Coin Locker Babies

by Ryu Murakami

  “It’s your own fault. You were the one doing the tripping,” they reminded him on his return, when he had to be restrained from laying into the woodshop man.

  Hayashi managed to move them into fifth place, but the distance between them and the lead was still almost twenty meters when Kiku stepped out on the track, took a couple of deep breaths and, with Hayashi about five meters away, started running. The other teams could be heard joking that Lobo would probably hit the dirt as well, until they saw him move past one runner almost before they realized he’d set off.

  “Never can tell,” murmured Fukuda as they watched him streak away. His form was perfect, his upper body smooth and steady while his legs did the work. Not even a glimmer of excitement crossed his face as he passed a second runner, but a stir had started in the crowd. As he sped along, Kiku’s gray prison uniform fluttered around him as if ready to shred under the strain. His speed made the other runners seem almost motionless by comparison, and at the finish line he had moved up to second place. His teammates ran up to hug him while the other prisoners sat looking dazed in the stands. Finally someone stood up and called in his direction: “Hey, Lobo! You’re hot shit!” And soon there was a crowd around him as he tried to leave the field.

  “You some kind of Olympic star or something?”

  “You a pro or what?”

  Kiku, not even breathing hard after the race, wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead and looked around at them, as if their questions bothered him. Just then, Yamane came running up.

  “Way to kick ass,” he said, cuffing him playfully on the back of the head. Kiku shut his eyes as a gust of wind blew sand across the field. His skin, cooled by the sweat, was covered with gooseflesh. He opened his eyes again just a crack, but the sand had obscured the world outside and the circle of prisoners around him had become dense, dark shadows backed by a swirling haze. The shadows bore down on him, pointing shadow fingers at the end of shadow arms. Kiku felt faint and looked down at the ground. He had an odd feeling that someone was crouching nearby just out of sight, barely hidden by the pale sand. The thought made him shudder: a woman, no, a red ball of flesh that had been a woman. Brutally vivid, the image, the same one as always, began to flash in Kiku’s head.

  “Kiku? Something wrong? You feeling sick?” Yamane was right beside him staring into his white face. “You sick from running?”

  “Why are they all crowding me?” Kiku managed to get out. There were even more people around him now, drawn by his odd behavior. Yamane put his arm around his shoulder.

  “They’re all impressed, that’s all. Never seen anybody run like that before.”

  “Leave me alone,” Kiku pleaded. “Quit watching me. I haven’t done anything.” He lunged toward a gap in the line but it closed before he could get through.

  “You’re good enough to be on TV,” said one of the crowd, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him for emphasis. Kiku broke free and squatted down, folding his arms above his head and shielding himself with his jacket. At this point one of the guards arrived and made the crowd back off.

  “Kuwayama, you nuts or something? What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded, giving him a shake. Kiku was as still as a rock.

  “It’s the rays of the sun, at sundown,” said a prisoner standing nearby. “These guys freeze when the rays start zapping them; then they start foaming at the mouth and go all crazy.”

  Kiku was carried to the infirmary still huddled up like a fetus. His body was trembling and covered with cold sweat, and he seemed unable to speak. The doctor tried to give him an injection to calm him down, but his arms and legs were knotted up and the needle bent before it could reach a vein. His teeth had begun to chatter, so an attendant stuffed a towel in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. His teammates had followed him into the infirmary.

  “Doc, will he be able to run in the finals?” Nakakura asked the question that was on all their minds. The doctor laughed.

  “Are you kidding? I don’t even know if he’ll snap out of this or not.”

  “Excuse me,” said Yamane, stepping forward, “but I was in a mental hospital for six months and I once treated a guy like this with a special technique they use in karate to bring people round. Mind if I give it a try on him?” The guard and the doctor mulled it over, but after Yamane assured them there was no risk involved, they allowed him to proceed. As soon as he had the go-ahead, he grabbed Kiku from behind and felt around with his thumb just at the point where the head and neck come together. When he’d found the right spot, he gave a sharp yell and dug in. In response, Kiku’s whole body twitched, he threw back his shoulders, and his face jerked up toward the ceiling. And, just as suddenly, all four limbs shot out, his eyes popped open, and his lips began to move. Quickly, Yamane bent down and pulled the towel out of his mouth.

