Once she hangs up, I run to the backyard and pile everything into the wooden box, everything except Hiro’s mitt and the other thing, which I’m going to keep somewhere safe. I nail the box shut and drag it back to the hole and drop it inside. Then I spend the next hour making sure I cover it up like it was before.
I take a few steps back and look at the spot from halfway across the yard, the shovel still in my hand. It definitely doesn’t look the same as before I dug up the box. So I go back and do some more work. But, no matter how much I try raking the dirt this way and that, I can’t make it look exactly the same as before. Also, I left some ruts in the dirt from when I dragged the box behind the bushes, which I can’t completely erase.
After several more tries, I throw down the shovel. Screw it if it’s not perfect. If my father notices something, he’s more likely to get scared than to get mad. And thinking that way makes me feel stronger. So I pick up the tools and put them away in the garage. Then I come back and grab Hiro’s mitt and the thing, pop back into the house and hide them in the bottom of my book bag. Then I jump in the shower to wash off the dirt.
That afternoon when my father gets home, he goes straight from the garage to the backyard, like I knew he would. I watch from the kitchen window as he moves across the weeds to where the box is buried and stands there for a while, staring down at the dirt. My heart pounds really hard inside my chest, and I breathe deep to calm it down. My father sways a bit, and, for a moment, it looks like he’s going to fall over. But then he reaches out a hand and steadies himself against the guava tree. After a bit, he pulls a long, blue-and-red box out of his back pocket that I recognise as a box of temple incense. He taps it against the palm of his hand, slides out a couple of incense sticks, fires up his Zippo, and lights both of them at the same time. Then he kneels in the dirt, pushes them into the ground, and hangs his head over the bluish smoke wafting heavenward from the sticks.
Almost from out of nowhere, Momma glides up to my father’s side to join him in front of the incense sticks. He looks up at her as she gently strokes his head, then stands and holds her hand. The two of them bow in the direction of the smoking incense sticks and bob around a bit, chanting something Buddhist, I figure. Finally, as the sun dips, they turn around and slowly walk back to the house, holding hands.
Poor Momma, I think, as I run to my room and close the door behind me. Poor all of us: Momma, Hiro, and Me. I sit on my bed, pulling up my legs and crossing them Indian-style. Everyone knows my father is a big drunk. But nobody, except me, knows how bad he really is. But they will.
I stretch out on my bed, look up at the ceiling, and smile. Like Mrs Worthington said, I’m a manifestor. I make things happen. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Chapter 9
I decide to keep out of my father’s way the rest of the summer before I go back to school, now that I know he’s bad. I tell Momma this, but not the real reason why. She agrees keeping out of his way is the best plan for making things peaceful at home. So I don’t eat breakfast with the two of them anymore. And I have my dinner before he gets home. And after dinner, I go to my room and read boring magazines and plan how I’m going to get him out of our lives forever. Even though I hear him clomping up and down the hall, I don’t see him, and he doesn’t come to see me. Best of all, he hasn’t come home drunk lately.
Most of the rest of August, I work with Momma at her shop helping her with the tux rentals and stuff. Weekends I spend at Auntie Doreen’s with Kevin and Maggie.
At first, Kevin and I think I’m going to get to sleep in his bedroom, being that he has a huge bed and lots of space in his closet. Perfect, right? But Auntie won’t let me! Instead, she makes up a room for me right next to hers.
“It’s better for Kimi to sleep in his own bed,” she says to Kevin and nods her head at me, “like he does at home.”
But I’m wondering if maybe she suspects something. Like, the other day, when Kevin and I were talking on the phone, I was right in the middle of telling him about the night the white goo came out of my chinchin (Kevin says it’s called aieki) when suddenly I heard a click on the line. I asked Kevin if he’d heard anything, and he said no. But now I wonder if Auntie Doreen might have picked up the phone and listened to what we were saying. Anyway, aside from separating us at night, I don’t notice anything different about the way Auntie treats me, and she lets Kevin and me hang around together as much as we want to in the daytime. So maybe I’m wrong.
