Parade

by Shuichi Yoshida

  The guy has a point. A woman defrosting a fridge in a dark kitchen at four-thirty in the morning is a little spooky. But if a woman doing something like this gives you the creeps, you’ll never be able to get married. Take my mum – for thirty years, without ever missing a day, she repeated the same line: What would you like for dinner? Talk about creepy!

  Ryosuke grabbed a bottle of Volvic mineral water from the fridge and started gulping it down. He must toss and turn in bed a lot to need to rehydrate this much. He put the bottle back in the fridge and said, ‘So, what are you doing?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I said, and I pulled a chunk of ice from the back of the fridge.

  ‘Defrosting?’

  ‘What else does it look like?’ I was starting to get annoyed. Ryosuke was still wearing his PJs. He reached over and lightly massaged my shoulder. ‘That’s a relief,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but he just yawned and padded back to his bedroom. Imagine how worried he’d have been if I’d said something like I hear strange voices coming from the freezer.

  Still, if you saw a woman defrosting a fridge at four-thirty in the morning, you’d probably ask what was wrong; and you probably wouldn’t be relieved to hear that she’s just defrosting. God, Ryosuke’s so myopic! And frankly, life’s too short – I have no time to deal with idiotic men. But the thing is, I thought to myself, I’m kind of fond of Ryosuke, even though he’s an incredible dope.

  Right then, a huge chuck of ice plopped free from inside the fridge.

  In the living room, the sofa is empty, which means Satoru hasn’t come back yet. He’s told us that his full name is Satoru Kokubo, that he’s eighteen years old, and that he works at night. With just this tiny bit of information about him, we let him live with us – no questions asked – and have also opened up to him about ourselves.

  Once, when Satoru was still out, the rest of us happened to be together in the living room and I asked, ‘Doesn’t it bother you not knowing what kind of work he does?’

  ‘He does night work,’ Naoki replied.

  ‘But what kind of night work?’ I asked.

  ‘He must be a bartender or something,’ Koto said.

  ‘Where? At what kind of place?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s in Shinjuku,’ Ryosuke said, not looking away from Koto, who was giving herself a manicure. ‘I’ve given him a ride there in Momoko a few times.’

  Then Naoki left to go for a jog and we changed the subject. Since Satoru isn’t keen on telling us whatever it is he does, I know I shouldn’t be poking my nose into his business. But when I met him originally, we were in the area of Shinjuku that is notorious for being a gay district. Moreover, the park where he was hanging around is a well-known spot for male prostitutes – the really low-rent kind who steal the guy’s wallet while he’s in the shower. Of course, according to Mariné Mama, not every guy who hangs out there is bad news. Some are even pretty decent, she claims, and I know a few of these good guys myself, guys I’ll go out drinking with. They’re sweet, easy-going seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds.

  Now that I’ve spent two weeks around Satoru, I can say that even if he is a male prostitute, I don’t think he’s one of the sketchy kind. Still, we’ve let him crash on our sofa like this, and Ryosuke, oblivious, has given him rides to ‘work’. I think we should probably keep an eye on him, just in case.

  It was nearly dawn – five a.m. – by the time I’d finished defrosting the fridge. I opened the window to feel the cold breeze on my cheeks, and was standing there, lingering in the afterglow of a job well done, when I heard a rustling at the front door and Satoru came in, with a bag of food from a convenience store. ‘Did I wake you? Or were you already up?’ he asked nonchalantly, spreading out an assortment of containers on the table: comfort food like hijiki, kinpira gobou, sesame tofu.

  ‘So how’d you do tonight? Make any money?’ I asked casually.

  He shot me a quick glance, and seemed unsure whether to respond or not. Finally, as if making up his mind, he gave a thin smile and held up three fingers.

  ‘Three people?’ I asked. ‘Or ¥30,000?’

  With a knowing smile still on his lips, he laughed. ‘That’s why I showed you three fingers.’

  I know this sounds self-serving, but I do think I’m a good judge of people. I don’t think Satoru’s going to cause me, Naoki, Koto, or Ryosuke any trouble.

