Summer of the Big Bachi

by Naomi Hirahara

  “Itsu orai with you?” Mas always wondered what it would be like to have a grandson. But he never figured that a grandson could be as strange as Yuki Kimura.

  “It’s a phase; that’s what I figure. He’ll settle down in a couple of years. Just imagine what he’ll be able to do. He’ll shake things up. That’s what these Japanese companies need, you know.”

  Mas got some bread out of the freezer. There wasn’t much he could offer Akemi. Just some defrosted white Wonder bread and freeze-dried coffee. Oh, and the Fresno peaches that Tug and Lil had brought.

  “Whatsu you doin’ ova there in Hiroshima?” Mas finally had the guts to ask after he lit one of the stove burners.

  “Worked as a translator for Mazda. Twenty-five years. Know all there is to know about carburetors and cylinders.”

  Mas was impressed. “Thatsu what I wanted to do. Work on engines.”

  “I remember.”

  Mas placed the kettle over the circle of blue flame.

  “Actually, I think you told Joji. He mentioned that to me.”

  Mas pulled a couple of peaches out of the brown grocery bag. They were soft, almost too ripe.

  “Sometimes I think of Joji,” said Akemi. “Of what he could have become. He was so smart. And not only about numbers. About people. He thought a lot about you, Masao-san. Said that you were different than the other boys. Had spunk. Energy.”

  Mas got a rusty knife from one of the kitchen drawers. He cut into a peach until he hit the hard pit in the middle.

  “He wanted to go back to America. Did he ever mention that to you? Said that. Said that he wanted to go back with you. ‘Masao-kun doesn’t know America that well, left too early, but I’ll show him around. I’ll show him how to play football. He’d be good at it. He’s small, but he can tackle.’ ”

  Mas felt his eyes water and kept cutting the peach into uneven pieces.

  “Do you ever think about him?”

  Mas wished that he could blurt out yes, but the last thing he wanted to ever think about was Joji Haneda.

  “Our father died here. Did you know that? Was sent to a camp in New Mexico during the war. Finally buried in a cemetery called Evergreen, in East Los Angeles. You’ve heard of it?”

  Mas threw the peach chunks onto a small dish. Chizuko was buried at Evergreen. He mentioned none of that and merely nodded.

  “I’d like to go before I leave. Could you take me there?”

  Before Mas could answer, the kettle began to whistle, loud, sharp, and out of tune.

  The boy eventually came in, just to go to the toilet and take a shower. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the steamy corner bathroom, looking like he was ready to take on something big.

  Akemi held her cup of coffee with both hands. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to nose around, ask some questions. I can’t just sit here, waiting to be used as a damn example.”

  “I’m sure the woman will remember in a few days. She knows you had nothing to do with her accident.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to remember, Obaachan. Maybe she’s known right along.”

  Akemi frowned.

  “What I’m saying is, she could be protecting someone. And here I come along. Conveniently.”

  Akemi puckered her cheeks, trying to feign disbelief, but Mas could tell. She was worried.

  “And I’m not getting help from you two. So I guess it’s up to me.” Yuki shoved his car keys in his pants pocket.

  “What are you saying? No help? I came from Hiroshima to do whatever I could do.”

  “Then give me some leads. Tell me who this Joji Haneda is.”

  Akemi became quiet.

  “I help you,” Mas finally said.

  “Yeah? The way you’ve been helping me so far?”

  “I have idea.” Mas left the kitchen to get something from his desk in the bedroom. He returned to the kitchen with a clean white business card. “I’ll set up a meeting. And then we find out what he knowsu.”

  In L.A., there were different kinds of gardeners. A few, some of the top guys, looked nothing like gardeners at all. They wore neat slacks and golf shirts with designer labels and carried beepers on their belts. Underneath them were a slew of workers in uniforms who addressed their bosses as Mister and sir.

  Mas knew that in going to Chochin’s, both he and the boy would have to look the part. It didn’t matter that Nakane knew that Mas was a plain kind of gardener, a one-man operation. He still oiled his hair back and even brushed his dentures. He wore an old polo shirt and pants with no holes.

