Strawberry Yellow (7 page)

Mas didn’t indicate a yes or no, but he knew full well what was going on. He was being run out of his birthplace, the town of Watsonville, California.

W
hen he was a boy, Jimi Jabami almost drowned. He went to Monterey to watch the abalone hunters. Wearing large bulky helmets connected to air tubes, the divers disappeared into the deep waters for what seemed like forever. Then, water streaming from their metal heads, they emerged, their woven baskets fat with abalone. Jimi had touched an abalone shell before. Ugly and crusty on the outside, the shell, shaped like a small baseball mitt, held a secret inside: turquoise and green shimmers of light. He wanted to touch an abalone again.

In the rocky tide pools of Point Lobos, Jimi saw his father and another bare-chested man, a strawberry sharecropper, wrestle with an octopus, black ink running down their tanned hands and arms and dripping onto their white, taut stomachs.

Jimi, however, was not as captivated by the slippery, ever-moving legs of the octopus as he was by the sea. He imagined himself like the abalone hunters, walking on the ocean floor, collecting an endless supply of treasures.

So he dove in.

First, the coldness was shocking—Jimi first felt that his heart might have stopped for a second. And instead of seeing the riches of abalone on the bottom of the ocean, he only saw a fog of murky green brownness. The sea water stung his eyes and he cried. When he started crying, bitter water entered his throat, and then when he swallowed, he couldn’t breathe. Jimi
fought against the water fog, and the fog was winning.

Then he felt arms, slender but as strong as poplar trunks, wrap around his limp body and scoop him out of the water. It was his father, Goro, who later told his friends, the strawberry sharcroppers, “I was not going to let this one die.”

It was well known in Watsonville the curse that had befallen the Jabami household. Some said it resulted from the strange union of Goro, literally “Fifth Son,” with his wife, Itsuko, “Fifth Child.” To have this coincidence was apparently not serendipitous, because the Jabamis lost four girls in childbirth. Two of them before Jimi was born and two of them afterward.

Surprisingly, it had been his father, not his mother, who cried when the youngest daughter died when Jimi was five.

After it happened, Goro went into a local pool hall on Main Street, just across from the river. His friends said he kept repeating that it had been all his fault. That it had been
bachi
, a punishment for something he’d done in the past. Soaked in sake, he returned to his house—to his wife, now with an empty womb, and to his son.

It had been Itsuko who held young Jimi close, ignoring her husband’s tears. Her forehead and hairline were wet, as if she’d stepped into a hot, humid downpour. The bedroom smelled strange—on the one hand, antiseptic; on the other, like old
shikko
inadvertently sprayed outside a toilet bowl.

“You,” she said to Jimi, “are like Momo-Taro.” She spoke of the mysterious boy who had appeared from a giant peach that rolled down a river—a popular Japanese fairy tale. The Peach Boy became the surrogate son to an aging couple with no children. “Only you are our Ichigo-Taro.” At the mention
of the nickname, even Jimi’s crying father sported a sweet faint smile.
Ichigo
Boy. The boy of the strawberries.

Mas couldn’t sleep in his new room in the motel. It was the same layout as the first, only the reverse. He had his suitcase back; apparently the thief had used cloth gloves, so there were no fingerprints. Mas didn’t notice anything missing, except when he popped out his dentures that night to brush his gums—no toothbrush.

“Sonafugun,” he murmured. That young Cecilia or the desk clerk must have dropped it when they were transporting the suitcase.

Uttsuru, uttsuru
—he kept waking every hour, imagining someone shattering his windows, shards flying by his head. As he turned his body, the thin sheets fell off the bed. When he finally got up at daybreak, he was sweating and sticking to the plastic-covered mattress.

The first order of business: Once it was a decent hour, go to Minnie’s house and tell her that he would be leaving for Los Angeles. Today. He was being kicked out of town by another Arai. Although he didn’t like his younger cousin’s threats, or at least perceived threats, they were still a good excuse to take off.

After wolfing down coffee and a breakfast burrito at a nearby fast-food restaurant, he headed for Minnie’s. When he arrived, he felt his stomach lurch, and it wasn’t from the morning meal. It was the large, familiar truck—Billy’s—in the driveway, while another sedan was parked in front of
the house. Shug’s son was unpredictable and prickly—Mas didn’t know which Billy would appear today.

He rang the doorbell, and an unexpected figure appeared in the doorway. A white man with white hair and a white beard. Mas was so startled that he craned his head to check if he had the right house number.

The man laughed, a giant elf. “You looking for Minnie Arai’s house, you got it.”

“Minnie home?”

Who was this
hakujin
man? Should Mas be calling the police?

“Evelyn took her to the post office. I’m Linus, a friend of the family. I used to work with Shug at Sugarberry. And you are?”

Mas cleared his throat. “Mas. Mas Arai.”

“Of course,” Linus said, extending his doughy hand. Before Mas could prevent it, Linus grasped hold of his hand and was pumping it for all it was worth. “Shug’s second cousin. Yes, I’ve heard so much about you.”

Mas was confused. It wasn’t like Shug and he had kept in touch much during all these years. “Come in, come in. Minnie will be coming home soon.”

