by John Fante
He parked the car beneath a sign warning him that parking was at all times forbidden. The street was deserted. The moon had crossed town and disappeared behind the skyline to the north. A few lights shone in the City Hall; but the facade was dark and empty. Like a torrent of white stone the broad stairway poured from the high, pillared main entrance and flowed to the street. She was nowhere, not in the street, on the stairs, or among the pillars. A trolley approached. He sat up, watching. A tall woman in slacks got out. With loose hands he sighed and sat back; Mary Osaka didn’t wear slacks, nor was she tall. Ai, he had made a big mistake, hoped for too much.
He pushed a button on the radio. “The Star Spangled Banner” filled the night. He listened, hearing only the roar of his own mind calling him foolish. Over the music came the tolling of a bell. It was midnight, the station was going off the air.
A small figure came from behind one of the pillars and descended the stairs. It was she, no bigger than a doll; but she came like an army of ten thousand that swept him into ecstasy. On quick feet that laughed in the night she hurried toward him, and when he saw that she carried an overnight bag, he knew her thought had been his own, his dream melting into hers, and suddenly he was hearing “The Star Spangled Banner,” humming it fervently, because there were no words in his throat to equal his joy and because she was upon him now, opening the door and leaping in beside him, deluging him with her perfume and her bright smile. He clung transfixed to the steering wheel, his face rigid and bloodless with terrible joy. She knelt in the seat, dropped her coat and bag to the floor, put her warm hands over his ears, and kissed him with a cool mouth like fresh lettuce.
“Oh, Mingo. Crazy Mingo!”
He was still without words.
“We’re mad, Mingo. Both of us. Isn’t it wonderful?”
His tongue moved. It was his thought to speak endlessly of his gratitude and adoration, of love and life eternal; but his mouth trembled so, and his hands, too, that he might have been merely chilled and shivering a little.
He managed one small word. “Mary—”
“Of course I’ll marry you, silly!”
It left him demented, hypnotized. He started the car and swung to the center of the street, following the streetcar tracks. She curled beside him, her knees like golden oranges close to her chin, her hands clasping his arm. It was a long time before the spell was broken and he noticed a traffic sign. They were on the road to Santa Barbara. Las Vegas was in the opposite direction. He went around the block and found the boulevard to Pasadena. Now he could speak a little.
He said: “Good car. I borrow him,”
He said: “Pretty night. Stars.”
He said: “I try hard, make you good husband.”
He said: “Mary Osaka, I love you.”
She pulled some bobby pins from her hair, and the warm night made it fly like blackbirds. Her eyes wandered among the spilled stars. Beneath them the tires crooned on concrete. By one o’clock they were under the orange groves beyond Glendora. They stopped for coffee in Barstow, where it was cold and their breaths were misty in the chill. She was asleep in the frozen dawn when they crossed the California line below Death Valley. They reached Las Vegas at eight-thirty. By nine o’clock in the morning he had got a marriage license. Across the street was the office of the justice of the peace. Man and wife, they emerged from it at nine-twenty. He tried to walk as though he had done this every day of his life; but it was Mary who was calm. When he opened the car door, she paused to look into his face and smile. He looked down at his shoes, swallowed, and glanced around furtively.
“Kiss me, Mingo.”
“Here? For all the people to see?”
“I don’t see any people.”
He pecked at her cheek. She flung her arms around his neck and crushed her lips to his mouth, holding him passionately. His eyes widened, the whites showing as he rolled them in fright and joy.
A mile from town they found an auto court with small white cottages built in a semicircle. The shirtless manager greeted them with winks and sly smiles. Mary stood at Mingo’s side while he dipped a matted pen-point into the inkwell and wrote on the guest register:
Mr. and Mrs. Mingo Mateo, Dec. 7, 1941.
