Ransom (12 page)

Ransom was not pleased with them for complaining about his comments last week, so they could have it straight from the book this time. He slowly repeated the page number and they reluctantly opened their books, the cover of which featured a wavy-haired executive behind a Bauhaus desk and a blond secretary taking dictation, blouse buttoned up to the neck but showing a bit of knee. This was Level Two of the A-OK system. Adorning the cover of Level One was a prim, less attractive secretary taking dictation from a less commanding executive. Several students had asked him about the cover of Level Three, no doubt hoping to hear that the blonde had shed her clothing and crawled across the desk on her hands and knees.

Ransom read: “Lesson Seven: Talking Business the American Way. Dialogue One: ‘Wanted, A Real Go-Getter.'” He anticipated the hands that shot up around the table. Mr. Hayashi asked, “What is go-getter?”

Ransom's father often employed the phrase as a term of great approbation, but his son knew he would have trouble explaining why to people who had been raised on self-effacement and group thinking. “Okay. A go-getter is someone who . . . is very aggressive. Who knows what he wants. And goes . . . and gets it.” He thought this last a nice touch.

The faces around the table showed puzzlement tinged with alarm. Hayashi, class bird dog, raised his hand. “Is this a bad person?”

Ransom pondered the inherent value judgments. This note of aggressiveness and self-assertion was disturbing to his students. “I think,” he said, “that in America, such a person would be considered a very good businessman.”

More puzzlement. Proceed.

“Okay. Hayashi, you start. You are Mr. Robinson. As we all know, Mr. Robinson is the Personnel Director of Vidco. Right?”

Hayashi beamed, fingers spread, palms down on either side of his book, ready to assume executive responsibility.

“Mr. Sato.” Sato jumped at the unmistakable syllables of his name, then slumped lower in his chair. Lazy and reluctant, Sato would make an intriguing go-getter. Ransom wondered briefly if it was Sato who had ratted on him, then realized that Sato would not have understood the conversation in question.

“Mr. Sato, you are Jim Banks. You are applying for a
job. Remember, you are a real go-getter. Self-assured. Aggressive. All right, go get 'em.”

Hayashi cleared his throat, pressed his palms down hard on the table.

Hayashi/Robinson: “Come right in, Jim. Have a sheet.” Ransom: “That's
seat
.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Have a sit.”

Sato/Banks: “Thank you.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Frankly, Jim, I'm quite impressed with your . . .”

Ransom: “Résumé.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Your résumé. You seem to have a track record of proven sales performance. I see you decided fairly early on that sales was your bag.”

Sato/Banks: “That's true, Mr. Robinson.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Call me Flank.”

Ransom: “Frank.”

Sato/Banks: “Well, Flank, I believe I mentioned working my way through college with my own . . . perfumé. . .

Ransom: “Perfume.”

Sato looked up, his face expressing surprise and injury; he had correctly applied the pronunciation of “résumé” to a word that looked almost identical, only to be told he was wrong. He shook his head sadly and looked back at the book.

Sato/Banks: “Perfume distributorship. On graduating I sold the business for a handsome profit.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Very enterprising. You seem to be a real
go-getter
, Jim. And I see you haven't been idle since then.”

Pause.

Ransom: “Sato, you're on.”

Sato/Banks: “
Doko?
Okay, okay. Well, I joined the Unifax sales force three years ago and I'm now regional sales manager for an eight-state legion.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Unifax seems to have done really well by you.”

Sato/Banks: “They have, but frankly, I'm looking for a new challenge. I think my talons could best be utilized in a national sales position with an aggressive, growth-oriented firm.”

Hayashi/Robinson: “Well, Jim. The Vidco sales team could certainly use a prayer like you.”

Utter bafflement. The clock over the door said 6:26. Another hour to go.

Night practice had an air of ceremony. Under the spotlight the parking lot took on the aspect of a stage or an altar. Men in white robes. The sprawl of the day was reduced to a circle of light.

