At the End of the Rainbow (Part 1)

Dorothy Okamura wouldn’t budge from her studio apartment on the third floor of a modest highrise on Kanunu Street. She had lived there since the sixties and had grown attached to the place for different reasons. Obviously she had been there much of her life, but she also had fond memories of the building and the room, and most importantly she felt she had grown old and any changes wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Her young life had been a series of moves—as had her parents’ lives before her—and nowadays Dorothy made it her business to keep things as regular as possible. In an effort to do this, she marked a routine on her calendar and stuck to it.

On Fridays she attended free classes around the corner at the senior center from a neighborhood Kumu Hula. She had lots of hula sisters and each class was a small potluck where everyone brought a snack or drink and on break they gossiped about rumors they heard since last they all met. On Saturdays she cleaned her apartment. She lifted every knick-knack, picture frame, rug, candle, and decoration, dusting carefully underneath or behind it. She washed every dish and eating and serving utensil by hand. By the end of the day the breeze from her jalousies brought in enough dust and dirt to undo her efforts and she knew it, but she still felt satisfied after finishing her chores. On Sundays a bus from the mission picked her up and took her to the mission so she could meditate. She knew everyone who went on Sundays and after sitting before the altar, she chatted with them. On Mondays she practiced a hobby. Mondays were good days for that because she had just been to the mission the day before and she could ask the monks or her mission friends for helpful hints on whatever her current interest was. For a while, it was ikebana. After a few years, however, she got frustrated with her lack of improvement and gave up. She then decided to practice origami since that was less expensive and, she felt, easier. Origami began to bore her too, so she considered learning how to become skilled at stringing leis. On Tuesdays she went to the movies. She knew it was naughty, but she liked to pay for an early movie and stay all day to watch as many movies as she could. Although she had once been caught, she didn’t feel too bad about sneaking multiple shows because the neighborhood theater she included in her weekly routine wasn’t the theater she used to go to, which closed down decades ago. She felt somehow this new, ultra-modern theater was responsible and therefore owed her something extra.
On Wednesdays her son Daniel came at eight to pick her up in his white Toyota for her doctor’s appointments. He did this because if he didn’t she would take the bus and he felt she was getting too old to ride a crowded bus full of rowdy kids, tourists, and weirdos. Daniel felt differently about his mother’s situation than she did. He was uncomfortable with the idea of her living by herself from the beginning, although his home in Pearl City was already full with his own family and he made it clear there wasn’t room enough for her. His worrying made him a real nuisance. He was like a flea nibbling at her ear, pestering her to leave her apartment for someplace better and safer and all she would have to do is push a button and someone would be there, someone who didn’t have to drive a half-hour from Pearl City. Dorothy loved her son but she often dreaded Wednesdays with him because each week was a renewed attempt at convincing her to leave her apartment and move to a home for the elderly on the other side of the island.
“Mom,” he’d plead as soon as they pulled out of the parking lot, “town isn’t safe anymore. I’ve seen fights right outside your window, even in broad daylight, and your building backs up to housing projects—”
“Yes Daniel,” she acknowledged, “but there is a fence!” The muscles in her face tightened, lifting her flabby jowls like a bloodhound that has scented her prey. She cracked a small tilted smile, eyeing him through her oversized, plastic glasses as if she had just convinced a child to eat his vegetables.
“Of course there’s a fence, but—mom, you know that’s not the point. The point is—“
“And the Daiei is right over there. Close supermarket.”
“It’s not the Daiei anymore mom but I don’t see—”
“And Walmart! Now we have Walmart, can get anything I need, no need take the bus!”
“Mom, but think about your safety, and your health. The doctor—“
“Why, you no like Dr. Okada? Been see him for years now.”
“I like him fine, but you’re changing the subject. There are doctors on the North Shore too.” He fumbled at the console and removed a yellow and red brochure, waving it in the air as he spoke. “Besides,” he said, raising his voice, “this place is…it’s broken down. It’s ugly. It’s not the same as before, whether that’s what you want or not. It’s not someplace you deserve to live. Do you think I want you to live all the way on the North Shore, away from the place I grew up? Of course I don’t! But it’s not good for people your age to live here now if you can avoid it, because things are different now. Do you know what I read in the newspaper the other day? Someone got stabbed—during the day—just a couple blocks from you. Why? Who knows! What I do know is that I never want that to happen to you, for you to walk into an argument between two crazy people and be hurt or killed. I know I’ve shown you this brochure a thousand times, but I’m asking you to consider coming with me to visit. This place I picked out for you —Anuenue—doesn’t that sound like a place you’d want to be? I know I would want to be there! You’ll change your mind when you see it and feel what it’s like there. This place really lives up to its name and I think it’s what you deserve, mom.”
Dorothy was moved by what her son said but she remained quiet for the rest of the ride to the doctor’s office. Daniel rolled his eyes at his mother’s stubborn reticence, compulsively adjusting his glasses in frustration.

