My Year of Meats (29 page)

“Nope. Dad was a botanist with the army. They sent him to Japan as part of a team of scientists doing research in Hiroshima. They were kind of checking up on their handiwork—you know, looking at people and monstrose plant mutations—to see if we should drop an A-bomb on Korea. Dad died of cancer and I’ve always wondered whether there’s some connection.”

“When did he die?”

“When I was in college.”

“You still didn’t tell me how they met....”

“They met at an
ikebana
exhibition. Flower arranging. It’s a classy kind of hobby in Japan, especially back then, and Ma was certified as a teacher, but Dad didn’t know any of that. He just liked the flowers.”

“And they fell in love and got married....”

“Yup. And Ma’s parents disowned her and never spoke to her again. I don’t know if it was because Dad was white or because he was a farmer.”

“I thought he was a botanist.”

“He was. He just never had the political or economic ambition it took to make it in academic sciences. After he was discharged he went back to the farm, and after the bankruptcy he got a job teaching at the high school. I guess it was hard on Ma. She didn’t speak much English. None, in fact. And there weren’t many people who could appreciate her flower arrangements. People were more into hardy roses.”

“Takagi ...”

“Yes, Sloan ...”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“Maybe ...”

“Would you be very careful on the shoot in Colorado?”

“Of course, Sloan. I’m always very careful.”

“I mean extra careful. The idea of you working those hours ... It’s stupid. You should be taking it easy. Here. At home. Not wandering around in feedlots, you know? There’s too much toxic stuff lying around there.”

“Sloan, it’s very nice of you to worry, but I’ll be fine. Really. You need long-term, repeated exposure to these drugs for them to be harmful, and they’re not using the blatantly toxic stuff now, anyway. And the doctor said that I don’t have to alter my daily routine....”

“Takagi, your doctor doesn’t have the slightest idea of your daily routine. Don’t be an idiot. How could any doctor know what a TV production schedule is like? I didn’t know until I saw you at it. You guys are insane.”

I was touched by all this concern, but a bit annoyed too. I’d been in a very good mood and Sloan was spoiling it. I sat up on the rug. He raised his hand.

“Jane, don’t even start. It’s not worth it.” He slid off the love seat, onto the floor next to me. He placed his hand between my breasts and pushed me to the floor. When he had me on my back, he rested his hand on my belly and stroked it.

“You know I’m right to be worried. It’s your life and your uterus. However, I probably know better than most that your uterus is a precarious place to hang around in, so cut me some slack. All I’m asking is do us all a favor—you, me, our baby—and be careful. Please. I’m asking you. Take this seriously.”

“I always do.”

I mean, what could I say? And by the time he finished his little speech he had pinned me once again to the old hooked rug. And still he persisted.

“You don’t.”

“I will.”

“You’d better.”

I loved him. That’s what I was thinking. That’s all I was thinking. He worked his way down the length of my body, kissing my breasts, which were larger now in a way I thought was very sexy, then running his tongue along between my ribs until he reached my stomach, where he rested for a moment, cheek to rounded belly, before descending further.

“Oh my God,” I gasped.

“What?” He looked up, startled, and gripped my arm.

“It moved. I felt it move!” I pushed his head back down. “Do you feel it?”

And there it was again, the first quickening, a mothlike fluttering or the twitching of a fish’s tail. I’d almost mistaken it for desire. “Can you feel it?” I asked again.

But Sloan didn’t answer. He was lying there with his face pressed into my belly, arms wrapped tightly around my thickening waist, waiting with all his might.

John leaned, or fell, against the metal door as he thrust his hand into his pocket, searching for the aluminum key. What came out in his fist and dribbled through his fingers to the ground was a confusion of change, his subway pass, a woman’s handkerchief, and a members card from the bar where he’d been drinking. And the key. The door swung open with a hollow clang. He stumbled over the threshold, kicked the shoes aligned in the
genkan,
tripped over the umbrella rack, and fell through the beaded curtain onto the kitchen floor. He lay there and listened. Nothing. The apartment was dark. He fell asleep.

