by Traci Chee
* * *
Delta’s a sleepy little town, at least compared to San Francisco, but to us, who’ve been cooped up in camp for so long, the main drag is like a metropolitan paradise, even though I don’t think Bette would agree. There’s a deli, a secondhand store, a Bank of America, and Smith Grocery and Fountain, and everything closes at six p.m. As we roll down Main Street, I watch the Smith Grocery shop clerk serving up ice cream cones to a couple of blond-haired, pigtailed girls.
Boy, do I miss real ice cream. The prepackaged Eskimo Pies and Good Humor bars at the co-op store just aren’t the same—and that’s if you can get them, because even if you wait in line for an hour, they still might sell out.
By the time we reach the high school, the whole team’s buzzing with excitement. Quickly, we grab our gear from under the bus and start trotting toward the visitor dugout.
Except for me. I stop at the edge of the diamond with my chest protector and shin guards dangling from one hand, my mitt and helmet from the other, and I take a long, deep breath.
Mary and I used to do this before each game, just take it all in. The blue of the sky. The crack of the bat. I used to joke that this should be one of our inalienable rights: life, liberty, and softball. She used to roll her eyes.
The other girls are beginning to warm up. I guess our replacements aren’t bad, but our infield could’ve been better, I think, with Mary and Aiko, but they’re in Tule Lake by now. I wonder if they’re playing ball out there.
I hope so. I hope they’re showing those Tuleans how Topaz does things.
I kneel in the grass—it’s real grass here, not Topaz dust—and touch the ground. The blades scratch my palm, prickly as Mary herself. “Wish you were here,” I say.
My fingers catch on something smooth and cool. It’s a nickel, half-overgrown with grass. I pick it up, rubbing dirt from its faces. It feels like a sign.
Standing, I flick the coin into the air and catch it again before jogging off toward the rest of the team. Here we go, I think. Can’t lose.
Aki and I throw the ball around a bit to loosen up before we really get into it, and then it’s thwack! thwack! thwack! Ball after ball strikes my mitt. It feels good. It feels right.
Once it’s game time, we all stand for the national anthem, and as we salute the flag, I wonder how often Mas and the boys hear this song at Camp Shelby. I picture them on the parade grounds in perfect rows, except for Twitchy, who probably fidgets and makes faces at Frankie through the whole thing.
Then the Delta girls trot out onto the field, and we gather in the dugout, ready to take our turns at bat.
Thanks to Mary and Aiko’s help, I’m batting cleanup this year, which is pretty great, if I do say so myself. I worked my butt off all summer, and it’s nice to have something to show for it.
Boy, are the Rabbits going to be surprised.
I take my place on the bench as our leadoff hitter, Jane “Abunai” Inai goes up to bat.
“Abunai!” we shout. “Abunaaaaaai!” Danger! Daaaaanger!
She looks so glamorous in the on-deck circle, with long eyelashes, big hips, and a swagger like one of the boys. Before she steps into the batter’s box, she glances over her shoulder and gives us a wink.
We start cheering and whistling, howling up a storm.
There’s that feeling again, like we’re lightning about to fork down out of the sky, like we’re going to leave scorch marks in our tracks.
I touch the nickel in my pocket for extra luck. Can’t lose.
* * *
I lied. My favorite thing about softball is the feeling after the game, when you know you’ve held nothing back—you’ve obliterated the competition, and you’re on top of the world because you gave it everything you had, and everything you had was more than good enough.
We destroy the Rabbits. We beat them seventeen to three. We’re better on defense. We’re quicker to the ball. Aki strikes out one after another, the Delta girls swinging and missing every trick pitch. Jane lives up to her nickname and gets on base every time she’s at bat. I hit a grand slam in the third inning—my first ever!—and they shout my nickname as I round the bases, blowing kisses to my teammates.
“Yeah, Whitey!”
We’re like queens out there. No, like goddesses. We dominate the diamond.
