Harajuku Sunday

by S. Michael Choi

  This is the only possible vista into a place. I put aside part of my paycheck; I accumulate things. There is some kind of charm in this innocence, this boyish way of believing that a pile of sand on top of another will eventually result in a fully habitable castle. But if Kitakata deserves something, it is this: this life is not unlivable. Hisako is wrong about this. It is totally possible to make the sunlit afternoon of a summer Sunday become the totality of a way of life. Not that I am trying to live in some sixteenth century version of existence. It is that this country life has its own consolations. The sweet water of the caldera lake, Tazawako, is ever so much sweet to the spirit than all the neon dayglo of Shibuya or Ebisu. Those rainbow-colored kids. And even afterwards, even after things are impossible...

  “So you want to live here for the rest of your life.”

  “…”

  “Eight hundred yen an hour, thirty thousand saved by the end of the month if we cut out all unnecessary expenses.”

  Her mouth moves; she is animated, flushed.

  “This dusty town; this minimal life.”

  From the far shore, we can see Towada-ko, the perfect circular caldera lake, an extinct volcano filled up with rain. This is it. This is the full summation of two years spent in the far north, a futile escape from a city that was going to dominate every other moment, every other waking thought of an entire twenties of one life. Eri eventually married her boyfriend, the American who wished to become Japanese. Tak and Shino are still together, older, about to inherit the izakaya. I think the boys on the basketball team are still friends, and the city itself has shrunken slightly in population, a candidate to be merged with neighboring towns. The most striking detail is maybe 100 yen DVDs at the 100 yen store; you accumulate a collection, you sink into suburban ennui. You drive cars out at night, without particular destination in mind.

  IX.

  Tokyo would not let her children flee so easily. If we had had a homecoming to the mountain villages of north Japan, we now have a homecoming back to the city we were part of, for we are city people, we are urbanites, and we have no choice but to listen to that siren call. If moving to the northern town is an epic journey, an odyssey, now there is the absolute monumentality of that horribly large sky, that drive down south south south to Tokyo that means an entire book can be written just about that one highway that slowly wound its way into the metropolis proper, the rest stop, the mountains lowering lowering and of all that grief, all that sorrow, all that epoch-ending feel of one's life symbolized and thrown into harsh relief by how that huge, majestic sky closed in, how now the buildings like ocean liners rose up from the line of the land and then engulfed one, until here, yes, no more fields could be seen, and here, now, local urban conurbations were thick enough that huge video screens pasted on the walls of intersections buildings sold products and brands to the turgent crowd. Homecoming. We travel that road, now, with monumental sorrow. We are failures now. There is no denying it. Underneath everything, underneath all that irrepressible emotion, the stark truth of our having been completely defeated by the countryside, at fleeing back to the non-linearity of city life, all of this forces itself into realization, and we know now that the clock is ticking; no matter how much we deny it, everything is now on a downward spiral. With the quickness that comes from rapid underpricing (and this is where slow, conservative banks make their profits; humans are impulsive and the bankers are patient), we sell out the Kitakata house, threw away piles of a prior life, and fit whatever is portable and necessary into my now five-year old kei-car and drive it back to Tokyo, yes Tokyo where we have already arranged a lease on a place in the Ginza. This is evolution, yes; from a downtown Yokohama LDK to a 2 bedroom Ginza flat? It has to be the richest place now; there are no more brakes, flying without radar. One can say we were moving up in the world if not for the fact that now everything is different, now like a drug-addict relapsing after a period of sobriety, there is now no check on our behavior; we live as if there is absolutely no next year at all, and we are back now and we are back so we cash out a hundred thou and put a down-payment, it’s going to be Ginza or nowhere else at all.

  “We’ll move to Ginza, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to work again in Shinjuku? You have your friends at the hostess club?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll get anything we want? No limitations on expense?”

  “None at all…”

  Matsusaka beef prepared from hand-raised black Japanese cows fed beers and sprayed with shochu melted in one's mouth with all the consistency of an expensive tuna. In Ginza there is one boutique just down the street that specialized in deliveries on this, and walking down two or three streets, one finds all the world's best of the best in stores two hundreds years old or ten, delivering by bicycle courier to all the local buildings, and if one had a ready hand with the wallet, there was absolutely nothing--truly absolutely nothing--that could not be sent directly to the doorstep wrapped in brown paper and oftentimes still wiggling or alive, including from literally the other side of the world Maine lobsters, African spiny crabs, plaintains, strawberries, boutique melons (the famous $500 watermelons of one particular town in countryside Japan), total artisanal perfection.

