by Traci Chee
Blood on the Sun: An American journalist in Tokyo uncovers a Japanese plot to take over the world. The boys would have hated it, Dad. I hated it. As usual, all the principal actors were Caucasian, even the ones who were supposed to be Japanese. (How could they have Japanese actors? We’re all in camps.) I had to watch them parade across the screen in their fake eyelids, butchering both of my languages every time they opened their mouths. The sounds in the theater: the actors’ tongues heavy as axes, the rapt silence of the audience absorbing every hateful scene, one guy behind me muttering “dirty Nips” again and again and again.
I looked around at the people in the audience, their faces almost translucent in the projector light, their hate bubbling inside them like boiling water.
The morning after you died, Ma didn’t get up, and we didn’t ask her to. I made breakfast for Shig and Minnow. The sounds of the kitchen: foghorns on the coast, Yum-yum practicing Beethoven a block away, cereal tumbling into white glass bowls, Shig letting the milk fall from his spoon. “Dad’s flag,” he said, and the three of us looked toward the front hall, where your triangle of stars was laid on the table by the door.
I flew it after you were gone. I had to learn to fold it after you were gone. Halved lengthwise and halved again. Turned at the corner, over and over and over, until all that was left was a wedge of blue and white. I followed the creases you had left, or at least, I tried to. I wanted to keep your flag when we left San Francisco, but there wasn’t enough room.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1944, 1945 HOURS
CAMP SHELBY, MISS.
Today I strolled around town for a while. Did you know they have separate drinking fountains here for “white” and “colored”? Separate entrances, separate seating sections, nothing equal? Back in Japan, did you know, when you dreamed of America, that it was never equal? Did you understand? Did I?
I met another soldier, Leonard Thomas, a Black guy from Los Angeles. Small world: He knows Stan’s friend Yosh’s sister, Kimi. He used to share his lunch with her when they were in elementary school. She liked cherries, he said, laughing. “We used to throw the pits at our kid brothers.” He and I were standing on the curb, talking, as a group of Caucasian guys approached us, walking three abreast, like they were a great white plow rolling down the sidewalk. Without even thinking about it, I stepped aside, Leonard stepped aside, and I wondered at how we’d been trained to do this, to recede, to shrink, so that Caucasians can have more space. As they passed us, one of them brushed up against Leonard’s arm, where the American flag is stitched.
The Caucasian guy, snarling: Out of the way, boy!
I’m still thinking about that. Leonard is a grown man, a man in uniform, a soldier, an American soldier, and to them, he was still “boy.” He stiffened, but only for a second, so fast that if you weren’t watching closely, you’d have missed it, like for a moment, he was electrified, hot and angry. Then, a second later, he had averted his eyes, as if by doing that, he could make it so the Caucasians would walk away, would not demand an apology, would not pursue him further.
I’ve seen people do that before. I’ve done it before, many times. A month after you died, I pruned the Aldermans’ flowering plum trees, the way you’d done for two years. They watched me clip branches for hours, and when I was done, they told me they wouldn’t pay me because I wasn’t the Jap they hired. In January 1942, I was followed back to the Chevy, to your Chevy, by four Caucasian men, who told me Nips weren’t wanted in their neighborhood. I watched half of Japantown on the sidewalk with their luggage, with all the things they had left in the world, while armed soldiers herded them onto buses to be shipped away from the only homes they had ever known.
Leonard and I said nothing about it until it was time to return to Shelby, and he was forced to sit in the back of the bus while I hesitated, like I always do, on the border of the “colored” section, before sitting down in a seat marked “white.” Although I am not white, never have been, not in America. I thought of Stan and his friend Yosh standing up to the army in Tule Lake, the same army whose uniform I wear, that Leonard wears. “This isn’t right,” I said to him, in the seat behind me. We were surrounded: white faces, white ladies, white gloves, white men. We were soldiers, and we were enemies, and there are so many fronts on which to fight. Leonard shook his head, murmuring, “You just figuring that out?”
