Southland (24 page)
T
HE WEATHER was clear and perfect that Saturday morning, not unlike the morning, a month before, that Jackie had first gone over to Lois’s house and laid eyes on the will. When she arrived at the Tara Estates, Lois and Ted were already dressed and prepared for the day. Ted said hello to her, kissing her on the cheek as he headed out the door to meet a friend for a game of paddle tennis. Lois ushered Jackie in and sat her down on the couch. The box—a Timberland boot box—was on the coffee table already; the dull black bowling ball sat cannonball-like on the frayed reclining chair. In front of Jackie there materialized a cup of coffee and a bagel. After several minutes of catching up—Lois’s job, the mid-sized aftershock that had awakened them all in the night, the house in Blair Hills that Ted and Lois had made an offer on—they both ran out of words and let their eyes wander over to the box.
“I don’t
have
to take it,” Jackie said, feeling suddenly awkward. “I mean, do you want it?”
“No, no. He left it to you. And it’s not like I want to look at it anyway. Actually, I’ll be glad to have it out of here.”
Jackie pulled the box toward her and removed the lid. She was met with a collage of documents and half-obscured pictures. On top were two velvet boxes, which she found, when she creaked them open, contained war medals dulled with age. She set them aside and reached into the box again. The documents seemed alive to her, and when she picked up her first handful of papers and photographs, she felt something like a pulse beat through her. This was where her search for Curtis had started, and also, in a sense, her search for Frank. And she was sure, without quite knowing why, that her searches would end here, too. She set the documents down on the coffee table and spread them out, like a fortune teller arranging her tarot cards. How to read them? How to string together the story they might tell her? She picked up the thing that jumped out at her first, a picture of Frank as a soldier. He was flanked by two other young Nisei in uniform. All three of them were kneeling, right knees on the ground, left elbows propped up on their other legs. They held their guns gently, like breakable things, the butts against the ground, the barrels pointing up at the sky. The men were weighted down with mysterious belts and pouches. Their helmets were on but the straps hung loose, and all three men were grinning widely. Behind them was a beautiful, empty, rolling field that looked untouched and deceptively peaceful. Off in the distance, though, above some hills, were white billows of clouds or smoke.
“Kenny Miura,” Lois said, pointing to the man on the left. “And Tom Kobayashi. Dad’s best friends in the army. That picture was taken in Italy, although I don’t know exactly where.”
“Grandpa was kind of a babe here, huh?”
“Looks like he knows it, too.”
“I never heard about these guys. Did Grandpa lose touch with them after the war?”
“They both died. Kenny was killed not long after this picture was taken, in the same battle that Dad got wounded. And Tom was killed a few weeks later.”
Jackie shook her head.
“Dad was the one who wrote both their parents, from the hospital.” Lois shuffled through the papers on the table and pulled out a newspaper clipping. There was a picture of a sternfaced white military man, standing on a porch with a dazed-looking young woman. The caption read, “War Widow Presented with Husband’s Distinguished Service Cross.”
“This is Kenny Miura’s wife,” Lois said, “at their house up in Tustin. She sent this clipping to Dad. What the picture
doesn’t
show is that her windows were smashed, and that ‘Japs Go Home’ was painted on the side of the house.”
“How thoughtful. Is there a clipping about the other guy?”
“No, but he had an equally heart-warming response to his death. He was from a small town up in Washington, and his name was carved into a stone monument with the names of a bunch of other soldiers who were killed in action. But then the American Legion came and chipped it off.”
“Lovely.” Jackie uncovered a few more photos—Frank, her mother and aunt as children, some pets she didn’t recognize. Then she came upon a wallet-size portrait of her grandfather in uniform. She realized she’d seen it before, a larger version of the very same picture. And then something came back to her. She’d remembered the result of it, the final remark, but the event itself had been obscured until now.
