Coin Locker Babies

by Ryu Murakami

  “You’re a big disappointment,” he said, pointing at Hashi, and stalked out of the studio. No one tried to stop him. All of them, including Hashi, had seen something like this coming. After Neva’s warnings, for several days Hashi had tried tinkering with the arrangements, even altering his vocal style, but with each change the sound grew even colder, more transparent, more fixed and faint.

  “What now?” said Toru.

  “For now, let’s just take a break,” Hashi muttered, staring at the floor.

  “You know, Hashi,” he said, wiping off his strings, “you’re a nice guy, got real class, and you’ve been good to us. We feel you’re pretty much one of us, and we think we have a pretty good idea of what you’re trying to do here, what kind of sound you’re looking for. More than that, we think we’ve been giving it to you; if we had wanted to do our own thing, we’d never have signed on for this gig. Way I understand it, you want to start with a real bright, soothing mood to put the audience at ease and then gradually build up these little shocks and jarring rhythms, like you’re scattering around tiny seeds of pain, right? Eventually the audience wakes up from its nice deep sleep to find they’re staring into a warm, damp, gaping hole swarming with some sort of bug they’ve never seen before. Then they slowly realize all the exits have disappeared, that there’s no way out, and only when they’ve got over their fright do they see that the bugs have turned into these beautiful, brilliant points of light. They follow these lights through an underwater cave to come out on a cliff looking down on the shining sea… Yeah? Anyway, it was something like that, you said, and I think we got the message; I think we dug where you were coming from. The sound’s there, man; it’s in that hole, waiting. We can all see that you’re going crazy trying to figure out what to do, but we don’t have any more of a clue than you seem to.”

  “Bullshit! Say it straight out, man. Problem’s the vocal; it’s just weak.” Matsuyama had come back in during Toru’s speech and loudly interrupted. In his left hand he was clutching a frog. Shimoda pulled a face. Shoving the frog up against the mike, Matsuyama pinched hard around its neck to make it croak. “An improvement, if you ask me,” he laughed. “This dude’s got a voice! He’s gonna kill them,” he said, squeezing harder and sending a green liquid dribbling from its mouth. Shimoda looked away until Matsuyama stopped. “Hashi, I’m not saying you can’t sing; fact is, you’re so good it’s scary sometimes. I’ve never heard anybody who could create a mood with his voice the way you do. But it’s not just that; it’s more like your voice creates this vacuum inside people’s heads, and the visions they see are made from little bits of their own memories that get sucked in. If that’s the kind of song you’re talking about, you’re in a league by yourself; who else you ever heard could crawl inside people’s heads and stroke their brains? You’re like some kind of drug. But a drug’s just not enough when it comes to getting an audience worked up. You need a bomb for that—a bomb that’ll blow away all the daydreams your drug produces in a few seconds. And it’s got to be your bomb; no matter how loud Shimoda bangs on those drums of his, no matter if Kitami blows his guts out and bites his reed in half, no matter if I blow out all the speakers, it still won’t work. It’s your vocal that’s weak, like a baby crying.” As he finished, he opened the window and threw the frog out.

  “Let’s face it, man,” he continued, “when it comes to whipping up a crowd, you’re a lightweight, you’re froth. But don’t take it too hard—we’re pretty much the same ourselves. That’s probably why I got so worked up… I once heard this woman who could really wail, I mean wail. Seems she could remember once during the war crossing a river at night on her mother’s back. Halfway across, her brother, who was crossing with them, lost his footing and was sucked under. There must have been some kind of river grass on the bottom because once he went under all she ever saw of him again was his hand sticking above the surface drifting slowly downriver. She’d tried to make her mother understand what was happening but the mother was dead tired and just went on walking in a daze. So she screamed, watching her brother’s hand float off down the river while her mother trudged away; and she could remember that scream, she could call it back. It was always somewhere deep in her body. And it was listening to her I realized that there was nothing like that in me, never would be. But I thought maybe, you being born in a coin locker and all, you might have it in you, Hashi. Did you scream when you were in that locker? I thought maybe… but maybe I was wrong.”

