South Central Noir

Eric wanted to go to the local Japanese-language school on Jefferson and 12th Avenue near Saki Liquor. Every Saturday, he saw young Japanese Americans being dropped off and picked up in Toyota Corollas and Honda Accords from places probably miles away from the Crenshaw area. He didn’t care if he would be the only Black kid in those bare classrooms. All he cared about was learning the code, the Bushido code that would set him free.

He heard a little about Bushido from Charlie, a Japanese man originally from a place called Terminal Island. He was a gardener who drove a beat-up brown Chevrolet pickup truck. He installed metal pipes in its bed to hold his tools — a gas-powered blower, rakes, edger, and an extra coil of green hose. Charlie had weather-beaten skin as dark as his truck and tufts of severe hair resembling the steel wool Eric’s mother used to clean dirty pans.

Charlie was Sab’s friend and he didn’t care about child labor laws, either. On Saturday mornings, he’d occasionally pick up Eric to accompany him to do an uncomplicated but vigorous job like collecting hedge clippings on an estate in Leimert Park.

“Bushido is like, you never shame your family. Your name is everything. You show honor until death,” Charlie said one Saturday before he pulled the cord to start his blower.

A week before the closure of the Kokusai, Charlie treated him to a bowl of won ton saimin at Holiday Bowl, a landmark building that reminded Eric of a large boat gliding along Crenshaw Boulevard. The huge orange neon sign, BOWL, towered over the structure, the neighborhood’s replacement for the sun.

“Two saimin, yeah?” The waitress was small, but her arms were strong, expertly balancing the two steaming bowls on her tray. Eric couldn’t tell the ages of the Japanese. The waitress could have easily been either his mother’s or his grandmother’s age. At the next table were an older couple that Eric recognized from their Four Square church. And at the table after that were some students in UCLA gear.

“Don’t let it go cold.” Charlie was already slurping up the noodles with his plastic chopsticks, a few drops of soup broth spilling onto the Formica surface. “Use fork, okay? That’s why Doris brought that for you.”

Eric had wanted to try the chopsticks after watching Mifune devour rice with his, but he listened to Charlie and picked up the fork. The noodles kept slipping off and Charlie admonished him, “Use spoon too,” referring to a plastic ladle that Eric had seen in Chinese restaurants.

Guiding a slippery wonton onto the ladle, he was finally able to take a bite. He had never eaten anything quite so delicious. “I wonder if the samurai ate this,” he said.

Charlie laughed, making sounds from the back of the throat. He didn’t confirm or refute Eric’s musings. Truth was, he had no idea but he would like to imagine that they were eating the meal of warriors.

And now, finally, the day Eric was dreading. The Kokusai Theatre was closing on the day before Halloween, 1986. Sab explained that there weren’t enough Japanese living in the neighborhood anymore. He hoped to reopen in Little Tokyo, but he wasn’t sure if it would happen.

Eric couldn’t be a part of a Little Tokyo incarnation of the Kokusai. He could be a part of this up to now because it was on his home turf.

“Pick up the trash after the final screening. One last time. Moe will be coming to wipe the floor down.” Sab didn’t seem particularly sad about the closure of his operation.

Eric stood in back of the theater and listlessly watched the last offering, Lost in the Wilderness. The movie was about a Japanese mountain climber who was the first man to reach the North Pole by himself. No fight scenes and half of the story was about the man’s wife, stuck at home.

There were only about twenty people in the theater, which was actually more than usual on a weeknight.

In the back row near the door, there was a low rumble of voices that got louder and louder. Eric couldn’t understand the argument because it, like the movie, was in Japanese. Two men were fighting and before Eric could let his boss know, Sab burst in with the janitor, Moe, who sometimes played security guard.

“You, out!” Sab yelled.

Before they could collect themselves, Moe ushered the men out of their seats.

Eric, captivated by the men more than the movie, went out the other door to follow their activities in the lobby. One was a clean-cut Asian man wearing a fresh-pressed collared shirt and a sports jacket. The other one was smaller with wild, angry eyes. For a full second those eyes met Eric’s. He averted his gaze, hoping not to draw attention to himself. But it was too late. Both men were pushed out the door by Moe and they stalked off in different directions.

The lights went up shortly afterward, with a few of the white moviegoers clapping to commemorate the Kokusai Theatre’s long history in the neighborhood. Several of the Japanese customers stayed back to offer their appreciation to Sab.