At the End of the Rainbow (Part 2)

 

One particular night, Dorothy had an uneasy sleep. Rising from her bed, she set her feet on the shaggy, pea-colored rug and hobbled to the nearby electric range. With nothing else to do, she decided to make herself fried eggs and rice with shoyu. When she finished cooking, she found she had made enough for two hungry people. Mechanically, she divided the food into three modest portions. She set one portion on the kitchen counter, kept one for herself, and set the third in front of a plain ‘iliahi butsudan she kept on a small dresser. On the butsudan was an old photograph of a boy in his twenties leaning haughtily against a brand new 1941 Ford coupe sporting a crew-cut and wearing an aloha shirt busy with row after row of earthy dancers, arms and legs akimbo. Next to the photograph was another photograph of a group of men and women bundled in tall hats and long sleeves, some standing, some squatting, in a field full of tall stalks. Beneath the photo was a small pewter pin that read GO FOR BROKE. She knelt and stared at the little box with the picture of the handsome young man.
“Oh, Testuro, natsukashii,” she said to the box.
She never quite got the hang of cooking only for herself. After picking at her own small plate, she went to the kitchen shelves and removed a plastic bento she bought from Marukai, first filling it with a bed of rice, then gently placing the fried egg on top, tucking its crisp, brown edges neatly inside. In a separate compartment of the bento, she put some leftover vegetables she had in the icebox. Taking a handkerchief, she wrapped the bento and quietly crossed the hall, tying the bundle on her neighbor’s door.
Her neighbor was a tall haole boy in his mid-twenties—a giant to her—who had lived there for several years. She liked bumping into him by the mailboxes, or seeing him as he was on the way to work. He seemed almost arrogant, the way a hero is arrogant, and there was something that was uncannily familiar about him to her. Perhaps it was because of the way he never removed his sunglasses, or the way he wore his hair, she thought. His hairstyle resembled a coxcomb, and she felt he looked like the young Japanese celebrities she saw on posters in her neighborhood, at the bookstore, the movie store, or at Don Quijote. She didn’t think often—or much—about haoles, but she liked this one because, although she couldn’t put her finger on it, something about him was very Japanese. She didn’t know haoles could look Japanese until she met him.
Like her other routines, she had a routine with the haole boy (he had told her his name—Blaine, Ben, Bruno—but she always forgot it, since all haole names except her son’s sounded the same to her). She found that he liked Japanese food, so she would leave him breakfast or lunch whenever she had extra, which was every day she cooked. She would leave it tied to his door, and he would later tie the clean bento to her door, except he would leave it with a small, sweet treat inside. She thought that this was a young person who understood the way things ought to be done. He was nothing like her grandchildren, who, like her son Daniel, were a disappointment in many ways.
After delivering breakfast to her neighbor the haole boy and watching the morning news, Dorothy got ready to go downstairs to the lobby. This particular morning was a Thursday morning, and on Thursdays she had a regular engagement with her friend Alice, who also lived in the building. The ladies would meet each other in the lobby and chat about neighborhood gossip, building gossip, family gossip, whatever gossip they could exchange.
In addition to her weekly routines, Dorothy also had a daily routine that included a mental checklist of things she must have before leaving her room. Sun hat, sun gloves, and most importantly, her purse; since her purse carried everything she could possibly need while out for the day, she never left the house without it. Although it was big and heavy, most of the time she just carried it and paid it no mind, like carrying a meal in one’s stomach. On her way out she checked herself in the mirror to run visually through the list and, securing the strap of her white leather purse over her shoulder, took the elevator downstairs to wait for Alice. She was still early as usual, so she picked a copy of Midweek from the rack near the front door. Carefully adjusting her sun hat in the breeze rushing through the open lobby, she planted herself on the sofa and while she waited, used the black ballpoint pen she carried in her white purse to underline the parts of the newspaper she found important.
An editorial caught her interest about young people who couldn’t find jobs after college. She thought about her own grandchildren, the youngest of whom were in their thirties and had never left their parents’ home. Although they were luckier than the young people in the article since they landed state jobs out of high school, she wondered if they would ever get married and start families of their own. Whenever she asked her grandson Kaua, Daniel’s oldest, when he would get married, Kaua shrugged his shoulders stupidly. It didn’t seem to be a priority to him, but then again, Dorothy always thought he was not all there. The bell on the elevator door sounded, and Alice, a thick woman with a round face and curly silver hair that fit her head like a pointy hat, slowly stepped out in a breezy yellow shirt, white shorts, and a pair of slippers.
“Hello there, Dorothy. What you doing?”
“Oh, I was waiting for you!” Dorothy squeaked happily, her frail figure ambling across the lobby in the direction of her friend. She repeated in a voice that matched her figure, “I was waiting for you!” Alice didn’t respond, so Dorothy repeated again. “I was waiting for you…”
“I hear you first time.” She laughed—she wasn’t sure if it was at her friend or herself. “So, what you doing?”
“I just read the paper. I think there have no jobs now,” she said seriously, her eyes slowly widening like an ancient turtle. Her friend studied the ground in silence. “Things getting worst here for youngstas. When we youngstas, things pretty okay.”
“Hoo,” Alice assented mildly.
Dorothy was quiet for a moment, her gaze cast like a shadow on the ground while Alice spoke. The two would always take turns like this—while one spoke, the other averted her eyes downward.
“Yes, yes, when we youngstas,” Alice continued thoughtfully. “So, we—hachijiunana, ne? Hoo, getting old. Born 1923! I August, you Novembah.”
“Yes, we getting old now,” agreed Dorothy in her turn.
“Enjoy, forget about everything,” Alice offered sagely. Her face contorted into a wicked, playful smile. “I know I have a canna beer.”
“Eh?” said Dorothy, curling her lip. “That’s one thing I don’t like. I don’t have no beer and no liquor.”
“Eh, you missing out,” said Alice. “So, how is yestidday? How is Daniel? He still try his stuffs on you?”
“Yeeeees, yes, he try. But you know, I not going listen. Yestidday he say my too old and here too dangerous! He say what—he say he want to send me to some Anuenue!”
“Eh, anuenue? Eh, he send you ovah da rainbow. Bumbye he plan kill you,” she laughed from deep in her stomach.
“I don’t know, maybe I see his anuenue. Then he shut his mouth and I have peace for my years”
“Hontonii?” asked Alice dubiously.
“I just talking. Maybe I look, maybe not. So what you do today?”
“I going eat donburi,” said Alice. “I hadda big potato, chop it up. Baloney sausage, chop it up. I gonna fry it, have that for dinner.”
The handyman lumbered through the front gate, slamming it shut.
“Nanika?”
“Gonna fry it. Gonna have that for dinner. Donburi,” repeated Alice, raising her voice for her friend.
“You know, shujinga mada ikiteita tokini, intaigo, sensoukara kaetta tokini, he do all the cooking,” Dorothy said quietly. “Wakakatta tokini, I do all the cooking. Later, he do all the cooking. He say he like to keep busy so he wouldn’t think too much.” As she spoke, it was as if another person was speaking for her, someone to whom she had told everything she had ever felt so that they would remember while she herself could forget. Dorothy went on talking, and Alice listened, losing herself in the dots speckling the lobby floor.

