Southland (32 page)
There were two beds in the room, both with guard rails. Everything on the near side was heavy and dark—wooden dresser, velvet chair, pine-green duvet. The far side, near the window, was minimalist and neat, all the furnishings in black and white or light wood.
“I hate this shit,” Althea said, flinging her arm as if throwing a frisbee. She had rolled up in front of the window, which faced a small courtyard, and was pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from under her mattress. “My son Luther bought it for me. He sold all my old furniture and our house when I went into the hospital last year.”
“I’m sorry,” Lanier said. “How long have you been here?”
“Three years,” Althea answered. “Feels like thirty. Being around all these people make
anyone
feel old. And the staff!” She cranked the window open, lit her cigarette, puffed, and blew the smoke out through the crack. “They just as bad as the patients. Spend the day looking at the clock, you know, and thinking about their boyfriends.” She paused and took a long drag of her cigarette. “They treat us like we’re babies. You’re not even supposed to smoke. I wouldn’t be able to if my grandson Marcus didn’t sneak me my cigarettes. But he just went to jail last week to start a six-month sentence, and this here’s my final pack.”
Jackie did not have a thing to say; she stood self-consciously beside Lanier, who had taken the only chair. On the other side of him, on the white dresser, stood several framed photographs; Althea saw him glancing at them and said, “Go ahead, take a look.”
Jackie took this as an invitation for her to look as well. She and Lanier leaned over the dresser. One of pictures showed a much younger Althea in a plain white wedding dress, smiling widely next to her handsome and dazed-looking husband. Another one showed three young men, all sporting tight striped shirts and large afros; Althea informed them that they were her sons. Then there was a picture of an even younger Althea, with her arm thrown over the shoulder of a girl Jackie recognized as Alma. She looked the same as she had in the bowling-alley picture, but wider-eyed, more girl-like. Finally, there was a picture of Alma and her husband, sandwiching two young boys. Alma was much darker than her slightly overweight husband, with the children ranging somewhere in between. Cory, who looked about five or six, was staring off at something over the photographer’s shoulder. Curtis, who must have been fourteen or fifteen, stood proudly, hands behind his back, looking straight into the camera and smiling. He was a bit lighter-skinned than his brother, but still darker than Bruce—dignified and handsome. And he was wiry and slight—like Alma, but also, perhaps, like Frank. She tried to see signs of her grandfather in him—the set of his mouth looked familiar and there was something around his eyes. But she couldn’t tell for sure. All she knew was that even at this age he was self-possessed and confident; he looked more grown-up than he was. Then she thought, this is the boy that Grandpa loved, whatever the connection. She glanced at Lanier and saw that he was biting his lip. “That’s my cousin,” he said softly. “That’s my man.”
Althea had finished her cigarette now, and she cleared her throat to get their attention. “Listen, why exactly you here?”
Lanier moved forward in his chair. “A couple of things. See, the truth is, we’re trying to build a case against the man who murdered Curtis and the other boys. But it’s all gotten kind of personal, and Curtis was like a brother to me, and, well, I just want to know some more about him.”
Althea turned her wheelchair toward the window and squinted; Jackie couldn’t tell if she was upset or just trying to see more clearly. “There ain’t a word bad enough to describe the man who did that to them,” she said, “and I hope you do catch him and punish him good. But as for the rest of it, honey, I don’t know. Don’t know what good it would do. It ain’t gonna bring Curtis back.”
“I know,” replied Lanier. “But it would make me feel better. He was born up here, right? How did Alma meet my uncle, anyway? And what was he like?”
Althea continued to look out the window. “Your uncle,” she began, “was a catch. Least he was back then, anyway. He was strong and he was faithful and he had a good job. Didn’t smoke or drink at all—that started later.”
Lanier nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“Alma came up to live with me at the end of the summer. She was eighteen years old. Bruce was a man then, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and he’d been living here in Oakland for a couple of years. Every day, on her lunch break, she’d go across the street to this diner, and Bruce would be there—he was having coffee before he started his shift at the Corson factory. They started sitting together, and pretty soon Alma was going there after work, too, to meet Bruce for his dinner break. They met and got married in just a couple of months. I was glad for her—she got real lucky.”
“Why did Alma come to live with you?” asked Lanier.
