Under the Blood-Red Sun Read online

  I eased up and rubbed my neck, then inched over to get the card. The MP took it and shined the blue light on it. Quickly, then shut it off.

  All black. No moon.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Nothing … I was just swimming, that’s all.”

  “At night? Don’t you know there’s a curfew?”

  “I fell asleep.” I squinted up at him. Too dark to see his face.

  “Get up and come with me.”

  The soldier backed away. I crawled out after him, shivering. “Don’t be stupid, kid … this curfew business is dead serious.” He paused a moment, the stream quietly lapping past, sounding less swollen, less stirred up. The MP seemed to be thinking about what to do with me. “Count yourself lucky this time,” he finally said. “But I’ll tell you this—if I ever catch you here again, you’re not getting off so easy.… You got that?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Where do you live?”

  I pointed up toward the mountains.

  “How far?”

  “Three or four miles, I guess.”

  “You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”

  “Yessir.”

  The soldier studied me, his face faintly visible. My back itched. Salt mixed with boat fuel and river mud. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.… I don’t want anyone shooting a kid.”

  I followed him out to the road. The dark blur of an army jeep was parked there, half of it up on the sidewalk. Another MP sat in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette. “What you got there, Mike?”

  “Jap frogman.”

  The soldier in the jeep snickered, then looked me over. The tip of his cigarette glowed, cupped inside his palm.

  “We’re driving him home.”

  The other soldier got the jeep going. The man with the rifle nodded for me to get in the back, then he got in the front. We drove away fast. I put my sweatshirt on and gripped the bottom of the backseat, shivering from the cold and trying to keep from rolling out when we sped around the corner and headed on up toward the mountains. The headlights were painted out, so you could barely see the road.

  I showed them how to get there. But when we got to my street they wouldn’t let me out by the trail that led to my house. Instead they drove up the Wilsons’ driveway and swung around in front of the house. The place was dark. Blacked out. I started to climb out, the jeep idling like an old sampan. I prayed Mr. Wilson wouldn’t hear it.

  “You don’t live here, boy,” the driver said.

  “Next door,” I said softly. “My mother works for the people who live in this house.… She’s their maid.…”

  The driver smirked and shook his head.

  “Go on, get home,” the other man said. I jumped out and watched them drive away, the small pinholes of red from the painted-over taillights vanishing as they turned out onto the road. The sound of the engine quickly died away.

  Silence. Dark. So dark I couldn’t even tell where the trees ended and the sky started.

  The Wilsons’ front door creaked open and someone stepped out onto the porch. I dropped down. “Who’s out there?”

  Mr. Wilson.

  “You’d better speak up.… I’ve got a gun.” The floorboards creaked as he moved around. I found a stone and tossed it over to the other side of the driveway.

  Bam! The sound of Mr. Wilson’s .45 shattered the still night air. I took off, running toward the trees.

  Bam!

  A bullet thwacked through the branches above me.

  Bam! Bam!

  • • •

  Mama stood up when I walked into the kitchen. Kimi, who’d been on her lap, ran over and hugged my legs. Mama smiled at her, and Kimi let go and ran back. Mama put her arm around Kimi and looked back at me, her face hardening. “Where you been?” she demanded.

  Grampa drilled me with his eyes, his scowl hard and angry.

  Kimi buried her face in Mama’s apron and started whimpering. She must have known something was wrong. Grampa told her to hush.

  “I—I saw Papa.”

  Mama let out a gasp and moved over to the table. Slowly she sat down. She turned away from me.

  I moved over next to her and kneeled down on one knee. Mama turned back and touched my damp shirt. “You smell like oil.… Tell me where you been.” I waited a moment before answering, looking at the floor. “Sand Island,” I finally said.

  No one moved, or even seemed to breathe … even Kimi.

  “He’s okay …” I told Mama, speaking quietly, shamefully. “He said to tell you not to worry.”

  Suddenly Grampa slapped his hands on the table. Kimi jumped and leaned over to bury her head in Mama’s shoulder. “Usotsuki! You liar!” Grampa said, burning me with fiery eyes. “You no can get there.… You no can do!” He stood and leaned toward me, his hands still on the table.

