Under the Blood-Red Sun

by Graham Salisbury

  Tough Boy nodded, and went to first for getting hit. I wanted to shake his hand.

  On the next pitch Billy got a hit and made it to first. Tough Boy ran all the way to third. Nobody out. The Kaka’ako Boys got pretty quiet. Randy Chock was next to bat, then Kaleo, then Rico.

  Randy popped a fly ball to center field for the first out. But after the catch, Tough Boy raced in and crossed home plate standing up. Billy stayed at first.

  We went crazy cheering.

  Tied. One to one.

  The Butcher’s first pitch to Kaleo was right in near his hands. It had come so close, Kaleo stood back for the next one. Way back. He ended up striking out, worrying that he’d get hit. That Butcher was smart.

  Two outs.

  The Butcher’s first pitch to Rico was inside too. Rico flinched, but didn’t back off. He smiled and dug in.

  Rico connected on the next pitch and the ball flew all the way out to the Coral Street punks. It hit the ground and bounced right up to them. One of them picked it up and tossed it in to the outfielder, who sent it back to the infield. Billy ran all the way home, but Rico had to stop at third.

  Two to one … but it should have been three to one.

  “Cheat, cheat!” we all yelled, standing and waving our fists. The Kaka’ako Boys ignored us.

  I was up next, but my hands were shaking, I was so mad.

  “Come on,” Rico yelled at Ichiro, walking halfway out to first base. “That was a cheat!”

  “What?”

  “Those punks threw the ball in.”

  “Who?”

  Rico glared at Ichiro, then came back and told me to hit it all the way to China.

  I popped the first pitch up and the inning was over.

  Me and Rico and Billy ran up to Ichiro Fujita. “Rico’s hit should have been a homer,” Billy said.

  “I never saw nothing,” Ichiro said. “You like be a crybaby, or what?”

  “That was a cheat,” Billy said. “Those guys out there threw Rico’s hit back in.”

  Ichiro shook his head. “Never saw that.”

  A couple of other Kaka’ako players came over. “Come on, let’s play,” one said.

  Ichiro kept his eyes on Billy. “You like play that inning over? We can do that.… We can play the whole frickin’ inning over, if you want. But I never saw nothing.”

  I was beginning to believe him. But it still didn’t make it right.

  Billy and Ichiro shot poison arrows back and forth, their eyes squinting down. Only baseball could get Billy that hot.

  “No,” Billy finally said. “Even if you cheat we can beat you.”

  Ichiro smiled. “You ain’t gonna win.”

  So now we were leading, two to one. Three outs to victory. But the Butcher got another homer off Billy, which made Billy so mad you couldn’t even talk to him. We would have won already if the Coral Street punks hadn’t thrown that ball in.

  When we came up to bat for the last time, it was Mose, Maxey, and Billy.

  Mose went down on a foul tip that ended up in Hamamoto’s glove. The Butcher’s first pitch to Maxey was so wild it went behind Maxey.

  The Butcher smiled. “Sorry,” he said in his high, squeaky voice.

  “Shhhh,” Maxey said, then spit and waited for the next pitch. High. Hamamoto had to stand up to get it. Dust flew off his glove when it hit.

  “Easy, Maxey, easy,” Rico said. “You got ’urn.… he’s rattled.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Maxey called back. “How would you like to stand here when this guy is rattled?”

  “You can do it,” Rico said.

  The Butcher didn’t look too happy.

  Maxey waited.

  Thwack!

  A fastball. Maxey let it pass, probably hoping it would be out of the strike zone. But it was dead on. Strike one. Maxey tried to argue, but not very hard. And we kept quiet, because it clearly was a strike. After all, when you play without an ump, you have to be at least a little honest about it.

  Maxey swung at the next one and missed. Strike two.

  The Butcher was smiling again, and making dumb “watch this” faces to Ichiro at first base. Ichiro punched his mitt and waited, his glove out in front of him, ready for anything.

  But the Butcher sent two more wild shots across the plate. Maxey walked to first.

  Billy came up and squinted out at the Butcher, ready.

  But Billy didn’t get a hit—he got hit.

  Right on the foot.

