“It’s simple, actually. Shan is a degenerate, primitive, Neanderthal male, one who hands out with notorious womanizers and alleged drug-users; he wanted Dominique LeFauve, his advances were rejected, and so he pulled out a knife. This is criminal behavior. He is clearly a near rapist!”
“Shan, did you date Dominique LeFauve? Did you go to a café with her?”
“No, I never do such thing. This is impossible. I don’t even drink coffee!”
Silence fills the conference room.
“Shan, your point is not a refutation of Dominique’s claim. It’s like somebody says, ‘I saw Shan at McDonald’s last week.’ And you respond, ‘But I don’t even eat hamburgers!’ Okay, maybe you don’t. Maybe you went there to eat salad. And maybe you went to a café to drink tea. Don’t bring up irrelevancies!”
“Dominique LeFauve is convicted drug-trafficker. I have the photocopy of her past!”
Paciano straightens in her seat. “This is protected information! Irrelevant to topic at hand and protected by generally regarded principles of victim shield laws.”
“Victim? Victim? Who is victim? She is only accuser!”
“Okay; okay, we will use this terminology.”
The meeting dissolves into cacophony. All sides are arguing at cross-purposes; all sides are fixed and rigid in their thinking, with bulging eyes and single-issue hot buttons. And the meeting, a one last attempt at compromise, is the last one they ever have; from here on out the process is entirely acrimonious. Now I know what human garbage is! From a women's college in Oregon direct to the halls of power in WashingtonD.C., with a completely gender-obsessed crazed feminist three-hundred pound view of the world, Paciano calls me in to try to intimidate me, but I stonewall her, too; she gets less out of me than even Fannet.
“You better watch your back! We're taking this guy down. Maybe we'll burn you too!”
"Do your worst Paciano. Nobody's charging me with anything."
"We can change that lickety split, Ritchie! Dominique's actually said some interesting things about you, too!"
What monsters! Maybe Shan could have pulled it off. Maybe had he been willing to work the system with a little more sophistication, he could have shot holes a mile wide in Dominique’s story, cast doubt on her confused and internally-inconsistent version of events, (take a look, anybody can see them) but the die is cast. If there’s some wavering at the diplomatic mission about how to play the cards, with Shan’s complete intransigence and his completely hostile approach to genuine compromise-finding, there is finally a hardening of sentiment, and the Chinese Embassy, never more than mildly concerned (and sending a representative only because Shan is, after all, a Waseda student), finally signals they will not stand behind their citizen; he too apparently loses favor with them, sending an email in which he accidentally appends a file of his plans to wreak “woe and justice” on the LeFauve clan; this doesn't go over well with the polite mandarins of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Waseda student or not. The tide begins to turn against Shan; Jury Trial brings me in.
“Okay, this is the plan. We need to bring out Dominique’s prior arrest. We need to press hard for a complete dismissal of charges based on absolute lack of evidence. We can’t afford to lose even one administrative point.”
“So we’ll sign the first memorandum on separation of the two; standard boilerplate.”
The British lawyer looks at me curiously.
“This is all for you, though, isn’t it? You don't need to be involved anymore, nobody's calling you to the stand.”
“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”
Shan comes out to the hallway to see me off. “You go enjoy your day?”
“Oh no, now LeFauve wants me to testify at his lawyer’s office.”
All at once he is tense; his shoulders are immediately locked into position and he stares at me with steely eyes.
“Joking! I can’t stand them!”
“No joke like that.”
The paperwork, signed almost off-handedly, proves to be critical in the end. Buried in the boilerplate is a provision that Shan not visit complainant’s “school or workplace.” But Dominique is taking Japanese classes at Waseda for two bloody weeks; he becomes guilty as charged that very evening, when he returns to his dorm. Sixty day sentence.
Much has been written about Shan, Dominique—but LeFauve senior, although as maniacal and pig-headed as the rest, isn’t entirely a demonic figure. Actually given paranoia about future events, I do a lot of digging into his past, and his story is not without justifiable pathos; he, too, will be burned and cut to pieces, and the tragedy of it is only that it had to happen abroad; he couldn’t function in the only where he could. Quick summary? Think: Catholic upbringing, only Black over-intellectual in the Republican machine; just a beautifully Japan-only specialist variant of it; a potential to get somewhere in the party or in government, but it has to be kicked out here; it has to go to war this year.
“We need to launch a total war here! We need total shock and awe! This is my only daughter! This is my baby!”
