Ben, Billy, Mose, and Rico closed in.
Keet smiled, his fake dog tags glinting in the sun. “Listen. I’m going to give you a choice … let’s see … number one, you could, uh, die. Or you could go home … without my rubber boats, of course, because there’s no way anybody’s letting you get that fuel boat back up. You got to know that. Right?”
“It’s a fishing boat.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what you say.”
“That’s what I say.”
Keet shook his head. “My dad says sooner or later with the right kind of … persuasion … every opponent eventually comes around.”
“Well, your daddy’s not here, is he? And I’m not coming around to anything! Yo u are.”
Keet fake-frowned. “What does that mean?”
I leaned closer. “It means we going settle this. Right here in front of all these guys.”
Keet’s eyes slipped one way, then the other.
“Not a chance,” he said, still cool. “You think I’m going to give you such an easy way out? Give you a little beating and go away?” He chuckled and glanced back at his army.
Silence.
Keet sobered up. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
“Smart enough.”
“Huh.”
I glared at him.
“Well, I got something that might change your mind.”
He reached up over his shoulder, down behind him, his ice-eyes on mine. Slowly, slowly—he came up with a long blade that gleamed in the sun.
A silver sword.
I gasped, my jaw dropping. “Wha—”
Keet grinned, holding up my family’s katana, the shiny blade pointing to the sky. “You like my toad sticker?”
I stepped back, my heart a hammer in my chest. Something like whirling dust bobbed in my eyes and hate rushed over me like never before.
“I thought you might recognize this.”
He turned the katana slightly so the sun’s reflection snapped in my eyes and made me squint. The blade was so close I could see where his greasy fingers had smudged the silvery steel, and the small knick the .22 had made when Keet shot it in the jungle. “You—you can’t—”
“Shut up! Now, you listen to me.” He glanced down the line of guys, everyone watching. I stood ready to hit the ground if he swung the blade. That was what he’d brought it for. It would cut deep. I stepped back, sweeping away the sweat dripping into my eyes with the back of my hand.
Keet lowered the blade, angling the point down to the dirt at his feet so that it crossed his body from right to left. Then he raised his foot and rested it on the steel. “I could step on this and break it, easy,” he said. “But even if it’s too strong to break it will bend. Either way it’s ruined.”
“Don’t! That’s—”
“Listen close,” he said. “You’re going to do exactly what I say. Get the picture?”
All eyes were on Keet.
He pushed down on the blade, lightly. “See it bend?”
“You can’t do that!” Billy said. “That sword’s—”
“Shut up!”
Billy shouted, “That sword’s been in his family for hundreds of years!”
I clenched my teeth, ready to lunge, waiting for a break in his concentration. It had to be timed exactly right. His foot had to be off the blade.
“You know what’s wrong with you, Nakaji?” Keet said. “You’re a coward, afraid to fight. You’ve been like that forever—talk big, but under your skin you’re nothing.”
“You stupit haole,” Rico said, starting toward him.
One of Keet’s guys blocked him. Rico shoved him, but the guy didn’t budge. When Rico tried to go around him, the guy shoved Rico back.
“Wait!” I said. “I can …”
I can what?
“See?” Keet said. “A coward. Only your monkeys stand up for you. And like you, they’re nothing.”
Keet moved his foot off the blade, then put it back, making me sweat.
He gritted his teeth and stepped down, hard.
“No!”
I hammered my fist into his mouth.
He reeled back. The katana fell from his hand. Billy dropped to his knees and grabbed it, then scrambled up, took it behind Ben.
Keet staggered, blinking. He charged me.
I ducked his flailing fists and hammered him just above his eye. He roiled back.
A dog in the dirt! That was me.
He swung again. I ducked, grabbing his arm the way Grampa Joji grabbed mine. I twisted hard and sent him to his knees.
Keet yelped, his face contorted. “Stop, stop!”
I let go.