Driving back to Los Angeles in the Sunday twilight, Mr. and Mrs. Mingo Mateo sat without speaking In the west the bloody sunset was fast disappearing. Something had happened. Something had gone wrong. It was everywhere. Why had they stared, those people? The manager of the auto court and his wife, their cold eyes upon them as they drove away; the waitress and the cashier at the restaurant, the truck drivers at the counter, the wordless hush during the meal, with only the sound of clattering dishes to disturb it; the state trooper climbing off his motorcycle to ask them questions as they bought gasoline; the white-clad service attendant staring at Mary until she dropped her eyes. Too much rouge on her cheeks? Too much lipstick? She adjusted the rear-vision mirror to her reflection, turning her face right and left, examining her chin, patting her hair.
“Mingo, what’s the matter with me?” she asked.
He knew her thought. “You are beautiful. No wonder they look.”
“No. Something’s wrong. I feel it.”
She flipped the radio control, pushed a button. It burst out like an explosion, the war, springing to life. Pearl Harbor, Wake, Guam, Midway, the Philippines. They listened with racked mouths.
“It’s a stupid joke,” she said.
“Must be.”
She buttoned another station, another voice. Pearl Harbor, dive bombers, the Arizona. Words like bullets, piercing their flesh, not pain but a sense of bleeding to death. Her hands at her throat jerked with the panic of her heart. The nausea sweeping her face made it grey and ugly. In his belly Mingo felt the cut of bullets, piercing his life, painless, like bleeding to death.
“Is not possible. Cannot be.”
She sat back with her grey face and her lost hands. They were in desert country, the night’s first stars coming cold and quiet, and they both felt it—the surge of power, the vast invincibility of all that surrounded them. Still the words came, slugging them with incredible change. The car plunged forward, sucking up the white road.
Luzon. Dive bombers.
Mingo winced because that hurt, blood spilled on memories of his childhood, rage expanding his bones as he gripped the wheel and bit the edges of his teeth. Dirty dogs. Dirty Japanese rats. And he shouted it, screamed it into the onrushing night.
“Mingo—” He touched her knee. “We are Americans, you and me.”
They were drugged with war, sick and slugged with it, when they got back to Los Angeles. Little Tokyo was quiet, its streets all but deserted. They passed a barbershop with smashed windows, police standing about. An army lorry full of soldiers rumbled across an intersection. Here and there pathetic little shops had American flags flying bravely over them.
It was almost two o’clock when they pulled up in front of the Yokohama Café. Upstairs a lamp glowed behind a yellow shade. The café itself was in darkness. Mingo wet his lips. His world had suddenly somersaulted. Last night Segu Osaka was a man to he feared. Tonight the fear was gone and the daughter of Segu Osaka was his bride.
He followed Mary to the door. She found a key an her purse and turned the lock. They stepped into the darkness. She faced him then and threw her arms around him.
“Don’t blame my parents, Mingo. Please. They’re so good.”
He bent down and kissed her, tasted the salt of her grief. “No, no. Is not their fault.”
She led him by the hand through the darkness to a door that opened on the stairs. They ascended on tiptoe. At the head of the stairs a board creaked, a shadow fell upon them. In a kimono and straw sandals Segu Osaka stood looking down. For a moment Mary hesitated. She locked arms in Mingo’s, and they climbed the stairs together.
“Hello, Papa.”
He was wild-eyed, trembling. Even the stubby hair on his head was disheveled, plowed up and crushed about by frantic hands. He was
staring at Mingo.
He’s my husband now. We were married this morning in Las Vegas.”
Osaka exploded like a string of firecrackers, all over the room, his stiff fingers plucking nothingness out of the air. He paced and champed, zigzagging up and down the room, his slippers swishing, his thick bowlegs showing under his flapping kimono. For a long time he shouted, biting words and spitting them out, circling the two of them as they stood in the middle of the room. Abruptly he stopped and threw himself against the wall, his back to the wall, the back of his head bumping it monotonously.
“He says this is terrible,” Mary translated. “He says you’re probably a good boy but you’re Filipino, and the war will wreck our lives. He says congratulations anyhow, and he hopes we will be happy.”
