No-No Boy

by John Okada

  He fidgeted uneasily, then saw the truth in her words. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “There’s a jacket in the hall closet,” she said as she bent down to grab the hose and pull the sprinkler closer to the concrete walk.

  It wasn’t any longer than a minute or so before he had come back out with the snug-fitting leather jacket. Emi was sitting on the bottom step and he dropped down beside her. She sat with her wrists on her knees, her soiled hands carefully arched away from the soiled overalls as if she were wearing a clean skirt.

  “There’s someone out there,” he said, peering into the distance across the level field and catching the movement of a tiny, dark shape stooped over in earnest industry.

  “That’s Mr. Maeno,” she replied. “He leases my land.”

  “Looks like he’s all alone.”

  “Oh, no. There’s Mrs. Maeno, of course, and they have two young daughters who help after school and they hire help when necessary.”

  “And work from daylight till sundown, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I can tell he’s that kind of a man without ever having met him but by just watching him from here.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Bad?” He thought about it for a while before answering. “It’s good. I used to think farmers were crazy working the way they do. I don’t any more. I envy him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s got a purpose in life. He’s got something to do. He’s got a goal of some kind and it gives meaning to his life and he’s probably pretty satisfied.”

  “And me?”

  He turned and looked at her. She was smiling, half seriously, half teasingly.

  “I envy you too,” he said without hesitation.

  “And Ken? Poor Ken.”

  “Him also.”

  “You’re bitter and you’ve no right to be.” She brushed her palm against her eye irritatedly.

  He stood up, digging his fists angrily into his pockets because she was nice and he had no right to make her partner to his gloom. “What kind of flowers did you plant?” he said cheerfully.

  “Sit down, Ichiro.”

  Obeying her, he said: “I want to talk about something else.”

  “I don’t. I want to talk about you, about how you feel and why you feel as you do.”

  “It’s a lousy way to spend a fine morning,” he protested.

  She put a hand on his arm until he turned and looked at her. “I think I know how you feel.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t. No one can.”

  “I thought about it while you were sleeping. I put myself in your place and I know how you feel. It’s a very hopeless sort of feeling.”

  There was nothing he could say to that and he didn’t.

  “A hopeless feeling, however, doesn’t mean that there is no hope.”

  “Are you saying there is?”

  “There must be.” She rubbed her hands together, flaking the dry dirt onto the walk.

  “Thanks for trying,” he said, “thanks for trying to help.”

  Emi faced him with a look of surprise and hurt anger: “Do you really think it’s so hopeless? What do you propose to do during the rest of your life? Drown yourself in your selfish bitterness?”

  Ichiro opened his mouth to mollify her.

  “Are you blind?” she continued without waiting for an answer. “Deaf? Dumb? Helpless? You’re young, healthy, and supposedly intelligent. Then be intelligent. Admit your mistake and do something about it.”

  “What?”

  “Anything. It doesn’t matter what you do. This is a big country with a big heart. There’s room here for all kinds of people. Maybe what you’ve done doesn’t make you one of the better ones but you’re not among the worst either.”

  “If I were Ralph, if Ralph had done what I did, would you still feel the same way?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Ralph’s a lucky guy,” he said.

  “And you are too. In any other country they would have shot you for what you did. But this country is different. They made a mistake when they doubted you. They made a mistake when they made you do what you did and they admit it by letting you run around loose. Try, if you can, to be equally big and forgive them and be grateful to them and prove to them that you can be an American worthy of the frailties of the country as well as its strengths.”

  “The way you say that, it seems to make sense, but I don’t know.”

  “You do know,” she said quickly, for she was spurred by the effect her words were having on him. “It’s hard to talk like this without sounding pompous and empty, but I can remember how full I used to get with pride and patriotism when we sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and pledged allegiance to the flag at school assemblies, and that’s the feeling you’ve got to have.”

  “It was different then.”

