Khmer with Love/Ojuzu/porch

Miss Phom,

I am writing to tell you how I enjoyed our conversation at the General's palace. There are certain things I presume but I wanted to ask you but the subject seemed better written down than asked in person. Excuse my boldness but in matters of the heart, are you attached to anyone? I only wish to leave neither of us disappointed.
How well did you know the general? I have known him for about 5 years. He might have mentioned you once in a passing conversation at the palace. Again, it had been at dinner. He was fond of dining and conversing, talking of his connections to the Khymer people. He professed his love of them as he again did when we were dining together.
But I felt the need to warn you about him. It is not an eminent danger I speak of. And as I re-read the above paragraph or two I want to make sure that you understand I do not ask about any romance in your life for my sake. Oh, No! And neither is it for the General's. But it is for his son. His son is 24 years old and has been given the title of Prince Loc. Loc is his only son. The general has two daughters from a former marriage. But to get to my warning. Prince Loc is of a ...how shall I say...an immature mind. His maturity is not of a grown man. He still plays with toy soldiers at lunch time. He is rude to the servants and mean to the townspeople. But I've gone too far already. May we meet? I can explain more but I would rather do this face to face.

Sincerely,
Chourry


Chourry,
I have read your letter very carefully, more than a dozen times as a matter of fact.
_________________
V-particle

He wasn't so sure he was meant to live. He thought this from the second he realized he was the lone survivor of the car crash. He turned his head back to the sky because he saw his girl's dress in flames and somebody within the flames. Who else? The head neck was not meant to be turned. It's proper position was straight ahead, chin in line with the sternum. Eyes ahead. On your back you see sky. You can sleep that way.
_________

"yamgatawaki", Egg said.
"Umagata...what?"
"Umagatawaki. It's like a japanese pancake filled with sweet bean paste"
This is good but our pancakes be 'bout the size of my face. Now that's a pancake. Why don't you'all make 'em bigger?

"If we made those the the size of your face it wouldn't be a snack no more. More like dinner."

Just saying you should make it big.

Egg handed him the luger. He wiped his hands clean on his pants and took the weapon, cocked it and with a napkin brought the assembly under his nose.

"When's the last time this was fired?"
"Why ? You got something?"
"Funny. Get the feeling it's never been fired."
"Get out'"
"Could be wrong." They looked at each other. Egg opened the bottom desk drawer with the 45 at the same time that He was slinging the holstered 33 onto his body. If they could have jumped from second story window onto the Ford pickup, they would have, but they slid down the bannister and jumped into the parked car and screeched their way to Malibu.
"We're too late already".

Momma was a thick set woman big boned, flat nosed as if with Korean, Okinawan blood in her. The same for his father. It was the same for Egg. She was big, he was big. He knew he'd end up with arthritis just because the whole family was big boned and high cheeked. He didn't know if this was medical fact but it was there. Egg was thick he admitted it both brain wise and body type, but he was quick enough to know how to turn and face the music or step back and swing away. It's what saved him alot in a scrap. While he sat there with his hands folded and him staring, he drifted. He still didn't get how a man could carry his kind of frame slung heavy across the back for more than a mile through mud and rain under enemy gunfire. He looked at Hitch seated across the room in the wooden swivel chair. He looked at him without thanks or gratitude. And then Egg thought a question as clear as if spoken, "What if someone saves your life?". It disappeared as quick as it came.
Egg turned away when Hitch looked back.
"What's with you?" Hitch said.
"Why'd you do that?" Egg mumbled.
"Do what?"
"Nothing.'"


The Buyers

At the beginning it was to be a very intimate sale, only the three buyers vying with each other. But as the sale of the pharmacy progressed they seemed to form one side and Iseri-san, the other.
So Iseri thought he'd bring some measure of influence into the sale by bringing his two young sons and his wife along with him to the meeting. He might have had a little cunning in him, some persuasion foreseen. But If they could only see before them the flesh and blood of the sale, the human intricacies of the transaction...they would say 'keep the store. We'll hold it for you until you return". He would then not have to sell the pharmacy on short notice.

