Tokio Whip (34 page)

her imprint fades

the scent of it

sheets of it

–
Ohh, it's so cold, cold here.

–
No, no, Mary Anne – there is no more emotional place.

–
No more emotional man?

–
No more.

–
And this woman?

–
A conversation – cold emotion.

She pulls my face towards her on her haunches.

Twenty years ago gangly and nervous with our own natures and now look at them slipping into one another this long sliding thing our nature.

slipstream

streetcar:

there you are!

Your Memphian feet in Chinese slippers;

Memphian thighs in black Chinese slacks

Your Memphian breasts in a red Chinese blouse

Memphian skull – speaking those Memphian words – in a Chinese hat.

Your Memphian cunt in this Chinese face.

–
I don't know what I'm doing.

–
You have a choice?

–
I don't know what I'm doing.

–
You're supposed to know? to do?

–
I don't know what I'm doing.

–
Don't. Don't know.

Your heart in my hand, no, on my palm – firm, standing, beating and all the best adjectives.

She strides standing naked, high breasts – standing still, naked, striding, unconversant.

The night awakened by the voice, the cry, “try me.”

And I will love you till I know it's wrong.

– VZ

***

–
Ever westward!

–
Onward!

–
Eastward!

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Upward!

–
Isn't there supposed to be a ghost somewhere around here?

–
Ghosts are all over the country.

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No, but, oh where was it?, oh yes, in Inokashira Park.

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No, those are college kids running around naked at night.

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Lots of sex taking place there.

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Which means lots of voyeurs.

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But wait, yes, I know the story.

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About voyeurs? What's to know?

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No, about the ghost.

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See.

–
She's the ghost of a woman who was spurned by her lover, and now she lives in the pond, and she splits apart any lovers that go for a stroll there.

–
Really?

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Well, yes – if you want to believe it.

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Lots of people do.

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Really?

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Yes, really; in fact lots of girls do not want to go for walks in the Park with their boyfriends.

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Oh, so it's just the people who come here for sex, is that it? They're under no illusions, and figure there's no love involved, just a good time.

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Could be.

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Still, you do see lots of couples in the park. Families even.

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Yes, but are they together? Will they stay together?

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Maybe someone ought to do a survey.

–
Alright, enough already. We could get stuck on legends and stories every few blocks and never get to where we're going.

–
Ever westward!

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Onward!

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Eastward!

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Upward!

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Kichijoji's the best.

–
Well, Lang's certainly gotten to like it.

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But it is!

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Why?

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Because it combines east and west, old city, new city. The scale is perfect. And historically, it embodies the history and direction of the city.

–
Huh?

–
Well, look, for one example, the original Kichijoji temple was located way over in
shitamachi
somewhere; then the fires, this is in the Edo period, caused it to be moved west – there's one in Sugamo – and finally here. Money-wise, too. This is where people used to have their second homes – or, one of the places, Shibuya's another – and now its keeps a bit of its gentrified side – just look at the big houses behind the main streets – and all the greenery, too – and you'll see what I mean.

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Yeah, and you get young and old too. The old families, and all the kids from the nearby universities.

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“Joji,” as they call it.

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Right, and lots of 'em prefer it to Shibuya.

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Well, you have the train connection. But a lot of 'em do stop here.

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Well, a lot of 'em also come from rather far out, too. They have to stop somewhere.

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The point is that they are happy to stop here.

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I certainly am.

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And you have a lot of foreigners – or Japanese with foreign experience – and so you get the three or four supermarkets with foreign foods available.

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Gee, you guys are really making a case.

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And isn't it a writer's place?

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Right, again the universities, and so there are a lot of academics.

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No, I mean real writers.

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Yes.

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Didn't Dazai do himself in around here?

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Yes, that's right. Was it in Inokashira Park? Or the river?

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Lots of good food here –

–
And record shops –

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And clothes –

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Parco –

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Clubs –

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Lots of stuff –

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Something for everyone –

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Ok, ok, we're not writing an ad for the place –

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Right, we're beginning to sound like copywriters –

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But we are –

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No, we're not, not now anyway.

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We're walkers –

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Ever westward!

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Onward!

–
Eastward!

–
Upward!

***

Hiromi (or was it Hiroko?) hadn't seen van Zandt in a week. She'd tried to leave him messages, but he'd not left on his answering machine. And then, he wasn't the type to return calls anyway. And, he'd told her to never visit him unannounced. She'd walked – in that deceptive light skip of hers that made everyone think her unaffected by events – to his two or three hang-outs in Asakusa, and again he hadn't showed. Was he on a binge?, with another girl?, ditching her? Hiroko (or was it Hiromi?) did not know what to do. Call Roberta?

***

There were three couples fucking. A gay couple visiting. VZ and a woman I wanted. Someone else whom I can't recollect. And I lived there. Sure, I was happy for them, the more fucking the better. A bit noisy, with those thin walls in such a small house. And I was only too mindful that the sex that was not mine – I remember her skin, her smile, the eyes never modest in that demure Japanese way, but exultant. So I felt like a guest in my own home. Was this fair? Or maybe there is a truth here that I failed to recognize. Tokyo is my home, and I am its guest. More and more sex then, for the city.

