ISSUE 06   ||   FALL / WINTER 2009

What I Have to Tell You

Cedric Yamanaka

Orion Wong looks out at the ocean off the Waianae Boat Harbor, wonders which is bluer—the sea or the sky—and asks himself how the hell he’s going to tell his son what he has to tell him.

“Looks like a nice day, huh, Kona?” says Orion, to the five-year old boy. Kona, of course, doesn’t answer.

“Yeah,” says Orion, starting the boat engine and steering past the breakwater towards the horizon. “Maybe we’ll get lucky today. Maybe we’ll hook up a nice ahi. Make ahi poke. With da limu kohu and da inamono. I can taste ‘em already. My friend at da garage, Bobby, he and his boy caught a hundred-twenty pounder at da Ahi Fever Tournament. We’ll catch one bigger than that, huh?”

Kona gazes out to sea, eyes the color of maple syrup. Since the day of his birth, the boy has never spoken a word. He does not laugh or cry. He rarely smiles. Therapists say Kona is of above average intelligence. At home, the boy plays with toy trucks and Kikaida miniatures, reads voraciously, draws pictures, watches TV. The experts scratch their heads and call it a rare and baffling case. They do studies, write reports, consult mainland professionals. Orion and his wife Nani simply have learned to consider Kona’s silence a part of life.

Orion adjusts the lines and hooks on four fishing poles and casts them out to sea. Waves slam against the side of Orion’s boat, a tiny 14-foot double hull with a 40 horsepower engine he bought second hand from the classified ads. The boat resembles a sports convertible car. There are two seats in the front and a steering wheel on the left side. Sea spray is everywhere.

“This sure beats being stuck in da garage,” says Orion, breathing in the salty smell of the sea. “I’ve worked fifteen days straight, fixing car after car. It’s nice to finally have a day off. There’s gotta be a better way to make a living. I tell your Mom da place is driving me crazy. She don’t listen. She don’t understand.”

Orion met Nani at the Kaneohe Body and Fender. She had a nail in her tire. Orion patched the leak. He wanted to tell her she had eyes as green as the ti leaves in his back yard. Instead, he told her the tire would run good as new.

“Cash or charge?” Orion asked.

“Uh, charge,” said Nani, opening her wallet and handing him a credit card. Just like that, Orion had Nani’s name, address, phone number. He returned the credit card and thanked her. Nani smiled, tilted her head to one side, and walked out of the garage.

It took Orion three days to work up the nerve to call her. It was the first time he’d ever called a customer, right out of the blue. She answered the telephone on the second ring. Right off the bat, Orion knew it was Nani.

“May I speak to Nani?” he said, nervous.

“This is Nani.”

“Hi, Nani. Jeez, you’re gonna think this is weird but I’m da guy at Kaneohe Body and Fender. Orion. I fixed your tire, remember?”

“Yes, I do. Of course. Hi.”

Orion felt relieved. She actually sounded happy to hear from him. Somehow, they wound up talking for an hour. Then Orion worked up the courage to ask Nani if maybe they could get together sometime.

“This is weird,” said Nani. But she was laughing, so Orion guessed things were all right.

“Yeah, I know it is. But how about it?”

“Well, yeah, I’d like that, I guess. Why not? Boy, this is weird.”

Orion picked Nani up the next Friday. She lived on a hill overlooking Chinaman’s Hat. She worked as a nurse in the maternity ward at Queen’s. They went out for Chinese food. She said she liked the sweet sour shrimps but couldn’t even look at the steamed fish with ginger and shoyu.

One year later, they went to court and got married before a judge. Orion wore his best aloha shirt, white pants, and white shoes to the ceremony. Nani said he looked like a member of the Royal Hawaiian Band. She wore a blue muumuu and a haku lei. After the fifteen-minute ceremony, Orion and Nani walked out of the judge’s chambers. A bunch of news reporters and cameramen sprinted out of an elevator and rushed past them.

“What’s going on here?” Orion asked a cameraman.

“A verdict in a murder trial,” said the cameraman, breathing hard.

“Murder trial?” said Orion. “What kind?”

“You probably don’t want to hear this but a guy just got convicted of slashing his wife’s throat. He caught her in bed with another man.”

Orion guessed the cameraman could tell Nani and he’d just gotten married.

“That will never happen to us,” said Orion, winking at Nani. They were holding hands.

But the cameraman wasn’t listening.

Orion steers his boat out towards the three-mile buoy. “Bull, da water is nice today, hah?” he says. Orion often calls his son “Bull.” Just like his old man used to call him.

“Clear. Glassy. I should drop da boat anchor and take a dive. I bet there’s choke lobster holes down below.”

Although his son never speaks, Orion often feels like he knows exactly what his son is thinking. It’s a natural talent that has developed—perhaps through instinct, perhaps through necessity--over the years. On good days, Orion believes he is on the right track with his son’s thoughts. On bad days, understanding Kona is as difficult as trying to predict the future by slicing open a goat and reading its entrails.

The wind blows through Orion’s dark hair, which is slowly but surely revealing signs of gray. Kona looks out to sea. Orion remembers the day Nani told him she was pregnant. He’d never seen her so happy. They were at Ala Moana Beach Park early one Saturday morning, before it got crowded, casting for o’io. Orion brought bottles of Coca Cola that had been covered with ice and placed in a small cooler. Even though the bottles had a fishy smell from the bait, the sodas were the best Orion ever had.

They were so cold, they hurt Orion’s teeth when he drank.

