Southland (19 page)
T
HE INVIOLATE was violated. And this was now the second time. The previous weekend, Jackie had left Laura in bed, unsatisfied, in order to go home and look at her family file. Now, she was up even earlier—eight—and Laura didn’t stir as she dressed next to the bed. They’d had a good night, dinner out at their favorite Italian restaurant, and Laura seemed to have gotten over the scene with Lanier, believing that Jackie had filled her in on everything. She hadn’t. That morning, for example, Laura thought that Jackie was getting up early to study with Rebecca, but she was really going back down to Crenshaw. It was mornings, Lanier had told her and Lois had confirmed, that all the old folks gathered down at the Holiday Bowl.
The streets were almost empty this early on a Saturday, the air was still foggy and cool, and as Jackie drove south on Crenshaw, passing Adams and Exposition, she wondered what she’d find at the bowling alley. There it was, on the left side of the street next to Ralph’s, just as Lanier had described: a circular orange sign with curved white letters that said “The Holiday Bowl—Coffee Shop and Bowling Alley.” The entire west side of the building was made up of windows, with thick, protruding white and orange beams. The edge of the roof was orange and rippled, like a conch shell, and it extended out over the sidewalk. There were tables set smack against the window, and as she drove past, Jackie saw that the place looked full. On the far end of the building was a red neon sign which promised, “Always Open.” She made a U-turn at the first light and found a parking space directly in front.
Once she stepped inside the coffee shop, she stood there for a moment before going to the only free spot in front of the window. The yellow Formica table was speckled and chipped; the chairs had creaky metal legs and orange vinyl cushions. Jackie put her bag down on the chair beside her, looking around self-consciously, certain that everyone there could feel how nervous she was. Before she even had a chance to pull a menu out of its little metal perch, a Japanese woman in her sixties came over and poured her some coffee. She took a few sips to try and calm down. Then, trying not to be too obvious, she began to look around her.
What struck her immediately was that the coffee shop was filled mostly with old people, about equal numbers Asian and black. She had seen gatherings of elderly Asian people; she’d seen gatherings of elderly blacks; but never before had she seen the two in one place. It was such a surprise to her, so visually inconceivable, that it was as if someone had taken footage of two senior citizens’ groups and then skillfully spliced them together. There, in front of her, a table full of Japanese grandmothers. Two tables behind her sat three older black men. There were a few tables where old couples sat together, including a squat and hawkeyed woman who looked at her closely, certain she had seen her before. One large table held three Asian couples. And here and there, interspersed with these single-race groups, were groups of Asian and black people together. Then Jackie became aware of a loud, hollow striking sound, and realized she was hearing people bowl. When she looked to the right, she saw another door, which led to the bowling alley. Listening more carefully, she could make out the low rumble of bowling balls and the buzz of conversation from the other part of the building. She remembered her grandfather, during a rare thunderstorm one summer, telling her that thunder was the sound of the gods bowling. She’d have to go investigate when she was finished with breakfast.
She pulled the menu out now, opened it, flattened it on the table. Here, more hodge-podge: hot links,
donburi
, jambalaya,
ramen
, hamburgers, corn bread,
sashimi
. For breakfast, there were omelets with home fries or rice. She looked up, slightly dizzy from the oddness and variety of her choices, and saw that the Sumitomo Bank clock read 9:15. She wondered if anyone here had known her grandfather.
When the old waitress wandered back to her table, Jackie ordered two fried eggs and sausage. Then she took out the newspaper she’d brought and pretended to read until the food arrived. Although she wasn’t very hungry, she shoveled it down, and when the waitress came back to take her empty dishes away, Jackie thanked her. Then, after clearing her throat, she asked, “Did you happen to know a man named Frank Sakai?”
The woman looked startled. “Frank Sakai,” she said. “Yes, a very nice man. I’m sorry, but he died a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, I know. I’m his granddaughter. I came down here because I knew that he met friends here sometimes.”
“His granddaughter!” The woman looked so surprised that Jackie was afraid she’d drop the plate. Now she leaned forward, peering at Jackie more closely. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Your grandfather was a wonderful man.”
