Living on Aniani Street was the ideal part of my teenage life.
In 1975, I was thirteen years old, and my parents were in as good of a state of health as they could have been. My mother had all the maladies; she drank too much coffee and smoked too many cigarettes. Had a few missing teeth and two daughters from a previous marriage that sucked the air right out of every room they walked into. The oldest, Jana, was more dramatic about it; the youngest, Blossom, was underhanded in her methods. Blossom and her family, her husband Herman, her kids, and one from a previous relationship that never went away was Dora. As mentioned above, Herman Junior came from her for real marriage to Herman Senior as mentioned. Herman came with two of his own kids. Clement and Beulah.Strange names for Filipino Hawaiian kids, yet there they were. I always looked at Blossom's family as incredible because they always wore the latest clothes, drove new cars, did cool things together, and studied karate, which I eventually joined myself. As luck would have it, because of my mother's mounting health problems, she suffered a stroke in her sleep. This meant that I saw her fall asleep as a normal everyday human being and then saw her wake up as a completely different person who slurred her speech and drooled down the side of her mouth. One side of her body became completely numb, and she had a painful limp. The hand she usually smacked me with was now curled up and atrophied. As much as my parents tried to go on as if nothing happened, they couldn't deny that my mother couldn't be left alone while my father was at work and I was in school. So, it was agreed that we had to move in with Blossom and her family. I don't know when that conversation happened, but I know I wasn't a part of it. Initially, I was thrilled because now I was moving in with the cool family, which meant that I, too, was finally going to be cool myself. It wasn't too bad within a week of moving in and acclimating to the house rules, even though I'd been an only child until then. I got to eat at the local drive-in with my cousins practically every night, cheeseburgers, fries, and a local plate for dinner with a tub of Coca-Cola. No wonder they were so cool! In the mornings, I piled in with all of them in Clement's car on our way to school. Being seen in his car meant I had status, and everyone would treat me differently. It didn't hurt that Beulah was beautiful and painfully aloof. I think that's why all the boys were after her; she was so close but without reach.
We'd been living there a month when I heard my father frantically rummaging through his room one evening. I could also hear my mother's voice asking him in her broken speech about what he was looking for?
"Where the hell is my Seiko?" My father asked out loud.
Tuesday night was my father's bowling night at Kalihi Bowl in Dillingham. He always wore his lucky Seiko watch, which was a birthday gift from his three sons, Dane, Peter, and John. I remember that evening when he opened that box and saw the watch. It was the first time I'd seen my father cry openly like that. There's a picture of it somewhere.
When my father couldn't find the watch, he called me to his room. "Did you see where my Seiko watch went? Did you wear it for school?" He asked.
"No, Daddy, that's your lucky watch," I replied.
"Go look in your room," he told me. Without question, I moved everything around my room from top to bottom while he watched. Nothing. He said nothing. Instead, he returned to his room, took out his old watch, and before he left, he went upstairs and asked Blossom and her family if they'd seen his Seiko? Perhaps it fell out of one of the boxes during the move? Blossom was offended by my father's question for some unexplained reason that appeared strange to me.
"I would never steal from you, Daddy," Blossom spoke slowly and purposefully. "How can you say something like that, after we let you move in and live here?"
My father took a lengthy pause before he responded which was a surprise to me since any time any one of their kids, if it was Jana or Blossom, or Dane, Peter, or John, dared speak to my parents like that, it would get the shit smacked out of them. "I asked you if any of you saw my Seiko; I never said anything about stealing," my father said. At that point, Herman, Clement, Dora, Junior, and Beulah exited their rooms and stood behind Beverly. If they were going to gang up on my father, that would have been a dumb decision. My father was a golden gloves boxer and no-bullshit kinda guy; he would have taken all of them out. He had a reputation for beating up cops, too.
"You talked about stealing, not me. Where's my Seiko?" My father asked again.
Junior went into his room and came back with my father's Seiko. "He only wanted to play with it," Blossom explained. "He was going to put it back."
"You know this is my lucky watch. Didn't you say anything when you saw him with it?" my father asked.
"It's just a watch, Daddy; it's no big deal," Blossom laughed.
In a flash, my father slapped Blossom across her face. "Your jaw is just your jaw until I break it."
No one said a word. My father snatched the Seiko out of Junior's hands and went back to his room to get changed. I went with him, but not before noticing the big red welt my father left on Blossom's left cheek.
The rose-colored glasses were off, and the illusion of who Blossom and her family really were had become evident. Yet, that wasn't even scratching the surface of what we would deal with in the coming months.
....to be continued
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