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The Zen of 9/11

A Japanese-American Bildungsroman

Selected Excerpts

By Lawrence J. Howell

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Synopsis:Reunited for a two-man pilgrimage to the remains of World

War II Japanese-American internment camps, long-separated friends

clash over questions of moral responsibility, the significance of 9/11,

and the realities of American democracy.

Excerpt One Page 3

Excerpt Two Page 9

Excerpt Three Page 13

Excerpt Four Page 17

Excerpt Five Page 21

Excerpt Six Page 24

Excerpt Seven Page 30

Excerpt Eight Page 35

Excerpt Nine Page 38

Copyright Notice/Disclaimer/Contact Information Page 44

Terminology

Nikkei = A person of Japanese descent

Kibei = A person born in the United States to Japanese parents and sent

to Japan, most often with the intent of obtaining a traditional Japanese

education

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Excerpt One: The narrator, an American resident of Japan, flies into

Los Angeles to begin a driving tour of the remains of World War II

Japanese-American internment camps. He is picked up at the airport

by Kevin Nakatani. The two are childhood friends who have fallen out

of touch and are meeting for the first time in twenty years.

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

As the airliner taxis to the gate, one of the cabin attendants makes the

customary arrival announcement, informing us we have crossed the

international date line and thus are now in Los Angeles the same day

we left Japan, 14 January 2002. She also informs us that the local time

is 10:55 A.M., the skies are cloudy, and the temperature is 62 degrees

Fahrenheit. She clicks off after wishing us a pleasant stay.

Entry procedures are tighter than in recent years. At the passport

inspection station I'm asked more questions than usual about my

activities in Japan. At customs, the officer seems to find it suspicious

that I have just a carry-on travel bag. I explain that I travel light and amonly staying a week. The officer gives me a hard look and then gestures

roughly toward the exit leading to the arrival area, ordering me to get

going.

After passing through the automatic door and turning the corner I

climb the ramp, searching for the face of Kevin Nakatani amid thecrowd awaiting friends, loved ones, or business associates. He isn't

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there. I follow the ramp to its end where it splits the crowd into right

and left, and look ahead.

Kevin stands hands on hips at the electronic doors leading to the

airport parking lots. He's clothed in a purple bandana, open-collar shirt

covered by a black leather jacket, jeans neither too new nor too old, and

steel-toed boots. With his wispy Van Dyke beard and gold ring piercing

his right earlobe, he's just an eye patch and parrot away from that

classic Japanese-American pirate look.

There's only one proper greeting.

Yo.

He smiles.

I was just about to go with Hey. That's one for you. But what's with

the cowboy shirt? Planning on blending into the desert scenery?

Believe it or not, this is how I dress in Japan. Got four more of 'em in

my bag, different colors and patterns. Now you've got something to

look forward to.

I think not. Car's parked at the curb over there.

Kevin jerks his right thumb. I look and see three nondescript sedans, a

Ford Explorer and a canary yellow vehicle of distant memory from the1960's. Something tells me to head for the classic.

You carry around your tools in a passenger car?

Of course not. Got a van for that.

We're at the car. An elderly man is sitting in the passenger seat. Kevin

opens the door and he exits. Kevin thanks him and he walks slowly inthe direction of the arrival area.

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Noticing the puzzled look on my face, Kevin shrugs.

See that security thug over there?

Standing at the curb two cars ahead of us I see a plump, uniformed

woman scowling at us.

When I got out of the car and started walking toward the arrival

lounge, she yelled at me, Can't you hear the announcement?

Unattended vehicles will be immediately cited and towed. I spotted

that old guy, went up and quietly asked him to do me a favor. You saw

the rest.

The airport policewoman pulls out her walkie-talkie, but Kevin is

unimpressed.

All for show. Stick your bag anywhere you can find. The trunk is full.

There'll be more space inside after we drop off these boxes in the back

seat.

If it had vocal chords, the back seat would be groaning under the

weight of the neatly aligned cardboard boxes stacked atop it. A faint,

oily odor wafts through the interior. I wedge my bag between the front

row of boxes and the back of the driver's and passenger's seats.

I pull the heavy door shut. Mind if I crank down the window? To freshen the air.

Suit yourself.

I push and tug on the handle until the window is all the way down. It

takes fifteen seconds and half my arm strength.

I look over at Kevin to toss him a question but catch myself when Inotice a scar on his neck, just below his right ear. It's about the length

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of my index finger.

Sensing my gaze, Kevin glances in my direction. To avoid giving the

impression I was staring, I quickly ask the question I had in mind.

How many miles have you got on this monster?

Hey, show some respect. This baby is freighted with symbolic

heaviness.

Speaking into her walkie-talkie, the airport policewoman is

approaching us. Kevin ignores her, guns away from the curb and

maneuvers into the middle lane leading out of the airport.

That so?

That is indeed so. But to answer your first question, I don't know.

You don't know how many miles you've got on your car?

That's right. The odometer doesn't work. To answer your second

question, that too is indeed so. Have you no idea what you're riding in?

Yeah, an Oldsmobile. A GM division now in lively danger of kicking

the bucket.

The brand and the division aren't the point; it's the model.

If memory serves, this is a 442. '68?

'69. So? So, what?

So, you've got a Nikkei driving an icon of American power called

442.

And ...

Do I really need to explain it?I think a moment.

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Ah! The 442nd.The Japanese-American regiment in World War II, that

fought in Europe.

Give the man ten points.