  “No, Grampa, I’m not lying,” I said, standing up. “I saw him. I swam across the harbor and saw him—”

  “Tomi, hush!” Mama said.

  Grampa sat back down. Tears came to Mama’s eyes and she quickly wiped them away.

  “I know what I did was wrong,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gone there—”

  “Oh, Tomi,” Mama said, holding Kimi close, rocking her. The candle on the table flickered in her wet eyes. A wave of dread ran through me. How could I have been so thoughtless? How could I have thought only of myself? “I’m sorry, Mama.… I’m sorry.”

  Mama tried to smile, but couldn’t.

  Grampa went out the back, banging the door open and letting it slap shut behind him.

  I waited a few moments in the deep silence that followed, then went to my room and put some dry clothes on. I lay down on my bed and stared into the darkness.

  Mama’s shadowy shape appeared in the door.

  She put a plate of musubi on the bed. “You must be hungry,” she said. I took one and almost ate it in one bite.

  “We not angry, Tomi.… We were afraid … afraid for you. I look in ojii-chan eye and I see how he is so worried about Papa, just like me. And then you were gone too.”

  Mama sat on the bed next to me and put her hands in her lap. “Doh sureba iino? What would we do with Papa gone, and you gone, and Grampa with the stroke? We need you, Tomi. We all need to be together, to help each other.”

  I sat up and put my arm around Mama. “I had to know if Papa was … was alive.… I just had to know, Mama. I promise I won’t do anything like that again.” I leaned my head against her shoulder.

  Mama patted my head. “Daijobo-yo, Tomikazu. It’s all right.”

  We sat that way a moment longer, then Mama said, “You very, very brave, but we need you to be brave here.”

  After another moment of silence, Mama pushed me back and stood up to leave. “You sleep now.”

  I lay back down, my head spinning. Brave? Mama had a husband who had been shot and arrested, a son who didn’t think, and who had almost gotten himself killed, an old man who couldn’t work anymore, and a five-year-old who was afraid just to go outside. Who was left to keep us going?

  And Mama was calling me brave.

  What a joke.

  • • •

  On New Year’s Day Billy showed up in my yard with his baseball mitt. It was sunny and clear. No clouds, no wind. “Come on,” he said. “Get your stuff. We have a game to play with the Kaka’ako Boys.… Remember?”

  “Are you kidding? Baseball? … Now?”

  “If we ever needed baseball, it’s right now.… Come on, let’s go.”

  I didn’t know if he was joking, or what. All I could think about was Sand Island and Papa’s sagging eyes. I guess I needed a joke, but who could laugh.

  I shook my head and started up the steps to go get my glove. I stopped, then turned back. “Come inside,” I said.

  Billy hesitated. Then he shrugged and said, “Sure,” and followed me in.

  I stood back so he could see my room. “This is it.”

  Billy looked around at my be
d, at Grampa’s mat and the orange crates. “I like the shelves,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  Billy smiled and said, “Let’s go.” What had I been so worried about all those years?

  I knew Mama didn’t want me to go anywhere, especially after Sand Island. But she trusted me when I told her I’d never try anything like that again. “You come home before nighttime” was all she said.

  For once, some things seemed to be returning to something like normal—though anyone could tell the old familiar way would never come back. But right now I didn’t want to think about that. “What about Rico and the other guys?” I asked.

  “I called Mose, and he talked to some of the others. And Rico went down to talk to the Kaka’ako Boys. He said it took some doing to get those guys together. Some of them had to get jobs and can’t play anymore after this game … because … you know … their fathers got arrested, and things like that.”

  Arrested.

  First we walked over to Mose’s house, where he and Rico were waiting with their mitts and two bats. “Let’s go,” Rico said as we walked up to them. He tossed one of the bats to Billy. We picked up Rodney Lasko, Randy Chock, Maxey Matos, and Tough Boy. Then finally, Kaleo Kepo’o, our fastest base runner.

  “Hey, Tomi,” Mose said as we all walked down toward Kaka’ako. “You found your daddy yet?”