  There is very little in the world that defies description, but suffice to say that the upper 1% of the upper 1% of items belongs to this region of rarefied adjective, and a crisp, absolutely delicate Riesling with a three-pound lobster air-packed and still smelling of salt-water as it healthily attacks a lettuce leaf you feed it is one of the rare pleasures of life. We eat this; we eat gold flakes sprinkled on a deep-red tuna; we have rare filet mignon and French ham and obscure cheeses from Vermont or Montpelier, oysters shucked fresh, centuries old brandies and cognacs, top-line brut champagne, and vegetables that were practically grown individually. On this foundation of a completely exorbitant diet, we turn to only tailor-made clothes, Saks Fifth Avenue haute couture and European fashions, first-class Green tickets when we traveled, the most expensive possible rental cars when we drove, best hotels, Egyptian cotton sheets, everything hand-delivered, everything customized, maid-service, Savile Row tailors, Charvet ties, diamond cufflinks, G6 charters to Niseko, time-share on a 32' boat in Tokyo Bay, VIP tours to Art Basel-represented dealers, a level of difference only communicable as the velvety soft smoothness of premium artisanal ice cream to vending machine soft-serve. If you have a minor Dali on your wall, that is the difference of a single-edition Gerhard Richter signed and dated.

  Three or four months after our return I run into Melanie--the artist girl from years past, the only one of the old crowd who hadn’t jumped all over me, who wasn’t throwing me out into outcast wastelands simply because they were jealous of previous status. She stands there in the evening twilight, alone and looking almost forlorn; a lily amidst the crowds. We are in Ueno, the east side of Tokyo, the downtown, utilitarian side where the airport trains terminate and the weekend markets spill out onto the pavement. To the right, the Yamanote train trundles along on its overpass, below which the last, most hopeful vendors are closing their stores. To the left, the dated building-front, the one that looks like it's from the 1950s, faces out from UenoPark displaying its preprogrammed patterns of light. It's Sunday evening, and it's Melanie; sarong, hair ornament, luggage, all suggest a return just then from Southeast Asia.

  "Oh, Ritchie, Ritchie Uofo!" Her eyes widen.

  We are right on the cusp of things, and all Melanie has to do is turn away in non-recognition or indifference. Five years have passed, disgrace, bad reputation, social and professional ruin, not knowing whether newly introduced peoples' standoffishness just the low-key norm or a product of LeFauve; never getting recognition from people who have benefited so greatly from my generosity. Disgrace, dishonor, and a lost job, Melanie never to judge or to criticize; Melanie never to make demands in undue reciprocation; Melanie never to take advantage of the situation to take but never return, never to turn her back until it was I who withdraw,
not wanting to drag her down with me as I sink into the deepest of despair. But finally so much time has passed and everything is so past, everything is so ancient history, and it's just us standing there in the soft Tokyo evening, me suggesting we go to a nearby izakaya, and she assenting, and it's just fine fine fine, everything can just begin again anew.

  "Oh my God! Melanie! Holy cow this is a random encounter! How have you been? What have you been up to?"

  "Let's have dinner!"

  She motions over to a nearby restaurant.

  "So how was your vacation? Somewhere interesting?" I ask after we have entered and been settled down into a booth.

  "Oh, Vietnam was beautiful, lush, verdant. I think I still have sand in my backpack, the seas are so turquoise and the beaches so coral pink..."

  Melanie fairly glows, seeming relaxed and tanned and radiant even in the dim light of the smoky restaurant. The waitress coming over, also, gives the tiniest of detectable reactions, bowled over by some sort of indescribable energy flowing out of the recent returnee.

  "A lot of beach time, then?" I ask, after we have accepted menus.

  "Never enough. But if you go just a hundred yards into the jungle, suddenly you're surrounded by lush, verdant, untouched jungle. You have to go!"

  "Sometime."

  "Anyway..."

  "Anyway, yes...God how do we begin. What has been going on in your life?"

  "Aww sheesh. Yeah it has been forever. Well...Carla is gone, so are Erik and Jose. A whole new group. I think you knew Lee?”

  "Yes, he was one of your program? The art group?”

  "Yes. He got a scholarship back home in the U.S. And what happened to Shan, anyway?”

  “LeFauve got him in the end. His visa was bad after Shan wasn´t able to enroll in classes for six months, and one day the immigration police just show up and pack him away."

  "But he wasn't enrolling in classes because he was kept getting thrown in jail."

  "Exactly."

  "Somehow it doesn't seem right."

  Melanie blows out smoke, thoughtful. "And your friend Soren? Did he turn out all right?”

  “He´s still here in Tokyo, but just keeps to his job and a new crowd.I think I saw him once at an ALT soccer tournament, but he didn´t say anything and neither did I."

  "Time changes everything..." She looks wistful, lost, little-girlish. I want to sink into her endless brown eyes.

  "How about Julian? Still here? You two still...”

  She nods, and looks off into the distance. “But there´s lots going on. Do you remember little Nera? She's been producing these wonderful super-size graphic novels that are getting collectible and she'll be opening her own booth at Comiket. Our little studio is taking off, as well—we're finally going to be finishing up our formal gallery. We´re going to have our own little museum! These are big times for Aoyama!"

  “Wow, that's totally cool. When is the opening?”

  "Next summer officially, but things keep getting delayed. But anyway, you´ll have to come by the studios. And wait, not this weekend, but the next, we're having some artists from Kyoto visiting, and we'll probably have a party to welcome them Friday evening. So swing by two weekends—you have to get into things, Ritchie. People miss you."

  "Maybe..."

  We eat, and after dinner, I pick up the tab, shrugging off her protests.

