Under the Blood-Red Sun (16 page)

“You want to know why I didn’t come see you for so long?” Billy said.

“Why?”

“Because of your grampa’s flag. Because I lied about it.” Billy sat in the dirt. “It’s okay now, I guess.… I thought about it and decided that even if it happened again I’d still lie.… I know your grampa was only afraid, and not trying to signal or anything.…”

I picked up a clod of dirt and broke it up. What could I say?

Billy went on. “I hope your dad’s okay.”

“Me too.”

We were quiet for a while. Then I said, “You want to go throw a ball around?”

“You still owe me fifteen cents, you punk.”

“I can pay you in eggs.”

“Forget it. I’ll wait.”

“So … what? You want to get your glove?”

Billy gave me his shy smile. “Yeah.”

•   •   •

Billy got his glove and the ball that Mose and Rico had given him, and we started over toward my house with Red stumbling along behind.

“Hey, you got your ID card yet?” I asked. A teacher from Lincoln School had come to our house and signed me and Mama and Grampa up. She took our fingerprints and gave us cards that she said we had to carry everywhere we went. Since Kimi was only five, she didn’t need one.

“Yeah,” Billy said. “Kind of spooky, isn’t it?”

“Spooky?”

“The cards … don’t you know what they’re for?”

“To identify who you are?”

“Yeah, but the main reason is to identify your body if there’s another attack and you get killed.”

•   •   •

When we got to diamond grass, Red was ready for a nap. Billy took him over and put him in the shade under one of the lofts.

I ran home and got my mitt. When I saw the fading ink of Keet’s name written on it, I punched the glove that used to be his.

“I heard you had to kill the birds yourself,” Billy said when I got back.

“Me and Grampa … we cut their throats.”

Billy nodded toward the two birds in the loft. “What about those two?”

“They were out at the time. They were lucky.”

“Can you keep them?”

“I don’t know. But who’s going to ask?”

“Right.”

“Come on,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about the birds. I just wanted to get back to how it used to be. “Let’s see if you can still throw a curveball.”

“Shhh … are you kidding? I could make it circle your head and come back to me, if I wanted to.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Thwack!
The ball hit my mitt like a cannon shot. Still squatting, I tossed it back. Watching Billy catch it, just like it used to be, almost choked me up.

“Hey,” Billy said, winding up.

“What?”

Thwack!

“Your grampa really
wasn’t
cheering those planes on, was he? I mean with his flag?”

I stood, and studied the ball. “He hates them,” I said. “They disgraced him. They disgraced a lot of people by doing what they did.” I threw the ball back, hard.

Billy caught it and shook his hand out of his glove, and rubbed it. “Jeese, keep your hat on, already.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I squatted down and waited for another pitch.

Billy bent forward, the ball in his hand behind his back.

“Thanks for telling me how you felt about the flag,” I said.

“What flag? Quit talking, confonnit, and give me a sign.”

I flashed two fingers. Billy nodded and whipped me a perfect curve.

Whock!

He smirked. “Want to see the one that goes around your head?”

Shikata Ga Nai

In the next days
a voice started to nag at me, whispering words inside my mind. “Go now,” it kept saying. “Go find Papa before it’s too late. Go to the police.” I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

One morning, without saying anything to worry Mama, I went behind the house and got Grampa’s bicycle out. I was just about to hop on it when Mose and Rico came walking up the trail from the street.

“Hey,” Rico said with a big smile. Seeing them like that, so unexpectedly, made my throat burn, like when you’re so sad about something you can’t even cry. I felt like I hadn’t seen Mose and Rico in over a year.

“How’zit,” I managed to say, the burning stone stuck in my throat.

Mose and Rico both punched my arm, one after the other. “How you doing, cock-a-roach?” Rico said.

“Okay … How about you guys?”

“Still alive.”

“Yeah, still alive,” Mose added.

“Can you believe the Japanese went bomb us?” Rico said.

I shook my head and averted my eyes. I felt disgraced. Like Grampa.

Mose looked at me and asked, hesitantly, “They treating you okay, Tomi? … They come arrest your father … and your grandfather?”

“Not Grampa, just my father … They shot him in the leg and sunk his boat. And—and they killed his friend, Sanji … the planes did, U.S. planes. They shot at them on the boat.…”

“Aw, shee … that’s bad,” Mose said. “That’s real bad.”

We were quiet a moment, then Rico said, “Why they did that?”

“They weren’t flying a U.S. flag.”

“That’s all?” Rico shook his head.

“Down by us,” Mose said, “they got all the old Japanee guys and took ’um to Immigration.… They figure they naturally for Japan … but what they worried about? Those old guys no can do nothing.”

“So what you folks going do?” Rico asked.

“I don’t know. Grampa said to wait. But I can’t.… I was just going down to the police station to see if I could find my father.”

For a moment we stood there with nothing to say.

“You guys want to come?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rico said. “Sure, man. We got one cousin who works there.”

“True,” Mose added. “Some kind of desk job, though. Not a police.”

There was another silent moment. Then I said, “You should see the looks we get from the people now. They think we’re spies or something.”

Rico shook his head. “That’s crazy, man.”

But Mose told the truth. “Still, nobody knows nothing … so they scared … just like we all scared.”

Mose and Rico didn’t have bikes, so the three of us started walking down to the police station, which was about three or four miles away. The streets were just like before the bombs—pretty clean, and people still walking around. Lots of people walking. Who had gasoline anymore? The army took it all and rationed a little bit to everyone else. Charlie said Mr. Davis could only get ten gallons a month. How we were going to get kerosene for our lamp and our stove was going to be a real problem soon.

