Neil Plakcy - Mahu Fire

He had his jaw set and wasn’t answering me. I stopped and grabbed him by the shoulder, pushing him up against a white panel van we used for stakeouts. “Listen to me, Jimmy. These people are like family to me. And this man, he’s sick. But they’re putting themselves out to be nice to you. To get you out of that cell back there. So you better not give them any trouble.”

“Why?”

“Why?” I felt anger bubbling up inside me and tried to tamp it down. “Because they’re being nice to you, that’s why.”

“No, why are they being nice to me? I mean, what’s in it for them?”

“They’re doing me a favor.” I paused. I figured I might as well give him the whole story. “It’s Derek’s grandfather. You remember Derek. They feel bad that he’s in jail. I guess they hope they can help you.”

He nodded. Somehow that seemed to reassure him. On the way back up into the hills, I asked him if he was hungry. “I guess.”

“I’m sure Aunt Mei-Mei will feed you. You like Chinese food?”

“I guess.”

“You want me to stop and get you a burger? Tide you over until dinner?”

He finally smiled a little. “Yeah, that would be okay.”

We drove through a McDonald’s, and he wolfed down his burger and fries as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe he hadn’t, and then I remembered that when I was a kid I ate like that all the time, and my mother was always worried people would think she didn’t feed me.

We got stuck in traffic on Waialae Avenue and I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel in exasperation. I’d done nothing all afternoon on the murder of Hiroshi Mura, and Lieutenant Sampson wasn’t going to like that. But I didn’t think there was anything left to do, other than wait for a neighbor who saw my card to call, or the results of the ballistics test, or some tip that would break the case open.

Clouds were gathering above the mountains, and I hoped that meant we might get a little rain, but the air around us was so dry I doubted it. We were going so slowly that I could follow the progress of two boys in parochial school uniforms flipping pogs on the sidewalk in front of a Chinese restaurant with a fake pagoda front rising above its plate glass window. Inside the restaurant I saw an old woman sitting at a table, pouring grains of rice into salt shakers. Usually Honolulu is so humid you need the rice to absorb the excess moisture in the air and keep the salt from sticking, but I didn’t think it was necessary now.

A guy in an aloha shirt sat in an open convertible next to me, talking on his cell phone. He had a laptop computer in a black leather bag on the seat next to him, and a foam boogie board on the back seat. I wanted to get out in the surf myself, to put the murder of Hiroshi Mura, Uncle Chin’s illness, and Jimmy’s situation aside for at least a few minutes.

The van ahead of me had a UH decal on the back windshield and a bumper sticker that read, “Nothing is lost in the kingdom of God.” I was thinking about that when Jimmy asked, “How old were you when you first had sex?”

“What brought that on?”

“Just asking.”

“Man or woman?”

“You slept with girls?” He looked interested.

“Mostly,” I said. “Until pretty recently. I had a lot of problems with being gay.” That was an understatement, I thought.

“So how old?”

I had to think for a minute, do the math. “With a girl, I guess I was about your age. With a guy, nineteen or so. I was in college. I suppose I could have when I was in high school-looking back now, I see I had opportunities that I was too scared to take.”

“Scared how?”

“Jeez, you don’t mind asking hard questions, do you?”

He slumped against the side of the door, one long, slim leg crossed over the other, his rubber slipper dangling. “You don’t have to tell me.”

I inched the truck forward then sat on the brake. “I had all these confusing feelings. I knew I was supposed to like girls, that there was stuff I was supposed to do, to want to do. And I liked girls, I had lots of friends who were girls, but they didn’t, I don’t know, get me excited. Then there were these feelings I had, like in gym class, and these kind of romantic daydreams of guys touching me, and I knew those were wrong. So it was all a big mess.”

“Did you like doing it with girls?”

“Jimmy,” I said, whining in spite of myself. Traffic moved forward a little more, and I looked at my watch again. “I guess so. I mean, it’s nice to have that physical contact with someone, even if it’s not, I don’t know, exciting. I ended up having sex with a lot of women, and it was usually nice, but not great.”

“And with men it’s great?”

“It can be. I don’t have a lot of experience with guys, Jimmy. I can’t give you much advice.” I gave him a sidelong glance. I wondered if he had any other clothes anywhere. He was staring out the window, trying to be nonchalant. “Have you been on the streets long?”

“A couple weeks.”

“When’d you start hooking?”

“And you complain about me asking questions!”

“Turnabout’s fair play. I answered yours.”

“When I had to drop out of school and leave my friend’s house, I ended up in Ala Moana Park, sleeping on the beach. I met this guy there, late one night. He told me I could make some money. That was maybe, two weeks ago.”

“You use protection?”

“I just suck, Kimo. I won’t let anybody do anything else.”

“It’s still dangerous. With people you don’t know, you should get the guy to wear a condom.”

He laughed. “Like that’s going to happen.”

“You gotta promise to stop hooking, at least for a while,” I said. “While you stay with these people.”

“What am I gonna do for money?”

I opened up my wallet. I had about fifty dollars in it. I gave it all to Jimmy. “Take this. I’ll get you some more. And you won’t have to pay for anything there, like food or anything.”

He took the money and stuffed it into his pocket. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

The lane next to me moved a little and I swerved into it. We made almost a block’s worth of progress. I could see Uncle Chin’s turn just ahead, tantalizingly close. “I think you’re a good kid. If you hadn’t come forward with the information you did, you might still be living with your dad. So I feel bad about that.”

“I think you’re really nice.” He reached over and put his hand on my thigh. “Really cute, too.”

I picked up his slender pale hand and put it back on his own leg. “Don’t get any ideas. Sometimes people care about you without expecting anything back.”

“Yeah, right.”

I looked over at him. “Get this one thing straight, Jimmy. I like you, and I care about you, but I do not, repeat do not, want to have sex with you. And it has nothing do with you. If you were ten years older, then, well, maybe. But you’re not. I don’t think it’s right for adults to have sex with kids, whether they pay or just do it to be nice. I don’t think it’s right and I won’t do it.”

“All right, don’t get excited.”

We finally moved forward enough to make the turn up into the Heights, and I felt like I could let go of a deep breath I’d been holding.

It appeared that Aunt Mei-Mei had been cooking non-stop since I left, and she had set up TV trays in the master bedroom so she, Uncle Chin and Jimmy could all sit and eat together. I sat with them for a while, eating some of Aunt Mei-Mei’s special Hunan chicken, and then I left them in that room decorated with embroidered prints and black lacquer, sitting at their tables, eating and watching the news on TV. They weren’t talking much but it didn’t seem like a strained silence.