  “Only because you think so. Next time you’re alone, pretend you’re back in school. Make believe you’re singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and see the color guard march out on the stage and say the pledge of allegiance with all the other boys and girls. You’ll get that feeling flooding into your chest and making you want to shout with glory. It might even make you feel like crying. That’s how you’ve got to feel, so big that the bigness seems to want to bust out, and then you’ll understand why it is that your mistake was no bigger than the mistake your country made.”

  Ichiro pushed himself off the step and walked slowly to the end of the yard. Turning, he looked at Emi, who stared back at him with an intentness which made him uncomfortable. Keeping his eyes on her, he made his way back until he was looking down upon her.

  “It’s nice out here,” he said, “nice house, nice yard, nice you. No cars whizzing by, no people making noise. It’s quiet and peaceful and clean and fresh and nice. It feels good just being here and even what you’ve just been saying sounds all right. But I don’t live here. I don’t belong here. It’s not the same out there.” He motioned toward the highway and beyond, where the city lay.

  For a moment she looked as if she might scream to relieve herself of the agony in her soul for him. Fighting to regain her composure, she beckoned him to sit down.

  He did so wearily, not wanting to pursue the subject but sensing that she was not yet ready to abandon it.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Twenty-five,” he answered, skeptical.

  “I’m twenty-seven. So is Ralph, and Mike is fifty.”

  “Mike?”

  “Yes, Mike, a good American name for a good American—at least, he was. Mike is Ralph’s brother.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. Not yet anyway. I want to tell you about him.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you want to go to Japan and live there?”

  He furrowed his brow, not understanding. “You were going to tell me about Mike.”

  “I am,” she said impatiently. “Do you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Mike did.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “You will. I’ll start from the beginning.”

  “Fine.”

  As if preparing the story in her mind, she gazed silently over the fields before she began. “Mike was born in California and went to college there. He knocked around for a while and was doing graduate work in Louisiana when the war, the first world war, started. He’d left California because he didn’t like the way the white people treated the Japanese and he was happy in Louisiana because they treated him like a white man there. So, when the war came, he wanted to get into it and did. He spent a year in France, came back, joined the VFW, returned to California, and got into the produce business. He did
well, got married, and had two children. Then the second war started. When talk about the evacuation started, he wouldn’t believe it. He was an American and a veteran of the first war. He thought there might be justification in interning some of the outspokenly pro-Japanese aliens, but he scoffed at the idea of the government doing such a thing to him. When it became apparent that the government proposed to do just that, he burst into a fury of anger and bitterness and swore that if they treated him like a Japanese, he would act like one. Well, you know what happened and he stuck to his words. Along with the other rabidly pro-Japanese, he ended up at the Tule Lake Center, and became a leader in the troublemaking, the strikes and the riots. His wife and children remained in this country, but he elected to go to Japan, a country he didn’t know or love, and I’m sure he’s extremely unhappy.”

  “I can’t say I blame him.”

  “I’m sure he wishes he were back here.”

  “He’s got more right than I have.”

  She swung around to face him, her eyes wide with anger. “You don’t understand. Mike doesn’t have any more right than you have to be here. He has no right at all any more. It was as if he joined the enemy by antagonizing the people against the government, and you certainly never did that. All you did was to refuse to go in the army and you did so for a reason no worse than that held by a conscientious objector who wasn’t a conscientious objector.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “No?” She looked at him pleadingly, her mouth quivering uncontrollably. “I want so much to help,” she cried softly, “but nothing seems to make any sense.”

  He patted her back awkwardly, trying to think of what to say to soothe her.

  “Ralph won’t come back because of Mike. He’s ashamed,” she whimpered. “How am I to tell him that it makes no difference what Mike has done? Why is it that Ralph feels he must punish himself for Mike’s mistake? Why?”

  “He’ll come back. Takes time to work these things out.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of the sweater.

  “So am I. Hungry too.”

  They rose together and entered the house.

  Inside, they found Kenji getting breakfast ready. He looked up from the frying eggs and bacon and grinned sheepishly. His face was drawn and pale. The cane was hooked to his belt, for he held the spatula in one hand and a water glass half full of whisky in the other.

