Dawn Patrol

133

Old men don't sleep much.

Sakagawa is already awake and now sits at the small wooden table in his kitchen and impatiently waits for first light. There is much work to be done, and the endless battle against the birds and insects to be fought. It is a daily battle, but if Sakagawa were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he actually enjoys it, that it is one thing that keeps him going.

So he sits, sips his tea, and watches the light flow onto his fields like a slow flood of water. From his vantage point, he can just make out some of the workers, the Mexicans who come just as the Nikkei had come so many years ago, to work the land that the white man didn't think he wanted, coated as it was with salt spray and blasted by the sea winds. But the Nikkei were used to salt and wind from the home islands; they knew how to farm “worthless” land along the sea. And from the salted soil, the old man thinks now, we grew strawberries.. . and doctors and lawyers and businessmen. And judges and politicians.

Maybe these workers will do the same.

He bends over slowly to pull on his rubber boots, which keep his old feet dry in the damp early-morning fields. When he straightens up again, his grandson is standing there.

“Grandfather, it's Johnny. John Kodani.”

“Of course. I know you.”

Johnny bows deeply. His grandfather returns the gesture with a short, stiff bow, as much as his ninety-year-old body can muster. Then Johnny pulls out one of the old wooden chairs that have been in this kitchen for as long as he can remember and sits down across from the old man.

“Would you like tea?” Sakagawa asks.

Johnny wouldn't, but to refuse would be brutally rude, and with what he has to tell the old man, he wants to exercise every gentle kindness. “That would be nice.”

The old man nods. “It's a cold morning.”

“It is.”

The old man takes a second cup and pours the strong green tea into it, then slides it to Johnny. “You're a lawyer.”

“A policeman, Grandfather.”

“Yes, I remember.” Perhaps, he thinks, it is good that the Nikkei are now police.

“This is very good tea,” Johnny says.

“It's garbage,” the old man says, even though he has it specially imported from Japan every month. “What brings you? I am always happy to see you, but…”

I haven't been here for months, Johnny thinks. I've been “too busy” to stop by for a drink of tea, or to bring his great-grandchildren for him to see. Now I come by at five in the morning with news that will break his heart.

“Grandfather…” Johnny begins. Then he chokes on his own words.

“Has someone died?” the old man asks. “Your family, are they well?”

“They're fine, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “Grandfather, down by the old creek, where we used to play when we were kids… Have you been down there lately?”

The old man shakes his head.

“It's very far to walk,” he says. “A bunch of old reeds. I tell the men to clean up the garbage people toss from the road.” He shakes his head again. It is hard to understand the disrespect of some people. “Why do you ask?”

“I think people… your men… your foreman are doing something down there.”

“Doing what?”

Johnny tells him. The old man has a hard time even understanding what his grandson is saying, and then he says, “That's impossible. Human beings do not do such things.”

“I'm afraid they do, Grandfather.”

“Here?” the old man says. “On my farm?”

Johnny nods. He looks down at the floor, unable to face his grandfather. When he looks up again, the old man's face is streaked with tears.

They run down the creases in his face like small streams in narrow gullies.

“Did you come to stop them?” the old man asks.

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I will go with you.” He starts to get up.

“No, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “It's better you stay here.”

“Those are my fields!” the old man yells. “I am responsible!”

“You're not, Grandfather,” Johnny says, fighting back tears himself. “You're not responsible, and…”

“I'm too old?”

“It's my job, Grandfather.”

The old man composes his face and looks Johnny in the eye. “Do your job.”

Johnny gets up and bows.

Then he walks out of the kitchen and down into the fields.