Chapter Ten

Raymond got back from the beach Saturday afternoon and checked the mailbox. Every one of his friends had promised to write, but all that had come since they'd been in Hawaii had been a few bills and a wedding announcement from one of Mrs. Harmon's friends' daughters—one Raymond had never met. But there were two envelopes in the box, a bank statement for his mother and something in a pink envelope, addressed to him. He put the bill back in the box and checked the return address on his letter. Miss Julie Ann Newell. Sighing, he sank down and sat on the curb, watching the mynah birds fighting in the street. Not sure if he even wanted to open it, he turned the envelope over and over in his hand, looking at the postmark, the stamp and Julie's handwriting. He felt an ant crawling up his right arm and flicked it off. Then he attacked the envelope, ripping the flap open and sliding the card out. On its front was a kitten with huge eyes. Cute, maybe, but in context it made him feel like throwing up.

There was no printed message inside, just a note:

Raymond—

I realize now that I never loved you and will never love you. You are the most unfeeling person I have ever known and been close to. I hope I never see you again as long as I live. You don't have to answer this letter.

—Julie.

He read it twice, glanced up at the sun, then put the card back into its mangled envelope, turning to walk into the house. He didn't bother to check the machine for messages.

* * *

The screen door banged when Sarah came in, carrying a pillow case full of clothes. "No date tonight, huh, Stud?"

"Nope." Raymond raised the remote and clicked the television off.

"What happened with that Larry chick? Didn't work out?"

He smiled, remembering. Larissa seemed so long ago. It had only been two weeks but it seemed like months. Everything seemed far away, unreachable. He couldn't remember living in Arizona anymore. He could think about it and picture it in his head, but the actual experience wasn't real to him. The only proof he had was the note from Julie.

"Doing anything tonight?" he asked his sister. "Or are you just going to hang out here and cannibalize our Tide?"

She grimaced, crinkling up her nose. "I've got a date tonight, thank you very much."

He switched the television back on. "Good for you."

"I hate living in the dorms," she complained, sitting down next to him. "I want to wear this specific outfit but it's dirty so I have to wash it and I'm out of quarters so I have to come all the way over here." She looked at her watch. "PJ's picking me up at eight."

He turned the television back off. "PJ?"

"My date." She picked up the bag of laundry and headed into the kitchen to raid the refrigerator.

"As in pajamas?"

"As in Prince John."

Raymond could hear the hum of the opened refrigerator. "And are his parents still alive?"

"What?"

"If my parents named me after a English tyrant, I'd shoot them in their sleep."

Danny came in from the other room and sat on the sofa, waiting for Raymond to turn the television back on. Raymond clicked the button and sat back.

He leaned back forward so he could see her through the open laundry room door. "Is he a real hunk?"

Every guy Sarah went out with was a real hunk. As in: "Okay, you two have to be real good kids tonight because so-and-so is coming over and he's a real hunk so I want to make a good impression."

Sarah came in from the kitchen, crunching a dill pickle. "Yes, Raymond, he's a real hunk. I'm sure you'll like him."

Raymond turned up the television and leaned back. His eyes were open, but his brain wasn't on receiving mode. Based on past experience of answering the door and having to entertain the parade of real hunks that had marched through the doors of the Harmon household, he could form a clear picture of what PJ would look like. Sarah usually went for the typical, clean-cut American boy type. He would be about six feet two, two hundred pounds, and might wear preppy glasses. He'd be dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. She never went for the slacks and Polo shirt type. He might have a mustache, on a slim chance perhaps a well-groomed beard, but in any case he would be clean about the whole facial hair thing. Basically, her boyfriends were always the bring-home-to-mother, let's-toss-the-football-around type: huge, intelligent and polite.

After dinner the television went back on, and the whole family sat around the room. A real Norman Rockwell tableau. Finally, the doorbell rang and Sarah jumped to answer it.

PJ was everything Raymond had expected—almost. He was tall, with wide, rounded shoulders. He wore an NSC sweatshirt, Levi's, and Converse hightops. Round-lensed glasses sat on his nose. His hulking body was offset by his quiet manner and soft voice. Everything about him fit Sarah's standard "hunk" mold.

