Tokyo Stirs: (Short Stories about Asia)

by Harmon Cooper

  ‘We need to do something!’ The Brit shouted to her husband and any Westerner that would listen.

  ‘Sit down!’ her husband answered, reaching up to grab her wrist. The German next to me laughed.

  The fracas outside the bus grew larger. The driver ran back into the bus and grabbed the box containing the bus fare from above his seat, at least 60,000 rupees. He held his side in pain, as he shrunk away like a coward, disappearing into the scuffle. He’d stolen enough to feed his family for three or four months. After another couple of minutes the fight died down, likely due to the fact that no one knew who they were fighting and the bus driver had long since slinked away. There we were, stuck on the highway with no bus driver, a bleeding man in a turban, and a bus full of people.

  ‘What should we do?’ I finally asked the German. I had taken some pain medication for my sciatica goblin and the blurriness was starting to kick in.

  ‘I guess we should wait for another bus to come,’ he answered with agitation.

  An hour passed. I tried to do the calculations in my head. We had driven four and a half hours but had stopped for thirty minutes. The Tibetan settlement, McLeod Ganj, was twelve hours away. It was approaching midnight and we still had at least eight hours to go. I closed my eyes, hoping to rest until another bus appeared.

  Two hours later and we were still stuck on the highway. The driver had yet to return and the owner of the bus was nowhere to be found. A few of the Indian men, including one who had announced the cricket victory, began interrogating the bus driver’s young assistant. The crowds around the big green and white tent outside had finally dissipated. The Indian authorities had yet to show up. My sciatica goblin occasionally jabbed me with his blade to just make sure I was paying attention. I obliged and got off the bus to use the restroom. I introduced myself and my sciatica goblin to a traveling Canadian couple. They were friendly and offered to help me with my luggage once a new bus arrived. Apparently, they had traveled with their own goblin before.

  Another hour passed.

  It was now two in the morning. In my pill-stupor, I asked one of the Indian men, Anish, what the current situation was. He explained that a man claiming to be the bus owner’s friend had shown up to assess the damage. Anish told me that he didn’t trust him. I fell back asleep for another hour.

  Once I was awake again, I limped back off the bus to check on the situation. Apparently, the police had come and gone. Anish claimed that without a bribe, we could hardly expect anything from the Indian police. A Cambodian monk got off the bus and began stretching. He wore a bright orange outfit and looked like a fireball as he moved up and down. The Tibetan man was on his cell phone again, kicking at the gravel. I started to feel as if I were trapped in some sort of narcosis void. I had to trust, I told myself, had to have faith that this would work out sooner than later. The sciatica goblin laughed at my conviction. His voice sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonating Golem. Everything was fuzzy.

  It was now four in the morning. Twilight had cast an eerie blue glow across the Punjabi countryside. The stars had disappeared behind a horde of insomniac clouds. I got off the bus only to catch a confrontation between the bus owner’s friend who had shown up at some point and my new Indian friend, Anish. He was demanding his money back. The Canadian couple quickly joined Anish. As her boyfriend haggled the bus owner’s friend, the Canadian woman ran up to me and told me to threaten the man if I wanted my money back. She revealed to me that the owner’s friend was actually the owner! How dastardly! He had been posing as someone else to assess the damage and to save himself from having to pay any refunds. He was as bad as my sciatica goblin.

  ‘Listen man!’ I told in my most convincing southern drawl. ‘I want my money back! This is—’

  I might have cursed. Either way, the man shook his head and gave me 500 rupees, roughly ten dollars. A small victory to be sure. Behind me, Anish had gathered a group of three Indian men and one Indian woman with thick rimmed glasses. They started to pull their luggage out from underneath the bus. Even in my pain killer stupor, I knew exactly what he was going to do.

  ‘Anish!’ I called after him, ‘However you are doing it, I need to get to McLeod Ganj too.’

  He nodded his head and told me to grab my things.

  ‘We are going with you guys too!’ The Canadian woman announced.

