Playing with Fire

In the summer of 1967, I often played in the park across from my house, bossing around my then-best friend, Tomo. I asked him to spin the jungle gym that turned like a merry-go-round as fast as he could while I mounted its domed top and watched konara oak leaves, a lamppost, and Mother’s second-floor bedroom window covered with lace curtains—all swirl around me until they became a blurry smoke ring.

Because of the way Tomo swayed his hips when he walked and covered his mouth with his hands when he laughed, kids around the block called him Sissy. He lived with his grandma and two aunts and had no friends except me. I was the new girl, having moved into the neighborhood after the school closed for the summer. I was stuck with him as my only playmate.

On rainy days, we played Conquest, wrapping ourselves in moth-eaten cotton curtains and wearing crowns we made from cardboard. We’d roll old newspapers into swords, real tight. The stiffer, the better.

“Behold, this is my kingdom,” I’d declare, standing on a low dining table when Mother was not in sight (she would’ve given me a good spanking if she’d caught me standing on it).

“My kingdom,” Tomo would chime in his line.

No matter how much I nudged him, Tomo never climbed on the table but stayed on the tatami mat floor. He surely did live up to the name-calling. But I didn’t care. It gave me the advantage of swinging my sword from high above.

Our fight continued until one of our swords drooped dead and made no banging sound anymore. I always won, except once, when I tripped over my disentangled curtain, and Tomo quickly mounted me. Stepping on our makeshift gowns in the heat of the duel was nothing new. But until then, whenever I fell on the tatami mat, Tomo would ask whether I was all right and help me get on my feet. So the sudden weight of his warm body on my back stunned me more than anything, more than him striking my crumpled crown with his supple sword, nonstop, shouting, “I have conquered you.”

The rule of the game was for the loser to obey the winner’s command for the next five minutes. It was my lucky day if Mother happened to bring in our snack right after the duel: crunchy rice crackers and homemade jello cups with peach slices. “Booty for the Queen of Victory,” I’d proclaim and order Tomo to slide his plate toward me on the table with the faint outline of my footprints. I’d quickly wipe them out with my hand, leaving no trace of myself.

I thought Tomo would get back at me that one time he became the King of Victory. Staring at the round face of a wall clock, I’d tried recalling all the demands I made on him, concentrating on the worst ones: imitate a cane toad burp, see how far he could stick his pinky into his nose, put his fist in his mouth and say my name. I twitched my nose and mouth and readied myself.

“Tell me the scariest thing you’ve ever seen,” Tomo said.

“That’s it?” I felt my face relax.

“Yes, the most frightening thing you wish you hadn’t laid eyes on,” he said.

“So terrifying that you want to pretend it didn’t happen?”

Tomo nodded.

So I told Tomo about the night Mother and I moved to the neighborhood.

“Imagine unpacked boxes surrounding you like armored knights. I knew they’d creep up on me and squeeze me flat if I closed my eyes. So, I decided to sit by the window and stay awake, keep on guard.”

I made binoculars with my fingers like that night and surveyed Tomo’s face. In close-up, his eyes looked puffy.

“It was a full moon—the night witches gathered to concoct a potion in their cauldron that would make boys disappear. Not a soul was in sight. Not even a black cat. Then I saw a ghost standing by the lamppost, right by the park. A hat covered his face, a telltale sign of a three-eye.”

“Why do you know it was a man?”

“Because he was trying to light his cigarette. No female ghost smokes.”

“So the ghost was smoking?”

“He kept puffing smoke toward my house.”

“He must’ve been casting a spell on your house.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Did you close the window and hide behind the curtain?”

I shook my head. “I grabbed my hand mirror and held it against the window to bounce the hex back to him.”

“Holy moly. You’re so brave.”

I beamed at him, forgetting that Tomo was the King of Victory. “Guess what? The ghost flailed his arms, trying to ward off the curse, and in no time, the ghost vanished. Not even a trace of smoke.”

“Did the ghost ever come back?”

