4 Kaua'i Me a River (4 page)

What got my attention was the
weird moaning and sighing sounds coming from the blowhole.

“You hear that?” said Hatch. “Sounds
kinda sexy.”

I gave him a playful dig to the
ribs. “How does your mind work? You probably think a
tsunami
siren
sounds sexy.”

A perky tour guide waving a
yellow plastic flower on the end of a stick motioned to a cluster of tourists.
They trotted over to where we were standing.

“This blowhole is one example of
the ingenuity of the an
cient Hawaiians to make sense
of their world,” she said. “The early inhabitants lost many people to the
undertow in this area. They figured this stretch of coastline along Lawa’i Bay must
be guarded by a giant
mo’o
  or lizard. The belief was that anyone who
came down here to fish or swim would get killed by the
mo’o
and so they
stayed away. One day a man named Liko bravely went into the bay. It didn’t take
long for the
mo’o
to spot him and go after him. But Liko was quick. He
swam to the lava tube and popped to the surface through a hole in the roof of
the tube. The giant
mo’o
followed but got stuck because the hole was too
small for the enormous lizard to get through. The sounds you hear are the
groans of the trapped
mo’o.
 See his steamy breath spraying from the
hole? He’s still there, wrestling to free himself from his agonizing fate.”

“Still
think it sounds sexy?” I whispered to Hatch.

“Maybe
it does to an enormous
girl
lizard,” he said with a wink.

After
the Spouting Horn we doubled back and made our way to Highway 530 and then on
to Highway 50, the main south-to-west road on Kaua'i.

We
approached the town of Waimea. Waimea is a funky little town that reminded me
of Pa’ia back home. It has a stately columned bank, but the rest of the town is
mostly aging wooden buildings that appear to have seen their share of termites.
As we drove through town I noticed a bright yellow clapboard building with “Toto’s
Shave Ice” painted on the side. In case there was any question of what they
were selling, there was also a five-foot high wooden tent with a painted rainbow
shave ice cone on each side. 

“I
love shave ice,” said Hatch. “Let’s get some after I check out this front tire.
The light’s been on since we picked up the car and I don’t want a flat in the
middle of nowhere.”

We
pulled into a gas station. Hatch got out and went to find someone with a tire
gauge. I got out to stretch my legs. Hatch returned and a few minutes later a
guy came out wiping his hands on a purple rag.

“You
got a problem with the tire?” he said. A patch on his shirt said,
Keoni
.

“Yeah,”
Hatch said, pointing to the offending tire. “Can I use your gauge?”

“No
problem, man. I do it.”

Hatch
beat the guy to the ground in an attempt to unscrew the valve stem cap before
Keoni could get there.

“Man,
it’s cool,” said Keoni in a somewhat offended tone. “I do stuff like this all
day.”

 Hatch
stood by looking uncomfortable with another man doing ‘man things’ for him.

“You
need a little air. I’ll fill it.”

Keoni
pulled the air hose out and began filling the tire. When he finished, Hatch
nodded toward the yellow building across the street. “Is that Toto’s Shave Ice
any good?” he said.

Keoni
stood up “We got two Toto’s, ya know. Old one and new one.”.

“Two?
They must be doing good to have two.”

“Nah.
Totally different people own ‘em.”

“But
how can they have the same name?”

“Okay,
so way back when, this girl Toto starts up a shave ice shop when she gets outta
high school. She gets herself a special ice shaver that makes the ice real
soft, almost like snow, eh? Everybody love it. They put her place in the tourist
books and lots of people come here for the best shave ice on the whole island.
Maybe the best anywhere.”

Hatch
nodded.

The
guy pointed to our windshield. “You want I clean your window for you?”

“Nah,
that’s okay. It’s a rental. We live on Maui. We just came over for a visit.”

“You
want I give you good price on a map?”

“
Mahalo
,
but we don’t need a map,” said Hatch. “Kaua'i is pretty easy. Pretty much one
big loop.”

