Island Boyz

by Graham Salisbury

  Now it was his.

  But he couldn’t ride it because he couldn’t get on it, and he couldn’t get on it because he couldn’t even catch it. The horse had a mean streak as long as an aircraft carrier.

  It nipped him on the shoulder. It stepped on his foot and kicked his shin. Henry couldn’t even get a rope over its head, and he was sorry he’d paid any kind of money for it. But Henry had his pride and wasn’t about to admit the horse was a mistake.

  “The old man just ruined it,” Sammy told Henry. “Because he never rode it.”

  “It ain’t ruined. It’s a good horse.”

  “What’s so good about it? You can’t even catch it.”

  “So. It just needs to get used to me.”

  “Or maybe it just don’t like people. But it looks like a good horse, yeah? Check out its back. Straight, not swayback.”

  Henry glared at Sammy, who he knew had never been on a horse in his life. “You catch it then. You get on it.”

  “But I think you could ride it, if you’re nice to it.”

  “Nice to it?”

  “Yeah. Give it grass, pet it.”

  “You don’t pet horses.”

  “How come?”

  Henry shook his head. “You just don’t. You brush it, you slap its side or neck, you give it apples and weeds and comb its mane, but you don’t pet it. It ain’t a dog. It ain’t a . . . a . . . a cat.”

  Sammy shrugged.

  Henry looped up the short piece of soft rope and stuck it in the back pocket of his khaki pants.

  The horse had belonged to a nice but sly old guy named Wong. “Only eleven years old,” he’d said. “Still young yet, like you, Henry. He just jumpy because of the bombs, yeah? Was too close to all those explosions. Even had one went off in this pasture. Over there. See the hole?”

  Henry saw the indentation in the grass. That had been a bad day, he remembered. Lot of noise, lot of smoke, planes, police, sirens. Almost two years now since the Japanese planes came. Thank goodness it was only one bad day, and lucky the Japanese never landed troops like everyone thought they would. Really lucky.

  “You sure you can ride it?” Henry asked Wong.

  “Yeah yeah. Look at him. Strong. Spunky. Got a nice high step. I give you ’um for . . . hmmm . . . fie dollah.”

  That’s what did it. Five dollars. For a horse! Henry couldn’t pass it up.

  “But I can only buy it if I can keep it in your pasture,” Henry added. The pasture had plenty of grass, a cool rusty-water pond fed by a mountain stream, and a lean-to shed for when it rained.

  Wong said, “Yeah yeah . . . for fifty cents a month.”

  Henry scowled at Wong, but he was thinking he could make that much easy, just by shining two pairs of shoes down on Hotel Street. “Why not,” he finally said. He gave Wong the five dollars.

  Wong had grinned.

  And now Henry knew why.

  “Try give it some grass,” Sammy said.

  Henry looked at him, thinking of saying something like, He don’t want grass, you idiot, can’t you see he lives in a field of grass? Instead he said, “What I need is a bucket of oats.”

  “You got a saddle, or you going ride it bareback?”

  “I don’t have a saddle.”

  “How come you bought it, Henry? You not a horse guy.”

  “Because it was only five dollars, and anyways I like horses.”

  “Just not this one, yeah?” Sammy said, grinning.

  Henry spat, then rubbed his chin. “I’ll think of something. Let’s go down Hotel Street and shine some shoes. I gotta make some money.”

  “Yeah, good.”

  Henry looped up the rope and crammed it into his back pocket.

  When the military guys weren’t on their bases or maneuvering in the hills or shipping out to some Pacific island, they spent their free time on Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu. And what they did there was stand in line—for tattoos, food, movies, the laundry, bars, and girls. They stood in line for everything because there were so many of them. Thousands.

  Sometimes Henry and Sammy went down there and made good money. It was easy, since all those army and navy guys were just standing in lines. Sammy joked around with them, made like he was real friendly, made small talk, trying to drum up some business. And Henry shined the shoes, snapping his dirty rag and spitting on the shiny black toes. They even talked with the civilian mainland war workers sometimes, who ran around with loud mouths and their flashy silk aloha shirts.

