—within spitting distance of the Alexander Young Hotel—and had I wanted to call out for help or jump out, I could easily have done it. I wasn’t quite sure why these boys wanted me to hear “their side” of it; but I didn’t think I was in danger, and besides, I wanted to hear their side of it….

Beyond the downtown, in a working-class residential neighborhood, Ida pulled over to the curb, leaving the engine thrumming. We were at the arterial intersection of King and Liliha streets, with Dillingham Boulevard curving off to the left, toward Pearl Harbor.

Ida was pointing over toward Liliha, at the stop sign. “I just dropped Eau off, and pull out on King when this big damn Hudson come roarin’ down King, headin’ toward town, goin’ like hell. I yank the wheel around and we both slow down and just touch fenders.”

“A little haole guy was driving,” Henry Chang said, “but it was his big fat wahine mama that cussed us.”

Ida said, “She yell out the window, ‘Look the hell where you’re goin’!’ And I yell back, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ “Ahakuelo said, softly, some regret in his voice, “It make Joe mad, seein’ that white man with that big-mouth kanaka gal. Big Joe jump out and yell, ‘Get that damn haole out here, and I’ll give him what’s coming to him.’”

“But the little guy stay behind the wheel,” Ida said. “He look real scared. The big fat mama didn’t—she got outa the car, damn big woman, almost tall as Joe. She come over cussin’, smellin’ of oke, drunk as hell. We all jump outa the car but she and Joe already at each other. She grab Joe by the throat and scratch him and Joe shove her offa him, and she fall on the runnin’ board of her car. Big fat wildcat, we had enough of that, even Joe, and we scramble back in car and drive off like hell, laughin’ about it.”