  The Butcher was losing his touch. Ichiro Fujita and Hamamoto went out to calm him down while Billy hobbled to first and Maxey jogged to second. “Okay, okay, okay,” Rico yelled, clapping his hands. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  Rodney Lasko, our shortstop, came up next. The Butcher stared at him a long time. It made Rodney nervous, so he stepped out of the batter’s box, waited a minute, then came back and got into his stance.

  That Butcher took Rodney out with three straight ace pitches—one, two, three. They were so fast Rodney was swinging long after the ball had already hit Hamamoto’s glove.

  Rodney threw the bat away and walked back to the rest of us.

  Two outs.

  Maxey on second and Billy on first.

  I felt kind of sorry for Tough Boy, who was up next. It was our last chance.

  The Butcher studied Tough Boy while Maxey and Billy danced around a few feet from their bases, raising dust and heckling the Butcher. Out and back, out and back, like yo-yos.

  The Butcher’s first pitch was a rising fastball that Hamamoto had to reach up for. Tough Boy held his ground and didn’t fall for it. Ball one.

  “Let’s go, Gayle,” Hamamoto said. “Slow down … you can take him.”

  Tough Boy looked back at Hamamoto. We all heard it.

  Gayle?

  “Who that?” Tough Boy asked Hamamoto.

  “Who?”

  “Gayle.”

  “The pitcher, who else?”

  “His name is Gayle?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  Tough Boy grinned. “That’s one girl’s name.”

  “So? Tell him that.” Hamamoto punched his glove.

  The Butcher stared in at Hamamoto’s sign. He nodded, then straightened up. He peeked over at Billy, who was a third of the way to second. The Butcher jumped and Billy dove back to first on his belly. The Butcher—Gayle—laughed. It sounded like a giggle. He giggled so much he started to cough.

  “Hey, whale,” Tough Boy yelled. “Send me a sweet one, yeah?”

  The Butcher’s smile disappeared. “Whatchoo said?”

  “I said send me one sweet one.”

  “No, what you went call me?”

  “Gayle … that’s your name, right?”

  Whap!

  The Butcher’s wild pitch missed Tough Boy’s head by inches. Tough Boy hit the dirt, then got up and brushed himself off. “Ball two,” he said, smiling.

  The Butcher’s next pitch was slow, and Tough Boy was guessing fast. He was finished swinging by the time the ball crossed the plate.

  “Strike one,” Hamamoto said.

  The Butcher carved into Tough Boy with razor eyes. Billy and Maxey tried to distract him with their base dancing, but the Butcher wasn’t going for it.

  On the next pitch Tough Boy got his sweet one.

  Tock!

  I loved that sound, just like on the radio. That ball was gone, gone, gone … all the way to the street. Maxey came home, Billy came home, and Tough Boy didn’t even bother to run to second. The game was over.

  We went crazy.

  The Kaka’ako Boys came in from the field with sour faces, saying nothing, just going off and packing up their stuff. We jogged over, the cheat forgotten, and said things like “Good game,” and “You guys one tough team, man,” but all we got back were a few “Yeahs.”

  We congratulated ourselves and gathered up our gloves and bats and headed off toward Lucy Street.

  “Hey,” someone yelled. “Hey, you sissies.” />
  The punks, with their bats and tight fists, surrounded us.

  The big guy came in and shoved Kaleo. Rico slammed into him and everyone jumped in. Somebody’s fist landed on the side of my head. It stung, and I could feel my scalp getting hot.

  The fighting stopped as quickly as it had started. The punks backed off.

  Then I saw why … the Kaka’ako Boys.

  “Whatchoo trying to prove?” Ichiro said to the big guy. “These boys my frens, no mess with them.”

  “What, you like me slam you too?” the big guy said. He was almost twice Ichiro’s size.

  “Just try it,” Ichiro said. The Butcher came up behind him, a little bit of murder in his eyes.

  The big guy spit. “Frickin’ baseball sissies … frickin’ tillies.”

  The gang backed off and slowly walked away. They looked back every now and then, just to let us know that they weren’t done with us. There would be another time.

  “They won’t bother you anymore today,” Ichiro said. The Kaka’ako Boys muttered their agreement, then they all started away in a pack.

