by Ryu Murakami
After the trains started running out there and apartment buildings and condos and houses and amusement parks and post offices and pachinko parlors were popping up all over, Ma had the store remodeled and enlarged. My father sat at the cash register most of the time. Ma would be in the back room mixing medicine. We were already selling more makeup and soap and stuff than medicine. My father was not only a slouch but a sex maniac, which he must have been to do it with Ma. He used to take cash out of the register and go play pachinko or get drunk in the middle of the day or visit some rub-’n’-tug massage parlor, and he hit me a lot. I look like Ma, maybe that’s why.
You’re a very special person. That’s what Ma always used to say, but I couldn’t see what was so special about me. I wasn’t good at anything. In middle school I couldn’t do a single chin-up. I can’t swim. I’m nearsighted. I had more than a dozen private tutors and they all quit. I’ve got a sweet tooth, so even though I’m on the short side I weigh over a hundred kilos. I’m somebody who was born to be laughed at and picked on, and Ma tells me I’m special.
I felt sorry for Ma. She put up with everything my father did and never said a word, just went on mixing medicine all day. I felt sorry for her, but she was too ugly to love. Maybe I hated her. Maybe I hated her even more than him. It’s people like her who make things miserable for everybody around them, just suffering on and on. If you ask me, people who suffer all the time shouldn’t even be allowed to live.
“You first spoke with Sakuma Kyoko on Coming-of-Age Day, January 15, 1985. Is that correct?”
Sakuma Kyoko was a married lady thirty-two years old who taught dressmaking but liked to party at night and came to our pharmacy a lot. I was twenty but still in my third year of high school. I didn’t go to school very often. Who would, when everybody just picks on you? But I didn’t go anywhere else either. I didn’t go to skating rinks or ski resorts, or to movies or bookstores or food stalls or swimming pools or McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken or Lotteria or First Kitchen or the Seiyu Store or the local Parco. I was fat and ugly, I didn’t want to be seen. I stayed in the store all day. Sometimes I’d take my father’s place at the register, sometimes I’d sweep the floor, but the thing I liked best was talking to the young women sales reps from cosmetic companies like Shiseido and Kanebo. Especially this one called Mitsuyo-san from Kosé. She was twenty-six and so cute that when she stood next to Ma they didn’t even look like the same species. If Mitsuyo-san was a baby koala, Ma was the Incredible Hulk. Mitsuyo-san wasn’t married, but people said she was involved with somebody you’d never believe, a politician or something. She used to tell me about restaurants where they treat you like royalty and serve dishes I never even heard of, and one time a Mercedes with dark windows picked her up right in front of the pharmacy.
Mitsuyo-san wasn’t interested in me, of course. She ignored me, but I liked her anyway. Sometimes it made me sad, though, to think how happy I felt just talking to her.
Coming-of-Age Day was one of the sad days. Mitsuyo-san was talking about sex to an eighteen-year-old apprentice sales rep just out of high school. Mitsuyo-san was saying, “There must be something wrong with you if you liked it the second time—why, I’ve only recently started to have real orgasms.” I was listening and grinning, and when she looked my way, she went, “Hmph, a big slob like Noriyuki-kun, I bet he’s still a virgin.” But even then I kept on grinning.
“Well? You are a virgin, aren’t you?” she said.
The apprentice thought this was hilarious and started squealing, Eek, a virgin, gag me!
“Mitsuyo-san,” she said, “I saw this article in Smile—or was it Fresh?—about how a lot of fat and ugly guys, they turn into perverts who, like, like to get tied up, eek, or get whipped, eek, stuff like that!”
When she said this, bouncing around going eek, eek, I finally stopped grinning. I could feel myself turning red down to my earlobes. It really scared me. How did she know? I was a pervert. I was what they call a masochist. I used to jerk off thinking about Mitsuyo-san stepping on my face in high heels.
Just then Sakuma Kyoko walked in. It was the worst possible time. Mitsuyo-san and Eighteen went up to her and made their voices high-pitched and cute and started flattering her, trying to get her to buy their cosmetics.