In the bedroom, under layers of futon, Akiko listened too. Nothing. Maybe he would sleep there all night and wake up in the morning defensive and subdued. Slowly, as the silence lengthened, she dared to hope. She lay absolutely still, but her blood pounded loudly in her ears as she strained to hear and evaluate the potential for violence in her drunken husband. He stirred. She willed herself silent, insensate, inert.

“Barren old witch,” he muttered. “Poisoner ...” Or something like that. On all fours, he crawled into the dark of the bedroom and located the lump that was his wife. He stood up unsteadily, wrenched back the covers, and looked down at her. Her body was curled loosely on its side, her breathing light and even. Eyes shut, hands folded, she looked like she was praying. Her flannel pajamas, dotted with small lavender flowers, obscured her from neck to wrist to ankle. The pajamas infuriated him. He poked her with his toe. No reaction. He swung back a stockinged foot and kicked her as hard as he could in the stomach. She gasped but continued to lie there, as limp as a dead cat. The force of the kick, however, caused him to slip on the tatami and fall with a thump onto his bottom. It took his breath away. Legs splayed, he sat there and surveyed his inert wife.

“I know you are alive. You’re playing dead, but I know you are alive.” He crawled over and straddled her and rolled her onto her back. He covered her mouth and pinched her nostrils closed as hard as he could and waited for a long, long time. When she still didn’t respond, didn’t crack an eye or even gasp for breath, he lifted her by the front of her flannel pajamas.

“Open your eyes!” he screamed, inches from her face. “Breathe! Look at me!” And when she didn’t, he punched her squarely in the jaw. Her head flew back as his knuckle split her lip, and a thin dribble of blood ran down her jaw. He flipped her over onto her stomach so he wouldn’t have to look at it. He pinned her to the floor. “You liar, you liar ...” As though she were struggling or fighting back, as though to control her, he put his knee into the small of her back and pulled down her elastic-waisted bottoms, exposing her thin, pale buttocks. Still she didn’t move.

“So I guess it doesn’t matter where I put it, does it?” he muttered, as he unzipped his pants. “In the front or in the back, it’s all the same! It doesn’t matter where, because you are a sterile, useless woman.” He lifted her up by the hips and forced his penis into her anus. “So I’ll do it like you’re a little boy. Do you like that?” He held her by the neck, ground her hips into the floor.

“You deserve worse than this for lying to your husband,” he hissed into her ear. “You think I’m stupid?” He lifted her by the shoulders and pounded her against the floor, over and over. “You think I don’t know you’d started again? That I couldn’t smell you bleeding?” Then, just as he was about to ejaculate, he pulled out. “You think I don’t know when you are in heat ... ?” he whispered, inserting his penis into her vagina now. “So you want to be a lesbian? You want to have a baby but not a man? Well, here ...” He pulled out, then thrust himself into her as hard as he could. “Tell
this
to that
bitch
Takagi.” He ejaculated, then collapsed on top of her.

Akiko lay perfectly still, eyes glued shut, crushed into the tatami by his smothering weight. Her heartbeat deafened her. Slowly the pain began to punch through, like an erratic pulse at points across her body—a dull throb here, a searing tear there. His breath was hot against her neck, his ribs pressing into her backbone as his sleep deepened. She wanted to touch herself, cry, cry out, but she was afraid to move. Hold still, she thought, a little longer—because the worst thing in the world at this point would be to wake him and then have to make conversation.

He started to snore. Gingerly she shifted her body to one side and little by little managed to inch out from beneath him. Her legs felt sticky and she smelled blood. She reached her hand down. But it couldn’t be. She’d just finished her period two weeks earlier. She got to her feet, collected her pajama bottoms, then limped to the bathroom.

