Time Drifters

It occurred to me there might be an issue if I was going to contact someone in real life after having met them in the past. I didn’t want to ask permission, but I also was mindful about Mr. Danby saying that if you screwed up, you didn’t get to Drift again. My curiosity was burning but I realized how much I’d come to love being able to Drift, and it wasn’t worth getting burned, myself.

I walked over to Miss Prankle’s house during lunch the next day, eating my sandwiches along the way and keeping the cookies for later. I had only been hoping to see if she was back in town, so I froze in my tracks when I found her walking out to her mailbox at the same time.

“Making a break for it?” she asked, seeing me with my paper lunch sac in hand.

I laughed.

“Or maybe I could borrow the bag to remove the mail from my box,” she said, looking down the road to her neighbor’s place. “Everyone is so terrified that they’ll have Anthrax in their envelopes. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone caring enough to try and take me out.”

“It’s bad, though… what’s happening,” I said.

“Without a doubt, Liam,” she answered. “A very frightening situation, for sure.”

On the way to the house, I asked her how long she’d been back—only a week—and told her why I had come by, playing up the educational benefits.

“And I don’t even know if he’ll agree to speak with me,” I said, hoping that would moderate her perspective.

“I think it would be very good, for several reasons,” she said, “provided that you don’t indicate to him that you have knowledge of his life.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said, relieved and happy to know that it was going to be possible.

“Or that you ever met him,” she confirmed.

“Not a problem,” I assured her.

“I actually think it would be interesting,” she continued. “He’s not a Drifter himself, which is the other aspect of this. It wouldn’t be okay if you were ever going to encounter him again during a Drift,” she paused. “I suppose we have no way of knowing that. I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it?” She looked at me cautiously.

“Do you think you can keep to the assignment and treat him almost as someone that you don’t know?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered simply. “It’s not as hard to agree when I know all of the reasons. That helps a lot, and if there’s anything else that you think I should know...”

“Always looking for the answers,” she smiled, her face twisting with mischief. “I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

#

Dad was surprisingly interested and excited about the assignment. He not only insisted that I use his tape recording device—practicing with me to make certain it worked—but he also reviewed my questions. He tried to arrange it so that he would be in his office when I made the call, but Mom intervened, telling him that it was my schoolwork. The compromise was that the door was closed, but I had the feeling that he might be right on the other side, listening to every word, about to burst in at any time.

I’d practiced and rehearsed the call, imagining that Sam might recognize my voice. I’d come up with so many possible outcomes, depending upon what happened, that I found my fingers shaking when I actually started dialing.

“Hello?” said a hesitant voice on the other end.

I introduced myself in a full on rattle, reading from my material that explained I was an eighth Grade student from Tarrytown Middle School near New York City. I went on to describe the assignment and my request, and by the time I shut up I must have been talking for a full minute. There was a long silence and I wondered if I’d lost the connection.

“Mr. Taniguchi?” I said.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“Is it Okay if I ask you some questions, and tape record the interview?” I asked, feeling like I was going to get turned down because I’d sounded too much like a telemarketer.

“My wife is away at the moment,” he said, “She’s just gone to the store before dinner. So, yes… I suppose that would be fine.”

Dad had coached me to talk about more current issues first, reasoning that asking about the War may be painful. Sam responded quietly and methodically, giving brief answers regarding his practice and downplaying his accomplishments. Even so, I began to piece it all together; Sam being alive had meant that he was able to help hundreds and probably thousands of people. When I finally got up the guts to ask him about that day of the attack—what I really wanted to know—he became very descriptive.

“That morning, I had been sleeping off the effects of a junior prom the night before,” he said. “When the bombardment started, we turned on KGU radio station and I remember hearing Webley Edwards, the radio announcer saying, ‘This is the real McCoy.’ And sandwiched into the announcements was a call for ROTC cadets to report to the armory. Sergeants Hogan and Ward were shoving firing pins back into our Springfield .05 rifles, because they’d all been removed for training.”

