Under the Blood-Red Sun (2 page)

“Hey,” Billy whispered, quickly moving off the trail into the trees. His blond hair glowed where the sun hit it, but mostly he was in the shade. I crept up behind him and looked out through the trees at the grassy field.

Billy’s brother, Jake.

And with him, Keet Wilson, the crazy boy, peeking into one of Papa’s pigeon lofts with a stick in his hand.

Crazy Boy

Keet slapped the side
of one of Papa’s lofts with the stick. He laughed at the racket the birds made inside. I think he knew we were watching him.

Heat rushed over my skin in an angry wave. The only rest Papa ever got was when he spent time with his pigeons. And I was the one he trusted to take care of them when he was out working on the boat.

If Keet hurt those birds …

My hands started to shake. I wanted to punch him in the face.

No! Don’t think like that!
Don’t disgrace us
, Papa said. I could hear him as if he were standing next to me.
Don’t cause trouble and bring shame to the Nakaji name again!
Papa was so worried about losing face.

Keet scraped the side of the loft with the stick, then stuck the point through the chicken-wire door and
twirled it around. My jaw hurt, I was clamping my teeth so hard. Even Papa’s warning couldn’t keep me from feeling like fighting, sometimes. I didn’t care if Mama
was
the Wilsons’ maid.

“He knows we’re watching him,” I said.

Billy frowned. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“No. I can’t just let him do that.”

I took a deep breath and started out into the sunlight. One thing was sure—if Keet Wilson wanted to go crazy, no one could stop him, not even Billy’s brother, who was bigger than all of us. When Keet got mad, he couldn’t even stop himself. Not until somebody got hurt.

“Well, if it isn’t your punk brother and the fish boy,” Keet said to Jake as we got closer. “Hey, Toe-mee-ka-zoo, your birds are bored. They need a little excitement.”

That is the one thing I cannot accept from you.…

I stood next to Billy, who was tall enough to look directly into Keet’s eyes. Jake waited off to the side, watching. He never said much to anyone. As far as I could tell, Jake was the only friend Keet had. Billy said Jake only did things with him because there was no one else around.

Keet stared at me and tapped the loft again. A curtain of brown hair hung over his left eye. Two fake army dog tags hung out of his shirt on a silver chain. He liked to brag that they were real, but I knew from Billy that Keet’s father had them made up as a birthday present.

“Please,” I said. “Don’t … you’ll scare them.”

Keet hit the side of the loft harder—
Whack! Whack! Whack!

The pigeons went wild, crying out, flapping their
wings. I wanted to pound Keet into the dirt.
If you are troublemaker, then I am troublemaker … I am bad father, bad family. I no teach you to fight in the dirt like dogs!
If I tangled with Keet, Papa said, Mr. Wilson would fire Mama and kick all of us off his land.

“Cut it out, Keet,” Billy finally said.

Keet smiled, and poked Billy in the shoulder with the point of the stick. “Hey, Jake … maybe your stupid little brother didn’t see what we saw.”

Jake frowned at Billy.

Whack!
Keet hit the loft again.

This time Billy threw down his mitt and tried to grab Keet’s arm.

Keet dropped the stick and slammed Billy in the chest with the palms of his hands. Billy went flying to the ground. Under the short grass the sun-baked earth was as hard as cement. Billy’s breath exploded out of him.

Jake grabbed Keet from behind. “That’s enough.”

Keet shoved him off, crazy-eyed, ready to fight even his friend. Billy tried to stand, but couldn’t. He fell over, then rolled around with wide, terrified eyes, his mouth half open, trying to breathe. Jake bent over him and sat him up, then slapped his back.

I stood frozen, watching Billy. Tears filled the edges of his eyes. Breathe, Billy …
breathe!

At last Billy started gulping in big breaths, like he was sobbing. The tears rolled down his face. He wiped them away, then bent over on his knees. After a minute or so he stood, slowly, not looking at anyone.

Keet put his face an inch from mine. I saw small red lines on his eyeballs. “You think I’m
stupid
, fish boy? You
think I don’t know what goes on around here?” A speck of spit hit my lip when he said
stupid
. “What are you flying that Jap flag over at your house for?”

I stared at him without answering.

He shoved me, and I fell back a step. “Maybe I’ll tell my father about it,” Keet said, suddenly fake-nice. “How about that?”

“No,” I said. “No … it won’t happen again.… I promise, it won’t.”

Keet smiled. He tapped the side of my face with his fingertips. “Good boy,” he said, pausing to study me. Then he added, “I’ll be watching.”

Humiliation swelled in my throat. I squeezed my fists.

Keet shoved me away and opened the loft door. He whacked the stick around inside, hitting the walls and the pigeons. You could hear the birds banging around, running into each other. Keet finally pulled the stick out.

One by one the pigeons burst through the door and swooped up, dipping and rising, filling the clearing above the field. All seventeen of Papa’s racers disappeared over the trees in less than a minute.

“There,” Keet said, watching the last bird vanish. “That’s what they needed.”

“Billy,” he said. “Come here.”

Billy didn’t move. Keet glared bloody swords at him.

Slowly, Billy walked over.

Keet put his arm on Billy’s shoulder. “Listen … I want you to stop hanging around with this Jap. It’s disgusting to see you two acting like friends.… It makes me
sick.”

Billy stared at the ground. Keet grabbed his jaw and squeezed his mouth. “You hear me?”

Billy rolled his eyes over toward Jake.

Keet jerked his head back so Billy’s eyes were level with his own. “You better think long and hard about where you stand, little punk.”

“Let’s go,” Jake said.

Keet let go of Billy. Blurry red marks swelled on Billy’s cheeks.

Jake grabbed Keet’s arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Keet looked at the hand on his arm, then glared up at Jake.

