16-218 Gulick Avenue.
That's my house. You can't miss it. It's fronted with oversized mock orange bushes. When the small flowers are in profusion, the tart aroma can cause headaches. My home is fenced right around the property, all the way to the back gate where I park my car. Why? Because it's Gulick fucking avenue, the mini-crime capital of the world. I'm actually grateful for the headache-inducing mock orange buds. It repels the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormon bicycle riders, and the fake cable service providers. Actually, I do feel bad when the old ladies on my street want to bring over their homemade KimChee and See-Mui. Those are delicious, so if I see those old ladies approaching my house, I'll go outside to meet them and I'll receive the food over the fence. Mainly so they don't get a nasty headache. I never step outside the gate where people are concerned because sometimes, it's not really people. It's spirits.These spirits are attracted to my brother, Ben, and his inner light. Ben stands at six feet, six inches tall. He's broad and naturally muscular. He cuts an intimidating figure because of his dark Hawaiian skin, but you'll never meet a sweeter and gentler man than Ben Hakama. Ever since he could walk, spirits always spoke to Ben. In his infancy, my parents thought it was just baby gibberish until he could actually coherently talk words. That's when they realized that something else was going on. Luckily, we were a Hawaiian family that never had to acquiesce to any Western religion, so Ben's communication with spirits was not laden down with guilt or fire and brimstone. Yes, Ben was like our Carol Anne growing up, which meant a lot of spirits mistook Ben's light for the actual light that they were supposed to go to. When he was at home, I could protect him. However, when he worked his overnight job as a security officer at the CPB parking lot, things were a whole lot different. Spirits lined the block to talk to Ben. That was not the problem; our parents taught Ben how to communicate with these spirits so he could properly guide them to the other side. The problem was that Ben's situation left me wide open for the dark spirits. While Ben was at work overnight, the dark ones gathered outside my home, calling my name. Beckoning me to come out and help them cross over. They knew I couldn't do that. What they really wanted was to possess my body so that they could get to Ben and extinguish his light. These dark spirits couldn't do it on their own because Ben's light was too strong. Through me, they could.
It's the whole reason why I don't leave the house, nor do I let anyone in. As for Ben, after his shift ends at 6 am, he goes straight to the ocean to pīkai or to cleanse before he gets home. I know when he's fallen asleep because that's when the mail person, or the person from Hawaiian Electric, or the board of water supply shows up for some reason. Two days ago, it was a plumber. An hour later, it was someone wanting to install solar. The dark spirits were getting very creative because nothing else worked.
Friday was the day that I got paid from my online job with Amazon, and Ben got paid from his security job. We both had direct deposit, and Ben knew my security codes and PIN numbers, so he went and did all the shopping. While he was gone, I decided to make an old-fashioned lunch for my brother and me, like we used to have back in the day. Poi, Corned beef laulau with pork, and pipi kaula. At that moment, I heard a car speeding down the street and then the sound of brakes screeching on the pavement until it came to a deafening stop. There was a dull thud and the sound of glass shattering. Looking out the kitchen window, I saw an old Filipino woman on the street in front of my house, entirely run over. The car that hit her idled for a while and took off. No one came out of their houses to check on the woman, and yet, as broken and as bloody as she was. She managed to pull her mangled body across the black top and up to my front fence. Painfully, she pulled herself up and extended her broken hand, hanging by the torn flesh, begging for my help.
"Please," she said. "Don't let me die like this, not like this. Please, Kaliko, don't let me die like this!"
I've never seen this woman before. How does she know my name? She doesn't. At that moment, I heard Ben's car pull into the driveway. He came walking into the house and saw me standing at the kitchen window staring out. When he walked up behind me, he saw it too.
"They don't give up," He stated, because he knows what the deal is. "I could give her the light."
"Then all the other dark spirits will come out of the woodwork," I cautioned my giant brother as the broken woman slowly dimmed out from corporeal to nothing.
"How long are we going to keep this up?" Ben asked with a bit of irritation. "We can move someplace else, like the Big Island, the mainland. Maybe even as far as Norway or Sweden?"
