The Chevrolet was parked in front of the station plaza. The car had not been carefully parked and the taxi drivers had to thread their way around the immense hunk of Detroit steel to get to the loading zones.

The American was standing like a sentry by his automobile, oblivious to inconvenience he was inflicting. With his cropped, light brown hair, white shirt and green slacks, he and his car looked like some kind of post-modern sculpture. Both were obviously out of their element.

"I guess you ride those things a lot," he said.

"What things?" said Thackeray. "Oh. Trains. Yeah, we do."

"You know, I've never been on one."

"Never been on a train?" said Matlock.

"Don't get off the base very often. Only going to be here another year, you know. Suppose I ought to get out and see the country."

"What?" said Matlock.

"Hey! A Chevy!" Johnson whistled. "How'd you get it?"

"Bought it from a guy on rotation. People used to ship 'em over all the time, you know."

"Well, that's a sight!"

"Which one of you is Elder Gordon?"

Gordon stepped forward.

"I'm Brother Nolan."

"Haji-- Pleased to meet you."

"This your district?"

"We're all here."

"Pile in. It's about a mile to the base."

The car rolled slowly down the narrow streets. It was like any other small Japanese town, shop fronts crowding the sidewalks, narrow front yards cordoned off with grey cinder block walls. Except that in Odawara, pedestrians would have stopped and gawked at an American car driven by an American. No one noticed here. Brother Nolan made a left turn, and the gates and guard blocks were suddenly in front of them.

Brother Nolan nodded to the guard and drove on through.

"Holy Cow!" Johnson pressed his face against the passenger window.

"Will you look at that, will you look at that. Lawns! When's the last time you saw a lawn?"

"And real houses," said Brother Nolan, jokingly. A dumb thing to say, thought Thackeray, but it was the first thing that popped into his head, too. A Cape Cod here. A split level there. A lot of two-family flats, standing proud and American behind the broad front lawns, square-sectioned sidewalks, neatly painted blacktop. Thackeray stared and twisted around. Japan had vanished. They had driven into America.

Brother Nolan parked behind the base chapel. They walked into the building, on the shiny linoleum, with their shoes on, to a large rec room. Full of food, Americans, missionaries.

"Hey Thack!"

"How ya doing, Tuckett?"

"Okay. I'm okay."

"I saw they put you together with Kempner Chourou."

"Yeah. It's working out pretty well. Hey, you know who's dying next Tuesday? Jensen."

"Congratulations."

"Yeah. We're having a party."

Thackeray felt Kempner's thick hand clamp down on his shoulder. "Looks like I caught me a runaway."

"Hiya Kempner Chourou. Nice improvement on the last stat sheet."

"Yeah. Maybe I'll be out of the doghouse by time I die."

"Just don't get caught stealing doughnuts."

"No way."

"Yo! Adkins!"

"Where's that D.L. of yours?"

"Over there."

"Who's the new sister missionary? No, the cute one--"

"Yeah, I know. I'm gonna smoke you at the arcades next zone conference. Yo! Gordon. Hear what I said?"

"When are we gonna start eating?"

"WELL, LET'S GET THIS THING ROLLING!" A stocky man, graying around the temples, stood up on a chair. "Hey, Brother Allen, that means you, too." He grinned. "Well, we're really glad you missionaries could share this Thanksgiving with us." There was a smattering of applause. "And for you who don't know me--I see a few new rotatees out there--I'm President Whitfield. As you know, the family and I just got back from an inspection tour in California. Spend ten hours laying over in Hawaii. And I'll tell you, never thought I'd say it, but it's good to be home! Now, Brother Allen, get up here and bless the food."

Brother Allen offered a Thanksgiving prayer: long, but tolerable.

"Geez, I don't know where to begin," said Johnson, leaning over the serving table.

"Anywhere," said Gordon.

They heaped up their plates and sat down together.

"This chair taken?"

"Nope."

A man not much older looking than the missionaries sat down next to Thackeray. "Hi," he said. "Name's Jim. Jim Eddins."

"Elder Thackeray."

"Where're you from?"

"Odawara. Or New York. Depending."

"Seattle."

"Army?"

"Coast Guard. This is my first tour. Say, do you guys come to the base very often?"

"Just on Thanksgiving. Yokohama missionaries get farmed out to Yokosuka and I guess the Air Force bases get the rest."