We're out of the airport and heading east on Century Blvd.

I decide to chaff him a bit.

In other words, you're paying ironic tribute to your heritage by

tooling around in a car that chug-a-lugs irreplaceable fossil fuels? And

subsidizing the insurance end of Wall Street by forking out hefty

premiums to drive a classic sports car?

Whoa, that's making a lot of assumptions. First, how do you know I

haven't converted the engine to run on recycled safflower oil? Second,

who said the car's insured? And third, what's this about my heritage?

Well, you are Nikkei. And we are headed to the camps where the

Nikkei were interned.

And you are using an outdated term. Incarcerated isn't a dirty

word.

Kevin pulls onto the southbound 405 Freeway.

South, huh? So we're starting off at one of the camps in Arizona?

That's a much more accurate assumption. First we're stopping inTorrance. I have to drop off these parts in the back seat.

We follow the 405 southbound a little longer, to Crenshaw Blvd. Kevin

exits, makes a few turns and pulls into a self-storage facility. He stops

in front of a garage.

C'mon, help me unload.He pulls on a keyring attached to his belt and extends one of the keys

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into the garage lock. He raises the shutter, revealing stacks of neatly

piled cardboard boxes.

What've you got in here?

Deniability is a precious commodity. It'd be a moral failure for me to

steal that from you.

He flips the driver's bucket seat forward and snatches some of the

boxes in the rear. I do the same on the passenger's side. After we add

the boxes to the stacks in the garage, Kevin lowers the shutter.

Didn't you say the trunk's full? What about that stuff?

Questions, questions, questions.

We return to the car and proceed on our way.

I'm gonna fill up before we get back on the freeway. If you need to

hit the can, here's your chance.

We pull into a gas station.

How long have there been pumps for recycled safflower oil?

Kevin smiles.

While he refuels I go relieve myself in the station's malodorous urinal.

With one tank now empty and another full, we jump back on the 405

via the Crenshaw Blvd. on-ramp. Look, the jet lag is hammering me pretty hard. Will I miss anything

significant by visiting dreamland just a bit?

Naw. I'll shake you up when it's time for grub.

With the boxes out of the back seat the oily smell has all but

disappeared. I crank up the window, lean my head against the windowand drift away.

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Excerpt Two: The protagonists are accompanied to the Gila River

Camp in Arizona by John Sakaragi, who discusses his family history.

John Sakaragi

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

On the ride down I ask John if he wouldn't mind discussing the

particulars of his life. He's agreeable, so I ask him to start with his first

relative in the US.

My great-grandfather on my mother's side worked on the Great

Northern Railway, in the state of Washington. That was in the 1890s.

After that, he bounced around and finally settled here in Arizona, doing

truck farming. You know what that is?

Can't say I've heard the term, but I'd guess it means trucking crops

you've grown and selling them in nearby towns.

That's it. My grandfather grew strawberries at first, later cantaloupes

and lettuce. That was in Glendale, a little northwest of Phoenix.

Being first generation, he wouldn't have been able to own land. Howdid that work out?

He rented. Sometimes the owners treated him fairly, sometimes they

didn't. Later, after my father was born and reached legal age, my

grandfather bought land in my father's name. The family was doing

pretty well until we got sent to the camp in 1942.You lost the property?

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You can call it that. We could sell it for pennies on the dollar, or walk

away. Not much of a choice.

And how about life in the camp?

Well, I talked about that for an oral history project. I'll give you the

URL later; you can watch the video online.

Great. And how about after you all got out?

That's in the video too, but just to give you a quick summary, we

went right back to the same business, on different land, of course. We

started from nothing, and barely scratched by for the first ten years, but

by the time my grandfather died in 1970 we were doing well enough to

employ a few workers from outside the family. When my father retired

a few years later, my brother and I ran the business until we got too old

for it. That was, let's see, eight years ago. We sold out to our foreman.

I see. As a successful local business, I suppose you were active in

chamber of commerce activities or the like?

John laughs.

Not hardly. Our labor practices, as they were called, earned us a lot

of enemies.

What do you mean? I don't think it'll come as news to you that hardly anyone gets

exploited worse than migrant farm workers. Once we got the business

back on track, we hired five or six dozen of them to work the fields

every picking season. We paid legal wages and provided decent living

conditions while they were with us. Most of the other farmers in thearea didn't appreciate that. Said we were driving up expectations. We

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got harassed one way or another for years.

But then the harassment stopped?

For a while.

I wait for John to continue, but he doesn't.

Why did it start up again?

John appears regretful the conversation has taken this turn. He sighs.

Everyone needs health care sometime, sooner or later. We thought

we could do something about that.

What did you do?

You mean you don't know?

John and I are taken aback at Kevin's sudden entry into the

conversation.

You should've come across that information when you were putting

together those notes of yours about the camps. The Sakaragis are well

known for networking with humanitarian groups to build a clinic

outside Glendale.

Kevin, there's no need to

Sure there is, John. Everyone talks about what needs to be done.

Some will get off their butts if the cause overlaps with their self-interests. Your family is the rare case of acting out of disinterested

humanitarianism.

That's not true. It was definitely in our interests to have motivated,

healthy workers handling our crops. And we weren't having much

success with that clinic, either, until ... Until the community finally rallied around it.

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What made them rally ...?

Speaking about rallies, how about that World Series, John? Were you

at the victory parade in November?

I wonder why Kevin has, so abruptly, switched the subject to the local

National League baseball team.

