The Tattoo (30 page)

Ken tossed the books back in the box. Cal thought about Ken’s story and his own and wondered whether either could have turned out differently. It was a tough question to ask. Nobody in here wanted to think that they always had the power to prevent their fates. But for an instant Cal wanted the truth. He scratched his head. Maybe he could’ve stopped himself, but he didn’t know for sure. Just then the doors buzzed. It was time for breakfast.

Ken was looking at himself in the stainless steel mirror. “Fuckin’ shitty mirror. I can’t even see myself. Did I tell you Claudia’s coming to visit with the kid?”

Cal walked out of the cell silent, with only the promise of the story of what would happen between Ken and Claudia soothing him. He wanted to speak, but he didn’t know what he’d say.

As Ken walked out to start on another long tick of the clock, Cal silently wished him the best. He was the last ronin, presently in a world that may have suited him, soon to be released in a world that would not embrace him. But like the ronins before him, he would search for work that fit him, try to live honorably and maybe even die bloody. It was to live by the sword. Cal was glad for Ken that his son would not have to live the same way.

epilogue

“Going, like an ebb tide flowing,”

like a tradewind blowing,

soon you will be far across the sea.

Flying, soon you will be flying,

like a teardrop drying,

leaving just a memory.”

Flying

The Peter Moon Band

THE LAST RONIN

C
laudia Choy sat in her mother’s Mercedes. She got up on her knees and turned toward the back seat.

“Craudia,” her mother said, “you sit down now.”

Claudia felt her mother’s arm push against her lower back. She ignored it and reached her hand out to her baby. Christian, Claudia’s two-year-old son, slapped his mother’s hand away and said, “No.”

Claudia sighed and turned back around to sit down.“Mom,” she said, “I told you not to give him apple juice anymore. His teeth are getting rotten.”

Her mother laughed. “When you on da plane wit’ him, you glad I give him apple juice. If not, he cry and cry.”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to be the one who has to get him off that stuff when we get to San Francisco. Look at him, it’s like his crack. He’s so spoiled.”

Claudia adjusted the rearview mirror to look at her son. He seemed to be ignoring them. He just looked out the window and sucked on his bottle of apple juice. Claudia pushed the mirror up slightly and looked at the open trunk, which was stuffed with her suitcases. She sighed and tried to put the mirror back where she thought her mother would want it. As soon as she took her hand off the mirror, Claudia heard her mother sigh. Her mother re-adjusted the mirror. “Pabo,” she said.

“Mom, don’t call me stupid.”

“You no touch mirror, and you no complain I spoil my grandson. I’m grandma. I spoil. And you know...”

“Mom, don’t start.”

“Well, where we go now? We go visit my grandson’s father. In jail. In jail.”

Claudia’s mind flashed to the night her son was prematurely born. She remembered the blood and the pain. She had been blinded by the pain, blinded so much she could only hear the yelling between Ken and his father. She felt Ken trip over her body, she heard Ken fall through the glass case. But she remembered the pain the most, up until the pain became silent. When the pain became silent, she no longer heard son and father yelling, instead it seemed quiet for hours. Then she heard the sound of the blade sliding from its sheath. Her pain returned and she almost lost consciousness. She managed to stay awake, though, not through her own strength, but instead because she felt the hot, gushing liquid as it dumped on her face. It was more shocking than a bucket of cold water to the face, because despite her blinding pain, she knew what the steaming liquid was. This realization sent her eyes shooting open, and when she looked up she saw Ken standing above her, standing there with blood all over his naked torso, with the sword hanging from his clenched fingers, her eyes froze open.

Then her eyes moved up to his face. Behind his head hung the wrinkled Musashi print. It was a disturbing image. His head blocked out Musashi’s torso so that it looked like Musashi’s arms came out of Ken’s head. Both arms held wooden sticks and for a moment Claudia wondered what kind of wood the sticks were made of. She looked at Ken’s face and saw it was speckled with blood. She would not have been so scared, it occurred to her, if he didn’t look so calm, so serene. But his calmness had shaken her up badly. When he looked down at her with that look, that look that seemed to try to tell her everything was fine, and bent down and extended his bloody hands toward her, she screamed and lost consciousness.

