No Surrender Soldier (4 page)

Tata poked his head back in the house. “Remember, no going into the boonies. Keep Tatan out of there, too.” My dog, Bobo, tried to nudge through the opening but Tata wouldn’t let him in.

“And how am I supposed to do that? Eh? If he has a mind to—”

“Just do as I say,” Tata interrupted. “Our neighbors lost two chickens and they’re worried a straggler’s living back there.”

“A straggler…” I muttered. Stragglers are what we call Japanese soldiers who never surrendered after World War II. As far as I was concerned, my parents used fear of stragglers as an excuse, like some people use the boogeyman, when they didn’t want me to go into the boonies. I shook my head. “No straggler would last that long.”

Tata let go of the screen door and it slammed. “Don’t argue with me. I’m late for work.”

I kicked off my zoris, flinging them across the kitchen. One sandal landed on the counter. I didn’t even bother to pick it up.

Through the screen door I watched my parents hurry to their rusted out 1961 Datsun. Tatan was already in the driver’s seat.

“Ready to go?” Tatan asked. “Where’s Kiko? We late.”

Tata chucked his chin at Tatan. I knew that look, it meant,
He’s your tata, Rosie, you handle him.

“Tatan,” Nana said, “you cannot go to work with us no more.”

“
Humph.
Got lots to do at the shop. Who going to run the register?” Tatan did not budge from behind the steering wheel. “Kiko!” he shouted. “Get out here. We late!”

I pretended not to hear. Crazy old coot. Nana looked ready to cry. It was all his fault.

Tatan stomped back to the house. Bobo wagged his rump until his tail slapped from haunch to haunch.

With his foot, Tatan moved Bobo aside so he wouldn’t go in the house, which was one of Nana’s few strict rules ever since I broke out with flea bites a year after we moved. My parents had to fumigate the whole place and throw out my mattress to get rid of the fleas.

The screen door snapped shut on Bobo’s nose. “Yip!” he cried.

“Hey, watch it!” I yelled. “Look what you’ve done now.”

“Me? It’s your fault we even here,” Tatan said.

“My fault?”

“Yeah. If you weren’t in trouble…”

“Me? Me! I didn’t do not’ing.”

“Yeah. You… trouble, you lazy boy.”

“So, what’d I do? Huh? Name it!”

Tatan looked confused. “Don’t know. Maybe ’cause your… your flip-flop’s on the counter.”

I scowled at my zori laying on the yellow-and-gray countertop. I didn’t dare say,
That’s not’ing compared to the charred marks and blistered paint from when you left the burner on
.
We had to eat Thanksgiving dinner at Tihu Gabe’s.

“But it had to be somet’ing real bad you done.” Tatan glared. “Or else why Rosie say I got to babysit you?”

“Me? Babysit me? I’m the one stuck babysitting.”

“You lie. Now you in bigger trouble. I tell Rosie when she get home you lie to me. Maybe she finally give you that whipping you deserve all these years. But, no, Rosie no whip you like she should. But you wait, tonight be different. You in big trouble now.”

“Talk about trouble.” I wasn’t biting my tongue any longer. “It was you who chased a Japanese man with a machete. It’s your fault I can’t go to Tumon.”

“What you talking about? I no chase Japanese with machete. I want to, during war. Especially after… after… But I no do it.”

“Officer Perez arrested you. But then he say, ‘Take the
manamko
home, but don’t bring him back no more.’” I knew that would anger him, calling him “elderly.”

“You lie! I go get machete and show you. No blood on it. You see.”

I wasn’t worried when Tatan went to fetch his machete. It was locked in the tool shed next to the pig pen and curing shed, where Tatan aged meat. My parents never locked up anything before this, not even the house. But on Tata’s drive home from work last night, he stopped at Untalan’s hardware store and bought padlocks for the sheds. “Probably lose the dadgum key,” Tata had said.

My pet pig, Simon, started squealing, then stopped, so I peered out the window to look for Tatan. “He’s acting more loco every day.” Bobo was sniffing and Tatan was inspecting the base of our cinder block house, looking for his machete. “He probably doesn’t remember two years ago the typhoon blew to smithereens that old tin house of ours where chickens ran underneath.” I stomped my foot on the linoleum floor. “Yep, not’ing could flatten concrete and cinder blocks. Good t’ing we moved out here to this new house by the Talofofo River.”

“Pilar! Pilar! Where’s my machete?” Tatan called. “Come out here and help me find my machete. Pilar!”

“Now he’s calling for Nana Bihu, and she’s been dead four years.” I sighed and slid to the floor. I missed my grandmother, Pilar San Nicolas. If she were alive, she’d take care of Tatan, and I wouldn’t have to.

