The first time I met a girl named Mami was at a little before nine in the morning on Friday, November 22nd, 2001. My head was throbbing with the pain of having beaten Metal Gear Solid 2 the night before instead of sleeping.

When I first saw her, Mami was setting a cloth banner on a metal post outside the beauty salon where she worked. The banner was yellow, and it asked all passing college students to come on in, show their IDs, and get a nice discount. A blue banner thanked all returning customers for their years of patronage. Mami had her hand on the metal post on which the blue banner hung. She was pulling the banner out of the automatic door, and positioning it on the sidewalk. This was in early October. I walked by, and she looked at me, and I looked at her, and I kept walking. That was my first day of work.



I didnft properly gmeeth Mami until more than a month later. When I did properly gmeeth her, it was hardly under what you would call normal circumstances.

Every day, Mami was straightening the metal banner posts outside the beauty salon where she worked. The bases were thick, and heavy, and scraped across the pavement with a sound that, to me, indicated a day of teaching conversational English getting off to a grinding start. Every day, Mami looked up at me, and almost nodded. She was a short-ish girl, with cropped, sticky-with-gel, fire-orange hair. Her neck and wrists, I noticed, even from far away, were skinny. It was probably because of the numerous, loose, black rubber bands she wore on her wrist that her arms looked thin and frail. She dressed, always, in black jeans, and wore no socks under her Keds. Under her forest-green apron, she always wore a dark-colored short-sleeved shirt. Her hair was allowed to be fashionable; her clothes were a different story. She was, like me, an employee of a company.

Except I had to wear a suit and a tie.

On most days, I had worn a long wool coat my father had bought me for Christmas two years prior. It wasnft the greatest or most expensive coat; it did, however, look formal enough to be worn on a Tokyo train at seven in the morning. Even when youfre not working at your company in Tokyo, therefs an unwritten law: you have to dress up. If youfre caught wearing white socks with dress shoes by a drunk on a train in Saitama at one in morning on a Saturday, look out -- he might just be about to flip out his cell phone and call the fashion police on your ignorant foreign ass. He gives you a look like, gI donft have a job -- whatfs your excuse?h

On the day I formally met Mami, I was angry at some thing or the other. Information Ifd disclosed in confidence to a Chinese-Canadian girl at the airport more than a month ago had come back to haunt me. Yakuza punks in big blue ski jackets were waiting across the street from my apartment every morning to see me off to the station. A week prior to my meeting Mami, Ifd arrived home after an outing with my protegee Masako to find two of my window bars broken off and lying on the concrete walk outside my building. My garbage was dumped all over my futon, and my personal papers and letters were scattered everywhere.

Ever since that day, I stopped wearing the wool coat. It felt like a joke to wear it anymore, and I wasnft mobile when it was on. Plus, I sweat something wicked in those crowded trains. I started wearing my Spider-Man hooded sweatshirt over my white shirt. If any fashion-savvy salaryman looked at me sideways, I was sure to give him a real, hearty, American, gYou got a problem?h kind of look. I began to stow my business shoes away in the closet in my schoolfs office. Every morning, Ifd wake up, shower, gel back my hair, look at myself in the mirror, shave, get dressed up, grab my Spider-Man sweatshirt, and head out to the communal room. There, Ifd slide on my black socks, and watch a little bit of a cooking show Ifd developed a morbid interest in.

The morning I properly met Mami, my roommates had claimed the television. One of them -- the skinny, Chinese-Canadian one -- had swiped a pad of paper from his branch. He had torn out each sheet of that pad and taped them all together. On this enormous sheet of paper, he and my portly Thai-American roommate were drawing some kind of makeshift map with a whiteboard marker theyfd proudly swiped from the local yakiniku joint. The lines of their map, every eleven inches, intersected with our companyfs logo, which was printed in purple at the top of every sheet of paper.

On the television no one was watching was an episode of some NHK-produced English conversation show.

