Falling into the Dragon's Mouth
Page 3
bending my wrists
rolling over the mats
forward and back
and falling, dropping
flipping, being flipped
the slip, slip
of feet on the tatami
with Yamada-sensei’s voice
guiding us through moves
to evade strikes
to turn opponents
and get into safe places
but Shunta and Gō breathe
salty lunch smells on me
and start to scribble
right on my sketch
I know better than to act
as if I care
then I get an idea
and say
why yes, a dirty sandal
probably just trash
in a stiff, adult voice
yet this object
gives the painting
balance and perspective
foreground and background
imitating, more or less
the words of our art teacher
and it works—
they snort-laugh
and back away
just enough for me to stand
roll my sketch
have a look at
and pretend interest in
whatever the others drew
Shunta’s mass of licking flames
Naho’s eyeball with reflected flames
Gō’s scratches he calls smoke
Mika’s manga that she hides
when she sees me looking
my head hurts
from Gō’s smack
and I hate
Mika’s glare
but I did it
I turned the opponent’s energy
I controlled the opponent’s center
Chapter 9
SATOMI HAS LONG HAIR
Satomi has long hair
that hangs past her waist
and flips over her chair back
and slips through her fingers
as she thinks on an answer
her seat lies behind Shunta’s
facing away from me
so that my view past Shunta
just over his left shoulder
is Satomi’s hair
I stare
and stare
at this long hair
that falls down her back
that is sometimes in braids
but more often in a ponytail
that she does and redoes
flicking that hair
up off her neck
and lifting it
to feed it
and pull it
through an elastic
then her fingers continue
running through strands
playing the strands
below the elastic band
as she thinks
on a math problem
but if I stare too long
at Satomi’s hair
and Shunta sees my attention
drifting from an equation
he
POUNDS
his fist
on my desk
to make me jump
this Monday
instead of pounding
Shunta follows my stare
to Satomi’s hair
and before I can
catch my center
he
smacks
my face
so that my lip splits
and bleeds
onto my math paper
and Mika stands
grossed out
and Naho stares
and Yuki yells at me
to get a tissue
and Gō just waits
to see what Shunta
will do next
it’s Yōhei
who taps me from behind
to hand me a tissue
and finally
Ōshima-sensei gets up
from his desk
and strolls over
to see what the noise
is all about
I have an ice pack on my mouth
when Mom and Cora pick me up
for English group, and my lip
is so swollen I can hardly talk
what happened?! Mom asks
I fell I say
and Mom says flatly you fell
and Cora says flatly onto your lip
and Mom says
but not your nose
and Mom and Cora trade looks
and Cora says right
I stare out the window
angry at myself
vowing never again to be
caught
off-center
at English group
they see my lip right away
and the moms and Ami’s dad
are all poor thing!
but I act like it’s nothing
we’re doing consumers and producers
and preparing for a marketplace
with the olders as producers
deciding prices of goods like
handkerchiefs
pencils
cell phone straps
erasers
toothbrushes
and stickers
for the youngers
I have to keep icing my lip
and finally Ami looks up
from a price tag and whispers
who hit you?
and when I don’t answer
Will asks some jerk?
and I nod, knowing
they know what it’s like
why? Trina asks
did something happen?
no, nothing happened
just a jerk being a jerk I say
without adding that I was
staring at Satomi’s hair
in the marketplace
the youngers do the shopping
but they’re not so good with money
and don’t quite get our sales promotions
Best price guarantee! Today ONLY!
20% off last week’s price!
Buy one get the second half price!
Buy two pencils and win a free eraser!
Buy three pencils and get the fourth one free!
Best handkerchiefs for folding into rockets!
Stickers—even your dog will be impressed!
Toothbrushes! Arashi band’s brand!
except Cora and Evan
who take the longest to decide
calculating on scrap paper
and purchasing the most goods
at least it diverts my attention
completely
from my lip
from han six
Chapter 10
ONE-SANDAL MAN
the next day
I’m sitting at the kitchen table
with Yūsuke, my tutor
a college student
from the university
where my dad teaches
Yūsuke who lived in New York
so he can explain things
to me in English
when I’m lost in Japanese
which is
like
all the time
we’re going over readings
for kanji
such as ken—権—right, authority
which has five different readings
and 242 compounds
too many of which
Yūsuke seems to find
endlessly fascinating
and most of which
I do not
but thankfully
only eight of which
I have to memorize
for a test at school
this week
when the phone rings
I can tell Mom’s talking with
someone she doesn’t know well
with her voice high-pitched and polite
stumbling over formal Japanese
but then
she brings the phone over to me
/>
excuse me
she says to Yūsuke
then to me
it seems a policeman
wants to talk to you
I recognize the voice, Nakazato-san
the officer from the police box
we talked to the old man he says
who has Parkinson’s disease, by the way
that’s why his speech is difficult to understand
anyway, he gave a description
of the man on the motorbike
he did? I say
yes the officer says
and we found two people
who’d seen a man
with one sandal
riding a motorbike—
they gave us details of the bike
and from the descriptions
we narrowed down possibilities
asked more questions
and found the man
who set the fire
you did? I say
who?
