Southland

by Nina Revoyr

  Jackie looked at him. “Do I…what?”

  “Do you bowl?”

  “Well, no,” she said. “I—”

  “Get some shoes on,” he said, and then he put his head back into the huddle.

  Jackie stood there, bewildered. And then she remembered where she’d seen this man before—at her grandfather’s funeral, giving the salute, and then sobbing at the crematorium. And it was him, too, in the picture with Frank, the one where Frank was wearing the navy blue bowling shirt. She couldn’t believe it—this was the man that she’d been sent to? What were the Nakamuras thinking? He was nuts.

  The four men began to nod now, and then three of them patted the shoulders of the man to Hirano’s right, who appeared to be the winner.

  “Mr. Hirano,” Jackie called out, louder. “I don’t—”

  He looked up. “Didn’t you bring the ball?”

  “What?”

  “Your grandfather’s ball. Didn’t you bring it?”

  She shrugged and looked at her empty hands. “No.”

  “You’ve got to come prepared, girl. You can rent shoes over there.” He pointed to a booth behind her, where a middle-aged black woman was whipping out shoes like a barkeep slinging bottles of beer. Jackie looked at the booth and then back at Hirano. She was annoyed now, and a little embarrassed. What was this? What was he doing? But she was here, and, as strange as he was, he might have useful information, so she let go of the railing and began to walk toward the booth. From behind her, she heard Hirano yell, “And get yourself a ball!”

  At the booth, she gave the woman her shoe size, relinquished one of her flats, and received a pair of blue and red bowling shoes. Then, tucking her remaining shoe under her arm, she walked over to the ball racks. She tried several balls that she could hardly lift, then chose a lighter purple one from the rack below. Holding her one shoe in her armpit and cradling the ball, she walked back to lane eight.

  When she stepped down onto the alley floor and dropped her shoe, only Hirano was still at the scorers’ table. The three others were milling around the chairs beneath the railing; they nodded to her as she passed. Jackie set the ball down in the ball-return and moved over to where Hirano was standing, staring down the lane, as if at a distant horizon. And he was much bigger now than he’d seemed from behind the railing—about a foot taller than she. Just as she was about to address him, he said, without turning, “The floor’s fast today. Throws my timing off. Burt needs to polish it more often, so we get used it, or don’t polish it at all.”

  Jackie didn’t know if he was talking to her or to himself. “I’ve never bowled before,” she said. “In fact, I’ve never even been in a bowling alley before.”

  “Yes, you have,” replied Hirano, turning to face her. “Frank brought you here a couple of times. You sat right up at those tables.”

  She looked at him, surprised, but didn’t respond, because she was distracted by his face. It was tanned and deeply lined, but still looked younger and more vigorous than its seventy-odd years. His hair was gray and white, but there was a lot of it. His features were large and definite—he had thick, dry lips, a squarish nose, and extraordinary eyes, which seemed, like the rest of him, unexpectedly vibrant and slightly off. Face-on, too, she saw how large he was—as broad across the shoulders as Lanier.

  “You’re a lawyer,” he said, and it was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes, almost.”

  She saw him consider her clothes—in black pants and a green silk shirt, she was overdressed for the occasion—and she expected a comment, but what he said was, “You’ve got to keep your wrist straight.”

  She looked at him, confused. “Excuse me?”

  “Your wrist,” he repeated impatiently. “The ball’s heavy and if your wrist moves, it’ll go into the gutter. Keep it straight and follow through, so that when the ball leaves your hand, you’re pointing at the pins.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the ball-return, unsure of what to do. But Hirano was done with her for the moment. He picked up a ball as easily as if it were a baseball, walked past her, and stopped a dozen feet from the line. Then he took several quick steps, swung the ball back, and let it go. His arm was extended out toward the end of the lane, and he kicked his right leg up behind his left one, like a dancer. The ball hit right of center and flirted with the gutter, but then it shimmied back to the middle of the lane and appeared to pick up speed, striking the head pin square on the nose and knocking down the set.

