PUKE HO'OMANA'O
ENTRY: November 23, 1994. 8:43pm.
Someone nearby is watching the 'FRIENDS' t.v. show with the volume turned up very loud. I'm not sure what is more bothersome, that show or my brother in the other room listening to Jon Bon Jovi croon 'Always' for the millionth time. He still hasn't gotten past mom's death and it's beginning to have an effect on his relationship with Lucinda but he doesn't see it. She's not made to be sympathetic
to the kind of emotional suffering that he's going through, she's trying but she won't hold out too long. Lucinda's looking for a man who can take charge and work hard the way her own father did, but that's not my brother James, not in the least. I try to fall asleep around this time because if I don't James' weeping will keep me up for the rest of the night. His one desire is to see mom one more time, but you know it's this way with everyone who is caught up in their grief, it's the same wish. What my brother doesn't know is that Mom is around, well her ghost is around because she's worried about him, but he can't see her because he's too busy mourning for her. I can see her whether I like it or not and by the look on her face she's disappointed; James is her baby, she would rather talk to him than me.
ENTRY: December 3, 1994. 6:40 pm.
Lucinda drove up in her red-brick colored Honda Civic an hour ago. I was outside planting Ti Leaf in and around the front yard but the second she got out of her car I already knew she'd come to break up with James. I urged her to give him the news straight on and to not dance around the issue, the more she delayed the more James would beg and plead and try to convince her to change her mind. It was better to say what she had to say and give him a hug and leave. She did exactly that but as she stood up to leave, a shot glass from the kitchen came flying into the living room where James and Lucinda were sitting and it missed her by inches.
Mom just couldn't stay out of it.
I heard Lucinda's scream and rushed into the house and walked her back to her car in order to make sure she was safe, just before she drove off I told her not to blame herself and that my brother needed this break up in order to grow up. I turned to see my mother standing on the front steps of our house glaring at me, in my mind, she told me how dare I take Lucinda's side against James? My reply was that she'd enabled James too much and that she spoiled him even worse. This break up is a chance for him to face and handle a real-world problem without her interfering and making things worse. She didn't take that news very well and she disappeared into the house through the front door, literally.
ENTRY: December 10, 1994. 2:00 am.
Now it's The End Of The Road, Boyz II Men, and more crying. I've got no sympathy for James so I walk down the hallway and pound on his door, of course, he answers the door in tears. I growl through my teeth that I am trying to get some sleep and if he wouldn't mind crying into his pillow? He steps forward to hug me and tell me how much he misses mom but I don't give a shit, I just walk away. When I get to my room mom is there with her arms folded and she's not happy, in my mind she tells me that I'm supposed to support my brother and help him get through this rough patch in his life but my reply is 'Fuck That.' I tell my mom that it's because of her enabling James that he now does not know how to deal with real-world problems like her dying and Lucinda breaking up with him. She retorts back to me that I was always ungrateful and never appreciated anything she did for me. My answer is that I do appreciate one thing that she did for me. I appreciate that she spoiled, enabled, and pampered James because it gave me the chance to grow up faster in order to become a man. I tell her that her lack of love towards me helped me deal with real-world problems, unlike James who can't even can't even open a can of Libby's corned beef much less cook it. All I get is the stare but I tell her that her death is what's causing James to not see her and that just makes her angrier.
ENTRY: December 24, 1994. Midnight.
James hasn't gotten any better, he's pale and clammy and he's grown out a full beard and his hair is tangled after not combing it for several days. Somehow he discovered a group by the name of Smokie and their one and only hit song 'Living Next Door To Alice' at a used records store. It plays all damned day and night, I can see Mom in his room listening to the song and swaying to it while James lays on the floor all caught up in what I termed to be his mental illness. I dragged him out of his room earlier and brought him to a drive-thru and we got a shit load of food. He chowed it down like no problem and threw back two huge cups of soda and then said that he'd be waiting in the car. I got all the rubbish together and dumped it in the trash and headed out to the car and James wasn't there. I went back inside and looked around and he wasn't there either. In fact, he wasn't in the bathroom so where could he have gone? I happened to peer out the large picture window of the eatery and caught sight of James walking across four lanes of traffic without even using the crosswalk. In the blink of an eye he was cleaned out by a large Sears distribution semi, and when I say cleaned him out, I mean that truck hit him so hard it obliterated him, there was nothing left. I was sitting on the sidewalk by the time the police put down flares and stopped traffic. The EMT and firefighters did their thing also, but when I glanced up at the crosswalk in front of Side Street Inn, I caught a glimpse of my mom and James standing side by side as they waved to me just before they faded out, I flipped them the bird.
ENTRY: January 17, 1995. 12:03 am.
I thought my mother was bad while she was alive in regards to James but in the afterlife? Geeze I'd just rather slit my wrists than keep her company for all eternity. I've had time to read up on this subject of ghosts, who knew that there was this whole academic thing behind it? Turns out that after you die you don't become this all-knowing angelic being, you're actually still the same person you were before you died and nothing has changed. So, mom is stuck being her same enabling manipulative self and James is stuck being the little whiny ass bitch that mom made him into. What is even more hilarious is that their ghosts are haunting this house but James is still too caught up in his drama with Lucinda but she has long since moved on. Mom keeps trying to get his attention but my brother won't give her the time of day. You try to tell them when they're alive and they don't listen, then they die and you try to tell them in the afterlife and they still turn a deaf ear. So, this is how mom gets to spend eternity. Shoulda just stayed out of it mom, shoulda just stayed out of it.
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Mysteries of Hawaii - Ghost of Old Honolulu Downtown Walking Tour
I invite you to take part in a journey with me through Aokuewa, the realms of restless spirits, that inhabit our Downtown community.
These days, you'll see many ghost tours that bring you through the Downtown Honolulu area, and for good reason, but this is the tour that started them all.
In this nearly 2-hour walking tour, we meet on the steps of the Hawai'i State Library (478 S King St, Honolulu) and walk the paths once traveled by Royalty, including the ground of Iolani Palace and Kawaiha'o Cemetery.
Wednesday Nights, 7:00pm
Regularly $40, NOW $20 per person - THIS HALLOWEEN SEASON ONLY!
Make your reservations HERE
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