Ken's War

by B. K. Fowler

  Topker sized up Paderson. “All right, Captain. You hit the one-month deadline and I’ll personally walk your RFT403 through.”

  “We’ll nail their balls to the wall, sir.”

  Topker stepped outside to join Bellamy and Kohanski, waiting in the jeep.

  “What discrepancies?” Wizard burst out.

  “Who filched my fuckin’ socks!” That’s what Bellamy wanted to know.

  The jeep tore down the lane, gears shifting emphatically.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ~ Lies ~

  “Attack me,” Sikung commanded. This morning, as always, his stance was alert yet at ease, but the relaxed posture didn’t fool Ken. Underneath the master’s calm exterior lay muscles coiled like snakes.

  Ken crossed his arms protectively in front of his chest, and stepped back from the master’s reach. “You’re just going to flip me on my butt.”

  “Yes. I’m going to flip you on your buttocks. Pay attention this time to how I use your momentum to propel you in the direction that you’ve decided to fall.”

  “If I had a gun this chi gung wouldn’t count for shit.” He regretted mouthing off as the words escaped his lips.

  “Get a gun.”

  “Nuh uh.”

  “You are afraid.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Then what is the root of your reluctance?”

  A pheasant’s cry grated the air. Ken glanced in the direction the sound came from. As he turned to look again at Sikung Wu, he was certain the man’s bulbous eyes would be glued on him. They were. The gaze was flinty and knowing.

  “You cannot learn to flip an assailant by wishing so, my foolhardy student.” Foolhardy student was as close to an endearment as Ken could ever hope to earn from the master. The pheasant cried again. “The way to study is to do,” Sikung said.

  “OK. Do it.”

  Sikung explained the mechanics of the flip, and then grasped Ken’s forearm in his pliers-like fingers slowly so Ken could register what was happening as the energies of their bodies blended.

  He landed with a thud. He popped back up.

  “Do it again, Sikung. I think I know how you can flip me so easy.”

  Sikung Wu threw him many more times. Ken’s pants got muddy. His knees and elbows were scraped raw, and embedded with mud and pebbles. His spine hurt from landing on it. He was debating whether or not to beg for a timeout, when Sikung invited Ken to try to throw him.

  “Nuh uh.” Between gasps, Ken said, “You’ll pull some trick you haven’t taught me. I’ll get creamed.”

  “Are you pissed off? Is that the jargon? Pissed off?”

  “Yeah. Pissed off.”

  “You don’t want the first time you attempt to throw an opponent to be during actual battle. You must practice.”

  “No trick. Promise?”

  “What have I done that you cannot trust me?”

  “Are your fingers crossed? “

  Sikung glowered.

  Ken said, “Come at me. But slow!” He grabbed the master’s forearm and managed to draw Sikung into him, trying to blend their energies. Ken stumbled to the ground and looked up at the imperturbable face hovering over him. “I know. I know. I should’ve pulled you past me. Not into me. Past me.”

  The master offered no comment.

  Ken tried again.

  “Please, take your foot off my throat.” Ken tried again and again, but failed to flip Sikung.

  “You’re not playing fair.” Ken’s heart pounded. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs.

  Sikung’s laughter silenced small creatures that had been rustling in the trees. He hadn’t broken a sweat. His breathing was imperceptible. “You are in too great a hurry. At any rate, this concludes your lessons.”

  “Oh, come on! I almost flipped you! If I pay you more money, you have to give me more lessons.”

  “Is that how it works, eh?” Sikung’s smile didn’t invite an answer. “You are a viper too impatient to wait for a propitious time. You’ll bite your own tail. “The master closed his eyes and after a while said, “Go to your father. He needs you.”

  Ken raced home and cracked two eggs into the frying pan before his dad rolled off his futon.

  Ken mentally replayed his lesson in the bamboo grove. OK, so he didn’t throw Sikung, but he’s not a normal person, Ken thought. Just let some doofuss attack me and I’ll flip ‘im on his can. No doubt about it.

  “What are you smiling about?” His dad’s intrusion into the fantasy shocked like ice water.