She was six years old, and spending the weekend at her grandparents’ house. It was raining, so she was playing in the garage, digging through a chest of old clothes. About half the clothes were out, strewn around on the floor, when she found a framed black-and-white newspaper article with a picture of a young Japanese-American soldier. She pulled it out and read the headline: “Southland Soldier Receives High Honor.” The caption said something about war and a medal; the soldier was handsome and smiling. There was something in the sharpness of his cheeks and the thinness of his nose which reminded Jackie of her mother, and then she just burst out with it: “Grandpa!” Although she knew that Japanese-American men had fought in some long-ago war (there were always uniformed men in the Nisei Week Parade, old-timers popping out of their faded jackets), she’d never known her grandfather was one of them. Excited by her discovery and impressed by the image of her grandfather in uniform, she’d rushed into the house. She hoped that, when she showed him the article, her grandpa would get misty-eyed and offer tales of how he beat up on the enemy. But when Jackie held it toward him, as proud as if she were offering a report-card full of As, something opened in his eyes, and then closed again, and he took the frame away. Jackie, not understanding, tugged on his pants. “Did you fight in the war, Grandpa? Why didn’t you ever tell me that you fought in the war?”
And Frank was silent for a moment before he looked at her and said, “Because it didn’t make any difference.”
Now, at Lois’s, Jackie set the tiny picture down and looked at the other one again, the shot of Frank and his friends in the fields of Italy. She heard again her grandfather’s answer, which she’d remembered all this time:
“Because it didn’t make any difference.”
For almost twenty years, she’d assumed he meant that the army, or his part of it, hadn’t done anything of consequence. But then she looked at the faces of Miura and Kobayashi. She thought of broken glass, black spray paint, hammer and chisel applied to stone. She thought of the expression on the face of Kenny Miura’s young widow, and suddenly realized that this wasn’t what he meant at all.
Lois touched the box again. “There could be something in there that might help you, you know. Have you found out anything new since the last time I talked to you?”
Jackie took a moment to snap out of her memory. “Yes and no. Derek Broadnax apparently saw the cop around the store the day of the murders. But he’s dead now—he OD’d on heroin. And I found out where Matsumoto works; I just have to get in touch with him. I talked to someone at the Holiday Bowl, too, who told me about this guy Kenji Hirano.”
“Kenji. Of course. He might be able to help, if you can get a complete sentence out of him.”
Jackie nodded, and then realized she didn’t want to say anything more—nothing about what she was hearing of Frank or learning about Curtis and Lanier. It all seemed like something private, something shared between her and her grandfather. She cared now, very deeply, about putting closure on the murders, but it wasn’t just Nick Lawson she was after anymore. And she couldn’t say, either, that she wanted to learn about Curtis, except in the ways that he affected her grandfather’s life. Nick Lawson, Curtis Martindale—they were the catalysts, but no longer the reason. For Jackie, the search had come to mean something else.
She pulled out another handful of documents, and a piece of soft paper fell out of the pile. It was brown elementary school writing paper, with wide blues lines to contain the loose, childish script:
MY Momy said I shold thank you for the crayns so thank you. I like to color and blew is my favorit. I filed up half the coloring book alredy I can do picturs real fast. Also I like the candy you gave me do you hav any more?
See you soon
Love, Curtis
Jackie showed the page to her aunt. “This is interesting. Do you think it’s the same Curtis?”
Lois read the letter. “Could be. I don’t know.”
“When did Grandpa meet him?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“But he must have known him before he hired him, right? I mean, this looks like it was written…” she read it again, “by a seven- or eight-year-old kid. Curtis was four when the Martindales moved to L.A., so Grandpa—if this is the same Curtis—must have met him in the next few years.”
“Do you think it means something? Dad knew a
lot
of little kids.”
“I have no idea—although if he did know Curtis for that many years, leaving him the store would seem a bit less crazy.”
“Speaking of the store, look at these.” Lois reached into the box and pulled out two pictures. One showed her father, in his early twenties, with Old Man Larabie—young man and old man, Japanese and black—standing in front of the market in their matching white aprons. Frank’s hand was curled around the handle of the broom and he was grinning at the camera, bright-eyed, stiff-backed, confident. The other was a shot of an older Frank, in the doorway with a smiling, aproned boy. There was something about the tilt of the boy’s head, the space between his eyes, that looked familiar to Jackie.