  But when Henry and Sammy ran across a serviceman or a war worker who was by himself, they would close up like turtles. If it was a bunch of guys, it was easy. A bunch of guys was nobody. But when it was just one guy, then it was a person. And that was not easy, that was different, a person had a name and opinions they didn’t want to hear.

  The bottom line was Henry and Sammy didn’t really like all those servicemen and war workers. Nobody Henry knew liked them. They hated it when somebody called them boy, or a native, or when they heard somebody complaining about being on this godforsaken rock.

  Henry’s mother, who worked at the pineapple cannery, said the servicemen weren’t so bad, it was the war workers who were the troublemakers—the machinists, maintenance crews, assembly-line workers, and clerks. “They got a lot of money they don’t know what to do with,” she said.

  And his father, who was a steelworker at Pearl Harbor, told him, “Downtown you got thirty-five, forty guys for every girl, so right off the bat they not very happy. So what do they do? They get drunk and fight, that’s what, and you just stay clear of them, Henry. Stay away from Hotel Street. I better not catch you going near that place.”

  Henry and Sammy left the horse and headed down toward the bus stop to catch the bus to Hotel Street.

  On any one day there were about thirty thousand men crawling around Hotel Street. There was no way in the world Henry’s father could ever find him there. Unless he was down there himself. And if he was, how could he explain that to Henry?

  As they walked, the road so hot you could smell the tar, an army jeep with three guys in it passed. Nobody waved to anybody.

  Sammy said, “What you going call your horse?”

  “Killer.”

  “No, if you call it that, it will think it is a killer, and once it thinks that, you’ll never get on it. How about Brownie? Or Bucky, since when you ever get on it, it will prob’ly buck you off.” He laughed.

  “I like Killer better.”

  “I had a cousin named Johnny, but everyone called him Pee-Wee. Because he was so small, yeah?”

  “And now I’m supposed to say, what’s that got to do with calling my horse Killer, right?”

  “Everything, because since we was all calling him Pee-Wee, he started thinking maybe he was too small for play baseball, too small for football, too small for work cannery, too small for—”

  “Kay-okay, get to the point.”

  “He ended up as a bookkeeper.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Shhh. Can you imagine writing numbers in a book all day long? Drive me nuts, man.”

  “How come you said you had a cousin. He’s dead, or what?”

  “No, he moved. Mainland. Couldn’t take it.”

  “Couldn’t take what?”

  “The numbers.”

  “Sheese.”

  “Here comes the bus.”

  It was full, of course. Every bus at every stop on every day was always sweaty full. But they squeezed onto it anyway, rode standing up, packed in like Vienna sausages. Mostly local people were on it, but there were also some war workers and a few military guys, who all looked young, some almost as young as Henry and Sammy.

  One guy on the bus was crammed up close to Henry. He was snappy clean in his khaki uniform. Army guy, probably from Schofield Barracks. Henry liked his hat, tilted to the side like it was. The guy caught Henry looking and dipped his chin, Hello.

  Henry turned away.

  Later Henry glanced at hi
m again. He guessed the guy was probably about nineteen. He had dark hair, almost black. And blue eyes. Henry hadn’t seen that very often, black hair and blue eyes.

  “Howdy,” the army guy said to Henry. The guy was just trying to be friendly.

  Henry didn’t know what to do.

  “My name’s Mike,” the guy said.

  Sammy, who was standing right behind Henry, let out a small scoffing sound that said, Can you believe this joker is talking to us?

  Henry looked down at his feet.

  They rode for thirty minutes more in silence. Once, the driver stopped the bus and got out and smoked a cigarette. They did that because they had so many customers, they didn’t care anymore how they treated them, and everyone waited on the bus, afraid to get off and lose their place. When he was done, the driver got back on and continued on toward Honolulu.

  Half the people on the bus got off on Hotel Street, Henry and Sammy among them.

  And Mike, who went off by himself. Funny he was by himself, Henry thought. Mostly those guys went around in packs.

  “He likes you,” Sammy whispered.

  “Shuddup. You’re sick, you know? You need help.”

  “Yeah yeah.”

