Energumen
Tabby’s body was lifeless and gray, her eyes were masked with duct tape, as was her mouth with a large swath of the silver adhesive stretched across it. Both holes of her nose were stuffed with Kleenex and taped over, the orifices in her lower body were filled with tampons, over that, her undergarments were securely taped in between her legs and around her waist. Her ear canals were tightly stuffed with earbuds which Tabby normally used for her iPhone, and the outer layer of her eardrum, the tympanic membrane was covered tightly with duct tape from the same roll.When the unclean spirit of a cannibalistic child molester named Neil David came to possess her body
, Tabby was prepared. In the office of her sixth-period science teacher, Mister Oyadomori, she waited. His was the body which Neil David possessed, and it was through that body that he was able to hide and move among a high school of hormone-charged teenagers at will. The one thing that Neil David did not expect while in the guise of Tod Oyadomori, was Tabby Kahana, his first and only victim to survive his attack.
It was merely five minutes ago, when the office door swung open and Tabby and Mr. Oyadamori locked eyes; a sickening grin came over his face. Neil’s twisted spirit left Mr. Oyadamori’s body so suddenly that the empty frame defecated and urinated with no warning as it crumpled to the carpet. The last moment of clarity before she felt herself losing her conscious to his, was right before she was overcome with the sickening smell of Aqua Velva and Brute Cologne. She quickly taped her eyes shut and everything else went black immediately after, she felt herself falling into an endless void where the silence was unnerving. With the remaining orifices filled and securely bound by the dull silver adhesive, Neil David had no way to escape. Tabby’s body convulsed and thrashed about in Mr. Oyadamori’s office as Neil realized what she had done, he couldn’t see anything but he felt someone taping Tabby’s hands and feet together. Soon the air would leave the body of the sixteen year old Hawaiian girl who bested him once, and then it would die from suffocation. Neil let out a scream of anger but nothing came out.
It was a trap all along.
….…….
Medical Examiners Office
Serah Wong is the head ME, she’s standing next to the slab where Tabby’s body has been laying in a locked body bag since it’s arrival at 8:15 pm. An hour ago, she stood in the office of a high school science teacher in Kapahulu, named Tod Oyadamori. He sat on the carpeted floor covered in his own feces and urine, babbling incoherently about someone named Neil David who controlled his mind and body. In front of him lay the dead form of Tabby Kahana, with hands and feet, bound and eyes and ears covered in duct tape. All the while Oyadamori claimed that it was part of the plan between himself and Tabby; they agreed that he was supposed to tape her wrists and ankles together once she became possessed. The police found the story difficult to swallow considering the circumstances and the fact that the science teacher had the under side parts of the adhesive from the duct tape on his palms and fingers, didn’t help his case at all. Suddenly, the doors to morgue swung open and Boy Napualawa appeared with his two uncles and his aunt. They walked straight toward the slab and thanked Serah for her help.
Boy looked over the body bag, “How long has it been?”
“Exactly an hour,” she looked at her watch and then looked back at Boy. “Whatever it is you’re going to do, you have to do it now, there isn’t much time.”
“I know the risk you’re taking and we appreciate it,” Boy placed his hand on Serah’s shoulder and she took his hand in hers.
“You helped my father when no one else would, he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for that. This is the very least I can do, but please hurry.” Serah’s eyes expressed a deep thanks for something she could never return, but it would be services like these that Boy would never take advantage of unless it was absolutely needed. The ME exited the room quickly and lingered just a few feet away in order to keep an eye out. A few years previous, Serah’s father Wilson was approached by a group of petty criminals who were running a protection racket on all the old store owners on Wai’alae Avenue. Many of them being older had no choice but to give in, otherwise, they would risk physical harm or even worse. Wilson Wong was the only one who would not kowtow to the group of miscreant hoodlums, but his stubbornness and bravery would be his own undoing. One afternoon, in front of a full store of customers, the protection racket gang walked in and beat Wilson half to death. When Serah found out, she was furious and demanded of the authorities that they exact justice on the men who assaulted her father, however, there was nothing the police could do because the eye witnesses were too afraid to talk. A few weeks later, while sitting with her father at the hospital, Serah suddenly recalled attending a crime scene not too long ago, where she overheard a few police officers talking about a group of men who ‘took care of certain kinds of things’ outside of the law. Rummaging through her purse she found a small notepad that she kept in her side pocket. Upon removing it, she flipped through the pages and found the names of the very same officers. It was a habit she developed in case she would forget any details which she might have over looked at a crime scene. She managed to contact one of the officers at the Kalihi station, who told her that it would better if he returned her call by cell phone. Five minutes later, she had the phone number and address to a building on South King street. That’s when she met Boy and his family and pleaded her case, three days later the protection racket broke up and the harassment ceased altogether. A few days after that, the bodies of those very same criminals came through her morgue, each one of their corpses were in perfect condition, except that their insides were completely rotted away. Serah learned early in her career that there were certain things that one should never question or inquire about, one of those things now lay on her slab. Nonetheless, she was grateful; so when Boy called her at 6:15 pm earlier that evening and told her that within the hour there was going to be a dead body bound in duct tape in the office of Tod Oyadamori, a science teacher at a Kapahulu high school, she asked no questions but made it a point to be at that exact location an hour later. Before Serah could hang up the phone, Boy would say, “One more thing; I don’t mean to impose but I need a favor.”