  Hashi suddenly longed to be able to hear the strange sound that he and Kiku had once heard together. If he could only hear it one more time, just as it had been in that padded room…

  “That’s nothing to do with it,” broke in Tokumaru at this point. “You’re making the whole thing too complicated. The problem comes down to this: Hashi’s voice is too pretty.” Shimoda nodded.

  “And what if I could rough it up a bit, make it less pretty?” said Hashi, looking around at each member of the band.

  “Won’t work,” said Shimoda. “There was this German singer who tried doing something like that. She wanted to make her voice deeper and smokier so she had this operation where they fiddled with her vocal chords. Well, it worked at first, she sounded sort of whiskey-voiced, but after a couple of years she hadn’t any voice left at all, none. All you could hear was this little wheeze.”

  “OK. I get the point,” said Hashi. “And you’ve given me an idea. You all go home. Give me a week. If you still think my voice is a bust, then we’ll break up the band and I’ll go back to hustling for a living.” Without waiting for an answer, Hashi turned and left the studio. He went back to his room and locked the door. When he heard Neva knocking on it, all he said to her was “Sorry but tonight I’ve got to be alone.” The next day he sent everyone away and even gave the cook and the rest of the staff a vacation, until at last there was nobody else in The Spaceship.

  He had a little experiment in mind. He had read somewhere that Mick Jagger’s voice had changed drastically after an accident he’d had, that it was actually only after this accident that he’d developed his peculiar, supersensual voice. Hashi decided to arrange the same sort of accident for himself. First he assembled his tools: a can of camping fuel, wads of gauze, clippings from an aloe plant, a glass, a bottle of vodka, and a large pair of scissors. Filling the glass with vodka, he dipped the tip of his tongue in it and left it to soak. While it was soaking, he lit the little burner and sterilized the scissors in the flame. As he watched his tongue swirling around in the vodka, he started to laugh. Why the hell, he wondered, am I doing this? It wasn’t for the band, he knew that much. And it wasn’t for Neva either. Mr. D? D could go fuck himself. Then why? He thought about the tour, but he knew it didn’t matter; nor was it the music itself—he simply didn’t care any more. If he screwed up his voice, who would give a shit? Certainly not he—Hashi—he was sick of the whole business. Then why? It was simply that he didn’t like the thought of running away, nothing more. He’d skipped gym class to avoid the ordeal of the high bar; he’d even tried to conjure up a storm so the class would be rained out—all to avoid being laughed at. But it hadn’t worked. The more you ran away, the more you played right into the hands of the enemy. Enemy? But who was this enemy? It was everybody who had ever tried to shut him in, lied to him, made him live a lie… But he would show them: he was done running, and he was done leaving things behind, losing what he’d fought to gain. He’d never give up anything again, not Träumerei, not Neva. He would show them he could handle a band, and an audience!

  Suddenly he wondered what Kiku was thinking about at that moment. If he’s thinking that I’m off somewhere living it up, stuffing myself with rice omelettes and sleeping like a baby, then he’s dead wrong. I’m going through hell, but I’m not running away; I’m not curling up in a ball to die. I’m going to make it, and no one will ever make me feel small again. You’ll see! You won’t believe it, but you’ll see! As soon as I’ve got my voice, a real concert voice, I’ll come for that woman o
f yours, Kiku. I’ll leave some pretty red claw marks on her pretty back.

  He tried biting his tongue lightly, but it still wasn’t numb. The bite sent a faint throb of pain through his head. His jaw was getting tired so he slowly drew his tongue out of the glass. Sticking it out as far as he could, he tried to pinch the tip with his left hand, but it was too slippery for a good grip. He finally managed to get a firm hold by driving his fingernails into the spongy flesh as he fumbled for the scissors with his other hand. They were covered with soot from the flame of the camping fuel, but the metal underneath had been heated to a red glow. The minute he touched it to the tip of his tongue, a spasm shot through his body and he fell to the floor writhing and clutching at his mouth, yet he made no sound at all. He had knocked over the desk, breaking the glass that was on it. For a moment, the pain was so bad he couldn’t see. He started to sweat. Without getting up, he managed to retrieve the scissors from where they had scorched a hole in the carpet, and he sprinkled them with a little vodka from the bottle. He could smell the alcohol evaporating as it sizzled on the hot metal. He couldn’t stop crying. It occurred to him to wonder why he hadn’t screamed from the pain. Perhaps screams were involuntary calls for help that just seemed futile to your subconscious, which knew you were alone.