A Japanese woman in her thirties was buying some kind of antique . . . whatever . . . from a pleasantly large red-haired white woman. The plastic smile didnft leave either of their faces.

gYour . . . total . . . is . . . sixty-four . . . dollars.h

gDo . . . you . . . accept . . . travelerfs checks?h the Japanese woman asked.

gWhy, . . . yes, . . . we . . . do.h

gThankyou.h

gThankyou.h

After the last gthankyou,h the two women stood looking at one another, blinking a few times, smiling, as captions on the bottom of the screen revealed the entire script of the conversation in both Japanese and English. After ten seconds of this, the Japanese woman and the red-haired white woman began their gconversationh again, plastic grins and all.

gAre you watching this?h I asked my roommates. The skinny one had his elbow resting on the remote.

gWhatfs it to you?h the fat one said.

gI donft know,h I said. I had my bottle of Kirin Afternoon Tea Milk Tea in my lap:

gSunlight and mist turn a young leaf into tea. Tea can turn you into something new. Tea. A natural gift of love.h

I screwed off the cap, held the bottle up to my nose, and took a deep smell.

gGonna drink some of that?h the skinny roommate asked me.

I screwed the cap back on. gNah,h I said.

gStill Ramen-dan?h the fat roommate asked me.

gWhy are you fasting for Ramadan, anyway?h the skinny roommate asked me, not looking up from the taped-together paper.

gWhatfs this?h I asked, motioning to the paper on the table as I put my bottle of tea into the tiny refrigerator.

gItfs the Sanders Evacuation Route, bitch,h my fat roommate said.

gThatfs the SER,h my skinny roommate said.

gI see,h I said, sitting back down. I looked at the television. That big white woman and little Japanese woman were once again staring at the audience with grins on their faces. Their grins looked fake, like the grin on the plastic Colonel Sanders statue that stands out in front of every Kentucky Fried Chicken in Tokyo.

Thatfs what my roommates were plotting to steal -- and gevacuateh -- a statue of Colonel Sanders.

I sighed, turned away from the TV, and looked at the map on the table. Hell if I knew what was what.

gThis is the KFC up in Urawa,h the fat roommate said, pressing his pudgy finger down on the table. The paper wrinkled -- underneath it was a piece of Astroturf theyfd stolen from a golf shop in Omiya and fashioned into a tablecloth.

gYeah, up in Urawa.h

gThat far?h I asked.

The fat roommate scoffed. gItfs only one stop away.h

gOh, right,h I said.

The skinny roommate pressed his finger down on his side of the paper.

gThis is us,h he said.

The fat roommate navigated his finger down several boldly-drawn streets and alleys, which cut between what I suddenly realized were buildings.

gWefre gonna run him up this way.h

gTake us about ten minutes on foot.h

gShit, dude, we gotta get a red marker, to outline this shit.h

gGood idea.h

I tried to imagine the route, traced with a red marker. I couldnft. The sense of spatial perception that had earned me an A+ in geometry class in tenth grade had faded.

Slowly, I spoke, just to speak.

gYoufre just going to . . . run up here, with a life-sized statue of Colonel Sanders in your hands?h

I was so busy looking at the map I didnft notice my skinny roommate had stood up. He was already in front of the kitchen sink, scrounging around in the cupboard.

gYou skeptical son of a bitch,h my fat roommate said with a snicker.

The skinny roommate turned around. gWefre gonna put him in this,h he said.

I looked right at him. He was standing in a pair of black sweatpants, pink, department-store-bought house slippers, and a navy-blue U2 T-shirt. Stubble was all over his face like a mud stain. He had a brown plastic bag in his hand, and he whipped it open with a thwap. The thing must have been two meters long.

gThatfs a pretty big trash bag,h I muttered.

gBig enough to throw your dead-body ass in,h my fat roommate said.

I turned back to the TV, then. A commercial was coming up. It was a station identification. I noticed, then, that it was the same channel that normally showed the cooking show. Where was the cooking show? Why had it been preempted? What a sucky day this was turning out to be, I thought, as I dug into my pocket for a balled-up pair of black socks. They smelled oddly like corn, even when I held them a meter from my face.

gDamn,h my skinny roommate whispered.

I slid the socks on, and stood up. I went into the bathroom, re-tied my tie, and went back into the communal room, where I picked up my Spider-Man sweatshirt. The thing smelled like garbage. Everything smelled like garbage. I went back into my room, threw the sweatshirt in my laundry pile, and grabbed my Tony Hawk sweatshirt. I put it on, crossed back into the communal room, and told my roommates I was leaving. They didnft hear me.

I went back to the entryway and slid my feet into my shoes.



The feeling of dress socks under skateboard shoes is a hypnotizing one. It makes you feel like youfre floating. Ifd loved that feeling for an entire week. The night before I met Mami, Ifd stopped loving that feeling.

