Pacific-sized love

Grandpa turns purple in the sun. He says it is because we are Filipino, but my skin never colours that way. I watch him mystified as he calls to the pigeons. His whistles are strong and long and loud. They are all of his breaths pushed out, part Kools, part Budweiser, part Mentholyptus Halls. The wind scoops them up and makes them hers, using their smoky song to amplify her sound. Pigeons come flying home and Grandpa Melvin smiles.

Some of them go straight to the coop and rest their tired wings. Air is thick in Hawaii, sticky sweet like mangoes, orchids and coconut milk. Other pigeons feast on the ground where Grandpa sprinkles seeds. Grandpa beckons, ‘Come here uku.’ I am not sure exactly what that word means, but it makes me feel loved. When he went to school, if you got ukus they would douse your head in paraffin and set you under the flagpole in the sun. ‘Try feed the birds,’ he says. I scuttle back to the safety of the stairs, shaded by a lonely palm. After seven years of growing up around these animals, I am still terrified.

When I was five, Grandpa stopped having cockfights at the house. I don’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with the discussion he had with my mother’s Baptist relatives the day I was forced to play outside with Pono, our poi dog. All of a sudden, his nasty roosters were gone and I was glad. I hated them because once an innocuous-looking chick attacked me, pecking my left hand as I tried to pick it up. I ran screaming to the house. Grandma cooled the bloody beak marks with Bactine. I cried the entire time and she promised me shaved ice with as many flavours as I wanted.