In the Miso Soup (3 page)

“Whiskey-and-water okay?” Reika asked in English. Frank and I nodded, and she poured the unlabeled whiskey into our glasses, then squirted it with water from a siphon.

“
Kochira Amerika no kata?
” Rie asked, sidling closer to Frank. You weren’t allowed to touch the girls in this pub. But sometimes, if you stuck to the rules, the girls themselves would initiate contact. Frank must have caught the word “
Amerika
,” because he turned to Rie and softly said: “Yes.”

Afraid that Frank might take the same tiny sips as he had with his beer earlier, I made sure to explain that since the pub worked on a time system he could drink as much whiskey as he liked for the same price. He took tiny sips anyway. You couldn’t tell if he was drinking or just wetting his lips, and it was annoying to watch. Reika was sitting on the far side of Frank, and Rie was between him and me. Reika put her hand on Frank’s thigh and smiled.

“What’s your name?” Frank asked her, and she told him.

“Reika?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Really?”

“I think it’s very pretty.”

“Thank you.”

Reika’s English was about middle-school level. I’m not a whole lot better, mind you, just more accustomed to using it.

“Do a lot of Americans come here?” Frank asked her.

“Sometimes.”

“Your English is good.”

“No! I want to speak better, but difficult. I want to get money and go America.”

“Oh really? You wanna go to school there?”

“No school! I am stupid! No, I want to go Niketown.”

“Niketown?”

“Do you like Nike?”

“Nike? The sporting goods maker?”

“Yes! You like Nike, aren’t you?”

“Well, I do have some of their shoes—or wait, maybe mine are Converse. But why do you like Nike so much?”

“No why! I just like. Do you go Niketown?”

“See, I don’t know what this Niketown thing is,” Frank said. “Do you, Kenji?”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said.

Reika adjusted her bra strap and said: “One big building, many Nike shops! And we can enjoy Nike commercials on giant video screen! My friend said to me. She go to shopping Niketown and buy five,
ano
. . . ten shoes! Oh! It’s my dream, go to shopping Niketown!”

“Your dream?” Frank registered disbelief. “Shopping in Nike stores is your dream?”

“My dream, yes,” Reika said and asked him: “Where did you from?”

When he told her New York City, she gave him a funny look.

“Impossible!” she said. “Niketown is in New York.”

Naturally, all Reika meant was that she was shocked he could live in New York and not be familiar with her dream store: nothing for Frank to get all bent out of shape about. But his expression underwent the same transformation as when the black tout had ignored him. From where I sat I could clearly see the vinyl-like skin of his cheeks twitching and the capillaries appearing, his face going like a watercolor wash from pink to red. I sensed trouble and turned to Reika, saying: “Only the Japanese make a big deal about Niketown, you’d be surprised how many Americans don’t even know about it. I’ve heard that half the customers are Japanese, and New York is a big place, it’s not just Manhattan, you know.” I repeated this in English for Frank’s benefit. Reika nodded, and Frank’s face slowly morphed back to something more or less human. My guess was that Frank was lying about living in New York, but I decided to avoid the subject from then on. Nothing good could come of a guide like me, with no official license, making a customer angry.

“Do you want to karaoke?” Reika asked Frank. One of the other two customers, a middle-aged salaryman, was crooning euphorically into a hand-held mike. He was with a younger colleague, who was drunk and red-faced and humming along, lamely trying to clap in time. In one hand the singer held the mike and in the other the hand of a hostess in pink lingerie. Block out her surroundings, and the hostess might have been holding a sacred flame in a temple in ancient Greece. I figured the two men to be from the sticks. A lot of salarymen from the provinces who visit Tokyo on business trips come to Kabuki-cho at night, probably because it’s the one part of town that doesn’t put on any airs. It’s easy to spot these guys because they always turn bright red when they drink. There’s something different about their features, too, not to mention their fashion sense. Untold numbers of them get taken in by hardcore clip joints, and I’ve often thought guiding tour groups from the farm belt might be profitable. But I’m not about to try to learn all those dialects.

