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Tokyo Stories: 'State of Tokyo Bread, 2001'
Posted by at July 30, 2002 12:00 AM
The first time I saw police officers straightening bread at a Japanese grocery store was at a little after two in the morning on October 12th, 2001.
Ifd been in Tokyo for a few weeks, and for some reason Ifd neglected to eat a single full meal. Here I was, in a city Ifve wanted to see for half my life, and I was miserable. A vegetarian in Tokyo is bound to be miserable every once in a while. Hefs bound to be miserable until he realizes a simple fact: if you want something to eat, make it for yourself.
Ifd been living on little packets of kimchee sold by a Korean woman outside Kita-Urawa Station. Ifd had a Korean girlfriend or two in my college days, so the smell of kimchee had never really bothered me. It wasnft until I went to Japan that I started eating the stuff. Ifd get home from work, buy a packet of kimchee from this old woman, thank her in Korean, and proceed home.
Sometimes, when my roommates were being especially loud, playing Magic: The Gathering with work friends, or in a mood to criticize the smell of kimchee, Ifd go first to the Kita-Urawa Mister Donut. There, in a table in a corner away from the smoking women in the nonsmoking section, Ifd cut my plastic packet of kimchee open with a plastic fork. Ifd then get the impression that everyone was looking at me. Like my roommates, were they calling me gMister Vinegarh when I wasnft around, thinking I wasnft on to their name-calling?
The Kita-Urawa Mister Donut, on the same side of Kita-Urawa Station as the Wendyfs, Kita-Urawa Park, and the Doki-doki World game shop whose point card I carry in my wallet even today, is a nice, quiet, little place. Inside, at night, itfs quiet. Year-round, it feels as cold as an air-conditioned room. Even in October, the air-conditioning was on. I could feel it through my black dress socks.
The night of October 11th, Ifd stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy a bottle of Tabasco. Thus began my adventures with Tabasco in Tokyo, which I will speak on later, at much length.
My roommates were having a kind of makeshift party, and had invited half of Tokyofs Australian population for cold Sapporo and scheming. The scheming centered on how they were all going to steal the life-size Colonel Sanders statue from the Kentucky Fried Chicken outside Urawa Station. Not wanting to hear them discuss these plans again, I deposited my laptop on my futon, left, and went to Mister Donut.
I ordered a custard creme donut, a chocolate creme donut, and a decaf coffee, in perfect Japanese. The girl behind the counter smiled, straightened her paper hat, and read me my total in Katakananglish.
[Yes, I made that word up. Copyright: me, 2002.]
Ifm told they donft do this in Tokyo. Well, in Saitama, they do.
gItfs because there are lots of foreigners in Saitama,h a girl at my English school told me once, when I told her about my Mister Donut situation.
gI seeh was all I could say. Really, did I gseeh?
That night, I wrapped my donuts in a napkin, and then poured my kimchee out onto the Styrofoam plate my donuts had been served on. Biting off the end of the custard creme donut -- three hundred yen down the drain -- I took a long sip of my black coffee. Two women at an adjacent table were talking about violin lessons. As in, theyfre just so damned expensive. Then again, what are you going to do? Just not make your kid play violin? They were also smoking. In the nonsmoking section.
Several kids that looked like punks were smoking a few tables away. Their conversation was as quiet as a dead refrigeratorfs hum. A girl with frosted pink hair looked at me when I removed the bottle of Tabasco from my suit jacket pocket. I unscrewed the cap with my teeth, and splashed it all over my plate of kimchee. The girlfs little eyes opened wide. Before screwing the cap back on, I looked at her, and took a savagely long sip of Tabasco. She looked away, to her plate, her half-finished donut, her three-quarters-finished coffee. I looked back to my remaining donut, my plate of hottened kimchee, and my coffee. Ifd drank coffee precisely once before coming to Japan.
Months later -- how many months later, I donft remember -- Ifd allowed myself to be completely absorbed into Japanese culture. I was frequenting a little Beatles cafe called Cafe Monster (www.cafemonster.com) in Fujimino around that time. Ifd graduated from decaf to double espresso. There was a new cafe girl -- Fukuda-kun, they called her. Bless her heart, she stuttered when I ordered the double espresso.
gAre you . . . not . . . Mormon?h she asked me, in Japanese. At this point, Japanese people spoke Japanese to me. They didnft even have to ask me. They just looked at me, and figured it was a safe bet. Psychic powers are everywhere in this world.
gMormon? Mormon?h Just because a white guy wears a shirt and a tie in Tokyo, hefs supposed to be a Mormon?
Maybe thatfs why the girl at Mister Donut was looking at me that night. Maybe not. I finished my coffee, choked down my kimchee, and topped it off with the chocolate creme donut. I threw away my trash, grabbed my umbrella, and left.
