Noodles :: Yurei in the Yakuza [PG]
Author: Jayman :: 28 June 2004
Summary: Snapshots of Ghost's life from his birth on February 10, 1965 to his freedom from the Matrix on August 8, 1988.
Rating: PG
Categories: Drama
Notes: Part 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
~ 01 ~
~~~ 1965 ~~~
Do not fear what you are about to suffer.
Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison,
so that you will be tested,
and you will have tribulation for ten days.
Be faithful until death,
and I will give you the crown of life.
-- Revelation 2:10, New American Standard Bible (NASB)
~~~ Wednesday, February 10 ~~~
"Isn't he beautiful?" Suzie Song Masamune wept quietly yet happily as she cradled her tiny new son in her loving arms. She kissed him gently, nuzzled him nose to nose, then added in her funny baby voice, "You're beautiful, aren't you, little Yurei."
In his subdued Hawaiian-styled shirt, Yoshio Masumune gazed proudly at his first-born son. Despite his heavy accent, he repeated softly in his best English, "Ritter Yurei." Little Yurei Masamune.
"Come on," Suzie laughed through her tears, "Don't be afraid." She offered the small bundle to her hesitant husband.
"Me? Afraid?" Yoshio bent lower to grasp the light-blue bundle, and with several shifts and shuffles, he curled his bare right arm comfortably under his son. Straightening, he instantly recognized his wife's warm reflection in his son's round face. "You see, Yurei? I am not afraid..."
Suzie smiled wearily yet contentedly at the two most important loves in her life. Behind them, the open window blinds revealed the distant darkness of the very early morning.
With an unsevered finger, the father pulled back the blanket from his son's dribbling lips.
"And you wirr not be afraid. I wirr teach you. I wirr teach you to be as strong as your mother."
With a grin, Yoshio glanced at his wondrous wife Suzie. It was a glance as magical and profound as the moonlight of a brand new day.
~~~ Wednesday, February 17 ~~~
"Rock a bye baby, on the tree top..."
The following week, when Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital finally deemed her strong enough, Suzie was discharged. As the nurse pushed her wheelchair from her room through the corridors to the main lobby, the young Chino-American mother sang tenderly to her little baby under the guarding eyes of her crisply-dressed Japanese husband and his loyal aide.
"When the wind blows, the cradle will rock..."
As the aide opened the curbside passenger door of the white Rolls-Royce Phantom V limousine to let the new nanny climb out and briefly hold the child, the husband gently helped his wife out of the wheelchair and into the rear seat of the luxury car. After the nanny carefully transferred the baby into his mother's arms, she returned to her in-built fold-out chair between the front and rear seats. Once the father shut the reverse-hinged door, he circled to the other side, entered the car, and let the driver shut the other reverse-hinged door. Finally, both driver and aide climbed into the front seat and shut their respective doors.
"Capri," Yoshio instructed the driver.
"When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall..."
As the white limousine rolled east on Charleston Boulevard towards the Vegas Strip, making its way to the sparkling Flamingo Capri resort less than fifteen minutes away, the low morning sun cast an orange-yellow glow on the flat desert panorama.
"And down will come baby, cradle and all."
~~~ Sunday, August 8 ~~~
Light and colours are busy at hand everywhere, when the eye is but open...
Overlooking the spectacular 80-by-500-foot artificial lake from her second-story sun deck, Suzie Masamune relaxed in her fold-out recliner, dressed elegantly in her white summer dress, wide straw hat, and cat's-eye sunglasses. Immersed in her 1961 paperback edition of The Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, she let the profound words from the past flow into her perception.
... sounds and some tangible qualities fail not to solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to the mind...
After KRAM broadcasted its station identification over her whispering little Sony 2R-22 transistor radio, she immediately recognized one of her favorite tunes from last year. Sweeping aside the soft dark bangs of her low spitcurl beehive, she laid the book in her lap and sighed contentedly as the melody drizzled over her.
It's been a hard day's night,
And I've been working like a dog.
It's been a hard day's night,
I should be sleeping like a log.
