Crimson Footprints

by Shewanda Pugh

  YUKIKO WAS NO longer listening to Takumi’s cumbersome explanation. She simply couldn’t, lest her migraine grow worse. They were playing football. Michael was playing football? Well, he was nearby. Close enough for an elbow to hit him yet not in the game? Yeah. And your hand? What about it? There’s nothing wrong with my hand. It looks disfigured. Oh that. Slammed it in a door earlier. And you played football afterwards? Uh, yeah.

  She made her way to Daichi’s study with thoughts of Michael’s face and Takumi’s hand. Clearly the two had found one another, and she was certain she knew why. Michael’s advances towards Deena seemed to border on manhandling. Anyone with more than a passing interest could see the way Takumi squirmed when Michael made advances. Her son Daichi failed to have more than a passing interest.

  Daichi met Yukiko’s tap on the door with a gruff ‘what’. She bristled, despite the knowledge that he would soften once realizing it was his mother. Yukiko stepped inside as Daichi set aside a legal pad riddled with careful print.

  Daichi turned in his custom-made swivel chair, retail price three thousand dollars, and gave his mother a cursory nod.

  “Afternoon, okasan. What can I do for you?”

  Daichi didn’t smile at his mother, but then again, he didn’t frown either.

  “It’s about Takumi,” she said.

  Daichi’s face darkened.

  “What is it now? I’ve a great deal of work. I can’t be bothered with trivialities.”

  Daichi turned back to his desk.

  “Takumi is not a triviality. He is your son.”

  She shifted her weight, heavy-lidded eyes on the broad of his back.

  “Are you here to lecture me, okasan?” Daichi’s fingers formed a steeple as he stared at his cherry wood desk. “If so, I’ve much work to do.”

  Yukiko sighed. “What you do here is not work, Daichi. What you do here is chase ghosts.”

  She took a seat on the mauve leather couch behind him as Daichi lowered his head.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You are a brilliant man. I’ve no doubt you do.”

  Yukiko nibbled on a wrinkled, painted lip as she thought about the lavish estate that was her home, designed and built by Daichi. She thought about the five vacation villas he owned and the juggernaut that was his architectural firm.

  “Time does not rewind, no matter how hard and fast you wish it so,” she said.

  Daichi studied his fingernails. They were manicured and shone with the clear polish of a pampered man.

  “Your sons love you. Your wife loves you. But you must repair the bridge that divides you. No one can do this for you.”

  Daichi stared through his desk, eyes glistening. He was the greatest architect the world had ever seen. Time said so. People said so. Two dozen honorary degrees said so. And yet, it was these words that pierced his heart.

  “Time is escaping you, Daichi. Your stubbornness, your intolerance, your willfulness are the source of your unhappiness. And the stakes now are higher than ever.”

  “Okasan, if you have something specific to tell me, please do so.”

  “All right,” Yukiko stood. “I just left the hallway, where I found Michael with a broken nose and Takumi with a broken hand. They claim that football is the culprit, but I suspect the lie is for your benefit.”

  Daichi sighed. He had no idea what she expected from him.

  “Too often when our children lie we lash out without looking inward. Sometimes they lie because we’ve closed the door to the truth. They lie because we’ve made telling the truth impossible. They lie because we require it.”

  Yukiko stood at the door, a hand on the knob.

  “Whether you like it or not, Daichi, you are the head of this family. And your opinions affect everyone. In your quest for perfection, you’ve begun to see the world in black and white. You’ve made shades of gray impossible. But they will exist whether you acknowledge them or not. With your intolerance, you drive a wedge through this family. With your intolerance, you demand the lie.”

  A BOXER’S BREAK was what Tak had, a fracture of the knuckles that was the perfect complement to his cousin’s shattered nose and concussion. Tak’s injury took a cast and six weeks to heal, during which time he was unable to paint or play his guitar. His father hadn’t required much of an explanation; Tak told him that Mike had simply gotten on his nerves. Interestingly enough, he took that without question.

