Under the Blood-Red Sun (24 page)

The canal, not far from Pearl Harbor, was a dirty, rusty brown. But it was easy to find where they sunk the boats. There were a bunch of them, maybe ten. The bow of one stuck out of the water, and a couple of masts came up in other places. Charlie said he’d heard on the radio that they were sunk by a storm, not by the army. But that wasn’t what Grampa had heard. Anyway, it didn’t really matter. The army dragged them into the canal, and now the
Taiyo Maru
was sitting on a bed of mud.

We found Papa’s boat right away, close to shore where
the canal was pretty shallow. The roof of the deckhouse was resting an inch or so under the surface of the water. You could see bullet holes in it.

The four of us sat down on the grass and stared at the jumble of sunken boats, with Papa’s right in front of us. The sun lit up the submerged deck. In the back, you could read
Taiyo Maru
. Everything looked rusty and old from the water.

“What’s that on the deck? Bullet holes?” Rico asked.

“Yeah,” Mose said. “Chee …”

“Sanji … the guy that was killed,” I said. “He was only nineteen.”

“Yeah,” Billy said in a sad voice. “And he was a good guy too.”

We all sat in silence. Who could talk? I kept seeing Papa waving at the P-40s before they shot him. Waving, waving …

I shook my head, trying to get those awful thoughts out. I threw a small stone and watched it wobble down to the deck of the
Taiyo Maru
.

“They must have chopped a hole in the bottom,” Mose said. “The top part’s in pretty good shape … except for those holes.”

“Maybe we could get some big guys and some ropes,” Rico said. “We could drag it up.”

Mose frowned. “Are you kidding? What you need is a crane.… Water is heavy, you know. And that boat’s
full
of water.”

“Even if you could get it out, and even if you could fix the bottom, it wouldn’t matter,” Billy said. “Nobody’s going to let you use it.”

“That’s what I don’t get,” Mose said. “Why they sunk these boats, anyway?”

“Because the army, or the navy, or somebody, figured they were taking fuel out to Japanese submarines,” Billy said. “Or if they weren’t, they could if they wanted to.”

“But Tomi’s father wouldn’t do that,” Rico said.

Billy shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The army can’t tell what’s in somebody’s mind, so they just went after everybody.”

“Stupit, man,” Rico said.

“Yeah, but right now they don’t have time to think about it. All they know is the Japanese creamed us, and they don’t want it to happen again.”

I considered what Billy had said. “Yeah, I know that, but my father’s as loyal to this place as
you
are … so is Grampa.… It’s w
rong
, what they did.”

It got pretty quiet for a moment.

Billy frowned and looked out over the canal. “Wrong, but … criminy, I don’t know.… Listen, all of us here believe exactly what you believe … that it was a
bad
mistake. But look at it this way … at least they’re alive.… Look what happened to Sanji.”

Mose and Rico nodded silently.

•   •   •

After a while we got up and started back toward the mountains. I tried to remember the
Taiyo Maru
as I’d always known it—old, fishy-smelling, white, cutting the ocean like a knife, its sharp bow high and proud. Papa steering with his knee, gulping in the ocean air. I saw
Billy and Sanji, sitting on the fish box with Billy’s binoculars. Looking at the moon. Quiet voices and moonlight crossing black water to the boat. To see Papa’s sampan rotting in the dirty canal made me feel sick to my stomach.

Papa … Grampa … don’t worry. I can watch out for Mama and Kimi. I can do it. I will do it
.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Rico said. “I forgot.” He stopped and opened up his gas mask case. He pulled out one of the Hershey bars. “Here, we can split it.” Rico tried to break it up, but he couldn’t because the thing was so melted it stuck to the paper. “Aw, shee,” he mumbled. “I guess we gotta lick it off.”

When we got to the street that headed away from the canal, we passed two men working on a car. One glanced up when we passed by. “Hey, Buddhahead—you got a lot of nerve coming out in the open after what you people did.”

I stopped in my tracks and gaped at him. He glared back.

“Whatchoo know about anything?” Rico said.

The man stood up, wiped his hands on a rag, then threw the rag in Rico’s face. Rico jumped back when the rag hit him. “You frickin’ grease bag,” Rico said. He clenched his fists and started toward the man.

Mose and Billy got in front of him and pushed him back. “Come on, Rico,” Mose said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You better watch your mouth,” Rico shouted at the man. He held up his fist and shook it. “Next time you going end up with this down your throat.”

“Wait a minute, Rico,” I said.

That surprised Rico, and for the moment he kept quiet.

“You got it wrong, mister,” I said. “I was born here. I live here, just like you do. And I’m an American.”

“Beat it, Jap,” he said.

Be above it, Tomi.…

“American,” I said again.

He narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything more. I eased away feeling … strange … very strange. Almost peaceful. Spooky, feeling peaceful when somebody hates you. But still, even though I felt calm inside, my hands were shaking.

Rico walked away backward, Mose and Billy pushing him, and me following. “I like bust his stupit face,” Rico said.

Billy put his hand on Rico’s shoulder and turned him around.

“I could flatten that bag of futs with one hand,” Rico spit.

“Forget it already,” Billy said.

Pretty soon we forgot about that guy and were all shoving and surging from one side of the sidewalk to the other.

The Rats.