That night, I had to go down to Ikebukuro for God-knows-what company meeting / errand. My protegee Masako had visited that afternoon, and, supervised, she cooked Complicated Pasta in my kitchen while my roommates were out. I let her eat in my room. We sat on the floor. She read volume three of Eichirou Oudafs One Piece aloud in a myriad of cartoon-character voices as I played Metal Gear Solid 2 on company-provided thirteen-inch television. When I left Masako at the station, I told her Ifd be back in three hours.

I got to Ikebukuro, deposited the appointed letter in the appointed hands of the appointed company representative, and wandered around a bit. I think Ikebukuro is my favorite city in Tokyo. Ginza is so European. Shinjuku is so New York. Harajuku is so acid-Parisian. Akihabara is so . . . Blade Runner. Ikebukuro has a little bit of each one of these things, making it really nothing at all: just a giant metropolitan environment with a huge shopping mall, a couple of Tokyofs more respectable pleasure quarters, and a train station that gives the impression of a thirteen-story canyon wall.

The sun had dipped below the wall of Ikebukuro Canyon by the time I finished my errand. Hungry and thirsty from my Ramadan day, I grabbed a Mitsuya Cider from a vending machine, and then stepped into Wendyfs for some gfried potato.h And they called it a glarge.h For shame.

Wendyfs fries, unlike the fries of McDonalds, taste the same all over the world. Perfectly salty, and tender, and not too crisp. I sat at a table toward the front of the restaurant with my overpriced fries and my bottle of Mitsuya Cider. The packet of ketchup the guy at the counter looked that something that should hold strawberry jam. As I drank and ate, as the fries sizzled in my stomach and nauseatingly reminded me how much more delicious and nutritious Complicated Pasta would be if I wasnft so damned lazy, I looked out across the street at a Laundromat. There were two guys, one of them kind of short, the other one taller than me. They were standing, in blue ski-jackets, side-by-side, with their hands folded over their abdomens. They were looking at me. I looked up at them, scoffed, and shook my head. I almost raised my hand up to show them my index finger: gJust a minute.h I scraped the last bit of ketchup out of that little packet, got up, left my tray and bottle on my table, and headed out to the street.

As I approached the station, I removed a packet of ketchup from my pocket and cracked it open. Part of the people-wave headed toward the Yamanote Line platform, I floated in my black socks and skateboard shoes, and dipped my finger into the ketchup. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder at the ticket gate, no one could see me to find me suspicious or ridiculous.

My face was plastered to the window on the northbound Yamanote train. Reflected in the glass, I could see the two Yakuza punks. They were looking at me like they were sorry. I almost laughed, standing there on the train. Did these guys even know who I was, or why they were watching me? Probably not. To think, theyfd been sent to follow someone who had been sent to Ikebukuro to attend a company meeting that he probably wasnft even supposed to be attending. The Yakuza must be the most bored crime organization on earth, to send a guy to a meeting just so they can send guys to follow him onto the train afterward.

Even if youfve never been followed by gangsters before, trust me when I say you could do a lot worse than Yakuza. Your typical movie gangsters are all gritty, tough, and evil. The Yakuza have perfect frosted hair tips and know what shade of purple tie matches a charcoal gray silk shirt. Itfs almost a proud experience to have a pair of Yakuza stalkers very conspicuously following you. They make you look good. Theyfre the Japanese, male equivalent of Robert Palmer girls.

All the way up to Akabane, where I was to switch to the northbound Keihin-Tohoku Line, I was listening to Dreams Come Truefs CD gGreatest Hits -- The SOUL,h and for some reason humming gAddicted to Love.h

The Yakuza guy on the right, he had a sculpted goatee, and a cold. He kept sniffing, and raising his right fist up to cover his mouth and his goatee when he coughed.



I was running up the stairs at Akabane Station when the Yakuza guys pushed me down. I kept feeling like I was going to slip -- such is the feeling of black dress socks under sneakers.

Ifd descended the stairs from the Yamanote, and removed my right headphone. I looked at the train times and listened to the dead-refrigerator sound of Tokyofs northern border swimming around and picking up mayonnaise-injected bread to serve with dinner. There was a Colonel Sanders grinning plasticly at me from across the station. I had: thirty seconds to get to the train. I took off jogging toward the other side of the station in the Japanese MiniDisc-player-gripping fashion. Except I didnft have a MiniDisc player.

I didnft have time to look over my shoulder to see if the Yakuza guys were behind me.

