My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Bobo the horndog
>> Queen's Medical Center
Sixteen years since he'd spoken to his mother, and Quinn Ah Sun was getting a kick out their conversation.
It was nice to be talking again and the information she was sharing about Bobo Ah Sun and the days that led up to the start of the feud between Quinn's father and Uncle Sheets was fascinating, but it was the way she spoke, her outlook. She was a spunky woman. And frank.
"Quinn," Flo Kajiyama Ah Sun said from the plaza outside the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, "Bobo had come on to me in the past. That's just the way he was. I guess today they call it a sex addiction. I think it was insecurity, but whatever, he couldn't keep his hands off women."
"You think ...?"
"I think your Auntie Grace was drunk and Bobo jumped her."
"So Lily's father is really ..."
"That son of a bitch! God, if only I'd stayed a little later that night and driven her home. Bobo was a little horndog but I never figured he'd rape anyone ... Oh, Quinn! You know the big lion outside the MGM?? There's a guy! Wearing only a gold thong! Climbing the lion! Like a mountain climber!"
Quinn could hear people shouting in the background, the sound of a siren.
"OK, Mom, you'd better get to work. Thanks a lot for the family history."
"It's been good talking with you. I hope we can do it again, and talk about you. I've been missing you all these years."
"You did?"
"Of course! Don't you remember, I kept asking you to come up to visit, but you refused to even speak to me on the phone. Quinn, when I left, it wasn't about you. It was about me and your father, and the person he became after that night at the Pearl City Tavern. I don't know what happened before he came in, but whatever it was, it was terrible. It's what caused the feud between Mits and Sheets and ultimately why I left.
"I stayed around another five years for your sake, but in the end, it was like he put up a barrier with me to hide the secret of what happened that night. He became a different man than the one I married. Then when he demanded that I never gamble again because our family had to be above reproach in every way, well, that was the last straw."
"He was a good dad," Quinn said. "But yeah, he had high expectations."
"I'll call you tomorrow, sweetie. I love you." And with that Flo side-stepped a TV news camera, glanced up and saw two bare cheeks dangling from the lion's nose, and went off to her dream job, professional gambler.
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