Beats me.
I learnt everything I know—her side of the story or whatever—from a letter. One letter from Okinawa. That’s all she wrote. My second girlfriend quit school (by the time she sent that letter, the necessary paperwork had already been filed with the admissions office) and vacated Casa Komagome (an aunt from Saitama acted as her proxy), never to return from her areolar paradise.
OK, my turn.
I read that letter in my hospital bed. My mom brought it when she came to visit. Yeah, my heart was broken. But that wasn’t the only thing. I was hospitalized for broken bones sustained in the Yamanote brawl. Or, as the episode is known in the annals of my history, TRAGEDY OUTSIDE MEJIRO STATION. All of this bold.
My injuries were pretty serious. Three months to recover—that was the diagnosis. After I passed out on the train, men and women of all ages walked all over me, leaving me with six broken ribs. How many were left? On the bright side, my spinal cord was apparently intact.
Things were that bad.
That was how I learnt that when someone blacks out, they really black out.
They beat the shit out of me. No, they beat a lesson into me. There’s no way I’m ever getting out of Tokyo. Everything went black. Next thing I remember: the white fluorescence of my hospital room. I was looking up at the ceiling above my narrow cot. That was two days after my first procedure.
I was famous. Or—you know—infamous. The other passengers were seeking “damages”. Guess they were told to go after JR, too. The charges were, I went off like a machine gun—assaulting innocent after innocent. That was how the newspapers spun it the morning after: SIGN OF THE TIMES—REBEL WITHOUT A COMPASS LASHES OUT DURING GUERRILLA ATTACKS.
Let me get this straight. It was “innocents” who put me in the hospital?
Why the hell should I pay them anything? Isn’t that a little extreme?
While I was knocked out, the victims sang their innocent tune. Altogether now: “Money money money money!”
Then the media circus jumps in—singing in a round: “La-la-la logic can go fuck itself! Go fuck itself la-la-la-la.”
Justice had left me hard-up.
From my hospital bed, I watched the pile of bills grow. Meanwhile, reporters camped outside my Suginami home and interviewed every housewife in the neighbourhood, asking them what kind of kid they thought would do something so heinous. (My dear neighbours never failed to bring up my dropout past.) Whatever. Who cares?
My mom, it turns out.
“Moron!”
The first word out of her mouth when she came to the hospital.
Then, icy as a freezer: “You’re paying for this yourself! Everything. Your hospital bill, whatever you owe the people you swung at in the train. From now on, don’t even think about asking me for anything. That means tuition—if your school will even have you back. And once you get out of this bed, you can find your own place to live. You’re not coming home. You show your face and the TV crews will never leave. We’re going out of our minds dealing with them. Really, what the hell’s wrong with you? You’re a goddamn train wreck!”
Train wreck… My mom sure has a way with words.
Then what happened?
I worked like a horse—I had debts to pay. I borrowed what I needed to settle up my hospital bills, then paid my “victims” in monthly instalments. I found jobs. Day jobs, night jobs. Sometimes, I had three-shift days: morning, swing and graveyard. Sleep? I wasn’t sleeping much, to be honest. On average, I probably got a little over three hours a night. Maybe four. Just enough to keep a body moving. The only thing I had going for me was my youth—the inexhaustible energy of a nineteen-year-old. Nothing else. Just the stamina to fuel me through the sleepless years to follow.
I didn’t have time for rest, so I learnt to sleep deep. Quality over quantity. Meaning “no distractions”. Everything had to go. Including dreams.
I had almost no dreams in my workhorse years.
Not even enough to fill a short film.
It’s really strange. When I was ten or eleven, I did nothing but dream—now I was totally dry.
Life has a way of doing that—restoring balance. That’s how I see it, at least.