  He stuck his tongue out again. When he shut his eyes he felt that his whole body had become a tongue. Opening the scissors as wide as they would go, he put the tip of his tongue between the blades. The cool metal soothed the burn. Among the stories the nuns had read him when he was a child at the orphanage was one about a sparrow. He remembered that an old woman had cut the sparrow’s tongue out and that afterward the bird had had its revenge, but he couldn’t remember exactly how. He tried for a moment to dredge up the memory. No luck. Next he tried to stop his jaw from trembling. Not much better. Watching his tongue twitch between the blades, he waited for it briefly to be still and then snapped the scissors shut. The little mound of slimy flesh slid along the blades beneath his nose, and when it dropped away blood began to gush. Hashi immediately stuffed his mouth with gauze. Blood was everywhere, flowing in great gouts that frightened him almost more than the pain. His whole body began to shake as he shoved piece after piece of gauze between his lips. Finally, his head so full of bloody cotton that he couldn’t breathe, Hashi staggered to his feet and spat the whole mass out onto the floor. He tried biting on an aloe leaf and dabbing the thick sap on his tongue, but the blood was still pouring out. He noticed the scissors on the floor, the tip of the tongue he was now treating still resting on the blades. Suddenly he remembered how the sparrow got its revenge: the old woman was sent a box that appeared to be a present, but when she opened it there were hideous goblins inside. As he stood pressing the remaining gauze against his mouth, waiting for the bleeding to stop, Hashi thought long and hard about whom he would send a goblin box.

  23

  Anemone was waiting for the bus. It was the end of the working day and a long line had formed. In front of her was an old woman with a bandage over one eye; behind stood a woman with two small children in tow. Checking her watch against a timetable, the old woman turned to Anemone.

  “Late, eh?” she clucked.

  “Must be traffic at the station,” Anemone suggested. Nodding, the old woman fished out a cigarette case from her brown bag. The children, in a protracted battle for a model airplane, bumped into Anemone from time to time. When she looked around, the mother apologized. A shopping bag dangled from her arm, with a ball of wool and a shock of celery leaves protruding from the top.

  “You smell good,” said the old lady. She lit a cigarette, then removed the bandage to wipe her eye with a square of gauze. The crusty, red-rimmed eye left an amber stain on the corner of the pad. “Like milk or something. You work in a dairy?” Anemone sniffed at her arm. “Won’t do any good. You can never tell what you smell like yourself. So which dairy?”

  “It’s a bakery—the one next to the department store.” The old woman nodded again, tossing the gauze into a trashcan. The inflamed skin under the bandage had reminded Anemone of Gulliver on the highway. The police had scraped up what was left of him for Anemone to claim after the inquiry, but no crematory in the area had agreed to do anything with her garbage bags full of bits of crocodile. The Bronco had been too messed-up to keep, so she’d sold it to a junkyard, packed up her clothes and the diving gear to send on ahead, and bought a ticket on the next train north. Unfortunately, the train had hardly left the station when the plastic bags started to leak, sending blood and gore trickling down the aisle and leaving Anemone no choice but to get off at the next station, before the conductor came through and discovered the mess. She ended up taking a taxi the rest of the way to Aomori and tossing the bags of rotting crocodile off the end of a pier. On the ferry from Aomori to Hakodate she came across an article in a newspaper that made her boil: “Giant Croc a Highway Headache.”

  She stayed in a hotel the first night in Hakodate, but she was so jumpy she couldn’t sleep, and the next day she made a reservation to fly back to Tokyo. They wouldn’t let her see Kiku anyway, she told herself, so she might as well go home. But on her way to the airport the cab passed a long, high gray wall, and when the driver told her it was the Juvenile Detention Center, she asked to get out. She walked around the perimeter of the prison for a long while; Kiku, shoulders bent and head hanging, was behind that wall. She decided to stay at least another day.