Osaka sprang across the room, grabbed Mingo’s hand, and pumped it violently. The same wild expression wrung his face. “So,” he said. “So so. So so.”
A door creaked, and Mary’s mother came out. She was stooped, frightened, whimpering. Quickly Mary spoke. The old lady examined Mingo uncertainly. She looked at his feet, his legs, his loins, his waist, his chest, his face. Then she smiled, bowed, and backed quietly out of the room, closing the door after her. Osaka was shouting again. He kept moving in a circle, waving his arms and making wild gestures with his fists: punching, tearing, pulling, choking.
Mary translated: “He says the war is not his fault. He says he is loyal to America. He says he is richer and happier in this country than he ever was in Japan. He says the twenty-five years he has been in Los Angeles are the happiest of his life. He says the Japanese have gone mad. He says they will lose the war. He says he is glad, too. He says it is the end of Japan. He says this makes him happy. He says he is ashamed of Japan. He says it is not the common people of Japan, it is the ruling class. He blames a man named Yamamoto, Admiral Yamamoto. He says the common people of Japan are peaceful. He says in the name of the Filipino people, you must forgive him.”
Mingo nodded. “Sure. I forgive you. You bet.”
Osaka seized his hand, pumped it violently. “So,” he said. “So so. So so.” He was off again, sputtering words and tearing up and down the room.
When he had quieted, Mary translated. “He wants to know why you’re here, why you don’t join the army and fight for your country.”
Mingo had made that decision a long time before. “I go,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
Osaka was pumping his hand again. Said he: “So. So so. So so.”
Said Mingo, “So so.”
The old man was off again, sputtering a torrent of words into his face.
Said Mary: “He says you must fight bravely, because our children will be Americans, because we must win the war for them. He says when the war is over he will make you his partner in the restaurant. He says he’ll teach you the business, and you’ll make money to raise our children and give them a good education.”
It was Mingo who reached now, shaking Osaka’s hand in both of his. Said he: “Thank you, so so.”
Said Osaka: “So. So so. So so.”
Again he exploded, his gutturals jumping from his excited lips as he pointed to the stairs, to the ceiling, to himself and Mary, until he had stopped in front of Mingo, shaking him violently with both hands.
Said Mary; “He says you have to go now. He says tomorrow may be too late.”
Said Mingo: “Not now. Everything closed up.”
Said Osaka: “Go! Alla same, go—” The rest of what he said was in Japanese.
Said Mary: “He says go now, find the place, be the first in line.”
Said Mingo: “What do you think?”
I think yes.” Her eyes were wet.
Said Mingo: “Then I go.”
He wanted to kiss her goodbye as they walked those few steps to the stairway; but Segu Osaka was pounding his back and spluttering endlessly. At the bottom of the stairs Mingo turned and looked up at her. She was crying, trying to wave with a feeble wrist.
Said he: “Mary Mateo, I love you. I come back. You wait for me.”
She sobbed, broke suddenly from his view.
Said Osaka: “So. So so. So so.”
Said Mingo, “So so.”
The Taming of Valenti
I WAS IN BED when Valenti telephoned.
“Come over. Hurry.”
“What’s up?”
“You come over.”
It was almost two in the morning. I called Leon at the desk and told him to get me a cab. Valenti and Linda lived in a single apartment in the Wilshire district. Fifteen minutes after his call I was walking down the hall toward their apartment. Before I had a chance to knock, he said, “Come in, Jim.” I could see him in the kitchen, sitting at the table, clutching his black hair with both hands. Every light in the place was turned on. Valenti was crying, sobbing quietly. As I crossed the living room I heard throaty sounds from the bathroom. That was Linda; she was crying too.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“That trull,” he said. “That low wench.”
“Who—Linda?”
“That two-timer. That piece.”
Valenti and I were old friends. A lot of things made Valenti cry. He cried the night he came to my hotel and told me Linda would marry him. Three weeks ago we had driven to Las Vegas. I was his best man. Valenti was so moved by the ceremony that the old preacher had to stop while Valenti sobbed on my shoulder.
