Hamfist Over the Trail (17 page)

I shook her hand, and said, “Sam, it's a real pleasure to meet you. I'm Ham.”

“Sam I'm Ham,” she responded, “sounds like we're reading a Doctor Seuss book.”

Tom beamed. “That's my girl. Sharp as a whip. She finished at the top of her class at Harvard Law School last month. We're so proud of her.”

Sam appeared to blush.

“Now,” Tom said, “let's go have a great dinner. Do you like steak?”

He didn't have to ask me a second time.

While I put on my suit and tied my tie, Tom changed to an equally outstanding outfit. We all got into the car, and Tom said something in Japanese to the driver.

“The absolute best steak in Tokyo is at the Misono Steak House, in Akasaka,” Tom announced.

We drove through narrow streets for about a half hour, and pulled up outside a small restaurant front.

We went into a dimly-lit, elegant restaurant, and sat at a table with a large skillet built into the surface. Tom and Miyako sat on one side of the table, and Sam sat next to me, on my right. I think she purposely positioned herself there to help me with my chopsticks if I had trouble. A chef appeared with four thick steaks, some shrimp, and an assortment of vegetables, and he proceeded to cook them in front of us. He put on an incredible performance, slicing and dicing the steaks and then tossing the pieces of meat over his head and catching them in the rice bowls in front of each of us.

“This is Kobe beef,” Tom explained. “Every minute of their lives these animals are massaged, and they're fed beer all day long. The meat is tender enough to cut between your chopsticks. You'll see.”

“And, by the way,” he continued, “from now on, we're not calling them chopsticks. They're
hashi.
”

“
Got it.
Hashi
,” I answered.

“Ham went to the Air Force Academy,” Tom explained, looking at Sam.

“Where’d you go for undergraduate?” I asked Sam.

“I graduated from Northwestern in 1966.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, with me trying my best to impress my hosts, and especially Sam, my facility with
hashi
. I was getting pretty good, getting almost every bite to my mouth without dropping anything.

Then Sam ventured, “You know, I almost dated a cadet once.”

“Sounds like you dodged a bullet,” I replied.

“No, I was actually really looking forward to it. In the fall of 1963, when I was a
sophomore
, the Army and Air Force were playing their first-ever football game, at Soldier Field in Chicago.”

I remembered it well. I was a doolie at the time, and the entire cadet wing was going to travel to Chicago by train to watch the game and then have a post-game formal ball. We were going to have a joint ball with the “Woops” – the West Pointers – who had also come to Chicago en masse. As a doolie, I had never gotten the opportunity to leave the base since entering the Academy in the summer, and this was going to be a real treat. After the game, we would have about four hours to be out on our own to explore Chicago before the ball. I was really looking forward to it.

Then, the day before our departure, my appendix burst and I had peritonitis. I had emergency surgery, and couldn’t go on the trip. I was stuck in the Academy hospital, to watch the game – Air Force beat Army – on television. The only cadet in the hospital. In fact, I was the only patient in the entire hospital, other than a Math instructor’s wife, who was only there for about three days to deliver her baby.

“There was a formal ball after the game,” Sam continued, “and they wanted local college girls to be blind dates for the cadets. It sounded like it would be fun, and I volunteered. I bought a beautiful gown and gorgeous long, white leather formal gloves. And shoes. Remember?” She looked over at Tom and Miyako. They nodded.

“I showed up at the ball, and I was as dolled-up as I could be. I’d gone to the hairdresser and had my hair done in the morning, and had my nails done also. And the cadets were so handsome in their mess uniforms. Is that what it’s called?”

“Mess dress,” I answered.

“That’s right, mess dress. And I’m not just saying this, Ham, I thought the Air Force cadets looked a lot sharper than the West Pointers.”

“It goes without saying,” I answered.

“So, I went to the reception hall where all the girls were assembling, and one by one the social director called out the names of the girls and they would go through the door to the ballroom and meet their blind dates.” She paused, took a deep breath, and swallowed hard. “And then I was left all alone. I didn’t have a date.”

“What!” I exclaimed. “Were they crazy?”

“No, it was just, the blind dates had already been pre-arranged, and the cadet I was supposed to be paired up with was in the hospital. I went back to my dorm room and cried myself to sleep.”

Tom and Miyako were staring at me.

“Ham! Are you all right? You’re white as a sheet.”

I found myself frozen, with my chopsticks, okay, my
hashi
, half-way to my mouth, and I couldn’t move. Finally, I regained my composure.

“That was me! I was the cadet in the hospital!”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be speechless.

Tom looked at Miyako and said, “
Sore wa narimasu
”. She nodded. Then he looked at me.

“I’m sorry for speaking Japanese, Ham. What I said to Miyako was that when something is meant to be, it will be.”

My eyes locked onto Sam’s and I remembered: that was exactly what Colonel Ryan had said.

40

July 23, 1969

The meal was absolutely fantastic. The steak was as tender as Tom had described – actually soft enough to cut with my
hashi
. We made small talk the rest of the meal, but I couldn't get it out of my mind how Sam and I were supposed to have met some
six
years earlier.

Some of my classmates had met their future wives at that ball. They had dated for the next three and a half years, and then married on graduation day. I had attended their crossed-saber weddings at the Academy Chapel. I felt a sense of loss, the missing moments we could have shared together.

Or maybe we wouldn't have. I was certainly not mature enough to handle an adult relationship at the time. I might have totally blown it. And I knew I was definitely a different person now, after my recent combat experiences, than I was just seven months earlier.

