"Well . . . O.K." Joe put the top on the box, wrapped the rubber band
around it, and put it in his pocket. They walked to Waikiki and hung
out for another day before Max caught a plane to Seattle.
At the airport, Joe thought of Mo and asked Max if he'd ever had a
professor at Vermont named Soule.
"Soule . . . Sounds familiar. An old guy? Yeah, Soule. He gave a couple
of guest lectures in an economics class. I remember now--he was steamed
about the Romans. They had tax laws that screwed everything up. Then
the currency collapsed. He was interesting about that."
"His daughter lives here. I met her by accident." Max's flight was
announced for boarding. "There it is," Joe said. "Sorry to see you go.
But you're headed in the right direction. That's a joke. You'll see a
cookie fortune taped to the dash in the truck; that's what it says. But
you are, actually. Listen, that truck has two gas tanks--there's a
switch--you'll see it."
"O.K. Joe, thanks. Take care of yourself, man."
"You too, Max." And he was gone. That's the way it is with kids, Joe
thought.
"Damn it, Batman, " he said when he got home much later that day. "You
and me. They don't have a chance." That night he dreamt of a campfire
and coyotes calling in the night.
5
Two girls with clear Asian faces and long black hair were waiting at a
bus stop on King Street. One was about fourteen, carrying school books;
the other was several years older, heavier. Joe stopped at Coco's,
ordered coffee, and tried to describe the girls in a notebook. They
were so beautiful, so similar, sisters maybe . . . yet different. The
older was a woman, really. Hours went by like minutes as he searched
for the right words.
He wandered into Waikiki and sat on a bench by the beach. A woman with
smooth brown skin walked into the water. Her body was like a torpedo in
a blue one piece suit. She went out a few yards, waited, and dove
quietly under a three-footer, bobbing up on the other side. The locals
live in the water, Joe thought, they don't fight it. He remembered a
story in The Advertiser about a sampan that sank in the Pacific. A
fisherman, rescued twenty-four hours later, was asked by a reporter,
"What did you do all that time out there with no life jacket?"
"Wen' sleep when I got tired," he said. He was one of those big
laughing Hawaiians who float like buoys, heads up out of the water.
Joe strolled through the zoo. The gorilla was famous. He sat near the
front of his cage mugging at tourists, carrying on, drawing them closer
as they took pictures. Locals grinned from the sides. When enough
people had gathered, the gorilla would sneak one hand behind and below
him and without warning blast the tourists with a shit ball that hit
the bars and scattered for maximum effect. He would leap to his feet
mightily pleased, as the crowd screamed and the locals bent over
laughing.
The elephants were patient and knowing. Joe trusted elephants. And
dolphins. Sometimes he walked all the way to the Kahala to watch the
dolphins zoom around their salt water pool. They came right to him at
the edge of the pool, wiggling, excited as puppies.
He walked up Kapahulu Avenue and stopped at Zippy's where he had a bowl
of saimin and worked on the description of the two girls. At home, in
the mail, there was a card from Mo announcing a show of her
photographs. The print on the card was deeply silvered. It showed the
base of a banyan tree by a bus stop: high roots radiated out and sank
below the sidewalk; a man was asleep, cradled between two roots, a
lunch box by his waist, one arm stretched out along the top of a root,
fingers dangling, the angles of his knees and elbows blending with the
bends in the roots.
"Not bad, Batman," Joe said. "Next Friday."
The days before Mo's opening passed quickly. On Friday, Joe walked down
Ward Avenue to a gallery and camera shop, and, for once, he wasn't
early. Empty wine bottles, a few pupus on bare trays, a glass punch
bowl, paper cups and napkins were scattered across white tables.
Conversation hummed and collided around the room. A blues guitar kept
time in the background. Mo was smiling down at a bearded professorial
type.
"How do you do?" A young Japanese man shook Joe's hand.
"Thanks for the invitation," Joe said, flashing the card.
"Are you a friend of Winifred's?"
"Yes. Joe Burke."
"Wendell Sasaki."
"Nice place you have here," Joe said. A well-dressed couple entered,
and Wendell excused himself. Joe drifted along a wall of Mo's
photographs. There were several of old sugar mill buildings and one
taken of the sky through the branches of a koa tree. There was a large
one of the city at night, lights running high up the ridges. His
favorite showed two young women walking toward the camera on Kalakaua
Avenue. The light was gray, pre-dawn. One had her arm around the
other's shoulders. They were bent forward laughing. Their bodies and
clothes were used and tired, but their faces were innocent, flooded
with relief; the night was over.
Most of the subjects were conventional; it was the detail and the light
on them that was interesting. They were all black and white but one--a
close-up of bamboo stalks and leaves. "What do you think?" Mo asked
from behind him.
"I like it." Joe turned partially. "How come it's the only one in
color?"
"I have problems with color," Mo said. "It's always off. But in this
case, there are really only two colors, bamboo and that tender green.
They're both off in the same way, so the relationship works. And the
color is so much of the story . . . " Wendell Sasaki called her over to
confer with the well-dressed couple.
Joe stood in front of the picture of the young hookers, if that's what
they were. Looking at them seemed more helpful than talking to anyone.
Mo worked the crowd. After a time, Joe thanked the owner, waved at Mo,
and left. All artists love light, he thought, walking up Ward Avenue.
Mo was no exception.