by Sarah Bird
“¿Cuánto cuesta una tarjeta postal para los Estados Unidos?” my father repeats. He has been studying Spanish for the past two years.
“Quisiera una camisa deportiva, por favor.”
It didn’t used to be my father’s choice to rise before dawn, back when he was still flying and had to be at the Flight Line for early missions. Since we left Japan, he’s gotten up to study whatever his current area of interest is. First, he filled a dozen thick scrapbooks with material from his Great Works of Art correspondence course. Using the stiletto-thin pair of scissors we kids were forbidden to touch, he would clip out Guernica, Starry Night, and various adorations of the Magi and paste them into one of the scrapbooks. Then he would study the notes that came with each painting, underlining significant details about the artist’s life and distinctive characteristics of the work in question.
“Quisiera una camisa deportiva, por favor.”
From there he moved on to an exhaustive survey of the Civil War. Every few weeks another massive tome would arrive at our APO address and my father would begin systematically working his way through all the campaigns of General “Little Phil” Sheridan or Stonewall Jackson.
The Civil War was abruptly abandoned when my father discovered a contest in my American Girl magazine to write a jingle for Chiquita bananas. The prize was a Duesenberg. Other contests followed. I woke up every morning to the clacking of the keys of his Underwood as he went from bananas to Noxema to catchy slogans for a new product that had just been introduced, Fizzies. As a runner-up, he won a year’s supply of effervescent tablets, and we all had grape-blue or cherry-red tongues for the week it took us to wipe out the entire supply.
“Me gusta el café pero no quiero café en este momento.”
My favorite period came during the brief tour we all endured in Wichita Falls. Stranded in a house off-base surrounded by nothing but hundreds of miles of dustbowl landscape and neighbors who wouldn’t allow their children to play with military brats, my father, in a fit of nostalgia for Japan, took up bonsai gardening. He filled our house with little wonderlands of combed sand and mirror lakes and torii and forests of tiny arthritic pines that, for a few moments, took away my homesickness for Japan. Then, one day, we got orders and all the bonsai were tossed out. I begged to save just one, promising to hold it on my lap all the way to the next assignment. Bosco was still in diapers and Bob was nursing, however, so I was destined to spend most of that trip with one of them in my lap.
“Me gusta el café pero no quiero café en este momento.” My father turns the hi-fi off and goes back to shower and dress.
Moe heaves a big sigh.
“What?” I ask again.
“Nothing. Tired. Just so tired.” She starts to hoist herself up, then sags back into the nylon webbing. “Do you remember those stupid wind-up toys we used to give you kids back in Japan? Little monkeys that, when you wound them up, they’d scoot around banging their cymbals together, or wind-up chicks for Easter that’d jerk around pecking away? And how, inevitably, someone’d wind them up too much and they wouldn’t peck or bang their cymbals together anymore. That’s me. I think I just got wound up once too often. One too many moves, that’s all.”
Moe touches my face.
“Don’t worry about me. My little worrier. You always worried about things you shouldn’t have. Things I should have kept to myself.”
Things I should have kept to myself.
The deep rumble of my father’s Corvette coming from the front of the house reaches us. Moe shakes her head and rolls her eyes. My father bought the Corvette in Albuquerque and acted as if he were having an affair with it, reupholstering, waxing, taking it on dates to see mechanics in white lab coats. He is the only one who has ever driven the “ ’Vette” and then only to work, where it can be admired by other men. Moe’s feelings about the “ ’Vette” are well known and center on the twins needing braces that the Air Force won’t pay for and we can’t afford.
The low-pitched rumble of the powerful engine fades away. Moe sighs. “Oh, well,” she says, as if concluding a long discussion that has ended, once again, in a hopeless stalemate. Her chair squeaks as she stands. She stares out toward the Flight Line for a long moment. “God, what I wouldn’t give for a strawberry. Oh, well. Machts nichts.” She pulls open the patio door, and the house exhales a puff of air-conditioning before she slides it shut again.
Far off to the east, at the point where the island meets the Sea of Japan, a crack of salmon appears beneath the dark wall of night.