After dinner, Tom probably sensed that Sam and I had some unfinished – actually un-started – business.

“Miyako and I are going to head back to the apartment. But it's still early. Sam, why don't you show Ham around Tokyo?”

“Okay, Daddy.” There was an eagerness in her voice, and I was really happy to hear it. She looked at me. “Are you a good dancer?”

“They gave us dance lessons at the Academy. I think I can hold my own.”

“Great. There are some new clubs that opened up since I was last in Tokyo, and I've been looking forward to checking them out.”

We left the restaurant, and Tom and Miyako went to their waiting car. As he left, I saw him hand Sam some Japanese money, called yen, along with his American express card.

“Have a great time, kids,” he said.

It was funny to be called a kid, after what I'd just gone through for the past seven months, but it was kind of comforting at the same time.

Sam hailed a cab and spoke to the driver in Japanese.

“You speak Japanese also?”

“Oh, yes. I was born in Japan, and went to elementary and junior high school here.”

“You were born here? So are you a Japanese citizen?” I asked.

“Actually, for the first twenty-two years of my life, I had dual citizenship. Daddy was stationed at Itazuke Air Base right after the war. So I have American citizenship from being born on base, and I have – no, had – Japanese citizenship because Mommy is Japanese. I had to choose what country I wanted to be a citizen of when I was twenty-two.”

“And you chose America.”

“Yes. It was an easy choice. I have a strong emotional bond to everything Japanese, but there is no country in the world that can even come close to the United States.”

“So when did you first go to the United States?”

“I was about two, I think. Daddy left the Air Force and started his business in the Bay area. We lived in Walnut Creek until I was seven. Then we moved to Tokyo.”

“Was it difficult to adjust to living in Japan and going to Japanese schools?”

“Not really. I went to a school for
gaijins
, foreigners. But the curriculum was the same as Japanese schools, much more strict than American schools. We had six days of school every week, and only one month off for summer vacation.”

“Sounds pretty tough.”

“Well, I didn't really know anything different. When we moved back to the States, when I was fifteen, high school was a piece of cake. I ended up taking advanced courses, and got good grades. Really good grades.”

“Were you class valedictorian?”

She seemed a bit embarrassed by the question. “Yes, I was.”

“Did you go to Northwestern on a scholarship?”

“We'll talk about me later. We've arrived at Roppongi. This is where the new clubs are.”

We got out of the taxi and walked around. There were bright lights indicating snack bars, coffee shops and restaurants in front of virtually every building. I noticed a lot of the clubs had American names: Club New York, Denver Cafe, and Greenwich Village Place.

“Let's go in here,” she said, pointing to a sign that read, “Stallion Club”.

We went down some dimly-lit stairs, and the strains of American rock and roll music got louder as we descended.

The place was packed, mostly with Japanese, but an occasional
gaijin
guy. The foreigners all looked, from their haircuts, to be military.

We got a table, ordered some drinks, and it was time to dance. Sam put her purse on the table and we went to the dance floor.

“Aren't you worried about somebody walking off with your bag?” I asked.

“We're in Japan. Nobody steals here.”

We danced for hours. They were playing nothing but American rock and roll songs. Sam didn't seem to be embarrassed by my dancing, so I guess I did okay. My only complaint, if I had any, was that there weren't enough slow dances. Sam was a really great dancer, and she had a sensuous way of slow dancing that made me feel like I was the only person in her world.

Before I knew it, it was two o'clock, closing time. The time had passed all too quickly.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Kind of, but I don't think we'll find any place open at this hour, will we?”

“We're in Roppongi. It's a section of Tokyo where there's always something open. There's a great little place just up the street.”

We walked a few blocks to a building that could have passed for an American diner. The sign read, “Hamburger Inn”.

We sat in a booth, facing each other, and ordered some hamburgers and coffee.

“You know, Ham, I had a really good time tonight. You're a good dancer, for an Air Force guy.”

“I think that's a compliment. So, you were going to tell me about your scholarship to Northwestern.”

“I actually had two scholarships. One for academics and one for women's track.”

“Wow. Impressive.”

“I actually felt kind of bad, taking the scholarships, because there were probably a lot of other kids who needed it more.”

“I guess your dad was already pretty well off by then?” As soon as I asked the question, I a felt like an idiot. How could I be so gauche – I knew better than to ask people about their personal financial situations.

She didn't seem to mind. “Yeah, he was already pretty well established, with offices in Japan and the States. But I had my own money.”

“Really?”

“When I was younger, about the time I was eight to twelve, I did a lot of modeling for magazine ads. The Japanese really like
gaijin
kids in their ads, and I made a small fortune. I still have some of the pictures in my scrapbook. I'll show you when we get back to the apartment. Anyway, I saved it all for college. In the end, I knew I wanted to go on past undergrad, so I took the scholarships to Northwestern so I would still have money for law school. How about you, you must have been pretty smart to get into the Academy.”

“Well, I got good grades in high school, but the most important thing to the Academy was my extracurricular activities. I was president of a lot of clubs, and participated in some sports. I even lettered in Wrestling.”

We talked on for hours. Before I knew it, the small talk had ended, and I found myself spilling my guts to Sam. I felt really close to her, and could tell she wouldn't be judgmental, even as I broke down and cried a few times.

I told her about being a Summary Courts Officer for Mitch, about my Dear John letter, about my belief in fatalism, about Delta 43 and the gunner, and, finally, about my fear that coming into contact with me was the kiss of death for my friends.