The fluorescent light was like a blow to her face. The blood was bright and smeared along the insides of her legs. She sat down on the toilet and started to pee, when a sudden shock of nauseating pain in her anus made her gasp, and she realized the blood was coming from there. She took a deep breath, then washed herself gingerly, flinching with the pain. Turning off the light in the bathroom, she groped her way into the kitchen. On the way, she found her husband’s jacket in a tangle on the floor. She picked it up, straightened it, and extracted his wallet from the breast pocket. She looked inside. Then she went to the telephone.

“Is this Miss Takagi, please?”

The call had been forwarded to my office. I picked it up, desperately hoping it wasn’t Suzie Flowers.

“Yes, speaking ...”

“Takagi-san
... ?”

“Hai ... sumimasen ga, donata-sama?”
I’d switched to Japanese, but I had no idea who it was on the other end. The whispery voice sounded as though it were coming from a coffin, way underground.

“Ueno-san? Doshitano desuka?
Are you all right? What time is it there?”

“It’s three in the morning. I’m all right.”

“Did you get my fax?”

“... Yes. Yes, I got it.”

“I can barely hear you. What’s the matter? Is your husband there? Can he hear you?”

“He’s asleep. It’s okay. He’s drunk and sleeping. He won’t wake up.” She paused and swallowed. “He found it.”

“Found it? Found what? Oh no—my fax?”

“Yes. I’d put it between the pages of the English dictionary. He is so vain, you know, about his English? He never looks up any words. I thought it would be safe. But this time there was a word he didn’t understand, from your fax to him on bad meats? I think it was ‘unsavory.’ ”

“Akiko-san, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“He became very angry.”

“Did he hit you?”

“Yes. A little. It’s all right.”

“You must—”

“No. The reason I am calling is not that. The reason I am calling is because he has instructed me to pack a suitcase for him with clothing for a trip. He did not tell me where he is going, but I looked into his wallet and found his ticket. He will be leaving on Friday. He is going to Colorado.”

Colorado is one of the most beautiful states in the country. I love driving from east to west across the vast Great Plains, through Denver and straight up into the mountains, still so young and assertive with their jaggedy upward thrustings, then over the Continental Divide to hook up with the Colorado River and to follow it past the Glenwood Dam and on into the plateau. The westernmost town of any size is Grand Junction, once a thriving uranium production center in the years following WWII. When the mines closed, the Atomic Energy Commission allowed the radioactive mill tailings to be used in over six thousand housing structures and school foundations. Now Grand Junction is a center for fruit production—a rich riparian zone, the countryside bursts with iridescent peaches, sweet pears, luscious cherries, and glowing apples. The old river valley is cupped on either side by wildly eroded sandstone cliffs, like worn hands with fingers softly folded. Gradually these buttes and outcroppings subside even further, flattening into the gray clay deserts of eastern Utah, where ancient seas hid dinosaur bone and prehistoric fossil.

Before going to an area, I would read all about it, keeping track on a map of scenic spots, places of interest, as well as all military and atomic installations.

In Colorado Springs, the North American Air Defense Command established the Ent Air Force Base in 1957. In 1966, inside Cheyenne Mountain, they opened a new combat operations center.

Just outside Denver was the Rocky Flats plutonium plant. It was closed in 1989 after two major fires and numerous accidents and leaks led to charges that the plant had seriously contaminated the surrounding countryside, causing a significant rise in cancers among Denver area residents and a veritable plague of mutations, deformations, reproductive disorders, and death among farm animals.

I kept track of these places even before our arrest in Montana. On the way to Fly, Oregon, driving through southwest Washington State, we had unwittingly stumbled across the border of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford site. I don’t remember what we were after—possibly the perfect sunset, or the inflorescence of a rare northern desert cactus—but when we came to the barbed wire and a sign said “Department of Energy—Keep Out,” how was I supposed to know that we’d reached the perimeter of the 570-mile nuclear city that produced the plutonium for “Fat Man,” the bomb that leveled Nagasaki? Later, as we were passing through the adjacent town of Sunnyside, I happened to ask our waitress at a diner about the facility, and she raised her eyes and whistled.