Nakamura Reality

by Alex Austin

  A rock pool can be shallow and stormy.

  A rock pool can be cold as dry ice.

  A rock pool can be warm as shit.

  Not only was the rock pool deeper than Kazuki calculated, but contained much more shit than Hamlet’s lecture to Horatio forewarned.

  Which one of us was not in that pool? Struggling for a glimpse of the sky? Wiping the shit from our eyes. Sinking, sinking, sinking.

  Alas, poor Yorick.

  Alas, poor Yuudai.

  The author turned back to the house.

  Chapter 38

  When Hugh awoke from a brief nightmarish sleep, someone was stretched out in the previously empty bunk across from him. The newcomer wore jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt. He had long straight black hair.

  If Hugh were patient, the man would turn.

  I’m just watching you, sir. That’s all I’m doing.

  The man’s upper shoulder rolled back, as if he were about to turn face up, but the shoulder returned to its former position.

  Hugh had no watch, no laptop, no cell phone to tell time. One Mississippi, two Mississippi . . .

  The man didn’t turn.

  His cell mate might stay that way until the Mississippi ran dry.

  Hugh rose from the bunk, stepped toward the man. Perhaps if he just bent over, he would see . . .

  The man’s hair all but covered his face.

  . . . one thousand Mississippi—

  Hugh touched the man’s shoulder. The man coughed and turned, hair falling from his face, white shirt from his tattooed chest, a dense amalgamation of bird and beast.

  “I don’t go that way,” said Jason.

  “Who the fuck—” Hugh glanced beyond the bars to a guard walking a prisoner down the row. A cell door squealed open, another clanked shut. The guard having passed, Hugh hunched down, pressing his face toward the smiling Jason.

  “Kazuki got you in here?” asked Hugh.

  “I’m your guardian angel. Everyone needs a guardian angel.”

  “Where are my sons?”

  “You eat anything?” Jason reached back on the bunk, grabbed a cloth bag and sat up. “Turkey sandwich?” He pulled a cellophane-wrapped sandwich out of the bag. Jason nipped the cellophane with his small, straight white teeth, unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, chewing slowly and swallowing before he spoke. “I’m here to make sure nothing untoward happens to you. Child pornography is not a crowd pleaser in county.”

  “Then get me out of here,” said Hugh. “If the all-powerful Ono can get you in here, he can get me out.”

  “First things first,” said Jason, taking a bite of his sandwich. Another guard walked another inmate past Hugh’s cell. Jason followed their progress. “Looked like Eric Clapton,” said Jason, smiling to show the masticated food. “I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot—”

  “Is the objective to drive me insane?”

  “—the deputy,” sang Jason, then at the top of his lungs, “I swear it was in self-defense.”

  “Shut your motherfucking white hole up,” someone shouted.

  “May I ask you something?” said Hugh.

  “Anything.”

  “Did he set this up?”

  “Set what up?”

  “Did he get Anna to lie?”

  “Your student, you mean? Not the hippie chick?”

  “That’s Hanna. Or Joanna.”

  Jason raised one eyebrow.

  “I can’t hurt you, can I?” asked Hugh, digging his fingers into the worn mattress. “You’re a tough guy, right? Martial arts or something?”

  Jason sighed. “That pedophilia shit is troubling.”

  “I gave a student a ride.”

  “The way I hear it is that you told a story you shouldn’t have told. You told somebody else’s story.”

  Hugh ignored the apparently well-circulated point. “Has Kazuki left the country?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Will he be gone when I get out of—this place?”

  “You need some sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep. I want my sons.”

  “I’m here to help you,” said Jason. “Until we can get you out of here, you’re in my care. You want a little something?” Jason reached into his bag, pulled out another sandwich and unwrapped it. “Pumpernickel,” said Jason. “Look at all these caraway seeds.” He plucked one from the bread, dropped it in his palm and then plucked a second. He held out his hand to Hugh. Hugh recognized the particular seeds as tablets of Fuguelle.

  “Old school,” said Jason. “No need to crush, wash and dry. You want?”

  Hugh shook his head no.

  “You need sleep. Your head needs to be clear.”

  “Kazuki wants me to forget.”

  “Kazuki wants you to remember. You need rest.”