When we get back, I plan on telling Minnow all about it. The Topaz Times never really cares about girls’ sports, but Minnow’s on the staff of the high school Rambler this year, doing drawings for them, and I’m going to make sure the camp hears about this, one way or another!
The sun is setting by the time we all scramble back onto the bus, sweaty and victorious and loud. “Good job, young ladies,” Mr. Gregson says with one of his slim smiles.
I climb into my seat near the front and congratulate the rest of the team as they pass.
“You did great today, Yuki,” Miss Jenkins says, taking her usual place in front of me as Mr. Gregson drives off.
“Thanks, Miss J.!”
“If you keep this up, you could play for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League one day.”
“Me? Not a chance,” I say, laughing. “Those girls are the greats.”
I read about the AAGPBL in Father’s newspapers over the summer: the Belles, the Blue Sox, the Comets, the Peaches, Helen “Nickie” Nicol, Dorothy “Kammie” Kamenshek, Gladys “Terrie” Davis.
Miss Jenkins tilts her head. “Who knows? You could be one of the greats too.”
Grinning, I lean back, imagining myself in a Peaches uniform. Yuki “Whitey” Nakano, because my first name means “snow” in Japanese. Through the windows, there’s another one of those blazing Utah sunsets, the colors melting together like sherbet.
Like ice cream.
“It’s almost six o’clock!” I cry, bolting upright.
Miss Jenkins glances back at me, one thin eyebrow arched quizzically. “So?”
“So it’s almost closing time at Smith Grocery! What d’you say we make a stop for some ice cream, Miss J.?”
“Yeah!” Aki cries. She begins pounding on the seatback, chanting, “Ice cream! Ice cream!”
The rest of the team joins her. “Ice cream! Ice cream!”
Miss Jenkins looks flustered, her pale face turning pink. “Girls!” she cries.
“Don’t you think we deserve a little treat for our hard work?” I ask in my most reasonable Don’t be unreasonable, Miss Jenkins voice. “It was a good day, right? We won—no, we crushed—our first away game—”
There’s a chorus of whoops from the girls.
Miss Jenkins bites her lip, but I can tell she’s starting to cave. “I don’t know . . .”
“Please?” I ask, doing my best impression of Bette, who can charm anyone into anything. “Pretty please? With a cherry on top?”
She glances at Mr. Gregson in the rearview mirror. He shrugs, though his eyes are smiling.
“All right!” she says at last. “All right, you’ve convinced me!”
We cheer.
“But you’re not all going in,” she adds, attempting to be stern. “Smith Grocery doesn’t need you girls invading its aisles ten minutes before closing.”
We groan.
“Except for you, Yuki.” Miss Jenkins points at me. “You want to be the ringleader; you can come with me and carry the ice cream back for the rest of the team. What do you girls want?”
In a sudden flurry, everyone begins combing through coin purses and calling out orders. I grin as Miss Jenkins frantically scribbles everything on the back of our lineup.
We pull up alongside Smith Grocery with seven minutes to spare. From outside, the shop seems to glow with this yellow light, like a paper lantern or something. Inside, past the weekly deals and markdown notices, I can see the clerk in his white apron, wiping down the counter. He has a ruddy face and a few wisps of brownish-gray hair sticking out from under his paper soda-jerk hat, with blue eyes like Mr. Gregson’s.
Miss Jenkins and I hop off the bus. I’m so
excited, I can barely keep from skipping into the store and doing a pirouette in the middle of the checkered floor.
The bell above us jingles as we enter the shop. The clerk looks over at us, but I only have eyes for the ice cream case: luscious chocolate, pale-pink strawberry, creamy butter pecan . . .
But when I glance up again, I recoil.
The man behind the counter is glaring at me, his eyes hard as chips of glass.
I glance over my shoulder. He’s probably seen the bus outside and doesn’t want to serve anyone so near closing time, I guess. But I don’t think seventeen scoops of ice cream—because we’re getting one for Mr. Gregson, too, obviously—is really all that bad, is it?
I let Miss Jenkins do the talking, since she’s a pretty white lady, and stand with my hands behind my back as we approach the counter, like I can make myself less intimidating that way.