For the next thirty minutes, until we reach Butte Camp, John speaks

enthusiastically about the recently concluded Series and the team's

prospects for a repeat in the coming season.

The SUV has demonstrated its value, smoothing the ride over the pot-

holed dirt roads leading to the hill-top monument, a series of small

arches that John explains was erected during World War II to honor the

Nikkei servicemen who enlisted out of Gila River. Approaching the

monument, Kevin swears at finding it defaced with graffiti.

Looking over the assorted remains of the camp visible from atop the

hill, I observe little to help a visitor picture what the camp looked like,

and how the inmates went about their lives. At its peak, Gila River had

over thirteen thousand residents. Like all the camps, it contained most

of the paraphernalia of daily life: A hospital, post office, theater,

schools. Unlike all the other camps, there was no fence, as theinhospitable desert functioned as an effective deterrent to escape.

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Excerpt Three: The protagonists discuss their childhood days with

Erika Matsuo (Eri) Fontaine as she guides them to the site of the

Poston, Arizona camp.

Eri Fontaine

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

How do you two know each other?

We go way back.

How far is that?

Kevin joins in.

Kindergarten. That far back.

And you actually remember things that happened there?

Just one.

I wonder what's coming.

Crayon drawings. Every time the crayons and paper came out my

compadre here drew the same picture.

I remember! The sun over a hill. Yeah. One curved line, everything underneath colored brown. The

earth: Very imaginative. The sun, yellow with yellow rays. The rest of

the drawing blue, for sky.

So you guys have been friends for nearly all your lives.

To call us friends would be an overstatement. It's just that we'veknown each other a long time. Not nearly the same thing.

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Kevin was a clever boy, Eri. I couldn't keep pace, so the educational

gods placed us on different tracks. After that, we moved in separate

orbits.

So why are you together now?

The One on High works in mysterious ways.

Just let it slide, Eri. Kevin has an idiosyncratic sense of humor.

Very well then. So, what's this orbit of yours?

As a teenager, I became interested in Zen, and in Japanese ink wash

paintings.

Right, Zen was a fad in those days. At one point, half a shelf of my

book collection was dedicated to it.

Did you dozazen?

No, I never got into meditation. I'm more the tariki type.

Eri and I laugh. Kevin doesn't.

Eri decides to explain.

In Buddhism, tariki means relying on others to enlighten or save you.

That's in contrast tojiriki, where you do it yourself.

Kevin retorts.

Duality. Buddhism holds that there's no distinction. You're right, it does. I guess the division is a concession to human

limitations.

Eri turns to me.

How about you? Do you dozazen?

I gave it a try some years ago. St, or Rinzai?

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Both. The just sitting aspect of the St school appealed to me, and

I was active in a St center.

But you switched to Rinzai?

Right. I was supposed to be just sitting, but my mind was

uncontrollable. I decided that if I couldn't keep my head out of it, I

might as well be working on a kan.

Eri looks at Kevin to gauge whether an explanation is required.

Kevin's face reveals nothing.

Eri plunges in.

A simple definition of a kan would be to call it a phrase, sentence or

question the master has chosen to provokesatori.

Another round of Eri scrutinizing Kevin's face, with the same result.

Satori refers to awareness, or enlightenment. Thesatori experience is

often described as a breakthrough in understanding, one that's triggered

when someone is put in a situation where he or she is pushed to the

extremes of rational thinking but at the same time is forced to make a

decision, or act.

Kan,satori: This conversation is starting to stink of Zen.

Eri and I laugh. Yeah, actually I prefer stories that don't have so much of a kan-like

quality. For instance, the story of Zhuangzi's dream.

Kevin asks Eri to tell it.

Well, Zhuangzi was an ancient Chinese philosopher. The story goes

that he had a dream in which he was a butterfly, happily flitting about.The punch line is that after he awoke, he couldn't be sure if he wasn't a

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butterfly dreaming he was a man.

Kevin nods.

Kafka showed what a little modern angst can do with that idea.

You mean in The Metamorphosis. I should re-read that one of these

days.

Eri brings us back to the subject.

So, do you still dozazen?

Not any more. I quit long ago, after I developed back pain. In any

case, I discovered that walking is the meditation method that best suits

me.

And what was it about the ink wash paintings that intrigued you?

The suggestiveness, and the beauty that can be expressed with just a

few brushstrokes and a little ink. I love the minimalism.

The way Kevin explains it, you were a minimalist way back in

kindergarten.

Interesting! I never thought about it that way.

And those are the reasons you decided to take up life in Japan?

Well

There was another, more compelling factor. A hopeless attraction toJapanese babes.

Kevin flashes a toothy smile.

Nothing hopeless about it, pal.

Eri laughs.

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Excerpt Four:Driving from Arizona into Utah, the protagonists discuss

literature and quiz each other.

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

You mentioned armchair historians yesterday.

Yes, I did.

That gave me an idea. Let's see where our literary interests converge.

I guess there are worse time-fillers. You start.

The classics. As determined and published by an imprint bearing the

name of an aquatic bird that inhabits Antarctica.

Kevin guffaws.

Get serious. Let's do this: Name the first three novels that come to

mind. Ones you've actually read.

I think.

OK. Candide. The Catcher in the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird.

Kevin bursts out laughing.

Man, what a case of arrested development you are.What are you talking about?

I tell you to name three novels, you give me threeBildungsromans.

English please: My German is a bit rusty.