  3.3

  Most of the drawings I do centre on male body parts. An unshaven chin, for instance, an abdomen with hair growing up to the navel, biceps, a hip bone, the sole of a foot. I take one of those body parts and make a collage out of the drawing along with pictures of rotten fruit, dirty snow and the like.

  I do the illustrations on the Mac in the room Koto and I share. Sometimes I’ll stay up all night working on them, and if they don’t turn out well I take it out on the mouse and printer, put my head in my hands, and groan. The whole time, Koto’s sleeping peacefully. You could blast the Sex Pistols’ ‘Anarchy in the UK’, or the choral from Beethoven’s Ninth – nothing will wake her up. She may be a little clueless, but she’s also fearless. Take her sudden decision to catch a ride in a guy’s truck to come to Tokyo – a guy she didn’t even know – or her utter lack of hesitation about moving into this apartment with two men she’d never even met before. Koto has this optimistic laxness that you only find in a girl who’s been told her whole life how cute she is, a girl who stole the heart of every boy in her class.

  One night Koto and I were talking about seaweed facial packs or something. I was in bed, Koto in her futon on the floor. It was getting time to go to sleep and she asked me to turn off the light. The light switch on the wall was, for sure, closer to me than to her, but still, it was too much trouble to get out of bed.

  ‘You know those long cords they have dangling from fluorescent lights?’ I said. ‘We should put one of those on this light.’

  ‘You mean the kind with a tiny dolphin thingy on the grip?’ Koto asked.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a dolphin. But it’d be convenient, don’t you think? You could turn it off without getting out of bed.’

  Usually Koto would just say Sounds good and leave it at that, but this time, for once, she grumbled about it. ‘Yeah,’ she went on, ‘but things that are convenient are generally pretty crummy.’

  If I had to give one reason why Koto and I could live together in this tiny room without ever fighting, that’s the line I’d list.

  One other time, I can’t remember when exactly, Koto said, ‘You know, living here I feel like I’m in an Internet chat room.’ At the time, I just ignored her, but later, when I thought about it some more, I saw she had a point. I get that chat room kind of feeling when I’m in the living room, because there’s always someone present: Koto and Ryosuke watching TV, Ryosuke and Naoki arm-wrestling on occasion. Sometimes, of course, I’m the only one there and I plonk down on the sofa. But once I sit down, somebody invariably wanders in.

  But the basic right everyone has in a chat room is to be anonymous, which of course we are not. We not only know each other’s names, but even each other’s parents’ names. The magical genie of anonymity isn’t necessarily what you think . . . Most people think that anonymity allows us to reveal our true natures, but I doubt it. If I were to do something anonymously I don’t think I’d reveal my true self. Instead, I’d play the impostor, exaggerating one thing after another. Nowadays being yourself is seen as a virtue. The only image I get, though, of people who are being themselves is of someone who is negligent and sloppy.

  Maybe this was exactly what Koto was trying to say. The only way to live here is to play the role of the perfect self that fits into this place. And this isn’t a serious performance. If a serious role is what you’re after you’d best go to the Bungakuza theatre, or hang out with the famous theatre troupe En.

  Maybe I’m not being clear. But here’s what I mean:

  The me who lives here is most definitely the Apartment Me I created, and by that
I mean she’s someone who just doesn’t do serious. So the real me doesn’t actually exist here, in this apartment. The me who gets along well with the other residents (Ryosuke, Koto, Naoki, and Satoru) is Apartment Me . . . But maybe they’ve also created their own Apartment Selves, too. Which would mean that they, too, don’t actually exist in this apartment. Conclusion? No one is in this apartment. If this is a deserted apartment, then I don’t have to worry about a thing. No need to go to the trouble of creating an Apartment Me. I can be more bold, with no constraints . . . No, that’s not right. For me to live like that – boldly, with no constraints – this place has to be deserted. And for that to happen, we all need to have our own Apartment Selves. We are the only ones who can create these Apartment Selves, which means that all of us must actually be here – Ryosuke, who tosses and turns all night; Koto, who stays glued to the TV; Naoki with his morning protein drinks; Satoru, who, although he’s so young, eats old-fashioned dishes like hijiki – and me – all packed into this stifling, overcrowded space. It’s actually a fully occupied space, yet there’s no one here. Yet even though none of us are really here, it’s still fully occupied. Ugh. It makes my head spin! I wish I could say I get it, but I don’t.