I felt the air go out of me, like a flag that’s suddenly been deprived of wind: no longer a high-flying beacon but merely cloth, beaten and limp. I knew, I had known it a long time, I had just never wanted to admit it, like you had never wanted to admit it, you with your dreams, what this country was and has always been.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1944, 2130 HOURS
CAMP SHELBY, MISS.
Dear Dad, I try to remember what you taught me. Chin up. Back straight. Turn the other cheek. But if we never say anything, will they ever know they were wrong?
We received forty replacement officers today, lieutenants and up, all Caucasian. All of our officers are Caucasian. (The 100th Battalion had a Korean-American officer before they were deployed, but now they’re fighting at Monte Cassino in Italy.) How long have Caucasians been telling us what we can and cannot do, where we can and cannot live, who we can and cannot love, who we are and cannot be? You wanted me to be able to choose: a gardener’s son, a college graduate, an engineer, a doctor, a boy, a man who builds things or fixes them.
Minnow is on the high school newspaper staff in Topaz now. Can you believe it? He’s already in the eleventh grade. He sends me a copy with every letter he writes, pointing out which comics he drew and which articles are his, and I think of you and me at the kitchen table, reviewing homework, quiz scores, report cards. I think you’d be proud of him, Dad. He says he’s thinking of becoming a journalist, of telling things like they are to the people who need to hear it.
Is that what I’m fighting for, Dad? Minnow’s right to decide what he’ll become? His right to tell the truth? To say something without fearing for his safety? I thought I knew why I was here, why I volunteered: to prove we deserved freedom, liberty, and justice, like everybody else.
But only a few, a Caucasian few, have ever had those things.
Everyone says the new officers mean we’re going to be deployed soon. The question: Atlantic or Pacific? Europe or Japan? People who look like our officers, or people who look like us?
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1944, 2100 HOURS
CAMP SHELBY, MISS.
We were reviewed today. They lined us up on the parade grounds to be examined by the Chief of Staff. You should’ve seen us, Dad. We looked like soldiers: rigid, focused, not a thread out of place. A+. The Chief of Staff didn’t say much as he walked down the line, asking a question of this man or that. The sounds: a murmured comment, a “Yes, sir,” the American flag snapping in the wind, crack! crack! crack!
Later, at the Service Club, I told Leonard that the Chief of Staff was pleased. Leonard sighed and lifted his glass. “Then you’d better kiss your ass goodbye.”
Twitchy ran up, clinking Leonard’s mug with his own. Lucky boy, his furlough came through. He’s going back to Utah. He’s going to say goodbye to his family, to Shig, to Keiko, whose picture he carries in his pocket.
They say it’s going to be soon now. Less than a month, probably, before we get our orders. Leonard and I raised our glasses again. “For Mom,” he said. His mother, who didn’t want him to go, who said this country wasn’t worth giving his life for; and my mother, who knew it’s what you would have wanted. “And apple pie,” I added softly.
We didn’t say: For honor, for the paychecks, for the knowledge that we rose above. We didn’t say: For the insults we had to swallow, for the times we had to avert our eyes, for all the ways they’ve found to hurt us, for the curfews and confiscations, for the thousands of evacuations, for the camps, the lynchings, the segregation, for the grandfathers who were enslaved, for the mothers who pray for better, for the fathers who came with dreams of freedom, for the fathers whose d
reams are unfulfilled, for the way it is and has always been, for the future, and the way we hope it to be. We didn’t have to. We’re fighting for those things, whether we want to or not.
In the background, the Nisei boys were singing “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 1944, 1115 HOURS
CAMP SHELBY, MISS.
Shig’s applying for resettlement in Chicago. He’s been yakking about it since last year, but I never thought he’d actually do it. The work involved and all. Dumb kid doesn’t even have a job lined up or a place to stay. You know Shigeo: jump first, think later. I told him to write to the WRA field office in Chicago to set himself up, but he says he’s going to stay in one of the hostels they have for Japanese-Americans and get the lay of the land for a while. You can’t tell that boy anything, can you?
I’m worried about him, Dad. I’m worried about the Jap hunting licenses, the Niseis who have been attacked in train cars, the windows that have been smashed in Japanese homes, the fires that have been started on old nihonjin farms in the West. I’m worried about him out there in America.
