A Woman's Nails (32 page)

BOOK: A Woman's Nails

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How could I say no?

Later, Alex’
s friend,
Nobu
, drove the three of us in a rust bucket of a station wagon to a small bar in Nakasu called
Anchor
. The bar was located on a squalid back street in a building packed like a broiler house with small bars. I expected Anchor to be a typical dive with the usual contingent of the gaudily dressed, outrageously coifed hostesses pumping water into the whiskey, and drunk
salarymen
belting out maudlin
enka
songs. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Stepping into
Anchor
from the di
mly lit corridor I felt as if I’
d been transported fifty ye
ars back in time to the
bridge of a Pacific War era
battle
ship. Behind the counter,
Anchor
's master was dressed like an
admiral, straight as a ramrod and decked out in a crisp white Imperial Naval officer's uniform. As we entered, he removed a silver whistle tucked into his breast pocket and blew with ceremonial flare announcing our coming on board.

Most of the customers were gravely serious, more like right-wingers or
yakuza types
than
salary
men
. There wasn't a woman in the bar, or a hostess, for that matter. The
karaoke
system crackled with rousing martial songs, accompanied by a video highlighting Japan's military prowess. Had I mistakenly stumbled into the bar
on my own, I would have made a quick
about-face and retreated, but Alex and
Nobu
seemed to be regulars. The Admiral directed the three of us to the counter.

After we’
d polished off a large bottle of
shôchû
, the Admiral came from behind the counter and led me to a clothes rack filled with old military uniforms. He pulled one of the uniforms off the rack, then helped me into it. Brown overalls,
a flak jacket and leather pilot’
s cap complete with goggles. As a finishing touch, he wrapped a long white silk scarf around my neck, and with a burnt cork added a Red Baron mustache to my face. He then lowered a backdrop showing the deck of an aircraft carrier with a
Zero fighter ready to take off.

“
Hai, cheezu
,”
the Admiral said, aiming a Polaroid camera at me.

“Cheese,”
I said, trying my best to look like a dead serious
kamikaze
pilot. Ah, if only my parents could have seen me!

After the shenanigans at
Anchor
,
Nobu
led us from one small hostess
bar to the next, where we’
d drink whisky and water and pick up a hostess coming off work before moving on to the next bar. Before long, the three of us were completely drunk, each of us with a girl hanging on our arm.

Though in recent weeks I’
d been relegated to the dating world's equivalent of fetching Gatorade and sunflower seeds f
or more talented players, I
manage
d
to end up with the youngest and prettiest of the tag-along hostesses, sitting on m
y lap as we drove back to Nobu
’
s house deep in the woods of Nishi Kô
en (Nishi Park). Alex and Nobu
went upstairs with their women, leaving the girl and m
e downstairs in the guest room.

She, for I never caught her name, lay down on a bed in the corner; I sat on the floor drinking
shôchû
. When she asked why I was sitting so far away, I put my
shôchû
down and sat on the edge of the bed. She motioned for me to also lay down, so I did, facing her.

She was pretty, not a blemish to be found in her lovely ivory countenance. Tracing her soft features and full lips with my fingers, I told her she was beautiful and kissed her.

When I woke the next morning, she was gone. All that remained was a tussle of damp sheets redolent of her fragrance and the image of her gorgeously plump body, ghostly blue from a distant streetlight outside, moving slowly and silently like a specter above me.

At a time when I’
m panhandling for fri
ends, Alex is the only person I’
m able to call a friend without cringing with embarrassment. That is saying a lot when
you consider the sad excuses I’
ve had the pleasure of meeting over the months.

Firs
t off, there’
s Dave, the guy who rented me a room in the condominium in the middle of nowhere when I moved to Fukuoka from Kitakyûshû. A degenerate gambler and womanizer,
the only time he ever
call
s
me up
nowadays is
when he wants to separate me from my money.
“Hey, P, how’s it goin’
? We
oughta get together for a beer,” he’
d begin affably.

“Sounds great, Dave.”

“
By the way, do you need a coup
le of ceiling fans?”

Ceiling fans? Is he high? I can’t imagine what I’
d do with one, let alone two
, ceiling fans. “
No, not
really.”

“
No? Ah, that's too bad.
They’
re a real bargain. Well, I’
ll catch you later, P.”

Then there’
s the Canadian I met a few weeks ago.

“Wow, you can speak Japanese,”
he said, overhearing me chat up a Japanese girl at the
Big Apple
.

“Not very well, I’m afraid.”

