Neil Plakcy - Mahu Fire

I didn’t get the reception I wanted.

“Why are you calling me?” he asked.

“You’re his father.”

“Not any more. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Melvin. He’s a minor. You’re his father. You can’t just abandon him.”

“He’s a mahu,” he said, and I could hear the venom in that one little word, Hawaiian for homosexual. I’d been called it myself more than a few times. “He’s no longer any son of mine.” And then he hung up.

The social worker was a pleasant, heavyset woman named Wilma Chow. I’d met her once or twice before but didn’t know her. After the teenage girl was escorted back to her cell, I walked into the little conference room Wilma was using as an office. She wore a shapeless white cardigan over a peach-colored silk blouse.

“Sorry, I haven’t gotten to his case yet,” she said, when I told her I wanted to talk about Jimmy Ah Wong. “Let me take a look at the file.”

She read for a moment, and then looked up. “You know him?”

I explained about Jimmy’s evidence, and that I felt responsible for him because I was the one who convinced him to talk. “What about the father?”

“He’s pissed off. Says he doesn’t want anything more to do with Jimmy.”

“I could get him out of here on his father’s say-so, since he’s clean and he doesn’t have any priors. But he’s only sixteen, so if the father doesn’t want him he becomes a ward of the state.”

The charms on her gold bracelet jingled as she flipped the pages in his report. “I have to find him placement somewhere, most likely in a group home. The prospects aren’t very good. He’ll have to stay here for a few more days, and then the group home won’t be much better. He’ll probably run away again as soon as he can.”

“There must be something else we can do.” I paused. “How about if I sign him out myself?”

“You can’t do that, detective. You don’t have any authority here.”

“How can I get myself appointed his guardian?”

She sat back. “I know you’re trying to help, but this isn’t the right way. No judge is going to release a gay teen to a gay man he hardly knows.” She held up her hand. “We have to pay attention to the way things look.” She checked the file again. “His hearing is this afternoon, four p.m. I can’t find him placement by then.”

“How about if I get somebody else to vouch for him. My parents, for instance.”

“It would be better if it was somebody not related to you. Somebody who can give him a home, put him back in school. You find me somebody like that, and I can work.”

I knew who I could call.

Uncle Chin is not my uncle, but my godfather, and my father’s best friend. Because of that long-time relationship, I never spoke with Uncle Chin about what I knew were his impressive, if quiet, connections to the tongs, or Chinese gangs, on the island. I tried to avoid the topic with my father as well.

Uncle Chin had cancer now, and we feared that every hospital trip would be his last. He’d just come home from one stint, and I hoped he and Aunt Mei-Mei would be up to the favor I was about to ask of them.

I signed out on the Vice case and drove up to St. Louis Heights, the residential neighborhood above Honolulu where I grew up, and where Uncle Chin and Aunt Mei-Mei lived in a simple split-level house that did little to demonstrate how wealthy they actually were. Aunt Mei-Mei answered the door. She was a tiny little woman, with a bouffant of dark hair. When I leaned down to hug her she felt as light as a palm frond. “How is Uncle Chin doing?” I asked.

“Ai ya, not good, Kimo. They send him home but he still very sick. Not just body sick, but heart sick too. He miss Derek.”

Derek, Uncle Chin’s grandson, had gone to jail a few weeks before, and as soon as he went away, Uncle Chin’s health declined.

She sighed. “He lonely old man, Kimo. Derek gone, he feel he done here, go on next world, see Robert and Tommy.”

Robert and Tommy were Uncle Chin’s sons. Robert overdosed, and Tommy, who had become a drug pusher, had been murdered.

She led me to the bedroom, where I found Uncle Chin propped up in an elaborate black lacquered bed, his reading glasses on the night stand and his eyes closed. “He very tired,” whispered Aunt Mei-Mei behind me.

He had been a handsome young man, and I could still see that in his face. Uncle Chin opened his dark, bird-like eyes, and smiled. “ Ni hao ma?” I asked, using the traditional Chinese greeting he had taught me when I was barely old enough to speak.

“Good to see you, Kimo.” He tried to sit up and failed, sinking back against the pillows. Seeing how frail he was, I regretted the idea that had brought me to his bedside, but I felt I had no choice but to see it through.

“I have come to ask you a favor, Uncle.” I sat gently on the edge of his bed, while Aunt Mei-Mei hovered in the doorway. I leaned forward and adjusted the collar of his black silk pajama top. “There’s a boy who needs your help.”

“Derek?”

I shook my head. “Not Derek, but a boy like him. Chinese boy, sixteen years old. His father found out about him and threw him out of the house. He was arrested last night for prostitution. His father won’t take him back, so he’ll have to stay in juvenile hall, and then go to a home.” I paused. “You know those are bad places.”

“He should come here,” Aunt Mei-Mei said behind me. I turned to face her. She wore a simple black silk cheongsam, which contrasted with her bare feet. Her toenails were painted bright pink. “We have much room. He could be company for Uncle Chin.”

I looked back to Uncle Chin. “I’ll find him someplace permanent. I just need a place to put him for a few days. I can’t take him myself-it wouldn’t look right.”

“If I know Derek earlier, maybe I help him more,” Uncle Chin said. “This boy, maybe help him instead.”

I opened my briefcase on the edge of the bed. “You have to sign these papers. Then I can get him out and bring him up here.”

As I handed the papers to Aunt Mei-Mei to sign, I caught a glimpse of my watch. It was almost three, so I had an hour to drive back downtown for the four o’clock hearing, where I hoped the judge would agree to release Jimmy.

I took the papers back from Aunt Mei-Mei, and leaned down to kiss Uncle Chin’s forehead. “I’ll be back soon, Uncle. Thank you.”

He was already dozing again as Aunt Mei-Mei walked me to the front door. “You’re sure this is all right?”

“Doctor say he need something care about. Maybe this boy give him.”

I kissed Aunt Mei-Mei on the cheek and hurried out to my truck. Back downtown, I showed the signed paperwork to Wilma Chow and she added her own signature. “This is a little irregular, you know,” she said. “I ought to meet with these people before I authorize him to be released. I’m trusting you here.”

“And I appreciate it. I just want to get Jimmy out of jail. Then we can work out a long-term plan for him.”

We hurried to the courtroom where Jimmy was being arraigned, and waited through a half-dozen other cases before his came up. Judge Yamanaka heard Wilma’s recommendation, and waived bail in light of Jimmy’s youth, his lack of a record, and his past cooperation with the police.

When the Judge slammed his gavel and called for the next case, Jimmy looked confused, even younger than I knew he was, tired and scared. It was like he didn’t want to believe that anything good was happening, because then he’d just get put down again. “This is only temporary,” I said as we walked through the garage to my truck. “You have to hold up your end of the bargain, and I have to find a long-term place for you. You think you can stay out of trouble for a while?”