by Traci Chee
I smile, even though I decided weeks ago that I wasn’t going to like him. But Boots Boy seems smarter than I thought.
“It was still nice, though,” he says, “compared to this.”
I shrug. “Why’d you leave? ’Cause you wanted to be a No-No so bad?”
Now it’s his turn to be silent, although he doesn’t stop walking with me. Our footsteps make soft impressions in the dirt: my saddle shoes and his old boots, frayed laces tapping lightly against the leather.
“To get away from my stepdad,” he says finally.
I glance at him again. What did Kiyoshi’s stepdad do that was so bad, Kiyoshi had to change camps to get away from him? I mean, I hate my dad, but it must have been really, really bad for Kiyoshi to have to come here.
“Shit,” is all I can think to say.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Kiyoshi.”
Huh, I guess I’ve started thinking of him as Kiyoshi, then.
He glances sideways at me, a sad little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I just hope he doesn’t follow us here.”
We walk the rest of the way to my barrack in silence, but it’s not my usual stewing, fuming silence. It’s like for the first time in months, I’ve been entrusted with something important, something true, and it’s been so long since that’s happened that all I want to do is hold on to it.
For once, Dad doesn’t yell at me the whole afternoon and evening. I get the water for the kettle without being asked. I fetch coal for the fire before Stan has to. It almost feels like old times when I used to help Mom and Dad around the store: counting stock, replacing fruits and vegetables in the crates, always making sure the oldest produce was in front, even though all the Issei ladies went through every single pear or melon to make sure they got the best one.
But when Dad says, “You’re being so helpful tonight, Mary,” like it’s a surprise, like I wasn’t a good, dutiful daughter who looked up to him for years, I remember that he could never admit when he was wrong then, either. I remember that he’d go charging onward even if he’d made a mistake, too bullheaded to ever change course or say he was sorry.
Stan shoots him a look. “Couldn’t just leave it alone, could you, Dad?”
“Whatever.” Grabbing my mitt, I leave the barrack to find some empty building to throw a ball against and hope that something breaks.
* * *
Two days later, we hear sirens again. Outside the fence, police cars and ambulances roar down the new road to the farms, where the harvesters have been at work all week, picking potatoes.
Later, we learn one of the farm trucks turned over. Twenty-nine people are injured.
One dies.
The farm workers go on strike for safer working conditions. Agitators take to the streets. Small groups stand under the guard towers, singing the Japanese national anthem.
We’re troublemakers, all right, and trouble is coming. You can feel it simmering in the mess halls and in the firebreaks, and it’s just a matter of time before the camp erupts.
That night, Dad and I argue about something—I don’t even know what—and when I come home from school the next day, my ball and mitt are gone. I’m confined to the barrack, he says, until I earn the privilege of freedom.
I want to say, What freedom? But I just bury my face in my book until he prowls to the other room, fists clenched at his sides.
* * *
They want me here? Well, I’m here, and I hate it, and I make sure they know it. For a week, I throw my books down when I get back from school. I whack the doorframe with the coal bucket when I refill it. I am the seething, sullen presence they wish they could forget, only I won’t let them.
It gets so bad, I don’t even have to say anything to piss Dad off. I turn a page of my book, and he’s yelling at me about my attitude, my disrespect, the expression on my face. I don’t even think he cares if the neighbors know our business now. Mary Katsumoto’s a bad egg or Katsumoto-san can’t keep his temper or whatever. As long as he gets to yell at me, I guess it doesn’t matter.
One night, we’re standing in the center of the apartment, where Mom and Stan and Paul can see us. Paul is covering his ears as he stares at a comic book he must have borrowed from Aiko. Mom is folding undershirts, pretending she can’t hear us.
“What happened to you?” Dad shouts. “You used to be such a good girl!”
“And you used to be a good parent,” I snap. “Things change!”
Mom slaps me. It bursts across my cheek, hot and sharp.
Suddenly, all the sound in our neighbors’ apartments cuts out.
I’m too stunned to even react. I didn’t even notice her get up.
“Do not speak to your father like that.” She doesn’t yell like he does, but she doesn’t have to. Her voice will slice right through you.
I stare at her. I haven’t moved to cup my cheek, even though I can feel it stinging the whole right side of my face. I stare at her so long, she folds her hand awkwardly, as if she’s ashamed of what it’s done.
Clenching my jaw, I spin on my heel and stalk out into the dark, slamming the door so hard, it pops back open again.
* * *
I find myself in the administration area, near the Housing Office, this nice, quiet whitewashed building, all its nice, quiet employees gone home for the night, all its windows dark.
Damn it.
I pick up a stone and pitch it through the pane closest to me. It shatters, fragments of glass falling to the ground and shattering again.
Grabbing a new rock, I break another window.
Damn it all.
Why won’t anybody admit they were wrong? Why won’t they just call this what it is? Why does everyone keep lying?
They said we were citizens. They said we were “dangerous.” They told us they were being considerate of our needs. They said it was an “evacuation” and a “migration,” not an incarceration.
They said the camps were full of opportunity.
They said they weren’t violating our rights.
