House of the Red Fish

by Graham Salisbury

  I gathered them up carefully, then replaced the mattress and gently flattened out the pieces of red paper. There was no way in this mean world that he was going to defeat me.

  Never.

  Like Mr. Ramos said, if you don’t fight for what you love, you might lose it. You hear that, Papa? Sometimes you just got to do it.

  I placed the fish pieces under the mattress, then went out and untied Little Bruiser and hurried away so he wouldn’t charge me. But for some reason he just looked up at me, then trotted out into the sun.

  Awhile later, Mama came home from the grocery store with Kimi pulling a wooden wagon full of vegetables, a big bag of rice, and a few canned goods. When she looked into my eyes she knew something was wrong.

  I’d been sitting out on the porch steps with the dogs, waiting and wondering if I should tell her about Keet. I didn’t want to put that weight on her. I also knew that she would absolutely want to know about it.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  I glanced at Kimi.

  Mama took a couple of cans out of the wagon and handed them to Kimi. “Go put these away,” she said softly, which made Kimi brighten with responsibility.

  I got up and let Kimi go by, then went down to stand closer to Mama. “When I came home Keet Wilson was coming out of our house.”

  “He was inside?”

  I nodded. At my feet the puppies tumbled over each other. I nudged them with my foot and they scampered off.

  “He didn’t take anything,” I added.

  Mama frowned.

  “He said his mother wanted to see you when you got home. I guess she sent him down to get you.”

  Five minutes later, Mama was out the door and heading up the trail. She never felt put out by Mrs. Wilson. Mama worked for her. It was always as simple as that, and I suppose that was how I should have looked at it too. We were lucky to live where we did, in a nice house, up where the island was green and cool.

  But sometimes that way of thinking wasn’t easy.

  Twenty minutes later, Mama returned. She said nothing, and the look on her face didn’t either. She just went about her business in the kitchen.

  “Mama?” I said. “What did they want?”

  “The Wilsons want you to dig a bomb shelter for them,” she said.

  “Me? By myself? Why? Nobody’s bombing us anymore.”

  “You dig. They pay us more.”

  “But—”

  “Go find Ojii-chan,” she said.

  “I don’t know where he is, Mama. His bike is gone.”

  She rattled around the kitchen. There was more that she wasn’t telling me.

  Kimi came in and stood between us, looking up.

  Mama didn’t really need to tell me anything. It was all about me. The Wilsons didn’t have guests coming. They sent for Mama to complain about me, and maybe the koi-nobori.

  I felt Mama’s confusion. To honor the Wilsons would dishonor me, and to honor me would dishonor them. It had to be tearing her up, the feelings I knew she felt, but would never reveal.

  “Tomi-kun,” Mama said, quietly. “You have to find your grandfather. He’s getting old. He … we need to help him. He forgets things, and he wanders away without telling us where he is going.”

  “I know, Mama. I’m sorry. I’ll go find him.”

  “I miss your … I miss Papa.” We looked at each other.

  “Me too, Mama. Me too.”

  “We have to be strong now. You have to be the man, help me, help Kimi, like your father would do.”

  I stared at the floor. Five bomb shelters I would dig if that was what Mama needed me to do.

  I headed out.

  I couldn’t believe the Wilsons wanted me to dig a bomb shelter when they had their own son to do it and he was bigger than me. Papa, I thought, come home soon. I don’t know how you and Mama can just jump when they say jump.

  Lucky came out from under the house and followed me. There will be a day when things will be different, I thought, and when that day comes Keet Wilson will have to dig his own holes and choke down whatever ugly thoughts are moving around in his little mousebrain, because on that day he will lose his power over me. On that day we will be equals.

  And that day was coming.

  First I checked for Grampa by his chickens, Lucky tagging along for something to do.

  No Grampa.

  I went over to Charlie’s place, where he often went to visit.

  Nope.

  Was Ojii-chan losing his common sense? Always running off without telling anyone where he was going. With martial law, and with him being a citizen of Japan, it was too dangerous to be so careless, and he knew it. Worse, he never took his ID or gas mask with him. I had to laugh, trying to imagine Ojii-chan in that bug-eyed thing. Never would he put something like that on, not even in a gas attack. You’d have to tackle him and force it on.

  “Go home,” I said to Lucky. “Go sleep under the house.”

  She loped off, knowing by the tone of my voice that it was time to be somewhere else.

  I headed out to the street to the bus stop. Poor dog only wanted to go somewhere with me. “Sorry, Lucky,” I whispered.

  Ojii-chan. Where could you be?

  All I could think of was that he might be downtown with Fumi. But who knew where she lived, or worked? I didn’t even know her last name, and there had to be a thousand Fumis.

  I took a deep breath and blew the air out through puffed cheeks, looking up at the sky, thinking. Where should—

  What’s this?

  Way up in the blue cloudless universe five tiny white specks circled around each other. I knew instantly what they were: hato poppo. Pigeons. High flyers. Like Papa used to have, until the army made me kill them. A handful of Papa’s birds had been out flying that terrible day, so had survived. When they came home I gave them away so they wouldn’t end up dead too.

