Under the Blood-Red Sun (10 page)

I lay awake for more than an hour that night. You hardly ever thought about the army, and then you were suddenly reminded it was still there, like somebody’s grumpy watchdog. I kept seeing the boats caught in the searchlights out on the horizon. Maybe one of them was Papa’s. I tried to put myself out there, out on the
Taiyo Maru
, looking back at those blasts of light. The boat was so small, just a leaf on the sea. A plane could bomb it out of the water in a second.

•   •   •

When Papa came home early the next morning, I showed him the story about the
Reuben James
. He sat down at the kitchen table and studied the picture. Grampa was next to the window, sitting as straight as a stop sign.

Papa couldn’t read English either, so he handed the paper back and asked me to read it to him.

“What does it mean, Papa?” I asked, when I’d finished.

Lines of worry stood between his eyes. “Hard to say, Tomi …”

But I knew what he worried about—the Japanese, who were making war with China and arguing with the U.S. about it, making war like the Germans were. And though the U.S. wasn’t at war with anyone, maybe it was only a matter of time until it would be.

“Lot of people in Honolulu starting to point finger,” Papa said. “They wondering whose side us Hawaii-Japanee going take, and what we going do if Japan and U.S. got into a fight.”

Maybe that was what Mr. Wilson was wondering too.

For a few minutes no one spoke. I felt kind of queasy. Under the house Lucky barked, and made me jump. I watched Papa study the picture of the
Reuben James
. Had the men on it drowned, or gotten blown up? I wanted to ask Papa if he’d seen the searchlights, and I wanted to tell him about Mr. Wilson, and what he’d said. And I hadn’t even told him about Lucky’s puppies.

But I didn’t say a word.

The Butcher

“Gentlemen …
and I use that term loosely,” Mr. Ramos said. “Remember the science project? Well, this is it. The deadline for telling me what you will be working on.”

I glanced over at Billy and Mose and Rico. For once, the three of them were sitting up straight and looking as innocent as Lucky’s puppies.

Mr. Ramos sat on the edge of his desk. “Well?” he said.

Billy raised his hand.

“Ah, Billy. Good. What’s it going to be?”

“I thought I would make a display on how to throw a curveball. I could do some drawings and write something. And then I could do a demonstration.”

Mr. Ramos raised his eyebrows. “Hmmm … more
like physics than earth science. But if that’s what you want to do, then that will be fine.”

Mose and Rico stared at their desks.

“Okay, the Corteles cousins … what about you?”

“Mose and I want to do one together,” Rico said.

Mose perked up.

“Let’s hear it, then,” Mr. Ramos said.

“We’re going to make a vollacano and show how it works.”

Mose stared at Rico. I had to laugh, it was so obvious Mose hadn’t heard a thing about any volcano project.

“All right,” Mr. Ramos said. “But first you’ve got to get the pronunciation right. It’s
volcano
. And it better be good, because there will be two of you working on one project.… Understand?”

“Yessir, Mr. Ramos,” Rico said.

Mose nodded okay.

Billy put his hand up to cover his mouth and whispered to Rico, “Yessir, Mr. Ramos.” Rico reached across the aisle and slapped Billy’s arm with the back of his hand.

“Was there something else, Rico?” Mr. Ramos asked.

“No, no. That’s all.”

“Okay. Now, this is for all of you. I want to see some
real
progress by December fifteenth—that’s one month from now.”

Mr. Ramos winked at Mose and Rico, but Mose didn’t see it. He was too busy writing a note to Rico.

•   •   •

After school, we skipped the school bus and headed out to catch a city bus. Rico had heard a rumor that the Kaka’ako Boys had a new pitcher, who was also a slugger, some guy from the island of Hawaii who was over six feet tall … and only in the eighth grade. We had to check it out.

Mose was still in a bad mood over the volcano. But for Rico, the more he thought about it, the more he slapped himself on the back. “Don’t worry,” he said to Mose. “Easy, this. All we gotta do is get a pile of mud and dig a hole in the middle. Then let it dry and paint some red coming out. Maybe put a stink bomb inside to make it smell like real.”

