Moondogs Read Free

into this. I’ve done my research. They’ve paddled all the way to Malaysia to kidnap tourists. I’m making it easy on them. And on you.”
    Joey the Imam looks up from his hands. “So you’re here to ask if I want this person?”
    “I’m here to ask if you want to buy this person.
Buy
.” Ignacio leans back and nearly tips into the tub. He adjusts his weight and tries to look comfortable.
    The Imam says nothing for a long time. Then he stands and opens the washroom door, once again flooding the small space with sunlight. He disappears without a word. He returns some moments later, flanked by the shirtless teenagers who were playing basketball outside the mosque. They’ve taken their caps off, and their heads and chests glisten with sweat. They look larger in the confined space of the washroom. Not boys, but soldiers. Older, in a way, than Ignacio himself.
    “We need to talk about this,” the Imam says. “You have proof he’s still alive? Proof he’s well?”
    Ignacio nods, trying to restrain his grin. He doesn’t want to overplay his hand. Joey the Imam closes the door and approaches with the teenagers. They all stand around Ignacio. He feels their breath on his skin even before he opens his mouth to speak.

Chapter 2
AFTER THE FUNERAL
    Benicio Bridgewater left the main building of Montebello High, crossed the parking lot and sat at one of the carved-up picnic tables. He pulled a paperback history of the Philippines from his bag, found the dog-eared page he’d bent over at the end of lunch and picked up again where he’d left off—Bataan had just fallen to the Japanese. Americans were rounded up while hundreds of their Filipino allies were made to dig their own graves. Japanese soldiers saved bullets by executing their prisoners with ceremonial blades. Cut off from the mainland, soldiers on Corregidor Island prepared to mount a final defense against the Imperial Army. The authors of the history didn’t attempt to sustain tension or drama—they made it clear from the beginning that the little island was doomed.
    Benicio’s father had sent him the book a few months ago. It arrivedin an oversized package stuffed with styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap, covered with bright stamps and postmarked on the same day that Benicio finally agreed to spend the summer with him in Manila. He wasn’t sure exactly what route mail took to travel from the Philippines to Charlottesville, but his father’s package seemed to have had a rough trip. It arrived looking rained-on and dropped, the book inside warped and brittle. His father’s note on the cover page was so smeared it was almost illegible.
Benny
, it said,
I finished this a few weeks ago and couldn’t believe I’d lived here so long without knowing some of this stuff. Think you’ll enjoy it. I mean the book, and the country. So glad you’re coming!
Below that, in a different color of ink, his father had added,
Thanks again for what you said at the funeral. I’m really so sorry Benny. About all of it. I can’t wait to see you
.
    Reading the history, like talking one-on-one with his father for the first time in almost five years, had been kind of a chore at first. The book started off with dry descriptions of trade and migrations, broken up only occasionally by colorless maps and arrows. But things picked up after the Spanish arrived, and more so when the Japanese did. Now Benicio could hardly put it down. He glanced at his watch, hoping to get to Corregidor’s surrender before his girlfriend locked up her classroom and came out to meet him. Alice taught ninth- and tenth-grade English at Montebello High and spent afternoons tutoring captive audiences in detention. The next time he peeked over his book he saw Alice emerging from the front door of the school. She waved to him and he stood and waved back. She glanced around, and when she saw that no one was looking, flipped him the bird. He sent one right back and gave her an ugly face.
    “My love,” she said as