Union brothers

Heading uphill toward what once was Ferdinand Marcos's grave, Lilith and I encountered a short Filipino man power washing stone walls. He stopped. I leaned in to say how much I love the moss and lichen. "Boss's idea," the man said through a bluish cartoon mask, which he lowered. "Have you seen the big stone wall?" Yes, I responded, I used to love the green moss. "Ugly," he remarked. I said something about hoping this cemetery regime ends soon, and he reached over to fist bump me, green debris on his right hand. I said I'd heard that trees are being power washed too, and he pointed up the hill, where Lilith and I were to find palms nearly naked up to a point that no one could reach. "He thinks the black stuff is ugly, but it's not going to work. It doesn't all come off." Sure enough, the trees wore ghost lichen and moss, faint shapes that reminded me of hundreds of photographs I've taken of them before they were ghosts.

 

The subject of surveillance cameras came up. "If he puts them in our dining area, we're going to the union," the man said. I said I was glad they have a union.

On the way out, close to Kahekili Highway, dozens of cars were entering the cemetery. One woman was standing beneath a palm writing a condolence card; her young daughter, in a bright dress with her hair carefully combed, was reading gravestones. "Big funeral," I noted to a man in a San Francisco 49ers shirt. "Yes, someone with a lot of support in the community," he said. "A stevedore." I said I'd appreciated the support my union had from the stevedores when UHM went on strike. "He went to UH," the man said, "football player." Young.