Chapter 2 #3
Pappy grinned with the type of paternal arrogance that televised that he knew he raised me to be my own man but that he was comforted knowing that I knew he wouldn’t lead me wrong. I knew my faith in him helped lessen the parental failure he’d admitted to feeling at how my father had turned out.
“I know you’ll make the right decision.”
“You could always stay on and—”
He huffed and then leaned back to stretch out more in his chair.
“Boy, I’m stepping back from all of this.
Do you know how difficult it is to be an elder and still the head of a family?
Even if I was just the face of the family while you called the shots it was enough to drive me crazy. Besides, home is calling.”
I could only nod my head hearing how his voice changed when he mentioned home.
My grandfather rarely spent enough time on our family compound in Hawaii and I knew he wanted to get back there and relax.
Since taking over for my father’s fuckups all those years ago, I knew things hadn’t been easy for him.
Pappy tried but my father was never one to be faithful to his wife or to the business that Pappy helped secure for him.
My dad was too happy to play boss without actually doing what he needed to.
When he died as much as it saddened my grandfather, I was sure it gave him immense relief as well.
Having to run all over the world to clean up messes was something that no one should have to do for their grown son but Pappy had been stuck doing it to save the family’s name and my future.
By the time it got too bad, I was off in the world playing assassin and didn’t have time for the shit.
My role as this generation’s sacrificial lamb had been solidified and a change couldn’t happen on such short notice.
My solution had been to put a bullet in his head and collect the life insurance, something I’d spoken with Jahmir about many times, but someone beat me to it.
I always wondered if my friends tried to spare me the “burden” of patricide but none of them ever laid claim to the act.
They’d watched me grow up dealing with his neglect and hated him almost as much as they hated Cardinal.
I’d long since stopped seeing him as my dad and treated him like he didn’t matter.
Which used to piss him off. I didn’t even want to attend his funeral but Pappy forced me to.
It was shortly after that my mother decided she couldn’t handle life with me any longer so my visit to Pappy’s became permanent.
The issues that existed on the Nakoa side of the family were probably stoked by his displeasure at no longer being in control when he passed and that was one of the things I would never forgive him for.
It made Pappy’s job even harder but I was glad Pappy didn’t have to stress out too much about his ass any longer.
“My mother has been trying to reach out to me.”
My mother. Another parent who didn’t deserve the title but I had more issue with her than my sperm donor.
I’d been holding that close to the vest because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
I didn’t want to hear anyone else’s opinions yet about what I should do or how I should feel based on the biases they held because of their own mothers.
If mine had been anything like theirs that I could remember I probably would’ve never lost contact with her.
She let the issues with my dad force her out of my life and although part of me wanted to know the details on the event that drove her away for good; I knew I wasn’t ready to hear them.
My grandfather’s head snapped up in surprise and I knew he was about as shocked as I was at the news.
“She has? How could she even reach out to you?”
“You know all of our previous numbers are still monitored. She dialed me up a few times but I haven’t returned the call.”
That feature had been implemented years ago.
Whenever we received new numbers, the old ones weren’t put back into the system for general circulation.
I had no clue that was even a thing but I should never underestimate the connections we had.
My number changed when I was recruited so it was the only one she had for me.
She knew the power of the Consortium so despite not being able to reach me directly; she knew I would get the alert that she’d reached out.
“Has she said anything?”
Pappy’s voice was different as he asked causing me to hone in on his features. He didn’t look nervous but the normally passive state of his features was gone. Slightly tense was the only way to describe how he looked.
Something is up.
“No.”
He nodded, his body language giving nothing away before he spoke again.
“Are you going to talk to her?”
“Pappy—”
“Stop it, keiki. I understand your pain but there is so much you don’t understand. So much guilt that we all feel about the situation.”
This was new. Pappy rarely expressed any emotion that wasn’t confidence, which is where I got my demeanor from.
He didn’t preach hardness but it was natural for me to adopt his mannerisms because they were what I witnessed everyday and he was a man I admired.
I had already shut down so many of my emotions because of how I grew up so it wasn’t a stretch.
“Even you?”
The sigh he released seemed to come from the depths of his soul and I had to wonder what he’d been carrying that he felt was now okay to release. And why now was the time that he felt he could put it down.
“Especially me. I should’ve known that he wasn’t ready.
I knew it. I felt as though this opportunity would be something that would wake him up and force him to grow up.
Instead, it made him a worse version of himself with more power than before.
I can’t say that I regret the decision because it gave me one of my life’s greatest joys in you but I hate the way it affected your mother.
The way it affected you. I wanted more for you, Ori. ”
Pappy never talked like this. Maybe it was the understanding that his time as the head of the family was ending and he didn’t have to be the strongest person all the time.
Or my mother’s potential presence forcing him to come to grips with a reality he’d been trying to avoid.
I wasn’t sure which it was but something had his emotions rising to the surface.
Instead of pressing him, since I could tell he wasn’t ready to expound on that information, I was honest.
“I got more. I got you. So whatever guilt you feel you’re carrying you need to let it go.”
I wasn’t sure if his silence was because he was stunned I had been so raw with my emotions or if he was thinking of a way to combat what I was saying. Knowing him it was a mixture of both. He wouldn’t want me to think I could make him soft by being nice to him.
“Things could’ve been better. The emotions I lacked were probably a disservice to you.”
“You’re an asshole and I get it. You faced a lot of bullshit growing up in Hawai’i and no one really understood that. Most of the kids of GIs were white and native, not Black. Shielding your emotions just came naturally.”
He’d told me stories about kids picking on everyone that differed from them but I knew because of the segregationist policies that existed throughout the country he had it worse.
Hawai’i had only been a state for six years when my grandfather was born but it had long since been a victim of the same bullshit that plagued the mainland.
He could pass for a myriad of races but since white wasn’t one of them he endured a lot of hate.
Being the son of a veteran insulated him with some things but not all of it.
It was crazy to hear his stories of being discriminated against while growing up.
Neither of us blamed our fellow natives for being upset at the loss of sovereignty but it wasn’t like Black people had ever been their enemy.
And since they were welcoming white GIs and the mainlanders’ money with no issue, it made the hate sting deeper.
“Well, none of that matters now. Those same people who thought they were better than my half-Black ass now work for me if I let them. They now want to join me as I fight to keep Hawai’i in native hands and prevent it from being purchased and the land ruined.
It doesn’t erase it but it gives me a sick sense of satisfaction when they have to grovel. ”
He was smirking and I knew plenty of the people who’d treated him poorly had their land sold out from beneath them by the same folks they’d trusted or even married into their family.
Pappy attempted to prevent as much overdevelopment as he could but there was only so much he could do from five thousand miles away.
“You’ve done what was necessary. You’ve made the people who tried you realize why they shouldn’t while also trying to preserve the island. No one says that revenge can’t be a driving force for altruism.”
“I thought the nature of altruism was to be selfless.”
He knew me better than to think I was going to ever do anything without reaping some type of benefit.
I might not have been a complete asshole, but I also knew how the world worked.
I didn’t do favors. I would always have my brothers’ backs out of love.
And I knew that they would do the same for me without question.
But no one else besides Pappy could get that type of devotion from me.
Except maybe Vega. He’d shown on more than one occasion that he was just as loyal as my brothers and since our families relied on each other we both had a vested interest in ensuring the other didn’t get in a fucked up situation.