Big Happiness: The Life and Death of a Modern Hawaiian Warrior

Chapter 6 No Weapons

79 C H A P T E R 6 No Weapons May 16, 2005. While my wife and I were watching TV, our son Kurt, with his ‘ohana and Akebono stopped by to inform us Percy was killed tonight, and asked us to stay away from the crime scene on ‘Okana Road in Kahalu‘u. We watched the TV news to get more information. —George Kipapa, unpublished memoir, July 28, 2007 On May 17, 2005, the KITV Web site led with the headline “Former Sumo Wrestler Killed in Kahalu‘u Stabbing,” which was accompanied by a picture of Percy’s smiling face. I hadn’t believed it when a friend had called from O‘ahu to say, “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.” As I ran through a mental list of whom he could possibly be talking about, he said, “The sumo wrestler—the guy from your book.” That narrowed it down, but when he’d said, “stabbed to death,” Percy was nowhere near the top of the list. “Who, Troy?” I asked him. “Ola?” “No. Percy Kipapa.” Though Noriko and I had moved to Hilo, I’d just seen Percy a few weeks earlier when I flew back to O‘ahu for Bumbo Kalima’s wedding, and he’d looked great. I went online hoping to find that it was some sort of mistake, or that the report would at least find Percy in “critical condition” or something, but no. He’d been “found stabbed to death at the wheel of an idling truck on ‘Okana Road,” the brief report went on. “Kipapa and a friend had apparently just run an errand to the Kahalu‘u 7-Eleven. A halfhour after Kipapa was found, his friend showed up at a nearby hospital,” 80 Chapter 6 saying he had been stabbed in the leg. The friend “was taken into custody after being treated at Castle Medical Center.” Everyone was feeling the same shocked disbelief, best summed up by Fats Gaspar, who told me, “Big P. Big P was a good bradda. He got caught up in the wrong fuckin’ mix . . . Brah, people thought it was me. ’Cause Percy’s name neva come out—all it said was ‘sumo wrestler,’ you know what I mean, got stabbed. You seen guys was blowing out my phone, brah, from all kine angles. ‘Oh, Fats. We thought it was you.’” “No one would think it was Percy,” I said. “Not even. No way. They would think it was eitha me or Tyla, you know what I mean. Perce. That would be the last guy. He was harmless. You know that. Fucka was one cruisa, kick-back. Oh man. I neva cry like that in a long time. Was hard. I was trippin’ out.” The news came out in pieces over the first week. A few “Former Sumo Wrestler Found Killed” posts showed up on the sumophile electronic mailing list to which I belong. A brief e-mail from George Kalima explained how Chad’s wife had called all the boys in Tokyo with the terrible news. A longer account appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser. Now they had a witness: someone had come forward and said that the blood-stained friend had made his way to her house and told her, “I stabbed Percy.” When I called Bumbo, he happened to be driving his City and County refuse truck right past the road where Percy had been found. “He had stab wounds all in the back,” Bumbo had since learned. The Windward coconut wireless must have been overheating with the news—dis wen’ happen, dat wen’ happen, see watchu get when you cruising wit’ dat kine people, see what you attrac’. “I t’ink maybe they must’ve got into one argument at the 7-Eleven,” Bumbo went on, “an’ then Percy made him sit in the back of the truck, and that’s when he wen’ freak, an’ start stabbing Percy in the back.” There was also speculation that the friend’s mother was “in cahoots,” a theory that stemmed from a 911 conversation where she had apparently been overheard telling the dispatcher to “disregard” the call. In any case, he said, “No way dat one little punk going kill Percy all by himself.”    81 No Weapons Just one week later, Mr. Kalima, Bumbo and George’s dad, greeted me from out in front of his carport, his round, brown...