At the End of the Rainbow (Part 3)

 

After some time conversing in the building, the two ladies decided to walk to Don Quijote together, since it was only just across the street. This was part of their Thursday routine—they would take one shopping cart between them and shop together while they talked, although sometimes they would walk in silence and observe the tourists, or the young couples with rings in their faces and hair bleached and dyed like orange skunks, or the line of taxi drivers squatting and smoking in front of the building. On some days, the sky would be flawless and blue and the sun wouldn’t be too hot, and on those days, the ladies told each other they felt strong, 20 years younger. Today, after finishing their circuit around the supermarket, they knew without telling each other that it was a strong day. There was a McDonald’s several blocks from their building and so they decided that, since it was still breakfast time, they would get pancakes and Portuguese sausage and a coffee.

Alice took Dorothy’s arm and, shooing the pigeons gathering around the rubbish can, helped her climb the short incline that led to the door of the McDonald’s. After ordering, they moved to the back of the lobby to wait for their food, and as they waited a teenager rushed through the crowd, striking Dorothy like a glittering bolt of metallic lightning. After checking that Dorothy wasn’t hurt, Alice realized that it wasn’t a teenager at all. It was Mrs. Kim.
Including her garishly bouffant hairstyle, Mrs. Kim stood a full six inches shorter than Dorothy. She was a neighbor that the friends saw regularly, although she had only lived in the building for about seven or eight years. Where she came from they could only speculate, although they often joked that she was a spy sent to watch the American military in Hawaii. Mrs. Kim always seemed to be in a hurry, they had never heard her speak, and she always wore a pair of fit-over sunglasses, even indoors, which made it impossible to know if she saw or recognized them.
“Hello, Mrs. Kim!” called Alice loudly, so that it was impossible for Mrs. Kim to ignore her. She stopped, and coming about-face, stared up at the friends from behind the black shield resting on her nose. Alice and Dorothy nodded their heads, and Mrs. Kim also nodded. She turned her back to the two friends, and then pulled a large plastic cup from her purse and filled it with tea from the beverage station. Then, after grabbing a handful of napkins and ketchup packets, marched out of the front door towards the bus stop, her shiny gold and magenta tracksuit audibly swooshing, even in the buzzing crowd. Dorothy and Alice laughed aloud, taking the tray of food to a corner table to eat.
After finishing breakfast, the friends slowly descended the ramp to the sidewalk on Keeaumoku Street, where Dorothy spotted her neighbor, the tall haole boy, with a girl she often saw him with, who she assumed to be his girlfriend. The couple was holding hands at the curb, apparently waiting for the bus.
“Mite, my neighbor,” Dorothy said fondly to Alice. “He’s a good boy, look at him. Good manners, and smart. He choose Japanese girl to marry. They going to have good life.”
Alice studied the pair and nodded. “Yes, you right. Come on, the light going to change. Let’s cross the street.”
The two friends passed the haole boy. Then, wriggling like a mongoose from a dumpster, out of the crowd in front of them came Mrs. Kim followed by a woman they often saw her with, Mrs. Lee, who was using a large umbrella as a cane. Ignoring them, Mrs. Kim and her sidekick made for the curb at the bus stop where the haole boy and his girlfriend stood. The couple was looking up the road and, having noticed the bus coming, stepped to the very edge of the curb in order to be the first to board. Mrs. Kim saw the bus too, and walked to the edge of the street, her white sneakers hanging dangerously over the curb into the heavy traffic. Glancing sidelong at the haole boy, she then inched towards him until she was so close she leaned on his hip.
“Eh, mite!” cried Dorothy, exasperated. “She pushing him so she first! That haole boy, he has good manners, I know he will let her go first but he should not.”
“Hoo. We’ll see,” said Alice coolly.
Although Mrs. Kim was focused on the approaching bus, for some reason she couldn’t resist a peek at the giant next to her. She leaned forward, her gaze fixed to her left, then slowly she looked right and up, up, up to try to glimpse the top of the huge haole. Just at that moment, however, a sudden gust of wind blew the teal visor off her head and onto the pavement. Mrs. Lee, who had been watching a couple arguing in the parking lot behind her, was startled and suddenly wheeled about. Unfortunately for Mrs. Kim, Mrs. Lee had propped her umbrella on her shoulder and, as soon as she turned, it smacked Mrs. Kim in the face, knocking her glasses off and sending her to the pavement. Shocked, Mrs. Lee struggled to help Mrs. Kim to her feet as the bus hissed, halted, and the haole boy and his girlfriend disappeared up the stairs and into the throng of rowdy kids, tourists, and weirdos. The bus closed its doors and groaned onward in the direction of the mall.
The two friends chuckled as they crossed the street, arm in arm.
“What I tell you? That is a good boy,” said Dorothy proudly.
“Eh, you right,” Alice agreed.
“You know, something interesting always happen when we go outside. I like always go outside. I ken not stay home and watch TV.”
“No, I don’t like,” said Alice absently. She was concentrating on watching the traffic signal so the pair could cross safely.
“I like—I like to go out. Watch the handsome man.”
“Yes, yes.”
“But no handsome man here!”
“Oh, I see handsome man,” said Alice after some vague consideration. “Not today, but sometime.”
Dorothy paused as the pair stopped for a car exiting the parking lot of an apartment building. “What about that haole boy we see?”
“What haole? I see too many haoles everyday,” laughed Alice, the wrinkles gathering in her eyes.
“No no, you see him, he is our neighbor. You remember. He is handsome and has manners too.”
“Hoo, yes. He is not my type, but I understand if someone say he handsome. He look like singer.” She laughed again. “I don’t like that kine man.”
The friends approached the building and Dorothy felt at the strap of her white purse. She pulled the flap and retrieved the gate key, handing it to Alice to let them in. Alice held the door for Dorothy, who shuffled into the lobby and pushed the elevator button.
“Take it easy!” Dorothy called to Alice, who had gone to get her copy of the free newspaper. “That’s what I going to do.”
She entered the elevator with the handyman. “My on fourteen,” she said, and he pushed the button for her.

