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Thomas "Tommy" Jackson is living the single life in Dallas until a family of people move into his neighborhood across from him, all the way from Japan.
He starts to feel prejudice against them being his neighborhood, considering his grandfather fought in World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor and is racist against the Japanese, until their daughter, Kaori Hosako, is convinced that he's a good person underneath all the hate, but what does Tommy think of her?
This story is already out, but I thought it might be a good idea to put this up in case anybody didn't know.
This story is not a romance story and I want you to understand that with a lot of unkindness going on around the country, I thought it would be a good idea to do a story like this.
And yes, this story is inspired by Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino", but instead of the Hmong people, it's the Japanese. Instead of a midwestern neighborhood, it's in a neighborhood inside the heart of Dallas, Texas, where I think is the best place to have this story take place in.
Here's an excerpt of that story and let me know if you're interested in reading it. Also, most of this dialogue is from Kairi's point of view.
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As a real way of saying thank you to him, I decided to plant a garden on his front porch while he was in town.
I had this garden when I was a kid, back in Japan, and I hoped to plant it, but I never got to. I thought that man would appreciate it.
I planted the bonsai tree on his porch and left a note, saying thank you for protecting me. I didn't tell my parents about this because they were at work and I didn't have school today, so I thought this was perfect timing.
After a minute, he came home and I was hoping to see him happy as I looked out the window to see the result.
~With Tom~
I came home from the store to see this weird plant on my porch with a note. I had to see what it said because it was in perfect English.
"Please accept this bonsai tree. Kaori."
Bonzai tree? What the fuck is a bonzai tree? What bullshit.
I didn't protect her because I liked her, I protected her because I hate sexual assault. After looking at this weird-ass plant, I threw it in the garbage.
It'll make that girl cry but what do I fucking care?
~With Kaori~
He threw out my bonsai tree?! I worked so hard on that!
Well, I can't really blame him for feeling resentful towards me. It seemed like every time I try to do something nice for him, he resents it.
I didn't cry over the tree getting thrown in the garbage, but I was still a bit upset that he didn't accept my gift.
I have to keep bringing in acts of kindness to show that we Japanese people aren't evil. We're just normal people that want to be accepted for who we are.
