Read Online Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara - Free Book Online

shortened finger both terrified and entranced Mas; he tried time after time to avoid looking at the severed appendage, but his eyes were inevitably lured to it. It was a mark of citizenship, reminding him that while Tug was a red, white, and blue American, Mas was only a bloody Kibei born in Watsonville who had spent most of his early years across the Pacific in Japan.
     
     
Mas eased himself to his feet and stared at the image in the dresser mirror. Large bags drooped from his black, beady eyes, and his long, outgrown hair stood up like a rooster’s crown. His cheek looked bad, like someone had tried to hull out a piece of flesh with a spoon. He groaned again, not for himself but for his duty to be presentable, a curse he learned from the always proper Chizuko.
     
     
After changing his T-shirt and jeans, Mas surveyed the living room. His fishing gear lay sprawled on the scratched coffee table, and stacks of junk mail and unopened bills littered the floor. Mas swept everything together and threw the mess into the hall closet. Better, almost, thought Mas. He went to the midnight-black piano and wiped the edge of his T-shirt over the layer of dust. Framed photos of Mari— as a baby in a pink pinafore, as a high school graduate wearing a lopsided mortarboard— stared back at Mas. But there were no others after that. Mas had picked up a kindergarten photo, when he heard a knock at the door.
     
     
“Your screen door’s broken and doorbell’s stuck, Mas.” Tug’s thick hands were wrapped around a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil. He plowed into the house, leaving the dish on the kitchen counter, while Lil followed ten steps back.
     
     
“My gosh, Tug, you’re acting like you live here,” Lil said from the porch.
     
     
“Come in, come in.” Mas held the door for the slight woman in the flowered dress. Her dark eyes were enlarged through her slightly tinted bifocals.
     
     
“Got a screwdriver?” Tug had returned after circling the living room.
     
     
Before Mas could answer, Tug was out the door. “It’s okay. Got one in the glove compartment,” he called from the porch.
     
     
“He’s been like this ever since he retired.” Lil sat down on the brown couch. “I don’t know what to do with him, frankly,” she added, laughing.
     
     
“What you want, Seven-Up, Coke?” Mas stiffly stood by his black easy chair.
     
     
“Oh, no, Mas, just finished with dinner. We were so worried. What kind of world are we living in?”
     
     
More evil than you can imagine, Mas thought to himself.
     
     
“Was it just one person?”
     
     
Mas nodded. “A man, datsu all I knowsu.”
     
     
“You see his face?”
     
     
Mas shook his head. “His shoes. Saw his shoes. Looks like the kind O.J. wore.”
     
     
“The fancy Italian loafers? With the tassels?”
     
     
Mas nodded again.
     
     
“That’s strange,” Lil said.
     
     
Mas had to agree. He said nothing about the warning issued by the thief. He bit down on his dentures to contain his anger. It was one thing for him to decide to stay out of somebody’s business; it was quite another for someone to steal his property to keep his mouth shut. Mas had no desire to dredge up old memories, but he wasn’t going to let some fancy-heeled sonafugun try to push him down.
     
     
“So, is there any chance that they’ll recover your truck?”
     
     
“Maybe in pieces.” Mas tried to lower himself in his easy chair but felt another sharp jab of pain in the middle of his spine.
     
     
“You okay? Is it your back again?”
     
     
“A little.” Mas looked out toward the backyard of withering eggplants and wilted cymbidium. “I’m a ole man, Lil.”
     
     
“Have you gone to a doctor?”
     
     
“Nah, what do they know?”
     
     
“They don’t all have to be bad, Mas. Chizuko was an unusual case.”
     
     
Just stomach problems, Mas remembered Chizuko saying. Probably clear up in a few weeks. “So how about your daughter? She docta now?”
     
     
“Joy’s finishing her residency in South