fashion plates, and big, comfortable kitchens for the aspiring caterers. Forget about kids’ rooms and play areas. I knew a contractor in California who specialized in kitchens for Orthodox Jews, with extra storage space for their second set of dishes, and separate dishwashers, even separate refrigerators, for keeping milk and meat apart. There had to be a similar sub-specialty for the gay population.
We pulled up at my father’s office, on the second floor of a strip center he’d built near Salt Lake Park. The ground floor was filled with your usual variety of tenants: dry cleaner, deli, karate donjon, beeper store, and mattress warehouse. But unlike the Kahala Mall, this center somehow seemed uniquely Hawaiian. The truth came in the details.
My father was big on details. All the storefronts were set back behind a colonnade that provided shade from the hot tropical sun. He’d had a template of a palm tree made, and pressed it into the front of each of the supporting columns, so the implication was that the roof was supported by a row of palms, like the caryatids in Greek architecture.
When I was a kid, he’d had fancier offices, always moving around from project to project. When he was building homes, it was important that the style of his office match the kind of construction he was doing, and as he built more expensive and lavish homes, the style of his office improved. Now that he was building malasada stands and small warehouses, he had three simple rooms. His office, a reception area, and a conference room where he could lay plans out on a big table.
In each room there were framed photos, artists’ renderings and architects’ elevations of homes, offices, stores and shopping centers he had built. As I walked from room to room I marveled at the range of things he’d built, what he’d done to keep us all in food and clothes and pay our school tuition, take my mother on vacations and buy antique furniture for her in San Francisco and ship it to Hawai‘i. Over his desk there was a photo of a small bungalow I didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?”
“The first house I ever built,” he said. “Before Uncle Chin’s, even. I built it nights and weekends while I was still working for Amfac. I found it two years ago and took the picture. Nice, eh?”
The house was nice, but the photo was even nicer. Richly saturated colors, strong contrasts between light and shadow. It looked as professional as any of the promotional shots on the walls. “You took this?”
“I have grandchildren,” he said shyly. “You take a lot of pictures. You learn a few tricks.”
“More than a few,” I said.
It was interesting, getting to know my father again. He set me up in the conference room with a set of electrical plans and a list of items, from light fixtures to dimmer switches to outlet face plates. I had to count each one and then multiply by unit costs. “This is the worst part of the job for me,” he said. “These details are so tiny, but if you miss a couple of expensive light fixtures, there goes your profit.”
I worked diligently all morning, surprised that I could concentrate. It was like going surfing with Harry, getting something into my brain that pushed everything else aside. In the other room, I could hear him on the phone, schmoozing with potential customers, calling suppliers, checking schedules. I wondered if I could do that.
As a police officer and then a detective, I always had a sense that my work mattered. I was protecting the people of Honolulu, the office workers, hotel maids, and visiting tourists from bad elements of the population. Then as a detective, I was righting wrongs, bringing society back into balance. I supposed that building houses mattered too, though I wasn’t sure about strip malls and malasada shops. Then again, maybe part of my problem was looking for meaning in everything. Maybe all that really mattered was supporting your family, living a good life, having a little fun on Saturday nights, and not treating your fellow man in a way you wouldn’t want to be treated.
So I thought and counted switch plate covers, and around noon my father got me and we drove into Chinatown to meet Uncle Chin for lunch. We ate in a luncheonette with dingy windows and a long row of booths with peeling vinyl. The food was only mediocre, but they knew Uncle Chin there and we were served without even ordering, steaming platters of chicken and shrimp and sticky white rice in chipped porcelain bowls.
Uncle Chin poured us tea and said, “You know my grandson, yes?”
I nodded. “Tell me what he like.”
I didn’t know what to say at first. Did I say he was learning the family business? That I wasn’t sure what role he had played in his father’s death? Finally I said, “You read about me in the newspaper?”
Uncle Chin nodded. “Derek is like me. He lives in an apartment downtown with a guy he went to Yale with. Derek and his friend will probably take over the Rod and Reel Club.”
Uncle Chin cupped his hands around his teacup, and I noticed how old and frail they seemed. He looked down at the table and spoke softly. “Tommy not tell me much about Derek. I knew something between them but I don’t know what.”
“Derek loved his father, I can tell you that,” I said. “Even though I don’t think his father ever accepted him.” I paused to scoop up some sticky rice with my chopsticks. “I can’t tell you much more about Derek, because I didn’t talk to him much. I know he’s intelligent and well-educated. He likes art. He wants to open an art gallery, and his apartment is filled with paintings.”
“I want know him,” Uncle Chin said. “To become man, boy needs much guidance. Took so long know his father, give him what I could. Maybe I start earlier with Derek.”
“I know he met you once. He mentioned you by name. I don’t think he knows you’re his grandfather.”
He nodded. “Sometimes easier learn such information from third party. Easier for me, sure. You make arrangements?”
I wasn’t supposed to be involved in Tommy’s death anymore. But did that prohibition reach to contact with his son on a family matter? My father and Uncle Chin were both looking at me, and to deny this request would disappoint them both. I decided I had disappointed my father enough. I said, “I will. I’ll call him.”
Uncle Chin smiled. We cracked our fortune cookies, and they were all light-hearted, promising Uncle Chin a promotion and my father great happiness. My fortune said, “You are loved more than you know,” but at that moment I felt that, in spite of my troubles, I knew how deeply those around me cared for me.
We got up to leave. I said, “What about the bill?”
“No bill,” Uncle Chin said.
“Uncle Chin owns the restaurant,” my father said. On the way out the waiters and busboys all bowed to Uncle Chin, who bowed slightly back.
“How about a little drive?” my father asked after we said goodbye to Uncle Chin. “I’m bidding on a renovation at the Mandarin Oriental and I want to take a look at the room again.”
“Sure.” We rolled the windows down on the truck and the warm summer air washed over us. My father even turned the radio on and we listened to Keali‘i Reichel and The Pandanus Club and Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole as we drove. He wanted to introduce me to the hotel manager, but I didn’t think the time was right, so I went wandering in the gardens while he went inside.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered Haoa talking about a job at the Mandarin Oriental, but it was still a surprise to me when I rounded a corner and came face to face with him, supervising the planting of a row of yellow ‘ilima plants along a walkway. He was wearing a big chambray shirt with Kanapa‘aka Landscaping on it, and a pair of khaki shorts. “Hey, brah,” I said.
“E, Kimo. What brings you out this way?”
I nodded back toward the hotel. “Dad,” I said. “Today’s his turn to watch me. He wanted to take another look at a remodeling job he’s bidding on.”
“He finished that ballroom two weeks ago.” Haoa looked at me, and then at the work. “Keep going like that all the way down the line,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few.”
He pointed off toward the pool. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
It was funny, but I hadn’t spent much time alone with my brother for years. We usually saw each other at family parties, luaus and christenings and such, and Tatiana was always around, or Lui, or some other relative or family friend.
I looked at Haoa as we walked through the manicured grounds toward the pool bar, this stranger who was also my older brother. He’s as tall as I am but seemed larger, because of his broad shoulders, big belly and stout legs. Our hair was the same jet black, though his was increasingly shot with gray. In family pictures I could see that we had the same cheekbones, the same eyes. Funny how we almost never talked but I still felt close to him, felt the blood in my veins calling out to his, remembering the time we had both spent in our mother’s womb, however
