House of the Red Fish (19 page)

The Saturday after our strange visit to Fumi’s tattoo shop, Charlie clomped up our steps and rapped on the door. I answered it and held the screen door open. “Come in, come in.”

He didn’t. “I came to see how Joji-san is doing. He home?”

“Are you kidding? He’s got a girlfriend now.”

“Yeah, I heard that,” Charlie said, chuckling.

“He’s probably down at Hotel Street getting in trouble.”

Charlie laughed. “I also heard you gotta dig a bomb shelter for the Wilsons. Billy told me.”

“Yeah, but why? I don’t think we’re going to get bombed again.”

“You never know.”

“I guess.”

“You like some help?”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said.

“Naah, no problem. Billy would come too, but he had to go pick something up with his daddy.”

“Come inside,” I said again.

“Naah, we go dig. We could prob’ly do um two days. Get it done fast. You ready?”

“No,” I said, and he grinned. Charlie was the best.

“Yeah, I know. Just don’t think how you doing the Wilson boy’s work,” he said, reading my mind. “Think about the big muscles you going get out of it.”

“Pfff.” I closed the screen door and went out back with Charlie to find a shovel. It was as good a time as any to start in on that pit. I couldn’t believe Charlie would do this for me. Some people were just made to be good.

Mr. Wilson had staked out where he wanted the shelter to be, away from the house. Why did he want to build one now? The war was going well. We were winning in the Pacific.

But maybe that wasn’t why he wanted me to dig it.

Maybe he was trying to keep an eye on me, or something.

Or maybe he knew something we didn’t.

I thought, if we did get bombed again, I guess me, Grampa, Mama, and Kimi would just crawl under our house with Lucky and the pups and hope we didn’t take a direct hit. I’d take that chance any day over being in a mud hole with Keet Wilson. They would never let us in, anyway, for sure. Mrs. Wilson might, but she had little to say in that family.

Charlie started right in, as if he were starting a new garden. Digging dirt was nothing to him. It wasn’t to me, either. But when it was Keet Wilson’s dirt, that made it something.

“Listen to this,” I said after a couple of minutes.

He stopped and leaned on his shovel.

“I was in the Wilsons’ house helping Mama a couple of weeks ago. I went up in Keet’s room, just to see it.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow.

“They were gone to the country for the weekend,” I added. “I know I shouldn’t have gone up there, but I did, and you know what I found? Our katana.”

Charlie knew about that sword. He knew about everything. “Joji’s one?”

“Yeah, the one I hid in the jungle until the war got over.”

“Ho,” Charlie whispered. “What you did? Took it home?”

“I left it there. Mama said she could be accused of stealing and get fired.”

Charlie pressed his lips tight, nodding. “She’s right, but … you lef’ it there?”

“Had to.”

He shook his head.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s how I feel too.”

We started digging again.

“You know the boy’s daddy had a cousin was in the navy?”

“Mr. Wilson?”

Charlie nodded. “Was on the
Tennessee.
Officer.”

I looked down at my shovel. The
Tennessee
was one of
the ships that went down in Pearl Harbor. “I hadn’t heard that,” I said.

“Mr. Wilson is a private man.”

“How’d you find out?”

Charlie hesitated, then took up his shovel. “Ne’mind. We dig.”

“What, Charlie? Tell me.”

Charlie sighed, as if sorry he’d brought this up. “Couple weeks ago Mr. Wilson came over to talk to Mr. Davis about you folks.”

“Us? Why?”

“He like know if he should keep you on his property. I was there with Mr. Davis. That’s when Mr. Wilson told about the cousin.”

“What did Mr. Davis say about us?”

“What you think? He said, Absolutely, no reason not to keep you there.”

“How come you kept this quiet? I mean … you could have told us.”

“I told your mama.”

“But why not me, too?”

“Your mama no like you worry, that’s all. No problem. Mr. Wilson not going do anything. Everything is fine now.”

I grimaced. “Fine as a car crash.”

Charlie put his hand on my shoulder. “No worry, okay?”

