Summer of the Big Bachi (22 page)

 

 

“Inside there,” Mas said, forcing Mari’s hand and shovel in the sand. They scooped quickly until the tip of the shovel hit a clunk, and then Mas revealed a sandy striped clam, its siphon extended a couple of inches. Mas placed the clam against a metal measure attached to the worn wooden handle, jiggled it back and forth, and shook his head. “Too small,” he said, his lit cigarette tipping out of the side of his mouth.

 

 

“Not that small.” Mari’s thumb could barely fit in the space between the clamshell and the metal measure.

 

 

“Too small.” Mas bit into his cigarette and chucked the clam out toward the diluted gray sun. “No good, you know.” He looked at Mari. “Can’t take it too soon.”

 

 

One summer day in 1972, he saw the nursery on the corner of a large intersection in Ventura. The metal sign read BUD’S TREES AND PLANTS, next to a symbol of a fish. There were rows of yellow and purple pansies in plastic squares, African daisies, and clematis vines tied to wooden stakes. Arranged in the back were ficus trees and succulents. A few bonsai trees were placed by the cash register.

 

 

A
hakujin
man who could have been as young as fifty or as old as seventy turned from arranging packages of seeds. “Well, hello.”

 

 

“Hallo,” said Mas.

 

 

“What can I help you with?”

 

 

“Lookin’.”

 

 

“Well, look away. That’s what I’m here for. My name’s Bud Ryan.” The man had a soft chin, which dipped down toward his chest. “You’re a professional man, I bet.”

 

 

“Excuse?”

 

 

“A man of the vine, I call them. As precious as the good book itself.”

 

 

Mas checked some buckets of cymbidium.

 

 

“You know our Maker was a gardener, and I consider it one of the holiest professions around. He knows when to prune, how to produce good fruit. But the thing is, He does it through us.”

 

 

Mas grunted. The cymbidium was healthy, with taut stems and waxy flowers.

 

 

“I would’ve been a gardener myself, but I don’t have the patience for it. I leave it for all of you to contend with. I just sell the stuff. But can’t complain; would have been in business for twenty-five years next year. Too bad we’re not going to be open for that.”

 

 

Mas glanced at the row of gardening tools. “You close?”

 

 

“Well, I’ll be outta here. What can I say, affairs of the heart. Lost the wife two years ago. Thirty years we were together. But the Lord provided. Met this one at a church retreat for singles. But yes, Shirley had to be from Florida. Just couldn’t bear to leave her kids, even though they’re all grown. So here I am, lookin’ around for potential buyers.”

 

 

For Mas, this was his window of opportunity. He didn’t understand Mr. Bud Ryan’s talk about Maker and producing good fruit, but he could smell “potential.”

 

 

He located a Motel 6 down the street and went back and forth from Altadena to Ventura at different times of the week, monitoring the flow of customers, their ages, making note of their cars. At night he drove in different areas of town, stopping at each new construction site and logging it on a piece of paper he kept in his wallet.

 

 

Once he decided for sure, he told Chizuko. He thought she would be happy about the lower crime rate, the clean air. The schools were even better, he figured.

 

 

“Mari’s education. Just think. Lots betta ova there,” he said, crumpling the bedsheets in his palms. It was five o’clock in the morning, the best time for talking about the future.

 

 

“Don’t include her. You just thinking about yourself. Never mind how we feel.
Kattenahito.
”

 

 

“But this means future. This place just gettin’ worse and worse. Just look around.” Last week someone had painted obscenities on every mailbox on the east side of the street. Dogs ran wild. Naked toddlers splashed in the dirty water in the gutters. A few homes had even been boarded up by the government.

 

 

“Drag me around from place to place. No relatives. I have to make friends all over again.”

 

 

“My father, mother, not here when I came the second time.”

 

 

“But you hated them. That’s different. It was your choice. It’s always about you.” Chizuko, slight bean-shaped marks by the sides of her nose, sank her head in her pillow. “And don’t think you’re going to use my parents’ money to pay for any of it.”

 

 

Later at breakfast, Mari clattered her spoon against the half-empty cereal bowl. A marshmallow green clover floated in the thin milk. “We’re not going away, are we, Dad? My friends just started a new club. They voted me secretary. I’ve always wanted to be secretary.”

 

 

Mas even went by Wishbone’s place to discuss the pros and cons.

 

 

Wishbone leaned against a lawn mower motor he was repairing. “Think it’s good. There’s fresh land up there, not like L.A. More opportunity.”

 

 

“But the family—”

 

 

“So they’re upset. They’re women. They’re supposed to be upset. If you had sons, it would be a whole different story. They’d shut up, and so would the wife. A lot easier that way, I tell you.”

 

 

Mas picked up a loose spring from the counter and pressed it in and out like a mini-accordion.