I want to believe in right and wrong. Here is what’s right. Here is what isn’t. Here is the line. Here is the question: If I go to war for America, if I kill for America, if I support an America that doesn’t support me, am I supporting my oppressors? Am I killing their enemies so they can later kill me? I volunteered. I wanted to serve. But who am I serving, Dad? What am I doing here?
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1944, 1630 HOURS
CAMP SHELBY, MISS.
Dear Dad, we got our orders last night: POM. Prepare for Overseas Movement. We’re going to clean the equipment, send out for new uniforms, crate the guns, the jeeps, the mortars. We’re going to shutter the barracks and nail the latrine doors closed. We’re going to scrub our mess kits so we don’t get sick in the field. Not long left in Shelby, and then . . . your son is going to war.
Right now, the whole barrack is crackling with nervous energy, like static. A guy runs past you, and you get zapped. It reminds me of the evacuation. Someone tells us we have to go, and we go. No one knows where. No one knows what it’s really going to be like. The only familiar things are what you can fit on your person: a letter, a snapshot, a piece of home. The rest, you leave behind. The rest of you, you leave behind.
I left the best of me behind, I think, with Shig and Minnow, with Stan and Tommy, Frankie and Twitchy. It’s like pieces of me are scattered across this continent: Topaz, Tule Lake, Shelby, Chicago. I tried to be a rock, a support, a foundation. But I’m crumbling without them, Dad. I told you I started writing to you the day after your funeral, believing that if I wrote to you, I wouldn’t lose you, but I think I’ve lost you. I think I’ve lost myself.
Would I know your voice if I heard it?
I wish I’d gotten my furlough, like Twitchy, who’s leaving in a week. He’s going to get Minnow to sign something for him, I think. A drawing. Minnow’s a great artist, Dad, really great. I wish I’d seen it sooner. I wish I could’ve told him I was sorry for being so hard on him. And to disregard my dreams for him, because they’re not as important as his own. I wish I could tell Ma I love her . . . and not to worry, even though I am worried. I’m scared, Dad, not just of dying, but of dying for the wrong cause.
Did you know Shig dared me to flunk a math test once? I couldn’t do it, couldn’t give it anything less than my best, couldn’t bear to watch you read the F at the top of my paper, your smile disappearing. I volunteered for this. I said I would fight. So I will.
I wish I could tell Shig I’m proud of him for being braver than me.
Dear Dad, if I die out there, they’ll give Ma an American flag just like yours. My very own triangle of stars. But I don’t know if I’m going to want that, when the time comes.
I don’t know if I want it now.
Hey, Keiko, I’m sending you one of our 442d RCT patches, like we wear on our uniforms. See how it’s got the torch of liberty and the national colors? You better keep it safe, huh? Keep it in your pocket or under your pillow so you dream of me at night, ha ha.
Be home to you soon.
Twitchy
XII
THIS IS THE MOMENT
KEIKO, 18
MARCH 1944
13 HOURS
GATECRASHERS
It’s Twitchy’s last night in camp before he returns to the army, so to celebrate, you crash a wedding.
This is a moment. This is a memory.
Now the vows.
Now the rings.
Now four dumb kids sneaking in the back while everyone stands for the kiss.
Picture this: The recreation center decorated with the same fake flowers and crepe-paper streamers they reuse for every Topaz wedding. The stained white tablecloth on the Ping-Pong table. The refreshments arranged around the wedding cake like acolytes.
Sidling up to the cake, Twitchy takes a scoop of icing on his forefinger and pops it into his mouth. Seeing you watching him, he winks.
He wore his uniform for the occasion, damn him. The boy has got to know he looks good in khaki.
12 HOURS
FLOWER BOY
Now this: The single gals are huddled on the dance floor. The bride is throwing the bouquet. Twitchy Hashimoto is leaping in front of all of them, snatching the flowers out of the air like a football player intercepting a pass.
“Look, Keiko!” He waves at you, in the back. “I’m next!”
You cock an eyebrow at him and cross your arms.
