Caged Eagles (22 page)

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “We're not running any farther.”

“But … but … we can't fight them … we can't win,”

I stammered.

“We can't win, but we're going to fight them. Get rid of this,” Sam said as he pulled the “I Am Chinese” button off my shirt and then took off his and stuffed them both in his pocket.

“Cover my back and I'll cover yours.”

They came forward slowly. They knew there was no place to go. There were eight of them, three blocking one side, and five the other. We retreated until the fence was right at our backs.

“Payback time, chinks!” yelled one of them, the one who'd started it all. He threw the bloody towel to the ground.

“Yeah, you're both going to get a beating!” called out another.

“Does it always take eight whites to take on a couple of chinks?” Sam screamed back.

For a split second they hesitated, as if they were thinking over what Sam had just yelled. Could it somehow …?

“Get 'em!”

They charged at us! I swung my fist wildly, connecting with the first man's face with a thud. Almost immediately I was knocked backwards. I bounced into the fence, lost my balance and fell to the ground. I screamed as I felt a searing pain shoot through my side and then absorbed another shot to the head. Another blow bit into my side — I was down and being kicked! I tried to scramble to my feet, but I was smashed hard back to the ground. I rolled up into a ball and tried to cover my head with my hands and arms.

Over top of everything I heard the sound of the metal fence being smashed, and there was yelling … in Japanese … but why … and who? I tried to look, feeling the sting of another blow, and another, and through teared-up eyes I caught the blurry outline of somebody scaling the fence … why would they climb the fence? My eyes fell shut … I felt like I was sinking into the ground … even the blows stopped hurting … why was everybody yelling so much?

I strained to open my eyes. There were people, it seemed like dozens of people, screaming and yelling and swearing and punching … why were they punching each other? Sam couldn't be fighting them all … I suddenly felt myself being pulled up by powerful hands. Why didn't they just leave me alone? I stumbled and staggered, unable to stand. I was held on both sides.

“It okay, Tadashi.”

“Sam?” I asked. I tried to focus, but I couldn't.

“Toshio.”

“Toshio?” I asked in amazement. I looked over. He was holding me up under one arm. “But how …”

“The fence. We climb fence.”

I tried to look around. My head was spinning, and my stomach lurched violently as I turned. There were men and boys, Japanese, standing all around us. There were ten or twelve or twenty or … I don't know how many of them there were. The whites were gone. Their car was gone. Where was Sam?

“Sam!” I yelled out.

“Here, I'm here,” he said.

I turned around and was shocked by what I saw. The whole side of his face was covered in blood, as well as his shirt, which was ripped and practically torn right off his body.

“Now that was a fight!” Sam said. He was beaming, a smile breaking through the blood.

“Your face … you're hurt.”

He grabbed the tattered remains of his shirt and wiped off some of the blood. More flowed freely from his mouth and nose. He spat and a mouthful of bright red blood stained the ground.

“I've had worse,” he said. “Are you okay?”

My whole body either hurt or felt numb and I still thought I might throw up.

“I'm okay,” I said, realizing that my jaw hurt when I answered.

“Did you see them run?” Sam asked.

“I didn't see anything, nothing.”

“It was like in one of those cowboy movies, you know, where the calvary comes charging over the hill, except this time it was over the fence!” Sam stopped and spat out more bloody saliva.

“But how did they get over the fence?” I asked.

I turned around and saw the answer. There were blankets strewn over the top of the fence, covering up the barbed wire. For the first time, I noticed that there were lots of people standing on the other side of the fence. I guessed that everybody who was either playing or watching the baseball game was now on one side of the fence or the other. As I stood there watching, a couple of men started to scale the fence to get back inside the park.

“Hurry,” Toshio said. “Have to get back.”

I knew he was right. Maybe two boys slipping under a fence wouldn't be noticed by the passing cars, but a brawl involving this many people couldn't help but draw attention. Had one of the passing cars stopped at the main gate, or pulled over to a telephone booth and called the police … I knew what would happen if we were found outside the park.

“Let's go,” I said. I took a tentative step and winced in pain. I brought my hand up to my side. The whole right side of my chest hurt — the place where I'd been kicked repeatedly. I tried to take a deep breath, but a stabbing pain, like something digging into my lungs, stopped me.

I grasped the fence with my hands. I looked up at the top and my head felt whoozy. I didn't know if I could scale it.

“Climb,” Toshio said as he stood at my side.

“I don't know if I can.”

“Climb, now!” he barked.

That sounded more like the Toshio I knew, always giving people orders. Sam was already halfway up, and others were dropping to the ground on the other side.

“Please … have to … please … Tadpole,” Toshio said.

I didn't know what surprised me more, his gentle tone of voice or him calling me by my nickname. Nobody but my sisters and Jed ever did that.

“I'll try.”

I reached up and wrapped my fingers around the coils of the fence. I dug in the toe of one shoe and heaved myself up. Pain shot down my right side. I grimaced, but held on.

“Hurry up!” called out voices from the other side of the fence.

“There isn't much time!”

“Come on, climb!” called out a third.

I used my right hand to hold on while I reached up with my left. I pulled myself up. It didn't hurt nearly as much using that arm. Grabbing the fence securely with that hand, I very slowly lifted my right hand. Rather than a shooting pain, it was only a dull ache. I repeated the same thing, again and again, limping up the fence.

There were two men perched on the top of the fence, the blanket beneath them, and they reached down and pulled me up. I had to bite down hard and clench my teeth to avoid screaming out in pain. My feet slipped down the fence, and for a split second they slid as I tried unsuccessfully to get my toes into the fence. One toe and then the other dug in. Lowering myself was better, not nearly as painful.