  “Can I get an allowance?”

  His father’s expression tightened. “What do you need? I’ll buy it for you at the PX next time I’m in Nagasaki.”

  “When are you going to Nagasaki?” He hoped his dad would say what he wanted to hear, because that would make it simpler for him to make his rendezvous tonight.

  “I’m leaving at oh-nine-hundred and I’ll return in forty-eight hours.”

  “You and Bellamy? For two whole days?”

  “No. This is a job I need to accomplish alone.” He clipped off the words as if they were sour, yet his eyes held a smile within. “Don’t worry,” Paderson said. He blinked and found his normal facial aspect as he drained his coffee. He set the mug with a loud clang on the table. “Abernathy will be here.”

  “I know.” He’d learned a long time ago, when you lie, weave in as many strands of the truth as possible. Truth-lies were easier to remember and not as bad of a sin as lie-lies, so he added a small lie: “Wizard is taking me to a teahouse tonight.”

  “Fraternizing with Abernathy is not a good idea.”

  “You don’t want me playing baseball with Japanese kids and now I can’t even go with Wizard. You’re—”

  “Stop before you get your stones caught in a wringer. You’ll understand later.”

  “Later will be too late.”

  “Later is sooner than you think, soldier, sooner than everybody thinks.” Captain Paderson walked over to Ken as he was washing the frying pan. Next Paderson did something he’d never done before. He tousled Ken’s ponytail. Then he picked up his duffel bag, and walked out the door as if he touched his son that way every morning before setting off to work.

  Ken adjusted his ponytail and watched his dad hustle down the dirt path to the warehouse.

  “Shit!” Running water overflowed the sink and splashed onto the floor.

  Wizard swiveled around in his chair and patted his lap. Neko sprang up and curled up on his thighs, her tail whipping out cat-code for irritation.

  “I have a bone to pick with you,” the private first class said wearily, his eyelids lowered, expression hangdog.

  The jig was up. Wizard must have discovered the paperwork Ken had fudged to cover up the loss of staplers, shingles, cook pots, snails in oil...Ken hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and readied himself for the lecture he deserved.

  “I don’t know what you’re cooking up,” Wizard said, “and it’s none of my business, but don’t use me as your alibi, because I’ll not cover for you.” The cat walked down Wizard’s legs like a ramp, gave Ken a clear view of her rear, and eased herself under a shelf. Ken couldn’t think of anything to say. “You’ve abused our relationship.” Wizard went on, “Not to mention that you lied to your father. If you wanted to visit the teahouse, you could have asked me to take you.”

  “It’s all crap, anyhow,” Ken blurted out an instant too soon. His wild-haired friend wasn’t talking about stolen asphalt shingles and cook pots at all.

  Wizard murmured in Japanese and leveled his eyes, wide as searchlights, on Ken.

  Ken tried to match Wizard’s gaze with equal directness and duration. He was intent on not seeming cowed or cocky. He said, “I thought you would understand... I’m meeting Yasuko at the teahouse—Yasuko likes me. Her parents like me. They took me to the movies. They didn’t treat me like a gaijin.”

  “They were very polite, I’m sure. The Japanese excel at creating a harmonious atmosphere while concealing th
eir true feelings. They would never, in any way that a Westerner would comprehend, communicate overtly that they do not want your puppy love with Yasuko to bloom. The acceptance you perceived is a fact, not the truth.”

  Ken hated that he didn’t know how to convince Wizard he was wrong on this one.

  “It’s not interracial friendships I’m calling you on, man. You lied to your father and dragged me into it by saying I was taking you to the teahouse.”

  “Dad doesn’t like the Japanese. I had to have a cover story,” Ken said.

  “I understand why you lied, but I don’t condone it, and I won’t cover for you. Lying’s not what I’m about.”

  “That’s what buddies do. They cover for each other.” Ken pointed to the binders. “What about those correspondence post-tests I did for you? I did that as a favor for you. Buddies do favors for each other!”

  “Buddies don’t abuse each other’s trust.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyhow because Dad isn’t coming home ‘til tomorrow.”