  “We were talking outside,” said Ichiro.

  “Yeah, nice morning. You should have stayed out a while longer. Breakfast isn’t quite ready.”

  Emi washed her hands and took over at the stove. Sadly, she watched as Kenji limped carefully to the table. “How did you sleep?”

  “Not very well.” He sipped the whisky appreciatively.

  “It—it—” She bit her lips for control and managed to utter: “Did it—does it . . . ?”

  “It does, Emi.”

  “Oh.” She flipped the eggs over unthinkingly. “I—I hope you weren’t expecting sunny side up.”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Ichiro said assuringly: “Makes no difference to me.”

  Moving about quietly as if fearing to jar the floor, Emi fixed the plates and set them on the table. Ichiro poured the coffee and loaded the toaster.

  Kenji leaned back in his chair and gazed through the window above the sink. “Swell day for a picnic,” he said. “How about it, Emi? Pack a lunch.”

  Ichiro retrieved the toast, saying: “Sounds good to me.”

  “Go home and see your father and your brothers and sisters,” she answered. “They’ll want to see you before you go. We can have our picnic after you come back. Please.”

  “I suppose you’re right. You always are.” He turned to Ichiro: “Feel like going to Portland tomorrow?”

  “What’s there?”

  Emi’s fork clattered against the plate. “The VA hospital,” she said curtly.

  “Sure,” he said, looking at Emi, who was avoiding his eyes, “I’d be happy to.”

  While Ichiro ate and Kenji drank, Emi got up and left them. She returned a few minutes later, shed of the baggy work clothes and wearing a trim, blue-Shantung dress and high heels. He eyed her approvingly, but Kenji seemed to take no notice until it was time for them to leave.

  At the door Kenji said fondly to her: “Thanks for not choosing black. You look wonderful.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” she said softly, fighting to hold back the tears. She slipped out of her shoes and, when Kenji kissed her lightly on the cheek, grasped him about the neck and put her lips to his.

  As he backed the car down the driveway to the road, Ichiro saw her standing very still on the porch, neither waving nor shouting. He had a feeling that she was crying.

  5

  An hour later Ichiro was at home with a promise from Kenji to pick him up early the next morning. As he walked into the store, his mother looked up from a sheaf of bills and receipts. If there was any indication of relief, he didn’t notice it.

  “Where have you been?” she said accusingly.

  “Out.” On the way home he had felt a twinge of guilt for having spent the night away without telling his folks, but whatever regrets he might have had were quickly dispelled by the tone of her voice.

  “Where have you been?” she repeated harshly.

  “With Kenji, Kanno-san’s boy.” He approached the counter and faced her. “You know him.”

  “Ahh,” she said shrilly and distastefully, “that one who lost a leg. How can you be friends with such a one? He is no good.”

  He gripped the counter for fear of having his hands free. “Why?” he rasped.

  His discomfort seemed strangely to please her. She raised her chin perceptibly and answered: “He is not Japanese. He fought against us. He brought shame to his father and grief to himself. It is unfortunate he was not killed.”

  “What’s so good about being Japanese?” He felt the pressure of the wood against his nails.

  She seemed not to hear him. Quite calmly, she continued, talking in the tone of mother to son: “You can be a good boy, a fine son. For my sake and yours do not see him again. It is just as well.”

  Pushing himself away from the counter, he let his arms drop to his sides. “I’m going to Portland with him tomorrow.”

  Her face, which had dropped to regard a column of figures on an invoice from the wholesale grocer, jerked up. For a moment, it glared at him, the twisted mouth contorting the slender, austere face into a hard mass of dark hatred. “Do as you will,” she cried out. Then the tension drained just as quickly from her face and she was putting her mind to the figures once more.