Outside, a Japanese girl in a skirt short enough to be classified as underwear was standing behind a table. She was selling gValue Boxh of donuts for the low price of 1,000 yen each. Inside were ten donuts. What a joke, I thought.
gPlease, sir,h she said to me, in Japanese, as I walked by. I turned and looked at her. Her mouth dropped open. Her hands shot up to cover it. A gWaa!h sound escaped her.
gWhat?h I asked, in semi-rude Japanese.
She stuttered for a full ten seconds on the single syllable gO.h
Whatfs she trying to say? I wondered. Damn it, shefs wasting my time.
gOnegai!h she yelled. Shefd just spoken Japanese to me.
gWell?h I asked her. gAre you selling something, or what?h
gD-d-d-donuts,h she said. She was leaning forward, rubbing her hands together. She was cold. And annoyed -- a little boom-box by her feet was constantly playing the Japanese Mister Donut jingle.
gDonuts, eh? Letfs see them,h I said.
She opened the box, and showed me the donuts. A pathetic bunch of donuts, they were. Looking at them, my stomach rumbled.
gHow much?h I asked her.
gA thousand yen,h she said.
gA thousand yen? For stale donuts?h
She bit her lip, and shook her head. gN-n-n-no,h she said, shivering. gTheyfre not stale. Theyfre f-f-f-f-fresh!h
I scratched my chin. gYou know, in America, twelve donuts cost around three hundred yen.h
gReally?h she asked, eyes widening.
I nodded. Sure, I was exaggerating a bit.
gThey have jelly donuts, too,h I said.
gJelly?h she asked, shivering. gIn donuts?h
gUh-huh. And the donuts are this big,h I said, making a circle with my hands.
gWaaaaa-o,h she said.
gEverything is bigger in America,h I told her, nodding.
She nodded, rubbed her hands together, and gave her body a good head-to-toe shiver. That was her reply.
The Mister Donut jingle ended. The boom-box let out a loud hissing silence. The world was in need of some noise reduction.
gYeah,h I said, putting my hands in my pockets. I took a sniff of the air, turned, and left her shivering.
I went to the Doki-doki World game store. I played some Bravo Music (Mad Maestro! in the US), and got my ass handed to me by the audience on the Brahmsf Hungarian Dance #6 level. My favorite piece of classical music, and I couldnft even imaginarily conduct it right. The guy from the counter came up behind me, and almost tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and looked at him.
gWhat the hell do you want?h I asked him. I was only speaking rudely because I didnft know any other way. My evil Japanese ex-girlfriends had spoiled me.
He tapped his watch.
gRight,h I said. I grabbed my umbrella, and was gone.
On my way back to the station, I saw the donut girl. She was still shivering. When I walked by, she whispered, gOnegai,h just as I looked up at Kita-Urawa Station, and that one pachinko parlor. That one beer machine. I suddenly felt dizzy -- like something was missing from the inside of my head. Holding my umbrella like a cane, I traipsed back to my apartment, and promptly vomited into the toilet.
Vomiting is never too enjoyable an experience for me -- or for anyone, I gather. Especially not when your bathroom is the size of a small phone booth. I banged each elbow on each wall four times. I hit my head on the door when I collapsed back onto my ass between vomiting sessions.
In the living room, my roommates were watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on my PlayStation2.
gYou alright, man?h one of them asked me.
gYeah,h I said.
gWhat the hell did you eat?h the other asked me.
gI donft even remember,h I said. I had, in truth, already forgotten.
gYou need to get some fruit in you,h one of them said.
gYeah. You should go down to the 24-Hour Store.h
gWherefs that?h I asked.
gJust down by the pachinko parlor. Go down that little street, past the yakitori place. You canft miss it.h
gI was gonna go there later,h the one roommate said. gIf you wanna tag along.h
Wow, I thought. They were being nice to me.
gSure,h I said.
gNot until after the moviefs over.h
The movie wasnft over until past midnight. After that, they threw on Iron Monkey. They loved my DVD collection. When Iron Monkey was over, me and the bigger of my two roommates walked down to the 24-Hour Store.
My roommate was pointing at karaoke joints and yakitori stands all the way.
gThis place -- donft it remind you of that little town in Shenmue?h
gMaybe,h I said. gDuring the day.h
My roommate and I kept walking. He was Thai-American, so he looked significantly more Asian than I did. Japanese guys were jumping out, and handing him flyers to hostess bars and pachinko parlors. He took them all, and nodded.
gTherefs 24-Hour Store,h he said, pointing ahead.
Itfs a grocery store, actually. Its proper name is Maruetsu.
Maruetsu is two floors. Its front door is something like a garage door. Since Maruetsu is open 24 hours a day, I imagine that door never closes. This allows a lot of cold inside during the winter, and a lot of heat in during the summer. The single row of cash registers is manned by bored-looking Japanese guys with frosted hair.
Though they talk to one another over their respective register partitions, their voices are about as loud as the air-conditioning unit. No matter what language they were speaking, I thought that night, I wouldnft be able to understand them.
