Huaka'i Street in Waipahu was where I grew up until my parents died.
After that, I had to move in with my aunt and uncle, which wasn't burdensome for them. At 12 years of age, Aunty Kalena and her husband Brad knew that I wasn't any trouble and that raising me until I was old enough to be on my own would prove successful. Theirs was a modest three-bedroom home in the literal middle of Mānoa. Next to their house was a two-story plantation-style home. The house stood empty for the better part of my first year living next door to it. Then one day, several moving trucks parked in the driveway, on the lawn, and then on the street when there was finally no room anywhere else. Whoever was supposed to live in the house didn't show up until everything was moved in. An entire week of school, homework, and Kung-Fu class with Aunty Kalena and Uncle Brad in the evenings took up most of my time.It would be until the weekend that I noticed the new family next door. The father was Japanese, his wife was Hispanic, and their children consisted of one little boy and two older girls.
It was a Saturday, and they were settling in. Family noises filled their home, a sure sign that life existed there. On Sunday, the father from next door reached over the fence and shook hands with Uncle Brad. He introduced himself as Ron Hojo.
Thereafter, he and Uncle Brad would have their man-talks over the fence or on the modest strip of crab grass which connected our properties. If they weren't doing Hibachi, they were sharing sashimi and the latest draft beer. Uncle Brad worked for Morgan Stanley, and Ron was a trial attorney, but their talks were not about finances or law; it was about martial arts, history, the samurai era, and specifically budō and Iaido. They talked about their family too, and what the future would be like. Miranda, Ron's wife, knocked on our door one day and introduced herself to Aunty Kalena. She had a pot of patele stew, which aunty did not refuse. I got to have one bowl; the rest of it ended up being the conversation piece between Aunty and Miranda as they polished off the whole pot while talking at the kitchen table. After, the two of them took a drive to the market and bought a twelve-pack of Samuel Adams.
The two older girls were named Kara and Jamie. The boy's name was Hajime. The three of them and I never hung out, played together, or talked. We didn't walk to school together so much as we walked in the same direction. Fate would have it that Kara, Jamie, and I ended up in the same high school while Hajime remained at Noelani Elementary until his time was up. The two girls never really started talking to me until we got past the squeaky voice phase brought on by puberty. By the time that happened, we were Juniors. The girls had a lot of their friends over for study groups, backyard hangouts, birthdays, and any excuse they could think of to keep things lively. I was never formally invited. A knock would come on the door, and Aunty Kalena would then call out, "Kai! Someone's here to see you!"
It was always the two sisters, never just the one, standing at the front door.
"Are you coming?" Kara always asked.
"Yeah, sure," I'd nod.
"Ok, good," Jamie would then pipe in. "Bring a couple of big bottles of grape soda. No one comes to our gatherings empty-handed."
By the end of the evening, even though it was a Saturday when a few of us stragglers were still hanging out and talking with nothing but candles to light the atmosphere, Ron would always peep in and say, "Are we on for some late-night pizza?"
We'd never disagree. Sometimes, if Ron was in a good mood, he'd whip up a big pot of Jook, and we'd all sit at the bar counter in the kitchen and eat together.
When I was 16, Uncle Brad taught me how to drive. We took his Saab for a spin around the neighborhood on Sundays. We'd go to the top of the Ala Moana shopping parking lots, where he'd let me drive around. We did this for six months before he finally took me to get my permit. Aunty Kalena wanted to be the one to teach me how to drive because she and my late mother were sisters. Uncle Brad put a stop to it because he said that in her teaching mode, she's very much like a samurai. She makes the men cry in Gung-Fu class. Did I mention that Aunty Kalena was the Sifu of our Gung-Fu class? Yup, she was.
Later in the week, during one of Uncle Brad's man talks with Ron, he mentioned that I had finally gotten my permit. Ron asked Uncle Brad if I had a car yet. To which Uncle Brad said no. Ron told him that he had a 2005 BMW 325i sedan sitting in his garage doing nothing. Miranda, his wife, had her own Mercedes, and his two girls shared a Toyota 4Runner. Uncle Brad told Ron he couldn't afford to get me a car, but Ron insisted that Uncle Brad call me over.
