Haruo was trying to purge himself from his past, but Mas needed the old Haruo for a moment at least until he could find out more about another old gambler, that one called Joji Haneda.
Mas navigated his Ford truck to the right side of the Santa Monica Freeway, toward the Arlington Exit. He didnt like to go to Haruos anymore, especially after the riots. It wasnt like anyone treated him bad, but it wasnt quite the same. It was a feeling that hung out there, like the smog. Other drivers seemed on edge, like if you went a little over the yellow line, you would pay dearly if not with your life, then at least with your car.
You too nervous, Haruo had told him, launching into the same story of a small Japanese eatery called Kikus that sold plate lunches of fried breaded pork and dollops of sticky rice. During the torching of other businesses, mostly liquor stores, the neighborhood people came out and hung makeshift signs that said Black-owned all over the barred windows. They save that business.
Yah, yah, Mas replied. He had heard it all. L.A. was always mixed up. Even here on the boulevard, next to a large church for blacks, was a sign in Spanish for a dentist named Hernandez. Inside the local grocery store, pink fish cakes would be stacked up beside white Mexican cheese, fleshy pigs feet, and chorizo sausage. But people werent like food and billboard signs. They didnt like to rub up against one another, and Mas was no exception.
Mas drove past a tiny barbershop, a clothing store with racks of discounts outside on the sidewalk, a Chinese restaurant with a police car parked along the curbside. On the corner was a gas station operated by a Korean family the son, wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, manned the pumps, while a grandma-looking woman sat inside, dispensing change through a hole in the bulletproof glass.
Mas turned and parked his truck in the driveway beside Haruos apartment. It was a two-floor duplex. Haruo lived downstairs, on the left-hand side. Occasionally, the upstairs unit would host samba parties on Saturday nights, causing the whole building to pulse like a pumping heart.
All was quiet today, aside from a shoddy lawn mower down the street. Hallo. Mas rattled the metal gated door. His back felt a bit stiff, and he was reminded of the pain he used to feel when he rolled his thirteen-pound bowling ball down Eagle Rock Lanes twenty years ago.
After a few minutes, Haruo appeared, wiping his hand on a rag. Oh, Mas. He seemed surprised. Come on out to the back.
They walked into the backyard, which was mostly full of weeds and dirt and an old metal incinerator. It was illegal to light those things up now, something about polluting the air. Now weeds encircled the contraption, and Mas noticed that a bird had started a nest at the top of the long pipe.
In the far corner of the backyard, only about five feet by five feet and practically hidden by the weeds, was Haruos pride and joy: a vegetable garden with rows of eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers.
Im growing
gobo
now. Haruo raised a tangle of long roots from a sheet of newspaper he had spread out. You want some?
What am I going to do with that?
I dunno. Make some
kimpira
.
Mas glared. The only thing Mas cooked was rice, eggs (over easy), and hot dogs. He barely knew what was involved in making
kimpira,
which looked like a batch of old brown weeds tossed together. He had seen Chizuko make it from time to time, grating the
gobo
and salting it with chili pepper.
Haruo lowered the snarl of dirt-clumped roots and sat back down in a lawn chair. You look worn out, Mas. Not sleepin too good again?
Mas sat in the other lawn chair. Im sleepin fine, he lied.
Gettin those bad dreams, huh?
No bad dreams, Mas lied again. One night of sharing a room at the Four Queens in Las Vegas, and Haruo thought that he was an expert on Mass sleeping habits. So what if I yell a couple of times in the middle of the night? Mas thought. It had to be from his daily habit of eating pickled plums before he went to bed. Or maybe at the Four Queens, it was because he hadnt had his plums. Anyway, if those dreams were so bad, hed be able to remember them, wouldnt he?
So, you busy? Haruo tried again.
Always busy.
Hmmm.
Haruo seemed to be waiting for something, but didnt have the guts to come out and say it. So, you playing the horses, Mas?
Go over Santa Anita for offtrack. But not the same watching them on TV.
Haruo nodded. Pincay not doin so hot right now.
Mas looked suspiciously over to the sweat dripping from Haruos long white hair. His fake eye drifted, while the good eye was yellow and bloodshot.
My counselor says itsu
orai,
Haruo explained. Can watch on TV. Not like I have money down.
Mas stayed quiet and pulled a piece of old skin on his callused thumb. He could hear kids on the street calling out to one another. So, you see anybody? he finally said.
Huh?
Mas felt his head grow hot. You couldnt be roundabout with Haruo. I dunno. Just wonderin if you run into anyone these days.
Who youzu talkin about, Mas?
Theres lot of people in town. Summertime.
Huh?
Just wonderin if somebody call you.
Whozu gonna call me?
Forget it. I gotta go.
Who, Mas? You talkin about Joji Haneda?
Mass chest tightened. How come you say him?