  “Kiku, can you hear me? If you can, blink your eyes. I’m trying to help you, you hear?” Kiku blinked.

  “You afraid of something?” Yamane asked next. Again Kiku blinked. “What I want you to do is scream as loud as you can, so loud you think your guts are gonna come out. Trust me, it’ll help.” Yamane delivered his instructions in a strange, deliberate, unaccented tone; he spoke as though reading his lines, and the sound was somehow remote, as if coming through the wall from the next room. Kiku blinked once more, then let out a scream that made the bed shake. The high, hoarse cry went on for what seemed a long time and then died away, leaving Kiku’s shoulders heaving. He had begun to cry.

  “What’s scaring you?” Yamane whispered next to his ear. “Try to spit it out. As long as it’s stuck in your throat, it’ll go on bothering you. You’ve got to try to get it out.”

  Kiku shook his head violently.

  “Listen, Kiku. Get real. You’re like a baby right now. If you give up, if you let this thing beat you, it’s all over. The second you give in, it’ll be hell for you. You’ve got to spit out whatever it is that’s eating you.”

  “I… I…” gasped Kiku, his neck arched like someone with rabies.

  “That’s right… you. You’re scared to death of something, you’re shaking like a leaf and bawling like a baby. You don’t have to pretend with me. I want to help. What is it you keep seeing? What’s got you scared shitless?”

  “It’s a face,” Kiku managed.

  “Whose face?” urged Yamane.

  “A woman’s face, and she’s looking at me.”

  “Who is this woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do too. You’ve got to know her.”

  “But I don’t. I really don’t.”

  “Just say it! You know her!”

  “Dammit, I don’t! Her face blinks on and off, like a light. Shit! Shiiiiit! It’s my mother! But I don’t know her. She carried me nine months, but I don’t know her! We only met once; how could I know her? She’s wearing this bright red sweater, and her face—it’s bright red too—blood red. It’s not even a real face, it’s a big red egg, no eyes, no nose, no ears, no hair, no nothing! I don’t know any woman like that. But that’s what I can’t get out of my head, that bloody mess. And it’s talking to me, telling me to stop. ‘Please, stop,’ it keeps saying over and over and over. But I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to stop. How should I? Stop what?!”

  Yamane gently wiped away the sweat on Kiku’s forehead and around his mouth. “Can you hear me, Kiku?” he asked again. Kiku blinked. “OK. Now listen carefully and do exactly what I tell you. You’ve got to chase this picture out of your head, and the words along with it. I want you to have nothing in your head but sounds… Now, what do you hear?”

  “Your voice… Yamane’s voice.”

  “Is that all? Listen carefully.” Kiku closed his eyes.

  “I can hear people shouting.”

  “They’re playing games on the field. Anything else?”

  “Cars, or maybe a big truck, and horns.”

  “What else?”

  “Birds singing.”

  “That’s r
ight, they’re in the trees outside. But I’m sure you can hear other stuff. What else?”

  “Footsteps, but soft, like somebody wearing slippers or barefoot. The bed squeaking, your breath, someone swallowing, some other people breathing, a glass or something rolling on a table, the wind, a flag fluttering, kids’ voices, and maybe somebody kicking a ball, a rubber one that needs air in it, and bells… or my own ears ringing… no, somewhere over the hill there’re bells ringing. I’m sure of it: bells.”

  “And how are you feeling?” Yamane asked.

  “Now I can hear your voice, I feel all relaxed.”

  “Great!”

  “And I can hear the rain.” It wasn’t raining. “Raindrops, falling right here near my head. Big, fat ones, and they sound loud, but gentle too—nice, steady raindrops.”

  “Are you sure it’s rain?” asked Yamane.

  “Sure. I’ve heard it before. Seems like I heard it when I was just a little kid.”

  “That so? I think I get it now… Kiku, how about a little nap?” he said, signaling the doctor to inject a sedative. Kiku twitched slightly as the needle pricked his skin, but a moment later his whole body went limp.

