Harajuku Sunday

by S. Michael Choi

  Irish car bombs, shot-glasses of whiskey dropped into pints of Guinness and gulped down and crazy good gin and tonics made with real Bombay Sapphire, amidst a table of people standing around trying to make a competition out of drinking. Vodka jello shots. Vodka and tonic. Fuzzy Navels. Tequila Sunrises. I underestimate the alcohol's strength. The party is now reaching a peak, as many people packed into one apartment as possible, it being impossible to get anywhere except by squeezing through, body by body. Soren steals a pair of bongo drums from one of his friends and starts beating them, high as a kite. He is chanting out rhythmically, improvising a kind of strangely skillful reggae chant. Some girl with glitter on her cheeks is trying to speak something into my ear, but I can barely hear her, the music is too loud. It's something about Toyota's internship program that plucks little interns out of Oklahoma and brings them to big bad Japan. Alinda, right. And outside, the cityscape of Tokyo is spread out like a carpet of stars, glimmering and flashing, the hustle of commerce on the main thoroughways, the steady constellations of dwelling places and office towers and fervent beat of the city where everyone is astir.

  It may be 3am or so when I decide to take another breather, this time finding an unoccupied room, lighting up a cigarette, and sprawling back on a coach. Herrera's group says they want to go out to 911 and GasPanic. I'm thinking about tagging along when the door opens and Dominique walks in.

  "Hello, stranger," she says.

  I pause for a second, but suddenly sober decide I'll play along. "Thought you were ignoring me."

  She seems surprised. "Why would you think that?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Haven't been returning texts or phone calls lately."

  "No way. Sorry about that." She walks over to the coach, sits down next to me, and a second later, my lips are on hers, we're all over each other. After about five minutes, we pull apart, catching our breath on opposite ends of the couch.

  "So, how have you been Ritchie?" she asks. "I can't believe you haven't been calling."

  I give a little laugh. "Oh, just the way things have been. You know a total party boy like me…."

  We smile, heaving apart on the couch and catching our breaths. Things are going to turn out okay. But right at this moment, Shan walks in, and within moments comes over, and with completely machismo, sits next to and starts to cuddle with Dominique. So I'm like thinking inside, "wow, it's true!" Dominique makes some resistance, looking at me for a fearful second, but doesn't really stop the dude. I look over and say, "you make me feel sad." And the strangest expression crosses Dominique's face, she looks as terrified as if I had threatened her very life. I walk out the door.

  The party outside is starting to fade. The Puerto Ricans leave en masse to pursue the club night they're after; they call up a limousine to be complete rock stars. But there's still one last, most diehard cohort of drunkards left. Soren, having somehow acquired a Hawaiian luau, decides he's just going to completely dig up every last supply he has and just clean out the stash while we play some poker. A cigarette dangles from his lips. He brings out some cards and whiskey and we start to playing.

  "So whatever anybody wants, just take it, and thank you." There's a pile of pills, MDMA, ketamine, anti-depressants that can be ground up and snorted, and little bits and pieces of every other Class A substance scattered on the dining room table. "Totally clean it out if you really feeling it."

  "Trying to get us under the influence so you can take money from us?"

  "Ha-ha."

  "Your deal."

  Soren and Tucker and two of the girls and I play for about an hour as the last people either join in briefly or head out, bidding their farewells and giving their thanks or compliments. Finally, the game gets down to just Soren and me, dueling over a big pile of chips, and the two girls passed out on the couch, who we drape with some blankets out of chivalric spirit. And I've completely forgotten Shan and Dominique until they stumble out of a room, clothes disheveled. Despite the complete end-of-night fatigue and influence of drugs, Soren throws me a meaningful look, and not easily out-cooled, I shrug, and invite them to pull up seats, we'll let them play in. Shan declines and says he has to go home, speaking in his weird sibilant Chinese accent that he doesn't know how to play, but Dominique, surprisingly, Dominique tells us to deal her in. She and Shan kiss, and then he walks out the door. We shuffle the deck and begin. It's three of us now.

  "I raise."

  "Show me what you got."

  The chips stack up and the cards get tossed around.

  "Your deal."

  "River card is…"

  "Ah whatever." I lose a few hands and then make a stand. Chips start to flow from Dominique to Soren, and then I luck on a few plays. We're half-an-hour in when I decide to play a conversational bluff. I'm down to about a fifth of the chips, we let Dominique stay alive even though she's really out several times, and Soren has almost won this game. It's now five in the morning possibly; we're exhausted and maybe one or more of us is drugged out; we're all at least half drunk and the sky is beginning to lighten on one fringe.

  "So I have a confession to make, guys." I say, and look at the two meaningfully.

  Soren smirks. "Whats'it, Ritchie?"

  "You know, it's actually really hard to penetrate groups like these?"

  "Penetrate?"

  "Yeah, like major drug circles, everybody knows each other and everybody takes the same stuff, so the cops can't really break in."

  "So what?"