Keet grabbed his wrist and staggered up. Blood drooled from his fattening lip. “You’re going to die!” He turned to his gang. “Kill him!”
No one moved. Not even Dwight.
He turned back to me, his face mangled with hate. “If you think this is over then you better think again, because when I tell my—” He squeezed his eyes shut and touched his lip. “You and your family are history!”
“Go tell your mommy and daddy,” Mose shouted.
Keet held his wrist, glaring. “Find a nice slum to move to, Jap.” He backed away, looking everywhere but at the punks who came with him.
He turned and ran for the street.
“Watch your back!” Rico yelled.
Keet’s gang glanced at each other, then at us, some of them shrugging, some shaking their heads. The big guy Calvin knew headed over to the canal to look down on the Taiyo Maru. Slowly, the others followed, tossing down their sticks and bats.
Rico came up and tapped my back. “Yeah, brah! You shamed him.”
It didn’t feel good. But it felt right.
I turned. “Billy—”
“It’s bent but not broken.” He held up the katana. There was a slight bow to it. “We can find someone who can straighten it out. Yo u stopped him just in time. It could have been way worse.”
I took the katana. It was painful to see even the smallest damage. “Thanks.”
“Dad or Charlie will know where to take it.”
The big guy peered into the water. “Which boat?”
“That one,” Calvin said. “It’s just a fishing boat.”
“So what Wilson told us was a lie?”
“Does that boat look dangerous to you?” Calvin said.
“If it is, it’s not going anywhere soon.”
“It’s not an enemy fuel boat.”
“Maybe not.” He glanced back toward the street. No trace of Keet Wilson. “Man, I’d hate to be in his shoes,” he said. “He won’t be able to look anyone in the eye.” He turned to me. “And he ain’t gonna be telling his dad anything.”
I nodded, still so angry it spooked me. It was hard to breathe.
I mashed my lips tight. I’d get the katana fixed.
“I got work to do,” I said, pushing past the big guy Calvin had faced down. I stopped and looked back at him. “You … you want to help?”
He raised his eyebrows, glanced at his friends.
“Tomi,” Billy said, nodding toward the trees.
A jeep was heading our way.
An army jeep, with two MPs in it.
I hid the katana behind my back.
We parted to let the jeep drive up. “What’s going on here?” the driver said. “You got a problem we can help with?”
“No sir,” I said. “No problem.”
The MP glanced at the pontoons. “Is that military property?”
Silence.
The MPs got out of the jeep. They wore khaki U.S. Army uniforms, new bucketlike steel helmets, and black armbands with MP in white.
“We borrowed them from the marines,” Billy said. “My dad got them for us. We’re returning them as soon as we’re …”
The MPs waited for more, but Billy looked down, probably wanting those words back as much as I did. Someone came up behind me and took the katana. “I hold it for you,” Mose whispered.
>
“They’re for my father’s boat,” I said, keeping myself from looking back at Mose. “We’re … we’re using the pontoons to bring it up off the bottom so we can take it to dry dock.”
The MPs walked over and looked down on the ten boats. “All of them, or just one?” the MP asked.
“Just that one,” I said, lifting my chin toward the Taiyo Maru, rust-colored under the wobbly water.
One MP squatted down, took off his helmet, and held it in his hands. “That’s a big job, son. I see why you got all these boys here.”
“Yessir.”
“Mind if we watch? Not much going on for us today.”
My jaw dropped. Billy and I glanced at each other.
“Sure, watch,” Rico said, breaking through the crowd. “In fact, if you want, you can jump in and help us out.”
The MPs grinned. One said, “Now, why would we want to spoil your fun? How’d these boats get sunk, anyway?”
It was good while it lasted, I thought. Now we’ve had it.
“Storm,” someone said.
Ojii-chan.
I looked back at Grampa Joji straddling his bike with his feet planted in the dirt. Where had he been?
“Who are you?” the MP said, standing, putting his helmet back on.