At the End of the Rainbow (Part 4)

The next few weeks passed quickly for Dorothy because noth-ing fell out of routine. Nothing, except for the machinations of her son; he remained suspiciously quiet. Every Wednesday morning she waited gossiping with Alice on the bench against her building wearing her cotton gloves, sun hat, muu muu, and white leather purse. He arrived the same time each morn-ing, brought the car to the curb, helped her into her seat, and shut the door carefully behind her.
One unusually hot Wednesday, Daniel had just helped his mother into the car after her appointment when he said, “I want shave ice. Do you mind if we go get some?”
Dorothy agreed. But, instead of heading back into town where they might go to any number of popular places, he got on the freeway heading west.
“I haven’t been to Matsumoto’s since the kids were teenagers. Let’s go—what do you think?” By that time they were nearly to Wahiawa, so she felt it would be unreasonable to make him turn around.
They entered Haleiwa and found Matsumoto’s parking lot was completely full. Daniel drove by and turned around, and drove by again and it was still full. Turning around again, he pulled into Aoki’s parking lot and checked his watch. “Well,” he began, “how about Aoki’s instead?”
Dorothy remained silent, her irritation with her son growing; they didn’t come all the way to Haleiwa to have shave ice at Aoki’s.
“I remember what you like to get. I’ll be right back.”
Daniel returned and handed his mother her cup. “They don’t have the flavor you like, so I got you coconut. And there’s no azuki bean. Sorry, mom.”
They ate their treats quietly, staring vacantly at the trees in the back of the lot. After sitting in the car for a few minutes, Daniel finally said, “I was thinking—we haven’t been to the North Shore in a while and—well wouldn’t it be nice to go for a drive? I wanted to see if you’d reconsider the place I’d been talking about if you saw it. I think you’re really going to like it if you just give it a chance.”
Dorothy trembled in frustration, the skin on her jowls quivering. She felt her face getting hot, and she suddenly became very tired. She didn’t want to fight him anymore. “Daijobu, you boddah me enough now, Daniel,” she said calmly. “I go.”
They followed the highway along the ocean, the grey waves rolling peacefully to shore, quietly sounding against the rocks, keeping perfect time with the rhythm of everything everywhere. The ocean had a strange, icy feeling because of the clouds, which held the warmth of the yellow sun and covered the whole distance and seemed to be things one could fit in the palm of a great hand, and it was a wonder they were able to hang in the sky between the earth and the sun, over the ocean, the shore, the mountains, over Daniel’s Toyota that crawled like a white lizard to the old plantation that had been changed into a place for the elderly.
They approached a mauka driveway and Daniel activated his blinker, turning to the right up a private drive. Dorothy couldn’t see the end of it; it was shaded infinitely on either side by well-manicured banana trees and so carefully paved that it was worthy of comment, but she remained silent since she was still upset that her son hadn’t listened to her and brought her here against her wishes.
Eventually the line of trees ended and opened into a valley that was shielded on all sides either by the ancient, towering mountains, or by forests that seemed they might be able to repel armies. The drive eventually circled on itself against a large, white two-story building that looked something like a Victorian hotel, with a breezeway extending from each side to several clusters of bungalows, which, in a horseshoe shape, surrounded the back of the building. In the front of the building was a veranda lined with a series of high, fluted columns, the capitals of the Corinthian order, the volutes resembling the spiky crowns of pineapples. In the architrave was a low-relief depiction of workers in the sugar plantations. The narrative was divided into several scenes: the morning bell, the march into the fields, midday harvest, and the workers’ communal meal. On the frieze in the pediment in high-relief was the Battle of Nuuanu, and at the center stood Kamehameha the Great, his arm outstretched in imperial gesture, eclipsing all.
“Daniel,” said Dorothy slowly, “we cannot afford a place like this. We did not need to come here to know this.”
“You’d be surprised, mom. Trust me, let’s just meet with the Director and keep an open mind, and we can talk about it later.”
The son helped the mother out of the car and walked her slowly up the small steps of the veranda, to the building’s main hall. The hall was quiet, and even their footsteps seemed not to echo. A petite, ageless woman emerged from an unseen corridor and floated towards mother and son, extending a hand to them in welcome.
“You must be the Okamuras,” she said graciously. “I’m Director Murasaki, but of course you may call me Mary. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”
“Thank you Mary,” responded Daniel. “This is my mother, Dorothy. We’re both very impressed with the facilities here. It’s—” Daniel didn’t finish; he craned his neck to and fro, admiring his surroundings.
“We’re dedicated to our ohana, Mr. Okamura. We want them to have more than simple comfort and individualized care. We want to surround them with beauty and provide them with genuine happiness.” Murasaki paused and smiled sweetly. “But it’s easy to say that. Let me show you our grounds and introduce you to some of our ohana members—those who live here.”
The guide led the Okamuras through the main hall down a gentle decline to a passage that narrowed and wound its way to an exit door opening into a courtyard full of people.
