A FIRE OF INDIGNATION KINDLING WITHIN    (2,687 words)

  ‘Morning, George’ says the man who sells newspapers, winking at the boy by George's side. ‘That your grandson?’ ‘Morning,’ George answers him, staring straight ahead.

The child’s small hand is soft and warm in his. His grandchildren and other great-grandchildren, they’d be pulling him all over the place, giving him no end of trouble. This kid’s a pushover. Maybe it’s because his English isn’t so hot – as far as George can tell the kid only has a couple of words in the language – but he doesn’t seem to have a will of his own. Built-in obedience, that’s what this is. An inborn capacity to follow orders. He looks down at the kid’s head: glossy black, dead straight. Like his grandson’s blue-eyed blonde-haired DNA didn’t even make a dent!   

  No one has any idea how odd it is, him and this kid walking along together, hand in hand like this. None of them understand, really, not even Meredith. For years he’d woken up from a sound sleep soaked in sweat and screaming his head off. She said she understood, she could imagine how bad it’d been, but the truth was that she had no idea, none at all. Forgive and forget, she’d say. Move on, Dad, his children would say. That was then, this is now, his grandson Hugh quipped the one time he’d tried to tell him about it.  Easy for him to say, wasn’t it? Easy for them all!

He didn’t go to Hugh’s wedding, couldn’t bring himself to. Meredith didn’t push him. His son Bob and his daughter-in-law Sue – they didn’t push him either. Be that way, seemed to be their attitude. If you’re going to have that attitude, you might just as well stay home.

Only Hugh tried to get him to change his mind. It’s a different age, Granddad, he kept repeating. I should know: I live there after all. And he did. He and the wife and this kid. They lived in a high rise building overlooking Tokyo Bay. Hugh put on a suit and tie and went off to his company every day. Did those morning limbering-up exercises with all the other company members, just like they’d had to do in the camps.  

  Sixty years ago if he’d known about the future, what things would be like today, he’d never have believed it. His flesh and blood sitting on a Jap train every day, going to work in one of those Jap companies. Married to a Jap. Little Jap kid and all. Jesus H Christ.

The child suddenly lets out a cry and pulls his hand away. George realizes he’s been squeezing too hard. He relaxes his grip and they go into the Stop and Shop.

‘Hello, little man,’ beams the lady behind the cash register, looking down at the kid. She smiles at George. ‘Your grandson?’

‘Where d’you keep the coffee these days?’ George asks her coldly, freezing her foolish cheer. Walk around town with a four-year-old sometime and see how the

world falls all over itself trying to show you how sweet it is!

   George feels like screaming at all the happy, ignorant faces around him, Sixty years ago I weighed 93 pounds. That’s counting all the water in my legs from the beri-beri. When they’d drained that away, I weighed 85.  He smiles bitterly, imagining their reactions. Shocked horror, no doubt. They’d give him a wide berth, that’s what they’d do! Nobody cared, not really. Save your breath – that’s what he’d told the others on their last get-together.

  A few of them still got together, talked. The world had changed, that was for sure. Jim’s daughter had herself one of their cars that got over 60 miles to the gallon. One of Sam’s sons worked for Mitsubishi, his grandchildren bought every electronic gadget on the market as soon as it came out.  And George – well, George really had the prize.  His son Bob had gotten posted to Tokyo for four years and had a swell time. And five years ago, the real clincher:  Hugh, his grandson, had gone and married one of them. And now, here he was, former guest of the Emperor, grocery shopping with this kid.  

  His country – the whole world, in fact – suffered from amnesia, as far as he could see. Flash a little money at them, show ‘em some shiny new gadgets and cheap cars and they all went head over heels slapping down the welcome mats, trying to get their wallets out of their pockets. And everybody was just begging for Jap investment to come their way, bending over backwards to be nice to their students that filled their town every summer:  Thank you for your money! Please come back and bring some more!  You could try to tell them about what it was like, what you’d been through in the war, but see how far it got you. Save your breath. It’s a new age, Dad. You’ve got to move with the times – forget and forgive.

