Chapter 1 I was walking down the middle of the road when I saw a couple of people pushing a car up a hill. There was never a lot of traffic, not with gas rationing. The man on the driver's side had one hand on the steering wheel. "Help us out," the man said. He had on a greasy cap, and his front bottom teeth were missing. A girl was behind the car, her shoulder against the spare tire like she had the whole weight of the car on her. She made room for me, and we pushed together. I recognized her from the school bus stop. She was that tall older girl who always had her nose in a book. "Hi," I said. "I know you. You take the bus to school." She looked at me through a tangle of hair and nodded. "Push, Nance," the man said. "I am pushing, Woody!" "Good girl." She muttered something girls don't say. I'd never known a girl who said things like that. "You two kids, push the heck out of it," Woody said. "We're almost to the junkyard." "Why don't we just push it in the ditch?" Nancy said. "Oh, don't say that, Nance. I just paid twenty-five bucks for this baby. I love this car." "That's about all you love," she muttered. I was trying to figure out who he was. Not her father. You didn't talk to your father like that. Maybe an uncle or a cousin. We finally reached the top of the rise, and the weight of the car eased. It started rolling, and Woody jumped in behind the wheel. "In like Flynn!" he yelled. "Keep pushing, kids. Faster, faster!" The girl and I were running and pushing. "Start it," she cried. "Start it, Woody!" The car coughed, belched black smoke, coughed again, and off it went. "Bakersfield Express," Woody yelled, sticking his head out the window. We were left standing there in the exhaust. "Pushing this car to the junkyard -- it's a joke, right?" I said to her. "No, he practically lives in that junkyard." She brushed the hair out of her face. "This isn't the first time I've pushed his stupid car." At the dairy on River Road I stopped. "I live over there," I said, pointing to the house across the road. "We live upstairs. Second floor." "Uh-huh," she said, turning down the path to the river. I watched her for a moment, then called after her, "I'm Adam!" She raised her arm, fingers sort of waving good-bye to me. Copyright © 2004 by Harry Mazer Chapter 2 My father was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, and World War II started for America. He was an officer on the USS Arizona, Lt. Emory J. Pelko, and he was onboard his ship that Sunday morning. I was there too. No, not on the ship, in the harbor. Davi Mori, Martin Kahahawai, and I had gone fishing early that morning. We had found a rowboat, and we were out on the water fooling around when we heard the drone of the planes coming over. We thought it was a practice, a navy exercise, a war game, till the bombs started falling and the boat we were in tipped and the air exploded, and we were thrown into the water. I saw my father's ship, that great battleship the USS Arizona, explode and sink. There were a thousand men onboard, and most of them went down with the ship. Their bodies are still down there in the wreckage. My father, too. I know he's gone, I know I'm never going to see him, but sometimes I can't help thinking he got free somehow and he's going to come home. Copyright © 2004 by Harry Mazer Chapter 3 Right after Pearl Harbor my mother, my sister, and I were evacuated from Hawaii and sent back to the States. For a while we lived in San Diego in navy housing near the base -- a couple of cheesy rooms, with a sink and a stove along one wall. I hated it there -- the sunny San Diego sky was too much like the sunny Hawaiian sky, too much like the Pearl Harbor sky. I wanted to move, and I didn't care where we went. When Mom got a letter from my grandfather Pelko, who lived all the way across the country on a farm in Adams Center, New York, I was ready to go. Mom read the letter aloud to me and Bea at supper. Dear Marilyn, How are you and the children? It's still winter here, and it snows every day. So much snow. It covers the windows up to the second story. I take care of the animals. I feed the fire. Every day the same thing. Every day the woodpile gets smaller and every day I think of my son, Emory. I'm an old man and it makes me sad. I hope you and the children are comfortable and warm. Perhaps in the spring you will come. Sincerely yours, Oskar Pelko "Grandpa Pelko is Daddy's daddy," Bea said. "You're right," I said. "I do feel sorry for Oskar, all alone there," Mom said. "Not that he hasn't been alone for years, but now..." Her voice drifted off. She lit a cigarette and sat there, not eating, looking out the window. She put food out for me and Bea, but she never ate anything herself. She'd just sit with us at the table, smoking. Cigarettes and coffee -- that was her food. One cigarette stubbed out and another one lit. "Let's go live on the farm with Grandpa," I said. "I want to live on that farm," Bea agreed. "No, you don't," Mom said. "Winters, all that snow and cold? Uh-uh, I can't do that." Snow sounded good to me. Anything was better than staying here, always seeing men in navy whites. Everywhere I turned, I thought I saw my father. I would catch a glimpse of an officer and my heart would start hammering, and I'd run after him. It was never my father. "Mom, I want to move," I said. "I really want to move." I drummed my fingers on the table. "I really want to get out of here." She put her hand