  Hirano walked back to her, and his expression hadn’t changed. “It’s in the wrist,” he said again. “And when you get good, you can learn how to put on some spin.” He gestured toward the lane with his thumb. “Go on. Plant your left foot, remember the wrist, and pray.”

  Jackie just looked at him, not sure he was serious. “Mr. Hirano, I was hoping we could talk.”

  He waved her off. “Go on.”

  She didn’t want to do it. What was Hirano thinking? Was he thinking? Why was he putting her through this? She looked around at the people in the other lanes. Surely they would watch her and whisper to each other. She felt uncertain and scrutinized, and when she picked up the ball, it seemed to have tripled in weight. But it was clear she had no choice in the matter.

  She stepped past the ball-return and onto the runway. After checking on either side of her to make sure no one was watching, she took a few awkward steps, pulled her left hand off the ball, and brought it back behind her with her right. It felt huge and unwieldy, like she was swinging a suitcase. When she let the ball go, it hit the floor by her foot and skidded straight into the gutter.

  “No, no, no,” said Hirano from behind her. She turned to face him, chastised. “The wrist. Keep your wrist straight and follow through so you’re pointing at the wall. As if you’re offering the ball up to Jesus.”

  “Mr. Hirano, I don’t think I—”

  “Nonsense,” he interrupted. “Let me show you.” He picked his own ball up again, approached the line, and let go. Again, it was a beautiful roll, knocking all the pins over but one. Hirano just stared this last pin down, as if he could will it to fall. He couldn’t. A few seconds later his ball reappeared, and he walked by and retrieved it without a word. He went up to the line again, sent the ball flying, and knocked over the final pin. “The wrist,” he said, when he turned back to Jackie. “The wrist, and concentration.”

  When the pins were reset, Jackie picked up her ball. She was determined this time not to embarrass herself. She swung the ball back, and then forward, with a bit more control, and when she let go, she tried to keep her wrist straight. The ball trickled down the lane—weakly, but in line. Near the end, it veered left and caught just three pins in the corner. Still, she felt exhilarated. She turned back to Hirano, expecting a smile or a nod of approval. Instead, he pointed toward the ball-return.

  “You’ve got one more.”

  She walked back and stood next to him silently, until her ball came back. Then she took her second roll and it moved to the right this time, but again, it clipped a couple of pins off the corner.

  “Five,” Hirano said. “Not bad.” He scribbled something down on a large piece of paper, and Jackie realized that he was keeping score.

  She wanted to say something, to stop him, to explain that this was all a mistake. Instead, she asked, “How often did you bowl with my grandfather?”

  Hirano was silent so long she wasn’t sure that he’d heard. Finally, though, he answered. “Not that often. Your grandfather was at the store all day. When he came, he usually came after work, and I was at home by then. We only bowled together on his days off.”

  “This place was open that late at night?”

  “Of course. People came after their swing shifts and night shifts.” He stood, picked up his ball again, and began to walk away. “But I didn’t know Frank through bowling. I met him at the store. Moved next to it eventually, in ’62. Yup. Me right next to him, Victor Conway across the street. We saw each other every single day.�
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  “Really?” Jackie said to his back.

  He went up to the line and let fly. The ball hurtled down the lane and knocked down all the pins except the one in the far right corner. Hirano nodded, then came and stood next to Jackie. His ball spilled out of the ball-return and he picked it up, approached the line, and threw. The ball looked like it was headed directly toward the pin, but somehow it managed to miss. Hirano put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Frank taught me to bowl,” he said. “With a little help.”

  He pointed up, which Jackie took to mean, with a little help from God. She tried to imagine this strange man in the same scene as her grandfather. As soon as their eyes met, Hirano pointed at her ball. “Your turn.”

  She retrieved her ball, just wanting to get her roll over with so they could get back to her grandfather. Because she was hurrying, she wasn’t mindful of her wrist or her footing; her ball went into the gutter.