My roommate grabbed a bottle of cold oolong tea and a pack of seaweed crackers, and then directed me upstairs. At the top of the stairs was a rack of plastic, two-hundred-yen umbrellas. Somewhere up there, we found an aisle of dented fruit cans. My roommate grabbed two cans of peaches. I grabbed two cans of pineapples and a can of pears. Feeling like Takeshi Kaneshiro in Chungking Express, I checked the expiration date on the pineapples: October 11th.
gIt ainft gonna kill you,h my roommate said, directing me to the snack aisle.
I got some Menfs Pocky, and a little bottle of honey. Downstairs, I grabbed a bottle of C.C. Lemon vitamin soda and a bunch of bananas.
gDo they have bread?h I asked. I honestly didnft know what I was thinking.
gYeah,h my roommate said. gRight over there.h And he pointed toward the front of the store. There, a police officer in a crayon blue suit was using his cartoonishly white-gloved hands to pull loaves of bread toward the edge of a shelf. I stopped in place, gripping my plastic basket of groceries, and watched the man work.
He was old, and tanned. The sideburns visible beneath his blue hat were white as dirty snow. He had a few age spots on his cheek. His mouth was opening slightly with every loaf of bread he pulled forward. His knees were bent, like in a karate stance. As he pulled bread forward, he was slowly sidestepping toward the end of the shelf. His shoes were shiny, and black, and squeaking. I looked up, then. One of the register guys was tightening his green apron, and looking right at this police officer. He yawned, as I stepped in.
gExcuse me,h I said, reaching out for a loaf of bread.
gOh, sorry,h the police officer said.
I reached toward the back of the shelf, and pulled forward a loaf. Actually, in Japan, youfll be hard-pressed to find a full loaf of white bread. All I could ever get were these heelless half-loaves. The slices are as thick as quality French toast. And perfect for honey-banana sandwiches.
gHere, here,h the police officer said, as I turned over the loaf of bread. I looked at him. He was holding a loaf in his hands. gThis onefs fresh,h he said. I nodded, and took it. He took the loaf of bread out of my hands, and shoved it to the back of the shelf.
gThanks,h I said.
gDonft mention it,h he said, going back to his work.
gWhat was with the police officer straightening the bread?h
My roommate scoffed, and stuffed a complimentary pack of tissues into his jacket pocket.
gThere ainft no crime up here,h he said. gThey donft have anything else to do, in the middle of the night. They canft even run around, terrorizing kids. They only got one gun, and itfs on lockdown in the Koban. They got, like, detonation codes for that shit.h
gAha,h I said, looking down. My roommatefs simple description had disappointed me.
It was at that moment that I decided to stop letting other peoplefs visions of Japan ruin mine. It was at that moment that I decided: the police officer was put there, by someone important, to insure that every person had a fresh loaf of bread, and that every stale loaf was pushed away from human sight. I smiled, in the cold, beneath the buzzing neon of a pachinko parlor, and a drunk man stumbling toward the Only Beer Machine in Kita-Urawa, to make himself even drunker.
Months later, Ifd survived an adventure. Ifd been pushed down the stairs at Akabane Station by some Yakuza. Ifd broken my favorite CD, and several rules of my company. My kindly roommates had turned me in to the company for a pay bonus. Ifd resigned, and taken a gjobh as a live-in chef/personal assistant for a comic artist whose privacy Ifll respect. Ifd taken on a protegee -- a sixteen-year-old punk-rocking girl named Masako who aspires to be both a novelist and gas cool as Tim Rogers.h
Masako and I had started a band called gLarge Prime Numbers.h The name was later shortened to gPrime Numbers.h The band consisted of me on acoustic guitar and lead vocal, Masako on percussion and backing vocals, Sakai-san on electric guitar, and a big girl we called Sempai on bass. On my last Saturday night in Japan, Masako, me, Sakai-san, and Sempai journeyed up to Kawagoe to an acoustic punk-duel with a rival band. Well, they were Sakai-san and Sempaifs rivals, from their Sendagaya high school. Ifd never met them before. A bunch of outright punkish-looking girls they were.
We had an awesome time, on the bridge outside the station. We ripped through a slew of Blue Heartsf songs, including gTrain Train,h gLinda Linda,h and gHitoni Yasashiku.h We played a tag-team of gWhy donft we do it in the road?h that lasted for about a half an hour. Our almost-was smash-single gDonnani nagakutemoh (gNo matter how longh) got me a hundred-yen-coin and a wink from a passing catholic college girl named Mami. That was my fourth and final Mami.
One of the punkish rival girls had brought a banjo. She gave it to me, and I ripped it up pretty good. I played Beckfs gDeath is coming to get you,h and gHefs a Mighty Good Leader.h The latter earned me a tangerine from a passing businessman.
gI like bluegrass,h he told me.
gOh?h I said. gIs that so?
gPlay some more bluegrass.h
gI didnft know it was bluegrass until you told me it was bluegrass, old man,h I said.