  They walked around. It was hot, the street sending up as much heat as the sun. Everyplace you looked was jammed with uniforms, white for navy, khaki for army, everywhere.

  “Let’s go check out the tattoo shops,” Sammy said.

  “Which ones? There must be fifty of them.”

  “All of them got Filipino artists,” Sammy said. “You know, sometimes they do five hundred tattoos a day. You know what’s the most popular? Remember Pearl Harbor.”

  “How you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “Shhh. You so full of it, Sammy.”

  “No. It’s true. My uncle told me that.”

  He was probably right, since Sammy had Filipino blood.

  “Hey,” Henry said, “how about Savage?”

  “What?”

  “The horse. Call him Savage.”

  “Junk,” Sammy said. “How ’bout Spats?”

  “Spats?”

  “He got a white foot.”

  “But he only has one.”

  “So.”

  “So you gotta call him Spat then. Not Spats.”

  Sammy frowned. “Sound like somebody spit something.”

  “The no-name horse.”

  Sammy said, “What did Wong call it?”

  “The horse.”

  Sammy shook his head. “I still like Bucky.”

  A fight broke out in front of a bar. Men yelling and shoving. Henry and Sammy ran over to see. A war worker and a navy guy going at it, but two navy SPs broke it up before it got going. The war worker guy went off looking back and swearing at the navy guy, telling him he better watch his back.

  “Look,” Henry said.

  Sammy turned around.

  Mike.

  Mike smiled when he saw them, then came over, saying, “Not much of a fight, huh?”

  Henry still didn’t know what to do around Mike, or any service guy who was by himself. He sure didn’t want to talk to him. But he did wonder where he was from. Ohio, probably. Or maybe Iowa. They were all from places like that, at least that’s what his father told him. “From Ohio to the grave,” he’d said. “So sad. They’re just kids. Farmers and grocery store stock boys. Come way out here to fight and die.”

  But Henry never thought about that. He didn’t care where they were from. He just knew he didn’t like them. Like the rest of his friends.

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Henry said. “The SPs broke it up.”

  “So,” Mike said, then said no more.

  Sammy turned to walk away.

  Henry wanted to go, too, but the guy was just trying to be friendly and, well, he wasn’t so bad. Henry grabbed Sammy’s arm. “Wait.”

  Sammy stopped and turned back quickly, like maybe Henry was going to fight the guy.

  Henry searched for something to say. Nothing came.

  “I hate this street,” Mike said. “Nothing’s real, you know? Don’t it seem that way to you?”

  Sammy tugged at Henry’s arm, like, Come on, let’s get out of here, already. We got shoes to shine.

  “Yeah,” Henry said to the army guy. “But it’s kind of fun to watch all you guys stand around waiting.”

  Mike shook his head. “That’s what we do, ain’t it? Wait. Wait for everything. Wait for a cup of coffee. Wait for a shoe shine. Wait for the war.”

  Henry hadn’t ever thought of that before, wait for the war. Strange.

  Sammy turned his back to them.

  “What’s your name?” the army guy, Mike, asked.

  “Henry. And this is Sammy,” he added, pointing a thumb back over his shoulder.

  Finally Sammy turned around. He nodded, but cold, like maybe he’d rather spit than talk.

  “He’s not as bad as he looks,” Henry said, grinning.

  Mike put out his hand to shake.

  Henry hesitated, but shook. The guy’s grip was strong. That was good.

  Sammy shook, too, reluctantly, and Henry prayed to heaven that his father wasn’t watching from some secret hole in the wall.

  “Where you from?” Henry asked, and Sammy threw his head back, like, Jeez, you gotta be kidding, come on, let’s go.

  “Tyler, Texas. Ever heard of it?”

  “No. But I heard of Texas.”

  Mike nodded, then dipped his head toward the rope hanging out of Henry’s pocket. “What’s the rope for?”

  Henry turned to look. He’d forgotten all about it. “Uh . . . oh that . . . I got a horse. Me and Sammy was riding it today.”

  Sammy stuffed a laugh.

  “No kidding,” Mike said. “What kind of horse is it?”