A coming-of-age story. And just in case you associate that with

adolescents, be advised that the genre covers the emotional, moral orspiritual maturation of people in all stages of life.

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Whatever definition you give it, the fact is I've read hundreds of

novels, and coming-of-age stories are probably just five percent of the

total.

Yeah, but here you are, over forty years old, and the first three you

think of are about people coming to grips with the world around them.

Mountain. Molehill.

I don't think so. You're still working through the issue of how to deal

with the contrast between reality and life as you think it should be. In a

way, that's kind of cute.

Don't patronize me, boy.

Kevin glares at me, but then pushes the conversation in a different

direction.

OK then. I'll bet that among those hundreds of novels you've read,

many are mystery novels.

I see what you're thinking. You're supposing that mystery novels or

detective fiction appeal to someone to whom you ascribe an interest in

synthesizing reality and fantasy. Well, yeah, I've read Poe's Murder in

the Rue Morgue, all of Chandler, most of Hammet's works ... So, what

psychoanalytic clues does that provide you? Plenty. But never mind.

I recall something.

On the subject of American writers

I reach to the back seat and take the notebook I've brought with me

from Japan. I made a list of particularly striking entries from Ambrose Bierce's

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The Devil's Dictionary. I have to admit I stole the idea from you.

Kevin smiles.

I'm thinking of weaving some of them into my journal. He seems to

be a perfect match for this adventure of ours. You know, Bierce being a

writer associated with the old west, the two of us traveling through the

western states, and you having quoted him in the foreword to your

poetry collection. Here's what we'll do. I'll read you the definition, you

give me the word being defined.

I've got a lot of them memorized. If you weren't surprised before, you

will be soon.

We'll see about that. To make it more challenging I'll shuffle the

alphabetical order. Here we go. The act of repeating erroneously the

words of another.

Quotation.

Yeah, I was starting you off easy. Next: One to whom the interests

of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen

and the tool of conquerors.

That's even easier.Patriot.

Hmm. OK: The art of orally persuading fools that white is the colorthat it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear

white.

Eloquence.

I'm impressed. Next: An ingenious device for obtaining individual

profit without individual responsibility. Corporation. You've picked out all the most obvious ones.

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Hmm. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.

Ahh There's one I haven't heard. Give me a minute.

I wait. Kevin gives no sign of answering, so I jump in.

Fidelity.

Ah, I would've had that if you'd waited.

Really? OK. Just a couple more. A statement or belief manifestly

inconsistent with one's own opinion.

Absurdity.

All right, and last: Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of

principles.

Politics.

Bravo! A splendid performance.

Here's one for you, then. To be mistaken at the top of one's voice.

I think, then shrug.

To be positive.

That wasn't exactly fair. All the others were just a single word.

Then here's another.

Kevin takes a moment to think.

A momentary insanity curable by marriage.Love. But wait a second. Isn't that temporary, not momentary?

Kevin ignores the question.

But don't forget that Bierce was in the pay of the king of yellow

journalism all those years. Which is part of the reason I quoted him in

my book in the first place.

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Excerpt Five: Kevin describes an atomic test carried out in the 1950s,

then contextualizes 9/11 and other Cold War-era events.

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

You are of course aware of Dirty Harry?

Something tells me you aren't referring to the movie character.

You're right. Meaning you aren't aware. How about the

Downwinders?

Why don't you tell me?

Dirty Harry is an atomic bomb our benevolent government detonated

at the Nevada test site in 1953. Residents of certain parts of Utah,

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were downwind of the fallout, hence the

name Downwinders. To the Atomic Energy Commission at the time,

they were known as a low-use segment of the population. Like that

phrase?

I find it hard to believe that such a description would be allowed to go

on record. The Downwinders suffered unusually high rates of leukemia, cancer,

melanoma and other afflictions. The government lied about the safety

of the test and falsified data. Some of the victims eventually fought

back in court, so the next step was to hire experts and have them

perjure themselves. That wasn't completely successful, so then theyleaned on industry-friendly appeals court judges to overturn the

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verdicts. When the victims realized they'd get nothing from the justice

system they started pressuring members of Congress. You remember

the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act? No? That's when the

government finally apologized and set up a trust fund that paid people

living or working downwind of the site $50,000. Provided of course

that they could meet all the proof requirements.

Being at a loss for a comment, I keep silent.

That's the typical pattern when the excrement hits the fan. Lie.

Destroy or falsify evidence. Intimidate. Drag things out in the court

system. When all else fails, express regret, like the Bureau of Indian

Affairs did about a year ago. If absolutely necessary, apologize, like the

prior incumbent of the White House did for the Tuskegee syphilis

experiment. You know about that one? Good!

I still have nothing to say.

And trust me, that's not the only Cold-War era case of the

government treating members of a so-called low-use segment of the

population as guinea pigs in life-threatening experiments. Just wait

and see what gets exposed in documents that'll be declassified in the

next couple of decades. Kevin, you are an ambulatory encyclopedia of historic injustices.

He regards me carefully.

You seem to think that's a compliment. It's not: It's an indictment.

Encyclopedias are where people go when they need information.

Information about government agencies targeting civilians is a matterof public record; it should already be in the heads of every American

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over the age of eighteen. If people who believe 9/11 was an outrageous

act of state-sponsored terrorism are angry now, what stopped them from

being angry before now, say in 1977 or 1994?

Not that I enjoy displaying my ignorance, but what happened then?

Kevin shakes his head, then angrily flicks his right hand in the air.

