ain’t ever heard that Eddie puts money on the street. Not to
haoles
anyway. Eddie will front to Pac Islanders, but that’s about it.”
“Maybe he’s expanding his customer base,” Boone says.
“Maybe,” Tide says, “but I doubt it. Way it works, you owe Eddie money and you don’t pay, he don’t take it up with you; he takes it up with your family back home. And it’s a disgrace, Boone, a big shame, so the family back on the island usually takes care of the debt, one way or the other.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Welcome to
my
world,” Tide says. It’s hard to explain to a guy, even a friend like Boone, what it’s like straddling the Pacific. Boone’s literally lived his whole life within a few blocks of where they’re sitting right now; there’s no way he, or Dave, or even Johnny can understand that Tide, who was born and bred just up the road in Oceanside, is still answerable to a village in Samoa that he’s never seen. And the same thing applies to most of the Oceania people living in California—they have living roots back in Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Fiji, what have you.
So you start making some money, you send some of it “home” to help support relatives back in the
ville
. A cousin comes over, he stays on your couch until he makes enough scratch at the job you got him to maybe get his own place, where he’ll have another cousin crash. You do something good, a whole village five thousand miles away celebrates with pride; you do something bad, the same village feels the shame.
All that’s a burden, but … your kids have grandmas and grandpas,aunties and uncles, who love them like their own kids. Even in O’side, the children go back and forth between houses like they were huts in the village. If your wife gets sick, aunties you never knew you had show up with pots of soup, cooked meat, fish, and rice.
It’s
aiga
—family.
And if you ever get in trouble, if someone outside the “community” takes you on, threatens your livelihood or your life, then the whole tribe shows up over your shoulder; you don’t even have to ask. Just like The Dawn Patrol—you call the wolf, you get the pack.
Back in the day, Tide was a serious gang banger, a
matai
—chief—in the Samoan Lords. S’way it was, you grew up in Oceanside back then, especially in the Mesa Margarita neighborhood: You played football and you g’d up with your boys. Thank God for football, High Tide thinks now, remembering, because he loved the game and it kept him off the drugs. Tide wasn’t your drive-by, gun-toting banger hooked on
ma’a
. No, Tide kept his body in good shape, and when he went to war with the other gangs, he went Polynesian-style—flesh-to-flesh.
High Tide was a legend in those O’side rumbles. He’d place his big body in front of his boys, stare down the other side, then yell
“Fa’aumu!”
—the ancient Samoan call to war. Then it was
on, hamo
, fists flying until it was the last man standing.
That was always High Tide.
Same thing on the football field. When High Tide came out of the womb, the doctor looked at him and said, “Defensive tackle.” Samoan men play football, period, and because O’side has more Samoans than anyplace but Samoa, its high school team is practically an NFL feeder squad.
High Tide was where running games went to die.
He’d just eat them up, throw off the pulling guard like a sandwich wrapper, then plow the ball carrier into the turf. Teams that played O’side would just give up on the ground game and start throwing the ball like the old Air Coryell Chargers.
Scouts noticed.
Tide would come home from practice to stacks of letters from colleges, but he was interested only in San Diego State. He wasn’t going to go far from home—to some cold state without an ocean to surf in. And he wasn’t going far from
aiga
, from family, because for a Samoan, family is everything.
So Tide started for four years at State. When he wasn’t slaughtering I-Backs, he was out
haoles
anyway. Eddie will front to Pac Islanders, but that’s about it.”
“Maybe he’s expanding his customer base,” Boone says.
“Maybe,” Tide says, “but I doubt it. Way it works, you owe Eddie money and you don’t pay, he don’t take it up with you; he takes it up with your family back home. And it’s a disgrace, Boone, a big shame, so the family back on the island usually takes care of the debt, one way or the other.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Welcome to
my
world,” Tide says. It’s hard to explain to a guy, even a friend like Boone, what it’s like straddling the Pacific. Boone’s literally lived his whole life within a few blocks of where they’re sitting right now; there’s no way he, or Dave, or even Johnny can understand that Tide, who was born and bred just up the road in Oceanside, is still answerable to a village in Samoa that he’s never seen. And the same thing applies to most of the Oceania people living in California—they have living roots back in Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Fiji, what have you.
So you start making some money, you send some of it “home” to help support relatives back in the
ville
. A cousin comes over, he stays on your couch until he makes enough scratch at the job you got him to maybe get his own place, where he’ll have another cousin crash. You do something good, a whole village five thousand miles away celebrates with pride; you do something bad, the same village feels the shame.
All that’s a burden, but … your kids have grandmas and grandpas,aunties and uncles, who love them like their own kids. Even in O’side, the children go back and forth between houses like they were huts in the village. If your wife gets sick, aunties you never knew you had show up with pots of soup, cooked meat, fish, and rice.
It’s
aiga
—family.
And if you ever get in trouble, if someone outside the “community” takes you on, threatens your livelihood or your life, then the whole tribe shows up over your shoulder; you don’t even have to ask. Just like The Dawn Patrol—you call the wolf, you get the pack.
Back in the day, Tide was a serious gang banger, a
matai
—chief—in the Samoan Lords. S’way it was, you grew up in Oceanside back then, especially in the Mesa Margarita neighborhood: You played football and you g’d up with your boys. Thank God for football, High Tide thinks now, remembering, because he loved the game and it kept him off the drugs. Tide wasn’t your drive-by, gun-toting banger hooked on
ma’a
. No, Tide kept his body in good shape, and when he went to war with the other gangs, he went Polynesian-style—flesh-to-flesh.
High Tide was a legend in those O’side rumbles. He’d place his big body in front of his boys, stare down the other side, then yell
“Fa’aumu!”
—the ancient Samoan call to war. Then it was
on, hamo
, fists flying until it was the last man standing.
That was always High Tide.
Same thing on the football field. When High Tide came out of the womb, the doctor looked at him and said, “Defensive tackle.” Samoan men play football, period, and because O’side has more Samoans than anyplace but Samoa, its high school team is practically an NFL feeder squad.
High Tide was where running games went to die.
He’d just eat them up, throw off the pulling guard like a sandwich wrapper, then plow the ball carrier into the turf. Teams that played O’side would just give up on the ground game and start throwing the ball like the old Air Coryell Chargers.
Scouts noticed.
Tide would come home from practice to stacks of letters from colleges, but he was interested only in San Diego State. He wasn’t going to go far from home—to some cold state without an ocean to surf in. And he wasn’t going far from
aiga
, from family, because for a Samoan, family is everything.
So Tide started for four years at State. When he wasn’t slaughtering I-Backs, he was out
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