It sounded good a couple of months ago, but now we were better than that. But the name fit us like a soft old catcher’s mitt.

“What you so serious about?” Billy asked.

“Just … thinking,” I said.

This is a good place, Tomi.…

•   •   •

When we were almost to where Mose and Rico lived, it started to rain, not big drops, but a soft mistlike rain that drifted down from the mountains.

“Kahiko o ke akua,”
Billy said.

“What that means?” Rico asked.

“I don’t know, but Charlie always says that when it rains. He says rain is a blessing. The heavens are trying to let you know you’re okay … that they approve of you. That’s how the old Hawaiians felt about it, anyway.”

“Makes sense.”

“Hey,” Billy said. “How could I forget to tell you guys this? You know what? Next year I can stay at Roosevelt.”

“What?” I
said.

“I didn’t even have to fight for it. Last night Dad took me out in the backyard and let me pitch to him. He said,
You still want to stay with your friends at Roosevelt?’
I said, ‘
Yeah, sure I do,’
and you know what he said? He said,
‘Then that’s what I want, son. I want what you want
.’”

“No kidding,” Mose said.

Billy shook his head. “‘
I want what you want.’…
Can you believe it?”

Me, Mose, and Rico let out a loud whoop. Mose and I punched each other’s arms, then started in on Billy’s. “That’s great,
haole
boy,” Mose said.

“Hey, that’s my pitching arm.”

“Come on, you stupits,” Rico said, pushing us away. “That arm’s headed for the majors.”

“How come you don’t go to McKinley?” I asked Billy.
“They got a first-rate team. You could get recognized and maybe get a scholarship.”

“Yeah, well, I could do that at Punahou too.”

“But Roosevelt doesn’t even have a team.”

Billy grinned and flicked his eyebrows. “Says who?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Mose punched his hand. “Yeah, says who?”

“Hey, maybe
we
could be the team,” Rico added.

“Welcome to the party, Rico,” Mose said, shaking his head.

Mose laughed and put his arm around Billy’s neck. Billy put his arm around mine and I hooked mine around Rico’s. We started up the street in the rain, stumbling from side to side like four drunk army guys.

We were the Rats, confonnit. Nothing would ever change that.

•   •   •

Early one Sunday morning a few weeks later, Reiko and Mari showed up at our house with a small bucket half full of fat brown crawfish they’d caught in the stream. Reiko’s eyes swelled with tears when she thanked Mama again and again for the kerosene, which they’d been using very sparingly. Mama’s eyes got watery, too, and she invited Reiko and Mari to stay for lunch and help us eat the crawfish.

I took Mari and Kimi out to the chickens so Kimi could show Mari how to collect eggs, which was now Kimi’s most important job, along with cooking rice and sweeping the house.

As I followed Mari and Kimi with their two cans of eggs back down from the chicken coops, I decided that tonight I would take out the
katana
and carefully rub away any spots of rust I found on the blade. Then I would run the oilcloth over it and let Kimi hold it. I would tell her where it came from, and why we needed to protect it and keep it clean, and what it stood for. I would tell her that Papa and Grampa would be so proud of her when they came home and found out that she knew all about why we still had it after all these years.

When they came home.

We would all be there and we would cry from being so happy when Papa and Grampa finally walked back through our squeaky screen door with Lucky leaping at their feet. Papa would smile and hug Mama and Kimi and me. And maybe even Grampa would too.

Then later I would bring out the
katana
, all shiny and oiled and looking like the day it was forged, and I would hand it to Papa. He would glance at Mama, then at me, and I would look firm, like Grampa.

Papa would hand the
katana
to Grampa, and Grampa would take it and gently turn the blade in the light. Then he would look deep into my eyes.

And nod once.

In 1945
, after World War II ended, all Hawaii Japanese who had been interned or relocated were released and allowed to return to their homes in the islands. Unfortunately, many of them had no homes to return to, all their earthly possessions having been taken from them. In the 1980s, forty years after the fact, the United States government finally acknowledged that it had made a mistake, and agreed to pay each of the survivors $20,000 in reparations.

Many had already died.

Not one Hawaii Japanese man or woman was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage against the United States of America. In fact thousands of Hawaii Japanese gave their lives fighting for the United States. In 1943, the mainly Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army was formed, and became
one of the army’s most decorated units of World War II. The 442nd earned more than 18,000 individual medals of valor, including a Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 8 Presidential Unit Citations, 588 Silver Stars, and more than 9,000 Purple Hearts.

* “Hurricanes, volcanoes, capsized fishing boats in shark-infested waters, cliff-diving in a dangerous ravine … are among the thrills in this excellent collection of stories. Running through them—through the storms of nature and human nature—is a reverence for the ‘most mind-boggling, most impossible universe you could ever imagine.’”

—Kirkus Reviews
, Starred

“As always, Salisbury’s Hawaiian settings are evocatively and lovingly described, and he realistically captures the feelings—both universal and unique—of his island boys.”

—
The Horn Book Magazine

*“The beauty of
Island Boyz
is that it covers a wide spectrum of situations and emotions, from the effects of war on small-town life to the irrepressible adventure of deep-sea fishing … terrific.”

—School Library Journal
, Starred

*“Salisbury’s characters are fully formed, distinct but familiar, and he writes about the tropical setting with vivid, tangible details that electrify each boy’s drama.”

—
Booklist
, Starred