1977: The Project MKUltra hearings in the Senate. 1994: The

Rockefeller Report. You don't know about either of those?

I'm sure I read about them at the time, but ...

The Project MKUltra hearings revealed that more than two hundred

populated areas were contaminated with biological agents over two

decades during the Cold War era. Those populated areas include San

Francisco, St. Louis and Minneapolis. The Rockefeller Report

concluded that during the course of the twentieth century, hundreds of

thousands of U.S. military personnel had secret biological experiments

performed on them.

Kevin waits for a reply.

OK, so what you're saying is that, if by chance 9/11 was staged, it

wouldn't be an aberration in American history.

Bingo. There's nothing new, or secret, about elected or appointedofficials in our government targeting civilians on U.S. soil. If 9/11

belongs to this tradition, the only distinct feature is that the perpetrators

carried it out in plain sight. That would say a lot about their confidence

in remaining immune from justice.

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Excerpt Six:Roy Sugimoto, who along with his wife Sally is hosting the

protagonists, asks the narrator to clarify a point about a topic that was

of interest to his late father. The excerpt opens with a reference to

Sally's brother Rick, who died in the closing days of World War II.

Roy Sugimoto

The Narrator

You know, we were talking about the Military Intelligence Service

last night.

I expect Sally to look around, but she doesn't.

And the language school at Camp Savage, in Minnesota. Actually,

my father was an instructor there.

Was he?

Yes, and Rick was one of his students. That's how I got to know

Sally, in a roundabout way.

Now Sally looks back. She smiles, then resumes washing the dishes.

He was a Kibei, like Rick. He was born in Hawaii, and my

grandparents sent him to Japan to learn the language and traditionalcustoms. He lived with my grandfather's family in Kyushu for ten

years, until he was twenty-one.

So, he and Rick had something important in common.

Roy nods.

Then he came back to the US and got advanced degrees inlinguistics. He was like you, very interested in Chinese characters. He

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might have made a specialized study of them, but his professors

insisted that he concentrate on the Japanese language instead. I think

there was some pressure from the government there, you know, with

how research grants were handed out.

I wonder where Roy is going with this.

Well, after my father retired this was in the mid-1960s he started

studying Chinese characters again, more as a hobby than a research

project.

Uh-huh.

I never understood what he found so fascinating, but he always said,

The important thing isn't the shapes: It's the sounds.

True enough, in a way.

But that's a paradox, isn't it? Characters are written: Why do their

pronunciations matter? I asked him, and he explained a few times, but I

never got it. Can tell me what that's all about?

The clock in the galley tells me I have fifteen minutes before our fax

arrives. It's enough time if I keep things simple.

What your father probably meant was: The way the Chinese

characters were pronounced in ancient times offers important clues totheir meanings.

How can that be?

Forget about Chinese and Chinese characters for a minute. Let's start

with an analogy in English. There are a dozens of common words with

the sound graph: Graphic, graphite, choreograph, cryptograph,lithograph, phonograph, photograph and so on. I'm sure you know what

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graph indicates in all these words.

Write.

Uh-huh. That's the meaning of the ancient Greek verb graphein, the

source of our English word. We English speakers can associate the

sound produced when we read graph with the concept write.

But to make that association, we have to know the etymological

background.

No, all it takes is for the connection to be pointed out, or noticed by

oneself. For example, once a teacher tells her students, Words with

'graph' are connected with writing, they have sufficient information.

They don't need to be familiar with the Greek term.

OK. But doesn't that only work for English words that come from the

classical languages, Greek and Latin?

No. This is moving away from the subject, but we can circle back.

Are you familiar with the Indo-European language family?

Can't say that I am.

I check the clock; there's still time. I've spoken on the following

subject more times than I can count, so I have the whole presentation

committed to memory. To keep things simple, Indo-European is a language family with

many branches. Greek is the Hellenic branch. Latin is part of the Italic

branch. English is part of the Germanic branch. Modern English

contains words from many sources, including non-Indo-European

languages. Like sushi.

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Right. Your second question concerned whether there are sounds in

English that aren't derived from Greek or Latin and that can be

associated with particular concepts. The answer is yes. Think about

these words beginning sl-: Slick, slide, slime, slip, slither, slobber, slop,

slosh, sludge, slurp, slush. Can you identify anything they have in

common?

Of course. All of them have something to do with motion and

wetness.

Precisely. The pronunciation was imitative of the sound made by an

object in moving through liquid.

Hmm. But there are lots of English words beginning sl- that don't

match that description. Let me think. Umm, slave. Or slap. Or slow.

Good point. That shows the complexity of the English lexicon. In

some cases, as with graph, the sound is always, or nearly always,

connected with a single concept. In other cases, such as words

beginning sl-, the pronunciation has a variety of derivations, so the

one-to-one correspondence between sound and concept in the modern

language is fragmentary. But you follow what I'm saying about

connecting a particular sound with a particular concept?Yeah, I'm with you.

Great. Now we can return to ancient Chinese. Terms beginning with

the sound K- nearly always refer to objects that frame, or are framed.

For example?

Can you lend me a pencil, and spare a sheet of paper?Roy steps into the galley, opens a drawer and pulls out a writing pad

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and a ballpoint pen.

Pen OK?

That's fine, thanks.

Roy re-seats himself as he hands me the writing materials.

OK, here's a character meaning vehicle.

I draw.

Originally, it depicted the frame of a vehicle, as seen from above.

I draw another character,.

This is a pictograph of an altar.

What's the connection with a frame?