“No karaoke for me,” Frank said, “but how about I study some Japanese? I’d like to practice my Japanese with girls in their underwear.” He extracted
Tokyo Pink Guide
, the book this time, from his bag.

“The Way of Sexual Liberation!” shouted a blurb on the cover, above the title. Translation: This book will make you horny and show you what to do about it. Below the title it said: “What? Where? And How Much? All the information you need to navigate Tokyo’s sexiest spots!” I have a copy of this book for business purposes and am slowly wading through it, partly to brush up my English, but I have to admit it’s pretty interesting. For example, Chapter 9 is about the gay scene. It starts with historical background, how the Buddhist prohibitions against women and the machismo of samurai society gave rise to a love of boys, and goes up to the present, taking care to explain that even though the entire sex industry in Japan has developed xenophobia because of AIDS, gays from more enlightened countries are still given a warm welcome in Shinjuku Ni-chome. It even names the best clubs to visit if you happen to be foreign.

Frank opened the bright pink book and looked from Reika to Rie, saying: “All right then, here goes.” In the back of the book was a simple Japanese-English sex glossary, and he began reading words in alphabetical order.

“
Aho
,” he said in a booming voice, and gave us the English translation (Shithead).

“What did he just say?” Rie asked me, not quite understanding his accent. When I repeated the word, she began laughing and slapping her knee, saying: “
Iya da! Kawaii!
” (I can’t stand it! How cute!)

Next Frank read the word
Aijin
(Mistress), then
Ai shiteru
(I love you). He muttered the English translations under his breath, but his voice was loud and resonant when he read the words in Japanese.

“
Aitai
(I want to see you),
Akagai
(Ark shell; Vagina),
Ana
(Hole),
Ana de yaritai
(I want to stick it in),
Anaru sekkusu
(Anal sex),
Asoko
(Down there) . . .
Asoko . . . Asoko . . . Asoko
. . . .”

It’s endearing when foreigners try their best to communicate in broken Japanese. When they’re giving it all they’ve got, you find yourself wanting to reward them by comprehending. My English is probably about the level of a decent high-school student’s, but I’ve found that you actually get on better with clients if you struggle to choose the right words rather than try to sound like a native speaker, the way so many idiot Japanese DJs do. As Frank kept repeating
asoko
, Reika and Rie began giggling uncontrollably, and even the other hostesses were turning to see what was so funny. Without the least hint of embarrassment—or lewdness, either—Frank plowed ahead, stumbling over the pronunciations but with an earnest, innocent expression on his face, like an actor on stage, projecting each syllable:
A-SO-KO
.

“
Dai suki
(Love ya!),
Dame
(No!),
Dankon
(Penis),
Danna-san
(Mister),
Dare demo ii desu
(Anyone will do),
Dechatta
(Oops! I came),
Debu
(Fatso),
Dendo kokeshi
(Vibrator),
Desou desu
(I’m going to come),
Doko demo dotei
(A total virgin),
Doko demo dotei dakara desou desu
(I’m a total virgin, so I’m going to come),
Doko demo dotei dakara desou desu, Doko demo dotei dakara desou desu. . . .
”

Frank was noting which phrases got the biggest reaction from Reika and Rie, and these he’d repeat over and over, combining some of them and throwing in other Japanese words he knew. The hostesses sitting unoccupied near the entrance had now stood up to try and hear what Frank was saying, the karaoke singers had put down the mike and were chuckling along with us, and even the two thuggish-looking waiters were enjoying the show. Me, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. It literally brought tears to my eyes.

“
Sawaranai
(I won’t touch),
Sawaritai
(I want to touch),
Seibyo
(Venereal disease),
Seiko
(Intercourse),
Seiyoku
(Sexual desire),
Senzuri
(Jerking off),
Shakuhachi
(Bamboo flute; Blow job),
Shasei
(Ejaculation),
Shigoku
(To stroke),
Shigoite kudasai
(Please stroke it),
Shigoite kudasai . . . Shigoite kudasai. . . . Sukebe
(Horny bastard),
Sukebe jijii
(Horny old bastard),
Suki desu ka
(Do you like?),
Suki desu
(I like),
Sukebe jijii suki desu ka?
(Do you like horny old bastards?),
Sukebe jijii suki desu
(I like horny old bastards)
. . . Sukebe jijii suki desu
. . . .”

