House of the Red Fish (24 page)

Grampa hummed, tunelessly, now thinking or dreaming. Remembering.

I jumped when he suddenly spoke.

“This is your grandson, Okiko-chan,” he said in Japanese. He spoke clearly and precisely so I could understand, knowing that my Japanese was as poor as his English.

He let a moment go by.

This is your grandson.

“You can be proud of him.”

I nearly stopped breathing.
Never
had I ever heard Ojii-chan utter even a hint of praise—for anyone.

Ojii-chan closed his eyes and began humming
“Kimi-gayo”
again, rocking slowly, the incense taking him back to the land of our ancestors, where honor was everything and shame was worse than death.

You can be proud of him.

I got up early again the next morning.

And so did Grampa. I thought he was getting ready to come along to boss us around and was about to complain. But after what he said about me last night what could I do? Anyway, it would be funny to see him crank out orders to Ben or Calvin, or Rico, even. They would probably jump at whatever he said, respecting their elders as they did.

It would be a relief to have him making the decisions, not me.

I went outside, holding the screen door open for Grampa. But he didn’t come out, so I eased the door shut and creaked down the steps and stood waiting in the dark. I looked back at the house and saw the silhouette of Ojii-chan watching me through the screen.

Moments later, Billy, Ben, and Calvin showed up. A coil of rope hung over Ben’s shoulder, looking like enough to tie up five boats.

“You got out of going to church?” I asked Billy.

“Just this once, Mom said.”

I nodded. “Go twice next week.”

Billy chuckled, then added, “We have a problem.”

“What?”

“I can’t get any gas for the compressor.”

I winced. “That’s not good.”

We stood silent a moment, thinking.

“Never mind,” I said. “We can figure that out later. We gotta go check on Rico.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about him,” Billy said.

I turned back to see if Grampa would follow or say something or start giving orders or what. But he stood motionless behind the screen, like a statue. Spooky. He turned and faded back into the darkness of the house.

“Let’s get out of here before he follows us,” I said.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Billy said.

“You remember when he used to wash his Japanese flag in the stream?”

Billy snorted. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Guy like that could do anything, and most of it will be weird.”

“You’re right. And speaking of weird, listen to this—you know Sanji’s truck that my dad bought?”

“What about it?”

“He gave it to Jake.”

“What?”

“Jake was speechless for the first time in his life. Dad tossed him the keys and said, ‘Keep it, you earned it,’ and Jake said, ‘What’d I do?’ and Dad said, ‘You became a man in my eyes when you stood up to that ignorant fool who tried to bribe you, and a man like you needs wheels, so you just keep those keys, son.’ “

“Wow,” I said.

“Jake said he’d drive us down to give the two hundred dollars to Sanji’s wife.”

“Amazing.”

“Sure is.”

“Funny how Jake used to be friends with Keet,” I said. “And now Keet’s a punk and Jake’s almost a hero.”

“Hold on, son, because now you’ve gone too far.”

“Whatchoo punks talking about?” Ben said.

“Nothing much,” Billy said.

“Strange ducks, you two.”

“Prob’ly,” I said.

When we got down to the quiet neighborhood by the canal, the sun was burning up everything in its path. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. Mose showed up at the same time we did, carrying a bag. “Breakfast for the guard dog,” he said.

We headed for the trees.

“Wait a minute,” Ben said, as if remembering something. He pulled a screwdriver and a long screw out of his pocket and held them up.

“Hold this rope,” he said, jerking it off his shoulder. I staggered under its weight. “Jeese.”

Ben grinned, then jogged across the street to the house
where the nice lady had given us lemonade. He knelt down on one knee at the broken gate. Took about two minutes to fix the hinge, and the gate was as good as new. Ben tested its swing. Perfect.

He ran back. “Okay, let’s go.”

He took the rope off my aching shoulder.

When we broke out onto the field of dirt we saw Rico sitting with his knees up, facing away from us, looking at the canal. The pontoons lay right where we’d left them, and the wagon and the compressor, which I knew was as big a relief to Billy as it was to me, because I sure wouldn’t want to tell Mr. Davis or Fumi that we’d lost any of it.

Mose whistled at Rico, letting him know we were there.

Rico didn’t turn around.

“He got mud in his ears, or what?” Mose said.

We headed toward him. “Hey, Rico!”

Still no response.

We surrounded him. Ben dropped the rope.

Rico kept his steady gaze on the water in the canal. His eyes were puffed up and bloodshot.

Mose set the bag down and squatted in front of Rico. “What happened?”

Rico blinked, seeming to notice Mose for the first time. “Oh, you came back.”

“Rico … you okay?”

Something bad had happened. I felt sick.

Rico gazed up at us, his eyes so puffy they were lost
in his cheeks. Yellow bruises splotched his neck and arms.

“Rico,” Mose said again, nudging his cousin’s knee gently.

“They came nighttime,” Rico said. “I don’t know when. I was asleep. It was real dark.”

“Who, Rico?” Mose said. “Those same punks?”

“They didn’t expect to see me here. They were surprised. Two guys. One was the punk live by Tomi. I know because after they jumped on me and kick me and hit me with their sticks, that punk got up in my face real close and said, ‘You don’t give this up right now you going have one war on your hands.’ “

“War?” Calvin said.

“How’s my face, Mose? Look bad?”

“Naah … you just as ugly as before.”

“Rico, Rico,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

Rico tried to laugh but winced. “S’okay.”

“Is anything broken?” Billy said.

“Naah. But maybe something broke in the face I wen’ smash. I don’t know whose, but somebody not feeling good today.”

