Chapter Four

When Ed shut the engine off, the passengers in the pickup's bed dispersed without so much as a "see you later." Raymond found himself standing alone by the tailgate, holding his class schedule in one hand and his saxophone in the other. He sighed.

Ed locked the doors and twirled his keys on his middle finger. "Well, have fun in first period. Who do you got?"

Ray scanned the printout. "R. Kaminsky."

Ed grinned. "You'll like Bob. He's super cool." He nodded toward the saxophone. "When do you got band?"

"Um … sixth."

"There's no sixth on Mondays. Oh well. Want me to lock it in the truck?"

"I don't think so." The school would have to earn his trust. He looked down to see who taught his second class, and when he looked up, he'd already lost Ed in the crowd. He picked out faces in the sea of students, not one of them familiar. The first bell rang, and more students began to wander over from the gas station and tiny grocery store across the street. Kids swarmed around him, talking and laughing and enjoying last-minute smokes, and Raymond felt completely isolated in the envelope of noise.

Someone bumped into him and stumbled, dropping the burning stub of a cigarette. Raymond stared a moment at the butt smoldering at his feet, still unable to believe that he was going to have to not only attend, but also probably graduate from this school. He was going to have to make new friends, date new girls, actually make an effort to fit in. His reaction upon registering at Wailele had been half-snobbish amusement at the simple country school. Now, as he noticed the new "L.B.I." message on the side of the office, he had to stifle a shudder.

He looked back down at the burning cigarette and ground it into the pavement with the toe of his sneaker. Come on—deal with it, he told himself. Be a man.

Not feeling much better in spite of his personal pep talk, he stiffened his upper lip, squared his jaw and grit his teeth, then headed for Building Three.

* * *

Mr. Kaminsky sat at a large metal desk at the rear of his classroom, moving his lips as he read the funny pages, half-listening to the girl sitting next to him telling him her boyfriend problems. A blue and pink surfboard leaned in the corner behind him. His tanned skin was darker than his short sun-bleached hair, which spiked straight up and pushed back in an attempt to hide the thin patch on the top. When the bell rang, the teacher looked up.

"Are you Mr. Kaminsky?" Raymond asked, raking his bangs out of his face.

The teacher put down the paper and looked up. "That's me," he drawled. The aide giggled. "Raymond, yeah?"

"Yes."

Mr. Kaminsky took a sheet of pink paper from between the pages in his grade book, signed it, and stabbed it down on a paper spindle on top of his In/Out box. "This is my prep period, and even though they kinda threw you in here independent study-kine, I guess we oughta get you set up with something to do sooner or later, yeah?" Eyes, mouth and mustache collaborated in a broad smile. "How's later sound with you?"

"Okay," Raymond said.

The teacher hooked a chair with his foot and kicked it over to Raymond. "Relax, man. Sit down and stay awhile."

* * *

In second period Trig, Raymond took a placement test, then sat at the back of the room for the rest of the period. The class at Wailele was a full month behind where he'd been in Arizona, so he defaced his school folder rather than bothering to listen to the lecture. The bell rang for a fifteen-minute recess and he walked out into the courtyard. Some upper-classmen hurried by. Others stood around socializing in twos and threes and fours. Raymond sat on the curb in front of his math class, drumming his fingers on his saxophone case, surveying the scene. To his right stood Building Three, where he'd been first hour. A short hallway passed through the building in the middle of the ground floor, and a group of Polynesian boys loitered and leaned in the semi-darkness, spitting on the walkway and cursing at each other and at passers-by, laughing all the while. They had to be the Local Bloods, Incorporated.

As he watched them, the Oriental girl he'd met at the beach passed through the hall. She stopped and said something to one of the Bloods, and they both laughed. Another slapped her hard on the rear and—to Raymond's surprise—she slapped him upside the head. Again, both laughed. She spotted Raymond and walked over to him, wiping her eyes.

The girl giggled, shaking her head. "We call it the 'Tunnel of Hell.'"