  The question startled me.

  “He’s at Sand Island, like the police said.”

  “Shee, sorry, man. But at least you know where he is, yeah?”

  “I went to see him.”

  Mose stopped and looked at me. “How? You no can go out there unless you’re army.”

  “I swam.”

  “You swam? Through the harbor?”

  “It was raining. Nobody saw me. But I saw my father, and he saw me. We couldn’t talk, but I saw him.”

  Everyone was listening now.

  Billy looked shocked. “You could’ve got killed,” he said.

  I nodded and looked down at my feet.

  “Criminy, Tomi,” Rico said. “How come you did that?”

  I shrugged.

  Mose shook his head. “You got guts, man.”

  Rico mumbled his agreement.

  As we walked down to Kaka’ako I tried to stop thinking about Sand Island. Think about baseball, I kept telling myself. But it seemed crazy to play baseball when less than a mile away Papa was limping around behind barbed wire fences.

  But being with my friends like that felt good.

  We tried to look mean, so that no one would bother us. Plenty of eyes rolled our way. Rico carried a bat across his shoulders with his arms hanging over the ends of it, making sure everyone saw his gangster scar.

  When we got to South Street, I reminded Rico that Herbie Okubo’s brother had told us to avoid those Coral Street guys. “What?” he said. “You swam to Sand Island and almost got shot, and you want to hide from those punks? Come on, man.”

  “We came for baseball,” I said, “not to fight.”

  “Wait,” Mose said. “I got an idea.”

  We followed Mose to the corner just before Coral Street. “Okay,” he said. “Tomi, you and haole boy go down the street like last time.” I looked at him like he was nuts.

  “No worry, just go.”

  “Come on, don’t fool around,” I said. “Those guys—”

  “No worry, I tell you. Billy, give me that bat. You won’t need it.”

  Hesitantly, Billy gave Mose the bat, and the two of us turned the corner and headed down the street. And there were the punks. Five of them.

  “Heyyy,” the ugly big guy said when he spotted us coming. “Look who’s back, the frickin’ haole and the haole-japanee.… Hey, where’s your frens this time?” I glanced back to see what Mose was up to.

  “Nobody back there,” the big guy said. They surrounded us. “How come you so stupit?”

  I started to say something … actually, I almost started to beg … but then they glanced up the street behind me. I looked back.

  Mose, Rico, and the Rats, their faces cold as ice, came strutting down with the two baseball bats. “Hey,” Rico said. “You punks bothering my frens again?”

  The big guy’s eyes darted around.

  Tough Boy poked his finger into the big guy’s chest.

  “Move.”

  And he did.

  Tough Boy pushed through, and the rest of us followed, giving them all deadly stink eye.

  The Kaka’ako Boys were waiting for us, lined up like the black and gold Mick Sluggers they hoped to be, tossing balls back and forth and taking practice swings. And there was the Butcher, practicing his wild pitches. Sometimes Hamamoto, the catcher, had to stand up or fall to the side to get them. I cringed when I thought of one of those speedballs coming at me, busting my head, maybe, or my knuckles.

  “Look at that babooze,” Rico said, pointing his chin toward the Butcher. “One good crack from him and you in the grave, man.”

  We strolled out toward the diamond, still puffing up like Grampa’s movie samurais. I wondered what the Kaka’ako Boys thought when they saw us, them so real-time-baseball-looking, and us looking like … Rats.

  Ichiro Fujita, their leader, and the brains, smiled and came over to talk.

  He nodded to Rico. “You ready?”

  Rico leaned on the end of the bat. “Give us five minutes to warm up, then get ready to lose.”

  Ichiro’s teeth gleamed in the sun. “You remember the Butcher, don’t you?” He turned and glanced over at the pitcher’s mound.

  “I seen him already,” Rico said. “He throw pretty fast, but no can aim, yeah?”

  Ichiro smiled bigger. “Better keep your eyes open.”

  Rico tried to smirk, but he couldn’t, because he liked Ichiro. At least, he respected him. “No worry about us.… Worry about how you going face your friends after you lose.”