My mom really did kick me out of the house. I moved into a small, cheap place in Shinjuku. Kami-ochiai, ni-chome. The closest station was Nakai, on the Seibu Shinjuku Line. It was in a two-storey building several decades old. It was all wood, so I guess it had to be built after the war. Shared toilet, no bath. The sort of place where people live when they don’t have money—where rent’s stuck in the golden age of Godzilla. Financially, I cut every corner I could, spending next to nothing on food, almost never using electricity, never turning on the gas. I streamlined my bathing routine, which involved trips to the local bath and the coin shower (note: three minutes for the price of a coffee). I made it a priority to find jobs where meals were provided—which had the added benefit of helping me balance my diet. Clocking out of my last job for the day, I went straight home and slipped right into bed. No heat, no lights, no nothing. That’s how I survived. I didn’t have a phone, but my building had a line in the hallway, so I could receive calls from the outside world—as long as somebody was around to pick up. After a couple of years of hardcore work, I bought a PHS. One of my bosses (at a courier company) said I needed to get it, and told me where I could find one for almost nothing. My first briquette of plastic. At long last—the cellular age!
I spent all my time making money. Wages in, damages out. Soon I was twenty—a full-fledged adult. Not that I stopped to celebrate my entry into adult society or anything.
Outside of work, my life was a perfect blank.
My early twenties. Filled with a peace I’d never known.
The calm of nearly dropping dead from overwork.
*
Click. The digital calendar flips, the century ends. From 12-31-1999 to 01-01-2000. A whole lot of zeros. Some feared the date. Like the Rapture was upon us. Others celebrated. Couples dying to have “millennium babies” sought pharmaceutical assistance to get the timing just right. Still others, partying in high-end hotel rooms, uncorked ultra-high-end champagne bottles. Pop, pop, pop. Even more people burrowed into underground bunkers, waiting to see if the computerized world would descend into anarchy. They really thought that, in one apocalyptic moment, bank accounts would vanish, aircraft would drop out of the sky and nuclear missiles would destroy the planet as we know it. Good old Y2K. The Japanese government didn’t help—telling families: “Be sure to stock up on mineral water and emergency food supplies.” Panic. Sheer panic. The world was in jeopardy—double jeopardy—whether it was God or computers was inconsequential.
OK, my Y2K. For me, the collapse of the world’s banks was the big fear. A matter of life and death, if you think about it. So, on the first of January, I got in line to receive my ATM oracle, like everyone else.
I hadn’t bothered checking my balance in years. What’s the point, right?
Then my turn came, and—what the hell—did Y2K do this?
This couldn’t be right.
But it was. I had been too busy working to notice that I had settled my debts… a good eighteen months back. I was in the black. The ATM was showing me a number I never saw coming.
Seven, almost eight, million yen?
That’s how I entered the new millennium.
All right. Time to face the music. I’ll never make it out of Tokyo. Two massive failures have made that abundantly clear. Guess it’s just my fate. But even if it is, I’ll have to fight fate on this one. Fight against my shitty karma. Granted, I’ve been a shitty person. But, as a human being, I’ve got inalienable rights, right?
At least I have plenty of cash for my third escape attempt.
Let’s think this through. Prior experience tells me that any attempt to exit Tokyo ends in violence.
If I can’t get out, I’ll have to bring out in. Enter the Trojan Horse of Tokyo.
My master plan.
I need a fortre
ss—an impenetrable, impregnable lair. My own stronghold right in the heart of the city. A place with the power to keep Tokyo out—an autonomous region, if you will. A place to fill with all the music and smells and flavours that Tokyo can’t handle. Everything Tokyo can’t have. I need a place all my own.
You might call it a business.
I had to do something, right?
To keep on fighting. With everything I had.
Not like I had anything left to lose.
March, 2000 A.D. The Power of Kate opens in Asagaya, Suginami ward.
*
Magazines called Kate a café. In reality, I was going for a place that defied definition; I had no interest in opening a “café”—or any place you’re supposed to spell with a cute little accent mark. But why should I care? I had misread the world my whole life. So what if the world misread me back?
