Sunsets

The library is a white mansion, filled with the sounds of keyboard clicking, singular coughs, and stratified conversation.  The largest walls are made of glass feigning freedom to the outside world, constrained by the cross-hatching grids in the hollow construction, like one giant cage.  Massive pillars, worn with student’s pencil abuse embroidering its lower corners, stand diligent like Atlas under the earth.  In this white mansion, I sit with a colleague, books in tow, minds at work.  We were studying for a sociology final scheduled a ways out from now, but as most study socials roll along, they become less about the study and more about the social.  We went from Durkheim, to interactionist theories, to interaction.  Gren was his name.  He wanted to be an electrical engineer and was taking Sociological Theory with me to fulfill a general education requirement. 
            “What about you, ah?”  The point in the conversation that I dislike the most. 
            “Oh, me?  Eh,” I shrug.  “Geriatric social work or human resources, I hope.”
            “Wow,” he blurts.  “So noble yet so resigned about it.”
            “Heh,” I give him a nod and half a smile.  “It’s what I do.”
            “Haw,” he trails off.  What to say next, he ponders.  “How come geriatrics?”
            “Long story, breh.”  I think of grandma and grandpa, and the football game, and mom.  My smile expands to my eyes.  “A long story indeed.”

 ~~~~

The word “no” was quite possibly the very first word I was taught growing up in a world of wants.  No, you cannot have that piece of candy; no, you cannot touch that toy in the store; and my favorite line of all, “No, you cannot always have what you want because life will not always say yes to you.”  To summarize the family religion into two words, “Just no.” 

My mother was a woman of No.  Growing up, half of all her responses to my sibling’s and my requests were faced with rejection before we could finish filing the request.  The other half was filled with ambiguous responses and rhetorical questions that ultimately led to a solid “no”.  She had been devout through the years, her faith strong in her iron will and leather belt.  Her strong Catholic practice has kept her a vigilant and unmovable rock when it came to denying the fun in life.  I had decided young that if my family practices the religion of No, I wanted to be the family atheist. 

Things started to change as soon as my grandparents arrived for at-home care.  They first came to live with us from Guam when I was eleven.  Grandma was blind, bedridden, and had Alzheimer’s; papa was just a frail old man.  They both had diabetes and high blood pressure.  What they needed was a gentle touch and a soft word; they needed patience when getting their Depends changed; above all, they needed someone to say yes to them.  This Yes person was to be my mom.

I was a beacon of excitement.  I could not wait to meet my grandma and papa who had adored me when I was much younger.  My papa was the more able-bodied of the two, so I was most excited to see him again.  Very unlike his daughter, my papa was without a doubt a man of Yes.  Every morning in Guam, I used to run to their house to see him and would always yell “Papa, hello!” like a song (and for him, it was a song).  He always gave me special candy whenever he came back from Japan even though mom doesn’t like me eating junk; he always let me go out and play when I felt like it, even if I had chores; he even used to make his family specialty, coconut bunelos, just for me.  This was my memory of him in his early seventies, my image of how he should have been.  I was sorely disappointed.~~~~ 

My papa was the biggest nuisance in my life in middle and high school.  He was the epitome of a dirty, rude, old geezer.  He was a human slug: moved, talked, and looked around slow (or perhaps that was how he justified his dirty side looks).  He also had this notion that everyone he talked to was a five-year-old.  I was only twelve and I thought his humor was completely immature.  He greeted everyone with “You wanna fight?”and “huu huu, ah-heeee!”, which was only funny the first twenty times.  Above all, though, he was a rude and obnoxious mock.  Oh, he was the Champ of Mockery.  For every time we told him not to do something, he would respond with “Ohhhhh,” quite woefully, “is that right?  Okay behbee, you’re RIGHT!  You win, I always loss.  You de boss.  I always loss.  Hu huuu, hu huuuu…”

            Mama made me her nurse aid without really asking me.  She used to say that this wasn’t just her responsibility, it was mine.  For a while, I thought I understood what that meant and why it was thrust upon me.  I quickly grew to loathe it.  All of the frustration that used to be from my mama was not only combined with the frustration from being an eleven-year-old caregiver, but the line distinguishing the two was blurred almost completely.  To me, it was all their  fault.  These goddamn old people have ruined my life.
            What was heard as “Papa, hello” has now become “Papa, fuck off.”
~~~~

            The last several years have been disgruntling.  Nothing had changed except for the old people’s level of decrepit-ness: I was still a slave.  Really, why couldn’t a fifteen-year-old Advanced Placement student do basic teenager things like have friends?  Sure, there were people I considered friends in classrooms and in the court yard during lunch period, but once people start planning beyond the school fences I was no longer a thought, probably because the answer is so often “no” anyway.

