by Bill Baynes
Puffing, pushing through the cold, he glances at his watch. More than twenty minutes and he’s not even at the room. He tries to go faster.
He can’t solve everything, but he can do something. He hopes he can. He has to try.
Unexpectedly, Joe feels a sense of well-being wash over him. The cold drops away. The danger, the discomfort, don’t matter. Like last night at the base of Fuji, he enters a timeless zone. He feels good, oddly good.
It’s like his folks during the Depression. They gave food to their neighbors; it was something they had to do. This is something he has to do. It isn’t really his decision. To do anything is better than nothing, better than merely sailing away.
Joe stands a little straighter, walks a little easier, as if he forgets the sack on his back.
17
Isamu
Isamu feels betrayed. He risked everything by trying to set up a trade for his sister and by trying to help the American. Joe got what he wanted, Mama, and now he’s abandoning them.
As if one door will make them safe. As if the food he gave them will keep hunger away. It’s already gone. All of it.
Mama tries to calm him down.
“We’ll be all right,” she says.
“What will we do?”
“What we always do. Get by … somehow,” she says. “You’ll see.”
“I thought he was going to stay,” he says.
“I did too. I was furious, but now … I … I just miss him.”
Isamu feels another flash of hate, but he misses him too.
Not for long.
He hears him before he sees him. Clomping up the stairs. In a hurry. Other tenants probably think there’s trouble, a police action. He knows it’s Joe.
The steps stop outside their door and there are two hard raps. The door bursts open and the American is standing there. He swings a canvas sack onto the floor, sprinkling crystals of ice, walks to where Mama is just rising, folds her into his arms, kisses her and releases her.
He’s full of energy, purposeful. He’s actually smiling.
Joe squats down in front of the boy and puts a hand on each shoulder. Isamu can’t avoid him, can’t refuse him. He looks away, but the American cups his chin and pulls his pouty face back to the front.
“Tell that boy I have something to give him,” he says.
He recognizes that Isamu doesn’t understand and frowns. He touches his cheek, holds his hand a foot above Isamu’s head, holds an imaginary knife under his throat.
“Ato?” Isamu guesses and Joe nods. He points to himself and brings his hands together.
“Tell him I want to meet with him.”
Isamu nods. Joe spins him around and pushes him toward the door.
“Hubba, hubba,” Joe looks at his watch and makes a shooing motion.
Isamu clips down the stairs and heads out of the hotel. Where did Ato go after the Americans arrived? Probably not far. He spies a wisp of smoking coming from the warehouse.
Not far at all.
Ato is heating a can over a small blaze under one of the windows near the rear of the building. He watches Isamu walk across the large, jumbled floor.
“Looking for more trouble, Navy Boy?”
When Isamu tells him that Joe wants to see him, Ato’s only question is where.
“Someplace open,” Isamu says. “No surprises.”
They agree on the vacant lot behind the neighborhood faucet.
This time Mama stays at home with the baby. She trades a lingering look with the American. He twists his neck to keep her in sight as he descends the stairs.
Carrying the canvas sack, Joe proceeds to the center of the lot. Ato appears with six gang members forming a line behind him. They stop about twenty yards from the American and the scarred leader comes forward.
Joe slings the bag to the ground and opens his jacket. Apparently unarmed.
He and Ato face each other across a cultural chasm of language and experience, the young officer and the defaced youth, the conqueror and the unconquered.
Joe crouches and searches inside the sack. He removes a single shoe, then rises and holds it up.
“I give this to you,” Isamu translates as Joe signs. “In return, you stay away from him.” Isamu points to himself.
The American tosses the canvas at Ato’s feet. He’s so confident, so commanding, it’s unnerving to everyone. Doesn’t he understand that he’s alone out here? Doesn’t he remember what they did to him?
Ato kneels and inspects the contents of the bag.
“A few shoes,” he sneers.
“A personal gift,” Isamu translates Joe’s signs. “The money you took too.”
