Incommunicado

by Randall Platt

  “You were a rum runner?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t sound so impressed. It was highly dangerous and even more highly illegal. We had quite an operation goin’ for us. Remember that day in the Kozy Korner when the whole town was implicatin’ Tommy?”

  “Yes. The search light, the lookout tower, the cash,” I say, adding things up. “You needed all that for—”

  “Yep. But it was your father who, well, got into runnin’ other things. Drugs and such. That’s gettin’ pretty serious. Anyway, runnin’ rum is how Tommy got his money for the Stay and Play. And that’s how your father got ten-to-twenty in prison and that’s how Tommy and me got our flyin’ tickets pulled for life. I could go to jail for flyin’ that plane today. Well, just let them try to put me away! I have kids to raise and a business to run.”

  So, in the blink of an eye, everything I thought I knew about my mother has changed.

  CHAPTER 43

  “Now, I want to prepare you,” the nurse says, stopping just in front of Rex’s room. “He looks pretty awful.”

  Mom takes my hand and we walk in together. The nurse did not lie! Rex is tucked into bed with bottles of stuff running into him and tubes of stuff running out of him. He has an oxygen mask on but the nurse takes it off, saying, “I think we can dispense with this for a few minutes.” She looks over to Mom and says, “You do know not to smoke around oxygen, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I know.”

  “Good, because after what all of us have gone through, I’d hate to have us all go ka-blooey,” the nurse says, using one of my favorite words.

  “How long will he be asleep?” Mom asks.

  “Probably another five or six hours, which is good. We want him to rest. Now, you can curl up in that bed there,” she says to Mom. Then, to me, “I can have a cot brought in for you.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Mom says, looking down at Rex, pale in the glow of the overhead light. She pulls up a chair and sits next to him. “Jewels, you crawl into the bed. I want to stay up with him just a bit longer.”

  I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can even fall asleep, but the bed feels cool and comfortable.

  • • •

  For a minute, I forget where I am. I’ve never woken up in a hospital room before. I rise on my elbow and look around. Mom’s asleep in the cot at the foot of Rex’s bed and the light’s off. Then I hear some talking just outside the door. I sit up.

  The door slowly edges open, throwing the light from the hallway onto Rex’s bed. A man with a flashlight comes in and looks down at Rex.

  The flashlight goes to Mom, then to me.

  “Hi, Jewels,” the man says.

  “Mr. Kaye!” I cry out, springing Mom awake.

  “Tommy!” We both run to him.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t think you’d see me again, huh? How’s our boy?”

  Mr. Kaye goes to the bed and looks down at Rex. “Lord, what this poor kid’s been through.”

  Mom places her hand on Rex’s forehead. “They tell me he’s goin’ to be fine. He had a fever after the operation, but it’s gone now. The fluids are goin’ in and comin’ out.”

  “Always a good sign,” Mr. Kaye says.

  “I don’t understand,” Mom says. “Didn’t they arrest you after we landed?”

  “Boy, did they! They even had some charges left over from . . .” He stops when his eyes land on me.

  “I told her,” Mom says, looking at me.

  “Everything?”

  “Are you crazy? No. But how did you get here? Tommy, don’t tell me you escaped!”

  “I know a nice church basement in a nice quiet town,” I say.

  He looks at me and smiles kindly. “Yes, I’m familiar with it.” Then, to Mom, “Look, I have to go. My escort is waiting outside. I just came to see how Rex is and to say goodbye.”

  “Are they taking you to Leavenworth?” I ask, unable to speak above a whisper.

  He reads the scared tone in my voice and says, “No. Not Japan, either. They’re flying me to DC tomorrow.”

  “To the FBI office?” I ask, my eyebrows hitting my hair.

  “That’s all I can say,” he says. “Top secret. Seems being Japanese right now, knowing how to fly, speaking the language, well, that’s all I can say. I’ll tell you all about it when the war is over. We’ll have wonderful stories.”

  We share a silence. Then Mom says, “I’m sorry I called you a Jap, Tommy.”

  He takes a lock of her hair and places it behind her ear. “Well, it’s an honest mistake.”

