The first time I saw Mount Fuji was on the morning of Monday, November 4th, 2001.

The night before had been hell. I got off work late. Id planned on going directly to bed. I ended up embroiled in a one-third argument with my roommates about the best method for extracting a life-size plastic statue of Colonel Sanders from the closest Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The entrance hall of my apartment was freezing cold. I removed my business shoes -- back in those days, I hadnt yet learned to leave those shoes at work -- and stepped into my bedroom to deposit my laptop. In my hands, I had a 7-Eleven bag containing a bottle of Aquarius. Aquarius -- made by Coca-Cola -- is pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Gatorade. Except it comes in only one flavor: cloudy-white-lemon-lime-something. My room was perhaps cold enough to keep the bottle properly chilled. I decided to put it in the refrigerator anyway.

My rooms door was located directly across from the bathroom. My apartments front door was hollow aluminum, and cold as a can of soda to the touch. The pseudo-wood linoleum floor in the hall, too, was cold as chilled aluminum. My room was the only room of the three in our Kita-Urawa apartment that had a door with an actual knob. My roommates each had sliding doors, and working heaters. I had a duct-taped, dust-yellowed heating unit mounted in an aquarium-sized barred-and-frosted window.

The communal room was hot and steamy with the scent of peppered meat and the sound of two humming heaters. Not a second after cramming my bottle of Aquarius into the refrigerator, the fat Thai-American roommate spoke up over a mouthful of beef bouillon:

Dude, did you show Mister T here the escape route for if the pigs come looking for The Sanders?

Nah, dude, the skinny Chinese-Canadian roommate said, letting his big metal spoon crash against his big stone soup bowl. Wiping his mouth with a nearby hand towel, he said to me, Come on, this way.

In a second, the tatami mat of my Chinese-Canadian roommates room was pressing up through the soles of my thin socks.

Come on -- out to the balcony.

He slid open the door. Damn it, I thought: I wish I had balcony access.

A week before -- my third week in Japan -- Id hung my wet Spider-Man sweatshirt on the concrete ledge outside our front door. I left it there in the morning. When I returned from work, I found the sweatshirt in a rumpled heap on my futon. I took it into the communal room. My fat roommate replied to my question of What happened to my sweatshirt? with What kind of ignorant gaijin do you think we are?

My skinny Chinese-Canadian roommates half of the balcony was draped with two lesser mens wardrobes worth of black shirts and red ties. The wind drying those garments bit skin. My roommate -- in boxers and a U2 T-shirt -- must have been feeling it.

He pointed down at the street level. I looked at the Tsutaya video store.

Over here, dude, he said. I looked where he was pointing. Down that drainpipe there. I followed the flimsy-looking drainpipe with my eyes. And you jump onto the back of that truck there. I looked at the back of a canvas-topped truck parked on a little ramp. It was some thirty feet below us; the drainpipe ended about ten feet above the truck. It would be quite a drop.


Brilliant plan, aint it, Mister T? my fat roommate said, when we were all assembled again in the communal room.

I shrugged.

What? Whats this attitude about? my skinny roommate asked.

Attitude?

Yeah, you got an attitude problem, man, the skinny roommate went on.

Well, Im just thinking that truck might not always be there.

Damn, the fat roommate said. We been keeping tabs on that shit. Whenever were here, its here. You can rest assured.

I let out a long, slow Hmmm.

Yeah, you skeptical son of a bitch, my fat roommate said. You got doubts, be out with them. Im Chairman Mao, and youre the elderly schoolteacher about to get lynched.

My skinny roommate snorted.

I sighed. Well, I mean, what if theres cargo in the truck? Or what if it has a metal frame? I tell you, Id rather spend a night in a Japanese jail than catch that thing in the nads.

The skinny roommate snorted over his noodles. He was about to speak when the fat roommate spoke up.

Hes right, he said, shaking his head. Hes right. Damn it.

Yes, I thought. Im right.

And I also have something else to do. What is it?

My favorite Japanese pop group, Dreams Come True, had a new CD coming out in two weeks. There was a documentary on TV, in which Miwa Yoshida, DCTs lead singer, was being interviewed.

Dude, shes hot.

Shes forty, I said.

No way.

Ten minutes into this program, I was gone. I had no idea what Id wanted to do. I watched it until it was over, took a long swig of Aquarius, and went to bed.


Because Id passed out asleep on a bench on the Tobu-Tojo Line platform at Asakadai the next morning, I hurried onto the train, and ended up sitting on a different side than usual. Because the sky that day was as cerulean-clear as the sky at the end of the world, because the Yanasegawa River stretches out for miles west of the train tracks, I was able to see Mount Fuji for an instant. Because the sun rises at nine in the morning and sets at four in the afternoon in Japan of the Autumnal Equinox, the morning light was staining Mount Fujis snowcap copper.

I guess I didnt see Mount Fuji so much as I saw Mount Fujis snowcap. From that distance -- a whole prefecture away -- thats all that showed up in the light of a clear morning. All lined up along the shores of the Yanasegawa River were tall, crowded, alabaster-white condominium buildings. Each condo had a balcony, and fire escapes with white railings snaked around the sides of the buildings, all spider-web-like.


I saw Mount Fuji today, I told my friend Tom at work.

Yeah? Tom said. Tom was Korean-Canadian. He spoke a little bit of Chinese, a little bit of Japanese, a little bit of Korean, a lot of English, and very little journalism. Whered you see it?

From the train, coming out of Yanasegawa, I said.

Yanasegawa, huh? Tom thought it over for a second. Hey, Yanasegawa is the name of the town, right?

Right, I said.

And its the name of the river, too, right?

Right again, I said.

And kawa -- gawa -- means river, right?

Yep.

So, journalism question: is it Yanasegawa River, or is that redundant, like ATM machine?

I shrugged. According to the American Associate Presss style rules for dealing with foreign languages, itd be Yanasegawa River, even if Yanase River is more accurate.

Tom pushed up his silver-rimmed spectacles, and closed his little composition notebook. He had been practicing new kanji.

Okay, Japanese question, Tom said.

Shoot, I said. I was drinking a can of C.C. Lemon, and looking over my schedule for the day. I whipped open the old, creaking, metal file cabinet: this is the best file cabinet one of Tokyos richest Yakuza-run English school franchise can afford for the citizens of Fujimino.

Is it Fujiyama, or Fuji-san?

Fujiyama is wrong, I said. Its Fuji-san or nothing.

Interesting, Tom said. Is it the same san as Mister?

I shook my head. No, san as in mountain.

I thought mountain was yama?

When preceded by a proper name, the Chinese character shan -- yama, in Japanese, meaning mountain -- is always pronounced san in Japanese.