  “You’re not concentrating,” Hirano shouted over the noise of crashing pins. He stood there with his arms crossed, and Jackie felt, once again, like a misbehaving child. They didn’t speak while they waited for the ball to reappear, and this time, when she retrieved it, she paid closer attention. She was careful about her wrist and concentrated on the spot on the floor where she wanted the ball to land. The roll was a good one—it stayed in the center of the floor and hit the first pin squarely. Eight pins fell, leaving just the two corners standing. She returned to the table and saw Hirano recording her score. Without looking at her, he spoke.

  “It was cold in there. Very cold.”

  She looked at him. “What? Where?”

  “The freezer,” he said. He hit the table with his fist. “Big white policeman in front of the store and dead black boys in the freezer.”

  “How do you know it was cold?”

  He stood up and hovered over her. “I was there! I was there when Frank found them!” He was staring, eyes wide. Two deep furrows split his forehead, his cheeks had gone red, and his eyes looked like something was boiling.

  “You were?”

  “I was outside,” he began, “just looking around on Sunday, when everything was over. I had a bad feeling and went to Frank’s house and told him to come to the store. There was some broken glass, you know, from one of the windows, and we kicked that around before we went inside. We thought the place would be looted but it wasn’t. Frank was relieved because he thought it was just the windows, and then we went back to the freezer so he could check on the meat.” He paused, and his eyes grew wider. Around them, Jackie could hear the sound of balls on wood; of people laughing and calling out to each other. “He saw that the door was locked, and then we knew something was wrong. Someone took a padlock from off the shelves and the key was on the floor. Frank unlocked the door and opened it, and that’s when we saw them. They were sitting on the floor in a corner, all huddled together. The two older boys had put the smaller boys between them, and they had their arms around each other. Frank saw them before I did. And his face.” Hirano’s eyes got wider, and he crossed himself. He leaned closer to Jackie, but she could tell he wasn’t looking at her; he was seeing the boys in that freezer. “His face, I hadn’t seen a face like that since the war. He ran right over and started touching them and shaking them and laying his hands on their heads. Their eyes were open and they were covered with frost. And he knelt down in front of Curtis and took his face in both hands and pressed his forehead against the boy’s forehead. And he started to shake, and when he pulled away, I saw that his tears had fallen onto the boy and melted tracks on his face. And then Frank just knelt there and put his head on his knee, and I went back out into the store.” He paused again. “I just walked around and around in there. Didn’t know what to do. Frank finally dragged the bodies out of the freezer. He wouldn’t let me help. He pulled himself together and he called his wife then, and I tried not to listen but I couldn’t help it. He said, ‘They’re dead. He’s dead, my love. They murdered him.’ And I stayed there with him while he called some other people. The morgue. The other boy Derek came in and he ran away crying, and then Frank made me go home and the store was closed down, and then he and his family moved away.”

  Jackie felt sick. She found it difficult to breathe. When she spoke, her voice sounded thin. “Didn’t anyone call the police?”

  Hirano looked at her incredulously. “What’s wrong with you?” He put his head in his hands for a moment. “I never told anyone. Never. The boys were dead and that policeman was never, ever punished. Nothing ever happened to him. I saw him take the boys in and I didn’t think he’d kill them. I didn’t think the Lord would let that happen.”

  He stood up now and found his ball and set himself to roll. He took four big steps, swung the ball back higher than before, leaned forward, and let it go. It hit the wood so hard that Jackie thought it might break through the floor. Then it bounced, and barreled home, and smashed into the pins. They broke violently and flew over the edge. Not one was left standing. Hirano remained where he was, staring down the lane.