His formation had been sent up the hill to defend the City against a direct attack by a rumored charge of Japanese paratroopers, supposedly landing on St. Louis Heights. Those had never materialized, but by 4pm, there was a general order issued that all University ROTC cadets be converted into the Hawaii Territorial Guard. It was January 19^th when his drill sergeant had to tell all cadets of Japanese-American descent, about two-thirds of the Guard, that were being discharged because they were Nisei.

“It was the worst day of my life,” Sam said slowly. “We were not being trusted for what we were doing because we had the misfortune of having the same face and last name of the enemy. The worst day,” he repeated.

“That stinks,” I said, thinking about myself as much as Sam. He chuckled at that, and I thought for a minute I could hear the tones of his voice from when I had spoken to him only a month ago. My gut felt twisted, worrying that he might have recognized something in the way I was speaking.

“That did… stink, as you say,” Sam continued. “But we were still committed to our Country and to doing what we could. Another Sergeant, Hung Wi Ching, told us at the University that they wouldn’t trust us with guns, but they would trust us with picks and shovels. So we gave up our education and formed the Varsity Victory Volunteers, working for the war effort, breaking up rocks and doing hard labor. That was for another eleven months.”

While the Japanese on the mainland were being taken into prison camps, Sam and his fellow Nisei had made such an impression on Washington brass, that they were able to form the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team and fight in Europe during World War II. Sam worked as a translator and then moved to the mainland after the war.

“Our service in the 442^nd was rendered without a single act of disloyalty,” Sam continued proudly, without any prompts from me. “I think we proved an invaluable lesson, and just what FDR said, ‘Americanism is not a matter of race or ancestry, Americanism is a matter of the mind, heart and spirit.”

While he was talking, I saw moments in my mind that I wanted to draw to tell his story in pictures. Then there was a tap at the door of the study and my Dad poked his head in, pointing to his watch. I waved him away but I realized that I didn’t have much time left before Dad—as well as Sam’s wife and Sam’s dinnertime—would end our discussion.

“Do you remember much about the dance?” I said, wincing even as the words came out of my mouth. I didn’t want to break the rules, but I also had the feeling that this was the last chance I’d have to see if my own life was really connected to my Drift life. There had been that letter that I’d written to myself, but that was back in the springtime. With everything that happened since 9/11, I wanted to know that I was still in the same reality.

“No,” Sam said tentatively, much to my disappointment. “I must have stayed late because I was sleeping in the next day.”

“So, nothing out of the ordinary about it?” I said, pushing as much as I could.

“It was at Hemenway Hall, I think,” he added. “I met my wife later than that, and I don’t know who I went with. It seems to me that I went there twice, and that was strange. But then, everything changed the next day, so it’s hard to know for sure. It was all different. I know that a shopping center near our house got hit and burned, but that’s not what you’re asking about.”

I thanked him very much and ended the call. I hung up the receiver very quietly, turned off the tape recorder and I sat there, staring at the phone.

A lump gathered in my throat.

It had been exciting to hear him mention that he’d gone back to the dance. And even that there was danger close to where he lived. So, if he had been out for a run… That was something and likely enough to confirm that I was in the right reality, as uncomforting as that was.

I knew the rules, but when he said it, I still wanted to tell him, “That was because of me.” He’d forgotten. It made me sad to think that we’d been there to save him and yet the memory of our being there had been erased with time. As a Drifter, I suppose I should have been pleased. I could just hear the others—Marijka and Thomas, Calico and Adrienne—telling me that the mission was accomplished. So did we make a difference?

Sam’s story flashed through my head again and I realized that none of those pictures I’d been imagining would have happened if he’d been caught by shrapnel that morning. Certainly his own life had been filled with heroic things, along with others from his time. Calico had been surprised that I hadn’t known his name, but now, I did think of Sam as a famous person and someone who really did make a difference.

When I’d started Drifting, I’d wanted to be able to change things to make it all better. With Pearl Harbor still starting the war and with 9/11 happening, I realized that I couldn’t.

And yet, we did all change things to make it all better. It was just a different picture from the one I’d imagined. For the moment, I’d need to focus on that.