From my room, I heard Uncle call my name. Popping my head out my bedroom window, I replied. "Yes, uncle?"
"Come," he waved me over. "Ron wants to ask you something."
When I got to their 2-person hibachi bull session, Ron asked, "Do you have 5 dollars on you?"
"Uh, yeah," I reached into my wallet, removed the 5 note, and gave it to him.
Ron handed me a pair of car keys. "Go open my garage and bring the car out to the driveway."
It was a dark blue BMW sedan. A 3 series with some serious air freshener and a nice cool a/c unit. I brought it out to the driveway where Ron and Uncle Brad were waiting. Holding up the $5 bill, Ron signaled me to roll the window down.
"Congratulations," he smiled. "You just bought a BMW for five dollars."
~
When Hajime was old enough to enroll in middle school, he didn't want to go to a private school.
His classmates bullied him until he took Auntie Kalena's Kung-Fu class.
One day, his bullies cornered him in the bathroom, and he beat the shit out of them. He nearly got suspended, but luckily, his father stepped in and pulled some strings. By the time Hajime was 13 years old, Hajime was taller, riddled with acne, and full of teenage angst. He was angry all the time and constantly antagonized his sisters. He took a handful of Kara's hair and yanked it hard when she wouldn't let him have a snack before dinner. She hauled off and punched him in his nose. Blood gushed out, and he went after his older sister. Jamie stopped him by tripping his feet and kicked him in his nuts to keep him down. On a different day, Hajime walked in the kitchen door and went past his mother without uttering a word. Miranda asked him to wash his hands because dinner was almost ready.
"YOU wash your hands," he replied.
Miranda cut through the kitchen and cut him off at the bottom of the stairs before he went up to his room. His mother held on to an old leather belt, which she used to beat Hajime's behind and every other part of his body. That put an end to his temper tantrums. A couple of years passed, and Kara, Jamie, and I graduated from high school. The three of us were at U.H. Mānoa, and Hajime was in his sophomore year. On a Wednesday, Kara and Jamie were home early, and I was still at school in a study lab. Kara and Jamie agreed that it would be cool to get Hajime from school and then head to the pizza place down the road before coming home. Ron was working on a criminal case, which took up most of his time.
Miranda was home from work herself to meet the contractors who were going to build an extension, and to get an estimate in case they wanted to put in a swimming pool. The girls left at 1:55 pm in their 4Runner. On the way, one of their former classmates, Lynn Shigaki, saw the sisters driving by and waved hello. At 2pm, all of the faculty and staff saw the 4Runner pull up to the pickup line. Kara was driving, and Jamie was in the passenger seat. Everyone saw Hajime get in the back seat, and then the vehicle drove off. After that, no one ever saw Kara, Jamie, and Hajime Hojo again.
~
When the three siblings were finally reported as missing, the authorities said that Miranda found it strange. Even though she was in the backyard talking to the contractor, she saw the 4 Runner drive by and heard it pull up into the driveway. She also heard three car doors close and listened to the front door open. As a mother, she knew what her children's footsteps sounded like.
"I heard Hajime and Kara walk into the living room, and I heard the two of them plop down on the couch. My kids don't sit; they plop. I heard Jamie go upstairs and use her personal bathroom in her room. The toilet flushed, and I heard her footsteps come back downstairs, where she plopped on the love chair." Miranda recounted. "But, when I went back into the house, nobody was there."
Yet, the staff and students said they would see Hajime at school, walking across the campus with a furrowed brow, as if something were wrong. They'd run to catch up with him, but he'd be gone, always just out of reach. Stranger still was that same week when I, and everyone in my Hawaiian studies class, saw Kara and Jamie walk in and take their usual seats. After class, neither the kumu nor any of us saw the Hojo sisters leave because our desks were arranged in a circle.
