Under the Blood-Red Sun Read online

For a few days I actually thought Keet was okay. I could forget about the past and maybe we could even become friends again.

  And then the spying started.

  Black Zenith

  The World Series began on the first day of October, not a minute too soon. Keet was getting on my nerves.

  At first he’d started sneaking around, watching me out by the pigeons, and then, getting braver, he moved to the bushes around our house. One time, Grampa caught him nosing around the chickens and chased him away with a machete. Keet just laughed and called him a crazy old Buddhahead as he ran.

  So I was more than ready to listen to the Yankees and the Dodgers. Anyway, fifteen very-hard-to-get cents were at stake. You could buy a new baseball for that!

  I figured me and the Dodgers had a pretty good chance—Pete Reiser the slugger, Pee Wee Reese, and Mickey Owen the catcher. And Whit Wyatt, a twenty-two-game winner. Not bad.

  But the Yankees had Joe DiMaggio, ace pitcher Red Ruffing, and Joe Gordon the slugger.

  Grampa had a very good friend, an old goat with white hair named Charlie, the same Charlie who’d given Papa the opelu bait fish. Charlie was pure Hawaiian and worked for Billy’s parents as their gardener. He lived on the Davises’ place like we lived on the Wilsons’, but Charlie’s house was even smaller than ours.

  Grampa and Charlie spent a lot of their spare time together. Mostly they just sat around and talked. But sometimes Grampa managed to talk Charlie into going down to Kaka’ako with him to watch Japanese silent movies, the kind where they had a benshi, the actor-guy who would give you the dialogue. Grampa loved those movies, especially when they had samurai ones.

  Charlie was one of the nicest guys in the world. He’d never tell Grampa those movies were junk, even if he thought they were. He went along, though he probably couldn’t understand more than about ten words of Japanese.

  Anyway, Charlie had something that Grampa would have given half his chickens for—an old black Zenith radio that you could hear the police on. If Grampa loved anything, it was listening to the police talking to each other on that radio. Charlie and Grampa listened almost every night.

  Billy and I managed to talk Charlie into letting us listen to the World Series on his Zenith. Who wanted to listen to it at Billy’s house with Keet and Jake around?

  I didn’t know until we were sitting down to listen to the first game that Billy had already brainwashed Charlie over to the Yankees. In fact, Charlie couldn’t wait for the games to start. Poor Grampa just scowled. He hated American baseball, because he couldn’t understand what the radio said. Too fast. If he liked Japanese yakyu, the Japanese kind of baseball, he never said anything about it to me.

  The first three games went very well … for Billy. He was already telling me how he was going to spend my fifteen cents. Okay, so what? Brooklyn was behind two games to one, but they could come back. They still had four games to go.

  The day of the fourth game was a gray and stormy Sunday. Thunder rumbled around in the low clouds that sat heavily on the valley. Grampa had already gone over to Charlie’s to listen to the police before the game started, but I had to boil water in the backyard and help Mama wash clothes.

  Mama finally told me I was more trouble than I was worth and that I might as well get on over to Charlie’s house before I drove her crazy.

  I slipped on a sweatshirt and headed out into the trees. Lucky started to follow, but hurried back under the house when a big crack of thunder exploded in the sky.

  I took the trail to diamond grass, and checked to make sure the wind hadn’t blown off the two heavy tarps I’d put over the pigeon lofts.

  The first fat raindrop thunked down on my shoulder just as I reached the trees on the other side. Then the clouds opened up, like a crane unloading a couple thousand fish into a truck. The rain swept over the jungle in a huge wave of thundering and hissing that came from every direction. I headed into it.

  A popping sound caught my ear, a muffled echo in the dripping jungle. I stopped to listen and heard another one, then a voice, someone shouting over the roar of the rain. I crouched behind a tree.

  “There … that tree … that’s a Nazi.”

  Bam! A bullet thwacked into a tree a few feet away from me. I dropped down into the mud and covered my head with my arms.

  “Maybe we should get out of this rain.”

  Jake.

  “Don’t be such a tilly,” Keet said.

