Midnight and the Meaning of Love

by Souljah, Sister

  “You said you stay with your grandfather?” I reminded her.

  “Yes, my parents are divorced,” she admitted in a much softer voice with traces of hurt and regret. “It was one of those nasty divorces. They don’t speak to one another and I can’t mention my father’s name to my mother or ask any questions. They both love me, just not each other.”

  I felt sorry that her mother and father had somehow lost their love for one another. It sounded foreign to me, losing love for anyone you had ever loved. And the same way when I first laid eyes on this girl, I could see traces of her Japanese mother and her African father, without ever seeing either of them or knowing them, I wondered now how could they have this lovely daughter together, see her and not see themselves. When the father saw the mother through the daughter, didn’t it make him remember loving his wife? Wouldn’t it cause him to love her even more? I guess not. Man to man, I would want to ask these kinds of questions and get serious responses. When men gather, we don’t talk like that, and the questions that sit on our minds, we won’t ask.

  Again I felt an urgency about my wife as I was being presented with the exact picture of what I never would allow to happen in my family. In the Quran, there are instructions about exactly how a divorce can be carried out. But divorce is discouraged in our way of life. The Quran gives a man not only instructions but boundaries, limits, and goals, to hold his head and his family together, and to deal with his wife in a just way that will help them to stay together.

  “But my grandfather is cool. My mom is his daughter, so of course he loves her. But he loves my dad also, so I love him! So I stay with him. Anyway, I’ll start school in one month and move out into the dorm. Oh yes, school in Japan begins in April. I know it starts in September in America, right, and ends in June? Well here, our school year has just begun.”

  “Your school year just started in April and already you are on vacation,” I said thoughtfully.

  “I know, it is different, but this is Japan. We do it our own way,” she said, smiling. And while she smiled, I thought of how Akemi’s father probably snatched her up and took her right to school to start the Japanese school year after her year of living and schooling in New York City had come to an end. He probably was acting as though nothing significant had really happened in her life. As though she never met me, fell in love, married, and gave me her oath and virginity and life.

  “My school actually also began in April but not for me. Foreign students had to come in and take an intensive Japanese language course. I didn’t need to, I was born here and I speak fluent Japanese and English. So you see it works out good for you because now I’m off from school, and for twenty-nine thousand yen, I can show you around Tokyo for the next five days. I’ll be your translator and your tour guide. I can meet you in the morning and stay each day until the job is done.” She was speaking softly but with confidence and a gentle persuasion, as though I had no choice but to go along with her plan.

  I was still stuck on the figure 29,000 yen. I had not shifted my mind into their money exchange system yet, but the number she was throwing around sounded expensive, crazy, extreme, and not happening. “Where did you come up with that number?” I asked her.

  “That’s how much it costs for my next flight lesson. I’m studying to get my pilot’s license.”

  She had my head spinning. Now I was picturing her in the cockpit.

  The floor guide gestured for me to step up to customs. So I said later to Chiasa and moved up to the booth. I saw her move to the booth beside mine on command as well.

  At customs, the kind of tension that was so thick when I arrived in America from the Sudan with Umma was not present in Japan. The male authority who faced me didn’t appear to believe that I was a problem that had to be eliminated, guilty on sight. Even though he represented Japanese law, he didn’t try to put in place a whole new set of rules and restrictions just for me. The officer, a blank-faced Japanese male, simply looked at my passport and then up at my face. He stepped to his left, pointed a camera at me, and snapped my photo. He stamped my passport, inserted a piece of paper, and waved me on. I looked at the stamp and the paper. It said I could visit Japan for ninety days before I was required to leave. It also instructed me to keep my passport in my possession at all times.

  At the luggage conveyor while waiting for my duffel bag to come around, I calculated finally that 29,000 yen was about $250. The American dollar was stronger than the yen, and $85 would get me 10,000 yen. Five days for $250, I thought. That’s fifty dollars a day. It was high but not too high. I knew from the jump that I would have to get someone to translate for me along the way. This girl Chiasa had offered me enough information in a short period of time for me to feel comfortable with her offer. I’d get her phone number and use her services when I needed them. For now, I was throwing my belongings on a cart and heading for the phone to call my wife.

  “Midnight!” I heard a voice call. It was Yuka and her friends. They were waving wildly. I put my hand up once as my way to say sayonara. I did notice that the rest of their Kendo team seemed to be traveling together, but Chiasa was left standing alone, pulling her belongings off the belt for herself.

  * * *

  Beyond customs and baggage, when I reached the Japanese side of the airport, everything changed. Signs were all written in kanji.

  At the airport convenience store I stood silently in the aisle observing. The foods and drinks were all labeled in kanji. I recognized some American candies like Snickers and Juicy Fruit, only because of the identical colors of the Japanese packaging, but the names of the candies were all written in kanji. Even the ingredient listings were all in kanji.

  As I approached the cashiers and instinctively spoke in simple English, they looked at me curiously. I realized they spoke and understood only Japanese, even down to words like yes and no as well as greetings. I wanted to purchase a phone card but stood staring at the wall, unable to decipher which was what.

