“Is Tomi at home or at the coffee house?” Dan asked as they walked to the busy street looking for a sukoshi cab.
“She said that she was going to work every day to be with people and so she wouldn’t think too much about Brad. I guess that the nights are the hardest for her, but she has gotten more used to the idea and her head has settled down.
It’s lunch time and the coffee house gets busy so she would stay to help ”
Dan and Suzie were two steps down the stairs into the Kokusai Coffee House when the door opened and Tomi started up the stairs.
“Konnichi wa Suzie-chan”. Then she stopped as she realized who was behind her tomodachi. “Dan-chan? Where did you come from?” Tomi exclaimed and Suzie stepped aside to let her pass in her haste to reach Dan. Tomi threw her arms around his neck as Dan fought to keep their balance on the steep and narrow steps. Lifting her, he swung around and stepped up the two steps back to the sidewalk.
“When did you get here?” Tomi asked as the tears flowed down her cheeks and her voice started to choke up.
“Suzie, you didn’t tell me he was coming home.”
“I didn’t know either until Saturday morning when he got here. And I haven’t let him out of my sight since.
Are you okay Tomi-chan?”
“Hai, oh yes. Right this moment I am better than I have been for a while.” Tomi let go of Dan and turned to Suzie and hugged her long and hard. “I am so happy for you two. How long will you have him?” She asked Suzie.
“Until early Thursday morning. Then he must go back to Vietnam.” She answered. Then with tears running down her beautiful oriental cheekbones she broke into a huge smile. “He will be back to me in a month for all of July. Thirty days he will spend with me.”
“Can I join this conversation?” Dan asked.
Suzie put her arm around him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Hai My Love.”
“Lets go someplace where we can sit and have a nice visit. Neh?”
“Hai. I was going home. Let’s go there and have some ocha. Or biru and sushi if you would like Dan.” Tomi took Dan’s arm while Suzie still had her arm around his waist. “Let’s get a cab. Neh?”
On the cab ride from Kokusai Dori to Tomari and Tomi’s apartment the women made small talk about what they had both been doing since they had seen each other 4 days ago. Dan sat back and enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of Okinawa which he was missing more than he cared to admit.
Tomi finished making and serving ocha as they sat around her Okinawan lacquerware coffee table. Dan searched out Suzie’s eyes. They made contact and she nodded slightly and moved her lips slightly. He knew what she said. Knew that she was agreeing with him so it would be up to him to broach the subject of Brad’s last day.
Suzie reached for his hand on top of the table and moved one of her long legs to be able to slowly and gently rub her foot on his leg. Her way of giving him the support that she knew he needed to talk about Brad, especially to Tomi.
“Tomako-chan, you know that Brad and I knew each other a longtime here on Okinawa and worked together in Vietnam. Sometimes we drank a beer together, or just sat around where we could talk and share.”
Tomi’s eyes fastened on Dan’s and tears sprang into both their eyes. Suzie squeezed Dan’s hand and with her other hand reached to take Tomi’s.
“The morning .” He hesitated,his voice quaking slightly, took a deep breath before continuing. “It happened. That he died.” He blurted out. “I was waiting at the gate going out onto Highway 1, for a fuel truck before going out on the highway. Brad came to the gate and had a few minutes while waiting for the two trucks he was leading to Binh Son so we were talking. Like we always did when we were together.”
Again he stopped, still holding her hand, he again found Suzie’s eyes.
Suzie nodded very slightly in encouragement.
“Suzie and I had an idea that you were pregnant when I was here on R & R in April. We understood how you felt and knew how you were dealing with disappointments and didn’t want to give Brad or yourself false hope. Honto?”
Tomi nodded a yes and met Dan’s eyes with her dark brown, almost black, tear filled eyes.
“Because we really didn’t know. You hadn’t told us and we guessed that you didn’t know either, we decided to wait and see and not say anything to you or Brad until you told us or if we were more sure.
