My Kind of Town
It’s not the pills
>> Queen's Medical CenterMits Ah Sun and his brother Sheets had grown up close. Sheets -- Shitsuro on his birth certificate -- was 14 months older than Mitsuro. Their parents worked hard at their Harborview Market in Pearl City, and so Sheets and Mits were raised with the plantation ethics of their grandparents. You work hard. You do right by Buddha. You do anything for your family.
And that, really, is why the brothers were no longer talking. Because Mits had "done anything" for Sheets. Later, they decided it was better if it appeared there was rift between them. At the very least, neither would ever slip up and make a reference to that night in Waimanalo 21 years ago.
They had communicated secretly over the years, using a code for the phone. So Mits knew about it when Sheets' youngest son Lance was born. Lance, who lay in a coma in the ICU, his niece Lily had said last night. Mits ought to visit Lance, he thought. Surely just a quick hello couldn't do anything to free the secret the brothers Ah Sun had carried for 21 years.
>> Kids are so easy to twist around, Quinn Ah Sun was thinking. That's why he'd all but forgotten his cousin Lily. They'd grown up practically as siblings, their families living just a block apart in Pearl City. And then Uncle Sheets and Auntie Grace packed up and moved Lily and her younger brother Laird to Kailua. Quinn had missed Lily at first, and asked his parents why they couldn't go to Kailua. He was in the sixth grade by the time he actually saw Kailua, on a field trip to the beach with his class.
And then the years go by and your reality is what it is, and as a kid you don't question it, not even the part about your father having been wronged somehow by his brother and how that tainted the rest of his side of the family.
But now that fate had reunited Quinn and Lily, he had lots of questions. And, damnit, he was going to get some answers. Quinn heard a knock on the door and expected another nurse. The painkiller they'd given him earlier was wearing off and he was increasingly aware of the fire in his right thigh where he'd been shot last night. He was looking forward to another pill, not just to kill the pain, but also because of the incredible dreams they gave him.
The door opened and what Quinn saw was way better than a pill. It was a very tall, very brown, very beautiful woman. A very naked woman, he noticed. God, these pills were good, even when you're awake.
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