My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Bobo’s wahines
>> Marco Polo
"So your father never told you," Tony Martinez said. "Hmmm ..."
"He and my mother told us nothing about Bobo," Lily Ah Sun replied. "Like I said, I only found out about him through old newspaper clips."
"Actually, most people don't know, not even guys like Donnelly and Sherman. See, before the Ah Suns hanai'd him, Bobo was a Martinez. He's my little brother."
For one of the rare moments in her life, words escaped Lily.
"Here we go, this one's from the Panama Canal," Tony said, taking another framed postcard down from his collection that covered two walls.
Like the others, this one had glass on the front and back. A cursory glance at the front, a photo of a big boat in a bigger concrete bathtub. But it was the back that Lily wanted to see.
"Trippy place, especially when you think of all the guys died building it," the message began. "Hooked up with a cute Texas wahine in Acapulco, a redhead. I love this gig."
The trend continued -- three postcards, three mentions of hooking up with women. The wahine did indeed appear to love Bobo, and he loved them. But something didn't make sense.
"Mr. Martinez ..."
"Tony, please," he said, returning to the chair to Lily's left. "Tony, I did hear from my auntie that Bobo got in a lot of fights as a young man. Did he suffer any kind of hand injury over the years?"
"Not that I know of. He managed to stay out of fights as he got older, I think. Why?"
"Just curious." So much for that theory to explain the difference in handwriting. "Well, it's good that you were able to stay in touch."
"Yeah, I was in the Army, Germany, when he went to live with the Ah Suns. Was a good thing for him. Our mom, she was a good lady, you know, but she was having hard times."
So that's what you call sleeping with sailors to pay for your coke habit.
"And he took to being an Ah Sun, being part of a family," Tony continued. "He was only like 9, 10 then. They were good to him, gave him a new life."
"Mr. Martinez ... I mean, Tony, I know these are very important to you," Lily said, cradling the three framed postcards. "But I'd like to copy them, for our family's sake. I'll get them back to you tomorrow."
Lily was grateful when he said yes. She wanted to compare the last postcard to handwriting that was very familiar to her.
She also wanted to keep her suspicions in the family. The Ah Sun side of the family.
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