The yard is a small, barren space between the buildings, in full view of the large office window and the awning that covers the area where the guards sit. The ground is dirt and gravel.
Jomon hears the muffled sounds of a classroom coming from a room above them. When he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he is back in his own school.
There would have been an announcement that morning, congratulating the geography team on their win. Maybe there was even a special assembly. His school has never won before. The whole school would have clapped for his teammates, and everyone would probably know what Jomon had done and why he wasn’t there.
Jomon sits in the dirt with his back against a wall. Someone has drawn little circles in the dirt. Jomon pitches pebbles into the circles, trying to make bullseye.
Crash!
Jomon jumps to his feet, looking for the source of the noise. The guards haven’t moved. No one else seems bothered by the sound. Jomon wonders if he’s losing his mind.
“Relax. It’s just a cannonball tree,” says Hi. “Haven’t you heard that before?”
“I’m from the city.”
“Well, you’ll hear a lot of them out here,” Hi says. “Look.” He points to a large stand of tall, pink-flowered trees across the road from the detention center.
As Jomon watches, a large, round seed pod breaks free and crashes to the ground.
“Smell that?” Hi asks. “Perfume from the flowers and rot from the seeds. You can’t mistake that smell for any other.”
Jomon sits back in his spot and returns to his pebble pitching. Hi sits beside him. Jomon doesn’t have the energy to move or tell Hi to get lost.
“This would be a good day for fishing,” Hi says. “Do you do much fishing?”
“No,” says Jomon. “Never.”
“Never been fishing? What do you eat?”
Jomon doesn’t answer. He feels like all the fight has drained out of him. He doesn’t even have the energy to look around for ways to kill himself. At this moment, even suicide seems too hard. He wishes he could just fade away.
“Maybe that’s why I’m still here,” says Hi. “To take you fishing. I thought it was to tell you my story, but maybe I’m supposed to take you fishing. Then whenever you feel like dying, you’ll tie a line to a stick and go sit by the water and you’ll feel better.”
“Really?” asks Jomon. “Fishing? That’s your answer?”
Hi shrugs. “Why not?”
“Didn’t help you, did it,” Jomon says nastily. He gets up and walks away.
Hi doesn’t follow him. Jomon goes to the other end of the yard and looks back. Hi is still on the ground, staring at the dirt, and for a brief moment, Jomon wants to do something to make him feel better.
Just then, he hears music coming from the classroom. The young inmates are singing.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
They sing through a few verses, including some Jomon’s never heard before.
This good brain of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
Jomon’s mum used to sing that song with him. It was one of her favorites. She’d add her own lyrics, too: “This fine boy of mine, he’s gonna really shine.” And, “These dirty dishes of mine, Jomon’s gonna make them shine.”
Moments after the song ends, the classroom door opens. The rest of the prisoners flow down the stairs and into the yard. They look at Jomon and Hi with mild curiosity.
Jomon is surprised at how young many of them are. A few of them don’t look any older than ten. They all look ordinary. Put school uniforms on them and they could be his classmates.
It’s not what he is expecting. He thought they’d look tough and mean, but they just look like kids.
“It’s you,” Hi says, almost like a breath. “It’s you! It’s really you!”
Jomon looks at Hi and then at the boy Hi is talking to. The boy is his age, with a face messed with confusion and sadness and Jomon can’t tell what else.
Hi takes a step toward the boy and then another step.
“Don’t,” Jomon warns. He’s seen enough prison movies and schoolyard fights to know that you don’t walk up to someone when you’re talking nonsense. “Don’t.”
Hi ignores him.
“Dev,” says Hi, getting closer and closer to the boy who is now starting to back away. Jomon can almost see horror in the boy’s face. “Dev, it’s so good to see you! Don’t you recognize me? It’s me!”
Dev’s face now shows recognition and pure rage.
“You!” growls Dev, first low in his chest, then louder, a scream from his heart. “You!”