  I watched the high flyers circle against all that blue.

  I blinked.

  Funny how five little dots could choke me up. In that moment I remembered the day Papa and I had spread out on our backs, lying flat in the grass, watching his high flyers soar, and him saying, “Mama should see this, Tomi.”

  But she never did.

  And then the pigeons were dead.

  Where are you, Papa?

  I watched the high flyers a minute or two more, then looked away. Enough. Go find Ojii-chan.

  ***

  I got off the bus in Chinatown.

  Vegetable stands, pool halls, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, streets full of people hurrying around. Finding Grampa would be like trying to find a grain of rice on the beach.

  Through the buildings I caught glimpses of the bright blue ocean beyond, with Sand Island on the other side of the harbor where the temporary prison was, the place they’d taken Papa after they arrested him. I winced, remembering how I’d put myself and my family in danger by swimming out there. I hid in the weeds all day, waiting for a glimpse of him through the fence. I was wrong to do that; but I was glad I did. It was the last time I saw him.

  A car honked.

  I jumped back and stood on the curb. This is hopeless. Grampa could be anywhere, maybe even not downtown at all.

  Tst.

  Okay, check around Hotel Street where all the action is, and go home. Why am I always looking for Grampa, anyway? He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.

  Maybe.

  And who was this Fumi?

  How come all of a sudden he’s got a girlfriend? He was getting weirder by the minute. Where are you, Ojii-chan?

  On my way to Hotel Street I ran into Ichiro Fujita, one of the guys on the Kaka’ako Boys baseball team, who we used to play before the war. He was pushing an old wood wheelbarrow.

  “Heyyy,” he said, smiling big. “Whatchoo doing down here with the common folks?”

  “Looking for my grampa,” I said. “What are you doing here? Kind of far from home, ah?”

  “My job. I work now, delivery. Vegetables, most
ly, from Kaka’ako farmers. Pays pretty good.”

  “You mean you quit school?”

  “Had to. Hard for lots of families to get by these days.”

  I nodded. “Yeah … did they arrest your dad?”

  “No, no … but they took my uncle away. He was a Japanese-language-school teacher. I’m helping his family out.”

  “You’re a good guy, Ichiro.”

  “Frankie.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Frankie now.”

  “Frankie?”

  “Changed it. Lot of guys doing that now.”

  “What guys?”

  Ichiro looked off toward the ocean. “You got a name like Ichiro and you got people suspicious without you saying a word, you know? Japanese names being changed all over, at least down here.”

  “Frankie … that’s you now?”

  Ichiro grinned. “I like Frankie. Like the president. You should change yours.” He thought a moment. “Naah. Tomi is okay. Like Tommy. Just change the way you say it, ah? Easy.”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “How’s that haole frien’ of yours, the pitcher?”

  “Good.”

  We stood thinking of what to say.

  “Well, I got to get back to work,” he said. “You stay safe, ah? Watch out for pickpockets down here.”

  “Nothing to pick in these pockets.”

  He grinned, tapped the side of my arm, and went on down the road with his wheelbarrow.

  He was all right, Ichiro. Too bad he had to change his name.

  Seeing him working to help out his uncle’s family … that was what I should be doing, helping out, not chasing after my impossible idea. I should just give up and get a job.

  I walked around Hotel Street for an hour, feeling low. Ojii-chan was nowhere. All I found was two million sailors, army guys, and civilian construction workers. If Grampa was anywhere near this place he’d be buried in uniforms and I’d never see him.

  “This is crazy,” I mumbled.

  The sun was going down. I had to get home, Grampa or no Grampa.

  I got off the bus by the Piggly Wiggly market on Nu’uanu Avenue, not far from my house. I hadn’t even come close to finding Grampa.

  I hurried up to my street, daylight fading to dusk.

  A car pulled alongside me, its engine humming low, keeping pace with me. I glanced over.

  Mr. Wilson studied me, then braked to a stop. “Get in. I’ll take you the rest of the way.”

  “That’s all right, I’m almost—”

  “Get in.”

  I opened the door and slid down onto the leather seat. Mr. Wilson’s briefcase was in the way so I pushed it closer to him.

  I pulled the door shut.

  Mr. Wilson turned onto our street and pulled over.

  The engine idled.

  Other cars drove past us, everyone hurrying home before dark.

  I felt Mr. Wilson studying me, felt his heat. In the corner of my eye I could see his belly, almost touching the steering wheel. My first thought was: Keet told him about the Taiyo Maru.

  “I’m having a hard time justifying keeping your family on my property,” he said.

  I couldn’t even force myself to look at him. “Yes, sir.”

  I waited.

  “I heard about the Jap kites you had flying over your house.”

  Another car passed.

  “They’re not there anymore,” I said. Your son took them down and ripped them to shreds.

  “You can’t do that, boy. I can’t have any enemy symbols and emblems around my place, do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, both hands gripping it. “The FBI came up to the house the other day. They wanted me to give up my shortwave radio.”

  When I didn’t say anything he shoved his briefcase into me. “You hear that?”