Claudia watched as her mother took the Halawa cutoff. “One hour,” her mother said, “one hour, den you go airport.”

Claudia had already told Ken she had gotten accepted into a graduate Art History program at Berkeley, and that of course she planned to take their son Christian up with her. She had written him often, not wanting to visit, not knowing if she was ready to see his face. She knew if she saw it too soon, she’d still see the speckled blood on it and probably pass out at the sight. She laughed to herself. It had taken thousands of dollars of psychiatric help for her finally to be able to suppress the image, to get a solid night of sleep.

The Mercedes pulled up to the gate of the Halawa High Security Facility. Claudia looked up at the high fence and saw the razor wire coiled above it. She wondered how many sleepless nights Ken spent thinking of a way to get past it, but then she remembered Ken never had the tendency to challenge what he saw as insurmountable obstacles. She doubted that he had been serious about moving to the mainland. In fact, during the later part of her stay in Ka‘a‘awa, she had seen Ken as her own prison-high fence, coiled razor wire and all. After they passed the gate, Claudia felt her palms begin to sweat.

Claudia took Christian out of the car. She grabbed a bag full of bottles and diapers. She closed the door and stuck her head through the window. “One hour, Mom. He really should get to see his son in person before I leave for the mainland.”

Kilcha just sighed and waved her daughter on. Claudia turned toward the building and walked in that direction with her son in her arms. She wondered if this was where Ken had always been meant to be. She wondered if there was any way he could have avoided this. She felt that in killing his father, Ken had not committed a huge crime. She had hated Ken’s father so much that his death didn’t bother her too much. But as she walked toward the entrance of the building, she remembered the other crime he had committed, the one that had ended the lives of the three Koreans her mother had sent, one of them her cousin Dong Jin.

He had thought she never knew. But she had heard it that first night at Koa’s. She’d heard the story told straight from Ken’s mouth.

When Koa had called Ken into the bushes to show him the cess-pool that first day in Waiahole, Claudia leaned over to Kahala. “Hey, why don’t you take your kids and go out to dinner? My treat.”

Kahala frowned at Claudia. “Listen, don’t give me some charity trip and don’t try to get rid of me, too. You have your nerve, coming to my house and saying something like ‘my treat.’ Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Claudia was shocked that Kahala took it so badly. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m so sorry. No, what I want to do is act like we all went to dinner. I’ll write a note saying that we went, but I’ll stay back here and try to listen to what they talk about. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that I know they’ll hold back if they know I’m around and I really want to understand this relationship between Koa and Ken. I’m trying to understand Ken better and this might really help.”

Kahala frowned.“What have you been smoking? Listen, as a woman who has lived with Koa now for years and has listened to him and his friends talk, I’ll tell you, you probably don’t want to hear any of it. It’s all pretty standard macho stuff. And if it’s not standard, it’s stuff that’ll scare the shit out of you. Listen, you’re better off coming with us to dinner.”

But Claude refused. So Kahala shrugged, called her kids, and jumped in the Pathfinder. Before Kahala left, she told Claudia that she’d pull the Pathfinder behind the house when she returned. Claudia thought it was a stupid plan until Kahala told her she always drove over the California grass around the house. She told Claude it was the only thing which kept the house from being buried beneath the long, thick weeds. She assured Claude that Koa would think nothing of it, and therefore neither would Ken. They agreed to meet at the back of the house. Kahala rolled her eyes and drove off. Claudia sneaked into the house and listened as Ken and Koa sat down at the picnic table.

As Claudia walked through the doors of Halawa, she remembered listening to Ken and Koa. It was the one great thing about a skeleton house, she thought, sounds travelled easily. Ken called the men he’d killed “Nameless Koreans.” But she knew one of their names. Dong Jin. She knew it was him by the way Ken described the Korean holding the gun on him, the way he described Dong Jin’s long hair and small yellow teeth. Dong Jin was a name which her great-grandfather had once worn. It was a name which meant a great deal to her family. Dong Jin was not just one man, but he was also a product of survival, a being who lived because others had survived before him, survived Japanese occupation and civil war. He was cherished.

She understood why Ken had killed him. In fact, when she heard the story, she told herself that she would’ve done the same in that situation, but she still felt like he had amputated a limb from the body of her family.