“This must be Derek Broadnax,” she said.
She looked through some more papers—envelopes, clippings, pictures—until she discovered a black-and-white photograph of seven young people in a bowling alley. They looked around college age and they were all dressed in white shirts and dark skirts or trousers. The three young women stood arm in arm, smiling widely at the camera. The four young men were crouched down in front of them.
“I think they’re a team,” Lois said, craning her neck to see the picture. “That’s definitely the Holiday Bowl.”
“Are any of these the boys from the store?”
Lois took the picture and squinted at it. “I don’t know. This could be Curtis here, but I just don’t know.”
Jackie continued to dig through the box while her aunt tilted and frowned at the picture. Something was here—Jackie didn’t know what, but she could feel it. Maybe it was in the picture that Lois held, or in the papers that she’d gone through at home. But she was excited—whatever it was, it was slowly coming into her reach. Now, beneath some envelopes, she discovered a pile of obituaries. Her grandmother’s was here. And many names she didn’t recognize—Richard Iida, Steve Yamamoto, Andy Riley, Barry Hughes. Her great-grandmother’s obituary, but not her great-grandfather’s. A slew of Japanese names Jackie recognized from her stays in Gardena. And then both of Curtis’s parents, Bruce in 1992, Alma in 1985. She handed the stack to Lois, who went nostalgic over some of the people and began to tell stories about them.
But Jackie was feeling impatient now. She wanted to leave. She wanted to look at the box in private and then show the relevant things to Lanier. He’d be able to tell her if Curtis was in the picture at the Holiday Bowl, and he might know some more of the dead. So after setting up a coffee date for the following week, getting the cards from the funeral, and lugging the bowling ball and box out to the car, Jackie drove back up to Fairfax, singing all the way, happier than she’d been in forever.
T
HEY WERE three—Curtis, Cory, and Jimmy—playing in the alley behind the store. Jimmy and Cory were six years old, and Curtis fifteen. Jimmy was the quietest, even in his own house—it was his sister who laughed raucously or screamed in displeasure; who made loud demands of their mother. He’d wanted brothers, boys to play with, and then he’d met Cory a year earlier on the first day of kindergarten. And he saw Cory more often, almost every day at school, but it was Curtis who’d turned out to be the prize. Curtis was the older cousin, a big brother, a half-man. That day, they were excited because Cory had found an old guitar in a dumpster, and they’d brought it immediately to Curtis—partly because Curtis had learned to play in music class at school; partly because Cory always showed things to his older brother. Now all three of them sat, with Curtis in the middle, on the old brown couch at the end of the alley behind Peterson’s Garage. Curtis bounced the guitar lightly on his knees, running his hands softly over its worn brown surface. With his left hand, he traced the slender neck of the instrument, all the way up to the knobs. These he took between his thumb and finger, coaxing, twisting lightly, while the fingers of his right hand touched the strings. Cory, who was sitting to the right of him, kept up a running commentary.
“Make it tighter, that don’t sound right,” he instructed as his brother tried a note. Or, “You think we can fix that crack down there at the bottom?”
Jimmy, on the other side, watched silently. He watched Curtis’s long, graceful fingers as they coaxed coherent sound from this collection of old wood and wire. He loved his older cousin. Curtis was gentle with him, quiet, but more stubborn than you’d think just by looking at him. When Mr. Martindale yelled at him—Jimmy had seen this—Curtis would just shut down, become unreachable. This impassivity only seemed to make his father even angrier; he never yelled at Cory that way, even though Cory did so much more to warrant scolding. And Cory, at least, looked like he could take it. He was sturdy and square, a box-shaped boy; nothing could knock him over. Even his afro grew out at right angles, squaring his large, blunt head. Curtis, on the other hand, was thin like his mother, but also like her, steel-tough, unbendable.
“It’s more tuned,” he said now to Cory. “Y’all sure this don’t belong to nobody?”