“You’ve come at an opportune time, Ms. Okamura. Today is our Market Day; would you like to explore?”
“Sugoi,” said Dorothy in amazement.
Arms linked, mother and son followed the graceful woman through rows of canopied tables laden with local dairy, berries imported from the Big Island, ‘Nalo greens, flower and bead leis, even fresh fish and meats.
“Maile!” called the Director to one of the vendors. The visitors followed their guide to Maile’s table where the two familiar women greeted other warmly. “I’d like for you to meet the Okamuras—this is Daniel and his mother Dorothy. They’re here on a visit to see the Anuenue Plantation and to meet our ohana.”
“Welcome!” Maile said enthusiastically as she grabbed a lei from her table and adjusted it on Dorothy’s shoulders, kissing the old woman on the cheek. “Where are you coming from, Ms. Okamura?”
“Town,” replied the little woman tersely, her black eyes shining like papaya seeds.
“That’s wonderful—my tutu lived on Wilder for ages until I finally convinced her to come to Anuenue, which is close to where I live. She was nervous to leave Makiki but she seems really happy here, too.” Maile scanned the crowd. “There she is, over by the uke players. Tutu!” she called. A tanned, frizzle-headed grandmother with a long, breezy red gown turned her head in the direction of the group and waddled over with the aid of an antique cane.
“Tutu, this is Dorothy Okamura. She came all the way from town to visit and I thought you two might have a lot to talk about!”
“Eh, hello,” said Tutu.
“Nice meeting you,” returned Dorothy.
“Come on, I show you around, yah?”
After the pair was out of earshot of the group, Tutu studied Dorothy for a moment before speaking.
“This bag you get, I like. Where you get that?”
Dorothy lifted it in her arms the way she lifted Daniel so many years ago. “Shujinga kureta. I never take off.”
“En, soka,” said Tutu sympathetically. She turned her eyes to the ground. Changing the subject, she began again. “So, I guess you do not wanna stay here, yah? I guess, because that’s how I feel when my moʻopuna ask me to come.”
“Eh, why you come here then?” asked Dorothy.
“I do not know,” said Tutu honestly. “My life in Makiki is pretty good. I can walk to market, I have friends, I get the papers. But here have that too. In fack, after I come here, this place feel natural. Like before I am lost, wandering—like one ghost. Now, I feel at home. The rooms here, they are big and clean. All the staff, they are kind, you won’t believe. Maybe too kind, they always asking ‘what you need?’ and always run for get dakine, no matter you need or no need. And you know what, the ohana here, they good people. Everyone here have sound mind—that is one rule here, everyone must have sound mind. And the ohana, they good people. Most good people,” Tutu laughed, raising a finger for emphasis.
Dorothy allowed herself to smile. “Most, yah?”
Tutu studied the grass at her feet, plying it with her cane.
“Mite over there, yah?” she pointed discretely with her nose. “Ano bald guy, he wear one gray shirt and get one face like honu? That is Ed, he is big-time skebe.” Tutu chuckled wildly. “He always touching any girl he can. Maybe you see one time.” Tutu rolled her eyes and smiled, making a clicking noise with her tongue.
“Eh, shame!” responded Dorothy playfully.
“There Mary, there Donna, there Shirley. They big gossips, bigger than me,” said Tutu righteously. “I can show you more, but most here good people. No need worry. Most good people.”
The two ladies stood in the shade for several minutes watching crowds of their peers shuffling by—elderly residents inspecting mangoes and papayas, getting samples to try, or talking story with the vendors as they would with their oldest friends.
Tutu finally cleared her throat and picked up the conversation as if it hadn’t been left off. “I tell you what, though—you come here, you can not go back. But I tell you true: if paradise can be real, Anuenue is paradise.”
At that moment, Daniel and Murasaki emerged from the crowd. “So mom, is Tutu teaching you all the Anuenue secrets?”
“We just talk story, Daniel. Well, I’m very pleased to meet you,” Dorothy said to her new friend.
“Okay then, nice meeting you. Maybe I see you soon, yah,” Tutu smiled.
As the group walked in the direction of the main building, Dorothy cleared her throat. “Miss Murasaki,” she said slowly, “maybe this is a silly question—but, how can I live here? This place—”
Sensing Dorothy’s embarrassment, Murasaki interrupted her. “Ms. Okamura, perhaps your son hasn’t explained the selection process to you fully. It’s complicated of course—anything involving the government is—but it doesn’t have to be. In the same way the government provides land grants in Hawaii for those who are qualified, we also have a deal with both the federal and state governments to grant coverage of admittance to two specific groups: veterans who are permanent residents of Oahu, and/or their spouses, and the descendants of certain kinds of laborers of the old system. That’s what grabbed my attention and why I set up this place, to be quite honest with you.” She paused for a long time. “It’s hard to believe that some of our relatives used to live and labor here, at this very place, so many years ago. Not many years, actually. Sometimes I find that hard to believe.” Murasaki quickly fumbled in her breast pocket and, retrieving a pair of reflective sunglasses, covered her eyes. “There’s more tour,” she said quietly.
“Thank you, thank you, Director Murasaki,” said Dorothy suddenly. “I have already seen so much, and I feel so tired from the sun! I think better my son just take me home for rest.”
“Today was hot,” said Murasaki. Then, taking Dorothy’s hand, “please call, for anything.”