  Our group was quickly joined by a quiet Russian couple, the Tibetan who was always on his cell phone, a French woman who spoke fluent Tibetan, an American man from California, the blue-eyed German and a scruffy Israeli. All in all, fourteen people from all walks of life. Our group had quickly become a proverbial who’s who of global diversity.

  Anish was the ring leader. He hailed a passing public transportation bus and negotiated with the driver to take all fourteen of us. The driver took us to a rundown slum. Amidst the smell of fresh paranthas and exhaust, we boarded another bus with a television and a crisp vinyl interior. The television played Punjabi music videos for four hours straight, which was as close to torture as I have ever been.

  Indian men and women came and went, peppering my bewilderment. They sat next to me, sometimes almost on top of me, sometimes climbing over me. Occasionally, a man or woman carrying a small statue and reeking of incense walked onto the bus singing in Hindi. The sciatica goblin didn’t like these ones too much. He jabbed me every time a beggar appeared. After receiving enough donations, they would promptly get off the bus at the next stop. We continued deeper into the Punjab. I continued deeper into a numb delirium. The sun radiated off tractors, billboards, white buildings, the domes of Sikh temples.

  The Canadians took care of me. They helped me with my luggage, helped me get change from the driver’s assistant after I had paid my fare. The Russian couple never talked to me. The French woman mostly only talked to the Tibetan man in Tibetan. The other American seemed to like the French woman. He followed her around like a puppy; she paid little attention to him. We switched to another bus. The Indians were as friendly as the Canadians. They offered me food and reassured me. Somewhere in here, there is a metaphor.

  The Israeli, a towering man with hair bristling out of his shirt, never said much. He looked tired. His uni-brow made him appear as if he were scowling. He told me he had been traveling in India for a few months to celebrate the end of his compulsory military service and he was exhausted. I nodded sympathetically as the sciatica goblin thrust his dagger deeper into my leg. It had now been five hours since we’d left the bus wreck. At some point, the German told me about his jewelry business in Bonn. I nodded at him like he was a mirage. Everyone had started to blend together. The various busses we took never stopped driving. My faith had started to decline. The people never stopped coming. The temperature rose, the sweat dousing my already sweat-stained shirt.

  I fell asleep around noon while crammed between an Indian woman and her husband, bouncing their child on his knee. A short man walked through the aisle selling some sort of peanut snack with cilantro in a newspaper bowl. Another man offered me a samosa. I declined both and dozed off again. I was awoken by Anish who told me it was time to board a new bus. I looked at my watch – a quarter past three. The fourteen of us lumbered off the bus and gathered around our luggage in a bus station. We were told that we had reached Pathankhot and that it would take us another three hours to reach McLeod Ganj. We all moaned, even the once cheerful Canadians. We had now been on the bus since five o’clock the previous evening.

  After some negotiations, the Indians chartered a personal bus for our international motley crew. We set off, the hood of the bus aimed towards the Himalayas like a mystical arrow. The conversations around me seemed to enter and exit my brain like convenient store customers. The pain medication had worn off nearly eight hours ago, the grogginess lingered on. I was wobbly and muzzy, fueled solely by liquid trust. Every crack in the road sent a sting through my body. The sciatica goblin continued to rip at me with his dagger. He wanted dearly to ruin the trip.

  I heard the
American explaining to an Indian the benefits of the American system of economics. The Indian laughed and pointed out flaws. The American agreed and asked him how they did it in India. The Indian tried to explain it to him but couldn’t find the right words. Whenever I awoke, the Canadian woman would tell to me how hard it is to travel in southern India. I told her I would stay north. The German stared out onto the rolling hills with a look of melancholy. Wanderlusting? The French woman had a long conversation with the Tibetan man. The Russians remained silent, the Israeli man slept with his forearm on the seat in front of him.

  After a long trek up a windy hill tethered to a city called Dharamsala, we finally arrived in McLeod Ganj.

  I was sure that it was a dream, sure that I would wake up on a bus crushed between more Indians living out their daily lives. Anish had us all pose in front of the bus. Photos were snapped. The temperature had dropped and a light breeze had blown up from a crack in the mountains. We took another photo and tried to exchange contact information. We had connected, we had persevered. We had proved what it means to be human, what separates us from the other animals.