“Good evening,” Miss Jenkins says brightly, even though the man doesn’t seem to hear her. “I hope it’s not too late to get some ice cream. The girls just won their game, and . . .”
Her voice kind of peters out at the end as she realizes the man isn’t even looking at her.
He’s looking at me.
I’m already pretty small—in the AAGPBL, they could call me Yuki “Shorty” Nakano—but as the man glares at me, I wish I could make myself smaller. I take a step back.
“Um . . .” Miss Jenkins clears her throat and glances at the slip of paper with our orders on it. “One strawberry on a sugar cone, please, two fudge ripples in cups, one chocolate on a waffle cone . . .”
The clerk’s face is getting red now, redder and redder with every second, his eyes turning sharp and dangerous.
Abunai, I think.
I try to stop her, tugging her sleeve. “C’mon, Miss J., let’s just go, okay?”
But she ignores me, or doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t want to, because she keeps going, “One chocolate chip with a cherry on—”
“WE DON’T SERVE JAPS HERE!” he bellows, like he can’t hold it in anymore. His voice is so loud, it echoes in my head.
JAPS
JAPS
JAPS
Unlike an echo, it doesn’t get any softer.
I stagger backwards a little, blinking. This isn’t the big city, where Bette gets called “Jap” by strangers. The Deltans know us. They work alongside us. They’ve played on our baseball diamonds. They’ve performed talent pageants for us, same as we’ve done for them. They know we’ve never done anything wrong.
How can they still hate us?
Miss Jenkins stiffens like she’s the one who’s been called a dirty word. She grabs my hand so tight that at first I think I’ve done something wrong.
But then I see her teary, scared-looking face, and I know I haven’t done anything. Angrily, I jerk out of her grasp and storm outside. Overhead, the bell jingles dissonantly in my ears.
Miss Jenkins is sobbing as we walk back to the curb. It’s fully dark now, the sky a sort of mulberry purple. Behind us, I hear the door lock with an audible click. I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see his blood-filled face, his hateful eyes.
“That man!” Miss Jenkins is saying, her voice weepy. “That horrible man! I’m so sorry, Yuki—”
I cut her off. “Stop crying, Miss Jenkins.” Like I’m the adult and she’s the kid. Like I’m scolding her for something she should’ve known. Because shouldn’t she have known? “Let’s just get back to camp, okay?” I try to soften my voice, like she’s the one who needs protecting, even though she’s the one who’s older.
And white.
I don’t know why, but I kind of hate her for that. For being white. For putting me in that position. For not standing up for me. For being so weak that I have to be the strong one.
I kind of hate her the way I hate the clerk. And the girls of the All-American League, because I know now I’ll never play with them. And I hate myself a little bit too, for thinking it could’ve been any other way.
Nodding, Miss Jenkins hiccups a few times and wipes her eyes. I glare at the back of her head as she boards the bus in silence.
Mr. Gregson watches me solemnly as I climb the steps. “I’m sorry, young lady,” he says.
“Yeah.” I don’t look him in the eyes when I say it. He’s got blue eyes, like the man behind the counter. Without a word, I sink as low as I can into my seat, where I can’t be seen.
I thought things were normal again. I thought I couldn’t lose.
But maybe it’s my fault, because it took me until now to realize it—as long as this is our normal, people like me can always lose.
The sky has been drained of all color now, and in the darkness, the only sign that we’re nearing camp is the sour miasma of livestock. Through the window, I see the silhouette of the Main Gate watchtower.
Laying my forehead against the glass, I stare at the camp grounds as the bus stops and the engine dies.
The guards may be gone, but the towers and the cattle fences haven’t been torn down. The camp hasn’t been dismantled. We may have said “Yes” and “Yes” to the questionnaire, but we’re still here.
I collect my gear, shivering. If they still treat us like this, what is it going to be like for Mary and Aiko, in the segregation camp with all the Japs who refused to say they were loyal to this country?