Cory nodded vigorously. “We found it in the dumpster behind the barber shop. You gonna teach us how to play?”
“I only know a couple things, C
.
You gotta find someone plays better than me.”
He brought both his hands underneath the guitar, supporting its two soft curves. Then he held the instrument out sideways toward his brother. Cory stared and then took it gently, as if his brother were handing him an entirely new guitar. He set it on his lap, with difficulty; he could reach barely halfway up the neck.
“Try it,” his brother encouraged.
Cory gripped the neck tight with his left hand and raised his right uncertainly. Then he plucked a string so loudly that the twang made all of them jump. He looked startled, uncertain what he’d done.
“No, let me show you,” Curtis said, laughing. He took the guitar back, repositioned it on his knee, and strummed gently with the side of his thumb. The sound that came out now was synchronized, sensical, not like the awkward low complaint produced by Cory. Curtis handed the guitar back over again, and Cory tried to imitate his brother’s hold on the chords. Then he ran his thumb down along the strings, causing, instead of one loud twang, six smaller ones. He looked frustrated, and Curtis laughed again.
“Do it softer,” offered Jimmy, and Cory glared at him.
Curtis spread his legs and patted the small tan triangle that opened on the couch. “Come here,” he said. Cory looked at him uncertainly, and Curtis patted again. “Sit here.”
Cory stepped over and sat between his brother’s legs. Curtis lifted him up onto his own leg and then guided Cory’s arm under the neck. Small hand in larger one, Curtis showed him how to hold it, fingers pressed lightly to the strings. Then Curtis shaped his right arm to Cory’s. He took his brother’s right hand and held the small thumb, like a pick, between his own thumb and first finger. Then he strummed. And when the sounds lifted off the strings, converging in the air, Cory’s mouth opened wide. Curtis brought their hands back up, then down again, sending out six more notes to join the others. The third time he brought their hands back, he pressed his brother’s against the wood, and then pulled his own hand away. Cory turned his head, questioning, and Curtis nodded. Cory moved his hand uncertainly, but then, gently, he ran his thumb over the strings, drawing out sounds that made sense. And now he smiled widely, and Jimmy rocked on the couch, aching to cradle the sound that strumming produced.
He was just about to ask if he could have a turn now when he heard something at the end of the alley. He turned and saw a man walking toward them, a whiteman in a dark blue uniform. Jimmy saw metallic blond hair, the flat
V
of light brown eyebrows. The cop leaned forward, his fists clenched, and he moved toward them very quickly. He was maybe twenty feet away now, and Jimmy saw, behind him, the parked police car, which was blocking the end of the alley. He looked to the left then, reconfirming what he already knew: there was no outlet on that side, just the back wall of Peterson’s Garage. Curtis and Cory had seen the cop, too; Jimmy felt Curtis’s hand on his back and heard him say, “Go.” Before the cop had taken another step, the boys were up, looking around for a way to escape. There were no easy walls to scale, just blank garage doors. Then Curtis said, “There,” and Jimmy saw where he was pointing. Between two of the garages was a tall wire fence with a bottom corner loose. Cory ran to it, pulled it back. “Go on,” insisted Curtis. He yanked the fence aside and held it open just wide enough for the boys to scramble through. Cory went first, butt and legs wriggling, and Curtis shoved Jimmy in after him. Then they both turned around to help Curtis. He held the fence open with his right arm and pushed his head through the space; the two younger boys saw him, then watched him vanish, as the cop dragged him back into the alley.
Cory yelled out his brother’s name and started to dive under the fence, but Jimmy pulled him back and held him.
“Run!” they heard Curtis yell. “Get outta here!”
But while they didn’t go back out to the alley, they didn’t run, either. The fence was covered with black plastic, and Cory pushed it aside, and the two boys peered out into the alley. The cop had dragged Curtis out near the couch and stood him up again. He held him by his T-shirt, the white fabric balled in his fist.
“Who’d you steal that guitar from?” asked the cop.
“Nobody,” Curtis said, and Jimmy could not believe how calm he sounded. “We found it in a trash bin.”