At the End of the Rainbow (Part 5)

Months passed and Dorothy continued her weekly routine, although she hadn’t spoken to anyone—even Alice—about Anuenue Plantation. She felt somehow that she couldn’t talk to her friends about it, and she wasn’t ready to say anything to Daniel because he’d put more pressure on her to move. There was something holding her back from signing the papers and retiring to the North Shore, but she didn’t know what.
One evening after she had gotten back from a day at the movies, she habitually boiled an egg and, with some shoyu and leftover rice, hobbled to the butsudan and knelt. She set the rice before the old photograph above the cabinet and spoke quietly, with her eyes on the floor.
“Tetsuro. Tetty. Tousan. I do not know what to do.” She sighed sweetly. “Oh, natsukashii. Remember? Asokokara kaettatoki, going to get some land in the country. Dream to have a small house away from everyone. Dream to have small garden, and hens for eggs, and one big fat rooster to kill mongooses and protect our hens? But never go there. Kokoni ittetayo. kono chiisainaheyawa watashitachino heyadayo. Now, I made this room mine. I exercise, I have friends, I have hobbies. Shikashi, sugu, anatano youni naru. Going leave here. I want to spend my last days peacefully. Maybe I can go to the country. But it is hard to leave. Sometime I think, I can go the plantation. I can finish this old dream. But this space here, I cannot go. Nannen tattemo, anatao wasurenaiyo. I am asking for help me now do what is right for me.”
She gazed at the silent old photo of the haughty young man and waited.

* * *

Daniel came by the next morning to take her to the doctor. As usual he was on time, he opened and closed the door for his mother, he made sure she was comfortable on the way.
Dorothy observed him and saw these good things in her son. Unlike many parents of her generation, however, she didn’t see his goodness as a reflection of her own; she saw it as meritorious on its own account. It was at that moment that she felt she was thinking clearly about the past few months, and she spoke.
“You think I cannot take care myself,” the old woman declared, and immediately regretted it. Her son kept quiet but she could sense his frustration, and she didn’t look forward to his response. She was surprised when they arrived at the doctor’s office and he stopped at the front door, walked around to her side, let her out, and escorted her to the elevator.
“I’ll be up after I park the car,” he finally said.

* * *

The doctor’s visit was nothing out of the ordinary, and as she came to the vestibule, Daniel was casually reading a magazine. Setting the magazine aside as she approached him, he offered her his arm. “So how’d it go?”
“Oh, it’s fine. You know, Dr. Okada is the best. He say I stay pretty healthy.”
“Well, that’s great. I expected that, but it’s still good to hear.”
They drove back to the apartment on Kanunu Street. Daniel stopped in front of the building, but he didn’t get out.
“Why do you think that I believe you can’t take care of yourself?” he said after a moment.
Dorothy hesitated, because she didn’t know. It wasn’t even that she thought that of her son, she just didn’t know what she thought.
“Daniel, you know what, I am not keiki. I do not need someone to watch me like keiki. I can watch myself.”
“No, no, no, it’s not like that at all, mom,” he said seriously, removing his glasses and facing her. “Nobody thinks you’re like a keiki. If anything I’m the keiki and you took care of me. You took care of our family. You raised me and what can I do to repay that? Not enough. Nothing will ever be enough. What I can do, though, is bring you somewhere that is far away from all that this place has become. Will Anuenue live up to its name and what we’ve seen of it? You saw it yourself. So it’s up to you. You are capable of making your own decisions, and I haven’t been respecting that. But now that you’ve seen that place, you should decide: what do you want?”
Dorothy still didn’t know exactly how to respond to her son’s question, but she did know that sitting still, as she had done for so long, had exhausted her. As she thought about it she felt surprised because she had always thought of inertness as being restorative, something you would do as a way to build a reservoir of energy before making a big move. She supposed then that she had been sitting and waiting for something big to happen, but it hadn’t, and instead she sat and sat and then became obstinate, refusing to move, and as she had the feeling of exhaustion snuck up on her slowly, as discomfort somewhere inside one’s body becomes a dull ache, which becomes more pronounced, which sharpens gradually until the pain is overwhelming. She then realized that this choice that her son had presented her might be the big thing.
She wanted to respond, but still the pressure of doubt choked her. As she struggled to free her throat, tiny spots silently appeared on the windshield, followed by a few more, and a few more, until great drops of rain pit-pattered heavily on the pair in the white Toyota, loudly enough that it didn’t matter that Dorthothy’s voice had been taken. The rain lasted only seconds, then the sky cleared and the clouds blew over the mountains, leaving a dim rainbow that faded as quickly as it had come.
“Daijobu,” she said in a small, clear voice. “You right, Daniel. Let me sign. I been decide.”
Daniel opened the console, where he kept the papers every day since he had secured funding from the government for his mother to live at Anuenue Plantation. He handed them quietly to her. She took them with her left hand. With her right hand she reached for the black pen in her white purse, and was startled to find that her purse wasn’t there where she had never failed to carry it for as long as she could remember. Mute once more, her lips slowly separated and her mouth fell open from the fear that grew from the confusion within her. She looked to her son to help her, to do something that would save her. Thinking he understood what his mother needed, he reached into his shirt pocket and, with a wide smile of relief, gave her his pen.

