Tokyo K.O.

Tokyo K.O. part 2

So I left. 

And now I'm here with the Happy English crew, trying to keep my mind off of her. I drink a beer - one glass - two glasses - three; thinking each time that after the next glass, I might feel a little less out of place, a little bit more sociable, a little less bored. I try not to think about it, but my mind keeps returning to Miki. I wonder if she's okay; if she has anyone to talk to.

I poke around the plates and dishes with my chopsticks, but there is nothing appetizing among the scraps and ordering something fresh would only prolong the agony of this shit-day. I decide to buy a new pack of cigarettes from the dispenser in the hallway. 72 minutes. At the end of the table, the new guys -the asshats, are getting rowdy.

I add a couple of comments here and there to the conversations going on around me, but no one seems to notice. Someone has spilled a beer, and Brian has somehow managed to sit on a fried octopus ball.

I check my cell phone. Brian is checking the oily patch on the back of his pants. 77 minutes. The voicemail icon is flashing - a call from Miki. I put my cell phone in my pocket again, resisting the urge to call her.

I smoke two cigarettes and try to tune into snatches of conversation, while not really following the track of any particular one. 103 minutes. The clock seems to be drawing things out deliberately.

I'm halfway through my fifth glass when the new guys Brian and Darrel start thinking it's fun to hurl food at each other. But now Brian has to push things over the top; he apparently hadn't forgiven the oily patch on his ass. He stands on his teetering legs and attempts to grab Darrel's drink with one hand, clutching a cold, squished octopus ball in the other. When this doesn't work, he grabs Darrel by the shirt. There is a general hush in the air. Some of the other customers turned to look. Brian slowly turns and sees all the blank staring faces, but instead of being embarrassed he gets belligerent.

"What the fuck they all looking at?"

"You you fat-ass fuck!" roars Darrel with laughter.

"Better sit down or everyone'll think you shit-farted your pants mate!" adds Mike. Most people look away now. Only a couple of the patrons continue to watch. Michiko grabs him by the pant leg to try to get him to sit down, but Brian is full of pride and arrogance.

"They never seen a foreigner drink before?" He looks around the room with a face as mean as pitbull. You can almost see baring his dog teeth,...the saliva foaming.

"What the fuck man! Back home we just call this having fun! They don't like it, they can line up and suck it!!" he shouts, grabbing his groin in his chubby fist.

The evening out with the Happy English crew is over. 119 minutes. I drain my glass and what little is left at the bottom of the pitcher.

There isn't much to say about what happened next. The izakaya staff rush over - the manager is having it out with Tom, who is apologizing profusely. Our server holds a tray in the background and blinks. Jake and Yumi are all ready to go; Yumi has her arms around him, her face buried in his chest. Naomi, Hiroko and Tomomi are sorting out the bill and collecting money.

Brian, looking bored amidst all the bedlam asks, "Where are we going next?" Michiko answers flatly that we have to leave.

Annoyed as I am by all this, I'm so glad it's all over - I'm almost laughing. I shell out my share of the bill to Naomi and step into my shoes.

Brian is obviously feeling like the turd he is, but is still trying to act cool. I make like I'm just going to the washroom, but without so much as a goodbye, I grab my bag and slip out the door instead.

Stepping out of the building and into the hot evening air, I feel instantly relieved. Must have rained while we were in the bar. Feels even more humid than before. I pull out another cigarette and look from the entrance at the thronging crowds teaming with salarymen drunk in their suits, girls gabbering into their cell phones, a couple of black guys pushing flyers for their clubs. An infinitive number of interactions, an infinite number of possibilities...

"Hey you like girls man? - free drink with the cover."

...click, click, click. My lighter isn't working. No flame. Down the street somewhere, the tinny sound of cheap techno bleats out from a loud speaker. A group of college students parade by almost as loud and obnoxious as the Happy English crew. One of them is being supported under the armpits, feet dragging behind. There are street merchants lifting rain-streaked plastic sheets off their wares, opening shop again after the downpour.

A man in a bear outfit is holding his bear-head in one hand and a sign in the other...click, click, click.

A middle-aged couple is standing with their backs to a half wall. I ask the man for a light, but he doesn't seem to understand. I mime the gesture of lighting my cigarette with my thumb. He turns to the woman and says something and they start to bicker. The wife reluctantly hands him a lighter from her purse and he leans over to light my smoke. With my head buzzed out on booze, I have a hard time positioning my cigarette on the flame without leaning too far forward or too far back. My eyes seem to be hone in on his his pinky finger which looks somehow deformed or damaged - the skin rough, peeling at the tip, ending in entropy.

With my cigarette half-charred but lit, I blow a satisfying waft of smoke in the air and thank him with a nod. It's still early - plenty of time for another drink or three. I'm on a mission to find another bar; somewhere where I can soak the remains of the day in a pitcher of beer.

And then I see something that captures my interest. In the middle of all this, the karaoke bars and the sushi conveyor-belt restaurants; amidst the whir and buzz of pachinko parlours; below the flickering neon signs stacked a mile high; just beyond the Zen mendicant walking off into one-point perspective and the barely-legals barfing on the street curb -there is a thin stretch of forest. Or rather, a footpath with some serious vegetation. The sight strikes me as out of place, a pleasant crack in my city blues, where Mother Nature bleeds in the form of foliage and shrubs. I don't know why, but I find myself drawn to it, stumbling behind my own feet along a street gutter still hissing with rain water; and probably shit, hair and piss, and menstrual blood too, all the dirty secrets of civilization flowing in the bowels of the city below.

The path, I see, is really two lanes separated by squat lamps that cast their eerie iridescence on fan leaves and rain-dappled jungle ferns. There are fewer people walking down this way, but space enough for the odd moth and dragonfly. Interspersed and discreetly concealed among the shrubs are the cardboard abodes of the homeless, with their characteristic blue tarps. It's a strange place; beautiful and unsettling. The path turns out to be quite long, winding downward along the back allies of high-rise buildings like a deep, jagged gorge until it spills into a disordered delta of squat wooden buildings, cluttered with signs, broken sake crates and tiny one-counter bars. Grot and mold cover the walls like an old skin; cables and telephone wires hang like knotted vines in arterial clumps. A sad strain of classic Enka music rises in the hot air, dips and evaporates like mist down one of many corridors. Stray cats, with their moon-gem eyes, stare out mistrustfully from the shadows. I continue further, past the open door of a 'snack bar' where the silhouette of an aging madame sits preening her hair.