  “Eh, Fujita,” Rico said. “We owe you one.”

  “Nah, that one was for the cheat.”

  “You punk,” Rico said, smiling.

  “You the punk,” Ichiro said.

  Criminy, I was going to miss those guys.

  Lucky

  Billy was right about how if we ever needed a game of baseball, that was the time. I slept like a lead sinker for three nights in a row.

  But in the middle of the fourth night, I woke up in a sweat, breathing hard. Grampa struck a match and lit the candle that he kept by his mat. The room glowed with low, jittery yellow light. My sheets were damp and twisted.

  Grampa leaned on his elbow, and squinted over at me. “You dreaming.”

  A nightmare … Parts of it still lurked in my mind. I sat up and stared down at the shape that was Grampa. He was kind of fuzzy. At first I didn’t think it was him. I saw Papa instead—the dream—Papa lined up with Sanji and a bunch of other fishermen, all of them on their knees. There was a firing squad, the men getting ready to shoot. I couldn’t remember if they shot or what, but I could remember Papa smiling … smiling at me … This is a good place, Tomikazu, he was telling me … Take the boat, stay … have a couple of kids.

  “Boy,” Grampa said.

  I moved my feet off the bed so they touched the floor, and tried to shake those awful thoughts out of my head. “I’m okay, ojii-chan.… It was just a dream … like you said.”

  “Uhnnn,” Grampa mumbled, lying back down. He pinched the candle flame out with his thumb and middle finger.

  I got up and crept through the dark house to the porch and sat on the top step. Lucky came stretching out from under the house and trotted up the stairs. She sat next to me and yawned. Her breath was sharp. A couple of her puppies wandered out. I could barely see them, it was so dark.

  Something scurried through the bushes and Lucky’s ears went straight up. “Mongoose,” I whispered. “Or a rat.”

  This is a good place.…

  Think of the game, think of baseball.… Papa is all right, stop worrying. And Sanji … Mari … no, no, no … don’t think about that. Think about baseball … baseball.…

  I sat there with Lucky for about a half hour, then went back to bed. The dream was almost gone, but I still felt uneasy.

  • • •

  Grampa had to wake me the next morning. “Go look the porch,” he said, nudging me. Seven o’clock. I’d slept late.

  I bolted up. Out on the porch someone had left a five-gallon gasoline can. “What’s this?” I asked Grampa.

  “Kerosene.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Look the name on the side.”

  MATSON NAVIGATION COMPANY, in scratched and fading white letters. Five gallons of kerosene. For our stove. For our lantern. That stuff was as good as gold, and almost impossible to get.

  Mr. Davis …

  “Mama!” I called.

  But Mama already knew about it. “Go get fifteen eggs, Tomi. Take ’um to Billy’s house. Then go find a can. We going take some of this kerosene to Sanji family.”

  I took twenty-three eggs to the Davises. Every one I could find.

  • • •

  That afternoon, Billy came over with Red, and a ball and a bat. He found me at the chicken coops with Grampa and Kimi. Lucky and her pups ran off with Red.

  We’d collected fourteen more eggs. Mama wanted me to take them down to the store and sell them, or trade them. She’d asked me to help Grampa because he was going to kill himself if he didn’t relax a little. “He worry too much,” Mama had said. “Bombye he going get more stroke, Tomi.… You the man now.… You do that work.”

  “Come, ojii-chan,” I said now. “Rest for a while. Come with me and Billy.” I could do his work later.

  “For what?”

  “For nothing. You don’t need a reason to take a break.”

  “No got time for that.”

  “Aw, come on, Grampa … you got the time. I’ll do this chicken work for you later. How’s about it?”

  Grampa eyed me. “You clean this chicken coops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You take this eggs, sell ’um?”

  “Sure, come on.”

  He thought for a moment, making me wait, like he was doing me a big favor. He was so irritating, sometimes. “You pick those weeds from by—”

  “Grampa!”

  Grampa gave in and came along, bringing Kimi. He acted as if it didn’t matter to him if she came or not. But he didn’t fool anyone. He knew that Kimi was still scared from the planes and explosions.

