“Grab him!”
It’s Eldon all right. I duck into the shadows and try to get a better look. And there’s Eldon’s security blanket, Bully Hallstrom. They make a fine pair—make that a fine gang. Wonder what those two creeps are up to.
In a high-pitched voice, I hear, “Come here, poochie, poochie, pooch. Got a nice big steak for you full of Vitamin P.”
Did I hear Vitamin P?
I peep around the corner and see Eldon open some butcher paper and in it is a big glob of something dark and bloody. I hear Hero’s bloodhound howl. Something’s very wrong here.
“Hurry up, I can’t hold him! Give him the poison!” Bully says.
Poison!
Just as Eldon drops the meat, I rush forward and scream, “Stop it!” I grab the meat and hold it up high. I’m short and Hero’s long and he can almost jump up to it. “Down, Hero!” I scream, hating to give him my knee. Then to the boys, I scream, “What’re you creeps doing?”
“Get lost, Jewels!” Eldon says. “This is none of your business!”
Hero’s jumping for the meat, almost knocking me down. I hold the package even higher and scream, “No! Down! No!”
“Get out of here, Jewels. I mean it!” Eldon tries to grab for the meat and so does Hero. Eldon gets it and tosses it to the ground. Hero goes straight for it and I just manage to pull on this collar with both hands before he snatches it up.
“Hero! No! No!” I scream and pull and Hero is almost on the meat when another pair of hands grab Hero’s collar. I quickly click on his leash and haul him back with all my weight.
“Rex! They’re trying to poison Hero!” I yell. Rex takes the leash and stands between me and the boys. I scoop the meat off the ground and hold it up. “It’s got poison in it!” I wrap the meat back in the butcher paper.
“Throw it away,” Rex says.
“No, it’s evidence! I’m getting Sheriff Hillary!” I tell him. Then to Eldon, “You’re not getting away with this! I should give this to your mother’s prize pug!”
“Throw it away, Jewels,” Rex orders again. “There’s a can right over there.”
I do it fast, making sure the lid is on good and tight, then go back to my brother as our new Town Hood faces Bully and Eldon.
“Why would you want to poison that dog?” Rex asks.
Eldon points toward Hero. “You know whose dog that is!”
“Meaning?”
“He’s a Jap, that’s what!”
“He is not!” I yell. I’ve never been in a fist fight, but there’s a first time for everything and I’m ready. Me and Rex. Shoulder to shoulder, just like in the movies.
But it doesn’t go that way. Rex hollers, “Jewels, take that dog home! Go on! Get home!”
You’d think it was me doing something bad the way he screams at me.
“You come, too. Mom’s home,” I say.
“Oh, so the Town Bimbo’s back from work, huh?” Eldon says, laughing with Bully. “Hey, the whole family’s got a title! Town Hood, Town Clown, and Town Bimbo!”
The insult goes right over Rex’s head.
“Did you hear what he called Mom?” I demand, coming at Eldon with two fists.
“Jewels, get out of here!” Rex yanks me back.
I try to kick Eldon’s shin, but Rex pulls me back again. “I said, get home!” he hollers.
I feel my heart banging against my chest. I don’t know who I’m madder at—these hoods for trying to poison Hero, my brother for screaming at me, or myself for running away from them all.
Hero gallumps behind me. I run up the back stairs of the Stay and Play and let him find his own way down to Mr. Kaye’s apartment, thinking there’s no way Jewels Stokes is going to run away from a fight! So I turn-tail it and run back to help Rex.
But there is no fight. I stand frozen and watch Bully and Eldon beat the living daylights out of Rex, who’s curled up on the ground, never lifting a fist. It’s horrible. I see the kicks and the punches; I hear the laughter; I see Rex’s horrible face. I burst out of the shadows and start screaming.
“Stop it! Stop it!” I scoop up gravel and throw it at them while I kick and scream and pull and slug. Until finally they stop, back up, and then Eldon gives Rex one last kick to his side, folding him in half again.