All that mattered to me was that Kate had the power to fight against Tokyo. Food and drinks were secondary—just a part of my cover. The Power of Kate. Sounds like a Hollywood romcom, doesn’t it?
Where did the name come from?
From life. I needed a name when I submitted the paperwork to the broker. I clearly wrote: “The Power of Hate (temporary).” But some bespectacled pencil-pusher misread my handwriting—and Kate was born. Why was I trying to call my place The Power of Hate? Because I hated the world with every fibre of my being.
Still do.
But OK. The Power of Kate.
A quick rundown on everything that had to happen before opening. Phase I. Get a public health licence (takes one day) and a fire safety certificate (two days). There were free courses for both. Next, apply for a restaurant permit—which takes nearly a month. Put together tons of forms for the tax office. Then burn through loads of cash on equipment. Interior renovations, dishes, recruitment…
My only job was going to be running the place. Not cooking, not serving. So—Phase II.
Cooking: I know a guy. No worries there.
Serving: I track down a few foreign waiters. Easy enough. Phase II is over in no time.
Phase III. Set up thirty or so cockroach traps on the premises. Cleanliness is everything.
Then Kate opens. On the second floor of a renovated home on Nakasugi Avenue. I give the place everything I have—guerrilla warfare against my shitty karma. Not much later, my third girlfriend makes her first appearance in the chronicle of my life.
She came from the east…
But, wait, her brother came first. I met him at a beef-bowl joint. No, not at the counter—behind it. In the kitchen. I’d been working there maybe a couple of months. Night shift. (It was one of those twenty-four-hour places.)
Watching him wrist-deep in the pickles, I had to ask:
“You been at this long? You’ve got the best pickles in the business.”
“Huh?”
I figured he was two or three years older than me. His close-cropped hair made him look a little thuggish.
He stares at me, picks up a loaded dish and hurls it to the floor. SMASH! Pickles and broken ceramic pieces everywhere.
“What kind of fuckin’ question is that?” he says.
“Wh—what?” I just stand there, stunned.
“Listen to me, you little shit…” He’s looking me right in the eye. “I’m not some grunt making fast food by the fucking manual. Got it?”
“Ye—yeah. I got it…”
“Here. Try this, asshole.”
He grabs something out of the kitchen fridge. It looks a lot like foie gras. When did he make this? He’s been feeding this to the staff? Looks amazing. What is it?
“Angler liver—fresh as fuck.”
This ain’t no yellowtail.
Angler liver and daikon.
“How is it?”
“…”
“Well?”
“Well… damn.”
No other words for this. It’s like an ambush of flavour, so good, really good. My taste buds explode. I look at him and say: “Kaboom!!!”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
I take another bite. That’s answer enough.
He starts explaining: “My family’s been making sushi for three generations. My old man taught me Edo-style before I could read… I was a teenage sous-chef… I can make any dish you can name. Get it?”
Pretty sure I got it.
“But…” I say.
“What, you want more?”
“Um, yeah… But…”
“But what?”
“If you’re this good, why are you working at some no-name beef-bowl?”
He just looks away, coolly.
“Nowhere else I can go. I’ve got a record.”
“A criminal record?”
“Shut up and eat.”
That was the beginning of a deeply satisfying partnership.
From then on, nearly every night, I ate what he made for the staff. Soon kaboom wasn’t cutting it. I had to find new adjectives. Like kablam or kablooey. How did he come up with all of his mind-blowing creations?
This has to be what they call “fusion”.
He was a perfect fit for Kate. I had him on the phone maybe two seconds after I decided to open a place. It was obvious, right?
The first few months went fantastically. Kate drew in plenty of customers, and they seemed pretty satisfied. I know I was. Kate had a potent mix of exotic spices, a regionfree menu and nomadic DJs (who were under explicit instructions to sound like anything but Tokyo). To destroy any lingering trace of the city, I covered every surface with giant ferns. In time, the place started to look like Jurassic Park—minus all the killer dinos. Most critics raved about the excess of oxygen. They loved Kate. Funny. Kate had been misread again—billed as a café ahead of its time.