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Ojuzu

Up to this point it was a business sale and nothing personal. The meeting place was out in Riverside off a one lane dirt road that ran past a big hedge which itself went around the big house beyond. The weather was cool. Iseri's two boys and his wife, Mariko, sat in the DeSoto parked this side of the hedge. They were waiting for Iseri to get back.
One of the buyers had told Iseri to be sure and bring the wife and kids. Iseri didn't know why the buyer had asked that. Maybe it was meant just as a gesture, maybe not. Iseri talked to Mariko. Then he told the buyer that the family might be willing if they were able to shake their colds. But now, Iseri had driven his family up with him. But he would not let them go in.
"I want to make sure of something first, " Iseri had said to his wife as he rolled the driver's side window all the way up and got out.
Mariko didn't know what needed to be made sure of. Was it because of her? He went ahead alone. As Mariko sat up front with her two sons in back the sunlight fell on the dashboard and she placed her hands there when she felt the remaining chill of her cold come on. She thought of their store window display, the way the sun came through on Japantown afternoons. She could imagine the lettering on the back of the Halo shampoo bottle, the Palmolive soap wrapper and the Colgate after shave box. She turned her hands over to warm the palms in sunlight. She rotated her wedding band just a little and she felt a cramp and a bit of nausea. Mariko knew when things were changing, the beginnings. She looked up when she heard two boys coming straight down the dirt road . They were singing.

"Yes, sir, that's my baby
No, sir, I don't mean maybe,
Yes, sir, that's my baby, now."

The shorter one did most of the singing while the taller one played the uke. The taller was curly locked and the sun had bleached his hair. Against the sun you could not see his face but twists of light like fireworks from his tow head. He plucked at the strings and he wore thick glasses
"He's good," she said.
Iseri eyes followed the two as they sang and drifted. The two came forward past the windshield where the ojuzu hung from the rearview, past the driver's side window, the passenger's side, then past the back window. Dust settled over the car and the music faded. Through the back the younger of the Iseri boys, Marky, watched the two until the singer turned and waved to him from that distance. Marky waved back. They disappeared into the dark hollow of tall trees down the road.
"They're good," Marky said.
"No, they aren't," his brother replied as he sulked in his cold. "Don't you know we're in the Badlands. Those two yahoos were just showing off."
"Kenny!", the mother snapped.
The older boy flopped back in his seat and crossed his arms, cupped his elbows with his palms and hunched his shoulders. She poked a Kleenex at him.
"Here. Wipe your nose, cowboy." Their colds were nasal ones that left hanukso on red faces.
Mariko fingered the ojuzu that hung double-wrapped off the rear view mirror and smoothed an eyebrow she saw reflected there. She coughed. The ojuzu swung back and forth then settled.
"We're hungry", the boys said. Mariko lifted the brown paper bag at her feet and handed each a tangerine wrapped in newspaper for the boys to peel and eat and toss.
"The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor", Kenny said as he smoothed out the newsprint wrapper on the back seat. He said it as if new. "Damn Jap yahoos."
"Kenny!"
"Can I have another one, Mom," Marky sang.
The ridges of their finger tips had tinged white from tangerine zest. Mariko ordered them out of the DeSoto and poured water from a canteen to wash their sticky hands. She only poured a little to wash for the rest was to drink. They stood at the back fender of the DeSoto laved in cool noon light, a puddle of wash at their feet. Dark woods, to the left. To the right, the big house behind this tall hedge against which the car was snuggled. An ungated break in the hedge opened to a wide path towards the big house. The two boys had finished drinking and now Mariko brought her eyes down to a level gaze after having sipped from the canteen. From the same trees into which the two singers had gone there came a jeep.
It came halting, jerking and bucking as if the driver were a first time one. It stopped beside the DeSoto.
"How are you people doing? Can I help you with something?" He walked around the car. "Is this your car? Snazzy." He was young and very tall and wore starched khakis and a khaki shirt. He wore very thick glasses and he limped like part of the life in his legs were amiss. He carried a wire clothes hanger all split open and kept tapping his pants with it as if shooing a horse onward.
Mariko didn't answer quickly because the questions came at one time as if no answer was expected.
"So?" he finally stopped to hear a reply, crossing his arms and leaning against his jalopy. His eyes bulged from the distortion of his specs.
"I'm waiting for my husband. He's got business up at the house. They know him there. He was asked to come."
"Zat so? We'll see about that. If I were you I wouldn't be around here after sunset. People might get the wrong idea. By the way, just so you know, I work up at the big house. They call for me every so often." He came around to the windshield and tapped at the area of the ojuzu with the crook end of the hanger, "You folks are Japanese ain't ya."
"Mister, this is our car, bought and paid for. And we'll be leaving just as soon as my Dad gets back. He's a pharmacist and we have a drugstore. Soon we'll be having tons of money for it. I can tell'ya that much."
"Kenny!"
"Zat so? We'll see. It wouldn't hurt if you got rid of those bead things. But then, none of my business." He was leaning on the windshield now looking closely at the ojuzu. His nose almost touched glass looking at the beads.
"Kinda looks like those Catholic things. But then no one would mistake you folks for Catholic".
Mariko felt invaded, and with it a blood flush came over her and she thought of the things he was saying and how she should take it. She slowly brought the two boys to her side.
"Hey, Kenny-boy, how old are you anyways?"
"Twelve. What's it to you, stranger", he barked breaking from her embrace.
"I'm older. Eighteen, nineteen almost. In any case, older than you. Better stay with Momma."
A cooler breeze started from the deep hollow down near the woods and came up to meet them.
"Ma'm, would you mind terribly if I looked at those beads. No disrespect meant."
Mariko eyed the wire hanger, how it beat against him. She felt the shift his words made in her. Or did he intend it so? He must have seen her looking at the hangar because he twisted it all to a crumpled skeleton and pitched in into his jeep. He dusted his hands.
"I'll give it right back. Just let me look. Please". It took a second, then he turned his head up and slightly away with an excruciated look as if he felt there was not enough reason to get his wish met. Then Mariko realized what was true. He hadn't any control over them, over anyone. As quick as he turned she grew away from her fear, but away from comfort as well. She would not miss the store window. It was only a store. And he, before them, was small no matter the size, smaller than her youngest.
"Marky", Mariko whispered. The boy looked up to her. She mumbled quietly into the soft crop of hair at the top of his crown. She held Kenny back as Marky went to the front of the car, opened the door and carefully unwound the ojuzu from the rearview and brought it to the asker.
"Can't say how much I appreciate this and I won't forget it".
He took the ojuzu from Marky, took it with his palms vertical, facing each other, the beads draped between. He brought the ojuzu up to his glasses. He let the frames of his specs drop so that he looked over the top rims. He stared at it for a time, then closed his eyes. He sniffed the ojuzu, taking in a long small but noticeable breath. He brought the beads, across his cheek once in a caress and kept his eyes shut .
He whispered, "I can smell Japan. Seems I can smell Japan and all her trees of sandalwood", and opened his eyes. He laid the beads on the seat of the jeep and took off his thick glasses. He rubbed both lids with a span of thumb and forefinger. He spoke staring straight ahead.
"My name can hardly be said. Miroshnichenko . I go by Miller. I have been looking for family for over two thousand days and always get hooked up with the wrong ones. I imagine your name is just as hard to say so I won't ask it. "
He turned to them. He didn't look like anything to her any longer because by her own free will she had now provided him. Whatever happened next would not matter for the fear of him had left, whatever might come.
"And now, I am truly sorry, " he exhaled.
With that he put his glasses back on, wound the ojuzu around his rearview and turned the ignition key.
"Hey", Kenny shouted, "Just what are you doing? We want it back now. Hey"
The engine started up with a deep growling of gears.
Kenny made for the ojuzu but Miller caught his wrist and pushed him away from the jeep. It made Kenny spin to the ground. Mariko picked him up.
"You've got some nerve", she said to Miller while dusting her son off, "but it's all you have. Nothing else".
"I said I was sorry. And I said I'll get them back to you and I will. I'm not a thief."
"Yes you are. Miroshishi, you're a crazy man", Kenny said.
"Miroshnichenko. And I'm not."
The jalopy ground, clacked and jerked its way to the break in the hedge, took a right then disappeared on its way up to the big house.

