"You know this is all your fault right?" You know that?" Justina was beautiful but she had this thing where she could change the rise of her eyebrow or the intensity in her eyes to let you know she was mad.
She did that to me, just now. I shifted my stance out of discomfort and stared down at the floor. I knew that once I looked her in the eye, she wouldn't let me look away. I did though, I looked her in the eye.
"I know. I'm sorry," I must have said these two words a thousand times. "I fucked up."
"You did more than fuck up," she pressed her finger on my chest and slowly applied pressure. It pissed her off even more that it didn't even bother me. Pretty soon she applied the entire weight of her five foot four frame into her finger in order to make her point. "You owe me."
"I do," I nodded because I couldn't disagree.
"Well, then go fucking do something about it!" She bellowed pretty loud for someone her size but she always had that fire in her. I was always on her good side until recently, now I gotta go make good on my mistake. "You know it's really not going to solve anything right?"
There was a look of utter surprise and shock on her face as if I'd just slapped her or something. "Maybe it won't," she mused to herself. "In the overall scheme of things, maybe it won't. Buuuut....it will make me feel a whole lot fucking better.....and if you think I'm working some sort of guilt trip on you to make you feel bad you're right. I am." She took a couple of slow steps toward me until she was right up against me, looking up at me with those intense green eyes. "Go fix the problem."
..............
THE LOFTS MAUNAKEA AND HOTEL STREET
His parents were big fans of Muhammad Ali, they named him after the chant that the Kinshasa people in Zaire would call out in order to urge Ali on so that he could defeat George Foreman. They had no idea what the word meant but they liked the sound of it. You also have to consider that this was way back in 1974. There were no advocates for political correctness in the way there is now.
'Bomaye' was the word and paired with Ali's name, it meant 'Kill him Ali.' His name was Bomaye Daite' from 'Ewa Beach and he'd been my lifelong friend. I called him Ye (yay) for short. When we were in high school there used to be a four-plex theater at Pearlridge which used to be where the recruiter office and the Mexican restaurant now stands. On a Sunday Ye and I went to see a film called Car Wash. It was there that I saw Justina with a few of her friends. She came over to say hi and when she and Ye locked eyes it was love at first sight. I sort of introduced them way back in 1977. Forty-one years later it's 2018 and Ye has spent his entire life working in the construction business but always as a worker, never as a foreman. He never had the ambition to be anything more than what he was but he and Justina managed to buy a house, have a few kids who would eventually grow up and mover away to start a family of their own. Each child who left begged Justina to move away with them but she couldn't leave Ye. That was no consolidation for Justina because Ye continued to have his many affairs just the same way he did throughout their marriage. Justina had many opportunities to be unfaithful as she had many opportunities to leave Ye and be with someone else who would treat her better but she never left. Ye knew this and always used it as an excuse to beat her, and beat her he did. Until he finally killed her.
The long and short of the outcome is that because this was his first offense, he got off easy on a loophole. Really, it was a few strings which were pulled in a particular direction that got him off. When Ye and Justina's children returned home for their mother's services, they refused to allow Ye to attend the funeral. On that day, I kind of wished he did. That would have taken the focus off of me.
I stood in the food line waiting for my turn at the Potato salad with black and green olives when I heard a hiss in my ear, "Mother fucker! This is YOUR fault!"
I jumped and turned around and there was Justina's ghost with dark bruises under her right eye and a huge dried gash on her neck. "You fucking introduced us and this is what it cost me you bastard!"
That's how it's been since then for a whole year. Her constant reminding and nagging about her eventual death being my fault. No blessing worked, no exorcism, no cleansing. She was stuck to me like a skin tag. Here I was though, standing outside the L&L watching Ye eat his loco moco with a fried egg and a pile of rice with brown gravy on it. "See?" I told myself. "There's no point in killing him. Look at that shit he's eating, he's doing us a favor. He still looked the same, a little leathery in the skin because of his job but he was still the same Ye. He still had a full head of hair that bastard, I should kill him just for that.
I walked back to my car and waited until I saw him coming through the parking garage. He was still chewing on a bit of food when I got out of my car and briskly walked across the lot until I caught up to him. The 45 Smith and Wesson in my hand was already extended out toward him, "Ye" I called out and pulled back the hammer at the same time. He'd just opened the driver's door when he heard me. All I had to do was pull the trigger and the mission would be accomplished. Little did I know he already had the jump on me. He turned quickly. He had a nail gun in his hand and he emptied the whole cartridge in my head. My body fell back and hit the pavement hard. I felt my skull crack, probably the last cognitive feeling I would ever remember. I was dying, that I knew for sure. Ye stood over me and tossed the nail gun into the car.
"No 'tink I neva know you were fucking Justina you asshole. But what YOU neva know is that Justina was kinky....she liked fo be slapped and beat up. In fact, she used to make me wear my tool belt with no clothes on....dat was her thing. She told me she only wanted to fuck you brah but you took 'um too serious and you neva like leave her alone. Her ghost wen warn me last night you was going try kill me. See? See what happen?" Ye threw the nail gun on my chest and walked away. At least I think that's what I think he did? Oh no, he made it a point to reverse over my body before he drove off. Yes, that's right.
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