Ken's War

by B. K. Fowler

  “My mom sent me a newspaper clipping,” Ken heard himself saying. “It was about how Walt Disney died back in December. Now kids in America won’t get to watch The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. It’s a kids’ show. Mom thinks I’m still a kid.”

  “After a month here,” Wizard said, his voice thick with tranquility, “I didn’t miss television one iota. In fact, my disposition improved without TV.”

  He was thankful Wizard hadn’t fired back a smart remark reminding Ken how he’d complained in the past that he was bored here without television to watch. The Japanese girl quietly swished water over her shoulders. Her hands moved like little birds through her black hair.

  “Ouch!” Ken squeaked. “Your toenails are sharp!”

  “You’re ogling,” Wizard said without moving his lips.

  “No, I wasn’t. Besides, she looks like a brownnoser that asks to clap erasers after class.” He shut his eyes and held onto the image of her tiny breasts, sweet promises for the future.

  “Wizard,” he whispered, “I’ll be seventeen in June. Is seventeen an adult?”

  “For what purpose? Drinking, driving, enlisting?”

  Ken shrugged. He felt like an adult already.

  Wizard hung Ken’s yukata on top of his on a hook on the hut wall, and began counting box lots of asphalt shingles that had arrived that day, noting the quantity on an inventory control form.

  “It’s odd,” Wizard said absently, “the fallout of war, that is.”

  As the war intensified, activity in the warehouse increased. Day by day the formerly rare task of shipping stock out became more commonplace. Last week it was canvas material for field hospital stretchers. They’d shaken out the mouse poop and insect carcasses, and crated up another shipment for a hospital in Cao Nam, Vietnam.

  Ken stroked Neko’s bumpy spine. His fingers were wrinkled from soaking in the mineral waters twice in one day. What was really odd, in Ken’s estimation, was how Wizard followed orders without balking and truly reveled in being posted here, all the while ignoring the army’s dress code, letting his hair grow like a spiky sisal plant and “fraternizing with the Japs” as his dad put it.

  “Do you know anything about the water principle?” Ken asked Wizard.

  “Sikung Wu took you on as a student after all.”

  “Not exactly. He told me to study water, but I already know everything. I passed the quiz on that stuff last year.”

  “Open the cabinet and get yourself a notepad.”

  He did.

  “At the top write the words water principle. Allow your mind to roll down any avenue it chooses, and you write whatever presents itself about water, or any topic. I’ll check with you when I finish filling in these inventory forms. In quadruplicate.”

  Ken wrote and doodled. Mostly he doodled, although he didn’t know if doodling was allowed in Wizard’s mind exercise. He drew a Chinese man sitting under a spigot dripping water on his head. The man’s face was contorted with agony. Ken wrote the words “Chinese water torture” in a speech balloon above the victim’s head.

  “That doesn’t look like homework to me unless the curriculum changed since I was in school.”

  “Oh, hi, Dad.”

  “Homework?”

  “Nah, I’m just fooling around.”

  “Need help?” When his parents used to argue, and it was obvious his dad was losing the battle, he’d hold his hands up and say, “I’m just a warehouse man,” and leave the room or change the subject. No point in asking his dad about the water principle. He was just a warehouse man.

  “Where’s that fish knife?” his dad said with fake jocularity. “Someone around here needs a haircut!”

  Under his breath Ken muttered, “Get off my back.”

  Paderson dropped a stack of ringed notebook binders on Wizard’s desk. Wizard slammed the binders into the cabinet.

  “Hold your horses, Abernathy,” Paderson said. “I want the information in those binders read and comprehended, and completed competency tests posted to the assessment center at the rate of two per week.”

  “Yes, Captain. Which shipment of incoming boxes do you want me to let sit in the rain, and which supply requisition should I delay while I get me some head-u-cation?”

  “Watch your step.”

  “Yes, Captain. I was out of line.” Wizard saluted his superior officer. They stepped outside and carted boxes onto a supply truck.

