Tune In Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries (13 page)

I nod, smile, put a friendly hand on his shoulder, and say softly in my mother tongue, “I have no idea what the hell you just said.”

He seems distracted and uncomfortable around me. I wonder if I have at some point committed a social offence I wasn’t aware of. Should I not have left in the middle of Yu’s performance to shop around? Do I sweat too much during my drum solos? Am I just too tall? Or—oh shit—did they somehow find out about my history of manic pole-smoking?

Kawano smiles and indicates by picking up
Baby Jane
and angling his head towards the American Classics section that he needs to get back to work.

I wave, bow slightly, say goodbye, and exit the store.

A few weeks later I’m sitting in Morgan Café chatting with a friend of a friend of one of the owners, telling her that the bassist in one of her favorite bands, Superchunk, is a friend of a friend of mine.

“
??” she says. “Really??”

“
!” I answer. “Yes, really!”

“
.” “Cool.”

While I’m basking in the afterglow of convincing someone that I know someone I don’t, I look over and see Yu walking in carrying a stack of orange papers.

“
!” “Hey Yu! Long time no see!”

“
!?” she says, surprised. “Oh, Timsan, hey! Doing OK?”

Yu has brought flyers for her next show. This will be a more low-key affair. Just some of her drawings and watercolors. The flyer shows an impeccable drawing of a kitchen fire. I tell her I’ll definitely be there. Then I ask if she’s seen Nabe, and she shakes her head.

So, my rock and roll dreams have come to a frustratingly abrupt end, for now at least. Yes, there were problems, among them no communication within the band, no coherent plan of operation, no songs. Sure, we were unable to understand each other without an interpreter present, but we could have made it work. The language barrier disappears if you’re grooving to the right beat, man. We were going to take over the island of Honshu!

But I guess it’s time for me to take a break from the drums for a while and pick up that viola again. Brahms is calling, and there’s sheet music to be deciphered. I’m not saying my pelvis-thrusting, bass-drum-thumping, slave-to-the-rhythm days are over. Thighbone Trumpet Ikiru may yet rise again, phoenix-like, to play on a street corner or a surprise party somewhere in the Tokyo suburbs. I just need to mellow out for a while, you know? There’s more to life than being a pinup.

Perhaps David Lee Roth would agree.

“It’s a mate of mine who’s throwing the party, so we can get in cheap,” my friend and fellow teacher Grant says by way of convincing me that we should spend our Saturday evening in ooky Roppongi at a club party.

Roppongi, even more so than the sin-city of Shinjuku, is the district of Tokyo historically known for being a popular hangout for the Japanese mafia. It is also the hangout of choice for foreigners and the Japanese people who love them. It abounds with hostess bars; hostess bars that are actually sex clubs; dance clubs; dance clubs that are actually a cover for underground gambling rings and money laundering operations; and Western-themed places that in the U.S. would be called sports bars, the advertisements for which show busty non-Asian girlies all hugging on each other and probably saying something like, “Who wants a titty shot?” while drunk Western jarheads look on admiringly. Roppongi boasts more Westerners per block than any city in America. It’s dirty, loud, sleazy (in a bad way), and it makes me want to wash my hands every five minutes when I’m there. It’s like the world’s biggest frat party, minus the free beer. If a person (me, for instance) ever wants a quick reminder of why he is glad to be away from his home country (America, say), this is the place to visit.

Amazingly, Roppongi wasn’t always Nasty Town. Rick Kennedy, in his 1988 book
Home Sweet Tokyo
, describes Roppongi as “a quiet suburb.” Yes, Roppongi was once a pretty respectable neighborhood where the upper echelon of expatriates—many of them ambassadors working at one of the many embassies in the area—hung out to talk politics and capitalism and maybe receive the odd lap dance. One such meeting place was Nick’s Pizza, owned by Japan’s most infamous non-Japanese Japanese citizen, American flunky Nick Zappetti, who coincidentally is buried in my old neighborhood, Fujisawa.

Then the libidinous aliens landed, and now Roppongi looks more like a futuristic neon heap of horny humanity than a place where you go to see and be seen. One fun game to play while standing and waiting for your friends in front of the Almond Café at Roppongi Crossing (allegedly the most crowded meeting place in the world) and checking out the lovely ladies in your field of vision is to try and guess who is a) a prostitute, b) a hostess, c) just a girl out for a good time, and d) a dude. You’ll never determine the answer, but that’s half the fun!

Roppongi as the fun-for-the-whole-family neighborhood is a thing of the past, and a laughable concept in this day and age. The Yakuza seem to like it, but I’d sooner eat fungus than spend an evening there.