  Through his anger crept up a sudden feeling of remorse and pity. It was an uneasy, guilty sort of sensation which made him want almost to take her into his arms and comfort her, for he saw that the sickness of the soul that was Japanese once and forever was beginning to destroy her mind. Right or wrong, she, in her way, had tried harder than most mothers to be a good mother to him. Did it matter so much that events had ruined the plans which she cherished and turned the once very possible dreams into a madness which was madness only in view of the changed status of the Japanese in America? Was it she who was wrong and crazy not to have found in herself the capacity to accept a country which repeatedly refused to accept her or her sons unquestioningly, or was it the others who were being deluded, the ones, like Kenji, who believed and fought and even gave their lives to protect this country where they could still not rate as first-class citizens because of the unseen walls?

  How is one to talk to a woman, a mother who is also a stranger because the son does not know who or what she is? Tell me, Mother, who are you? What is it to be a Japanese? There must have been a time when you were a little girl. You never told me about those things. Tell me now so that I can begin to understand. Tell me about the house in which you lived and of
your father and mother, who were my grandparents, whom I have never seen or known because I do not remember your ever speaking of them except to say that they died a long time ago. Tell me everything and just a little bit and a little bit more until their lives and yours and mine are fitted together, for they surely must be. There is time now while there are no customers and you and I are all alone. Begin from the beginning when your hair was straight and black and everyone was Japanese because that was where you were born and America was not yet a country beyond the ocean where fortunes were to be made or an enemy to hate. Quick, now, quick, Mother, what was the name of your favorite school teacher?

  While he wrestled with the words which cried to be spoken, the mother glanced up and looked surprised as if to say: Oh, I thought you had gone. She riffled through the papers and dug out an envelope arrayed with an assortment of expensive-looking stamps. It was similar to the other ones from Japan which he had seen in his father’s hands two nights previously.

  “For Papa,” she sneered, flipping it across the counter at him.

  He snatched it as it was about to slide over the edge. If he had been about to say something, the moment was gone. Wretchedly, he turned and stumbled into the kitchen.

  The father turned from the cutting board, where he was chopping up a head of cabbage for pickling. Around his waist was a bright plastic apron and his wide, stubby, stockinged feet were crammed into a pair of shapeless reed slippers.

  “Ichiro, my son,” he chuckled, “you are home.” He gazed fondly at him and added: “Had a nice time, yes?”

  He looked up at his father, not immediately understanding what the old man meant. “Sure,” he said, interpreting the sly, friendly smile, “not enough to make up for two years, but I had a big time.”

  “Ya,” the father said gleefully and brought his hands together as might a child in a brief moment of ecstasy, “I was young once too. I know. I know.” He picked up the broad, steel blade and sank it energetically into the cabbage.

  Whatever the old man thought he knew was probably wilder and lewder and more reckless than the comparatively gentle night that he had spent with Emi. It bothered him to have his father thinking that he had spent the night carousing when such was not the case. He could imagine what it must have been like for the young Japanese new to America and slaving at a killing job on the railroad in Montana under the scorching sun and in the choking dust. Once a month, or even less, the gang of immigrants would manage to make it to town for a weekend. There would be gambling and brawling and hard drinking and sleeping with bought women, and then the money would be gone. Monday would find them swinging their sledge hammers and straining mercilessly against the bars to straighten the hot, gleaming strips of railing while the foul smell of cheap liquor oozed out of their listless bodies. Occasionally, one of them would groan aloud with guilty resolve that he would henceforth stay in camp and save his money and hoard and cherish it into a respectable sum, for was that not what he had come to America for? And there would be murmurs of approbation from those who harbored the same thoughts and were thinking what foolishness it is to work like an animal and have nothing but a sick faintness in the head to show for it. If it is not work and save and go back to Japan a rich man, which is why one comes to America, it is better never to have left Japan. The will is there and, in this moment when the shame and futility is greatest, the vow is renewed once and for always. No more gambling. No more drinking. No more whoring. And the ones who had long since stopped repeating the vow snickered and guffawed and rested their bodies by only seeming to heave when the gang boss commanded but by not really heaving at all so that the younger ones had to exert themselves just that much more and thereby became more fervent in their resolution to walk a straight path.