The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit

War Marks

33 the stain could have been blood, long dried and brushed away, or it could have been just one of those stains that appear on things you keep in the closet for many years, usually on something white, like a favorite dinner jacket or a wedding dress. It had been so long I couldn’t remember how the flag had originally looked. I know it wasn’t clean. How could it have been, with everything I carried it through? All the mud on Leyte, the jump on Tagaytay Ridge, Luzon. I still have a few friends from that time. I’ve been to the D Company 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) reunions, each year someplace new. One year Texas, the next Arkansas, the next California. I’m still waiting for them to have one in Michigan. Just as well. Detroit is a strange place to be when you’ve fought the Japanese. I talk to these ex-soldiers every year. Some of them I barely knew at the time, or even disliked. But now we are friends by necessity. Every year, there are fewer men than the year before. But there are always a few who have just war marks 34 The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit discovered the reunions. They always have new stories, new details, new things you realize you haven’t thought of in decades, all of it sparking newold memories. When I saw Johanovich, I went right up to him and started talking. I recognized him, even as an old man, from the photos we had tacked up. Sure as hell, he had no idea who I was, until I told him. It was his first reunion. He brought five Japanese flags, three swords, and his second wife. That’s Johanovich . Evidently, the swords are supposed to be worth big money. I think he thought there would be someone buying them there at the reunion. He had already looked into selling the flags back at his home in Oregon. “They aren’t really worth that much,” he said. “But I thought maybe we could hang them up somewhere.” I knew about the souvenirs gathered during the war. My first glimpse of the enemy was of their dead. Jap soldiers lying in impossible positions; shirts ripped open, pants half off, slain and bare-assed in the mud. The flags and swords now hanging in rec rooms and workshops and finished basements and war rooms. Johanovich is the one who told me about the symbols written on the flags. They contain information about the soldier.As soon as I got home from the reunion, I started looking for the flag I took from the body of my first Jap. When I finally found the thing, it looked different. I looked at the symbols smeared on it, and at the stain, and suddenly I didn’t want to put it up in our basement. It felt like something I had misplaced for five decades. Something that didn’t belong to me. The Speak Easy Translation Bureau is located in one of those small gray or tan office buildings you can pass every day of your life and never notice. It’s about five miles from the house I live at with my wife. One of their specialties , according to the phone book, is Japanese. 35 War Marks When I walked in, the woman behind the desk startled me. Her hair was ratted and teased and sticking out in big shocks, black at the roots, then bleached almost white at the ends. There was make-up caked on her face, with slashes of rouge at her cheekbones. She had painted bright red polish on her fingernails, cuticles, and the skin all around them, almost down to the first knuckle. Her mascara was black and thick, two eyes staring from the dark. She asked what I wanted and I just plain didn’t know for a few seconds. I unfolded the flag finally and kept my eyes on it while I told her what I needed done. They were not very busy today, she said, I could probably just wait. She slipped into the back for a moment. It looked to me like they hadn’t been busy in a long time. The place was deserted. I sat down and read the Detroit News and tried to avoid looking at the woman when she came back out. I read...