“Nope. I beat him. So, what’s your scariest story?”

Instead of answering my simple question, Tomo bit his nails, which he often did. It irritated me. It was worse than watching boys eat their snot. “Tell me.”

He opened his mouth, but no word came out. Finally, Tomo said, “I’m the King of Victory. I don’t have to tell you any story.”

“You’re such a sissy,” I said.

Then all hell broke loose. Being a head taller than me, he quickly grabbed my shoulders. I couldn’t reach him. I kept jabbing at the air, and it drove me nuts. Like a fighting bull, I charged him with my head and knocked him over. His head hit the low table with a thud, immediately followed by Tomo’s high-pitched ouch. No cut. No blood. But a goose egg bump formed on the back of his head. He didn’t cry, though. Instead, he crawled under the table and mumbled something that sounded like a magic chant.

“I’m sorry, Tomo. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I lay on my stomach and peered under the table. He was curled up like a kitten.

“Leave me alone.”

“Come on. You don’t have to be scared of me.” I wriggled my body to get under the table, but it was too small to hold both of us.

“I’m afraid of nothing. You’re the one who’s afraid of me telling on you to your mother.”

“Go ahead. Who cares? I don’t mind being locked up for a week, banned from watching TV, or going without snacks. Watch me suffer.”

He turned his face toward me. His cheek pressed against the tatami mat had reed rush marks. “Who said I’d tell on you? I won’t. I won’t tell your mother, Grandma, or my aunts.”

I pulled him out of the table and touched his cheek. “It looks like a stitched wound.”

“Yours too.” Tomo pressed his hand against my cheek and traced the lines.

His soft hand assured me that he was not telling on anybody. I was saved. “Do you want to go upstairs?” I offered for the first time.

“We’re not supposed to play upstairs. That’s what your mother said.”

“Mom won’t be back for some time.”

“Are you sure? Did she say so?”

“No. But she made herself extra pretty—lipstick, pearl necklace, navy blue suit. It means she’ll be gone for hours.”

Tomo gave me a doubtful look.

“All right. If you don’t want to take this chance, that's fine with me. It only means that you won’t see our family treasure. Forever.”

“What is it?” His eyes widened, and his caterpillar eyebrows moved up, almost touching his bangs.

“I’m not telling you.”

In fact, I couldn’t. We didn’t have any treasure. It was a lie that popped out of my mouth like a hiccup. I wanted to give him a special treat to square with him.

I took his hand and dragged him up the stairs to Mother’s room. It was tidy. Unlike my room, with comic books and half-finished puzzles scattered around the tatami mats, nothing, not even a strand of her hair, was on the floor. A paulownia chest of drawers and a matching wardrobe closet were the only pieces of furniture in her room, which meant that I had to dig into them to find something that I could show to Tomo as our family treasure.

“Look.” I opened her closet and pointed at a pale-yellow chiffon tulle swing dress. I’d never seen Mother wear it, but it was the prettiest dress I’d ever laid my hands on. “You can touch it.” I pinched the tulle of her skirt, careful not to tear it.

“Is this your family treasure?” Tomo pouted his lips.

“Of course not. It’s just her dress.”

As I strummed her clothes in the closet with my fingers, I tried to think hard about where to look next. While Tomo stood behind me, waiting for the surprise, I took my time opening the top drawer where Mother kept her underwear, thinking that a silky bra she’d stored way in the back wouldn’t impress Tomo. I hummed the Sukiyaki song and rummaged through one drawer after another.

“You lied. Didn’t you? There’s no family treasure.”

“Don’t you know you should constantly change where you hide your family treasure so a burglar can’t find it easily? It’s common sense.”

That shut him up, bought me time. I was down to one bottom drawer when I found a golden cardboard case under Mother’s cotton kimono. With my back to Tomo, I opened the box, fingers crossed. Wrapped in a royal purple satin cloth was a silver lighter with engravings of Mt. Fuji, a cherry blossom tree, and a pagoda. I picked it up and held it against the foggy glass window, where raindrops trickled down.