As it turns out, I will have the chance to do both, since Mr. Grant has some pretty potent magic mushrooms on him, and before you can say, “God, these taste like shit,” I am with Grant, Rachel, and Josephine (another teacher at Lane), and two of our party-loving students, Shunsuke and Tatsuya, in a pair of taxis heading towards Roppongi, ready to see funky colors and dance with them.

The club is tucked away on a back street, and we circle around for ages looking for it, weaving through the throngs of people, like the giant gaggle of high school girls edging out into the road, tapping away at their glowing cell phones; the skateboarding teenage hipsters with afros and basketball jerseys that appear to float on air; the wasted salarymen stumbling from their izakayas and getting a little too touchy-feely with their equally drunk and uncomfortable-looking female subordinates. We finally just decide to get out of the cab and try to find the stupid club on foot.

“That way there’s a chance we’ll run into someone selling mushrooms on the street, in case we need more,” Rachel rationalizes, and I remember why I love her. (She thinks of everything.)

Tokyo is an infuriating place to navigate if you only have an address. Japanese addresses typically involve three numbers separated by dashes (e.g., 3-35-31). The first of these is the sub-area where the house or building is located, the second is the block it is on, and the third is the building number. And when these numbers are added together, the sum equals the percentage chance that you are never going to find the building you’re looking for. Even Japanese people give directions by saying things like, “Yeah, OK, you see that Daily Yamazaki store up there on the left? You’re gonna want to turn right there and then head straight on until you hit the Shinto graveyard. Across from the graveyard there’s a post office, and next to the post office is an apartment building that looks like a giant Toblerone on its side—you know, the European chocolates? Anyway, between the two is an alley, and if you squint your eyes real tight you can see that a few yards up is a vending machine selling girls’ panties and batteries. Next to it is a staircase. Take the staircase to the second floor. The STD clinic is right there, you can’t miss it.” We have an address, but no one can figure out if we are even in the vicinity of the correct neighborhood. I start to think this club is just a myth dreamed up by Grant’s friend who is desperate for some street cred. We all twirl around and look high and low for any evidence of a club amongst all the anonymous-looking buildings.

The mushrooms are starting to work some magic on my brain, and I am very close to giving up and suggesting we all go to the Tower Records in Shibuya and ride up and down the glass elevator when a small pack of young Tokyo club-goers, intent on dancing the night away judging by their little backpacks, fanny packs, water bottles, and glow-in-the-dark bracelets, passes by and ducks into a building. We follow them into the elevator, and seven floors later we have found the mythical club of our dreams.

We join the queue as Grant manages to track down his friend, who is a tanned blonde Australian, and she magnanimously gives us five hundred yen off the regular entrance fee (about four dollars). I guess this is nice of her, but I’d hoped for more of a discount for being so well-connected. I can’t really say that I blame her, though. Our group is six people strong, yet we have among us no whistles, glow sticks, visors, pacifiers, giant barrettes, or lollipops. Who goes out on the town without that stuff?

I suppose it always helps to look deserving if you’re asking to get into a club for free. I look at my reflection in the glass: I’d chosen a semi-loose, comfortable-fitting thermal top, and now I wonder if maybe I should have put forth a little effort and opted for the painfully tight V-necked white T-shirt, the one that pits my pecs and stomach against each other in a fierce fight for people’s attention and usually has me sucking in everything all evening, unable to enjoy my cocktail. (It glows in the dark under black lights real nice, though.)

Grant chats with his friend, and Rachel, Shunsuke, and Tatsuya make a beeline for the dance floor, while Josephine and I lounge around looking at the graphics bursting onto the film screen behind the dance floor and think, “I wanna live there.” A cursory glance at the floor proves there are definitely some dancers here, weaving and bending and bouncing off each other like big Japanese rubber bands.

One dancing Japanese girl—Hello Kiddy?—makes me very happy I’d come out, because otherwise I would’ve missed the most preposterously dressed female in all the land. This being the city where I’d once seen a girl dressed in a skirt made of McDonald’s drinking straws, that’s saying a lot. Hello Kiddy has on a Snoopy backpack, pigtails tied back by giant barrettes with sparkling flowers encased in clear plastic globes, a pacifier and visor hanging around her neck, fifty-three glow-in-the-dark rubber bangles on each arm, oversized cargo pants, and a cut-off shirt with a clock face on it and the words “the stream of silent silky time makes you feel graceful” written under it. Yes, she was graceful. Like a student driver.

It definitely isn’t the most happening place in Roppongi tonight. The crowd is about half Japanese and half non, but there are only about forty people here so far. As usual, I start feeling like there’s something else far more exciting going on in the city and that’s where everyone is. Maybe Fuji TV is having its annual Russian Roulette Bungee-Jumping Challenge atop the building housing its main headquarters in Odaiba. Perhaps there’s a nude kendo tournament at Shibuya Crossing. Or an impromptu contest in Harajuku to see which girl can hold the most shopping bags while talking on her cell phone and hopping on one foot in platform boots. That kind of thing. Sure, I should just chill out and have fun where I am, but still, if there’s something better, shouldn’t we try and find it?

