Chapter Fourteen

At lunchtime on Monday, Ed and his crowd practically raised Raymond on their shoulders and carried him around the cafeteria for a victory lap. Everybody slapped him on the back, praising him: "You done good." "Finally—someone gets them back for Aaron Rickman." Susan sat at the far end of the table, staring at her lunch, chin in hand.

"Who's he again?" Raymond asked Ed.

"He's the one they put in the hospital. The one that had reconstructive surgery on his ear."

"Oh." Raymond slumped at his lunch, emotionally and physically tired from the morning's proceedings. He'd been booed from the bus stop, to start. Then, in Kaminsky's room, Bob had just about had to barricade the doors to keep the Bloods out. He'd locked them as soon as the tardy bell rang, at Raymond's request, and the Bloods had pounded all period, wanting in to play Sea Shark, so they said. Raymond also persuaded Kaminsky to escort him to math, and various epithets were hurled at him along the way. The vice-principal sent a pink slip and called him out of trig, and after the third degree (minus bright lights and electric cattle prod) he'd met with Officer Stope, the principal, Officer Stope again, and finally Ms. Chandler. That was the one he'd been dreading.

Curiously enough, she'd had her mole removed over the weekend. In its place she wore a small circular Band-Aid, just lighter than the color of her skin. If Raymond squinted his eyes, blurring the edges of the bandage, she looked like anybody else.

"I'm sorry," he told her as he sank into a chair.

"For what?" she asked.

He shrugged, not sure. Maybe he was just sorry. "It's like ever since I came to this school, all I've done is caused trouble."

She smiled.

"What?" he demanded.

Ms. Chandler shook her head. "That's what Mrs. Greer said this morning, but I know it's not completely your fault." She raised her hand and scratched lightly at the bandage. "So what was the verdict from Officer Stope?"

"I guess I got off easy. There aren't going to be any charges filed, unless I want to file some."

"And do you want to?"

He looked out the bars of her window, then back at her. "To be honest, I just want the whole thing to go away."

She nodded. "Do you think you'll go and see him?"

"Anthony? I never even thought about it."

"It might be a nice gesture."

"I'd probably put him into relapse."

"Then wait a couple of days. From what they're telling me, he's not going anywhere soon."

They sat in silence for a moment, her looking at him, him looking at the scratches on her desk's dented modesty panel. Then he stood up.

"Raymond?"

He hovered.

"The campus looks nice, doesn't it?" She smiled at him, and he couldn't help grinning back. He felt somehow responsible for the fact that there had been no new L. B. I. graffiti on campus that morning. Everything was brown and clean.

"It looks great. Wonder how long it'll last."

When she didn't answer, he walked out the door.

* * *

The campus stayed clean at least until Thursday, when Susan convinced Raymond to go visit Anthony. She even offered to pay for gas.

Though it had been raining on the Windward side, Honolulu was warm and muggy. Raymond took the Beretania exit off the freeway, passed two green lights and pulled into a curbside parking spot. They locked the car and crossed the street. Susan held onto his hand as she half-pulled him across the parking lot and through the mechanical doors. Inside, the temperature was just warm enough for them not to make fog when they breathed. Susan dropped Raymond's hand and gave him a push toward the front desk.

He balked, turned back and took Susan's hand again. She gave him a warm squeeze.

"Shall we just wander?" he asked. "We're bound to run into him, eventually."

"We already did that, remember?" She smiled and pointed toward the desk. "Go."

The receptionist's name tag said "Doris receptionist." Doris looked up as they approached, and drawled, "May Ah help you?" Raymond was shocked to hear somebody talking like a haole.

"We need some help," Susan explained, "to find where a … friend of ours is staying."

"What's his name, honey?"

Raymond dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket. He tried to pronounce the name: "Anthony Sofafili."

"Sophie-what?"

Smugly, Susan took the paper out of Raymond's hand and pressed it into Doris', who mouthed the name as she typed it into the computer. There was a short pause, and she began to "Hmmmmm." She took a sip of coffee. "It seems your friend just got taken out of I. C. U. and put into Orthopedic. He's in P-3, room 308, bed B." She wrote down the information and looked at her watch. "You aimin' to see him? Visitin' hours are jest about over."