  He pulls her to him and they hold each other for a long time, even sway a little, like maybe they’re having them one last dance. Then they pull me into their embrace and, like we did a million years ago, we sway to music only we can hear. When we pull apart, he kisses my mother, then takes my hand, kisses it, and holds it to his chest.

  “And you, my Jewels. My one, true, good, honest, trusting, lunatic friend. How can I ever thank you?”

  “By leaving out the lunatic,” I say, wiping a tear off my face.

  “But that’s what I love the most about you. It takes a lunatic to want to save one man from a whole town.” He holds both me and Mom to him again, and we’re in what feels like a family embrace.

  He finally breaks away. “Look at you two,” he says. “Bawling like babies. That any way to send your man off to war? How about some smiles?”

  We give him the best we can.

  “And will you show Hero a picture of me every day so he doesn’t forget what I look like?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Good.” He backs away slowly.

  “Don’t go,” I whisper, taking a step toward him. Mom pulls me to her.

  “I have to. I just have to,” he says. Then, I see his big, wonderful grin. “See you in the funny papers.”

  And like that, he’s gone.

  THE LAST CHAPTER

  It’s August 15, 1945. My birthday. Sweet sixteen.

  But guess what? No one even mentions my birthday to me. Not one person. But I don’t care. We’re all celebrating something else today. Today the whole earth is celebrating the end of the war. Japan surrendered—another day that will live in infamy. Now maybe the world will get back to normal, whatever or wherever that is! So I don’t mind sharing my birthday.

  I think about my war years a lot. War is more than two men in different uniforms trying to kill each other. No, I know war is a lot more than that. It’s opinions, it’s rumors, it’s anger, it’s sorrow, it’s pride—and the one thing it isn’t is fair. But, I’m not in charge, and like everyone else, I just do the best I can with what I have.

  Pooooo-berty and I finally parted ways. I am no Maureen O’Hara but, as my mother tells me, “You are comin’ along just fine in the woman department, Jewels honey!” I have a figure. I have grown, thank heaven! I’m not going to be a fireplug like Edna Glick. Heck, even my grades have improved! This keeps up, I’ll hit my junior year maybe not with honors, but with no dishonors, either. And get this: I have just been chosen Sea Park’s first ever girl Town Hood. Now I get to watch over all the kids in Sea Park and make sure they all toe the line.

  It seems like December 7, 1941, was a million years ago, and it seems like it was just yesterday, too. I can honestly say not one person in all of Sea Park is unchanged by what we now call World War Two.

  Corliss Ainsley is still waiting for “her man in uniform,” Arley, to come home. Bet it won’t work out. She’s become a lot more than a waitress helping Mom run the Stay and Play, and I’ll bet Arley has become a lot more than a fry cook while serving in North Africa.

  Eldon Johnson had already reported for duty by the time we got Rex out of the hospital. Poor Eldon died in Europe in 1943, and sometimes I feel bad about wishing he’d drop dead back when it was me against everyone. His mom proudly hangs a medal they sent her in their front window.

  Bully Hallstrom left town and no one knows where he went or cares if he ever comes back. Let Bully bully
someplace else. The rest of the SCOUTS enlisted and all survived.

  Little Janie Johnson got herself a special award from the governor for collecting more scrap than any kid in the whole state of Oregon. Guess where she got a lot of her scrap? It was in June 1942, just after we were all working hard at saving each other’s lives. Ft. Stevens up at the mouth of the Columbia River got shelled by—yep, you guessed it—a Japanese submarine that peeked out of the ocean long enough to take some pot shots. Alls they hit was the backstop of a baseball field, but it made for good scrap metal. I always thought that was sort of funny—the scrap metal a Japanese shell made was made back into some bullets to shoot back at the Japanese. War is just crazy sometimes!

  Anyway, if Janie was tough to be around before, you should see her now! As Town Hood, I’m keeping my eye on that little con artist. Look out world when poooooberty hits her!