A large Australian teacher strolled into the office just then. She was big, and red-headed. She was wearing sunglasses, and spoke with a hangover.

Youre supposed to teach the STUDENTS, she was saying.

I didnt reply. Here we were, three people from different parts of the world, tired and aching after two-hour commutes to our jobs as dancing monkeys at the McDonalds of English. Even worse, the company required us to be an hour early -- an hour early without pay. We, the teachers, each reserved our individual rights to be cranky. And thirsty -- my C.C. Lemon had run out.

Im gonna get rotten tonight, the Australian woman said. Wheres the place again?

Tom looked up from his notebook. There, on the bulletin board, was a piece of paper:

Come wish Tom farewell! The time: 10 PM. The place: 221 B. Baker St. Pub, Mizuhoudai (Tobu-Tojo Line). Please attend everyone!

There was a clever graphic at the top of the page: Mount Fuji, and cherry blossoms, stolen directly off some cheap design programs clipart.

The please, by the way, was optional. Not attending the party was an act of defiance equivalent to telling your branch manager, Im thinking about switching to a LEGAL health insurance plan I can USE.


Have you ever been to Mount Fuji? I asked a room full of Level Ds. I actually had three students in a class. I took advantage of a room full of high-level students by providing a conversation topic. I was thirsty, and lazy, at the same time.

Not a single one of the students had been to Mount Fuji. These were all Japanese people who were in their late forties, with jobs, and families, and . . . life experiences.

Did you know, this one woman asked me, literally turning her back on the group, that Fujimino means Field Where You Can See Mount Fuji?

Really? I asked.

Yes. We used to write it in kanji, like this. The woman took my sheet of paper, and wrote:

富士見野

The first two characters are Fuji. The third character is see. The fourth one is field, or place. Now the woman took my sheet of paper, and wrote the following:

ふじみ野

Now the only character left is place.

Hmmm, I said. Why did they take away the other three kanji?

Because you cant see Mount Fuji from here anymore, they took away the kanji. Now its hiragana. The name of the city is still the same.

Just like capital letters, I mumbled.

Capital letters? the woman asked me.

Never mind, I said. So, why cant you see Mount Fuji from here anymore? Talk about it. I gestured at the three students.

The woman looked at the two men, and shrugged.

Too many buildings, one man said. He was a real estate agent.

Yes, the other man agreed. Too many buildings. Theyre building too many apartment buildings.

Yes, the woman said. Building too many things here. Its becoming dangerous.

Dangerous? I said.

Dangerous? the real estate agent said, raising an eyebrow.

Yes, the woman went on, its becoming dangerous. When they built Rism, Fujimino has becoming dangerous.

Ahhh, Rism, the real estate agent said. Have you been Rism? he asked me.

Not yet.

I eventually did go there. The place was creepy. It was an outlet mall. At night, it was like a ghost town. During the day, I guessed it was full of people. I went there one night, to the underground grocery store. I was looking for sour cream, and I found it. Attached to the Rism outlet mall is a high-rise apartment building called Rism Tower. According to the real estate agent, Rism Tower was the second-most expensive place to live in Fujimino.

That place is bad, the real estate agent said. I know people in the . . . company. They own Rism Tower and Im Tower. Not good businessmen. Like, like, mafia.

Yes, the second man said, with a nod.

Last month, a little girl was raped in the bathroom! the woman said.

This got the two mens attention. Really?

Terrible!

They said it was a foreigner who raped her.

A foreigner?

Yes, probably.

This place is becoming dangerous, the woman said. My daughter says it is dangerous in Okinawa. I tell her, it is dangerous here. It is dangerous everywhere, recently.

You daughter is in Okinawa? the real estate agent asked.

Okinawa is, maybe, dangerous place, the second guy said, to me.

How so? I asked.

Lots of foreigners, he said, almost whispering.

Lots of foreigners make a place dangerous? I asked. All the teachers at this school are foreigners. Is this school dangerous?

The three students laughed uneasily.


Lots of girls getting raped in Okinawa, the woman was saying, a minute later.

It is the air base, the real estate agent said.

Yes. Kadena. Lots of soldiers.

Its a dangerous, dangerous place.

No one is going there, recently, the second man said. A quick look at his portfolio revealed he owned a travel agency.

Why not? I asked him. I was thinking that I wouldnt mind going to Okinawa. I had this picture-perfect image of Okinawa: sunny and warm and semi-tropical, as steeped in ancient culture as Kita-Urawa is in convenient stores.

Maybe, because they are afraid of the terrorism.

Terrorism?

Yes, the real estate agent said. Kadena Air Base is, maybe, large target.

I see, I said.


The little girl went to hospital, the woman was saying, shortly before the bell rang.

The hospital?

Yes, she was beaten by the raper.

Rapist, I interjected.

Yes, rapist.

I sighed, and sat back. I almost put my hands on the back of my head. A second later, I defied the guidelines laid out in my orientation: I looked at my watch. Three minutes left in the lesson. The woman was looking at me when I looked up. She had a mole above the right corner of her mouth. According to her file, she was up for a level promotion. She had the linguistic skill to pick up on such nuances differentiating between verbal aspects and noticing when your English teacher is bored.

So, Tim, you saw Mount Fuji?

Yep, I said.

Did you . . . like it?

I shrugged. I liked it alright. I was more impressed by the apartment buildings by the river.

Ah, Yanasegawa, the real estate agent said.

Id like to live there, I said.

Nice . . . view, the travel agent said.

Very, very expensive . . . the real estate agent said.

You do not like your apartment? the woman said. She was no longer looking at her two classmates.

I opened my mouth, slowly. Now THERE was a question.

Luckily for me, the bell rang. I smiled, nodded, and dismissed myself without answering that question -- that question my answering could result in my being fired.


Before I left for Japan, Id been told Id be living alone, in Kyoto. I ended up not alone, in Tokyo. I ended up with a roommate who asked me, thirty minutes after my arrival, to fraudulently fill out a form at my company orientation. He was dressed in no more than a pair of Muay Thai kickboxing shorts when he made this request.

Theyre gonna ask you, like, if you have anything in your apartment that needs to be fixed. All you gotta do is, like, fill out a form. You get one form, and you list all the things you need replaced. Theyll have shit there to give you, too, so you dont got to worry about it. All you gotta do is tell them we need a new teapot, and a new TV.

I looked at the thirteen-inch TV-VCR combination. Some real-estate show was playing. A young, clean-looking, attractive Japanese woman in a business suit was being dragged around Central Tokyo by two hip young kids who looked about to head out on a ski trip. One of the kids overenthusiastically unveiled a hidden ladder in the ceiling of a wide, white Shinjuku apartment. He pulled it down, and the young, professional woman clapped her hands to her cheeks.