  He had the feeling that he had become a tiny bug crawling along the ground. His bug ears were filled with the dripping sound, and before he quite knew what was happening, he’d been sucked into a huge drop. The sound grew louder and the woman’s face appeared. “Please, stop,” she repeated. Kiku did; he ceased all activity, reverting to the self he’d been five seconds earlier. And that’s the way he stayed, being himself, only five seconds ago. As he was sucked further down into the drop, the water began to darken, becoming at last a brilliant red—shimmering, scarlet water shot through with rays of light. As himself five seconds before, Kiku was sinking, sinking at a fearful rate, down into the depths of this slimy, thick red water.

  Suddenly, he remembered and let out a shout. Everyone in the infirmary turned to look as he sat up in bed.

  “What’s going on?” the doctor said. “That shot should have knocked him out.” Kiku rubbed his eyes, banged the sides of his head, and waggled it about. He tried to stagger out of bed, pushing the doctor’s arms away. Feeling as though every bone in his body had been broken and his blood turned to ice, he slumped weakly to the floor. Yamane did his best to prop him up.

  “You’d better try to get some sleep,” he said as Kiku fell against him, his legs sliding out from under him in different directions. His tongue felt thick in his mouth.

  “I… I…’ mmm gonnna runn noww.”

  Somehow Yamane managed to persuade the doctor and the guard. “Don’t you see? He’s got to run! This is the first thing he’s wanted to do since he got here.” Wrapped in Yamane’s arms, Kiku stumbled outside.

  “Please, let me go,” he said finally; “I can walk by myself.” On his own, Kiku swayed about but managed to keep on his feet. With infinite care he began to massage his legs. “How long till the race?” he asked.

  “Seven minutes or so,” said Nakakura.

  “Seven minutes to get my blood flowing,” murmured Kiku.

  “Hey, you sure you’ll be able to run?”

  “Just look,” said Kiku, straightening his back and straining every nerve to make his limbs obey. The drab material of his uniform clung to the muscles knotted along his arms and thighs as his whole body became a rigid pole. In that posture, he leaned forward precariously, but just as he was about to crash to the ground, one leg shot out to catch him: the perfect sprinter’s form. Running is just sticking one leg out after the other so you don’t fall, he told himself. If you can keep going flat out, you’ll never fall. It’s a safe bet that the first ape ever to struggle up off all fours was actually a sprinter. Gazelle, I’m going to run…

  Fukuda, in the lead-off spot, ran third behind the counselors’ team which was a clear favorite and the body shop which was a strong second. Meanwhile, Kiku was still rubbing his arms and legs, pausing occasionally to splash water on his head. Yamane came over to check on him. “Sure you’re up to this?” he asked.

  Nakakura took the baton with Hayashi screaming that he couldn’t fall this time and managed to hold on to third place, though the pair in front increased their lead. As Hayashi started his lap, Kiku straightened up and walked out onto the track. He would still be in third place when he got the baton, about seven or eight meters behind the leader and only three behind the body shop man. While they waited, the anchor for the body shop, a small guy whose thighs, nonetheless, were thicker than Kiku’s, turned to have a word with him.

  “You take this seriously?” he asked. “Not me. No prize money at stake, no reason to get too serious. Don’t go getting a big head if you pass me. I’m just out here for the hell of it.”

  The counselors’ anchor was first to get away, then the biker, and finally Kiku. The biker made a tremendous start and quickly closed the gap, but the first-place runner refused to let him pass. Kiku was creeping up on both of them, but he hadn’t been able to shake the effects of the drug completely and his form was off, his arms and legs felt heavy. He was desperately hoping to catch a through draft and let the wind carry him along; if he could find just the right spot, he could slip in between the other air currents. The trick was to make yourself denser, close up your pores, the very gaps between cells, and allow yourself not to be pushed forward by the wind but actually borne along by it. Or at least that was the way it felt.