  “Then why did you lie to him?”

  “Man, you’re an old fogy like the rest of them,” Ken said.

  “Of the highest order,” Wizard admitted.

  “You don’t know everything about the Japanese.”

  Wizard waved his hand, implying So be it. He gathered up the U.S. Army Logistics and Supply Correspondence Course binders and placed them into an empty crate. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure! Yeah!” Ken wanted to put their friendship back the way it was before.

  “Ship the Shiskiko mask to my mom.”

  “Sure. How come?”

  “Her birthday. She loves Japanese antiques. Ship it by sea.”

  As he left, Wizard brushed against his yukata hanging on the wall. The swishing of cotton against the wall disheartened Ken for some reason. Neko slithered out from her hiding place, pranced stiff-legged to the doorway and meowed at Wizard’s retreating form.

  He hadn’t meant to piss off his friend. He slumped in Wizard’s chair. Picked at a scab. Retied his ponytail. Stood. Sat. Opened the top desk drawer. He extracted a few yen from a tangled mass of paperclips and rubber bands, and then tossed the coins back into the drawer. He needed more than that measly amount to pay for additional chi gung lessons. The hut’s metal roof creaked, expanding as the temperature outside climbed. Sweat trickled down his spine making him shiver.

  Shishiko.

  He opened the box in which Wizard had placed the wooden lacquered theater mask on that day, months ago. Shishiko’s mouth, caught between a friendly grin and a wail, was more macabre than he’d remembered. He stared at the thing, defying it to blink or raise an eyebrow. He alternately winked his left and right eyes rapidly and repeatedly, creating the illusion that the mask was shaking his head no, no, no in the box.

  The hair on the Neko’s nape bristled. Her ears flattened. Earthquake coming. The warehouse walls creaked and the file cabinet tried to shuffle away. Boxes and cans rattled on the shelves. The earth stopped twitching. Dust sifted down from the rafters onto the mask, into its eyeholes and black mouth.

  He carried Shishiko through the cool, green temple grounds. Along the way, he spoke to the wooden face with a storyteller’s cadence, telling the mask the way the world operated as he understood it, and the way he thought it should operate.

  “He’ll think you got lost on the way to his mom.”

  He waited for Takuya at the baseball diamond.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ~ Masks ~

  The teahouse, a bamboo structure with many airy rooms connected by walkways and curved bridges, allowed customers views of the pond and gardens while cleverly obscuring views of the tea drinkers in other rooms. A carp splashed in the black waters where reflected lantern light undulated like liquid moons. Palm fronds danced on light breezes tumbling down the mountainsides. Tiles resembling fish scales covered the roofs. Tiles imprinted with chrysanthemums capped the peaks of the roofs.

  The teahouse cocooned him. Hid him. His hands kept stealing in and out of his trouser pockets, checking that his yen notes and coins hadn’t slipped out onto the bench. He waited.

  Tatters of last night’s dream clung with him, fluttering in his consciousness as vividly as an actual memory. In the dream he was standing at the back door of the barracks bungalow. With the knowledge that comes with dreams, he knew he’d grown up, while everyone else had not. A lawn mower groaned somewhere on the dream barracks and he woke up with a tumescent penis. He took care of that.

  He hadn’t heard a lawn mower since he and his father had moved to Japan. The noise was lost from memory until the dream revived it. This realization didn’t sadden him.

  A petite woman surprised him when she appeared at his side, and in a whispery voice asked him what he’d like. In Japanese, he told the hostess he was waiting for friends.

  He must have misspoken for she brought a chubby clay teapot and two blue and white cups to the table. She placed a kettle of water on the burner attached to the table. Ken smiled at her. She bowed and backed away.

  He imagined Mrs. Watanabe saying, We apologize. We are sorry to arrive late. We hope you were not waiting long. She apologized often—for the weather, for his misunderstandings, for her notion that her English was flawed—making him uncomfortable on her behalf. He imagined himself saying, No. I got here a second ago, knowing that they would know it was a face-saving lie, and Yasuko would give him a special grin, signaling that he’d said the proper thing.