  Trembling slightly, Anemone approached a guard standing by the gate to ask about visiting privileges. The guard explained that she could apply at the warden’s office, so, screwing up her courage, she plunged into the ill-lit building. In the corridor, she passed a prisoner carrying a bucket of disinfectant. He stopped to stare at her, his shaven head glistening in the dim light.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a guard yelled at him, and he moved on.

  The man in the warden’s office also stared at her, at the Chinese slippers, the leather pants, and the long crimson fingernails, before saying, “So you’ve no occupation and no fixed address at present. Is that correct?” His uniform smelled of sweat. “Unfortunately, given the circumstances, we could only permit a visit if you were a blood relative.”

  “You mean I could see him if I got a job and a place to live?” The officer nodded.

  The bus came at last, and the line of people waiting pressed forward to get on. In front of the old woman was a man with a suitcase that was so large it made him stagger when he lifted it. As he tottered back, he bumped the old woman who in turn grabbed Anemone to keep from falling, inadvertently planting her cigarette on her arm. Anemone screamed and her arm shot up, hitting the child behind her in the face, making him drop the model plane he was holding and breaking its wings. Stamping out the cigarette, the old woman apologized to Anemone, but as Anemone turned to get on, rubbing the sore spot on her arm, the mother behind her called out:

  “Just a minute, lady.” One arm wrapped around her screaming child, the mother was holding out the shattered plane. “You broke it,” she was saying, but Anemone ignored her and turned back to the line. “Wait! Where do you think you’re going?!” As Anemone hesitated, the rest of the people queuing up pushed past, including the old woman, who glanced back for a moment before disappearing inside. The driver revved the engine, filling the air with a cloud of exhaust. Anemone began to feel a bit sick.

  “How much did it cost?” she asked. “I’ll pay for it.”

  “I don’t want your money, I want an apology to this child.” At this point, the bigger boy kicked Anemone in the leg, and instinctively she raised her hand to hit him. It was the bus driver who caught her arm in midair.

  “What the hell d’you think you’re doing? He’s just a kid,” he told her. By now the passengers were leaning out the windows of the bus.

  “It was my fault! My fault!” piped the old woman, poking her head out through the door.

  “What kind of person goes around breaking children’s toys?” the mother clucked. L
eering, the driver was still holding tight to Anemone’s arm. Someone inside the bus shouted for them to get a move on, and the horn sounded.

  “Don’t touch that horn,” the driver bellowed. Twisting out of his grip, Anemone pulled her wallet from her purse, extracted ten thousand yen, and held it out.

  “What’s that supposed to be for?” the woman said, turning to the driver. “Can you believe her?”

  “Must be crazy,” he agreed, beginning to laugh as he headed back to his seat.

  “Say you’re sorry,” the boy who’d kicked her kept saying, until his mother grabbed his hand and pulled him on board.

  “We’re going,” the driver yelled. “You getting on?” Anemone made no reply.

  “Oh dear! It really was my fault. She didn’t do a thing. Dearie! I’m so sorry!” The old woman was still waving from the window as the bus drove away. Anemone walked home.

  On her day off Anemone bought a sewing machine and some material: a print featuring cartoon crocodiles. She wanted to make some curtains. The machine took a bit of getting used to and she made several false starts, but she went on sewing through the night. At dawn, a faint pink line appeared behind the hills across the harbor. It was the first time Anemone had been awake at this hour of the day. In the distance the surface of the sea merged with the sky in a seamless cast of gray. Beyond the long, low breakwater, the tiny ships’ lights slid across the harbor, the wake dissolving the barest reflection of the clouds. As the dark sky faded to blue, the lights melted gradually into the day.

  Anemone rubbed her eyes. Shafts of sunlight broke through the clouds, showering half the harbor in brilliance. As the day began to warm up and the sky turned white, she hung her curtains in the window. The hem may have been a little crooked, the pompoms slightly uneven, and here and there she had missed some wrinkles, but Anemone was delighted. With the sunlight streaming through the cream-colored fabric, she thought they were the cutest curtains in the world. Suddenly she wanted to show them to someone… to show them to Kiku. The wind ruffled them, revealing a stretch of silver roofs reaching down to the water.