The altar frames the objects placed atop it.

Hmm.

I draw a third character,.

This one is a carpenter's square. In other words, a framing tool.

OK, and in ancient Chinese the pronunciations of these three

characters began with K-?

Right.

I see what you're getting at. And you're saying that every word in

ancient Chinese that was pronounced with an initial K- sound had

something to do with a frame?

Almost. There's a small number of exceptions, ones that are imitative

in origin, like the sl- sound we were talking about for English.

Like what?

The term for dog. It was pronounced something like KAN or KEN,

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intended to be imitative of barking.

Is that by any chance related to the English word canine?

Possibly, but if so only in a roundabout way. Chinese belongs to

what's called the Sino-Tibetan language family rather than the Indo-

European family we were discussing.

The clock reads 7:56. Time to wind things up.

So, I think the link between sounds and concepts may be what your

father had in mind when he said the pronunciations of Chinese

characters tell us more than their shapes.

I understand now, but I still can't see what's so interesting about it.

Different strokes for different folks. Vive la diffrence, right?

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Excerpt Seven: Marc Asahina, incarcerated in the Minidoka (Idaho)

and Tule Lake (California) camps, describes the trials undergone by

his family during the war years and afterward.

Marc Asahina

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

I guess you were told we're making the rounds of some the camps.

Yeah. My family was incarcerated in Minidoka.

I see.

And then in Tule Lake.

Was your father a no-no boy?

Oh! A well-informed honky. Do you know what the term means, or

are you just trying to sound intelligent?

Kevin intervenes.

Hey, Marc, we can do without the attitude.

Marc shakes his head slightly, as if to say, Who cares?

I decide to play straight man. Those who answered No to two questions, one about willingness to

perform military duty for the US, and one about willingness to forswear

allegiance to the emperor of Japan.

Very good! And to answer your question, no.

No, what?No, my father was not a no-no boy. But I was.

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I wait for Marc to continue.

My father was an Issei, one of the first-generation immigrants. Do

you know that the Issei couldn't become U.S. citizens, couldn't own

land, and in most states couldn't marry honkies?

Kevin stares at Marc.

I mean, Caucasians.

Yes, that's what I understand.

Marc flashes annoyance at my choice of phrase.

And can you understand how people in my father's position tended to

feel when they were incarcerated? First they endure decades of

discrimination, exploitation and persecution. Then, without having

committed any kind of crime, they're stripped of their property and

tossed in concentration camps set out in the middle of nowhere. If that

wasn't bad enough, now they're required to make a loyalty pledge. Can

you understand that?

Kevin intervenes again.

Marc, talk to the situation. There's no point in alienating your

audience.

Marc gives no sign of having heard Kevin.Well

He breaks off as the waiter sets our drinks on the table, then resumes

after he leaves.

Minidoka, as you may know, was the camp with the highest

percentage of volunteers for military service. A lot of them served inthe 442nd. Perhaps you've heard of that too?

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Marc's bitterness is beyond anyone's control, including his own. The

rest of his story is punctuated with unrelenting sarcasm, irony and

hostility. A filtered version runs:

Marc's father Kenzabur refuses to answer the two questions. Worried

about his eighteen-year-old son losing his U.S. citizenship, Kenzabur

urges Marc to answer yes. Instead, out of loyalty to his father's views,

anxiety about the possibility that the family will be split up, and outrage

at the incarceration, Marc gives a double No.

Accompanied by Marc's mother Yurie and thirteen-year-old brother

William, the family is sent to Tule Lake, the living conditions of which

Marc describes as a hellhole. He urges me to familiarize myself with

the details.

In December 1944, word leaks that the camp will close and that the

incarcerees will be released, leading nearly 5,500 of them to renounce

their U.S. citizenship. Some among the younger renunciants are

motivated by fear of being drafted. Many others dread the

consequences of being released into hostile communities without

resources or prospects for work. Still others fear the non-citizen Isseiwill be repatriated to Japan at war's end, splitting up families.

Kenzabur and Yurie have William renounce for this reason. Marc also

renounces, in his case out of devotion to his parents and disgust with

the family's treatment at the hands of the U.S. government.

Post-war, one-quarter of the renunciants are expatriated to Japan, theAsahina family among them. The Asahinas go to live with Kenzabur's

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older brother and his family, in rural Yamaguchi Prefecture. However,

it's clear there isn't enough food to go around. Marc leaves to do

construction work in Hiroshima, rebuilding after the atomic

devastation.

He soon learns that more affluent families rebuilding their homes are

willing to pay for better construction materials than those readily

available. He scrapes together enough money to order a single house's

worth of quality lumber from Oregon and Washington. Word soon

spreads, he receives more orders, and by 1950 Marc is making enough

money to support his entire family.

In 1956, Marc and William succeed in getting their U.S. citizenship

restored. Leaving the Japan end of the lumber import business to

Kenzabur, the brothers return to the U.S., settling in Seattle. Five

years later Kenzabur and Yurie obtain permission to reenter the U.S.

Kenzabur entrusts his job to a nephew, and the Asahina family is

reunited back in Washington. By now, Marc is married, with a six-year-

old son and a daughter on the way.

Marc and William diversify the business to include packaging

materials and cellulose-derived products. Eventually, William'sdaughters take over the business. Marc's son, Ted, becomes a forest

ranger in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest, and Marc and his wife

retire to Twin Falls to be near their grandchildren.

Zoological references feature prominently in Marc's story; I figure

them out by context.