  Deena sipped iced green tea as she sat at her desk. The tea was a gift from Asami. She was at work on a Sunday, brainstorming ideas for a designing competition a few thousand leagues out of her league. It was going to be a so-called “City-Within-A-City”, a mega-resort in the Dominican Republic that was the equivalent of a kitchen-sink dive into the tourism industry. It was an architect’s dream with eighty acres of space and very few guidelines. It was a seven-billion-dollar enterprise with a salary payout of five hundred sixty million. Every architect in the world was salivating at the venture, and Deena realized she had an ice cream sundae’s chance in hell of getting the gig. Still, it was about the process, and as she worked, she remembered Daichi’s words of advice. Study the culture. Remember the culture. Reflect the culture. She wasn’t sure how much it would help her though, since he was entering the competition as well.

  She should’ve been at home, curled up with Tak and his newly freed hand. Despite her desire to earn a name for herself, she kept turning to silly and trivial thoughts. Something Tak said, something John did, something Kenji wanted. She needed discipline. In the past, she’d had it in droves. What had the Tanaka men done to her? She could imagine the answer they’d give.

  They had this way with her, Tak, and John even, of making her laugh when logic defied joy. She’d been standing at the mirror that morning, staring at her reflection, when she turned to Tak and said, “You know, one time my grandfather told me I looked like a baboon.”

  He’d looked up at her with a frown as serious as it was contemplative.

  “You want to go kick over his tombstone?”

  She’d laughed of course, knowing he would’ve done it had she agreed.

  Deena chastised her wandering mind. The “City-Within-A-City” was her ticket to freedom. Win that, and her days of stingy five-figure salaries with Daichi were over. She smiled. Fantasizing was fun.

  And now back to work. After all, she had a full day ahead of her. A few hours at the office, a trip to Babies R Us and a baby shower for a fourteen-year-old who was expecting. Somehow, her itinerary failed to excite her.

  DEENA STOOD IN line at the Aventura Babies R Us, a baby mobile in one arm and a nursing pillow in the other. She tried not to think of the gift’s recipients, the fourteen-year-old girlfriend of her seventeen-year-old cousin Shakeith, but her thoughts had a will of their own. As she stood, she pondered how such a family could exist—a helter-skelter mix of welfare receiving, low achieving, blissfully satisfied souls content with self-destruction.

  It wasn’t that she believed healthy families existed apart from problems. But she knew the difference between that sort of family and one without hope. The day after Tak broke his hand on Mike’s face he pulled his cousin aside and offered an apology. It was important to him that he had his cousin’s forgiveness. And as for Mike, once he realized what Deena was to Tak, it seemed he wanted Tak’s forgiveness too. So, when the cousins parted at the end of the week it was on good terms. Once, Aunt Caroline and Rhonda had argued over the price of postage stamps. The argument escalated, Caroline hit Rhonda, and the two didn’t speak for a year.

  Shakeith was Caroline’s son. He was a teenage smoker and drinker and soon-to-be father who idolized Anthony. Whenever Shakeith wanted to emphasize one thing or another, he would do so by invoking the name of his cousin. “Man, I put that on my dead cousin, Tony,” he would say with a shout. Tony, who was third-in-command in the tyrannical R.I.P. gang; Tony, who moved more cocaine in and out of Liberty City than any two dealers combined, and Tony, who’d become so powerful someon
e believed he had to die. Tony. It was how Deena sifted trash from treasure. Tony versus Anthony. One was a gang member, the other her brother. All it took to separate them was the dropping of three small, yet powerful letters.

  Shakeith wanted to be Tony. It was in everything he said and did. It was in the way he’d invoke Tony’s name when he was challenged, as though his cousin had written an evocative and compelling manual on the art of gangsta living. It was in the way he dressed and the way he walked, that funky gait that dared onlookers to test him. And it was in his life’s philosophy, that of doing as Tony Hammond would’ve done.

  She gave him another year to live. Maybe a little more, but not much. A single year and the Hammonds would bury another.

  Their story would be compelling were it not so commonplace. Prisons were brimming with brothers and cousins, fathers and sons, all harbored within the same maximum facility. What was impressive to Deena was the stories of those who didn’t fill those walls. The Deenas and Rhondas who kept their footsteps high as they trudged through the sludge. To Deena, the honest way was the hard one, and the other way, easy.

