House of the Red Fish

by Graham Salisbury

  Still, fear had me by the throat.

  What saved me that night was Papa’s boat. I lay in the dark, thinking: There has to be a way to bring it up, just has to.

  Somehow, someway, the Taiyo Maru was coming up.

  The next morning, as always, I caught a ride to school with Billy and his parents, me and Billy in the backseat. My whole family liked the Davises. Mrs. Davis was a nurse, blond, as tall as Mr. Davis, and quiet, but strong, too, as Mama described her. She was the kind of person who thought before speaking, then said just exactly what was on her mind. Billy told me she’d been raised in Africa, the only child of two missionary doctors. She was quiet because she spent so much of her life worrying about people who had nothing, and it bothered her that there was very little she or anyone else could do about it, Billy said. But sometimes she’d break out into the loudest laugh you ever heard. It was always a jolt to me.

  Mr. Davis grew up on a ranch near Galveston, Texas, and was a big boss down at Matson Shipping. He and Papa often talked about fishing, and boats, and how they were both drawn to a big sky with lots of sun and wide-open spaces. Mr. Davis was kind of skinny and sometimes goofy, with curly brown hair, glasses, and an Adam’s apple that made him look like he’d gotten an egg stuck in his throat. Sometimes he went around talking like a cowboy, his accent like a tickle in my ears. It embarrassed Billy but always made me laugh.

  I wasn’t in the car five seconds before Billy said, “We shot at our own planes last night. Five bombers were flying in from the mainland and got lost over the blacked-out island.”

  “Ho, really? They were ours?”

  “Luckily, none of them got hit.”

  “We can thank the low clouds we had last night,” Mr. Davis said over his shoulder. “It could have been disastrous.”

  “Spooky,” I said.

  Mr. Davis turned out onto the street. Mrs. Davis sat with her eyes closed, her freckled elbow out in the breeze. She worked at Queen’s Hospital and hardly ever got enough sleep, Billy said. Since Pearl Harbor she’d been working twelve-hour days and was only now starting to cut back.

  “They all got down fine,” Mr. Davis added. “Just a little shaken up.”

  “Shook me up too,” I mumbled.

  We rode in silence after that, heading down the green-hedged street and turning out onto Nu’uanu Avenue near the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. All I could think about was bombs, gunfire, bayonets, and graves.

  I looked up when I remembered: my gas mask!

  Billy’d forgotten his, too. I made a motion, putting my hand over my face. Billy raised a finger, whispering, “Shhh.”

  I grinned. At least one thing wasn’t so serious.

  The whole way over to Roosevelt High School Mrs. Davis slept. Or maybe she was thinking about what could have happened last night if those planes had been hit. More than any of us, she knew about death. She told Billy that when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor she’d seen more dead bodies and beat-up people than she ever cared to see again. Enough was enough.

  Mr. Davis pulled over in front of the school.

  We got out and thumped the door shut.

  “Billy,” Mrs. Davis said, frowning. “Where’s your gas mask?”

  “Uhh … I forgot it.”

  She looked at me. “You too, huh?”

  I stared at my feet.

  “You boys need to start carrying those around again. I know it’s safer now, but it’s still dangerous.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Mrs. Davis shook her head.

  Billy waved as his dad gave us a thumbs-up and drove off to the hospital, taking the shortest possible route because of gas rationing. Most people only got ten gallons a month.

  I glanced up at the school, a red-roofed white building that sat above the street on a grassy rise. The wide slope where we always found our friends Mose and Rico waiting for us was covered with kids … but no Mose and no Rico.

  “Must have gone in already,” Billy said, though it was still early and Mose and Rico, who were cousins, always stalled as long as they could before going into any classroom.

  Inside the school we ran into Mr. Ramos, our history teacher—he was also Mose and Rico’s uncle. He’d been our science teacher last year, but since some of the men teachers had gone off to war, he was now teaching classes in a few grades. Mose said Mr. Ramos wanted to go help out in the war too, but the principal begged him to stay. They needed him at school, because nobody could work with the boys like he could. He was the best teacher I’d ever had.