Althea leaned forward, as if she spotted something moving outside. “She needed work. And a change of scenery. And the companies up here was hiring.”
“Why did you come up here?” Jackie asked.
Now Althea leaned back again and laughed. “Our daddy always took the car to a gas station over on Imperial Highway. One day, he brought home this skinny man said his car engine blew up. He was a sailor just back from the war and he was on his way home to Oakland. Anyway, he asked did I want to come with him, so I did. Stayed with him for forty-four years, till he passed back in ’88.”
Jackie smiled at this story, but Lanier didn’t seem to hear it. “Mrs. Dickson,” he started gently, “was work the only reason that your sister left L.A.?”
She turned to look at him now, and her eyebrows were raised. “What you trying to ask, young man?”
He bent forward, hands spread against his knees. “I found a wedding announcement that said that Bruce and Alma got married on November 17, 1946. And Curtis was born in March of ’47.”
“So she was pregnant when she married him. So what?”
He looked away for a moment, and then back. “You said that Alma came up to live with you at the end of the summer. But if Curtis was born the next March, then she must have gotten pregnant in June or July.”
Althea looked away and pulled another cigarette out of the pack. She lit it and kept her eyes on the burning tip.
“Do you have any idea,” asked Lanier, “who the father was?”
She took a long, slow drag before she answered. “It don’t matter. Bruce raised him. And I don’t think Curtis ever knew.”
Lanier looked at Jackie, who was still standing by the bed. “Mrs. Dickson,” he said gently, “it
does
matter. It matters to me, and it matters to Jackie here. Her grandfather was Frank Sakai.”
At the mention of this name, Althea swung her head around.
“Listen,” Lanier continued, “I’m sorry. I know this is a shock to you. But the more we look into this, the more we hear that Alma and Frank knew each other, and that they were…close.” He paused, but Althea didn’t say anything. “We’re just not sure how
long
they knew each other, or if—”
“I know all about that,” the old woman snapped. She puffed on her cigarette, not bothering, now, to blow the smoke out the window. Jackie and Lanier remained silent. When Althea spoke again, her voice sounded tired. “I knew Frank, you know. He was in my class at Dorsey. But I don’t think he knew Alma then—she was still in junior high. He sure noticed her later, though—after the war.” She paused and waved away the gathering smoke. “He was working at the store already, and I guess she would stop in there on her way home from work. I wasn’t around for most of this ’cos I came up north with Raymond—but it didn’t take long for our parents to figure out what was happening. They forbid her to see him, but that didn’t work. I don’t know how long they were together. But sometime in the summer of ’46, my mother realized Alma was pregnant and she sent her up here to live with Raymond and me.”
“Why didn’t she stay in L.A.?” Jackie asked.
The old woman gave her a look that made her feel naïve. “A lot of reasons that I can think of.”
Lanier nodded at Jackie. “And then she married Bruce, and Frank married your grandmother.”
“But they knew each other after,” Jackie said. “And Curtis started working in the store.”
Althea nodded. “What happened between the two of them, I don’t exactly know. Alma never talked to me about it. But I do know she didn’t say anything to Bruce or Curtis. Curtis never knew Bruce wasn’t his daddy, and Bruce never found out who the real daddy was. Resented it, though. And resented Curtis, too. Thought he saw the father hiding behind every tree.” She crushed out her cigarette. “I saw Frank again at Alma’s funeral. He seemed real sad.”
Jackie nodded—remembering, suddenly, Frank’s unexplained trip to San Francisco, the postcard he had sent her. “I had no idea about any of this,” she said. “I don’t think anyone in my family did.”
“That surprise you?”
Jackie realized, with a start, that the old woman didn’t like her grandfather. What was she thinking? Why was she upset? Did she think that Frank took advantage of Alma? “Mrs. Dickson, I think my grandfather really loved your sister. I mean, you said yourself that he came up here for the funeral.”
Althea swung around and looked at her. “Love ain’t something you
feel
, young lady. Love is something you
do
. And what’d Frank Sakai ever do for my sister?”
“A lot,” Jackie said.
“He did,” Lanier concurred.
Althea raised her eyebrows. “Hmph.”
