There was a beautiful Hawaiian girl sitting at our kitchen table with long black hair and a head band on her head that was made from from five braided leather, she also wore a dark blue vest with tassels. The white shirt she wore beneath the vest was snug enough that I could see that she wore no bra. Around her neck was a silver chain with a peace sign that sat perfectly on her chest. My head began to spin when I realized that she was also wearing bell bottomed pants! Could it have been that the hippie gods had heard my thoughts and had actually manifested this stunning creature to appear in my kitchen? As if the moment wasn’t already perfect, our new next door neighbors who were not shy about blasting the music on their stereo played, “Oye Como Va”
Her name was Rachel and my mother introduced her as our new foster sister. I didn’t make a single move toward her, I was rooted to my spot and waved a simple hello. She smiled at me more out of formality than sincerity. Her body moved to the driving rhythm of the song while she ate a bag of chips and sipped on a bottle Tab soda, little did I realize that she would be a person who was much like the lyrics of Santana’s cover tune,
“Bueno pa' gozar, - it’s good for having fun”
Over the next few months Rachel adjusted to our family life in our small three bedroom home. A woman would come to our house once a month to talk to my hanai mother and also to check up on Rachel’s progress, I liked her(the woman) because she always brought candy and cheeseburgers and french fries for everyone. For me especially, she brought orange soda.
Less than a year into her stay, I began to notice that when Blue came home from work, Rachel would sit on the couch with Blue and hug and kiss him. The second that Paul’s car pulled up into the driveway, Rachel would jump up from the couch and greet Paul at the door with a long hug and kiss. Blue would grab his portable radio and go out into the front yard and sit on the bench and listen to his favorite station. Of course, this would happen right under my mother’s nose whenever she was out shopping in town. This event would repeat itself for a while until one day, Blue had had enough.
He confronted Paul and told him everything; it didn’t go well. The brothers came to blows and had to be pulled apart by my hanai mother who inserted herself between the two as she hit them with a yard stick. When my hanai father found out, he kicked Rachel out of the house that same night, but not after cuffing his two sons in the head. The next evening, Rachel returned to our house with her own father in tow. They sat at the table with my hanai parents, and my hanai brothers.
Blue had fallen completely in love with Rachel and wanted to marry her, Paul felt the same way. The two brothers sat there with scratches on their faces from the fight the day before, each hoping that Rachel would choose one of them over the other. My hanai father stated that Rachel had caused too much trouble and that if Blue or Paul married her, neither of them would be welcomed in the house. Rachel’s father asked what her choice was and which one of my hanai brothers did she really love?
Her reply was that she loved neither one of them and that it was all for fun. She couldn’t understand why they didn’t get that?
As calmly as possible, my hanai father asked Rachel to leave, which she did without hesitation. My two hanai brothers parted company that same night and have never spoken from that day until the time of their passing a few years ago. It goes without saying that my dreams of a hippie peace life style were summarily dashed.
Stupid boyhood dreams.
That alone was the straw that broke the camel’s back and precipitated our move from Ma’ili to Waimalu.
…
We moved to Ponohana Loop in Waimalu and for the year that we lived there, it felt like we didn’t belong in that house, nor that neighborhood. I found out quickly on my first day at Waimalu Elememtary School that aside from the Samoan kids at that institution, mines was the only genuine Hawaiian face there. That was a problem. Being adopted by the Moniz family, I thought I was Portuguese. I couldn’t understand what the problem was but the vibes were undeniable. I was lost in a sea of faces that were either Asian or Caucasian, had I been a mixture of both, perhaps I would not have been summarily harassed and asked to leave my classroom as much. I’m not sure if the word trauma was correct, but there were not as many faces like mine in the hallways of this school.
Otherwise, life went on.
Janya, her daughter Deannie, Brother Paul and his son Shorty all lived with us at our Waimalu house. Both were recently separated from whatever relationship it was that didn’t work out. There was a lot music and laughs at home, and a new thing called, “Pizza.” The song that played in the house was, “I Gotcha” by Joe Tex. Whenever it came on, Jayna and Paul would break into a strange kind of dance that just made us fall to the floor laughing. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of us kids would join in. My hanai mother would just sit there and laugh. The funny thing was that I always knew when Janya was in a melancholy mood because she began playing every record which reflected her life at that moment. Sometimes it was Wayne Newton’s, “Daddy don’t you walk so fast.” Other times it was Jermaine Jackson’s. “Daddy’s Home.”
Brother Paul was the same way, his song of gluttonous punishment was Mac Davis’, “Baby, baby don’t get hooked on me.”
…
For me, I was just a 10 year old boy who was obsessed with mastering the art of roller skating and at the same time I was trying to find a place where I could learn this new thing called, “Karate.” Luckily, my friend Robby Ralston’s brother Randy, had just come home from the war and happened to have earned a black belt in Karate at his former duty station in Japan before he was sent to Vietnam. As luck would have it, he gave us lectures rather than teaching us anything.