Sakuma Kyoko wasn’t nearly as pretty as Mitsuyo-san, but I was used to seeing Ma, so she looked good to me. She had what the girls called upturned eyes, and she wore bright red lipstick, like an African or something. She had on really high heels and came up to the register with so many cosmetics she could hardly hold them all. The way she looked at me, her eyes were saying, Boy, are you ever ugly, but as I looked back at her I got a stiffy. I had this theory about perverts, that there’s like an electric current that runs between them when they meet.
That’s the day I started stealing from the register and stalking Sakuma Kyoko. She was halfway between Ma and Mitsuyo-san. I figured any married woman who was halfway between ugly and beautiful had to be kinky.
She lived in a condominium near the station. She had a ten-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and a husband who worked selling stocks and bonds. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she would see them off in the morning, then go to a school on the tenth floor of the station building to teach dressmaking. The other days she stayed home and sewed. I made obscene phone calls to her almost every day, and I cut out photos from S&M magazines and sent them to her. I didn’t have any actual proof she was that way, but I decided she was hiding it because she was ashamed, just like me.
“But what could have made you imagine that she was into S&M? You followed her for nearly two months and didn’t see anything to support that view, right? You’re a strange kid.”
I do like this prosecutor. He’s honest. You’re a strange kid. It makes me happy to hear him say that. The real reason I killed three people was probably because Ma kept telling me all that stuff about being special. She should have told me I was strange. There are a lot more strange people in the world than killers. It screws you up when somebody says you’re special and you know you’re the opposite. You can’t relax. Parents should be honest with their children. You’re a strange kid, you’re ugly, you’re stupid. They should tell the truth. You’re weird and ugly and stupid, but I was too when I was your age, and there are still lots of things to enjoy in life, lots of good times to have and always remember. If they’d say things like that, maybe their children wouldn’t turn into murderers. If human beings can put a stop to smallpox, they can put a stop to their children killing people.
“On March 20 you met Sakuma Kyoko at the karaoke bar Parpoo, near the station, did you not?”
I’d been tailing her all that day. It takes money to tail somebody. I bet the CIA and the KGB spend a fortune on it. You can’t tail people if you’re poor.
After she saw off her husband and kids she took a short nap, like she always does. She’s a night owl. If she doesn’t get a little extra sleep in the morning she doesn’t feel right. I heard her talking about that to the makeup girls at our store.
I sat on a swing in the children’s park near her condominium and waited for her. I felt like a real degenerate. Fuji goes well with cherry blossoms and bullet trains, parks go well with degenerates. There weren’t any children in the park, just some old people and a woman cleaning the grounds. I was glad there weren’t any children. I hate children. They’re too cute. Even a really ugly kid is cute if he’s still small.
At eleven o’clock Sakuma Kyoko appeared. It was a cold day. She was wearing tight black leather pants and a fox fur coat and stiletto heels. She went to the parking lot under the condominium to pick up her red Audi Quattro and drive to work. Why she always drove I don’t know. It would have been quicker to walk. Maybe she wanted to show off her Audi. It doesn’t cost anything to park at the station.
I walked to the station building and got there before her. She had a late breakfast in the cafeteria on
the third floor. She always ordered the same thing, South African apple juice and a hot sandwich with alfalfa salad. I stood in a bookstore where I could see the cafeteria and looked at magazines. I wanted to look at S&M Aficionado but there were too many customers, so I read Popeye. There was an article called “My First Date,” where a lot of famous guys made up all this stuff about the first time they ever went out with a girl. One was an illustrator who said his first date was in Inokashira Park. A car racer said his was in Luxembourg Gardens. The owner of a chain of restaurants said Central Park. There were photos of them all looking handsome and stuck up. I wondered why there weren’t any famous people who were really ugly. Maybe being famous made you better looking. Then you wouldn’t need to steal from the cash register and could go to school without being bullied. I was wondering if there was any way for me to become famous, when Sakuma Kyoko walked out of the cafeteria patting her lips with a handkerchief.