"I didn't know the Coast Guard went overseas," said Gordon.

"Sure do. I'm a technician. Radar telemetry."

Matlock said, "I have a question."

"What's that?"

"We rode in with this Nolan guy."

Yeah. Tom."

"Said he's never been on a train before."

"Yeah. Tom's one of our closet cases. You know, guys that come on a three year extended and never step off the base unless it's in a sightseeing bus."

Gordon said, "With this place, though, that wouldn't be so hard to do. Reminds me of suburban Pasadena without the smog."

"Don't have to live on base, though. I share an apartment with Bob over there. The Hirsch's live on the economy, too. Do it right and you really come out ahead."

A middle-aged woman came around behind the table. "It's so nice to have you Elders here," she said, patting Matlock on the shoulder.

"Thank you, ma'am," mumbled Matlock through a mouthful of potatoes.

"I suppose it's difficult for you growing boys having to eat that Japanese food all the time."

"It's not so bad, ma'am."

"Well, we're glad we have this opportunity to give you elders a good American meal. Eat as much as you want, now."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Thackeray drank some punch and tried not to laugh.

"I hate being called 'elder,'" said Matlock, after the woman left. "What does she think we are, starving prisoners of war?"

"We probably act like it."

By this time, Johnson was ready for seconds.

"Careful, big guy," warned his companion."You can't put it down like this all the time. Stomach's gonna tighten right up."

He was convinced of this only after splitting a pie with a marine from Pocatello.

Thackeray felt his right leg going to sleep. He got up and walked to the end of the room and sat up on the edge of the stage. He watched the Americans eating and talking and socializing, and it struck him that they were all either tall or fat, or both, except for the enlisted men, who were just big.

"Having a good time?" A girl sat beside him on the stage. She had long brown hair and was wearing jeans. She looked about eighteen.

"What's your name?"

"Thackeray."

"Why don't any of you have on those little badges? It would make it easier to get to know you guys."

"Out of habit, I guess. We don't wear them when we dendou because people see the 'kyokai' and it scares them off. Makes them think we're Sokes or Moonies or something."

She nodded. "By the way, my name's Lisa Hirsch."

"Haji--"

"Hajimemashite," she interrupted. "There, beat you to it."

"Sorry. Force of habit."

"I'm taking Japanese at school."

"How are you doing?"

"I'm making everybody in the branch dependent on me. Only brats ever bother to learn the language or go off base."

"Brats?"

"You know. Army brats. Actually, we're civilian. On the economy, in fact. Dad doesn't like being on base any more than he has to."

"How do you like it?"

"I think it's neat. You know, you ought to come over and see us sometime. Mom cooks a great sukiyaki."

"I don't think so. I'm in Odawara. Zama is way out of our zone."

"Too bad."

A man waved to them from the other side of the room.

"That's my dad," said Lisa Hirsch, sliding off the edge of the stage. "He probably wants to go now."

"Nice meeting you."

"Yeah. Bye."

Gordon walked up. He was carrying a brown paper grocery sack. "Hey Thack, when's the last time you saw one of these?"

"Where'd you get that?"

"It's our doggie bag. Say, were you counting on being back in time for Eikaiwa?"

"Suppose so."

"Well, then we'd better get a move on."

The crowd in the rec room was beginning to thin out. The Machida zone elders had already left. "Are you sure you can't take some more?" asked Sister Whitfield.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Gordon. "But our refrigerator's not big enough."

"And I'd probably get sick," Matlock said in Japanese.

Jim drove them back to the eki in his beat-up white Nissan. He took a different route than Brother Nolan. "You can save a one-station fare from the south gate," he explained.

The base turned out to be far larger than the small suburb they had first come through. They went past a golf course, and several large playing fields dotted with basketball courts, baseball diamonds and backstops. Broad complexes of bachelor-officer and noncom quarters were scattered about indiscriminately. Thackeray was amazed at how much open space was simply went unused.

They soon came to another "suburb" of houses and office buildings. Bright red octagonal stop signs perched on every corner. Jim waved to the guard and drove back into Japan.

"Thanks for the ride," said Gordon when they arrived at the station.

"No problem. It was great having you guys around." He waved good-bye and drove off.

"You know," said Thackeray, "I feel like I've just come from a foreign country."

"Foreign country?" Gordon laughed. "More like the Twilight Zone. If that's what America is like, I'm going to have a heckuva culture shock going back."