He laughed, and laughed. And he patted me on the shoulder, and gave me his business card. Yasuhisa Nakata. He works for Mitsubishi. Then again, what old bluegrass-loving guy in Tokyo doesnft?
It was Masako that told the punkish girls about peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.
gYou should try them,h she said. The girls made these screwed-up faces. gTheyfre not too sweet,h Masako assured them. They didnft seem to believe her.
Masako, Sakai-san, and I bid Sempai goodbye at the Kawagoe Line platform. Much as shefd wanted another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she had to get home, she said. It was nearing ten ofclock.
Masako, Sakai-san and I took the Tobu-Tojo Line south to Fujimino. At the Tobu Store at the station, we scrounged around for groceries with which to make a late dinner.
gYou still have peanut butter?h Masako asked me, as we looked at fruit.
gYeah,h I said. The week before, she and I had taken the train out to Higashi-Fussa, and bought American groceries at Yokota Air Base.
gDo we need more bread?h Masako asked me.
gWe might as well pick up some,h I said.
The grocery store wasnft too busy. I gathered that Japanese people shop once a day, usually before dinner. The typical shopper at dinner time was a housewife, maybe with a baby in a carriage. The typical shoppers at ten on a Saturday evening were kids, including a trio of punk-rockers: one of them tall, male, and American, the other two Japanese, short, and looking like drama club members.
Sakai-san especially looked like a drama club member. And she acted like one, too. Because she was in the drama club. Masako had been in the drama club, too, until she quit school around the same time I quit my job. Shefd been at the top of her class.
gIfm hungry,h Sakai-san said. She gripped her guitar case. gWhat else can you make us?h she asked me.
I thought over the ingredients in my hostessf refrigerator for a few minutes. She was probably at home, watching Amadeus on VHS for the second time in a row. She loves that movie.
gI can make some Complicated Pasta,h I said.
gOoh, I love Complicated Pasta,h Sakai-san said. Masako grinned. Sakai-san had been afraid to try it, until Masako pushed her. That much Tabasco can scare the hell out of anyone, be they Japanese . . . or not.
As we walked, I was looking at my shoes, tapping along the shiny white tiles. When I looked up, we were steps away from the bread aisle. There, a young police officer was straightening loaves of bread with a tight face.
gExcuse me,h I said, stepping in. gCan I get one of those?h I asked him.
He didnft even look at me. gGo ahead,h he said.
I watched him for five seconds. His white-gloved hands, mechanically reaching in, grabbing loaves of bread, and pulling them toward the edge of the shelf. He had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The right lens had a little crack in it. I watched his eyes blink, twice. Taking a sniff of the heated air, I grabbed a loaf, and was off.
Masako and Sakai-san had stored their bikes in the garage beneath Fujimino Station. The three of us went down, got the bikes, waved to the old man supervising the place, and surfaced. I rode Masakofs bike. She stood on the back, holding my guitar and her tambourine. Sakai-san and I raced all the way to my hostessfs apartment building in northern Fujimino. It was cold, and quiet. That was the last time I saw Sakai-san outside. That was the last night I saw Masako and Sakai-san together.
My hostess was watching Amadeus when we got in. The cats ran up to greet us. My hostess always believed that being kept hungry made cats obedient. In my experience, it made them loud. My hostess greeted Sakai-san and Masako as I slapped together some peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and boiled water for pasta. My hostess made tea for the four of us, and talked to Sakai-san about studying abroad in Australia while Masako helped me complicate the pasta.
gYour father called,h my hostess told Masako, as we all sat down for dinner.
gOh?h Masako asked. gWhat did he want?h
gHe wanted to know if you guys got back yet.h
Masako groaned. gDamn it,h she said.
An hour later, everyone was gone. Even my hostess had retired to bed. I closed the balcony curtains, fed the cats, and sat in front of the television for some Metal Gear Solid 2. I played until past three in the morning, nibbling a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.
At a little past three, as Raiden was sneaking into a room ridiculously full of Extreme-difficulty-level guards, the phone rang, piercing the silence. I paused my game, jumped up, and grabbed it. I was shaking when I picked it up. It had scared the hell out of me.
gHello?h I said.
gHello, Tim, is that you?h
gOh, hi, Fuku-san.h It was Masakofs dad.
gIs Masako still there?h he asked me.
I shook my head, and looked back to the living room. gNo, no. She left . . . a while ago. She should be on her way home.
gOh,h Masakofs dad said, and was quiet. gWell, sorry to disturb you,h he said.
gNo problem,h I said, and hung up.
I went back into the living room, then. One of my hostessfs cats was in the middle of the table, clawing at my sandwich. The other cat -- the smaller one -- had the bag of bread on the floor, and was chewing on the plastic. There had been two slices in the bag. The little cat had succeeded in removing one of them. It had eaten half of the piece of bread, rendering the rest inedible. I shooed the cats away, and picked the bag up from the floor. There was only one slice left in the bag. I took it out, and squeezed it. Standing in the middle of the living room, I wondered what kind of pathetic sandwich I could make with one slice of stale bread.