  The appointed evening, my feet—of their own accord—find their way to Aoyama and the invitation that is given casually in optimism for future things. The magic that first encounter is still flowing, stronger, as I approach the studio itself. I feel distinctly the quality of that evening sky—luminescent so that the earth is lost in relative darkness, and the soft feathering of streetlights on Omote-sando gives a sort of dizzying effect, assisted simply by red lanterns and the warmly lit but dimly seen interiors of passage-side buildings. From Harajuku Station, I walk down the Champs-Elysees of Omote-sando, and then am plunged into the back alleys and side streets of the art district. Thousands of miles away from home and possibly the only English-speaker in hundreds of yards. Yet still immersed in a business society. Passerbys pay me no mind, hurrying off to their art galleries and coffee dates, stylish, chic, and debonair. Somewhere, some far-a-where wheels of commerce are turning and factory lines are busy, but here is the beautiful world, the castle borne aloft. Small establishments of unknown purpose pass by, and then, a telephone pole sign allows me to narrow in on the precise address. But, making an incorrect turn, I first see Aoyama Studio from a reverse viewpoint, with one missing block on a concrete wall allowing me to spy, unseen, onto a rear workshop. Here, framed by a rectangle of warm light, is Melanie, eyebrows knitted as she prepares a canvas. For perhaps ten minutes I pause there, watching as she carefully and thoroughly paints a layer of gesso on the unprimed canvas, spreading the material evenly and smoothly. Between sips of green tea from a bottle, I look at her, five minutes stretching to ten, and then I gather up my bag and walk around to the building entrance.

  Aoyama Studio, from the outside, does not betray its purpose. It's a brown-wooden building with a stacked-log facade ornamented solely by a pale back-lit sign illustrated with the "Blue" and "Mountain" Chinese characters and "Studios" spelled out in calligraphy katakana. Up and down the streets are similar buildings, low-traffic and private-purpose establishments. But only tonight, here, the place to be; music.

  "But getting back to Netta's car-r-r-r-r/

  I remember going there but not too far-r-r-r-r/"

  The immediate interior is still traditional with tokonoma, genkan, the Japanese style entranceway, but a staircase lit by a single bare bulb with an open door leads to a basement the young artists have appropriated for themselves, the walls scribbled with colorful spraypaint. Loud alt-rock music blares up from the basement, to which I trundle down, awkward and hesitant, yet conscious of the rules of sophistication. There's a cooler full of beers in one corner of the light-strand lit interior packed with fashionable young Tokyo-ites and hipsters. I recognize nobody; nobody seems to recognize me. Settling into a convenient corner, I listen to the live music, and then run into Herrera, the guy from New York, who I have not seen in years.

  "Oh hey, what´s up man? Cool band tonight."

  "Yeah pretty good. You still spraypainting?"

  Herrera takes a gulp from his cold beer. "Yeah, man totally. They were talking about giving me a scholarship to university in New York, but I didn't want to commit four years of my life."

  "NYC? And you said no?"

  "Hard to explain, bro. It was like, I could spend four years of my life preparing for something else, or I could just put on the backpack and actually live life."

  "You'll have to show me some of your work, sometime."

  "See some right there." And he points to the wall.

  Herrera shows me a section of the wall he`s done, and I find myself impressed, and tell him so, and he brings me over to another street art-friend of his who does photography-paint street-art hybrids, and who as we approach I realize is speaking to Julian. It's gratifying that Julian gives a little flinch when he turns around and recognizes me. It's as if his subconscious brain is aware that he was completely out of line during the whole Soren fiasco and that I would be justified in punching him right then and there. But Herrera is already introducing his buddy, completely oblivious of what is going on, and I refrain from causing a scene. Instead, I meet this friend of both Antony, who is also, incidentally, depicted on a number of photographs framed on the wall lolling about naked on a bed, and we clink beers and talk about art.

  "So the agency is talking about using me on some prints ads, maybe some CM work," says Antony.

  "Modelling."

  "A lot of people do at least a little for pocket cash, but the real question is whether you can get steady work. I actually might do something tomorrow. I probably shouldn't drink too much."

  The band breaks out into what I later learn is their signature single and there's a roar from the crowd that prevents conv
ersation from continuing. We drink our beers and do not react to the passing by of a videographer, who with his large shoulder camera and lamp sweeps by, panning the audience, or the uniquely attired “artistes” inhabiting this party space. I like the music, but then I catch sight of Melanie across the room, so I clap my hand on the back of Herrera and his friend and tell them I'll catch them later, which they seem to be able to hear.

  "Hey, Melanie, Melanie!" I manage to catch her right before she's about to ascend the stairs again, with her clipboard in one hand and her usual look of worry. When she recognizes me, she looks relieved.

  "Ritchie, was trying to reach you. Look we have a problem—the people visiting from Kyoto? They got lost, and they're only just passing by Yokohama. When they get in, they'll need at least one extra place to crash—aren´t you in Shinjuku?"

  "Oh sure, Melanie, no problem at all. Did they have a chance to eat?"

  "A couple of us might be going out to a Shirokiya; we'll see what happens when they get here."