The Tattoo (4 page)

I think it was a beautiful day. Cool, temperate, no clouds in the Kaneohe sky. Uncharacteristic of the Windward side. Grandpa told me I’d be staying with him for a while because my father needed time alone. I wouldn’t see my father for two months.

Grandpa lived in Kaneohe. He lived alone since my grandmother had passed away before I was born. As he drove me through the winding roads behind the Kaneohe Police Station, he talked with enthusiasm about the time we would spend together. “We talked to da school, an you can stay out fo’ couple weeks. By den goin’ be summa vacation. We can go fishing. We can go movies. Goin’ be fun.” I wasn’t really listening, just looking out my open window and feeling the sun and wind weather my child face.

We pulled up Grandpa’s loose gravel driveway and he turned off the engine of his old Toyota Corona. He waited until I got out of the car, then gently put his hands on my shoulders, turned me around and followed me up the three wooden steps that led to his front screen door. As we walked into the living room, I saw the familiar glass case on the other side of the room. “Kenji,” he said,“you can take your fadda’s old room. Arready get some clothes inside. He went drop ‘um off yestaday when he went ask if I can take you for awhile.”

But I was in a sudden daze. I couldn’t take my eyes off the case, or off the sheathed swords within it. When he tapped the back of my shoulder, I vacantly nodded. Suddenly, his voice rose. “You like see da swords?”

I nodded vigorously and Grandpa walked me toward the case. After opening the lid, he reached down in the glass box and carefully lifted out the larger sword, the katana. He began speaking again. “My fadda, your great-grand fadda, he brought dis wit him from Japan. Dis sword, he told me, was in our family for yeas. One day I goin’ give ‘um to your fadda, an den he goin’ give ‘um to you. Dese two swords, dey da only tings we get from Japan, da only tings we get from our ancestas. So when you get um, you betta take care.”

He unsheathed the katana. I could hear the blade sliding out. It was shiny. The setting sun poured rays in through the window, touching the metal. The reflection made my eyes squint. He turned the handle toward me. “Hold ‘um,” he whispered.

I grabbed the hilt and felt the crimson threading wrapped around it. My palms were sweating. When Grandpa released his grip from the katana, I did not expect the weight. The tip crashed down on the floor, puncturing the carpet. He laughed.“Be careful, da sword heavy.”

I raised the tip above the ground, looking at the blade, excited by the danger of its sharpness. I turned around and faced the window, lifting the sword up and letting it stand before the bleeding sky. My skinny arms began to shake.

“Hea,” he said, as he gently took the katana from my hands. He carefully put the decorated sheath back on. “One day dis goin’ be yours,” he repeated as he placed the sword back in its fragile case.

Sleeping in my father’s old room that night, I had a terrifying dream. I was underwater, naked, armed with my family sword. A big tiger shark was circling me, patiently waiting for me to drop my guard. It kept going around and around as I frantically spun in circles trying to keep the sword between me and it. I was running out of breath, but I refused to rise to the surface. I was getting dizzy. The shark sensed my weakening condition and moved in. It bumped me hard, then quickly retreated and began circling again. Every time I would begin losing consciousness, the shark would bump me and wake me up. This seemed to go on for hours, and in frustration I yelled for my mother. My own cowardly chill woke me.

The Tripmaster Monkey
said of the first Japanese immigrants: “They didn’t come wretched to this country looking for something to eat. They’d been banished by the emperor or Amaterasu herself after taking the losing but honorable side in a lordly duel.”

That was when my great-grandfather came to Hawai‘i. Meiji Restoration. After over two-and-a-half centuries of Tokugawa rule, the emperor got his Japan back. Too bad. The Tokugawas had the right idea. Keep the West out. Keep the white man’s god out.

My great history lesson began the day after my mother’s funeral. After my grandfather cooked us up some apple and cinnamon oatmeal, he said, “You know, it’s time I told you about your history, not da kine haole history you goin’ learn in school, but our history. Japanese history.”

We sat there and he told me about the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu’s son. “You know why Japan da best? Cause afta Ieyasu’s son became Shogun, he told all da haoles to leave. When dey went try come back da son told his samurai to chop off da heads of half da crew, put da heads on sticks on da beach, and he told da res’ of da haoles, ‘Dis what goin’ happen if you try come back.’ Shit, if da Filipinos and Hawaiians did da same, who knows?”

Grandpa, the World War II veteran, the member of the Go for Broke 442nd, paused. I looked into his wrinkled face, into his old eyes that always looked watery. When men get old, it seems life is such a strain for them that the tears involuntarily flow. He continued. “You look at da Japanese. Was like da Middle Ages when da Tokugawas ruled. Da emperor take ova, fifty yeas lata, da Japanese one major world force. Fifty yeas, Japan not only catch up to everybody, but in da top four.”

He paused again. You had to be patient when you listened to Grandpa. His mind was still sharp, but it was like his mouth couldn’t work in sync with it.“You heard of da Kamikazes, yeah?”

I took in a spoonful of oatmeal and nodded.

“You see, Japanese, dey die befo’ dey accept defeat. Took one atomic bomb to beat da Japanese.”

I scraped the last spoonful of oatmeal from my bowl. It tasted sweet. My grandfather took the empty bowls to the sink and brought back two glasses of milk. “You know,” he said, “da Chinese could neva beat Japan. Dey went try. Kublai Khan went try. But da wind, da Kamikaze, sent ‘um back. Das da closest dey got. But Japan went beat China. You can imagine, one small island went beat up one big country? But was no fair. Da haoles went arready suck da spirit out of China.” Again, there was a pause. “You know, da opium.” He stopped to gaze at me. “You betta neva do drugs, boy. Goin’ kill da samurai spirit.”

Late that night, we started a tradition which lasted throughout my stay. We stayed up till ten o’clock and watched his favorite show,
Abarenbo Shogun
. I watched the subtitles flash on the bottom of the screen. It was toward the end when the Shogun, Yoshitsune, starts beating the hell out of an army of traitor samurai. It always ended the same. The treacherous daimyo of the week, recognizing the Shogun by the now visible Chrysanthemum crest on his kimono, bowed down to Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune, the ruler of the whole country, throughout the show had been assuming another identity to personally infiltrate the shady dealings going on in his kingdom. The daimyo never recognized him until the end, though. The subtitles read something like, “You have betrayed me. I order you to commit suicide right now.”The daimyo responded with,“He’s an imposter, kill him!” They never even came close. Before the treasonous attack ensued, the Shogun flicked his wrist and prepared to fight with the blunt, unbladed side of his katana. He mowed them down, knocking them unconscious with the power of his blows, without even sustaining a scratch. His blade remained unsoiled. His two assassins finished the job, killing the traitor daimyo.

After the show was over, I went to bed. I spent the night dreaming I was Yoshitsune, except I saw myself using the sharp side of the katana blade. I killed hundreds of samurai that night.

My stay with Grandpa was filled with trips to the Honolulu Zoo and Sea Life Park. He also took me to matinees at the Kaneohe Twins. The theaters were conveniently close, but the movies we saw were always released later than the movies which played in town. Sometimes we’d even drive all the way to the North Shore, to Haleiwa, just to eat the best shave ice on the island.

Wherever we’d drive, he’d tell me old stories of the places we passed. When we went to the Zoo, we always took the Pali Highway up through the Koolau Mountains. The first time he took me, as we neared the tunnels at the top, he told me, “You see dese cliffs? Dis is where King Kamehameha da First pushed da
ali‘i
, da chiefs of Oahu, off when had one big war. Kamehameha went chase da army all da way up da Honolulu side of da mountain and finally da
ali‘i
got stuck ova hea.”

I looked over the cliffs from the moving car and felt the goosebumps rise on my arms. It was so high. I imagined hundreds of ancient Hawaiians pouring down the side of the cliff like a human waterfall.

“You know, boy, neva have da Pali Highway when I was young. Instead we had fo’ take da Old Pali Road if we wanted to go town. We couldn’t go through da mountain, we had fo’ go around.”

When the car entered the first tunnel, I heard everything outside get louder. My grandfather had to speak up. “You know, get all kind ghosts around hea. Das why, I tell you now, neva take pork ova through dis tunnel. The ghosts goin’ get mad and bad stuff goin’ happen to you.”

I nodded. I wondered if my mother had become one of these ghosts. I hoped she had. It seemed like if she was a ghost on this mountain, at least it meant she wasn’t gone. I looked out the window hoping to see her. Then I realized it was daytime, and I probably wouldn’t. Everyone knew ghosts came out only at night.

Except when we took the Pali to town, staying with grandfather that summer really kept my mind off my mother. I wonder if that’s part of the reason why he told me all those stories. It was always about things that had passed. Olden times, from feudal Japan to World War II. Or maybe he knew he’d be passing soon, too. History was important to him. “It’s who we are,” he’d say. While other children dreamed of fighting dragons and saving princesses, I dreamed of sharks and the killing of men. Their dreams were fake, mine were real.

Two months later, Grandpa packed my bags and my father drove to Kaneohe to pick me up. It saddened me to leave. I stood in front of the glass case which held the two swords as I heard the tires of my father’s truck roll across the gravel. I felt like reaching into the case and taking the swords with me. My father’s footsteps approached and Grandpa opened the door. Suddenly I heard my father’s deep, aggressive voice, a voice I’d thought I wouldn’t recognize, coming from outside the door. “Hey, kid, you ready to go home?”

I turned around and looked at Grandpa, who stepped toward me, put his hand on my head, and gently guided me toward my father. My father grabbed my bags and paced toward the truck. He came back. “Tanks, Dad,” he said, “I hope da kid wasn’t too much trouble.”

“Eh, was great having him. In fact, maybe on weekends you should bring him ova.” My grandfather looked at me and gave me a wink.

“Maybe, maybe,” my father said.

The ride to Ka‘a‘awa was a quiet one. I rolled down the window and let the wind blow my hair back. I looked at each familiar thing we whizzed past: the Hygienic Store, the brown shoreline of Kaneohe Bay, the mangroves, the Hawaiian boys riding their bicycles on Kamehameha Highway. We passed Tang Store, Coral Kingdom, Kualoa Beach Park, and Chinaman’s Hat, my favorite little island off the coast. “Hey,” my father asked, “so what? Grandpa went spoil you plenty?”