“Honto? Dozo.”
“Honto. I never would, Sash.” You’re my number 2 nesan. OK?”
As he walked through the streets of Noumanoui looking into the bars and watching the GIs with and without girls, Brad wondered how many of these Americans knew or cared where most of the girls came from and how they ended up in the GI's favorite bar. Or appreciated the fact that their favorite bar was their favorite bar because of one or two of the girls who worked there.
EIGHT
During the second week of March the weather broke and the winter rains had slacked off. The Okinawans were saying that this was unusual, but for Brad Burgess and Dan Buckner it was a chance to do some real equipment operating instead of running trucks up, down and across the island hauling stores to the ships anchored off White Beach or transporting officers to Kadena Air Force base to catch a plane back to CONUS.
During the previous summer Dan had met the American civilians who worked for the U.S. Army and ran the Army’s Naha Port. Most of these civilians were retired military and had been, or were married to Okinawan or Japanese women. For several months Dan had been TAD to the Army running heavy equipment in the Army's People-to-People program. This was part of their civic action program and had a project of some type going almost all of the time. Last year, and now starting again as the mud was drying up, the project was to construct a huge parking lot for the new sports complex that was being built south of the city of Naha and almost across Highway #1 from the Army port. The biggest share of this project involved bulldozing down hills all around the city and hauling the dirt to fill in the swamp that was to become the complex’s parking lot.
“Brad, meet Johnny Stump.” Dan’s introduction was very informal.
It took Brad just a second to figure out that the 40year something Johnny Stump was a pretty laid back type who had a friendly smile and the red complexion of a guy who drank too much beer, smoked too many cigarettes and spent a lot of time in the hot Okinawan sun. Dan had already told Brad that Johnny was an ex-Marine who hadn't left the island since he arrived on April 1, 1945. The day of the American invasion of Okinawa. Johnny had been a landing craft coxswain during the invasion. He was one of the many who ran the ramp fronted 'mike' boats, full of soldiers or Marines, from the APAs to the beaches. He had had three or four mike boats sunk under him the first week of the invasion. When the word came out that the Army was looking for Americans to work on the island as civilians, Johnny volunteered to take his discharge then and there. He was already involved with an Okinawan girl who he later married and had two children with before they divorced in the '50s.
“Well, what do you think Johnny, want some help?”
“Will your Chief let you and Brad both help us out this year, Dan?”
“He will if you call him and make it an official request to cover his ass. There isn’t anything for us to do anyway except take work away from the Okinawans. Any nukes that need handling we hear about beforehand anyway, so that’s no sweat.”
“Consider him called. Now it must be time for a beer isn’t it, guys?” Johnny suggested and headed for his green and white, 1959 Oldsmobile hardtop. “We can take a ride out to Oroku to the new hill that we’re taking down. But we’ve got to stop at the Naha Exchange for a couple of six packs of San Miguel on the way.”
“We’re going to be in your backyard, Dan. Yumiko will like that.” Brad commented as Johnny drove out the back gate of Naha Air Force Base.
“Yeah. Except she’s going to work in the Naha Exchange next week.”
“You’re living on the beach here, Dan?” Stump asked. “Where?”
“Just around the corner. Behind the little store there. Want to stop in and meet Yumi?”
“Sure, why not.” Johnny answered and pulled the Olds up next to the stout wooden fence that surrounded the cluster of three tiny, red tile roofed Okinawan houses.
“Bring the San Magoo with you, Johnny. That Filipino beer is some good stuff.” Dan spoke over his shoulder when he went through a gate in the fence and headed for a house in the left front corner of the compound. “I’ll make sure Yumi is dressed.
One warm evening a couple of weeks before as the days were getting a bit longer and warmer in the evenings, some of the Seabees from the motor pool had started heading for the Noumanoui seawall right after work. They went there to drink some beer and watch the store clerks and office girls who were leaving work and heading for home.
