Lonely Hearts Killer

by Tomoyuki Hoshino

  “I want to see what it’s like to live independently too.”

  Udzuki then asked the big question, “Do you think this sort of setup is living independently?”

  My mom whispered to me, “Honey, will you be okay money-wise?”

  I was too irate to speak, but Mokuren, whose keen ears picked up my mom’s voice, answered for me, “There’ll be no problem there. Iroha’s going to work for me as the live-in manager, and I’ll be paying her.”

  “Really? Well, as long as she can support herself. Honey, I won’t have the extra to send you an allowance, so if it gets tight, please come home.”

  “You mean if I get fired, you’ll take care of me? Gee, thanks, Mom. It’s nice to know I have comprehensive unemployment insurance.”

  “You’re getting a little too old for that kind of sarcasm. You’re not going to be able to get away with irresponsibly picking fights like that anymore. You could learn a thing or two from Her New Majesty about taking work seriously and acting responsibly. But you’re probably thinking about how much you’d like me to shut up right about now.”

  “I was just thinking at least this is better than listening to you tell me I should get married.”

  Mokuren stepped in with words to snap me out of it, “Iroha, you can’t pout and be stubborn and childish forever. Try to behave.”

  “Okay, let’s drink and make up. Let’s start the party over again. Kisaragi, you and Udzuki haven’t climbed the holy mountain yet, have you? Let’s go up to the top and drink a toast.” That invitation was also my bitchy way of spiting my mom.

  Just as I’d planned, my mom put on a smile and said, “I’ll pass. I’m not as in shape as the rest of you, and I need to get my rest for tomorrow.” She looked at Udzuki and Kisaragi and said, “I’ll see you two in the morning. Thanks again for the ride. Have a good time. Goodnight.” With that, she headed upstairs.

  Without missing a beat, Mokuren calmly announced, albeit with a defiant attitude, “No one wants to get in an accident because they’re hungover, so let’s call it a night.”

  Mom paused to give Mokuren a big smile and release the tension with words of praise before reaching the second floor, “Thank you. I am so grateful to you.”

  Kisaragi and Udzuki agreed that “the party mood” was over and excused themselves.

  I took my lousy and self-critical self up to my room, where, for the first time since coming to the mountain lodge, I gave Inoue’s films new life on my computer. Before when I used to feel that bad, I’d call Miko or look at Inoue’s webcast, and I must have been trying to compensate.

  The file I randomly opened was the two of us walking around the center of Shibuya. You could hear us talking about truly silly things like, “one of these days, let’s use the water in a pool as a screen” and “after you meet Miko, why don’t the three of us make a comedy version of ‘Mixed Cameras’?” What vulnerable voices, vulnerable words, vulnerable gestures. Sometimes Inoue would respond to something I said by turning his camera away from whatever scenery he was filming and point it at me, so my face showed up in some frames. It was back when I wore my hair straight and long, to my shoulders. The toasty late-summer sunlight glittered on my short-sleeved blouse with the blue-green flower print and the younger arms that stretched out of it. There we were, shining and going along as if every day was even-keeled with no mountains or valleys of hope in our way, talking to each other with such openness. We thought we were so cynical and sophisticated, but we were just powerless, vulnerable, and innocent kids.

  The unbearable yearning to have that moment back made me want to cry while watching those images, and I also wanted to deny the poisonous grip nostalgia had on me. But then again, misery suits me.

  Leaving me only the sadness of knowing I can never get those days back, Inoue and Miko went and died. The two of them, my mom, who is indifferent to my loneliness, Miko’s parents, who were wholly dependent on him, Inoue’s parents, who had such minimal interior lives … they’re all like kids who let other people clean up their messes. No sooner had I thought that than I realized I could add myself to the list for leaning on Mokuren.

  Inoue said that we were “being kept alive” and that we couldn’t just “starve to death,” but of course children who always have someone caring for them aren’t going to die so easily. It’s also natural that they can’t participate in society in the real sense.

  I wonder just how many mature, independent, self-sufficient, and responsible adults there are. Maybe those of us on these protruding islands are just a bunch of kids playing games like make-believe grown-ups and make-believe lovers, pretending to want to die and pretending to die. It’s an island of children, where children just produce more children, and in a place like that, there can be no society in the true sense. Even though there are some kids passing as parents, there are no actual adult parents. In that sense, each and every one of us is an orphan. Where are our real adult parents? If they exist, who and where are they?

  I made myself sick with such restless doubts. I was up half the night because grotesque images of “real adult parents” in my dreams made it hard to sleep. I woke up completely exhausted with the sunrise. Two hours later, still early in the morning, Kisaragi, Udzuki, and my mom left by car. As of the present, that was the last time I saw my mom in the flesh.

  After those three made their get-away, a steady trickle of Mokuren’s friends came and went, and I held down the fort. For every familiar face from the earlier construction work days, there was someone I’d never seen before. Not only were they new to me, some of them were even people Mokuren didn’t know personally either. But each occupied a position in Mokuren’s intricate network.