He was fresh off the boat and as overwhelmed by everything as I had been a year earlier. I took him to
Umie
for a beer, where we ended up talking for hours. It had been months since another foreigner opened up to me, confessing all the things that were confusing and worrying him. I reciprocated by relating my experiences, the good, the bad and the miserable. I gave him my number and encouraged hi
m to call anytime.

As th
e Canadian was leaving, one of bartenders
asked me if he was my friend. I looked towards the exit as he was walking out. Blond curls poked f
rom under a gray baseball cap. “Yeah,” I replied. “Yeah, he is my friend.”

To my happy surprise, the Canadian rang me up a week later and we arranged to meet at the
Big Apple
. He wasn’
t there when I arrived, but I had expected as much: they don’t
come
much “looser” than Canadians.

I sat down at a table by myself and
started drinking, drank until I’
d become drunk, continued drinking some more until the good mood that had accompanied me to the
Big Apple
had fizzled away
. Only after I had become thoroughly useless with drink, barely able to manage the stool I was teetering on, let alone a conversation, did the jerk arrive. He was two and a half hours late, beaming like an idiot. I was two and a half hours deep into my cups, careening precariously.

“How ya doin’
, Pete?" he said, and flitted off into the crowd of dancers before I
could tell him my name wasn't “Pete”
.

I left the bar alone, staggered down the street to
Umie
and hid in the comfortable anonymity of a dark corner where I sulked over two more beers. With my wallet running on fumes, I finally stood up and with uneasy s
teps began the long walk home.

As I passed
Big Apple
, I caught sight of the Canadian, bent over and straining to tongue a chubby girl half his height.

Good for you
, I thought.
Nice one!

I considered continuing on, going home where the promise of a clean toilet to puke in awaited me, but decided, instead, t
o say good-night to the man who
s
e
invitation had coaxed me out of my caliginous hole in the first place. I wanted to give the friendship a chance, wanted to meet some other night when we could talk without having to worry about the time or without trying to get laid, talk until he had exhausted his curiosity and more importantly unt
il I’
d exorcised a demon or two.

“Hey, Pete,”
he said
, finally coming up for air. He’
d been going at it with piggy for so long, I was sure the two of them would asphyxiate.

I tried to tell him I was heading home, but the words came out in an awkward slur. When I began to ask if he had plans for next weekend, he separated himself from the chick, and took a few steps towards me.

“
Oh man, this is all I do, y'know? I mean, the only reason I come here, eh, is for the cheap beer and
that
,”
he said with a nod towards the girl. The little piggy leaned against the wall with her head down and fiddled with her
bangs. “Man, I dunno, Pete. It’s like I can’
really give you the
kinna friendship you're lookin’ for, know what I mean?”

I could have punched him, but drunk as I was I probably would have missed.

“
Most of
the foreigners here are flakes,” I tell Shinobu. “And the Japanese, I’
m so
rry, but the Japanese are cold.”

“It’s difficult for Japanese, too,”
she reminded me.

“
You know what? Before I came to Japan, everyone said it was so easy to meet girls in Jap
an. ‘Girls just walk up to you,’ they said. ‘
It’
s tough to have a steady relationship
because you keep getting lucky,’ they said. But I’m telling you it’
s not easy to meet people, let alone someone you really care about
.” Shinobu’
s hands
are on the table next to mine. “
God, Shinobu . . . I was so lucky
with Mie. But, you know, I didn’
t re
alize it until it was too late.”

“You still haven’
t
gotten over Mie-chan, have you?”
she says, her hands retreating to the edge of the
table. “It takes time,”
she assures me, placing
her hands on her lap. “
You just need to be patient. But, in the meantime
, you should ‘play’ with girls.”

With no prospects on the horizon to “play with girls” as Shinobu suggests, I rent an
adaruto
bideo
[14]
on
my
way home and play with myself, instead.

NEKKO

I find myself at
Umie
again, same barstool up my arse, marinating my liver with the same cheap drinks in the hope that the proper combination of variables, like
an
alignment of heavenly bodies, will have Nekko-chan rubbing her body against mine and purring once more into my ear, the way she did two weeks ago.

With nowhere to go, no one to meet and nothing to do after work last Saturd
ay, I headed straight home.

A
few days earlier while
I
star
ed
out
a window at all the lovely young OL’
s
who were
returning home from their offices, I grumbled to myself how nice it would be to not have to work until eight-thirty
every
evening, to have a life of so
rts that involved dinner at six
and
dates and loafing in front of the television. Yumi, who overheard me, reported my grievances to
our
boss, as she
often
does, causing me to be summoned to the small classroom for my weekly reprimand.