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Jackals: Members of a certain group promoting Nikkei rights.

Orangutans: Nikkei who join the U.S. military.

Poodles: Nikkei strikebreakers sent to bring in crops the Tule Lake

incarcerees refuse to harvest.

Hyenas: Caucasian civilians who profit from the Occupation.

Vultures: Nikkei involved in Occupation activities.

Vampire Bats: Nikkei who take reparation payments.

Ostriches: Americans who believe the 9/11 attacks were carried out by

Middle Eastern fanatics.

Marc expects reactionary elements within the U.S. government to

jump on 9/11 as a pretext to infringe the constitutionally protected

rights of targeted members of society. He concludes his harangue by

assuring Kevin and me that those measures will only be a prelude to

even broader restrictions designed to enslave all non-elite U.S. citizens.

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Excerpt Eight: The protagonists discuss rural economics in the United

States at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

We approach the town of Susanville.

This town's a symbol of what's happening in rural parts of the

country.

How so?

Traditional industries are dying and getting replaced. Take a guess by

what.

I think for a moment.

Gaming. Casinos.

Right. Keep going.

I think again.

Clean energy.

Be serious.

Corporate farming. Agribusiness. That's more a transition than a replacement.

Prisons.

You got it. There are a couple right outside town. The country's been

on a building spree this past decade. Especially in Texas, where the oil

field jobs are disappearing, and in Appalachia, where the coals mineshave tanked.

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Hmm. And how's that working out for the local communities?

Not enough data to say at this point. But there's anecdotal evidence.

The towns are promised jobs and, in some cases, contracts to source

food and other supplies from local businesses. But what happens is the

good jobs in the prisons go to senior workers transferred in from other

prisons. Meanwhile, local procurement tends to end after a few years,

when the initial contracts run out. After that the contracts go to big

players from outside the community.

I imagine there are also social fabric issues.

Kevin nods.

Prison jobs are stressful, and the stress tends to lead to higher rates of

things like DV, suicide, and substance abuse in the hosting

communities. Then, when inmates commit crimes, they're often

processed in the local court system, adding to the workload of people

outside the prisons. Another issue is what happens when inmates are

released: What do they do when they have nowhere to go and no

resources?

They go on welfare in the host community? They commit new crimes

there? Sure, those things happen. And then there are other little, hard-to-

measure things, like the impact of prison work crews taking work from

local businesses. Around the country are crews that do roadside work,

clean or repaint buildings, maintain fleets of public vehicles, wash

laundry: All kinds of things. And they do it for pennies an hour. Localbusinesses providing those services can't compete.

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And I suppose the prisons have clout with the local politicians and

chambers of commerce.

Naturally. Add to that the incursion of big-box stores, and small

businesses are being squeezed to death.

It almost makes casinos seem attractive.

Pick your poison.

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Excerpt Nine: The protagonists arrive at a Zen retreat being held in

Tahoe City, California. They are greeted by a man named Kent

Edgerton.

The Narrator

Kevin Nakatani

Kent Edgerton

We arrive at our lodge in Tahoe City just before five P.M. At check in,

we are told to stop by the meeting room before going to our rooms.

The meeting room, we find, has been transformed into a Zen hall.

There are no tables or chairs; instead, thirty seating mats are lined

against the wood-paneled walls. On each mat is a blackzabuton, a

round cushion on which to rest the buttocks, ensuring a balanced sitting

position. In the center of the rooms stand two middle-aged males,

wearing black cassocks. Seeing us, they break off their conversation.

One exits by a side door, while the other approaches us.

Hello there.

Kevin and I return the greeting. I'm Kent Edgerton. Been expecting you.

You have?

Yeah. I guess you didn't get advance notice.

Nope. You're holding a Zen retreat here in this lodge?

Right. That surprises you? Zen is full of surprises.

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Kent laughs.

The two of you are familiar with Zen practice?

To a certain extent.

I look at Kevin. He cocks his head to the right in a vague gesture.

Well, let me give you a quick rundown. This isn't a typical retreat

where every minute is accounted for. We meditate in the mornings and

evenings, but otherwise the participants are free to do what they want.

Nearly all of them go off to the slopes. We're just about to get started

with the dinner preparations. Mind lending a hand?

Kevin and I freshen up in our rooms, then go to the lodge's kitchen.

Kent is talking with the other person we saw in the hall, who identifies

himself as Zeke. Kent takes Kevin to the dining area, while Zeke hands

me a peeler and points to a bucket of potatoes and a pail of carrots. I

greet the people working around me, including the teary-eyed woman

in charge of the onions, but after that we carry out our tasks in silence.

We take our dinner in the dining area. The meal is meatless and simple:

Hearty vegetable soup, corn casserole, whole-grain bread, brown rice,

cheese and fruit, served with a variety of herb tea I can't identify. We

eat as we worked, in silence.Afterwards, Zeke comes around and shows Kevin and me our cleanup

chores: Wiping the tables after they've been cleared and then sweeping

the floor. Fifteen minutes later we finish, and I head for the meditation

hall. Kevin starts for his room.

You're taking a pass?Yep. I'll be there for the talk after the meditation.

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In the meditation hall, I pick a seating mat at random. Others have

already started positioning themselves, some in the full lotus position,

some in half lotus, others with their legs simply crossed. Two older men

have brought in chairs on which to do their sitting. All the meditators

face inward, an indication that this is a Rinzai, not St, group.