  Unable to read properly, I thought about Umma. Her everyday life in America was like this. As a man, it was an uncomfortable feeling to me, to not be able to read the language of the place where I was standing, living, and breathing. Illiteracy reduced me, I thought, into the position of a young child.

  I observed the cash transactions taking place. Unlike the Americans, the Japanese cashiers received the payment from the customer and placed it down on the register for both the customer and cashier to see. They repeated the amount of the purchase, the amount they received, and then counted out the change and handed it to the customer before putting away the cash the customer had paid. I figured they wanted to eliminate any problems before they could occur. A forgetful customer or con man would never get away with saying, “I gave you a twenty!” When they had really only paid with a ten.

  I liked the way the girls folded the bills perfectly between their fingers and held them there. I liked the way the cashiers counted back the cash rapidly after spreading the bills like a hand fan.

  I picked up my bags, turned, and walked out, looking for a public pay phone. When I finally found it, I picked up the phone and stood staring. All the printed directions were in Japanese. I couldn’t even figure out the cost of the call. I put the receiver to my ear. The recorded voice on the other end of the phone was speaking only in Japanese. I looked around the well-lit, immaculately clean, and well-organized airport and thought to myself, I’m in Japan!

  I searched out the customer information desk, was told “Chotto matte” by a small polite man who raised his index finger up to signal wait one minute, please. Chotto matte. I repeated it to myself for my own memorizing.

  The woman who appeared to help me spoke some English. She asked me a few questions, then told me which phone card to purchase and how to work the pay phone. She also told me how and where to purchase my ticket for the “airport limousine” to Shinjuku. I didn’t need a limousine, but the ticket only cost twenty dollars. It was a two-hour ride. So I agreed. Then I called Umma.


  “Alhamdulillah,” she said in her early-morning relaxed Sunday voice. “We are all safe and fine. You know that you can call me anytime you want to talk. But focus on your wife now. She needs you more,” Umma said graciously.

  I called Iwa Ikeda at 9:00 p.m. The call went right through.

  “Moshi moshi,” a feminine voice said.

  “Is this Ikeda-san?” I asked.

  “Hai!” she responded softly yet with excitement.

  “This is Mayonaka. Thank you for taking my call. Is my wife there?” I asked calmly, though I was feeling anxious.

  “Nande?” she asked. I knew that meant “What?” in Japanese.

  “Akemi Nakamura, is she there?” I asked, patiently and politely as well. Iwa Ikeda said something in response, but I couldn’t hear it because an announcement came over the speaker system in the airport. The announcement was spoken in Japanese, so I ignored it.

  “Ikeda-san?”

  “Hai! Chotto matte,” she answered. My heart raced some.

  “Mayonaka?” I heard Iwa’s voice again. “Where are you?” She was speaking English now in an even higher-pitched tone than she’d used before.

  I paused. I wanted to hear Akemi’s voice first, before answering any questions. Instead I heard a click. The pay phone went dead. Immediately I called back. I got the answering machine. Her message was spoken all in Japanese, but even an idiot could understand to begin leaving his message after the beep. So I did.

  “Ikeda-san, we were disconnected. I’ll call back again in five minutes.”

  Five minutes later I called and got her answering machine again. I hung up. I stood there thinking, What’s the meaning of this? Five more minutes and I called once more. Her machine came on; calmly I left my second message: “I’ll call back in the morning. This is Mayonaka.” I was tight now, uneasy and perplexed. This was some unnecessary bullshit.

  My limo was due to arrive outdoors at space number 18. I pushed my cart through the sliding doors. As I eased down the walkway, I saw Chiasa standing on a line behind her pushcart loaded down with bags and big items. She had one item that was in a case that stood seven feet tall. She also had what looked like a trombone case, and two suitcases, one big, one small. She was about five-foot-seven with a powerful body in a petite frame. I didn’t know how she was gonna move around all that stuff on her own once she had to ditch the airport cart and travel back into Tokyo.

  “Can I have your telephone number?” I asked her, handing her a pencil and my small pad that I kept in my pocket for important info and contacts. She wrote it down instantly, as though she had been sure that I would find her and ask.

  “I’m never really home, so we should set a time,” she said. “Let’s meet tomorrow night. That will give you time to figure out that you won’t be able to figure anything out,” she added, completely assured. “Then we can meet at my dojo, fight, and get it over with. I think people respect each other faster if they fight first, experience each other’s style.” Then she wrote down the name of her dojo and the address and, in bold ink, 6:00 p.m.! “We’ll eat dinner together afterward.”

  Chapter 2

  FOREIGNER

  I checked my watch and looked for the number 18, hoping it was written in English. When I saw my limousine, it was a bus!

  “Airport limousine” hired hands took my luggage and stored it below. After receiving luggage tags, we entered the bus single file. It took only a few seconds to notice that no one six feet tall or taller had ever ridden the bus comfortably, as the ceilings were too low and the seats too close together. However, the bus was obviously brand-new and very clean. The bus windows even had curtains fit to size that were retractable. The workers and the bus driver were very polite. The seats were well upholstered in quality cloth and colorful designs. The headrests were covered with removable white lace, without a trace of dirt or grease or stains. There were twenty-two passengers besides me. Each of us spread out, trying to keep the seat directly next to ourselves free for our extra use.

