Then we were out away from the dock of Kona, sitting in a plush jointed couch on the Hawaiian Adventure, a trimaran like the types we always see drifting in the haze of the Kona coast, especially at sunset, boats with slides off the back and lobster-colored tourists jabbering on the covered decks. The pier was long and blacktopped and spined with fishing poles, and halfway along the dock’s edge a group of local boys were pitching themselves off, into the water, over and over, exploding into the ocean-froth of the boy who’d jumped before, chee-hoo’ing and slapping their wet feet across the wood steps back to the edge. Your father and I stood at the Kona dock, each holding a ticket for the boat ride, plus one for each of you kids, and we watched the tides surge and all the clean glossy boats rock and dip and shine slick with each swell. So Kailua-Kona, Ali‘i Drive, small stone walls and swerving sidewalks fronting the scoops of sugary beach and luminous ocean, then all the little storefront tourist traps, leading back like breadcrumbs to the beach hotels. “Well,” he said, “maybe just once I wanna be that kind of family.” “They deserve more than they get,” he said, I still remember this, “and we gotta remind them that things is gonna get better.”

But he’d asked what kind of father would he be if he couldn’t give his children relief? I remember telling him no, we couldn’t do that, we needed to save every last penny for O‘ahu. Your father had a plan for the rest of the money-a glass-bottom boat cruise on the Kona coast. We’d made enough from those sales, the food bank’s help, and Section Eight to get a cushion, enough for five tickets to O‘ahu with something still in the bank. We’d sold some of our stuff and then we sold more, roadsiding it in Waimea, by the playground, across the street from the Catholic church, where all the trees grow up over the parking strips and everyone has to drive past if they’re headed to the beach. But Royce had come through, as simple as a phone call to your father and a phrase, “I think I got something for you, cuz,” and suddenly everything pointed to O‘ahu.

Today, he lives with his wife and daughters in Minneapolis.Īnd that was how we were when the third sign came. He was a 2015 Tin House Summer Scholar and 2015 Bread Loaf work-study scholar. His work has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney’s, and Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, among other outlets.

Washburn was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawai‘i. The following is from Kawai Strong Washburn's debut Sharks in the Time of Saviors.

Sharks in the time of saviours