Eldon stands there, his face red and his eyes narrow. He points first at me, then at the Stay and Play, then he points down to Rex and screams, “I oughta kill you, you Jap-loving coward!” Then, he and Bully both run off, vanishing into the distance.
And there it is again. My own private infamy. I help Rex up, blood gushing from his nose and mouth.
“Why didn’t you fight back? You just took it!”
He sways as he tries to catch his breath. “I’m smarter than those two jerks. I wouldn’t lower myself to their level.”
“Well, they sure lowered you! What was your plan? Debate them?”
“Just shut up about it! Got that, Jewels?” He bends over, holds his stomach, and pukes out some blood. “This isn’t your fight, so you just shut up about it!”
“What fight? That wasn’t a fight. That was a massacre.”
“I said, shut up!” he screams at me. I feel little splatters of spit and blood hit my face. He picks up his cap and limps off toward the beach.
The war is only four days old and already I’m sick of it.
CHAPTER 12
I get up early the next morning. I’m not sure I even slept at all, between Mom’s snoring and the memory of everything that happened the night before. My first thought is Rex. I go to his room, ignoring the Do Not Disturb sign, and knock.
No answer. I knock a bit harder. Cripes, he might be dead. I open the door and whisper, “Hey, Rex. How you doing?”
“Go away.”
Of course I don’t. I go over to his bed and pull on the overhead light. A pillow goes over his head. “Kill the light, creep!”
I tug at the pillow and he groans as he tries to hold it in place. “Don’t, Jewels. Don’t . . .”
I catch a glimpse. “Rex! Look at you!”
“I know,” he whispers, his arm covering his eyes.
“Has Mom seen you yet?”
“She just stuck her head in the door. She didn’t see my face. And she’s not going to, got it?”
“She’ll go haywire. Let me see.”
Slowly, his arm comes away from his head. Oh, Lord! He has a black eye and there’s blood where the white part should be. There’s a bandage on his forehead and his jaw has a huge bruise on it.
“How bad’s that cut? Need stitches?”
“Nah, but it took half the night to get it to stop bleeding.”
“You should have woke me up. I would have helped.”
He makes an effort to sit, but he grabs his sides and winces with shaky breaths. “Jewels, bring me that old canvas belt in my closet. This one isn’t doing it.”
“Doing what?”
He gingerly raises his shirt and shows me the leather belt he has hitched around his chest. “What’s that for?” I ask.
“I think I have a few broken ribs. It kills to breathe. We learned the belt trick in first aid at school. Got to bind ’em.”
“No, I’m getting Mom,” I say.
He grabs my robe and pulls me back. “No you aren’t, Jewels! Mom’s not going to know how bad I got beat up.”
“Well, one look at that face and she’s going to get suspicious.”
“Just a black eye and small cut,” he says.
“Oh yeah? You look like you went through a meat-grinder!”
“Shut up about it! I’ll be fine.”
“But broken ribs, Rex!”
“I just need to wrap them. There’s nothing you can do for broken ribs. I know, get me that stretchy bandage Mom got when she sprained her ankle last year. That’ll help, and I can cinch it with a belt.”
I help him to his bathroom. We fill the sink with warm water and I help him clean off the dried blood. Looking at him in the mirror, I say, “Guess that
’s why Carla broke your date.” Why am I always the one spilling the bad news? “She called this morning.”
He just looks down into the basin of soapy water and blood and says, “The whole town must know by now.” He sort of laughs and then grabs his side in pain. “Some Town Hood I turned out to be. Town Coward is more like it. I don’t care what they call me.”
“Me either,” I say. But I think I do.
Like he reads my thought, he says, “But you will, Jewels.”
• • •
I head to the café to cook up the last of the pancake batter I made earlier that week and pack up some ice for Rex. As I cross the parking lot, I get a feeling something is different, though nothing looks out of place. I look around before unlocking the café door. But the memory of Eldon and Bully laughing as they ran off, leaving Rex in a heap, is alls I can see in my head.
But then I turn and there it is. In blood-red, dripping paint acrost the front of the Kozy Korner Kafe are the words: KILL THE JAPS!