  Worried that he’d chosen the wrong room in which to wait for the Watanabes, he crossed a walkway to the most remote tearoom. When his eyes adjusted to the darkened room, he saw a Negro soldier. The soldier reached across the table and extended one finger. The Japanese woman seated across from him placed her hand beneath his finger, and slowly pulled her hand away so his finger stroked the back of her hand once, lightly. She rested her hand on her lap.

  Ken made his way back to the room he’d waited in originally. The three Watanabes turned toward him, faces full of concern.

  “I went to the wrong room,” he said.

  “We apologize for the inconvenience,” Mrs. Watanabe said.

  He looked at Yasuko who gave him a big, American-style smile. The afterimage of the soldier’s dark strong hand and the ethereal small one floated in his mind’s eye. He slid in on the bench beside Yasuko.

  Mrs. Watanabe said something to Mr. Watanabe causing him to nod. He ordered salted watermelon seeds and dried plums. Mr. Watanabe orchestrated the conversation with excruciating politeness and precision, asking Ken what he thought of the tea, the humidity, the dried plums. He passed the conversation to his wife, who invited Yasuko into the discussion. The pattern exhausted Ken. His hand crept to Yasuko’s side and found her fine-boned hand, squeezed it gently. She squeezed in answer while telling her mother that yes, she believed it was possible for one to write pleasing haiku using English, however a degree of the poem’s sublimity might be lost, and therefore, the English language was more suited to the freedom of Shakespearean blank verse.

  “Ah, I am getting value for the bucks at girls’ school!” Mr. Watanabe’s eyes glittered. Everyone laughed.

  Ken laughed longest, relishing the moment when he was going to inform Wizard he didn’t understand the Japanese as well as he’d imagined.

  Mr. Watanabe doused the green leaves in the clay teapot with hot water from the large kettle for an additional steeping, implying they were going to enjoy another round of tea, and Ken would have more time to sit beside Yasuko. The Watanabes weren’t disguising unpleasant feelings about Ken. Look at them laughing, treating him warmly, and nurturing his relationship with Yasuko. No booby traps buried here.

  He waggled a chopstick, creating the optical illusion that it was flexible, as if it were made of rubber. Only Yasuko appreciated this trick, so he laid the chopstick down. He’d teach her how to do it when her folks weren’t around.

  “When we are in Japan, we do so miss our friends and relatives residing i
n California,” Mrs. Watanabe said to Ken. “Oddly, when we are in L.A. we pine for Japan. Don’t you miss your mother greatly?”

  “Um, I, sort of...” Ken removed his hand from Yasuko’s. He noted that the tealeaves floated in the same position as if skewered on an invisible axle as he turned the teacup, turned the teacup. “My mom. It’s a long story. She was fulfilling her filial duty. She committed suicide.” His great discomfort with this lie, at least, was authentic.

  Yasuko’s parents murmured consolations in Japanese.

  Yasuko clasped his hand. “Losing one parent is a misfortune. Losing two would be a disaster. Could we possibly meet your father, the Colonel Paderson?”

  Mr. Watanabe grimaced over some bitter tea. Mrs. Watanabe, smiling tightly, laced her fingers together as if to prevent an “unexpected” something from escaping.

  “He’s just a captain,” Ken said. “He’s real busy with stuff. He’s working on a top-secret investigation. It’s impossible to meet him. He’s never home.”

  The smile wilted on Mrs. Watanabe’s face. Ken felt his own face flush hot as he followed her gaze, and it brought him to his and Yasuko’s hands entwined on the table top. He released her hand.

  “I heard you take correspondent courses for your schooling. I think you are a hard worker to study without a teacher,” Mrs. Watanabe said.

  “It’s not too hard.”

  His face deadpan, Mr. Watanabe contributed: “Yasuko will be happy to return to her school and hit her books this coming semester. She will depart for L.A. in two days to register at school, and meet her student advisor. She is enthusiastic. She will make long memories with this evening.”

  Ken looked to Yasuko for an explanation. She would not meet his eyes. She pushed something into his hand beneath the table.