Some people say they’ll take only Isseis like Mom. But what about their American-born kids? We’ll have to go wherever our parents do. Maybe Shigeo and I could stay in San Francisco with Mas, since he’s over eighteen. But none of us would ever leave Mom alone.
Some people say we’ll only have to go a little ways inland, but Stan Katsumoto told us his Sacramento family has heard rumors they’ll have to evacuate too. They’ll have to abandon their farm at the start of the fruit season—no strawberries, no apricots, no candy-sweet peaches dripping juice. Maybe we’ll all have to leave California.
I’ve never been beyond the Sierra Nevada. What would it be like, walking down the block and not smelling sunbei baking in the Shungetsu-do confectionary? Going to school and not seeing the rust-colored tips of the bridge jutting out of the fog? Not tasting the salt air of the Pacific Ocean on every breath?
I don’t want to leave. No one else does either, not Mom, who’s been here for over twenty years, not Mas or Shig or any of our pals.
Why should we have to, when we’re Americans like anyone else?
I know the answer, and I hate the answer: because we’re Japs, enemy aliens.
Because we look like us.
* * *
The sounds of yelping and shouting reach me as if through a haze. I barely notice until the weight on my chest eases, and suddenly everything is very sharp and very loud. The ketos are flying away like leaves on the wind.
Someone grabs me, and at first I try to struggle, but then I realize it’s Mas. He’s half dragging, half carrying me across the street while the other guys run after the ketos, hurling rocks and soda bottles. He’s strong enough to pick me up, but I’m glad he doesn’t. The fellas would never let me live it down if they saw me cradled in Mas’s arms like a baby.
Mas has had to grow up fast these past two years. Unlike Shig and me, Mas is a brain. He was in his first semester at UC Berkeley when Dad died. After that, Mas had to drop out and take over Dad’s job as a gardener to help Mom with the finances. He tries to be like Dad and keep me and Shig out of trouble, especially now, except Dad was made of warm, soft pine instead of stone.
Finally, we make it across Webster Street, and Mas sets me down on the steps of Mr. Hidekawa’s apartment. The FBI picked up Mr. Hidekawa the same night they got Mr. Oishi. One of our community leaders, Mr. Hidekawa served in the military in the First World War, hoping he’d get his citizenship. (He didn’t.) When he heard the authorities were coming for him, he dug out his old jacket and trousers, polished his boots, and met them at the door as a uniformed U.S. Army veteran.
They took him all the same.
Mr. Hidekawa’s apartment is empty now. His neighbors, the Yamadas and the Tadachis, are looking after his place. Their house is like a lot of the others in Japantown, with decorative cornices and bay windows from the Victorian era. The buildings here are all so similar, but I like the little details that make them different: the fluting on some entryway columns, the ornamented brackets, the turtle-shaped bell over Mr. Hidekawa’s door. It’s those details I’ll miss if we have to leave.
Mas steps back onto the sidewalk, like he needs some distance to really size me up. He must have just gotten back from his job, because he’s got dirt on his forearms and the knees of his pants. Normally, he showers and dresses in clean, neatly ironed shirts and trousers as soon as he gets home, even if he’s not going out again. That’s something Dad used to do—he took a lot of pride in looking tidy. “What happened? Why’d they attack you?” he says.
Trust Mas to blame me for getting jumped.
“Nothing. I was walking home and—”
“Why didn’t you take a bus?”
I shrug.
I must look more messed up than I think, because Mas doesn’t yell at me like I expect him to. Instead, he whips out a handkerchief and begins rubbing my face. “How many times do I have to tell you, Minnow? You have to—”
I was walking! I want to shout. I was just walking!
But what comes out is this: “We could do everything right, and they’d still think we were dangerous.”
Mas stops. His face kind of cracks, and I see that underneath the layer of anger, he’s scared. Really scared. I wish I had my sketchpad right now so I could draw that bright rift of fear that’s running through his core like a vein of silver.
But he closes up again as Shig comes over to us and takes the handkerchief. “Jeez, Mas! You’re roughing him up worse than the ketos.” He plants the sketchbook in my arms. “Here, Minnow.”
The covers are bent, and the pages are damp with gutter water. “Thanks,” I whisper.
He plops down on the stoop beside me and dabs gently at my cheekbone.
Shig’s not as handsome as Twitchy or Mas, but I think he’s the most well-liked fella in our group. It’s all in his manner—he’s got an easy, crooked smile, and an easy way of talking, like there’s no place in the world he’d rather be than right here, with you. He’s not good at school or sports or anything, but Shigeo is good at people. He could walk down any street in Japantown, greet everybody by name, and ask after every one of their kids, grandkids, gardens, and hobbies.
“You didn’t bleed on him, did you?” Shig asks me, glancing sidelong at Mas with his heavily lidded eyes. “I got blood on his favorite shirt once and he nearly flipped his wig.”
Mas crosses his arms. “Blood, huh? I could’ve sworn it was paint, because you thought it would be funny to change the color of my outfit right before the Senior Ball.”
“Oh yeah.” Shigeo grins. “That was funny.”
Before Mas can reply, the rest of the guys come sauntering back across Webster Street. They’re all between sixteen and twenty years old, and, except for Frankie Fujita, who moved here when he was ten, they all grew up together in Japantown.
“Got this for you, Minnow.” Twitchy Hashimoto unfolds the crumpled drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge, smoothing it a couple of times on his thigh, and hands it back to me.
“Thanks.” As I take it, I notice that the other side is filled with sketches of him doing tricks with his butterfly knife. I guess I draw Twitchy a lot.
Blushing, I slide the page into the sketchbook and clap the covers closed.
“That’s a nice shiner you got,” Twitchy says.
Gingerly, I touch the side of my face, where the skin is warm and swollen. “You think so?”
He just laughs, ruffles my hair, and skips up a couple of Mr. Hidekawa’s steps before sliding down the banister again.
“You’re all right now, Minnow,” says Tommy with a small grin. “We’ve got you.”
Seeing Tommy smile cheers me up a bit. Tommy’s sixteen, but looking at him, you wouldn’t know it. He’s small and nervous, with round eyes that are too big for his face. If he can smile at a time like this, so can I. “How’d you guys know I was in trouble?” I ask.
“Some Chinese guys came running over, saying the white boys were at it again,” Mas answers.
I remember their buttons—I AM CHINESE—and the backs of their heads. I guess they didn’t abandon me after all.
Frankie Fujita strolls up then, hands jammed in his pockets. I’ve got a few drawings of Frankie, and in them he always looks like he’s spoiling for a fight: blazing comets for eyes, high cheekbones, hair he wears long and messy like the guys in Mom’s woodblock prints. Sometimes I think he should’ve been born into another era, when he could’ve made fighting his whole life. That boy likes fighting more than almost anything. He’ll fight ketos, Chinese, Mexicans, Blacks, anybody. He’s nineteen, and after Pearl Harbor, he wanted to sign up to fight the Japanese and the Germans and the Italians, but the government reclassified us from A-1 to C-4, making us all “enemy aliens” (even though people like Frankie and me and the guys are Nisei, second-generation Japanese-American citizens), so he couldn’t fight anybody.