“Now that one’s not good, she’s great.” Dan commented as a particularly attractive nesan walked down the middle of the road that ran behind the sea wall they were all sitting on. Brad, Ronny Jessup, aka Akabu, and Mike Branch. All of them drinking Okinawan made Orion beer.
“Nesan.” Ron Jessup spoke to the girl over his shoulder. “Would you like to have a biru? Coke? I’ll buy you a Coca Cola if you want.”
Without turning or acknowledging them she kept walking, but a tiny smile on her lips brightened her face.
“You know who that is don’t you, Akabu?” Brad asked Ronny.
“Just a pretty nesan.” Ron answered. “And I’m in love.”
“You’re always in love, Jessup. If you’d like to know, she’s Susie’s neighbor.”
“Introduce me then, Brad. Does she speak English. Even Yankee talk would be okay.” The Mississippian Ron laughed.
“I don’t think so, Ron. Not a good idea. At least for you.”
“Are you putting the make on Hanoko?” Mike asked Brad with a semi-smirk on his face. “You’re in enough trouble with Susie after all the talk amongst the nesans about Kimie. She’ll really be pissed if she thinks you’re hitting on a 17 year old.”
“She’s 17?” Dan asked. “Looks even younger than that. But then these dolls all look ten years younger than they really are. You know, we can’t win. Just when us round eyes think we have the Okinawan women figured out, we find out that we don’t know as much as we thought.”
“Tell the rest, Brad. Come on. Her age is a small matter." Mike verbally prodded Brad.
"Want a hint guys? She lives in the big house with the big, huge coral wall all the way around it.” Mike added. He was enjoying himself as he tried to dig Brad into a deep hole.
“And the thick wooden gate. Don’t forget the stealie boy gate, Mike.” Brad added his own description of the nesan’s home. “With the concertina wire on top of it.”
“First. No, I’m not hitting on her. Yes, she’s only 17. She lives in the big house next to Susie’s.”
“Will you shut up and tell us what is going on.” Ron hollered as he gulped down the last of his beer and his deep south accent growing heavier with each beer he drank.. He burped loudly. “Damn that stuff is terrible.”
“You want me to shut up or tell you about Hanoko? I can’t do both.” Brad spoke through his grin as he realized that the only one of the Seabees getting drunk was Akabu.
“Throw him off the sea wall, Brad.” Dan suggested as he looked at Brad with his characteristic grin. “Maybe it will sober him up some.”
“How’d he get such a head start on us, Dan?”
“When did you come to Noumanoui, Akabu? You didn’t work this afternoon did you? You were AWOL from the motor pool all afternoon.”
“Well-ll......... I’ve only drank 6 or 7 Orions all afternoon. Counting the two I just killed here. After I got a short time from Mariko-san in the Kokusai Club.”
“In the club? I don’t believe you Ron. Couldn’t you at least taken her to a hotel?”
“Come on, Brad, it’s five more days to payday and she wouldn’t take me to her place. So we did it in the back booth. Hell man, it’s dark in that back corner, and she didn’t care.”
“She probably had a merchant seaman shacked up at her place, Ron. Surer’n hell you’re going to come down with a dose of the clap now.” Dan offered amongst all of the laughter from the other Seabees.
“Come on, Brad, fini
sh telling us about Hanoko.” Akabu demanded. “I’m still horny and she’s cute as a bug.”
“All right!” Brad started again. “Hanoko’s father is the Naha City Chief of Police. Okay, are we all satisfied now.”
“That’s all? No more? That kawaii nesan is a cop's daughter? So what?” Ron exclaimed.
“I don’t think that you appreciate the gravity of the situation, Akabu.” Dan spoke in his characteristic quiet voice. “If you so much as look at her cross eyed, or with that lustful expression you get every time you get horny, you can plan on spending the rest of your days in the Okinawan jail.”
“Who looks lustful? I don’t look lustful? Do I look lustful, Brad?”
“Only when you’re horny, Ron. And by your own admission you are right now.”
“Which is all the time.” Ron added and started to laugh at himself.
“Wow!”