 

 

“They’ll get over it. But hell, don’t back down. If you do, they’re always going to have the upper hand, here on out. You better not wait any longer. You know what they say: ‘Snooze, you lose.’ ”

 

 

Mas nodded, soaking the information in.

 

 

“By the way,” Wishbone added, as if he just remembered something, “we got a new card player over here. He says that he knows you.”

 

 

Mas just grunted in reply. He had little use for either friends or acquaintances now. His mind was focused entirely on his business deal and the opinions in his household. If he had just paid more attention, everything would have been different. He had been too distracted to tell Wishbone that the deal was confidential, that no one else, especially new gamblers, should be told of Bud’s Trees and Plants on the corner of PCH and Second.

 

 

Mas collected the cash he had hidden in his tool chest and went to Ventura to seal the deal. A CLOSED sign hung from the front window, but Mr. Bud Ryan was in, packing circles of hoses in large boxes.

 

 

Mas rapped on the glass window and waited for Mr. Ryan to open the dead bolt. “What’s goin’ on?” Mas asked.

 

 

“Mas, been trying to call you. Had to make a quick sale. Wanted to wait for you to get back to me, but it has been two weeks. Shirley’s been calling. She can have any guy she wants. Can’t let her have second thoughts.”

 

 

“Who buy?” I’ll offer him a better deal, thought Mas. “I can give you more.”

 

 

“No, Mas, it’s all signed, sealed, and notarized. It’s official.” Mr. Ryan went into a drawer and lifted a document stapled onto light-blue paper.

 

 

Mas felt his knees buckle a little and the tips of fingers tremble. This was his way to make good. A deal like this came your way maybe once in a lifetime. “But you knowsu I wanna buy—”

 

 

“Mas, this guy had the cash. In fact, he’s here, in the back.” Mr. Ryan gestured toward a stack of boxes down a narrow hall, and Mas noticed the shadow of a slight man with a hooked nose.

 

 

“Hallo, Mas,” the man said.

 

 

Mas felt the wind whoosh out of his gut. He knew the voice— older, thinner, yet still hard as nails.

 

 

“Welcome to my nursery,” said the man who called himself Joji Haneda. “Now get the hell out.”

 

 

 

Mas could’ve blamed Wishbone for not keeping his big mouth shut, or yelled at Mr. Ryan for being ruled by a woman and not honoring a promise between two men. He could have berated Chizuko and Mari for their sniveling, which made him delay a decision on a good deal. But when you came right down to it, it had everything to do with
bachi
and Joji Haneda.

 

 

 

Mas had not been back to that intersection for more than twenty-five years. Now he stood on the gravel parking lot, facing the large metal sign, haneda’s nursery.

 

 

Riki had remodeled and added a new greenhouse and showroom of propane-powered mowers. Mas walked to the building and pressed his face against the glass. There were lines of gardening products: pruning knives, pesticides, parrot-beak shears, saws, leather gloves, sprinkler heads, and hose attachments. Large bags of fertilizer were stacked against the wall. Mr. Bud Ryan’s old cash register had been replaced by a computer.

 

 

It didn’t surprise Mas that Riki had so dramatically improved the nursery. He had been good with money from the beginning. Even during the war, he had figured out, through paying some servants a few yen coins, where a closed-down sake manufacturer had stored its old inventory. Soon Riki had his own inventory in his backyard, which he sold to soldiers passing through Hiroshima. Mas never asked any questions, but took those few sips while playing
hana
cards with Riki. Just that had been enough to seal his mouth shut.

 

 

Mas edged toward the front of the nursery. A statue of a white good luck cat, its paw beckoning customers to come in, had been placed at the foot of the glass door. Just above it was a handwritten sign, CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS. Letters, bunched together with a rubber band, were stuffed through the mail slot in the glass door. What the hell. Mas pulled out the letters and glanced at the return addresses— banks, gas company, pizza delivery companies. Bingo— the last one read OXNARD CITY HOSPITAL.

 

 

 

Mas got back on the freeway and headed south. Lines of eucalyptus trees shielded freshly plowed fields and tiny farmhouses. Bushes along the freeway swayed from the wind, and the fog brought white mist over the skyline.

 

 

Mas steered Haruo’s Honda into a parking lot and followed the arrow for visitors. He parked between two white lines and stopped the engine. Leaning against the Honda, Mas drew out a new package of Marlboros, tore open the plastic wrap, and slid out a cigarette.

 

 

He looked at the three-story building. The hospital must have been built recently, over the past five years. There were baby palms planted outside the building and boxwood shrubs in grass islands in the parking lot.

 

 

A Mexican woman parked her car in the employee parking area on the other side of Haruo’s Honda. She was dressed in a white uniform, with a light-blue sweatshirt that opened in the front, and carried a plastic bottle topped with a jumbo straw, the ones people purchased at gas station mini-marts. She was heavy; her uniform top bulged. She didn’t seem happy about going to work, almost indifferent.