Simon started squealing again. I felt guilty about not having fed him yet, so I fished leftovers from the fridge, went outside and slopped my pig. When I came back in the house, Tatan was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. I decided to call Tomas to ask if he could come over and play baseball.

Baseball would take my mind off babysitting Tatan. After all, it wasn’t fair. I not only wouldn’t see Daphne, but I wouldn’t be able to get seafood off the reef either. I planned on bringing home an octopus and sea cucumbers, and maybe even a baby squid, or some oysters to throw on the grill. I scowled at the burnt spot above the stove again. Nana wouldn’t let Tatan or me touch the stove since the night of the fire. Of course, she didn’t say the oil drum we grilled on out back was off limits.

Mmm
, grilled seafood. I took a deep breath and tried to smell the ocean. Maybe if I imagined enough, I could taste fried squid and chopped sea cucumbers wrapped in seaweed on a bed of rice. Nope, it didn’t work. I only tasted the egg and chorizo stuck in my teeth.

But as much as I would miss eating seafood, I’d miss Daphne more. All because of Tatan. It wasn’t fair.

I went into the living room and stared at the phone. Maybe I should call Daphne and tell her I wouldn’t be able to meet her at the Chamorro Café. I’d never called her before. I put my hand on the receiver. No, wait. Maybe I’d sound like a doofus. Like we’d made a date.

While I looked up her phone number I practiced what to say. Maybe, “I won’t be at Tumon today. See, my tatan got arrested…” No, that didn’t sound right either. Besides, I didn’t want to explain what happened. Daphne’s nana already looked cross-eyed at me every time I saw her. It wouldn’t help me any if she knew my crazy tatan chased people with a machete.

“I won’t be at Tumon today, I’ve got to…” To. To. What?

I picked up the receiver and dialed Daphne’s number before I lost my nerve. I’d just tell her I wouldn’t be at Tumon today and I’d see her Sunday. Nothing more.

The phone rang and rang and rang. Maybe she already left. I started to hang up when a voice said, “Hello?” I quickly put the receiver to my ear, knocking over a coffee cup Tatan must have left on the end-table.

“Hello? This is Missus DeLeon. Who is this?”

Missus DeLeon. The cross-eyed lion! My tongue felt like a slug shriveled in salt. I couldn’t get a word out.

“Hello? Who is this? What do you want?” Missus DeLeon demanded on the other end of the phone line.

Panicked, I dropped the receiver in the cradle. Great. I probably sounded like some pervert heavy breathing over the phone. Worse, I couldn’t admit to Daphne that I’d tried to call to tell her I wasn’t going to be in Tumon.

I took off my T-shirt and mopped up the coffee from the carpet, then threw the T-shirt and coffee cup in the kitchen sink. I’d clean it up later.

I grabbed another T-shirt out of a laundry basket and called Tomas. He answered on the third ring.

“Howzit, Tomas? I’m home. Tatan’s grounded, remember?”

“How could I forget? Man, he was one wicked dude yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, now I’m stuck babysitting.” I fell back onto the couch and snaked the black telephone cord around my arm. “Want to come over? We could play baseball.”

“I guess. I’m not doing anyt’ing around here ’cept helping my nana with chores,” Tomas said. “I ought to be able to weenie out of those. I’ll be over in a minute with my bat.”

“Kay-o. See you… And hurry, it’s driving me nuts being here alone with Tatan.”

I put on my gym shoes and waited.

Tomas’s one minute dragged into one hour and eighteen minutes later when he showed up with his bat.

“What took so long?”

“I couldn’t find my bat. Finally found it out back stuck in banyan roots.” Tomas held up his wooden bat. “Maybe
taotaomonas
took it.”

“That’s not funny.” I didn’t like someone joking about ancestral spirits that live in banyan trees. The stories gave me the willies.

“You never know, maybe the spirits play baseball in the boonies.” Tomas looked ready to launch into a ghost story. A shiver ran down my neck.

“Come on.” I shook it off. “Time’s a-wasting.”

Tatan sat in a stupor on the front steps. Bobo lay panting beside him on the ground, licking salt from Tatan’s dangling hand.

“Good Bobo.” I scratched behind his ears. “Stay with Tatan.” Bobo looked as if he was about to get up and follow me. “Stay.” As soon as he settled back down, I scooted past them both. “Tatan, I’m going to play baseball with Tomas.” Tatan didn’t so much as blink.

I trotted out and joined Tomas at the edge of the cow pasture between our house and the boonies, which is a really dense jungle.