  I peeked up and saw the two of them creeping past, crouching low like hunting soldiers, their shirts soaked and sticking to their backs. When they’d passed, I wiped the mud off my knees and ran the rest of the way.

  A shiver snaked through me. I didn’t know if it was from the rain or from almost getting shot.

  Charlie’s small house looked like an old umbrella with the rain rolling down the corrugated iron roof and pouring out of the rusty gutters around its edge. Water slapped down into big puddles below.

  Billy saw me coming through the screen door and opened it as I ran up to the house. “Yuck,” he said. “Looks like you fell in the mud.”

  I dragged off my soaked and muddy sweatshirt and squeezed the water out of it.

  “Long time no see,” Charlie said. “What you been up to?”

  “Working, what else?”

  Grampa humphed, glancing up at me from Charlie’s old couch.

  “Good,” Charlie said. “Work is good. If you no work, bombye you go nuts.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

  “… somewhere down Kalihi Street,” a small, static-ridden voice coming out of the radio said. “A lady complaining about a man sitting on top her roof …”

  Grampa leaned closer.

  “I’m on my way,” another voice answered.

  “But Jimmy …” the first one said.

  “What?”

  “The guy naked….”

  “Must be nuts.”

  “You want me to send a backup?”

  “I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  Grampa smiled at all that. But when he saw me looking at him, he frowned and dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

  “When’s the game come on?” I asked.

  “I think it’s on now,” Billy said, giving me the you-tell-him look.

  “Grampa, turn it to the game,” I said.

  “Wait, confonnit,” Grampa growled. He turned up the static and leaned in over the radio, waiting for more about the man on the roof. I looked at Billy and shrugged.

  Finally, Grampa grabbed his oiled paper umbrella, then went outside to the outhouse. It had to be coming down pretty hard for Grampa to use an umbrella.

  As soon as he was out of the house, Billy and I jumped up and turned the dial around. Charlie chuckled.

  We moved closer to listen.

  “Get away from that,” Grampa said, back too soon. He shook the rain off the umbrella before closing the screen door.

  “Aw, come on, Grampa,” I said. “This is an important game, and it’s probably half over by now.”

  “Hummmph.” Grampa came toward us, and me and Billy got out of the way, quick. Grampa sat back down on the couch and stared straight ahead. But he didn’t change the radio back to the police. When I started to say thanks, he said, “Shhhh!”

  Another blast of thunder boomed through the house and sent sputters of static out of the radio. “Ka’a ka pohaku,” Charlie said. “The stones roll.” The rain really came down after that. Grampa turned the radio way up to hear it over the roar.

  “I love this rain,” Billy said.

  I nodded. It was great.

  They were in the fourth inning. The Dodgers had to win to keep their spirits up. Both teams had already used up two or three pitchers each. The score was three to nothing, Yankees, and Billy was practically prying the fifteen cents out of my pocket.

  Then the Dodgers came up to bat in the bottom of the fourth and scored two runs. With the score still three to two in the fifth inning, the Dodgers’ Dixie Walker hit to deep left for a
double. After that, Pete Reiser slugged a fastball over the left field fence and the place went crazy. You could hear nothing but cheering for at least five minutes. I started to yell, too, but Grampa shot me a look. Actually, he looked a little worried.

  “Fifteen cents,” I said to Billy.

  “I never give up on my team, compadre.… They’ll be back.… You wait.”

  “That’s right,” Charlie said. “Yankees good. What you think, Joji-san?”

  “Humph,” Grampa mumbled. What a laugh to ask him anything.

  Now the Dodgers were leading—four to three. And it stayed that way until the top of the ninth, when the Yankees got one last chance to do something.

  The first two batters went down right away, two groundouts. Mickey Owen was catching. I could almost feel Casey’s pitches pounding into Owen’s glove, dust puffing out when they hit, like when Billy threw me fastballs on a hot day.

  One out to go. One out for a Dodger win.

  The Yankees’ Tommy Henrich came up to bat and quickly racked up a full count, three balls and two strikes. Then came the last pitch.

