ACHES
I stay overnight
at the hospital
Dad stays with me
sleeping in a chair
Mom takes Cora home
at the hospital
the next day
they do X-rays
and test after test
Cora and Mom bring
cups of custard pudding
that slides nice and easy
down my throat
and we wait
for results
but other than a cracked rib
and a throbbing headache
and cuts and scrapes and bruises
I seem to be okay
and they let me go home
in the evening
Cora and I
Mom and Dad
we all
take the rest of the week
off
and finally I speak
about everything
that has happened
in the classroom
on the seawall
near Daiki’s house
by Takemura’s
after school
and I ask Cora again
what happened up on the hill
in the woods above
Dragon’s Mouth Temple
she explains
second by second
step by step
after-school center
to hill
to hospital
but I still wonder
one thing
I know she caught
my 911 code
which is opposite
of Japan’s 119
I know she knew
to get help right away
but I wonder
how did she know
to get help that fast
especially when Shunta said
he just wanted to play?
duh! she says
because I could hear them talking
about chissoku
chissoku? I ask
choking! she says
when were they talking
about choking?
on the way to the temple
and up on the hill she says
Yōhei and Naho were arguing
Naho saying it’d be okay
because Shunta had done it to Gō
and Gō had done it to Shunta
and they were perfectly fine …
they wanted to make you play
the choking game
I realize
I’d been looking out
for someone to save me
during the walk
and listening so closely
to Shunta and Gō
on the hill
watching their moves
thinking of my moves
preparing to fight
an army of ten million men
that I’d missed this
major clue
choking game?
I can’t help but shiver
and my mom
wraps a fleece blanket
around me
until I have to run
to the toilet
to throw up
my parents talk
to the police
Cora talks to the police
and when I’m feeling better
late on Friday
I also talk to the police
Nakazato-san—
the officer we spoke to about the sandal
plus one other man
I can’t answer all their questions
and some of the words I don’t know
but they won’t let Dad translate
which makes Dad blow up
so the questioning is halted
and Dad gets on his phone
hunting down legal support
we have visits from the principal
vice principal
head of the PTA
class parent leaders
Ōshima-sensei
who all promise change
in slightly different versions
and on Saturday
we drive to Yokohama
to meet with a counselor
we talk and talk
on and on
straight
through
the
weekend
then late Sunday afternoon
the doorbell rings again and
Ken and Shō are on our steps
with Yōhei hiding behind them
why’s he here? I ask
Yōhei hangs back
but Ken and Shō pull him
up the steps
and into our house
we sit in the living room
the three of them stiffly on the sofa
me at the edge of a chair
with Cora perched on its arm
Mom brings cups of tea
some rice crackers
sets them on the coffee table
but no one touches a thing
Mom and Dad
hover in the doorway
I sit on the chair
stone still
and Ken and Shō
nudge Yōhei
who presses his lips together
inhales
like he’s going under water
then exhales
a blast of apologies
for not being a friend
for telling Gō about the spare key
for not being able to stop Shunta and Gō
not being able to stop them? I say
you knew what they were planning!
you and Naho talked about it!
you went along with it!
and I don’t care
how my Japanese sounds—
smart, stupid, babyish, formal
I can’t stop yelling at him
and then he’s crying
and Mom is next to him
offering tissues
why didn’t you help me? I say
Yōhei covers his face
and says I tried!
I called 119—
even before your sister
came back
I stand up
but you let them attack me!
you didn’t even warn me!
it wasn’t an attack Yōhei says
it was a kind of game
Shunta pushed me down! I say
Shunta held me down!
Gō cut off my breath
that’s an attack!
Yōhei uncovers his face and says
I tried to stop them!
I thought I could divert them
I was trying to make them quit
that choking game thing
I went in case they did too much …
then my father’s in the room
and his voice booms
too much?
just when were you going to figure out
that ALL of this was too much?
when our son was dead?
choking is never a GAME!
next thing my mother’s ushering my father out of the room
saying that we need to continue this discussion
at another time, when their parents are here
when we can have someone professional here
someone to assist us, someone to mediate
but I call Dad back into the room
tell the story I say
that one about the white deer
and the French guy
he objects
doesn’t see the point right now
but I insist
no he says—
that story is “fakelore”
recorded by a Brooklyn man
not a Native storyteller
just tell it! I say
and so he sits down
heavily on the floor
closes his eyes
and tells it
in Japanese this time
a little changed and halting
but it’s mostly the same
and Yōhei quiets
and everyone’s still
I make Dad tell the story to the end
then ask him to go back to retell
the part where that one tribe member
brings the white deer to the Frenchman
who kills it and takes the skin
and I say to Yōhei
you
you were like that member of the tribe
who sold the white deer
we were good friends
we were like a tribe
the four of us
but you …
uragiru is the word Dad used
and I can see the characters now
裏切る—literally, to backstab
and I try that word now in Japanese
you betrayed me
and that aches more
than my cracked rib