Page 90 of Bulletproof

When I got back, with the towel wrapped around my waist and sandy feet, the rest of me rinsed, she had a pair of dry board shorts and a T-shirt for me to change into. They both smelled like laundry detergent, which I hoped would cloak my own man stink.

“I probably reek,” I told her.

“You smell like the ocean,” she told me. “That’s okay, yeah?”

I hoped it was.

She put me in a chair that you usually sat in to watch little kids play soccer or other sports and gave me a can of Hawaiian Sun Passion Orange to drink as she brought me a plate piled high with food. The guys watching her turned their eyes on me when she was gone.

“Ho, brah, she like you,” the man closest to me said.

“No,” I said, smiling at him, “she just wants to feed me since I nearly drowned and all.”

“Where you was?”

I had no idea and called over to Tetsuo. He didn’t hear me.

“Uncle, where this haole was at?”

“His name Jory,” Tetsuo corrected him.

“ ’Kay, ’den, still, where he was at?”

And he proceeded to tell them where I was, beyond the reef, and I got looks of both respect and squints, like perhaps I wasn’t all there in the head. Apparently, it was a little dicey out that far.

“Get sharks, you know.”

I did know. Now.

“You when grind this kine food before?” another man asked me.

I shook my head because I’d never eaten it before, but that hardly mattered. I shoveled whatever the green stuff was into my mouth.

Makana was talking to me, his cousin Kimo was beside him, and Tommy was on the other side. We were joined by Ioane, who I liked the best, until Kawika showed up. Kawika was patient. He explained all about squid luau—the green stuff; lau lau, which was pork and butterfish, wrapped in taro and ti leaves; fried rice; macaroni salad; fried Aku bones, which was just the middle bone of the fish with meat on it that you picked off; and pipikaula, which was like beef jerky, except the pieces were thick and tender. Everything was amazing, and when I asked Kawika if I could have more, I got a smile, with dimples, and he tipped his head for me to follow him.

The food was all out in aluminum foil pans, and Ipo was there with Lani and another girl named April. I thanked her again for feeding me and told her how amazing all the food was.

“Oh, Uncle.” She turned back to look at Tetsuo, who was sitting at the grown-up table with all the other men and women his age. “You were right. This one got good manners.”

“Yeah, I told you.” He smiled, gesturing for me. “Jory, come.”

I moved fast and was introduced around the table. They wanted to know where I was staying and where I was from, and I was pleased to hear that one of the men had a grandson, going to school at the University of Chicago.

“Well, if there’s anything you’d like me to take back for him when I go, just lemme know.”

You would have thought I had given the man, Randy Awana, a million dollars.

“You can take food for him?”

“Yessir.”

“ ’Kay, ’den, Jory, I going give you my numba, and you call me the night before you go, and I going get all the stuffs together.”

“Absolutely.”

I got a hug then, which was nice, and a kiss from Ipo, and more food, which was the best part. When I was sitting back down with Makana and Kawika, I saw another guy looking at me.

“Brian,” Makana barked at him. “Why you giving Jory da stink eye for?”