On Saturdays, I go with them to their church on Lincoln Avenue, which is called Seventh-day Adventist. I mostly like it, except we see Ryo Murakawa there, who I can’t stand. He wants to sit with us because Kevin and him are friends now on account of the James Dean stuff Kevin buys from him. Kevin wants me to be friends with Ryo, too, because we’re in the same class. But I don’t really want to because even though he’s nicer to me than he used to be, I think he’s a mean person deep inside. Still, to make Kevin happy, I pretend I like him. I even promise to go to his birthday party in September.
Since Auntie Doreen and Uncle Alistair are home most of the time on the weekend, Kevin and I have to be super careful when we’re up in his room, because we never know when his parents or Maggie might suddenly show up. So, we mostly listen to albums and read books, and we sneak a kiss whenever we can.
The one thing I notice is that Kevin doesn’t talk so much about girls anymore, which reminds me about the pictures I found in his pencil drawer. And I wonder if I’m right about what I thought—that Kevin likes guys. So one afternoon after we get back from church, I decide to ask him about it, hoping he won’t get mad.
“Kevin,” I say, as we’re sitting on the floor of his room leafing through the latest copies of Tiger Beat with our backs against his waterbed and our feet stretched out in front of us. “When I was here on my birthday—”
He sets aside his magazine and looks at me.
“Remember when you left me alone up here?”
Kevin sits up on his knees. “Of course, I remember. What about it?”
“I found something”—I point at his desk—“in there.”
Kevin stands, stretches his legs, and walks over to his desk. “Besides the pukka shell necklace, you mean?” He pulls out the drawer, not taking his eyes from me.
“Yeah, besides that.”
He reaches inside and pulls out the picture of David Cassidy and holds it out to me. The lower part is scissored off so you can’t tell it was a naked picture before.
“Not just that one,” I say.
He pushes the drawer closed and sits next to me again, handing me the picture. I take it out of his hand and lay it upside down on the carpet.
“I got rid of the others,” he says. “Stuck them in a cave on the Cobb Estate. I was afraid my mom would find them.”
“You’re not mad I saw them?”
Kevin shakes his head. “It’s OK.”
We sit quietly for a while, both of us staring straight ahead like we’re waiting for something to happen. Finally, Kevin lets out a long breath, then turns his head and flashes a half-grin.
“I thought you liked girls,” I say.
Kevin shrugs.
“You like guys?”
“Maybe.” He reaches up and pulls his hair away from his face, then he digs in his pocket and brings out a black velvet scrunchie, which he uses to make a ponytail. “We’ll see.”
I lay my head on his lap, and he reaches down and strokes my hair. I want to tell him I love him. But I don’t want to sound stupid. So I keep it to myself and hope he loves me too.
The Sunday before he’s supposed to leave for England, I sit on Kevin’s bed and watch him pick out the clothes he’s going to take with him. Even though he’s there in front of me, it feels like he’s slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Just as he pulls out his suitcase from his closet and opens it up, a really sad song called Angie comes on the radio. Something about the singing makes me pay close attention to the words. They make me
feel like I have a big hole in my stomach, and I start to cry. I try to hold back the tears so Kevin doesn’t notice, but he does. He closes the suitcase and sits next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder and letting me rest my head against his chest.
“Don’t worry, little cuz,” he says. “We’re only going for a visit to please my mom. There’s no draft anymore. So there’s no reason for me to stay there.”
“I’m afraid I won’t see you anymore, Kev.”
“That’s not going to happen. I promise.” He kisses me on the mouth, the same way he did in the Enchanted Forest. And I kiss him back. Then he holds me while I cry some more. I feel so close to Kevin, closer and more loved than I’ve ever felt to anyone before and safer than I’ve ever felt in my whole life.