  “Morning, boys,” Mr. Ramos said. “How’s things?”

  “Good,” Billy said.

  “Where’s Mose and Rico?” I said.

  “You didn’t hear!”

  “Hear what?”

  “Rico got shot.”

  “What!” we both said.

  Mr. Ramos put up his hands. “He’s okay. But last night he took a twenty-two in his … his rear end.”

  Me and Billy glanced at each other. I felt shaky.

  “They were roaming around after dark with their BB guns like they weren’t supposed to, and some fool took a shot at them. Actually, it was about five shots, but only one hit. Those boys should have known better than to be out after curfew.”

  “Who shot at them?” I said.

  “One of those guys walks around keeping the curfew or whatever they think they’re doing. Listen to me: don’t mess around at night, you understand? It’s still very dangerous out there, and it will stay that way for a while.”

  We nodded.

  Shot in the okole. Ho. It was almost funny, except when you realized that he could have been hit someplace that could have killed him. “Where’s Rico now, Mr. Ramos?”

  “Oh, he’ll be here today. Probably missed his bus. He’s walking kind of slow today, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah … well, see you in class.”

  Mr. Ramos tapped my shoulder, then shook Billy’s hand and went on down to his classroom.

  Hoo … Rico … shot in the butt?

  Me and Billy walked down the hall, silent as cats … then broke out laughing.

  An hour after school started Rico limped in on crutches. His nurse—Mose—followed. The look on Rico’s face was so much like a sick dog’s I didn’t know whether to hold my breath or laugh.

  Mr. Ramos waved for Mose and Rico to come up front where Rico could sit with his legs stretched out. Or try to sit.

  “Sorry we’re late, Uncle,” Mose said. “Rico moving kind of slow.”

  “I see that. Before you sit down, Rico, you want to tell the class what happened to you?”

  “No,” Rico mumbled.

  Mose turned up his palms and shrugged.

  Rico switched both crutches to one hand and eased down, wincing. He set the crutches on the floor and sat staring at his hands, pressed flat on his desk.

  “He got shot,” Mose said.

  Everyone in class who didn’t know sat stunned.

  “In the butt,” Mose added, grinning.

  “Shuddup.” Rico slapped Mose with the back of his hand. “Tst.” A few snickers erupted in the back row, but most just sat blank-eyed, probably wondering if it was a joke or what.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Ramos said. “Rico got shot.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Rico took a bullet because he was out after curfew. Some people just have to learn things the hard way, you know?”

  He paused in front of Rico’s desk.

  Rico wouldn’t look at him.

  Mr. Ramos went on. “But to the rest of you, let me say it again—do not go out after dark. It’s very, very dangerous. Rico was lucky, and I’m sure he’s learned his lesson. But please, follow the rules and respect the curfew. These are very unstable times. Okay? Will you do that for me?”

  We all nodded, mumbled, sure, sure.

  Later that day when school let out, me and Billy walked with Mose and Rico down to the bus stop. All of us went home on the city bus, them one way, me and Billy anothe
r.

  “So, Rico,” I said. “Did it hurt to get shot?”

  “Naah. Like a bee sting. It’s nothing.”

  “Pshh,” Mose spat. “He cried like a baby.”

  “You don’t shut it up Mose I going remake your face.”

  “You’re lucky the guy only had a twenty-two,” Billy said.

  “Right about that, brah,” Mose said. “If he had a big gun Rico might only have one cheek now.”

  “Tst,” Rico said. “You really starting to burn me up, you know, Mose … ah?”

  Mose put up his hands in surrender.

  “Mr. Wilson shot at me one time,” I said. “With a forty-five. But he didn’t know it was me. That was at night too.”

  “A forty-five would blow a big hole in you,” Billy said.

  “Boom! No more okole, ah, Rico?” Mose said, dancing away just as Rico swung a crutch at him.

