Hideo Furukawa - Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

First, their trade. In the 1970s, the old-style mafia, with its ideal of “rustic chivalry,” was in the process of collapse. A new generation of underworld organizations was coming to the fore, attempting to supplant their predecessors, and among these the most prominent were those that dealt in “dirty” businesses such as the drug trade. The prominent Mexican-American family, having itself experienced a changing of the guard, rode that wave. The new Don was a man of the new generation. He had thoroughly revised the family’s business operations, identifying drugs as the principal source of their future income. By 1975, he had grown the organization’s total business dealings to a figure eight times what it had been two decades before. They controlled about half the inflow of drugs from south of the border. Indeed, it was the enormous investment of capital this family had made during the 1960s that had allowed the Mexican drug cartels to expand in the first place.

They were known in the underworld as Texas’s “La Familia.”

Next, the dogs. The dogs were used as tokens to strengthen the bonds between members of La Familia. The first eight—Sumer and her seven puppies—had understood this from the moment they were presented to the old Don. They had to shine as guard dogs and to pledge their unfailing loyalty to the Don. Their old owner, the man with the boxcar in the switchyard where Sumer had made their nest, the man who sent them off to work in La Familia’s orchard, had commanded them to do their best, and they had. The Don was pleased to see how seriously they took their work, how loyal they were. This was the kind of dog La Familia needed. And so he treasured them. He didn’t let them mate with just any dog. He only “wed” them to purebred Dobermans, collies, Airedale terriers—proven animals, with personalities, looks, and the skill set a good guard dog needed. The seven siblings had looked completely different from one another to begin with, and as they continued to mate they produced a monstrous elite. Dogs have, on occasion, been referred to as “shape-shifters” because the various breeds look so different, and the dogs in this lineage pushed that potential to the limit. Not all of them were involved in this, however. Even as a few of the dogs were carefully mated with the cream of the crop—with Dobermans, collies, and Airedale terriers who could accurately be described as “totally the best, Don”—a few others remained under strict guard, a sort of birth control.

Why?

Because, as has already been said, the dogs had a role to play in strengthening the bonds among members of La Familia. For the most part, they remained within the boundaries of the orchard. But whenever a new member “joined the family,” so to speak—joined the Texas-based criminal organization La Familia—he would be presented with a dog. This living gift had become the custom in the 1950s with the old Don, and the current Don inherited it. Only the men who had been granted one of the dogs from this special line belonged to La Familia’s inner circle. Only they had been recognized by the Don as “family.”

The dogs were the evidence of this.

The dogs showed that La Familia was as tight as family.

And here we come to Cabron. A male dog, great-great-great-grandson of one of the seven dogs Sumer had adopted. He was living, now, far from La Familia’s orchard on the Mexican-American border, far to the south of La Familia’s territory, in Mexico City.

One dog on the twentieth parallel north.

One dog in Mexico.

And the other, on the twenty-first parallel north.

Goodnight. What were you up to?

You never went to the Indochina peninsula, to the seventeenth parallel north. Having done a fine job during his six weeks of special training on Okinawa, your brother DED was sent into the midst of the Southeast Asian conflict as a specialist anti-Vietcong fighter. You, however, had failed to make the cut. You had been judged unfit for service on the front lines of the Vietnam War, and in June 1967, you left Okinawa for Hawaii. At the time, incidentally, Okinawa was under the administration of the US government. The Hawaiian Islands, for their part, had been annexed in 1898 and were elevated to the status of a full-fledged state in 1959. These historical developments meant nothing at all to you, Goodnight, but the point is this: you were born on the American mainland, in California, and you were raised and had lived your life until then as an American military dog, moving from place to place within the vast expanse of “America.” You had never passed beyond its borders. Not yet. You had been sent to Oahu, where you worked at Wheeler Air Force Base as a sentry dog for approximately eight years. In all that time, you had been exposed to real stress on only one occasion: the day you had come face to face with a spy of unknown provenance, and you were shot. The bullet passed right through you, and you completely healed in three weeks. You had, however, saved a human life, and so you came away from the trauma with the canine version of two medals: a purple heart and a silver star. This meant you were assured a lifetime pension (money for food) even after your retirement. The man whose life you saved was a lieutenant on security patrol; you had taken the bullet trying to protect him.

After that, you were respected by everyone on the base, not only the humans but the other dogs as well—you did have two medals, after all—and your life as a sentry dog became even more relaxed than it had been.

That was how you passed the eight years since June 1967.

And then it was the year . 1975. It began in February. At long last, you were released from your position as a military dog. You were retired. A family had volunteered to take you in. They lived in the suburbs of Honolulu. The father was a retired officer—the very man whose life you had saved. That same lieutenant. Or rather, that same former lieutenant. He himself had retired from military duties when he turned forty—just six months earlier—and now worked in tourism. He was originally a mainland haole , but during his time on Wheeler Base he had fallen in love with Hawaii and decided to settle permanently on Oahu. He would start out fresh here—it would be a whole new life. He moved his elderly parents from Ohio to live with him. They had kept a young dog as a pet, a bitch. Naturally, she made the move from Ohio as well. Then, finally, he had brought you in. You completed the picture.

“Here we are,” the former lieutenant said. “This is your family.”

MY FAMILY? you thought. Looking up, you saw four faces: a human, a human, a human, and a dog.

The other dog was a beagle. She had a compact build and an extremely mild disposition. She sensed immediately that your master felt indebted to you and didn’t try to challenge you.

Yes, you were the dog that had saved your master’s life. And for that reason, your old age, your retirement, should have been as placid and peaceful as it gets. One hundred percent stress-free. You had no title, you were just an old German shepherd. But although you were nine years old, you were still vigorous. Your family played with you a lot. You did a lot of sightseeing. The former lieutenant, thinking to repay you for what you had done, took you all over Oahu. You walked through Waikiki with your aloha-shirted master. From the beach into town. From the backstreets to the canal. The scents of Chinatown bewildered you. All those Asian spices, the mounds of Chinese medicines in the market. You climbed to the tip of Diamond Head crater, 232 meters above sea level. You visited Pearl Harbor. And you saw something. You gazed at the chalk-white memorial. It was out in the harbor, just over the remains of the USS Arizona , submerged twelve meters in the muck. The battleship had been sunk by a Japanese plane on December 7, 1941. That had inaugurated the Pacific War. A surprise attack by the Japanese military. To this day, the bodies of 948 men lie sleeping within the body of that battleship on the sea floor. The boat is a grave. You gazed at the grave, Goodnight, at the sea that was a grave, and you felt nothing. You were staring out at the place from which your history, the history of your tribe, had begun. But you felt nothing.