  The words “U.S. Army Logistics and Supply Correspondence Course” were stenciled on the binders’ spines. “The United States Army Logistics and Supply Command is the backbone of the Army,” the introduction announced gleefully. The information within the binders was organized the same way as Ken’s school booklets. The sentences were written in simple subject/verb/object formats, with complex sentences thrown in after every fifth or sixth sentence, supposedly to shock students into wakefulness with the sudden variation. Black and white photos, line drawings and charts illustrating “key concepts” broke up the monotony of words, words, and words. Each chapter had its own easy-peasy quiz. You didn’t have to read the whole chapter. You just read the questions first and then searched for the answers. The test writers had tried to trick people by burying words like not, always, and never in the questions. Ken completed the end-of-unit self-quiz on Procurement Efficiency in less than fifteen minutes.

  Captain Paderson and Wizard took a break from stacking boxes on shelves. Wizard flipped open three pop bottles and poured ginger ale into ice-filled tumblers.

  “What did you come up with on the water principle?” he asked Ken.

  “Nothing. Just junk.”

  “Is this for your science class?” his father asked.

  “Yes,” he answered too forcefully. Momentary indecision passed over Wizard’s face, and transformed into the neutral countenance he affected while soaking in the hot springs.

  Paderson said, “Water freezes at thirty-two degrees. Dew point is—”

  “I know all that junk, Dad.” Ken pretended he didn’t notice his dad’s lips zip tight.

  “I’ll tell you something you don’t know, then, wise guy. When you were a baby, water almost killed you.”

  Ken frowned. This was news to him.

  “We were living in an old townhouse off barracks. The unit next door was abandoned. One night around two a.m., Tricia was rocking you in the kitchen because you were colicky. She kept the rocking chair in the kitchen. She was rocking you when we heard a big crash. I thought a drunk had driven his car into the side of the house. Your mom thought a branch from the box elder tree had fallen down because earlier that evening we’d had a storm and a dead branch was hanging loose over the roof.”

  Hearing his dad tell a story about him was like traveling through unfamiliar territory without a guide, feeling his way along, not sure where the pitfalls and booby traps were. He couldn’t remember a recent conversation with his dad that didn’t end with a command or a restriction.

  Ears flattened, Neko slithered out the door, and suddenly the Quonset hut shelves creaked and concentric rings danced on the surfaces of the ginger ale in their glasses. Ken’s chair tried to walk out from under him. He jumped off it. Paderson ran outside. Wizard smiled, shoved his hands in his pockets and remained inside. Within seconds the earth quit shaking.

  “Neat! Earthquake!” Ken’s voice cracked, embarrassing him.

  “A tremor. I’d estimate a three point fiver,” Wizard said.

  Paderson returned to the hut. “Earthquake,” he said.

  “Tremor,” Ken said, “What happened when you and mom heard the crash?”

  It took Paderson a second to remember what they’d been talking about before the seismic temblors had rattled him. “The ceiling in your nursery had caved in. Chunks of plaster fell in your crib where you’d have been sleeping if your mom hadn’t been rocking you. Chunks as big as footballs. Rainwater had seeped into the apartment next door where the chimney pulled away from the wall. The water traveled along the attic floor a
nd rested in a low spot over your crib. Water had soaked it for months or maybe years. Eventually the rotting beams and plaster couldn’t bear the weight of the water and boom!” Paderson slapped his thigh with his right hand. Ken flinched.

  “Why’d the water go all the way from the other apartment to my crib?”

  Paderson blinked slowly. “Water takes the path of least resistance.”

  Ken swung a questioning look at Wizard.

  Wizard nodded.

  Sikung Wu was in his usual place at five-thirty in the morning, moving his arms and legs in slow graceful arcs. Although the sun hadn’t risen to burn the cool mist out of the bamboo grove, and Sikung didn’t appear, on the surface, to be exerting himself, his patched white jifu was soaked with sweat at the armpits, neck and waist.

  Ken said, “Ohayo goziamasu. Buenos días. Guten morgan. Bon jour. Good Morning.”

  “Zao.”

  “What’s zow mean?”