  On the second curve, Kiku swung wide left. As he did so, he seemed to lose his balance, his arms began to flail, and his left foot missed a step, but in the instant he started falling he managed to get his other foot under him and catch himself with a powerful kick that sent a shock through his body and finally woke him up. His head cleared; he could feel himself settle into the cool shaft of air he’d been searching for. In the straightaway, Kiku pulled up behind the leaders. With a burst of speed he let himself slip between the cracks left by the other runners; everything around him seemed to shrink, the world became pale, opaque, two-dimensional, and, for a moment, almost peaceful. The speed had churned up the passing scenery and somehow recast it with his own inner self mixed into it; it was like standing in a pitch-black room and the light being suddenly turned on—the darkness retreating too fast for the eye to see it becoming his own shadow, something taking solid shape. The sand, the two runners just ahead, the bellowing spectators, the cell-blocks, the trees shimmering with soft leaves, the high gray wall all around, and beyond that a smudge of oily smoke rising into the sky… even Kiku himself—everything seemed to contract at once, and in its place an incandescence, like a light bulb shrinking the surrounding darkness, was kindled in his head. Revealed was a strange, slippery, crimson animal, its coat glowing at the ends; the stadium the animal’s entrails, a spleen; the track with its cloud of dust a lymphatic vessel. The runners were white blood cells and germs… And Kiku remembered, remembered it all in great detail. What had that woman been telling him? Wasn’t it to stop everything and go back to the person he’d been five seconds before? Back. By turning into a lump of red flesh, by having all the features ripped from her face, hadn’t she been trying to tell him something?—to go back upstream, to swim against the current, back into the womb, into her womb, and remember. Yes, that was it! That was what she’d been trying to say. Remember… that sound, the one he and Hashi had heard in the padded room. It wasn’t the sound of raindrops outside the window, Hashi; but you were right, it was distorted, heard at a distance, through layers of obstruction, and it would give whoever heard it peace. It was the sound of a human heart beating; that’s what we heard in the hospital: the sound of a heart. It was the beating heart of that woman doomed to be shot one day by the baby she threw away. That woman who was my mother. That woman who had me and left me, in the summer, in a box; that woman who left me for dead, but was trying to teach me something by dying herself, becoming a raw, rubbery thing. In that one instant she was teaching me everything I’d need to know to go on living after I’d been left al
one. I can see now: nothing else mattered for her; she stood up and came to me, no one else; and it was for me alone that she spoke. She was a wonderful mother…

  As they entered the final straightaway, Kiku swung wide, and in a few strides he passed the two men ahead of him. Even after he crossed the finish line, he went on running, the tape fluttering around his chest. His teammates let out a cheer and surged toward him, but Kiku still wanted to run. His body felt light, as if he could have jumped the gray prison wall without even using a pole. Propelled forward by an energy that seemed to course up through his legs, he ran straight to the wall and hurled the red baton as hard as he could, as if draining every last bit of strength in his body. The baton rose in a high arc, caught the sunlight for a moment, then tumbled out of sight.

  22

  Hashi’s records were selling like hot cakes. His fifth single and second album broke all sorts of sales records, and Mr. D’s office was besieged by distributors asking for extra stock. Hashi and Neva had an official wedding ceremony, and D threw a lavish reception; he also installed them in a condominium that took up one whole floor of an apartment tower. Preparing for the reception, he had planned to invite virtually everyone Hashi had ever known: the nuns from the orphanage, Kuwayama, classmates from school, his friends in Toxitown, even the other hustlers who had hung out at The Market. But Hashi refused in no uncertain terms, ripping up the invitations before they could be sent.

  “What do you want to go and do that for?” asked D. “You know what the word ‘mankind’ means? Means you’re kind to your fellow man. You’re the person you are today because of all those people, and if you think you got here all by your lonesome, you’re dead wrong.”

  “Sorry, you’re the one who’s wrong,” said Hashi. “I’ve changed, see? Up to now, everything about my life was a lie. So naturally the idea of meeting all those people from that part of my life gives me the creeps.” The reception went ahead as planned, in an enormous hall decorated with dozens of ice sculptures, but at Neva’s insistence the wedding ceremony itself was just the two of them at the local shrine near their new apartment.