by Jan Morrill
Four shelves nailed up on one wall. Is that enough for us to place our belongings, such that they are?
And what about all the knotholes, where you can see into the stall next door … and they can see into ours.
They tell us it is temporary, but they can’t—or won’t—say how long we’ll be here.
What will they do with us next? I wonder who asks that question more … the Caucasians who make the plans, or the Japanese who must follow them?
Chapter 25
Terrence
April 12, 1942
Sunday. Pot roast for supper. About this time, Missy and Patty would be jabbering at each other across the table like nobody else in the world existed. And afterwards, Terrence would wish he’d done his homework on Saturday, ’cause he sure wasn’t gonna feel like doing it after pot roast.
He opened his eyes, and Sunday at home disappeared. Now it was Sunday in a cell of four dirty walls, scarred by a thousand hands with nothing better to do. The stench of body odor and piss. Hacking coughs made him shudder like nails on a chalkboard.
A tiny window near the ceiling shed dim light into the cell. Must be cloudy outside.
“Hey, you. Time to get up. Lunch.” The guard opened a slot in the door and waited for Terrence to take the tray.
He took it, more grateful for the break from boredom than for the lousy food. Peanut butter sandwich. Some kind of soup. Lukewarm, like usual. Sure didn’t match up to the supper he’d been thinking about. Maybe Momma would bring him something when she came to visit later. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t very hungry anyways, what with the queasiness stirred up by all this wondering about what might happen in court tomorrow. He set the tray aside and leaned his head against the wall.
Maybe he deserved to be punished—spend the rest of his days in jail. He’d helped take a man’s life, after all.
But he also figured he deserved a second chance. He knew he’d made a mistake. A big one. One he’d regret for the rest of his life. Judge had to see it. Had to see that he wasn’t a bad kid. Jail or no jail, he’d pay for what he did for the rest of his life.
Damn! He had to stop thinking about it. It was driving him crazy. Like a pendulum, swinging back and forth. Swinging forward—the judge had to see he wasn’t like Ray and Joe, that he’d made a mistake he was sorry for. Swinging back—the judge wouldn’t see it, and he’d go to jail for the rest of his life. All for a mistake that didn’t do anything to take away the loss of his daddy. The pendulum cut.
He took a bite from the sandwich. Rancid. Dry and sticky in his mouth. A sip of soup to wash it down. Yeah, cold all right.
A prisoner across the hall threw his soup cup out of his cell. It clanked against the hard floor. “This stuff is shit,” he yelled. “Why don’t you heat it up!”
Sympathetic voices echoed through the jail.
He wondered about Nobu and his little sister. So often he heard her in the darkness of night, when her cries surrounded him like a whole other prison. He’d overheard two guards talking the other day, something about rounding up all the Japs.
Rounding them up for what? What’s that all about?
He thought about his high school baseball team—the Yellowjackets. In their junior year, he and Nobu had played for the division championship. Bottom of the ninth. Yellowjackets–4, Indians–3. Indian runners on first and third. Terrence played on second base and Nobu played on first. One out. Full count—three balls, two strikes. The pitcher threw a hard slider. The batter swung. It was a grounder straight to Terrence on second base. He dove for it. Grabbed it. Tagged the kid running to second. Threw the ball to Nobu on first. He caught it. Batter out! A double play and they’d won! Man, they’d won the division championship.
The crowd in the stands went crazy. Nobu ran to Terrence, pumping his arms in victory, while the Yellowjacket band blasted the school’s fight song. The rest of the team rushed out of the dugout toward the two team members who had saved the day. Terrence smiled. That day, everyone cheered in the stands. Skin color hadn’t mattered none.
“You got a visitor.” With the guard’s words he came crashing back to his cell.
Momma stood behind the guard as he fiddled with the lock, and hunkered down as if she was looking to hide from the yelling and whooping. Terrence knew she didn’t like being in there. He’d even told her not to come. But there was no way she was going to listen to his nonsense.