  The boy, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to shake his image. No matter how he fixed his hair, he still looked like a yogore who hung around street corners, looking for excitement or trouble or both. While Mas was waiting in the kitchen, he heard Yuki riffling through Mari’s closet. Finally he emerged in a black jacket. Mari’s.

  She had been wearing that strange, oversized coat when Mas had picked her up from the airport during her first Christmas break from college. He barely recognized her. She had gained some weight, her usually angular face was round, and a fresh crop of pimples dotted her forehead. The coat was from the fifties and apparently purchased at a used-clothing store.

  Mas loaded Mari’s bag into the trunk of the Datsun. “So, New York, crazy town?”

  “I love it. People are alive, interesting. Not all materialistic, like in L.A.”

  Mas didn’t say anything. He had been against Mari’s going to Columbia. It sounded like a foreign country, not a school. And so far away. What was wrong with UCLA or USC?

  “Gosh, it sure doesn’t seem like Christmas around here.” The gold-colored holiday banners and plastic holly waved in the breeze next to palm trees. “I didn’t even need to bring a coat.”

  “You did okay in classes?”

  “They were pretty hard.” Mari rolled down the window a crack. “I think I did all right. So, what’s Mom doing? She didn’t want to come to the airport?”

  “She resting.”

  “Resting? What’s wrong? Is she sick or something?”

  “A lot of things happen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mari rolled up the window, snuffing out the drone of air.

  “She had operation.”

  “Operation.” Mari grew quiet. “Why didn’t you guys tell me? It’s not serious, is it?”

  “You talk to her. She explain.”

  Mari cupped her hands around her eyes. The coat cuffs were worn, threads coming loose from the fabric.

  Mas stopped at a red light at Airport Boulevard and tugged at his wallet.

  “Here,” he said, pulling out some twenty-dollar bills. “Go to the store and buy yourself a new coat. For school.”

  Mari wrapped the coat closer to her body, in spite of the seventy-degree weather. “Don’t need another one. This one’s perfect.”

  Now, more than ten years later, the redheaded badger boy was wearing the same coat. “Come on,” Mas said. “We don’t want to be late.”

  The boy’s Jeep was a rental car, but it didn’t smell like one. It had a syrupy scent, sweet like cotton candy.

  “Nice car,” Mas said from the passenger’s seat.

  Yuki started the engine and began to back out of the driveway. It was close to seven, and the sun was barely starting to set. “Do you know how expensive a car like this would be in Hiroshima? Seventy thousand at least. Got a special deal from a travel agent. My friend. Just have to make sure that nothing’s damaged.”

  Mas continued sniffing and figured out the candy smell was coming from a bottle of blue liquid on the dashboard.

  “Car deodorant,” Yuki explained.

  Mas merely shrugged. There was no telling what they would be inventing next.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Yuki asked. Mari’s old coat was tight around his shoulders, but at least it hid the warthog tattoo and gave him a touch of a businessman’s look.

  “Just look around. Some girls knowsu Junko. Maybe you can ask so
mebody.”

  “What about Nakane? You don’t think he’s just going to give up some information.”

  “Leave it to me,” Mas said, but the truth was that he was just taking a roll of the dice and seeing how they landed.

  Other than Mas’s grunting out directions, they traveled in silence until they hit the Santa Monica Freeway, a molten river of cars. The sun was right in front of them, bleeding red-orange in the smog. As Yuki changed lanes, a car from the left-hand side swerved into the same lane.

  “Sonafubitchi,” Mas muttered.

  “Chikusho,” Yuki shot out. “Crazy driver.” He maneuvered the Jeep into the lane behind the car, a beat-up Chevrolet whose back window was blown out and covered with plastic.

  “They’d never allow a car like that in Hiroshima. You can’t even drive with one scratch on your car. Or you’ll get a citation.”

  “Oh, yah.” Mas gripped the side of the Jeep. He remembered when he was last in Hiroshima, and cars literally ran on charcoal and wood. How could he have worked on engines in such a place? And now look—during the oil crisis, when Mas had had to line up for gasoline, Japan had been the king of cars. And Mazda, where Akemi had worked, was right in Hiroshima.