The cop yanked on Curtis’s shirt. “Bullshit. That guitar’s in good shape. Even you people aren’t stupid enough to throw out something new.” Curtis did not remove his eyes from Lawson’s face. Lawson shook Curtis again. “What are you looking at, nigger?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” said Curtis, calmly.
“Bullshit!” yelled Lawson, and he pushed Curtis back so hard he fell to the ground. Curtis sat there, knees bent, arms supporting his weight, looking at Lawson as if interested in what he’d do next. Lawson stepped toward Curtis as if approaching a football, and kicked him, hard, in the thigh. Curtis made a noise, and Cory gasped.
“Ssshh,” said Jimmy, tightening his grip on Cory’s shoulder. He pressed hard against the fence, feeling and ignoring something sharp against his cheek.
On the other side of the fence, Lawson pulled Curtis up with both hands. “I know you, boy. You’re the punk who broke into Audubon. My fellow cop was
real
upset he didn’t get to punish you himself.” He laughed. “I’ll have to tell him that you’ve moved on to robbery.”
“I haven’t.”
“Shut up.” Then he leaned back for leverage and punched Curtis in the cheek, and then once more in the jaw. Curtis’s head jerked back again, and spit and blood flew. Quietly, in Jimmy’s arms, Cory began to cry. Jimmy banged his head against the fence in frustration.
“You just try to tell me again,” said Lawson, “about how you didn’t steal anything. What do you have to say for yourself now?”
Curtis’s mouth was swelling and there was blood all over his chin; he just turned to Lawson and looked at him. The
V
of Lawson’s eyebrows got steeper and he grabbed Curtis’s shirt again.
“Say something, nigger!”
But Curtis still did not respond.
Lawson’s face grew redder and his lips pulled back into a snarl. “You fucking smart-ass coon,” he said. “You think you’re too fucking good to talk to me?” Then he let go of the shirt just as he pulled his fist back; it was like he was tossing up Curtis’s head to smash a serve. When he hit Curtis this time, the blow was much harder, and Curtis’s body swiveled a quarter of a turn before falling dully to the ground. He landed heavily and grunted, then brought his hands to his head. He pulled his legs up and curled into himself.
“Yeah,” said Lawson, shaking out his fist, “you’re not looking at me
now
, boy, are you? Don’t think I’m so funny now, do you?”
He stepped up to Curtis and kicked him three more times—twice in the legs and once in the back of the head. Then he leaned over, as if he were about to spit on him, but just glared, enjoying his work. And it was then, as he stood up straight again, that he looked over to the fence. He couldn’t see Cory and Jimmy—they were obscured by the plastic—but the boys both saw him clearly. They saw the thin, sharp nose, the tight lips and narrowed eyes, as the cop yelled out a warning. “Next time, boys, I’m not gonna let you get away!” Then he walked back to the end of the alley and drove off.
When he was gone, Cory and Jimmy scrambled out from behind the fence and ran over to where Curtis was lying. His lips and nose were bloody, his right eye was starting to swell. There was a growing stain of blood on his T-shirt and spots of blood on the concrete beneath him. He lay very still, and breathed slowly and hard. Cory and Jimmy kept touching him, laying hands on his shoulders, knees, hands, head, less to comfort him than to convince themselves that all of him was there. They were so concerned with Curtis that Jimmy didn’t notice his own blood, dripping from the gash on his cheek where he’d sliced his face on the broken fence. No tears escaped their eyes now, but Jimmy felt them welling in his throat; with the slightest noise from Curtis, he knew he would break. But Curtis did not complain. He didn’t groan or cry. And when, twenty minutes later, he finally pulled himself up into a sitting position, what he said was, “Don’t tell Mama and Daddy what happened.”
Cory looked him, puzzled. “Why?”
“Just don’t,” Curtis answered, holding his side. “I’ll say I got into a fight or something.”
“Well, what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna go see Mr. Sakai,” Curtis said. And slowly, wincing, he made himself stand, and limped off to the end of the alley.