Suzie was writing to me and a few days before you went to the doctor she was very sure that you were and told me so in a letter.
It takes mail so long to reach Vietnam from Okinawa so she told me to do as I thought best.”
He stopped again, stared at the table for several seconds and felt each hand being squeezed. He looked from woman to woman. Suzie smiled her soft gentle smile in encouragement. Her beautiful emerald green eyes sparkling with tears. Tomi with a steady stream of tears running down her oriental cheekbones implored Dan with her eyes to continue.
“I had a feeling while Brad and I were talking at the gate that it was not going to be a good day for us. Since Brad was the one going into VC country, I decided I would tell him that Suzie and I were thinking it was very possible you were pregnant. We talked a while longer and he knew it was possible that you were, but might not be. He took the typical Brad optimistic view. He decide that you were. He just knew that you and he were going to have a baby. I let him go down the road with a huge grin on his face and he said as he left, ‘I do love that woman. God how I love her.’
And I never saw him again.”
Tomi slid around the table onto Dan’s lap and into his arms “Thank you. Domo arigato gozaimasu Dan-chan. Thank you, domo, thank you, domo.” She said many times very quietly under her breath while hanging onto him crying softly.
Suzie and a Dan stayed with Tomako through the day. As the sun went down the three tomodachis watched the red and orange glow of the sunset over the South China Sea before going to the Seamen’s Club at Naha Port for dinner. It was almost midnight when they returned to Tomi’s apartment. All three were a little drunk.
Satisfied that she was going to be all right they left her and went home.
“You did very good, My Love. It was very hard for you, I know. You made me very proud that the man I love with all my heart has so much compassion for other people.”
“I couldn’t have said all that had to be said without you, Love. I know it hurt her to hear it. But it also hurt to say it.”
“She wanted to know. And she feels better knowing that he knew he was going to be a father.
You still miss him, neh?”
“Hai. We knew each other a long time and you know we were really close.”
“I cannot replace him for you. I wish that I could.”
“No, you cannot replace him, but you fill a big hollow in my life so it’s easier to deal with his loss.”
When they finally got to bed, he held her and gently kissed her.
“Do you want me?” She asked in her sultry voice. And pulled him closer against her. “I have no clothes on.”
“I noticed that.”
“It‘s probably baby making time. Sometime in the next couple of days.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t miss the chance.”
“I’m sure that Tomi and Brad would want us to try.
TWENTY-FIVE
At a little after 0600 on Thursday, Dan and Suzie were getting ready to leave their house for the Futemma Marine Corp air terminal.
“What time did Steve say he would meet you to catch the plane?”
“0730. He has to go to Camp Butler to round up the E-4s and below and load them on a bus for Futemma.”
“Reiko ask us if we would pick her up at their house.”
“She’s going with us?”
“Hai. She can get me in places with her ID after you and Steve get on the airplane.
I want to be with you as long as I can and she knows that. So she offered
to go with us so I could stay in the terminal with you.
That’s okay, neh?”
“Hai. Honto. I was wondering where I would have to leave you when I checked in.
You and Reiko are very good tomodachis, neh?”
“Hai she has been very nice to me.
She is like having a sister. We are almost the same age, but she is so tiny and looks so young. I think that we love each other like sisters and she’s the baby sister.”
“Of course my lovely Eurasian beauty. You don’t look any older, maybe one or two years more than she, but you are at least 8 inches taller and a bit bigger all over than she is. She’s very cute in a kimono and you are very sexy in a cheongsam.”
Suzie stepped into his arms. Looked straight across into his eyes. “I am two years older than she is. And domo, I love wearing my cheongsams.
You don’t care that I’m as tall, maybe a sukoshi taller than you are? A lot of men turned away from me because I am so tall. Especially Okinawan and Japanese men.”
“You’re careful not to wear heels. In fact, do you ever wear high heels? I have never seen you in heels.”