The dressmaking school didn’t finish until evening. I spent the afternoon in a pachinko parlor and a movie theater. It was a long afternoon.
She drove the Audi back to her condominium. Then she must have prepared dinner for her family. Then she went out again. She went to a grilled chicken place in the shopping street in front of the station. She met up with some people there, two men and three women. I figured they were planning an S&M orgy. The men were tall and about thirty and wearing gray three-piece suits. The women wore dresses and slacks and blouses and sweaters and fur coats and cashmere jackets, and they were all pretty.
Even from across the street inside the toy store where I was checking out Gundam model kits, I could smell the grilled chicken. It smelled good. I was starving. I could see Sakuma Kyoko and her friends through the window. They looked really happy. I was so jealous I was afraid I was going to start crying, so I thought I should eat something. I bought a bar of CalorieMate from the vending machine outside. I thought about the commercial where Oh Sadaharu says the busier you are the more you need CalorieMate. I couldn’t imagine busy people eating this stuff.
The six of them left the grilled chicken place at about eight. They went down a side street and into a bar called Parpoo. You could hear the shutters going down on all the stores in the street, one after another.
After a while who did I see approaching in the arcade but Mitsuyo-san, with a couple of friends. I looked for somewhere to hide. Most of the stores were closed, and the arcade was all lit up. There was only one place to go: Parpoo.
Inside the bar somebody was singing a karaoke tune. The mama-san said, “Well if it isn’t Noriyuki-kun, come on in, are you alone?” Everyone knew me in the neighborhood because Ma was the head of the local merchants’ association. I sat at the counter and ordered an orange juice. I can’t drink alcohol.
Pretty soon Sakuma Kyoko noticed me. My lips started trembling. She walked up with her slanted eyes. The trembling spread to my whole body.
“Aren’t you the young man from the pharmacy?”
I nodded.
“You’re here alone?”
I nodded again, my voice was gone.
“Do you come here a lot?”
I shook my head. Her perfume was really strong. Her leather pants dug into her waist. Oh God, that leather. I can’t handle leather.
“Being naughty tonight, are you?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t look her in the eyes.
“Why don’t you join us?”
I shook my head again. The people she was with were saying, What happened, who is it?
“Come on, let’s all drink together.”
She took my arm. I almost fell off the stool. I was like somebody sleepwalking. My mind was completely blank. I wobbled over to her table.
“This is the young man from the store where I buy my cosmetics.”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open and bowed my head to everybody.
“Let me introduce my friends. This is So-and-so-san, she runs a darling little boutique in Kichijoji.”
Nice to meet you, the woman said.
“And this young lady works for her. I guess you’d call her the house mannequin? She’s not just a salesgirl, you see, she models the clothing too sometimes. Isn’t she adorable?”
The girl jerked her chin at me and scowled. She just wanted me not to be there.
“And this is the owner of the cake shop next door to the boutique.”
This lady gave me a big phony smile. People in her line of business always smile at fat people. It goes with the job.
“And these are our boyfriends—ha-ha! They’re both instructors at the Seibu Sports Center, where we all go to learn skiing and tennis. And aerobics.”
The two men were the worst. They were tall and tan and slim and had long legs and long sensitive fingers. They were a lot better looking than even those guys in Popeye. They stared at me like they didn’t know what I was, but at least I was fat and ugly enough to be good for some laughs. Oh the look in their eyes. Like stud farm stallions watching a pig that was about to be slaughtered.
“Are you a college student?” one of them asked. I looked down and just shook my head. Sakuma Kyoko answered for me.
“He’s still in high school, aren’t you?”
“High school? You’re awfully big for a high school student.” The stud wouldn’t let it go. “How old are you?”
Eighteen, I lied.
“No kidding? You look well over twenty.”