***

This waitress is too old for Hiro, that one too young, this one too skinny, and that one too fat. This beer is too cold, and that one not cold enough. This fish overcooked, and that one under. This colleague too silly, and that one overly serious. This office lady too demure, and that one too brash (that loud laugh). This manager too ostentatious, that one too faux modest. This
saké
too sweet, and that one too dry. This morning too cold, this evening too warm. This restaurant too loud, the one before too quiet. It is the third of the evening, an
akachochin
, its outdoor paper red lantern a bit battered. It is a dive, the type of place Hiro used to take a certain delight in. But tonight he is all unvoiced complaints. Why won't his boss – the ostentatious fellow with the green bow tie with polka-dots – trust him with a decent expense account? Does he think he'll waste it, not use it properly and on the proper clients? All he wants is a break, just one decent chance to prove himself capable – and on and on so he begins to sound like a parody of some American melodrama. Damn!, he's burned himself holding a match too long while he was lost in this reverie. Now everyone's laughing at him. Ok, force a smile, Hiro, show them that you aren't over serious about yourself. No one bothers to help him. Why not? Not even that nice new office girl, the one who dropped out of Waseda. What did she say she studied? French literature? American? Why not Japanese? Doesn't she have any patriotic feelings? Is she ashamed of our literature, our hard-working writers? But when he thinks about it a few seconds more, he remembers that he hasn't read a Japanese book in quite a long while. In fact he can't even say he's read a real book in quite a long while. Comic books, weekly magazines – that's his fare. Why did he sit so near the boss, anyway? This means that he can't make much conversation of his own, has to pay attention to what the boss says, and pour the man one drink after another. Shouldn't the new girl be doing that?

Two dives later, finds Hiro in a bar that looks like a concrete garage with a few stools and formica tables strewn about. He doesn't care that the sleeve of his suit is lying in spilled
saké
, that there are whisky stains on his tie, and that at the previous bar the new girl had clearly rejected his advances – but then he can't even remember what he said to her; he only has a vague idea that while he tried not to be rude he did want to make his message clear, apparently the wrong strategy – but then what would he have done if she had consented to come home with him – pass out in her lap? No, he‘ll have to make up for this lapse some time. But then, he asks himself, what's been eating him so recently? Why all this anger and resentment? It can't just be on account of an expense account?

A half-hour later, having walked in the door and telling himself that this kind of nightlife has to stop, and just as his head is about to hit the pillow, Hiro's breath stops as he foresees a life like this, an eternity of boredom and resentment, of pettiness, and unfulfilled desire. “Fuck it” (or it's Japanese equivalent), he mumbles to himself as the lights go out.

***

Shores of Aldeberan, Clouds of Magellan.

Boiling blood, the great god descends. Post-murder, he falls back on to the red satin sheets, yellow-eyed. Once omniscient, sputtering now how he no longer knows. What kind of god is it who can “no longer know”? Spitting blood – “Keats' black mouth blood” – the American, orphaned, strides the streets and elevators of his adopted city.

He walks alongside you, Arlene, blood-caked, Memphian, blonde.

Roiling.

***

The costs of confusion notwithstanding, Van Zandt. I'll figure it out. Haven't I already? I mean, I got my canals – is that what he calls 'em? – corridors, whatever, I know how to get from here to there – and to get laid – isn't that enough? What cost? What confusion? Dammit, Lang, stop upsetting me with your shit.

***

Cafferty is back at his old job in New York. The fashion magazine of which he has recently been promoted to assistant editor will hit the stands in seventy-two hours. Suddenly he realizes that not only has an important advertiser been indirectly insulted in a humorous piece that Cafferty oversaw, an equally important credit has been left out, and there is a perhaps too explicit homosexual reference in another piece. He tries various ways to halt distribution, to explain the situation to his boss, to save his skin. He calls a friend, the “friend” has no sympathy. Another suggests a double martini. A third talks on and on about the possibilities of new careers, how to get out of the jam, how to place the blame on someone else. Cafferty is in a great panic. And what happened to the office muzak? Why is it playing that Negro religious music? (It is the mighty Ira Tucker and the Dixie Hummingbirds having their church – “In the Morning” – that our man is unaware of.) Cafferty goes to his window to further think through his situation – and he looks on the mountains and hills and rivers and valleys of the Okutama and Chichibu regions of Tokyo.

Upon waking – all asweat, shaking – Cafferty will shower and wonder why this dream recurs every six months or so. He'll also recall the various events that lead to the actual circumstances of the dream, the circumstances under which he did leave the magazine, of how it all lead eventually to his arrival in Tokyo, and the friend who betrayed him. He will curse for a moment, and then he will thank what he can only call Fortune.

Kaoru is reporting for work at the mountain resort hotel. Suddenly there is an earthquake. The hotel manager rushes out to calm the nerves of his guests and employees. Frustrated, he shouts, “This is my house and you will behave as I tell you to!” Kaoru goes to the locker room to put on his uniform. Naked men. Gospel music in the background? Why not. Then to the cafeteria to have lunch. The line moves slowly. All the food is Japanese Western: strawberry and cream sandwiches, puddings, waffles, weak and overly sweet coffee. There are large pitchers of water on all of the tables, at none of which does Kaoru sit because he is new on the job and shy about introducing himself. He puts his tray away, and reports for work, but he opens the wrong door and comes out onto the stage of the ballroom where a banquet is being held. Then the hotel changes to a mountain spa where Kaoru recently stayed on a work holiday with fellow office employees. Now he is a guest, getting drunk. The hostesses are old, dressed in yukata, their gold teeth flashing, and telling obscene jokes. He grabs one by the ass, and unlike the actual occasion, this one lets his hands go farther.