He takes off running. The girls chase him around the room, over the chairs and around the Ping-Pong table, where they pin him against the wall, squealing and grabbing at him.
And why wouldn’t they? In that uniform? With those dimples you could dig your fingers into?
This is a moment turning into a memory. Things happen quickly. Things are always slipping away faster than you can hold on to them.
“Shig!” Twitchy shouts. “Go long!”
He lets the bouquet fly.
Now a scream.
Now a scattering of petals.
The bouquet hits the floor, and Shig jumps back as the girls scramble for it. You watch them climbing over one another.
In the commotion, Twitchy parades to the back of the room where you’re standing with Yum-yum and presents you a flower with a flourish and a bow. “Saved one for you,” he says proudly.
It’s a bruised white carnation, its petals creased, its blossom swinging precariously from a broken stem.
“Nice, Twitch,” Yum-yum says.
Look, you didn’t ask for Twitchy Hashimoto to fall in love with you. You’re not the kind of girl who gets her wishes granted, and if you were, you wouldn’t spend them on stupid things like wishing your prince will come.
Not that Twitchy Hashimoto is a prince.
But you can’t help yourself. Look at those eyes. Look at that dopey smile.
You snap the flower’s head off and tuck it behind your ear. “You’re a damn fool, Hashimoto.”
You don’t say: And I’m a damn fool for indulging you.
11 HOURS
CAKE
You watch the bride and groom cut into the cake. The knife is gleaming. The groom’s hands are trembling. Both of them grit their teeth nervously as the camera flashes—once, twice. All you can think is they’re going to have a photo of them, their wedding cake, and Twitchy’s fingerprint in the frosting.
This is a slice of time. This is a cross-section of lives. The happy couple. The photographer. Twitchy Hashimoto, whose name none of them know.
Twitchy nudges you with his elbow. “That could be us one day, huh? You’d look real good in white.”
You smirk at him. “I look good in everything.”
He grins, and those damn dimples appear in his cheeks. “Careful, Keiko, or your veil won’t fit that swollen head of yours.”
You don’t want to think about that. A wedding requires a groom requires a fiancé requires a boyfriend requires a bouquet of roses or a
box of chocolates or you wanting a boyfriend.
And you don’t want a boyfriend. Especially not one who’s leaving in the morning.
“Keep dreaming, Hashimoto. We’re just friends.”
“Yeah.” He winks. “Like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are just friends.”
You find him infuriating. You find him charming. You find your heart a traitor.
Shig and Yum-yum squeeze out of the crowd, bearing slices of cake. Leaping up, Twitchy takes one and sashays out the door, calling, “Just admit it, Keiko! You’ve got it bad for me!”
Shig and Yum-yum exchange a long-suffering look.
You ignore them. You hike up your skirt and go stomping down the steps after Twitchy. “Me? You’ve been in love with me for months! Don’t try to deny it!”
10 HOURS
P IS FOR PACKING
Shig’s taking the train to Chicago the day after tomorrow, after Twitchy goes back to the army. If that seems like coincidence, it isn’t. He postponed his resettlement so he could see Twitchy one last time.
Those boys. If you hit one of them hard enough, the other would feel it.
Shig’s always been kind of lazy, so naturally he hasn’t packed a thing. When you get back to the Itos’ barrack, you, Twitchy, Yuki, and Minnow sit on Mas’s empty cot, watching Shig pull clothes from his dresser. You share a bag of peanuts because watching Shig trying to pack is like watching a tornado trying to make a field goal. Half the barrack is destroyed before he’s even filled one suitcase, because Yum-yum keeps taking his shirts and pants out and throwing them back at him until he folds them like a goddamn grown-up.
This is the last night you’ll be together. This is not the first time you’ve thought that.
You ate oden the night before Pearl Harbor, the perfect meal for a winter evening. Your mother was wearing a pink dress. Your father was grading papers at the table while you read Gertrude Stein and tried to figure out what the hell she was trying to say.
You drank spiked punch in this very barrack the night before Mas, Frankie, and Twitchy left for basic training. You threw up behind the latrines while Bette held your hair.