A year later, Ron had assumed that the disappearance of his children might have had something to do with a criminal case he was working on, but there should have been a ransom note. None surfaced. Up until then, no stone was left unturned, and the entire community made very concerted efforts to help find the three. Out of desperation, Miranda consulted every psychic medium she could think of. Simultaneously, Ron had to deal with the authorities digging into their background, searching for any flaws in their personalities that might make them suspects. Miranda came up spotless, but it was discovered that while living in California, Ron had an affair with a young intern at the partnership.
Things got messy when 19-year-old Dora Pungsulan realized that Ron wasn't going to leave his wife. In retaliation, Dora showed up at Ron's front door, giving him no choice but to tell Miranda about their affair, or she would reveal it herself. Ron confessed everything to Miranda, while Kara, Jamie, and Hajime stood in the foyer and listened. After, Dora took Ron by the hand and encouraged him to go with her, where they would start their new life together.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Ron declared. "I'm not leaving my family."
The whole thing became an obsessive mess. So much so that Ron and his family had to leave their home in Orange County and move back to the place where Ron was born and raised. Mānoa, Oahu.
"You think it was her?" Miranda asked. "You think she's here and she took our kids?"
"The girls were taking Gung-Fu from Kalena," Ron countered. "There's no way she could've taken them without a fight."
"Maybe she had help," Miranda said.
"I don't even wanna think about it." Ron walked to the living room. "We can't hang on to this one thing, Miranda. It's gonna drive us crazy."
Time went on, and we saw less and less of Miranda. Ron and Uncle Brad still had their talks. It was a good therapy session for Ron because Miranda increasingly retreated, not just from society, but also from Ron. It was a rainy December evening in Mānoa when Miranda passed away on the couch.
Ron thought she'd fallen asleep when he walked into the living room with a plate of crackers and cheese. She was still there the next day, in the same position. That's when Ron knew she was gone. The case of his missing children was reopened a few more times over the years by young, ambitious attorneys, but nothing ever came of it. Today, we're all older. Aunty Kalena hasn't slowed down one bit. Her hair has some gray in it, and she refused to dye it. "Why do I like denying my age?"
Uncle Brad got himself a BMW at some point, figuring he deserved it. He even offered to get one for Auntie Kalena, but she refused. Instead, she got a Suburban so she could put all the Gung-Fu equipment in it. I'm teaching at U.H., and I'm still living with my aunt and uncle.
"Who are we going to pick on if you leave?" They told me.
"You're my wing-chun dummy," Aunty Kalena said. "Who can I beat up with my Chi-sao if not you?"
"Um, Uncle Brad," I pointed to him.
"First hit from me, and he cried," she shook her head. "Look, I didn't even hit him yet, and he's crying right now!"
"Whatever, Kwai-Chang," Uncle Brad scoffed.
The banter devolved to a Wing Chun bout between the two of them until it became wrestling, and then hugs and kisses, and then I had to leave the living room. I went upstairs to my room to check some emails on my computer. The only light in my space was the glow from my laptop. Across the way, I saw the little lamp that lit Ron's room. The TV watched him while he slept in the love chair that he and Miranda used to share. Logic would dictate that because I had an early day, and that the business of teaching and other matters filled my schedule for 12 hours straight, I might have been hallucinating or even dreaming when I saw the gun-barrel gray 4Runner pull up into Ron's driveway. Kara, Jamie, and Hajime got out and walked into the house. I shot up from my chair. Was it really the girls and Hajime, or were they thieves breaking into the house? I ran downstairs and burst out the front door, totally missing uncle and aunties' naked wrestling session. It's the 4Runner, the actual 4Runner! The front door is wide open, so I let myself in. As plain as day, there are Kara, Jamie, and Hajime standing in the middle of the living room. In front of them is their father, Ron, holding his katana. He and I lock eyes. His children see this and turn their attention to me.
"Call 911," Ron urges me. "These mutherfuckers just walk in here like they own the place. Fuck that."
There's no denying it, it's them. Kara, Jamie, and Hajime, who from all those years ago, haven't aged at all. I backed up to the foyer and turned the lights on. It took Ron a second to adjust to the light, but once he saw it for himself, an animal-like moan came over him, and he fell on his knees, crying.
