A Boy at War

As Rinaldi and Adam prepare to leave, a marine sergeant stops them and commands that they assemble and participate in a cleanup crew. They are ordered to don clean clothing. Inside the barracks, they struggle to remove the slick oil clinging to their skin. Rinaldi finds a bottle of Aqua Velva cologne, and they use it liberally to try to break up the thick sludge. As they change into the clean work clothes they find, Rinaldi notices the wound on Adam’s back, and Adam is struck by the surreal nature of his circumstances. Outside, they hear another warning siren, and they dive for cover. Adam, overwhelmed by the scourge of emotions coursing through him, begins to laugh uncontrollably. Rinaldi joins him, seemingly just as perplexed and distressed by the absurdity of everything happening around them.

The sergeant locates them again, and they are ordered into a marching formation headed for the armory. There, Adam is issued a .30 bolt-action Springfield rifle. Adam is familiar with rifles—he has a .22 of his own that his father taught him to use responsibly—and he loads a magazine and switches on the safety. Adam’s contingent is ordered aboard a launch that ferries them toward the main gate of the base. As they pass the devastation around them, the men begin remarking on where they were when the attacks began. The assault seems to have abated, but there is no accurate intelligence available, and someone says they heard that the Japanese planes were headed toward the punchbowl, the location of Adam’s home.

Adam and his group are charged with guarding the main gate of the base. Civilians and military alike crowd the gate, trying to get on and off the base, and the Japanese civilian military employees are met with hostility as they try to pass through. When they establish order at the gate, Adam, who is worried about his mother and Bea, decides that he needs to get home as quickly as possible. He slowly edges away from the marines, and when a truck rolls up beside him, he asks for a ride. The driver, who is Japanese, tells Adam he is grateful to have someone armed in his company, for safety. The truck is filled with civilians also trying to escape the carnage close to shore, but so is everyone else, and the highway is congested with traffic.

The driver asks Adam to stand up front and watch the skies for Japanese planes. When one appears overhead, flying low, Adam bangs on the truck, and the civilians inside scramble away to take cover. It is not a conscious decision that finds Adam on the roof of the truck, but an instantaneous, instinctual act, and suddenly he is firing his rifle enthusiastically, replacing each magazine as soon as it is empty. He continues shooting even after the plane has flown far past them, and the people around him shout at him to stop, not understanding that it is adrenaline motivating him. When the danger has passed and the truck driver is ready to continue down the road, Adam decides to proceed alone on foot.

Adam sees a Japanese plane go down and hears bursts of gunfire in the distance, but the area around him is eerily quiet. He happens upon a Jeep with the keys in the ignition and calls out to see if the driver is nearby. With no one around, Adam decides to take the Jeep so that he can get home as quickly as possible. As he drives along the deserted streets, he proceeds carefully, constantly looking around for possible threats. He is filled with dread when he sees a man standing in the middle of the road in the coveralls and parachute rigging used by pilots and navigators inside fighter planes. He is terrified that the man is Japanese, and he must swerve to avoid hitting him.

Realizing with relief that the man is American, he introduces himself. The serviceman introduces himself as Brown and explains that he is a member of the grounds crew at Hickman Field. Brown’s friend, a pilot, invited him to come along that morning on a training flight, and they were taken by surprise when a Japanese plane pulled alongside them, so close they could see the enemy pilot in his cockpit. Then, they were hit. Brown hadn’t wanted to put the parachute on that morning, but his friend insisted. Brown survived only because of that parachute; he managed to bail out of the plane, but he is unsure whether his pilot friend escaped.

It is afternoon when Adam and Brown arrive in Honolulu; the Jeep chugs along only through Brown’s continued attempts at coaxing it. It finally breaks down for good on Hotel Street. Adam is astonished by the show of military force around them; Hotel Street has been transformed from the popular entertainment and nightlife section of the city into a makeshift military base, with soldiers and military vehicles crowding the streets and sidewalks. Still dressed in a sailor’s work clothing, Adam is concerned that he will be questioned as to where he is supposed to be, especially because he has a weapon. Brown suggests that they try to find a way back to base, but Adam declines, desperate to get home. Adam removes his shirt, conceals the weapon inside it, and makes for home. He stays close to cover, ever vigilant and anticipating another attack. It is eerie to him how normal everything around him seems now that he is further away from the destruction. A boy riding by on a bike shouts not to drink the water because it has been poisoned. He hears people talking about blackouts and curfews. A man calls out, referring to Adam as “sailor,” asking if the roads are open. The sun is setting as he finally nears home, and he stashes the gun away in the brush, putting on his shirt before going inside.

Adam’s house is dark, and all the doors are locked. He pounds on the door, panicked that his mother and sister might have met with harm. A woman answers, and Adam demands to see his mother. Another woman appears, and he realizes that they are his neighbors, Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Collins. Inside he finds his family’s living room pitch black and filled with women and children huddled together in fear. Marilyn, overwhelmed with relief to see Adam, immediately scolds him for being gone all day and terrifying her with thoughts of what might have happened to him. Bea asks if he is a sailor, and his mother insists on knowing where he has been, but Adam, exhausted, collapses onto his bed and falls asleep.

When he wakes, it is still night, and their neighbors are gone. Marilyn, sitting in the darkness, asks again where Adam was, and he confesses he was at Pearl Harbor. He wants to unburden himself and share the horrors that have scarred him so thoroughly, but he remembers his father’s insistence that there are topics not to be discussed with women. Marilyn surprises Adam by encouraging him to be honest, insisting she already knows what a terrible day it has been. Adam is too ashamed to tell her how he treated Davi in the rowboat, but he is forced to admit that he saw his father’s ship in ruins. Despite her strength and stoicism, when he asks her to disinfect his wound, Marilyn is overcome with emotion and begins to cry.