I looked up and saw Toshio reach the top. He was the last one over … he'd stayed behind with me … why had he done that … why had he even come over in the first place to help me and Sam? There couldn't be anybody in this whole park he liked less than the two of us.

The men at the top grabbed the blankets and tore them off the barbed wire. The bundled blankets fell to the ground and the men scampered down the fence, reaching the bottom at the same instant I touched down.

An older gentleman was barking out orders in Japanese. He was yelling for everybody to get back into the bleachers to watch the game, and for the players to start the game. Quickly the crowd followed his instructions. I understood what he was doing. He wanted everything to look normal if soldiers or police came. So people could say, “Fight? What fight? We're watching baseball … are you sure there was a fight? Oh no, we didn't see anything … you must be mistaken.”

The old man stopped me. “Doctor see you, and you,” he said, pointing first at me and then at Sam. “And you, and you and you,” he said, aiming his finger at three others who were also cut and bleeding. “All go to infirmary to see doctor … Japanese doctor.”

I hadn't been to the infirmary, but I'd heard that there were two doctors and some nurses, all Japanese living in the park, who were caring for people. I didn't want to see any doctor, but maybe I should. Either way, we needed to get away. If soldiers were on the way, it would be hard to hide the fact that we'd been in a brawl.

“Go, different ways … not all together,” the old man ordered.

That made sense. We shouldn't walk through the park like some sort of parade. He sent the three injured men off. Two of them headed in the completely wrong direction.

“Can you walk?” Sam asked.

I nodded my head. “I can walk … slowly.”

We'd started to walk away when I noticed that while almost everybody had moved away, Toshio was lingering behind.

“Hold on a minute,” I said to Sam.

I limped over to Toshio's side. “Thanks for helping,” I said.

He nodded his head.

I wanted to say something more, ask him why … why did he come to help me and Sam, and, maybe even more, why did he help me over the fence after the fighting was all done? If he just wanted a good fight, and that seemed like Toshio, what did staying with me have to do with any of that?

“Japanese help Japanese,” Toshio said quietly, answering my unspoken question.

“Thanks … I mean it.”

“Go before soldiers come,” he said, then turned and walked away toward the baseball game, which had already restarted.

.17.

“Ooowwh! That hurts!”

The doctor released his grip on my jaw. “Open your mouth as wide as you can.”

I opened it partway, until the pain stopped me. The whole left side of my face was swollen and the pain was radiating out of that side. He looked inside my mouth and again took my jaw in his hand and moved it, this time more gently. It hurt, but this time I was ready and didn't scream out.

“I don't think it's broken, just a bad bruise. I could take an x-ray to be certain. That is, if I had an x-ray machine we could use.”

“So I'm okay?” I asked.

“Do you feel okay?” he laughed.

“No, not really.” I wasn't as dizzy anymore, but I still felt like throwing up and my side hurt every time I tried to take a breath.

“When you were hit in the head … was it punched or kicked?”

“Both — at least, I think so.”

“Did you lose consciousness?”

“What?”

“Did you black out?” he asked.

“I don't think so.”

“Feel dizzy, want to throw up, are you shaky when you stand?”

“All of those.” I actually
had
thrown up on the walk over, and for a minute or so afterwards felt a little bit better.

“Remove your shirt, please.”

I tried to move my arm, and a jolt of pain shot up out of my side and into my head. I was happy that I didn't cry out, but the doctor must have been able to see from my expression how much it hurt. He undid the buttons and helped me slip the shirt off.

“Lift up your arms and take a deep breath,” he ordered.

“I'll try.”

Tentatively I raised my arms. The pain stopped me before I had gotten them to shoulder height.

“Big breath,” he said.

“I can't. When I do it feels like —”

“You're being stabbed by a knife,” the doctor said, interrupting me. “I didn't think you'd be able to.”

I nodded my head.

He gently lifted my right arm and started to touch my side, poking and prodding with his fingers, beginning at the bottom. I clenched my teeth and groaned in pain as he hit a tender spot.

“That's one.”

He moved up farther and this time I couldn't contain the pain and cried out.

“That's two.”

He moved up again and I readied myself. I almost laughed when he pressed in and it only felt sore. He continued walking up my rib cage with his fingers like it was a ladder. With each step up, the soreness faded away.

That had to be good.

Next the doctor took the stethoscope from around his neck, placed the two pieces in his ears and held it to my chest.

“Breathe as deep as you can, until the pain gets too much. Keep taking those breaths until I tell you to stop.”

I inhaled and he listened, and then he moved it over and listened again. He did this a few more times.

“Stop,” he said as he removed the stethoscope from his ears and hung it back around his neck.

“Well?” I asked.

“You have a head injury, a badly bruised jaw, possibly with a slight fracture, and two broken ribs.”

“Broken!” I exclaimed.

“But you have good air intake and your chest is not flailing. I'm going to tape up your ribs and you're to take it very easy for the next week, maybe longer.”

I felt a rush of relief, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Unfortunately, the weight was still on my chest.

“When should I come back to see you?” I asked.

“You don't understand … you're staying here.”

“Here? But you let Sam go!” I protested.

Sam had been examined by the doctor first, while a nurse had packed gauze into my nose to stop it from bleeding and then cleaned me up.

“He wasn't as badly hurt. I imagine he didn't fall down as many steps as you did.”

“I didn't fall down any steps,” I said in confusion.

Didn't he know what had happened?

“You look surprised,” the doctor said. “I guess you hit your head so hard when you fell that you don't even remember how you were injured.”

“But … but …”

He started to laugh. “You fell down a set of stairs — at least, that's what I'm putting in the medical files,” he explained. “I couldn't very well put down that you had been in a fight, especially one outside the park, that is possibly being investigated as we talk. I heard it was quite the brawl.”

“I don't know. I couldn't see much of it from the ground,” I said reluctantly.