Tule Lake Segregation Center, California
IX
HUNKY-DORY WHATEVER
MARY, 16
OCTOBER 1943
Tule Lake doesn’t even have proper buses to take us from the train depot to the Segregation Center. Instead, we’re prodded onto army trucks, where we shiver under the canvas canopies as armed soldiers slam the tailgates behind us, slapping the siding to let the drivers know we’re ready for shipment.
Mom jumps.
If this had been a bus, I would be slumped against the window, watching the barren scenery go by, but I have to settle for slouching, legs spread like a boy.
Dad makes a disapproving sound, but I don’t care what he thinks.
“You think Mas rides a truck like this at Camp Shelby?” my brother Paul, who’s eleven, asks as we begin to rattle and jolt down the road.
“Yeah,” says our older brother, Stan, “and so do POWs.”
“What’s a POW?”
“A prisoner of war.”
I don’t think the irony of Stan’s comment is lost on anyone, even Paul, whose enthusiasm wilts into silence. The other families in the truck shift uncomfortably as the road unravels behind us like a loose gray ribbon, flapping aimlessly in our wake.
* * *
As we pull into Tule Lake, someone in the back of the truck lets out a whimper of dismay.
The fences here are three times as tall as the ones at Topaz, made of chain links and topped with barbed wire, in case someone wants to try escaping, I guess, and the guard towers are even taller than that.
Oh yeah, and there are tanks. I count six of them before we’ve even left the trucks: squat, greenish-gray things with machine guns mounted on top.
“Can someone say ‘overkill’?” Stan mutters to me.
Mom shushes him.
Before, I would’ve laughed. Now I ignore him and jump from the truck before anyone else can get out. The ground is swampy with rain, and the mud splatters my pants when I land.
Tule Lake is composed of the same tarpaper barracks as Topaz, but as I walk toward one of the firebreaks, away from my family, who are gabbling and trying to count our luggage, the buildings seem to stretch even farther into the distance than they did in Utah.
Topaz used to hold eight thousand people. How many disloyals are they expecting here? Ten thousand? Fifteen?
It starts to drizzle, and in the subdued pat-pat-pat of the rain, I realize it’s eerily quiet. When we arrived at Topaz, the Boy Scouts were playing marching tunes, but here, the only sounds are of slamming doors and strained voices. If you were a cheerful person like Yuki, you could appreciate Tule Lake’s total lack of pretense.
But I am not cheerful.
“Mary,” Dad says, interrupting my thoughts, “come help your mother.”
I glance over my shoulder just long enough for him to know I heard him. Dad’s mustache is in need of trimming, I notice. Over the past couple days on the train, it’s grown over the edge of his upper lip, making him appear unkempt and wild.
I turn my back, ignoring him when he calls my name again.
* * *
Throughout the afternoon, the rest of the family unpacks their suitcases and settles into the new apartments the administration has assigned us.
I take one look inside and want to curl my lip in disgust. It’s got the same shitty coal-burning stove, but I guess they couldn’t be bothered to install any Sheetrock, because the floors are bare wood and the walls don’t reach the rafters, so we can hear every sound in the whole barrack. Add the smell of manure, and we could be back in Tanforan.
I set up my cot in one corner and flop down on the lumpy army mattress, burying my face in the book I brought from Utah.
I already read it twice on the train ride here, but it’s better than having to deal with my family.
“Don’t bother getting up,” Stan says, helping Dad sweep cobwebs from the ceiling. “We’ve got this.”
I don’t respond.
Stan doesn’t have the right to complain about anything that happens in Tule Lake. It’s his fault—his and Dad’s—that we’re here at all. Mom wanted to say “Yes” and “Yes” to the questionnaire, but they had an axe to grind. They wanted to prove something. They made us come here.
“Get up,” Dad says.
I peer over the edge of my book. He and Stan have finished setting the table next to the stove, and he’s staring at me, teeth gritted like he’s trying to stop himself from shouting. Wouldn’t want the neighbors to know he can’t control his own daughter, I guess.
I hop off the cot and walk out the door.