IT WAS the hottest summer in twenty-five years. Daytime temperatures soared past one-hundred degrees. The sun was relentless, it hung over Shikoku island and refused to budge. Darkness brought no relief. The moon was white-hot and restless.
Palm trees on the city’s broad avenues bowed their heads in submission. They waited for clouds and rain. Day after day, none came. Conversation with their neighbors waned as their fronds turned brown and brittle. Craftiness displaced camaraderie. They competed like coquettes for the attention of once-scorned dogs.
Kochi was a wild, semi-tropical town and home to more drunks per capita than any city on the planet. Beer consumption soared as the heat wave continued. Gangsters cursed and shot each other in a snit. Old people dropped under the curved eaves of temples. They expired gracefully, felled by the heat or drilled by stray bullets.
“Come on, don’t be chicken,” the girl said.
Twelve-year-old Kenji backed away shaking his head. “No. If Tokunaga-sensei catches us we’ll get in a lot of trouble.”
“What a baby,” the girl laughed. She took a cigarette from the pack of Mild Sevens and lit it.
“Put that out,” Kenji demanded. “You’re going to get me in trouble, too.”
She inhaled deeply and squatted down to scratch an old sow behind the ears.
“Leave her alone,” Kenji said, nearly shouting in frustration.
The girl looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “What?”
“The pig, the pig. She’s mine.”
“Yours?”
Kenji wished he’d kept quiet. He’d learned long ago never to let them inside, to let them see you cared about anything at all. “Uhh, I didn’t mean she’s mine like I own her or anything, all I meant, uhh, was that she’s my friend.” My only friend.
The sow pulled herself to her feet and nudged Kenji in the leg with her snout.
“See?” he exclaimed. “She likes me.”
The girl took another drag on the cigarette and glared at the boy. She didn’t give a shit about pigs, friendly or not.
Kenji started for the door and the pig followed.
“Come back here.” Her voice was sharp and threatening. “Or I’ll beat you up. You know I can do it.”
Kenji stopped. That was his problem. Everybody wanted to beat him up. He never did anything to make them angry, just the opposite, he did all he could to please. It never worked. The girl had been just like all the rest. She’d punched him in the stomach thirty minutes after arriving at the school that morning. She’d laughed at his diminutive size and made fun of his long eyelashes and big ears. At sixteen, she was four year’s older and nearly twice his size. He turned and walked back into the barn’s gloom and shadows. She held out the cigarette. “Smoke.”
Kenji took a shallow puff and coughed.
“Again.”
This time he only pretended to inhale and managed not to cough. The girl was pleased. “That’s better, baby. It just takes practice.” She lit a second cigarette from the butt of the first. “How long you been here?”
“Two weeks,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder at the barn door. “My parents are coming to get me tomorrow.”
“Where’s all the other kids?”
He shook his head. “There aren’t any. Just you and me. There were two boys but they went home last week.”
“I guess business ain’t so hot, huh?” she grinned.
“I don’t know. I just want to go home. I hate it here. Tokunaga-sensei is mean.”
“Ahh, it ain’t so bad.” She held up the Mild Sevens. “Pretty lucky finding these, don’t you think?”
Kenji nodded but he wasn’t so sure. Who would leave a full pack and a lighter in plain sight in the barn. Besides Tokunaga, there was only the cook, old Tada-san, and she didn’t even smoke. He took another puff and tried to smile, hoping the girl would like him.
“You’re cute,” she said. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
“That’s OK. It didn’t hurt much.”
“Where is Tokunaga, anyway?” she asked. “I thought he’d watch us all the time.”
“He usually does. This is the first time he hasn’t been around while we did our evening chores. It’s strange.”
The girl looked down at the cigarette suspiciously. They’d been so easy to find, such a temptation, almost like a gift. “Maybe not so strange. Put that out, hurry up.”
Kenji’s father and mother stood in the barnyard, sweating and listening to Tokunaga-sensei with embarrassment.
“I was as surprised at yesterday’s smoking incident as you are. Kenji was making excellent progress. No one wanted to see him graduate more than I. I never keep my students one minute longer than necessary.”
“What do you mean?” the mother asked, alarmed. “Isn’t he coming home today?”
Tokunaga shook his head sadly. “I don’t think that would be wise. His problem is still clearly unresolved. If he were to leave now he would soon revert to his old behavior.”
“Are you sure?” the father asked, his voice wavering. Implying that a teacher, any teacher, could make an error was a tremendous breach of etiquette.
Tokunaga stiffened inside his camouflage fatigues and worked to control his temper. He despised these spineless parents as much as their spawn. Only the thought of an extra two-weeks tuition salvaged the moment.