Tim Rogers
EMail Pyramid108
Ifd been in Tokyo for a few weeks, and for some reason Ifd neglected to eat a single full meal. Here I was, in a city Ifve wanted to see for half my life, and I was miserable. A vegetarian in Tokyo is bound to be miserable every once in a while. Hefs bound to be miserable until he realizes a simple fact: if you want something to eat, make it for yourself.
Ifd been living on little packets of kimchee sold by a Korean woman outside Kita-Urawa Station. Ifd had a Korean girlfriend or two in my college days, so the smell of kimchee had never really bothered me. It wasnft until I went to Japan that I started eating the stuff. Ifd get home from work, buy a packet of kimchee from this old woman, thank her in Korean, and proceed home.
Sometimes, when my roommates were being especially loud, playing Magic: The Gathering with work friends, or in a mood to criticize the smell of kimchee, Ifd go first to the Kita-Urawa Mister Donut. There, in a table in a corner away from the smoking women in the nonsmoking section, Ifd cut my plastic packet of kimchee open with a plastic fork. Ifd then get the impression that everyone was looking at me. Like my roommates, were they calling me gMister Vinegarh when I wasnft around, thinking I wasnft on to their name-calling?
The Kita-Urawa Mister Donut, on the same side of Kita-Urawa Station as the Wendyfs, Kita-Urawa Park, and the Doki-doki World game shop whose point card I carry in my wallet even today, is a nice, quiet, little place. Inside, at night, itfs quiet. Year-round, it feels as cold as an air-conditioned room. Even in October, the air-conditioning was on. I could feel it through my black dress socks.
The night of October 11th, Ifd stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy a bottle of Tabasco. Thus began my adventures with Tabasco in Tokyo, which I will speak on later, at much length.
My roommates were having a kind of makeshift party, and had invited half of Tokyofs Australian population for cold Sapporo and scheming. The scheming centered on how they were all going to steal the life-size Colonel Sanders statue from the Kentucky Fried Chicken outside Urawa Station. Not wanting to hear them discuss these plans again, I deposited my laptop on my futon, left, and went to Mister Donut.
I ordered a custard creme donut, a chocolate creme donut, and a decaf coffee, in perfect Japanese. The girl behind the counter smiled, straightened her paper hat, and read me my total in Katakananglish.
[Yes, I made that word up. Copyright: me, 2002.]
Ifm told they donft do this in Tokyo. Well, in Saitama, they do.
gItfs because there are lots of foreigners in Saitama,h a girl at my English school told me once, when I told her about my Mister Donut situation.
gI seeh was all I could say. Really, did I gseeh?
That night, I wrapped my donuts in a napkin, and then poured my kimchee out onto the Styrofoam plate my donuts had been served on. Biting off the end of the custard creme donut -- three hundred yen down the drain -- I took a long sip of my black coffee. Two women at an adjacent table were talking about violin lessons. As in, theyfre just so damned expensive. Then again, what are you going to do? Just not make your kid play violin? They were also smoking. In the nonsmoking section.
Several kids that looked like punks were smoking a few tables away. Their conversation was as quiet as a dead refrigeratorfs hum. A girl with frosted pink hair looked at me when I removed the bottle of Tabasco from my suit jacket pocket. I unscrewed the cap with my teeth, and splashed it all over my plate of kimchee. The girlfs little eyes opened wide. Before screwing the cap back on, I looked at her, and took a savagely long sip of Tabasco. She looked away, to her plate, her half-finished donut, her three-quarters-finished coffee. I looked back to my remaining donut, my plate of hottened kimchee, and my coffee. Ifd drank coffee precisely once before coming to Japan.
Months later -- how many months later, I donft remember -- Ifd allowed myself to be completely absorbed into Japanese culture. I was frequenting a little Beatles cafe called Cafe Monster (www.cafemonster.com) in Fujimino around that time. Ifd graduated from decaf to double espresso. There was a new cafe girl -- Fukuda-kun, they called her. Bless her heart, she stuttered when I ordered the double espresso.
gAre you . . . not . . . Mormon?h she asked me, in Japanese. At this point, Japanese people spoke Japanese to me. They didnft even have to ask me. They just looked at me, and figured it was a safe bet. Psychic powers are everywhere in this world.
gMormon? Mormon?h Just because a white guy wears a shirt and a tie in Tokyo, hefs supposed to be a Mormon?
Maybe thatfs why the girl at Mister Donut was looking at me that night. Maybe not. I finished my coffee, choked down my kimchee, and topped it off with the chocolate creme donut. I threw away my trash, grabbed my umbrella, and left.
Outside, a Japanese girl in a skirt short enough to be classified as underwear was standing behind a table. She was selling gValue Boxh of donuts for the low price of 1,000 yen each. Inside were ten donuts. What a joke, I thought.
gPlease, sir,h she said to me, in Japanese, as I walked by. I turned and looked at her. Her mouth dropped open. Her hands shot up to cover it. A gWaa!h sound escaped her.
gWhat?h I asked, in semi-rude Japanese.