Afterwards, he gives me a ring with a blue turquoise stone he got in New Mexico. He tells me he loves me and swears on his life he’ll come back. And I believe him. But I’m not going to tell him I love him until he comes back from England.
I wake up with a start and see it’s still dark outside. Kevin’s snoring softly, face down on the bed. It’s cold, so I pull the blanket over him. Then I look at the glowing clock radio on the nightstand. I’m surprised to see it’s already four in the morning. I have to hurry and get back to my room before the rest of them wake up. So I snuggle up to Kevin and kiss him on his forehead and on his mouth, then I hurry downstairs.
I slide down the ladder, sprint toward the landing that leads to the floors below, and come this close to slamming into Auntie Doreen, who’s standing in the shadows at the top of the stairs. She steps into the soft light coming from the utility room that illuminates the hall, and I notice her face is all red. I try to run around her, but she reaches out, catches me by the scruff of my neck, and pulls me into the utility room.
“I’m sorry, Auntie,” I blurt out before she can say anything. “I lost track of time and fell asleep.”
Auntie Doreen glares at me and opens her mouth like she’s about to scream when suddenly everything goes frozen like in those movies where time stops, and people who were walking down the sidewalk suddenly halt in mid-stride, and aeroplanes hang motionless in the sky.
I move out of the utility room, stepping away from Auntie Doreen, with her wide-open eyes and gaping mouth, and away from myself, crouching in a corner staring up at her with my hands over my ears. And I wonder how long she was standing in the hallway before I came downstairs. I mean, was she there the whole time? Or was she just coming up when I ran into her? Either way, I figure I’m in big trouble.
The next thing I know, I’m back inside the utility room with Auntie Doreen, who’s slumped in a chair, her head resting against the wall. “Go to your room, Kimi,” she’s saying in a soft voice. She looks like she’s about to cry, which is scary because Auntie Doreen never gets sad.
I move closer to her and whisper: “I’m sorry, Auntie. We weren’t doing anything bad, I promise.”
Auntie Doreen looks away from me and stares at the wall for a few seconds, then closes her eyes. “Just go, please,” she whispers.
The next morning, Momma shows up really early and whispers in a corner with Auntie Doreen while I eat a cold breakfast on the island in the kitchen. Neither Kevin nor Maggie comes downstairs. I can see Uncle Alistair through the window, washing one of his sports cars. He said hello to me before he went outside, but he wasn’t smiling like he usually does. So I know something’s wrong.
When I get into Momma’s station wagon, I look up at Kevin’s room and see him looking down at me from his window. I wave at him, and he lifts his hand and rests it against the window. He’s mouthing something to me, but I can’t make out what he wants to say.
“Turn around in your seat and face straight ahead,” Momma says, and I obey her. I steal a quick glance back up at the window as Momma drives away, but Kevin’s not there anymore.
On the way home, I keep expecting Momma to say something. But she doesn’t. Instead, she rolls down the window, turns on the radio, and starts to sing along to a stupid Carpenters song, smiling and waving at people as we drive by, almost like she’s in some other story. By the time the song is over, I realise she’s just going to pretend nothing happened, the way she always does.
Chapter 10
My sixth-grade teacher, Miss Johnson, likes for me to sit in the front row of the classroom. She tells me in private that I’m her pet student because I’m so smart. But I don’t believe she’s being totally honest, because I’m not all that smart. I think maybe she wants me to sit close to her so she can gawk at me since I look different from my classmates, who are all white, except for Ryo, who sits behind me. But who cares about him anyway!
This year I have a better desk than all the other years before. It’s one of those where you can swivel open the part you write on and store things inside. And it has a little lock so you can keep all your stuff private. Inside my desk, I keep my English book and my maths book, a writing pad, some number 2 pencils, a couple of leaky pens, an orange plastic ruler and matching protractor, and a calendar from Momma’s dress shop. I’ve circled Sunday, September 16, 1973, which is the day Kevin’s coming back from England, and I’m putting little “x”s in the date boxes as each day passes. Underneath all that are the ring and the picture of Marilyn that Kevin gave me.