  Compact cars seemed to be the preferred ride out here—Toyotas and Honda’s and some other unrecognizable vehicles that aren’t for sale in America, different styles, makes, and models. Even the trucks were less wide and tall than the American kind. The highways were well paved and free of potholes and detours and debris. The lanes were wide and clean. The ride was smooth. The lines on the ground looked perfect, as though they had just been painted on.

  Soon the scenes changed from the stretch of airport property to rural to suburban to city. The traffic was flowing steadily without any congestion. Other than vehicles, billboards, and buildings, I couldn’t clock much because it was night. The dim lights in the bus made it difficult to see out unless I pressed my forehead to the window glass.

  A female’s clear and soft voice, a recording, offered narration over a speaker system, explaining where we were, where we were headed, and calling out the name of each stop in several languages. The bus was so organized and clean that even though I wished the seats were bigger, the trip was more comfortable than a NYC ride anywhere, by bus, train, or car.

  I thought that arriving in Shinjuku late at night would put me at a disadvantage since I was unfamiliar with the place and its layout. Yet at Shinjuku station, the night was the same as day. Although it was now 11:00 p.m., the station was packed with people as though this was their peak hour. Even though New York is known as “the city that never sleeps,” Tokyo was quite different. In New York there is a day crowd and a night crowd. No way can the New York night crowd match the numbers that flow through the city during working hours. But here in Shinjuku, it seemed to be happening. Men and women in suits, teenagers, families, and tourists were all moving about. This wasn’t the club crowd or the party crowd. These just seemed like everyday normal people ignoring the time and living to the fullest or perhaps just getting off from working twelve-hour days or coming back from night schools. I wasn’t sure. Everything was all lit up with high-watt fluorescent bulbs. The only crime was to stop moving, because the heavy population was constantly flowing in what seemed like a daily march routine and rhythm.

  I put one strap of my duffel bag on my left shoulder and the other strap on my right. I picked up my carry-on and began walking. I had an option to jump in a cab but I decided against it. I had checked the map, knew the direction I was to move in, and was drawn in by everything I was seeing and feeling.

  It was bugged out seeing hundreds and thousands of Japanese and a splash of other Asian faces and no whites. It was obvious that this was their country. Confidence comes in numbers, I know. They were packed in escalators and in all the corridors, the small and the wide, spinning through all the turnstiles and jamming through all the exits and entrances all at the same time. As I exited the west side of Shinjuku station along with three hundred other walkers, I ran up on a wall of vending machines. I stepped all the way in to keep out of the way of the flow. Of course I had seen vending machines before in Brooklyn back when Umma was in the hospital giving birth to Naja. Yet these machines were different, with different designs and styles and products for sale and much more plentiful. I counted seven on the wall I was staring at and five directly across the street.

  Less than sixty seconds standing on my feet in Shinjuku and all I could think about was business. One vending machine sold cigarettes, a variety of brands. I thought about how that couldn’t happen in the US because you had to be a certain age to buy cigarettes and in the business district you would definitely get carded. On my block and in some local hoods, kids could cop “loosies” for a quarter each. Even though the kids were underage, some shop owners would risk their license just to keep the peace with the customers and particularly good customers who sent their ten-year-old daughters and sons to pick up cigarettes for them.

  The next vending machine was selling beer and liquor. I didn’t recognize some of the brands but I imagined how much money a vending machine liquor store could make on my block alone. Except if there was a vending machine offerin
g beer or liquor on my Brooklyn block, the owner would have to bulletproof it and use Plexiglas instead of real glass. He’d have to build it sunken into the cement and still put heavy chains around it also.

  The next machine sold hot coffee, iced coffee, hot tea, or iced tea. Drop a coin in that sucker and the can came out fully heated. I tried it out even though I didn’t want to drink no coffee. The can was so hot, I had to throw it back and forth in my hands to cool it off.

  The next machine sold hot soups of various kinds.

  The one beside it sold water, juices, and sodas.

  The next machine sold toothpaste and shaving cream, combs and toothbrushes, and even had a row of men’s new and clean white underwear individually wrapped that could be purchased. Drop in a coin and they fell right out the bottom slot.

  But the most fascinating vending machine was the last one on this row. It had a slot for bills and a separate one for coins; put in your yen and get a brand-new pair of kicks. Get the fuck out of here, I thought to myself, sneakers! What about a Nike vending machine! What a quiet and intelligent way to earn money twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I would be earning money on the Christians’ Christmas, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, on all the dead presidents’ birthdays and Labor Day too. It was a good legal business, but I imagined it involved about 85 percent less effort than Umma Designs. If I owned even one of these machines, I could come around at three or four in the morning, collect my stack and rack of bills and bags of coins, and no one would even know who was the mastermind behind my operation. I would switch up my schedule, keep it random so that no one could clock my movements. Unlike being a store owner, and having to sit in the same store all day and welcome any type of customer, if I owned all seven of these machines, no one would even know my name or address or personal information, ninja style.