  “You’ve returned sooner than anticipated. I hoped to be dead before you came back to flaunt your picayune knowledge before me.” He’d said this with his eyes closed while continuing his exercises.

  “You sick or something? How old are you?”

  “I was born in 1882.”

  Ken appraised the man’s erect posture and fine cashew skin. A lithe body was evident, in spite of the loose pajama-like outfit covering him. Silver filaments streaked his black hair. He might be homely, he might be older than, say, Wizard, but he was pure power and masculinity.

  “You’re lying!” Ken bleated. “You can’t be that old.”

  “Do you expect to be lied to?”

  Ken kicked at decaying bamboo leaves. Neither of them spoke for a long time. Before the silence evolved into a span too embarrassing to break, he said, “I know what the water principle is.”

  Sikung dipped low, sweeping a cupped palm past his foot and over his head.

  “The water principle,” Ken said, “I know what it is.”

  A puppy yapped in the distance. A breeze stirred among the bamboo trees clattering them like old bones.

  “Water takes the path of least resistance,” Ken told the master.

  “True. You can go home now.” Sikung didn’t open his eyes as he swung his right foot high above his head, missing Ken’s nose by a puff of air. Ken froze when the master’s left foot sailed up past his forehead and swooped down to earth again without the sound of a crunched twig or grunt of exertion from Sikung.

  “But I want to learn that fast stuff you do. You know. The speed. The force.” He spun around and kicked the air, his foot coming down hard and skidding on the leaves.

  “First you must learn primordial breathing.”

  “I already know how to breathe, elsewise I’d be dead.” If Sikung’s eyes had been open, he’d have seen Ken rolling his eyes.

  “You come to me uninvited and ask me questions. I have no contractual agreement to be your teacher, nevertheless you expect me to proffer free lessons which you spurn with your disrespect. While many would attest that I am a charitable person, I am not operating a charity. Do not disturb me again.”

  “If you don’t want to teach me, how come you gave me homework?”

  “You speak nonsense.”

  “I’ve been sitting under that dang blasted waterfall every day!” You ugly old troll.

  Sikung’s eyelids flew open. His palm whooshed and stopped a millimeter from Ken’s nose. Essence of garlic. “Monkey boy. What is your motive? Can you examine your motives and be sure they are pure? Can you promise you will not wantonly inflict pain to any human, any creature, or nature?”

  What motive could exist for learning martial arts other than to inflict pain, big time pain? “Nah, I’m a pacifist.” Ken said.

  “Sit on that rock,” Sikung said, and he proceeded to give a lecture and demonstrate proper breathing, which looked exactly like regular old in-out breathing to Ken. Judging by the angle of the sun behind the bamboo branches, he should have headed home a while ago to cook breakfast before his dad’s alarm clock trilled.

  “Do I bore you?” Sikung’s smile was anything but easygoing.

  “No!”

  “Attack me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Did I not speak your mother tongue correctly?”

  “My mother?” Confused, he cut a quick pirouette, searching for her standing amid clattering bamboo and stoic boulders. His heart sank.

  Sikung nodded as if to say, Very well then, attack.

  Ken charged at the master and felt himself flipping in the air. He landed behind Sikung. The impact knocked the breath out of his lungs. He gasped, lying there on the damp ground, the sun poking through the green bamboo veil. He brushed off bits of decayed leaves, walked backwards while bowing, and then pivoted on the ball of his foot to sprint home.

  “That is the water principle,” Sikung shouted after him.

  Chapter Twelve

  ~ Thieves at Work ~

  Panting, Ken burst into the kitchen.

  “Where’ve you been?” his dad asked.

  “Just breathing, Dad, just breathing.”

  A rapping on the door. Ken opened it.

  “Hi, Wizard,” he said. “Want something to eat?”

  “No, thanks. Major Bellamy and Colonel Topker are waiting in the warehouse.”

  Paderson sprang out of his chair, slapped on his hat and hustled to the warehouse. He’d left the freshly signed request-for-transfer form on the table. Ken tucked the form in his pocket and followed his dad and Wizard to the Quonset hut to see what the hubbub was about. Today was the first time Topker had made the trip up from Okinawa to review Paderson’s operation.

