My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center The return of Ho‘ola
Laird Ah Sun saw the punch coming, threw up his hands in self-defense -- he'd been hit often enough in fights with his older sister when they were kids -- but the punch never came. It was like Lily was trying to throw a roundhouse, but something held her back.
A smile of recognition suddenly came over Lily's face, she unballed the fist, dropped her hand, nodded sheepishly in agreement. "You're right."
"Of course I am!" Laird said, assuming she was speaking to him, there being no other person he could see in the elevator. "I'm going to talk with our brother and his friend and save them, and you can't stop me!"
He spun on his heel, headed for Lance's room to bring the good news that he and his boyfriend Greg could be healed of their gayness.
"Thank you, Ho'ola," Lily said.
But the very large, very brown, very naked woman who'd held Lily's fist back was already out of the elevator a step behind Laird. For such a large woman, the goddess of life moved with remarkable grace, like slow water over smooth stones gathering speed.
Following in her wake to see what would happen when her brother's twisted Christian theology ran smack into Ho'ola, Lily smelled eucalyptus and sea spray. She passed a Filipino nurse, who like Laird apparently couldn't see Ho'ola. But she did a little sniff-sniff, and the aroma of life, so unlike the usual antiseptic hospital smell, brought a smile to her weary face.
Just ahead, Laird opened the door to Lance's room without knocking and entered, Ho'ola a step behind.
>> Above Waialua
"Eh, brah," Lude interluded between peals of laughter punctuated with an occasional snort, "say your name one mo' time again."
This was priceless. A guy named after his mother's favorite drug was laughing at the well-conceived name that had guaranteed he would have a large constituency. "Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka."
"I no can handle."
"Me neither," Sam added. Moki and the others nodded in agreement.
"So what we 'sposed to call you?"
"What everybody else calls me -- the senator."
"OK, senator," Sam said. "We got to talk about the deal that's going down tonight."
"Deal?"
"Drug deal. Kinda heavy."
The senator had been involved in drug deals before, of course, usually scoring from a stripper at one of the clubs. But nothing that could be called heavy. Day One in his new job as leader of this pack was getting increasingly interesting.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com