Harajuku Sunday

by S. Michael Choi

  Night begins its slow takeover. We are down to a mere two dozen now; the thought of a beach fire is expressed but doesn't quite get underway. “Plans for October...” “Career back home...” “Why do the Japanese do...” Snippets of conversation and longer, more involved ones, as darkness finally sets in. To the right, hundreds of meters away, a pier juts out into the surf, and just barely, shadowy figures, night fisherman, can be seen, extending lines carefully.

  “Dare me to go skinny-dip?”

  Charis.

  “Oh, no, you wouldn't.” But a low murmur turns into a group cry as Charis gets up and starts walking to the surf, turning her head to smirk once, and then peeling off layer by layer. Her bum is perfect; tight and firm.

  “Go Charis! Go Charis!”

  We watch her, a pale figure, paddling out into the surf, and it's clear that the fishermen, now all facing our direction, have figured out what is going on.

  “Somebody else!”

  Taking up the challenge, a half-minute later I go out to join her and the group is once again cheering.

  “Hey Charis!”

  “Hey Ritchie!”

  “Nice water!”

  “Yeah, it's awesome.”

  “Paddle out more?”

  “You bet.”

  …

  “Think they'll join us?”

  “Give 'em a minute or two.”

  “Yeah.”

  Charis and I do not become girlfriend-boyfriend—or at least, not right away. She is, after all, still a devout Christian and her work placement, to Fukushima, prevents the possibility of seeing each other on more than a biweekly basis. The next actual situation confronting me is the reality that although Redd is already on his way out and Julian, without the original impetus, is reduced to needling and occasionally sarcastic remarks online, my situation is actually quite precarious. A turnover of new Japan arrivals is getting adjusted to Japan, and I am known to have been associated in some way with the old disgraced regime; if I do nothing but stand still, I will just be a person of poor reputation, possibly even involved with the criminal Shan, the drug-user Dominique, the disgraced Soren.

  My solution to this predicament is simple. I can't do anything about Internet or real life rumor mongering, and there will always be a faint taint of some negative association, but if I engage the newcomers and improve their lives, I will at least not be in the same total disgrace that Soren is in and in any case my ability to deal with the vague and undefined threats like Dominique and her over-protective father will only be improved. As it turns out, a simple defense measure turns out to overwhelmingly successful to an almost offense degree.

  “So we'll go to Ageha but we'll get there by all packing into one train?”

  “Why don't we just pre-game and take the long way around?”

  “You mean, actually on the commuter train?”

  “Yeah exactly.”

  A spur of the moment decision to get to a Halloween club night becomes what is now annually celebrated in Tokyo as the “Yamanote Halloween Train.” Packing a commuter train car in silly Halloween costumes, we cause such a ruckus and manage to drink so much alcohol that the story hits the evening news. Expats in Japan still commemorate this one crazy night out, although I understand the police are now on the watch for this behavior. November, right before the snow hits, we have a Tokyo scavenger hunt, one that takes twenty or so teams, some as big as a dozen people, racing around the city and confusing the natives with their strange costumes and get-ups. December means "remainers" events going on, the typical "internationalization" get-togethers that bring demure Japanese women in their mid-20s, Christmas parties and then the great Japanese New Year, consecutive days of continual Golden Week partying. Finally, the long winter months are broken up with ski trips, more casual weekends at the Lion's Head or Kita-Setagaya, before spring finally peeks its faint pink nose into the atmosphere, a giant blind mole with a smile on its face, hesitant, snuffling forward, scraping away against the frozen ground of winter.

  The autumn of that year has an immensity of sky; an intense blueness that follows all of that oppressive heat. Winter is by comparison completely mundane; snow flakes and scarves; the slush melting in the great blue city of Tokyo. In the market streets or amid the unrelenting, yet ever so civilized crowds, one becomes almost hypnotized, fundamentally moved in some esoteric way, questioning one’s very assumptions on human nature, modernity, Westernness. Seen from an elevated train, the varied neighborhoods of Tokyo pass by, frozen moments of children playing a ball game, locked into their destinies, light sparkling off glittering crystal skyscrapers, still lifes in memory, implicit in promise in experience, a quality impossible to capture in text. Yet this is also the period when I become a native Tokyo-ite. One day I find myself walking through Shinjuku Station, and suddenly—gestalt—the pattern of the entire city-block sized labyrinth of tunnels and passageways falls into place. Then, finding myself looking at a subway map, I realize that I’m not looking at the various paths and extensions as a tourist would—curious at the breadth and reach, looking for familiar landmarks—but as a city-dweller, simply looking for the quickest connection to a necessary destination. I have gone native. And against this backdrop, this unity of self and environment, a special girl who takes the train into the city twice a month for a relationship that doesn't quite have a name, I have become the mediator of situation.

