Suns of August

NTT short story

This is a short story for Kevin’s No Theme Thursday for 2/27/2025. I also used two older NTT images.

This was not how it usually went. This was different. This was scary.

I had purged all I could, but it didn’t help. A strange feeling made me panicky; I was somehow descending inside, to deep and silent levels.

The traffic sounds at the end of the alley receded, grew fainter, until I heard nothing. 

I knew I was dying. But I didn’t care. 

My last thought was of Aiko.

My very first drink was on my birthday in 1922.  Dad and my Uncle Theo were drinking stuff out of what looked like the jars Ma used to preserve jam and vegetables. Something must have been really funny because they were laughing and slapping each other on the back.

They sat on the picnic table in the back yard. Uncle Theo looked up as I came outside.

“Tommy, Tommy, c’mere,” he said. “Big man today, eight, come sit up here with the guys.” He picked me up and put in between him and Dad. He smelled funny.

He handed me the jam container that was half full of something clear. “Take a sip, it’ll put hair on your chest,” he said. I held it to my nose and sniffed; it made my eyes water a little.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he said, looking at the back door. “Before the women come out.”

I tried a tiny sip; it was awful. 

“Oh, that’s no taste,” he said. “Like this… watch.” He tilted his head back, I could see him swallowing. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and handed me the jar again. It was about an inch lower. He and Dad looked at me. Dad nodded. It’s OK.

I took a mouthful and before I could change my mind, swallowed. I gasped as my throat and stomach burned. I shook my head, my cheeks flapped and I made a weird sound. Uncle Theo and Dad laughed until they cried. “THAT’S what I’m talking about, Tommy,” Uncle Theo shouted. “THAT’LL get you straight!”

As he and Dad went on talking and drinking, I felt funny. My hands seemed clumsy and my stomach felt hot.

They gave me another swallow and this time it didn’t burn as much. But I started getting dizzy and couldn’t talk right. By the time Ma came out with the others and my cake, I just sat there with this stupid smile.

In 1928, when I was 14, we moved to Tokyo because of Dad’s job with the government. I hated leaving all my friends behind, and nobody spoke English. I had a tutor, Mrs. Yakuma, but except for her, I didn’t see anybody else.

One night, Dad brought some people over for dinner, the Watanabes. Dad and Mr. Watanabe worked together. There was a lot of bowing but at least they all spoke English.

They brought their son, Isoroku. He was my age and as we looked at each other, our parents moved into another room. I started to stick out my hand, but he was already bowing. Oops. I bowed, too.

He looked at me. “So, Thomas-san,” he said politely. “How do you like Japan?”

“It’s nice. I haven’t really met anyone, but I it’s pretty. Some days, I can see Mount Fuji.”

He brightened and told me Mount Fuji was considered sacred to the Japanese people. We started talking and he told me a lot of other stuff about Japan, interesting stuff, things I’d never heard. As I listened, I found myself getting more intrigued with our new home.

He asked me about America, what was it like, where did I live. He was especially interested in baseball and I was surprised that he knew so many of our players. We found out that we both played; I was a pitcher and he was a shortstop.

Before we knew it, our parents were saying their goodbyes and the Watanabes were putting on their haori. Isoroku looked at me as he tied his shut. “Our team is having practice on Saturday at 4:00 pm. Would you like to come?” 

I nodded. “Sure, that would be great.” He smiled and bowed.

I didn’t know what to expect, but everybody was very polite and looked at me curiously. I guess they hadn’t seen many Americans. 

The coach addressed me. “Thomas-san,” he said. “Would you like to pitch?”

I nodded and for the next two hours put everything into it that I could. I threw fastballs, curves, and sliders. The Japanese kids were very good, just as good if not better than the kids back home. Isoroku was an excellent shortstop and only missed one line drive that took a bad hop.

After the game, a girl appeared from behind the dugouts where she had been watching. She came over and spoke to Isoroku in Japanese. She was beautiful.

“Thomas-san, I’m so sorry. This is my sister, Aiko. She was ill the evening we had dinner at your house.” We looked at each other and both bowed.

As we walked off the field and talked, I couldn’t take my eyes off Aiko. She was two years older than us, but an inch or two shorter. Once, she caught me staring at her. She smiled and looked away and my face got hot.

The Watanabes became good friends with our family and we’d usually have dinner at each other’s houses at least once a month. Isoroku, Aiko and I would play Japanese board games while our parents drank sake—Japanese rice wine that’s served hot—on the other side of the house.