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for folks to start rolling in, and I am able to kick back and relax. Even if there is something better going on, at least these people are missing it, too.

Jo and I stand to the side of the main dance floor as the lights and shadows swirl around us, cuddling our mushroomed heads. “Oh yes,” we think, “it has started.” We lock arms, close our eyes, and allow the ’shroom surge to wash over us, riding the wave together. We look closely at each other’s faces, decide that the human nose is just about the funniest thing we’ve ever seen, and collapse into tearful giggles.

“You know what part of teaching our lessons is really starting to drive me crazy?” I ask after our laughing fit is over. “The opening questions.”

Jo nods in agreement and rolls her eyes. At the beginning of every lesson, we teachers must write three questions on the board that will dovetail nicely with what we will be covering in the lesson. If we are going to study, say, telling time, I might write, “What time do you usually wake up?” “What’s your favorite time of day?” and “Why?” If we’re studying making suggestions, the questions might be, “Where can I get some really good sushi?” “What’s the best way to get to the station from here?” and “Why?” As the lessons pile up, though, it becomes difficult to think of new and interesting questions to pose. Sure, the last question is always, “Why?” but this leaves two other questions I have to create out of thin air using only my brain.

“I feel like I’ve asked every question there is to ask of another human,” I say.

A powerful brainstorm commences, and for a few short minutes we are the funniest interrogators in the world. The possibilities are exciting and boundless.

We laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. Then we stop laughing and watch the big screen on the dance floor because there are swirling paisley amoeba-type things on there and they’re soooooo preeeeetty. As the techno-trance-adelic-funk-athon continues, Jo goes to find Grant and I join Rachel on the dance floor.

Rachel and I bob and weave, bob and weave, bob and weave. Then I thread my way through the people, touching heads and shoulders, saying “konnichiwa” to people I don’t know, in my mushroomed mind knitting everyone on the floor into a giant tapestry of love, mutual understanding, and epileptic dance moves.

Then I see Hello Kiddy dancing like a cheerleader on speed. I sidle up next to her and attempt the same bob and weave that I was doing with Rachel, but she’s having none of it. She’s too busy doing high kicks and jerking her arms out and around as if she’d just regained use of them after they’d gone numb on her five years ago.

Soon tiring of dodging her flailing limbs, I decide to retire to what can best be called the Chill Out Room, a dimly lit enclave to the side of the dance floor with a bunch of black lights and couches. The room is empty, and I plop myself down on the most comfortable looking couch and assume the “chill out” position, leaning back, stretching out my legs, and opening my arms in a relaxed crucifix pose. Lifting my head and looking straight ahead, I see the only thing separating me from the dance floor is a wall of glass, so I can keep an eye on my friends and make sure Rachel’s dancing doesn’t take a dangerous turn. I start noticing that whenever people walk by the glass, they stand and stare in at me for a few seconds, often poking their friends to get them to have a look.

“Wow, this new pomade is really working for me,” I think. I briefly reevaluate the thermal top. The public seems to like it. I see Hello Kiddy join some of her friends who are leaning against the glass; they point at me and start laughing. Hello Kiddy looks in, her eyes widen, and she slaps her hands over her mouth, the glow-in-the-dark bangles on her wrists twirling around like tiny hula hoops.

Hmm. Girls crowded together, pointing at me and laughing. This is starting to feel a little too much like middle school. What’s going on?

Jo and Grant approach the glass, see me, and wave. They look above me and then back at me. They giggle.

I look behind me and realize that there is a giant photograph on the wall above the couch. What is it of? I get up and turn around to get a better look, but I still can’t tell. It kind of looks like a close-up of an old woman’s lips, like when they start growing facial hair around age eighty. Yeah, that’s what it is.
Oh-my-godno-it’s-a-vagina!
A huge black and white photo of a horizontal vagina. The biggest vagina I have ever seen. And it looks angry.

How did I miss this? I didn’t come out to this club looking for pussy, but still, if it’s staring me in the face…

Feeling better that I’m not the object of all the spontaneous giggling across the glass, I begin to look around me and realize to my surprise that the room is simply jam-packed with photos of vaginas of all sizes, each one dimly lit by the blue tint of the black light. I am surrounded by ghostly, luminescent vaginas. Every gay man’s nightmare. With a thrill and a shudder I gasp: I am no longer in the Chill Out Room. I am in the Vagina Room. The Vagina Room. Full of vaginas.