I want her.
Before she stepped around behind the bar she looked up into his eyes. Her smile was gentle and her eyes held a promise he could only have wished for an hour ago.
"You, my friend, are a threat to Junko's plans for her lovely daughter. She wants Kim to be a doctor, not the wife, or worse, the whore of a drunken GI."
"She hates us, huh?"
"I don't think it's exactly hate, Brad." Mike answered. "More like she's using us and it's by her rules. Which means no Kim. She'll try to set you up with one of the other girls after she sends Kimiko upstairs. If you go for it, she'll have won and you will no longer be a threat. The lady is no fool. She started out as a suck-a-hache mama-san in a short time house and now owns a very nice little bar with about twelve girls in debt to her."
"Whoa, whoa! Short time house?" Brad asked. "I've heard the term, but never really thought about it."
"Some bars, massage parlors and whorehouses are called 'short time'. For two dollars a girl will have sex, give you a hand job, or suck you off. Then she tells you how good in bed you were as she's pushing you out the back door while another GI is coming in the front door. All in the space of about ten minutes. This was where the not so good looking, not so personable girls, or over-the-hill women end up."
"How come you know so much about her and Kim, Mike?"
"I was drinking with some of the marines from the NAF security forces the first week I was here. Their Gunny has been stationed all over Okinawa. His first duty station on the island was Camp Butler and he used to hang out in Kin village. Back then, in the early 1950s, most of the bars weren't there. There were just thrown together shacks for bars and skivvie houses to service the Marines and Seabees. Junko worked in one of the short-time houses. The Gunny said that she worked her way up from on her knees and stashed enough dinero to get this place"
Just a short acquaintance with Junko would tell anybody that she did in fact keep a tight rein on her intelligent and free thinking daughter and was not going to let any GI get close to Kimiko without one hell of a fight.
"I'm hungry. Do you want to go get a steak before we shack up for the weekend?" Branch asked Brad.
“That sounds like a good plan, Mike." Brad answered. A short while ago he had watched Kim give him a small smile and wave before she went upstairs after a short but heated discussion with her mother. He was sure that he wouldn't see her again tonight.
"Yeh. Maybe you can get laid in the Clover, you sure aren't going to get any here tonight."
"Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate your confidence in me. As I remember it was your idea for me to put the rush on Kim." Brad turned back towards Mike with a smile and a bit of hot blood rushed through him as he recalled the feeling of Kim's young firm body against him.
"So now you feel obliged to take me out and get me laid, huh? You're a great guy, but no. Hell no, thank you. From now on I'll find my own women to fall in love with.
Mike's nesan didn't want to leave the bar until closing which meant she owes the mama-san big bucks and couldn't afford to leave, Mike informed Brad as they strolled along the narrow streets that were still teeming with life at 0030 hours on Saturday morning. The little family shops were mostly closed but here and there a papa-san or mama-san was unrolling bamboo curtains or dropping wooden shutters across the front of their tiny shops. Hardly anything was locked, just closed to keep out stray dogs and the merchandise clean.
“Isn't this where O'Brien hangs out, Mike?" Brad asked as the two Seabees climbed the stairs to the second story Clover bar. "Let's see if he's still here."
"Sure, we can eat later. And maybe Tom and his nesan will want to go eat with us."
The booths in the Clover had tall backs with big soft cushions and all provided a bit of privacy. They were comfortably wide enough for two people to sit on each side of the small table with ample leg room for even the biggest GI. Like the Harbor Lights, the Clover was dim and dark with jukebox music covering all but the loudest drunken conversations. The tiny dance floor, about the size of four GI blankets, was crowded with GIs and their girls. The long bar was crowded almost two deep. Most of the males were sitting and the nesans were hanging onto them or wedged in between two bar stools trying to get close enough to stir up enough interest in a GI to get him to sit in a booth. “I thought this was a Seabee bar, Mike?"
"It is. These are Marines from the NAF Marine security detachment and some fleet sailors from the NAF ordinance shop. They hang around here too. Most of NAF has credit in here between pay days."