DoD Services Bulletin “Welcome to Okinawa”
HAZARDS SECTION
All personnel should be alert to dangers present on the island.
Climate
Okinawa’s climate is subtropical. Dehydration and third-degree sunburn are hazards to be avoided by the ingestion of ample fluids, the wearing of hats, and avoidance of the sun. Remain alert for the signs of heatstroke, which include dizziness, disorientation, heart palpitations, clammy palms.
Snakes
Among the venomous snakes on Okinawa, the habu is the most deadly. Every year, approximately 500 people are bitten by habu snakes. The bite of the habu will cause paralyzing pain, swelling at the bite point, and internal hemorrhaging. The habu has a triangular-shaped head with a white belly. It averages two yards in length with a firm tail. It inhabits damp, secluded places like sugarcane fields, tombs, roadsides, walls, and caves.
Animals
Mongooses, imported from India to control the deadly habu, have become a menace in and of themselves. Frequent carriers of rabies, they become insanely aggressive if infected. Annually, they bite in excess of 400 people, who must then endure a painful course of rabies shots. They inhabit damp, secluded places like sugarcane fields, tombs, roadsides, walls, and caves.
Unexploded Ordnance
As the site of the costliest naval battle fought in the Pacific during World War II, unexploded ordnance still exists on the island. Do not handle such ordnance even if only shell casings, etc. Every year medical facilities throughout the island report over 90 phosphorus burns, lacerations, and trauma wounds from the handling of unexploded ordnance.
Insects
The Anopheles sinensis mosquito can transmit malaria.
The Aedes albopictus mosquito can transmit yellow fever and dengue.
The Culex tritaeniorhyncus transmits Japanese B encephalitis.
The Culex quinquefasciatus transmits filariasis (elephantiasis).
Flies are important disease carriers. The local use of “night soil” (human feces) for fertilizer makes it imperative to keep screens in proper conditions.
Especially be aware of termites. Okinawa’s summers are very hot and humid. Termites, left unattended, will cause a lot of harm to government property.
Typhoons
Okinawa is in one of the major typhoon areas of the world. June through October is typhoon season. Various Typhoon Conditions require all personnel to take specific actions based on the current condition as identified by public information media. TC–1E (Typhoon Condition 1 Emergency) requires halting all outside activity and a return to quarters for all nonessential personnel until the AC (All Clear) is posted.
Tabu
I jerk awake, batting my nose against a newspaper clipping glued to a sheet of Big Chief notebook paper.
“What the fuck?” The forbidden word that was every other word at the university slips out.
Bosco, Bob at her side, puts her hand over my mouth. “Sh-h-h, don’t talk or Moe’ll know we’re telling you.”
“Telling me what?” I try to ask, but Bosco’s moist palm sealed against my lips turns the words into wet, rude sounds that amuse Bob in ways only a seven-year-old boy can be amused by wet, rude sounds.
“Will you not talk?”
I nod agreement and Bosco removes her hand.
“What is the deal here?”
Bosco and Bob both panic. Bob runs to shut the door and I lower my voice. “Is it a custom on this island to wake
people up by sticking things under their noses?”
“Moe told me not to tell you because you’re our big worry-wart.”
“I’m our big—?”
Bosco clamps her palm back down on my mouth, leans in, and whispers, “Okinawa is going to sink! Look, it says so right here in the Stars and Stripes.”
I read the clipping, which does, indeed, predict that this very summer Okinawa will “sink to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in a cataclysmic firestorm.”
“Jeane Dixon wrote this.” I toss the clipping back.
“Yeah,” Bob breathes, more convinced than ever. “Jeane Dixon.”
Bosco, breathing hard, starts to unspool her vast memory bank. “ ‘The Ryukyu Trench has been sounded to a depth of twenty-nine thousand feet. Mount Everest might be sunk in this vast sea crater without showing its peak above water.’ That’s deep, Bern. Really, really deep.”
“Look, you guys, Jeane Dixon is nuts. She also predicted that Jackie Kennedy was going to marry Fidel Castro and World War Three would start in 1964.”
“Did it?” Bob asks.
“No, dipshit,” Bosco answers. “But that still doesn’t mean that Okinawa isn’t going to sink.”