but the officer won’t say
and adds something I don’t quite get
to explain why he can’t say
then he says
you know
Takemura-san tried to tell others
about the sandal—
his daughter
the neighbors
the boy you were with
but no one listened to him
only you and your sister
truly listened
the officer thanks me
and reminds me
to thank Cora, too
I go upstairs
to find Cora
and she’s got her stuffed animals
doing a sports festival
all over our room
the oval track
made with a circle of blocks
animals picnicking on handkerchiefs
other animals propping up paper score sheets
for the white team and the red team
but instead of yelling at her
like I usually do
when she does this to our room
I tell her what the officer said
sugoi! she says wow!
we helped solve a crime!
downstairs I ask my mother and Yūsuke
what’s Parkinson’s disease?
and Yūsuke starts jabbing at
his electronic dictionary
as my mother brings her laptop
and a medical dictionary
and we spend the rest
of my tutoring session
on words like
neurological
symptom
tremor
balance
and Yūsuke thinks
it’s a perfect opportunity
for me to study compounds
using the kanji
for brain—nō—脳
um, no!
that night Cora and I
whisper back and forth
in our bunks
who? we want to know
who would set fire
to a fish-shop owner’s house?
Cora puts on her headlamp
and we make a list:
a vegetarian
a fish (Cora says this)
another fish-shop owner
a robber
the fish-shop owner if he wanted a new house
someone who got food poisoning from the shop
then Cora says I bet it was that woman
who? I say
the one on the wanted posters at the police box
and I laugh—I’m sure she doesn’t live around here!
well, she could—how do you know?
we run out of ideas
and soon Cora is asleep
but I lie awake
listening to the rin rin rin
of the bell cricket
that Yūsuke gave me
and that we moved
to the balcony
because it’s so loud
I lie there trying to picture
a man in garden sandals
setting fire to a house
in broad daylight
and I think
that was
crazy obvious
like
did he hope
to be caught?
Chapter 11
SLAPS
then on Wednesday
I learn who
Shunta spreads the news
that it was
the fish-shop owner’s
youngest son
Yuki’s cousin
who set the fire
angry that his father
wouldn’t lend him
money to cover his debts
to a pachinko parlor owner
again
a whole day passes
without Yuki smacking me
a whole day when Yuki looks
not fierce but ready
to cry
Shunta milks it
tells of other times that son
was in trouble
drinking
starting fights
stealing
he says that
people say trouble
runs in that family
like a bad gene
all day long Yuki
trembles and fumes
a volcano
ready to erupt
then last period
when Shunta makes
one more
stupid wisecrack
about pachinko balls
Yuki stands
throws her chair
right at Shunta
then Shunta throws
his chair back
and we all duck
and move away
and the teacher hollers
and shoves them both
into the hall
we right the chairs
and sit still and jittery
in the classroom
as the teacher yells
and once
then twice
slaps
in Massachusetts
at my old school
some parents wanted
a no-touch rule—
no hugging
no holding hands
no wrestling or poking
no hitting
a rule that some teachers refused
and most parents ridiculed
as out of place
in elementary school
but inside the Dragon’s Mouth
I’d vote in a minute
for that no-touch rule
or at least a no-hit rule
some parents here say
words are not always enough
and even Yōhei, Shō, and Ken say
sometimes a teacher needs to slap
but I think really?
Chapter 12
GYŌZA
after school
I peel away from Shō and Ken
and walk the opposite way
to the after-school center
just up the street
from our school
on Wednesdays second graders
are let out after lunch recess
but sixth graders have school till three thirty
so Cora waits for me there
now that Mom has afternoon
university classes
the after-school center is really just a house
but a house with empty rooms
and some toys lying on open floors
or stacked against beat-up walls
two women who work there
stay mostly in an office
like a closet with a window
from where they watch the kids
the first time we visited, Mom said
you don’t play with the kids?
oh, no they said it’s very free here!
children can do what they want!
no games, crafts, or activities? Mom asked
>
oh, we do crafts twice each term
we send notices to the school
but the rest of the time they can play—
it’s very free!
free
is a word
that we’ve learned
has a different meaning
in English than
in Japanese
in Japanese
free seems to mean
what Mom calls
unchecked mayhem
when I arrive at the after-school center
Cora is waiting in the entryway
with her shoes on before
I’ve even signed her out
she’s quiet till we reach the hill
then she says don’t tell Mom
tell Mom what? I ask
that I hate the kids there! she says
then adds they call me gyōza
gyōza?—dumpling?
I laugh
why gyōza?
her eyes start tearing
as she holds out her arm
pointing at the veins
I’m like gyōza—
they can see through
my skin to the stuff inside
I tell her
at least it’s a name
of something that tastes good
and that they’re just not used
to different types of skin
I tell her
we’ll have our adventure
in the park across the town line
the one past the water tower
with the good swings
I tell her
we’ll take cardboard for sliding
cardboard boxes that will
fly on the dry grass
just like sleds
and Cora wipes her arm
across her eyes
okay she says
we walk to the park on the hill
beyond the water tower
with a folded
cardboard box each
and we run up and slide down
the wide brown grassy hill
until our hair is
wet from sweat
then after a while Cora makes a friend
and they slide together
then go off to play house
under a tree
and I lie back on the cardboard
stare at the veins
on the insides of my arms
and laugh
I never thought of us
as gyōza
Chapter 13
YAKITORI
Friday is the one afternoon
when Yōhei, Shō, Ken, and I
are all free, so we play soccer
two on two, in the small park
near our house
until they leave for juku
where they study more math
more Japanese, more science
to prepare for entrance exams
for private middle schools
the kind connected to high schools
so they won’t have to take entrance exams
again in three years