Mose stood and helped Rico up. “Come. I take you home, get you cleaned up.”

“No, I going stay. I’m fine. I seen worse.”

“Yeah?” Mose said. “When?”

Rico didn’t answer but turned and waved toward the pontoons. “They wen’ cut um,” he said. “They stab the pontoons. One stab each. No good, now.”

“What!” Billy said.

We dropped down on our hands and knees, me, Billy, and Calvin.

“Here’s one,” Billy said.

It wasn’t that big, couple of inches, the width of a pocketknife blade. And it didn’t go all the way through and puncture the other side of the deflated pontoon. The canvas-rubber material was strong, made to resist puncture wounds. Still, it was a hole, and it would keep us from inflating the pontoon.

Calvin found a similar hole in the other pontoon, then one each in the long cylindrical tubes that went with them.

“ Tst,” Billy muttered.

My whole body sank back into itself, as if I were shrinking up. I felt lost, finished, dead and gone. “It’s over,” I whispered. “That’s it.”

The canal’s brown water moved steadily toward the sea. There was nothing more to do but drag the stabbed pontoons home and face what trouble was waiting for us.

“It ain’t the end of the world, brah,” Mose said, squatting down and looping an arm over my shoulder.

I couldn’t talk.

“We can fix um,” Rico said, his voice drifting off.

“With what?” I said. “Bubble gum?”

Silence.

I’m sorry, Papa.

Calvin smacked his fist into his other hand. “I going hunting for white meat. This we should have done before.”

“No, Calvin,” I said. “We can’t. Even now, we can’t.”

Calvin pursed his lips. “Only for you, I going hold back. Only for you.” He punched his palm again. “Man, I like poke out that punk’s eyeballs.”

Papa, I’m sorry.

Mose tapped my arm with the back of his hand.

I turned to look back and saw Grampa Joji wobbling across the dirt field on his creaky old bike. Hanging from the handlebars were two pairs of bamboo goggles and, I could hardly believe, a gas can.

“Unnh,” he grunted, riding up and stepping off the bike. He handed me the can. “For the machine.”

I took the gas can and stared at it. Two gallons of gasoline for the compressor! “Where’d you get this, Ojii-chan?”

“Ne’mind,” he said. He slipped the goggles off the handlebars and tossed them to Mose. We’d forgotten to bring them.

“Thank you, Ojii-chan,” I said. “You’ve … you’ve done all you can … but it’s too late. It’s over. Look.”

I showed him the stab wounds in the pontoons.

Grampa sat down on his heels and ran his rugged fingers over them, inspecting them closely.

Just when I had all the pieces—pontoons, air compressor, fuel, rope, and muscle—just when we had it all …

Grampa stood and headed over to the case the pontoons had been packed in and held up something none of us had noticed—a patch kit.

“Hah!” Billy said.

“Ojii-chan!” I ran over and snapped it out of his hand. “You’re a genius. How come we didn’t see this?”

Grampa grunted. “Army not going have this raf’s without some way to fix holes, nah?”

“You’re right, Ojii-chan, of course.”

“Unnh.”

“Okay, okay,” I said kneeling over the patch kit, so excited my fingers trembled. Grampa stood back as everyone else crowded in, bending over with hands on their knees, looking at his miraculous discovery.

“What do we have?” I said. “Rubber cement, valve caps, metal roller, scissors, some kind of scratcher brush, and some patch fabric.” I looked up. “Anybody know how to do this?”

“Not me,” Ben said. Calvin shook his head, no.

“Are there any instructions?” Billy said.

“Not that I see.”

“Confonnit,” Grampa spat, shouldering his way between Ben and Calvin, a Chihuahua shoving bulls.

I got out of his way.

“J’like you fix bike tire,” he said. “Look.”

Mose and Rico grinned, enjoying Grampa Joji’s
crankiness, which they knew so well. His ancient hands went to work, calm and steady. He found the first hole and, with the scratchy brush, roughened up the surface around it.

“Gimme one rag,” he said.

We checked around us. Nothing. “Here, Grampa,” I said, pulling off my shirt. “Use this.”

He took a corner of the shirt, opened the gas can, and dabbed a few drops of gas out onto it. With the gas-soaked shirt he washed the roughened area around the hole. When it was clean, he stood. “Go—you got something else for do?”

I tapped Billy, feeling the smallest relief that somebody other than me was doing the bossing. “Let’s figure out how we might use that rope to lash the pontoons to the boat.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said.

What we had rolled out on the dirt were two twenty-five-foot floats. PNEUMATIC FLOATS was painted on them in white. When they were blown up they’d look like long life rafts about seven feet wide.

“So, Tomi,” Calvin said. “We going use all of this, or just the long tubes for bring that boat up?”

I squinted at him. I hadn’t thought that far yet. “Well …”

“I’ve been thinking we could do it with just the tubes,” Billy said. “One on each side of the hull.”

Sounded good to me. “If it fails, we add the big ones.”

Everyone nodded, yeah-yeah.

Billy uncoiled the rope. “Rico, take one end and walk away from me. Let’s see how much we have to work with.”

Rico took the end of the rope and hobbled away. I felt so guilty about him taking that beating. He looked terrible, but
he didn’t seem to care. Those weren’t bruises on his face, they were Purple Hearts.

Billy rubbed his chin, studying the rope. “Should be plenty. We loop it around one end of one tube, run the rope under the stern like a sling, loop it around a tube on the other side, then sling it under the bow, back and forth, securing them together.”