I was halfway up the stairs, in the midst of a people-wave, when the punks made their move. The short one clipped me in the middle of the back with his shoulder. The tall one got me in the back of the head with the side of his elbow. I snapped forward, brushing the top of my long hair into the back of a hurrying salaryman. My toes caught on the bumpy surface of a yellow tile designed to aid the cane-carrying blind, and my chin slammed into the stair at the salarymanfs feet. My CD player fell out of my hands, and was neatly impaled by my knee as my leg twisted. Somehow, I managed to slide down one stair, twisting my ankle. When I opened my eyes, I was on my back. Two upside-down Yakuza punks were stepping up onto the platform. My foot hurt like hell -- I must have chipped a bone. It looked like I was going to miss the train.



All the way to work on the morning I met Mami, I thought about the day before, on the Keihin-Tohoku platform, waiting for the train. My CD had been cracked right down the middle. The first five tracks played; the sixth one skipped, and the last ten didnft work at all. I sat there, wondering how my CD player had survived the fall. I had made up my mind: tonight Ifm going to beat Metal Gear Solid 2. It isnft released in Japan for seven more days. I got my friend to send it to me for a reason. Ifm going to beat it, and then spoil it for the game-loving salaryman who spoiled Final Fantasy X for me. He has a lesson every day. Itfs payback time.

I was regretting that decision all the way to my first meeting with Mami the next morning -- and I didnft yet know that the salaryman was going to miss his first daily lesson in six weeks. Even without knowing that, my head ached, as I rubbed the Band-Aid on my chin. What a horrible, horrible morning.



Mami let out a barely audible gAnouuuuuh as I passed by her on my way to my school.

I turned, and looked at her.

gAnouuu,h she said.

gYeah?h I said, in Japanese. gYou alright?h

She had her hand on the metal banner post, and she was blinking so quickly youfd think shefs trying to hypnotize me.

gAre you okay?h

gI like your hair!h she nearly yelled, in English.

gDo you?h I asked her.

gMay I . . . talk with your, about your hair, some time?h

gUm, sure,h I told her.

gYou have lunch break at twelve ofclock?h

gUm, yeah,h I said.

gDo you want meet me, in Saty?h

Saty is the name of the department store kind enough to provide retail space to Mamifs hair salon and my English school.

gSure,h I said.

gIn Makudonarudo,h she said.

gMcDonalds,h I corrected her, momentarily forgetting I wasnft yet on duty. gSure.h

Mami nodded, straightened that banner one last time, and left me. I headed in the direction of my school, trying to minimize the spiky pressure on my right heel.



Thatfs how I first gmeth Mami.

I didnft learn her name was Mami until noon, when we met in the McDonaldfs at Saty. She offered to buy me lunch, I told her I wasnft hungry, and she looked at me like I was weird. I sat next to her on a bench by a tako-yaki stand as she ate a Big Mac and repeatedly offered me some of her Sprite. Her teeth were big, white, and straight and jagged at the same time. I imagined those teeth must have punctured a few straws in their time.

I tried to keep with the Japanese conversational tradition: look away from the speaker and say as little as possible. Actually, that last part is a rule of teaching conversational English. It works either way.

The only scenery happened to be the checkout lanes of the grocery store department of Saty, a franchise bakery, and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, complete with a smiling Colonel Sanders. In this brightly lit place on this foggy afternoon, Colonel Sanders was inside and smiling.

Turns out Mami had lived in Los Angeles during high school. Her parents were rich. She lived there, and became obsessed with West Coast hip-hop and basketball. She also decided to forgo college for beauty school. Her dream: to study hair-care in London, and then move to Hollywood and do hair work for movies.

gI have many interesting idea,h she said, gfor hair.h

She continued pouring out revelations. gWestern hair is, maybe, mystery,h she told me, quite quietly, when her Big Mac was finished.

gOh?f I asked her.

gMay I . . .h she said, wiping her hands on her pant legs, gtouch?h

gMy hair?h I asked, patting myself on the head.

gYes.h

gSure, go ahead.h

Mami patted the top of my head a few times.

gMay I . . .h she went on. She didnft complete the sentence.

gGo ahead.h

Mami grabbed a handful of my hair, and pulled it. My hair was long, then -- too long for my company. My boss had taken me aside a few times for counseling. If a Japanese company official were to come in and see me, my boss said, hefd flip. Ifd better do something about my hair, or I could lose my job. I scoffed at him. I must have sounded rude. Really, he was a good guy. His name was Jerry, and he was from New Jersey. I agreed to slick my hair back with gel, which made me look kind of greasy.

gInteresting,h Mami was saying, over and over again, in Japanese.

