It Couldn't be More Appropriate |
I wonder about the woman that gave me up for adoption, I imagine her in post-war Japan going about the business of rebuilding from the ashes of the bombings,
I wonder if she was there when America dropped the bomb, was she close to Nagasaki or Hiroshima, did she see the plane as it
approached, did she run in fear or watch intently, curious about the big silver bird with its payload of atomic death,
did she run through the streets looking for parents, family, and friends, did she recognize the gentle outlines of people left as flash burn against the crumbling walls,
did she walk aimlessly in shock, left with no idea of what to do next, calling out the names of mother and father or brothers or sisters or
possibly her own young children?
did I lose an older brother, an older sister, a grandparent or all of the above, is there transgeneration cell memories telling me that I was the lucky one, I didn’t get fried in
the blast and I don’t have cancer and I didn’t have to eat carrots from irradiated fields covered in unstable particles naked to the eye,
Sometimes I imagine my father to be a great giant of a red headed Swede, a great builder of nations, plowing the war under caterpillar
tractor treads and erecting monoliths of modern industry, skyscrapers and the mad dash to make money,
I like to think of him as something special, his only sin a small half-breed baby left behind in his travel, he is an adventurous man like the great men that built the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower and the Pyramids in Egypt, a man’s man,
these are some of the scenes that flip through my mind when I think of the woman that gave me away, sometimes I pretend she did it for my good, gave me to a good Christian family ready to love and nurture a poor half Japanese infant covered in sores, the story goes that way, I was ill from the start.
But sometimes I see it through the portals of my worldly eyes and I know my queen mamma is
really mama-san, pouring sake as politely considered hospitality girls, lining the frontier bars of “New Tokyo,” my hero father likely a robust iron worker horny for that
“slant-eyed pussy” running wild like barbarians
celebrating the spoils of war—one bar at a time,
mom was a whore and dad was a drunk—it couldn’t be more appropriate.
copyright 2005
Johnny
Masuda |