She kissed him lightly on the lips. “I stopped wearing heels when I met you. After the second time you came to see me, I gave them away. It was you or the heels and I decided that I wanted you and could do without the heels.”
“What about after I left last year? Did you go back wearing heels?”
“Iie. It was as if I knew you were coming back to me even though I told you to go away and not come back.
Now you better let me go if we are going to be on time for your airplane. I can feel something growing between us.” She laughed and pulled back. “I am so sorry, but we don’t have anytime to make love again.”
Dan and Gunny Lars stood by the partially opened ramp with the loadmaster and watched the Okinawan surf disappear in the 130’s wake.
“You’ll see it again before too long. Correction, you’ll see her again next month. She’s quite a lady Dan. Reiko and I both like her and will watch out for her even though I doubt if she needs any more looking after than what you do.
Reiko and I lived together for almost a year before we even thought about getting married. The difference between our situations is that I’m on Okinawa most of the time.”
“We feel like we’re a foursome, Steve. Suzie and I are glad to have you guys in our lives. Besides our kid is going to need Godparents.”
“Is she pregnant?”
“Not that we know of. We’re hoping though.
Are you going to stay on this R & R detail much longer?”
“Can’t be sure, but can only hope. Of course as opposed to going to a rifle company in-country, a few nights a month in Da Nang is a good deal which both Reiko and I can deal with and appreciate. This gig has been going on for over a year and I have a feeling that a transfer is coming up.”
“Any idea to where?”
“Not actually. I hope back to a MAG unit of some kind even if it is in-country.”
“A Gunny. Good chance of an admin job isn’t there?”
“Yeah I hope so.”
“You must be getting close to retirement. I see 5 hashmarks.”
“Before I met Reiko I was going for 30. Now I have less than two years left on this hitch and I’ll have 22 then. We’re hoping we can do the rest of our hitch here or in Japan.
“Reiko will stay on Okinawa, in your house even if you go in-country? So we can find her and she and Suzie will stay together.”
“No doubt. What about you? You’re going to Phu Bai in August. For how long and then where?”
“Seven or so months. Until the end of their deployment. Then I’m due shore duty. Would have got it this time, but I chose to stay on sea duty so I could see Suzie and workout what we wanted from each other and out of life. After I get to Phu Bai I’ll reenlist and put in for shore duty, stateside or overseas. It will depend on what Suzie and I decide when I’m on leave in July. I’ll also add a hash mark and chevron before then and those will help me get what I want.”
“If you and I don’‘t see each other Suzie can tell Reiko where you are and how we can get together after all transfers and such are over.
I do think that I’ll put in for overseas shore duty and stay on Okinawa or go to Japan. Like I said, we’d like to do a tour in Japan to see what it’s like living there We took 30 days just over a year ago and toured a lot of Japan. Reiko loved it.”
Dan and Steve walked into the Da Nang MCAF terminal together.
“You want to see if you can catch a hop back down to Chu Lai this afternoon?
If you want you can stay with me in the Marine transit barracks again.”
“I’ll stay over, if you’ll go to the Seabee Acey-Ducey club with me. I want you to see that Seabees do like Marines and we aren’t afraid of you, nor do we bite.” Dan exclaimed laughing.
“It’s a deal. And I promise not to bite any Seabees.”
TWENTY-SIX
On Friday morning a little hungover after a major reunion with several Seabees who had been stationed on Okinawa at about the same time. Add some instigation caused by having a Marine Gunnery Sergeant in their midst who attracted the attention of the Battalion Marine adviser who was also a Gunnery Sergeant along with a Marine Staff Sergeant who just happened to stop in for a beer. They soon figured out that the Staff had instructed the Seabees on the Camp Pendleton rifle range.
Three Marines and eight to twelve Seabees, the number kept changing as Seabees came and went, definitely added up to a lot of beer being consumed with nobody keeping track of whose turn it was to buy or how many pitchers passed between the bar and their table. Even the coke and ginger ale drinkers added to the nostalgic feelings that were there.