gOh?h I asked her.

gYou shouldnft use too much gel,h she told me, in Japanese.

gItfs for my company.h

She shook her head. gYou need to let me do something to your hair. My boss is kind of cool. Just come by some time when youfve got an hour.h

gSure,h I said. I looked at Colonel Sanders, and then at my watch. It was time for me to get back to work. gItfs time for me to get back to work.h

gMe, too.h



My next lesson was Yuki Yoshimura, a mid-level student. She was all alone, so we had a free conversation. She sat in her chair, with her little diary notebook opened to the middle. Around the margin of that page, shefd written her name in Russian nearly a hundred times. This is kind of curious, seeing as the week before Ifd been counseled by an Australian regional manager about my teaching style. It turned out Ifd gotten a few complaints about my teaching style -- I was too harsh. Oh, and whatfs this in the binder of doom? You taught one student how to write in Russian?

No, I told this woman -- aptly named Sheila -- Yuki had asked me what her name would look like in Russian, after asking me what languages I spoke, and after I answered Russian. As per you peoplefs wishes, Ifd not told her I spoke Japanese. She copied the Russian on her own. Thatfs just the kind of thing she does.

Oh, oh, we never said she was a gshe.h

She IS a she. Shefs Yuki Yoshimura, a level 5, twenty years old, four-foot-eleven. She has a nose bridge and a perm, and pink braces. She wears too much perfume. Her favorite videogame of all time is Tales of Destiny. She likes to repeat focal structures over and over again without being drilled to do so. She quit college to push credit cards applications for the MyCal corporation on floor three of Saty.

I caught my tongue before I could say, gSometimes, when Ifm book shopping, I see her there, and she waves to me, and dismisses herself from her coworkers to run up and chat with me.h

Yuki says, of her credit card job: gThey needed someone who was cute.h

gHow are you today, Tim?h

gIfm tired. You?h

gI have to work tonight.h

gI thought you had off on Fridays.h

gMy boss says, I need to do . . . overtime.h

gOh,h I said. gTell me about your boss.h This was my idea of geliciting a response.h I wasnft allowed to correct Yuki, however: the profile said she didnft like it. Made her feel incompetent.

Yuki wrinkled up her three-quarters nose bridge. gHefs horrible.h

gHow so?h

gWhat?h

gWhy?h

gOh. He is . . . bad. He is selfish. He is thirty years old. He is from Osaka. He speaks Kansai. He is not married, and . . . he wears cologne.h

She said gOsaka,h gKansai,h and gcologneh like a kid whispering to his mother what the bully next door called him before the fight started.

gI see,h I said.



That night, after being asked by every student why I had a Band-aid on my chin and after being asked by my boss why Ifd chosen fluorescent green, I was walking back toward Fujimino Station with a pain like something was missing from inside my head. I rubbed my temples. My right headphone was broken and buzzing. I took it out. I needed new headphones.

It was then that I heard someone calling me.

gTim!h

gYuki?h I said, quietly. I hadnft slept in two days; I figured I was hearing things.

Surely enough, there she was.

gHi!h Yuki said, running up to my side. Shefd left behind a Japanese man, who was walking, hands in the pockets of his sport jacket, khaki-colored scarf wrapped around his neck and knotted. His lips were sealed, turned slightly upward.

gHefs my teacher,h Yuki told her male companion, whom I mistook for her boyfriend. gHefs really smart. Hefs a writer.h

gNice to meet you,h he said to me, in an Osaka accent. I could tell that Osaka accent from a kilometer away.

gNice to meet you,h I said, in Japanese.

Yukifs jaw dropped, revealing her pink braces.

gSo, you speak Japanese?h

gYeah, a little bit. Ifm still learning.h Thatfs the proper response, even if youfve lived in Japan for twenty years and are fluent.

gYou pronounce words the Osaka way.h

gMy first teacher was from Osaka,h I said. Itfs true; she got all her students in the habit of rolling the ggh in any word with an embedded gg.h If you donft understand how a ggh is rolled, listen to some Kansai music. I can recommend a lesbian punk band from Kobe.

gOh yeah?h

gYeah.h

Yuki, like a good English conversation teacher, kept her Talking Time low, and kept her hands on the little yellow backpack that clashed with her perfectly pressed business suit, which in turn clashed with her braces and the fact that she looked about twelve.