But when I get home to you,
I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright...
Over the last six months, Suzie witnessed her beloved Yoshio rise higher and understandably more distant in his less-than-legitimate business enterprises, while her precious Yurei grew larger and stronger and remarkably faster than most of the other infants Aki had cared for in her many long years as a nanny.
You know I work all day,
To get you money to buy you things.
And it's worth it just to hear you say,
You're going to give me everything.
So why on earth should I moan,
'Cause when I get you alone
You know I feel okay...
Even before her engagement to Yoshio Masamune, she accepted the knowledge that his primary commitment to his yakuza clan, the Hirayoshi-gumi, superseded all other responsibilities and obligations including those to his future wife and children. But she also knew that he very much loved her, as much as she loved him. Everything he sacrificed and fought and earned and gained, he did so not only as a wakashu child-underling honoring his oyabun father-leader, but also inversely as a father providing for his family. For his Suzie and Yurei.
But when I get home to you,
I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright.
You know I feel alright.
You know I feel alright...
As the song faded and gave way to another tune, Suzie reopened her enchanting slender eyes, sighed in the sunlight once more and returned to her paperback. Rereading the last few lines, she quickly picked up where she left off.
... but yet, I think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man...
She suddenly imagined her little Yurei growing into a man. Possibly like his father, dressed in the slick and flashy "Rat Pack" style of Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Possibly like his mother, educated in the history and philosophy of art and music and thought, from the works of Claude Monet to Sergei Rachmaninov to John Locke. But nevertheless, she always imagined him as a proud Asian-American man with the smooth round facial features of his mother and the sparse facial hair of his father.
... he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pineapple, has of particular relishes.
Crinkling her brow, Suzie reflected upon that last line and wondered, as she always did, whether such an imprisoned man could evolve beyond the sum of his empirical black-and-white experiences and imagine the theoretical scarlet-and-green unknown.
Zip. Zip.
She turned to the strange scratching movement in her peripheral vision.
"Yurei!" From within the family suite, the nanny scolded in her slight accent. "Stop that! Come here!"
Already crawling and sitting on his own, the infant in diapers seemed mesmerized by the thin metallic grid that impeded his path to the bright sunlit deck. Already sprouting a half-dozen baby teeth, he grinned as he swatted at the screen with his tiny hand, causing an odd zipping sound.
Zip. Zip.
With the same overflowing affection and fulfillment, Suzie smiled as warmly as she had when she cradled him in her loving arms for the very first time. Once more, she laid the book in her lap.
"Ray," she waved to him, calling him in her funny baby voice. "Ray-Ray. Yoo-hoo, over here."
Yurei blinked momentarily in the direction of his mother before returning to the screen. "Bah-bah."
Zip.
"Ray-Ray. Hi there. It's your mama." She set the black-tassled bookmark in her paperback and in turn, set the paperback beside her radio on the low patio table.
"Bah. Bah-bah."
"That's right. Your mah-mah." Rising gracefully from her recliner, she stepped over to the screen door and crouched down before her little son.
Zip.
"Do you want to get out?" she tapped at the grid in front of his round face. "Do you want your mah-mah?"
"Bah-bah."
Zip.
The nanny marched crisply toward the baby. "Yurei. Behave."
"Oh, it's okay, Aki."
"You sure, Mrs. Masamune?"
"I'm fine."
"As you wish." The nanny bowed respectfully and returned to her other duties.
Keeping her crouched position, Suzie carefully slid the screen door aside.
Captivated by the disappearing grid, Yurei blinked in the direction of his mother's hand as she pushed the screen away.
"Come to mah-mah," Suzie smiled, offering her open arms and outstretched hands.
With a high-pitched giggle, Yurei revealed his half-dozen teeth once more and crawled frantically to his waiting and welcoming mother, an angelic figure in glowing and flowing white.
"There you go, my little Ray-Ray."
The infant giggled as his mama lifted him up into the sunlight. She giggled back.
"Always causing trouble, aren't you?"
END OF PART 01.
PART 02 - Coming Soon.