"Dad," Kara knelt in front of her father. "Where's Mom? Why do you look so old?"
"Where's Mom?" Jamie asked. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"
Hajime had no time for the drama. He ran upstairs full tilt. You could hear his footsteps running from room to room until he came barreling back to the living room. "Where's Mom?"
"You guys, come sit. We have to talk," I tell them. I also call Aunty Kalena and Uncle Brad to come over. It's the first time I've ever seen Aunty Kalena lose her shit. Turns out she's human after all.
Kara said that they were on the way home after getting pizza at the Mānoa marketplace and that the drive back home seemed to take longer than usual. It's less than ten minutes from the house, but the drive took longer for some reason. No matter which turn they took or what side street or shortcut they used, it seemed to be a longer drive in every direction. "It took a whole hour," Jamie said.
"I was getting nutz in the car 'cause the pizza got cold, so we had to pull over and eat the whole thing," Hajime said.
All the while, Ron held the faces of his children and wept like a baby. "It's been thirty years," I told them. "You've been gone for thirty years. Your mom's been dead for ten of those years while you were away."
An hour later, we were all at the Honolulu Cemetery looking at Miranda's headstone. It was a lot to take in, especially since the three of them hadn't aged after all this time, while we had. Life went on in the worst ways after they disappeared, but it also went on in the best ways. The problem now was, where to continue from here? How would the three even begin to acclimate themselves back into society, and how would they explain the fact that they hadn't aged once after all this time, and having to answer all those questions about where they've been?
The solution was for what was left of the Hojo family —Ron, Kara, Jamie, and Hajime —to pack up and move back to Orange County, where they would start over and live a brand new life. We get emails and posts on social media. In a few years, Jamie was married to a classmate of hers from college in Calabassis. Hajime worked on his anger management and procured a good job at a law firm. Kara worked for a local TV station where she helped produce the daily news. However, every chance she had, even on weekends, she flew home and stayed with us. There was something about that time slip she and her siblings experienced that ignited a fire in her that wouldn't go away.
"If time got longer, if it expanded, like what happened to us," she asked while sitting on the edge of my bed. "Is it also possible that time could be a window, like to the past or the future?"
"Anything is possible," I answered. "Something is going on in that brain of yours. What are you thinking?"
"I wanna go back," she looked me in the eye. "I'm serious, I wanna go back and see if I can go through time and come back to the exact point where we left the house to go get Hajime from school and figure it out from there."
"Or maybe not go pick up Hajime," I countered. "Let him walk home like he always did, if that's even a possibility?"
"Anything's possible," she replied. "You just said it yourself."
"Then, I'll go with you," I told her. "I can't let you go alone, I'll go with you."
"Just this weekend," she smiled. "I wanna try out that same route and see what happens."
"Alright, do you wanna go now?" I asked.
"No, I wanna wait until Wednesday for the exact time," she replied. "I extended my time off until Friday, so I'm good."
"Alright, we'll tell the adults in the morning and go over the plan thoroughly," I said.
~
Kara Hojo, Kai Pūlama, his Aunt Kalena, Brad Leong, and Kara's father, Ron, left for a leisure drive on Wednesday from their Mānoa home and were never seen again. The search continues for as long as the authorities can hold out. However, reports have surfaced that Kara was seen walking through the Mānoa marketplace, and Kalena was present to teach her Gung-Fu class, but at some point, she simply vanished. Fellow fishermen reported seeing Brad Leong at his favorite fishing spot at Bamboo Ridge when their attention was distracted by a rogue wave that hit the rocks. When they looked back, Brad Leong was gone. Persons at the Iaido dojo at the Japanese Culture Center swore that they stood in the same elevator with Ron Hojo and rode it down to their dojo on the bottom floor. When they exited the elevator, Ron was gone.
As for me, the new occupants of our home keep seeing me sitting at my computer desk in my old room, which has now been converted to a study for the man of the house. Imagine a poor person encountering what he believes is a ghost, but it's actually a sliver in time right in the middle of Mānoa.
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