I run out of rocks before I run out of windows.
And for what? So they can save face? So they can go on thinking they were right? Dad was right? This is fine?
I need something else to throw. I put my head down, scanning the ground for another stone. A brick. Something. I feel like I should be scared of getting caught—someone might have heard the breaking glass; someone might have called internal security—but I don’t even care at this point.
I don’t see any more stones, but I do see a pair of shoes. Men’s shoes.
Stan’s shoes.
Looking up, I glare at him for a moment. His glasses are speckled with rain—I guess it’s raining; I didn’t even notice—and he has my coat under one arm, but that’s not what he’s offering me. He’s offering me a rock. A good one. Just smaller than fist-size.
I jerk my head at him. A challenge.
You do it.
Smirking, he winds up and pitches the stone at the Housing Office. Together, we smash the remaining windows until there are no more panes to break.
We stand there together amid the broken glass, glittering like frost in the dim light. “Feel better?” Stan asks, holding out my coat to me.
I snatch it from him. “Hardly.”
He backs away, hands raised like I’m going to bite.
I roll my eyes. But I’m smiling when I stalk past him, and I don’t bother trying to hide it.
* * *
Dad and I are the only ones in the barrack the next day when a young guy comes to the door. He’s wearing all white, and he speaks in lightly accented English, like maybe he’s Kibei or something: “Your presence is requested at the funeral service for Mr. Shimomura.”
The guy who died in the farm-truck accident last week.
“Why?” I say.
The Kibei guy looks annoyed. Who is this guy? He’s not from our block, or I would’ve seen him in the mess hall or something. Beyond him, I see an elderly couple b
eing escorted from their apartment by another guy in white.
I don’t recognize him, either.
“It’s a show of support for the widow,” the Kibei guy says.
“Don’t know her, either.” I’m starting to close the door when Dad comes up behind me.
“We’ll go,” he says. “Let us put on our shoes and coats.”
I’m turning to glare at him when I notice his voice. It’s not loud, like it usually is when he’s pissed off. Instead, it’s even, almost placid, like he’s afraid of his own volume.
That’s when I see the billy club in the Kibei’s hand. Jesus.
“Whatever,” I say.
When we leave the apartment, Dad and I are caught up in a crowd being herded toward the funeral parlor. People are being turned away from the mess hall and the latrines, forced to walk with the others by young guys with truncheons.
Dad’s gripping my arm hard, like he’s sure I’m going to twist away from him, so I march alongside him, kicking up silt with every step.
There are so many people in the streets, we don’t even get close to the funeral parlor. We’re at the back edge of the crowd, and behind us, more guys in white are pacing back and forth like guards.
Just what we need, I think. More guards.
Dad mutters a curse in Japanese. “This is a show of something, all right, but it’s not for the widow.”
The funeral parlor’s at the corner of Ward 5, near the cemetery. It’s not in front of the administration building or anything, but a crowd of Japanese this size is going to get their attention, no matter where it is.
This is a statement from some camp faction to the WRA, and I’m caught in the middle of it.
I’m always caught in the middle of everything.
I yank my arm out of Dad’s grasp, ignoring him when he cries out in alarm. I shove through the crowd, trying to find a way out, but everywhere I look, there are guys with clubs blocking my way.
Stubbornly, I try to push through them, but they shove me back into the crowd. My ankle twists underneath me. I stumble.
From behind, Dad grabs my arm, steadying me. “Watch who you’re pushing around,” he snaps. “That’s my daughter.”
One of them shrugs. “Keep your daughter in line.”
Overhead, the camp loudspeakers crackle to life: “HONORED GUESTS . . .”
Dad stares at the men, one eyelid twitching, fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. I’ve seen him angry, but I’ve never seen him like this. “Get out of our way,” he growls.
For a second, I’m afraid for him. For us. We’ve already lost so much.
“Dad,” I say, tugging his sleeve.
He doesn’t move. I don’t think he even breathes.
But before the men can do anything, the loudspeaker dies overhead. There’s a sudden squeal, and the scratchy voice cuts out.
The administration has killed the power.
A ripple of anger runs through the crowd, and one of the club guys nods at the others. Like a bunch of stooges, they trot past us into the crowd, toward the funeral parlor.
Dad collapses on the stoop of the nearest apartment. He looks deflated, like a paper balloon that’s been struck one too many times.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I’m about to snap at him when I pull back, blinking.
He’s sorry?
I must have heard wrong. Dad’s never apologized for anything in his life.
But then he continues, “I had to choose from a list of bad options, and I don’t know that I chose right.”
I feel like I should be gloating. I should at least be smug. But honestly, all I feel is tired. Maybe I’ve been tired for a long time, only I was so angry, I didn’t even know it.
I sit beside him. “Okay,” I say softly.
He nods. Without looking at me, he pats the back of my hand. “We’re going to be all right, Mary.”
I sigh. Somewhere in the distance, someone’s shouting. Maybe they’re trying to give the funeral sermon. Maybe they’re trying to calm down the mass of people who have started grumbling and shifting their feet. Maybe they’re trying to rile everyone up. In the crowd, there’s an undercurrent of something hot and dense, like pressure building in the dark.
