Different times then of course. These days the same guy would probably be promoted to principal. Definitely in New York or California, Adam thought. He remembered how Dan and Art would argue about the respective education systems. Art lambasting Dan about the level of education in New York City. How the public school system was a joke there. Dan with the usual retort about Catholic schools and the sainted Jesuits, “Put the Jesuits in charge and everyone would speak English in ‘LALA’ Land,” he would say.

  The reality now. The lights coming into focus. Emergency room. Hiroo Hospital. Art somewhere in the other room. Going fast. How was he? “Doctor! I need to see a godamn doctor.” No one stopping. Bustling around like cross-eyed ants. The red ones that Adam used to destroy with firecrackers when he was a kid. This their revenge now.

  The ants. All the goddamn ants that he had killed as a kid. Jesus he was losing it. Screaming now. My God where are you, Art. Please Jesus, don’t die. Don’t die, Dad. Jesus, don’t die. Sobbing now. Out of control. The ant in the white jacket turning and staring.

  “Please, sir. Sit down. Here. Nurse, get some water for this man.”

  “Dr. Tsurahara,” the tag read.

  Adam calmed down. “Doctor, my friend is here. His name is Art Chambers. They just brought him in less than an hour ago. I think he had a heart attack or something.”

  “Please God, let it be “Something.”

  Adam faded out again. His father was in the bathroom with the .38. Mom screaming, “Please, Davey, don’t do it.” Joyce Welsh. Standing at the door. Davey inside with the gun. Probably pointing it at his head. Drunk on his ass. Adam, eight years old, trembling on the stairs. Must be my fault. Has to be my fault. What can I do? Nothing. The helpless feeling. Leg shaking up and down. Thumb in the mouth now. Waiting for the gun to go off. Waiting.

  “I’m going to do it!”

  Silence. Sobbing. Sobbing from the depths of Davey Welsh’s soul. Door opening. Joyce’s arms around him.

  “Everything is going to be all right kids. Go to bed. Nothing wrong here.

  Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll make a big breakfast for us all. Dad’s just a little upset. You know he works so hard.”

  Adam had gone back up to his room. Leaving part of himself on those stairs. The part he lost waiting for the sound of the recoil of the .38. The sound that never came. Back in bed now. Scared. Empty. Guilt-ridden.

  The next morning, Mom smiling. What planet was she on? Dad whistling “My boys.” Arms around Adam and Sammy.

  Sammy his brother, two years younger. Adam hadn’t thought about him much. Left home. Got into crack cocaine. Dead now. Overdose. His girlfriend killed herself. Blocked out of Adam’s mind. A little of Mom in him. A lot. “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” He’d heard that at one of the meetings. Bullshit now. All bullshit.

  22

  Shoko Asahara laughed. A strange laugh. Not amused. Not in any way joyful. Satan would laugh this way, thought Atashi. CNN blaring the news of the American woman’s death. Shoko beside himself. A cleansing had taken place of sorts, thought his loyal comrade in arms, Atashi. What better first victim than a woman and an American for that matter. Of course nothing left to chance. Rose was as good as dead three weeks ago. Keiko’s best friend from her earlier life. Her life amongst the gaijins.

  Everything had been methodically planned to the last detail. Keiko followed and then Rose Carney’s apartment staked out. No accidents in the world of Aum. Every action taken had a distinct purpose. Naoyuki’s body found under a train at Shinagawa Station. An apparent suicide. No sign yet of the sarin in his system. Only later would this information unfold.

  Naoyuki a hero of the cause albeit a very hesitant one. The thought of his wife and family being tortured and killed enough prodding for him to inhale the Sarin.

  “At this time we go to Tokyo and the American Embassy where the American Ambassador is making a statement on tonight’s grisly events.”

  Shoko sensing a bit of irony in the one pundit’s reference to Hiroshima. Of course the Americans had dropped a second bomb days after the first. The attack tonight at Ebisu Station had indeed been Aum’s response to Hiroshima, and the more devastating apocalypse in the next few days would probably be viewed by historians as Nagasaki. Of course history is written by the victors. Smiling. Content now. Atashi could see it, even sense the relief that had come over Shoko’s body after the successes of the night.