Oh my GOD! she yelled, as a title card informed the viewers:

Shinjuku: 200,000 yen a month.

Whats wrong with the TV? I asked.

My fat roommate slurped some of his tea, and snorted. I wouldnt meet the skinny one until that night.

Aside from the shitty shows on it, nothing.

Then why do you want another one?

We figure they might give us a bigger one. Its a lottery with these sons of bitches.

I see.

Now, the teapot, my roommate went on, there aint no question about that. He got up, and grabbed the teapot from off the stove. He held it up so I could see the bottom. It was black as my business shoes, only less shiny.

Wow, I said.

So, you gonna fill out those forms?

Um . . .


The next Monday night, by the time the suited Australian orientation crew got around to handing out those request forms, I was too spooked to do anything. I think everyone was.

At the orientation, I sat with Caroline, the Chinese-Canadian girl Id met at the airport and told about the health insurance fraud. She and I went over the health insurance application forms -- which were entirely in Japanese. I pointed out which kanji represented the money that was going to be illegally siphoned from our monthly paychecks, and she still had a hard time believing me.

When we got to the your new apartment part of the orientation, the staff handed out a revised contract. An anonymous email Id gotten a week before leaving for Japan had told me that theyd spring a revised contract on me at orientation. I had told Caroline about this at the beginning of the days disaster. When they finally did hand out that revised contract, Carolines lips were sealed.

All day long, the Australians had been giving us vocal, accented renditions of all the company materials, only to hand us this new contract and ask us to read it silently. Ritchie, the Australian man whod met me at the airport, kept grimacing over at Caroline and me. We were keeping silent, and, at the same time, our actions were speaking quite loudly. I kept motioning with my pen to particular lines on Carolines contract. She kept motioning to mine.

Among other things, the contract apologized for sticking me with roommates, and then told me that I would, without fail, be fired if I tried to contact my landlord and/or discussed my address/city of residence/living conditions with any student at my school.

I told all this to a guy named Takemura the night of November 4th, 2001. He listened incredulously, and even let out a guffaw from time-to-time. Here I was, in a little bossa nova caf on the second floor of a shopping complex in Mizuhoudai, Saitama, eating a kidney bean salad prepared by one of less than a handful of vegetarian chefs in Tokyo, angry about something, staring down across the sidewalk-thin street at a ramen cart situated in front of a Tsutaya video store fronted by a large poster of Ben Afflecks head. It was the poster for the movie Pearl Harbor, coming to DVD on December 15th. They didnಒt dare show a single fighter plane or symbol of war. Just Ben Afflecks head, looking up and to the right.

Why wont they let you talk to the landlord? Takemura asked me.

This was the day before Id meet my current protgee Masako; my Japanese fluency was not quite as high as itd be in several weeks. I couldnt supply Takemura with all the details in any way other than stuttering.

Well, they, uh, the company, they own the, uh, health insurance company, and we have to, uh, use that company, and they own the apartments, too.

They own the apartments?

I nodded. Yeah. They own all of the tea--employees apartment buildings. For example, my apartment has many Japanese living there, and many foreign company employees, too.

They own the building? How much do they charge you in rent?

Well, my first roommate, he came here six months ago. And he, uh, he lived alone for three months, and he paid, uh, 100,000 yen a month. And then my second roommate came, uh, three months later, and he, too, paid 100,000 yen a month. And then, when I came, I paid 100,000 yen a month, too.

No way! All three of you, paying 100,000 yen? 300,000 yen a month?!

Yes.

For a shitty little box up in Kita-Urawa?

I nodded.

Thats . . . wrong. Thats . . . illegal.

I figured, I said.

I should know, he said, pointing to his nose. My sisters in real-estate.

I bet she is, I said. If you want my advice -- not saying you do -- the best way to learn a foreign language is to start with learning to say I bet (you/he/she/it) (are/is). In Japanese, it happens to be a terse, universal Sono toori da!


The afternoon before I met this guy named Takemura, Tom and I stood outside on our overlapping lunch break, looking out across the brick-red sidewalk-street at Fujimino Park. A couple of kids were over there, grinding their skateboard wheels against the rough pavement. An old man was selling pork dumplings out of the back of his truck, a practice usually reserved for Sundays. He was a day late in selling his dumplings, and no one was buying.

Tom was turning a pack of Hope regulars over and over in his hands. He was trying to make a decision: to smoke, or not to smoke.

Tom studied English in college.

Shakespeare, and stuff, as hed once put it.

Tom was a pack-a-month smoker. Each cigarette, for Tom, was a big decision. On his last day at work, he decided not to smoke. Instead, he was content to sip a can of C.C. Grape and stare off at a pyramid-shaped apartment building out behind Fujimino Park.

I tell you, Id love to live somewhere like that, Tom said to me.

Yeah?

Look at it. Like something out of Blade Runner.

The building did, indeed, look like something out of Blade Runner, transported to the Japanese semi-countryside. The stairways leading up each side of the pyramid were spiral ones. For each window, there was a balcony. Futons were hanging from balconies thirty, forty stories up.

Like a ziggurat, I said. Seriously, when was the last time Id used that word? Social studies class, in middle school?

Itd be just like living in the future, Tom said.

The future?

Yep, Tom said, putting his pack of cigarettes back in his pants pocket. The future.

Five hours into the future, it was dark, and I was the last teacher out of the school. I grabbed a hot can of Kirin milk tea from the vending machine on the sidewalk, and looked out at the pyramidal apartment building as I took my first few sips:

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

The windows that dotted the pyramids geometrical surface were half-lit, half not. Partially opened balcony doors, a soft breeze, and billowing curtains made the lights embedded in that far-off pyramid twinkle.

I was a quarter done with my can of tea when I realized it: Im not Japanese. Im not Ryo Hazuki. This isnt Shenmue. I dont have to stand by the vending machine. I can drink and walk at the same time. So I headed back in the direction of the station, through the block of still-in-construction apartment buildings that blocked Fujiminos once-historic view of Mount Fuji. Those buildings were tall, and cylindrical, or rectangular. Cranes were mounted atop the steel frames. A huge yellow banner hung from one of the construction sites:

IM TOWER: WEST COURT: MANSIONS AVAILABLE BY THE END OF 2001: 150,000 YEN

Southbound on the Tobu-Tojo Line, headed toward Mizuhoudai for Toms farewell party, I was thinking about that word, Mansion.

When Id met Caroline at the airport, she and I looked over our company arrival packets together. According to my map, I was living in an apartment. According to hers, she was living in a mansion.

It says Im living in a mansion, Caroline said.