“ ‘In a cataclysmic firestorm,’ ” I add.
“Right.”
“Does Moe actually believe this?”
Before Bosco can answer, the twins burst into the room wearing ski masks pulled down over their faces, tank tops, and polyester pants with jockey briefs worn on top. While Bob shrieks, Bosco requests wearily, “Don’t loot us again.”
But Abner is already unplugging Kit’s clock/radio and Buzz is sweeping all the resin horses into a pillowcase.
“Fresh loot!” Buzz bawls out in a pirate voice as he unsnaps my footlocker and rummages for lootworthy items. My hair dryer and camera disappear into the pillowcase. Bosco runs out of the room and opens my parents’ door.
“Mom! Tell them to stop looting us!”
I listen for my mother’s answer as I check the time, past noon. Her voice is scratchy and not fully awake. She clears her throat and tries again. “Boys! Stop looting your sisters!”
“Cheese it! The coppers!” Both twins pretend to try and cram through the door at the same time, bouncing back and turning into sumo wrestlers. They hunker down and stomp their feet on the linoleum-covered cement floor. Then, in one lightning move, Abner lunges forward, grabs Buzz’s jockeys, hurls him to the side, and slips out the door with Buzz and Bob in hot pursuit. Buzz has his arms out and is yelling in his zombie voice, “Hasten demise! Hasten demise!”
Bosco takes her horses out of the pillowcase and carefully sets them back up. “I hate it when they loot.” Brightening, she looks up at me. “You promised you’d come with me to meet Hickory. Remember?”
I make a deal that I’ll go meet Hickory the Horse if Bosco helps me finish cleaning the kitchen.
I tell Bosco to get started and slip into our parents’ bedroom. Moe has fallen heavily back to sleep. I peek in her medicine cabinet. It is filled with bottles—Valium, Seconal, Vicodin, hydrocodone, Equagesic—all bearing Kadena Air Base Dispensary labels.
Out in the living room, Kit is dancing to a Monkees album in front of Moe’s large brass serving tray. She has perched the tray on top of the buffet so she can see her wobbly gold reflection and is concentrating with the same ferocity she always applied to cheerleader tryouts. Kit catches a glimpse of me in the tray and turns her All-American smile on as if she hadn’t wished for my death only the day before.
“Bernie, you’re up!” She sashays toward me with both arms out, takes my hands, and pulls me toward the tray. “Show me the new moves from the States.” I figure this must be about the dance contest.
As the Monkees advise sleepy Jean to cheer up and ask her what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queee-ee-een, Kit executes a few shoulder rolls and rotates her fists in front of her face in the sort of dance simulacrum that muscle-bound football players engage in.
“Uh, let’s see if there’s anything on the radio.” I tune in just as a dj announces, “And here’s The Association with ‘Cherish’!” Kit closes her eyes and sways to the ominous opening chimes. I lunge to turn off the radio, shuddering at how close I came to hearing Cherish is a wu-r-r-r-r-rd.… I wonder if Okinawa is haunted by the ghost of all the songs I’ve ever hated and never want to hear again. The Oldies Undead.
“Is there anything else? You know, actual good dance music?” I ask, thinking of the great dance classics: “Little Latin Lupe, Lu,” “La Bamba,” “She’s Not There,” “Land of 1,000 Dances,” “Johnny B. Goode,” “96 Tears,” even the ur-dance tune that introduced Young White America to its pelvis, “Louie Louie.” I flip through the family album collection. Aside from Kit’s one Monkees album, all I find are Moe’s old 78s: Harry Belafonte, Johnny Mathis, My Fair Lady, Peggy Lee. I put on Peggy doing “Fever” and break into a slow Jerk just to acquaint Kit with the concept of moving in time to the music.
You give me fever.
“Buh-bum-m!” I execute an emphatic spine snap to help Kit find the beat, but she’s lost in a hitchhiking move, thumb twitching spastically in no apparent relationship to the music. For a second, she stops dead, bobbing her head as she tries to find the rhythm, then holds her nose and shimmies down, pretending to blow bubbles as she descends.
“The Swim!” she announces, pleased with herself.