By the time Iseri opened the door of the DeSoto the three inside were asleep in the droning inside cabin heat.

"What happened?" she asked.
"It's OK."
"Do we meet them now."
"No. Let's get some ice cream."
"It'll spoil their dinner."
"I said we're eating ice cream." His eyes widened in frustration. The store deal had finished badly. She could tell.
The boys woke, sullen from dream shock.
"Wouldn't you guys like some ice cream?", he asked.

They shuffled, rubbed the hanukso off their faces and went back to sleep. He started the car and drove slowly over the dirt road. Just as Mariko expected the ojuzu hung back in its place over the rearview and wavered as they went.



Iseri knew it. And he was surrounded by them.

The boy came bleeding into the room a mark around his crown.

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When my father could not sleep, the porch would to call him and he'd go sit and smoke with the steel guitar cradled across his lap. He would play if something came to him, sing when the words came. Maybe just a humming that faded when drowsiness and the warm night pulled its blanket over any listener's woken ears. Callista Takahara. That's her name. She sang in the Hawaiian band with my father. All the shelving would be up, gave a sense of order and behind it organization and appropriateness. What else could one ask for in the face of everything.
"Callie, let me tell you." It`s then the old man halted, giving the appearance of something significant to take pace and then boom. Nothing.

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It was noon when the white truck appeared out of nowhere. Medgar's it said on the said. It had a kind of flourish to it.