There were more vases of flowers throughout the home—a few fresh as a daisy, others limp and brown.

On the table were stacks of envelopes, white and pastel colored. Mas knew what they were: cards that held
koden
, funeral money. And sure enough, a stack of checks and $50 bills sat beside it.

“Minnie’s doing all that funeral work. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. Something about putting books of stamps in
each thank-you card. A beautiful tradition, I must say.”

“Billy?”

“Oh, yes, Billy’s resting. He’s had a hard time of it, for sure. First his father and now Laila. Shocking. And now the police with all their questions. Minnie’s worried about him, and I told her that I’d stay while she was running her errands.” Linus then smiled at Mas, as if he were a lovesick teenager. There was something
okashii
, funny peculiar, about this one.

“Anyway, since you’re here, maybe I’ll be going. You’ll keep your eye on Billy, yes?”

Before Mas could protest, Linus headed for the door. He then made an abrupt stop and smiled again before leaving. Mas returned the smile with a slight frown.

Why did Billy need babysitting? He was a grown man. Maybe his whole life he was viewed as a
botchan
, a mama’s boy with a silver spoon. Perhaps that’s why he had abandoned his wife for a young woman with golden hair. Maybe whatever he saw, he felt he could have, free of any consequences. And now, not only did the
botchan
have to pay the price, but so did everyone else around him.

Mas heard a key turning a lock—Minnie and Evelyn, home from the post office.

“Mas, I’m so glad you’re here,” Minnie said. “You met Linus, I suppose. I didn’t see his car; he already left?”

Minnie didn’t wait for Mas to respond. “He’s been such a godsend during this time. So has Oily and, of course, Evelyn here. Linus is a longtime friend of Shug. They worked together at Sugarberry. He’s a scientist, too.”

“I’zu here to tell you I goin’,” Mas finally announced.

“To where? Back to L.A.? No, no, you can’t go.”

“That police lady, your niece, talksu to me yesterday. She don’t want me around. Some
dorobo
break into my motel room.”

“Oh my God. That’s terrible,” Minnie said.

Evelyn put down her package and went to Mas’s side. “Sit down, Mas. Did you get hurt?”

Mas, who usually got irritated by such attention, surprisingly felt comforted by the two women fawning over him. Minnie rushed over to the kitchen to get him a glass of water.

As best as he could, he recounted what happened to him the day before, especially the encounter with Lieutenant Robin.

“Don’t mind her. Her bark is worse than her bite,” Evelyn said.

“Actually she’s a big softie,” said Minnie. “She’s just protecting me and my grandkids. And Billy, too. We’re the only family she has. After her father died, her mother took off. Married another man and started a new family.”

“That’s why she’s never gotten married herself,” Evelyn added. “Works too much.”

“Evelyn, hush. I’m sure Mas doesn’t need to know that. Anyway, I’ll talk to her. Tell her that I’ve asked you to stay.”

This conversation wasn’t going in the direction that Mas wanted. He actually agreed with Lt. Robin, that the best plan of action would be for him to return to Altadena. But the two women wouldn’t hear of it.

“Beside, Mas, Minnie got you a job.”

Mas felt his mouth go slack, loosening his dentures.

“Don’t worry. It’s just piecemeal, nothing permanent. In the packing shed at Sugarberry.”

“You know, so you can spy over there. Be James Bond in the strawberry fields.” Evelyn pulled at her shoe-polish black hair and Mas came to the realization that she was wearing a wig.

“You have to stay, Mas,” Minnie said. “Or do you have something to go back to in L.A.?”

“If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?” Ats asked. The six of them from the Stem House—Shug, Ats, Evelyn, Oily, Minnie, and Mas—had escaped to Point Lobos during an uncharacteristically warm summer Sunday in Watsonville. It was 1949. All of them except for Evelyn worked six days a week at the apple dehydrating plant, and they were taking a well-deserved break.

It was often Ats who started off conversations with her fanciful questions.

Oily was lying on his back. “Paris. The guys stationed there said French women have the best legs.”

All the girls groaned.

“Well, I’d like to go see the geysers at Yellowstone. I hear it’s pretty fantastic,” Evelyn contributed.

“New York City for me,” said Minnie.

“I would go to Egypt and see the pyramids.” Ats’s ambitious answer surprised them all, and they remained quiet for a moment.

“Yes, the pyramids,” Shug agreed.

Ats then turned to Mas. “How about you, Mas?”

Mas never knew how to answer such questions. For him
to travel on a boat for three weeks to San Francisco with only boys his same age or younger had been a huge adventure. He couldn’t imagine any more overseas adventures in his lifetime.

“C’mon, Mas, come up with an answer.” Evelyn pulled at his shoulder, causing Mas to grimace. Evelyn was constantly touching him, punching his arm, playing with his shirt. He didn’t know if this was the American way of getting a man’s attention; if it was, it was a wonder that anyone was getting married at all in this country.

Mas didn’t want to be coupled. Not this time in his life, before he was twenty. He didn’t want a woman to tell him how to dress, what kind of work he should be looking for. He didn’t want to be trapped in a tiny sedan with a box of
onigiri
, rice balls wrapped in seaweed, driving up a winding road to see the geysers at Yellowstone.