over mine. "I do too, Adam, but..." She puffed on her cigarette. "I don't know...I just can't think about it now." "If Dad was here..." Mom shot me a warning look. We had never told Bea that Dad was dead. I didn't have to say it anyway. It was like the words were printed in the air. If Dad was here, he'd tell us where to go, he'd tell us what to do. If he were here, he'd make Mom stop smoking so much. He'd make her eat meals. He had taken care of her. He had taken care of all of us. "Where is Daddy?" Bea asked suddenly. She smoothed her dress. "This is my favorite dress I'm wearing, you know. I'll wear it when Daddy comes home. When is he coming home?" She sighed, like a little grown-up, like Mom sighed when she started thinking about Dad. "Oh, I know," Bea said. "He comes home when the war ends, right, Mommy?" Mom jumped up. "The carrots are burning!" She pulled the pot off the stove and put it under the water. "Why am I always doing that?" She stared into the sink, as if there were answers there for her. "We need to look ahead. We need...we need to...to move ahead." She mashed out her cigarette and sat down again at the table. "You okay, Mom?" She looked at me, then handed Bea her fork. "Come on, kids, eat your food." "You too, Mom," I said. She took a bite of hamburger. "My cousin Shirley in Bakersfield wants us to come there." "Bakersfield sounds good," I said. "Where's that?" "Between here and San Francisco." Mom folded Grandpa's letter back into the envelope. "Maybe we will go," she said. "I always liked Shirley." I put my arm around her shoulders. "Write her tonight, Mom." "Maybe I will," she said. Copyright © 2004 by Harry Mazer Chapter 4 Just before we moved to Bakersfield, I got a letter from my best friend in Honolulu. Dear Adam, How in heck are you? This is your friend Davi Mori from Honolulu, in case you forgot. I can't believe you went off without saying good-bye. Only one stinky postcard with your APO. I keep expecting to see your ugly mug in school. I went up around your house. I thought I'd see you. Your old neighbors saw this dangerous Jap, and they called the cops on me. It's still crazy around here. You know the FBI men came to our house and took my father away and put him on Sand Island? The Sand Island Country Club. Very popular with the Japanese. Very funny. You think so? My uncle Lucas and my cousins had to pull their boat out of the water. They can't fish anymore. The FBI won't let them, they think they're going to meet up with enemy submarines. My brother-in-law, Sam, comes to the house every day. He talks to my mom and tells her not to worry. He says we can't allow ourselves to feel guilty. We've done nothing. We are loyal Americans. He can't figure out about Pop either. The other ones that are locked up are all big in the community -- Mr. Hashimi, who's the minister, and a newspaper editor and a couple of teachers from the Japanese school. What's my pop there for? He collects junk and fixes things. They don't let us see him. My mom brings food and she has to leave it at the gate. My father's no spy. He was born in Japan, that's his problem. The Big Shots are afraid of anyone who looks Japanese, like half the people in Hawaii. Thanks a lot, Emperor Hirohito. You fixed us good. Sorry for being so gloomy. Wish you were here. How are you doing? How do you like it where you are now? When are you going to write me, you dog? Your friend, Davi I put the letter away to answer once we'd moved up to Bakersfield, and then I forgot about it. Copyright © 2004 by Harry Mazer Chapter 5 The apartment in Bakersfield that my mother's cousin Shirley found for us was on River Road in a big old rambling house with porches and turrets. The whole house had been broken up into apartments. The one we were renting was bigger than the apartment in San Diego, but it was still only two rooms, and the bathroom was in the hall. "You've got to share it with the other apartments on that floor," Shirley said. She was sort of round and tiny. She didn't look anything like Mom. "Share?" my mother said. "Yes, honey. There's a war on now," Shirley said, as if we had to be reminded. The door to the attic was opposite our apartment, and Mr. Medina, the landlord, said we could use it. It was a mess, filled with junk and broken-down furniture, but I moved things around. "This is going to be my room," I said to Mom, and she said okay. I pulled a big old armoire around to make a wall and put my bed near the window. I rescued a bureau with three good drawers and found a radio, an RCA floor model, under one of the rafters. Some of the tubes in back didn't light, but I could change them. From the window I saw the river in the distance, flashing through the trees, and I remembered Davi, Martin, and me on the water that morning, the water so peaceful we could have been floating on air. Then the bugles sounded and the flags went up on all the battleships, and we stopped rowing and just drifted. I knew my father was onboard the Arizona, and I remember thinking he might be out on the deck and he'd see me in the rowboat, and he'd be mad because I wasn't supposed to be with Davi. And then the planes came. What if my father saw me and tried to warn me and didn't save himself? I didn't know. I would never know, and when I tried to think about it, I just went blank. Copyright © 2004 by Harry Mazer Excerpted from A Boy No More by Harry Mazer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