  In his opinion, all the people who were so keen on moving with the times, who blithered on about forgetting and forgiving, they’d just never been tested, that’s all. Cram them into the hold of a stinking ship for six sweltering weeks with 800 others, dead and alive on top of each other, thirsting and starving to death. Stick them in a hut infested with fleas and ticks and mosquitoes, knock their teeth out with a rifle butt for some piddling reason – well, they’d feel differently –

  Itai!  George jumps. The kid has pulled his hand away and his face is scrunched up, beginning to cloud over. There’s fear in his eyes now. He’s moved away from George and his mouth is working, like he’s going to burst into tears.

   George remembers that word itai. Pain. He remembers the scruffy, snot-nose brats that used to hang around the entrance to the camp in the morning, when they’d leave for work. Like running the gauntlet it was some days, with those kids jeering and calling you names. Stick thin they were, too, and always dirty – nobody had enough to eat those days or enough hot water to wash in – and those kids were as merciless with each other as they were with the POWs. Itai! one of the smallest and dirtiest had sobbed after a scuffle with his pals. Itai! He’d sat there, filthy, his bloody nose streaming, crying his heart out. Some of the others had felt sorry for him, but he’d lashed out at them, screamed abuse – run off, leaving the dirt spotted with his blood.

  George could understand that. The kid wanted respect, not sympathy. If someone was picking on you, you didn’t want another outcast offering sympathy. That just made your humiliation complete. It was human nature, not wanting to be pitied by someone lower than you. And POWs were at the bottom of the chain, no doubt about that. When the kid had run off like that, George had realized how truly despised they all were. Even the losers and the dregs saw them as underdogs, the lowest of the low. 

  George has paid for his purchases, but the kid still won’t come back to him. And the woman at the cash register, she’s watching him suspiciously now. You can practically see the thought forming in her mind: Is that kid really supposed to be with this man? Like he’s a pervert or something.

After all, the kid and he are as different as chalk and cheese; you’d never guess they were kin. And the kid is standing with his back against the shop display counter, staring up at George with that hunted-rabbit look still on his face.

‘Come on now,’ George tries, but he isn’t going to budge. He’s managed to hold the tears in, but he’s plastered himself against the counter, shaking his head. Iya da! he tells George now. George doesn’t remember this one, but he gets the idea. He takes a deep breath and sighs; at this rate he’ll never get the kid home. What’s he going to tell Meredith? What’s he going to tell Hugh and the kid’s mother tomorrow, when they’re back from their three-day break?

The wall just behind the boy is plastered with movie posters. Lurid aliens blasting each other with laser guns, teenagers in trendy clothes. And a space-walk poster, too, a dozen people in a ring, floating in the air. But no, it’s not air after all, it’s water, he sees – they’re floating in the ocean.

 The kid moves and George suddenly sees that the floating people – all of them black and naked – are not holding hands, they’re linked together by chains. Sharks are swimming around them, scowling mouths crammed with rows of pointed teeth.  One of the women has her mouth open in a frozen scream and there is a plume of scarlet infusing the water around her. A towering ship with billowing sails is in the background. It’s a slave ship: you can see a row of black faces back on deck, eyes wide with fear. The ship’s captain is leaning over the ship’s railing for a good look at everything going on in the water. TO THE CAPTAIN THEY WERE NOTHING MORE THAN CARGO! the caption on the poster proclaims.

What the hell kind of poster is that to put where any kid can see it?  Kids’ll be having nightmares for weeks just looking at something like that

The kid’s got his back to the poster now, but if he turns around, he’ll see it. ‘Come on, Ken,’ George tries again. It occurs to him that it’s the first time he’s actually used the boy’s name. Ken looks up at him, still suspicious. There’s quite a crowd around them now. The lady at the cash register has been ringing up other people’s purchases and they’ve all filed past the kid, turning and gawping as they do.

  Daijobu? George turns to see who has spoken and it’s a teenager, one of those foreign kids you see everywhere in the summer, dressed in a tee shirt and baggy shorts. Town’s full of them, all nationalities. This one’s just spoken Japanese, so no prizes for guessing where he’s from, and he’s staring straight at the kid. Ken, that is. His great-grandson.  

  Ken stares back at the teenager. Unh, he says, nodding uncertainly. The teenager looks from George to the kid, but at that moment, the child moves away from the counter and stands next to George, his body right up against his trouser leg. Daijobu, he assures the teenager in a faint little voice, reaching for his great-grandfather’s hand. George takes Ken’s hand in his and steers him away from the crowd around the counter, away from the cashier, the teenager and the poster. Especially away from that poster. He can feel their stares on his back all the way out of the store.