  “A brown one.”

  “A brown one?”

  “Yeah, brown.”

  Mike scratched the back of his head and thought a moment. “You think . . .” He paused, thought some more. “You—you think I could ride your horse? I ain’t seen mine in six months.”

  That woke Sammy up. He grinned. “Sure you can ride it,” he said.

  Henry said, “It’s kind of . . . well, it don’t let nobody ride it but me.” The last thing he wanted was to have this haole messing up his horse. And if his father ever heard of it, he’d—

  “Got him trained, huh?” Mike said.

  Sammy laughed.

  “What?” Mike asked. “You boys pulling my leg?”

  “No no,” Henry said. “I really got a horse. It’s just . . . hard to ride, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, hard to ride,” Sammy added. “We can’t even catch it.”

  Henry thought, We?

  “Bet he’d let me on him,” Mike said.

  “How much?” Sammy asked.

  “What do you mean?” Mike said.

  “You said you bet. How much?”

  Mike grinned. “Okay. How much you got?”

  That stopped Sammy, broke as a lizard. He waved Mike off, like, Forget it already.

  “Tell you what,” Mike said. “If I can’t ride the horse, I’ll give each of you five bucks. But if I can ride him, then you let me visit him once in a while. How’s that?”

  “You got a deal,” Sammy said, sticking out his hand to shake.

  “Hey,” Henry said. “It’s not your horse to bet.”

  “Sure it is,” Sammy said. “I’m the trainer.”

  Okay, Henry thought. Fine. What did he have to lose, anyway? If he got five bucks from Mike, the horse would be free. He shook hands with Mike. “Let’s go then.”

  Mike grinned. “Now you’re talkin’.”

  The horse was way over on the far side of the field, standing in the blue shade of a mango tree. The air was still, no breeze, no cars or people around. Henry, Sammy, and Mike leaned against the rotting wood fence, batting flies away from their faces, studying the horse.

  “He ain’t a purebred or anything,” Mike said. “But he
don’t look bad. Nice lines, nice head. He got a name?”

  “Bucky.”

  “Not Bucky,” Henry said, shoving Sammy. “It don’t have a name yet. I’m still thinking about it.”

  “How long you had the horse?” Mike asked.

  “A week.”

  Mike nodded. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Mike stepped up and over the fence. Henry and Sammy followed him into the pasture, single file.

  On the other side the horse stood staring at them, head up, ears cocked forward. When they got about halfway across, the horse bolted and trotted down to the lower corner.

  Mike stopped and looked around. About two acres of grass and weeds. A few trees. He turned to the pond near the lower end, where the horse was now. “How deep is the water?”

  Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. Five or six feet. In the middle. I don’t think it’s any deeper than that.”

  Sammy said, “You got two five-buckses on you?”

  Mike pulled out a small folded wad of bills, and Sammy’s eyes grew into plates. “Don’t you worry, I got it. But the thing is, I’m keeping it because me and that horse down there are going to get along just fine.”

  Sammy grinned. “That’s what you think.”

  Mike said, “Stay close behind me, and walk slow.”

  The horse raised its head and trotted off a ways. Mike stopped and the horse stopped, looking back at them. With his eyes still on the horse, Mike reached back, saying, “Let me have that rope.”

  Henry handed him the rope that was stuffed into his back pocket.

  Mike let one end of it drop, then looped it back into his hand. “You boys go stand over by the fence.”

  Henry and Sammy went down to the fence, walking backward. “What you going do?” Sammy asked.

  “Make friends. Talk a little.”

  “Talk?” Sammy snickered, then mumbled to Henry, “You heard that? He going talk to the horse.” He half-laughed, then glanced back at Mike. “This I gotta see.”

  “Me too,” Henry said. “The guy strange, yeah?”

  Mike walked over to the pond. He studied it a moment, then looked up. The horse was on the other side of it now, watching him.

  Sammy said, “Pretty soon he going see why we call him Bucky.”

  Mike walked around the pond.

  The horse headed away, not running, just keeping a certain distance, with one ear cocked back toward Mike. It snorted once and threw its head.