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Chapter 1: New York City
"Cookie, that hurts!" Blood trickled down Takashi's neck as the old sailor, Cookie, forced the gold ring through his earlobe. They were standing by Pier #16 on Front Street, New York Harbor, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge.
"You're a Cape Horner and I want you to have my earring." Cookie grabbed a handful of snow and washed away the blood. Done! Takashi had a gold earring in a sore left ear marking him a sailor who had sailed around Cape Horn. He pulled his wool cap down over his throbbing ear and watched Cookie sling a duffle bag over his shoulder and prepare to leave.
"Domo arigato," the Japanese boy said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, lad," said Cookie. "Wish ye'd come along. I could find you a bunk in Liverpool and ye'd find passage to Japan there." Cookie almost hugged the boy but the old sailor was too tough to do it.
"I must find ship here in New York and go home." Takashi's voice sounded firm, but he was not sure he was making the right decision.
Takashi and the entire crew had been rescued by the lifesavers six days earlier when their vessel, the Sindia, wrecked 300 feet off the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey. The huge bark was stuck on a sandbar very close to shore. Drying out and getting warm took three days. The officers and crew rode the train to Philadelphia where the British Admiralty tried and convicted their Captain MacKenzie and first officer, George Stewart. The penalties were harsh. Captain MacKenzie lost his captain's papers and George Stewart lost his rank. The officers were found to be responsible for running a ship aground in charted waters, an offense of negligence.
Philadelphia can be a cold, dark city in December. During the court trial the entire crew was cramped in the Seaman's Institute lodgings, miserable damp cold rooms. There they waited, hoping their captain would not be charged with negligence. The crew felt that the wreck was an accident. Once the guilty verdict announced, they sadly left their captain and headed to the grand port of New York where the seamen hoped to find ships to sail them home to England. Liverpool, England, was the homeport for most of the Sindia sailors.
Takashi was determined to find a ship sailing to Japan or Shanghai. He was certain that if he could get as far as Shanghai, going home to Japan would be possible. Every day ships from Shanghai called at his uncle's warehouse in Kobe, Japan. Takashi would find a way home.
Today he watched Cookie, Charlie, John Hand and the other crew of the Sindia board the Georgian, bound for Liverpool. The Admiral Dewey, a small red tugboat, strained to pull the huge sailing ship away from her berth. Back and forth the tug captain edged his vessel from one side to the other pushing the Georgian into the East River. Takashi's friends waved from the deck. The Georgian would sail to Liverpool in eleven days.
Takashi, alone in the big city of New York, longed for his home halfway round the world. Determination, pluck and having survived the trip from Japan made him know in his heart he could return. His older brother, Sami, would be waiting for him - that he knew. Aunt Lei and Uncle Hiroshi would be wondering what had happened to Takashi. Uncle Hiroshi treated his nephews as live-in students and gave them little affection. He forced them to study history and geography. Learn, learn, learn was his mantra. Takashi and Sami respected their uncle but loved Aunt Lei, who treated them as the sons she did not have. Somewhere in the balance of discipline and devotion was a home that Takashi missed and wanted to see again.
He walked down Front Street counting the sailing vessels lining the waterfront. Bowsprits encroached on the street. The figureheads provided a fanciful display of mermaids and monsters all staring down at the young boy walking along the quayside. The jumble of masts and rigging along the waterfront made a puzzle of a proportion that only a sailor could understand. Takashi walked all the way to the end of the island of Manhattan, where he could see the Georgian's masts getting smaller and smaller as she headed down the river and out to sea.
It was a pearl grey December day in New York City. A group of sailors were gathered in the park across the street from the big round Custom House. One of the sailors pointed at Takashi and the rest turned to stare.
"There's one of those sailors from Asia. Those slanty eyed foreigners are taking away our jobs," the angry man shouted.
"He's just a boy. Leave him alone," said another sailor.
"Go back where you came from," shouted the first sailor, waving his fist.
Takashi pulled the collar of his pea coat up around his neck. He pulled his hat down around his ears and walked quickly toward a policeman twirling his stick, protection if needed. Takashi was sure the men were angry because they did not get berths on sailing vessels. All kinds of foreign sailors were in port and often captains would choose to take foreign sailors on one-way excursions. If they hired American sailors they would have to take them back to America. Captains wanted to make money and were not interested in paying or feeding sailors one more day than was necessary. The American sailors wanted jobs.
Takashi was alone and scared. He could go back to the New York Seaman's Institute and stay the night. Cookie had taken him to this place run by Christian brothers. In every major port in the whole world sailors could always find a dry bed at a Seaman's Institute. These boarding houses welcomed sailors who were far from home. In his pocket a little American money jingled, his wages for the long trip from Japan to New Jersey. He had stowed his duffle with his prized half-model of the Sindia at the Institute. Brother Mark, the man in charge of the rooms, expected him to come back for the night. All day he had to stay out of trouble and find something to eat. As he walked back up Front Street in the cold dark, he kept his head down and hoped that other sailors would not notice that he was a foreigner. New York was not kind to a small boy with no home or friends.
Takashi smelled food cooking. There was a cart with a charcoal burner cooking sausages.
"How much, one sausage?" he asked.
"That will be a nickel," replied the cook waving his fork over his head with a hand clad in green knitted gloves with the fingers cut off so he could cook.
Takashi fished in his pocket and pulled out a shiny coin and handed it to the man. In turn he was handed a sausage in a roll wrapped in waxed paper.
"Try a little mustard on that," said the cook and dabbed some yellow sauce on the sausage.
"Here's a cup of coffee to go with it and I put lots of sugar and milk in it." He gave the boy a mug full of brown, steaming liquid.
Takashi tasted the sausage with its bitey yellow sauce and greedily drank the coffee. He thought of the nice tea that Aunt Lei brewed in her beautiful painted pots and how delicately she poured it into thin porcelain cups. Aunt Lei would not like to eat sausages cooked by a stranger on a busy street corner. Takashi enjoyed every bite of the food, yet longed for tea and his Aunt's good cooking.
Darkness and quiet fell over the waterfront. A quiet moment after a busy day wrapped Takashi in its grip. All of the restaurants and bars along the riverfront were filled with sailors and longshoremen drinking their last drinks before heading home for the night. Takashi could hear the loud voices and the music drifting out into the deserted street where he walked. Overhead, the Brooklyn Bridge bustled with people walking home from work. Takashi could see the walkers on the upper level of the bridge and thought that he would like to do that some morning, not at night when he had no idea where to go on the other side.
It was time to head back to the Seaman's Institute, not far off the waterfront. He would speak to Brother Mark and see if there were any new sailors who might help him find a berth on a vessel sailing to Japan. As he crossed the cobbled street in front of a noisy bar a man came flying out of the door with another chasing him swinging a bottle in his hand.
"I'm gonna get you! You're a devil and I'm gonna get you," the man screamed.