  Twenty minutes later, Jackie was standing in front of the store. She’d come straight to Bryant Street after her talk with Hirano, who’d promised to testify, and who’d also given her the whereabouts of Frank’s old friend, Victor Conway. She wasn’t sure what she was doing here, but her hands had practically steered of their own volition. Once again, she left the car at the curb and stared at the store—the boarded-up windows, the crumbling walls. She tried to picture this place as it had been when Frank ran it, and also on the day he’d found the bodies. The bustle, the activity, the sorrow. Now, the sidewalk in front was cracked and uneven, whole chunks of concrete sticking out of the earth. And the store itself looked desolate—not just old and closed, but dead. She saw that more graffiti had been painted across the boards; that more trash had collected in the doorway. She saw the green stucco house to the left of it, Hirano’s, and Conway’s, the tan frame house across the street. She saw the dry brown grass and bare earth in the yards, the fractured walkways, the barred windows and doors. And looking at all of this, she felt the sinking sensation of loss—not just for Frank, but for this neighborhood, and for the boys who’d lived and perished in the store. She wanted to rest somewhere, and glancing down at her hands, she noticed they were shaking. She’d known all along that Frank had found the boys, but hadn’t pictured the scene until now. This was enough to think about, but there were also her grandfather’s words. “They’re dead. He’s dead, my love. They murdered him.” And she’d known immediately, when she’d heard this, that the first person her grandfather had called, the person he’d addressed as “my love,” had not been her grandmother, but Alma.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  1963

  THE BELL rang as someone entered the store. The man had been sitting behind the counter filling out order forms, but now he stood to greet whomever was coming in. He’d expected a customer, but it wasn’t; it was her. From the shadowy light of the three uncovered bulbs he could see that she was tired. Her steps were slow and dragging; her eyelids looked heavy. But her chin was up, her neck and back were straight, as always.

  She approached and said hello to the man and then inquired about her son. Normally the boy was there at that time, but he’d complained of a headache coming on and so the man had sent him home early. The man explained this to the mother and she nodded, looking around her. There was no one else in the store just then. The air was thick with unsaid words.

  The man told her that the boy had left a notebook for school; he had it in his private office. He invited the woman to step around the counter and come into the room to retrieve it. The door was open and he walked straight to his small, tidy desk, where the green notebook lay on a stack of white paper. The woman took two steps into the room, glanced at the man, and looked away. The man stood still for a moment. Her glance was both accusing and sad. She hadn’t been in there since he’d changed it around, and he’d forgotten she knew it before, and the office he used no
w held little relation, for him, to that other place, which existed only in memory.

  The man picked up the notebook and handed it to the woman. She thanked him, and they spoke about the boy’s progress in school, about his various responsibilities at the store. The man inquired after the woman’s other, younger son, and she said that he was well; he’d just started playing little league baseball. The man nodded and smiled, genuinely pleased. He couldn’t bring himself to ask about her husband.

  They fell silent for a moment and looked at each other. He saw in the woman of thirty-five, the younger woman she had been when he met her. But he, to her, looked totally different. Family or work or the neighborhood had roughened his skin and bent his back. His hands, though, were the same—long and graceful. Now, he folded those hands in front of him and cast about for what to say. After a moment, she told him she had to go.

  They walked through the store together and to the front door. He noticed useless things as they moved down the aisle—that the cereal boxes were crooked; that the chicken noodle soup was almost gone. Finally, at the door, she turned. She was about to extend her hand to him, but then appeared to change her mind. “Thank you for everything. We both owe you a lot.”

  “You owe me nothing,” said the man, and he watched her walk away, down the street and around the corner. When she was gone, out of sight, he put the “Closed” sign up and went back into his office. He sat there in the dark until it was time to leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  VICTOR, 1942–1955

  VICTOR CONWAY knew about returns. Not homecomings, which imply that somebody notices, somebody cares, somebody raises a glass, maybe, to mark the occasion, but quiet, unspectacular returns. He’d left Angeles Mesa, too, a few months after Frank, and when he returned, a dozen years later; when he bought a house a mile away from the house he’d grown up in and just across the street from his old friend’s store, most of the faces he remembered from his childhood were gone. New houses had spread like wildfire and new businesses had sprung up on the boulevard, but all of these places were full of strangers. The whites he knew had left, and the ones who remained seemed more private to him, more defensive. The Japanese of his age had vanished too, although he saw in a few of the older ones a dimple, or a stance, or a tilt of the head, that he connected to the kids he grew up with. And a lot of black families had moved out as well—some trading up to better neighborhoods, some dying out like his parents, and others resurfacing in Watts. It was Watts that he’d returned from, swimming upstream against the flow of people down into the ghetto.