“I am absolutely certain. Little Kenji is a typical school-refuser. I’ve worked with many boys and girls just like him. They always blame the other children when the real problem is their arrogance and inability to try and fit in. Don’t you agree?”
The mother looked to her husband for support. “I don’t know. Kenji is so quiet. I can’t understand how he couldn’t fit in. Most people don’t even notice him.”
Tokunaga nodded. “Silence is the most common ploy of the school-refuser. Another is lying. I’ll bet Kenji claims the other students tease him. Am I right?”
“Well, yes...”
“Of course I am. And he even goes so far as to say they beat him?”
“He’s come home with bruises—”
Tokunaga held up his hand. “Self-inflicted. Believe me, the true school-refuser will stop at nothing.” He pulled an olive green towel from around his neck and mopped his face. It was too hot to argue and he had a plane to catch. “Kenji has to stay another two weeks. It’s the only way. Now, if you’ll step over to the office, we’ll take care of the financial...” His eyes widened, he shook his head and scanned the cloudless sky. “It’s the money,” he sighed. “That’s why you’re so reluctant.”
The father murmured an objection and a reassurance.
“There are cheaper schools,” Tokunaga continued. “But if you want what’s best for your boy...”
“It’s not the money,” Kenji’s mother cried. “We’ll do anything, we’ll pay anything.”
Tokunaga opened the door to a small prefab building. It resembled a temporary office at a construction site. “Please accept my apologies. I realize it’s hard to understand, but there are some parents that just aren’t interested in their children’s welfare.”
“Can I see him?” the mother begged. “Just for a minute?”
“That’s out of the question, I’m afraid. We can’t interrupt his, uhh, schooling, can we?”
A railway freight container sat behind the barn on a pair of truncated roofing beams. Made of heavy gauge steel, painted baby blue and white, it was a small version of cargo containers transported by ships across the Pacific.
Over time, weeds had grown up around the bottom. They were like the earth below, bleached of life and color. A pig rolled in the dust nearby, a hen crouched under the container, seeking shade from the afternoon sun.
The container rocked slightly on the beams. The hen ruffled her feathers and cocked her head in alarm. The trembling subsided and she settled back in the dust. Her head sagged on her breast. She began to doze, lulled into ever deeper sleep by a low keening from inside the metal box.
At a few minutes past midnight, the roof of the container was still too hot to touch. Temperatures inside had reached one-hundred and forty degrees that afternoon. Rational thought had abandoned Kenji some hours before. His existence had narrowed to involuntary reflex and terror. He lay naked, face down on the floor of the discipline cell. There were deep gouges scoring his cheeks and arms. He could no longer cry out for help. His tongue had swollen in his mouth.
Reiko had given him her share of the single can of grape soda Tada-san had delivered that morning. Kenji had wanted to refuse but she’d insisted, saying Tokunaga would have to let them out before it got too hot. He’d cried at her generosity and had promised to take her along when his parents came to take him away.
Reiko had tracked the passing day through three small air holes punched in the side of the container. Sometime in the morning she’d whispered, “Is that you’re mother and father?” Kenji had pushed her out of the way to get a look. “Yes, yes,” he’d cried with relief, watching his mom and dad talking with Tokunaga by the side of the barn. And then they’d walked out of his line of sight. Kenji had scooted over to the door of the container, expecting to be released any second.
“I don’t think we’re getting out of here,” Reiko had whispered hours later, long after the grape soda was gone. Kenji had cried at the thought. She’d held him in her arms as long as she could, until they were driven apart by the rising heat.
Reiko had gone mad sometime in the late afternoon. She’d shrieked and shrieked, her cries filling every inch of the box. Kenji had crawled into a corner and squeezed his eyes shut. Wild, crazy moans had escaped her throat; the sound of her nails breaking on steel had forced his hands to his ears.
Beating back the fear, he’d opened his eyes, seeing things no one should ever see. Reiko throwing herself against the walls of the box—smack, crack. Reiko licking at urine running down her legs.
Brave little boy, he’d reached through the darkness to pull her down. He’d held fast as she’d ripped at his face and arms with broken bleeding nails. And then she’d calmed, feeling his hands stroke her burning cheeks.
The air had been like fire in his throat, he’d whispered his parents could still save them. Try to believe. Stay with me, I can’t do this alone. Hold on. But Reiko-chan was leaving. Her thoughts had turned to blue-sky smiles and mothers gone away.
They’d remained side by side all day. A couple of kids so slowly dying, the heat so cruel it swallowed their tears.
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