Ransom led calisthenics, taking care not to rush the stretching; there were enough ways to get hurt without pulling a muscle or popping a joint. They worked up the body—toes, Achilles tendons, ankles, knees, thighs. Facing him, the others moved as if they were shadows of a single figure, perfectly in sync. The sensei sat on the steps of the gym, smoking a cigarette. Ransom proceeded to drills: middle kicks, high kicks, right and left, fifty each. He watched the Monk and Yamada in the front row, tuning himself to their rhythm until it seemed to him that the kicks were not rising out of any volition of his own but as a manifestation of a collective effort.

The sensei told them to pair off for drills, directing the Monk, Yamada and Ransom to work with the junior ranks. A motorcycle pulled into the lot as the sensei was demonstrating a three-kick combination. Ransom paired up with Udo, the bodybuilder. As they moved
off to their spot, Ransom saw DeVito remove his helmet and lean back against the seat of his bike.

He tried to ignore him, but found himself working Udo much harder than he might have. He was impatient with Udo's offense; the flash of impulses in Udo's eyes telegraphed his attacks, and the actual contact was an anticlimax. In such a mundane context Ransom was unable to show his abilities, and when he took the attack he pounded Udo back across the lot, knocking him over before he realized what he was doing.

After fifteen minutes they changed drills and partners. Although Ransom didn't look at DeVito, he knew he was there. Working with Tadashi, another undistinguished opponent, he wished that the sensei would give them something more interesting to do. Usually the sensei participated in the drills, but tonight he was slouching around the sidelines. He came over once and told Ransom to stop favoring his left leg. Several times he shouted admonitions at Yamada.

After an hour of slogging through drills Ransom hoped for sparring, an occasion for performance. At the same time, his habitual anxiety about sparring was aggravated by DeVito's gaze. By the time the sensei called them in from drills he was thoroughly disgusted with himself. If he couldn't keep DeVito from clouding his mind, then he hadn't learned anything.

Two points, no restrictions
, the sensei said. He called Yamada out first. Beginning with a schoolboy who had joined the dojo only a few weeks ago, Yamada fought five easy matches in order of rank, although his last opponent almost caught him with a middle kick and the sensei told
him twice that he was looking sloppy. Then the Monk came in, quickly dispatched Sato, Ichii, and Minamoto, all of whom were competent, but looked scared and clumsy against Ito. Next was Suzuki, a thin high school student with a DA haircut and a good front kick. As soon as the sensei started the match, he threw himself at the Monk with a flurry of limbs and then crumpled, lying jackknifed on the asphalt, a clicking sound in his throat.

The sensei hoisted him to his feet, held him by the ribs, and explained that his stance was too high. The Monk stood with his hands folded in front of his crotch, eyes half-closed. Once Suzuki recovered his wind, the sensei told him to try again. This time he attacked with his hands. The Monk stepped back and inserted a delicate front-thrust between Suzuki's moving arms, pulling it just short of the forehead. The sensei called the point. Suzuki tilted his head and squinted at Ito's fist, as if the outcome might look better from different angle. He bowed and retired with a fatalistic shake of the head.

Now was Ransom's turn. He stepped out to take Suzuki's place, fixing his eyes on the Monk's, holding the gaze through the bow. The Monk settled back, way down in cat stance, all of his weight back on the rear leg, folded nearly double, while the lead foot barely touched the pavement. He made an L with his forearms in front of his chest, the left vertical, the right horizontal. It seemed to Ransom that Ito's eyes were like pools in which no fish were showing; he would have to throw out some bait. He kicked. The Monk swept the kick away with his forearm. Ransom threw another kick, two jabs, and got knocked sideways by a kick in the ribs.

His breath was short and there was a dull pain in his ribs. The sensei told him to straighten up and fight. The ache in his ribs was either going to slow him down or serve as his weapon. He straightened up, then lowered himself into a crouch facing the Monk. When he inhaled, he drew the ache into a fine, hot wire extending from his side up into his right arm. He aimed it at the Monk. He saw the wire pointing toward the Monk's chest. When the Monk came at him he drove it home, feeling the impact of his knuckles against the Monk's sternum travel back to its point of origin in his ribs. The pain dissipated and then it was gone, as if it had travelled from his own body into the Monk's.