“Don’t be silly, boy. ’Course I’m gonna come see you. You my baby boy,” she’d said.
He had shuddered. “Momma. Shhh! You can’t be saying those kinda things in this place.”
She walked into the small cell, wearing her flowered church dress and smelling like lilacs. She held a brown bag, one hand on top, the other below for support.
“How you doing, son?”
“Doing okay, Momma. Just a little worried about what the judge’ll say tomorrow.”
“I know. But remember what I told you. We got to leave it in God’s hands.” She gave him the bag. “Here you go. Maybe this’ll help take your mind off your troubles.”
The brown paper rustled when he opened it, and the smell of pot roast burst forth. He inhaled. “Ah, Momma. How’d you know?”
“Your favorite, right? Mommas just know these things.”
“I didn’t think I was hungry,” he said, pushing his peanut butter sandwich away. “But all of a sudden, I’m starving.”
“Well, dig in.”
He pulled out a large covered bowl. “You want some?”
“No. It’s all yours. I already ate with Missy and Patty.”
“How’re they doing? Never thought I’d say it, but I miss those two.”
“They good. Missing you, too. Patty won her fifth-grade spelling bee this past week. We pretty proud about that.”
Steam rose from a large chunk of meat on his fork before he put it in his mouth. His stomach growled in anticipation. He chewed the tender meat, and gravy—seasoned just right—spread over his tongue.
Momma watched him, a pleased look on her face.
He rubbed his stomach. “Mmm-mmm. That was so good.”
“Glad you liked it, son.”
An awkward silence followed. Terrence avoided his mother’s eyes, gazing instead at the scribbles scratched into the wall. Stick tallies of days gone by. Stick figures making out with “Larry loves Lucille” carved below it. He’d stared at the scratches a million times before—nothing else to do in this cell.
“What you thinking about, son?”
How’d she always know when he had something on his mind? He stared at his empty bowl, stalling.
“Talk to your momma,” she said.
“I heard a couple of guards talking the other day.” He still hesitated. Maybe he didn’t really want to know the answer. Or maybe he didn’t want to raise the subject with Momma. She had enough on her mind. Whatever it was, something kept the words locked inside.
“What was they talking about?”
He inhaled deep. “Something about … rounding up all the Japanese. You heard anything about that?”
She looked away.
“Momma?”
“It’s true, Terrence.”
“Why? And what’s happened to the Kimura family?”
“Official word is that it’s for they own protection. But the talk ’round town is that they afraid them Japanese are gonna spy on us. You know, after Pearl Harbor.”
“And the Kimura family?”
She touched her necklace and moved the gold cross back and forth along its chain. “Now I’m not sure about this … but … I heard they been moved to one of them assembly center places. Tanforan Racetrack, I think. Anyways, I drove by they house and it’s empty.”
The pot roast felt heavy in his gut. His head hurt, full of churning thoughts. Nobu. His family. Sent away because they’re Japanese. Just like that day with Daddy in the hardware store. Denied service ’cause Daddy was the same color as the man that robbed the store.
And he’d beat up
Mr. Kimura ’cause he looked like the Japs that killed Daddy. Hell, that made him no better than the rest of them.
Chapter 26
Sachi
April 12, 1942
Sachi was the first to wake. Mama slept next to her, breathing in, then out, in a slow rhythm. There were times she wished she had her own bed again. Like when Mama whispered to Papa and Taro in the middle of the night.
Danna. Husband.
And she kept whispering something in Japanese to Taro, but Sachi didn’t understand much Japanese. The whispers pulled her away from dreams of tea parties with her dolls at her house in Berkeley and back to the cold, dark stall.
Nobu was still sleeping, too. His snoring practically rattled the walls.
She liked being the first to wake. In those first quiet moments, she could look around and pretend the walls were painted white and the floors changed from dirt to gleaming wood. Dirt floors. Why did Mama waste her time sweeping them each morning?