I nodded.

We dug.

And dug and dug.

But I couldn’t get Mr. Wilson out of my mind.

Awhile later, he drove up and parked in the garage. He
and Keet got out and glanced our way, then went into the house.

A few minutes later Keet came out with the new bull-whip from his closet. He stood out on the grass where we could see him but didn’t look our way.

Charlie kept digging.

“What’s he doing?” I whispered.

“Just being a boy.”

Whap!

Keet cracked the bullwhip. He must have been practicing; made that thing pop nice and clean. “Yeah, well, he’s a troublemaker boy, then.”

Charlie chuckled. “He jus’ need something he don’t have.”

“What he needs is a pop in the nose.”

“What he need … the father act like the boy not even his own son. You notice that?”

I thought a moment.

Whap!
Keet looped up the whip, snapped it again.
Pop!

“Well, I haven’t seen them do anything together in a long time, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean. That’s why the boy do stupid things. Don’t matter what, just so long as the daddy notice.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t make much sense, Charlie.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It does, you think about it.”

Whap! Wop!

I tried to ignore Keet and his whip, jamming my shovel into the dark, damp dirt. “So,” I said, “if he cracks that whip perfect in front of his dad, then his dad will say, Good, Keet, nice job—you sure know how to crack a whip.”

“That’s what the boy wants.”

“Huh.”

“Only … the daddy ain’t going say nothing.”

I nodded. Maybe Charlie was right. All I ever saw Mr. Wilson do with Keet was yell at him. Keet was always lurking around by himself. The only friend he had around our place was Jake, and Keet blew that friendship when he messed it up with Billy. Now Keet had no friends at all around here. Almost made me feel sorry for him. Sorry? I stabbed my shovel into the dirt. Not even close.

“My nephews were asking about you couple days ago,” Charlie said.

“Yeah?”

“They wanted to know when you going need them for pull up that boat.”

“Right now it’s not going anywhere.”

Ka-wop!

Charlie glanced up, then back at the pit. “That might change soon, I hear.”

“You hear? From who?”

“You know Joji-san is very proud of you.”

“Me? Why?”

“What you doing, using your head, trying for get your daddy’s boat up off the bottom of the canal. If you do it or not, you trying. Joji respects that. Me too.”

Grampa was talking about me? I frowned, but inside I felt as puffed up as a champion racing pigeon. “Yeah, well … thanks, Charlie, but—my inner-tube idea didn’t work. Not enough tubes. But we have one more idea, thanks to the Davises.”

Charlie grinned. “I heard about that, too. The pontoons.”

“News flying like bullets these days,” I said, starting to dig again. “That’s not good, because if Mr. Wilson finds out, then that’s the end. He’ll fire Mama, for sure, and kick us off his land. Keet knows what I’m doing, but he hasn’t told his dad yet, for some reason. But he could, and probably will.”

I glanced toward the house. Keet was gone, the yard peaceful once again. Good riddance.

Charlie jammed the shovel into the dirt and sat back on the edge of the pit, now knee-deep. “Seems to me Mr. Wilson knows already.”

“You think so? Why?”

“That boy not one to skip making trouble whenever he got the chance, ah?”

I thought about that. “Then you think Mr. Wilson doesn’t care about it?”

Charlie shook his head. “No, I think he don’t believe you can do it.”

He wagged his eyebrows.

I wagged mine back, smiling.

I woke in a sweat.

I’d been dreaming of that bullwhip wrapping around my neck, and guns, and bombers and Keet Wilson dressed up as a U.S. Army general with his muddy boot on my throat.

I sat up and rubbed a hand over my face, my heart racing. Across the room Grampa Joji slept, his breathing raspy. Slowly, I relaxed. But it was hard to go back to sleep.

Even though we hadn’t been attacked again for months, fear in Honolulu invaded every crack and crevice. We were all alone in one of the most remote places in the world. Who would come to help us? It would take weeks for ships to reach us. Deep inside, that thought spooked me. At night I dreamed of waking up to the sting of a Japanese bayonet poking into my neck.