“So it is,” I answer, amazed that, with all her frenetic motion, she never manages to hit the beat once, even accidentally.
“Try this.” I face her, move her hips with my hands, and help her find the back beat. Then for thirty seconds, a minute, Kit reflects what I’m doing and we dance together. For those few seconds, we sway in time like dandelions blown by the same wind and I want my sister to win. I’m proud that the most popular, most beautiful girl anywhere we’ve ever moved has always been my little sister.
Abruptly, she turns away from me and begins running in place, throwing in karate chops here and there at random moments, and I have to conclude once again that Kit and I always have and always will dance to the beat of radically different drummers. I also admit, as she drops to the ground and shoots out a series of burpees, that a complete lack of rhythm won’t be any obstacle to Kit’s winning a dance contest. In fact, as she jumps back up, her flushed cheeks even peachier than before, her platinum hair seductively tousled, her turquoise eyes glittering, I know that all Kit will have to do to win this or any other dance contest is walk in the room.
The front door bursts open. Abner leans his head in to yell, “Hey, Queen Kit, your subjects await you!”
“Oh, they’re here!” Kit sprints back to our room and reemerges a few seconds later drenched in Tabu cologne, her lips sparkling an iridescent pink. She runs outside where a couple of girls almost as tanned but not nearly as beautiful, probably members of Kit’s court when she was Queen of Homecoming at Kubasaki High this year, wait in a white Mustang convertible with the top down. Sprawled in the backseat is a guy who could have been king of Kit’s court. He has the combination of bland good looks, enough muscle, and just enough intelligence to make a fine high school quarterback. Kit jumps in beside the boy.
Bosco takes up a place beside me at the kitchen window. “He’s not even her main boyfriend.”
Kit sits on top of the seat in the back of the convertible like she should be wearing a tiara and holding a bouquet of Rose Bowl roses. The grass in our front yard, untouched by Mamasan’s mower, is ankle-high with dandelions sprouting in weedy clumps. Bob’s yellow Big Wheel lies tipped over in the desiccated remains of a flower bed. A screen hangs off one of the front windows. Seeing the disorder in full daylight stabs me with panic.
The twins, still in lootwear, slither along the sides of the carport, their backs flattened against the concrete wall. The game has shifted now to Commando. Buzz is the leader. He hacks his arm down swiftly, pointing at the convertible. Abner receives his order, nods solemnly, an imaginary assault ri
fle held at port. In a lightning attack, Abner darts out, rolls, sprays the convertible with gunfire, pulls the pin on a Wiffle ball, lobs it into the convertible, and sprints away.
The quarterback rifles the ball back at Abner and manages to clip him in the eye.
“Pretty good arm,” Bosco comments from our post at the window.
Kit looks on with supreme exasperation as her young brother dies a twitching, gasping death on the front lawn.
The convertible drives away. Hovering in the air above them is the same Marine helicopter that peeped on Kit while she sunbathed yesterday. As the wind whips her white hair back, Kit raises her right arm straight over her head and thrusts her middle finger into the air. Painted silver, her middle fingernail twinkles in the sun, much more invitation than curse. The Marines clearly interpret it that way and bank the helicopter in so low to the convertible that the girls’ hair swirls in cyclones above their heads.
Moe squeezes in next to us and stays at the window for a long time after the convertible disappears from view. She has on her reading glasses. They magnify her eyes and give her a bewildered, goggling expression. “She never tells me where she’s going anymore.” Moe shuffles out to the kitchen, pulling shut the cotton kimono that hangs slackly about her.
I stare out the window and think about the time the monkey bit Kit when we lived on Yokota and wonder if that is when my little sister began to hate me.
Young Pinkoo
It happened right after we moved on-base. Moe predicted that leaving our little house on the alley in Fussa would be calamitous, and this was the start. Our father was gone on one of a long series of TDYs, Temporary Duty assignments. It was summer. Bougainvillea and hydrangeas nodded their heavy heads in the heat. The odorless flowers made me miss my honeysuckle vines back at the house in Fussa. The three of us, me, Moe, and Fumiko, sat in front of the fan set up at the end of the kitchen table to swivel around and blow air into our faces.