  She couldn’t understand the lure for Shakeith. Her brother was dead. Despite all those who had feared him, maybe even because of it, Anthony Hammond was hunted, captured, and slaughtered.

  MORNING ARRIVED WITHOUT fanfare. The simple shimmer of sunlight through the windowpane woke first Deena and then Tak.

  “Mmm. You feel sublime,” he mumbled, running a hand down the length of her body. Immediately, he felt a familiar stirring. “I want to be inside you,” he whispered, planting kisses along her neck.

  His body pressed against her backside as remnants of Cartier aftershave and tequila wafted in the air. She eased away from him, rubbing her eyes in an effort to become oriented. Her phone beeped, insisting there were several missed phone calls. Just as she rose to retrieve it, Tak tugged at her camisole.

  “Not now, Dee. No Lizzie, no Skylife, no problems,” he insisted.

  She smiled at him and settled back into his arms. No problems. The idea was as seductive as the kisses he planted along her neck. The phone beeped again and she plucked it from its resting place on her nightstand before he could stop her.

  No problems. The idea was laughable.

  Deena looked at the phone’s screen and groaned. “Your dad,” she said, noting the missed calls. “I’d better call him.” She rubbed the side of her face tiredly.

  “Come on, Dee, forget that.” Tak pulled her into his arms impatiently, relishing the soft flesh of her backside against his chest.

  Tak continued planting kisses along her throat, slowing long enough to appreciate the slope of her breasts and the flat of her stomach before moving on to the curve of her backside. His manhood stirred its approval and Deena laughed sleepily.

  “Is that all you do?” she asked. “Think about sex?”

  Tak chuckled. “Oh, Baby I can do more than think about it.” In an instant, he was atop her, parting her legs as she laughed, pushing her back as she struggled to sit up.

  “Tak!” she squealed. “Would you go back to sleep? I have to call your father!”

  “Sleep?” Tak scoffed. “What, are you kidding me? I’m not going back to sleep and neither are you,” he pushed her again. “Now stop playing hard to get! I’ve got a seed to plant, woman.”

  Deena shrieked as he began to kiss her body relentlessly, pushing aside the straps of her camisole, tugging at her panties.

  “Tak! Your father—”

  Tak sighed, lifting his head momentarily. “Dee, I gotta tell you. You’re killing my ego here with all this talk of my dad.” Before she could respond, he returned to her body with vigor, licking, biting and sucking. When she cried out in delight, he lifted his head with a smile of triumph.

  Tak was poised to enter her when the doorbell rang. Once, twice, three times, all in quick succession. Startled, Deena sat up, dismounting Tak quickly, efficiently. Not easily thwarted, he attempted to reclaim his position, only to be deterred again.

  She pulled on Tak’s UCLA sweatshirt and an old pair of shorts before rushing to the door. As she approached, the bell rang twice more.

  “Make it quick, Dee!”

  Deena threw open the door, prepared to slam it provided it was a Jehovah Witness, salesman, or some other equally unwanted rascal.

  It was Daichi.

  “Daichi?” Deena croaked.

  He adjusted his crimson tie. “Deena, I expect my associates to answer when I call them, and I consider it highly problematic when they do not.”

  “Sir—”

  “We need to discuss this project. Now.” Daichi pushed his way past Deena, and into her apartment.

  Deena’s horrified gaze followed him. “This is a really bad time right now, Daichi. If you want, I can throw on something and meet you at the office.” She cast a single, sickly glance towards the bedroom.

  “A bad time?” Daichi echoed in disbelief. “A bad time? Construction is stalled, Deena, and has been since yesterday afternoon. Every day we’re stalled we burn a quarter of a million dollars. A quarter of a million dollars!”

  Deena’s mouth opened, but no words came out. She was aware of the budget, of the opposition they took for the slightest expenditure, but her mind was foggy. Tequila, fatigue and fear muddled her thoughts. She glanced at the bedroom door again.