  "Well actually guys," I pause and stare at both Dominique and Soren eye to eye, holding pocket eights that haven't panned out. "what I'm saying is that I work for the FBI. You guys are this really difficult drug circle to penetrate and I'm a narc sent to penetrate your ring so I can arrest you."

  Soren is now smiling broadly. "Well you're too late, 'cuz I just snorted my last line of cocaine you son of a b..." But he is interrupted by Dominique's strangled cry as she jumps up, scattering the chips, and running into the bathroom to throw the last of the pile of pills Soren has down the toilet, before running out of the apartment, slamming the door. Soren and I look at each other for about two seconds, thinking "what the hell?" before he runs after her and now everything is silent. I feel the passage of time, five minutes. Ten. All alone in the deserted apartment. Time, absolutely still.

  Finally Soren comes back, not meeting me in eye.

  "Ritchie, I think it's time for you to leave."

  "What? What's going on? Why are you saying that?"

  "Ritchie, I'd like you to leave the apartment right now."

  "Soren, we've been friends for a year now. What are you saying? I'm not really an FBI agent, dude, that's just a joke so I could psych you out of the last hand."

  "Ritchie, for the last time, leave my apartment right now." His lips are firmly set.

  I give him the finger. And then he walks me out and closes the door behind me.

  III.

  This is the absurdity of my situation. I'm standing in the elevator foyer on the twenty-second story of Roppongi Hills staring at a door that's just been slammed, feeling a sort of rage. Of course I am contemptuous at Dominique, who cannot handle her drugs; and Shan, ridiculous coolie Shan, is not even worth contempt; but Soren, Soren, Soren; Soren who I have talked down from midnight alcoholic crises; Soren who I have supported on too-drunk-to-walk, taxis refusing to take us four a.m. treks home all the way from Shibuya; Soren, who in truth I have argued with a dozen times before, countless screamfests that break out by 3pm and are fully resolved by the third round of drinks that evening but this one feels entirely different, I know this one is really one that's completely different in character, about Soren I feel a genuine and explosive rage, a complete sense of betrayal and wrath. Yet, strangely, or maybe just because all intense emotions inspire their opposites, I experience simultaneously a curious feeling of guilt, almost that I have indeed done something wrong.

  Three days later: "Soren, hey Soren are you there? This is Ritchie. I am not a freakin' FBI agent. If
I were, I would have arrested your ass years ago. Besides, you have seen me do just about every controlled substance under the sun. How the hell is that going to hold up in court? ‘Your honor, I can testify that I saw Soren doing crack cocaine because I myself was wasted out of my eyes on coke and heroin at the time!’ I honestly don't care if you never talk to me again, but anyway this is the third message I'm leaving for you. My iPod is lying on your kitchen counter. It has an entire library of songs, fully paid for. I would like it back. You don't have to give it back to me in person. You don't have to drop it off in my workplace. Just leave it with your doorman and let me know, I will walk over and pick it up myself. Don't be a tool."

  A few days later:

  "Soren, it's been a week now. I need that iPod. A personal music player made by Apple, Inc., white metal about the size of a deck of cards lying just to the right of your kitchen sink, probably still plugged-in. Maybe you'd be so kind as to return it to me. Like today. Drop it off at your apartment front desk or just put it in the mail with a little bubble-wrap around it. I'm sure it'll get to me just fine. I'm asking very nicely."

  Two weeks:

  "Soren, this is the last time I'm going to call. You made me leave your apartment and you did not give me the opportunity to recover a valuable electronic device from your kitchen counter. To be specific, a three-hundred-dollar piece of equipment and one that costs a lot more to replace here in Tokyo. I don't even know if I can get an English-language one here. So come up with the goods or write me a nice fat check. I'm not going to back down from this, because what you're doing is called 'theft.' Got that? 'Theft.' This is Ritchie Ufuo, it's the twenty-third of August at 3pm, and I expect a response or I will pursue all legal means to recover my property."

  Something finally clicks, though perhaps not necessarily because of my message. Soren emails me back finally to claim that he had put my iPod in my vestibule mailbox in my very apartment building, in fact the very next day after that crazy night, but I check that thing every day and it definitely hadn’t been there the day after the party nor is it there now. The mailbox is this little green metal thing, completely unsecured. Anybody could have taken an MP3 player out of it, seemingly discarded. I kick up another fuss by text message and voicemail, insisting that he at least partially reimburse me, and finally he agrees to hand over 5000 yen, less than $50, and I am just so exhausted and weary of it all that I consent to the tiny, purely symbolic sum of money that really in truth is far less than is fair. And maybe I let a little hint of threat enter this dispute, knowing that rich partyboys living off family money have just a bit more to lose than university grads two years out of college. We meet at a coffeeshop, perhaps both motivated in part to size each other up after the last exchange of insults. Neither of us have to acknowledge that our friendship is over, that we are down to cold politeness.

  "So have you heard anything?"