“Our family treasure.”

“May I?” Tomo asked and cupped his hands.

“A hundred years old. Perhaps more,” I said, thinking that saying a thousand years would be a giveaway, and placed it carefully on his palm as if it were fragile. Tomo studied the engravings with his eyes before tracing each curvature and dent with his slender finger. Then he held the lighter in its upright position and opened the hood.

“Does it work?” he asked.

“Of course,” I replied, hoping my words would come true. He rested the tip of his thumb on the spark wheel and rolled it into the ignition button. Nothing happened. Tomo looked at me. I stared back into his eyes and signaled him to try again. He did. No luck.

“This might do it,” Tomo said and shook the lighter. It slightly rattled. He wiped his hand against his T-shirt and pressed the spark wheel hard against the ignition button. An orangish-yellow flame, like one on a birthday candle, popped up, and Tomo smiled at me.

“Isn’t it pretty?” I said. “You’re good at it.”

“My father was a smoker. I played with his when I was alone,” Tomo said.

It was the first time I heard Tomo mention his father. At his house, there was a big portrait of his grumpy-looking grandfather hanging from the beam in the living room where we played on rainy days, but aside from that, there were no other pictures. I never thought of Tomo having a father, or a mother, for that matter. My mother was everything to me, so I’d assumed his grandmother and aunts were his only family.

“Here,” he said and handed me back the lighter. “We better go downstairs before your mother returns.”

Putting the lighter back into the box, I thought about what Tomo said. Did the lighter I found belong to Father? Why did Mother keep it under her kimono? Isn’t Tomo’s father dead like mine?

While all those questions whirled in my head, I tried to concentrate on erasing any trail of us messing around in Mother’s room. As if playing follow-the-leader, Tomo repeated my moves and made sure that the drawer was tightly closed, that the wardrobe door was snugly shut, with no piece of her clothes partially jutting out. When I closed the door of Mother’s room, Tomo looked at me, expecting me to say something to end the game. Feeling dizzy with all the unanswered questions, I blurted out, “Secret shared.”

“Secret sealed.” Tomo zipped his mouth and followed me down the stairs.

Just as I landed on the first floor, I heard him say behind me, “That was a pretty yellow dress.”

~

That year, when the fall semester began, Mother placed me in the third grade at a local school. I made new friends, played less and less with Tomo. By the time we became teenagers, we had stopped saying hi and just greeted each other with our eyes when we came across each other on the street. He no longer swayed his hips when he walked. The kids stopped calling him Sissy.

The last time I saw Tomo was the summer I returned home from college. He was helping with the community night festival at the park. I watched the excitement build up from my second-floor window. Strings of lanterns hung between the konara oaks lit up the park, and the brown cicadas, mistaking it for day, shrieked incessantly while vendors of fried noodles and corn on the cob prepared their grills and propane gas cylinders.

“Why don’t you join them? I can help you wear a cotton kimono,” Mother said. “Your friends might be there.” She pressed the swing button of the electric fan and sat on my bed, wiping her forehead with a towel tied around her neck.

“I’ll stay here. Anyway, I’ve lost touch with my childhood friends. They probably won’t recognize me.”

I combed my bangs with my fingers and sipped the cold barley tea Mother brought for me. In my freshman year, I cut my hair short and dyed it for the first time. Blue-black, then light ash brown, and finally copper shimmer. A fresh start each new school year.

“As you wish. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready,” she said and went downstairs.

That was a phrase I was so used to hearing. Whether it be me taking a drum lesson, quitting it, joining a judo wrestling club, or applying for an art school far from Tokyo, Mother’s response was As you wish, her soft voice carrying no ring of trust or hope or potential she felt in me, but indifference. My high school friends envied me for not having to fight my way. How could I have explained to them that Mother had no interest in the future, that her words meant it did not matter one way or the other? I switched the electric fan to fixed mode, remembering why I’d left home.