All the AP English kids who despise Chemistry as much as I do have a free period now, a class designed to be a study period for the studious children.  Of course, it’s never used this way – this is social time: Time to chat about pop culture and television and the latest internet trends and music.  This is one of my free times to just be a teen, away from the pressure of home, away from mama and those old people.

The air smelled faintly of old paper and cat litter.  The walls lazily held a dusty chalkboard, stained with years of ghostly residue, and boxes on every counter, waterlogged at the edge, sagging with old age.  Here, in this dank chemistry lab (built during the plantation era of the 50’s, still in its original glory), is where we few students sit around cracking tables to talk about everything and nothing.  There are only six of us who enjoy this free period: Vinny, the Asian fashionista; Ashlyn, the typical emo child who thought she had serious mental issues; Deanne, the girl that uses her petite size and adorable Japanese features get whatever she wanted; Destiny, the mother figure of the group; and lastly, Patty, the clueless Filipino boy who goes along with what any of us says or does; and me, the anti-socialite, only cool in school.  There, in that dank chemistry lab, we discussed homecoming of our sophomore year.

“Robotics will be at homecoming as a group,” Ashlyn muses.  “I’ma go with them.”
            “Thought you hated them this week,” Destiny says blankly. 
            “I do, but no one else is going tonight.”
            “So you’d rather go to a game you don’t watch with people you don’t like this week?”
            The conversation continues along this path for twenty minutes or so; I wasn’t exactly counting or paying attention.  I had already texted my mom to ask her if I could, for just one night in the entirety of the school year, go out with friends to this homecoming game.  She responded with her monosyllabic religion.  No.

At this point I have no words, only a tense jaw, an enflamed face, and eyes that felt they wanted liberty from their sockets.  I faintly heard a small voice calling my name before I regained composure.  It was Deanne’s small voice.
            “We’re all going tonight,” she said excitedly.
            “Even Patty is tagging along,” Vinny says silkily.  “You should too.”

Before another word was said, I hear them in my head: Why did we ask her in the first place; she is just going to say no; she’s probably boring anyway; So sad how she lets her mom control her.  So often is the answer “no” in my life, so often I am denied what it means to be a teen.  Today, I exercise a different religion. 
            “Totally,” I gloss over the words for the first time ever.   “Let’s go.”~~~~ 

            The atmosphere was stoic.  The clouds were silver and amber with rosy cheeks of the sunset; the colors of symbolic pride through the crowds are mesmerizing.  The air is filled with a confusing assault of dirt, sweat, and pepperoni.  The air is hot with excitement and remnants of the day’s sun, a temperate reminder that, even though all of Kailua High’s fan club is here, we are in Ewa.  I see my friends, but they are a blur – I am drowning in a sea of heightened senses, overwhelmed by the culture of Homecoming.  I love it.

            “Hoy!”  Destiny grabs me by the wrist.  “Don’t get lost, lady.”
            “Oh, keh,” I stammer.  In this moment, I have no words.  This is all too much, I thought: all too exciting, all too soon.  The football game had already begun before I realized that I somehow navigated my way to the top of one of the dirt-stained bleachers, already loaded with fans.  Worry washed over me as I began to think about the consequences my disobedience would warrant.  For once, I dreaded the thought of the leather belt more than I did the thought of absolutely no connection to the outside world.  I have gotten lickings pretty harsh before, but never have I done something as outwardly defiant as this.  I felt my left eye involuntarily twitch. 