Ato stands and crosses his arms.
Joe puts his arm around Isamu and waves toward the hotel.
“I protect this boy and his family,” Isamu interprets.
“We’ll be here long after you’re gone,” Ato says and Isamu struggles to communicate it.
“The U.S. Navy protects them,” Joe says.
He sneaks a peek at his watch, then points to Isamu and make a pushing gesture toward Ato. Stay away from him.
Ato faces his gang and drops his hand, evidently a prearranged signal. His cronies keep their distance, but they fan out, slowly surrounding Joe. The American calmly watches, as the boys position themselves.
“What will the U.S. Navy do about that?” Ato asks and Isamu interprets.
At another signal from Ato, the gang members show their knives or steel rods and begin, little by little, to close the circle on the American.
Joe seems assured, unafraid. He pushes Isamu to the ground. “Stay down.” He reaches inside the single shoe and removes a pistol.
“Call ‘em off,” he gestures at the ring tightening around him.
Ato laughs and steps back.
“Can’t be six places at once,” he says, but Joe doesn’t understand.
Joe whirls. The other boys are edging closer. He waves the pistol at them. He thinks of the dogs when he delivered the vats of food.
Takeo flits forward and swipes at the American’s sleeve, then falls back when he swings his gun toward him.
From the opposite direction, Kiro throws a knife that hits Joe’s shoulder, but it doesn’t penetrate the thick jacket.
Joe takes three running steps, bringing him right next to Ato. Surprised, the youth scuttles backward and falls on his butt. He pulls a knife out of his belt, but Joe kicks it away.
“Call ‘em off!”
“Fakku!”
The American swings around and fires at the ground in front of Kiro, who’s almost upon him. Kiro and the other stalkers pedal backward.
Joe straddles Ato and aims the pistol at his head. The boy is helpless. The American shoots between the scarred boy’s legs, purposely missing.
Ato jumps, realizes he hasn’t been hit. He smiles and kicks with all his might, tangling his legs with the American, who falls on top of him. The gun goes off.
Ato shrieks and holds his blasted knee. Pushing with his one good leg, he tries to scrabble backward.
“Joe!” Isamu yells as Takeo throws himself at the American, stabbing at his torso. Joe sidesteps and the blade glances off. The American hurls the boy away from him.
He scrambles to his feet and waves his pistol wildly, but it’s unnecessary. Takeo is leaving as fast as he can.
The circle shatters. Their leader writhing in the snow, the other gang members scuttle off the lot and disappear.
Joe grabs the canvas sack, turns his back and stuffs something it, then hands it to Sam. He checks his watch again.
“I’m sorry,” he mimes. “I’ve got to get back.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Joe shakes his head. He coughs.
“Aiko,” he says and points.
He stumbles and winces. He puts his hand to his side, where the knife struck. His jacket is ripped. Joe takes a deep breath and forces a smile, makes a short statement.
Isamu doesn’t catch the e
xact meaning, but he gets the goodbye. He bows.
He sees red drops staining the snow as the American turns and goes.
18
Joe
He is so tired, he feels like he can’t go another step, but he’s got to get back. He’s got to keep moving. He doesn’t dare stop.
He can hardly see where he’s going. It’s snowing again. The sky, the ground, everything is the same soot-stained gray. This has got to be the right way.
He looks at his watch. It’s stopped. Maybe he just can’t read it anymore. How long before that last launch leaves the pier? How much time before they raise the gangplank?
He’s got to make it. He will make it.
He slips, almost falls. That makes his chest scream in pain. He stands and tries to stop gasping, tries to breathe through his nose.
Ruins all around him. Rubble everywhere.
He goes on. Tired. God, he’s so tired.
Time to sleep later. After he’s back aboard. After the Chourre reaches open water.
He thinks of the crypto room. How many communiqués await his decoding? Anyone wonder where he is? He can picture Doc asking the other officers, “Anybody seen Binky?”