  Ichiro ignored him and looked at me. “How’zit, Tomi? You folks okay?”

  I nodded. “Except they arrested my father.”

  Ichiro shook his head and looked at the ground. “Sorry, yeah.”

  “Yeah. How’s about your folks?”

  “Okay. My father works for Tuna Packers, and they don’t call that dangerous, I guess. But some of the other guys on the team not so lucky. They gotta get jobs to support the family. How ’bout you?”

  “I guess I need a job too,” I said.

  The thought hit me like a brick.

  Ichiro went back to his team grim-faced.

  “He’s okay, that guy,” Rico said. “I almost sorry we going make him look bad.”

  The Kaka’ako Boys were up first.

  I squatted down behind home plate and sent a fastball sign to Billy. The batter dug his toes into the dirt and took a couple of slow practice swings.

  As I waited for Billy to move into his pitch I noticed the five Coral Street punks, with seven new guys, settling down on the grass. Three of them had baseball bats of their own. But they weren’t there to play.

  The Kaka’ako Boys

  With two outs in the top of the third, Herbie Okubo got a hit off Billy. Herbie’s ballahead older brother showed up to watch. He sat under a tree on the third-base side.

  Billy was pitching like a champ … and so was the Butcher. He was right on target. All you saw coming at you was a white blur that popped into Hamamoto’s mitt before you could even think about it.

  Herbie’s lucky hit off Billy should have been the third out. But Herbie got just the right amount of fly on it, and Tough Boy couldn’t get out to it before it hit the ground.

  Tough Boy threw it to second, hard.

  Herbie stopped at first.

  Right after that, Ichiro Fujita came up to bat. I gave Billy the two-fingered curveball sign.

  For once I didn’t feel like razzing Ichiro at the plate. “Billy’s pretty hot” is all I said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said back, keeping his eye on Billy.

  Billy’s curve was perfect, just like a
t diamond grass.

  Ichiro swung and fouled it up.

  I ran back and caught it, and the inning was over.

  Ichiro slammed the bat into the ground.

  Billy scowled as he walked in from the mound.

  “That was a perfect curveball,” I said.

  “They got a hit.”

  “Don’t worry about it. They didn’t cash it in.”

  “Naw, I guess not.”

  The game went on with nothing happening until the top of the eighth, when the Butcher came to bat and guessed the fastball pitch that I had signaled to Billy.

  Tock!

  Right on the sweet spot. The ball sailed out past right field and into the street for a homer. The whole team came out to greet the Butcher when he came strutting across home plate. Billy was so mad he took the next three batters out, bam, bam, bam. All clean strikeouts.

  We came up in the bottom of the eighth.

  Rodney went down on a three-pitch strikeout. The Butcher looked pretty smug out there, and the Kaka’ako Boys were rubbing it in. “You play like sissies,” someone yelled. “Come on, give us a challenge.”

  Tough Boy came up to bat. He spread his feet apart and dug in, tapping the old cracked home plate with the tip of the bat.

  The Butcher’s first pitch went the way we had all been fearing … wild.

  Of all the guys the Butcher could have beaned, it was Tough Boy that he cracked on the arm. Tough Boy fell to the ground and rolled around, writhing in pain. We all stood to see if he was okay. Red with anger, he scrambled up and started walking toward the Butcher. All the Kaka’ako Boys came running in from the field, and we all ran out. Billy grabbed Tough Boy. “Forget it,” he said.

  Tough Boy shrugged him off and kept on walking toward the Butcher.

  “Hey, sorry, yeah,” the Butcher said, his hands spread apart. “It slipped.”

  It was the first time I’d heard him speak. His voice was unnaturally high, kind of like a girl’s. Spooky, almost. I think it surprised Tough Boy too.

  Tough Boy came right up to the Butcher’s face, only the Butcher’s face was a mile higher. Tough Boy glared at the Butcher, then said, “That’s okay, man … just don’t do it again.”

  The Butcher rolled into a wide, stupid-looking grin. “If I do that again, you can come punch me … free, I won’t stop you.”