"Appropriate enough." He pushed the hair from his eyes.

"See—I told you I'd see you at school. What was your name again?"

He found his feet. "Raymond Harmon." What was hers?

"How's your bod doing?" She leaned toward him and before he could stop her she grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it up to his shoulder. He looked around in embarrassment, but nobody seemed to notice. She "oohed" as her finger traced along the mostly-faded welt on his chest. "Did you use papaya like I told you?"

He shook his head. "We didn't have any."

She pulled his shirt back down and patted him on the chest. "You'll live. How's school so far?"

He shook his head. "Uneventful."

"What do you have next?" she asked.

"English. With …" He checked his schedule. "E. Gruber."

"Yuck. I had her last year—gave me a C, the bitch." She took him by the arm and steered him toward the Tunnel. "Come on—I'll show you to her cave. She has a major cow if anyone's late."

The recess bell rang, and the courtyard began to empty. The Bloods showed no sign of going anywhere. As Raymond followed the girl through the obstacle course of sprawled bodies and legs in the Tunnel, he thought he could hear the word haole among the echoing whispers. He shrugged it off and followed the girl across a little breezeway, through another tunnel and out to a dingy row of portable classrooms. The girl climbed a set of steps with Raymond in tow and waved at the teacher inside. "Hi, Mrs. Gruber!" she chimed through clenched teeth.

The prune-faced lady waved back as if she were waving away a wasp. "Hello, Larissa. How are you."

Larissa stuck her tongue out at the back of Mrs. Gruber's head and turned to Raymond. "Gotta go. You have fun, now."

"Thanks!" he called after her, repeating her name over and over in his mind.

He went through the same process he had for his first two classes: introduced himself, showed his class schedule, answered a few questions. Then he asked if there was anything he needed to do before he could start participating in class. At this, Mrs. Gruber pushed her glasses to the top of her nose, clunked over to a cupboard and took out a stack of well-thumbed paperback novels. She pushed them at him, "Read these. You can sit in the back."

He dropped into a desk and watched students filtering through the door. Ed came in, made the "shaka" sign—closed fist, extended thumb and pinkie—and took his assigned seat. Others came in as well: a dark Oriental girl with long, ruler-straight hair; a large local boy, built like a rock wall and proportioned like a telephone booth; a pimpled haole male with wire-framed glasses, uncombed hair and a voluminous backpack. Types and stereotypes and prototypes. As the classroom filled up, Raymond was conscious of casual glances back to see who the new guy was.

The tardy bell rang and the class lapsed into silence. Mrs. Gruber made her way to the front, scanning the class for talkers with her practiced schoolmarm's stare. As she reached her graffittied podium, in came the haole girl with the insane red hair—the one from the office on Friday. The girl wore denim shorts, combat boots and a green sweatshirt with the words "I Puked in Poughkeepsie" printed across the chest.

"The early bird gets the worm, young lady," the teacher said.

"Haste makes waste," came the response.

She marched across the room, smiled at Raymond and slumped into the seat in front of him.

The bruised eye had turned all purple and gray. Raymond wondered. He wondered if she remembered him.

Through her scowl Mrs. Gruber began a rambling lecture that took them from sonnets to sex in the works of Shakespeare, to Beowulf, and eventually to the game of chess and its significance in the works of T. S. Eliot. She broke off abruptly five minutes before the bell, asking if there were any questions. When no one volunteered any, Mrs. Gruber assigned homework and retreated to her desk. Raymond stretched and yawned with the other students. Behind him, the teacher took a jar of peanut butter and a plastic tub of crackers from a desk drawer and began to make little sandwiches. Raymond picked up one of the novels.

"She shouldn't do that unless she has enough for everybody."

Raymond looked up. The girl in front of him had turned around. He swiped his bangs back as he tried to think of something clever to say. "What?"

