The Fifth Book of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston

Author:Maxine Hong Kingston [Kingston, Maxine Hong]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Literary
ISBN: 978-0-307-42857-8
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

“Charley” signed his name just like that—“Charley” with quotation marks or rays of light. For whatever (maybe personal) reasons, some men—Ben, Cy, Vince, Jerry—procrastinated setting down their names. There were eighteen men on August 17. By the end of the month, there were thirty-four. Many more GIs, non-AWOL, hung out at the Church of the Crossroads, in the American Servicemen’s Union Coffeehouse, in the courtyard, and at meetings. (The ASU button was black and white, a white hand shaking a black hand.)

The layout of the church was a rectangle of low one-story buildings with tile roofs in a Mediterranean Japanesey style. Diamond Head side was the chapel; mauka side was the multipurpose hall, classrooms, and the Coffeehouse. The University Avenue side had more classrooms and offices, and makai side was the parking lot for the Varsity and the bank. The center was a grass-covered courtyard, a plaza, surrounded by rows of Chinese-red columns, red for luck and blessing. Anywhere in the courtyard, everyone could see everyone else, and the dogs, on the bright-green grass. The palm trees in the corners and along the parking lot nodded their big heads down; they were curious about human activities. The community was in a box, a frame, open to the sky and sun. It seemed that God looked in. God could see one and all, and was interested in what each was doing—napping, eating, giving or getting a massage, tossing a ball, reading, writing, talking with new friends. Everyone in Sanctuary felt it—everything he or she does is important.

Sanctuary was a separate world, yet open to the street and city. Anyone could walk into Sanctuary from any angle or side, go right in between the red columns. No one was shut out. The authorities could walk onto the church grounds too, bust up Sanctuary, arrest everybody, take the AWOLs away, close it down. But the MPs, HASP men, the FBI, and the cops stayed in the parking lot, standing about, sitting in their cars and on their motorcycles. The only thing stopping them was the idea of Sanctuary. They all respected where the invisible borders were, and stayed on their side of them. Thus they consented that there is such a thing as Sanctuary. The space here is sacred. Kapu.

The chaplain from Schofield patrolled Sanctuary’s University Avenue boundary. He yelled into his electronic bullhorn, and threatened the GIs to come out or else. He said to give themselves up, as if they were criminals. “You boys are breaking the law. You’re going to the stockade. You’re damned to Hell.” He was a Black man, and his bullhorn-amplified basso-profundo voice preached damnation. “Surrender and be saved. . . . I’m telling you, for your own good. I’m responsible for you, for your soul and your career in the service. Get yourself outta here.” He yelled at all his boys, did not single out any Black. He did not know that Walter was Black, he was so White-looking. And Cy Johnston identified with and attached himself to Blacks; his Black sergeant had risked his own life to save Cy’s in Viet Nam.

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