NOTE TO MIKE:
WONDERFULL WORK MIKE…LOVE FIRST PERSON STYLE AND THE
IMAGES. Know so much about you now and only wish I could have chased you down
years ago in 1960’s when your life was topsy turvy and you were such a phoney rebel.
God, Mike you are a great writer. Tough exterior— soft interior.
I am now at page 150 in your Odyssey of Mike Ikeda (800 page book) where you are in
the slammer at 14 Division, Funny. sad. Gamblings den filled with elderly Chinese men
hoping to grab the golden ring.
… a diverse collection of friends in various dives.You gave that guy a goose welt
with the butt of your pool cue and got the “Guy Ikeda’ tough guy reputation. He likely would
have told me to “fuck off” back in those days. Often a cry for help … happened a couple of times.
I mention these things so my readers will get a glimpse of your life in Parkdale.
NOTE TO READERS: If you are overly sensitive then do not buy Mike Ikeda’s Odyssey. His family
was broken. Lots of children come from broken families and need breathing space. Mike has a grade 10
education. He failed….Stopped his schooling.
Lenita Wright was waiting for Queen streetcar
Very attractive teacher of his at Parkdale public school. Unfortunately Mike had just finished a beer.
He was 14 years old.
“You were my teacher,” he slobbered.
She responded with a hesitant “Yes”
“How would you like to go for a drink?”
Lenita reported Mike to Walter Cebrinsky, VP at Parkdale C.I.,
a hard liner VP. …Mike badmouthed a bit …never went back
to school. Parents did not care…trouble enough to put food on the table.
I was VP for Water at Monarch Park summer school. He gave
me a metre stick. “Alan, you go out there and measure the girls skirts.
If they are too short then send the home.” I was shocked. The few girls
I measured were offended. Summertime…light clothing natural.
Imagine what Walter said to Mike. Too bad Lenita did not laugh.
At the time she was dating my brother,’’
Now read Mike’s note below.
alan.
I feel guilty because we failed to help him. I never had Mike as a student, My loss.
In his book he credits me for encouraging him write then he was in his seventies.
His book an be ordered from Amazon for $42.95…800 pages, I have only got to P. 150
…here is a sample of his work. Julia and Jeannette have bought copies.
HE WROTE THIS PIECE IN A LONELY ROOM SOMEWHERE IN MEXICO … LAST WEEK!!!
Hello Alan, I sent this story to you a few days ago. I don’t know if you saw it but here it is again. Mike Ikeda
The Weaver of Shadows
I was born in the year of the tiger, a creature of striped solitude and long, quiet prowls. Now, at seventy-five, the stripes have faded to the silver of Chiapas mist, and my territory has expanded to the edges of the map. I walk the cobblestones of San Cristóbal, where the air tastes of woodsmoke and ancient dust, and I am a ghost among the living, carrying my dead like precious stones in my pockets.
My father is a shadow in the corner of every cinema I pass. He is Japanese, a man of silences that ran deeper than the Pacific. As I navigate the morning markets, I see him in the tilt of a stranger’s head. I find myself reaching for a hand that isn’t there, wishing to pull him into the dark of a theater to watch The Seven Samurai. I want to sit in that shared silence, the flicker of the screen illuminating the stern line of his jaw. I do not know if he ever saw it—there are so many maps of his heart I never learned to read—but in the story I tell myself, we are there together, two tigers watching the swordsmen fall in the rain.
Then comes the scent of Assam tea and woodfire, and my mother arrives. She is white, a woman of sharp intellect and gentle rituals. In the quiet of my rented room, I see the steam rising from a ghost-cup. I wish to sit with her while the blue glow of Jeopardy fills the evening, our voices racing the clock. I see her hand reaching for a Dad’s Oatmeal Cookie and the slow, careful dunk into the amber tea. It is a small thing, a soggy crumb, but it is the liturgy of my childhood.
Outside, the Mayan children are racing the streets together with their laughter. I stop to watch a pair—a sister, perhaps six, and a brother of eight. She chases him with a fierce, joyful desperation, her small feet slapping the stones. I smile, and the years collapse. I am young again, and my sister, Marilyn, is behind me. We are sitting on the porch, our palms meeting in a rhythmic sting—clap, clap, clap—singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” until our breath runs out. She looked at me then as if I were the sun, and for a moment, I was.
I wander into the textile market. The colors are a riot, a bruised purple against a screaming orange, woven with the patience of spiders. I stop before a dress, embroidered with birds that look ready to fly off the cloth. I see her there—not the child on the porch, but the woman she should have been. A teenager, perhaps, with pocket money burning a hole in her palm. I see her eyes go wide; I see her buying everything, her arms full of vibrant thread.
“Try it on,” I whisper to the air.
And she does. In the temple of my mind, she steps out from behind a curtain of woven wool. The dress is the color of a Chiapas sunset. She stands there, her shoulders hunched, her fingers plucking nervously at the hem. She models it for me, but her movements are stiff, her eyes cast down to the dusty floor. She is waiting for the blow. She is waiting for the laughter.
“Marilyn,” I say, and my voice is as steady as the mountains. “You are beautiful.”
She freezes. She has spent her life in the shade, and the light of those words is too bright. I see her face contort, a flash of red staining her cheeks. She thinks I am mocking her. She thinks my praise is a sharp-edged stone thrown at her vulnerability. She begins to retreat, her soul pulling back into the dark thicket of her embarrassment, her eyes filling with the old, familiar shame of being seen.
“No,” I say, reaching out. I catch her gaze and hold it. “I am sincere. Look at me. You are radiant.”
I watch the transformation. It is slow, like the sun cresting the ridge of the Sumidero Canyon. The tension leaves her shoulders. The doubt in her eyes flickers and dies, replaced by a terrifying, wonderful belief. She stands taller. The dress no longer wears her; she wears the dress.
In that market stall, surrounded by the ghosts of San Cristóbal, my sister’s soul breaks through the clouds. She is happy. She is loved. And for the first time, she sees what I see: a beauty so fierce that it makes a tiger weep.
What Is Sorg
hings firs
t, what is sorghum?
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