  "Not really; there were some cop cars hanging around my apartment last week, but I'm not sure they were there for me."

  Soren looks thoughtful. "I heard Shan got arrested. Seems he pulled a knife on Dominique later that night."

  "Shan?" This is a completely news. "I told you that guy's a weirdo. You seem to keep a real high quality of friend around, don't you."

  "OK; well here's your five thousand yen." He turns abruptly and leaves, his untouched coffee steaming away on the table.

  My reference to the cop cars is not made up. On the evening of the fourth day after the party, I had spent a quiet evening at the Lion's Head pub in Ebisu, eating fish and chips and watching a judo match on the big-screen television with the rest of the regulars. I turned in early, saying goodbye to Tom at the bar, and walk back up the short hill to the Yamanote-line station, my nerves perhaps eighty percent of the way to being calmed down after that strange, intense night.

  Shinjuku is between Ebisu and Setagaya. At the main west Tokyo station, I had needed to switch trains, and I stopped by a bookstore that I've stopped by a hundred times before to browse some of their English-language titles. I was examining a TIME magazine cover on mad cow disease when I noticed, of all people, Dominique walking in, this time accompanied by a grotesquely obese expat who we had mocked before together, a guy who is so fat that his ankle actually just broke—no fall down the stairs, no trip on an unseen crack in the sidewalk—just a failure of the ankle bones in protest of the four hundred pounds they weren't designed to carry around. There was this odd moment of silence as neither of us acknowledge each other's presence, but internally, I'm thinking, "Pathetic. Is this who you're associating with now? Especially after you're the one who led the round of insults against this guy?" Maybe I even had the slightest urge to just boldly walk forward, extending my hand and saying, "Hi, Dominique! Calmed down a bit now?" But some instinct of self-preservation restrained me, and they left, almost definitely after having noticed me, pausing a bit, and then making a decision, and I, after a few minutes deciding I'm not going to pick up a copy of "Charisma Man: the First Year," rejoined the crowds and the noise in the station proper.

  It took me about another forty minutes to get home, counting a brief stop at my neighborhood grocer's for milk. Right when I made the final turn to my street, however, what I saw were two police cars, lights spinning, parked directly in front of my apartment building. I couldn't help but wonder if for some bizarre reason, they're there for me. Without really making it a conscious decision, I decided I'd visit the neighborhood bar, a tiny little Japanese 'izakaya' pub run by the "Chief," an old Japanese man who used to run a bar in Yokosuka and who thus manages a surprising English. Two or three hours later, after having downed a trio of Kirins and my little plastic shopping bag of milk now room temperature, I decided to call it a night for the second time that evening, and this time, when I turn the corner to my apartment, the street was deserted.

  This mysterious little incident leaves me once more hyped up, paranoid, and unresolved, so it's almost a relief to get a message on my answering machine a few days after I meet up with Soren:

  "Hi Richard Ufuo. This is Tom Fannet from the U.S. Embassy Tokyo. I'm the chief of security here, and my job is to ensure the safety of all U.S. nationals in a foreign country, including you. I was hoping you might be willing to come in and have a little chat. This is purely, 100% voluntary. We've heard there's been some sort of incident involving threats to a U.S. national, and we hope you might help us tell us what you know. Again, you certainly don't have to come in if you don't want…. "

  I don't remember the exact wording Fannet uses. But despite his repeated bland assurances that my cooperation is completely voluntarily, he and I both know perfectly well that I don't really have a choice in the thing, not after police cars, not after rumors of Chinese boyfriends pulling out knives. So the next day in the afternoon I get permission from my boss to run some errands, and I hop over to Akasaka.

  Receptionist: "Hi, can I help you?"

  "Yes, my name is Ritchie Ufuo, I received a call from Tom Fannet to come in and speak."

  The woman looks bored. "Uh, yes, let me see if he's available."

  Hurried talking and back and forth, hand over the handset despite the two inches of plexiglass. Then the little panel in the window slides open.

  "Mr. Ufuo? Mr. Ufuo did you say? He'll be right out."

  "Now aren't you impressed that I can just walk in and get Tom Fannet."

  "You wouldn't believe it."

  Fannet comes out and welcomes me inside the secured area of the embassy in a big, generous cop-like sort of way. He turns out to be a balding middle-aged man with a mustache and a New York accent. We go down the hallway to his office, a fairly decent sized one, piled high with paperwork, and with the walls covered in various certificates and accolades. There's a picture of him shaking hands with President Clinton and a window that looks out into the embassy parking-lot. With a noncommittal expression, he begins.

  "So, Ritchie, thanks so much for stopping by. Some tea or coffee maybe?"

  "Coffee wou
ld be great."

  The security chief presses a button on his phone and has some coffee sent in. We make some small talk, and when I describe my job at the company as involving a constant brokering of relationships between the risk-averse Japanese management and the new possibilities opened by cutting-edge IT coding, he does seem genuinely interested. But there's also this detectable moment when he switches over to talk business; his entire posture in his chair changes.