Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [69]
The guards and officers were third-rate guys because Japan needed their good men so badly on the front lines. Those who worked in the camps were mostly moronic farm kids and misfits not fit for combat. Not that they didn’t try to simulate the experience. One afternoon they brought in a B-24 pilot on a stretcher, with a crushed chest. After he died that night the guards staged a mock bayonet drill using the corpse as a target.
The Japanese did all they could to break our will and self-respect. They’d taunt us by saying, “Hey, we just invaded San Francisco!” or “Shirley Temple had an abortion and died!” or “Clark Gable got killed over Africa!” Brutal beatings, with fist or club, were the daily rule, not only for infractions of unknown camp regulations but for the merest suspicion that we might be contemplating any disobedience.
WE ALL PERFORMED slave labor, usually in the kitchen and on cleanup patrol. The guards also needed someone to cut their hair and shave their faces—and what better way than forcing someone to do it? When I was a kid, we all got a quarter for a haircut at Tansy’s barbershop. I’d stand around and watch the barbers at work and eventually figured I could do it, too. So I started a racket: I would cut neighborhood kids’ hair for the quarter their mothers gave them so we could go to the beach and use the money to ride the roller coaster and get a hamburger. This went on until one boy’s mother thought the barber did a “bad job.” Determined to improve and keep the business going, I hung out at Tansy’s every chance I had.
With all that experience, I thought I should volunteer to be the camp barber. It wasn’t out of kindness or to prepare for a postwar career. For each haircut and shave I’d get a rice ball: wet rice baked to a golden brown in the oven.
I never had such an easy job. I just clipped the guards’ hair as close to their scalp as possible. As for the shave: I’d never used a straightedge razor, and it scared the hell out of me, especially when one guard said, “You bring blood and…” But I couldn’t get out of it, so I practiced on myself first. I still nicked a few guys—without consequence—and soon learned how to use the razor.
The guards also asked me to shave their foreheads. I couldn’t figure out why. They had no hair there, nor on their chests, but they wanted their foreheads shaved down to the top of the eyebrows. Were these men masochists, or did they just like how the blade felt?
Every guard paid the rice ball, except the Weasel. He needed to show his superiority, and it made me mad. Whenever he came around, I’d say, “You didn’t pay me last time.”
“Yeah? I pay you later.”
So I’d shave him again—I couldn’t really refuse—figuring that maybe he’d keep his word. He didn’t. Finally, I got wise. The next time I cut his hair and shaved his forehead, I cut his eyebrows down real thin, just like a pencil line. He was relaxed, in another world, and didn’t pay attention. When I finished I asked for my rice ball and, as expected, he stiffed me and went back to the honcho shack. Suddenly I heard cussing and screaming, then laughter from the other guards. Next I heard two words I’ll never forget: “Marlene Dietrich! Marlene Dietrich!”
I expected a beating, but he loved it. The Japanese idolized American movie stars, and when his pals approved of his new style, he left me alone.
NOW AND THEN Sasaki called me into his office. Interrogation was pointless, but that’s never what he seemed to want. He was nostalgic for the old days.
Although I could no longer muster friendship for him, I could sense it in him for me. At first he was self-confident and cocky, bragging that Japan would win the war. When they started losing battles—and he knew that we knew it after they’d captured Pappy Boyington and he told us the truth—Sasaki’s attitude changed. He even called Emperor Tojo a son of a bitch and cussed a blue streak. Perhaps he wanted to get on my good side. I don’t know. But always, when I’d ask why I, an officer, was still at a camp in which