Raymond's watch said quarter to eight. "Do you think we could get in to see him just for a minute?"

"We have a message to deliver to him," Susan said.

Doris gave them an official smile. "Y'all better hurry." She gave them directions and they walked off at an un-hospital-like pace. They went up in a huge, stainless-steel elevator and strode through a labyrinthine series of medical-white corridors, following a trail of hand-stenciled cards which pointed to the three-hundreds. Orthopedic was in an older section of the hospital, with high ceilings and transoms. The whole place managed to smell both medical and musty at the same time. As they rounded a corner, a skinny, antique-looking nurse came out of room 308, pushing a metal cart.

"How is he?" Susan asked her.

"Bed B? He's stable." She nodded authoritatively and wheeled her cart away, leaving them to face the numbered door. Door 308. It had a knob. A chrome one.

This time Raymond didn't wait for Susan to push him. He reached forward and turned the knob. The door opened inward.

Anthony lay on the further bed, strapped down. One leg hung from a metal rack and the other lay flat, encased in plaster. He wore a neck brace and was connected to three different I. V. tubes and a respirator. His breathing came as steady, rhythmic whispers, in and out. His eyes were closed.

A middle-aged Samoan couple sat on folding chairs by his bed. Anthony's parents.

"Shh," his mother said as Raymond and Susan came in, "he shleeping."

Susan nodded, and they approached the bed.

A minute ticked by, carefully measured by Anthony's respirator. Raymond cleared his throat and spoke to the lady in a low voice. "I'm—my name is Raymond Harmon. I'm—uh—the one who hit him."

The man's intense eyes widened as he nodded. He stood up, brushing invisible crumbs from his brown polyester slacks. "I'm Fatu," he said. "I'm his faddah. Dis his maddah." His mother wore a flowered mu'u, her gray-streaked hair held in its bun by two black chopsticks. She nodded, half-closing her eyes.

Raymond glanced at Anthony, sleeping in peace and in pieces, harmless in his hospital bed. —The hospital bed Raymond had put him into. Raymond's conscience wouldn't let him fudge on that. Of course the guy was a Blood, and the Bloods had been trying to kill Raymond, and Raymond had almost killed him … it went round and round. He'd thought about it thousands of times since Sunday night. He'd kept remembering that he really might have killed him. One rib through one lung, one good dent in his skull …

He took a deep breath, his own ribs mostly healed. "I guess the reason we came—"

The old-fashioned nurse poked her head into the room and whispered "Five minutes."

Raymond nodded at the closed door and tried to continue, then started again. "Could you tell Anthony I came, and tell him I'm sorry?"

The Samoan man stared evenly at Raymond's eyes, as if in some sort of trance. He was a couple of inches shorter than Raymond, about Susan's height. His forehead was beaded up to its receding hair line with droplets of sweat. His nostrils flared and he licked his lips. He said, "I fink Anfony will apologize to you, if he was not shleeping." He jerked his head in an indeterminable direction. "Da school tol' me what happen."

"Everything just kept getting worse," Raymond said.

"Yes," he said, meeting his wife's eyes for a second. He held out his hand and Raymond shook it. He had a careful grip and hard, callused hands. Raymond wondered if Mr. Sofafili would think him soft.

"Also please tell him to get well soon," Susan said.

Anthony's mother smiled. His father put his hand on Raymond's shoulder and squeezed it. "You tell yo' folks dat Anfony is apologizing too, eh? Tell dem I say, eh?"

Raymond assured him that he would, and took Susan's hand. They turned back at the door, smiling faintly.

Anthony's breathing faltered, and he choked. His mother lay her hand on his, the one without the needles. He blinked his eyes twice, and squinted at his mother's face.

"What—" He coughed twice, and waited to catch his breath. "Who's … heah?" His eyeballs swiveled around, but he didn't see them. He couldn't turn his head because of the brace.

His mother patted his hand and stroked his hair. "No one," she said. "Shh—sleep." He blinked again, and closed his eyes.

Raymond and Susan nodded at Mr. Sofafili, and they left the room.