….……
Serah nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the doors swing open from behind her, she turned to see Boys’ uncles Ivan and Tiny walk out and acknowledge her with a nod. Behind them was Boys’ aunt Rita who had her arms around Tabby. The girl was completely alive but a bit shaky on her feet. Around her eyes, nose, and mouth were bits of the white adhesive from the duct tape. Both she and Rita smiled and mouthed a ‘thank you.’ Last to walk out was Boy who held a medium sized gourd in his hands. It was colored black and appeared to be very old, it jumped every few seconds but Boy held a firm grip on it.
“Mahalo Serah,” Boy whispered as he leaned closer to the ME. “There’s a small something for you in there, just a token of our thanks.”
The head of the secret group which had no name showed himself out while Serah simultaneously returned to the morgue. On the slab lay the unlocked and opened body bag filled with zip locked bags containing crumpled up Kleenex, sanitary pads, and ear plugs. Serah fell back into a swivel chair nearby, she wasn’t sure if she should be horrified or excited? A teenage girl who was absolutely dead one moment, walks out of her morgue completely alive the next? How was she ever going to reconcile that in her scientific mind? It was too much to comprehend, she grabbed her purse and car keys, to leave, but saw an envelope on her desk. She opened it and found a check in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. The sticky note attached to it read,
“For whatever you need,”
….….
Driving away
Boy’s Imperial Crown sedan maneuvered through the smaller streets of Iwilei, with Tiny driving and Ivan in the passenger's seat. Tabby sat between Boy and Rita in the back, where the silence within the confines of the 1966 Chrysler became very uncomfortable. Boy finally broke the ice, “Whose idea was this?”
Before anyone could formulate an answer, Tabby raised her head and took in a deep breath, “Mine.”
“Yours?” Boy’s voice was quiet but everyone knew that it was just the calm before the storm. “Uncle Tiny, please pull into the back parking lot at Liliha Bakery.”
Tiny took in a deep breath because he knew the impending tirade that was forthcoming, Boy was rarely upset but when he was, it resembled the volcanic fires of Pele herself, where everyone got burned. They arrived sooner than Tiny expected, it was just a drive around Zippys and then a left turn and the back parking lot to the bakery was right there. Seated behind Ivan, Boy posed the question again, “Who helped her?”
Tabby began to speak but Boy cut her off, “I don’t want to hear it from you, I’m asking the adults in this car who raised me on the same precautionary advice but are now having a bout of memory loss. Who helped her?”
“We all did,” Rita confessed. “I did initially but I needed advice so I called Ivan who can’t keep his mouth shut because he told Tiny, and then Tiny told you.”
“Was all us,” Tiny turned around to look at his nephew. “But what we gonna do? Da bebe needed kokua, how we gonna tell her no?”
“Somehow, this Neil David escaped Tabby’s exorcism the last time they tangled and he showed up at her high school and possessed her science teacher. Tabby recognized Neil’s calling card on the poor guy, with the slimy skin and everything. So, she told him she could help and that was the plan they devised together. This Neil David, when he was alive, he raped Tabby when she only six years old.” Ivan was the most diplomatic and the most logical one of the three, but Boy wasn’t having it.
“I’m perfectly aware of who Neil David was and what he became; knowing that and knowing the measure of his evil deeds, and the kind of spirit he turned in to after he was murdered in prison; none of you thought to tell me or at the very least, talk her out of it? That thought never entered your minds?” Boy asked.
“I made them promise,” Tabby’s tone was very straightforward, she’d hoped that her honesty would deflect the blame away from her elders and on to her. It wouldn’t work, Boy eyed her closely and she couldn’t look at him.
“Is it going to take her death to finally make the three of you understand why I don’t want her in this life? Is it? Are you all so weak-willed that you can’t say no to a teenage girl? The three of YOU are the adults!” Boys heat radiated outward and filled the car with a stifling air even though the A/C was very cold.
“I made them promise because I knew you’d say no!” Tabby’s shouting seemed pointless but she had to save her kupuna from the fire.
“You’re damned right I’d say no! What were you thinking? What you did was stupid, you could have died if I hadn’t found out!” To say Boy was livid would have been an understatement, he was beyond furious. “Aunty Rita, you and Tabby are moving in with me so that I can keep a closer eye on the both of you! From now on Tabby, anything strange that happens, you tell ME and I’ll handle it like I would have handled it with your Neil David friend if you’d have told me about it in the first place!”
The silence in the old classic car was deafening and the four occupants were all looking off in different directions except for Boy. “Uncle Ivan, after this you go and bail out that science teacher, I’ll call down to the station and explain everything, I’ll drop you back off at the office and you can take your car. Uncle Tiny, you and Aunty Rita go with uncle Ivan; after the guy gets out, go clean him up and help him decompress. I’ll take Tabby home.” With that Boy opened the door and stepped out, everyone still looked confused. “I didn’t have Tiny park here just so I could scold all of you, I’m hungry too! Let’s go!”
….………
Boy wanted the life for Tabby that he never had, he wanted her to finish high school, go to college, get a degree, get married, have kids. He wanted her to have a family and a normal occupation, he wanted her to have generations of grandchildren and live until the extremities of old age. He wanted her to have no fear of a normal life, like the same fear that kept him from even thinking about a relationship with someone. The life he led was his choice, there was no other, and the risks upon himself were too great. To love someone, to have them be a part of his everyday space was something he could not risk, he could not risk losing someone that way; the way he lost his father and mother. Tabby deserved more, so much more than what the office and the life had to offer. To become a part of the office would mean that the life which should have been hers would be taken away. Boy didn’t want that for someone like Tabby. Yet, try as he might, he could not deny that Tabby was so selfless that she was willing to sacrifice herself to save others. Try as he might, Boy could not deny that what Tabby would ultimately choose to do, would be beyond his control.
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