About “At the End of the Rainbow”

One of the things that is different about Honolulu (some neighborhoods more than others) as compared to other cities I’ve been to or lived in, is how many elderly people there are walking down the street, on the bus, at the grocery store, just about anywhere you go. One building where I lived had an odd mixture of Korean bar girls, ex-military, and elderly women. One experience while living at that building (which I won’t relate because I think it doesn’t matter that much to the general reader’s understanding or appreciation) prompted me to write this story.

I think I should say first that this story is an invention. This is an obvious thing about all fiction, I know, but it’s important to note that there is no Anuenue Plantation (on Oahu), and there is no law (so far as I know) that provides the kind of funding I wrote about. There is, however, a real government provision passed by Congress in 1921 (the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act) that wouldn’t exist without Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole (the “highway” guy and the “street” and “park” and “beach” guy) that leases land to Native Hawaiians for next to nothing. This, of course, is a kind of reparation paid by the U.S. for having usurped Hawaiian sovereignty, an act that President Cleveland describes as “wholly without justification,” which means that it was illegal (read Cleveland’s full address at http://www.hawaii-nation.org/cleveland.html). While this illegal act seems unrelated to Director Murasaki’s land grants to “veterans who are permanent residents of Oahu, and/or their spouses, and the descendants of certain kinds of laborers of the old system,” I think the illegal annexation of Hawaii isn’t that different from Japanese internment and segregation of Japanese American soldiers to the 442nd regiment, and, though it’s a bit of a stretch, the plantation culture that dominated before, during, and shortly after annexation. But all of this is in the background of Dorothy’s story.

The main question I had when I wrote this story was this: who can really live on Oahu now? I’d see these older people inching down the street, and I, having a vague idea how different the island was when they were young, wondered how they could afford to live here anymore. Then, I thought about all the young people I knew—the “Kauas” of the island—who could only afford to live with their parents and were lucky even to work. And all this due to outsiders and people with a lot of money coming to the island and buying a bunch of property and driving prices up to the sky for the regular people. (This is of course my own opinion of the situation, I don’t know if this is necessarily true or isn’t true.)

So it’s with this question in mind— “who is able to live on oahu?”—that I wrote a story about a widow who needs to make a choice about where she lives.

Hawaii Nei (Part 1)

Sid was reclining on a small patch of grass in the dirt under a squat palm when the mist broke and began to fall, casting a haze like a fisherman’s net over the city sky grown dim yellow. Fine drizzle came fast until it turned to rain that fell in fat, heavy drops. Sid’s things were getting wet, so he rose to look for his working umbrella, which he had first found in the parking lot of one of the shabbier hotels at the end of the Waikiki strip. Although the umbrella was well used, it still worked even back then so he thought it strange that someone considered it rubbish. He pulled it from the bottom of his pile and tried sliding the runner up the tube four or five times, until it finally caught on the top spring. Good. One of the ribs had snapped but the partial canopy was enough to cover most of his cart. Sid was proud of his possessions, and he had a longstanding success both in keeping them dry and safe from thieves. The only exception was an old blue tarp he once kept as a makeshift roof that went missing without explanation.