  Jason waved the pills before Hugh.

  Hugh recalled the comfort . . . if he didn’t fight the drug. For a while the world tide-like would retreat. He would awake lucid. His saliva was copious as if he had sat down before some tantalizing feast.

  “Yes. I want them.”

  “Good as done.”

  Hugh took two pills from the callused palm and swallowed it or them down.

  Chapter 39

  Ten minutes. Hugh waited on the dullness.

  “Did you love her?” asked Jason.

  “Setsuko?” Hugh replied.

  “Who else would I be talking about?”

  “Yes, I loved her.”

  “I don’t mean in the beginning, I mean at the end.”

  Hugh imagined Setsuko at Mother’s Beach. She wore a sleeveless white dress, tight across her tucked legs. Her black hair hung straight. With the exception of pale pink lipstick, she wore no makeup. She was sketching the bay, her lines no thicker than a spider’s silk, but accumulating into recognizable detail: the half-buried piling, the dock with the kayaks, the masts and hulls. Hugh closed his eyes. He was against her and inside her. His mouth clung to her lips, slipped along her smooth neck to the swell of her breasts. His lungs filled with her scent, her sweet breath. Her pulse was the beat of the universe. If he could sit beside her and forget, forget his sons’ voices—

  Hugh’s mind went blank for an instant, as if someone had snapped a switch up and down. “Forever, man, forever,” said Hugh.

  “Nice to hear,” said Jason. “That day when you lost your sons—what happened to you?” asked Jason.

  The light went out again. Click. Hugh yawned. “I spilled my coffee. I went back to the parking lot to find the mobile truck—”

  “You’re still singing that old song, huh?”

  “I was gone five minutes,” insisted Hugh.

  “You remember those five minutes?”

  “Of course—I . . .” The beach was sizzling. A man with a tripod snapped photos. A little girl in a black wet suit held an upright surfboard to her body. A glance back at the surfers. The boat named Reality. A boom box played an oddly affecting version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Hugh wrapped his fingers around the Styrofoam cup that seemed to be dissolving. He went for a cup of coffee, that was all. Why was Jason—

  “When I returned, my sons were gone. I dove into the ocean to find them. I didn’t find them. The boat must have . . . taken them.” Blank. No, don’t go.

  “The boat was there all right. The owner was a friend of Kazuki’s. But it was only there to watch. To coordinate. How long did you say you were gone for?”

  “Five minutes, maybe ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, Kazuki’s gone to a lot of trouble to let you keep those five minutes. Let the man sleep. Do not disturb.”

  “My sons were gone,” insisted Hugh, head falling.

  “Come on, buddy, you need some rest,” said Jason, taking Hugh by the arm and helping him from the floor. He eased Hugh into his bunk.

  Chapter 40

  Kazuki powered up his laptop. On the table was the printout of Fingal’s Cave that he had taken back from Hugh’s girlfriend. He had to add one, perhaps
two sentences, which then might lead to three or four or, well, who knew? . . . but only then would it be truly finished.

  Only after that could he leave this country.

  Chapter 41

  The cell door slid open.

  Hugh jerked his head to the right. The opposite bunk was empty.

  “Haven’t got all day,” said the guard.

  The Valley Cab taxi merged into the left lane of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, the road ahead climbing into the mountains. On the first long curve, a deer emerged from a thicket. How wonderfully delicate its legs, yet as the taxi closed, it effortlessly bounded an almost vertical slope.

  The taxi cruised into the village, slowed to a crawl in front of the Peace & Love. On the deck, the poet was performing for a shirtless man on whose shoulders balanced an iguana and a macaw.

  The poet’s words wafted through the taxi’s rolled-down rear windows.

  A rock pool can be cold as dry ice.

  A rock pool can be warm as shit . . .

  Inside the house, Hanna clung to Hugh.

  “Where is he?” asked Hugh.

  “Who?”

  “Kyle.”

  “Kyle? He’s out there, isn’t he?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Jesus, he’s not dead?”

  “No. He’s dead all right.”

  “Then—maybe it was him,” suggested Hanna.

  “Who?”

  “You know. Mr. Ono.”

  “Kazuki was here?”