"We tried that, remember?" I reminded him. "That's how we ended up here. No matter where your light goes, spirits will gravitate to it. The darkness will gravitate to me because they can't get to you."
~
One morning, Ben arrived home to find the house unusually quiet. Usually, his brother Kaliko is in the kitchen preparing Ben's breakfast before he heads off to sleep. That was not the case this morning. Ben pulled out the loaf of sweet bread with a package of salami and made himself an impromptu sandwich. Glancing down the hallway while taking a sip of water from his cup, Ben saw it. A stray puppy was lying dead in front of the open door to Kaliko's bedroom.
"Haaaa no," Ben gasped to himself. "They finally got to you, brother," Ben threw himself on the floor before the shotgun could even go off and spray him with buckshot. It shattered the old poker table along with a line of porcelain coffee cups sitting in the dish racks. Ben managed to grab a kitchen chair and whip it down the hallway. It hit Kaliko square on and sent him sprawling. Simultaneously, the shotgun went off and hit the ceiling, sending wood chips and drywall flying everywhere. In two bounding steps, Ben was down the hallway, holding his brother's possessed body in his two gargantuan hands.
"Ha'alele 'oe! Pākele' oe!" The dark spirit of an old haggard man left Kaliko's body screaming in pain while a radiant light emanated from Ben's form.
It took a couple of minutes before Kaliko could come around after the possession. "What the hell happened?"
"This dark spirit showed itself as a stray dog, not knowing that dogs are your weakness," Ben told his brother. "That's how it got you."
"Damn," Kaliko scoffed. "Who would have thought?"
"Do you have any other weaknesses?" Ben gave his brother a paternal look like their father used to.
"Rocky Road ice cream," Kaliko deadpanned.
"I'm throwing that shit out of the fridge right now," Ben got up and began removing the ice cream and washed it all down the drain in the sink. "Can't take any more chances."
"Alright then," Kaliko adjusted himself so he could prop himself up against the wall. "To be fair, what's your weakness?" Ben didn't reply right away. "C'mon brah, what's your weakness?"
Ben reluctantly pulled out his phone and swiped the screen a couple of times before he handed it to Kaliko. It was a picture of the captain of the local Tongan rugby league. "Oh, Tevaka," Kaliko nodded. "He's my hero too, he's bad ass for sure."
Handing the phone back to Ben, Kaliko asked, "So how is Tevaka being your hero, a weakness?"
Ben didn't reply; he simply got up and went to the kitchen to retrieve a broom to clean up the mess in the hallway. A different light turned on, but not for Ben, for Kaliko. "Oh brah, Tevaka is your weakness?"
"He spends time with me on the job," Ben offered. "We talk, we eat together. He understands me, and he likes me for me."
"Is it really Tevaka, or is it a spirit?" I had to make him understand.
"He's a flesh and blood human being," Ben replied while sweeping everything up in the dustpan.
"How could you know that for sure, Ben?" Kaliko got up and carefully walked toward the kitchen. Ben looked at his brother as if he were clueless. "Oh my god, alright, you know what? I don't wanna know, I'll take your word for it!"
"The only way to find out for sure is that you have to bring him over," Kaliko said, the most unexpected thing that Ben thought he would never hear from his brother. "For dinner, I guess, but you have to bring him over. That's the only way we can know for sure."
Ben bounded down the hallway, took his brother in his arms, and gave him the most gentle hug. "I love you, brother, thank you."
~
A week later, Kaliko and Ben Hakama were found dead in their Gulick Street home. There was no sign of foul play. There were no medical reasons, no poisoning. It just looked like they both fell asleep and never woke up. Some of the neighbors said they saw the famous local rugby player walk into Ben and Kaliko's home on that September evening in 2018, but they don't ever remember seeing a car pull up or seeing if Tevaka was dropped off. The Gulick house has sat empty for three years with a perpetual for sale sign out front. There haven't been any takers for a while, except for the occasional old woman peddling jars of homemade Kim Chee and See-Mui.
@credit alexi
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