Except, of course, for a few little details. His skin was brown and his last name was Tofiti. He was Samoan.

PJ reached out to shake Raymond's hand when Sarah introduced them. He had broad hands with short, clean fingernails. Raymond stared at the hand for a second, then shook it for his sister's sake.

"You like bowling?" the Samoan asked.

Raymond shrugged his shoulders. "It's okay."

PJ smiled good-naturedly, nodding his head. "It's kind of a stupid game if you really think about it, but it's pretty fun." He glanced at Sarah and then added, "You can come, if you want. If you don't have anything better to do." He looked at Sarah again, and she smiled.

"Uh, no," Raymond declined.

"Got a girl, huh?"

Raymond was going to answer when Sarah answered for him. "He hasn't got a date. Come on, Raymond, it'll be fun."

"Go with them, Raymond. Have a good time," his mother encouraged.

He sighed, as if he'd been coerced into a major project, and almost winced at the pain in his ribs. "Okay. Can you give me a few minutes to get ready?"

"Fine by me," PJ said, and sank onto the couch next to Mrs. Harmon. Raymond stalked down the hall and half-slammed his door, not completely on purpose.

Putting on socks and shoes, Raymond tried to talk himself up to it. There wasn't anything else to do—he might as well. There was probably a dance at school, but he hadn't bought a ticket, and he'd sworn off Wailele dances anyway.

Sarah came in, looking worried.

"Almost ready," he assured her.

"What's with you?"

He stopped short, his second sock half-on. "Exactly how do you mean that?"

"He isn't what you expected, is he?"

She was mostly wrong, but he didn't point that out.

She tapped her foot twice, slowly, deliberately. "You don't like him, do you?"

Raymond looked down and continued with his sock. "I don't even know the guy."

"It's because he's Samoan, isn't it?"

He didn't answer.

"Isn't it?"

Long pause. "That may be part of it."

"What about that Japanese girl? She was sure 'ethnic.' What about that Mexican girl back at home?"

Jasmine Hernandez, his Freshman year at Mountain view. He'd never actually taken her out; he'd just lusted after her for a year and a half.

He stared up at her. "I said part."

"Just because he's got brown skin?"

"It's not his brown skin."

"Then what is it?"

He looked Sarah in the eye, and just couldn't tell her. He didn't know exactly the reason himself, but he knew it had something to do with the Bloods. Ed had told him before that every Samoan is related to every other Samoan—especially in Kalohe. They were all cousins, or cousins of cousins. Maybe that was it.

"Never mind," he said. "Let's bowl."

Sarah raised an eyebrow, looked at him cockeyed, and followed him down the hall.

* * *

Apparently, to PJ, "picking up" meant walking over to their house. Raymond had expected a car. Real hunks always drove.

Actually being with PJ was horrible at first, because it made Raymond feel guilty since he was such a great guy. He talked in a low, level voice, and asked "you" questions instead of making "I" statements. He and Sarah held hands in a very friendly sort of way—he didn't crowd her. There really wasn't anything not to like.

The sun had gone down an hour earlier, and the sky was just a shade lighter than black. They walked up to campus three abreast, with Sarah in the middle. Raymond felt like an outsider, like Sarah and PJ would have rather been alone. Then he had another thought, that maybe he didn't want them to be alone together, but he mentally stepped on that idea to keep it from surfacing.

North Shore College had a game room with video games, foosball, pool and four bowling lanes. The noise in the big hall made it sound vaguely like Wailele's lunchroom, but the atmosphere was completely different. Haoles, locals and Orientals mingled without any sharp distinction. There wasn't that segmented, "butterfly collection" feel. At the pool table in the far, rear corner, a haole man and a Samoan woman played while several other Polynesians, a Chinese girl and an enormous black man watched. There were so many colors of people, skin tones just seemed to blur into one another.

Two of the lanes were empty, and PJ signed them on for the far one. A rack of balls stood behind the bench of their lane. PJ chose one, gave a light blue one to Sarah, then asked Raymond which weight he wanted.