Yuki and Kazuhisa-san (he gave me a business card) directed me toward the Musashino line, and I pretended to need the directing. I figured that, to be safe, I should accept their help. There was no telling if I would pass out, or die. We headed south out of Fujimino, stopped at Asakadai, switched trains at Kita-Asaka, and headed toward Minami-Urawa (South Urawa). Yuki got off the train at Nishi-Urawa (West Urawa), leaving me with the man Ifd long since realized was her lonely, unmarried, weird-talking, flower-smelling, selfish boss.

At Minami-Urawa, we both got off the train. We were talking about something that has something to do with something about trains. He directed me to the northbound Keihin-Tohoku line, which would take me to Kita-Urawa. He walked me halfway down the stairs, then stopped, extended his hand, and, having extracted details pertaining to my interest in Chinese literature, cleverly said, gThough you escort a guest a thousand miles, you can only part in the end.h I shook his hand. Something about the handshake electrified the hell out of me. I felt like he was going to break my hand. He looked me right in the eye, smiled, and I realized he was gay.



A cardboard cut-out of a model with a mobile phone was standing at the foot of my futon in Kita-Urawa. I looked at it, sighed, threw off my sweatshirt, and headed into the communal room, where my roommates were busy eating beef bouillon and talking about the gsuccessful operation.h

I took a long sip of tea. gWhat successful operation?h

gThe Trial Sanders Snatch, bitch,h my fat roommate said, and then chuckled at some Japanese game show.

gThatfs the TSS,h my skinny roommate said, swallowing some tangerines.

gRight,h I said.

gYou got a letter,h my fat roommate said.

I grabbed the letter from the top of the television. It was from Masako. Again.

I went to the bathroom. When I got out, my skinny roommate remarked, gYo, Tim, you left your laundry in the washing machine again.h

I wondered, then: had I done laundry? I didnft remember doing it.

I opened the washing machine, and pulled out some white undershirts. Using a technique learned from my father, I ironed them on the ironing board in the communal room.

gLook at those pit stains,h my fat roommate said, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

And thatfs when I noticed them. My white T-shirt had yellow stains in the armpits.



The next night, I wandered around the lower floor of Saty, looking for deodorant.

gDo you have deodorant?h I asked a kind-looking old woman.

Therefs no Japanese word for gdeodorant,h so I just converted it to katakana: gDe-i-oh-da-ran-to.h

She shook her head, and didnft say anything.

When I went outside, Mami was pulling the banners into her beauty shop. She looked at me, and didnft say anything.



In a little over an hour, I was at the Itoyoukadou department store in Urawa, looking for deodorant. Itouyoukadou is a little more formal of a store than Saty, so I figured theyfd have some finer things. They certainly did have old women with hands folded behind their backs to follow customers or to stand in the aisles and bow as they walked by. It was creepy. The alien elevator music playing -- on a four-second loop, no less -- was something I had never gotten used to. It made my stomach quake, like I was both really hungry and being followed by gangsters with unkempt hair and unfashionable suits.

I looked over my shoulder. There was a sweet-faced old lady with dark red lipstick.

gHi,h I said, stopping in place.

She bowed her head.

gDo you have deodorant?h I asked her. Straight and to the point: thatfs how you deal with people in the Tokyo service industry.

She opened her mouth slightly, revealing a grate of wood-colored teeth.

gThis way,h she said, and took me to the housewares department.

Fifteen jingle repetitions later, she motioned to a shelf with a gTa-dahh look on her face.

Canned spray air-fresheners. Right there, on the can, it said, in katakana and English: gDeodorant.h

I grabbed an orange can, nodded to the woman, and was off.



Weeks of spraying my armpits with chalk-smelling air-freshener later, my life and job and hygiene had fallen almost entirely apart. Every morning, I poured a handful of my fat roommatefs unwanted Tommy cologne down my shirt. Every morning, I gave a little gwhatfs up?h tip of the head to whatever Yakuza guy was standing across the street from my apartment. Every morning, Mami dragged out that metal sign, and looked at me, and bit her lip.

On December 17th, a week before Ifd go AWOL and evacuate my apartment, Sheila showed up at my branch to tell me to cut my hair.