She stuttered for a full ten seconds on the single syllable gO.h
Whatfs she trying to say? I wondered. Damn it, shefs wasting my time.
gOnegai!h she yelled. Shefd just spoken Japanese to me.
gWell?h I asked her. gAre you selling something, or what?h
gD-d-d-donuts,h she said. She was leaning forward, rubbing her hands together. She was cold. And annoyed -- a little boom-box by her feet was constantly playing the Japanese Mister Donut jingle.
gDonuts, eh? Letfs see them,h I said.
She opened the box, and showed me the donuts. A pathetic bunch of donuts, they were. Looking at them, my stomach rumbled.
gHow much?h I asked her.
gA thousand yen,h she said.
gA thousand yen? For stale donuts?h
She bit her lip, and shook her head. gN-n-n-no,h she said, shivering. gTheyfre not stale. Theyfre f-f-f-f-fresh!h
I scratched my chin. gYou know, in America, twelve donuts cost around three hundred yen.h
gReally?h she asked, eyes widening.
I nodded. Sure, I was exaggerating a bit.
gThey have jelly donuts, too,h I said.
gJelly?h she asked, shivering. gIn donuts?h
gUh-huh. And the donuts are this big,h I said, making a circle with my hands.
gWaaaaa-o,h she said.
gEverything is bigger in America,h I told her, nodding.
She nodded, rubbed her hands together, and gave her body a good head-to-toe shiver. That was her reply.
The Mister Donut jingle ended. The boom-box let out a loud hissing silence. The world was in need of some noise reduction.
gYeah,h I said, putting my hands in my pockets. I took a sniff of the air, turned, and left her shivering.
I went to the Doki-doki World game store. I played some Bravo Music (Mad Maestro! in the US), and got my ass handed to me by the audience on the Brahmsf Hungarian Dance #6 level. My favorite piece of classical music, and I couldnft even imaginarily conduct it right. The guy from the counter came up behind me, and almost tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and looked at him.
gWhat the hell do you want?h I asked him. I was only speaking rudely because I didnft know any other way. My evil Japanese ex-girlfriends had spoiled me.
He tapped his watch.
gRight,h I said. I grabbed my umbrella, and was gone.
On my way back to the station, I saw the donut girl. She was still shivering. When I walked by, she whispered, gOnegai,h just as I looked up at Kita-Urawa Station, and that one pachinko parlor. That one beer machine. I suddenly felt dizzy -- like something was missing from the inside of my head. Holding my umbrella like a cane, I traipsed back to my apartment, and promptly vomited into the toilet.
Vomiting is never too enjoyable an experience for me -- or for anyone, I gather. Especially not when your bathroom is the size of a small phone booth. I banged each elbow on each wall four times. I hit my head on the door when I collapsed back onto my ass between vomiting sessions.
In the living room, my roommates were watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on my PlayStation2.
gYou alright, man?h one of them asked me.
gYeah,h I said.
gWhat the hell did you eat?h the other asked me.
gI donft even remember,h I said. I had, in truth, already forgotten.
gYou need to get some fruit in you,h one of them said.
gYeah. You should go down to the 24-Hour Store.h
gWherefs that?h I asked.
gJust down by the pachinko parlor. Go down that little street, past the yakitori place. You canft miss it.h
gI was gonna go there later,h the one roommate said. gIf you wanna tag along.h
Wow, I thought. They were being nice to me.
gSure,h I said.
gNot until after the moviefs over.h
The movie wasnft over until past midnight. After that, they threw on Iron Monkey. They loved my DVD collection. When Iron Monkey was over, me and the bigger of my two roommates walked down to the 24-Hour Store.
My roommate was pointing at karaoke joints and yakitori stands all the way.
gThis place -- donft it remind you of that little town in Shenmue?h
gMaybe,h I said. gDuring the day.h
My roommate and I kept walking. He was Thai-American, so he looked significantly more Asian than I did. Japanese guys were jumping out, and handing him flyers to hostess bars and pachinko parlors. He took them all, and nodded.
gTherefs 24-Hour Store,h he said, pointing ahead.
Itfs a grocery store, actually. Its proper name is Maruetsu.
Maruetsu is two floors. Its front door is something like a garage door. Since Maruetsu is open 24 hours a day, I imagine that door never closes. This allows a lot of cold inside during the winter, and a lot of heat in during the summer. The single row of cash registers is manned by bored-looking Japanese guys with frosted hair.
Though they talk to one another over their respective register partitions, their voices are about as loud as the air-conditioning unit. No matter what language they were speaking, I thought that night, I wouldnft be able to understand them.