"I don't know, what is there?"

PJ spun the balls in the sockets of the shelves, finding the numbers. "Your sister's got an eleven, and I usually use a fourteen. Here, you want a twelve?"

Raymond stood up and tested his rented shoes. "Any more fourteens in there?"

PJ checked. "Sure. Here's one." He lifted it with one hand, not using the holes, treating it like a basketball. Raymond took it from him and weighed it in his hands.

"Not bad." It was heavy, and the holes were too far apart for his fingers to be completely comfortable, but he was damned if he was going to put it down.

"Great." PJ grinned broadly, clipped the score sheet onto the little table, stuck the stubby pencil behind his ear and they began to play.

PJ was good. He bowled a strike right off. Sarah knocked six down on her first throw, then picked up the spares. Raymond was surprised at how well his sister played. He'd never known that she'd liked to bowl. She and PJ made it look easy. When his turn came he picked up his ball, imitated PJ's running approach, and let the ball loose. It bounced twice and thonked into the gutter, drawing a disapproving stare from the man at the counter. The gaping finger holes made it almost impossible for him to maintain any sort of grip on the ball. As they waited for the ball to resurface, PJ gave him some pointers.

"You're leading with your wrong foot. See? You're right-handed, so you've got to slide on your left foot, to keep your shoulders straight."

Raymond's ball popped out of the machine and he took it again. This time he concentrated solely on keeping his fingers in the holes. He managed that much, slid on the wrong foot again, and watched the ball knock down the three corner pins on the left side. He felt like an imbecile.

PJ smiled. "More like it. Now just get it over in one of the pockets and you can go pro."

After the second game, as they unlaced their clunky bowling shoes, PJ praised Raymond on how well he'd done, especially for a beginner.

"Well, at least my mind's not in the gutter."

Sarah gave him a playful push. "Nobody can accuse you of beginner's luck."

"Somehow, I feel better now."

Laughing, PJ stood up, gathered the rental shoes and went off to pay, leaving Raymond and his sister to sit there, looking at each other. He shoved his sneakers on and tried to ignore her one-eyebrow-up stare.

"What?" He asked finally.

She blinked, looked away, then turned back.

"Okay, so he's a better bowler than I am."

Sarah smiled, and stood up when PJ came back. Raymond stood as well and watched, awkward, as she put her arms around PJ and kissed him, right there in the pit of lane four. Nobody seemed to notice. Or care.

PJ and Sarah went out first, and Raymond followed. The sidewalk led out of the building, joined another walkway at a pair of concrete planter boxes, and led out to the parking lot. Five Bloods sat on the planter boxes, smoking and laughing, their feet in the flowers.

Unsuccessfully, Raymond tried not to think or feel when he approached them.

As the three bowlers passed, one of the Bloods flicked his cigarette at Raymond. He didn't see it, but felt it hit and smelled burning cloth. Raymond pivoted around.

These weren't major Bloods. Raymond hadn't picked up any of their names. They were just a couple of the flunkies out having a good time. They were his age or younger, his size.

One of them stood up—"Wot?"

Raymond tensed. The Blood had a mule-like face, with huge nostrils and sagging, broken ears with connected lobes. He wore a baseball cap, brim curled up, pushed back on his head, emphasizing a comically forehead. His tee-shirt bulged with a combination of pudge and brawn. Raymond spread his legs slightly and stood there, like a gunfighter, arms dangling at his sides.

The exchange was not a marvel of intercultural communication. "Wot?" (Almost whispered:) "You asshole." "Haole shit." "Yeah, well fuck you, too." "You wen' paint up all our stuff." "Did I?" "Haole shit." By inches, the Blood moved forward, his belly finding the way for him, until his face was a foot away from Raymond. The haole slowly clenched his fists.

"Don't touch him, Raymond."

PJ was close, somewhere off to the side, but Raymond couldn't see him. He couldn't see Sarah either.

He kept his eyes directly on the Blood.