  “You know, Deena, this is incomprehensible and frankly I’m stunned. Rarely have I misjudged a person’s character. But you,” Daichi wagged a finger inches from Deena’s nose. “You are forcing me to question your professionalism, your aptitude, and your judgment. I would recommend that you salvage this deal, immediately.”

  Sickened, Deena looked from Daichi to the bedroom door yet again. She needed a moment—a moment for thinking, for clarity, for a plan.

  Behind her something crashed.

  And the bedroom door opened.

  “Dee? Who was that at the door?”

  Tak stuck his head out and glimpsed only a partial view of Deena. Grinning, he pressed on.

  “Quit playing hard to get and climb your ass back into this bed.”

  When she failed to respond he padded into the living room with a brazen smirk, intent on finishing what he’d started, and froze at the sight of his father.

  “Oh my God.” he whispered. Tak, in nothing but a pair of form-fitting boxer briefs, felt his libido perish.

  Daichi looked from Deena to Tak and back again, his face a myriad of astonishment.

  “Now Dad, before you go crazy—” Tak reached for his father in an effort to calm him.

  Daichi turned to his employee, his gaze narrowing. “I see your aspiration knows no bounds, Ms. Hammond.”

  Deena gasped.

  “Dad, that’s not fair. When we met we had no idea that you were the common denominator.”

  “When you met…”

  “Dad, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re absolutely right. We should’ve been more forthright. We should’ve been upfront. And we shouldn’t have pretended that we were meeting in California. But you have to understand—”

  “When you met…”

  “Otosan, just—just hear me out. Please.”

  “How long this been going on?”

  Tak cringed. “Otosan—”

  “Otosan? Don’t ‘otosan’ me! How long has this been going on?”

  Tak swallowed, suddenly speechless, motionless. Daichi pointed an emphatic finger at the couch, and without a word, Tak sat.

  “Takumi, I will not ask you again,” Daichi warned. Daichi stared at his son until he looked away with a sigh.

  “Three years now.”

  “Three—”

  At this revelation, it was not his son he looked at, but Deena. Deena who’d listened to his confessions of parental ineptitude, of resentment and regret, all while feigning ignorance.

  “Daichi, I didn’t—I never—” Deena shook her head. “I never told him anything.”

  This time it was Tak’s turn to look u
p.

  “What are you talking about, Dee?”

  She looked from the elder Tanaka to the younger, desperate for an out.

  “He confided in me, Tak, about—things.” She turned back to Daichi. “But I never betrayed you. Not once.”

  Tak’s eyes narrowed, and in them, Deena could see the seeds of something new. Distrust.

  Daichi turned to his son.

  “Takumi. Takumi, you know I can’t accept this.”

  Tak sighed.

  “You know how I feel about this matter.”

  “Otosan, please. Listen. I love her and have for years. She makes me happy. Doesn’t that count for something with you?”

  Daichi sighed. Here was his son, sniveling about happiness. It was always that way with Takumi, so engrossed with himself. But Daichi knew he needed look no further than a mirror for someone to blame. He’d always given his son whatever he wanted, believing it the best way to express his affections. When he turned sixteen, he bought the boy his first car, a Ford Mustang convertible, because it was what he wanted. When he graduated from UCLA, it was a three-bedroom condo in South Beach, and for his twenty-fifth birthday, a luxury yacht for cruising the Caribbean.

  Daichi was most comfortable when his love could be expressed with gifts, as opposed to the emotional outpours everyone else seemed to prefer. But in showering his son with gifts, Daichi had created a man whose values did not match his own, who had no sense of the group’s greater identity, who constantly sought pleasures of the self and of the flesh. Takumi, he found, knew nothing of modesty, restraint or sacrifice and was, at least to Daichi, the very anti-thesis of Japanese.

  “This is your problem, Takumi. Everything is about you. What Takumi wants, what Takumi likes! No reason, or values, or anything. And what has Takumi decided he wants this time? A little flesh?”

  “And what about you, Dad? Don’t you go to any lengths to get what you want? Isn’t that what my whole life has been about?”

  Daichi’s gaze narrowed. “This is neither the time nor the place.”