  ‘Tell you what,’ George says when they’re back on the street, ‘how’s about an ice cream? You want an ice cream?’ He’s holding the boy’s hand lightly now, as if it’s a wounded bird. Ken says nothing, but nods.

  Strawberry ice cream – that’s what the boy wants. The ice cream counter is a flower garden of flavors and colors, but the kid points to the strawberry.  George smiles: strawberry’s the only kind Meredith’s ever eaten. ‘I don’t have to taste the others,’ she always says, ‘when I know what I want already.’

  George doesn’t order anything himself. He can’t get that poster out of his mind. The look of terror on the woman’s face. He can almost feel the salt water pouring in to stifle her screams, the blind panic rushing through her veins as she waited for the end. If you were swimming freely, you could use your arms and legs to kick and try to fend off the sharks. But chained like that, you couldn’t do a damn thing. The weight of the chains would be dragging you down even as you struggled. Even if by some miracle the sharks decided they didn’t want to eat you, there you’d be, sinking in the water under the merciless sun, chained to your mates, completely helpless.

  He watches his little great-grandson clumsily wielding his spoon, skimming just the top part of his ice cream and licking it off carefully – just like Hugh used to do when he was this age – and suddenly tears well up in his eyes. Dear Jesus, the things people do to each other in this world!

   All those slaves who survived – how did they forget? Move on? And yet – people did, didn’t they? 

Just as they’re leaving the shop, Lorraine comes in. Lorraine is Meredith’s fellow Sunday school teacher, a portly woman in her late sixties. She’s huffing and puffing, loaded down with shopping bags, a couple of grandkids in tow.

‘Why, hello George,’ she wheezes as she tries to catch her breath and rearranges her shopping bags underneath a table. She hooks out a hand to pull back one of her grandchildren and fumbles for her pocketbook. George manages to catch the youngest boy, who’s a real handful. ‘This your little great-grandson?’ asks Lorraine, beaming down at Ken.

Ken stares up at her, obviously fascinated. Probably the first time he’s seen a black person this close, the way he’s staring, and Lorraine’s about as black as they come.  

  Lorraine’s grandchildren are staring at Ken, but he hasn’t even noticed them, he’s so interested in Lorraine. She beams down at Ken, then reaches into one of her bags. ‘Now let me see,’ she says, rooting around for something. She produces a strip of lollypops from one of her bags and detaches one.

  Ken accepts the candy from Lorraine and stands there staring at her. George is embarrassed and reaches for the boy’s hand, but Ken shakes his head: there is something he wants to say. He points to the bag of groceries George is carrying. Basu-day he says. Mama basu-day. Lorraine smiles back down at him, confused. Suddenly George remembers. ‘It’s his mother’s birthday tomorrow,’ he says. ‘That’s what he’s trying to tell you. We’d better get these groceries home; there’s a birthday cake to bake!’

  They go through the park. Ken is timid, but interested in everything around him – the people, the dogs, the kids on skateboards. He wants to walk on the stones that border the flower beds and insists on dragging a stick along the brick wall just like his father used to do, and his father before him. George can’t remember back that far, but he’s willing to bet he did the same thing himself when he was a kid.

George finds himself wondering if Lorraine’s seen that poster, hoping that she hasn’t. Then he realizes how idiotic it is to imagine that any of that is news to her: she’s bound to know plenty about those slave ships, about what all happened centuries back. And what’s still going on now, for that matter.

 They’ve known Lorraine for so long now, he’s never even thought about her being all that different from him, from any of them. She’s just another Sunday school teacher, someone who bakes cupcakes and knows all the books of the Bible. She’s been a good friend: when Meredith had her mastectomy two years ago, Lorraine brought a covered dish over twice a week, visited her in the hospital. She and Meredith cover for each other at church, always do the Christmas nativity play together, too. She’s our friend, George thinks to himself. Damn right, she’s our friend. Two kids walking along nearby nudge each other and smile, and George realizes that he has been talking to himself.

  Ken has let go of his hand. He’s lagging behind a little, poking his stick between some bricks in the wall, standing on tiptoes to reach as high up as possible. George stands and looks down at the boy for a moment, then he sighs.

‘Come on, Ken,’ he says, ‘let’s get on home and get started on your Mama’s birthday cake.’