“Yes!” exclaims Hi. “It’s me! We’re together again!”
Dev plows himself headfirst into Hi’s stomach. Hi hits the ground and Dev rolls on top of him, crying and pounding him with both fists.
Jomon tries to pull the boys apart, but Dev’s anger is making him strong and fearless. Jomon quickly gets lost in a tangle of swinging arms and flying fists.
The fight doesn’t last long. Guards pull them apart.
“No fighting!” a guard yells. “Solitary!”
“I was trying to stop them!” Jomon protests.
The guards don’t care. Jomon is force-marched with Hi and Dev through the yard and around the corner. They end up in front of a small brick shed with a series of narrow doors across the front. Three of the doors are open. The three boys are tossed inside, with Jomon in the middle.
The doors are slammed shut and then bolted.
Jomon is in a space not much bigger than an outhouse. The only light comes from the grill in the door. There is a tattered straw mat on the cement floor. Jomon sits on it and hugs his knees to his chest.
“What just happened?” he cries.
“Jomon,” says Hi, from the cell to his right. “Let me introduce you to Angel Liang Fowler. Your great-grandfather.”
“I hate you!” shouts the boy in the cell on Jomon’s left. “I could kill you!”
“You’re too late for that,” Hi shouts back. “I’m already dead. And so are you.”
“What just happened?” Jomon hollers again.
One moment, he was sleeping on his bed, exhausted from an evening of competition and forced celebration. He was feeling empty, but that wasn’t unusual. He was already making plans to fill the emptiness with exams and jobs. They weren’t great plans, but his expectations weren’t very high. He would have made them work.
The next moment, he was running down the street without shoes, breaking windows and being slammed against a police car. Now he is stuck in a cell between a kid who calls himself Jomon’s great-great-grandfather and another boy who the first kid says is Jomon’s great-grandfather.
Jomon wants none of it. He wants out.
He bangs on the door, rattles the bars on the tiny window and calls out, “Open this damn door!”
“I’ll pay for the window,” he shouts. He has no money, but he’ll figure out a way. “I’m sorry I broke it. Now, LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Part of a face suddenly appears at the small window.
“Stop that,” the part-face says. “You shout again, I’ll keep you in longer.”
Jomon bends over and pounds his thighs with his fists. All he accomplishes is to bruise his legs and his hands and to wear himself out.
The unfairness, the rottenness of it all!
He stretches out on his back on the straw mat and watches the sliver of sky through the little window. Sometimes a cloud passes by. Sometimes an egret trailing its long legs.
Every few minutes, the part-face of a guard blocks out the sky as he peers into Jomon’s cell. Bread and water are delivered. The sky changes from bright blue to gray to black. Jomon slaps at mosquitoes. He keeps breathing in and out. He has no other choice.
The sounds of the detention center go quiet. There is silence except for the cries of owls and the buzz of cicadas.
Jomon doesn’t even try to sleep.
Deep into the night, another sound reaches his ears.
It comes from the cell belonging to Dev, the boy Hi called Jomon’s great-grandfather.
It is a soft sound, muted by the thick brick walls of the solitary compound. But the night is quiet and even a soft sound can be heard.
The boy in the cell next to Jomon is crying.
Jomon puts his hand on the cell wall, as if that can comfort the boy who is feeling as sad and alone as Jomon. The boy’s tears are contagious. Jomon feels like crying now, too.
“Sing the Soothing Song,” he hears the boy say. “Sing the Soothing Song.”
Jomon wonders if the boy is talking to him, but then the boy himself starts to sing.
Chatter monkeys in the trees
Swaying branches in the breeze
Sleep the hours of dark away
Wake up to a brighter day.
Singing it once isn’t enough. The boy starts to sing it a second time. Jomon joins in, and, from the other side of his cell, he hears Hi join in, too.
They sing the song five times before they are soothed enough to slip into sleep.