  Henrich swung … and missed!

  The game was over. The fans went wild. The Dodgers had won!

  Then the announcer screamed that the pitch Henrich struck out on had slipped through Mickey Owen’s glove, and was rolling all the way back to the grandstand. “The ball went light through Owen’s glove!” he yelled. “It’s a fair ball! There goes Henrich!”

  Owen ran back to get the loose ball.

  The Dodger fans were roaring, still believing they’d won.

  But the Yankees were still alive.

  Henrich raced to first and beat Owen’s throw. Charlie and Billy were so excited they jumped up and down like lunatics. Grampa gawked up at them.

  The announcer was hoarse. The people at the game didn’t know what to do, he said. Some of them had already run out onto the field. “Oh my,” the announcer said. “Oh my, oh my, oh my.”

  Criminy, I wished Billy and I were there to see it.

  It took a few minutes to get the fans back into the stands. So now, the Yankees had Henrich on first and Joe DiMaggio coming up to bat. “Just one out,” I pleaded, lacing my fingers together and squeezing my palms until my hands turned white. I held my breath.

  Tock!

  DiMaggio singled.

  I bit my fingers. Billy slapped my back. “You watch,” he said.

  Keller, next to bat, doubled. Henrich and DiMaggio scored, and Billy was all over the place. Grampa got up and moved out of the way into the safety of Charlie’s kitchen.

  “Casey’s rattled,” Billy whooped.

  “Take him out,” I yelled, as if they could hear me. But they let him keep pitching.

  The Yankees finally ended up winning, seven to four. And the Dodgers’ spirit was broken—not to mention mine, because I knew Billy would never let me forget it.

  After the game Grampa came back and tuned the Zenith to the police, then sat there shaking his head. I think he decided that we were all very, very strange.

  • • •

  It was pitch-black by the time we finally got up to leave. The rain was still pouring down like crazy. Grampa nodded to Charlie and headed out the door, popping up the umbrella. Raindrops thundered down on it.

  Billy and I made plans to listen to the next game, but I was feeling pretty low. Billy tapped the side of my arm and sprinted out into the rain. I pulled my damp sweatshirt over my head and said good-bye to Charlie.

  Outside, the trees swayed and shivered, leaves whooshing down. The whole place smelled sharp, like rusting iron. Where was Keet? Even he wasn’t stupid enough to still be stalking around in the jungle … was he? It was lucky he only had his .22 and not his father’s .45. The .22 would just make a small hole, but the .45 would take your head off.

  Grampa’s pale ghost of an umbrella moved up and down as he strode deeper into the darkness ahead of me. I tried to forget about Keet and think about Grampa. I thought about how he came to join Papa in Hawaii after Grandma had died.

  He came here to be a fisherman, like Papa had long before I was born. Grampa still had his old purple-colored passport hidden safely under Grandma’s altar. He was proud of that purple color. Back in the olden days they had two kinds, purple and green: green for contract workers, who had to work and then go home, and purple was for the guys who came with their own businesses and skills, and could stay in the islands Grampa’s business was boats and fishing.

  I wondered if even now Grampa still needed his passport because he wasn’t allowed to be an American citizen. I was, because I was born here. But the law wouldn’t allow Grampa. Or Mama and Papa. Papa said the haole wanted Japanese to come work, but not stay around afterward. But most people did stay.

  In Japan, Papa told me, Grampa was very well respected. He had a lot of friends. But he missed Papa and came to the islands. When he got here he was pretty lonely and hardly spoke to anyone, even to Papa. Then he met Charlie and went back to his old self. Grampa learned to speak English from Charlie.

  You had to love that old man. He did what he wanted, no matter what. And he didn’t always back away from trouble, like Papa wanted me to do. If Grampa had been me, he would have busted Keet Wilson’s nose already. I was sure of it.

  Thunder on the Moon

  Toward the end of October something very strange happened. Billy and I had gotten off the bus after school and were walking up to our street. When we got there we saw a brand-new car, a blue Cadillac, waiting to turn out onto the main road.