"Give me one good reason, PJ." He tried to clear his head, wondering what would come next. He sensed, more than saw, PJ come up beside him.

"He's not worth it," PJ explained in his calm voice. "There's three security guards watching right now and if you throw a punch, you'll be banned from campus." A smile crept into his voice. "Which means no more bowling."

The Blood's eyes darted away for a split-second, and Raymond watched him get suddenly scared. Maybe he'd seen PJ for the first time, or maybe he realized he was up against someone bigger than he was. The bravado was still there, but Raymond could see his upper lip weaken. The other four Bloods were standing, now, but that did nothing for the first one's confidence. Raymond hadn't heard them get up, but he could see them way off to the side. Neither of them said a word.

"These are my people," PJ assured him. "Trust me, I know them. Fight this one and you have to fight all of the brothers, the uncles, the cousins."

"E matua le manuia lana taumafaiga," the Blood said.

"You shut up," PJ snapped. "Raymond, step back a little."

Raymond took three steps backward and to the side. The first Blood stood looking vulnerable, even with his friends clustered around him. Other college kids stood around, watching. Raymond hadn't been as alone as he'd thought.

"Haole shit," the Blood muttered, still trying to keep up his front.

"O lae na ou fai atu 'ia 'oe e pupuni ia o lou gutu," PJ said to the Blood in a tone that meant business. "Just keep quiet."

The Blood kept quiet.

"Now sit down."

All five Bloods exchanged looks. One of them dropped his cigarette in the flowers and crushed it with his heel. Then he sat down. Another did the same. The other three, looking sheepish, followed. Suddenly they didn't look like menacing aggressors, but like what they were: scared kids.

"Good." PJ walked forward to them. He reached down and lifted the one Blood's chin. "Sole," he said, "what's your family's name?"

The kid tried to look down but PJ held his chin firmly in place. Finally, after some shuffling of feet in the flower box, the kid told him. "Malae."

"Tama or Nofoa?" PJ asked. The kid wouldn't answer. PJ's hand tightened, like it had on that bowling ball. "Who's your father?" he asked, his voice still even and paced.

"Tama," the kid told him.

PJ let go of his chin, and the kid stared at his shoes.

"Does your father know that you're smoking?"

After a pause, the kid croaked, "No."

PJ tapped another of the kids on the shoulder. "How about you? What's your father's name?"

Eyes on the ground, the smaller kid replied, "Ione Susuga."

"And do you think he'd like to see you here, smoking and making trouble?"

"He wouldn't care."

PJ chuckled. "Sure, he wouldn't. What do you say you and me go over to your place and talk to him right now?"

No answer.

"Now stand up, all of you." PJ backed up to give them room. "Out of the flowers. Man, don't you have any respect?"

The Bloods begrudgingly stepped onto the sidewalk. PJ stood at least six inches above the tallest of the group. He almost looked like their father.

"If I ever catch you making trouble on this campus again," he told them, "I'll find out who the rest of your fathers are and I'll tell them all. Then the palangi here wouldn't need to lick you—your dads'll do it for you." He tipped the one kid's chin up again, with his finger. "Isn't that right, Malae?"

The kid nodded and PJ smiled. He reached over and offered his hand to the kid, who, after a second, took it half-heartedly and shook it twice. "Now get out of here," he said simply. The Bloods obeyed, first walking and then running across the lawn like scared puppies.

PJ laughed as he watched them go, and moved over to stand by Raymond. "And remember, kids," he advised, "don't try to do this at home."

* * *

They walked home, PJ with his arm across Sarah's shoulders, Raymond following behind them like a Hindu wife, responding to their questions and comments but not saying much else. When they got home Raymond said goodnight and went straight to bed, but not to sleep. He listened. PJ and Sarah were sitting on the couch in the living room with the television on. His mother was asleep. He wondered what Susan was doing.

Eventually, he got tired of straining his ears to hear something that he couldn't. He liked the way PJ treated his sister. And he liked PJ. Susan had said a couple of times that she wished he could meet some nice locals. She'd be excited to hear that he finally had.

© Copyright 2002 by David S. Baker