  “Make certain everything is in order for our final victory, Atashi San.”

  Shoko touching himself under his robes now as he watched the news cast. Atashi bowing and leaving seemingly on cue.

  23

  “I’m all right, bern.” Dan using the Gaelic form. Not really Irish. More French but the Zelig thing kicking in now. Needed to be something, anything other than himself. Kelley was on the phone and frantic.

  “I called as soon as I saw it on the news. It’s horrible, Dad. What is the world coming too? I thought Japan was such a safe, non-violent place?”

  “It is, honey. Don’t worry it’s, but…”How can he say it…She saw it coming.

  “Oh, Dad, please I’ve bought my ticket. I’ve had my heart set on this trip. I have to go! Please don’t cancel on me. This is the biggest thing that’s happened to me.”

  Dan knowing it was true. Beautiful Kelley. The diagnosis of multiple sclerosis years ago only strengthening her dream to be the best that she could be. Her body and her soul still able to take flight and sing with the angels. He couldn’t/wouldn’t take that from her.

  “Of course you can still come visit. I just thought that maybe you could come next summer instead.”

  “Jesus, Dad.”

  The Lord’s name in vain. The apple not far from the tree.. Dan wanting to bellow something about it but stopping. Mellowing know. He loved his only child. Probably the only thing Dan did love or have any real feelings of the human kind towards. His own fear had removed him from the world. From the company of his fellows. Never could be a worker among workers. Probably the reason he always spoke in literary phrases so much. A defense mechanism against intimacy someone had told him.

  Actually now that he thought of it, Adam had told him that. Something from one of the boozer meetings Adam attended between drunks. Can’t be much of a program if Adam just kept drinking anyway. Of course Dan had it under control. Still had his job, 800,000 yen a month, thank you. God bless the child who got his own. Bravado. A good mask for fear.

  “I’ve already booked the flight, Dad, and you have no idea how hard it is to book these things if you’re disabled. As soon as I get elected to Congress, I’m going to make sure that the American’s Disabilities Act gets changed to something worth a crap. Not something the Republicans wave around so they can prove that they’re in touch with the masses.

  Ah, that’s my little girl.

  Dan the old-time Liberal now. Kelley, definitely her father’s daughter. Part of her anyway. There was hope. He knew that the argument was over before it started. Dan no match for the love of his life.

  “I’ll pick you up at Narita. Make sure you confirm the day before.”

  “Yes Dad.”

  Kelley the mature twenty-three year old now. Putting up with her father’s condescending attitudes. “My brain is in excellent working order, thank you very much.”

  Point, Set, Match.

  “I’ll see you on Friday. I love you very much.”

  “Love you too, Dad,” and then the click.

  He hadn’t told her about Art. Art had been like an uncle to Kelley. She would not take it well. Maybe it was better that she was coming. Tell her in person. Console her. Dan Bronsan gulped the last of the gin and headed for Hiroo Hospital to be with the last friends he had in the world.

  24

  A Japanese hospital is, in a very real sense, a microcosm of the society itself. When one first enters the emergency room, the Westerner is struck by the seeming apathy that permeates the entire waiting area. Old, sick people, with every injury imaginable, all waiting on stretchers with no help at all from the various nurses and doctors scurrying in an out of various rooms like ants through a colony. The injured and infirm are ministered to by friends and family who do the best they can until a white suited ant converges on the scene to take the patient away, almost like a small morsel of bread being taken back down the hole for the queen to feast on at leisure. Of course the patients do for the most part emerge back out of the lair of the queen to lead productive lives, and the system is quite efficient capitalizing on Japanese society’s insistence on taking care of one’s own family as much as possible with the government or any other institutions for that matter having little or no intervention. Of course when one is dying, this all changes but grudgingly at best.

  Perhaps the West could learn from this self-reliance, thought Dan Bronsan as he entered the ant colony searching for Adam and his dying friend, Art.