One of the first assignments Miss Johnson gives us is to write a report about someone famous, like Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, or Jesus. We’re supposed to go to the library and find books about whomever we’re writing about and write a summary of their life. Not their whole life, because that would take forever. But some interesting part most people might not know about. We’re meant to fill five pages, which Miss Johnson says is around a thousand, five hundred words, and we’re also supposed to give a speech about our famous person to share with the rest of the class. I’m going to write my report about Marilyn, about how she became famous, or maybe about how she was having sex with the president, or maybe about how the CIA killed her—if that’s even true.
There’s nothing in the school library about Marilyn, and the librarian recommends I go to the Pasadena Central Public Library on East Walnut Street, right across from the courthouse. She does me a favour and calls her librarian friend there, who sets aside a couple of books and some magazines and newspapers for me. I’ll have Momma take me there after school because it’s too far for me to walk from here, and way too far from home.
“Why are you writing about her?” Momma asks all surprised-like when I explain the assignment. “Why not write about someone important like President Kennedy or General MacArthur?”
“She’s important to me,” I say. “Miss Johnson told us we should write about someone we already like because we’ll do our best work that way. Susie Meier’s writing about Bonny and Clyde, and Spencer Shapiro’s writing about Sandy Koufax, and Jill Spivens is writing about David Bowie, and Ryo Murakawa is writing about Charles Manson. So, I’m going to write about Marilyn.”
Momma parks her station wagon across the street from the Central Library, which is in a beautiful building that reminds me of the Spanish Mission our fifth-grade class visited in San Juan Capistrano. I grab my book bag out of the back seat, and Momma takes my hand as we cross the street as if I were some kind of baby. She’s going to stay in the library reading a magazine in the corner while I do my research because she thinks I’m too young to be alone.
The research librarian hands me a stack of books and magazines and points me in the direction of a cubicle. The first thing I find is a book about Marilyn’s life that’s supposedly written in her own words. It has a really cool picture of her on the cover, sitting all flirty-like on a wooden stool, wearing a tight black skirt that ends right above her knees, and an open green blouse with her boobies practically falling out of a lacy white bra thing, and a pair of black pumps. She’s leaning forward over her bare legs, her hands balled up like fists on either side of her knees, with her head raised up kind of proud. Her eyes are half-closed, which
gives her a funny Asian look, and I laugh at the thought of a Japanese Marilyn. The more I stare at that picture, the more I’m convinced how perfect she is.
I flip through all the great pictures—there are so many—and wish I owned the book so I could cut them all out and pin them on my wall, especially the ones where she’s blonde, not the ones where she has dark hair, like before she dyed it. But, of course, I can’t do that while my father’s still around. So, instead, until I can get rid of him, I’ll just borrow the book from the library and keep it in my desk at school so I can look at the pictures anytime I want. And, I think, maybe when I go to Ryo’s house for his birthday, I can score my very own signed glossy of Marilyn for ten bucks, like Kevin did of James Dean.
I turn back to the front of the book and start to read a little, about how Marilyn was born in Los Angeles (same as me), and how her mother was a dancer who went crazy and couldn’t take care of her, and how poor Marilyn was raised in other people’s houses because of her crazy mother, and about how she got married a couple of times before she became famous. Boring!!! The pictures are way better than the story.
So I put aside the book and pick up a newspaper with Marilyn’s face completely covering the front page and the words ‘Marilyn Dead’ at the top in big letters. The newspaper is dated August 5, 1962. I blink a couple times and look at the date again. That’s what it really says. August 5, 1962! That’s my birthday! Something inside me goes tight, and I jump out of the chair, knocking it backwards, and I bend over and draw a few deep breaths because I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“Young man, are you all right?” an old blue-haired lady with a cane asks me. She leans her cane against the cubicle and rubs my back.
The Death of Baseball Page 7