"I mean, it's only polite, right? If you don't have enough for everybody, you shouldn't have any yourself. That's what my mom's taught me all these years and now Gruby comes in and shatters all hope of me ever becoming properly socialized."

"You'll be permanently dysfunctional."

"Man—she really gives new meaning to the expression 'Old English.'"

He smiled and nodded, studying her face. She would have been pretty, behind the bohemian makeup and dyed hair—except for the black eye. It was not a classic face; her slightly peaked nose balanced precariously above wide, thick lips, just a bit too big to fit perfectly on her face. She had none of Julie's trite cuteness: no dimples or little upturned nose. But he couldn't help stare at her, almost study her. It was a stunning face.

He stopped staring when he realized that she was staring right back.

"So they let you in, huh?" She winked.

"Uh, yes. Just today, in fact."

"Welcome to Hell, seventh floor. I am Mephistopheles, your guide." She made a half-smile. "Actually it's not all that bad. You have to kind of make your own hell, you know? And heaven knows: people do manage. Now that fight this morning, that's what I mean. I mean … did you see the fight this morning?"

He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. "No."

"Don't panic, there'll be another tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow." She shot a glance at Mrs. Gruber, but the teacher hadn't caught the shades of Shakespeare. "Fighting's a spectator sport around here. I guess both bozos got sent to the Vee Pee and arrested. What's your name?"

"Raymond Harmon."

"I thought so." She paused, then glanced at her watch. "Well, gotta go. See you later." She stood up suddenly, pulled at the legs of her shorts, then walked out of the portable, swinging her rubber beach bag back and forth. The bell rang, and the rest of the students made for the doors. Raymond gathered the novels into his knapsack and walked slowly down the steps of the portable. He fell in behind a gaggle of girls, following them to the cafeteria and dropping in behind them in the shortest of the two lunch lines. He stood and stepped, stood and stepped, conscious of stares from all directions.

Lunch was nothing exotic: burgers and fries, greasy corn and a cookie. When he took his tray to the student cashier, she said, "Eh! You no can come tru dis line—stay da girls' line."

Raymond looked around him, realizing for the first time that the line was all girls. "Can't you just let me through? I really didn't know."

"What—you one mahu?"

The girl behind Raymond stamped her foot: "Take da money, awready. Chee!"

The cashier scowled at her but snatched his dollar from him anyway. "Kay den, but necks time try go tru d'oddah line."

Raymond nodded and left.

The cafeteria was sectioned off like a butterfly collection: Japanese girls pinned to one table, Filipino girls to another. "Regular" local guys lined one end of a long table parallel to the stage, while Bloods took the other end—the end closest to the tray return window. An unofficial divider of book bags and jackets divided one section from the other. Raymond found Ed with the surfers two tables over, squirting ketchup on his cardboard tray. He raised his eyebrows in greeting.

"Are you sure this isn't a 'girls' table'?" Raymond said.

"I wondered when you'd figure that out," Ed said. He held up a fry and it sagged over, limp. "Love this jungle cuisine."

"Sole," someone called from down the table. So-lay. Ed looked up.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you going to introduce your friend?" A finger pointed at Raymond. All heads turned.

Ed cleared his throat melodramatically. "Everybody, this is Raymond Harmon, come to us by way of Mesa, Arizona."

"That's right near Phoenix," Raymond added to the chorus of nods. The red-haired girl from English came over with her lunch and sat at the end of the table. She waved her little finger. Raymond waved back, and turned to Ed. He mouthed the word: "So-lay?"

"Sole," Ed said. "It's Samoan for boy, kind of the Wailele version of hey you."

Raymond nodded.

"I hope you're writing all this down," Ed told him. "There'll be a quiz after lunch."

Raymond ate and listened snatches of conversations around him, content to observe, for now. He preferred watching people to answering more questions—or worse, to answering the same ones over and over again.

