to be by myself in the dark; Willy had always been my comfort in such times. I huddled among the shoots and cried, remembering that my brave pet had once protected me from all manner of fears and frights.
A strange thing happened that night. I went to bed early, exhausted by the emotions of the day. In those days, I slept on a mattress on the bedroom floor. Next to the mattress was a bookcase; Willy used to sleep under it so he could always be right next to me. My parents never knew that every night, after they went to bed, I sneaked my dog inside from the yard. It was mine and Willy’s little secret. Now, I stared at the empty spot and thought about him. I had to turn away to keep the tears at bay.
I woke up sometime during the night and was sure I could hear Willy breathing. I assumed I was dreaming, because the memory of what had happened was still fresh in my mind. I rolled over and opened my eyes. There, under the bookcase, looking at me and panting softly, was Willy. The bedroom wasn’t completely dark, as some light was leaking in under the door from the living room, so I blinked my eyes and opened them to look at my dog again. I smiled at Willy, and he laid his head down, ready to fall asleep. I could not drag my eyes away as I whispered, “Hi, Willy. Are you…okay?” I reached out a hand and gently rubbed the top of his nose like I always did.
He slowly closed his eyes, and his breathing slowed.
I rubbed the top of his head and whispered to him, telling him that I missed him. “What happened, Willy? Why you leave me?” Tears blurred my vision, but as I continued to rub his soft fur, I felt the calm that had transformed Willy’s body coming over me, a sudden sense of peace. I understood that he had come to tell me he was okay, that my dog and best friend had come to say goodbye.
A few minutes later, my mother opened my door a crack to see if I was all right. “Mael, you okay? You talking in your sleep,” she whispered.
“No, Mama. It was Willy. I was talking to Willy.” I turned back to look at him, but he was already gone.
My mom knelt down next to me. “Go to sleep, Mael. It was just a dream.” She brushed my hair from my forehead.
“But he was here, Mama. Willy was here.”
“Okay, son. Go to sleep now. Everything will be fine.”
Eventually, I did fall asleep again that night, but it was with a smile and with peace in my heart.
Garden of Sugar and Pineapples
Up the Creek without a Paddle
Kauai High School was the start of a colorful new time for me. It’s true what they say: High school is the start of everything wild and spine-tingling. Little did I know it then, but plenty more adventures awaited me.
“Trudeau, wait up!”
Freddie and I ran up to him at the bus stop. All three of us rode the Chang Fook bus from Koloa each morning and back again in the afternoon.
“Who was da haole guy I saw you talking to in auto shop today?” asked Trudeau.
“Da haole guy?” I said, trying to act uninterested. “Oh, dat was Mando. His fadda is a Lutheran minister in Lihue. They just moved from Argentina. He get one class wit’ Freddie and me in auto mechanics. Nice guy, but a lot of guys no like him already. I dunno know why.”
“Because he is haole, dat’s why,” said Freddie. “Especially da Portugee guys no like him.”
“So what?” I said. “He neva do nothing to them. Some people no caya for haoles anyway.”
I had wanted to avoid that conversation about my new friend. Discrimination, I knew, was one of the most difficult challenges for anyone to overcome. While I was growing up in Kauai, I was surrounded by a small population of local folks: Filipinos, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Hawaiians, and the occasional Caucasian (haoles). Among my peers, discrimination was not unusual, and it didn’t always have to do with race. Although many ethnic groups lived in close proximity, there wasn’t much economic disparity between us and most of our neighbors. The tourists, however, many haoles, stayed in the expensive tourist hotels and were considered wealthy in our eyes. It was easy for them to look down on us as mere laborers. My mother went to great effort to teach us to respect each person on the basis of their virtue, not to judge them just because another does. So, I made a point of being friendly and approachable to everyone, and I found life much easier because of it.
Armando, Mando for short, was the son of a Lutheran minister in Kauai’s oldest Lutheran church in Lihue. I think it was destined for Mando’s father to be assigned there for five years, after being rotated to various ministries; I believe our meeting was part of our awesome destiny. Mando would become one of my best friends, one of those who helped make things happen. Of course, Mando’s life also changed as he began interacting with me and the locals.