I got off at five ofclock that day. I decided to call off my daily trip to the Cafe Monster. Masako would understand. I went to Mamifs hair salon, and see if shefd give me a free haircut.



gOh, oh, oh,h Mami kept saying.

gHow much . . .h I kept trying to ask her.

gNo, no, no trouble,h she kept saying, and then told her boss about the arrangement shefd made with me. The boss, a big, burly Japanese guy with fuzzy yellow kind-of dreadlocks, gave a nod, looked at me, and flashed his big, white teeth. The look on his face is the look you visualize when you hear the word gAwesome.h



Mami tied the apron around my neck and leaned back the chair. She washed my hair with expensive apple-scented shampoo. She told me to close my eyes. The water was cold. Shefd taken off my glasses, so even when, during the frantic spinning of the barberfs -- stylistfs -- chair, I could see the mirror, I had no clue what was going on. My most nagging question was: where are the damned scissors?

I didnft get a chance to ask any questions, because Mami was very into her work. She was also very into humming along to the Final Fantasy VI Piano Collections CD in her little boombox at the moment. It was Kefkafs theme when she started, and Mystery Forest for the third time when she was finished.

When she handed me back my glasses and spun me around, I almost swallowed my tongue.

I reached up, and touched my hair. It was not hard, like a helmet, as Ifd assumed. Rather, it was sticky, and pliable, and soft.

And yellow.

BRIGHT yellow.

Ifd gone from long brown hair to slightly shorter metallic yellow hair. Gel had been applied conservatively, giving me the fashionable impression that Ifd just woken up after ninety-six hours of violent sleep.

gWh-what . . .h I started to say.

Taped up in Mamifs corner of the beauty shop were several plastic-coated posters: Tidus, Cloud, Squall -- Final Fantasy heroes.

gI thought maybe you and Tidus had the same hair type,h Mami mused.

gIs this . . . real?h I asked, touching my hair.

Mami smiled, and I almost asked her to stop. She looked like a hungry wolf.

gItfs real,h she said. gWhat do you think?h

gItfs . . . interesting.h



gThe dye will wear off in two washes,h Mami assured me, as I left.

gRight, right,h I said.

gNext time we can try Cloud, or Squall?h

gSure,h I said, leaving.

My sweatshirt was folded over my arm -- Mami had told me not to try to put it on, or Ifd mess up my hair. It had been carefully messed-up enough, shefd told me. She didnft need me to carelessly mess it up further. I trusted her judgment, and was cold all the way back to the station.



I rode the Tobu-Tojo down to Ikebukuro, and then too the Yamanote to Harajuku. In Harajuku, I kept getting offered discounts on scarves from street vendors. I bought an orange one -- ten feet long -- and wrapped it around my neck. It reached all the way to the ground. As I walked, the scent of apples emanated from the bouncing wing-like sides of my hair. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored window of a tempura shop: white shirt, black tie, sweatshirt on my arm, bright yellow hair, squarish black glasses, orange scarf. Ifd turned into some kind of cartoon character, for Godfs sake: being stalked by Yakuza, having far-too-intense conversations about stealing a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders, spraying my armpits with canned air-freshener, sleeping on the floor in a tiny white box, wearing a long girlfs scarf, and associating with a girl named gMami,h who restructures my hair so I look like someone who doesnft even exist? What the hell kind of life is this?

I grabbed my hair, and pulled on it. I pushed it down, and it bounced back up. A thousand tiny, spiky cowlicks sprung up from the remains of every hundred I suppressed.

A man on the other side of the window was looking at me, and chewing a piece of shrimp. The sun had set, and I was hungry. I decided to go in, get some warm tempura vegetables and hot tea, get home, and take five or six showers.



A week later, on the day Ifd evacuate my apartment, a package would arrive from my mother: fifty pounds of cookies. Atop the package was a single bottle of good old American Freshburst Listerine.



* *



gWhen are you going to take me back to America, sempai?h Masako asked me in February of 2002.

It was about seven in the morning, and the sun was coming up over the Fujimidai 7-Eleven. We were sitting outside in scarves and hats and gloves, with one bag of 100-yen popcorn, two bottles of Kirin Royal Milk Tea -- The Queenfs Favorite -- the latest issue of Famitsu, and some old comic books shefd swiped off her brother. She had a Golgo 13; I was reading a historical comic about Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

gLetfs go today,h I said.



Masako and I took the Kaneko Line out to Yokota Air Base in Higashi Fussa. She showed her student ID at the gate -- even though shefd quit school -- and I showed my military ID. We went to the commissary to stock up on materials for the upcoming weekly lesbian-comic-artistsf-mahjongg-club Mexican dinner.