  “No news yet. One of them came out earlier and just said something about him being stabilized. Haven’t seen anybody in about an hour,” Adam said as he sat down next to him.

  “Here, take some of this, Adam me boy. A bit of the hair of the dog that bit ya. Of course normally I would frown on anything that even remotely smells of alcohol going into that screaming liver of yours, but this is definitely an exceptional day. A dark day for us all.”

  It was good to have Dan here, thought Adam. A steadying influence. Adam grabbed the flask and took a drink. Jack Daniels. Perfect. The anesthetic of choice in a world filled suddenly with interminable pain.

  “Rose didn’t suffer, did she, Dan?”

  The voice pleading in tone. Dan not expecting this.

  No talk of Rose. Just Art. Enough to think about Art. Everything happening too god damn fast.

  “Sure, Adam. The gas put her to sleep. Never felt anything,” Dan lied.

  Her death had been horrible. Acutely aware of everything that was happening to her no doubt. Art had talked to a Swedish friend of his at Svenson who knew of these things. Sarin was a derivative of mustard gas only much more lethal and unmerciful. One lost control of all bodily functions in a very short time, but one was also cognizant till the bitter end.

  Doctor Tsarahara approached them both now. He didn’t look good. The news would be devastating. Dan clutching Adam’s shoulder.

  “Mr. Welsh, your father…

  “He’s not my father.”

  “A very good friend,” volunteered Dan.

  “Yes, I’m afraid he has suffered a catastrophic stroke. He is on life-support.”

  “Jesus, God!”

  “Adam. Here take a blast.”

  The doctor ignoring this.

  “I understand he has no living relatives?”

  “We’re as close to family as he’s got, after tonight anyway.”

  Adam bracing himself after the whiskey. “What do you need from us?”

  “I’m afraid we must get your consent to take him off life support. There is no brain activity whatsoever.”

  Adam rocketed back to a similar, horrible time. Rikers Island Hospital. His mother, telling him to rub his father’s hands.

  “Rub his hands, Adam. He’ll recognize you. The doctor says it will help.”

  Joyce Welsh the Denial Queen of all time now. Adam staring into the dead eyes of his father, Davey. No life there. In a coma. They’d found him on the floor of Rikers Island. Been there over an hour. Massive cardiac arrest they had said.

  Why an hour? Adam knew his father had had enemies. It came with the territory of an obnoxious arrogant drunk. One didn’t attract a lot of bright and shiny people. Adam back there now. Rubbing his father’s hands. Cold. Dead. His mother hysterical, saying the Rosary.

  “Pray for him, Adam. It’s all going to be all right. Pray to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Pray for Daddy.”

  So he did. He knelt down next to his father in a prison hospital in New York City. Knelt and prayed with all his heart. The doctor taking him aside later.

  “Your mother needs to make a decision about taking him off the respirator.”

  “There is no hope, Doctor?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  It wouldn’t matter of course. Mom would never pull the plug. The whole Catholic thing. She would never do it.

  “Go home and rest. We need to know by tomorrow.”

  That night Adam Welsh had gone to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the city. Not really wanting to stay sober. Asking his father’s old A.A. buddies to pray with him. Coming home, his mother had met him at the door. Tears of joy.

  “The hospital called a few minutes ago. Dad went on his own. Thank Jesus.”

  “Yea, thank Jesus.”

  Adam returned to the ship in San Diego. A DUI four weeks later. Never looked back. The booze the only answer.

  Now here again. Another time. Another place. A nightmare revisited. So Adam asked the question again. The one he already knew the answer to but had to ask.

  “There is no hope,” the reply from the doctor.

  “Can we see him?”

  “Of course.”

  The feeling of impending doom now. Not New York City anymore. Tokyo. Hiroo Hospital. The ashen-faced figure devoid of any sign of life. The machines hooked up more as an acknowledgement of technology than for any practical utilization. One look and Adam saw that his friend was gone. Dan and Adam now kneeling next to the hospital bed. Dan spoke first.