I download an old video off the Internet of LeFauve just to better understand the man, and I almost feel sorry for him. I almost understand this purely intellectual view of the world, this frustrated intellectual growing up in Arlington, Black intellectual in a racist system, to become a beautifully incompetent competent, right on the verge of being the embodiment of party values, but always, inevitably, outside, right-wing values but intellectualized neocon version of it rather than quiet conservative. If only human beings ran like computer systems, he would be a great leader; he would be able to intellectualize everything into a perfection of sorts. But LeFauve is a tragic figure, too, doomed to maniacally follow things to their mutually destructive conclusion even if compromise would leave everyone better off. So, then: neither side can win. Shan is right on the verge of going over to a full conviction when he drums up his own activist support; Japan's lack of a jury system is looking bad in international terms; LeFauve has enough pull to keep getting Shan in jail on little bureaucratic reasons, but never enough to do anything but enrage him and inspire him further to defend his case. Meanwhile, our group of foreigners is facing its own minor problems; we get assets like Joe the tallish basketball player with his silky voice, little Emma is getting a soccer tourney put together, good things are happening too, but on the other hand a Canadian monstrosity (a pale version of Paciano?) is sending me cranky emails because she doesn't get advance notice of social events.
“Um, I don't have to email you? I don't owe you anything?” I text back. But she doesn't seem to get the point. Finally I have to have her politely removed from a private party she wasn't invited to, which creates an awkward moment, but drives home the importance of immediately discouraging unpleasant people from talking to me. Now I understand your sentiments, Soren!
"Do not come to my apartment if you weigh four hundred pounds. Thank you everyone."
As the conflict wears on, my relationship with Charis continues apace. After months of courtship, she in a half-tipsy mood has another one of her Freudian slips where she suggests sleeping with me, but this time I think her values are about to change. Christianity can't quite put a finger on the way the Japanese act; despite hundreds of years of contact, less than 2% of Japanese adhere to the religion. So the experience of living in rural Fukushima is good for Charis; it broadens her understanding of the world, and if all goes to plan, she'll sleep with me in a month or two: of this, I am sure. Yet even if it doesn't happen, those are great days; magic moments. Romance, baby! We are Tokyo's darlings when we walk into the expensive restaurant or exclusive club; she is so beautiful people turn and stare, and I get jealous or approving looks from men. Yet perhaps it is also true that our situation—my situation—is also slowly but inexorably beginning to slip. In the race of time versus aging, acquistion versus expenditure, there are people who ever so slightly seem to be pulling away; the prices just keep on rising and sometimes I saw fashionable groups of people
who almost approach my own in terms of greatness. My empire, never fully mine, is collapsing. An outside observer might almost suggest that I am merely living the residual greatness of the Soren 'monarchy' as much as I might claim my people are producing their own genuine novelty. Difficult to say. In any case, I might pleasantly go to seed; I might enjoy every moment of the long ride down, but things can never be so simple...
LeFauve: “Okay, the facts are simple. We have a very violent, very primitive, very aggressive terroristic-threat making Chinese thug, and we have a civilized, elite university American young lady on the other. Obviously Shan Le is a little out of his league here, doesn't quite know how to treat women. We have papers here, one, two, three. Work at the school library: fired for adding 10000 yen cash balance to his library account. Work at the school computer center: fired for adding illegitimate remote access software to a university mainframe. Said to have been fined for an illegally modified airgun three years ago—firearms, please, firearms. Criminal, thug, unable to follow the rules.”
“Well...”
“Why exactly are you defending this guy? This is a pure breakdown of good and evil...”
I disagree, but only keep a non-committal look. LeFauve sighs; leans back in his chair.
“Ritchie, look you are in over your head. I can't afford to let a public event spiral out of control. This is my daughter. My only precious daughter. A girl far away from home. Try to develop a sense of chivalry.”
“I have some problems with the behaviour of Dominique. Actually, she's done some weird things...”
“Most people don't totally agree with each other. This is human politics.”
“No, I am talking about something a little more fundamental. There are basic human norms of how we should treat each other, and your daughter is a little strange...”
Actually I am not entirely not with sympathy for the father. His story is one of being a self-made individual, a builder of empires, a wordsmith, a lawyer. But too much has happened; events have now spun me farther than I can hope to retreat from, and I do not know at this point that Dominique was friends with the murdered hostess girl; I don't know about years of psychological counseling, about the fabulous problems of the rich and directionless and all their lies and allegiances and hidden alliances. I just feel this overwhelming hatred towards somebody who has done me petty wrong.
“Okay, fine, listen, Ritchie. Maybe you do have some kind of point. I can make amends. I need you on the team. You certainly don't make all that much at Energia. You like the good life; you like clubs; you like cash. Things... can be arranged.”
I hear LeFauve very clearly. Acres of future territory stretch before me; the pure cusp of the moment.
"You're talking perjury."
"I am talking about putting a convicted criminal, a dangerous terroristic thug behind bars. I am talking about protecting my daughter."
“I'm sorry. I can't testify to things I haven't seen.”
“You will be punished.”
Dominique is nutty beyond all belief; she is nutty in that self-destructive way genuinely nutty people are. Actually I was the one who aggressively insulted her at a cafe; who knows how she conflated it with Shan. Who knows why.
VI.