Ritchie sidled up to her. Youll find they call lots of apartments here mansions, he said.

Mines not a mansion, I said.

Ritchie snorted a laugh. Well, youre up in SAItama, arent you? he said, putting way too much emphasis on the Sai.

His intonation had indicated to me that this prefecture called Saitama was some kind of Third World country. And here I was, on the train to Mizuhoudai, thinking: they have mansions here in Saitama, too.


Once I got to Mizuhoudai, I came a little closer to understanding why Ritchie had expressed such distaste for SAItama. The place was hardly as neat as Fujimino, with its wide, almost-American roads. It was hardly as pseudo-chic as Shiki, with its department stores with broad parking garages and walkways branching out of the station. It was hardly as cyberpunk-grungy as Omiya, with its nets of Christmas lights, vinyl-suited sci-fi cops, pleasure quarters, and industrial-ish corridors with giant fan-blades mounted in high concrete walls. It was hardly as serene as Yanasegawa, with its broad, blue river, its high-rise condominiums, and its expensive view of Mount Fuji.

Rather, Mizuhoudai was like a perpetual night scene in a Hong Kong movie with a budget so misused the sets are all built indoors. It was like a Chinese marketplace contained in a department store basement meat-freezer, odd smell of cold blood and mothballs and all. The only thing missing was a high population of shady characters, ninjas flying from rooftops, nightlife -- or at least the occasional old man sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette.

I found 221 B. Baker St. Pub easily enough. It was located on the second floor of a building that also housed a Korean-owned hair salon and a tap-dancing school. Whod picked this location, I hadnt the slightest idea. I straightened my laptop bag, and headed up the stairs. The door to 221 B. Baker St. Pub reminded me of the doors in my elementary school: wooden, white, loose, with gold knobs. I grabbed the doorknob, and turned it. Nothing. It was locked. I looked in the little window, and I could just barely make out the interior.

The tables were wooden, and shiny. Upside-down glasses sparkled on the bar. The wall opposite the door outside of which I stood was one big picture window. Out behind and below that window, a giant, purple horizon was twinkling.

I went downstairs, and checked out the sign: closed on Mondays. Thinking they might have made special arrangements for Tokyos Most Popular Yakuza-run English Conversation School, I decided to sit out in front, and wait. I unleashed my laptop all over my knees, and started to write the first chapter of my novel pieces of one.

It was nearing ten oclock when Id mentioned Colonel Sanders for the first time in my novel. I looked up, and around, for a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I didnt see one. I needed to see Colonel Sanders up-close if I wanted to capture his plastic grin. Maybe he was on the other side of the station?

I went to the other side of the station, and didnt find Colonel Sanders. I found a two-story bookstore full of fiery white light, and got stared at by salespeople as I looked over one of Mori Ogais autobiographies. Tired of being looked at like I was going to steal something, I bought the book, left, and headed back to the pub.

It was still Monday, and it was still closed. I couldnt believe it -- being forced to go to a party that wouldnt happen, in honor of a guy who probably wouldnt have showed up. I sat on the bench out in front of the pub, and not a single person walked by. I got to feeling incredibly dirty. I stood up, and headed down what an optimist might call Mizuhoudais main street.

A shopping center that vaguely reminded me of the one in Chicagos Chinatown was situated across the street from a Tsutaya video store with a big poster of Ben Afflecks face. I stood with my back to a brick wall by a ramen stand. It was getting foggy, and cold. I was sweating cold sweat. It looked like it was going to start drizzling at any second. The kung-fu-master-looking man behind the ramen stand looked at me, like he was going to say something. He didnt say anything. It was then that I decided to go into the Tsutaya video store.

By the time I crossed the street, I was close enough to Ben Afflecks face to give up the idea of going inside. I turned around, inched up my backpack, and looked across the street. Three ramen stands, side-by-side. And an old-fashioned wooden signboard:

PARAISO: CUISINE OF MANY COUNTRY. 3F.

I smiled. Eating the cuisine of many country on 3F sounded like a wonderful idea.


The interior of Paraiso itself sounded like bossa nova, and smelled like curry. A college girl and a college guy at a table near the entrance were eating curry rice and drinking glasses of beer. If they werent listening intently to the bossa nova, I dont know what else they were doing. Certainly not talking to one another. The girl -- she had a blue turtleneck sweater -- kept reaching out and adjusting the guys collar. He had a white ski vest, pointy hair, and a rough sketch of a beard.

May I . . . help you? a clean-looking young college girl in a white apron asked me.

Um, can I see a, uh, menu?

You want anything to drink?

Water?

Sure thing.

I was alone, with my orange reflection in the window. From way down below, Ben Affleck was looking up at me.

On the menu, there was a taco salad. Taco was written in two katakana -- ta-ko. As there was no picture, I couldnt be sure if they were talking about octopus or Mexico. The description said nothing of meat -- only of kidonii biin: kidney beans. Lord, I love kidney beans. I stuttered a question at the waitress when she came back:

Taco? Ta-ko? Tako? Ta-co?

Her jaw dropped open, and she shook her head.

I waved my hands. Can I have a taco salad with . . . no meat?

No . . . meat? the girl asked.

I put my hands in the shape of a big X. No meat, it said.

Wh-why?

Im a vegetarian, I said.

Wh-wh-why?

I pressed my thumb to my chest. Im a vegetarian, I repeated.

I pressed my index finger to my nose -- Japanese-style. Im a vegetarian?

The girls jaw flew open. She took my menu, exhaled loudly, nodded, and ran back into the little kitchen. I watched her retreat. A guy behind the front counter raised a spatula, and gave me a little nod.

Two minutes later, Takemura came out with two glasses of water and a pack of cigarettes.

You wanted a taco salad with no meat?

Yeah, I said.

You a vegetarian?

Yeah.

Me, too, he said. You mind if I smoke?

Go ahead, I said.

Cool, Takemura said. He sat down across from me. When he sat down, he transformed. Before hed sat down, he looked like your typical short Japanese guy. Now, he was thick, and burly, and bearded, and bald. It was mostly impossible to tell how old he was.

You Canadian? Takemura asked. He pointed to a little Maple Leaf pin I had on my sweatshirt.

I chuckled. Maybe.

You sure dont look Brazilian.

Um . . . with good reason, I said.

She said she thought you were Brazilian, Takemura said, jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen. I like to talk to the Brazilian customers. He extended his hand to me, and I shook it. That was when he introduced himself as the owner of the place. I introduced myself as a writer.


What brings you to Tokyo? he asked me, long after my meatless bean salad had showed up.

I tapped my laptop. Writing a book. I came to get away from people.

Whats the book about? he asked me.