  “Here’s to the tilt in your kilt, my friend. We went around a few times. You might have even been almost right some of the time. I’ll miss you, Art.”

  Adam just staring now. Finally, “The next one is going to be a wonderful life. I’m sure you’re holding hands with Donna Reed and talking to Jimmy Stewart now. Old Frank Capra there to. Thank him for that movie, will you, Art? I mean that’s what brought us together. Both of us alone on Christmas Eve watching It’s a Wonderful Life. Did I ever tell you that that was the best Christmas Eve I ever spent?”

  Adam breaking up now. Dan putting an arm around him. Dan and Adam standing now. Saluting their lost friend.

  “Permission to go ashore granted.”

  25

  “My name is Jack Bender, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Hi Jack.”

  The small room adjacent to the Yokosuka Naval Base Chapel was on this night the site of a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jack Bender, retired U. S. Navy Electrician’s Mate and recovering alcoholic was leading the meeting. Since there were no real leaders in A.A. meetings, this chore was more an act of facilitation than one of authority. One just basically guided the group through the meeting by asking members to “share” and make sure the meeting ended on time. Jack was good at this job. He took it very seriously. A.A. had after all saved his life. Saved his family as well. Sure things were not going as smooth as he would have liked with Yumiko, but that would change soon.

  The group consisted of 12 people tonight. A good turnout. Normally the demographics consisted of young and old, all American. Over the last month or so a quiet Japanese man had been escorted to the meeting by Jack himself. This being a U.S. military base, all foreign nationals had to be signed in and escorted by an American I.D. card holder. Jack of course was retired and employed by the base, so he was more than qualified to sign a guest onboard. He called himself “Peanut,” the Japanese A.A. members an extension of the culture that valued “saving face” above all else. It was still considered a disgrace in Japan to have a member of one’s family who was an alcoholic, regardless of whether that member was courageously trying to get help. In most of the West, men of good will realized and accepted alcoholism as a disease. Not so in Japan. Thus the curious, giant of a man would announce himself only as “My name is Peanut. I am an alcoholic,” and leave it at that. Jack was the only one he conversed with, and even these exchanges were brief and generally out of earshot.

  “If there are no burning desires, we’ll close the meeting with the Lord’s Prayer. Bill, would you like to lead us?”

  “Our Father who art in heaven…”

  Jack chatting in his low key almost otherworldly manner now to the stragglers. Meeting having ended a half hour ago. Clean-up done. Now only Jack and Peanut.

  Jack Bender was fluent in Japanese. Decades in Japan. Drinking heavily in the early days. Horrible things done to his Yumiko. Beloved Yumiko. What his country had done to her family and then he himself years later. She still loved him though. He would set everything right. Last night had been a beginning. He would do more. Do all he could to wipe away the guilt and shame that he carried. Finally dry the tears of his anguished wife forever.

  Waking up in a cold sweat, Yumiko feeling the heat of the bomb on that horrible day so many years ago. Just like it was yesterday. Watching, away in the hills with her uncle. Packed away by her parents before the plane came. The small plane. The Enola Gay. A curious name. The name of the pilot’s mother in fact.

  The American Satan must suffer what Yumiko and her family and her friends had suffered. Jack there with her every night. Working long hours at the ship repair facility. The pension not enough to survive in Japan with the increasing strength of the yen. As supervisor of the waste facility, he was responsible for the storage and disposal of all toxic waste on Yokosuka Naval Base. Thank god for A.A. Couldn’t have held a job for five minutes when he was on the booze. Couldn’t function. Hurting everyone around him.

  “You always hurt the ones you love.” Corny but God it was never truer than with alkies. Came home many a night and beat Yumiko senseless. One night she was waiting though. The knife hidden under the mattress on her side of the bed. Too many beatings. Too much hate already for the Americans. Now Jack epitomized everything American on that day at Hiroshima. He might as well have been behind the controls of the Enola Gay. Might as well have dropped the bomb. Jack lunging at her.