Of course in retrospect it's easy to say, "how foolish! what idiocy! of course you should have known that tangling with a senior government official would be complete suicide." What this forgets, however, is that once a process has begun, it is difficult to see the escape doors, viz., "the tiger has been mounted, now ride it all the way through." I walk out of Astor into a drizzly Tokyo street, my heart pounding, my senses out of tune, and it seems that those who watch me go do so with a certain cool curiosity. Yet in my pocket, or so I believe, I still have dangerous cards—a Texan girl, social status, links to all sorts of shady characters, and the pure, raw optimism of someone who has accomplished major scores. Forget sexual conquests, beautiful women, fast cars, private accesses, all the public status symbols that hurt others so much more when the displayer is young and handsome. Soren is gone. I am prince of twenty-something Tokyo. What thrills the heart is to watch an entire weekend unfold, all the component parts flying in from all directions, and to be entirely in charge of the process, the power-broker who decides ultimate outcomes, subject only to the basic physical limitation that nobody can monopolize everything or be everywhere at every time, and here Tucker, ever loyal lieutenant and club promoter extraordinaire, reveals unexpected potential.
"Well, okay Tucker, this is the situation. Japan is a pretty hard country to read, but if you do it right, I think it can be really rewarding. There's a lot of people who come here and then leave embittered, but the key to remember is that Japanese are not Americans. You can't just barge around the place being obtuse and talkative--you have to watch carefully, and then act, and then you can really thrive." Tucker gives me his complete attention, nodding his head. "You see an awful lot of people leave here every year."
"But maybe some people just want to be here for a year or two?" he asks.
"Well, okay, there's that. But I think the value really comes when you learn something from the inside out, rather than just jet here for cocktail hour, take a bunch of snapshots in front of Mount Fuji and in happi coats, and then blast back to DePauw. Learn to play the game."
The American nods.
This is my agenda. The last few weeks have actually been fairly dismal; I have actually a bit of a queasy feeling in my stomach because despite best efforts, the situation isn't improving. Perhaps in reality it's just a matter of luck and timing, but I'm looking for a definite score; I want that milestone that will pull me, and the gang, out of its rainy season doldrums. And this is the thing--Tucker, though scraggly, thinner, and just less overall charming than Soren, can be an interesting player in his own right, a true asset to the gang. If he is willling to learn, if he humbles himself, I will teach him. He'll get good things; his position in Japan will immeasurably improve.
“So I guess my first question for you is, why are you here? What's bringing you to Japan?”
“Well, actually I've been here before.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, but only visiting when I was in university. My older brother was working here, and man, those were the glory days.”
“How so?”
“Well, he was in finance, see? So he had this huge apartment in Roppongi-chome, we had a wrap-around balcony, and man we got babes.”
“Nice.”
“It was unfreakinbeliveable.”
“So you want to go back to those days?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Okay. Let's rock and roll.”
Sometimes you meet someone, and you just know that you are going to be hanging out with them for a while; not forever, but for a good, substantial piece of time, and then when it ends, it won't be unsatisfying or necessarily to your disadvantage. The rainy season, 'tsuyu,' is changing over to first fall—and at no time do I think that we were going to become friends for life. But maybe that is the beauty of it; that is why everything can just go as it does without ever looking back.
Tucker is speaking excitedly to me, leaning forward on the chaise longue and posturing as a supplicant. "Did you know that the decolonization of Asia began with the Japanese takeover of Vietnam? The Vietnamese had never before seen white men following Asian orders, but the Japanese just went in there and raped loads of French girls. They don't talk about it in history books because it's been totally hushed up.”
“Yeah?"
“And a British officer defected right before Singapore. Perfect family background, perfect education, no disciplinary problems in the past. But he decided of his own free will that the Japanese side was the morally superior side. Totally covered up. This is what history is really like!”
Tucker—a paranoid conspiracy theorist with a strong streak of resentment against his father, father's father, and grandfather's father, all Marine officers. They were imperialists--but what he res
ented was not that they had whined about the "white man's burden" while breeding a string of half-castes in the slums, but that they were unable to keep it up--that he had been left, so to speak, holding the bag, crushed with the weight of historical guilt without any of the rewards of empire. And so he drank--to an incredible degree--he got older; he was only twenty-six but his skin had the beat up appearance of a thirty-five year old and he chased after the very lowest quality of woman; he played for the very lowest stakes. And this--of course--made our friendship easy. "C'mon mate, c'mon mate, c'mon mate!" With dismayed faces the courtiers (whose reactions are now completely predictable, whose jokes are obvious, whose responses in any given situation are preordained to the fourth or fifth degree) watch as the prince is taken out out of the court by an ill-mannered rogue, so disheveled, unattractive, and poorly-dressed as to be beneath contempt, and the prince is happy! The prince is actually genuinely cheerful! Few have seen such expressions of genuine unadulterated joy, ear-to-ear smiling! Passing parked Jaguars and Range Rovers, we get into--of all things--an illegally parked beat up old white cube car, and tear off through night traffic Tokyo streets in some parody of a previous white car, a previous night racing through the nameless beat of the city.
Harajuku Sunday Page 9