  I jumped. “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t like to be put in the same boat with enemy aliens, don’t like that at all, I’ll tell you, and if there’s just one more incident, one more symbol, or one more visit from the FBI, military, police, or even a block warden, and that incident has anything to do with you or your family, I’m cutting you loose, I don’t care how much Mrs. Wilson needs your mother up at the house.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sky was darkening fast, the street ahead turning vague in the dusky light. Mr. Wilson didn’t know about the boat. Because if he could get this mad about fish streamers, he would …

  “You know why they wanted the radio?”

  “No, sir.”

  “The law, boy. Things have changed for everyone, even the innocent, all because of you Japs. Now you can’t keep a shortwave anywhere that an enemy alien has access to it, you get what I’m saying?”

  Mama.

  An enemy alien. Right, I thought—she’s sending messages to Hirohito, now—come bomb us again, was fun that first time.

  “You know what I did with that radio?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, I sure didn’t give it to them, I’ll tell you that. I took it down to the office so the FBI could relax about your mother getting her hands on it.”

  I nodded.

  Then got bold.

  “Mr. Wilson, you think my mother would really ever even get near that radio, except maybe to dust it off?”

  He chuckled. “If she ever did, it would surprise me, and it would surprise her, too, because I’d have her arrested quicker than you could turn the thing on. But that’s not the point. The point is you are all an annoyance and, frankly, a worry to everyone around here. Who’s to say what the old man is up to? They never should have turned him loose. And you … who’s to say you don’t have something subversive going on? My son says he thinks you’re up to something, but he won’t say what that is. You care to enlighten me?”

  I pursed my lips, afraid I would pop something off at him, and no matter how mad I got, I couldn’t do that.

  Swallow it. Now.

  “I’m sorry about your radio, Mr. Wilson, and you won’t see any more fish symbols while the war is going on, or any other symbols.”

  Mr. Wilson kept tapping his thumb on the steering wheel. He took a deep breath, then said, “Listen, I don’t want to have to ask your family to leave. I’m a compassionate man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He put the car in gear but kept his foot on the brake, his eyes looking into the rearview mirror and staying there. I looked back over my shoulder at Grampa Joji coming up the road on his wobbly bicycle.

  Mr. Wilson’s eyes squinted down. “You tell him everything I just told you, because I’m as serious as a train wreck about this, you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll tell him, and Mama, too.”

  He turned to look me in the eye. I looked back at him, but only for a second. “Good,” he said. “You can get out of my car now.”

  One thing was for sure—if Mr. Wilson ever heard about what I was doing with the Taiyo Maru he would come down on me like a lightning bolt. And even though he’d warned me to pass on what he’d told me to Grampa and Mama, I was keeping it to myself. Why bring them more worry? I would have to be more careful, that’s all.

  Very careful.

  Billy, too.

  The next day at school I told him about what happened in Mr. Wilson’s car.

  “He really said that? Get out of my car?”

  “He shoved his briefcase into me too.”

  Billy shook his head. “Guy’s a winner.”

  “Like son, like father, huh?”

  “Looks like it.”

  We were silent a moment.

  “I was thinking I should forget about the boat and get a job,” I said.

  “What!”

  “Do more to help out, you know?”

  “That’s good, but—you just going to drop the whole thing? Now?“

  I looked away. “No, I—”

  “Get that thought out of your head, bec
ause you already are helping out. You’re trying to save your dad’s boat, remember? He needs it. I don’t see how much is more important than that.”

  He was right. The Taiyo Maru was our life. It was all we had.

  “Hey, I have some news,” Billy said. “First, I had to tell Dad what we’re trying to do.”

  “What!”

  “Don’t worry. He’s not going to blab it to Mr. Wilson or anyone else. But listen to this—you remember those pontoons I was talking about?”

  I frowned. Mr. Davis knew. That wasn’t good.

  “You with me here?” Billy said.

  “Yeah. Sorry. What?”

  “The pontoons … I learned what the marines use them for. Two things. First, they use them to make temporary bridges. What they do is lash them together and anchor them in the river they want to bridge over. Then they put a steel mesh on top on them, strong enough for tanks to cross.”

  “Smart idea.”

  “You’re going to like the second thing they do with them, because it shows you how close you are to getting it right.”

  “No joke?”

  Billy rapped the top of my head with his knuckles. “Seems you might have something in there after all, because the military also uses pontoons to bring up small sunken boats.”

  “Ho! Really?”

  “Yep. Same idea as yours, with those inner tubes. You just did it backwards—and, as we know, you didn’t have enough tubes.”

  “How’d I do it backwards?”

  “We did it the hard way. The easy way would have been to put the air in after we secured the rubber to the hull.”

  “But how?”

  “The compressor I told you about. Remember?”

  “Yeah, they work underwater?”

  “Sure do.”

  Ho … you could blow them up underwater. I knew what a compressor was, but how could we ever get one? “So all we need is pontoons and an air compressor?”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Billy said. “But don’t cash your chips in yet. Dad might be able to borrow two pontoons, and he thinks that’s all we’d need—two.”

  “I’m sorry you told your dad about this, Billy … what if he says something accidentally?”