The sensei called the point, the first time Ransom had ever scored on the Monk. He was trying to remember how he had done it, as they squared off, when the Monk kicked him in the chest for the match.

When he remembered to look for DeVito, he was gone.

After practice, as Ransom was folding up his gi, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Very nice
, said the Monk.
I congratulate you
.

I was lucky
, Ransom said.

The Monk shook his head.
All of your training was in that punch
. Then he said something about focus.

Ransom smiled foolishly. Ito, the Monk, smiled back. They stood this way, face to face, for a moment; Ransom vaguely anticipating a benediction, a word or gesture that would seal the transfer he felt had taken place. The Monk bowed, turned and walked off, his white gi slung over his shoulder, rolled and tied in the ragged black belt, plastic sandals flopping.

Ransom drifted with the others across the street to the noodle shop where the toothless sobaya-san could not welcome them enough. Yamada was already sitting at the front table with a beer. When he saw Ransom he put down his glass and began to clap.

Nice move
, he said.

Lucky move
, the sensei called out from the counter.

Yamada pulled out a chair for Ransom, poured a glass of beer and told him to drink it off. Ransom complied. Yamada ordered two more of the big half-liter bottles. Ransom thought about DeVito. Sizing him up. What he saw tonight would probably make him terribly confident. Ransom told himself that he didn't care what DeVito thought, but his presence seemed to promise trouble.

Yamada came back with beer.
Time for sex crimes
, he announced, and changed channels on the television. The room went quiet. The host and hostess of the show welcomed the home and studio audiences, then traded double entendres which the noodle shop audience thought hilarious. Most of them were over Ransom's head.

What do we have tonight
, the host asked. He was wearing a pink tuxedo, a blue boutonnière and several pounds of hair spray.

One gang rape
, the woman responded brightly,
one double suicide, and a love-triangle murder. We'll be right back
.

An ad for instant noodles came on, followed by back to back detergents. Yamada told Ransom to drink up. The sensei, who had ducked out to the bathroom, returned and asked what the lineup was. Ransom wondered what the Monk was doing. He imagined Ito in a bare, monastic cell,
two tatami mats and a small table at which he performed occasional calligraphy, sitting cross-legged, mentally reviewing the evening's practice, every motion, every contraction of muscular tissue, every neuron explosion. Yamada enthusiastically described last week's ax murder, voted best episode of the week by the studio audience, which was asked, at the end of the show, to select their favorite of the three dramatic re-enactments of true life sex crimes, taken from the files of police precincts all over Japan.

The noodle shop audience was not especially impressed with the first episode, a standard love-triangle deal. A young salary man conceives a passionate attachment for a bar hostess; his parents arrange a marriage for him with an unappealing stranger. He marries, which event scarcely interrupts the serious business of his life, including his affair. However, one day a Korean businessman proposes to the hostess, who accepts. She informs her lover of this one night when they are lying in bed, post-coitus, in a love hotel. They remain in the hotel for days. The scene switches to the front desk of the hotel, to which the salary man, increasingly haggard, keeps returning to pay for another few hours on the room. The staff jokes about the honeymoon couple, takes bets on how long they can keep it up. Until, finally, after a week, they begin to notice the smell.

No one is impressed; this was standard material. Yamada said that they always saved the best for last. Ransom said he hated to miss out on the good stuff, but he had to be going.

His karate sensei gave him a letter of recommendation to a kendo dojo. DeVito couldn't read all of it, but the sensei said it commended him for his true spirit of Budo, the Martial Way. He brought the letter to the budokan and watched a practice session. Looking like enraged baseball umpires, some thirty men in padded blue smocks and helmets whacked each other with bamboo staves. All in all, this seemed a little tame. When the session ended DeVito appoached the sensei, bowed deeply and presented the letter. The sensei had a face like a drill sergeant, lips like knife blades. He glanced at the letter, balled it up and tossed it over his shoulder.

Why do you want to pursue kendo?
he said.

DeVito had been prepared for this. He bowed again and said that the way of the sword was the highest expression of the spirit of Budo. He made his grammar deliberately awkward, hoping this would add to the impression of humility.