Now THERE was a question, I thought. What, indeed, was my book about? I had planned to make it a farce about two Americans in Tokyo who plot to steal a Colonel Sanders statue and get killed in a freak accident of law enforcement. It ended up being an epic about ninjas representative of a Japanese pornography site kidnapping the US President on the eve of the First World Wide Web War -- with the purloining of Colonel Sanders by two sad English teachers being only a backdrop. Its also about dreams, and loneliness, and schizophrenia, and my protg
e Masako. Seeing as I hadnt met Masako yet, the story hadnt at all fallen into place. So I told the guy, Its a secret.

Cool, cool, he said. What do you say you put me in there somewhere?

I shrugged. Sure, I said, why not?


Takemura had refilled my water, against Japanese Restaurant Law. He kept looking out the window, like he was expecting vinyl-suited cops to come and arrest him. It was after a few minutes of silence that he spoke up.

Damned Ben Affleck, he said.

I dont mention Takemura in my book. The idea slipped my mind during the writing. Still, there happens to be a scene involving characters at a lonely diner in Tokyo, looking out at a picture of Ben Affleck. Thats my subconscious shout-out to Takemura.


You know, Takemura said to me after I told him about my apartment situation, your Japanese is about as good as my Portuguese. This was a little before eleven-thirty.

You speak Portuguese? I asked him. I refrained from adding a me, too. Sometimes, the truth is impolite.

Lived in Brazil for four years, he said with a laugh. He motioned around the restaurant. How do you think I got my inspiration for this place?

I looked around. It wasnt a bad little place: dark, and warm, and mellow, and high above the street. Howd you like Brazil?

Takemura laughed. Great women -- mysterious women. The guys are really aggressive, though. You gotta be careful. Cheap rent, too.

Rent?

Hell yeah. My apartment in Rio was ten times bigger than this place, he said, in the universal language of exaggeration. And ten times cheaper, too. And they let me have a dog, back in Brazil. They busted my girlfriend last week for having a kitten.

Thats Tokyo for you. So . . . why did you go to Rio?

Takemura shrugged, and took a puff of his cigarette. I was in a band.


**

A month later, I, too, was in a band -- Large Prime Numbers. My job interfered with that band forty paid hours and thirty unpaid hours a week. So interfered was the band, we shortened the name to simply Prime Numbers.

Another thing that interfered with my ability to scream-cover The Blue Hearts Hito ni yasashiku was the cold Id woken up with the morning after my conversation with Takemura. That cold, at first, made my voice rough and scratchy, almost like Hiroto Kohmotos. After a few more weeks of sleeping in a moldy room under wet air that tasted like cold sweat and Freon, it just got ridiculous.

I put in a work order at my school: I need my heater fixed. It does not work, nor has it ever worked.

Maybe I was too snippy. Maybe not. Either way, my heater was not ever repaired.

A week before I ran out of my apartment, the circular fluorescent light bulb in the center of my ceiling fell out of its holder and crashed onto my pseudo-wood linoleum floor, for no apparent reason. This was at three in the morning. I jumped literally to my feet on my futon, striking my forehead on the wall.

Damn it! I yelled -- in Japanese. I felt vaguely dirty for swearing in a second language. There was no love in doing it, none at all. The fact that I had chosen the words and the language seemingly at random only magnified the dirty feeling. Or maybe I needed a shower. My futon was starting to smell like rotting bananas. As I got up and readied to take a shower -- Id have to leave for work in two hours, and I could eat something before the sun came up -- I zenned: did the futon give me that smell, or did I give it to the futon?


I took the back-alley exit out of my apartment building. I was listening to Green Day on my headphones when I crossed through the buildings garage -- where six cars represented our buildings two-hundred-some denizens -- and I was doing a kind of dorky self-unconscious walking-air-guitar thing when I spotted the grim yakuza guys across the street. The sun was just coming up; here were these two guys, stained yellow-blue, dressed up in suits a size-and-a-half too big. I gave them a Lets get this party started sort of look, and flashed a pair of devil horns.


A week later, I was in a bad place. I couldnt take the yakuza so lightly anymore. Thinking of them as the Japanese, male equivalent of Robert Palmer girls had stopped amusing me. Things were happening that shouldnt have been happening. I was consuming a 1.5-liter bottle of Kirin milk tea a day -- Ramadan was finally over -- and I was staying up all night every night, playing Metal Gear Solid 2, dressed in only boxers and a T-shirt and a layer of iced sweat that crackled like an ice cube tray when I sat up. One night, after dying for the two-hundredth time at a particular sequence on extreme difficulty, I blamed my failure to play on the cold. I got up, screamed, and punched the heater. It hurt my fist. I didnt even put a dent in the thing. Just when I sat down, the light bulb in the center of the ceiling fell, and shattered, and I jumped up again.

I heard a roommate -- Im not sure which one -- wake up, and whisper, through paper-thin walls:

Passive-aggressive sonofabitch up in here.

Hours later, I was all packed -- fifty-pound box of cookies from my mother and all. I took the back stairs out of the building, bumping my suitcases against concrete every step of the way. Rather than cut through the parking garage, I inched my way around the side of the building. There was a door there, one Id never seen. From the looks of it, it was built like an aluminum can, and it opened inward. I let go of my suitcase, hoisted up my big cardboard box, and squinted at the little plate on the door:

OFFICE

I grabbed the door knob, and shook it. It was locked. Well, of course its locked, I thought. What kind of building . . . whatever would hang around at eleven oclock at night? He should be out drinking, or eating ramen alone, or at home in futon with his wife.

Hardly thinking, I was already leaning back, making ready to ram the door with my fifty-pound box of cookies.

It fell open with a slight creak. By the street lights in the alley, I could just barely make out the contents of the room: a mop and bucket, cleaning supplies, a toolbox . . .

In the back of the room, a white handkerchief was unfolded on a wooden crate next to a metal stepladder. Atop that handkerchief atop that crate was a big, old calculator with a printer.

***

My hostess had both a new iMac desktop computer and an old calculator on her desk. She used the computer to Photoshop her illustrations and add little special effects to her backgrounds. She used the calculator for I-dont-know-what. Sometimes, Id be asleep in my room, and Id hear the calculators printer whining and clicking. As my hostess calculated whatever it was in her life that needed calculating, her older, male cat paced up and down the hall, screaming throaty meows, claws ticking noisily against the real, wooden floor of the large apartment. That cat was dying of feline AIDS. The cuter cat -- perhaps you would think it was cuter because it was younger, and not dying -- was always jumping up on my hostesss desk, and getting in her face. She spoke English to the young cat, and Japanese to the old one. From my room, I could hear my hostess speaking over the calculators clicking, to the young cat, in a loving voice.