Pulling the blanket over her arms, she wasn’t sure what was worse—shivery goose bumps from the chilly air or prickly ones from the itchy blanket. Nobu had patched most of the stall’s holes with mud or tin can lids, but now in the early morning, the sun bolted through cracks and holes he’d missed, leaving bright lines and dots on the dark floor and letting in the brisk morning air. But she liked to watch dust drift and float in the shafts of sunlight that came into the dark room. In the right light, even dust could sparkle.
She shook her blanket to stir more flecks into the air. Something about the way it whirled around reminded her of practicing her dance lessons with Mrs. Thompson. She didn’t think she’d ever miss those lessons, but here at the assembly center nobody ever danced, and it often made her regret that she used to hate her lessons.
When Mama turned over and sighed, Sachi wished she hadn’t shaken her blanket. She wasn’t ready for her mother to wake up. Her imaginary world would disappear and she’d have to face the barren room and look at Mama’s and Nobu’s glum faces.
She didn’t like being ungrateful. In the last few days, they had done what they could to make the stall a home, but she still missed their real home. The smell of Mama’s cooking, the sound of her shoes on the wood floor, Nobu slamming the front door. She missed her bed, her toys, her books. The list went on and on. Now all she smelled was horse poo and hay that made her nose itch all the time. And she was tired of hearing the mumbles from surrounding stalls. She wondered what kinds of things they heard from her family. She tried to be quiet so she wouldn’t bother the neighbors the way they bothered her. Even so, Mama was always telling her “shhh.”
Gravel outside crunched with footsteps going by. A few minutes later, more footsteps and muffled voices. People must already be going to breakfast at the mess hall. When would Mama and Nobu wake up? If they didn’t get up and get going, they might run out of food before they got there.
Sachi’s stomach gurgled. “Mama?”
Mama sat up and stretched her arms above her head. “What is it, Sachi?”
“I’m hungry. Can we go eat now?”
Mama sighed. “Nobu. Wake up. It’s time for breakfast.”
“Ah, Mama. Can’t I sleep just a little longer?”
“No, I want you to take Sachiko to the mess hall. And please bring a tray back for me. I’m going to straighten up in here.”
Sachi looked around. Mama had already cleaned up before they went to bed last night. She never wanted to leave the dark room. “Why don’t you want to come with us, Mama?”
“I’ll just eat here when you get back.” She got out of bed and shuffled over to Nobu’s bed and shook him. “Nobu. Please. Get dressed and take Sachi for breakfast.”
He shooed her away. “Okay, okay. Why do I always have to take her? You’re her mother.” He stopped and took a deep breath.
She glared at him for a second, fury and pain carved on her face. Then, she closed her eyes and turned away.
Sachi walked to the front door and peeked out one of the cracks in the wood, looking for some place, any place, to escape from the tension. Did the same conversations take place behind those other doors, between other people who never used to talk to each other like that before?
Nobu came to her and touched her shoulder, ran his warm hand over the length of her long hair. “Better get dressed, Sach. Breakfast will be gone if we don’t hurry.”
“Okay.” She opened the cardboard box that held her clothes. As she dressed behind the curtain, she heard Nobu whisper. “Sorry, Mama.”
Sometimes Sachi didn’t know why she looked forward to breakfast. All they ever had was oatmeal or cold cereal, plus some boring kind of fruit like an apple or banana. It was never bacon or eggs or pancakes. That day, it was oatmeal, and by the time they got there it had gone cold, and as usual, they’d run out of sugar. She scooted lumpy glops around her bowl, as though moving them enough would make the entire glop go away.
Maybe she looked forward to going to the mess hall just to get out of the dark, stinky room, filled more with sadness than light. The grown-ups sitting around the metal tables in the dining hall didn’t seem much more cheerful than Mama, but at least every once in a while she’d notice a smile escape a stoic face. A time or two, she caught a couple of ladies covering their mouths, stifling giggles that seemed out of place. It seemed fine to Sachi, though, like standing in front of a fire on a cold night.