For about a week, Sid had been feeling ill at ease. He wasn’t sleeping well, he had a strange appetite that left him either ravenous or repulsed by the sight of food, he was moody, and so on. This sort of change in his demeanor happened to a greater or lesser degree whenever he had to move.
The cycle of movement was commonplace not only for Sid, but also for other members of the unfortunate class, to which Sid belonged. Every so often, informal villages of unfortunates gather and grow. It begins with a few and then after about a month it multiplies to the point that it is disruptive to the things around it and its inhabitants must be displaced, resulting in a significant diaspora whose members must find a new home. The laws regulating the lives of the unfortunates are drafted, passed and enforced with a savage urgency that is absent from the legislative character of other cities. This is met, in turn, with ingenuity that one would hardly believe possible by ostensible illiterates. The result of the dialectic is as one would expect: namely, a cycle of arrival and departure as natural and eternal as the seasons. The only distinction between the two processes being that in the former, nothing is reborn.
At any rate, in this instance Sid had lived comfortably in the center of Kapiolani Park, but then he was evicted and relocated himself to a place on the west of the canal outside of Waikiki, a thin strip of grass before a gravel lot with a small recycling operation. At first, his only neighbor was a garrulous old haole woman with a pruneface and bad manners. Sid hated talking with her—she could endlessly decry local politics, heaving and pouting impotently like a Pufferfish without any poison. Since she was from the mainland and remained on Oahu by choice, Sid often considered asking, first, how she had come to join him on the canal, and second, why she didn’t go back where she came from. But he thought better of it and instead of inviting the old haole woman’s self-indulgent, wandering reply, he chose to keep things between them polite yet reserved.
Oahu’s unfortunate class—as you might have read or seen—is a diverse, curious lot. The haole woman, while an unfortunate, does not consider herself as such. She is of the sort that denies the obviousness of their destitution. They are the consumers, constantly acquiring new things and discarding the old things they no longer want. They have grown numb to the legal imperatives for eternal relocation, or they somehow manage to stay ahead of them. They obey the law and move when they must, but one can see their desire for a more permanent life in each new home they create, obstinately refusing their own transience.
Then, there are the industrious ones. Many of these are attracted to the pavement in front of the recycling centers as a means to a less formal employment than a wage-earning job. They go shirtless—a matter of convenience as opposed to want, for the breeze on their backs cools them—while they push their shopping carts up and down the littered streets. Like pigeons pecking at rice, they bend to peer into every trash can on every corner during their 24-hour workday, sorting bottles and cans from the tide of refuse that both threaten and invigorate their way of life.
There are also the proud, marching across the island with stern conviction with their sharp, obsidian jaw clenched so that it always seems on the verge of piercing its leathery sheath. Sid knew many of this kind of men, and he had heard stories of many as well; had they the fortune to inhabit a more glorious epoch, some might have been Hectors or Ajaxes. Their scowl impresses and terrifies both those like them and their opposites, the fortunates, who scamper at their approach. Yet, a few don’t run, those to whom the proud drop a nod of respect for mysterious reasons that will follow them beneath the sand.
There are the partial—those that were once whole but are now like wandering spirits, both in the material world and not. Their eyes look skyward— perhaps with the remainder of their soul they seek that portion of it they lost long ago, in the days of their youth when they refused to refuse, out of the twisted principles they have long since abandoned. Prone to irrational outbursts of supernatural revelation and anger, they are often-ferocious, nocturnal man-creatures, dangling their toes over the precipice of insanity.
Finally, there are the broken—shaggy, wild men wandering aimlessly along the same paths they have always wandered. One speculates on the former lives of the broken, if they once had aim. Reason would affirm that in the uncertain past these men had been soft, pink infants in their mothers’ arms. Looking at them now, it is impossible to imagine them in such a state. They must have been born as mute, full-grown men covered in filth, immediately abandoned to the world to survive alone as best as anyone alone can survive.
Sid lived with the unfortunates, was one of them, and yet, somehow was not. He had misplaced his former identity:

CLASS C DRIVER’S LICENSE HAWAII

SIDNEY KANOA AIKAU

— STREET WAIMANALO, HI 96795

BIRTH DATE: — 1981

SEX: M

HT: 6-4

WT: 190

ORGAN DONOR

He lost it somewhere on the road. It might have happened at the cove, where he slept one night on his way to town. If he lost it there, then it might now be at the bottom of the sea, or caught in the belly of a large fish, or built into a mountain bird’s nest—it was somewhere beyond his reach which meant it was gone and could therefore be easily forgotten. Who, however, had he consequently become? It was his unconscious belief that since that day he had unalienably become no one, and that was that.
While waiting for the rain to end, Sid had nothing to do but check his inventory: a seat cushion from a comfortable lawn chair, a bike rack, nine plastic bottles (some empty, some not), three tattered bamboo beach mats, a nylon tote bag with the phrase Have a Pleasant Day Hawaii silkscreened on one side, a change of shirts, a change of board shorts, several undergarments, an old sun hat, a rusty bike chain, etc. He recently moved his most valuable item from a pencil-box at the bottom of his pile to his left pants-pocket—it was a miniature replica of an old skateboard with the image of a red dragon that his father had given him shortly before he died. Sid felt connected to his father whenever he held it, which both comforted and grieved him. One day he hoped to have it made into a necklace, always near his heart. In fact, he had a small savings in his right pocket for that purpose, although he had no idea what it might cost and wasn’t sure how to find out. Most mornings after reading the previous day’s newspaper, he rode the gift over and around a smooth stone he kept as a miniature skate park. That was his time to escape, and to think fond thoughts. As usual, the rain didn’t last long and he calculated that it was probably safe to close his umbrella and he buried it again in his horde.
Sid dug at his scalp, which bothered him ever since he got a case of tinea capitis after a three-dollar night at IHS. He knew there wasn’t much to be done about it; salt water eased the discomfort, so he’d go later for a night-swim. First, however, he needed to eat. From the savings in his right pocket he counted several bills and two dollars in change, which matched his count from the previous night. Fast food was never his first choice but it would leave him full and with money left over. This appealed to his dream of soon converting his father’s gift into a necklace, and he left his spot on the side of the road, slowly wheeling east.