Near the end of the lunch period, a hand waved in front of Raymond's face. "Pass the bucket, will you?" Raymond blinked and looked around. A #10 tin can full of plastic spoon-forks sat at his elbow. He dropped in his spork, then handed the can to Ed. Ed scooped his last bit of corn, added his spork to the collection in the can and passed it on.

Raymond got out his schedule. "Anyone know where P-26 is?"

"It's on the other side of the library," Ed said. "I'll come with you—hang on."

He gulped his milk and grabbed his bag. Raymond followed him outside.

* * *

It was sprinkling, though the dirty white school buildings were in total sunlight. The mountains were in shadows. Raymond and Ed jogged across the open courtyard, past the bare flagpole, and stepped up under the cover of the library. They slowed to a walk. Polynesian boys lined the side of the library, talking and listening to a radio. One stretched out across the walkway with his head on his bag, sleeping. Ed and Raymond stepped over him, to stay out of the rain.

Raymond could feel the eyes on him, could sense the faces angled toward him. Someone spit a sunflower seed shell at him. He brushed it off his sleeve. A fat kid stepped forward and said "Eh, haole boy!" Raymond ignored him as he and Ed passed. The kid called again, "Eh haole boy—try wait!"

Raymond paused. "Yeah?"

The Polynesian made a "shaka" sign and said "White ding-ding!"

For lack of a better response, Raymond managed a smile. The wind was sprinkling his back with rain.

The fat kid shook his hand back and forth. "White ding-ding!" he repeated.

Raymond made the sign back, and the entire crowd hooted with laughter.

"What did I just do?" he asked Ed.

"He just called you a white dick, and you just agreed with him. Come on."

As they turned to go, Raymond's eye caught movement—a blur of brown from the right. A Blood jumped at him and faked a punch to the side of Raymond's left ear. As the fist swung past, Raymond startled himself by squeezing his hand into a fist and slugging the Blood in the jaw. The boy reeled back, tripped over a pair of legs, and cracked his head against the concrete. He fell noisily onto the sidewalk.

The laughing and conversation stopped. Ed stopped. For a second, time stopped. Then, clearing his throat quietly, Raymond switched his saxophone to his right hand and continued in the direction they had been heading, out into the light rain.

All around him he felt the Bloods moving in. He suddenly couldn't see Ed. Then he felt the hand of a different Samoan slap against his backpack, pushing him just hard enough to make him stumble, but not enough to make him lose his balance. He tried to walk away, but the ring closed tightly around them. The hand grabbed him by his shoulder, turned him around and threw him back, and he fell into the far edge of the circle. The concrete smelled fresh from the dusty rain. Raymond dropped his backpack and sax on the pavement as he got up. Someone in the crowd pushed Raymond toward the Polynesian, who grabbed him by the throat and began to yell in what Ray could only guess was Samoan.

The bell rang. People swarmed out of the cafeteria. Part of the cafeteria crowd moved over and engulfed the circle of Bloods.

As the Blood screamed at him, little globules of spit and Skoal sprayed out, spattering Raymond's cheeks and the area around his mouth. Raymond squinted and pursed his lips, concentrating on trying to wrench the guy's hands from his collar, and on timing his breathing so that he wasn't gasping while the guy was exhaling. Just managing to pry the fingers of one hand apart, he wrenched around, hearing his collar rip. He wheeled—off balance—to the edge of the circle, and someone in the crowd pushed him back toward the Blood. Raymond and the Blood collided and locked arms, wrestling for position.

"Eh—'nuff awready."

Behind the Blood, two security officers had broken through the audience. "'Nuff awready, Ant'ony," the taller one said, smiling. The other one twirled the end of his whistle chain idly, with the same sarcastic grin.

Raymond and Anthony let go of each other and stepped back. They heard a groan and a curse from the felled Blood on the library sidewalk.