  They didn’t all necessarily come to enjoy a vacation. Many came with work to do. One would be focused on writing while others hauled in materials to craft huge art pieces. A person who ran laps around the mountain as part of a training regimen, a person who diligently processed documents filled with calculations on the computer, a person who spent hours on the balcony hashing out never-ending arrangements over the cell phone, a person who literally read constantly, a person trying out experimental recipes who got on everyone’s nerves, a nerdy person glued to the computer monitor morning, noon, and night, a person chilling out in the garden hammock ... a good-natured, but high-strung corporate-type, a low-key commercially unsuccessful musician, an actor who kept to himself, and an overly serious student who’d corner whomever he could in a philosophical debate... and so on. As long as they didn’t bother anyone else, they were free to gather in the salon to relax after dinner, debate, wander around the mountain in the middle of the night, have sex in their rooms or the woods, or do whatever else they liked. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mokuren’s folks and their hometown friends who sometimes came and cooked up the most fabulous Chinese-Food for us.

  My job entailed the general management and upkeep of the little lodge, as well as handling guest affairs and room arrangements, purchasing groceries, and giving troublemakers a warning or asking them to leave. Mokuren assigned guests to water management, home repair, cooking, cleaning, or security-surveillance squads in order to encourage fresh relationships on Ascension Pass. I didn’t want to get caught up in her spider web network though, so I made sure to maintain my distance from lodgers. Truthfully, I was repelled by the stench of the world below they brought with them. Mokuren’s the kind of person who could swallow poison and transform it into a cure, but in my case, that same poison would just circulate until it killed me.

  I couldn’t stand it when Mokuren called me down to film a weekend fiesta, a task I greatly resented. (They apparently wanted the feel of a lively Latin dance party, so everyone was busting a move to Latin music.) I was trapped in the middle of a herd of crazy, dancing fools, and it wasn’t long before I put down my camera and started twirling around with someone too. As intimate as that act was, I felt pleasantly detached. While this was a welcome change in me from Mokuren’s perspective, she still exp
ressed concern and said, “Don’t overdo it, okay? Iroha, you should pace yourself. If you’re trying to keep up with everyone else, I’d rather you took it easy and just watched through your camera.”

  “Is that what it looks like?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem in keeping with the low-impact pace you’ve set for yourself.”

  Mokuren was completely right in her observation. You see, I was still following the news from the world below even after my mom left.

  She called incessantly with her usual rundowns of the news mixed together with stories about whatever was going on with her. I’d always worried about my mom not having a close friend. I’d never imagined it would get to this point, but I did suspect my eventual independence would be a source of anxiety for her, so I figured I’d have to continue being there for her. Sure enough, that’s what happened. It was a pain, but I kept her company by phone.

  I can’t really blame my mom for my having become a news junkie. In one sense, I was cut off from the world below. I tried to forget about everything and walk the mountain, halfway feeling like I’d become a little creature that belonged here, sheltered beneath the shade of trees. You’d think that would have been enough, but I grew restless in a matter of days. At night, I’d go online and pour through news sites like I was opening up maps to get a bearing on where I was. I also listened to the radio my mom left behind. When she called, I’d pretend it was the first time I’d heard about a particular story, but I was already well versed in whatever news she related. I devoured as much information as I could, and it became harder and harder to separate myself from the world below.

  The rate of love suicides escalated with each passing day. During the summer months one similar death followed another, and most people had had enough. With looks of disdain they said, “Anybody that hell bent on dying ought to go ahead and die already!” Even so, those same people who had been fed up with it all suddenly responded to the following incident with worries that they too might be ensnared in the trend. The level of uncertainty rose and fear ran rampant when the grasses were withering and tree leaves were beginning to fall in the cool, dry autumn breeze.

  It happened in the middle of October, when they announce the results of who passed the bar exams. A thirty-three year-old who failed eleven times in a row, counting that year, stabbed the Minister of Justice and then killed himself. That was the first of what they called the “assassination suicides.” Right before he did the deed, he mailed a statement of intent to the mass media, so the next day, the text of that statement was all over the place.

  “For over a decade now, while I’ve continued to fail the bar, the legal world has fallen into a sorry state of affairs. Prosecutors, who were once the guardians of the Law, are now the pitbulls of government officials. Judges are grave keepers who only follow precedent. And the so-called human rights attorneys are that only in name, their actual role being nothing more than playing bodyguard for the masterminds who rake in the big bucks through the corrupt system. That is what the legal profession has become in a nutshell.

  I won’t go so far as to suggest that things are this bad because I haven’t passed and thus can’t work to make a difference in the legal world. Nonetheless, I truly want to combat the corruption, but for ten years have been forced to stand outside the mosquito curtain, where all I can do is gawk and stare – a profound humiliation. The bitterest pill of all and what galls me to no end is how immoral stooges who accept things as they are and who don’t even see the corruption for what it is are permitted entrance into the legal profession.

  I would have given up if it were simply a matter of my own failings, of me not being up to the task. However, they routinely fail me by a hair. They announce they reached their quota as soon as my number comes up, and with that, the door slams shut. Each time it’s my turn, I am cast out by such a slim margin. There has to be something seriously flawed in a rank-based decision-making process like that. Is the legal community trying to protect itself by preventing any flexibility when it comes to qualifying applicants? Is it their way of upholding the status quo?