"Can I sit with you? You don't have to buy me a drink unless you want too. If you do, it won't be tea. I drink lemon Cokes."
Damn, I'm in love again.
"My name is Susie. What do they call you?"
She was not quite Okinawan. She had some Caucasian showing in her physical appearance. But after centuries of being used and abused by many nations including China and the United States, the heritage of an Okinawan was not as easy to trace as a Japanese's from the main islands.
Susie's shoulder length hair was fine and silky with highlights of brown and red appearing in the bar's uneven, weak lighting. Her complexion was the peaches and cream any American girl would kill for. She had on a green silk dress matching the changing colors of the South China sea as it washed across the coral reefs of Okinawa. The silk clung to her full breasts and tiny waist flowing down over hips which were in perfect proportion to her breasts.
“Brad.” I answered.
"Brad? Is that your first name or part of your last?"
"My first. Actually it's Bradford. Last name is Burgess" Is she being a smart ass, or is she smart enough and care enough to really want to know? Brad was thinking as he slid on the booth seat a bit to give her room to sit down.
Susie didn't answer right away. She just watched his eyes as she slid in next to him. A hint of perfume crossed the small space that separated their bodies. Though she hadn't come up against him and touched, Brad could feel her next to him.
"You like Brad?" She hesitated briefly. Her English wasn't exactly perfect after all. "Or Bradford the best? I don't like Burgess." She pronounced it with a very long U which was almost nasal in sound and she was trying hard to pronounce it correctly though she missed the 'r' entirely.
"If I have a choice, I really like Brad best."
"Okay, Brad. Me too.” Susie spoke with a quiet, but self assured voice.
“Do you want to stay with me tonight? I don't have a date and I like you."
Brad looked across the table towards Mike and O'Brien for some kind of sign that he was not being had. They both met his eyes and he knew they were listening to what was going on.
His eyes were drawn to the movement of O'Brien's hand which was on his nesan's shoulder. His thumb come up in the world wide sign of approval. Considering that he knew most, if not all of the girls in the Clover, Brad took his sign of approval as gospel.
Holding up his empty glass he spoke again to Susie. "Why don't you get me that drink. A C/C and kori-mizu. And yourself a big lemon Coke. Or small one if you're full up.
"We can't leave until two o'clock, right?" Brad asked as an after thought.
"I'll have just a small one. I think maybe you want just a small one, too." Susie leaned into him. Her right breast pressing against his left arm and spoke softly. "I don't like drunken GIs. You don't have to drink a lot with me."
That is lovely. He thought to himself and watched her walking towards the bar gracefully twisting her hips to avoid brushing against people and keeping out of the reach of wayward GI hands that were trying to cop a feel. He couldn’t say as he could really blame them. It was a very nice behind.
“I don’t know what you said or did to her, but I’ve never seen Susie stay with anybody the first time they bought her a drink.” O'Brien spoke as soon as Susie was out of ear shot.
“You must be a number one GI if she stay with you.” Tom’s
nesan threw out. "She sometime talk long time over how much you give her to stay. Then she want to stay in hotel. Not take you to her home.”
"The house over there is my sister's. This one is mine." Susie handed Brad her keys as she spoke and motioned towards the small wooden house with a red tile roof on their right when they walked through the gate into a tiny yard.
SIX
The morning air was balmy and reminiscent of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Small puffy fair weather clouds drifted across the pale blue sky. This Tuesday morning, January 14,1964 on Okinawa was special for Brad as it marked the start of his second week on the island. He was standing on the front steps of the chow hall enjoying the sharp scent of the sea. A gentle southwest breeze carried the pungent odor of the East China Sea's tidal flats across the Air Force taxi-ways and runways, then up the slope into the area of the Navy barracks.
The fresh sea air held none of the land smells he was now associating with his new home. The odor of Okinawa was unique, but Brad didn't find it disagreeable as some of the GIs did and he could now identify a lot of the individual smells by source. Separately, many of the smells were not objectionable to him, but the resulting potpourri he knew was not a readily marketable fragrance in anyone's store.