Stepping off the ramp of the Hercules he had rode from Da Nang to Chu Lai on Saturday morning Dan put on his sunglasses, pulled his cap low over his eyes and hurried into the cool shade provided by the hooch that served as the Marine Corp air terminal.
“Need a ride to your battalion Petty Officer? I can get your duty driver for you.”
“Thanks Sarge, but if you would let me use your phone I’ll find out where my crew is and have them pick me up.”
“Help yourself. Where do you work?” The Marine Staff Sergeant asked as he pushed the phone across the counter.
“Highway 1. Rebuilding the road.”
“Outside the wire?”
“Yeah. From Chu Lai village out about six miles south. I run graders and dozers.”
Dan dialed the battalion command post and got a builder that he knew. “Hey Elmore, Dan Davis, do me a favor?”
“Sure whatcha need Dan?”
“Would you try to raise Golf One and find out where he is and if he can pickup Golf Three at the Marine air terminal, Jack?”
“Sure hang on.” Dan heard both sides of the radio conversation which sounded far away, but was readable. After a short wait Elmore came back on. “Did you read that Dan?”
Yeah thanks Jack, sounds like Golf Two is coming to get me and Golf One will meet us at the quarry.”
“You got it. He said it would be about twenty minutes or so.”
“Thanks Jack.”
“Anytime my friend. You owe me a beer.
“You got it. At the club?”
“The club some afternoon when we both have a day off.”
Dan laughed. “You got a deal. No tonight though. I need a night’s sleep. I was in Da Nang last night partying and I do regret it right at this moment.”
“Oh, yeah. I see you on the list to get back from R & R today. Okinawa?”
“Yeah. Old times.”
“Noumanoui?”
“Not actually. Mostly Futemma and Koza.”
“I got radio traffic. Catch you with my beer later and you can fill me in.”
Ryder pulled up in the highway crew’s weapons carrier almost to the second of twenty minutes.
br /> “You’ve been riding around too much. You have the timing down as if you were running the rounds of a bus.
“I seem to spend most of my time chasing people and pieces of equipment around. Not what I thought it would be like when I made first class.
Stay second class Dan. It’s way more fun.
So how was Okinawa?”
“Great. I can go there and it’s just like any other tropical vacation place. Relax in the sun and trade winds. Walk around in your shirt sleeves after the sun goes down. At noon on a midsummer day all you have to do is find some shade where you can catch the trades and take a nap and best of all, nobody shoots at you.”
“Is the rumor true?”
“Which one?”
“You’re going to marry your Okinawan girl friend?
My wife is Filipino. Met her on deployment to Subic Bay.”
“Yeah. We’ve started the paperwork.”
“Takes forever. But be patient and beat these bastards at their own game.
You saw Brad’s ‘widow-to-be’?
That’s what everybody is calling her by the way. It isn’t derogatory and I think you started it.
You and Mr. Roberts together maybe?”
“We did. I guess. Ryan overheard us I suppose. He is a kindhearted rumor monger isn’t he?
Suzie, my girl friend and Tomi, Brad’s, are friends. So we spent sometime with her and Suzie sees her a couple times a week when I’m here.
You went to Taiwan on R & R? Not the Philippines?”
“No, Hong Kong. My wife and I wanted some silk and jewelry and Hong Kong is the place to go.”
“Do you have in laws in the Philippines?”
“Yeah, but they don’t much like me. They blame me for taking their number one daughter away from them. They have some money. My father-in-law-is a corrupt province official son-of-a-bitch of some kind and their number one daughter couldn’t wait to leave home and the country. She had a constant fear that dear old dad is going to be arrested any day and didn’t want to be around when it happened.”
Ryder pulled the weps up next to Chief Thomas’s jeep and a D8 Cat that was idling as the chief and Casey Jones were looking under and walking around it.
“You guys expect that thing to give birth or something?” Dan asked when the two walked up to the weps as he was getting out of it.