One light box after another reflected parts of Joy’s life. X-rays of broken arms, a teenage Joy playing basketball. X-rays of a fractured leg, Joy on the steps of the Medical University of South Carolina. Mas couldn’t look at Tug’s face. He didn’t understand what the X-rays meant and wasn’t sure that he even wanted to.

Apart from the light boxes, there was another feature in Joy’s exhibition. A metal contraption that attracted more people in black to wait in line to peer inside.

“Dat part of it?” Mas asked.

Tug examined the side of the machine. He explained that it was an old-time Mutoscope, similar to ones set up in the penny arcade on Disneyland ’s Main Street. By cranking the side handle of the scope, you could flip through a series of cards, creating a moving picture. A movie screening for a private party of one.

Tug and Mas stood in line behind the African American woman in the beehive headdress. After she was through, she turned and looked over Mas’s head to smile at Tug. “Wonderful, just wonderful,” she said, readjusting her makeshift hat and turning her attention to the wall of trash.

“Go ahead, Mas.”

“No, you go,” Mas insisted. It was Tug’s daughter, after all. They continued like this for a couple more rounds until it dawned on Mas that Tug was afraid. He needed a friend to be the guinea pig viewer.

Mas took a deep breath and then pressed his face against a viewer shaped like an underwater diving mask. He cranked the handle and saw Tug as a boy on the chili pepper farm with his four oldest brothers and sisters. The old photograph was black-and-white, and then suddenly his overalls were colored a bright blue, the chili peppers green and red. Then the static figures became an animated cartoon, the chili peppers thrown in the air and then segueing to an image of Heart Mountain, Wyoming, the landmark peak within the internment camp. Smoking like a volcano, Heart Mountain erupted, spreading thick red and black lava, which carried a photo of Tug in his Army uniform. Lil appeared, so pristine in a white cotton blouse and her hair permed and curled close to her face. In the background was her barrack in Arkansas, a tar-paper shack that transformed into a giant jaguar. Didn’t make sense, but Mas kept cranking. And finally there was Tug again, wearing one of Lil’s full-length aprons and holding one of their carving knives. Lil was next to him, her hands on his shoulder. Thanksgiving dinner, about five years ago, judging from the style of Lil’s eyeglass frames. Suddenly they moved, no more apron or knife, no more turkey. They were ballroom dancing, something Mas wouldn’t dare to do. The dancing couple dissolved into two smiles fluttering like butterflies. Then blank. Mas continued cranking, and the movie returned to the chili pepper farm.

He let go of the machine’s crank and stood up straight. “Nice,” he said. “Real nice.” Tug hesitated and then leaned down to the scope. He was cranking like a madman; he must have viewed the movie two times straight. Mas didn’t know what the short film meant, but somehow it made him feel happy. And on this trip, you had to grab at any kind of remnants of happiness.

The person behind them began to cough, and even Tug realized that his time was up. He removed his face from the viewer. The line had gotten longer, at least fifteen people deep, but Tug had to experience an encore and went toward the end of the line.

“I wait here,” Mas said, opting for another glass of wine by a display of a basketball covered with Barbie doll heads.

Tug was third in line when a familiar voice called out a few feet away: “Dad.” Surrounded by four women, Joy stood by the broken-arm X-ray light box. Circles of her two braids-one hot pink, the other blue-were pinned to the sides of her head. She wore a shimmering light-blue dress with a plunging neckline held together by a circular brooch.

“Hey, we match,” she said, laughing and pointing to her father’s light-blue suit, his tie, and even his round Optimist Club tiepin. Tug got out of line to talk to Joy, but then a group in black walked in between them. Taking another drink of his wine, Mas watched as Tug desperately tried to make his way to his daughter’s side.

When Mas walked into the apartment, his face hot and stoplight red from the successive glasses of alcohol, he was enveloped by a wonderful aroma from a pot boiling on the stove.

“Whatchu making?” he asked Mari, whose hands were stuffed in oven mitts.

“Corned beef and cabbage. Lloyd’s favorite.”

“No, that’s your favorite,” Lloyd said. Mas had to agree. Every St. Patrick’s Day, they had gone to the Japanese Catholic church just east of Little Tokyo to eat corned beef, cabbage, and sticky rice in Styrofoam bowls on plastic trays outside on tables covered with butcher paper. They had gone at the invitation of friends, but soon it was a tradition that Mari insisted on every year.

Chizuko also made her version throughout the winter, long, peeled carrots floating alongside a slab of red meat and cabbage. One year, Mari had gotten her tonsils removed, and seemed content eating her special diet of 7-Up and ice cream-that is, until she saw the steaming pot of her favorite food and burst into tears.

“Rememba after you got your tonsils out-”

“Oh, yeah.” Mari smiled, lifting the meat and vegetables with a pair of tongs. “I can’t believe you’d remember that. I was only about six years old.”

For a moment, Mas felt normal. The corned beef was tender, falling apart in his mouth without much effort of his dentures. They laughed, the noise and the scents filling the corners of the underground apartment. Takeo was safe in his crib, sleeping, hopefully not being terrorized by any nightmares.

After their early dinner, Lloyd insisted that Mari go to the gathering at the Teddy Bear Garden, the community garden trapped in an enclosed triangle.

“Get out of the house. Breathe in fresh air. It’s just a few blocks away.”

Mari was still wary about leaving Takeo, who was now awake and lying on a blanket on the floor. “Well, I’ll at least change his diaper before I go,” she said.

“No, Mari, I can handle it. You just go.”

“Izu help Lloyd,” Mas added.

Mas knew the drill now from babysitting Takeo. Fresh diaper-disposable paper ones with stickers, not cloth and safety pins like in Mari’s baby days. Take off the dirty diaper and clean oshiri. Lloyd pulled up Takeo’s legs and wiped his bare butt with a Wet One.

“ Ara- ” Mas pointed to the blue-black mark above Takeo’s behind. He hadn’t noticed that before.

“Yeah,” said Lloyd. “I guess he’s more Japanese than hakujin.”

The bald man, the night gardener, remembered Mas as he and Mari approached the gate of the Teddy Bear Garden. “Yes, the gardener from California,” the man said.

“My father,” explained Mari.

“I had no idea. Well, welcome to the family. Have something to eat, something to drink.”

They stood in line, holding small empty paper plates and napkins. Mari seemed to know most of the people, and Mas recognized a few of them from the blood drive at the hospital. They ate chocolate cake on a damp bench, and Mas could sense that Mari, her eyes darting back and forth at the crowd by the barbecue, wanted to make more conversation with her friends, yet stayed behind with him.

“You pack everything?” she asked.

“Yah.” There wasn’t much to pack. Lloyd had gone over to the Laundromat and washed Mas’s underwear, socks, jeans, and long-sleeved shirt. All that was rolled up and pushed into the hard plastic shell of the yellow Samsonite.

“Who’s going to pick you up from the airport?”

“Haruo.” Mas wasn’t looking forward to all the stories he would have to listen to on the hour’s drive back to Altadena.