He was drinking Chivas Regal and water. His free hand was on Sakuma Kyoko’s shoulder. I don’t drink but I know Chivas Regal. It’s a sad story. Even though Ma was the daughter of a big landowner, she was a real skinflint. All she knew how to do was work, but last year she went abroad for the first time in her life. She went to Hong Kong and Singapore. That’s sad enough by itself, but the worst part was she brought back three bottles of Chivas Regal to share with my father on their next anniversary. He finished off one bottle that same day. The next day he and his mahjong buddies emptied another one, and the last one he drank with a stripper at her apartment. That’s what I know about Chivas Regal. The two studs were sitting with their arms around the shoulders of these women whose perfume was so strong it made me dizzy and calmly drinking that sad, sad whiskey.
“You look pretty miserable for a rich boy,” the house mannequin said. “Can’t you talk? Say something.” She was like a big lump of... of malice, that’s the word. I lowered my head and hunched my shoulders.
“Hey!” she said. “Tell us a joke, don’t just be one.”
Then she laughed, real loud. They all laughed. I felt like I was going to throw up. My heart was pounding, and tears were in my eyes.
“Don’t you drink?”
I shook my head.
“Why are you here, then? There’s orange juice in the vending machine outside.”
Everyone laughed again. It made me angry. I’ll have a beer, I said, and they cheered. I drank a beer for the first time in my life. The next thing I remember I was holding a microphone and standing in front of the karaoke screen. My whole body was numb, even my brain. It was like being in the middle of a dream, but not a bad one. I sang “Wine-Red Heart.” I looked right at Sakuma Kyoko as I sang. I saw her expression slowly change. When I finished the second verse she walked up to me. The corners of her eyes were slanted up even more than usual, and her cheek was twitching. She took the mike and switched off the music. The whole bar went quiet.
“It’s you, isn’t it,” she said.
I just stood there with my mouth open.
“You’re the one who’s been calling me.”
I covered my mouth with my hands, but it was too late. She slapped my face, hard. It made a loud noise.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? I have little children at home! I— Do you know what I’m going to do? First thing tomorrow, I’m going to te
ll your mother! I’ve got tapes, I’ll have her listen to them. Do you understand me?”
She left the bar with her friends. The whole world shifted before my eyes. Suddenly everything went far away. It was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. I was all alone. Right there in front of the mama-san and all the other customers, I burst into tears.
As I was crying I remembered things. I remembered how after my father beat me Ma would put medicine on my cuts and bruises, and how she used to buy me things. She bought me a bicycle and model cars and a baseball glove and picture books. And she took me to the new fruit parlor in front of the station and let me eat all the sweets I wanted. I started shouting, Help me Ma! Help me Ma! Help me Ma! and ran outside.
Sakuma Kyoko’s words were spinning around inside my head.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow
Tomorrow I’m going to tell
going to tell
going to tell your mother
your mother
your mother
I went home and just walked around and around in the yard for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. Finally I went in the garage and got a big monkey wrench we used on our truck. I started walking slowly back down the road. I ran into a policeman I knew on a bicycle, a young guy who always came to our store to buy Vulcan hair tonic.
“Hi! Where are you going?”
To a friend’s house.
“What’s that you’ve got there?”
A wrench.
“Oh? What are you going to do with it?”
My friend asked to borrow it.
“Well, just don’t hit anybody with that thing!”
You’re not wearing your Vulcan.
“I don’t when I’m on duty.”
I was smiling as we talked. It wasn’t right for a woman with pretty eyes like Sakuma Kyoko to make an ugly woman like Ma cry. If I was so special, it was up to me to correct what wasn’t right. I stood at the door of the condominium and rang the bell. The husband answered. I told him my name. I said, I’ve come to apologize. He had the chain on the door but stuck his face in the gap and yelled, Go to hell you bastard! I buried the wrench in his face. I didn’t know faces were so soft. I wondered if my superpowers had been activated, like Ultraman. The chain broke too when I hit him. He was lying face-down on the floor. I pounded the back of his head until it was like a smashed watermelon. The two little children were watching with toothbrushes in their mouths. Their heads were even softer. It sounded like stepping in mud.