“It’s gonna be a boy,” said Nani, blushing, hands on her belly. Her stomach was still rock hard from crunches done at 24-Hour Fitness. “I can tell.”

“Do you have a name for him?” said Orion.

“Yes. Kona.”

“Kona? That’s the name of a town. Not a boy.”

Nani explained. She came up with the name Kona because that’s where the boy had been conceived. In the middle of a barren lava field, under the stars one summer night, while fishing lines probed deep into the dark, belly of the sea.

“Da ocean is so big,” says Orion, circling the three-mile buoy. The water is a very deep blue. “It looks like it goes on forever. I know what you’re thinking, Bull. Nothing lasts forever. What about love? You think love lasts forever? I used to think so. In fact, I was positive. Now, I ain’t so sure. Your mom says love lasts forever. I don’t know.”

Orion and Nani have been married for eight years. But over the years Orion started wondering if something had been lost somewhere. He wasn’t sure what, but something that once felt so full of life had, over the years, died. Last night, after much debate, Orion told Nani how he felt.

“Life has grown stagnant between us,” he said. “Don’t you feel it, too?”

“What do you want?” said Nani, wiping the first tear away from her eye with an index finger, hoping Orion couldn’t see.

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should, I don’t know…”

“Live separate lives?”

“Maybe. Just for a while.”

Nani asked Orion if he’d found another girl. The young receptionist at work, a girl in a hostess bar? Orion said no, which was the truth. Nani started crying and said if that’s what Orion wanted, go ahead. Go ahead and tell Kona.

“Son,” says Orion, steering his boat towards Kaena Point, sometimes following the flight of a sea bird. “I have something to tell you.”

Orion has been thinking about it for a while now. When did things get so bad between him and Nani? The answer scares Orion. Things changed the day Kona was born, with the blue umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and shoulder like the silk banner of a beauty pageant contestant. Orion knows how horrible it sounds, but it’s the truth. Everything was fine before Kona. He and Nani went to the movies, just like normal couples. They ate at restaurants, danced at clubs, wore matching green t-shirts and attended UH football games. The minute Kona was born, though, the child became the focus of their lives. That hasn’t changed in five years. And somewhere, somehow, Orion and Nani focused so much on Kona, they forgot to focus on each other.

At first, they waited for Kona to babble, to talk, like other toddlers. He did not. Of course, this made things even more difficult. Still, they were both so thankful. Kona was growing up big and strong. He seemed bright—aware and intelligent. And he had a good heart. But why didn’t he talk? Orion wondered if he had failed his son somehow. Where did I go wrong, he asked himself.

As a mechanic, Orion prided himself on his ability to solve problems. If a car engine fails to turn over, he’ll check under the hood. A fluid leak means something else. A clutch that refuses to budge poses another dilemma. All of these situations can be fixed with the right tools and the proper techniques. It is hard for Orion to accept the truth that some things cannot--will not--be repaired.

One morning, several years ago, Orion looked out the kitchen window and saw Kona sitting on a stone wall outside the house, next to the tool shed. Orion read the morning paper, finished three cups of black coffee, and repaired a clogged drain in the bathroom. When he checked on Kona again, his son remained sitting on the same stone wall, seemingly staring into space. Curious, Orion went outside.

“What’s so interesting out here, Bull?” he asked his son.

Orion followed the boy’s gaze. Kona watched as a tiny spider built an intricate web, about the size of a basketball, across the wooden pillars of the tool shed. The sun sparkled against the fine web, like fire reflecting off the blade of a sharp sword. The web appeared as sturdy as the strongest monofilament.

“Too good, ah?” said Orion, quietly.

He sat next to his son, on the stone wall. For several hours, father and son watched the spider work. Suddenly, Kona picked up a rock and threw it at the center of the web. The project collapsed and tumbled into a field of high grass.

“What I have to tell you,” says Orion. The sky over the ocean is blue, but clouds cover the sun so it’s not blazing hot. “It’s about me and your mom.”

But Kona is not listening. His maple-syrup eyes are wide, his mouth open as if he is about to speak. Orion anxiously follows Kona’s gaze to a point several hundred yards in front of the boat. Orion is not sure if he is seeing things. Something explodes in the water. He steers the boat towards the area. Suddenly, there are dozens of explosions all over the boat. Orion and Kona are in the middle of a school of a hundred dolphins.

“Bull,” says Orion, breathless. “This is amazing.”

Kona watches the dolphins. Some leap into the air, the sun glistening off their wet and smooth bodies. Others swim right up to the boat, curious. Kona, for just a second, places his hand on Orion’s shoulder. Orion is elated. It is a sign, an acknowledgement, an agreement. But then he wonders. Maybe his son had simply brushed him accidentally, heading back to the front of the rocking boat?

Suddenly, a fishing line begins to scream. Orion tends to the pole. He feels Kona’s gaze shift from the dolphins to him. And this makes Orion feel even better.

Orion attempts to reel in a little bit of fishing line. He can tell by the resistance that something very large, something very strong, is hooked on the other end. Kona moves closer to him. Orion can smell his son’s hair—apples, sugar, salt.

“Bull,” says Orion. “Take da pole.”

Kona’s tiny fingers wrap around the pole. Orion covers his son’s hands with his own.

The fish boldly takes some line out. Kona lets him run and then reels in more line. The fish takes more line out. Ten minutes later, the brave but exhausted fish is just off the side of the boat. An ahi, maybe twelve pounds. Orion admires the beautiful blue, green color of the fish just before it is pulled out of the water. He knows within only a few heartbeats, the brilliant color will disappear for good.