“True
dat,” said the guy. “So anyways, after a few years Toto decides she wants to go
to college. You know, to get her education. So she sells the shave ice store
and goes off to be a teacher. When she comes back she starts teaching at the high
school. But things are tough over here, ya know? The kids can’t get jobs or
nothin’ and they fall into bad ways. Like drugs and all that. So she figure if she
starts up another shave ice it will give the high school kids someplace to work
and make money. She calls the new place Toto’s
Anuenue
Shave Ice.” He
grinned. “Get it?”

Hatch
looked confused. “Not really.”

“It’s
like a joke, man.
Anuenue
is the Hawaiian word for ‘rainbow’ but it also
sounds like ‘new-new” in English. So everybody call tell which Toto’s is which.
She one smart girl, that Auntie Toto.”

“Which
one do you recommend?” I chimed in.

“They
both good, but I mostly go to Toto’s
Anuenue
because she got the school
kids working there and she got all the flavors I like. Lots of ‘em.”

“Where’s
Toto’s
Anuenue
?”

“Down there
by the bank.” He pointed to the stately columned building we’d driven past on our
way into town. “It’s right across. You can’t miss it.”

“
Mahalo
,”
I said. 

“Hey,
Keoni, can I ask one more thing?” said Hatch. “What’s with the chickens
everywhere?”

“Those
chickens?” Keoni pointed to a couple of hens and a brightly-colored rooster
pecking in the weeds.

“Yeah,”
said Hatch. “Everywhere we go on this island we see wild chickens.”

“Kaua'i
is known for the
moa
, man. They come from fighting stock. When Hurricane
Iniki ripped the island apart in 1992, everything got leveled. Lots of guys who
raised fighting cocks had their cages blown away and the birds got loose. But
those birds are tough; they survived. Now we got
moa
everywhere.”

“But they’re
chickens,” Hatch said. “Why didn’t they end up on somebody’s hibachi?”

“Oh,
some people tried. No good. Like I say, man, those chickens are
tough
. And
they got worms and stuff. Nobody around here eats those buggahs.”

Hatch
pulled a few dollar bills from his wallet but Keoni waved it off. “My pleasure,
bro. Bes’ thing you can do for me is give a good tip to those kids working down
at the shave ice.”

We
thanked him and drove down to Toto’s Anuenue. Sure enough, there were two high-school
age girls working at the shop. One was at the counter and the other was
operating the ice machine.

“
Aloha
,”
said the counter girl as we pulled the door closed behind us. “Welcome to Toto’s.
What can I get for you today?”

I
looked at the menu board. The gas station guy was right. Auntie Toto had every possible
flavor of shave ice. Some were stand-bys, like papaya, blue raspberry and cherry.
But some were pretty off-the-wall, like cotton candy and butterscotch.

“How
many flavors have you got?” said Hatch.

“About
fifty. But most people get ‘rainbow’,” said the girl. “I can make a shave ice rainbow
with any flavors you want. Go ahead and pick. But first, do you want ice cream
or azuki bean at the bottom?”

The
shave ice machine was whirring away in the background.

“Azuki
bean,” I said. “I haven’t had that in years.”

Hatch
ordered two rainbows, one with beans and one with macadamia nut ice cream. We
took our treats outside and sat on a narrow wooden bench in front. Waimea
bustled around us. We watched people going to the bank, trucks delivering boxes
to the liquor store next door, and mothers pushing strollers in the park across
the street. And chickens. At least a dozen chickens pecked in the shade of the
towering trees in the park.

“You
know,” I said. “We’re eating dessert and we haven’t even had lunch yet,” I
said.

“I
thought this
was
lunch,” said Hatch shoveling shave ice into his mouth
with a red-striped plastic straw-spoon. “Back in LA we had snow cones at the beach
but these are better.”

“That’s
because Hawaii shave ice is different. The ice is shaved rather than just
crushed. The syrup sticks to it better. You know, Hawaiian shave ice actually
originated in Japan a thousand years ago,” I said. “The Japanese cane workers brought
the idea of shave ice to the islands back in the late 1800’s.”

“Where’d
they get the ice?” said Hatch. “It’s not like they had freezers.”

“They carried
large blocks of ice in the holds of sailing ships. According to Japanese
legend, they shaved the ice with ceremonial swords.”