  The McAloon twins had to stop their horse beach patrol when those huge blimps out of Tillamook started going up and down the coast. Every one of their beach nags pitched a fit when they saw the blimps. They were, the McAloons and the horses, getting too old for war, anyway. Leo McAloon died last winter. It was sad. They say that Siamese twins will die within a few hours of each other. They weren’t attached physically, but they were just about everywhere else. Frank died within the month. I put their horses out to pasture up in the fields beyond the Feed and Seed. It was a sad day for all of us two- and four-legged friends.

  You will never in a million years guess what happened to Sheriff Hillary. She got remarried to none other than Special Agent in Charge Herman Boothby. He came to Sea Park quite often after our flight to Portland to save Rex’s life and we all got to know him well. At first, his visits were to do “wrap up work.” But soon I figured out what—or who—it was he was wanting to wrap up: the widow Sheriff Hillary Dutton. They now live in Portland. He’s still with the FBI, and she’s raising his kids and probably making them take turns as Town Hood up there.

  Father Donlevy turned down an offer to transfer to a bigger church in ‘44. He said right from the pulpit one day that folks in Sea Park are in pretty serious need of good counsel and a mean sermon now and then. That facial tick he developed during our days of sanctuary finally went away.

  And how’s this for irony? Someone accused Mayor George Schmidtke and his wife, Alma, of being sympathetic to the German cause. Yep! Shipped them and their hand-stuffed sausages off to Seattle and were never shipped back.

  Edna Glick got appointed temporary mayor and one of these days maybe Sea Park will get around to officially electing her. It’s funny about Sea Park. We just sort of do what we have to do, legal or no.

  Good ol’ Edna Glick. That woman hasn’t changed any in all the years I’ve known her. She looks the same, dresses the same, acts the same. I like that about her. Turns out, she was on the receiving end of some of that rum Mom and Mr. Kaye ran during Prohibition and had to pay a lot of money in fines and stuff. Here’s some more irony: Mr. Kaye loaned her the money for the fines and now we know where he got that money in the first place. Talk about robbing Uncles Peter and Paul to pay Uncle Sam!

  Now to Rex. He couldn’t stand at graduation because of his surgery, but he passed his exams and got his diploma. Then he enlisted. Yes, he enlisted on the very day he turned eighteen, September 13, 1942. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing except me. I remember waiting in the car outside the enlistment center in Astoria for him.

  As he got into the car, I said, “I told you they wouldn’t take you! Look at you! You’re still ten pounds underweight from your surgery. You can barely lift a book, let alone a gun.”

  He handed me a piece of paper.

  “What’s this mean?” I asked him.

  “It means I’m to report to Portland on September twenty-fifth.”

  “Mom’s going to kill you! I can’t believe you actually passed.”

  “There wasn’t any physical, Jewels. They don’t want this,” he said, indicating his body. “They want this.” He pointed to his head. “You know those college entrance essays and exams I was working so hard on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, somehow Agent Boothby got wind of them. Anyway, there’s some legal clerk jobs with the Army. They’re going to send me to a special school back east and everything!”

  Talk about the ol’ Oriental rug being pulled out from under you! I wanted to dissolve into the air. “You can’t leave, Rex,” I said. “Mom needs you. I need you. Who’s going to teach me how to debate? And what about—”

  “Jewels,” he said, “I have to do this.”

  “No, you don’t. It goes against everything you . . .” I stopped when I saw his face.

  “I just have to.”

  I remembered Mr. Kaye saying that very same thing in the hospital room. “Don’t go,” I whispered to Rex, the same as I did with Mr. Kaye.

  “Jewels, you see how this war has changed everything in our lives. And here we’re sitting pretty in paradise! The only thing we’re without is some gas and some sugar. Big deal. Imagine what this war is doing to all those millions of other people around the world. I’ve got to do something.”

  So, Rex went to war—only his war was sitting at a desk and helping some military lawyers get things settled with the Japanese people who were unearthed and unsettled. The last we heard, he’ll be coming home around Thanksgiving. In his latest letter, he wrote that some politicians are going to offer all the servicemen a free ticket to college! I can just see Rex, in his room at the Washington, DC, YMCA, typing out more college entrance essays. Bet he’ll have the pick o’ the litter!