  “My friend accidentally hit a car in front of him,” Yuki continued. “Just a tap, nothing serious. They took his license away for months.”

  “No kiddin’.”

  “That why I like this place. I wouldn’t mind living here.”

  “You crazy. You almost in jail and you want to stay?”

  “It’s free. It’s great that a new Cadillac can drive on the same streets as that broken-down car.”

  “Huh,” Mas grunted. “They push you down.”

  “That’s the old story, Ojisan. You got blacks and Japanese doing the TV news. Maybe if I stayed, I could someday write for The Washington Post, The New York Times.”

  Dreams, dreams, thought Mas. The boy was indeed young.

  After they drove a couple of miles in silence again, Mas spoke. “I used to think like youzu. Yah, I used to think big. Work at Ford company. Make cars that work good on the road.”

  “Well, why didn’t you? You were young when you came over, right?”

  “Yah, I’m young. Eighteen years old. First a houseboy in San Francisco. Got a small room for cleanin’ this hakujin man’s house. Sometimes my friends—no place to stay—snuck in to sleep. We got caught once—kicked me out, and then I decided to go truck farmin’.”

  Yuki pursed his lips.

  “You know nutin’ about truck farmin’, huh? Goin’ town to town, from Watsonville to Texas. Wherever crops were. Tomatoes here, lettuce there. Build a shack from wood to live in—that be our home for temporary. Met a lot of people that way—Filipinos down south and Mexicans.” The ashes of his cigarette had burnt down to the edge of his knuckles. “Then I thinkin’. Needsu my own business. Had a relative in Altadena, and that started it all.”

  “What business?”

  Mas stared at the boy, who then quickly added, “Oh, you mean gardening.”

  “Yah, I’m talkin’ about gardenin’.” Mas gripped the stub of his cigarette and felt the ash break away. “Built my business from scratch. Gardenin’ not too good, you thinkin’. But I’m my own boss. Not too many guys can say that.” Mas went on about his customers, present and past. The East Indian who had made a fortune on a chain of teriyaki chicken sandwich shops. The Chinese real estate developer who had real parrots in his backyard. And yes, the divorce attorney who wouldn’t agree to give Mas a raise even after ten years of service. “I tore up his check right in front of his nose,” Mas said proudly.

  He told the boy how it was when he’d traveled on the boat over the Pacific. “Came here on my own. Not one cent from my parents. Wouldn’t take one cent, even if they had offered. Had enough. They want me to work on the farm, for tada, free. That’s crazy. What the hell. Come ova here; take a chance.

  “When I first came, I saw people push us down—’Hey, Jap, get outta here.’ But inside I thinksu, I’m an American citizen, after all. I belong here.”

  Once they reached Chochin’s, Mas took charge. “I’m suppose to meet him out back. You go in. Talk to the girls. You like girls, right?”

  Yuki frowned, but stuffing his hands in Mari’s coat, he dutifully walked inside.

  Mas felt his heart pound, hard enough so that it seemed to rattle against his ribs. Had Shuji Nakane tried to kill the mistress? Had he wanted to shut her up forever? And now, with Riki on his deathbed, would Mas be the only one standing?

  Mas crossed the sidewalk into the small parking lot filled with Mercedes Benzes, Lincoln Continentals, and a few Lexuses. Chochin’s was busy this evening; who knew why? Mas checked his Casio watch, the band all worn out and tied together with twine. It was seven forty-five. Fifteen minutes early. Mas always liked to be early. When you were early, you were ready for the unexpected. Accidents, unforeseen events. You always had to be ready for something going wrong. Because it usually did.

  Apparently, Shuji Nakane thought the same thing. He emerged from the side of a Dumpster with a black bag stuffed underneath his armpit. He was wearing the same tinted glasses and another turtleneck, this time black. “Arai-san. Good evening,” he said.

  The second Nakane opened his mouth, Mas knew he was up to no good. He knew something; he had a secret winning hand, and Mas was sure to go down in flames. At this point there was no turning back. Mas had to just play along.

  “Um,” Mas grunted. “Youzu here.”