It's been fifteen years since I last sat. To my surprise, I find my legs are

still flexible enough to be contorted into a full lotus. But immediately I

bring my left foot down off my right thigh, creating a half lotus. Not

having sat for so long, going full lotus for the thirty-minute session

would leave my legs completely numb for at least five minutes. That

would prevent me from doing the walking meditation preceding the

second session.

A bell is struck, and the session begins. One female disciple, in charge

of the meditation hall, walks slowly about with a keisaku, a thin stick

used to strike the back or shoulders of a meditator whose concentration

is flagging. When employed, the keisaku produces a cracking sound

and a short-lasting sting.

Assuming the retreat is following Rinzai tradition, the master will have

assigned each student a kan. I try, unsuccessfully, to recall the kan Iwas first assigned so many years ago. Then I realize I'm not meditating,

and try to sit emptily. Then I think about trying to sit emptily. Then I

think about not thinking about trying to sit emptily. That puts me in

mind of the chicken and egg question. Then I'm thinking about the

Japanese dish oyakodon, rice topped with simmered chicken and egg.Then I'm thinking I need to gesture for the female disciple to strike me

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with the keisaku when she comes around.

Thirty minutes pass, my mind chasing madly from thought to thought.

Another striking of the bell signals the start of walking meditation. We

all rise, shake the numbness out of our legs, and circle the meditation

hall in silence for ten minutes. Then we return to our seating mats for

another thirty minutes of meditation.

The bell ending the session is struck, and Kent announces we have

fifteen minutes to use the bathroom or do whatever else we may need to

do before the master gives a talk. More to clear my mind than anything

else I go back to my room and wash my face. Then I walk down the

hall and knock on Kevin's door, but there's no answer. I return to the

hall and find that he has taken a mat on the opposite side of the room

from mine.

The master enters, accompanied by the same disciple who wielded the

keisaku. Both wear cassocks, though the master's is clearly made of

finer material, silk perhaps.

The master walks unsteadily, the disciple firmly grasping his right arm.

When he arrives at his mat, Zeke assists in lowering him into seating

position.The talk begins. The master speaks in Japanese. His words are

rendered into English by an interpreter, a Japanese woman of about

forty. The talk is based on a classic text used by the Rinzai school. The

master speaks in a monotone, and the English version is almost equally

flat.After ten minutes, many of the participants are finding it hard to sit

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still, though they do their best to be unobtrusive. Kevin sits motionless,

his legs crossed and his head lowered. I wonder if his eyelids are closed

or if he's scanning the hall as he did the Sugimoto's RV.

The talk drones on. I imagine a power struggle in the group,

traditionalists bent on transmitting Japanese Rinzai practices to the

West unchanged, progressives equally determined to adapt to local

circumstances. Probably, the retreat structure fully pleases nobody.

The talk concludes after forty minutes. I expect we'll be dismissed, but

learn that time has been allotted for questions. Perhaps this opportunity

is what attracted some of the participants in the first place.

A young woman, a redhead in a sweatsuit asks, What is the point of

Zen?

Many of us chuckle. The question is interpreted for the master. He

smiles. The redhead smiles too. The master continues smiling. Twenty

seconds later, the interpreter decides this is the master's answer. She

asks for the next question. The smile disappears from the redhead's

face.

A middle-aged man in elastic-waist pants and a hand-knitted sweater

raises his hand. He speaks in a thick, possibly Eastern European accent.What did you do in the war, master? The Second World War. Did you

kill people?

The interpreter stares at the questioner. Then, for some reason, she

looks at Zeke, who jerks his head in the direction of the master.

She puts the question into Japanese. The master arches his eyebrows.Then he turns his eyes to the man in the sweater. He replies slowly in

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Japanese, I just spoke to all of you about duality. Black/white,

male/female, death/life. If you insist on clinging to these distinctions,

you are wasting your time here.

After the interpreter renders his answer in English, the man attempts to

reply, but the interpreter cuts him off. No dialogue. Last question.

She points to someone holding out two fingers sideways. It's Kevin.

He straightens his back, turns to the master and asks, What is the Zen

of 9/11?

Murmurs from the participants.

The interpreter hesitates, but then puts the question to the master. The

master regards Kevin carefully. Their eyes lock. Half a minute passes.

People begin to look at each other.

The master and Kevin are too far apart for me to view at the same

time. Repeatedly I look back and forth, from one to the other.

Another half minute. Finally, in the split-second when I'm transferring

my eyes from Kevin to the master, something happens. When my eyes

focus on the master, I see that he is looking down, while Zeke and the

interpreter are extending their hands to help him rise. I glance again at

Kevin; his expression reveals nothing.Accompanied by the interpreter, the master walks slowly down the

hall. Kevin stares straight ahead; the master passes without

acknowledging him. After the door closes behind the master and his

attendant, the participants begin murmuring to each other. Kevin

stands, plumps hiszabuton, and strolls away.

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Copyright 2013 by Lawrence J. Howell

All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be

reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express

written permission of Lawrence J. Howell, except for the use of brief

quotations in a book review.

Disclaimer

The Zen of 9/11 is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the

characters depicted in this novel and real persons, living or dead, is

strictly coincidental. (Exception: The narrator, patterned after a certain

researcher, lexicographer and translator who kindly consented to the

portrayal.)

Readers are invited to verify the accuracy of historical references made

by the characters.

For information regarding availability of the complete novel in

electronic or paper format, or to offer feedback, write to the author at

admin(at)kanjinetworks(dot)com