sonny boy

Lisa Maraventano — novel — $6.99

Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono. The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.

Chapter One

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there is an island made from volcanic rock and covered in lush, tropical foliage. It takes an hour to drive across the island from north to south, and another hour to drive across it from east to west. The sun and moon rise and set over this island of mountains, valleys, shorelines and cities. Although not in any continent, the island is part of an archipelago and home to a million people. This island is O'ahu.

O'ahu is known as "The Gathering Place" and so it is. People from all over the globe have been to O'ahu. But this is a story of a boy who was born here. His name is John David Andersen, Jr. But he was always known as Sonny Boy. Which was somewhat ironic as Sonny Boy never knew his father.

His father had served in the United States Navy. John Senior had a month in Pearl Harbor before being shipped out to Vietnam in 1970. During those thirty days, John met, fell in love with, and married Akemi Izumi Higashi, the youngest daughter of the Higashis of Oihana Street, Honolulu. Akemi fell in love with the young sailor for the simple reason that he was the most beautiful person that she had ever seen in her short and sheltered life of eighteen years.

John was a Norwegian farmer's son from Minnesota, well over six feet tall, built like an ox and as fair and golden as a summer morning. He had taken one look at her with his clear sky blue eyes at the Rainbow Drive-In where she had just ordered a strawberry slush and she fell head over heels in love.

Akemi received the news of Seaman Andersen's death on December 15, 1970. He had been killed in a shipboard fire in the Gulf of Thailand. Akemi went to her room and wept. For five days she sat on her bed, refusing to eat or drink.

She was vessel now, like the ships that carried goods to Hawaii, like the destroyer that had carried away her love. She contained life within her, his child, what was left of him in the world. Bound and pledged to carry on, Akemi lifted her chin from her chest and pressed her palms tightly against her eyes. No more tears. Then she rose from her bed and walked into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and began to prepare the tea.

Akemi knew if she had a boy she would name him for his father. But she couldn't say the name without pain. So she decided to call him Sonny Boy. She liked Sonny Bono and she liked the play on words "sunny boy" since her own name meant beautiful sunrise or dawn. She hoped he would prove to have a sunny disposition and the radiance of his father.

One autumn afternoon when he was eight years old, Sonny Boy despondently watched his great-grandfather pare an apple. The old man could keep the skin in one long, ongoing strip from beginning to end. "Ojiichan, how do you do that?"

"Constant pressure, little son." He handed the boy a slice of the apple. "Do you know what you are eating?"

Sonny's eyes grew wide. He thought it was an apple.

"A flower," his great-grandfather revealed. "In the spring, this was an apple blossom."

"Ojiichan, if this was a flower," Sonny said after a while. "How did it become an apple?"

"Oh, little son, you ask a very good question. How does one thing transform into another? Water. Light. Air. Time. With these, all things can change."

"I want to change," Sonny muttered.

"What do you want to be?"

"I want to be a king or a movie star or a businessman. I am tired of being nothing."

"Mm," his great-grandfather nodded thoughtfully. "I was nothing once."

— many more chapters inside —