Free House of the Red Fish by Graham Salisbury Page B

to go take a look and see if it’s still there?”
    “Darn right. Hang on. I gotta change.”
    A half hour later we were sitting in the back of a half-empty Sunday bus heading for Kewalo Basin. I sat by the window, looking out at the people and cars and buildings that made Honolulu what it was, a busy mixture of everything you could think of—rich, not so rich, clean, dirty, nice, junky, loud, peaceful, generous. I loved this place. Even after it had been beaten up and scarred by war.
    The bus headed down Queen Emma Street and passed the Pacific Club, just after a row of run-down shacks that some people had to call home. I gazed at the club as we drove by. Monkeypod trees spread out over a parking lot full of expensive cars in front of the low stucco building where Honolulu’s rich went to eat, play tennis, swim, and do business.
    “What you looking at?” Billy said.
    “Nothing. Just remembering when Keet was a decent guy.”
    “You mean in his last life?”
    “His dad belongs to that place,” I said, nodding toward the club. “He took me there once.”
    “You’re joking.”
    “No, really. It was before you moved here. We were just small kids then, and he invited me to go swimming. It’s something else, that place, how rich people live.” I shook my head, remembering how nice it was. “You can even get food by the pool.”
    “Did you know only men can be members?”
    “Really?”
    “True,” Billy said. “That’s how come my parents never joined. My mom won’t step foot in that place until they change that rule.”
    “Huh.”
    We rode on in silence, me still thinking about how Keet and I had a good time swimming there. Funny to think how he was once an okay guy. What happened to him? That was the mystery. What changed him, really? Was it really just that I was Japanese, and only that? Somehow I didn’t think so. There had to be more to it than that.
    The harbor at Kewalo Basin was hot and quiet.
    The sun, now heading out to sea, poured silver onto the light green water. Two old men sat out on the rocks at the mouth of the harbor with fishing poles, looking as sleepy as the boats lounging motionless at their moorings. One tuna boat leaned against the pier’s black tire bumpers. The air smelled like dead fish. “Man, I miss going out on the boat with my dad,” I said, breathing deep.
    We headed over to the grove of coconut trees where Sanji had always parked.
    And there it was.
    It was covered with the dirt, dust, and grime of having satfor too long in one spot. Its tires were pancaked out on the bottoms, but some air was left in them. The truck itself was kind of boxy looking, with wood sides around the bed, like a fence. Seeing it hit me like a slap in the face: one sunny day a year and a half ago Sanji had jumped out, thumped the door shut, and dropped that key into his pocket. That last day.
    We stood staring at the abandoned truck.
    Instantly, the memory of the stinky fish smell in the cab rushed back, the smell I hated but now would give anything to have back, just to sit in that cab with Sanji and Papa like in the before time.
    “When Sanji parked it here he had no idea what was coming,” Billy said.
    “No.”
    I shook my head and looked across the harbor toward the pier. I didn’t want to picture Sanji and Papa getting shot one more time.
    “I wonder why nobody came and got it,” Billy said.
    “Good question.”
    “Got that key?”
    I pulled it out and gave it to him. We went over and sat in the truck, Billy in the driver’s seat. He stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. “Dead as a rock,” he said. “But this is the key, all right. Fits perfect.”
    We sat.
    I started to sweat in the stuffy cab, flies buzzing in and out of the windows. I tried to open the glove box. It was rusted shut. Sanji was proud of his truck, and so lucky to have it. “You think we should go tell his wife about this?”
    “Don’t you think she already knows?”
    “Well, maybe she