I look up at the second and third stories of the building to the large windows of the Look-Sea Lounge and Mr. Kaye’s apartment. One, two, three panes of glass are broken. I look around me. The town is still quiet, almost dead.
Then I hear car tires on gravel.
Sheriff Hillary drives into the parking lot. She gets out, looks at the paint, the broken windows, then at me. “I got a call from Bea Johnson there’s been a little vandalism.” She looks up at the building.
“She’d know,” I say.
Sheriff Hillary ignores me and asks, “How’s your brother?”
“You know?”
“Of course I know. It’s all over town he got the living crap beat out of him.”
“They could have killed him, you know,” I say.
“Boys’ll be boys,” she states. “I’ve always made it a policy never to interfere with these teen rivalries. They’ll iron it out.”
“They’ll iron him out!” I shout. That gets me a “watch it, missy” glare.
She points to the red paint. “Who did this?”
“You know who!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me, young lady!” She lights a cigarette with a shaky lighter. Then she tones it down some. “Look, Jewels,” she begins, looking at the ocean, not the building, not at me, “Rex is Town Hood. He better learn to defend himself.” Then she adds, “Why do you think I chose him?”
“To turn him into something he isn’t?” I holler. “Rex was right! You are all those things he called you! A Hitler-facist-whatever-else he said!”
“A man has to learn to defend himself. This is no time to be a coward.”
Hearing Sheriff Hillary call Rex a coward makes me want to burst inside. I want to knock her down. She takes my arm and says sternly, the cigarette bobbing as she talks, “Jewels, you just listen to me. We’re at war. We all have bigger problems than this!”
“You take it back! Rex is not a coward!” I holler, pulling myself away.
“Doesn’t matter, girl. Once people think you are, you have to prove them wrong. That’s just the way the world works.”
She tosses down her cigarette so she can hold me, both hands on my shoulders, and she looks at me straight on. I can tell . . . there’s something different. Her eyes. Red, puffy, angry, maybe even scared.
“Men are dying every day because of cowards,” she says. “Jap cowards!” She lets go of me, picks up her cigarette, puffs it back to life, and just stares to the west. “Maybe even my own Norman.”
When she turns back around, I see tears in her eyes but she runs her sleeve over her face. She says, “Look, Rex is Town Hood. Beat up or not, his job is to clean all this.” She looks up at the broken windows. “Tommy’ll have to fix those himself. He’s got the money. Where is he anyway?”
“I don’t know. Upstairs, I guess.”
“He better be. He knows the orders,” she snaps, crushing out her cigarette with her husband’s perfect-fitting Wellington boot.
“What orders?”
“Governor Sprague’s. All Japs need to stay inside. It’s for their own safety.” She points to the building. “As you can see, folks are a little upset right now.”
“Mr. Kaye didn’t do anything. He’s an American. Just like you and me.”
She looks hard at me. “It’s like being a coward— once people think you’re the enemy, there’s no changing their minds.”
“But he’s not the enemy.” I’m trying to control my voice.
“Doesn’t matter. He looks like he is.”
“So does Mayor Schmidtke,” I say. “In fact, he even sounds like the enemy. Being German and all. I mean, aren’t we at war with them, too?”
“Just get this cleaned up. I don’t have time to babysit you kids. I’m going to San Francisco to wait for Norm.”
What am I supposed to say? I run a whole circle of thoughts starting right here in front of Tommy Kaye’s building with KILL THE JAPS painted on it, with a beatup brother in bed next door, with a mother fresh out of her incommunicado, and now a sheriff holding back tears because she thinks her husband got killed by a Japanese attack a million miles west in some place called Pearl Harbor. And my circle ends right back here where it starts, looking up at Tommy Kaye’s Look-Sea Lounge.
Alls I can mutter is “okay,” but I’m so mad I don’t even tell her “don’t worry, Sheriff. Mr. Dutton will be fine, wait and see” or any of the other malarky people say to each other when they don’t want to hear the truth.
