Ova Da Rainbow: HAWAII'S STORY (3)

A Tale of Charcoal, Shrimp, and Beef Stew

Kainalu loved to sing.

He would sit for hours listening to the radio, being able to reach the notes of leo ki'eki'e style. Leo ki'eki'e, also known as falsetto singing, became extremely popular in the 1970's, which was the years he grew up in.

The higher pitch your voice could sing, the easier it was to sing the newer songs on the radio. And Kainalu's voice could go up there. Kālahui's voice wasn't quite able to go up that much, and it was hilarious to see them both try to hold the ending notes of a song, even long after the actual chords died down.

Kainalu also loved to draw, though the figures held such turmoil in those dark charcoal eyes.

They were men, with stern, unyielding expressions, the stubbornness and strength echoing through their sharp features. They were men that reminded Hawaiʻi of some young men of her past, the young men who came and went and did as they pleased after taking a girl home for the night. Cruel eyes, crueller frowns, all directed towards the many minute, unfathomable disappointments in life.

They were women, soft, pristine, but just as stubborn and powerful. Beautiful hair, in all different styles and shades and lengths. They were skinny and fat. White and black and Hawaiian and Asian. They cried and laughed and looked bored and screamed. They were all drawn lovingly, each cross hatch with a story to tell.

And all the women he drew had his eyes, his hair, his nose. They all looked like him.

In the way that the men seemed alien to the artist, the women were familiar. And all women followed this pattern... except for one. One woman that he drew, while Hawaiʻi was sitting with him on the beachside, was different. She looked almost like the men Kainalu drew, but lost, eyes that looked out to some unknown place far away in her mind.

"They're the people in my life. They are the people I love... and everyone who I hope loves me."

Kainalu gave them names, stories, and lives. He gave them years and pains and tears and love.

An aunty who loved everyone but herself, caring for too many children from a husband who left early and came home late to make enough money to barely keep afloat.

A woman paid to care for the children beneath her, but couldn't afford a single loving glance.

A man who claimed to be of God, yet was too blinded in his own self-righteousness to see the child in front of him that needed guidance.

A drunk father at a bar who confessed that he turned a blind eye to his children's lives and now they hated him.

A mother who doped and drank and ran away from her life, whose sins were forgiven unconditionally, agape pouring through the veins of those around her, as they exalted her amongst women.

A young girl, lost and confused, trapped in a life that wasn't her own.

And after Kainalu was done with such a portrait, he would slowly, religiously, put his fingers on the figure's forehead, and make one long swipe over it, smudging the picture's faces and thus ruining them. But that's what made them complete to him. A face that smudged and ran, features bleeding together.

It was like that for hundreds of pictures. Anything he didn't give away was smudged beyond recognition, with nothing of what was once there.

So in the back of the 1960's Ford truck that Hawaiʻi got from a newspaper ad, Kainalu sang and he drew, while Kālahui leaned on his shoulder and watched him sketch out the older woman they had met a couple days before.

"Ho, Aunty, turn the radio back! I just heard Whitney Houston!"

"What, are you obsessed with her?" Kālahui said jokingly.