The Blood in the ring backed away and wiped his mouth on his arm. "Brah—he wen' lick Fata and den …"

"Yeah, yeah, I bet he did." The taller of the two stepped forward and took Anthony by the wrists. "Jus' shut yer mout' an' come wit' me." He pushed him along toward the office. The other guard silently picked up Raymond's backpack and sax and handed them to him, then dragged him toward the office by the biceps of his right arm. Raymond tripped along beside him, wiping his face on the shoulder of his ripped Oxford, wanting to spit.

A scared-looking seventh-grader held the door open for them as they entered the office building and breezed through the lobby. Raymond started to say something, but the guard told barked, "Save it, haole boy." At the end of the hall, they pushed Raymond and Anthony into the vice-principal's cubicle. Anthony dropped into a chair in one corner; Raymond sat opposite. "Miz Greer going come in one second," one of the guards said, "No make trouble." He pulled the dirty yellow door shut.

They sat there in complete silence, with Anthony staring at his hands and Raymond busying himself with the notices stapled to the bulletin board behind him, pretending to read them. He glanced over at the Samoan, who looked up. Raymond looked away. He felt the eyes still pinned to him, and turned his head again to stare in the Blood's direction. Anthony looked away.

Amused with the little game, Raymond gave a half-laugh. Anthony stood up and took a step forward, bristling.

"Wot?"

Raymond didn't answer. He reached up and ripped a notice from the bulletin board behind him and began to read, almost convincing himself that he was genuinely interested. After a minute he finished it, wadded it up, chucked it in the garbage. He was looking for something else to read when Ms. Greer came in.

She looked like a businesswoman and Raymond could tell by the set of her jaw that she meant business. The rolling chair squeaked as she sat down. She opened a small notebook on her desk and held her hands in front of her in a prayer position.

"So, now. What mischief have you two boys been up to?" There was a pause. "Mr. Sofafili?"

The Samoan stared at his feet and muttered, "He wen bus' up my friend, so I was goin' lick him, but den."

Speak English, Raymond thought.

One of the guards popped in the doorway. The uniformed local stood by the Blood's side and put his hand on his shoulder. "This guy"—he nodded toward Raymond—"wen' strike Fata Afuele. You know, Tommy's brother?" Ms. Greer blinked her eyes in recognition. "I caught Ant'ony wit' his hands around dis guy's t'roat, but he nevah wen' hit him fo' real."

"Only pushed me a couple of times," Raymond added, "and ripped my shirt, and just about strangled me …"

"Fuck you," Anthony suggested.

"… And covered my face with his disgusting tobacco slime. Makes me want to retch."

"Fuck you," Anthony repeated.

"No thank you." Raymond told him.

Ms. Greer smiled thinly. "Both of you boys shut up. Honestly, I don't know what this campus is coming to. First those two this morning and now you boys. Now, Mr. …" She waited for Raymond to fill in the blank.

"Raymond Harmon."

"Mr. Harmon, why was it that you felt inclined to strike Mr. Afuele?"

"He took a swing at me."

She raised her eyebrows. "Hmmm. A swing. So did Mr. Afuele actually strike you?"

"No, but—"

"No buts, please."

The guard said, "We took Fata to Wailele hospital. He get one da kine … concussion. Guess he wen' hit da wall when he fell back."

The Vice Principal made a scribble in her notebook. "Now, Mr. Harmon. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Raymond shifted in the chair. "I thought he was going to hit me—what do you expect me to do? He stepped out in front of me and took a swing at me. It all happened real fast. You can call in Ed … what's his name? He was right next to me."

She obviously wasn't taking requests. "And what of your scrabble with Mr. Sofafili here?" She looked hard at Anthony.

"After the deal with that other guy, this imbecile comes up from behind and starts to strangle me."

"Fuck You!" Anthony reiterated.

"That's enough of that, Mr. Sofafili. Mr. Harmon, how long have you been on Wailele campus?"

"This is my first day." And last, if he'd had anything to say about it.

"Well, sir, I hope that you don't make name-calling a habit while you are attending this school. And I hope you do realize that here at Wailele we don't just strike people if we think they are attacking us. Even if they are, and especially if they aren't."