They walked down the hall in silence. Lights were already out in some of the rooms. Some patients were watching television, wearing headphones. They came to the elevators, and Susan pushed the button. They waited.

A split-second before the doors opened, Raymond had a premonition that something was about to happen. His eyes flashed from the door, to Susan, to the door. The bell rang, the elevator stopped and out walked Saul and Larissa. All four jaws hung, slack.

Saul looked scrubbed-clean. The other times Raymond had seen him—besides at school, from a distance—he'd been piss-drunk and all untucked. Now, he wore pink and green pleated Bermudas and a sweatshirt. He could have been PJ's younger brother. When Saul saw Raymond and Susan, his brow compressed into furrows so tight Raymond thought his head would explode.

"What are you guys doing here?" Larissa demanded.

Raymond glanced at Susan, praying she wouldn't answer with some smart remark. "We just came by to talk to Anthony," he said.

"Visiting hours are over," Susan said.

Raymond wished Saul would unclench his fists.

"They are?" Larissa looked at her watch. Her face registered visible surprise. "We were already here once before dinner," she explained. "We just thought we'd say goodnight."

Raymond cleared his throat. "He's asleep, now."

"Oh," Larissa said. Saul nodded. Raymond saw the fists tighten, then relax.

Susan put on her flashiest smile. "Uh, Larissa, what do you say let's go so these guys can talk." She cocked her head to one side and pushed the elevator button. Raymond smiled inside, knowing how hard it was for Susan to talk to Larissa with any semblance of civility. He looked at Larissa and saw terror in her eyes—the same look she'd flashed him over her Sprite when they'd seen Saul and the Bloods coming over the crosswalk. He uncrossed his arms, forcing them at relax to his sides.

"Don't worry, Larissa. If we decide to slug it out, we'll go out into the parking lot." He hoped the Samoan could take a joke. "Right, Saul?"

That was the first time Raymond had said Saul's name to his face. It was like sticking a sleeping giant—Saul took a moment to respond. "Yeah," he finally grunted, staring straight ahead with narrow eyes, his eyebrows fighting against the scowl.

Susan took this as a good sign and led the way into the elevators. Their safety net gone, the two boys faced off and tried to smile at each other, twin pillars of determination. Saul's nostrils flared—the only real change in his expression. From somewhere, Raymond mustered an ounce of sober composure.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about your friend," he said.

"He's pretty bus' up."

"Yeah, well." Raymond managed. "Sorry."

Saul just nodded. In spite of the frigid chill of the over-air-conditioned hospital, beads of sweat stood in rows on his forehead. Raymond cleared his throat again. "Um, I'm not exactly sure what needs to happen, but I know I'm tired of looking over my shoulder all the time. You know what I mean?"

"So what you like do?"

"I don't know. I'm not saying I want to be pals or anything like that. I just need to be able to know I won't be getting beat up anymore by members of your … friends."

The Samoan spread a massive hand, as if to push the haole away. "Try wait," he said. "I'm not dere leader—not'ing li' dat. We jus' cruise around and shit. We don't got no leaders."

"Do you think you could just maybe talk to them?"

Saul crossed his arms. "Why should I?" he challenged.

Before Raymond could respond, Mr. and Mrs. Sofafili came around the corner. Anthony's father greeted Saul in Samoan and shook Raymond's hand, then turned and opened the door of the stairwell. He waited for his wife, following her down.

Saul watched him go, then looked at the floor and wiped his forehead. "Shit," he said. "We no like our boys gettin' hurt."

"Same here."

"Yeah." Saul raised his head, then lowered it. "I leave you alone." His face broadened into a grin. "Ant'ony, too." He pushed the elevator call button. The two cars arrived at the same time, one going up and one going down. Saul stepped into the down one and Raymond held the other with his foot. He waited as the doors closed and the lower numbers began lighting in descending order. Then he entered his, let go of the black rubber bumper and pushed G for Ground floor. The elevator went up one floor, picked up a short Filipino lady in a blue smock, then headed down. In seconds he was on the ground, holding the "Door Open" button again, waiting for Larissa and Saul to disappear completely through the main entrance.