“She’s been unfaithful again,” Valenti said.
“Again?”
He held up three fingers.
“Three times in three weeks.”
“Liar!” That was Linda. She rushed out of the bathroom, a blue negligee fluttering after her, a long-necked, round-bellied perfume bottle in her hand. Before I could react, she let it fly across the kitchen. Valenti ducked, but he ducked right into it, and the bottle bounced with a thud off his chest and fell to the floor. He coughed, jumped to his feet, and charged for her.
“You lousy trull!”
“You evil-minded devil!”
I got between them. Over my shoulder Valenti grabbed Linda’s blonde hair and pulled. She put an arm under mine and reached for his face. Her long nails came away, leaving three red marks down his cheek. Finally I quieted them. They stood like fighting cocks, poised, ready to start again. Then Linda stamped her foot and wailed.
“My nice perfume. It was a present from my sister. Just look at it now.”
The bottle still rocked dismally back and forth, its contents spread over the blue linoleum. The kitchen smelled of Vol de Nuit. With a cry of agony Linda stomped back to the bathroom. Valenti touched his face and stared at his bloodtipped fingers. His lips trembled, his tears dripped like wax from a candle.
“And now she attacks me. My own wife.”
“Forget it.”
He laughed dramatically, whirling around as though staggered by a blow, both hands appealing to the ceiling “Forget it. How can I forget it? What have I done to deserve this? Me—Alfredo Valenti?”
“Forget it.”
“Stop telling me to forget it. Who asked you for your advice?”
“You phoned me. You got me out of bed at two in the morning.”
“I shoulda’ known better.”
I went to the bathroom door and knocked.
“It’s me, Linda.”
“Don’t come near me,” she said. “You’ll be accused too.
I went back to the kitchen and almost fell when my heel hit the spilled perfume. Valenti had his head under the faucet, letting cold water wash his scratched face.
“Valenti,” I said. “You’re just jealous.”
He stood erect, water dripping down his shirt-front. “Me—jealous?” His thumb jerked toward the bathroom. “Of that?” He laughed viciously. “Don’t make me laugh.” And he laughed again.
“Linda’s straight. She loves you.”
Valenti made his tongue and lips flap. “Love—plplplplp! This afternoon I come home, and who do I find sitting in this kitchen li
ke he owned the place? My own brother Mike.”
“And so?”
“You don’t know that guy, Mike. You don’t know what a lowdown, two-timing gigolo he is. Every girl I had, he took her from me. Now he’s after Linda.”
“Nonsense. You’re married now”
“That suits Mike just fine. It makes it all the easier. Him sitting in my kitchen with his coat off!”
“It’s been hot. I had my coat off too.”
“You should see those silk shirts of his, those red fireman’s suspenders! I know why he took off his coat. How do I know what else he did?”
“Forget it.”
“Stop saying that!”
“You’re crazy.”
“And yesterday. Here I am, working like a dog to make her happy, and when I come home, where do I find her?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Standing downstairs. Talking to that no-good Walters, a lousy shoe salesman.”
“So?”
“I wouldn’t trust a salesman from here to that stove. You know how they are.”
“You’re very unreasonable. She’s got to talk to somebody.”
“You don’t know her. The way she walks. The way she wiggles that tail of her. It’s a come-on. Why does she wear her skirts so short, and so tight? If I fell for her, why shouldn’t somebody else?”
“Forget it, Valenti.”
He pounded the table slowly with his fist. “If she’d only admit it! I got to know where I stand.”
“Admit what?”
“Those others.”
“You’re crazy. You’re insane, mad.”
“I got to know. I can’t standit.”
“You said three times. What about the other time?”
“Ah,” he said. “That slimy little rat!”
“Who?”
“The grocery kid. He’s always hanging around. One of those high school kids with a lot of pimples. Always hanging around, chewing his fingernails.”