All the Seabees turned towards Ronny trying to figure what his problem was now.
It was obvious. A very pretty, and mature nesan was crossing the street behind them and heading for the sea wall and them.
“Who is she” Brad asked no one in particular.
No more words were spoken, but the woman smiled softly and a bit shyly before going to Dan Buckner and kissing him on the lips.
“Hi. You found us.” Dan was the first to speak.
“Hard to miss this bunch of drunken sailors.” The nesan spoke great English with just the soft accent typical of an Okinawan woman. “Dan, Are you going to introduce me?”
“Absolutely. This charming lady is Yumiko, and we’re going to move in together.”
Yumiko was a couple of years older than Dan and Brad, but it didn't matter. She was a very pretty woman who carried herself with feminine pride which was true to her and her personality. She wore no makeup and was wearing a cotton wrap like a Mother Hubbard. It was not even stylish enough to be called a muu-muu.
Brad liked Yumiko immediately. Even before she sat beside him on the sea wall and had accepted an ice cold bottle of Orion from Akabu.
Orion the local, made-on-Okinawa beer, was a standing joke that the Seabees didn't drink Orion because it was cheap, but since they could get it in any small store on the island so they had an endless supply no matter where on the island their jobs took them. Also, they claimed that they were helping to support the local economy. In actuality the reason was that it was cheap and an adventure to drink. No two bottles were alike and it was so green, (unaged), that cynical GIs swore some bottles had grass growing in them. It didn't seem to be such a stupid idea at the time. In reality, Orion was not so bad. It was palatable.
“That’s the end of that 6 pac.” Dan declared to Brad and Stump. “Another dead soldier going to his grave.
“Want to take a walk up to the job, Johnny?”
“Yeah. Let’s do that since we’re here. If Yumi wants to get ready while we’re gone, why don’t we go to the Seaman’s Club for dinner?”
“Sounds like a good idea to me, Johnny. Okay with you and Yumi, Dan?” Brad asked as he handed Yumiko his empty beer bottle.
"Hai. We'd love to go. Domo, Johnny-san." Yumi answered without any hesitation.
"Now we know who makes the decisions in this family, don't we, Brad?" Johnny said in place of a direct answer as he walked across the small yard and out the gate.
“Around here is the sugar cane farmer’s family tomb. Everything has been moved out of it, but we’ll have to let the family know when we are going to bulldoze it so the prayers and such can be said. Whatever they are.
“Over here, hidden in those weeds is a plugged up Japanese military cave. Papa-san said that it was blown shut during the invasion. So we don’t know if there are any explosives in it or not. I think we can open it from the top as we bring the hill down, but we’ll have to be careful that we don't drop a Cat into it.
“Hell, you’ve both been around enough to know how to do it.” John went on. “We haven’t been finding too much unexploded ordnance in this area, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t here."
The hill they were going to finish taking down was made up of pure Okinawan gray clay. When it was dry, it turned to iron and every inch of the hill would have to be ripped with dozer blades so that the front end loader could put it on the military dumps. One side of the hill all ready had a slot bulldozed out of it leading into an empty lot where the front end loader and dump trucks had been working. Around on the left side, houses had been built tight against the hill. None of the dirt could be allowed to fall down onto the fragile wooden homes, nor into the head-high sugar cane that surrounded the rest of the hill.
NINE
“I think that we should take the afternoon off and have some R & R. After all, it is Friday. What do you guys think?”
It was about two in the afternoon when Johnny Stump had showed up on the hill removing project. Off and on throughout spring and early summer, Brad and Dan had been working on the project for the Army whenever their Chief would let them off. They had cut down the hill of hard gray clay until it was now less than one quarter of its original height and the two Seabees had built up a massive stockpile between two of the tiny Okinawan houses at the base of the hill. The pile held so many yards of ripped up clay that it would take the loader operator and two military dump trucks several days to haul it all down the hill and onto the sports complex’s future parking lot.