Then she turned quickly and walked away. Was the woman so overcome that she had to flee? But no—she was headed toward another table, the one with the hawk-eyed woman, half of a couple about the waitress’s age. The waitress stopped right next to them and said a few words. The man looked up at her sharply, and even from twenty feet away, Jackie heard him say, “Granddaughter!” The waitress turned and pointed at Jackie, and when the man spotted her he grinned and waved her over. Jackie hesitated a moment; then she stood and walked over to the couple’s table.
“Frank Sakai’s granddaughter,” the man repeated as she approached. “The law school student, right?”
“Right,” Jackie answered. She turned to look at the waitress, but she was already gone.
“Bradley Nakamura,” the man offered. Then he nodded toward the woman. “And this is Christina, my wife.”
“Call me Tina,” the woman said. Mr. Nakamura reached behind him and pulled another chair over, the legs squeaking across the tiles. Jackie sat. Nakamura was a short, squarish man, with sun-browned skin and cheeks split with deep creases from smiling. His wife was stockier, with thick curls of silver hair. Behind her glasses, her eyes were sharp and watchful. “I thought I recognized you. Bradley and I went to the funeral. We’re very sorry about your grandfather.”
“What brings you down here?” Mr. Nakamura asked. “Want to check out your grandpa’s old haunts? From what he used to say, you usually stay locked in the library.”
Jackie shifted in her chair. It bothered her that this man knew the outline of her life when she hadn’t even known he existed. “Kind of,” she responded. “My mother grew up around here and I’ve never seen it. No one ever brought me around.”
“Your grandfather did,” said Mrs. Nakamura quietly, and the other two turned to face her. “When you were little. Brought you in here for breakfast, even.”
Jackie cocked her head. “Really? I don’t remember that at all.”
Mrs. Nakamura put her coffee cup down. “Well, it was a Saturday, if I remember correctly. And your grandfather always came here on Saturdays for breakfast and bowling, even after the family moved to Gardena. He just stopped coming regularly a few years ago, in fact. Anyway, I think he was babysitting that day. Later he told us that your mother got mad at him for bringing you here.” She laughed. “I guess she didn’t think it was safe.”
“I don’t think that was the problem,” Jackie said. Suddenly she felt a rush of anger—why didn’t her mother want Jackie to see the place that her grandfather loved? Why would she deny her daughter this connection to her past? How many
other
things— stories, people, places, histories—had Rose denied her daughter? After a few moments, Jackie remembered the Nakamuras, who were looking at her curiously. “How long did you know my grandfather?”
“Almost all my life,” Mrs. Nakamura replied. “I was born in 1940, right before the war, and I spent most of my first few years in the camps. And after we came back to Angeles Mesa, we always shopped at your grandfather’s store. He was such a compassionate man. My brother Harry was a No-No Boy, and Frank was one of the few people who didn’t treat him like he had a disease.” She paused, thinking about her brother. When the loyalty questionnaires were circulated at Manzanar, Harry, who was fighting age, had answered
No, No.
It wouldn’t have been so awful, maybe, if he’d done this out of principle. But he didn’t appear to be either protesting the internment or signaling allegiance to Japan. He had simply said no. As a result, he was sent to Tule Lake with the rest of the No-No Boys, and Tina’s family was shunned. And when the family moved back to Angeles Mesa, Harry was refused jobs by whites
and
Japanese. Eventually, tired of the shame he was bringing on the family and the harassment of Nisei vets, Harry left without leaving a note. “You don’t know how unusual Frank’s attitude was,” she said, “especially for a military man.”
Jackie was half moved and half uncomfortable. “Do you know anything about his years in the army?”
“Not because of him, of course—he never talked about the war. But I met someone once who fought with Frank, and he said your grandfather was the best soldier in his battalion. It always struck me, because he seemed like such a peaceful man to me. He was a small man, you know, and so mild. He had none of the swagger of some of the other Nisei vets.”
