My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Impressionism
Mits Ah Sun's mouth was doing a really good impression of the doorway in which he stood -- wide open. At first, neither his son Quinn nor the woman bending over his bed noticed him standing there. Mits could hear fevered breathing and see passioned groping. But that wasn't the problem. His son was a tall, good-looking hapa kid who worked out, and was blessed with an easy megawatt smile. Young women -- and not so young women for that matter -- were attracted to him. A woman being there wasn't what shocked him.
Mits had received an OK from his major at the Pearl City police station to report for duty a little late after checking on his son. Quinn was a cop too, solo bike detail, and he'd been shot in the thigh last night while at his cousin Lily's home. That was worrisome enough because the two wings of the Ah Sun clan had not officially communicated in 27 years, since that night in Waimanalo. Lily had come in last night to see Quinn and it was, well, tense at best between long-lost uncle and niece.
And that's why Mits just stood there, mouth at half-mast. He recognized the woman with her lips on Quinn's -- Lily -- and her arms around him. And the implications of this reunion were devastating. Breathing was difficult, much less talking, but somehow Mits managed to whisper-croak: "Oh my God."
But they were so, ah, involved that they didn't notice him, and now began touching each other in ways that cousins really should not. Mits didn't mind a little soft porn on cable TV, but this was too much.
Still, their total immersion gave him a way out, and a way to save face for all concerned. Mits started to back out of the doorway, closing it gently behind him.
>> In the ICU, Grace Ah Sun had never seen her husband Sheets so despondent. Maybe she'd been wrong about him not caring about their comatose son Lance as much as she did. That was the impression she got when Sheets said he had some "business" to take care of this morning before joining her here at Lance's bedside. But now that he was here, Sheets slumped hopelessly in a chair.
Grace suspected part of it was the realization that Lance was gay -- he was attacked by a skinhead at the hate crimes bill rally, fell and hit his head. She'd suspected for years that Lance was gay. Probably Sheets did too. The report said Lance was arm-in-arm with another man when it happened, and it didn't take Sherlock Gomes to figure out what that meant.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com