“You boys are too young to learn this shit unless you are seriously intent on killing someone with your bear hands?”
We were wide eyed and agreed that that was EXACTLY what we wanted to do! He then called Robby and I a couple of snot nosed turds and told us to fuck off.
…
The big deal for myself, Shorty and Deannie was being able to roller skate down the street just past the red brick mail box that belonged to one of our neighbors. For some reason it symbolized a rite of passage, it was a sign that we had reached maturity and that we were skilled enough to roller skate down the rest of the steep hill that lay beyond the red mailbox.
“When I turn eleven that’s when I can skate pass the red brick mailbox,” I said.
“Then I’m next, right?” Shorty asked me.
“No,” Deannie said, “I’m the girl, I should go first!”
“When I go,” I said in my best dramatic voice, “ you guys can both hold my hand and we can all go together.”
Shorty and Deannie hugged me as if I had won the both of them a huge Teddy Bear at the state fair.
My roller skates were the adjustable iron plated ones, the kind that would acclimate it’s length in accordance with the size of your shoes. I had worn these roller skates for a year and I was now used to the feel of them beneath my feet. I had gotten so good that I could jump off of make shift ramps and I knew how to come to a skidding stop on a dime. I did a lot better than the other neighbor hood kids who had the real clay wheeled roller skates. When the day of reckoning was fast approaching, I had already prepared myself mentally for my descent down the steep hill that I could only look at but never skate. It wasn’t going to be hard at all, and it wasn’t. At least I thought it wasn’t, I found that I was going too fast. With all the skills that I thought I had acquired, the one thing I hadn’t learned how to do was stop myself while going down a steep hill. So, rather than just ride it out until the hill flattened and became even, I decided to skate on to a little patch of grass on the sidewalk in order to stop myself. The grass didn’t stop me at all; in fact my speed increased until I crashed into a mailbox. That’s all I remembered until I woke up in my bedroom. Shorty told me that I hit the mailbox with my face and that I knocked out. He and Deannie ran up the street to get my mom and as you can imagine my mom freaked out when she saw me all bloodied and cut up with my face swollen. Shorty made it a point to thank me; according to what he said, I mumbled to my mom,
“Don’t give Shorty and Deannie lickens, it’s not their fault,”
….
We knew that the Waimalu house was haunted but we weren’t sure by what. We all saw shadows moving across the living room, we experienced cold spots and we heard voices. The lights would go off in the evening and flicker back on. Or the lights would come on slowly during the day and stay that way for hours. The funny thing is that it wouldn’t show in the electric bill every month. I myself would see faces appear in my room and in the bathroom mirror but they were indiscernible
One day brother Blue showed up at our door step out of desperation; things were not good at home and so he needed a place to crash for a couple of weeks. It was good to see him and have him around but the only awkward thing is that he and Paul still wouldn’t talk to one another. The tension was very thick but I think the brothers refrained from any confrontation out of respect of our parents. The issue involving Rachael never went away, even though she only saw her flirting with them as fun. Logically, they should have been mad at her but I think it all had to do with pride.
For the few weeks that Blue was with us, the hauntings increased exponentially during all hours of the day and night. Two incidents in particular stick out in my mind, one was the night that my hanai parents were just getting to bed when my hanai father saw the window screen ripping open by itself. Then a disembodied hand came through the scree; my hanai father went to the closet and pulled out his hunting rifle and fired a shot at the window. He and my hanai mother were surprised to see that the screen was completely intact without a tear in it. The second incident was the night that I was sleeping in my bedroom when I heard a creaking noise down the hallway. It was brother Blue in his shorts; he headed to the kitchen and went to one of the drawers and pulled out a knife. He slowly headed towards brother Paul's room which was just off to the side of the kitchen; he left the door wide open and I could see him raise the knife above his head and as he plunged it towards brother Paul's heart, my hanai father appeared just in time to take the knife away. Brother Blues hand hits brother Paul's chest with a dull thud. Even from my room I could see that Blue's eyes were closed. He was sleep walking or so I thought until I saw Blue faint into my father's arms. At the same time, Rachael's apparition removed itself from Blue's body and glared wildly at my hanai Father and it slowly faded away.
My parents were traditional Portuguese Catholics and so they had a priest from their church in Kalihi
come to the house. After explaining the situation to the priest, his conclusion was that the energy in the house had nothing to do with Rachael's ghost possessing Blue. It was the hatred between the two brothers that allowed Rachael's living apparition to take a hold of Blue's body and cause him to try and kill his brother. Rachael was not dead by any means; but somehow she had sent herself as a form of some kind of Hawaiian curse in order to hurt our family. A blessing was done on the house and on my two hanai brothers.
Did they ever resolve their issue with one another?
No.
However, to avoid anymore supernatural events from happening; they just figured that it was better to not ever be in one another's company.
Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui
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