Ken's War
Authors: B. K. Fowler
Tags: #coming of age, #war, #vietnam, #boys fiction, #deployed, #army brat, #father son relationship, #bk fowler, #kens war, #martial arts master
by B. K. Fowler
Published by
Fire and Ice
A Young Adult Imprint of Melange
Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
Ken's War, Copyright 2014 B. K.
Fowler
ISBN: 978-1-61235-900-7
Names, characters, and incidents
depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of
America.
Cover Design by Lynsee
Lauritsen
KEN'S
WAR
by B. K. Fowler
As the conflict in Viet Nam escalates, army
brat Ken and his hot-headed dad are suddenly deployed from
Pennsylvania to a dinky post in Japan. Culture clash is just one of
the many sucker punches that knocks Ken's world upside down. He
struggles as his assumptions about friends and enemies, loyalty and
betrayal, and love and manipulation are fractured. An army misfit,
a Japanese girl and a martial arts master play unforgettable roles
in Ken's rocky journey from a boy itching to get his driver's
license to a young man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his
father.
Table of
Contents
Chapter
One
~ Between Purgatory and Hell
~
Everything was going wrong in Ken Paderson’s
life. He was supposed to be practicing for his driver’s permit He
was supposed to be part of a normal American family; you know a
mom, a dad, and maybe a little brother on the way. During the
endless flight from America to Japan, his dad had let him know he
blamed Ken for this sudden transfer. And for the blowup of his
marriage
“It’s only fair you suffer with me,” his dad
had said.
Ken didn’t know why they were going to Japan
instead of Vietnam, where an actual war was heating up. Best not to
ask right now. He’d figure it out later.
Ken knew his fight with his dad’s commanding
officer’s snot-nosed son wasn’t the only incident that brought
about the abrupt assignment change. Politics, snafus...
“A beating’s too good for you, wise guy,” his
dad had said. The sidelong looks and silent head shakings,
accompanied by unnamable emotions Ken was reluctant to dwell on
were worse than threats of beatings.
The pilot turned the airplane engines off.
Their rumbling echoes pounded inside Ken’s skull.
The dark fuselage was thick with his dad’s
sour smells and his own dread and suspense. His throat burned.
Shit. This place makes me sick already.
He swallowed
hard.
Ken squinted against light streaming through
the door into the belly of the U.S. Army transport plane upon which
he and his dad had flown. The world was buzzing out there. He
worked a pen under the cast on his broken arm but couldn’t reach
the itch to scratch at it.
A backlit figure chasing a long shadow strode
toward the plane and saluted with excessive finesse. “Welcome to
Camp Zama, home of the 9
th
Theater Army Area Command.”
The soldier yelled to be heard over the roar of an airplane taxiing
nearby on the airstrip.
Ken returned the salute. Captain Paderson’s
salute turned into an awkward flapping of hands as he tried to
stand on a pair of legs that refused to follow orders.
“Whoa, watch your step, sir.” The soldier
propped Captain Paderson up. “Don’t worry, a cup of coffee and
you’ll find your land legs.”
“Are we in Okinawa?” Ken asked.
“Yes, indeed.” The soldier’s cigarette bobbed
between his lips. “Like they say, ‘The island of Okinawa existing
among the bases.’” The soldier’s grin lifted one side of his face,
while the other side concentrated on keeping the cigarette clamped
between his lips. “Follow me. Lieutenant Colonel Topker is
expecting you at oh-nine-hundred hours.” He looked at Ken. “Follow
me, cherry boy.”
Ken regarded his dad’s expression, but
couldn’t decode what he might be feeling.
Lieutenant Colonel Topker, a muscular man,
rose from his desk and leaned over it to shake their hands. He
stood a head taller than Ken’s dad.
“Be seated,” Topker said. “I’m pleased to
have you aboard. Both of you.” His gravelly voice reverberated in
his chest in a friendly but forceful way.
“I’m pleased to be here, sir.” His dad’s
talent for lying was extraordinary.
“You’re a lucky boy.” The colonel’s eyes,
framed with fans of tan wrinkles, were smiling on Ken. “You’ve been
on trains, a ship and a plane to get here from half way around the
planet. A million boys would love to trade places with you,
wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir,” Ken lied to be polite. Like
father, like son.
The ceiling fan’s whirling blades sliced warm
breezes off the ceiling, and made bright colored banners with
emblems bearing a whole new set of acronyms to learn—USARJ,
USARPAC—flutter against the wall. The roars of airplane engines
revving for takeoff and the rumbles of others idling after landing
vibrated the office window.
The window looked out on a field of tall
grasses. Farmers with long knives chopped and bundled shanks of
tall grass into sheaves. Giving Japs machetes seemed like a pretty
stupid idea. Ken’s expression must have conveyed his misgivings,
because the lieutenant colonel detoured from his conversation with
Paderson about the army’s logistical bases in Asia and said:
“They’re harvesting sugarcane.”
“I know,” came Ken’s testy reply.
Sugarcane? In Japan?
“Are you feeling sickly, son?” Topker asked.