He thinks of Ato. He’s glad he got to deal with him directly. He didn’t mean to shoot him, but worse things have happened. It should put him out of commission for a while.
His jacket is soaked on the left side. He can tell from the smell that it’s blood. He shivers in the cold.
It was worth it, wasn’t it? A lot of good things occurred on this last trip into Tokyo.
He thinks of Sam, spunky Sam. Glad he stuck the gun in the sack for him. He’s going to need the protection. Wish he had more ammo to give him.
Glad that he left the boy some proper footwear and that he gave Mama some additional cash.
How much time? It hurts to bring his hand up to check his wrist. Got to keep pushing.
He staggers—another slippery patch—and loses a groan no one can hear.
How long has he been out here alone? It feels like forever.
Good guys don’t die like this. At any moment, Cookie and the “fellas” will appear out of the storm and rescue him.
Cold. He shakes his head to clear the flakes from his eyes.
He steps around a hole, snow covering something charred, a stick of furniture, a human? Black patterns in the white, oddly beautiful.
Will Aiko come to wave goodbye? She’s like a sore tooth, a beautiful tooth, one he tongues continuously. He can’t leave it alone. He can’t extract it. She’s part of him forever.
… her head on a pillow …
Where is she now? Where is he? He peers into swirling snow.
… the shape of her neck …
Does she suffer as much as he does? Does he want her to? Being apart is hardly bearable, but it’s all they have left to share. God, how he wants to be with her.
… her hair against his chest …
It was a blessing that he came back to the room one last time. Neither expected to see each other again.
“This doesn’t have to be sad,” he’d said and he’d tried to sign it. He’d pointed to his eyes, indicated weeping, and shaken his head no.
She’d turned her back on him again. He thought she was still angry. But she put down the baby and spun to him. He held her for long minutes. Aiko cried softly until the boy came for him.
After that, facing Ato was easy.
He can’t raise his left arm to check the time. He can’t feel his left arm.
Strange, but it seems to be warming up.
He notices a building with two walls, people huddled in the only corner, watching.
He slows, breathing hard. Each step takes so much effort. He wobbles, sinks to his knees.
Tired. It’s been so long since he’s had time to sleep. Had time.
A small cough-laugh.
He thinks of the long voyage across the Pacific. The pull of the open sea, the wave motion, the endlessness, the sense of insignificance …
Soon San Francisco and he’ll be saying goodbye to the men he went to war with …
Then the slow train across the wide continent, rushing past the prairies, the mountains, the lakes, the towns, all the citizens proud of the American victory, all of them celebrating anyone in uniform …
He’ll have plenty of time. Sleep will heal everything.
So weary … He lowers to all fours. His arms are quivering.
Aiko … twenty-four hours ago. Aiko … at this moment. What is she doing?
Someone is tugging at his shoe. His left leg. He can’t move it. He can’t kick.
His family is waiting, everyone eager for him, especially his wife, his little boy. It’ll be good to see him …
He feels his shoe come off. Someone is taking it, his sock too. His foot is bare and it crashes into the snow, but he can’t feel the cold. His right arm won’t hold …
He teeters … topples …
… back to those boyhood streets, people speaking Polish, people looking out for each other. That’s what he remembers. He hears his mother’s voice:
“It’s all right, Joey. Don’t cry.”
He is so tired.
“Sleep, Joey. Go to sleep …”
About the author
Bill Baynes is a writer, producer and director. A specialist in public interest marketing, he has worked in many media formats. He was a reporter for the Miami Herald and the Associated Press and won awards as a documentary filmmaker. He has been active in feature film and video production, magazine publishing, public interest marketing, and website development. He has worked with school systems to create student-driven media campaigns about health-related topics.
Mr. Baynes is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and a board member of the California Writers Club, SF Peninsula branch, which recently honored him with its Jack London Award for distinguished service.
His young adult baseball novel, Bunt! was published by Silverback Sages, Abiquiu, N.M. Check out his website at www.billbaynes.com.
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