  “You said you had something important to tell me. I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  Mas shifted his weight from one foot to another. The parking lot was dead quiet. The corner was isolated and away from traffic. “I saw Junko Kakita,” Mas finally said. “At the hospital.”

  Shuji Nakane pressed his palms together and waited.

  “She tellsu me all kinds of stories.”

  “Oh, yes?” Nakane’s lenses were lighter in the darkness, but Mas still couldn’t see his eyes.

  “She say that youzu visit her. Offer her lotsu of money. I figure she not right in the head, desho. Because why would you give her money?”

  Nakane took the black bag from underneath his arm. “I’m tired of playing games, Arai-san,” he said, and then opened the bag. A light had turned on above the parking lot, but Mas still couldn’t see well. The contents was soon described to him. “Thirty thousand dollars,” said Nakane. “You can have it all, if you keep out of this.”

  Mas almost laughed. He had never been offered so much cash before in his life. He had always wondered what he would have done if he’d hit it big in Vegas or the track, real big. Now would be the chance for him to find out. “Whatchu mean, ‘keep out’?”

  “Nobody would listen to you, anyway. I’m just making this offer as a gesture. Gesture of kindness. Take it or leave it. I don’t care.”

  Mas felt his stomach flip inside out. Kind of like the time he’d overheard Mari, fifteen years old, complain to Chizuko about not being able to afford ski trips like the other kids. “Why don’t we have money?” she had said. “Why can’t Dad have a better job, and wear a suit and a tie?”

  “Spoke to his wife and children. Told them that they were in line to inherit a prime piece of property worth ten million dollars.” Mas raised his eyebrows. Ten million? Yuki had told him three million.

  “The boy lowballed it, didn’t he?” Nakane adjusted his glasses. “It’s just like him. He’s tricky. All he cares about is the money, Arai-san. Don’t be fooled by his so-called love for his grandmother. He doesn’t care about her. He’s even tried to replace her name with his on property titles.”

  Mas tried not to let Nakane’s accusations get to him. But he had to admit that he was left with an aftertaste of doubt.

  “Riki Kimura’s only got a few more weeks, days. He wasn’t much of a father, husband. Close to declaring bankruptcy, he is. It’s better this way. For his family and for you.”

  It was completely
out in the open now. Nakane knew, and was seeking to erase Riki Kimura for good.

  Mas looked down at Nakane’s shoes. They didn’t have tassels, but they were indeed fancy like the ones he saw when his truck had been stolen. “Where’s my Ford?” Mas said. It was a shot in the dark.

  Nakane didn’t respond to the question. “Here, take it.” He pushed the bag into Mas’s stomach. He walked toward a Lincoln Continental, got in, and drove away.

  * * *

  For a while, Mas knelt by the Dumpster, his hands around the leather bag holding thirty thousand dollars. Twenty-seven years ago, he could have bought the nursery outright, with money to spare. Twenty-seven years ago, he could have bought two houses the size of his Altadena place. Twenty-seven years ago, he could have found a doctor at the top of his field for Chizuko, at the first sign of stomach trouble.

  Mas stuck his hand into the bag. They were crisp bills all bundled together like the ones the Las Vegas cashiers would present to those who won big.

  He looked down at his watch. Close to eight-thirty. The boy would be coming out to the parking lot anytime now. He pushed up the lid of the Dumpster and pulled out dark trash bags. Half-eaten food spilled out, vegetable peelings, containers. A pink pastry box. Mas grabbed the box and dumped the leftovers. There was no time to waste. He threw the bundles of money into the box and folded in the lid. Ten million dollars, Nakane had said. Not three million. If the boy had his secrets, Mas would have his.

  Mas waited for a good forty minutes, until nine-ten, when he figured he’d better go get the boy. There was no doubt that he had fallen under the spell of a bar hostess. Clutching his pink box, he opened the heavy door of Chochin’s and walked into a small reception area. Behind the reception desk was a glass case full of bottles of the finest liquor, all tagged with names written in Japanese. In the corner behind the door was a mound of salt to ward off the curse of women—and there was good reason to. A Japanese woman in a kimono emerged from a doorway covered by a silky cloth curtain. She was about forty, and her face was covered with white, floury makeup.