He was imagining that he could hear the ebbing tide breaking against the coral reef before hissing its way across flats of golden sand and he felt so great that not even the sudden screaming of a jet engine on the Air Force flight line blotting out the tide's tranquil whispers bothered him. The noise was another piece of the mosaic that was Okinawa.
During his first ride from Kadena with Perkins, Larry had told Brad that it was the custom of the motor pool for last night's duty section to pick up the motor pool Seabees at the chow hall and give them a ride to work. So he was standing around with several other Bees waiting for the duty section to finish their breakfast.
The chow hall door thumped open and Akabu, AKA Ronnie Jessup, and Dan Buckner started down the stairs to where the other Bees were waiting. Buckner was the third class driver in charge of the heavy equipment shop were Brad worked. Physically he was a typical equipment operator. Broad shouldered, burly and a bit taller than Brad. His hands were heavily callused, the hands of a working equipment operator. He was about the same age as Brad and like him, had worked around equipment before dodging the draft by enlisting in the Navy. The two operators had become friends rapidly and had grown inseparable on the job with Akabu tagging along whenever the chief would let him.
After a fast muster in the motor pool's new bunk-room all the military drivers, mechanics and operators would go down the hill to the coffee mess. Anybody, GI or Okinawan, could utilize the mess, but only motor pool personnel could charge coffee, soft drinks, cinnamon rolls, doughnuts and sandwiches. The bill had to be paid each and every payday without fail. It didn’t matter how much was charged; but if a GI wanted any liberty he paid his coffee mess bill first every pay day.
The coffee shop had been built into the end of one of the two vehicle maintenance shops in the motor pool service area and was run by Susie, a cute Okinawan girl in her mid twenties. Susie's face was somewhat long and her features were a bit on the coarse side, but pure Okinawan. Her nose was broad and larger than most Japanese women's seemed to be. Her dark brown eyes were set widely apart with dense black eyebrows which she had plucked into attractive curves. Her eye lashes were dense, long and curved. Susie had full, feminine lips on which she used a deep red lipstick. She was neither unattractive, nor beautiful. She was Susie. Cute Susie. But she was the most bowlegged person Brad had ever seen. His first glimpse of a nesan's leg and he had immediately started admiring how shapely the majority of Okinawan women's legs were. Now he felt an immediate twinge of sympathy for Susie. He knew that her legs were the result of an acute case of rickets as a child. A common malady of Okinawan children of the war years and right after the invasion of Okinawa by the United States.
"Hey Cherry-boy, you want kohi?" Were the first words that Brad heard on his initial visit into the coffee mess.
Susie's saucy greeting shocked and embarrassed him. Brad had felt the sudden flash of heat in his ears, back of his neck and cheeks. There was no doubt in his mind that he had turned the same deep red as Susie's lipstick. He certainly wasn't used to having a woman speak so frankly. Especially considering his weird Yankee, upbringing. He was quickly mellowed though by the size and warmth of Susie’s smile.
The two Susies that Brad knew were the extremes of Okinawan womanhood, decorum, beauty, and profession. Susie, from the Clover, was a bar girl, a prostitute if you want to put it frankly. A beautiful woman who was partially Caucasian of unknown nationality and family. She was about 25 or 26 years old. And she would never be as outspoken or vulgar as the 20 something Susie from the coffee mess. Coffee mess Susie was as pure an Okinawan as anybody could be. Not beautiful, but attractive and sexy. With as foul a mouth as you would expect from any bar girl.
"Don't let her bother you, she flirts with everybody. But she's not a butterfly."
Brad hadn't noticed the short muscular Okinawan leaning against the wall next to the high counter in front of Susie.
"Hi, I'm Toji." He took a step away from the wall and offered Brad a callused, grease stain hand. His fingers were short and stubby and had greasy dirt under the nails.
"He mechanic honcho." Susie hollered from the other side of the counter while pouring Brad’s coffee.