Mando didn’t look like everybody else in our world. He was haole, a white person. Being Caucasian, he had pale skin, an oversized, pointed nose, and a gigantic height at six-two. Mando’s brother was two years younger and was lighter, but they both had those signature blue eyes and brownish-blond hair. Mando definitely stood out, as there were few haoles among our classmates.
“Mando, what you talking bout? You no make any sense,” Freddie said with a chuckle.
“Speak Pidgin so we can understand,” said Wilson, another guy we hung out with.
“Eh, you guys leave him alone. He can talk any way he likes,” I said, trying to cover for Mando.
He just hung his head and tried to act neutral. He was soft-spoken and spoke proper English, but as time went on, his speech couldn’t help but be influenced by our constant use of Pidgin. His father wasn’t too thrilled about that, and he continually reminded Mando to use proper English pronunciation and grammar; I thought that was one reason why Mando’s parents didn’t seem to want him to hang out with me.
Nevertheless, they were quite civil to me and even invited me to dinner a couple times. They did their best to make me feel comfortable, but I still felt uneasy. They often asked if my parents knew where I was, and they seemed worried that I was often away from home. I took that as their subtle way of saying it was time for me to go and never come back. As kindly as I could, I would affirm that my parents knew my whereabouts and didn’t really mind if I stayed out late.
Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for Mando’s parents, I wasn’t the type to back down. In fact, the rebellious, nonconforming, outspoken side of me often came out victorious, in spite of the disapproval of certain adults who thought I should be more reserved. I maintained a reputation as something of a maverick, and with my new haole friend by my side, life became even more adventurous. Mando became my partner in mischief. Our friendship was built on our surprising similarities and passions. I loved to learn about people and cultures in faraway places; he had traveled a lot and had information to share.
“S’mael,” he said, since he had learned to call me by my Pidgin name, “you remember my dad’s Triumph 650cc motorcycle I showed you in our garage?”
“Yeah. What bout it?” I asked, curious.
“Well, my dad just gave the bike to me,” he said, his blue eyes lighting up like he’d just won the prize of the century.
In those days, owning a 650cc Triumph was the epitome of coolness. The bike was an icon of the 1960s, not some Honda 90 or a nifty, thrifty Honda 50 moped. The Triumph was a full-fledged, macho, girl magnet of a machine. Back then, owning a motorcycle allowed a kid to exude an aura of independence and confident self-control. I couldn’t blame Mando for being excited about it.
“My dad said as soon as I get my motorcycle license, I can ride it anytime I want. On Monday, I’m getting my permit from the police station in Lihue. I already know how to ride, but my dad said I should practice a little more, and then he’ll take me to get the license.”
“Cool!” I said and slapped my friend a high-five, already imagining cruising the beach, going to school, and riding through town as cool as cucumbers.
Once he finally got the license, we rode with the wind, and I reveled in the feeling of freedom and the rush of the thrill. “Hey, Mando,” I yelle
d from the back seat of his bike as we cruised down the highway next to the shore at fifty miles an hour, “how can we pick up chicks if we ride together all da time?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Maybe you should buy your own bike, S’mael.”
I realized he was serious, and suddenly I was too. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than a motorcycle of my very own, but what was a guy in my position to do?
So, fully aware that I had to earn and save money, I slaved away for months, turning down opportunities to ride with Mando in favor of odd jobs, dreaming of the day I would have my own bike. Then, one fated day in Honolulu, I bought my very own 650cc Triumph and had it shipped to our island.
For that year, at least, the bike was the highlight of my life. At a vertically challenged height of five feet, I didn’t care that my feet didn’t reach the ground when I was sitting on it. Fear had never really been part of my vocabulary. I just stopped alongside curbs or kicked the stand down quickly.
To get going, I just kick-started the engine and—vrrrroooom!—my Triumph zoomed onto the road in a heartbeat. The fascinating thing is that the kickstand doubled as a way to offset my inability to reach the ground with both feet. I perfected the technique of keeping the kickstand down long enough to grind on the road, leaving a spectacular shower of sparks in the bike’s