            Then, my ears were enveloped by the unanimous cheering that screaming from my side of the bleachers that told me our team was doing something good.  I looked up: A football player, sporting black and orange, running.  He had made it from one end of the field to the other, untouched, a stallion unrestrained.  A sense of pride I had never felt before was swelling inside of me.  My team point seven, everyone else’s team zero.  I found myself on my feet with my classmates, hooting along with the crowd; screaming with the crowd; singing with the crowd.  This is a social life, I thought.  The lights were blinding against the night sky as I let all negative thoughts fade into the recesses of my mind and lived in my dream world for the night.   

~~~~ 

It was midnight when I walked home from my dream land.  I was buzzing with energy, a product of pure adrenaline and too many Red Bulls in one night.   I was a different girl, one who had finally made the decision to no longer give in to the unreasonable whims of her overly-religious family.  As I was mentally preparing for a fight, the sight of red flashing lights at my doorstep caught my eye.  An ambulance was already departing, sirens at full alert: “Attention”, I heard it wailing, “Dying human coming through.”

I held my breath.  In the moments from the doorstep into the house, time did not exist.  My dad was home from work early, his midshift cut off because of all that was going on.  He ordered me to stay home with grandma.  Papa was gone.  I asked what had happened, but he wouldn’t respond, perhaps because he felt that I didn’t deserve to know yet.  Find out the hard way.  He said nothing to me as he left the house other than  “Sa ingratu hagat’mu.”  You ungrateful daughter of mine.

I got the call that papa’s sun had set at about 2:26am from my mom, only she wasn’t my mom on the phone.  She was this quiet, resigned woman with a small voice and a broken heart.  I hung up the phone and decided that the best place to be was lying in the middle of the road on my street.  Despite the years of hating the word, I found myself, accompanied only by the brisk air, trees and moonlight, uttering that one word over and over again to a God I do not believe in: No, Jesus.  No, God, please no.  I have not made my peace, I am not ready.    I am not ready.

I quickly became appalled with myself.  Who was I to deserve peace?  I had, for so long, blamed this man who gave me the chance to exist in the world and I showed it to him – through my insensitivity, through my harsh words, through my lack of affection.  How could I possibly deserve any inner peace?  I deserved to die, I thought to myself.  I should have died.

I went inside the empty house to check on grandma after what felt like half an hour.  She was laying in her bed, talking to someone.  I asked, “Hafa, grandma?”  What’s wrong?
            “Hayi?  Matai lu hayi?”  Who?  Who died?  “Hafa nai, just tell me?” What, just tell me.
            I hesitate.  “Grandma, hayi un quentotusi?”Who are you talking to?
            “Ha’a nai.” Yeah, she says, waiting for an answer.  She cannot hear me.  She begins listing people who have long been dead: her mom, her dad, her siblings, her aunts and uncles.  I grow scared.  Who is she talking to?  For ten minutes, she talked to someone playing “Guess who died” with her before her tone changed.  Her blind face became very forlorn, almost as if she were about to cry.  Then she finally spoke.
            “Go ahead,” she said in clear English.  “Move on, neni, it’s your time.  I’ll be okay.”

 ~~~~

            “That was perhaps the most profound thing I ever heard her say.”  My voice was low.  “I had spent so much of my youth being angry at what I thought I should’ve had.  And I couldn’t move past it.”  I choked back a break in my voice.  Be strong, I thought, be like mama.  “It only took one hour to learn that living like that wasn’t worth it anymore.”

The library transformed into a sunkissed mansion, echoing the dwindled clicks of a few students’ keyboards and footsteps exiting the building.  The glass walls allow the orange sun to spill through as Gren stares blankly at his bag.  He is deep in thought, as if in a trance.  As the orange slowly fades to periwinkle to dark, we slowly gather our studies to pack up for the night.  We are the last students in the dark mansion.  We juggle some sociologist names and terms back and forth for a short period of time before we fell silent once more. 

            “Do you ever find yourself regretting?” Gren asks suddenly.  I looked at him, perplexed.
            “Any bit of it.  The game, y’know, anything?”
            I paused.  I let my mind wander off to my mother, whose face is now a mirror of the old woman who taught me one of life’s most powerful lessons. “Remorseful, yes.  Regretful, no.”
Gren gave a final nod, one pondering humph, and we departed to our cars.