Jackie and Lanier were silent as they drove back to San Francisco. Jackie had expected to feel exhilarated after talking to Althea; instead, she just felt sad. And so when they reached the hotel, she said she wanted to take a nap and retreated into her room. She had so many questions, so many things to mull over. Did Curtis ever know that Frank was his father? Did Jackie’s grandmother have any idea? Had Frank and Alma continued their affair after she’d moved back to L.A.? And this she kept coming back to, over and over: What had it been like for Frank to watch another man raise his son? These were not the kind of issues she wanted to talk about with Lanier. So she said goodbye to him, showered, and then, still wrapped in her towel, lay flat on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
Lanier, for his part, didn’t want to be alone. He started walking—through the Mission, through the Castro, all the way up to Haight Street and over to Golden Gate Park. None of the people he saw left a mark on him, though; all he could think about was Curtis. Curtis, his cousin, who was also not his cousin. Curtis, who was, however, Jackie Ishida’s uncle. Curtis, his first and best example of what a man was supposed to be; his debt; his reason for doing all he did. Curtis, whose real father—unlike his own—was there right in front of him, but also just outside of his reach.
H
E HAD no right to grieve. She wasn’t his wife, hadn’t even been his lover since before all his children were born. But when he heard of her passing, it was like a piece of shrapnel pierced his heart. Then there was an emptying. He felt nothing, vacated, the insides of him absent. And the world around him lost all texture and meaning, so that the thunk of the phone shocked him when he dropped it on the counter; the people in the street, when he stumbled outside, opened their mouths and spoke words he couldn’t hear.
It was Victor who had called and told him. Victor had been the one Alma wrote to when she finally left her husband, and she still sent him a Christmas card every year, which was how Frank had heard she’d moved back to Oakland. And Victor had found out about her death from her sister Althea, who’d called from Oakland and was arranging the funeral. Victor did not feel up to another funeral, and he hadn’t left L.A. in twenty years, but he suspected enough about Alma and his friend to know that Frank might want to make the trip. Ovarian cancer, Althea had said. She hadn’t even known until near the end that her sister was sick.
Victor’s call had come at eleven a.m., while Mary was out at the store. When she got back an hour later, she called out that she was home. No answer. She didn’t worry, because Frank often took walks on Saturday mornings or went to visit with a neighbor, although he usually told her first or left a note. After putting away the groceries, she began to prepare lunch. They always had Japanese food on Saturday, and today’s fare was simple—broiled salmon, steamed rice,
tsukemono
. She had just turned the rice down to a simmer when she heard her husband come into the house and then enter the kitchen. She greeted him and he said hello. He seemed in a dark mood, but Mary didn’t worry—he would tell her what was wrong when he was ready. As he sat at the table, she turned her back to him, cutting open the sealed package of
takuan
. She told him of the new saleslady at the Japanese market, a serious young girl who reminded her of their Rose. Slowly, carefully, she squeezed out a few inches of the pickled yellow
takuan
. She laid it out on the cutting board, positioned her knife a centimeter from the end, and pressed down.
“I have to go out of town,” said Frank, suddenly, and his voice sounded strangely heavy.
Mary paused, then repositioned her knife and cut another piece. “Oh?”
“A funeral,” Frank said. “Up in Oakland.”
Her shoulders tightened and lifted, but he couldn’t tell if it was from nervousness, anger, or working the knife. She cut another piece. “Did she die?”
Frank started, but then discovered he wasn’t really surprised. It would be disrespectful, to both women, to give a long explanation. Things had been so much easier with Mary since Alma moved away; their marriage regained the calm, affectionate equilibrium it had had in the first few years. He knew how disappointing their life together had been, how he had lived elsewhere from her the years he was running the store. When Curtis was in the neighborhood, and Alma too, Frank had felt too guilty about what he wasn’t giving his wife to do anything but avoid her—after their first few years in the Mesa, she’d become as invisible to him as she had ever been in Little Tokyo. But after the store, the move to Gardena, he came back to her again, trying to fulfill the promise he’d made to her all those years ago, when he’d taken her out of her parents’ restaurant. The two of them would sit out on the porch drinking iced tea together, talking, or reading in easy silence. And he hated to disturb that calmness now, but he had to, there wasn’t a choice. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be back in a couple of days.”
