I think it was the first time I’d defied them on something to do with the family. They looked at each other, and then at me. “All right,” Lui said. “You tell him. We’ll be your backup.”
I remembered how they had stood behind me when I came out, when I had to put myself in danger in order to solve the crime that had dragged me out of the closet, and in order to regain some self-respect. I couldn’t ask for more from them.
We were just considering how to get over to our parents’ house when Tatiana called, “Howie, your folks are here.”
When we got to the front door, we saw my mother helping my father walk up the front walk. He’d refused to use the walker, and was moving slowly, my diminutive mother buoying him up. For a minute I doubted my resolve. This wasn’t the big, strong father I’d always known and loved. This old man looked weak and tired.
Haoa and I got on each side of him and guided him up into the house, and into a big easy chair in the living room. I looked in his eyes then, and somewhere in there was the old Dad I’d known. I knew then we had to carry through with our plan. “We have some bad news for you, Dad,” I said, kneeling down next to him. “Uncle Chin died this afternoon.”
“I know.” We all looked at our mother, but she shook her head. “Nobody told me. Somehow I just knew.” He smiled. “You know Chin and I always had a kind of connection to each other. This afternoon, I felt like the connection was gone. I made your mother bring me over here to see for myself.” He reached out and took my hand. “I’m glad you boys told me. I appreciate it.”
Uncle Chin’s widow sat across from us on the sofa, and though she was still crying a little, my mother sat next to her holding her hand. She didn’t have a family of her own any more, but she had us.
“We have a lot to do,” my father said. “Mei-Mei will need our help.”
I looked at my father and my brothers. If they thought I was strong, maybe I was. I knew where it came from.
A SHOT IN THE PARK
I looked at my watch, and realized that I’d promised to go to the Marriage Project rally at Waikiki Gateway Park that evening. I huddled with my brothers, and they agreed that I should go, that they’d keep things together between our parents and Aunt Mei-Mei.
By the time I arrived, there were already a hundred or more people milling around, most of them wearing pink triangles or rainbow patches or some other outward sign of gay solidarity. I felt uncomfortable moving through them, knowing that many of them knew exactly who I was. People kept slapping me on the back, and I tried not to wince at the aggravation to my healing burns.
Guys even came up and kissed me. It was very strange, like I was wearing some big sign that said, “Hi, I’m The Gay Cop.”
It was hot but not humid, and that deep in the heart of Waikiki there was no ocean breeze to relieve us. I was surrounded by guys in muscle tops and tight shorts, women in bikini bras and compression shorts. A few flat-bottomed cumulous clouds drifted above us, and the sun was beginning to set over the ocean.
As I made my way up toward a makeshift stage that had been set up at one end of the park, I saw Kitty, who waved at me and came over. I wondered if she’d gotten her taste for polo shirts from her stepfather. This one was white, and she was wearing green UH sweat pants and her collection of bangle bracelets.
“I’m glad I ran into you, Kimo. That woman we met at church, Fran Harding? She called me this afternoon. They’re going on a picnic Thursday afternoon, out in the mountains. Eli’s family has a cabin out on Wa’ahila Ridge.”
“I grew up near there. It’s nice country. What did you tell her?”
“I said you were working, but I didn’t have class, so I’d go with them. Is that okay?”
I frowned. “I’d feel a lot better if you told your dad. You haven’t told him yet that we went to the church, have you?”
She shook her head. “You know how he is. Too protective.”
“Yeah, but he’s my boss, Kitty. If he finds out I’ve been sneaking you out to play detective he’s going to kill me.”
She smiled. “I have him wrapped around my little finger. After all, I’m his little kitten.”
“Is that his nickname for you?”
She shook her head. “When I was born, and the midwife showed me to my mom, I was all curled up like a kitten. That’s actually the name on my birth certificate, Kitten. I mean, like, is my mom a hippie or what? My dad’s last name is Cardozo, and he’s supposedly descended from the Supreme Court justice. But he and my mom didn’t stay together for long, so I don’t know for sure.”
“How many times has your mom been married?”
She started counting, then jumped from one hand to the next. “Six times, I think. There was a guy she met in Vegas and married, but they got divorced when their hangovers wore off, so I don’t count him. She says she likes getting married, she just doesn’t like having a husband.”
“Going back to the picnic,” I said. “Maybe you ought to cancel. We don’t know anything about these people, and I don’t like the idea of them dragging you out into the countryside.”
“I have a brown belt in karate and a cell phone,” Kitty said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I still don’t like it.” I thought for a minute. I hated to do it, but I felt responsible for Kitty. “If you don’t tell your dad, then I will. If he says it’s okay, then it’s fine by me. But you know what he’s going to say.”
She shook her fist at me, and the bracelets rattled. “Those are beautiful bracelets,” I said, trying to shift the conversation.
“My mom makes them,” she said, sliding them along her arm. “That’s what she does, she makes jewelry. She has a talent for it.”
“Birthday and Christmas gifts?” I said, pointing at her wrist.
She shook her head. “My mom doesn’t believe in celebrating bourgeois events like Christmas or, as she puts it, ‘the day you came out of my womb.’ She sends these to me whenever the spirit moves her. They come out of the blue, usually when I’m feeling down, like I didn’t do well on a test or something. It’s funny, but even though I hardly see her, and sometimes I don’t even know where she is, we have this psychic connection, and whenever I need a boost this little package comes from her.”
Kitty saw some friends from UH and waved to them. Then she said, “I’ll talk to Jim, okay? Don’t say anything yet.”
“You have until Thursday morning,” I said.
She left me, with a wave of a bangled arm. I looked around. The park was an expanse of fading green grass with some short, twisted wiliwili trees in one corner. You could tell the impact El Nino was having here, the lack of rain drying everything up. The air smelled of sweat and motor oil, with that slight underlayer of coconut tanning oil that you find anywhere people lay out in the sun.
The crowd was growing. I knew that Sandra and Cathy had chosen a small space to ensure that the turnout would look decent, but it was clear they had underestimated, so I went over to congratulate them, and met Charlie Stahl again. “We’re almost ready to start,” Sandra said. For a change, she wasn’t wearing a business suit-but a pair of UH sweat pants and a cowl-necked T-shirt. “You’ll come up on the stage with us, won’t you, Kimo?”
I shook my head. “I don’t like doing that kind of thing.”
“You’ve got to,” Cathy said. She looked so tiny, the same size as Aunt Mei-Mei, but I knew she had my godmother’s strength of personality. “You want to show the community that the police are investigating the bombing, don’t you? And you can say that anybody who has information should contact you. You know how most gay people feel about the police, Kimo. It’s important they see they have a friend in the department.”
Here it was again, the debate I’d been having with myself off and on since coming out. I knew I needed to be a role model, that part of my job in life was to show gay and lesbian people that the police were there to protect them, too. And part of me did like the spotlight.