Come on, baby, get down from here.

On the snow-rainy January night I met my hostesss psychic nemesis Yuri Watanabe, I was up until past one in the morning working on my book. I had my laptop on the kitchen table. My hostess was drinking brandy and playing with tarot cards. I had the cordless telephone receiver resting by my keyboard. I was waiting for Masako to call -- shed said she would call after she got home, and that was hours ago. It was so hot in that living room that I felt drunk without having drunk anything.

Masako didnt call yet? my hostess asked. I turned around to face her. There she was, at her drawing desk, with her silver-rimmed glasses on. She didnt wear those glasses when she drew. She only wore them when she was reading.

Nah, I said.

You should get some sleep. My hostess was right -- I hadnt slept in at least two days.

Maybe, I said. Let me finish up this part.

I was just getting to the part where the narrator gets punched in the back of the head by an employee of Fujiminos own Caf Monster. The narrator falls, hits his upper-right forehead on the corner of a table, and hes out like a light. Should he wake up in this chapter, or should I make it segue into the dream world? Iᴒd work on the mechanics later.

Im going to bed.

Good night, my hostess said. With the end of a pen, she went on punching keys on her calculator until long after Id fallen asleep with the phone under my pillow.


No light shone through the crack between my door and the wooden floor, no click-clicking of calculator printer issued from the living room, when the phone under my pillow began to ring. I sat up in bed in a layer of cold sweat. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, fished the phone out from under my pillow, pressed On, and gave a half-hearted moshi-moshi, which then deteriorated into a harsh, Japanese Dont you know what time it is?

Hello, came a womans voice from the other end. She was speaking English.

Oh, uh, sorry, I said, reverting to English. Can I help you?

My name is Yuri Watanabe, she said, not really answering my question. I take it you are Tim? She spoke with the exact same intonation Bruce Lee used when he talked about being like water which cannot be contained.

Yeah, thats me, I said.

My name is Yuri Watanabe, she repeated. Nice to meet you.

Um, nice to meet you, too.

Why dont you meet me by the Kentucky Fried Chicken at Kami-Fukuoka Station?

Right now? I fumbled around on the bookshelf for my watch. I found it -- two-thirty-six in the morning.

How about five minutes?

And I said, Okay.


So I trekked up to Kami-Fukuoka Station. The rainy was falling lazily. In its partially frozen state, it was making little quakes on my sweatshirt. I had headphones in my ears. One song was ending when I saw Yuri Watanabe. She was standing out in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken in a raggedy fur coat and black mittens. The tip of her cigarette was glowing orange in the night. She was standing in front of the window. Colonel Sanders was locked up inside; he stood back-to-back with Yuri Watanabe.

Tim, she said, and opened her arms wide. I let her hug me. My chin brushed against the upper-right side of her head. Her hair was thin, like a spider web. As she hugged me, she flicked ashes from her cigarette. She stabbed my shoulder with her chin for a solid minute.

I . . . I started to say.

Theres a diner, Yuri Watanabe said. Would you care to join me for some tea?

I joined Yuri Watanabe for tea at the Skylark Diner on the second floor of a complex built inches from the train rails. Kami-Fukuoka is a long kind of town; most of its cluttered downtown is situated within a block of the tracks.

Back in November, Id spent a night trapped in a Skylark Diner, and had a pretty interesting experience. Come to think of it, there was a Tsutaya video store across the street from that Skylark diner in November, and I sat by the window. In January, when I ordered a 200-yen Drink Bar and sipped hot apple tea as Yuri Watanabe ordered a beer and a Japanese pizza -- rather, four gourmet cheeses sprinkled atop a pesto-smeared tortilla -- there was no Ben Affleck to watch over me. That DVD had been released, and it was no more. Japan now preordered Kingdom Hearts and Xenosaga for PlayStation2.

When she wasnt drinking her beer, Yuri Watanabe drummed her free fingers on her fat wallet. It was big, and leather. Before sitting down, she took off her fur coat -- her mothers, shed told me -- revealing a gray GAP sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans. She reached into her back pocket, grabbed that wallet -- her fathers, she told me -- SLAMMED it down on the table, and asked the waitress for a Damned ashtray.

Yuri Watanabe had braces. And not just any kind of braces -- the revolutionary Japanese kind, which fasten behind the teeth. Yuri Watanabe had rubber fasteners in the back of her mouth. I could see them with each Bruce-Lee-ish syllable she uttered. It was more than a little spooky.

Yuri Watanabe laughed at me when I said my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film was Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whispers of the Heart), and could actually name several pieces by Camille Saint-Saens other than Danse Macabre. We talked about shopping malls -- here Yuri Watanabe had lived in Los Angeles during her college years. I got the impression she was lying about something or other. Still, either shed really driven down the Pacific Coast Highway, and visited such beauties as the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, and Westfield Shoppingtown in San Diego, or shed done way too much homework.

Yuri was twenty-five years old, and she worked as a teachers assistant at the Announce Academy in Ebisu -- where all those famous anime voice actors are trained.

A thousand students are accepted a year, she said. A hundred graduate. Three find jobs. She shook her head with each fact mentioned.

Did you ever want to do it -- be a voice actor?

Yuri shook her head, and blew smoke. I could see the rubber fasteners in her mouth shaking.

Yuris two brothers were older, and married. Her mother was dead. Her father had a kind of brain disease the doctors thought might have been Alzheimers. I almost said something about health insurance, and immediately decided against it, just as Yuri said she had to take over her fathers business.

What does he do?

Yuri shook her head, and bunched up her lips. Hes in real estate, she said, downing the last of her beer.

Real estate?

Yeah. Well, hes a landlord. Owns a bunch of buildings up in the Fujimidai area.

Oh, I said.


When we were finished with our hateful Japanese cheese pizza, Yuri Watanabe asked me, quite abruptly, if I liked animals.

Animals? Animals?

Yes. Did you ever go to the zoo when you were a kid?

I shook my head.

You didnt?

No, no, I said. I did. Its just . . .

What kinds of animals did you like?

I shook my head again. Suddenly, my face felt red-hot.

Rhinos? I said.

You dont sound too sure.

I shook my head.

Are you POSITIVE you liked rhinos?

I shook my head again.

I dont know, I said. I repeated it a few times. I dont know. I dont know.

I was seriously shook-up about rhinos.

Im more of a dog person. How about you? Do you like dogs?

I shook my head. I guess.

Yuri Watanabe dropped her cigarette and picked up the check. Ill be back, she said.


Out in front of the station, Yuri Watanabe gave me another minute-long, chin-stabbing-shoulder hug.

It was nice talking to you, Tim Rogers, she said.

