A Novel by Kawika A. Stafford

Chapter 10

Sonny Ray and his family met Walter for breakfast the following morning. All heads turned as the family entered the restaurant. Walter sat at a table drinking coffee.

Nikko didn’t particularly like eating in restaurants.

A couple of years back she had watched Dateline.

This episode featured short order cooks, and fast food workers spitting in customer’s food or urinating in coffee pots for one ridiculous reason or another. Since the show aired she had no reasonable expectation to believe that people had abandoned such abhorrent and disgusting behavior. Sonny Ray had similar concerns, but he had to eat.

“Okay ladies, what would you two like?”

Sonny Ray smiled at his wife with a knowing glance.

She returned fire with stoic resolve, and a wincing smile. Sonny Ray ordered coffee. “Whisper and Michelle are going to meet us at the funeral home,” Walter announced. Sonny Ray looked intently at his brother. “That’s fine. Nikko and Raye are going to do a little shopping, and then stop by to visit her step dad while we are at the funeral home.”

Nikko knew how Sonny Ray felt about little Raye viewing a dead person, particularly a relative.

That family gem of a story was born when Sonny Ray was five, and living on Parker Ranch on the big island.

In 1965, Sonny Ray’s grandmother had died from cancer.

Sonny Ray often recalled the day of his grandmothers wake.
His relatives had held it in the living room of the small ranch house on Parker Ranch. Dozens of friends and family stopped by to pay their respects. Many came from various ranches throughout the Hawaiian islands.

Years later, Sonny Ray was told by his aunty Aloha, that even his gangster uncle, Charlie Stevens had flew over from O’ahu to pay his respects, and attend the funeral.

On the final day of the wake before closing the casket, Sonny Ray vividly recalled his ignorantly insistent mother who at the time had demanded that he kiss his grandmother goodbye. Wanda had picked up her little boy, holding him by the belt at the small of his back with one hand, and pushing his head down with the other, forcing him into lowering his smallish face into the abyss of the casket.

She continued to hold him by the belt as he clung desperately to the sides of the casket. He recalled crying out in confusion and fear as he strained upward, trying to escape from his oddly still, and unmoving grandmother. Sonny Ray fought as long as he could, but his mother won out. Sonny Ray remembered the chalky like makeup on her face, and how it tasted and smelled on his lips.

Sonny Ray had nightmares of his grandma for years afterward. He was traumatized by that event; so much so that when he got older, he promised himself that no young child of his would ever have to face or endure such originated family madness. Well that moment had arrived, and little Raye would not remember her grandpa in this way. They sat in the little country restaurant eating with quiet restraint.

Sonny Ray sat comically tense, resisting the urge to use his fork to peek under his over medium eggs for a big wad of spit.

Nikko on the other hand was her cool calm, and collect self. Walter was immersed in taking care of all the details of his father’s final requests. After breakfast Sonny Ray walked his wife and daughter to their car. He hugged and kissed his family. After going to the funeral home to say their goodbyes they would meet back at Ventana Canyon.

Sonny Ray and Stewart waved as the two ladies drove away.

Nikko wanted to go to the Tucson Mall, and get her some pizza for lunch, and then find little Raye a dress for the funeral, and some shoes of course.

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