Read Online Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos by Lyssa Chapman - Free Book Online
Authors: Lyssa Chapman
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told us that we’d be back for them soon, but it turned out that it was many years before I again set foot on Hawai’ian soil, and I never saw those particular pets again.
★
I don’t remember the actual plane trip across the ocean, but I do recall the culture shock that I felt when we first drove through Denver. The buildings were so tall and there were so many cars driving way too fast on the highway. The past few years we had lived in a more rural section of Hawai’i, and big-city life was new to me. Now I smile to myself when I think of this, but I was also shocked to see that so many white people lived in Colorado. I had gotten used to seeing the friendly brown faces of islanders, and looking at people with white skin like me was very odd.
Once we got to Colorado, Dad, Tucker, and I moved into one room in a Motel 6 near Denver. Barbara was living with our mother, and frankly, she and Tucker were back and forth between Alaska, Hawai’i, and Colorado so often that it is hard to remember who was where at any particular time.
Dad then went to work for his older sister, our aunt Jolene. I thought Aunt Jolene was super square, and in reality she was the total opposite of my dad. She never swore and was appalled by my dad and his ways. Her husband worked for the federal government, and all in all, they were a very conservative couple.
Aunt Jolene was also in the bail bonds business, and Dad had no trouble performing his duties for her company. Because he and Jolene were so very different, however, they had a contentious relationship. This was probably something that started when they were kids and decades later had gotten only worse.
She was kind enough, however, that when Dad caught jumps (people who had jumped bail) for her she sometimes babysat me. Jolene lived on Denver’s “Bail Bonds Row,” a quirky street of old homes near the courthouse that have been converted into bail bonds offices. Jolene and her family lived on the top floor of one of the houses and did business on the ground floor.
I remember that Aunt Jolene had a son around my age. I was a little jealous of my cousin, because he had every toy you could imagine and the loving parents I always wanted. He and I did not get along, so the two of us carried the familial dislike of each other from one generation to the next. I am not sure why he didn’t like me, but I didn’t like him because he never let me play with his toys or games. Instead, I had to sit on the floor and watch him play.
I also thought that Aunt Jolene acted like she was helping us out of pity. At the time I didn’t understand how we went from one extreme kind of lifestyle to the other. When we lived on Puuwai Alii in Kailua Kona with Ginny we had a pool, a dumbwaiter, and we each had our own bedrooms. Now we were all crammed into one room at a Motel 6. The only thing exciting about our living situation was that there was a pool. But the pool was covered forthe winter, and I remember staring day after day at that pool cover, wishing it was time for it to come off.
My aunt paid for our room at the Motel 6. I remember that the cost was $39.99 a day, because it was posted on a card on the inside of the door. That, among other monetary things, was a source of much argument between Dad and his sister, and I remember trying to stay out of the way as they had one fight after the other. Standard bounty hunter fees are 10 percent of the bail amount. If Jolene needed Dad to catch a $10,000 bond who skipped, then Dad’s pay should have been close to $1,000.
I think Aunt Jolene felt that if she paid for the room, watched me, and gave Dad a little money for gasoline and incidentals, that was all she needed to pay. There may have been other factors I was not aware of, though. I am assuming that she paid our airfare from Hawai’i. She may even have paid off some of Dad’s debt, so what she didn’t pay to Dad may have been going to repay his debt to her. But what irked me was the air of
★
I don’t remember the actual plane trip across the ocean, but I do recall the culture shock that I felt when we first drove through Denver. The buildings were so tall and there were so many cars driving way too fast on the highway. The past few years we had lived in a more rural section of Hawai’i, and big-city life was new to me. Now I smile to myself when I think of this, but I was also shocked to see that so many white people lived in Colorado. I had gotten used to seeing the friendly brown faces of islanders, and looking at people with white skin like me was very odd.
Once we got to Colorado, Dad, Tucker, and I moved into one room in a Motel 6 near Denver. Barbara was living with our mother, and frankly, she and Tucker were back and forth between Alaska, Hawai’i, and Colorado so often that it is hard to remember who was where at any particular time.
Dad then went to work for his older sister, our aunt Jolene. I thought Aunt Jolene was super square, and in reality she was the total opposite of my dad. She never swore and was appalled by my dad and his ways. Her husband worked for the federal government, and all in all, they were a very conservative couple.
Aunt Jolene was also in the bail bonds business, and Dad had no trouble performing his duties for her company. Because he and Jolene were so very different, however, they had a contentious relationship. This was probably something that started when they were kids and decades later had gotten only worse.
She was kind enough, however, that when Dad caught jumps (people who had jumped bail) for her she sometimes babysat me. Jolene lived on Denver’s “Bail Bonds Row,” a quirky street of old homes near the courthouse that have been converted into bail bonds offices. Jolene and her family lived on the top floor of one of the houses and did business on the ground floor.
I remember that Aunt Jolene had a son around my age. I was a little jealous of my cousin, because he had every toy you could imagine and the loving parents I always wanted. He and I did not get along, so the two of us carried the familial dislike of each other from one generation to the next. I am not sure why he didn’t like me, but I didn’t like him because he never let me play with his toys or games. Instead, I had to sit on the floor and watch him play.
I also thought that Aunt Jolene acted like she was helping us out of pity. At the time I didn’t understand how we went from one extreme kind of lifestyle to the other. When we lived on Puuwai Alii in Kailua Kona with Ginny we had a pool, a dumbwaiter, and we each had our own bedrooms. Now we were all crammed into one room at a Motel 6. The only thing exciting about our living situation was that there was a pool. But the pool was covered forthe winter, and I remember staring day after day at that pool cover, wishing it was time for it to come off.
My aunt paid for our room at the Motel 6. I remember that the cost was $39.99 a day, because it was posted on a card on the inside of the door. That, among other monetary things, was a source of much argument between Dad and his sister, and I remember trying to stay out of the way as they had one fight after the other. Standard bounty hunter fees are 10 percent of the bail amount. If Jolene needed Dad to catch a $10,000 bond who skipped, then Dad’s pay should have been close to $1,000.
I think Aunt Jolene felt that if she paid for the room, watched me, and gave Dad a little money for gasoline and incidentals, that was all she needed to pay. There may have been other factors I was not aware of, though. I am assuming that she paid our airfare from Hawai’i. She may even have paid off some of Dad’s debt, so what she didn’t pay to Dad may have been going to repay his debt to her. But what irked me was the air of
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