“Jeese.” Mose rolled his eyes. “This is a
science
project. You gotta do a report, and you gotta be able to
explain
the thing. Who’s gonna do that?”

“You. I make it, you fake it.”

Mose shoved Rico. “Do me a favor—don’t think anymore today, okay?”

“Here comes the bus,” I said. “Stop goofing off, or he won’t let us on.”

Mose and Rico settled down. The driver gave us dirty looks when we put our five cents in the meter. We stumbled to the back while the bus lurched on down the hill toward the ocean.

“Rico, how much money you got left?”

“Nothing.”

Mose looked at me. “That was all I had.”

We all turned to Billy.

“Rich
haole,”
Rico said. “It’s up to you, or else we going walk back.”

“Ten cents,” Billy said.

“I told you he was rich,” Rico said.

“But not rich enough,” I added. “Two of us gotta walk.”

“Nah,” Billy said. “We can all walk.”

Mose shook his head and started another round of shoving. But we stopped when we noticed the bus driver’s eyes in the mirror.

We got off and headed down to Atkinson Park, where they had a couple of baseball diamonds. We passed the soda works and the soy factory, the buildings squeezed so close together only a cock-a-roach could fit between them. Small kids were playing in the streets. They were a mixed-up bunch of all the races in Kaka’ako, mostly boys who roamed around like ants. A bunch of them followed us in a pack about a block behind.

That part of Kaka’ako was crammed with falling-down two-story wooden buildings with laundry hanging from every window. I loved that place. I’d been down there on Japanese festival days with my family, and many times with Papa to see his fishermen friends. Once in a while I even went with Mama and Kimi to visit Mama’s old picture-bride acquaintances.

As we walked Billy got quiet, like he was trying to hide. I couldn’t blame him. You didn’t see many
haoles
down there. Everyone noticed him, with his blond hair and baby-pink face.

Ahead of us seven boys, all Japanese, hung around blocking the way to the park. We had to walk through them or else cross the street like cowards. But Rico and Mose weren’t about to cross any street for anybody.

“Now we’ve had it,” I whispered.

“What, from those punks?” Rico pulled a stick match out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth like a toothpick.

We kept walking, Rico strutting ahead. The gang slowly bunched up, but Rico kept on going straight at them. If a fight broke out I’d yell
“Police, police,”
and hope they’d run for it.

Rico moved up, nose to nose with the biggest guy, except that Rico’s nose was only at the guy’s chin. But Rico just stood there with the stick match almost touching the big guy’s neck. Nobody said a word. Seven boys giving us deadly looks.

Rico pushed on past, then turned and looked back with his hands on his hips, waiting for me and Mose and Billy.

Mose turned sideways and bumped his way through. Then me, so close I could smell the oil on the guy’s hair and see the small pin-sized pimples on his chin.

But when Billy tried to pass, the big guy stepped in front of him.

Billy started over to the other side of the street. One of the smaller guys followed in front of him, blocking his way step for step.

Billy stopped and looked over at us. The guy kept staring at him, about two inches from his face. But Billy ignored him. He wasn’t afraid. He just didn’t like trouble.

The big guy came up to me. “How come you bring these
haoles
down this place?”

Rico pushed me out of the way. He spit the stick match out of his mouth. “Who you calling one
haole?”

The big guy nodded his head toward Billy. “The lily-white punk over there … and you, too, in fack … yeah, you.” He put his fingertips on Rico’s chest and pushed him back.

Bok!

Rico landed one good punch. The big guy fell to the ground.

“Hey!” someone up the street yelled. “Hold it!”

A guy ran up to us, a man with a ballahead army-kind haircut. He was short, but he had big muscles. “Beat it,” he said to the gang guys. “We don’t need no trouble around here.”

The big guy scrambled up, covering his eye. He seemed to know the ballahead man. He glared at Rico, then backed away. The rest of his gang looked at us like they wanted to tear our heads off. Finally they turned and disappeared into an alley.