  Our common goal to arrive at a destination had united us. Our conviction bonded us. Most of us hadn’t spoken to each other on the initial bus ride. It was only after the accident that conversation began. What started as a calamity had ended as success. I had made friends with the Canadians and the Indians and had learned quite a bit about Indian culture. Most importantly, I had discovered what it truly meant to trust. As for our group, we had all exchanged cultures our own unique ways. From the tacit Russians to the eager American, the stoic German to the friendly Canadian, the fatigued Israeli to the vacationing Indian, we had shared a moment that none would soon forget. Most importantly, we had arrived at our destination unscathed, a little worse for wear, but joyful nonetheless. The cynical sciatica goblin had failed; the international motley crew had triumphed.

  ‘So, where are we going next time?’ Anish asked aloud.

  No one laughed, but a few people smiled.

  Tokyo Stirs

  [3]There is only one direction in which a person can truly run.

  Kodai is heading there now, his feet moving piston-like past the swelling crowd swarming into the Shibuya Subway Station. His toes are aimed at destiny, or more appropriately, aimed in a direction many will face one day: retirement.

  Die or retire, which will it be? For Kodai it’s the latter. After thirty-five years of pushing people onto trains, the moment has finally come for him to push himself off.

  The dings, the sounds, the phones, the calls, the train as it barrels along the tracks, the squeaks and things, the few who have thrown themselves in front of the trains to end it all, the girl putting on makeup as she takes the train to Omotesando – all will be replaced. And it’s this realization that is pushing Kodai forward, it’s the senselessness of it all, the coldness of his departure. It’s at this moment that Tokyo stirs, for Kodai, for once, for no one else.

  And to where? What is a destination but a place to move to another destination from? Why run when you can walk? Why walk when you can crawl? Why crawl when you can sleep? Why sleep when you can die?

  A man doesn’t show weakness. A man doesn’t push through a crowd elbows splayed and daggered liked scythes. A man never leaves his post, never betrays the company that has kept his belly and family fed for so many years. A man never forgets to bow. But a man without a purpose – this man does whatever he has to do to escape the madness, madness that is venereal, contagious, malignant, persuasive. The madness inherent in all of us.

  Kodai has already ripped his white gloves off by the time we catch him running through the Hachiko Exit towards the famous Shibuya crosswalk. He tosses off his hat, narrowly missing a girl wearing a pair of sandals that add five inches to her height. Half the people don’t notice. Half the people don’t care. Half the people that do notice look away, as if the mere fact that they’ve seen him somehow incriminates them. No one wants to acknowledge the former subway worker untucking his shirt as he runs. They don’t want to watch a man in the middle of a breakdown. It’s none of their business; it’s none of ours.

  As he barrels forward, Kodai can feel his hands pressing into the backs of people as he stuffs them onto the trains. The fats of backs like pillows in stacks or the pelts of lambskins tossed into a transport truck marshmallow soft and baaing, baaing and baaing, quietly baaing but baaing nonetheless. Every three minutes the train comes, and every three minutes, he touches the backs of people he will never have the pleasure or displeasure of meeting. Stuff them all on. It was his job to make sure that no limbs were trapped in the door, that everyone was properly sardined.

  Now those days are over.

  In a symbolic gesture, Kodai tears off his walkie talkie as he reaches the other side of the Shibuya Crosswalk. He no longer needs to obey traffic rules, no longer needs to obey their rules. Why be so courteous all the time? Why bow and greet and apologize? Why not forge a path for yourself? This is Kodai’s answer to the eternal question.

  He hops off the curb directly in front of a black taxi. The taxi driver screeches to a halt, his white gloved hand slamming down onto the horn. Kodai stops to apologize but thinks otherwise: apologies can come later. With no other direction to go, he starts running directly in front of the black taxi, curving up the ramp to a highway entrance.