Afterwards, we ate at The Only Taco Bell in Tokyo Prefecture, and then headed upstairs to the Base eXchange. In the BX, Masako wanted to look for mints. Shefd gotten some last time; it was her first time ever eating mints. Shefd developed something of a taste for them. Ifd given her my lonely bottle of Listerine, and she wanted more of that, too.

gWhatfs the difference between the red ones and the blue ones and the green ones?h

gThe blue ones are the best,h I said.

gWhy are they the best?h

gBecause theyfre spearmint,h I said. gCome on, letfs go.h

In the health and beauty section, Masako grabbed a bottle of Wintermint Listerine.

gIt looks minty,h she said.

I was looking over hair gel when Masako laughed at me and said, gArenft you always saying how the Japanese hair gel is so much better?h

Slowly, I let out a few words. gWell, yeah . . .h

That was the first time I remembered Mami. Why hadnft I ever gone back to her beauty salon, like shefd begged me to? Did she even care? Did she find other foreigners to run her hair-experiments on?

I remembered the way the gel felt on my head, as I looked over tubes of deodorant.

A thought occurred to me, a remembrance of a time that seemed decades ago:

gIn those days, I wanted deodorant,h I said, slowly, in Japanese, in a deep, narrative voice. It sounded like the beginning caption of a historical comic book.

gYoufre crazy,h Masako muttered, and laughed.

I grabbed three sticks of Old Spice, and dropped them in the basket.

gLetfs go,h I said to Masako.



* * *



Much later, Ifd be packing my suitcases in a hurry to get back to America.

I called Masako at six in the morning, and instructed her in a few words to get over to my place. My hostess was already up, drawing the next twenty-two pages of layout for her comic.

gIfm one of the only artists who even does layouts by hand, these days,h she muttered, sometimes. That doesnft mean she liked doing the layouts. I always thought: that sucks, to be proud of something you donft like.

My hostess wasnft speaking to me that day. Something about her dating her stalker; something related to my hasty departure.

Masako showed up in a baseball cap and jeans.

gYou needed something?h

gYeah,h I said. gCan you help me to the post office?h

Masako looked into my room, and sniffed at the three cardboard boxes sitting at the edge of my futon.

gWhat the hell is this?h she asked, going into my room.

gIfm sending packages back to America.h

gWhat the hell for?h

gJust to get it out of the way.h

Masako sniffed, and sat down on my futon. I went into the kitchen to get tape while Masako removed her socks. When I got back into the room, Masako had the smallest of the three boxes open, and was spilling Super Famicom cartridges onto the futon.

gHey, now,h I said.

gWhatfs this?h she asked, as I sat down next to her and stood a large bottle of Kirin Lemon Tea on the bumpy futon.

She had two sticks of deodorant in her lap, and one in her hands.

gDeodorant,h I said. gWant some tea?h

She picked up the bottle of tea, and took a long drink. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. I took the tea, and started to drink.

gYou think Japanese people stink, sempai?h Masako asked me, suddenly.

I almost spit up the tea.

gNo, no,h I said.

gLiar,h she said, popping the cap off a stick of deodorant and turning the dial.

gNot all of them,h I said.

gYou donft think their teeth are ugly?h Masako said, still turning the dial. I grabbed one of the sticks of deodorant from the place it had fallen onto the futon.

gNot all of them,h I said, slowly.

gNot even my momfs?h

I choked.

Masako lifted her foot off the futon. She lifted it up, and put the sole to her face. Shefs double-jointed.

My hostess was standing outside the door, with a wheeled, metal luggage cart.

I looked at my hostess. She looked at Masako. I looked at Masako. She looked at my hostess. My hostess cleared her throat, and slid the folded-up luggage cart into the room. Its metal frame scraped against the hardwood floor with a gthis is your day grinding to a starth sound. There was a trace of a smile in her, somewhere.

When my hostess was gone, Masako put her foot down.

gIt smells like wet rice,h she said. gEverywhere you go, itfs that same old nasty wet sticky rice smell.h She pushed up her glasses. gDonft you think, sempai?h

I stuffed two of the sticks of deodorant into my box. I reached out and picked up the last stick from the futon.

Masako grabbed it, and pulled it back toward herself. I let go.

She held it up to her nose, and took in a deep smell.

A political van was driving by outside. A campaign announcement of some kind was blaring out of its roof-mounted speakers. It was a warm and gray morning.

gIt smells nice,h she said. She was twirling the cap around on the fingers of her other hand. gIt smells nice. It smells like nothing at all.h

I wasnft going to take it from her. I would let her keep it. I would let her keep that stick of something that smelled like something nice, that smelled like nothing at all.





-'Tim Rogers'

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