He suddenly felt cold again. Susan eased out of a low couch and walked over to meet him, and he smiled as honestly as he could, taking both of her hands in his. "How'd it go?" she asked him.

"We passed the peace joint. It's not a truce, but it's good enough for me." The walked toward the doors. "And our buddy Saul actually made a joke."

"So everything's cool?"

"For now." He grinned in spite of himself. "How'd it go with Larissa?"

Susan laughed out loud, her dark, cynical cackle. "Ha! She made me want to barf! First this whiney 'Oh, why did this all have to happen?' and then she started in with the 'Why can't the boys just be friends?' bit." Susan kicked a can as they hit the crosswalk, sending it clattering under a BMW parked in the physicians' only lot. "Then she wanted me to cry with her and do the heart-to-heart woman thing."

Raymond unlocked the passenger door and held it open. "So, other than that, how did it go?"

Susan sniffed and clenched her teeth. "I could have strangled the drippy little wench."

Raymond watched her climb into her seat, then dodged around the car and stood in the street whistling, waiting for a clear spot in the traffic so he could open his door. Some things, he thought, would never change.

* * *

In Kalohe, the wind was blowing in steadily from the ocean. As Raymond drove he could feel the air rushing against the closed vents in the car, fingering the windows and windshield. He passed through town and kept going, buffeted along the highway by the gusts.

When they'd left for the hospital, Sarah and PJ had been at home, studying on the couch. They were probably still there. It was getting late and the next day was a school day, but Raymond drove on through Wailele and up toward the northernmost tip of the island, toward Sunset Beach. They passed the sugar mill and prawn farms, rounded a butte and suddenly saw the windmills, churning bravely on the hills.

He pulled across the highway, onto the road that he figured his mother must take every morning. Flipping on his brights, he drove through cornfields, then turned up the dirt road, up the mountain. When they hit the crest they stopped alongside the chain-link fence that encircled the base of the mammoth windmill. Down the other side of the ridge sat the boxy white building that had to be the one his mother called "the Lab."

They got out. There was a whistling sound, then a whoosh as the giant blade swooped down at them. It had looked so slow from far away. The blade slashed down and up, and Raymond found himself raising his hands to shield himself. Though it cleared their heads by at least thirty feet, he thought he'd felt it graze his hair.

They both looked up and watched the retreating blade. "Whoa," Susan said.

The other blade came down, hissing and then slicing across, blowing up their clothes and hair. The red lights blinked.

The giant windmill looked down at the smaller ones lined up below. It was king of the mountain, too big for Quixote, High Supreme Wind God. Twenty times a minute it colored the world with a blink of its eyes. It churned its arms tirelessly, signaling to the clouds in predictable, monotonous semaphore.

Raymond and Susan looked out over the cliff. From the mountain they could see the entire top of the island. They stood and stared out at the sea as the wind buffeted them in punctuated throbs—as the blades carving the air above them. Through the panorama flowed the highway, the bracelet of light that connected all things in the little island universe, allowing people and things to flow either clockwise or counter.

Susan put her arm around Raymond, and he smiled at her. The blade slashed at them, but they were used to it by then. They watched the darkened seascape for another moment, lost in their private worlds. Suddenly an odd thought struck Susan, and he turned to Raymond.

"What in the world is that guy saving all of those sporks for?"

Susan kicked a rock and watched it tumble over the edge. "He did it last year, too. At the end of the year he picks his favorite teacher, gets a bunch of guys together and 'sporks' the teacher's yard. Sticks all the sporks in the ground by the handle, with the teeth sticking up. Last year he picked Kaminsky, and they went out there the next morning and took pictures with him and all. He hasn't said yet who he'll get this time."

Raymond shook his head. He'd expected something much more … substantial. But at least it left one less mystery of the universe to worry about. He led Susan away from the cliff, back to the car. Carefully, he backed around the base of the windmill and headed down the mountain. He drove slowly, then picked up speed in the cornfields and turned onto the highway. Susan had her arm around Raymond's shoulders, reaching across to play with his hair. "Bucket seats are such a pain," she said.

Raymond smiled and nodded, eyes on the road ahead. He wished they were in the family Oldsmobile. It had a front bench.

© Copyright 2002 by David S. Baker