It's hard being denied from both sides that you're from. Everyday when I was little, I'd get the same questions asked to me by everyone around me.
Why are your eyes so narrow?
Why are they blue?
Are you white?
Are you Chinese or something?
Why is your hair so heavy?
Are you a freak or something?
Every day. I always did feel like a freak because I was different from everyone. My father was white, my mother Japanese. Because of that, I ended up with blue, narrow eyes, white skin with yellow undertones and heavy dark hair with tints of brown in it. My name also threw everyone off, being Gabriel Kishien-Allen. It was written like that because my mother came from a long line of proud nationalists. So I was this freak in school...because I looked different.
From what I gathered, my mother's family didn't approve of her marrying my father because he was white. Because he wouldn't understand their culture, their race, their people but my mother married my father anyway. And I was born. My mother's family didn't approve of me either since I was now carrying my father's blood. We lived in California when I was little. My mother and father seemed to have a normal stable marriage and I always had my mother to teach my about my Japanese roots and my father, my American ones. At that age, I tried to understand that I didn't look like everyone else but that was okay...yet all the while I stood confused as to why no one wanted to be my friend. Not any Japanese kids not any white kids. I was on my own. Stuck between both sides. I was only about five when my mother said she was going to Japan to smooth some things over. My mother's mother had gotten sick and before she died, my mother wanted to make peace with her. She left a week later.
She never came back.
I didn't know why she left and never came back and my father didn't tell me until I was old enough to understand. But even he didn't know why she didn't come back. At first I thought, maybe it was me. Because I was different. But I then decided against that. She was my mother and I loved her a lot. When I finished high school, I went into law school. I wanted to be a lawyer when I got older. I only stayed and finished out one year before I decided I wanted to go to Japan to find my mother. My father was against me going, but I decided I couldn't have my life be so unsettled as to why my mother never came back to me. Maybe something had happened. And it's not like her family would tell us anything. So a few weeks before my twentieth birthday, I left for Tokyo.
When I got there, I was thankful I knew the language, but even there people assumed, they made judgments, they were racist against me, thinking I wouldn't understand them because I have blue eyes. When I spoke clear, perfect Japanese to people they were stunned. I had to explain my background each time. I searched for over a year for her with no luck. Around that time, I had made friends with Jia Li. He was of Chinese decent but grew up in Tokyo. People made the same assumptions about him that they did with me. He understood where I was coming from completely. And I remember thinking
"God...finally. I'm not alone."
I pretty soon became aware of what Jia's life was like. He was a yakuza. I was nervous at first, but he accepted me before, so why I couldn't accept his lifestyle? I got comfortable with it. I got to know the people he worked with. They affectionately called me gaijin, which meant foreigner. When it came to my last name, Jia suggested I drop the Allen part. He said I was already more white then Japanese...and if anything, having the name Kishien, my mother's maiden name, would make it easier for me to find her. I agreed. And I became Gabriel Kishien or Vengeance. I also gained a close friend at the time. His name was Tai. He and I got to be close. He told me of his family, I told him of mine. Jia paired us up all the time to work so it was no wonder that we got to know and like each other so well.
During my job, I was shot, I was almost killed, I was wounded, I was in fights, I killed people, I stole and I robbed and I begin to grow cold on the inside just so I couldn't feel guilty anymore. As problems and situations grew with Jia, we found it spilt over to Tai and his family was killed. I was the first person he called. I couldn't believe what he was telling me, and he was so calm that I could almost swear he was joking. But I knew he would never joke about this. At the funeral, I stood by his side and would be there in case he needed something to lean on. Again, I was faced with the racism of Tai's wife's family thinking I couldn't understand as they insulted me because I looked white. I understood all to well. I said nothing. It didn't matter anyway. After that, Jia paid Koniko, the man who did this to Tai, back and in full payment. Tai killed him and his daughter. And Jia took everything Koniko had. My close friend suffered permanent scars that would never heal and I felt for him. I was there for him.
As Jia tried to build his empire, somewhere along the way, he was caught. I was in the building when it happened. So was everyone else. Police and federal agents stormed in, breaking glass, shooting people throwing gas in the building. My first thought was to Tai. I didn't want him to be caught but the smoke was beginning to overwhelm me and I couldn't see much. So I ducked down behind a table in an empty office and tried breathing through my sleeve. I pulled my gun out and crawled along the floor to get out of that room. Once I did, I ran down the hall to find Tai. Once I found him with Iason, we got into the stairwell and began going down the flights of stairs. I was nervous but paranoid and wired. On the twentieth floor, the feds raided in from the top floor, the cops at the bottom. We couldn't get out the main stairwell because cops had it covered. Between the three of us we managed to make some running move and went for it. Tai and Iason were ahead of me, and I was watching their backs. Just then I got pulled back. I screamed at Iason and Tai to go ahead and a struggle was put up. I didn't want to be caught because then that meant I failed. I failed Tai and Jia and my mother. I finally got slammed against the floor and had my hands cuffed behind me. I could feel the blood coming from my mouth as I got pulled up and walked the rest of the way out.
I was the first one caught. Not soon afterwards, Iason came out dead. Then Tai. He was wounded but he was alive. One by one we were all arrested. And then tried and then sent to jail. I had never been in prison before and I was there for almost a year when I got a visitor. I thought that strange since the only people I knew were here with me. That day I went to the visitors area where I sat behind a glass window with three holes in front of it so I could talk. I waited for a few moments until I saw a woman come in. A faint reminder echoed in my head as I realized who she was. It was my mother. She sat across from me as she put her hands on the table. I looked at her seeing I echoed her in every way possible. I looked at her for a long time before she said,
"Gabriel Kishien-Allen."
"Just Kishien."
"My son."
"Hai."
"So...this is what you became."
I was a little surprised to hear that.
"You became a yakuza. A killer and drug peddler. I'm so ashamed of you. You should keep your father's name rather then taint my family's. You deserve to be in here. I hope you rot in here for the rest of your life. I'm so ashamed to have you be my son. I regret ever having you."
I stared at her in shock for a moment before I got up and walked away. I knew then why she never came back, why she left me and my father there in the states. She was also ashamed of me. And for a moment it hurt to hear that since I had come here just to find her again. The sadness quickly left as I realized that, she was no kind of mother. And I was ashamed to have her be my mother, for me to say that woman is my mother. She was nothing I remembered and everything else that hurt me. She was just like everyone else that asked those same questions when I was a kid and those same Japanese people that insulted me because they thought I was nothing but a dumb lost American tourist.
I found acceptance in my lifestyle of crime, death and drugs. But I couldn't find it in my mother.