For a moment, I allow myself to lean on Dad’s shoulder, and for a moment, I feel him lean back. “I hope so,” I say.
JAP UPRISING AT TULE LAKE
Hostages Taken, Doctor Beaten
TULE LAKE, Nov. 2—Ten employees of the Tule Lake Segregation Center were held hostage yesterday by 5,000 Jap internees, sources report. Among the hostages were project director Ray Best and head of the War Relocation Authority, Dillon Myer, who was visiting the site.
While Best and Myer met with project officials, a mob of disloyal Japanese surrounded their offices in a blatant display of force, compelling administrators to meet with a Jap committee. After a few hours during which the committee presented its demands, the hostages were released, and the Japs dispersed.
The hostage situation occurred simultaneously with two additional incidents, when Chief Medical Officer Dr. Reece M. Pedicord was severely beaten by a gang of Japs and when several automobiles belonging to white civilians were vandalized in the parking lot. No suspects in either the beating or the vandalism have been apprehended.
In case of future insurrections, a battalion of military police under the command of Lieut. Col. Verne Austin is situated outside the camp.
X
THE SNAP
KIYOSHI, 17
NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1943
THURS., NOV. 4
The movie is almost over when Aiko shakes the bag of popcorn, and it rattles like there are only kernels left.
“Aw, man.” She starts to crumple it between her hands, the paper crinkling loudly in the crowded mess hall, the noise audible even over the ticking of the film projector and the actors onscreen.
“Shhh,” Mary hisses.
I lean forward, trying not to get in Mary’s way. I am always trying not to get in Mary’s way, even though sometimes, that’s the only way to get her to notice me. “I’ll take it,” I whisper to Aiko.
Mary glares at me, but I don’t mind. I know now that she doesn’t mean it. If she really hated me, she wouldn’t be sitting next to me. She leans back as Aiko passes the bag to Tommy, who passes it across Mary’s lap to me.
Carefully, I place a half-popped kernel in my mouth and bite down where the soft inside is showing, splitting it neatly apart. It isn’t much, but food is food, and growing up poor taught me never to turn it down when I can get it.
Most of us Japanese are poor, but Mother, my older sister, Kimi, and I were really poor. Sometimes, to help pay for rent or food, I had to leave school to help the family pick strawberries, or asparagus, or mikans. I’d miss exams; I’d fall behind in my classes. I got held back a year. My teachers would tell me I was stupid, lazy, a delinquent, useless.
But I didn’t want to tell them the truth, which was that sometimes, even the extra money wasn’t enough to feed us.
I guess we were eating fine at Gila River, but since we’ve been at Tule Lake, the portions have been shrinking. It doesn’t make sense, if you think about it, because Tule Lake has a pig farm and hundreds of acres of produce. Where’s all that food going?
“Hey, Yosh,” Stan mutters, “can you eat any louder? I don’t think the guys in back can hear you.”
“Sorry.” I eat another kernel, trying not to chew too loudly.
Tonight, they fed us canned peaches at dinner, which was a treat, but Stan thinks they’re just trying to make up for the hubbub on Monday, when the head of the War Relocation Authority was here. Five thousand people showed up to hear him talk about the food shortage, and the labor strikes, and the strikebreakers the Tule Lake project director bused in from the other camps, but they all went away again when the WRA man didn’t have anything to say. I guess some of the Caucasian staff got spooked by the assembly, though, because a bunch of them quit.
Things just keep getting worse here, which is why I’m glad for nights like this, when I can see a movie with my friends, eat some popcorn, and pretend that we’re normal teenagers who aren’t caught up in the tensions of Tule Lake.
* * *
When the film ends and the lights turn on, leaving us squinting and blinking as we pull on our coats and hats, we file out of the mess hall, our heads filled with images of snowy ski resorts and our bellies filled with popcorn. Mary, Stan, Tommy, and I walk four abreast, our breaths puffing in the chill air, while Aiko traipses ahead, belting out the words to “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
Her voice is sweet and clear in the cold, and beside me, I can hear Tommy humming under his breath, smooth and dark as syrup. You wouldn’t expect a sound like that to come from him, from Tommy Harano—who’s so frail, it looks like a good wind could knock him over—but it does.
There is something so beautiful about this, I think: us, together, in the middle of the dusty road, with the hulking shadows of the barracks looming around us.
But under it, there’s an unsettling vibrating in the air, a dull roar that’s felt as much as it is heard.
“Are those trucks?” Mary says.
Ahead, Aiko comes to a stop. Her voice dies in her throat.
We look at one another. The rumble of engines is clearly audible now. There must be at least a dozen of them, by the sound of it.
Stan sighs. “We just can’t catch a break, can we?”
“I think we should—” I begin.
But before I can finish, people come skidding around the corner from the warehouse area, running full tilt down the street. Headlights flash on the buildings one street over.
“Internal police!” someone shouts. “Run!”
Men armed with shovels and wooden clubs are sprinting past us. Their mouths are open, and their eyes are wide, and one’s bright-red blood stains the side of his face.