100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2020 #100

People wonʻt come up to the fence to ask if they are allowed to pick mangoes. They wait until the fruits fall from the tree. If it lands on the tuft of grass on the sidewalk, they leave it alone.
If it lands on the street and rolls along the curve, itʻs free game, theyʻll pluck it and be on their way. My bedroom window looks toward the mango tree so I can see everything and everyone. In turn, people can see me. I cut quite the intimidating figure; I say this not out of self- aggrandizement but out of knowledge of my family DNA. That is to say, that we never reveal our hand; therefore, we must keep an expressionless visage, lest our secrets are given away.

~

Our dogs are quick to bound over the gates of our yard and set upon any interlopers. Persons have brought their mango pickers to relieve our ripe yellowing fruits from the clutches of our branches. Many have been unsuccessful in their attempts. Because of this, I found it strange one morning when I noticed a little Hawaiian boy standing outside the fence, looking up at the red and yellow mangoes, which were too high for him to reach. I left my room and went outside to see how I could help him. Maybe his parents sent him to ask for a few fruits.

I walked through the garage and out to the fence and found an old Hawaiian man standing there. The little boy was gone, or perhaps he was the bait?

"You no like pick me one manakō?" The aging Hawaiian man asked. "I no can climb already, haki wale kuʻu ʻiwi bumbye."

Immediately I felt terrible and completely forgot to ask him about the little boy and where he might have gone, "Of course, Papa, just one second, I'll get the mango picker."

I returned as quickly as I could, and the old Hawaiian man was gone. Considering the length of the street I live on, there was no possibility of him not being seen no matter which direction he chose to depart. I glanced up into the tree, and the little Hawaiian boy was sitting on a high branch precariously reaching out for a mango, which was too big for his little hand. Rather than startling him by yelling at him not to move, I kicked off my slippers and scaled the tree myself. The fearlessness of youth was gone, I panicked each time I looked down and saw just how high I was from the safety and comfort of the reddish-brown dirt in my yard. I focused on the boy, keeping a close eye on him while I simultaneously made my ascent. He kept adjusting his body's position to grab the mango, but he was nowhere near securing it. All I could do was hurry my climb and pray that nothing happened. Finally,  I had come to where the boy had been sitting between two large branches that forked out in two different directions. He was not there; in his place was the old Hawaiian man, peeling back the skin from the large mango that the little boy initially attempted to pick and keep for himself. The orange juices dripped down his white stubbled chin and soaked itself into his clothing. He didnʻt notice my presence at all.

"Papa, how'd you get up here?" I asked him. "I thought you said you could not climb because your bones were so fragile?"

"What you going do with your Kino after you die?" he stopped eating and looked me in the eye.

"I don't know," I replied, "Get cremated, I think."

"One tree," he said, "You should be one tree,"

Without warning, he shoved me with both mango stained hands, and I fell through a few branches and hit others while descending to the earth. Before I hit the dirt, I jolted awake. I was sitting at my desk and must have nodded off. It was so real, though. I felt all the sensations and inhaled all the aromas, the damp dirt, the rotting mangoes on the ground, and the dog poop.  Hold on a second, the dogs. I didn't hear the dogs barking at the little boy or the older man. Usually, my canines are all over it.

~

A strange thing happened recently; we had to trim the mango tree because the branches began to touch the electrical wires attached to the house. The tree trimmers found out that the trunk of the mango tree was rotting, and so, the whole tree had to come down. To the tree trimmers' horror, they found two sets of skeletons inside the mango tree's trunk—one belonging to a little Hawaiian boy, and another belonging to an old Hawaiian man. A search of the property, vital statistics, and early maps revealed nothing. Considering that mangoes were here in Hawaii before 1825, who knows how old my tree could be? In the past days, when one could not afford a headstone after they passed, I am aware that a tree of some kind served as a grave marker for the deceased. Could it be that my old mango tree was a substitute headstone for the bodies of a little Hawaiian boy and an ancient Hawaiian man? I will never know who they might have been, but at least I was encouraged as to what I should be after I die.