<Begin Segment 36>

TI: So after that difficult event, then you left.

FS: Yeah, I went to work.

TI: To Kure.

FS: To Kure to look for work. It's just, I got off there, I had to look for work, and I didn't even know where to look for work. There's no employment office, and government, Japanese government, they had employment office because they were furnishing people for the occupation, but I didn't know how to speak Japanese, I couldn't write Japanese to fill out the form. I was behind the eight ball any way you look at it. So then I was at a Japanese fire station, was right in front of me, I walked into that area for some reason. Then I saw a pretty big tent pitched there, and I saw two GIs there, standing there, smoking cigarette and yakking away. So I was kind of lonesome, and I wanted to talk, they were talking English, so I wanted to talk English. Getting homesick, you know. So I went to him, the GIs, and I explained, I said, "It's my first time in this town, I don't know where anything are. Actually, I'm looking for work. You know where I could get work?" And they looked at me funny and said, "You speak good English, don't you? Where are you from?" [Laughs] Said, "You're not from Japan." So I told 'em I was from America. But they didn't know what the hell a guy from America was doing here. So I said, "Well, cut the long story short, I need work." Well, he said, "You know how to speak Japanese?" I said, "I can get by," which was a big lie. He said, "We need a Japanese-speaking person for liaison work right here, to work with us, too. Because we don't, we can't go across the fire department." And so what I found out was they were fire marshal. Any military installation, Kure, and there was a bunch of 'em, whole bunch of places. Well, these two GIs, they get a call, they had to go across the street and tell the fire department people where there's a fire, military, you know, Seventh Base Air Force office someplace, they had to pinpoint where it was. Then they sent the fire truck out, then they get on the jeep and they follow 'em until the fire was, they made the fire report. So they wanted somebody there that was, they couldn't do it. They couldn't speak the Japanese language, they didn't know how to work it. So he said, "Good thing there's no fire. We've been after the major for days and days and days to get somebody who can speak." But the major said, "Can't get nobody." So he said, "Get on the jeep." So I got on the jeep, I got my bag, he said, "Leave it here." And I was ready to go to work, sine I had whatever clothes I had, little bag. Took me to headquarters, where the major was, Australian major, and he said, "You speak Japanese?" I said, "A little bit, enough to get the job done, what you want done, location and all that, pinpoint." "All right, you got a job." I says, "What goes with the job?" He told me, "We can only pay you so much." I think it was something like, I forgot, twenty dollars a month, equivalent in yen, twenty bucks a month. And I said, "Is there any food?" He said, "Well, I know the mess hall in the headquarters nearby, and these two GIs, they go eat there anyway, and they're buddy-buddy. So I'm going to make arrangement with the mess sergeant so that you can get food ration." He said, "You can't eat in the mess hall but you can bring it back to where you work and do whatever you want. And I'll make it so that you get ample food." And I was smart, I said, "Thank you."

So I went back to the GI, and I said, "I'm going to get the ration." First thing I says, bribe. There's got to be a bribe somewhere. So I said, "Gee, does the mess sergeant drink?" "Oh, he likes sake, Japanese sake. Oh, he loves that thing." You know Issho? Big bottle? I bought that. It's dirt cheap, especially if you go to a winery. So I got a Japanese Issho, went to the mess hall, and went with one GI, he introduced me to the mess sergeant. He said, "Okay, what you do, you go in the store and pick whatever you want, and here's a bag." So he gave me a little bag, and then the bread's over here, the butter there, and then I said, "Here, Sergeant, this is for you." "What for?" I said, "Well, I'm giving it to you. You're a nice guy," I told him. And he give me a big wink. He says, "You and me going to get along real good." So I fill up the food, he didn't say nothing. I went back, he says to me, "Don't forget to come tomorrow morning, pickup your rations, three meals." And he said, "I got some cigarettes, too." Aussie cigarettes, they come in cans. You got to roll it, smash it, and get a paper, like Bull Durham. I got real good in that. And then from that day, the next day I went, I got him two bottles of Japanese beer. You know what it took? I gave the fire department -- no, somebody came down, I forgot who it was, I gave him a bread, cut, about that big, and it had butter on it, just on one end. That guy, I told him, I said, "Okane iran," no money. "Nani iro?" "You got whiskey? You got sake?" "No, biiru aru yo." Beer. I didn't know what biiru was. I said, "I'll take that," and it was beer, but it was a nice bottle. So I got the two bottles of beer, I went down the next morning. I just bribed him with a big bottle of sake, and he says, "You know," he says, "Help yourself whatever you want. Get a bigger, take two bags, three bags." And from that day, every day I brought something, big bottle of sake, then I brought four beer, now. And every day, he'd say, "You got enough food?" And he says, "Oh, you know, sugar's bringing good price, better put some sugar in. Take that paper bag there, fill it up." Five pound of sugar.

<End Segment 36> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.