  Just as Shôji Inoue indicated in the incomparable indictment he left behind, my parents put my future down as collateral, and I have eaten off their advance payment. The net result of all this being that now that my future prospects are merchandise beyond their expiration date and starting to spoil, my shares in my own future are as worthless as wastepaper. Without any ties to this world or even the permission to work towards change, I have no value at all anymore.

  But is that really the case? Am I really not worth anything? I salute Mr. Inoue. He has my respect for having been unfettered by the laws of this world in his actions. Looking from the outside at “this world” as it is displayed on-screen, I wonder if perhaps I, too, might have a hint of value left in me.

  They are trying to prosecute Mr. Inoue according to the laws of a land that are far beneath him. I remain outside the mosquito curtain where I have no means of thwarting them, nor can I hope to replicate the achievements of Mr. Inoue. Yet I am rising up to the challenge to correct society. According to Mr. Inoue’s teachings, we will not realize our worth and will remain unable to participate in a society where people simply follow the old traditions until we write them off for good and create a meaningful system in a world made newly tranquil without certain people in it. We must break away and take the leap. We must reclaim society. Following Mr. Inoue’s doctrine, I intend to die and take with me a symbol of corruption, the person responsible for the bar.

  This is human kind’s final combat. Here’s to the soldiers who will follow, that they may stand firm.”

  It was obvious, more so in form than in substance, that this statement was a take-off on Inoue’s document. This guy humiliated himself to prove Inoue’s point about worthlessness, and, all I could think was that he really wanted to settle the score for Inoue, but since that was beyond his power, he lashed out in a crazy direction.

  The Minister of Justice pulled through and, without wasting a second, filed charges against the dead suspect. I suppose they wanted to treat him the same way they did Inoue. Meanwhile, the Chief Secretary of Cabinet called the attack “an act of terrorism.” On the basis that Inoue’s document and films incited terrorism and couldn’t be left uncontrolled in the public domain, he proposed amendments to the Communications Monitoring and Prevention of Subversive Activities Acts. Parliament passed the amendments quickly after a forty-three year old temp worker took up the pathetic would-be lawyer’s call early in the following November. He poisoned to death a high-level Trade Ministry representative of the party in power who was on the campaign trail and then killed himself by drinking poison. The new amendment made it illegal, retroactively from Inoue’s document onward, to author and/or participate in the dissemination of materials inciting others to commit crimes. And on top of that, Parliament seriously deliberated over the preposterous recommendation that in cases involving someone who commits suicide soon after taking the life of another, it might serve as a deterrent to record the disgraced perpetrator as having been executed for a capital offense in the official history, thereby robbing that person of the reality of suicide.

  Yet it wasn’t the government or any committee that had me feeling really helpless. As Inoue pointed out, it might look like politicians run the show, but that’s not real. They are moved by a power we understand even less. One example of that unknown power was how the electorate or society actually embraced the government’s swift revision of the laws with popular support. That’s why, to me, it sure seemed like whatever that greater power was, it could manipulate the electorate too. Inoue said that hardly anyone was able to participate in society, and maybe that unknown power was like a geyser spouting out of the emptiness of a society without people.

  Okay, so then that brings us to why none of us can participate in society, which I think is related to the idea of this place being islands of children. The fact that we remain in a state of childhood creates the v
acuum, and out of that vacuum emerges the geyser, and the geyser, in turn, moves us around. To put it simply, we are made to move by a force we unwittingly created.

  Everyone living on these islands, from the electorate all the way to the politicians and even Her Majesty, develops the way they do because that kind of power keeps them alive. So, what the hell kind of person is Mokuren to look at us as if we are really living?

  Criminalizing Inoue’s document as “prohibited text” was like disabling people’s impulse control. Declaring the document a capital offense won’t keep people from absorbing the message. All I’m trying to say is that treating people like freaks and criminals is enough to make them not need a reason to die or give a shit about who they take with them. It was only a matter of time before we made the leap from “assassination suicides” to “indiscriminate love suicides.”

  The first indiscriminate love suicide occurred after Christmas near the end of December when the Communications Monitoring and Prevention of Subversive Activities Acts were revised.

  It was the afternoon rush hour on the Yamanote Line at Shibuya Station, and passengers on a crowded train were waiting for the door to close. The passengers up front had their hands pressed up above the door like they were trying to avoid being pushed out of the train when one man hauled ass to squeeze in at the last minute, barreling into the stomach of a man up front and practically tackling him. But the guy who tried to get onboard was repelled back onto the platform by the middle-aged paunch on the man up front. So the guy gave up then and ran toward the far end of the platform. The doors closed, and the train left.

  A few seconds passed before the passengers onboard realized something was wrong. The man who’d just been tackled was coughing and spitting up blood. Blood was dripping down his legs. The woman next to him turned pale, screamed, and reeled back, struggling to get away, which pissed off the man behind her, who snarled, “What the fuck’s your problem?” People with cell phones simultaneously started dialing for cops and ambulances. The train was already pulling into Ebisu, the next station, by the time the news reached the conductor.