Down at the park, in the twilight, children began dancing around a wooden tower built for the festival, where two drummers took turns beating the batter heads with oak drumsticks. From the bullhorn speakers set on four corners of the tower, the Bon Odori festival music I remembered from every childhood summer boomed, erasing the brown cicadas’ cries. Tomo stood by the lamppost, handing out tickets for free soft drinks, ice cream bars, and handheld fireworks. Aside from the timid smile he beamed at the kids, there was no trace of the Tomo I’d played with. He was well-built and tall, and his surfer haircut accentuated his manliness. When there was no more queue, he looked up at my window and waved. Being caught off guard, I raised my hand half-heartedly and mouthed a hi.

The accident happened when I was eating dinner with Mother. A piercing blast wiped out the music and the drumbeat that filled the silence between our intermittent conversations. Our windows rattled. I saw a ball of flame through the screen door, people running amok, screaming for help.

“Dial 119,” I shouted at Mother, grabbing the portable fire extinguisher from the kitchen table and running to the park.

“Don’t go near! It might explode again. Give it to me,” a man yelled, pulling me away from the fireball. From quite a distance, he pulled the pin and swept the nozzle from side to side at the base of the fire, but the white agent did not reach the fireball. Only smoke rose like a dry ice fog. Sirens, ambulances, mothers shouting their children’s names, fire trucks—all clamored around me. By the time the police officers completed cordoning off the park, the only sound left was the cries of brown cicadas.

~

At Tomo’s wake, held at a funeral home, I saw his parents for the first time. They sat beside his aunts, who had shrunk like dried plums. I realized that Tomo’s tender eyes, which I’d remembered, had come from his father. Because Tomo had suffered severe burns from the explosion of the propane gas cylinder, the top panel of his wooden casket was closed. Instead, an enlarged portrait of Tomo, maybe taken some time ago, was displayed on an easel erected in front of his coffin. He had that timid smile.

While a monk recited sutras that sounded like a monotonous drumbeat, I studied Tomo’s portrait, compared it with his parents’ faces. Other than his eyes, he took after his mother. I could easily imagine her smiling the way Tomo did. When my turn to offer an incense came, I could not resist the urge to touch Tomo’s picture, his lips, the way he traced the engravings of my father’s lighter. A small commotion broke out behind me, but his parents and aunts did not blink an eye at what I did and continued bowing to each attendant who proceeded to offer incense.

“Thank you for coming to say farewell to my son, Tomonari Kakita,” his father said after everyone was seated again on their steel folding chairs. “Ever since he was seven, my sisters here and my mother, who is no longer with us, raised Tomonari, my only son, who was supposed to continue our family line. I confess. I don’t know much about Tomonari. I didn’t know he smoked. Like me. I believed I had ample time to get to know him, have a man-to-man talk over sake once he was ready to accept me. Those opportunities are gone now. In the adjacent room, we have some sushi and drinks. Please share Tomonari’s stories and tell me anything about him. I hope, at least, Tomonari had the chance to enjoy his last puff.” He took out a pack of Peace cigarettes from his pocket and placed it on the coffin.

The locals filled the dining hall: owners of pop-and-mom shops, gateball club members who played with Tomo’s aunts, and Tomo’s former classmates whom I barely recognized. I’d intended to leave after his father’s speech, but I was caught in the flow of the crowd and was ushered to a table, given a plate of sushi and a glass of beer.

“Were you his girlfriend?” the owner of a cigarette stand, who sat beside me, asked. She did not recognize me.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She dipped a piece of cucumber roll in soy sauce and nibbled on it.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Because you touched his picture. Like giving him a last kiss. But, of course, knowing that boy, I doubted he had a girlfriend.”

I remembered her sitting by the cigarette counter facing the intersection. Rain or shine, she was there like a framed portrait. She always observed people walking by, dropping letters in the mailbox across the road, and even eavesdropping on conversations on the public phone chained to the cigarette stand. She had heard her grandson call Tomo names, but she did nothing.