Claudia met a guard at the desk and was instructed to wait. Several minutes later, she and Christian were led to a room in the back which held a row of partitions. Claude was surprised to see that, like in the movies, she would have to see Ken through a window and talk to him through a phone hanging on the partition. She sat in the chair and waited for her son’s father. Christian started to cry. Claudia took a bottle of apple juice out of her bag and gave it to her son.

He didn’t look that different to her. A bit skinnier and a bit lighter skinned, but he still walked with the same confidence that had attracted her to him when they first met. Ken sat down in front of her and smiled. They both picked up the phone. They both tried to talk at the same time. Ken stopped and let Claudia speak. “You look good, Ken. So how bad is it?”

“Bad. Fuckin’ bad. But hopefully I’ll be out of here within a year.”

Claudia knew he should have been let out already. He had been charged with involuntary manslaughter and after two years he should have been let out on parole. But Ken had never made this entire ordeal easy on himself. He had refused to hire a lawyer and instead had relied on a public defender. A good lawyer might have gotten him off on self-defense, or at least convinced the court that he was defending his girlfriend and unborn child, but Ken had let the public defender plead the case down to involuntary manslaughter and had gone to jail without a word of complaint. It was because Ken himself didn’t really remember what had happened and he refused to have his public defender call Claudia as a witness.

Claudia had not seen any of this process. She was in the hospital when he got arrested and charged. She was instructed by her psychiatrist to stay away from him during his arraignment and sentencing. She heard the story secondhand from the only person who really stuck with Ken through the whole thing, Uncle James Puana. He had somehow found her mother’s telephone number and called to tell her what was going on. She was able to tell from the tone of his voice that Mr. Puana thought she should go visit him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

So as Claude looked at Ken through the glass, she felt a deep sense of guilt.“I’m glad to hear you’ll be getting out soon,” she said. “We both know you shouldn’t be in here.”

Ken’s eyes were pre-occupied with his son. He did not even glance at Claudia when he spoke. He stared at his son and smiled. “No, we both know I should.”

Ken’s eyes drifted up to Claudia.“Did you get the money?”

“Yeah, I did. I got the money from the bank, the money your father left for Christian, the money from the house and car. I left an account for you when you get out. Ten thousand.”

“Take it all.”

“Ken, you need it more than I do. I have my mother helping me. You’re going to need some money to start over.”

Ken laughed. “Claude, I’m not starting over. I’m too damn tired to start over. Don’t worry, I’m not going to follow you and the kid or anything. In fact, I want you and Christian to stay far away from me. I don’t want the kid near me. But start over? I ain’t starting over shit. But on a positive note, I ain’t coming back here either.”

Claudia sighed. “Well regardless, the money will be there.”

Ken drummed his fingers on the counter. He looked back at his son. “Don’t tell him about me,” he said.

“Listen,” Claude said, “I don’t want to argue. He has a right to know about you. When he asks, I’ll tell him. If he wants to find you, I’ll show him how. Ken, I’m not ashamed of you, and he won’t be ashamed of you. You shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself.”

Ken’s eyes drifted downwards. He looked back up. “Guess what, I got a new tattoo.”

“Let’s see it.”

Ken turned around and lifted his shirt. Claudia saw the enormous tattoo stretched across his back. It was kanji. The black was scabbing. Ken put down his shirt and turned around. He smiled and picked up the phone. “
The Book of the Void
. Sums it up nicely, doesn’t it?”

“Your life isn’t over, Ken.You can change all of that.”

Ken smiled. “Yeah, probably.” He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Listen,” he said. “Anyway, thanks for coming. But listen, I think I should be going now.”

Claudia looked at her watch. She had been there for only about ten minutes. “Come on, Ken,” she said,“we have an hour.”

Ken’s face turned angry. Claudia felt the legs of her chair inch back, scraping against the floor. For the first time she saw the resemblance between Ken and his father. “Listen,” Ken said, “I was under the impression that this hour was for me. Well, I’m saying it’s over. But before I go back in, I want you to know, that night, that night Koa died, I was ready to go to the mainland. I want you to know, I was willing to go.”

Ken looked at his son one more time before standing up. Christian was still silently sucking on his bottle of apple juice. Before putting the phone down, Ken asked, “Hey, isn’t he a bit old to be drinking from a bottle?”