Neil Plakcy - Mahu Fire

It had been a tourist office day on O’ahu, with sunny skies, temperatures in the eighties, and a light trade wind sweeping in over the beaches and chasing the few wispy clouds up into the mountains. We had a parched winter, and as April began, and with it our dry season, there were already reports of wildfires in on the leeward side of the island, in Nanakuli and Waialua.

I stepped out the door of my apartment building in Waikiki as dusk was falling, and the smell of distant smoke rolled over me. There had also been a couple of arsons at gay-owned businesses in the past couple of weeks, and I wondered what was burning-a few acres of mountain scrub, or the property and dreams of a gay man or lesbian.

Hawai’i had been one of the first states to consider legalizing gay marriage, and though Massachusetts, Connecticut, and a few other states had moved ahead of us, the movement in the islands was still strong, and in fact, the media had tied a rise in violence against gays and lesbians to the renewed visibility of the campaign, led by the Hawai’i Marriage Project.

I walked the few blocks to the Gay Teen Center, housed in the annex of a church on Kalakaua Avenue. At that hour of the day, Waikiki was crowded with tourists heading back to their hotels from the beach, older people out for early dinners, and skateboarding teens getting in everybody’s way. I passed up a half dozen chances to pick up discount meal coupons, skirted an elderly Japanese bag lady haranguing the Wizard Stones at Kuhio Beach Park, and stopped for a minute to watch a sailboat setting out for a sunset cruise.

I’d been volunteering at the Gay Teen Center for a couple of months, counseling kids and leading a self-defense workshop in a big open room. My favorite student was a kid named Jimmy Ah Wong, a thin Chinese boy with a bright yellow coxcomb that stood straight up and then, at the very top, drooped over. He looked like a bit actor in a British art film of the 1980s, but he was smart and infinitely kind to the younger kids.

Sixteen of them were waiting for me, Jimmy among them, when I walked into the room. We talked for a few minutes, and then I led them in a couple of warm-up exercises.

We did some yoga, to get them in touch with their bodies, and then a couple of simple judo moves I’d picked up somewhere. When we’d finished the judo, we sat in a circle on the hard wooden floor and talked. I always had to kick things off; they were all shy, and sometimes in order to get into difficult subjects I had to reveal more about myself than made me comfortable. “I had a date on Saturday night,” I said.

A couple of the kids broke into spontaneous applause. I smiled and inclined my head. “Yes, I know it’s been a while. I wish I could say it was a more positive experience.”

I waited, but no one said anything, so I continued. “I met the guy online. And of course, he wasn’t anything like he’d said.”

“I know that drill,” a chunky boy said. His name was Frankie, and he had some island heritage in him, and sleek black hair pulled into a ponytail. “Nobody on the internet is who they say they are.”

We got into a little discussion about that, and about how they could be safe with people they met. “We agreed to meet at the Rod and Reel Club,” I said. “Remember, always meet people you don’t know in public places, so you can get away easily if things don’t work out.”

“Yes, officer,” Jimmy said, with attitude.

“That’s yes, detective,” I said, and the group laughed. “We had a couple of beers together,” I continued. “We seemed to be hitting it off, and we started making out on the outdoor patio.”

“Is there video?” Frankie asked, and everyone laughed again.

“You wish,” Jimmy said, and Frankie sent daggers his way. I gave them both a sharp look.

“So one thing led to another, and he invited me back to his place,” I said.

“Always use a condom,” Jimmy said.

“Have I told this story before?” I asked, pretending to be annoyed. But I was glad that the lessons I’d been trying to teach were sinking in.

“Does it end with you getting your ass fucked and your heart broken?” a boy I only knew as Lolo asked. He was the toughest of the kids, and I had yet to break through the barricades he had set up around him. Acne scarred his cheeks, and his dark hair was shaved close on both sides of his head. “Because if it does, yeah, we’ve heard it before.”

“I save ass fucking for the second date,” I said dryly. “You all should, too.”

“Let him finish the story,” a skinny girl named Pua said. She looked Filipina, with a slim face and almond eyes. Her name in Hawaiian meant “flower” which was totally inappropriate in her case. She wore a cut-off T-shirt that showcased her biceps, and her hair, black like Lolo’s, was almost as short.

“The sex was lousy,” I said. “Alcohol does that. The guy’d been all hard in the bar, but when we got naked, he couldn’t perform. Of course, I worried it was me. That somehow I’d disappointed him.” I smiled. “He took care of me, and then as we were cleaning up, I realized he’d come in his shorts at the bar.” I batted my eyelashes. “So I guess I wasn’t that disappointing after all.”

“He couldn’t get it up again?” Frankie asked.

I shrugged. “He wanted to do some coke, and I said I didn’t, and he said that I might as well go, then. So I did. Not exactly a heart-breaker, but not much fun, either.”

“You need a boyfriend,” Pua said. She crossed her arms in front of her, almost as if she’d make me get a boyfriend if I refused.

We talked for a while about some experiences they’d had, and a few of them opened up. I tried not to judge, though in some cases I was horrified by the sexual abuse, drug use, and petty violence they talked about. I was pretty sure that Frankie hung out near the men’s room at Ala Moana Beach Park after dusk, giving blow jobs to johns, and there was at least one other kid I thought was a prostitute as well.

I knew that some of the others snuck back into suburban homes where no one knew their secrets, and I wanted to take every one of them and say, Someone loves you. Someone will love you in the future. You are all good people. But there’s only so much you can do.

Jimmy hung around for a few minutes after the class, and I asked him how things were going. He had given me some important information on the big case that cracked open my sexuality, and I still felt responsible for any fallout from it.

“My dad and I have a meeting with that lady from the DA’s office next week,” he said. “It’s called a deppa, deppa-something.”

“Deposition. She asks you a bunch of questions, and you answer, and they have somebody write it all down. It’s not a big deal.”

“It will be when my father finds out.” He looked at the polished hardwood floor and a couple of spikes of his blond Mohawk dipped down. “He doesn’t know a lot of it yet.”

A couple of bad guys had coaxed Jimmy into helping them with a smuggling operation through sexual favors, and though his father knew the bare outline of the case, I figured he didn’t know about the sex. “I think it’ll be okay,” I said, putting my arm around Jimmy. “Your father loves you.”

“I hope so.”

On my way out, I dropped in on the woman in charge of the center, a tiny, half-Japanese lesbian named Cathy Selkirk. Cathy was a poet whose love for kids ran deep in her soul. I often found her working long hours, filling out endless grant applications, talking to the kids, or interceding on their behalf with parents, teachers or the police. Though she was only in her early thirties, like I was, the dark circles beneath her eyes and the lines around her mouth made her look older.