Southland (27 page)
The cop’s eyes narrowed. “My son’s got nothing in common with you and your two-bit hoodlum friends.” And he believed that he didn’t. Thomas and his wife had worked so hard to get beyond these people, who still had, to him, that stench of poverty and long-ago plantations. They’d been the first black family in their neighborhood in West L.A., and even though they’d had to pose as a white friend’s maid and chauffeur just to get a look at the house; even though a cross was burned on their front lawn the first week they moved in; even though realtors slid flyers under their white neighbors’ doors advising them, “You need to sell
now,”
they were undeterred, determined to stay. They didn’t worry that no one would talk to them or play with their son and daughter; they would endure anything, everything, to live where they did, and not someplace like Crenshaw or Watts. But the tolerance they’d earned was provisional, and they didn’t need anyone messing it up. Especially not a bunch of young idiots one step away from being hoods.
“All right,” Curtis said. “I get the message.”
“You watch yourself, boy.”
But Curtis didn’t. They had work to do. And no scared-ass Uncle Tom was going to keep them from doing it, no matter how he made Curtis feel. He continued to go to stores, to cause trouble. And Angela was there—despite how much she hated the walks, she went with him every time. She wasn’t going to let Curtis go anywhere without her, especially not into danger.
O
N TUESDAY morning, Jackie skipped class and drove back down to the Holiday Bowl. She immediately spotted the Nakamuras and walked over to their table. Mrs. Nakamura saw her first and tapped her husband.
“The granddaughter of Frank Sakai,” he said, as if announcing her at a ball. “Sit, sit.” He pulled a chair over from the table next to them. “How are you doing this morning? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Fine, thanks. I do have a class this morning, but it’s not important if I miss it. And you told me that Kenji Hirano comes here on Tuesdays, right? I wanted to see if I could find him.”
Nakamura leaned back in his chair and slowly wiped his mouth with a napkin. Jackie looked from him to his wife, who was using a piece of toast to soak up egg from her plate. “Well, he’s here,” said Mrs. Nakamura, “but you missed his breakfast time by a couple of hours. He’s back there bowling now. He’s probably just about finished.”
“Do you think he’ll stop in here before he leaves?”
Mrs. Nakamura shrugged. “Maybe. But you should probably just go back there and look for him. He always bowls in lane eight. He’s a big man with white hair, and I think he’s wearing a gray sweater today.” She leaned forward. “Be very polite to him. He’s old, you know. And he’s also a bit…”
“…odd,” her husband finished.
Jackie looked at both of them, suddenly wanting not to leave. “Well, thanks. If you’re still here when I finish, I’ll come back and say goodbye.”
When she went through the doorway and into the bowling alley, the sight before her was so different from where she’d just been that it was as if she’d walked through the wardrobe to Narnia. She stared out at the endless array of lanes, all new-looking and shiny. The brilliance of the lanes contrasted with the antiquated scorers’ tables. These tables, like so many other things here, were straight out of another era; their chairs and lamps predated Jackie by a decade or two. Across the huge tan wall at the end of the lanes were the words “Holiday Bowl,” written in archaic black cursive. Beneath them, the racks of pins broken violently by the hurtling balls were sent scattering backwards and out of sight. Jackie watched wooden arms come down and pull the remaining pins into the blackness, the way a gambler encircles the chips on the table and rakes them into his lap. She looked up at the side walls and saw banners: “Veronica’s Beauty Shop—Ladies’ champions, 1958”; “Crenshaw Motors—Mixed Champions, 1973”; “Goodyear—Midnight League Champions, 1949.” Hanging over the lanes themselves were newer signs announcing an upcoming tournament. The floor shook from the rolling of the balls.
And now, looking down, she saw the people. There were swarms of them—every single lane was occupied and the bowlers filled up the scorers’ tables. Behind them, on the raised floor where Jackie now stood, were linoleum tables which held family members and spectators. Jackie noted again the advanced age of the people; how surprisingly mixed the groups were. The noise was already getting to her. After just a couple of minutes here, she was already feeling a headache take root in her neck. She hoped that Kenji Hirano was almost done with his game and that he’d want to go someplace quieter to talk.
She approached lane eight, where four men stood huddled around their scorers’ table. One of them wore a gray sweater and dark gray pants; his hair, too, was gray, touched with white. His shoes were the most colorful parts of him—bright red and blue, like children’s sneakers. Peering down, she saw that all the men wore them. Jackie walked up to the railing and curled her hands around the iron. She cleared her throat and called out, “Mr. Hirano?”
Four faces turned toward her, distracted, annoyed, and she suddenly felt very young, a little girl who’d interrupted a meeting. One of the men held a large piece of paper, and she realized they’d been debating the score. The way they turned to her in unison, the way they stood so close to each other despite their momentary quarrel, made her think they’d all been friends for a long time. The man dressed in gray, the only Japanese man, said, “Yes?”
“Mr. Hirano,” she repeated, standing up on her toes. She recognized him, but didn’t know from where. “I’m Jackie Ishida. I was wondering if I could talk to you about—”
“Yes,” he said. The three other men turned back to the sheet of paper. Hirano wasn’t looking at it, but neither, Jackie realized, was he planning to move any closer. “Tina told me you were coming. Do you bowl?”
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.”
“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.