• • •
“Come in,” Mr. Kaye says from inside his apartment. Hero’s on the other side of the door and licks my hand as I ease myself inside. I’m about to tell Mr. Kaye about the windows in case he hasn’t heard them break, but the two bricks on his coffee table tell me he already knows. He’s holding a piece of paper in one hand. I see it quiver as he gives it to me. I read aloud: “Go back to Japan, you slant-eyed traitor!”
“And, um, some jerks painted on the café walls outside. Rex is going to paint over it for you, so don’t worry.”
“What does it say?”
“Kill the Japs.”
He just nods his head, then out of nowhere asks, “What are you now? Ten? Eleven?”
I’m not sure I’m insulted or not. “I turned twelve in August.”
He nods his head again. “Just a kid. You know, you and that dog are the only two beings who have even looked at me since Sunday. My employees have quit, my deliveries have quit, my customers have canceled orders. My business associates, no one, not one soul—not even my priest has called or visited. In fact, the only phone calls I’ve gotten are from my bankers saying that all my assets are frozen.”
“What are frozen?”
He snaps back, “Assets! Money! Cash! Don’t they teach you kids anything at school?”
I don’t like being yelled at because I don’t know what an asset is, frozen or thawed.
“Not one person has called to see if I’m okay. No, instead I get bricks! I get death threats!” He looks at me and says, “Not even Edna Glick has come over.”
“Well, she’s been extra busy since you aren’t open, Mr. Kaye. You know how this town drinks! And just yesterday when the McAloons started to . . .” Oh, he doesn’t need to know about their sword-rattling song. “Anyway, Edna says she’ll blackball anyone who says anything bad about you. She’s on your side!”
He turns and glares at me. “One my side of what?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done a war. I don’t know anything about assets or bricks and to tell you the truth, I’m getting a little tired of this whole town going off the deep end about this stupid war!”
He gives a big sigh. “I’m sorry, Jewels. Look, I’m grateful for you being, well, being a friend, that’s all. A twelve-year-old kid and a ten-year-old dog. My only allies.” His hand goes to Hero’s bony head.
I’m wondering if I should tell him about Rex and how worried I am about him. But it will only make Mr. Kaye feel bad and that’s not going to help
Rex feel better.
“Can you go over to the Feed and Seed? I’m worried about my bonsai. They’re probably thirsty, maybe scared, maybe lonely, especially The Old Man. I moved him up there a few weeks ago.”
I look around and notice his prize bonsai isn’t in his usual place of honor. “What for?”
“I take him up there when he needs some warm, moist air and sometimes, well, to be with his old friends.”
Yes, he’s talking about midget trees.
He gives me a list with each bonsai’s name. I told you how nuts-and-bolts he is about them. He tells me how to touch the soil and feel if they’re thirsty. And talk to them! I must be sure to talk to them.
Then he hands me another piece of paper and says, “And here’s the combination to the safe. There’s a black strong box in it, and I need it. And this,” he points to the combination. “Be sure to flush it down the toilet when you close the safe. Oh, and I guess I need three window panes. Those are the dimensions.”
I’m actually glad I got an errand. I need to get outside where I can think and breathe.
“Jewels?”
I turn.
“You are, you know? You’re my one true friend. My lifeline.”
I smile and nod, but inside I wisht he hadn’t said that. I don’t want any of this on my shoulders. Not on top of everything else I’m lugging around on this, my fifth day of infamy.
CHAPTER 13
Mom’s up and fiddling with the radio dial when I return to check on her before running my Feed and Seed errand.
“Did you kids break this thing?” she demands.
“There’s a blackout.”
“I know it’s black out,” she says. “What time is it, anyway?”
I lift the ghastly pink and green floral curtains and the black cloth behind them and when the brightness of the afternoon sun hits her, she winces and almost reels back.
“Say, what are those ugly things?” She fingers the blackout cloth.
I pick up the newspapers I was able to collect, plop them down on the table, put her reading glasses on top, and say, “Here, Mom. Read for yourself. We’re at war. They make us do the blackout. No lights at night, hardly any radio during the day. Hardly anything anymore.”
Incommunicado Page 5