We
finished up and got back on the road. We were headed up to Waimea Canyon—the
Grand Canyon of the Pacific—and we still had to make it up the twisty two-lane
road that goes to the top.

When
we got to the canyon, the obligatory tour busses had taken up most of the
parking lot. The overlooks were jammed with Japanese tourists. It seemed
everyone was either taking a photo or posing for a photo. Tour guides chattered
and gestured to the crowds like auctioneers.

After
a few minutes the busses honked their horns and the tourists hustled back to
the parking lot. With a belch of exhaust the caravan of busses roared away
leaving us alone. The wind whistled eerily through the canyon and tossed Hatch’s
hair across his forehead.

I pulled
out my phone to take his picture. “Say ‘azuki bean’,” I said and snapped the
photo.

***

At four o’clock we finally pulled
into the resort Hatch had booked for our two-night stay. I looked over and shot
him an ‘
are you serious
?’ grin. The place was way more la-di-dah than I
was expecting.

The open-air lobby had thirty-foot
ceilings and marble floors. Across from the entrance were four immense pillars.
Beyond the pillars was a spectacular view of sweeping lawns, golden sand, and
waves crashing on the nearby shoreline. On the right side of the lobby a
sumptuous bar, complete with koi pond, potted palms and dark rattan furniture
beckoned with promises of umbrella drinks in hollowed-out pineapples. A poster
showed a smiley local guy posing with his
ukulele
, announcing live music
every night after six p.m. 

Our room was equally posh. It
was a two-bedroom, two-bath suite with living room, dining room and full
kitchen. The master bedroom had a four-poster king bed draped in yards of
dramatic mosquito netting, and the second bedroom had a queen bed with a
mattress so far off the ground it had a matching step-stool alongside.

“Are you expecting guests?” I said.

Hatch smiled. “No, but this was
the last ocean view room available. And what the heck, we might want to try out
all the beds. You know, like Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Bears.”

“I think it was Goldilocks who went
from bed to bed,” I said.

“Hmm, sounds about right. Blonds
are known for being bed-hoppers.”

I’m a few shades down from blond
but on behalf of blonds everywhere I shot him some
stink eye
.

“Now don’t get all worked up
over this place having a kitchen,” Hatch said. “I’m not expecting you to cook.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind making breakfast,”
I said. “Look at that view.”

The spacious balcony
lanai
overlooked a wide vista of sapphire ocean blending into an expanse of blinding cobalt
sky. The patio furniture included a small teak table with two heavy teak armchairs.
There was also a matching lounge with comfy four-inch-thick cushion.

“I sometimes forget how calming the
ocean can be,” I said. Back home I live in upcountry Maui, far from the beach. The
upside of upcountry is it has few tourists, little traffic, and lower housing
prices. The downside is there’s no ocean sound, no turtles bobbing their heads
up for a peek and no briny smell of fresh air that’s been scrubbed clean after
crossing thousands of miles of water.

In the living room the suite had
been done up with the expected resort décor:  sepia-toned etchings of hula
dancers, a floor lamp that looked like a miniature palm tree, and thick blond
bamboo furniture with Hawaiian print cushions. If Hatch wanted to play tourist
for a couple of days he’d certainly picked the right place to do it. And I was
happily tagging along. After all, even though I’d been born in Kaua'i, it was
no longer home. I was a visitor. And I was going to take advantage of all the
perks that visitors take for granted. For the next couple of days I was going
to eat whatever I wanted, drink more adult beverages than I should, and lie
around until my body begged to be vertical.

“The website said this place has
a two million-dollar workout facility,” Hatch said. “Want to go check it out?”

“Not hardly.”

While Hatch went to do his body
good, I plopped down on the
lanai
to catch a few rays. I had two more days
to relax before the lawyer meeting in Hanalei. For all I knew, this might be my
last few days of idyllic ignorance. On Wednesday I’d be forced to abandon my gauzy
made-up family history and embrace the prickly truth about who I was. Worse,
I’d have to face the ugly truth about why my mother just had up and died at the
tender age of twenty-five.