  Mose and Rico’s bus came and they got on. We watched Rico in the windows, hopping his way back to the last seat. He waved a crutch at us, and the bus lumbered off, coughing black smoke.

  Back on our street, Billy said, “You know that idea you had about trying to bring up your dad’s boat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. It’s such a crazy idea it’s interesting. I still think it’s impossible … for us, anyway … but forget that for a moment. I was thinking, what would the army have to say about it? I mean, they put it there, right?”

  I scowled. “So?”

  “So don’t you think the first thing you should do is see if … well, if you could get in trouble, or something … if you messed around with the boat, I mean?” Billy cocked his head. “It would be kind of like breaking someone out of jail, you know?”

  That made me smile. “Yeah … but I wouldn’t want to get shot down before I even started.”

  “But what if you could get arrested?”

  “They wouldn’t arrest me for trying to save our own boat.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “No.”

  Billy thought for a moment. Why’d he have to bring this up? I would just do it, that was all. The army didn’t have to know. But I knew he was right. The last thing my family needed was more trouble.

  “We could ask Mr. Ramos,” Billy said.

  I shook my head. “Maybe later. First I want to see if I can even figure out how to do it.”

  Billy shrugged. “Makes sense. But sooner or later we have to check that out, you know? Maybe even get permission, or something.”

  “Yeah, I know. But for now I want to keep it quiet.”

  “Sure. For now.”

  We walked up the path to my house, the afternoon warm and still. Billy was just saying out loud what had passed through my mind the night before, lying awake: would the military care? I didn’t want to ask and to take the chance of bringing the boat back into the army’s mind when they seemed to have forgotten about it.

  “Hey,” Billy said. “You want to come over and see our bomb shelter?”

  “You dug another one?”

  “No, same one, only now it’s different.”

  “Different how?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  What was he up to? I’d already seen his bomb shelter. I helped him dig it right after Pearl Harbor got bombed, something the military governor had urged everyone to build. Billy’s was just a hole in the ground with sandbags and lumber on top. A spooky place—dark, dirty, and stinky as a swamp.

  We headed through the trees.

  When we broke out onto Billy’s vast lawn, his dog, Red, another of Lucky’s puppies, came tumbling over to jump all over us. Billy squatted down and knocked Red on his side to rub his belly. “Yeah, that feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Red’s rear leg raked the air as Billy scratched him, the dog’s eyes closed to happy slits.

  Billy’s house lay low against the tall trees beyond, as big as the Wilsons’ but spread out on one level, not two. The yard was perfect, the grass cut short and the edges clean, the work of the Davises’ gardener, Charlie, who was Grampa Joji’s good friend.

  Billy’s older brother, Jake, was lying on the concrete floor of the garage looking up under a jacked-up black Ford. “Jake got a car?” I said.

  “Naw, not him. Dad says he has to earn the money for a car himself. That’ll take a while. That one belongs to his friend Mike.”

  “What’s he doing to it?”

  Billy shrugged. “Looking at the brakes, I think.”

  Jake glanced out at us from under the car. Then went back to work. He always had a greasy rag hanging out of his back pocket. In our neighborhood, Jake Davis was the guy for car problems. That’s how he should make money to buy a car, I thought. But Jake always fixed things for free.

  Behind Billy’s house, down a sloping grass yard, the bomb shelter sat belowground, dark and creepy as a grave. Red settled down on the grass to watch us, his tongue jiggling in his panting mouth.

  Billy pulled three planks away from the entrance. Five dirt steps dropped down into the lightless pit. “Take a look,” he said.

  “I’m not going in there.”

  “Too spooky for you?”

  I frowned. “No. You go. I’ll follow.”

  Billy studied the gaping black mouth. “Wait. I’ll get my flashlight.”

  Except for the chatter of a few birds, the yard was silent. Nothing moved, not even in the treetops where a breeze usually blew. Billy’s parents were still at work.

  Minutes later, Billy came jogging back down the grassy slope with the flashlight. He tossed it to me. “Okay, now you got your light. Go.”

  “I thought you were going first.”