Not everything on the streets was like before. In some places we passed streetlights shot out by blackout wardens, and burned or busted-up buildings that had been bombed, or hit by antiaircraft fire. At those places we stopped to look around before going on.

I was shocked. I hadn’t seen anything but the grocery store since the day the planes came. But if it shocked Mose and Rico they were keeping it hidden.

“You heard about how they going give everyone a gas mask?” Rico said.

“Gas mask?”

“Yeah, they going give ’um to everyone.… Look stupit, those things.”

“I guess they think they going come back and drop gas bombs,” Mose added. “If I hear planes coming again, I going run for my place …
then
I put ’um on, but not before that.”

“Hey,” Rico said, “you heard about that car was driving to work up by your place? One plane came down with machine guns blasting and killed the guys inside?”

“Where by my place?”

“Judd Street, I think.”

I remembered the plane that had scared Kimi … when Billy was there and we hit the dirt. Was that the plane Rico was talking about? If it was … spooky, boy.

“You know the day after the planes bombed Pearl Harbor?” I said. “That day, an army guy and two police came up to our house. They took our clothesline wire, and they made me and Grampa kill all my father’s pigeons.”

The two of them stopped and stared at me.

“Every one of them. It made me feel sick.”

“But how come the pigeons?”

Because of Keet Wilson, I wanted to say. “Somebody told them we were sending messages on them.”

“Messages?” Rico said, his eyes narrow. “Who were you sending the messages to?”

“Shuddup,” Mose said, shoving Rico. “This is not a joke.”

Rico looked confused. I didn’t think he meant it as a joke.

“How come the army think like that?” Mose went on.
“They think you going send one message that says ‘Those ships are here, by my house, come bomb us’? Stupit, man …”

“Just like the army, yeah?” Rico said.

“My grampa, he likes Japan … that’s his homeland … but he didn’t like what they did,” I said. “We buried all our Japan things right after the army guy left.…” I paused, thinking of poor Grampa—so lost. “He’s kind of confused now,” I added, almost in a whisper.

“Lot of people confused,” Mose said.

We started walking again. Rico said, “My father says the stupit army would be even more stupit if they didn’t arrest all those old guys who still believe in Japan. Nobody knows if there was somebody who helped those planes, or what.”

We walked awhile in silence. I had to admit that what Rico said made sense. How could anyone tell for sure? Maybe somebody really
did
send them a message, or even did something worse.

We passed a park where four men with no shirts on were digging a long trench for people to jump into if the bombing started up again. Two men swung picks and two shoveled dirt into pyramids along the edge. It reminded me of fresh graves up at the cemetery.

Rico finally broke the silence, the clinking sound of the picks fading away behind us. “My father said if the Japanee come back now, they going take us. They already knocked out almost all the navy ships and half the planes.”

“It’s gonna be bad, all right,” Mose added. “What can we do now? Throw rocks?”

“That’s right,” Rico said. “I ain’t letting those Japs take me, man.” Rico looked at me, kind of embarrassed. “Sorry … everybody saying
Japs
now.”

I looked down. “That’s okay.”

We walked another block. The clinking sound was gone.

“Anyway,” I finally said. “If those Japs come back, they going to have to face us three ugly Rats, even if we only have stones.”

Rico put his arm over my shoulder, and we walked the rest of the way bragging to each other about how we were going to bust their brains and tie them up and march them over to the stupit army and become heroes.

•   •   •

“We’re too busy to fool around with you boys,” the policeman said when we got to the police station. “Go on, now … get out of here.”

“But I just want to know where he is, that’s all … then we’ll go.… Just tell me where he is.”

The policeman frowned at me, but you could tell he was okay.

“How do I know where he is? The FBI took those men, not us.”

“But
where did
they take them?”

“Shee,” he said. “You pretty pushy.… I don’t
know
where.… Sand Island is one place, but they have others too.”

“Can you ask someone?”

“Listen …” He took a deep breath and shook his
head. “Okay, okay. I’ll see what I can find out.… What’s his name?”

“Nakaji, Taro.”

“Wait here.”

Me and Mose and Rico leaned against the wall by the door, trying to stay out of the way. I never saw so many police in one place in my whole life.

Another policeman came up to us. His shiny badge stood out like a fastball coming at your head. “How you boys doing?” he asked. “Somebody arrest you?”

Rico straightened up and shook his head.

The policeman laughed. “You boys should be out digging bomb shelters. They need volunteers everywhere.”

“We going there next,” Rico said, looking nervous.

“Good,” the man said. “But be careful, yeah?”

“We will,” Mose said, nodding his head vigorously.

The first policeman came back. “My best guess is Sand Island … but even if that’s where he is, you can’t see him, so don’t waste your time. When they’re ready to let you know something, they will.”

I nodded. “Thanks, officer.”

“That’s okay.… Hey, it’s tough on all of us right now.” He studied us a moment, then said, “Go on, get out of here.”

•   •   •

Later that day, after Mose and Rico had gone home, Mama wanted me to go looking for Grampa. She hadn’t seen him all afternoon. I whistled for Lucky to come with me and she came trotting out from under the house with
her tail wagging. That dog—she always made me feel good. Her puppies followed a little ways, then stopped and sat down. Lucky glanced back at them.

“Come on, girl,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Let’s go find Grampa.”

The first place we went to was the chicken coop, where Grampa’s prize Rhode Island Reds pecked around in the dirt and dozed in their beds of yellow straw. No Grampa.

Lucky and I followed the small trail that led into the jungle beyond the chickens. The weeds were so high they came up over my shoulders. Lucky walked ahead, sometimes disappearing, then coming back a little later.

Pretty soon we came to the stream. The water was cold and clear. I cooled my feet and Lucky lapped some of it up.