It was nice talking to you, Yuri Watanabe.

Maybe well meet again sometime, she said.

Sure, I said. Why not?

Yuri Watanabe lit up another cigarette, and used its glowing tip to point at the escalator up to the other side of the station.

I live out there.

I pointed down the road, into Fujimidai.

I live out there.

Yuri Watanabe slid up the escalator as I turned away and headed my home away from home.

And so we went our separate ways, Yuri Watanabe and I. I never saw her again.


I got home a little before five in the morning. The old, dying cat was waiting for me on the rim of the entrance hall with a scream in his meow. I slept for two hours, woke up, and took a shower. My hostess, wearing a mens morning kimono, was standing before the opened curtains, looking out at a view that included the Itouyoukadou department store in Kami-Fukuoka and the futon blankets hanging on the balcony. They were my futon blankets. She must have grabbed them while I was in the shower. She probably expected me to make breakfast. So I started to make breakfast.

My hostess didnt hear me in the kitchen. She kept stretching slowly and breathing more slowly. The light warming the living rooms hardwood floor was of a yellow, early morning variety.


I served my hostess a vegetarian egg-white omelet with a side of dry toast and grilled sliced tomatoes. She ate at her drawing table, as she looked over layouts. I ate at the dinner table, while some real-estate show droned on excitedly on the high-definition television.

Tim, my hostess said at one point.

Yeah?

You went out last night, didnt you? Surely Masakos dad wouldnt let her out so late?

I shook my head. Nah, it wasnt Masako.

Oh? my hostess said, wiping her mouth with a towel. Who was it, then?

I paused to remember the girls name. Id known her for all of five hours, and I had to strain to remember her name. I was cold -- in a pair of flannel pants and an old brown sweater of my dads.

Yu-yu-Yuri Watanabe? I said.

My hostess didnt say anything. She chewed her current bite of food. She had a bridge somewhere amidst her back teeth. I heard it click three times before she whispered: Yuri Watanabe?

I said, Yeah.

My hostess began speaking Japanese.

Shinjirarenai. Shinjirarenai. Shinjirarenai.

(I cant believe this. I cant believe this. I cant believe this.)

Her fork clattered against her earthenware plate.

I stood up, and grabbed her plate, just as she pounded her fist on her drawing table.

Bitch! she yelled.

I almost choked.

Now, the first thing I assumed was that this Yuri Watanabe was one of those rumor hounds, the kind who had, according to my hostess, written a three-hundred-page-book about my hostesss relationship with her ex-husbands lover, and threatened to have it published. I went red in the face, as the heater clicked on, as I wondered why Id agreed to meet the woman.

Still holding my hostesss and my plates, I asked her, Wh-who is Yuri Watanabe?

My hostess closed her eyes, folded her hands, and opened her eyes.

She is . . . a powerful psychic.

My knees buckled. How I held onto those two overly heavy plates, I couldnt tell you.

My hostess then looked me right in the eye, and made a bossy Away with those gesture at the plates. I nodded, and headed off for the kitchen.

As I washed the dishes, my hostess discussed her plans.

We will need to have a psychic battle with Yuri Watanabe.

W-we? I said, rushing to turn off the faucet.

Yes. Youre going to have to help.

Wh-wh-what? I launched myself back into the living room.

My hostess was in her office area, with a real photographers camera in her hands, aimed out the window at the sun rising over Fujimidai.

She had a photo album full of all sorts of pictures. She used one camera to photograph the view of Fujimidai, and filled an entire album with her years worth of living there. Another album was full of pictures of people whod eventually become characters in her comic -- including me. Another album was full of pictures of hotel bathrooms, swimming pools, and street corners in Los Angeles. She didnt photograph any part of Tokyo that she couldnt see from her apartment. The people she took pictures of -- they were all standing in her living room. They were nothing more and nothing less than parts of Tokyo that she had gathered into her living room. Sitting at her living room table, clicking away at my computer: there I was, captured, a picture of a part of Tokyo inside someone elses part of Tokyo.



I retrieved my computer at one point on the morning the psychic battle began, and set it on the dinner table. I worked on my novel and watched cartoons on television. My hostess was silent to me, and soothingly loving when shooing away her cats. As the day matured, the cloud of mist on the heavy glass balcony doors grew thick. The sun set early in the afternoon, and my hostess did a few more stretching exercises while looking out at the twinkling nightscape of Fujimidai. It was a clear Tokyo night, and I could almost see a star. At six, my hostess announced she was taking a bath. That was my cue to make dinner.

I made Interesting Pasta -- a variant of Complicated Pasta suited for people who dont plan on suffering a little indigestion. I didnt need indigestion anytime soon, what with my book almost finished -- and my hostess didnt need it, either, with the big psychic battle coming up.

She got out of the bath at seven-thirty, and ate. When she was finished, she retrieved a scarf-wrapped bundle of tarot cards from a desk drawer and a bottle of brandy from the cabinet. With a paring knife and three apples, she sat at her desk, as I munched on a bowl of 100-yen 7-Eleven popcorn and played through the opening sequence of Final Fantasy X -- my friend had sent it to me from America a week earlier. I was just now getting around to playing it.

Tim, my hostess said, when she was on her fourth brandy.

Yes?

Can you cut these, with your left hand?

An apple impaled with a paring knife sat by my hostesss right hand. The tarot deck was situated right in front of her. I reached out my left hand, and she smacked it. She grabbed her hand towel, and thrust it at me. I wiped the popcorn residue off my left hand, and cut the cards as instructed. My hostess played out a hand, humming Interesting to herself as she drank brandy, and crunched apple slices, as her dental work clicked like a wooden spoon on cobblestone.


Interesting was the word of the hour two hours later. Final Fantasy X was becoming interesting, and the tarot cards were, as well. Tarot cards, I take it, are more interesting when you have eight brandies worth of alcohol in your bloodstream.

Damn it! my hostess yelled at one point, in Japanese. Down! I turned around. The little cat had jumped up onto the desk. The large one had poked his body into the curtains, and was rubbing his face on the still-cold, still-misty glass door.

A minute later, it was Interesting again.

Tim, would you cut these, with your left hand?

I half-groaned. Stood up. Cleansed my dirty hand. Cut the cards. Turned around. Sat down.

Interesting.

This went on until four in the morning. I was absolutely immersed into Final Fantasy X. I was considering going back to the hairstylist named Mami, who, one month prior, had sculpted my hair to look like that of Final Fantasy Xs hero, Tidus. Characterzation-wise, I thought Tidus was kind of a confused jock-sissy hybrid -- still, his hair looked almost good on me. And if I could get a girl to do it for free, just because shed never worked on a foreigners hair . . .