Toji stood about 4’11” or maybe 5' in his steel toed work boots, and weighed about 140 pounds. All muscle. He was friendly with round, dark eyes which smiled all the time as he spoke.
"If you break anything, come to me. I'll fix it right for you. So it won't break again."
The friendly smile never left his face, but Brad knew Toji was serious and heard his unspoken message loud and clear. 'I'm the mechanic, not you. When you break it, and I know you will, then I'll fix it. And I’ll fix it right.'
"Thanks Toji, I'll be sure to remember that." Brad spoke as he shook Toji’s hand and met his eyes. He knew that he had just made a friend of this intelligent, and articulate man. He would be there when Brad needed him.
SEVEN
Brad was staying with Susie two and sometimes, four times a week, but he found that he was also attracted to Kimiko even though he realized that an attempt at any kind of relationship with Kim was a losing battle for she was very young, just turned eighteen, still a school girl by American standards and not ready to take on the responsibilities of a husband and a home, much less children. Kim’s own desire to exercise her independence from her mother, made her extremely vulnerable to any GI who really decided that he was going to seduce her. Even knowing all that was wrong, Brad would still stop at the Harbor Lights to spend some time with Kim about once a week. If he wasn't going to spend the night with Susie he would stay at the Harbor Lights with Kim until eleven-thirty or twelve o'clock then go back to the base.
For a little over a month all was fine and from Brad’s viewpoint he was getting the best of all worlds until one night when he went to the Clover to pickup Susie and a bartender told him that she had already left with another GI.
As he sat at the bar nursing a C/C and kori mizu Sashiko, O'Brien’s girl friend, came and sat beside him.
“Susie mad at you. Said you a number ten GI.”
“What did I do Sash? I’m not a butterfly. I don’t sleep with anybody but Susie.”
“Lots of nesans say that you stay in the Harbor Lights and are trying to 'make it' with Kimiko-san. They say that you want to take her cherry. Everybody in Noumanoui know she still junketsu, neh? Cherry girl.
“If you do, Junko will.…. what you say??? Nugu …. cut you.…. kogans. You know? She cut you nuts off.”
Brad looked over at the small girl dressed in a light green kimono and wondered how she had hooked up with O’ Brien. Sashiko was less than 5 foot tall. O'Brien stood about 6’ and 1 or 2”.
She really is cute. Nice body and a face like an Oriental doll.
“No, Sashiko-san. What are you talking about ?”
Sashiko liked Brad and wanted to make sure that he understood what was going on. Not only was he losing Susie, he was taking a chance of really upsetting Junko which all the nesans figured was not a good thing. Even for a GI.
She sat quietly for several minutes. Looking at herself in the behind the bar mirror, then making eye contact with Brad in the same mirror.
He kept sitting and sipping. Upset that maybe he had screwed up with Susie and realizing that he did like her. Liked her a lot. Maybe more than he had realized, and he enjoyed being around her.
Sash slid off the bar stool and stood between it and Brad. She turned his bar stool towards her and to Brad’s surprise her right hand reached into his crotch. She cupped his balls in her little gentle hand.
“Junko take them.” Sashiko said loudly as she pulled on them and made a chopping motion towards them with her left hand,
“Okay, okay. Let go, Sash.” Brad hollered as her hand increased its pressure and really started to squash his testicles together and the hurt became more intense.
“Damn! I understand. Let go!” A bit frantic, Brad was relieved to see a tiny smile play across Sashiko’s lips before her even white teeth showed for just a moment in a real smile.
She stepped closer to him between his legs. Careful not to bump his crotch, Sashiko reached up and with a hand on each side of his face cheek pulled Brad down to her level and kissed him firmly on the lips. Her tongue flicked across the tip of his tongue and was gone, as was her lips.
“If I not O'Brien's girl, I stay with you tonight. But if I do, Susie would be mad at me and you. She’s not with another GI. She go home. You go to her house and crawl in the door. Okay Brad?” Without anymore talk she took his hand and pulled Brad off his bar stool and lead him to the front door. You not tell O'Brien I kiss you? Neh?”
Iie! I won’t. Really.”