“You’re about out of room on the stockpile. Unless of course you had in mind to bury a house or two. I really don’t think that’s a good idea though.” Johnny was in a good mood, and it was obvious that though it was early in the afternoon he had already consumed a beer or two.
“Great idea. Brad and I can shower and be ready in about 30 minutes, Johnny. Yumi doesn’t go to work until 3, so I can stop and tell her where we’re going.” Dan spoke as he headed around the huge stockpile of gray clay to where he and Brad had parked the two D8 bulldozers. As he walked the fine powdered clay rose in a light gray dust cloud about his feet and legs. It had not rained any appreciable amount since they had started tearing the hill down and the hot baking semi-tropical sun had sucked all of the moisture from the clay as the Seabees torn it from the hill.
“I found the top of the cave, John. A small hole in the roof that looks like the very top of the cave. We can dig it out and go into it on Monday.” Brad told Stump while Dan shut down both dozers.
“Do you want the EOD out here when you do it, Brad? Maybe we’d better let them go in it instead of any of us.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right, Johnny. It could be booby trapped. Or it might be empty. I don’t have a clue. I pushed a big blade full of dirt back over it so no kids would find it. I think it will be okay until we open it all the way.”
“Sounds good to me, Brad. Do you want to get the Navy EOD to come out?”
“I’ll call them before we come out the first of the week. We can work around it for a couple of days if we have to.
"But if Dan or I don't get out next week you may want to wait rather than have your Okinawan operators out here since they don't know where the hole is."
"If I have to do that, why don't I have Shorty, my best Okinawan operator, come by your shop and talk to you before he starts?"
"That will work for Dan and me. One of us or both of us, maybe able to break loose and help Shorty to find it if we have too.
"We’re also very near to the level of the tomb on the north side of the hill. I talked to Papa-San and he said that he would take care of getting the Priest here whenever I tell him that we’re going to start caving it in.”
“Good. He’s a nice old guy. Especially since the Americans tried to blow him up during the invasion.”
“What happened to him?” Dan asked having come back from the dozers into the middle of the conversation.
“He had been impressed into the Japanese Army to help defeat the terrible, raping, invading Ame
ricans. He and his two neighbors were told to dig a trench near the front of the cave Brad found, and defend it with their lives. A GI dropped a fragmentation grenade in on top of them from up on the hill. Killed his two neighbors outright and Papa-San had the tendons cut around his right knee which is why he limps.”
“Damn. You’d think he would hate us. He doesn’t seem resentful at all.”
It’s really typical of many of the Okinawans who were lied to and forced to fight for the Japanese. It didn’t take long for the Americans to show that they weren’t the hordes of Genghis Khan the Japanese made us out to be, Brad. The Okinawans are intelligent people, and they're very intuitive about people and people’s motives. The first couple of years after the invasion was really rough on them until the Army replaced the military governor and Congress came across with some bucks to help them.
“Dan, why don’t you and Brad take my car to the barracks and pick me up after you get ready to go. I’ll shower and change while you guys are gone.”
Stump had driven them north almost 15 miles up island from Naha, past the front gate of Kadena Air Force Base and around the Kadena traffic circle, before taking a narrow, but paved side road amongst a scattering of bars and restaurants. All of which were obviously there to serve and take the money of the American GIs.
Johnny had decided it was time for a guided tour of the city of Kadena in which he seemed to hold a sizable financial interest. Everywhere they went, all of the Okinawans the three men met, knew Johnny Stump.
"I used to own that bar on the corner." Johnny told Brad and Dan while they devoured huge plates of chicken fried rice, which just happened to be-on-the house, in the neat clean Okinawan restaurant he had taken them to.
"I gave it to my wife when we got divorced." Johnny added.
Brad already knew that Americans could not own property on Okinawa, so the bar must have been in John’s wife's name to begin with, but before he could ask further Johnny added. "It makes enough money to support her and my two kids. Besides, it was in her name and without her I wouldn't have had anything." There was a great sadness in Johnny's voice as he went on. "I drank too much, still do. She couldn't handle it anymore and I couldn't quit."