  “Well, well, well,” Bellamy said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Who’s the girl?” He scissored his fingers at Ken’s ponytail. Ken raised his hand to bat Bellamy’s fingers away. Lieutenant Colonel Topker cut in and pumped Ken’s hand.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ken. My son, Michael, asked me to give this to you.” He handed Ken a stone the size of a walnut. “Can you identify it?”

  “Rose quartz.”

  “That’s correct.” His gravelly chuckle rolled around the Quonset hut.

  Wizard had placed folding metal chairs around his desk and set to brewing a pot of green tea.

  “You got anything else to drink?” Major Bellamy asked. Ken, on a signal from Wizard, prepared an iced soda for Bellamy. Then he went to the doorway of the hut, and sat on the threshold. He leaned over and scratched the outline of a hotrod in the dirt with a twig.

  Topker seemed to be watching particles floating in his tea. He sighed, flipped his countenance from sad to stern, and said, “Let’s get this done.” He gave Bellamy a sidelong flash and nodded.

  “Critical supplies are being stolen,” Bellamy said. “Slope head organized crime, I’d bet.”

  “Pull the files, Abernathy!” Paderson barked at Wizard.

  With one ear cocked toward the meeting, Ken drew curls of exhaust coming out of his hotrod’s tailpipe.

  “The files can wait, for the time being,” Topker said. “The integrity of your depot’s records isn’t in question, Captain Paderson, at this point in time. Major Bellamy meant to say that some supplies are missing, and our intelligence team hasn’t been able to pinpoint where the weak link is.” Topker wrapped his big paws around the delicate teacup and inhaled. “The supplies in question are kitted up stateside, shipped to Army bases throughout Asia, and dispatched to field hospitals.”

  “What kind of supplies? Medical supplies?” Paderson asked. Worry wrinkled his forehead.

  Bellamy said, “Hypodermic needles. Malaria prophylaxis. Anti-diarrheals. Syringes. Penicillin. Antiseptics. Morphine.”

  Ken dragged the stick through the dirt, obliterating his hotrod. These guys were barking up the wrong tree. If 9th TAACOM wanted to know about FIFO or provisioning efficiency, then they had their man, but his dad didn’t know shit from shinola about intelligence operations or stolen drugs. The army was wasting its time.


  “The perpetrators,” Topker said, “are well versed in warehousing processes. They’re covering their tracks somehow, some way. Intelligence thinks it’s an inside job because the perpetrators are taking pains to substitute pharmaceuticals with look-alike substances. Outsiders don’t have the time or the motivation to cover up their tracks so thoroughly.”

  “They’re probably selling on the black market,” Bellamy said.

  “The thefts went undetected,” Topker went on, “until medics administered sugar-water to wounded soldiers in the field and flour pills to men in recuperation.”

  His voice barely audible, Wizard said, “Man, that’s low.” Heat from the sun climbing up the tree branches outside made the hut roof tick. Ken stood to walk over to the bamboo grove, but remained in his tracks when he heard his father’s voice.

  “Keep in mind, sir,” Paderson said, “I’ll be submitting an RFT403.”

  Chicken, Ken thought. He knew RFT stood for Request for Transfer. His stomach suddenly hollowed out with a heavy nothingness. He whapped a stick against a rock, breaking the wood into small chunks.

  “I got the shits from signing them damn forms.” Bellamy burped soda gas.

  Topker rose. “The men involved in this racket are enemies of the United States of America as much as the Vietcong and Communist aggressors are. I’m assigning you to the investigation team, Paderson. Your task is to design strategy, devise tactics and advise the intelligence commander. You do what is necessary to catch the perpetrators. I’ve chosen you because you are the best man for this job.” He patted the stack of U.S. Army Logistics and Supply Correspondence Course binders. “You wrote the book.” The men said goodbye and Bellamy and Topker drove off in the jeep, spewing dust clouds from the tires.