In my days as a child, when the green in the grass held a much richer hue of its own color than it had before, there was something about it that made me want to get on my knees and run my fingers through the blades until I could pull up a clump just for myself.
The aroma of the damp earth made my senses come alive. Turning on the water hose to wash off the dark brown and red dirt from my hands was not at all troubling. Cooling my hands cooled the rest of my young form as a little boy. In the late 60s and early 70s, we were all trying to be good American citizens in our small Hawaiian hobble of a neighborhood, because that's what the Bank of Hawaii commercial said we should be. Yet, the essence of our mana as Hawaiians always permeated everything we did, even though we were looked upon as a lazy beer drinking people who could only work at menial jobs and barely squeak by with an eighth-grade education. I recall a couple of surveyors from the county walking up and down our old street. A few minutes later, they gathered at the top of our driveway, in front of our mailbox, commiserating and exchanging notes. They then pointed to the acreage of Kiawe trees at the mauka end of our street, which was quite a unique intersection as accidents happened there all the time. Periodically, if one of our neighbors was hosting a lu'au and a fight broke out at the house, it would always spill out to the intersection, where the violence was brutal. If an ambulance was not called for, someone was at least driven to the emergency room. On the day that the surveyors held their bull session in front of our mailbox, my father was home on his day off from work. He took it upon himself to ask the men what the matter was, if indeed there was a matter important enough that he should be made aware of it, since it was being discussed in front of our home. The men told my father that soon heavy equipment would line the road and that the kiawe trees would be cut down to make room for new homes and a new neighborhood. My father warned the men that the acreage of kiawe trees was growing over the remnants of an old temple of human sacrifice. He also mentioned that, even during his time as a little boy, growing up in our house, no one ventured into that area, and bad things happened in and around it. The surveyors, being Haole and Japanese, summarily laughed at my father and brushed him off as a superstitious Hawaiian. My father worked at the docks, and he was a bull of a man. He never suffered fools nor did he tolerate disrespect. He lifted one of the men off the ground with one hand."Don't talk to me like I'm stupid," he warned the man, whom he did not know was the supervisor. "When your men end up getting hurt or worse, don't come crying to me."
That's precisely what happened. When the project began, equipment broke down. Kiawe trees fell on whole work crews who were cutting down other trees in the area. Stranger still were voices whispering the names of workers while construction equipment roared on with deafening clarity. Workers said it felt as if someone stood right next to them, calling their own names into their ears. The project was delayed on more than one occasion as workers walked off the job claiming to have been shoved, poked, and even levitating off the ground by some unseen force. Then the fatal accidents happened. Men were found with the backs of their heads bashed in when some heavy piece of equipment fell on their heads. One day, a worker brought in from San Diego was decapitated when the operator of a bulldozer claimed that some unseen force took over the steering controls and swung the bulldozer to the left, which is where the man from San Diego stood. The controls lifted the blade, which lopped off the man's head in one motion. The project shut down after that, and that development never came to be.
It's years later on, and my old house at the end of the road is still there. So is that old acreage of Kiawe, untouched and unmolested by developers. Even my kids and grandkids know well enough not to venture near that area for any reason.
While still a boy, I recall one day seeing a Ford Pinto parked right up against that part of the Kiawe that hung over our humble intersection at the end of our block. In it sat a young Haole girl with everything she owned, piled into the small vehicle. She was distraught, mainly crying, but also very bothered about something. My mother saw her first and went out to the car to talk to her. After a while, the girl came to our house with my mother's arms around the girl's shoulders. When my father's car pulled up into the driveway, my mother went out to talk to him and explain the girls' situation.
"I was worried for that girl," my mother explained. "I couldn't let her park her car right there and then see her sleep there overnight."
"Especially there," my father agreed.
My parents allowed the girl to park her car near the lawn in front of our house. My father cleared out the extra back room that was used for storage. She had a place where she could put all of her belongings. Her name was Claire, and my parents told her she could stay with us until she was on her feet again. Her story was that she was staying at a hotel in Waikiki. It was at that hotel that Claire met Raymond Pacheco, the front desk clerk. They hit it off right away, and they spent a lot of time together. At the airport, while saying their good-byes, Raymond confessed his love for Claire. A month later, Claire was standing at Raymond's front door, who was greeted by Raymond's wife and kids.
By the end of the year, Claire was back on her feet and had saved up enough money to fly home. Which she did, but she also came back to our home expressing her thanks for my parents' hospitality and warmth.
"It's aloha," my mother told her. "It doesn't cost anything."
That really struck Claire very deeply. "I think I'm going to move here and find a place of my own. I can't ever thank both of you for welcoming me into your home and making me feel like I belong. What I mean is, I can't come up with the words that can express how I feel, especially with everything that happened."
"Have you spoken to your family about it?" My father asked. "Do they agree?"
"They agree," she smiled. "They're just worried if I'll be ok, what with me being a Haole in Hawaii."
Claire disappeared the next day. Everything she owned was either in the bedroom she used in our home or in her car. That means her car keys, her purse, her cash, her bank book, and other personal effects. She was gone as if she had walked up the street, taken a left turn, and never come back.
Years after that, even though we never said it, we knew.
She must have walked into the Kiawe. With that acreage that has remained untouched all these years later, we will never know.
poster credit @gregvaughn
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