My roommate grabbed a bottle of cold oolong tea and a pack of seaweed crackers, and then directed me upstairs. At the top of the stairs was a rack of plastic, two-hundred-yen umbrellas. Somewhere up there, we found an aisle of dented fruit cans. My roommate grabbed two cans of peaches. I grabbed two cans of pineapples and a can of pears. Feeling like Takeshi Kaneshiro in Chungking Express, I checked the expiration date on the pineapples: October 11th.
gIt ainft gonna kill you,h my roommate said, directing me to the snack aisle.
I got some Menfs Pocky, and a little bottle of honey. Downstairs, I grabbed a bottle of C.C. Lemon vitamin soda and a bunch of bananas.
gDo they have bread?h I asked. I honestly didnft know what I was thinking.
gYeah,h my roommate said. gRight over there.h And he pointed toward the front of the store. There, a police officer in a crayon blue suit was using his cartoonishly white-gloved hands to pull loaves of bread toward the edge of a shelf. I stopped in place, gripping my plastic basket of groceries, and watched the man work.
He was old, and tanned. The sideburns visible beneath his blue hat were white as dirty snow. He had a few age spots on his cheek. His mouth was opening slightly with every loaf of bread he pulled forward. His knees were bent, like in a karate stance. As he pulled bread forward, he was slowly sidestepping toward the end of the shelf. His shoes were shiny, and black, and squeaking. I looked up, then. One of the register guys was tightening his green apron, and looking right at this police officer. He yawned, as I stepped in.
gExcuse me,h I said, reaching out for a loaf of bread.
gOh, sorry,h the police officer said.
I reached toward the back of the shelf, and pulled forward a loaf. Actually, in Japan, youfll be hard-pressed to find a full loaf of white bread. All I could ever get were these heelless half-loaves. The slices are as thick as quality French toast. And perfect for honey-banana sandwiches.
gHere, here,h the police officer said, as I turned over the loaf of bread. I looked at him. He was holding a loaf in his hands. gThis onefs fresh,h he said. I nodded, and took it. He took the loaf of bread out of my hands, and shoved it to the back of the shelf.
gThanks,h I said.
gDonft mention it,h he said, going back to his work.
gWhat was with the police officer straightening the bread?h
My roommate scoffed, and stuffed a complimentary pack of tissues into his jacket pocket.
gThere ainft no crime up here,h he said. gThey donft have anything else to do, in the middle of the night. They canft even run around, terrorizing kids. They only got one gun, and itfs on lockdown in the Koban. They got, like, detonation codes for that shit.h
gAha,h I said, looking down. My roommatefs simple description had disappointed me.
It was at that moment that I decided to stop letting other peoplefs visions of Japan ruin mine. It was at that moment that I decided: the police officer was put there, by someone important, to insure that every person had a fresh loaf of bread, and that every stale loaf was pushed away from human sight. I smiled, in the cold, beneath the buzzing neon of a pachinko parlor, and a drunk man stumbling toward the Only Beer Machine in Kita-Urawa, to make himself even drunker.
Months later, Ifd survived an adventure. Ifd been pushed down the stairs at Akabane Station by some Yakuza. Ifd broken my favorite CD, and several rules of my company. My kindly roommates had turned me in to the company for a pay bonus. Ifd resigned, and taken a gjobh as a live-in chef/personal assistant for a comic artist whose privacy Ifll respect. Ifd taken on a protegee -- a sixteen-year-old punk-rocking girl named Masako who aspires to be both a novelist and gas cool as Tim Rogers.h
Masako and I had started a band called gLarge Prime Numbers.h The name was later shortened to gPrime Numbers.h The band consisted of me on acoustic guitar and lead vocal, Masako on percussion and backing vocals, Sakai-san on electric guitar, and a big girl we called Sempai on bass. On my last Saturday night in Japan, Masako, me, Sakai-san, and Sempai journeyed up to Kawagoe to an acoustic punk-duel with a rival band. Well, they were Sakai-san and Sempaifs rivals, from their Sendagaya high school. Ifd never met them before. A bunch of outright punkish-looking girls they were.
We had an awesome time, on the bridge outside the station. We ripped through a slew of Blue Heartsf songs, including gTrain Train,h gLinda Linda,h and gHitoni Yasashiku.h We played a tag-team of gWhy donft we do it in the road?h that lasted for about a half an hour. Our almost-was smash-single gDonnani nagakutemoh (gNo matter how longh) got me a hundred-yen-coin and a wink from a passing catholic college girl named Mami. That was my fourth and final Mami.
One of the punkish rival girls had brought a banjo. She gave it to me, and I ripped it up pretty good. I played Beckfs gDeath is coming to get you,h and gHefs a Mighty Good Leader.h The latter earned me a tangerine from a passing businessman.
gI like bluegrass,h he told me.
gOh?h I said. gIs that so?
gPlay some more bluegrass.h
gI didnft know it was bluegrass until you told me it was bluegrass, old man,h I said.
He laughed, and laughed. And he patted me on the shoulder, and gave me his business card. Yasuhisa Nakata. He works for Mitsubishi. Then again, what old bluegrass-loving guy in Tokyo doesnft?
