Summer of the Big Bachi (9 page)

 

 

After changing his T-shirt and jeans, Mas surveyed the living room. His fishing gear lay sprawled on the scratched coffee table, and stacks of junk mail and unopened bills littered the floor. Mas swept everything together and threw the mess into the hall closet. Better, almost, thought Mas. He went to the midnight-black piano and wiped the edge of his T-shirt over the layer of dust. Framed photos of Mari— as a baby in a pink pinafore, as a high school graduate wearing a lopsided mortarboard— stared back at Mas. But there were no others after that. Mas had picked up a kindergarten photo, when he heard a knock at the door.

 

 

“Your screen door’s broken and doorbell’s stuck, Mas.” Tug’s thick hands were wrapped around a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil. He plowed into the house, leaving the dish on the kitchen counter, while Lil followed ten steps back.

 

 

“My gosh, Tug, you’re acting like you live here,” Lil said from the porch.

 

 

“Come in, come in.” Mas held the door for the slight woman in the flowered dress. Her dark eyes were enlarged through her slightly tinted bifocals.

 

 

“Got a screwdriver?” Tug had returned after circling the living room.

 

 

Before Mas could answer, Tug was out the door. “It’s okay. Got one in the glove compartment,” he called from the porch.

 

 

“He’s been like this ever since he retired.” Lil sat down on the brown couch. “I don’t know what to do with him, frankly,” she added, laughing.

 

 

“What you want, Seven-Up, Coke?” Mas stiffly stood by his black easy chair.

 

 

“Oh, no, Mas, just finished with dinner. We were so worried. What kind of world are we living in?”

 

 

More evil than you can imagine, Mas thought to himself.

 

 

“Was it just one person?”

 

 

Mas nodded. “A man, datsu all I knowsu.”

 

 

“You see his face?”

 

 

Mas shook his head. “His shoes. Saw his shoes. Looks like the kind O.J. wore.”

 

 

“The fancy Italian loafers? With the tassels?”

 

 

Mas nodded again.

 

 

“That’s strange,” Lil said.

 

 

Mas had to agree. He said nothing about the warning issued by the thief. He bit down on his dentures to contain his anger. It was one thing for him to decide to stay out of somebody’s business; it was quite another for someone to steal his property to keep his mouth shut. Mas had no desire to dredge up old memories, but he wasn’t going to let some fancy-heeled sonafugun try to push him down.

 

 

“So, is there any chance that they’ll recover your truck?”

 

 

“Maybe in pieces.” Mas tried to lower himself in his easy chair but felt another sharp jab of pain in the middle of his spine.

 

 

“You okay? Is it your back again?”

 

 

“A little.” Mas looked out toward the backyard of withering eggplants and wilted cymbidium. “I’m a ole man, Lil.”

 

 

“Have you gone to a doctor?”

 

 

“Nah, what do they know?”

 

 

“They don’t all have to be bad, Mas. Chizuko was an unusual case.”

 

 

Just stomach problems, Mas remembered Chizuko saying. Probably clear up in a few weeks. “So how about your daughter? She docta now?”

 

 

“Joy’s finishing her residency in South Carolina. She might have a job back here in L.A.”

 

 

“Yeah,
sugoi, ne
. She smart one, eh. So quiet.” Mas remembered the plain girl with a moon face and thin eyes like her father’s. The brother took after Lil— bright, round eyes and big white teeth.

 

 

“Well, it’s taken her long enough to get to this point.” Lil smoothed out her flowered dress. Joy had been on her way to a Ph.D. in physics before she’d switched over to medical school. “But she’s no Mari. She can’t put words together like Mari can.”

 

 

“That girl talks too much.” Too much back talk, no good, Mas had told Mari time after time. Those fiery black eyes had burnt holes through Mas’s forehead all through her junior high and high school years.

 

 

“But that’s not bad.” Lil paused, and they both listened as something metal fell on the outside concrete steps.

 

 

Lil’s rose-colored glasses glimmered. “I know it wasn’t easy, Mas, that Mari went through her stages. But I knew that she would make something out of herself. I mean, Joy’s doing well, and we’re proud of her, but Mari— she has something special. I tried to deny it, mind you. I guess I never wanted to sell Joy short. But I can admit it now, especially since Chizuko . . . Well, Joy has always played by the rules, but Mari, her spirit, that’s going to take her places.”

 

 

Mas’s spine began to tingle, as if Lil’s warm, soothing words were lapping at his back. He never understood what “freelancing” was. How could a girl make money making movies? That was for guys who had connections. But he had to give her some credit. She was surviving in New York, although it seemed like she was living hand to mouth. “Heh, I don’t know. She cause a lot of trouble, no?”

 

 

“Well, that’s what daughters are for,” laughed Lil as Tug barreled into the living room once again, a screwdriver in his hand. A few pieces of old paint were stuck in his white beard and hair.

 

 

“Almost, old man, almost. Just got to make some adjustments.” The pungent scent of cherry tobacco filled the room. “By the way,” said Tug, adjusting his pipe. “I hear congratulations are in order. It’s certainly about time.”

 

 

There was an awkward silence, and Mas glanced over to Lil— whose lips were uncharacteristically drawn in a line.

 

 

“I thought he knew.” One of Tug’s large palms was outstretched toward his wife. His left forefinger was extended out like a Tootsie Roll. “Well, he does know, right?”

 

 

Lil adjusted the hem on her dress so it covered the top of her knees.

 

 

Tug pulled out his pipe from his lips. “Well, he should know. After all, it’s his only daughter.”

 

 

It took two long minutes before Mas put it together. Mari must be getting married. Who? The tall, pale
hakujin
boy called Lloyd from New York? Mas remembered the time she brought him over one Thanksgiving when Chizuko was still alive. Mari said he was a poet; what Mas wanted to know was what this boy did for money.