He rubbed his hands together, making a shishing noise. “I know what
will bring you right around.” He switched on an electric burner and
picked up a bronze bell: its peals sounded like a shower of thin
coins on fine china. Within a moment a Japanese woman wearing a
pleated skirt, neat blouse and straw slippers, noiselessly carried
a tray into the office.
The lieutenant colonel spoke to her in
Japanese. Ken looked to his dad for an explanation for this
absurdity, but his father was working over a problem in his own
mind. The woman nodded ever so slightly and placed a set of bamboo
implements on the blue and white cloth she’d spread on the
lieutenant colonel’s desk. She spent a considerable amount of time
arranging and adjusting the implements and clay cups and teapot
until she was satisfied.
Topker watched patiently, a faint smile
tickling his lips. Finally she whisked green powder and hot water
into a froth. She bowed, and then turned each handleless cup with
smooth, precise movements. Before he drank, Topker bowed his head
and rotated his cup between his large palms. He concentrated on
something submerged in the green liquid.
The captain and Ken imitated the light
colonel’s motions and contemplative expression as best they could.
By now, as he brought the cup to his lips, Ken was painfully
thirsty. The green tea smelled like stinking water from a stagnant
pond. It curled his tongue. They told the Japanese woman the tea
was delicious. She bowed and departed, taking Topker’s smile out
with her.
“Next time when you visit longer,” he said,
“Hiroko will demonstrate the entire tea ceremony for you. She
reluctantly agrees to use the electric element instead of a wood
fire because she knows how much I enjoy tea in my office.
“Our mission,” Topker’s voice was official
again, “is to maintain storage facilities with capability to expand
the Asia Pacific base. This is increasingly important as we beef up
our involvement in Vietnam. As of today the U.S. has 183,850 troops
in Vietnam.” He picked up a pointer and tapped a plaque behind his
desk. The gold gothic letters read: We put boots on the ground
through the Asia Pacific.
Ken corralled his attention in from the cane
fields where a man was sharpening his machete on a whetstone. All
his life he’d listened to secondhand stories of combat. He’d been
soaking up blood and glory from TV shows, movies, books and from
barracks officers when they thought no one else was within
listening range to intercept snippets of the epic battles they
spoke of. Now he was close to the action.
“This is terribly boring for you, son,”
Topker said.
“No, it’s—”
“Wait a minute.” The bell rained coins again,
and again he spoke Japanese to the woman who’d appeared at the
doorway within seconds. She left and returned with a Japanese child
who was no older than a kindergartner, if he was old enough to go
to school...if they had schools on this island.
“Michael,” Topker said, “this is Ken
Paderson. He’s on tour with his father. We’re going to discuss
business now. Show Ken your rock collection and bring him back in
fifteen minutes.”
“Does he speak English?” Ken asked the light
colonel.
“Ask him.”
“Do? You? Speak? English?”
“Naturally. I’ll show you around.” Michael
took Ken’s hand and led him out of the office. “Okinawa is the
southernmost prefecture of Japan. It has one hundred and eight
islands. Did you know that?”
“I know and I don’t care,” Ken replied.
“I’ve got igneous and sedimentary rock
samples in my collection. Do you want to see them? This island is
made of volcanoes. Did you know that?”
Ken’s lie was preordained. “I know.” He
yanked his hand free from the boy’s moist grip and followed him
down a corridor, past doors where the sounds of typewriters
clicking and telephones ringing trickled through heavy air.
“What part of the United States are you
from?” Michael asked.
“Pennsylvania. Did you know the first
Christmas tree ever was at the barracks where I live?”
Where I
lived.
Past tense. He could scarcely think it, could not say it
aloud because it would require acknowledging broken promises,
crushed trust, a phantom life left behind.
“You mean the first Christmas tree in
America,”
the kid said.
“Any dummy knows that. Prisoners of war
decorated a pine tree.” From his pocket, he started to remove the
stone that he’d found in his grandpap’s garden to show it to
Michael, but when they entered a room with glass-covered display
cases lining the walls, he let go of the quartz. Stones
representing nature’s treasure of hues and shapes were labeled with
neatly typed strips of paper. Hematite. Rhodochrosite. Limonite.
Galena. Mica. Granite. Jade. Gold. He pressed his thumb on a sharp
point on the quartz in his pocket. “How long you been collecting
rocks?”
“Ever since I was little,” Michael said. He
lifted the glass top of one of the cases and pointed to the
specimens, saying, “This is lava from Mount Fuji. This is a piece
of columnar basalt from Scotland.”
“Gee. You were in Scotland?”
“Yes. My parents like to travel when my
father is on leave.”
An image of this squirt and his massive
father wearing Scottish kilts appeared to him.
“What are you laughing about, Ken?”
“Nothing. You’re too young to
understand.”
Lieutenant Colonel Topker motioned Ken into
the seat he’d sat in before. “We’ll only be a few more minutes. Did
Michael show you his rock collection?”
“Yes, sir. It’s dandy.” He cringed. What a
doofuss he was turning into.
“Thank you, Michael. Bye, bye,” Topker
said.