  “Yesterday. I wasn’t going to answer the knock, but I peeked through the curtain. He looked harmless, you know? He explained that he’d come to drop off a book for you, would I accept it? I figured why not? Damned if thirty minutes later, he didn’t knock on the door again. He said he wanted the book back. ‘It was never finished.’ That’s what he said.”

  Hanna and Hugh stood by the rock pool. Kyle’s impression was still visible in the mud, but there were no signs that the body had been dragged away.

  “Kyle wanted to be a zombie,” said Hanna. “He was always saying how he’d rather be a zombie than go to heaven. Maybe he got his wish.” Hanna laughed. “Any second now we might see him crashing through the window . . . Kyle, you stupid shit.”

  As Hugh turned back to the house, he noticed a swift movement at the base of the pool. Several fat crayfish scurrying for cover. The largest moved slowly, stiffly, its body an odd metallic color.

  “Paranoid Android” played, and for a moment Hugh thought it came from the heavens. On the other end of the cell phone was Kazuki.

  Chapter 42

  Kazuki’s choice of meeting place surprised Hugh. Hardly a tourist attraction, the archery range was little known even to Los Angelenos. But Hugh had momentarily forgotten the knowledge that his own odyssey bequeathed. For twelve years, his sons were in Kazuki’s company. What had he not drawn out of them? What experience remained only Hugh’s?

  The boys were eight when Hugh had taken them to play basketball at the hilly and sprawling park, which sat adjacent to a golf course; but after shooting hoops for an hour, the boys became restless. Hugh suggested that they explore, see what else the park might offer. The archery range, an unexpected feature of the park, delighted them. There were a half-dozen colorful targets, and behind the targets a wall of stacked hay bales, which were backed up by a grassy hill.

  As Hugh and the boys watched the archers, an older black man with a mysterious air came up to them. He laid his bow on a nearby picnic table shaded by a huge scrub oak and beckoned them to come closer. He showed them an unshelled peanut, which he then placed on the top of his baseball cap. A large blue jay darted out of the tree and alighted on the hat. Perched, the jay took the nut in its beak, cracked the shell and ate the peanut. When the bird had finished, the man put another peanut up there. He smiled at Hugh and the boys.

  “I’m Francis,” he said, extending his sinewy hand to the twins, and then to Hugh, who introduced Takumi and Hitoshi.

  “And this is my friend, Bob,” said Francis, pointing at the jay.

  “Hi, Bob,” said the boys, fascinated.

  “Want to give him a peanut?”

  “Sure.”

  Francis supplied the boys with peanuts, which they fed to the cooperative bird. For many minutes, Francis regaled the boys with the colorful history of archery. As one of the founders of the range, Francis saw himself as a spokesperson and recruiter for the sport. With Hugh’s permission, Francis spent the next hour teaching the boys the rudiments of archery, allowing them to hold his bow and even insert the arrow, which had a blunt tip, the only kind of arrow used at the range. Hunting arrows had razor tips, explained Francis, which if shot skillfully could penetrate the hide of an elephant. Even the blunter-tipped target arrows could kill, a fact meant to impress. Francis said his bow was too strong for the boys, but there were some practice bows that he could find for them. But first they would have to take a safety class.

  Soon after, Hugh bought them their own equipment, beginning another weekend ritual. But a year later, their initial passion cooled, and they were on to other things. When the twins gave up the sport, Setsuko was relieved, for the boys didn’t confine their sport to the range, taking the bows into the hills and fields when Hugh was away at work, and despite their mother’s denial of permission, Hugh thought it no big deal. They had only blunt arrows and they knew the safety rules. Setsuko wanted the bows locked up, but Hugh, though agreeing, postponed and sidetracked the action so many times that Setsuko stopped bringing up the subject. In the end nothing happened, though one night Hugh came home and found all of the boys’ arrows snapped in two. When Hugh asked what happened, Setsuko said she had broken them, but wouldn’t explain why. Hugh bought more arrows.

  Arriving at the range ten minutes before the appointed time, Hugh spotted Kazuki among a half-dozen archers on the shooting line. He wore a striped polo shirt, beige cargo pants and a Dodgers cap, his gray ponytail jutting up over the rear band like a rooster’s comb. Hanging from a band around his neck were a pair of sports goggles, which Kazuki now set over his eyes.