Dis guy came by the other day. Even give me a
meishi
. Haruo went back into the house and came out with a plain white business card. Mas immediately recognized the name. Shuji Nakane. Not him, Haruo clarified, turning over the card. The name David Hawthorne was scribbled on the back. Was a
hakujin
guy. This guy tole me Hanedas in North Hollywood. You know him, Mas?
Whatcha tell him?
Tole him what I could. That we used to gamble. Play cards. But that I dont do that no more. Then he started askin me about Hiroshima.
Hiroshima?
Yah, if I know him back then, stuff like that.
Whatcha tell him?
What can I tell him? Nutin. I dunno Haneda back in Hiroshima. If dis Hawthorne wanted to know that stuff, he could talk to you.
You went ahead and say that? Mas felt betrayed.
No, I dont involve you. I know you not the type of guy to talk about ole times, Mas.
Mas gripped the armrests of the lawn chair hard, so hard that the plastic began to separate from the metal.
You neva liked him, huh?
What?
You neva liked Joji. I neva knew why. Did sometin happen?
Dont even remember his face anymore. As soon as Mas had said that, he knew that it was true. It was as if Haneda had been a bad sickness and Mass memories of the symptoms had faded over time.
Well, you never liked him, Haruo repeated.
He stole that business deal. Mas frowned, trying to contain his impatience. That nursery, my idea.
Nah, I mean back then Haruo continued, and Mas felt the hairs on his neck begin to rise.
What the hell, Haruo.
Haruo straightened his back, and glared at Mas through the strands of his graying hair. I dunno . . . just sometin
okashii,
strange, I feel in the gut. I talked to Joji Haneda long time ago
What long time ago?
He tole me you close, like brothas. Then sumptin happen.
Mas felt his stomach and head churn, like a rickety old washing machine.
I dunno why you got sometin against that guy. Haruo stuffed his hands in his pockets. You know each other since you little. Thats not natural. You need to talk about it. Thats what my counselor would say
Look, youre the one need counselor, not me. Just because you make life bad with Yasuko . . . Mas paused with regret.
Haruo became quiet and returned to shaking off the dirt from the
gobo
root. You sure you dont want some? he said after a while.
Mas got up. No, no need.
After Mas got back on the Santa Monica Freeway, it was already eleven and the sun was blazing hot. Mas wiped his wet forehead with the back of his hand. What was Nakane doing with this
hakujin
man, David Hawthorne? It was one thing to have Nakane at Tanakas, but a
hakujin
in the Crenshaw district? They were either fools or fearless. And if they were without fear, it was because they had backup, plentiful either in numbers or in brute strength.
What was Joji thinking? When Mas had last seen him face-to-face, almost thirty years ago, they had come to an agreement. I stay in L.A.; you stay in Ventura, Mas told him. I knowsu nutin about you. And with that, Mas pressed down on his memories so hard that they lay thin and almost invisible. America was again his home; there was no place for Hiroshima anymore.
Mas tried not to let his mind attempt to connect Nakane with Joji and with Hawthorne. Nothing to do with me, anyhow. If Jojis in trouble, thats his business. If he falls, he can fall alone. Mas squinted his eyes and focused on what was before him this day. Work. Work always managed to remove the sting of deep thoughts, at least for a short time.
When he first started in Altadena, hed had a total of three customers all young
hakujin
couples living in small bungalows. Their lawns were tiny, rocky, and square, usually rimmed by hedges and gardenias. At first he had only a rusty pair of hedge clippers and a push mower. He would get a lift from his cousin, but dreamed of owning his own Ford, his own Custom Car. He had saved some money from his truck farming days, lost some on craps, but kept enough of a hefty sum to put down on a long-shot horse, Sweet Sister. His friends told him that he was crazy, that he should send for a wife from Japan instead. But the truck a vehicle that would free him from his cousins crowded home of wailing babies and hormone-stinky teenagers that was the ticket out on his own.
Thanks to Sweet Sister, Mas had bought the Ford, which gained him more customers so that finally he could afford his own studio apartment in Altadena and, what the hell, finally get hitched. His wife, Chizuko, sensed his devotion to the horses.
Uma, uma, uma,
she used to scream at him during their dinnertime arguments. What about us your wife and own daughter?
Mari sat in her booster chair, her silver-capped front teeth shining as she chewed a piece of liver. Like always, she remained quiet, her eyes focused on a large crack on the wall. Soon the argument would escalate; plates shattered against the wall and ceiling, soy sauce dripping over the crack like black blood.
He would escape, get into the Ford, and drive for hours. Friends could come and go disappear in a puff of black smoke wives got sick and died; children left home. But his Ford and its tough metal hide could survive accident after accident, the blazing L.A. sun, hail, gunshots, and domestic strife. Unlike the aluminum-can Japanese cars, his Ford truck was solid, reliable, and, perhaps most important, a friend.