  3.4

  I was working the late shift, so I slept in and got up just before noon. I took a shower, stuffed a leftover rice ball in my mouth, and was heading towards the door and out to work when I nearly bumped into Koto crouched down amidst the tangle of shoes, peering out through the letterbox in the front door.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I asked. She whipped around and put her index finger to her lips.

  ‘Wh-what is it? Is somebody there?’

  ‘Shh!’ Koto said and again stuck her face close to the letterbox. Jostling her aside with my hips, I crouched down beside her and peered out through the slot. In the hallway outside, Ryosuke and the man from apartment 402 were standing there, talking.

  ‘What’s Ryosuke up to?’ I whispered to Koto.

  ‘I made him go undercover,’ Koto replied. She made a face that reminded me of the actress Nagisa Katahira on the show Tuesday Suspense.

  ‘What do you mean, undercover?’

  ‘Ryosuke’s going inside 402 as a client.’

  Koto nudged me aside and I fell on my bum, landing on Naoki’s loafers.

  ‘Well, until the fourth of next month, then,’ I could hear Ryosuke say on the other side of the door. The man from 402 returned to his apartment. Koto stood up, slowly opened the door, and let Ryosuke in. He, too, reminded me of a rookie detective from a suspense drama.

  ‘How’d it go?’ she asked.

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘So he admitted what’s going on?’

  ‘At first I tried to trick him, saying I knew what was going on, but he just said What are you talking about? and pretended not to know. When I told him things could get complicated if the management company finds out what’s going on, he said, “Guess I have no choice then . . . But I don’t usually take on young men as clients. And we’re only open three days before and after a full moon; and three days before and after a new moon. This month we’re already booked. I guess we could do the fourth of next month.” So I made an appointment for that day. Then we’ll find out what’s really going on.’

  ‘I suppose. But still . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Since he’s already admitted what’s going on, is there still a need to go undercover?’

  ‘You mean I shouldn’t go?’

  I was still sitting on my backside, listening, when Ryosuke finally noticed me. ‘What’re you doing there?’ he said, helping to pull me to my feet.

  ‘You guys are nuts, you know that?’ I said.

  They completely ignored me and headed to the living room. Their dialogue went on: ‘How much did he say it would be?’ ‘Usually it’s ¥30,000, but he said since we’re neighbours he’d make it ¥20,000.’ ‘Wow! That much?’

  I slipped on my shoes and called out a goodbye. But instead of the usual farewell their loud voices continued: ‘That’s expensive!’ ‘No, it’s cheap!’

  I don’t know if the two of them were really serious, but I couldn’t care less if the man next door ran a brothel, a video pirating operation, or whatever. If he ran his washing machine in the middle of the night, or threw all his recyclables into the regular rubbish – now then I’d wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  3.5

  The boutique where I work mainly sells imported goods: batiks, ikat, and ornaments and accessories from India and Bali. It’s a small chain, with two stores in Harajuku, one each in Kawasaki and Honmoku. I manage the second store in Harajuku.

  Four years ago, when Shinji, the owner, interviewed me at a coffee shop in Omotesando, he went on for a good hour and a half about all the troubles he’d had in life, like he was ecstatic to finally have someone to talk to. After college he’d gone to work for an apparel company but it went bankrupt, so he made a fresh start, using money he borrowed from his parents to start a company that imported Mexican leather goods. His business partner wound up taking off with the money he’d invested. The man had been his friend since high school and he always thought they’d be friends for ever. Shinji went all the way to far-off Asahikawa looking for his friend, and, one day, tired from walking the streets, he went into a ramen shop. As he slurped up the hot noodles, tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks . . . When he got to this point in his story I couldn’t help but cry in sympathy. ‘Don’t cry,’ he told me, welling up himself. ‘But look how well things worked out,’ I said, the tears coming again. ‘You’ve got a wonderful business going now.’