Interesting.

Indeed.

Tim, cut these -- with your left hand?

Groan, stand, wipe, cut, turn, sit, play.

Interesting.

I took in a long, slow breath: this is what my hostess has taught me: yoga.

Tim?

What? I asked, turning around halfway. My hostess had her hands folded, like in prayer. She was looking dead ahead.

May I see a picture of your girlfriend, please?

I flipped open my laptop, and called up a picture of my girlfriend.

Bring it closer, please.

I picked up the computer, unplugged the AC adaptor, and hefted it onto my hostesss desk. She didnt move her hands. She looked at the picture, and narrowed her eyes, and sealed her lips. When she looked down and closed her eyes, that was my cue to take the computer away.

Just as the computer clunked onto the wooden table, just as I plugged in the AC adaptor, my hostess said Hmmm.

I resumed playing my game. Well? I asked, during a pause, several minutes later.

I KNOW her, my hostess said.

I looked back at my hostess. She was staring at my lit-up computer screen. Wh-what?

She shook her head. However . . . perhaps she does not remember me.

I turned back around, groaning quietly.

I bet she doesnt, I said.

My hostess popped another slice of apple into her mouth. She sniffed. Her dental work crackled.

What game is this?

Final Fantasy X, I replied. I pronounced it the Japanese way.

Interesting, my hostess said, in I-forget-which language.

***

The psychic battle with Yuri Watanabe was not mentioned for a few weeks. Masako and I went to a couple soccer games. Sakai-san, Sempai, Masako and I played a couple acoustic punk duels. I screamed my throat raw. Much Complicated Pasta was consumed as Sakai-san and Sempai rehearsed play lines and crashed flaming cars into buildings in my straight-from-America copy of Grand Theft Auto III. Sakai-san and Sempai understood a combined total of ten words of English, 7-Eleven being one-and-a-half of them. Grand Theft Auto III spoke to them: the universal language of senseless violence.

Wa~~~~~o! was the scream of the week. Sakai-san said she never knew videogames could be this fun. Sempai said she wanted to steal another fire truck. Masako said interesting. Masako was looking out of the corner of her eye at my hostess, who was perpetually busy sipping tea and scratching pencil against straightedge against paper. My sensitive ears could feel the graphite grating against the metal edge of the ruler.

Masako had detected something was up with my hostess. She just couldnt put her finger on it. I sat at the table, looking over my manuscript, and Masako sat at a corner of the table, looking at my hostess like a regular voyeur.

One afternoon, Sakai-san and my hostess talked about study abroad programs. Sempai mastered the ambulance missions in Grand Theft Auto III. Masako and I sat out on the balcony over Fujimidai, taking turns on my guitar, talking about Mori Ogai and my hostesss weirdness. The Itouyoukadous rectangular tower, out in the distance, looked like some kind of a monolith on a yellow, cold-air, hot-wooden-floor afternoon.


The next morning, my hostess took a picture of the sun rising over Fujimidai as I clunked her breakfast plate onto her desk. She put away her camera, and started eating, as I fired up Final Fantasy X and checked my email.

When my hostess was finished eating, out of a blue as clear as that end-of-the-world sky over Fujimidai, she said, Tim, I think weve won the psychic battle with Yuri Watanabe.

I choked on a 100-yen 7-Eleven onion ring snack.

W-we did? I asked, after I swallowed. A shard of the onion ring was still stabbing me in the throat.

Yes. It was all thanks to you.

What? I asked.

You really came through for us last night.

When I was sleeping?

My hostess nodded. You might just be at your most powerful when youre asleep.

****

What the HELL? Masako said, pounding me on the thigh with her fist. Now, this shit, I KNOW youre just making it up.

No, no, I said, shaking my head. Im serious.

Whatever, Masako said with a snort.

We were sitting in Fujimino Park, up near Ohi Town. Sempai was sitting Indian-style on the grass, strumming my guitar. Sakai-san was shredding on her skateboard out by this giant cubical-sculpture thing. Masako and I were looking up at the pyramidal apartment building, and talking about psychic battles. It was a bitingly cold and bright morning. Somewhere up in that thirty-something-story pyramid, a woman was hanging a futon out to dry.

Id like to live up there, I said, after Masako didnt speak for a minute. Itd be like living in the future.

Masako snorted in such a way as to make me look at her. There she was: four-foot-six, ripped black sweatshirt handed down from her brother, dark denim jeans, little silver glasses, a sideways-turned baseball cap, a broad, flat face.

What? I asked her. What?

Psychic battles? Living in the future? Damn, sempai, you need a reality check.

Whats that supposed to mean?

Masako shook her head, and pressed the soles of her feet together. She was double-jointed like that. She looked up at the pyramidal apartment building, and sniffed.

You wouldnt believe how expensive that place is.

Oh?

Yeah. My dad said something about it.

Does your dad work in real estate?

Masako snorted. Duh.

What that duh indicated, I never figured out. No matter how many times I almost played golf with the guy, I never once found out what he did for a living -- aside from wear really nice sweaters and drive a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII.

Masako looked off in the direction of Sakai-san. Out behind Sakai-sans skate-bumbling form, cranes mounted on the rooftops of construction sites were moving slowly, too far away for their humming to be audible. Im Tower: West Court was finished, and another building was springing up on its south face. A giant blue net was draped on the side of the red steel frame.

We learned something in school about the small intestine, Masako said. She did the see all the people part of This is a church, this is the steeple. Her fingers fluttered in an imitation of villi. All these little fingers in your small intestine. The damned thing is like twenty meters long, or something like that. And all these little fingers inside -- its like, they make the surface area, like, the size of three soccer fields.

I considered the notion: that pyramid, those buildings -- think of all the tens of millions of soccer fields of human surface area in a place like Tokyo.

Wow, I said, just as a tremendous crash of wood on pavement sounded from meters away. Sakai-san had just fallen, and landed on her chin. She rolled over onto her back, laughing. She should have been wearing protective gear. Sempai set my guitar in the grass, and hoisted her large and laughing body up. Masako snorted.

My dad says you used to be able to see Mount Fuji from here, Masako said.

Id believe it, I said, looking up at the slowly moving cranes.

The giant blue net fastened to the steel frame billowed, and rippled. It was, perhaps involuntarily, keeping the cold out of the insides of the cold steel. Out behind those buildings was a train station, and train tracks. The train that left this town eventually found a place where you can see Mount Fuji every morning for a price you pay every month. Here, there was only that rippling blue curtain. It was blocking the already-blocked view we had through that wall of human surface area, the view that, somewhere out there we may never go, is of something nice, and clear, and picturesque, and far away.

- Tim Rogers
EMail Tim