Now, at the church, wearing his one gray suit, Frank wondered why he had come. He’d flown in the night before, the first plane he’d taken in forty years, and he still felt as he had in the air—the sense of weightlessness, the total disconnection. He sat alone in a pew near the back of the church, recognizing no one but Althea. The casket, a simple cream-colored design, was closed, which Frank was thankful for. He didn’t want to see Alma less than totally alive. The other mourners, well-dressed people of different ages and colors, were friends and admirers and coworkers from Alma’s life outside of him.
They
all had more right to grieve, he thought, than he did. But he loved her, he’d loved her almost all of his life, and the terrible thing about failing someone is that you keep on failing them, no matter how you try to make up for it. They should have been together—he, Alma, and Curtis. And it hurt when she left the first time, came up here to Oakland without telling him. And it hurt every time he saw her through the years, when she came by to pick up Curtis from the store. And it hurt when she moved up here again, after she left Bruce, because he knew it was for good this time. But despite how he felt, he stayed, he took it, choosing not to run as he had all those years ago by rushing to enlist after his father and sister died. Because the world was always a full and sweet place while he knew that Alma was in it, and her absence now was bigger than all the people in his life put together. He ached for her the way his finger ached for its tip, the way his foot ached for its toes, feeling them there, knowing they would never come back. The way he’d felt, in his heart, only one other time, when in the space of a year he lost his mother and his son.
His son. How happy he’d been when Alma brought him back to L.A. He’d heard, through the grapevine, why she left, but he had no idea where she had gone. And the pain of seeing her with another man now, or with her friends at the Holiday Bowl, was bearable only because of Curtis. The boy had wandered into the store on his own—although Frank had run into him with his mother a few times on the street—and Frank had sent him home with a coloring book and a brand-new box of crayons. The letter Curtis sent back let him know that Alma was thankful, but cautious; he kept it in his office until the day he shut down. She kept her distance, going out of her way to acknowledge his family; to comment on the beauty of his daughters. But she got easier, gradually, seeing how the boy and the man took to each other, and asking Frank, finally—although she didn’t have to; he’d have done it regardless—to hire him to work in the store. And as Curtis got older, was finishing high school; as Frank started picturing him sitting in the office, the owner, Frank wanted Alma to tell their son the truth. It was the second disagreement they’d ever had. And then he was dead, and it was too late, and Frank couldn’t stand to be in the store. And the money he got for selling it he didn’t know what to do with. He tried to give it to Alma, who refused it; she only accepted half the cost of the funeral. But it belonged to them, to Curtis and Alma, and if
they
couldn’t take it or didn’t want to have it, he couldn’t give it to anyone else, or deposit it, so he simply put it away. In the back of the closet where he kept all his pain. Boxed-up and hidden from sight.
After the words of the service he did not hear, the mourners rose, touched each other, spoke in hushed whispers, and slowly began to leave. Frank drove over to San Francisco, where he went to a bar in Pacific Heights and drank until it closed. He was absent of thought again, trying to fill the emptiness with whiskey and beer. It had been years since he’d drunk like this, probably since the war, and he was surprised by how well his stubborn body resisted the poison he fed it. But finally the alcohol engulfed him and the bar, the whole world, tipped and spun. He paid for his last whiskey and wandered outside. The cool air immediately took four drinks off his night, and his vision was clear enough to read the street signs. He walked. He walked several miles, stopping twice to vomit, until he found himself at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was late enough now that there was only a scattering of cars and pedestrians. He walked out onto the bridge, his jacket flapping in the strong ocean wind. His hair flew into his face but he didn’t bother to brush it away; he just kept going, mostly by feel, the railing checking his stumbling body. Halfway out, he stopped and faced the bay. The painted red metal was cold beneath his hands and he leaned into it, the hard curve against his stomach. He heard the ocean and peered down at it; the water looked dark and welcoming. With the wind still whipping his jacket and hair, he screamed and screamed and screamed. The wind ripped the sounds away from him, but he felt the violence in his throat. Sobbing, he threw one leg over the railing and tried to hoist himself up. But then, through his hair and tear-blurred eyes, he caught sight of the city. The lights were spread out before him like diamonds in velvet. In one of those buildings lay the body of the woman he loved better than anything in this world or the next one. But in other lighted rooms, in another city, were his wife, his daughters, his grandchild. If he got up on that railing and offered himself to the air, they would be without a husband, a father, a grandfather. Awkwardly, half regretfully, he brought his leg back down. One family was enough to betray.
