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As you've already read, growing up on 6th avenue in Kaimuki during the mid to late '80s and early '90s was very interesting.
There was never a shortage of unique characters whose strange exploits could fill a book. I suppose you could say that those stories are now filling this blog? If you don't already know, my name is La'akea. I'm in my late 50's, and I still live on 6th avenue. For my own safety, I won't say exactly where, but I will tell you this. The house to our left is a really nice two-bedroom cottage, and it's changed owners and renters over the decades. Some came and went. Others were nice and became like friends. Still, some kept to themselves and didn't socialize. This account is about a man who up until recently has been renting the same cottage. Since it's only myself living here long after my parents passed, it seems like I'm the only one who's noticed that the man next door hardly surfaces because his car is in the garage all the time. I've seen him only twice. Once while leaving in the evening to go somewhere, and again on another evening as he was returning from wherever he went. Both times, he was dressed in a black suit. Some nights when I wake up to use the bathroom, I can see the lights are on in his bedroom. His window has no curtains, and the jalousie windows are always closed. But I can hear typing on a keyboard and the sound of a printer. He has otherwise never made an effort to introduce himself or ingratiate himself to any of the neighbors. He is basically an anomaly, a Hawaiian man in a black suit.This story makes sense because when the stranger next door moved in, the family across the street had an extended cousin who came to live with them. He was a crackhead and a complete blight on the neighborhood. No one liked him or cared for him at all, and he was a complete burden to his family. How humiliating it must have been for the neighbors across the street to constantly call the police to their home again and again in full view of the whole neighborhood. One day, the couple who housed the cousin was at the end of their rope. All of his belongings were in a pile in front of their garage. They were kicking him out. The couple had baseball bats in their hands to make their point, and they were ready to swing on the cousin at any second. The cousin was much younger than the couple and more agile. He swiftly rested the baseball bats from the couple and absentmindedly flung them away. Both bats crashed through the stranger's bedroom window. With all the commotion and yelling and swearing, no one noticed the stranger emerge quietly from the front door of the cottage, but I did. He was in his black suit, and his pace wasn't quick, but it wasn't lumbering either. It was purposeful. Of all things, the stranger removed a green stone patu from his coat and struck the errant cousin with it on the side of his neck. The troublemaker crumbled to the garage floor like a ton of bricks. The stranger grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and sat him up against a concrete pillar in the garage. "You're gonna pay for my window you broke, one way or another." The stranger then turned to the couple. "Are you two alright?"
"We're fine," the couple replied nervously.
Without another word, the stranger left the garage and returned back to the cottage. He wouldn't surface until the following morning when the errant cousin showed up with three of his friends, knocking on the door of the cottage so hard that the whole structure appeared to shake. No one answered. The four thugs then returned to the garage and stood behind the stranger's car with led pipes and baseball bats, ready to do damage. The vehicle suddenly sprang to life, and three men who came to help the cousin assault the stranger was run over. The Lincoln came to a screeching halt, and the stranger sat up in the driver's seat and got out of the car. The cousin charged forward swing wildly with the baseball bat. The stranger caught it under his armpit and pulled the weapon toward him. Simultaneously, he kicked the cousin in the sweet spot between the anus and the scrotum.
"This is the second time I've seen you on the ground at my feet. Between you and your three friends, I don't even have to guess who the bitch is." The stranger grabbed the cousin by his ears and pulled him up to his knees. "I want to see you here tomorrow, fixing my window. Don't make me come looking for you."
The next day, the cousin never showed. Neither did he show the day after that or the day after that one. He was hiding out at a girl's house in Pearl City. He met her randomly at a bar in town and convinced her that he was well off and that he'd take care of all her needs. But, of course, the cousin never anticipated the encounter with the stranger. All promises and plans were off until his safety could be guaranteed. Then, suddenly, the front door burst off its hinges and went flying into the living room and nearly hit the cousin and his girlfriend who was sitting on the couch, watching tv. Not giving them any time to think, the stranger rushed in and grabbed the girlfriend by her hair, and flew her out the front door. "This is the third time you're on the ground at my feet," the stranger shook his head as the cousin lay in a fetal position on the carpeted floor. Placing his boot on the cousin's crotch, the stranger applied pressure, which made the cousin scream in pain. "What's your name, by the way?" The stranger asked. "I know it's not bitch."
"Conraaaaahd," he moaned in tearful pain. "It's cooonraaaahd!"
"Conrad," the stranger shook his head. "Fix my window."
~
The following day, Conrad replaced the old jealousies with new ones. He didn't have to go into the stranger's room and sweep up all the glass. That was already taken care of. The room was boarded up from the inside so that Conrad couldn't see anything. Battered, bruised, and beat up as he was, he completed the job. That same day, Conrad packed up and moved out, leaving the couple to enjoy themselves in their home once more since the kids were long gone and on their own. But this story doesn't end there. Later that week, Conrad met a gruesome death in the bathroom of a downtown dive. After closing hours, he was found in a bathroom stall with black liquid coming out of his eyes and mouth. In his hand was a small ti-leaf bundle. Neither the police nor the medical examiner could figure out the reason for the little pūʻolo with strands of hair with a gooey black liquid on it. There were fingernails, feathers of some kind. Human teeth, flecks of dead skin in it. It was in Conradʻs coat pocket. Not long after, the stranger was gone. Iʻm not sure if he left during the night or if he just drove off and never came back. A short time later, there was an open house sign on the front lawn of the cottage. I told the realtor I lived next door and if he wouldnʻt mind if I just walked through? He had no problem with that at all. It was completely bare but and silent. No trace of any kind of life lingered about. "Are those jalousies new?" The realtor asked.
"Oh yeah, there was a guy next door who flung a baseball bat through the window one time," I volunteered. "The guy was previously renting came out and not only made the guy pay for new jealousies, but he made the guy install it himself!"
"Wait," the realtor looked perplexed. "Someone was living here before?"
"Yeah," I said. "Hawaiian guy, wore a black suit all the time."
"This house hasnʻt been rented out to anyone in a long while. After YEARS of looking for a buyer, this is the first open house," the realtor enunciated each word. "Do you know what happened to him?"
"He left one night, just was gone, without a word," I said. "Thatʻs all I can tell you."
The realtor got on his cell phone and made a call right in front of me. "Hello? Boy? I think we may have found him."
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