And at least the kids still cajoled and laughed, though it was quickly followed by taps on knees or, “shhh!”
“Hi.”
Sachi looked up from her cold oatmeal to see a boy standing next to her table.
“I’m Sam. What’s your name?”
She wasn’t sure why, but it surprised her for a boy to come up and introduce himself. But, she returned his smile and replied, “Sachi.” It occurred to her Sam may have meant to meet her brother instead. She put her hand of Nobu’s shoulder. “And this is my brother, Nobu.”
Nobu nodded as he peeled a banana.
She studied Sam. He was kind of cute. Maybe a year or so older than she, so probably too young for him to be interested in meeting Nobu. He must have been smiling at her. She liked his smile, too.
“I have an older brother, too—Ken,” he said. “And I have an older sister. Her name is Mariko. We live in the third row.”
“Really? So do we. Where did you live … before?” She scooted closer to Nobu and patted the bench next to her. “Have a seat.”
“We lived in Los Angeles. You?”
“Berkeley.”
“Berkeley? You came a long way. I haven’t seen you before. When did you get here?”
Sachi stirred her oatmeal slowly. “We’ve only been here for a few days.”
Sam sat next to her. “It’s been two weeks for us. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. So what does your father do?”
The question, always unexpected, was like a punch to her stomach. She put her spoon down.
Nobu dropped the banana peel into his bowl. “Our father is dead. Come on, Sach. Let’s go. Mama must be hungry by now.” He picked up the extra bowl of oatmeal.
Sam stood and nodded to Sachi and Nobu. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” Sachi said. “You didn’t know.”
Nobu called as he walked away. “Come on, I said. Let’s go.”
“Sorry. I have to go now. It was nice to meet you. Maybe we—” There was so much she wanted to say. “We live in the fourth stall from the end.” It sounded so strange to say it. We live in the fourth stall.
Sam laughed. “Ha! You live in a stall? Why, I thought only horses lived in stalls.” He whinnied as he galloped by. “I live in the stall in the middle,” he said, and turned to wave.
Sachi giggled and called to her funny, new friend. “Maybe I’ll see you later today.”
Chapter 27
Terrence
April 13, 1942
Terrence looked up at the blue light coming through the cell window. Long night. Too many goddamn th
oughts kept him tossing and turning.
He was supposed to appear in front of Judge Anderson at nine o’clock. Edward Blake said he’d come by around seven thirty to brief him on what would happen in court. About how he should behave. Hell. First they locked him up, now they were telling him how to behave. Sure wasn’t how he wanted to be living his life about now.
He figured he had several minutes before the guard came to get him for a shower. A lot of waiting and wondering in the last few months, and he was afraid of more of it. If he went to prison, he’d always be waiting—waiting to get out. He thought about the conversation he’d had with Momma the other night.
She’d brought a fresh shirt and tie for him to wear in court, and had filled him in on her conversations with Mr. Blake.
Hanging the shirt over a chair, she asked, “How you doing today?”
Her greeting was always the same. And always, he tried to think of something to say other than the truth.
I’m doing shitty, Momma. Get me outta this place. I’m going crazy.
So he always lied. “I’m okay, Momma.”
“Been talking to Mr. Blake about his ideas for your trial. He say he gonna go over all that with you.” She paced around the table, dragging her hand along its top.
“What’d he say, Momma?”
“He say … he say if the judge grants you a separate trial, he gonna advise you to enter … a guilty plea. Manslaughter.”
“What? Guilty? To manslaughter? But—”
“It’s ’cause with a plea, there won’t be no jury. He afraid … he afraid—”
“What Momma? What’s he afraid of?”
“He afraid ’cause you colored, you might not get a fair trial with a jury. You seen all them signs outside? He say he knows this judge—went to the same college—and he think the judge will go easy with your sentence ’cause of the circumstances of Daddy’s death. And ’cause you wasn’t thinking right after you found out. Like maybe you didn’t know right from wrong. And you ain’t never had a criminal record before, unlike those other two boys.”