Jackie felt slightly queasy now. It disconcerted her to know that her grandfather was capable of killing someone. She had known in theory that being a soldier meant having to hurt other people, to kill them, but she hadn’t actually thought about the more brutal aspects of her grandfather’s service. Her own war, the Gulf War, hadn’t seemed quite real—so sudden, and over as soon as it started. Her strongest memory of the war came not from any of the protests she witnessed, or the images she saw on TV, but from a perfect summer day the August before President Bush set out to liberate Kuwait. She was at the beach with Laura, among thousands of other people, all laughing, splashing, smoothing on lotion, playing volleyball, tossing footballs and Frisbees. Then, from the east, a buzzing, which grew louder and nearer, until they saw the first planes, small and flying low to the ground. Soon the sky was thick with them—thousands it seemed, as far as the eye could see, so loud Jackie covered her ears. She stared up at the planes, which went on and on and on for ten minutes or more, and after they were gone, the last of them shrinking to small points on the horizon, Jackie noticed how quiet it was. She looked around her then. And all down the beach, the swimmers, the sunbathers, the tossers had stopped. All of them—thousands—were standing there, stunned, still staring off into the sky.
She looked at Tina Nakamura now, trying to keep her expression neutral. “Are any of these men still around? Do any of them come here?”
“Not really, no. And a lot of your grandfather’s friends have passed.”
“What about Kenji Hirano?” asked Mr. Nakamura. “Isn’t he still around?”
“That’s right,” she replied. “He is.” In fact, he was around that very day, which Tina knew, because she’d glimpsed him in the bowling alley when she’d gone to the restroom. But she didn’t want to set Frank’s grandchild on that particular path—not without thinking about it, not without warning, although she wasn’t sure who she was trying to protect.
“Kenji Hirano’s been in the neighborhood forever,” her husband said. “Knew your grandpa a lot better than we did. He’d be a good person to talk to, if you’ve got the patience for it.”
“Does he come here?” Jackie asked.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Nakamura. “But he’s old, you know, and he’s not always completely coherent. He and his friends still meet on Tuesday mornings to bowl.”
“Maybe I’ll come back and talk to him,” said Jackie. Then, worrying that she was pushing too much, but unable to stop herself, “Do you know Akira Matsumoto or Derek Broadnax? I found their names in some of my grandfather’s papers.”
“Akira I know,” said Mrs. Nakamura. “He worked for Frank at the store. A real hot-head, if I remember. I think he ended up going to Japan to write for an English-language newspaper, didn’t he, Bradley?”
“But you don’t know Derek Broadnax?”
“Well, there was a Derek who worked for him, too, but I don’t know what happened to him. Everyone seemed to scatter so fast, you know, after Frank shut down the store. It was a real shame, I’ll tell you. The neighborhood was never the same after your grandfather left.”
Jackie tried not to look at her too closely. Before, she’d wondered if the Nakamuras were just being considerate in not mentioning the murders, but now she was starting to think they didn’t know about them. Why were so few people aware of what had happened? And if people didn’t even know about it, then how were she and Lanier going to find anyone to corroborate his theory? She finished her coffee, made some final small talk, and decided she’d had enough for the day. She was excited about her leads on Akira Matsumoto and this older man Hirano, but she was starting to feel her schoolwork looming like a pile of unpaid bills. And it was only later, after she’d paid for her meal and was driving home to Fairfax, that she realized she’d never gone into the bowling alley.
As soon as she left, Bradley looked at his wife and sighed. “You think introducing her to Kenji is such a good idea?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how helpful it would be to either of them.” And she thought about Kenji, the old shell of a man in the next room. She remembered how he had changed after the Sakais left Crenshaw; how his comments, more and more, were directed only to God, and how even his rare moments of lucidity grew fewer and further between, until they’d disappeared altogether. She had known this man, too, for most of her life. Finally, Tina got up and wandered back into the bowling alley. Kenji and his friends—Aaron Bennett, Trace McKinney, and the Third LeRon Johnson—had finished bowling, and the old man was sitting at a table behind the rail, nodding at his paper cup of coffee. “Kenji,” she said, stopping in front of him.
He raised his head quickly. “Yep, bowled a 285 today. Jesus was watching over me.”
“That’s great, Kenji.” She wondered, not for the first time, what it was like to be inside his head; to go home to an empty house for forty years. No one really knew what was wrong with him—he’d been functional enough to work as a gardener for most of his life, and he kept himself immaculate and organized. He had friends, Frank among them, people who didn’t question the odd swayings of his mind; who accepted his crooked readings of the world. “Listen, Kenji,” Tina said. “I just met Frank’s granddaughter.”