Ceremony Read Online Free PDF Page B

longer he walked the more his legs felt as though they might become invisible again; then the top part of his body would topple, and when his head was level with the ground he would be lost in smoke again, in the fog again. He breathed the air outside the doors and it smelled like trains, diesel oil, and creosote ties under the steel track. He leaned against the depot wall then; he was sweating, and sounds were becoming outlines again, vague and hollow in his ears, and he knew he was going to become invisible right there. It was too late to ask for help, and he waited to die the way smoke dies, drifting away in currents of air, twisting in thin swirls, fading until it exists no more. His last thought was how generous they had become, sending him to the L.A. depot alone, finally allowing him to die.
    He lay on the concrete listening to the voices that surrounded him, voices that were either soft or distant. They spoke to him in English, and when he did not answer, there was a discussion and he heard the Japanese words vividly. He wasn’t sure where he was any more, maybe back in the jungles again; he felt a sick sweat shiver over him like the shadow of the angel Auntie talked about. He fought to come to the surface, and he expected a rifle barrel to be shoved into his face when he opened his eyes. It was all worse than he had ever dreamed: to have drifted all those months in white smoke, only to wake up again in the prison camp. But he did not want to be invisible when he died, so he pulled himself loose, one last time.
    The Japanese women were holding small children by the hands, and they were surrounded by bundles and suitcases. One of them was standing over him.
    “Are you sick?” she asked.
    He tried to answer her, but his throat made a coughing, gagging sound. He looked at her and tried to focus in on the others.
    “We called for help,” she said, bending over slightly, the hem of her flower-print dress swaying below her knees. A white man in a train uniform came. He looked at Tayo, and then he looked at the women and children.
    “What happened to him?”
    They shook their heads, and the woman said, “We saw him fall down as we were coming from our train.” She moved away then, back to the group. She reached down and picked up a shopping bag in each hand; she looked at Tayo one more time. He raised himself up on one arm and watched them go; he felt a current of air from the movement of their skirts and feet and shopping bags. A child stared back at him, holding a hand but walking twisted around so that he could see Tayo. The little boy was wearing an Army hat that was too big for him, and when he saw Tayo looking he smiled; then the child disappeared through the wide depot doors.
    The depot man helped him get up; he checked the tag on the suitcase.
    “Should I call the Veterans’ Hospital?”
    Tayo shook his head; he was beginning to shiver all over.
    “Those people,” he said, pointing in the direction the women and children had gone, “I thought they locked them up.”
    “Oh, that was some years back. Right after Pearl Harbor. But now they’ve turned them all loose again. Sent them home. I don’t guess you could keep up with news very well in the hospital.”
    “No.” His voice sounded faint to him.
    “You going to be all right now?”
    He nodded and looked down the tracks. The depot man glanced at a gold pocket watch and walked away.
    The swelling was pushing against his throat, and he leaned against the brick wall and vomited into the big garbage can. The smell of his own vomit and the rotting garbage filled his head, and he retched until his stomach heaved in frantic dry spasms. He could still see the face of the little boy, looking back at him, smiling, and he tried to vomit that image from his head because it was Rocky’s smiling face from a long time before, when they were little kids together. He couldn’t vomit any more, and the little face was still there, so he cried at how the world had