  Kazuki set his arrow and pulled back the compound bow, holding the string at the base of his ear for several seconds before he released. With a soft swoosh, the shaft flew true to its target, the yellow bull’s-eye of the colored concentric circles. With the barest glance across his shoulder, Kazuki made eye contact with Hugh through the goggles’ thick plastic lenses, acknowledging Hugh’s presence, and then continued shooting until he’d emptied his quiver. Not every arrow found the yellow, but none were outside the red second circle. Three were grouped as if a single thick shaft. A whistle blew. The archers lowered their bows and retrieved their arrows, exchanging praise and consolation.

  The whistle blew again.

  Kazuki and the other archers set their shafts.

  Don’t hurry for me, you bastard.

  When the round was done and he had returned his arrows to their quiver, Kazuki walked over to Hugh. He yanked off his goggles.

  “Good morning, Hugh. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  Hugh had no sooner said that when Kazuki placed a peanut on his hat. Out of the tree a blue jay flew down, landed on Kazuki’s hat and ate the peanut.

  He’d extracted every detail from them, thought Hugh.

  “The novel I’ve been writing is based on you,” said Kazuki.

  “I hope it’s a success. I hope it gets one million readers.”

  “I want one reader.”

  “That’s modest.”

  “You would have had the book already, but . . . I’ve had to make a few changes.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  Kazuki undid the band around his ponytail and let his hair unfurl. “Do you remember Setsuko breaking the arrows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “She wanted me to lock up their bows. The boys liked to go out on their own and shoot. She didn’t think it was safe.”

&n
bsp; “But you did?”

  “There’s risk in crossing the street—with the light.”

  “In the book, the character that represents you,” Kazuki smiled, “is named Yuudai, Yuudai O’Keefe. Yuudai’s twin sons are named Brent and James, which correspond to Takumi and Hitoshi.”

  “I get it,” said Hugh. Kazuki withdrew a tube of sunscreen from his back pocket. As Kazuki rubbed the sunscreen into his forehead, Hugh watched the archers, their precise movements taking him back fifteen years.

  Takumi and Hitoshi dashed to the firing line. They stood arm’s length apart and took identical poses, their slender fingers crooked over the strings as they drew back their arrows with such concentration that humanity’s survival must depend on piercing that painted yellow foam.

  A young pretty woman carrying a bow crossed their path. Kazuki followed her trajectory. Kazuki said, “You spoke with Gina.”

  “I saw my grave,” said Hugh. “You kept tabs on me from the moment I left Japan with Setsuko and the twins.”

  “I wanted to protect them—and you.”

  “Me—ah.”

  “I protect you. You protect them.”

  “That was my responsibility,” said Hugh.

  “It broke her,” said Kazuki. “Takumi almost killed Hitoshi with an arrow.”

  “It never fucking happened.”

  “Your mulish refusal to lock up the bows.”

  A shaft of sunlight broke through an opening in the branches above, gilding Kazuki’s hair where it lay on his shoulder.

  “When Setsuko told me, I knew my instincts were correct.”

  Someone was drawing Hugh’s blood. Lighter and fainter. Soon the wind of the laughter would blow him away. He could not hold his ground against this little man who had written his life.

  “My daughter was infatuated with you. You were open, joyous, innocent, self-deprecating, funny, a dreamer, yes, but not driven. You didn’t want to fly to the sun. You didn’t have dreams that would kill you. My daughter didn’t know men like you. The young Japanese men of that time were intense. They were devoted to their jobs, their companies, their country. But you know, you’ve heard the stories. The sixteen-hour days. The seven-day work weeks. The after-work drinking parties with colleagues. The sleeping cubicles in train stations. Life was work or the celebration of work. Oh, not all, of course. But this was how Setsuko saw it. She was ready for an American, especially one that was tall, strong and handsome and cared nothing for conventional success. One who would be true. I thought it would pass, and then hoped it would pass and knew it would not pass. Setsuko loved like her mother loved, without limits.” Kazuki paused. “My daughter and I were very close. My only child. My wife gone. I didn’t want to lose her. You were the devil who would take her to the underworld and leave my world cold and barren. So, I did what I could.”