When Sammy played with us, he was the designated ball finder, especially if it went into the boonies. The other choice would be to map out a diamond farther into the cow pasture. That meant we would have to dodge cow patties, so Sammy said this was the best place.

Since Sammy was in Vietnam, Tomas and I figured we better be good hitters and fast runners. Neither one of us wanted to risk going into the boonies. Besides, we were down to only one baseball—the baseball Sammy had given me before he left.

“Hey, Kiko.” Tomas was first up at bat. “Maybe you should change the name of ‘Sammy’s Quonset Hut’ to ‘Tatan’s Coco-Nut Hut.’”

“Hey, Tomas.” I gyrated on the mound and wound up as if for a wild pitch. “Watch what you say about my tatan while I’m the one t’rowing the ball.”

Tomas planted his feet farther back from the bare spot in the dirt we called home plate.

I repositioned my feet on the bare pitcher’s mound. I spit in the grass and wound up my right arm, rotating my shoulder backward. Then I brought the ball chest-high and hid it in my mitt. I stood steady with my right knee bent and my left heel lifted off the ground. This was a fancy pitch I’d been practicing to throw the batter off his game and get more spin and speed on the ball.

“Who you t’ink you are? Tom Seaver?” Tomas yelled.

Smart aleck. I’d show him. I thrust my left foot and my right arm forward simultaneously to hurl the ball past Tomas’s bat.

“Strike one!” Tomas called in his umpire voice. “Not bad,” he added. “Bet you can’t do it again.” Without Sammy, whoever batted had to double as umpire and catcher.

I did do it again. And again. Three strikes.

“How come you so hot today?” Tomas asked. “You’re slaughtering me worse than a boonie pig at fiesta, bro! Let’s quit and get lunch.”

“My turn at bat.” I wasn’t anxious to go back home to Tatan.

“And he winds-up…” Tomas imitated a sportscaster.

“Just pitch, eh?” I cocked both arms back, bat ready to swing, chin near my left shoulder.

Tomas announced, “And it’s a curve ball, a little low, outside, and it’s a… and he slugs it high.” I hit that sucker so far Tomas didn’t even bother to chase it. “Fans, looks like it’s out of the ballpark… Yes, yes, I can see it now! It’s, it’s…”

What a beautiful sight! I hit Sammy’s ball so solid it arched into the sky like a rainbow. I tossed down the bat and trotted toward the outfield. The sun blinded me for a minute. When I looked for the ball again, it was gone. I ran the line the ball flew in and dashed into the weeds at the edge of the boonies. Dang. I didn’t want to cross into the jungle after it. Even though I didn’t see it come down, I had heard the ball break branches. I dragged my foot from side to side to mash down the brush. No ball.

How many times had Tata warned me not to go into the boonies alone? He said deep in the heart of the jungle lived wild boars, swarms of mosquitoes, bloodsucking leeches, poisonous brown tree snakes, Gila monsters, tree spirits, and murderous stragglers. One of those things would have put the fear of God in me. But together?
Gulp.

Yet my only ball was in there. Sammy’s ball. Why hadn’t I asked Tata to buy me a new baseball so I could put Sammy’s ball on my shelf and not use it? It was a big deal to Sammy when he gave me the ball and told me to hold on to it. “For when I come back and we play baseball again.” I’d teased him and told him how I’d whip him by then. Why did I have to hit Sammy’s ball into the boonies? I walked in a little ways farther to see if a ball had whizzed through there. Nothing.

The dense brush swallowed Tomas’s voice, calling me from the clearing.

I looked around to get my bearings. It’d be easy to get lost. I knew better than to wander aimlessly in the jungle. When I was about nine, I’d gone alone into the boonies. Sammy never let me forget. “We nearly lost you!” Sammy would remind me. But I figured Sammy must have gotten a scolding from Nana for not keeping a better eye on me.

The deeper I tromped into the boonies, the thicker the underbrush got. I pushed palm fronds aside. A prickly vine snapped up and ripped my jams. “Oh bugger.” I picked out a thorn and licked the blood off my thumb. I’d have to hide my shorts or else I’d have some explaining to do to Nana.

Deeper, deeper I trudged into the boonies. Deeper in than Tata allowed. But it was my only ball.

Don’t lose it in the boonies,
I could still hear Sammy say as if he were standing beside me.
Or I’ll have to fly home just to find it for you.

I wished he could fly home. Besides cheering Nana up, I wanted that knife. It was spooky in the jungle. I’d feel safer with a weapon. Better yet, I wish I had Tatan’s machete.