For a while Japan controlled the Pacific. In February of
last year, the U.S. came face to face with them in the Java Sea. Mr. Ramos said it was probably the greatest naval battle since 1916, when the British fought the Germans in the North Sea. In the Java Sea we, and our allies—the Australians, the British, and the Dutch—lost five cruisers, thirteen destroyers, an aircraft carrier, an oiler, and who knew how many men.

Japan’s navy was barely scratched.

Back then, Japan was using those South Pacific islands as stepping-stones, coming closer and closer to Hawaii. We were the last step before mainland USA.

But in June last year at Midway Island we broke Japan’s back, as Mr. Ramos put it. If we’d lost that battle, we would all have been Japanese subjects right now.

Still, the war raged on. Men were dying in Europe and the Pacific.

And I still had terrible nightmares.

***

Later that afternoon, after Charlie and I had stopped working on the Wilsons’ bomb shelter, I went out to the chicken coops with Kimi and the dogs. When Grampa had come home from the prison camp, Kimi lost her chore of tending the chickens, which to her was a sad thing. She liked the chickens, for some reason I didn’t understand. They were crotchety and snippy, like Grampa. I liked pigeons a lot better, smart and clean. But now the pigeon lofts were empty.

“Maybe Ojii-chan will give you one of these chickens, Kimi,” I said. “You could start your own egg business.”

Kimi brightened. Knowing how Grampa loved Kimi, she might even get two or three out of him.

“I think he’d do it,” I added. “You’re big now, and he knows you did a good job while he was away. Right?”

Kimi nodded. “I did it just like he would.”

“I know, and he knows that too. Mama told him.”

“She did?”

“Yup. She’s really proud of you.”

“Got any eggs?” someone said.

We turned. Charlie came out of the jungle. He beamed at her. They were two of a kind, both serious about their work, both quiet and uncomplaining.

I said, “You didn’t get enough digging today and want to do more?”

“Only if you like.”

“Thanks, Charlie. You’re the best. But I had enough already. Any news?”

“News hard to get these days,” he said. He scooped Kimi off the ground and spun her around, lifted her high and set her down on his shoulders.

Kimi grabbed his head, just above his eyes.

“Hard to get?” I said.

“Police took my radio.”

“Oh … yeah,” I said, wondering why I’d never even considered that Charlie might lose his Black Zenith radio, which had shortwave, like Mr. Wilson’s. “That’s too bad. But why’d they take yours? You’re not Japanese.”

“They know I friends with Joji-san.”

“Jeese, scary how much they know.”

“I guess it’s their job to know, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Anyways,” Charlie went on, “before he left this morning, Mr. Davis said to bring you over sometime around three o’clock, which is now.”

“Over where?”

“Davis house. I think they got something they want you to see.”

“Let’s go, then.”

“Go tell your mama where you going, and tell her we got Kimi, too. No make her worry, ah?”

“She’s working at the Wilsons’.”

“Leave a note, then.”

“Right.”

***

The Davises’ perfect lawn rolled out before us as we broke out of the jungle, Kimi riding high on Charlie’s shoulders. The sun-warmed grass, thick and fat-bladed, felt like a soft sand beach under my bare feet.

Billy, Jake, and Mr. Davis were over by the garage, Mr. Davis giving orders and Billy and Jake struggling to move something very heavy down a ramp from a trailer hitched to Mr. Davis’s car.

“There you are,” Mr. Davis said, seeing us. “Hi, Kimi.”

Kimi smiled, shy around Mr. Davis.

Billy raised his chin, hey.

Mr. Davis put his hand on my shoulder and nodded toward the trailer. “Your pontoons … two of them. We borrowed them for you.”

“Pontoons!” I whooped. “Yes!” I punched Billy’s arm, then Jake’s. I couldn’t help it. I started to punch Mr. Davis, too, but he backed off with his hands up, laughing.

“ Thank you, Mr. Davis,” I said. “I … I …”

“You’re more than welcome, Tomi, more than welcome.”