  Oh, speaking of Thanksgiving, Sailor the Turkey of War is still with us. And no, we are not going to eat him, even to celebrate Rex’s homecoming. It’s like something from that first day of infamy has to live on. And since turkeys can live for up to twenty years, I’ll have to take good care of him. He follows Hero just about everywhere. Tourists get a real kick out of it and are always taking photographs of them. But to be honest, I think it embarrasses Hero to have a dang turkey as a sidekick.

  Good ol’ Hero. You know there are still times I see him stick that nose of his in the air as though he’s sniffing for a trace of Tommy Kaye.

  Now about Malice Alice Stokes, even though we hardly ever call her that anymore. I think she’s the one who’s changed the most from this war. She stepped up once everything from Kaye Enterprises fell on her shoulders. She’s even taken on caring for all the bonsai that survived, including some grafted pieces of The Old Man. She says they give her just what they gave Tommy Kay—sanity and serenity. Yes, I’m talking about the same Alice Stokes!

  I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I guess now that the war is over, I can. Agent Boothby got pretty interested in Mom being an ex-pilot, pulled ticket or no. He found her old file from when her rum running all went kablooey. Agent Boothby told her a talent like hers was a pretty sad thing to waste. Now, she couldn’t go off and join those WASPs moving planes all around, but she was called on several times to move other things around for the FBI—prisoners, politicians, and secret papers every once in a while. Kind of like honest to goodness spy stuff! Alice Stokes, special attaché to the FBI. Doesn’t that sound nifty?

  You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m sort of proud of the old lady. It didn’t come all at once, but rather in itty little bits and pieces. Sort of like a bonsai that takes its own sweet time to grow into what it’s going to be. Like Mr. Kaye used to say, “Sort of balanced in a lopsided way.” That describes Mom all over.

  Oh yes, remember that old footlocker under her bed she called a hope chest? She finally handed me the key and said I could have everything inside. I’ll never be as tall as her, so the jodhpurs, leather jacket, and boots she wore when she was Alice of the Air will never fit me. But I’m keeping them all the same. I’ll put the photos and fliers and newspaper clippings and arrest warrants into a scrapbook someday. She’ll get a kick out of that when she’s old and gray. Okay, when she�
��s old. Alice Stokes will never let her hair go gray. Not as long as there’s a hair on her head and henna rinse at the corner drugstore!

  So, now I come to Mr. Tommy Kaye, also known as Mr. Isao Kiramoto. I still have a hard time thinking he’ll never be coming back. But I thank God he never lived to learn we put the atom bomb over Nagasaki, orphanages and all. That news alone would have killed him.

  Special Agent Boothby, on one of his trips to Sea Park last spring, dropped by the café as we were closing up and gave us the news himself.

  “He died a hero for his country,” he said. He handed Mom Mr. Kaye’s dog tags, a Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Service Cross. “A one-of-a-kind man.” Agent Boothby went on to tell us that Mr. Kaye had been ushered into the Nisei Military Intelligence Service. “The first thing we did was to promote him from Issei to Nisei. Tommy called it a mere technicality.”

  So Mr. Kaye went to war as a Nisei in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Flew combat in Europe, took a few lives, saved a few lives. After the Germans surrendered, he was sent to the Pacific theater as an interpreter. He was shot in the back of the head while sitting at a table, interpreting for Admiral Halsey dockside somewhere in the South Pacific. Tommy Kaye took the bullet meant for Admiral Halsey.

  Mom just sat, looking down at the medals and slowly nodding her head, tears and mascara running. Finally, she looked up.

  “What’s this?” she asked, looking at a folded set of papers.

  “His will. Standard for military induction,” Agent Boothby replied.

  Mom got everything. But the will also said that there wasn’t to be any funeral of any kind. Mr. Kaye said he didn’t want to make hypocrites out of the whole town. I didn’t understand it then, but I think I do now.

  So, Tommy Kaye didn’t live to see his bunkers built, either. Once more men come home from the war, Mom is going to put Rex in charge of the project, though. Turns out, The Bunkers was the name of the golf course Mr. Kaye was going to build on all his land.