It was Masako that told the punkish girls about peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.
gYou should try them,h she said. The girls made these screwed-up faces. gTheyfre not too sweet,h Masako assured them. They didnft seem to believe her.
Masako, Sakai-san, and I bid Sempai goodbye at the Kawagoe Line platform. Much as shefd wanted another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she had to get home, she said. It was nearing ten ofclock.
Masako, Sakai-san and I took the Tobu-Tojo Line south to Fujimino. At the Tobu Store at the station, we scrounged around for groceries with which to make a late dinner.
gYou still have peanut butter?h Masako asked me, as we looked at fruit.
gYeah,h I said. The week before, she and I had taken the train out to Higashi-Fussa, and bought American groceries at Yokota Air Base.
gDo we need more bread?h Masako asked me.
gWe might as well pick up some,h I said.
The grocery store wasnft too busy. I gathered that Japanese people shop once a day, usually before dinner. The typical shopper at dinner time was a housewife, maybe with a baby in a carriage. The typical shoppers at ten on a Saturday evening were kids, including a trio of punk-rockers: one of them tall, male, and American, the other two Japanese, short, and looking like drama club members.
Sakai-san especially looked like a drama club member. And she acted like one, too. Because she was in the drama club. Masako had been in the drama club, too, until she quit school around the same time I quit my job. Shefd been at the top of her class.
gIfm hungry,h Sakai-san said. She gripped her guitar case. gWhat else can you make us?h she asked me.
I thought over the ingredients in my hostessf refrigerator for a few minutes. She was probably at home, watching Amadeus on VHS for the second time in a row. She loves that movie.
gI can make some Complicated Pasta,h I said.
gOoh, I love Complicated Pasta,h Sakai-san said. Masako grinned. Sakai-san had been afraid to try it, until Masako pushed her. That much Tabasco can scare the hell out of anyone, be they Japanese . . . or not.
As we walked, I was looking at my shoes, tapping along the shiny white tiles. When I looked up, we were steps away from the bread aisle. There, a young police officer was straightening loaves of bread with a tight face.
gExcuse me,h I said, stepping in. gCan I get one of those?h I asked him.
He didnft even look at me. gGo ahead,h he said.
I watched him for five seconds. His white-gloved hands, mechanically reaching in, grabbing loaves of bread, and pulling them toward the edge of the shelf. He had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The right lens had a little crack in it. I watched his eyes blink, twice. Taking a sniff of the heated air, I grabbed a loaf, and was off.
Masako and Sakai-san had stored their bikes in the garage beneath Fujimino Station. The three of us went down, got the bikes, waved to the old man supervising the place, and surfaced. I rode Masakofs bike. She stood on the back, holding my guitar and her tambourine. Sakai-san and I raced all the way to my hostessfs apartment building in northern Fujimino. It was cold, and quiet. That was the last time I saw Sakai-san outside. That was the last night I saw Masako and Sakai-san together.
My hostess was watching Amadeus when we got in. The cats ran up to greet us. My hostess always believed that being kept hungry made cats obedient. In my experience, it made them loud. My hostess greeted Sakai-san and Masako as I slapped together some peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches and boiled water for pasta. My hostess made tea for the four of us, and talked to Sakai-san about studying abroad in Australia while Masako helped me complicate the pasta.
gYour father called,h my hostess told Masako, as we all sat down for dinner.
gOh?h Masako asked. gWhat did he want?h
gHe wanted to know if you guys got back yet.h
Masako groaned. gDamn it,h she said.
An hour later, everyone was gone. Even my hostess had retired to bed. I closed the balcony curtains, fed the cats, and sat in front of the television for some Metal Gear Solid 2. I played until past three in the morning, nibbling a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich.
At a little past three, as Raiden was sneaking into a room ridiculously full of Extreme-difficulty-level guards, the phone rang, piercing the silence. I paused my game, jumped up, and grabbed it. I was shaking when I picked it up. It had scared the hell out of me.
gHello?h I said.
gHello, Tim, is that you?h
gOh, hi, Fuku-san.h It was Masakofs dad.
gIs Masako still there?h he asked me.
I shook my head, and looked back to the living room. gNo, no. She left . . . a while ago. She should be on her way home.
gOh,h Masakofs dad said, and was quiet. gWell, sorry to disturb you,h he said.
gNo problem,h I said, and hung up.
I went back into the living room, then. One of my hostessfs cats was in the middle of the table, clawing at my sandwich. The other cat -- the smaller one -- had the bag of bread on the floor, and was chewing on the plastic. There had been two slices in the bag. The little cat had succeeded in removing one of them. It had eaten half of the piece of bread, rendering the rest inedible. I shooed the cats away, and picked the bag up from the floor. There was only one slice left in the bag. I took it out, and squeezed it. Standing in the middle of the living room, I wondered what kind of pathetic sandwich I could make with one slice of stale bread.
Tim Rogers
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