The next year, I turned 15 and the Watanbes threw me a birthday party. After the dinner and gifts, our parents moved to another room. Isoroku hissed to Aiko and me. He waved his arm from the kitchen: come here.

He held a bottle of sake. “Let’s have a little,” he whispered. Aiko looked over her shoulder, then nodded.

We took turns drinking from the bottle. As the sake burned its way down my throat and into my stomach, I recalled my birthday party from seven years ago. It wasn’t nearly as strong as the stuff in the jars, but it had a kick. Within half an hour, the three of us were snickering and woozy. 

Aiko seemed suffused with light; I was captivated by her. She caught me staring at her, but unlike at the baseball field, she didn’t look away. A faint smile appeared. 

Isoroku excused himself to use the bathroom, and Aiko and I were alone in the kitchen. “Happy birthday, Thomas-san,” she said softly. Then she kissed me.

It wasn’t much of a kiss. We looked at each other and tried it again. This time it was deeper and longer and her eyes were closed. I couldn’t believe it. I started to put my arms around her, but we heard our parents moving into the foyer. Aiko hurriedly backed away, smoothed her kimono, and put the bottle in the cabinet. 

After that, I started helping myself to the sake when Mom and Dad weren’t home. I liked how it made me feel; it made the world gauzy, warm, welcoming. It made me forget about America and my friends back home and playing baseball. It reminded me of Aiko.

They never noticed because both of them drank a lot. There were always several bottles of sake in the kitchen, plus bottles of other stuff with labels I couldn’t read.

Isoroku, Aiko and I became best friends and whenever Aiko and I were alone, we’d get into the sake and each other. When I was 17 and she was 19, Isoroku had to go somewhere and we had the house to ourselves. We drank an entire bottle of sake as we touched and kissed and murmured.

We awkwardly undressed each other; I was speechless at the sight of her without clothes. She let her hair down, a shining river of ebony, and taking my hand, led me to her futon. A storm blew up as we made love and the thunder and sheets of rain hurled at the windows only partially covered our cries.

A year went by and Aiko and I spent every moment we could together. We were deeply in love, and talked about marriage, but all the US and Japanese immigration laws…as well as her family’s likely reaction…made us both realize barring some miracle it would never happen. 

In 1933, Dad’s government job ended and we returned to North Carolina. In the depths of the Depression, with no job, both he and Uncle Theo resumed their consumption of moonshine. At 19, I joined them and usually drank them under the table.

I kept in touch with Aiko and Isoroku as the first inklings of war began to stir in Europe and the Pacific. Aiko’s letters broke my heart; we were still both very much in love, but her parents were looking at young men from prominent families as potential husbands. 

She sent me a photograph of herself. I kept it in my wallet and looked at it constantly. On the back she had written something: We are two hearts that beat as one.

As the occupation of China by Japan expanded in the 1930s, tensions with the US rose. Our letters were increasingly censored and within a year or two, all correspondence was intercepted. I lost touch with both Aiko and Isoroku.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland; and two years later, Japan attacked our naval base at Pearl Harbor. The world was plunged into the madness of a global war.

By June, 1945, the end was in sight. Germany had surrendered and Japan was next. I flew as the tail gunner in a B-29, stationed on Tinian Island.

In my rear seat, I always saw Japan receding into the distance after a raid. Sometimes I could always see the summit of Mount Fuji and I remembered the day I met Isoroku. I wondered if he was still alive. 

But as the fire and smoke and coastline disappeared over the horizon, I thought mostly about Aiko. No other woman had ever come close to her; I had never married. I hoped she was OK. On my off days, I drank her out of my mind.

Rumors started to fly about a new weapon, top secret, that could end the war and avoid an invasion. Nobody knew for sure. I was told to report to a Colonel forming a new bomb group.

Right off, I knew something was up. The 509th group had only one squadron, and we had our own maintenance, military police, and engineers. 

We didn’t fly regular bombing missions; and when we did fly, we dropped orange practice bombs called pumpkins because of their shape and color.

On July 26, the cruiser Indianapolis arrived; it was rumored to have a special cargo. The scuttlebutt flew. 

We took off from Tinian in the Enola Gay at 0245 on August 6th. It was six hours to Japan, so we’d be there by mid morning.

It was an uneventful trip and other than a few scattered bangs of flak here and there, there was no resistance. I guess a solitary B-29 didn’t get anybody too excited. 