  The two of them sat near the trees in the shade while Billy pitched his perfect curveballs. Those moments at diamond grass kept me from going crazy—thinking about what was going to happen to Papa, and what was going to happen to us. But nobody knew anything at all.

  “We need a batter,” Billy said, raising his eyebrows and tipping his head toward Grampa.

  “Grampa, come bat,” I called.

  Grampa threw his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed. I looked at Billy.

  Grampa slapped his knee and kept on laughing. Then Kimi started laughing. Billy gave me a what’s-so-funny look. Grampa only laughed at the movies.

  “Come on, Grampa … come hit the ball.…”

  Grampa stopped laughing when he saw that we were serious. He scowled at me, then glanced at Kimi’s big eyes, and her smile. “Confonnit,” he mumbled, and creaked himself up.

  Kimi stood up, too, and started jumping up and down.

  Grampa broke into a grin and rubbed Kimi’s head, then walked over to the bat. I took off my glove and showed him how to hold it and how to swing it. “Just look at the ball, Grampa … then crack ’um when it comes by.”

  Grampa shoved me aside.

  I put my glove back on and squatted down, punching my mitt. “Grampa DiMaggio up to bat,” I shouted to Billy. “Send him a good one.”

  Billy made a big show of giving the pitch a royal windup—stepping back, then kicking his leg extra high. He sent a slow, easy ball across the plate, one Kimi could’ve hit.

  Grampa swung before the ball was even close. He lost his balance and staggered. He growled to himself and came back to the plate. I tossed the ball back to Billy.

  “Way to go, way to go,” I said to Billy. Then I whispered, “Just keep your eye on the ball, Grampa.”

  Billy wound up and sent another one that practically floated across. This time Grampa smacked it … about five feet, anyway. It hit the ground and rolled through the grass to Billy.

  Grampa started jumping up and down like a crazy man. “Eh, busta, good, nah? Wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa … good, nah? Wa-ha-ha-hahahahaha.”

  We all started laughing. You couldn’t help it when you saw that sour old man in such a good mood. It was like the olden days again, me and Billy at the movies, rolling in our seats and watching Grampa laughing at Laure
l and Hardy.

  Grampa dropped the bat, slapped the dust off his hands, and strutted like a rooster back over to Kimi. He was okay, Grampa.… For the first time in my life I could see a little bit of Papa in him. And, I could hardly believe, a little bit of Rico.

  I heard dogs yapping somewhere, and growling. Lucky came racing out into the field with all four puppies chasing her, trying to catch something she was dragging by her teeth … something white.…

  “Jeeze! They dug up the flag!”

  Me and Billy and even Grampa ran over to catch her. “Lucky,” I called. “Stop! Lucky!” But she swerved away. “Come back here, you mutt.”

  “Go that way,” Billy yelled, and we circled around the pack of frenzied dogs from opposite directions. Lucky saw what we were doing and headed farther out into the open, the white-and-red flag flopping over the grass behind her.

  “Hurry,” I yelled. “Someone will see it!”

  Grampa came out and closed off Lucky’s run from his side while Billy and me worked around the ends. But it wasn’t any of us who outfoxed her. Red broke away from the stumbling pack trailing the flag and took a shortcut.

  “Get her, Red boy,” Billy called.

  And he did … caught up and latched on to the flag, slowing Lucky down enough for me and Billy to tackle her. Red tried to get the flag away for himself, but Billy pulled it out of his teeth and held it up over his head.

  “Lucky, you crazy dog!” I said. “You want to get us arrested?” She and Red kept jumping up and trying to bite the flag.

  Grampa took a long, sorrowful glance at his flag from across the field.

  “We’ll take care of it,” I said.

  Grampa turned away and acted as if it didn’t matter to him what we did with it. He took Kimi’s hand and headed home.

  When he was out of sight, Billy grinned and said, “They were having a pretty good time, weren’t they?”

  “Yeah, having a good time giving me a heart attack … Come on, we got to bury that thing under a pile of stones.”

  Which is exactly what we did.

  • • •

  At sunrise the following morning, Grampa rode away on his bicycle, the rusty old fenders rattling down the bumpy path into the trees. I yawned, standing next to Mama at the front door.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked.