It is the endless rain and mud that Kao remembers. When he is forced to remember. They were wet and cold, always. They got good at finding a few planks from those houses that had been bombed but had not burned, and laying the planks side by side, staggered a little so that the rain slid off them and they could lie beneath them, holding onto each other through the night because two bodies pressed together are slightly less miserable than two bodies separated. Such shelters never lasted. During the day, older children would discover the shelter and take it for themselves.

Ming remembers the bodies. Bodies everywhere in the rain and mud. Weeks after the invasion they were still not buried. Ming lived in constant fear of passing by a corpse that would turn out to be one of his parents or one of his sisters. He learned when he couldn’t avoid seeing a corpse, to avoid looking towards the head and focus just on the legs. 

When the rain was the hardest and the world seemed less solid, a body here and there would sometimes seem to move on its own and Ming would start crying because he was afraid it was going to try to follow them.  When they were thirsty they drank the rain water out of bomb craters and when they were hungry they remembered what hot food had tasted like.

Before much longer they would have died like everyone else in Nanjing seemed to be dying but one day they were rounded up by the foreign soldiers who had arrived when the world had stopped exploding all around them and were set to work doing odd jobs around the loading docks by the river, where it seemed to them that every boat that had ever existed was moored and each of them had painted on it a blood red circle. They were given one small cup of rice each day. Often they managed to eat it before the older ones could take it from them and so starved less quickly. It was enough to keep them from running away.

They were put with a group of teenagers digging holes for latrines and cleaning out the latrines that were already being used. Later, neither of them could remember the first time they saw the Big Foreign Soldier, the one who could tell the other foreign solders what to do and they would have to do it. He went around in his own car with two tiny blood red circle flags on it and he lived in a huge white tent in a small city of tents up the hill from the loading docks. One day Ming had stopped digging and was watching his car go from ship to ship while the Big Foreign Soldier would get out and the foreign soldiers at the ship would stop what they were doing and stand up straight while he talked to one of them. The foreign soldier in charge of their group of diggers came up behind Ming while he was observing and kicked him in the small of the back. Ming fell face down into the mud and began crying while the soldier screamed first at him and then at the group as a whole. After that, Ming had to walk more slowly and carefully.

Their hands blistered from the rough shovel handles. One night, Kao found a bloated corpse that wore a soggy shirt and managed to remove it and tear away the part that was blood stained. He tore the rest of it into strips that could be tied around the hand where it gripped the shovel.

They retain no sense of duration or sequence of events. Their memories are just fragments of episodes. The only thing that stitches it all together is the background of cold and wet and bodies in mud and foreign soldiers by the thousands. One day their group of diggers was put to work near the tent of the Big Foreign Soldier. In the afternoon his car drove up and he emerged and stood for a moment looking at the group before going inside. Then, maybe the next day, or maybe the day after that, a soldier came, grabbed each of them by the shoulder and pulled them out of the group. They were marched to a tent almost two li away where they were given clothes so big that even rolling up pant legs and sleeves was useless and one of the soldiers had to use a pair of scissors and while he cut them short he cursed the boys and the other soldiers laughed at him. Then they were marched back to the tent of the Big Foreign Soldier.

They cleaned the tent and the tents of the others like him and cleaned the mess tents. The soldiers barked orders to them that they couldn’t understand and then clubbed them on the side of the head when the boys didn’t do as instructed. They learned to immediately find a bucket and water and rags and broom wherever they were taken and begin cleaning. They got no more food than before but there was a large house nearby that had one room left that was not completely destroyed. The roof was gone but three of the four walls stood and out of the thousands of roof tiles on the floor they built a tiny shelter they could crawl into at night and share the ragged blanket they’d been given.

One night they were sweeping one of the tents when they heard yelling from the direction of the Big Foreign Soldier’s tent. Then a soldier came into the tent, yelled at them and shoved them out the door and kept shoving them up to the entrance of the Big Foreign Soldier’s tent. Still shouting at them, he parted the tent flaps, came to attention and spoke to the Big Foreign Soldier, who was sitting at his desk behind a stack of papers. They bowed. He looked up, his eyes grew large. He said something to the soldier who had brought them in who turned and left. Then the Big Foreign Soldier stood up and began yelling at them again, and slapping his palm against the surface of the desk. Then he pointed at a spot on the floor at his side behind the desk. He shouted again and they walked to the spot and looked down at the floor. The Big Foreign Soldier stood up behind his desk and reached into a drawer. Ming began to cry softly. Kao began shaking. The Big Foreign Soldier was holding two paper packages, folded closed. He put them on the desk in front of him and opened one of them.

It contained a measure of cooked rice. He spoke sharply. The boys shrank back. He put a finger under Kao’s chin and lifted it up until Kao saw the package. He folded it up again and mimicked putting the package in the waist of his pants where it couldn’t be seen. Then he took it out, handed it to Kao and pointed to Kao’s waist. He looked toward the tent flap and made a hurrying motion. Kao was too confused to do anything but put the package of rice in the waist of his pants. Then the Big Foreign Solder handed the second package to Kao and pointed to Ming’s waist. Ming was staring at the floor, tears rolling down his face, and did nothing when Kao tucked the package between his belly and pants. Then the Big Foreign Soldier looked down at Kao and made a go-away gesture with his hands.

Kao now knew that he would accuse the boys of stealing as soon as they left and that they would be bayoneted by the Big Foreign Soldier’s men. Kao began shaking more violently but the soldier screamed at them and shoved them toward the door. He drew back the flap and they ran out of the tent, past the guard and did not stop until they were back at their tiny cell made of roof tiles. Then they ate a second meal of the day for the first time in more than six weeks.

Kao and Ming’s duties expanded. They were taught to clean and polish boots as well as sweep and scrub. They carried laundry bags and emptied chamber pots. Whenever they saw the Big Foreign Soldier he either ignored them or pointed to something they had just cleaned or swept and yelled at them while they cowered. Then he would glance at the drawer in his desk. They extracted the extra rations from the drawer when the Big Foreign Soldier wasn’t there and eventually could do it even when one of his soldiers was in the tent with them. Sometimes it was rice. Sometimes flat strips of dried sea weed. Sometimes both.

Most of the Big Foreign Soldier’s men got used to seeing them around and during their chores they were often kicked and shoved a little less. One morning at sunup when they arrived to begin work, one of the soldiers said something to them in a normal voice. Another time, a soldier let them take a puff of his cigarette, and laughed when they coughed, but it was the sort of laughter that didn’t make them cringe in fear.

Spring came. Ming still cried himself to sleep but they had both stopped losing weight even though the longer days meant more hours of working. One night it had turned dark but the Big Foreign Soldier was working alone at his desk and kept pointing at things for them to do. Every once in a while one of his soldiers would come into the tent, bow and hand him more papers while Kao and Ming melted into a corner. Eventually no one else came. The Big Foreign Soldier gave them rice and sea weed but pointed to a spot on the floor next to his chair and said something in a soft voice. They came and stood next to him, bowing.

He laid a photograph on the desk. It wasn’t in a frame. On a beach stood a young man with his arm around the shoulder of a young woman. They could see water off to one side of the photograph and in the background a large, oddly shaped mountain jutting into the water. The Big Foreign Soldier was talking softly. He motioned them to look closely. He pointed at the couple and talked some more. Then he put his finger on the photo and said, “Hawaii.” he said it again, tapping his finger on the photo. “Hawaii. Hai! Hawaii!” It was the first time they had ever seen him smile.

That night it was warm and they lay on top of their blankets in the dark. Ming asked Kao if he supposed that the Big Foreign Soldier’s son Hawaii was also a soldier. And if he was, was he an important one who could tell the other soldiers what to do like his father could?

 

 

Ming and Kao sat together on the bench in front of the lockers. First some firemen and then some paramedics had tromped through the kitchen, acting as if something horrible had happened and finally leaving when Ming wouldn’t let them take him to the emergency room. The owner abandoned his office upstairs, put on an apron and hat and herded the gang of four back into the kitchen.

“You should have gone with them,” said Kao.

“No,” said Ming. “No.”

“You fell pretty hard. What if you got a concussion?”

“Well, what if I did? I don’t have one any more; I’m fine now.”

“And you need a couple sutures. The guy said so.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“OK. We’ll go tomorrow.”

“Or maybe the next day.” He got up, walked to the sink and began scrubbing the dried blood off his face. “What do you think? The Japanese kid’s got to be his grandson, right?”

“Assuming that was Hawaii in the picture.”

“You know damn well that was Hawaii in the picture.” Ming examined his face in the mirror, found some recalcitrant streaks of dried blood and scrubbed some more.

Kao sat with his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. For a while he didn’t say anything. Then he started tapping his thigh with his bible to some unheard rhythm. “He’s a faggot, you know. There was a picture of him holding hands with this blond guy.”

“The kid? Go on, he’s not a faggot. You can tell one when you see one.”

“Lot of them get good at hiding it, so no, you can’t always tell. Besides, somebody calls you a fag you either break his nose, or call him a fag or something. You don’t just stand there and keep saying give me back that picture of me with my pervert boyfriend.”

Ming dried his face with a dish towel. The large square band aid that covered his wound was now soaked with water and curling up at the corners. He pulled it off and threw it in the trash bin. Kao thought that the cut looked far too small to have caused that much bleeding. Ming said, “Well if he is one, I don’t want him working here.”

“If Mr. Ong gets wind of it you’ll probably get your wish.”

“Best thing for everybody, far as I’m concerned.”

“Not best for the kid.”

“He’s a disgrace to his family.” He looked directly at Kao. “And his grandfather.”

“Yes.” Kao picked up his bible, set it down at his side, picked it up again. He started to say something then stopped. For a full minute he just sat on the bench staring ahead. Finally he picked up his bible again, gripped it in both hands. “So we have to try to help him.”

“Help him? Help him do what?”

Kao shrugged. “I don’t know. Help him not be a disgrace to his family.” He stood up. “We owe his grandfather our lives. We owe him our lives a lot of times over. It’s a debt we can never repay but speaking of disgraces it would be a disgrace for us not to honor the debt.”

Through the door into the kitchen they could hear the clanging of metal pans and the hissing of vegetables in woks. They walked through the door and into the kitchen. Holy Kao raised his bible, pointed it at the son of Hawaii, the son of the Big Foreign Soldier and shouted in English, “You! Dumb fuck kid! You chop more onion!”

Dumb Fuck Kid looked on the shelf below one of the counters and brought out a big metal bowl and took it to the counter with the cardboard box full of onions. Kao reached for the knife. “You watch me. I show you how you chop onion so you don’t cry. Look, you have to make first cut in the right place. Like this.” And he began slicing.

 

 

Dumb Fuck Kid got off the bus, walked across Hawthorne then around to the side of Fred and Ethel’s apartment building, to the short set of stairs that led down to the basement entrance. It had been dark for an hour and the light above the stairs had been burnt out for months so he smelled the cigarette smoke before he saw that there was anyone there. Cathy was sitting on a small stone bench to the side of the stairs, a small cherry red glow hovering in front of her face.

“Jesus! I don’t see how you can stand to do that.”

Cathy blew out a cloud of smoke that showed blue gray in the dark. “And I don’t see how you can stand to not do it.”

“I’ll remind you of this conversation when I visit you in the cancer ward.”

“You’re too much of a killjoy. I won’t let you in. You’ll just have to scold me from outside in the hall and miss out on hearing all of my many friends gathered around my bedside telling me how loved I am while the oxygen whispers gently through my nasal cannula.”

“Sounds appropriately gruesome.”

“Uh oh!”

“Uh oh, what?”

“You’re not being your usual bubbly self tonight. Do I detect a disturbance in the Force?”

Dumb Fuck Kid stretched his arms above his head, took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s been a very weird night.”

Cathy leaned down, picked a can up from the ground beside the bench and held it up. “Weird enough for a can of cherry coke?”

Dumb Fuck Kid took the can and opened it. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe almost that weird.”

“Fred and Ethel had 50’s TV night upstairs. This was tonight’s official beverage.”

Dumb Fuck Kid took a swallow then raised the can in a toast. “Tastes really awful. Thanks.” Then he said “Oh, shit! I totally forgot about Fred and Ethel. This could get worse.” He shook his head slowly.

Cathy slid to one end of the bench, dropped her cigarette into an open cherry coke can beside the bench and patted the spot next to her. “Have a seat and let Sister Catherine hear of your agonies.”

Dumb Fuck Kid shrugged off his student back pack and sat down with his elbows on his knees, staring at the shrubs that ran along against the apartment building next door. He nursed his coke for a few minutes. Then he unzipped his back pack, took out a light jacket, put it on and had some more coke. Finally, “I have like a secret identity. You know, like Clark Kent. Except that instead of a super hero suit under my street clothes, I have a big letter F tattooed on my chest. And I can’t let anybody see the tattoo, ever. Except for others with the same tattoo.”

Cathy waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. She took out another cigarette from the pack next to the cherry coke can and a lighter. “Do you mind?”

Dumb Fuck Kid motioned to the stone bench. “Your office, your rules”.

She lit up and said, “I’m going to guess that since you mentioned it, somebody saw the tattoo and found out you aren’t really Clark Kent. Or something.”

Dumb Fuck Kid lay his index finger against the tip of his nose.

“So you can’t pass yourself off as a mild-mannered reporter any more.”

Dumb Fuck Kid took a long drink, swished the can around, saw that it was empty and set it down. “I got outed at work tonight.”

Cathy looked blank. “Outed?”

“Outed. As in, forced out of the closet.”

“Ohhhhh … “ She took another drag and let the smoke out slowly. “So the tattooed ‘F’ stands for ‘Undesirable Pervert.’”

“You’ve cracked the code.”

“Your work wouldn’t fire you, would they?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably not. I don’t know. The bible thumper cook at work who did the outing ended up being nice to me. Probably wants me to come to Jesus. One of the guys I work with wouldn’t look at me the rest of the shift. I don’t know if anybody’s going to tell the owner and if they do I don’t know how he’d react. That’s always the thing if you get outed, see. You just hang out and be you, and the rest of the world gets to decide whether you get shit on or you get a pass this time.”

“I know Fred and Ethel love you.”

“Of course they do. I’m their nephew’s best friend. His very bestest, very closest friend of all.” He looked at Cathy placidly.

“Oh Christ, no! Really?”

“Yup.”

“That’s hysterical! I love it. Like sands through the hour glass, these are the days of our lives and there’s one life to live as the world turns, with all my children.”

“Trouble is, if Aunt Sunshine finds out, even if she ends up being cool with it, she’s still gonna tell Jeff’s mother and then the real soap opera starts. Jeff was terrified that something like this might happen if I stayed with his relatives. I told him he was just being paranoid. We had a fight.”

“I can’t see how she’d ever find out.”

“Gossip. She got me the job through a friend of a friend of a friend. Word does get around. Shit!” He stared ahead for a moment while Cathy blew more smoke. “Hey, I just remembered a joke. Do you know what the most challenging part of getting AIDS is?”

Cathy stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “No. What is the most challenging part of getting AIDS?”

“It’s trying to convince your parents that you’re Haitian.”

“Oh groan!” She bent over and picked up her cherry coke can ash tray. “I guess I’ll say goodnight on that note. Do you know what I think you should do?”

“Does it involve me giving up on monogamy, dropping out of school and moving down to the San Francisco where I would drown my troubles in gay bars and nonstop anonymous sex?”

“No, but that sounds like a solid fallback position. I’m meeting with my sorority tomorrow morning for brunch at Al’s.”

“You’re in a sorority?”

“Those blue pants you’re wearing. Are they your work pants?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect!. You’re required to wear them tomorrow. Don’t forget! The pants are important. Now then, you could do with some socializing, so just think of my sorority as an instant social network. And you know how us girls like social networks. You get to be an honorary girl for the morning.”

“You realize I’m kind of on the butch side of things, right? Never had a female BFF. Prefer male company, pro sports, get it on with guys, that sort of thing. I’m just saying in case you weren’t sure how this homosexual stuff works.”

“Oh, posh! It’s like how on St. Patrick’s Day everybody’s Irish? Same sort of thing with my sorority. I’ll knock on your door at 10:30.”

“Maybe.”

“And don’t go stuffing yourself before hand. Al’s is the best breakfast place west of the Mississippi.”