I felt the rumble of the bomb bay doors opening and shortly after, an upward lurch as the bomb was released. But instead of dropping the bomb and continuing to fly straight ahead… meaning we’d be over the target as usual when the bomb exploded…we banked sharply to starboard and turned for home. I saw the waves breaking on Honshu six miles below as we raced away.

I almost forgot to put on the special glasses they gave me. Everything became very dark for a few seconds as the bomb, slowed by a parachute, descended toward Hiroshima.

What happened in the next seconds moved us from one age to another. 

For a split second, I saw a pinpoint flash; then slowly, but somehow also at an extraordinary speed, the pinpoint spread and grew into a blindingly bright light. It was like a small sun had landed on the city. The light gradually dimmed as a mushroom cloud rolled up heavily.

We were over ten miles away when the bomb detonated. But even at that distance, the Enola was tossed around like a toy as the shock wave hit us.

After a few minutes, things returned to normal. But as the mushroom cloud and the coastline receded, I thought of Aiko. I wondered what the hell was that thing…and how many more did we have? How many people were just killed?

For a moment, I was back in our home in Tokyo, looking at Mount Fuji. My vision blurred.

In 1946, I was once again a civilian. But not like before, not relaxing in New Bern, NC, with Dad and Uncle Theo and some moonshine. 

The 32-year old version of me was haunted. I read that 140,000 people had died the day I saw the flash. I was overwhelmed with guilt. My crew and I had done something horrific, something that could never be forgiven.

I worked menial jobs in cities all over the South, running from the past. At night, I quieted the screams with booze, but they always came back in the morning, along with headaches and the shakes.

One night… the night that I thought I was dying…I really overdid it. I don’t know if I was trying to end it all, or I just lost track, or what, but I’d never drank that much in my long life of drinking. 

I was found by some guys coming out of a bar. They loaded me into their car and rushed me to the ER where they pumped my stomach, gave me saline, glucose, and oxygen. The doc told me it was touch and go; another 20 minutes and I wouldn’t have pulled through.

I wrote to Dad from my hospital bed and asked if he could find out through the government what ever happened to the Watanabes. I didn’t expect much, as we had pretty much destroyed their country and records were probably very limited. I decided a few months later to head home for a while and see if Dad had had any luck.

I was shocked as his appearance. His skin and eyes were yellow and his stomach and legs were grossly swollen. The drinking had finally caught up to him. He coughed and handed me a slip of paper. Because Mr. Watanabe had worked for the government, our people in Washington were able to get an address. 

Fourteen years of hopeless longing, of loneliness, anxiety, of agony came out in my letter to Aiko. I didn’t know if she was married; if she hated the Americans; or if she still had any feelings for me. But I had to let her know how I felt. I told her everything, even about the Enola.

Three months later, I got a letter back. I tore it open and read it as I slowly walked down the dirt road to our farmhouse.

Dear Thomas-san,

I was so pleased to get your letter after so many years. I am happy that you survived.

I lived on a farm with extended family during the war. Isoroku fought with the infantry and was wounded in the Philippines in May, 1945. He was recuperating in a hospital in Kure when Hiroshima was destroyed. 

Although he survived the bomb, he became sick from radiation about a year later as Kure is only 10 miles away. He is in a hospital in Kyoto, which was not damaged. I am saddened by his appearance; the radiation and his cancer have aged him terribly. I spend most of my days with him. 

Please do not blame yourself for your part in the Hiroshima attack. In war, we are ordered to do things and we do them. Isoroku also is deeply troubled by battles he fought and things he did. But we are talking it out together. He is more at peace as his time draws near.

I still think about you, too; and like you, I never married. I remember the afternoon of the big storm.

It would make me very happy if we could one day see each other again. Our country is being re-built and there is renewed hope everywhere. I would love to show it to you.

Please write to me when you have time.

Love,

Aiko

I stared. My heart soared. One little word made all the difference. 

I knew two things. 

I was never gonna touch the sauce again; and I was gonna get to Kyoto if I had to swim there.

I pulled out her wrinkled, faded picture and traced her face with my finger. I read the back for the millionth time.

My other heart was calling.

This fictional short story is loosely based on the historical record. The tail gunner of the Enola Gay was Staff Sergeant Robert Caron, born in 1919 in Brooklyn, NY. There is no evidence that Sgt Caron had a drinking problem or that he ever visited Japan prior to WWII.

In May 1995, he published the book Fire of a Thousand Suns, The George R. “Bob” Caron Story, Tail Gunner of the Enola Gay about his experience. 

Images courtesy of Kevin’s No Theme Thursday and Meta AI.

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