  “Come on, just go down and take a look, you coward.”

  I stepped down into the hole and flipped on the flashlight.

  “Ahhh!” I gasped, staggering back. I fell and crabbed away backwards on my hands and feet. “You punk! You were going to send me into that?”

  Stupid Billy was laughing so hard he nearly cried. “I knew you wouldn’t get past the second step,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Jeese!” I spat. “You feeding them, or what?”

  The bomb shelter was alive with centipedes, the six-inch kind that live in the cracks in the earth and crawl up inside your pants when you water the grass. Rusty-red ugly zillion-leg nightmare monsters that could sting like wasps and haunt your dreams for seventeen days. Or years.

  I stood up and turned off the flashlight, tossed it back to Billy. “You fool. You’re gonna pay for that.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “You right, yeah—when you least expect it.”

  We slammed the boards back over the pit, closing it off before any of those vampires decided to make a break for daylight.

  Billy rubbed the heel of his hand over his wet eyes, still laughing. “I just couldn’t resist.”

  “Yeah, it was fun for you, but—”

  Billy’s smile vanished.

  I looked back over my shoulder.

  There they were again. But now there were only three of them, standing stone still at the top of the yard.

  Dwight Mason. Chip Perry.

  And Keet Wilson.

  “Heyyy, fish boy,” Keet drawled.

  I squinted, my hands on my hips.

  Keet grinned and wagged a finger at me. “I’ve been watching you.”

  “Here come the creeps,” I muttered.

  “BMTC punks,” Billy added. “Think they might be men.”

  “Yeah, BMTC punks.”

  The BMTC was a group of men whose main reason for existing was something so spooky I could hardly believe it. It started up just after Pearl Harbor. Most of the BMTC guys were okay, but some weren’t. Billy’s dad told him about it, and Billy told me, saying it wasn’t such a smart thing to have organized. “Because it approaches vigilantism,” Billy’s dad said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Like when people take the law into their own hands.
”

  “Like, make up their own laws?”

  “Exactly.”

  What the BMTC was organized for wasn’t to patrol for blackout violations or curfew breakers, like they wanted everybody to think. No, their real mission, the hidden one, was to take care of enemy aliens if and when the Japanese returned to invade the islands. Enemy aliens were people like Mama, Papa, and Grampa Joji, who lived here but weren’t U.S. citizens. I was born here, so I was a citizen. What did Billy mean by take care of? It didn’t sound good.

  Billy said the BMTC had huge wall maps flagged with areas on the island where there were heavy concentrations of Japanese people. When he’d told me that, a wave of fear broke over me. I thought of Mama alone in our house and how they could come and take her away.

  But I also knew our house wouldn’t be flagged on anyone’s map, because it was on haole property. Still, no matter where I went, I would be on Keet Wilson’s map—to him a Jap is a Jap, and Japs crushed Pearl Harbor.

  Now he stood at the top of Billy’s yard, watching me.

  Keet and the two other guys, Dwight and Chip, strolled down the slope. Red leaped and nipped at their legs, looking for attention.

  Keet knelt down with one knee cocked and rubbed Red’s head. Dwight and Chip stood watching. Keet scratched behind Red’s ears, whispering to him. “You’re a cute little feller, ain’t ya? Yeah.”

  Keet looked up, still scratching Red’s ears. “You traitors got something I should know about hidden in that pit?” When neither of us answered, he stood and walked closer to peer around Billy. Billy was almost as tall as Keet.

  Keet waited for an answer. Black hair, blue eyes, clean face with no zits. Wiry, muscular arms. Fake army dog tags around his neck.

  Me and Billy kept silent.

  “Oh, my,” Keet said to his friends. “Look … they’re trying to be tough guys.”

  Dwight snickered.

  Chip pushed Red away with his foot. “Git.”

  “One more time,” Keet said. “What’s in the pit?”

  Billy handed Keet the flashlight. “See for yourself.”

  Keet took the flashlight, his eyes boring into Billy’s.

  “No, don’t,” I said, blocking the boarded entry.