The harder we laughed, the more serious Frank looked. He just spoke even louder in order to be heard. Beads of sweat were appearing on Reika and Rie’s foreheads and noses and chests, and tears were rolling down their cheeks as they cackled and hiccupped and sputtered. The crooners from the countryside had forgotten all about singing now, and the karaoke track was nearly drowned out by our laughter. Frank, however, continued to observe the ironclad rule of comedians: never laugh at your own stuff. He went on to do almost an hour of this, going back and forth through the entire glossary.

Eventually another pair of customers came in, and the two from the sticks began singing again. The new pair apparently asked for Rie, who moved to their table after shaking Frank’s hand and making me tell him she hadn’t laughed like that in ages. Reika told Frank: “You are great comedian, I very enjoy!” and slipped away to the restroom to towel off. I was sweating, too, so much that my shirt stuck unpleasantly to my skin. That’s what happens when you laugh your ass off in a place where the heat’s turned up to accommodate ladies in their underwear. I asked one of the waiters, a guy I knew, for the tab, and he flashed me a smile and said: “That’s one fun gaijin!” I won’t say you’ll only find depressive types working in Kabuki-cho, but everyone there has a past of some kind, not to mention a present that’s less than ideal. The employees in this pub probably didn’t often get the opportunity to laugh like that, and I was glad they’d enjoyed themselves.

Frank pulled out his wallet and said: “Kenji, what’s this Niketown business? Why is it so popular with the Japanese?”

He wasn’t sweating at all. I wondered what had made him come out with this question now, so long after the conversation, but I didn’t ask. The Japanese like anything that’s popular in America, I said.

“I never heard of Niketown,” said Frank. “Never knew there was such a place.”

“I believe you. It’s only here, in this country, that everybody goes crazy over the same things at once.”

When the check came, Frank extracted two ¥10,000 notes from his wallet. On one of them was a dark stain, about the size of a large coin, that bothered me a little. It looked like dried blood.

“Frank, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much.”

“Really? The girls got a kick out of it too, didn’t they?”

“Do you always do things like that?”

“Like what?”

“Make people laugh. I mean, by telling jokes and so on.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just having a Japanese lesson, and then before I knew it it turned into this thing. I still don’t really understand what was so hilarious.”

We had left the lingerie pub and were walking along the street behind the Koma Theater. It was a little past ten-thirty, and we hadn’t yet discussed our next move. I was exhausted from laughing like that, and it had been so hot inside the pub that my only thought was to walk awhile to cool off and settle down. I kept thinking about that ¥10,000 note with what looked like a bloodstain on it. And wondering why it bothered me so much.

“It was a brilliant performance, Frank. Did you study acting or anything?”

“No, but when I was small I had two older sisters who liked that sort of thing. Whenever we had company we used to fool around imitating comedians we’d seen on TV and so forth. But that’s about it.”

We came to a narrow side street with an atmosphere I’ve always found kind of eerie. It’s like stumbling onto a movie set from the Fifties, a street lined with tiny bars and mahjong parlors, and tea rooms with ivy-grown entrances and classical music playing, all with retro-looking signs out front. One of the bars even had a terra-cotta flowerpot hanging beside the door. The little white flowers shivered in the December wind of Kabuki-cho—a wind ripe with alcohol and sweat and garbage—and reflected the yellow and pink lights of the Koma Theater. Frank seemed to respond to the old-fashioned atmosphere. He stopped at the corner, beneath the simple neon sign of a bar called Auge, and peered into the narrow lane.

“Kenji, there aren’t any touts around here.”

That, I explained, was because anyone walking this way would already have decided exactly where he was going. On this street you didn’t get the drunken sorts roving arm in arm with their buddies, checking out all the clubs and looking for the cheapest and easiest place to get their rocks off.

“This is the way Kabuki-cho used to look,” I said.

“Is that so? I guess it’s the same in every town.” Frank started walking again. “Times Square in New York was like this, way back when—used to be lots of nice bars before the sex shops moved in.”