  “Whose car is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Billy said, “but it must have cost a couple of bucks.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “I don’t know, but it must have cost a couple of bucks.”

  “Shuddup,” I said, poking him with my elbow.

  When we got closer, I saw that the driver was Mr. Wilson. Billy and I both waved, but Mr. Wilson just glared at us, giving us the worst stink eye I’d seen since we beat the Kaka’ako Boys.

  “What’s his problem?” I whispered to Billy.

  “Who knows?”

  I turned away as we walked past. It was so strange. He’d never been like that to us before. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I glanced back to see if he was still looking at us. He was. You could see his eyes in the rear view mirror.

  “He’s still looking,” I said.

  Billy turned to see for himself.

  We started walking again.

  Just then the car’s tires squealed. Billy and I spun around and saw the Cadillac backing up, coming toward us fast. We jumped out of the way as the car slid to a stop. Mr. Wilson leaned over and rolled down the window.

  “Come here,” he said.

  Billy and I stood there gaping at him. I thought he wanted Billy, because Mr. Wilson hardly ever said a word to me.

  “You,” Mr. Wilson said, pointing his finger at me.

  “Me?” I stepped closer to the window and leaned down. Mr. Wilson glared back at me. His neck sagged over the collar of his starched white shirt.

  “Listen to this, boy,” he said in a low voice. “You people are walking on mighty thin ice around here.” I didn’t even breathe. For a moment, he wagged his finger at me without saying anything. Then, in almost a whisper he said, “You tell your father I don’t want to see any more of that Jap crap around my place … you understand?”

  I nodded.

  Mr. Wilson stepped on the gas. The car spit dust and little rocks out when it took off.

  “What did he want?” Billy asked.

  My hands started to tremble. “I don’t know.… I better go home.”

  I hurried down the road toward my house with Billy running to keep up. Jap crap? What did Mr. Wilson mean?

  • • •

  We ran up the trail, through the trees, and burst out into the open. No one in sight. What was Mr. Wilson talking about?

  Lucky barked. Up by the chickens. Billy and I took off toward the commoti
on.

  Kimi, jumping up and down and clapping her hands, was watching Grampa standing there slowly waving his giant flag back and forth, back and forth. He’d tied the ends to a long pole, and at the top of his lungs was singing “Kimigayo,” the Japanese national anthem, the slowest song in the history of the world. And tied around his shiny cannonball head he had another white piece of cloth.

  “Grampa! What are you doing?”

  Grampa stopped singing and glared at me, looking me over from head to foot, scornfully, like he was considering how to slice me in half. Then he started singing again.

  “Grampa, Mr. Wilson heard you, and saw that flag. He yelled at me and said he didn’t want to see any more of that … of that … of that stuff around his place. You gotta stop!”

  Grampa cut his singing off in the middle of a word and walked toward me in that boastful way the movie samurais do. He stopped right in front of my face.

  “Ojii-chan,” I said, much more softly, more respectfully. “Mr. Wilson … please … Mr. Wilson saw you and he’s very mad. I know it sounds stupid, but he said he didn’t want to see any Japanese stuff around here.”

  Grampa’s eyes were icy under the white headband, which was made of two old handkerchiefs tied together. Billy stood off to the side, his eyes about to pop out of his head.

  “We are Japanese, confonnit.… Japanese!” Grampa looked at me like it was all my fault. Then he flicked Kimi a quick wave with his chin and started back toward the house. Kimi followed, refusing to look at me.

  Mr. Wilson’s angry eyes were still scaring me half to death. But Grampa’s song was only part of it. Mama had the rest of the story when she got home from work. She brought the Wilsons’ thrown-away newspaper for me to read to her. She could read Japanese, but not English. Whatever was on the front page, she said, it made Mr. Wilson very angry.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and spread the paper out in front of me. “The Germans sunk one of our ships,” I said.

  Mr. Ramos had told us about the sinking in school, but I was only half listening. I hadn’t realized it was an American ship.

  “Read,” Mama said, the look on her face flat.

  U.S. DESTROYER IS SUNK BY TORPEDO OFF ICELAND