“My son’s boat,” Grampa said, trying to get his English right, which gave me great relief. We didn’t need those MPs to think about Japan just then.
The MP nodded. “It went down in a storm?”
“Unnh.”
“What about the others?”
“Same-same.”
“What?”
“They all went down the same way,” I said. True.
“That right, old man?”
“Unnh.”
The MP took his helmet off again and set it on the ground, then sat on it as if it were a footstool. “Take a load off, Mike,” he said to the other MP. “This might be the best show we’ll see all week.”
Grampa laid his bike in the dirt. Mose eased over and handed him the katana. If Grampa Joji was shocked to see it, he didn’t show it.
Just as we were starting to drag the pontoons to the canal, someone else showed up—Fumi.
With about twenty-five of her customers. And in the back, even Suzy.
A sailor walking next to Fumi had a half-finished tattoo on his arm. REMEMBER PEAR. Must have jumped out of the chair to come.
“Your grandpa came for us,” Fumi said, striding up. “He said had trouble here.”
“No trouble,” I said. So he went for reinforcements!
“Good,” she said, then nodded to her niece that it was okay to come closer.
“So,” Fumi said. “I heard this was the big day. These boys came because I told them what you was doing and that you had trouble. But now we just going watch, ah?”
Suzy came up and stood behind her. She waved and I nodded back.
This was turning into a circus. But so what? It was a big day, the biggest day in a long time. Why not have all these strangers here? Share it. You see, Papa? You see what we’re doing? You feel it, wherever you are? Your boat is coming up!
Rico tapped my shoulder. “Some day, ah?”
“That it is, my friend. Let’s get to work.”
I heard an engine cough and spit, then die.
Calvin was yanking on the compressor’s pull rope, trying to start it up.
And now Ojii-chan was missing again.
“Fumi, where’s Grampa?”
“He getting the boy.”
“What boy?”
“Surprise.”
The big haole guy Calvin knew hovered over the compressor with his hands on his knees. “Need some muscle there, Hawaiian?”
Calvin grinned. “Hard to believe you didn’t even know what you was down here to beef about.”
“Yeah, well … sorry about that.” He stuck out his hand.
Calvin grinned and slapped it. Then he rewound the pull rope.
“Wilson said it was subversive, so we came,” the guy said.
Calvin looked up. “Subversive? What that means?”
“Like you’re doing something for the enemy and not us.”
Calvin scowled. “Well, he was wrong, ah?” He nodded toward me. “That kid who just shame your friend wants to fix up this boat for when his pops comes home.”
“From where?”
Calvin glanced at me.
“He was arrested after Pearl Harbor,” I said. “The navy thought he was working for Japan, helping them. But he wasn’t. He was only fishing.”
“And you couldn’t get that cleared up?” one of the MPs said.
I shrugged. “Too much going on, those days.”
“Yeah, I was at Schofield that day. That was a scary time.”
I nodded. “Most of the fishermen got rounded up. But they were just peaceful working guys.”
“Huh,” the big haole said. “Wilson made a different story out of it.”
“He’s got a private war with me,” I said.
“Why?”
“Ask him.”
“Nah. So, how you going to float that boat, that’s what I want to know?”
Calvin wagged his eyebrows. “Watch.”
All along the edge of the canal a line of soldiers and sailors and the two MPs and even Keet’s guys stood talking while me, Billy, Mose, Rico, Ben, and Calvin went to work. Fumi was the queen, surrounded by Suzy and her customers, laughing and joking like they were at a Hotel Street party. All we needed was the food and drinks and maybe some music.
Two sailors who knew about compressors asked if they could man it while we were in the water. “All these guys will help,” one said. “Just ask.”
With all these people we could probably all just get in the water and lift the boat up! “Thanks,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Sure thing.” He squatted down by the compressor, checked the gas tank, then started it up. It sprang to life, making a terrible racket. You probably could’ve heard it all the way up in the mountains. The sailor nodded to the other guy to run the air hose out to us.