“He’s not a sissy.”

She grimaced and studied my face, her steel-frame eyeglasses slipping down her nose. “It’s you. What happened to your beautiful, long hair?” She gulped beer and washed down a piece of seaweed stuck on her front tooth. “Of course he’s not a sissy. That was what you kids called him at the time he wanted to be a girl.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked around the room and leaned toward me.

“You see, when his mother asked for a divorce, her husband beat her up, real bad. Nobody could stop him. Tomonari wailed like hell. His grandmother soothing him didn’t help much. But Tomonari’s mother didn’t give up. So, her husband finally let her go with the condition that she leave the kid with the Kakitas to keep the lineage. If Tomonari were a girl, he could have gone with his mother, who eventually married the man she was having an affair with. Poor kid. Back then, he desperately wanted to be with his mother.”

I didn’t want to know anything more, but she pulled her chair closer.

“Don’t you recognize his father? He used to be the bassist of a band for a famous singer. What’s her name?” She tapped her forehead with her finger. “Anyway, the singer appeared on TV quite often. He’s still on the road, playing at local nightclubs.”

I stood up, pretending to go to the lady’s room. When I passed by the adjacent room where the mild scent of sandalwood incense lingered, Tomo’s mother was there. She stood by the coffin, peering into the closed casket as if looking down into a cradle.

~

When I returned home, I found the evening newspaper still in the mailbox. Of course. It was the fifteenth, the day Mother paid her monthly visit to my uncle, in her navy suit, to get our stipend, which, as far as I was concerned, was nothing but hush money. We did not go hungry as long as we kept a low profile, did not fuss about Father vanishing when I was seven, and honored his family reputation built on old money and political connections. Father eloping with Mother, a waitress working at a café where radical minds gathered, was a mistake in my uncle’s and grandparents’ eyes. Father’s marrying the waitress was an act of rebellion against the establishment. But I was the ultimate mistake, which reminded them of their shame, their stray son, who probably lived in some foreign commune under an alias, living out his illusions. But for Mother, I was the only link connecting her to my father, whom she kept waiting for. Even if there were no stipend, she would have visited my uncle every month, hoping to hear some news about Father’s whereabouts.

Going up the dusky stairs, I wondered whether Tomo lit his lighter to have a drag. Everybody assumed so. That was the most logical conclusion, an easily digestible story of the flame igniting the propane gas leaking from the tank. Who would care for another story? A story of a boy playing with a lighter.

I stepped into Mother’s room, blanketed in the gloaming. I opened her closet, hoping not to see the yellow swing dress Mother wore in her wedding picture in which Father stood beside her in his boater hat with a matching yellow ribbon. But there it was, hanging like a cicada shell. I yanked at the stiff tulle, but the dress did not come off the hangar. Clothespins braced the shoulder straps.

Mother would return any moment with a sunflower bouquet. Her monthly routine of coloring her small dining table in yellow—with freesias, chrysanthemums, and margaret ivies. She would hum a song from her youth as she removed her makeup with a cotton pad—her dark brown eyeliner, sunset orange lipstick, and nude foundation—all leaving layers of smudges of unnameable colors on the cotton.

I rummaged through her drawer and found the silver lighter. It was smaller than I had remembered. It was nothing more than a trinket sold at a souvenir shop. Nothing worth Tomo’s admiration. I pressed the spark wheel a few times until an amber flame shot up. It did not flicker but remained steady. Slowly, I brought the flame close to Mother’s yellow dress.

“Are you back? Why don’t you turn on the light? Can’t see anything,” Mother called out from downstairs.

I realized then that the gloaming had transitioned to evening. Beyond her bedroom window, the domed jungle gym stood still, faintly lit by the lamppost. Nobody, not even a shadow, moved. I reignited the lighter and held it up like a torch, waiting for Tomo to tell me how to recount to Mother the story of that ghost, of how it flailed its arms as if drowning, of how I drove out the ghost on the first evening we started our new life.