  I doubt anybody else in the coffee shop would have ever guessed this was a job interview.

  Shinji is partly to blame for how, night after night, I make the rounds of bars. He’s the one who first took me to the Blue Note in Aoyama, to expensive clubs in Ginza, to the Shinjuku Golden Gai bar area, the gay district, even to the exclusive Gora Kadan spa in Hakone. He was the one who showed me, when I was barely twenty and just a girl from the sticks, how to party. People misunderstood our relationship – they were sure we were sleeping together – but honestly, nothing like that ever happened. If he had tried something, I would have turned him down flat, and if he’d been nasty because of it, I would have quit my job right then and there.

  I know this is kind of a stale metaphor, but the first time Shinji took me to a bar in Shinjuku 2-chome it was startling, like I was catching my first glimpse of heaven. Now that I think of it, the first place we went to was Mariné Mama’s bar. The counter and booths were packed with swarms of young men, like fruit at the peak of ripeness. Not a single one looked in my direction. That sense of freedom was as if, right now, in my shop, I were completely naked and the male customers in the store ignored me and instead went on and on about how one of their colleagues has a bottle of Givenchy Ultramarine cologne in his house. If Koto had been there she might have said, warily, ‘This isn’t good – you’re the only woman in the whole place,’ but for me, far from being wary at all, I felt liberated. It was a strange sort of paradise where even the worst villain was welcome to come on in.

  On the application form to enter this accessible heaven, there’s a part that asks for your gender. There’s a part that says Male and Female, and beside that, there’s a box you can check that simply says Person.

  3.6

  Two or three days ago Naoki and I went to eat yakiniku grilled meat at a place near the station. He had a couple of days off in a row, unusual for him. As he stirred up the raw egg on top of his yukke, he said, ‘When I see a girl on the train listening to a Walkman or something, it gets me excited.’

  ‘How come?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know . . . it might be a kind of fetish, but when I stand behind a woman who’s completely cut off from sounds around her, I feel like slowly licking her from behind, from her ear down to her neck.’ He looked totally serious as he confessed this.

  ‘Then the listening corner at Tower
Records or the Virgin store would be like your own personal harem.’

  I was joking, of course, but as he wrapped his kalbe up in a lettuce leaf, he said, ‘Wow – you’re right!’ like he was really impressed by the idea.

  The apartment we’re living in now was originally rented by Naoki and Misaki. They were a couple, of course, and though they must have had a honeymoon period, soon after I moved in they started sleeping in separate bedrooms. Shinji had introduced us and Misaki and I got to be good drinking buddies.

  One night we were at Mariné Mama’s and I was complaining how the lease on my place was up for renewal but since I’d caused a car accident I was totally broke.

  Mama said, ‘Come over to my place. I have an extra room.’

  ‘You can stay with us,’ Misaki said. ‘We have room.’

  Mama has a vicious cat who has it in for me. In Misaki’s place there’s just gentle Naoki, who likes to drink as much as me. Misaki had brought Naoki a few times to Mama’s, so I’d met him already.

  I remember once when he was at the bar and Mama asked him, ‘If you had to do it with a man, who would you pick?’ and Naoki replied, ‘If I really had to do it, I think I’d like to sleep with an intellectual, like Roland Barthes or Michel Foucault.’ Most heterosexual men, when Mama asks them this, give the names of fighters.

  ‘Sounds like you could expect a sermon in bed,’ Mama said, laughing.

  ‘You prefer the body over the intellect, I see,’ Naoki said, himself laughing.

  ‘That’s right. I’m always sleeping with meat, so my cholesterol goes up,’ she replied.

  ‘From what I hear, though, you always choose fresh meat,’ I cut in.

  ‘True. But fresh meat is always so expensive,’ Mama laughed.

  ‘Come on, you know you’re raking in the money. Word on the street is you buy it not by the ounce but by the pound.’ Naoki had only had a couple of drinks at this point.