  Everything in life is accessible to those who know how to reach out and pluck it.

  ***

  Kodai’s subway worker badge plinks against chest. That must go too. He tears it off, not stopping to listen as it bounces against the street. Naturally, drivers ponder about the subway worker running in front of them? What is he running from? Why is he doing this? How shameful he is! Their collective thoughts go unheard. Little do they know that they should be running too.

  A scorching minute passes. Kodai is down to his undershirt now, wondering if he can get his pants off and keep his pace. It would be much more comfortable to be running in his boxers rather than his work pants, which were starched and ironed by his wife to a point that they could slice through frozen meat.

  The first trickle of sirens lashes at the air behind him.

  He kicks off his right shoe and reaches down to pick it up. He’s always been athletic, always loved running. Kodai is on one shoe now and his sock is turning black. He realizes that it’s impossible to take his pants off while running, so he simply stops in the middle of the road and finishes the job.

  More sirens behind him, chemtrails of a distant memory. His pants off, Kodai slips back into his shoes and continues forward. As he runs, he rolls up his pants, tucks them under his arm. He continues forward, towards the freeway, advancing to a finish line that never had a starting line.

  Is there any other direction in which a person can truly run? Sure, you can run backwards for a moment, and sure, there is the saying that people are going backwards in a metaphorical sense, but is there really any direction a person can run other than forward? Isn’t backwards simply forwards in a direction one shouldn’t be going?

  Now isn’t the time to think of such things. Philosophical musings are for those who can afford to do nothing better. Kodai is taking a stand, an action that many won’t even pretend to grasp. It is a move that will plaster him on TV screens worldwide with the headline: TOKYO SUBWAY WORKER’S MARATHON RUN.

  ‘A Tokyo subway worker led police on a wild chase for two hours yesterday.’

  ~~Cut to aerial shot of Kodai running with fifteen police vehicles behind him~~

  ‘Wow, Susanne, that man sure knows how to run! Look at him go! Any idea why he was running?’

  ‘The reports are indicating it was due to some type of work-related stress.’

  ‘Well, ha ha, next time I’m stressed, don’t expect me to start running down I-95 in my underwear, ha ha ha. I think I’ll just go to the gym instead!’

  ‘I noticed you’ve been working out.’

  ‘Not as much as I should, Susanne, but it is nice
to hit the gym every once and a while. When we return, Fox 7 news reporter Tom Kennedy takes a look at income inequality in a Baltimore neighborhood.’

  ~~Cue commercial~~

  Sweat drips from Kodai’s forehead into his eyes. It stings and makes him wish he had held onto his shirt back there. It would have been nice to be able to wipe the sweat away. It would have been nicer to wipe the sweat away long ago. His pants! He remembers his pants are under his arm. He unrolls them and drapes the legs on either side of his neck. At least he can now wipe his sweat with his pant legs.

  My god if Kodai isn’t running in top form. He’s putting Jamaican Olympic runners to shame with his endurance, his stride, his pace – Nike will capitalize off this as soon as humanly possible. They’ll use the aerial footage of him running on the highway, and through the unbelievable power of technology, they’ll capture a shot of him running in Nike sneakers courteous of advanced CGI.

  The commercial will air during the Super Bowl and people will talk about it the next day as they hover around the water cooler nursing their hangovers. ‘Did you see that Japanese guy?’ They’ll say. ‘That was crazy.’ ‘You wouldn’t catch me doing something stupid like that.’ ‘I’ve been to Tokyo for a week. Japanese people are strange.’ ‘I heard there is a high suicide rate there. At least he didn’t commit suicide.’ ‘I heard they have a bizarre sex industry there where you can pay a girl to clean your ears out with six-inch long Q-tips.’ ‘I heard about what they did in World War II, shit was twisted.’ ‘You people forget that a game was played last night. All you do is talk about the commercials. What kind of society have we become where we sit around watching commercials, commenting on them and somehow move onto Wikipedia-heavy conversations about the Japanese? What the hell is wrong with us?’ (No one will respond to Mark’s bleak observation.)

  ***