"Spesh'ly not my cousin!" Anthony added. Ms. Greer shushed him.

"I shall have to call the authorities," the Vice-Principal stated. The guard left abruptly.

"As in …"

"As in the police. We may be a jungle school, Mr. Harmon, but we have rules regarding assault."

"Strangle rules, too?"

She smiled primly. "I'd advise you not to be so smart, Raymond. A smart mouth can get a boy into a lot of trouble."

She stood up and left the room; Anthony followed.

* * *

Ten minutes later, a young Hawaiian police officer walked grimly in. Raymond stood up, thinking the officer would want him to leave with him. The man in black waggled a toothpick up and down between his teeth. "You the assault?" he asked.

"I guess so."

The policeman took some sheets of paper from a clipboard he held. "I need you to fill out a statement for me." He handed Raymond a black pen and two statement forms. "Just write everything that happened, exactly as it happened, in your own words."

"Is this my confession?"

The officer actually smiled. "Something like that. If you cross anything out, just initial by where you made the correction." He left without another word, returning a few minutes after Raymond had finished. Raymond handed him the papers, and the officer leaned against the wall to read them. Then he closed the door, pulled up a chair and sat down, his legs straddling the back rest.

"Well, I'm not going to have to take you in," he said first. Raymond felt the tightness seep out of his neck. "Your statement corroborates with Sofafili's, and I'm going to really go out on a limb here and call it self-defense. To be honest with you, I'd've done the same thing in the same situation. Why didn't you tell all this to Ms. Greer?"

"I tried to, but she wouldn't listen to me."

The officer grinned and looked down to cover it. "I … won't go into my opinions of Ms. Greer." He signed the statements and checked them over once. "You by any chance know Hannah or Crissy Stope?"

"Nope."

The officer smiled at the rhyme. "My two daughters. One eighth grade and one tenth."

"I'm new here. This is my first day."

"Not off to a very good start, are you?"

Raymond hung his head.

The officer pulled his chair in a little closer. "Listen—let me tell you something right now. You have any more trouble with the Local Bloods, the best thing you can do is just let them beat you up."

Raymond chuckled. "Yeah, right."

"No, I mean it. Let them beat the hell out of you if you have to. I know that sounds really stupid right now and it'll sound even stupider when they're playing rugby with your head, but let me tell you: if you don't hit them back then I can come and nail them for you."

Raymond raised one eyebrow. "What do you care—you're one of them, aren't you?"

The officer looked at him a moment, genuinely perplexed. "Me?" He blinked. "No—I'm Hawaiian. These boys are Samoans."

"What's the difference?"

The officer smiled. "I forgot—you're new. Yeah, there's a real difference. Hawaiians, Samoans, Tongans, Tahitians … they're all Polynesians, but all different. After a while, you'll be able to tell."

"So is it the Samoans I need to worry about?"

"It's these Samoans you need to watch. These kids. The Bloods. That's what I'm trying to tell you. If you folks beef it up again and both of you come in here with a bruises and bloody noses, they'll figure it's just normal high school stuff. But if we get a positive I. D. on a bunch of known hoodlums without a scratch, I have a good chance of being able to actually do something."

Raymond just nodded.

"Promise me you'll do like I say."

"Kay."

The policeman shook Raymond's hand firmly and left. As Raymond left the office building, he questioned the intelligence of letting a bunch of Polynesians play team sports with his head. Sure, it might help put a few of them away for a while, but he wasn't that married to the cause.

Blinking in the sun, he stood on the corner with his schedule open, trying to figure out where he was supposed to be. He'd missed fourth period, so it must be fifth period. Or sixth. But no—they didn't have a sixth period on Monday. Finally he gave up. He'd had enough of Wailele High School for one day. Hell—he'd had enough for a whole month. His physics class would have to manage without him.

Not knowing or caring about the Hawaii's truancy laws, he caught a bus home and took a nap.

© Copyright 2002 by David S. Baker