Jake blinked, and let go. “Come on,” he said, barely whispering.

Keet kept glaring, then turned away and spit.

The two of them slouched off into the trees like a couple of cocky sailors down on Hotel Street.

“Hana-kuso
,” I whispered. I punched my fist and went over to check the loft. The wire on the door was bent. It could have been worse. Keet could have knocked the loft off its legs. I put fresh grit and feed into the feeder and whispered calming sounds to the nervous pigeons in the other loft.

No birds anywhere; not even doves or mynah birds specked the light blue afternoon sky. The pigeons were long gone, probably racing out over the sea by now. But they’d be back.

I went out into the middle of the field where the sun swarmed around in the grass, my anger now melting down into a small, private shame.

It was quiet with only me and Billy there. Just the muffled hiss of the small irrigation stream that ran between Billy’s house and mine. I lay down in the grass and gazed up at the sky. What was I going to say to Papa if Keet did tell his father about the flag? He could tell the story any way he wanted to. He could even say he asked me nicely to take it down and that I refused.

It was hard for me to believe that Keet and I were once pretty good friends.

I was about nine at the time, and Keet was eleven or twelve, back before Billy moved here from the mainland. I used to follow Keet around because he was older and knew a lot of things I didn’t. Like how to call his dog with a whistle you couldn’t even hear, or how to shoot a BB gun. And Keet was the one who introduced me to baseball. He even gave me one of his mitts so we could throw to each other, the same mitt I still used. Keet’s name was written on it in fading black ink that I couldn’t rub off.

Anyway, for a long time I used to go over to see him, until one day he started getting busy. I went again and again and he was never there. His mother would say things like “Keet can’t play today,” or “Keet is with his father,” or “Keet isn’t home.”

But one day Keet answered the door himself. I’d found a half-rusted pocketknife in the jungle and wanted to show it to him.

“Come play,” I said.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no. I don’t want to play with you anymore.”

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just don’t.”

I remember standing there on his porch. I didn’t know if I should leave, or what.

“Beat it,” he said.

“What?” I couldn’t believe he’d said that to me.

“Beat it.”

I pulled the knife out and handed it to him. “Look what I found.”

Keet took it, studied it. “Where’d you get it?”

“Found it in the jungle.”

“It’s mine.”

“No, it’s not. I found it.” I tried to take it back, but he shoved me, and I fell. My arm hit the floor and stung like a hammer had hit it. “It’s
mine
,” I said, holding my arm and struggling back up.

“Beat it, I said.”

I charged him, and we got into a fight, right on the Wilsons’ front porch.

That night Papa asked me about my bruises and scratches. He listened without blinking an eye, the muscles in his jaw working, tightening.

Then he told Mama and Kimi to leave the room.

“I work hard to have good life, good family,” Papa said, drilling me with his eyes.

I looked down at my scratched hands and the yellow bruise that blotched part of my arm. Grampa stood by the screen door, listening.

“You disgrace me,” Papa went on. “You fight and everyone think you troublemaker!” He bolted up, his chair tumbling back on the floor. I froze. I didn’t know if he was going to slap me or what. He took a deep breath,
then said in Japanese, “Tomikazu, we are Americans, it is true … but inside we are also Japanese. I don’t care how angry you get, you cannot fight. You must learn
gamman
—patience. You cannot be a troublemaker and bring shame on this family.”

He stared into my eyes a moment longer. “You have disgraced us, Tomikazu. That is the one thing I cannot accept from you. Go to your room,” he said. “Go!”

Later that night, after Papa had gone to sleep, Mama called me out onto the porch. She brought me a small piece of candy and told me to sit on the steps, then sat next to me. “Papa angry because he no want you to bring shame on family … but Papa care about you, Tomi-kun.”

“I know, Mama. It was all my fault.”

Mama nodded. “That Wilson boy, he made you pretty mad?”

I peeked over at her and nodded.

She nodded back. “I know how that can be.”

Silence.

Then, without looking at me, she said, “What you think of that boy?”

I hate his stupid guts
, I wanted to say.
He’s a jerk
.

I shrugged.

“What you think when you hear that name, Wilson?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“Think about how you feel when you hear that name, Keet Wilson.”

He’s a punk and a creep and I hate his guts
was all I could come up with. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him anymore.

Mama stood and looked up at the moon, arching her back. “You thinking you don’t like that name right now. How come you think that?”

Because he’s stupid, that’s why. He stole my knife and pushed me into a fight
.

I got up and stood next to her.

When I didn’t say anything, Mama said, “Hoo, tired already. I going sleep. How’s about you?”

I nodded and followed her back into the house. The rusty screen door hinges screeched in the stillness. I made sure it didn’t slap when I closed it.

“One more thing, Tomi-kun. Whatever you think about that boy—do you want people to get that same thing in their minds when they think of Tomikazu Nakaji?”

Mama peeked into my eyes, then turned away, a look that said our confusing conversation was meant to tell me something important.

“Nakaji,” Mama said, “must always be a
good
name.”

Grampa was asleep on his mat. He’d left the candle burning for me. I pinched it out and eased down on my squeaky bed. I lay in the dark for a long, long time, thinking about the damage I had done.

•  •  •

Even now, in the warm, grassy field with Billy, I could still feel Mama’s soft hand on my neck.

I shook the memory away. I could hear Lucky barking at something.

Billy came over and sat down next to me. “What’s
hana-kuso
mean?”

“Hana-kuso?”

“That’s what you called Keet after he left.”

“I did?”

Billy nodded, and I smiled, remembering. “It means ‘booger.’”

Billy laughed and shook his head. “You got that right.”

“Hey, thanks for what you did,” I said.

He nodded and held his glove under his nose, smelling the leather.

“Billy … what did Keet mean about
where you stand?”