“No worry about them,” the man said. “They won’t bother you if I’m around. They dumb, but they not stupit.” He glanced over at Billy and smiled. “Hey … I know you. You the pitcher, yeah? Hoo, man, you good. What’s your name?”

“Billy.”

The man glanced at the rest of us. “I seen you guys too. You the team play my kid brother. Herbie Okubo … you know him? The kid play second base?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mose said. “He’s pretty good.”

The man shook his head. “The bugga work hard.
… I never seen a kid practice like that. So, what you boys doing down Kaka’ako?”

“We heard they got a new pitcher,” Billy said.

“Yeah,” Rico added. “We heard he was six feet, maybe seven.”

“Maybe eight. That’s all Herbie been talking about for the last week,” the man said, shaking his head. “How’s about I come with you? I never seen him yet either.”

“Sure,” Mose said.

The man put his arm on Billy’s shoulder. “Come on,
haole
. You welcome in this neighborhood. No worry about those punks. They always like that. Hell, I used to be like that myself.… No mean nothing, they just like to ack tough.”

Billy nodded, and we headed into Atkinson Park. Some of the Kaka’ako Boys saw us coming and stopped fielding grounders that Hamamoto, the catcher, was hitting out to them. Soon they were all standing there staring at us.

“Hey, Herbie,” the man said, waving to his brother. “No stop for us, we just like watch.”

Herbie shrugged and punched his glove. Soon the Kaka’ako Boys forgot we were even there.

Except for when they called in their new pitcher.

He was way out in the outfield. He jogged in slowly, like one of those water buffaloes in Kailua. He wasn’t Japanese like the others. He was some kind of mixture—maybe Japanese-Hawaiian-Portagee-Filipino.

He glanced over at us, looking mean, with his hair
greased straight back and muscles bulging out like boulders. He even had a shadow of a mustache.

“Holy smokes,” Mose whispered.

“He looks like twelfth grade, already,” Rico said. “Must be stupit, spent a lot of time flunking.”

Ichiro Fujita, the Kaka’ako first baseman, smiled over at Billy. “Hey,
haole
, meet the Butcher.” He laughed, and so did the rest of his team. “This guy not very patient,” Ichiro went on. “We call him the Butcher … pretty soon you going fine out why.”

“The guy look dumb as a rock,” Rico whispered.

“Shhh,” I said. “You want him to eat you for lunch, or what?”

“No worry,” Rico said. “I think the guy eats dog food.”

We all had to work hard to keep from laughing. The Butcher took a step toward us, and we shut up.

The Kaka’ako Boys came in and got ready to practice batting. And the Butcher started pitching.

He could throw the ball almost as fast as a bullet. What scared me the most was that he wasn’t always on target. When the Kaka’ako Boys came up to bat, they stood about ten feet away from the plate and didn’t take their eyes off the Butcher even for one second.

“Criminy,” Mose said. “He could take your head off with one wild pitch.”

“He could fix that,” Billy said. “Look at the way he closes his eyes just as he lets the ball go. I could show him how to get better aim.”

“No, no,” Rico said. “No show him nothing. More
better to take a chance on getting hit than to help that babooze strike us out.”

The ballahead man got a kick out of that. “But if he crack your head, you might change your mind.”

“He crack my head, I crack his.”

“If you got a head left.”

“Listen,” Rico said. “You come down this field January one, New Year’s Day.… We got a rematch with these guys, and we ain’t going to lose to no Frankenstein from the Big Island.”

“Okay, okay, no get hot.… I’ll see if I can make it.… But do me a favor, yeah? Next time, come down South Street so those centipede boys don’t bother you. Coral Street—where you came down? They think they own it.” He shook hands with all of us. “Good luck, you kids. And don’t forget what I told you, yeah?”

When we left Kaka’ako, Billy and I went down Pohukaina and headed up South, like the guy said. But Rico and Mose went strutting back up Coral with a pack of kids tailing them, like they were following a couple of lions in a circus parade.