“Good to go!” he shouted.
Mose and Rico jumped in and took up their positions on the port side of the Taiyo Maru. Ben and Calvin followed, swimming over to the starboard side.
Billy and I took the air hose and swam it out.
“Do a little on one side, a little on the other,” Billy said. “Back and forth so we don’t tip the boat over.”
“Yeah, if it flips, it’s as good as gone. For us, anyway.”
“I’ll guide you,” he said.
“Teamwork.”
“Like always, huh? The Rats.”
I grinned. “The Rats.”
Billy and I swam the hose over to Mose and Rico’s side.
“Cross your fingers.” We took a deep breath, dove under, and fixed the air hose to the inflation manifold.
I came up and waved to the guys at the compressor. “Let ‘er rip!”
The air hose leaped.
Air raced into the pontoon tube, the rubbery canvas writhing open. Yes! Yes!
Mose dove under to hold the air hose in place while Billy came up for air. “It’s working!” he called to shore.
A cheer erupted. Fumi beamed down on us as if we were her own kids.
When the port pontoon was a quarter full, Billy ran a finger across his throat. I unhitched the air hose and swam it over to the starboard side.
Back and forth, back and forth.
The pontoons fattening.
Filling.
More.
More.
Slowly, the hull began to rise.
Even from shore they saw it shift, saw the pilot house come up out of the rusty water, saw the Taiyo Maru rising from its watery grave, and that was the best part, because now those sailors and army soldiers and the two MPs, and even Keet’s warriors, were all cheering and clapping for every inch. Across the way, even, on the Waikiki side of the canal, another crowd was growing, coming out of the houses to see w
hat was going on.
Slowly, the Taiyo Maru rose back into this world.
Not all the way, because it was full of water.
But it was enough.
Enough!
The pontoon tubes lifted the wheelhouse clear out of the water.
An inch still washed over the decking, but the gunnels breathed clean fresh air for the first time since the Taiyo Maru had gone down.
And the hull floated free.
Me, Billy, Mose, Rico, Ben, and Calvin climbed aboard and stood ankle-deep on deck with our fists in the air, the crowd clapping and hooting down on us.
We did it!
While all that celebrating was going on, I glanced down the canal toward the ocean. A boat was working its way up-river.
I squinted.
What?
Closer, closer.
No. Can’t be. But how—
Standing on the bow of a boat half the size of the Taiyo Maru was Grampa Joji. Behind him were two Kaka’ako boys—Ichiro Frankie Fujita and Herbie Okubo.
So Herbie was the boy Grampa went to get. You crabby, grumpy, cranky, brilliant old goat. A lump grew in my throat as I watched them ease toward us, the engine tok-tok-tokking on water as smooth as silk.
Herbie waved, walking his boat up. “Need a tow?”
I was too choked up to answer, so I nodded and tapped Billy to answer for me. “Thought you’d never ask,” he said.
Herbie edged the boat in closer and put it in neutral, let it glide the rest of the way. Bow bumped bow.
Ichiro, or I should say Frankie, handed a coiled rope forward to Grampa on the bow. Grampa tossed it to me. I caught it and pulled Herbie’s boat alongside the Taiyo Maru.
“Ojii-chan,” I said, then couldn’t go on.
“Unnnh.”
I motioned for him to step over onto Papa’s sampan. “Come, Ojii-chan,” I managed to say. “Ride with us.”
Herbie handed Grampa the katana, which was on deck near his feet.
Grampa nodded, a slight bow, rare for an old man to give a boy.
Ben and Calvin jumped off and swam to shore.
“Boy,” Fumi called. “Wait for me … I be right back.” She grabbed one of the sailors and scurried back toward the trees and the street.
Grampa Joji stepped over onto the Taiyo Maru and slogged through the water to the wheelhouse. The look on his face was as always, blank and stern. As he passed by he tapped my shoulder, not even glancing at me.
House of the Red Fish Page 18