 

 

“Can’t eat words,” he had told Mari.

 

 

Mari had broken the news a few weeks later. Turned out this boy was in Mas’s line of work. A gardener hired by the city of New York.

 

 

Mas couldn’t speak, and Chizuko broke down and cried right then and there. Mas secretly thought that had led to Chizuko’s demise, and he resented Mari for having burst his wife’s one last hope— that the future generations would never have any signs of the Arai lawn-mowing legacy.

 

 

He looked Lil square in the face.
“Itsu?”
he asked simply. “When?”

 

 

Lil blinked hard, and Tug retreated to the porch with his screwdriver. “Last week,” she said. “They’re on their honeymoon in Mexico now.”

 

 

Mexico? Mas’s throat felt dry.

 

 

“I’m sure she was going to tell you, Mas. I just heard it through Joy, and she said she would kill me if I mentioned it to anyone. You know kids these days. It’s someone she knew from college. I think his name was Lloyd. A
hakujin
boy.”

 

 

“Last week.” Mas sat still, thinking. No matter how bad their relationship had become, Mari would have told him before the wedding. There was only one reason that . . . “When?” he repeated.

 

 

Lil cleared her throat. “They wanted it simple. You know, just at City Hall and then Chinese food later.” She stared at Mas through her pink-framed bifocals and blinked hard. Come on, Mas said silently. You’re not the kind of lady to twist the truth when you’re caught in a corner.

 

 

It was as if Lil had heard Mas’s silent message. “All right, Mas. I guess you’ll find out soon enough. I haven’t even told Tug. The baby’s due in December.”

 

 

Mas swallowed, and remained frozen in his chair. How could she do this and bring shame on the family? thought Mas. The family. What family? There really was no one here in the States. They were like masterless samurai, wandering nomads with no blood ties to anyone here. But precisely because they had no relatives, no prior reputation, the family name was so important. Here, Masao Arai was a blank white sheet of paper. Unknown. Pure. Anything was possible. But once something was written on the paper, it would be irreversible. It was up to just them to create their honor for their friends like Tug and Lil. Somehow, some way, the word would get out that Mas Arai’s daughter had had to get married. There would be disapproving nods of heads and smirks behind closed doors, while face-to-face there would be those sickening, false smiles. For once, Mas was happy that Chizuko was dead.

 

 

He had some dreams for Mari. That he would walk her down the aisle in a proper wedding ceremony, followed by a reception of thick steaks and large glasses of liquor. That she would produce healthy children, their hair jet-black and their faces pale and formless like potatoes. They would visit the house, yelling in high-pitched voices, “
Ji-chan, Ji-chan,
Grandpa, Grandpa.” He would teach them how to safely drive nails into wood, how to place bait on a hook, and, when they got older, the best strategy for blackjack.

 

 

Now he had to contend with an unplanned grandchild whose father was a poet and, even worse, a good-for-nothing gardener. And what if the baby came out— But Mas stopped himself before he went too far. He felt like popping out of his easy chair, yelling and screaming, but instead he quietly listened to Lil go on— speaking faster and faster— about children and their universal insensitivity, how things were different with young people today. But Mas knew this wasn’t about any kind of generation gap. It was about Mas and Mari plain and simple. Mas was tired of surprises and disappointment, and wanted instead to crawl back underneath his crumbled bedspread on his soft mattress.

 

 

He was relieved when Tug finally called out from the wire mesh, “Mas, old man.”

 

 

Mas rose slowly but eagerly, seeing a polite closure to his conversation with Lil, and limped over to the screen door, which was now firmly back on its hinges.

 

 

The silver hair and beard of the tall man glowed underneath the hundred-watt bulb hanging from the porch. The moths circled his head, creating a haphazard halo. “I think I got it.” Tug grinned as his thick index finger pressed down on the smooth round doorbell.

 

 

 

It was pitch dark by the time Lil and Tug finally left Mas at the door. Mas stumbled into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator for a Budweiser. After taking a gulp, he paused by the sink and looked out the window. For a moment, he imagined two pairs of dark eyes— ones he had seen before— peering at him. Son of a— Mas gasped, and he quickly pulled the curtains together. What, you losin’ your mind? he thought as he caught his breath. Just nerves, he told himself, but he went from room to room, clicking on the lights and checking every closet, until he finally returned to the bedroom and lay down on his side.

 

 

From his position, he could still see the stack of old magazines by the bed. He knew that it was the third one down, under the February Triple A magazine and the Japanese go book. He knew practically every page by heart— the brunette in the royal blue panties, the blond with the swollen basketball
chichi
. Hell, he could even recall the design of every liquor ad in between the different centerfolds, and then felt an uneasiness in his jeans. He lowered his hand toward the magazines and then stopped. He licked his lips.

 

 

It’s no good, he muttered. Damn you, old woman, where are you? His heart ached for those sagging, empty breasts and stomach lined with scars from surgery after surgery. He should have done it to her during her last days. Ignored the smell of sickness, and held her.

 

 

He heard a crash outside— was it the local alley cat overturning the trash cans again? Mas stood up quickly, spilling his beer onto the green carpet.

 

 

Once he reached the back door, there was only a strange and eerie silence. Mas felt the presence of at least another human being. “Hal-lo,” Mas called out, but no one replied. He then went to the front to check.

 

 

Mas opened the screen door Tug had fixed. There was that smell again. Menthol. Salon Pas. The same as in the mistress’s apartment. His neighbors, mostly black and Mexicans, didn’t carry this smell. It could be only one person. Mas was sure of it. This visit was a practice for something bigger, like when Mas went to the stables to check out the horses for the next race. You looked for the ones with energy, kick, and bet against the ones who had no fight.