It was a hit.
Idiots. Tokyo thought my Trojan Horse was avant-garde?
Die, Tokyo, die.
*
So—did my escape plan work?
Well, Kate hit a bit of a speed bump in June. A slipped disc sidelined my chef (the beef-bowl ex-con). “Ca–can’t move…” his pained voice hissed through my cell phone. “I’m in the hospital.”
“What? Are you OK?”
“Shit no—that’s why I’m in the hospital.”
“Seriously? What do we do?”
“Man up.”
“Huh? You mean like ritual suicide?”
“Yeah, right. Look—Kate has to stay open, with or without me. The doctor has no idea what’s wrong. All he does is giggle like a fucking idiot. I can’t make any promises about coming back to work. Hate to wuss out like this, but I think I have to hang up my apron.”
“CHEF!”
My brain was a total blank.
“Man up, man!”
“Suicide isn’t the answer…”
“Knock it off.”
Chef was hors de combat, but he was going to make sure Kate stayed open for business. He told me he’d already lined up a replacement, someone he trusted. Nothing for me to do but wait for said help to arrive.
Then help arrived.
It was a few hours later. No introductions, no questions. No “Hello”, no “Nice to meet you”. She just made a beeline for the kitchen—like she was ready to clock in.
I mean, she didn’t look anything like the help I had in mind. My first thought was: Strange. Kate doesn’t get that many high-school girls in uniforms—and they almost never come alone. My second thought was: Isn’t it a little hot for a blazer?
That was all I was thinking.
I mean, I thought she was a misguided customer.
“That’s the kitchen! You can’t—” I start to say.
But the schoolgirl just stares me down. Doesn’t say anything.
“You… you can’t be back here.”
I tried to sound like I was in charge, but—on the inside—all I was thinking was: Hey, she’s pretty cute. Piercing eyes. Nice full body.
I guess I was checking her out.
She looks right at me a
nd says sharply:
“Of course I can.”
She whips her cell phone out of her skirt pocket and puts it down on the counter like she means business. There’s a Snoopy figure dangling from the strap. Then, right in front of me, she starts unbuttoning her blazer. Pop, pop, pop. Wh–what is she doing!? She’s not gonna show me her boobs or anything!? No. This was no striptease. Not even close.
She opens her blazer to reveal four streaks of metal in the lining—two on each side. Knives.
“My brother says I’m running this kitchen—starting tonight.”
“Say what?”
“Don’t worry,” she says with a smile.
Holy shit, she’s cute.
“Just leave everything to me.”
Then she heads over to the vegetable stash, grabs a long white daikon and gets to work—reducing it to ultra-thin slices at superhuman speed. Sssh-sssh-sssh. Then, ch-ch-ch-ch-chop. She fills a bowl with water to soak the diaphanous strands.
I’m speechless.
What skill. No movement is wasted.
A sight to behold.
Then, with a cool look that says this is nothing, she turns to me and says:
“You look like you’ve never seen a teenage knife girl before…”
Another smile.
I was in love.
With my chef’s little sister. She moved into her brother’s apartment in Koenji that day. Her folks lived in Hatchobori—a neighbourhood for low-level officials… in, like, the Edo period? Everything happened so fast. Mere hours after my chef’s untimely injury, she was by his side at the hospital. (She had to be initiated into the mysteries of her brother’s menu before making her appearance at Kate.) Living in Koenji made it easy for her to go see him—to drop off fresh clothes, pick up dirty laundry, or ask for help with his more esoteric dishes. Chef’s back problems turned out to be pretty serious—just like he predicted. He was discharged after about two weeks, but he was basically an invalid. Whenever his sister wasn’t at school or on the job, she did the work of a live-in nurse.
What a sister.
All they had was each other.
“No, my dad’s alive,” she says one night. She’d just finished making dinner for the staff.
Slow Boat Page 6