  “Uh, Ritchie? Mr. Ritchie, sir? There's someone who claims to know you personally?”

  By spring of the year after the great crisis, I have become sufficiently dominant in young Tokyo's social scene that I hold regular court in Eden, which is pretty much the top club of the hour that year. An individual wishing to see me must pass not one, but two layers of inspection just to receive an audience—the bouncer at the velvet rope to the VIP room first, and then, second, my closest lieutenants who themselves with a mere dismissive look can cause an entire roomful of partygoers to erupt into laughter at some futile attempt to “break in.” It is therefore highly surprising, even shocking, when an apparently dirt-poor unfashionable Japanese guy somehow manages to get himself brought into the chamber of leisure and savoir faire on a high Friday night.

  “I'm sorry, but he claims to know you personally and was able to tell me your phone number—just says he just got out of jail and doesn't even have the cash to call.”

  My eyes widen as I recognize Shan. In the perversity of the moment and the supreme boredom of the early evening, I throw caution to the wind and smile wickedly. “Okay, let's see what he wants.”

  In the dark blue mood-lighted room, I receive Shan on two black leather cushioned sofa-seats as around me, my lieutenants peek out of the corner of their eye in genuine shock and curiosity. Elegant women in black cocktail dresses look bored and sip pink cocktails; the ambient music is of old-school trance/house; and I find myself in a deliciously perverse mood.

  “So, Shan Le, what can I do for you?”

  “Ritchie, uh, Ritchie, please you have to help me.”

  “Calm down, calm down. What is the problem?”

  “Dominique. She is crazy girl. She keeps telling police that I pull a knife on her. They put me in jail. I had to stand in one place for two days. People get tortured. No talking. It's terrible situation. Terrible.”

  I raise one eyebrow. “Really Shan? I find that hard to believe. I really don't think a modern developed country like Japan tortures its prisoners. Maybe you just got in a fight.”

  “No, Ritchie, please. I'm begging you. It's terrible in Japanese jail. They have different jail for Chinese person. No visa; no paperwork; I had to do factory work sixteen hours day. Hell on earth.”

  “Well Shan, that sounds like a character building experience. But I don't see what it has to do with anything I can do.”

  “I just got out of jail. Waseda won't let me into dorm; I don't have my clothes, my things, no money. I just need place to stay. And maybe paperwork for lawyer. Help me please. I do anything.”

&nb
sp; With the full certainty that anything I can do for Shan is a slap in the face for the dog Dominique, I signal to a friend to come over, and his arrangements—starting with just being able to crash on the tatami floor of somebody we know in Minowa, are made.

  It starts with a half-starved, beaten, possibly hallucinating impoverished Chinese ex-Waseda student showing up in my majestic surroundings and proceeds from there over the course of about nine more months in that remarkable city that once defined an empire. The time is around the turn of the century; the city is a city of twelve million; and the fashions that adorn the girls walking around will show up in New York the following year.

  “Okay, Shan, let's start from the beginning. How exactly did you get in this mess?”

  The Chinese boy takes a deep breath. He has washed up and rested for two days, and he looks a little less pitiful. But his weight is still down and he has developed a nervous tic in his left cheek.

  “So...I am sitting there peacefully in my dormitory room studying when suddenly four Japanese police officers, wearing full riot gear outfit and carrying big black sticks march in. I jump up; I am terror-fied. They say that I have pulled knife on Dominique; that Dominique is victim of crime. But this is lie!”

  I exchange glances with Tucker, loyal lieutenant, who looks carefully back.

  “So these people arrest you and charge you with assault and battery for no reason at all? They do it just because they don't like you?”

  “Yeah, Dominique is crazy girl! She just like cause trouble!”

  “Have you ever hung out with her? Maybe you just were carrying a knife once and she saw it and panicked?”

  “No. I just know her through when she at same party. I never even be in same room with her alone.”

  “Not even once.”

  Shan breathes in and out again heavily. “Okay. There is one time when I go to her apartment.”

  We settle back. It is good to hear the truth.

  “I lend Dominique a magazine. And I am reading Maxim magazine, the section where readers can send in jokes to get $500. And I remember reading the same joke in an old issue. So I call up Dominique to get the magazine back.”

  Tucker cuts in. “So you are reading Maxim magazine and you see a joke repeated. So this is important, this is just a outrage calling out to the heavens for redress that you must, you simply must go confirm this injustice by going to get the magazine back from Dominique.”

  The comment flies over Shan's head, but I exchange a quick glance of mirth with Tucker.

  “Yes, but this is only time. And I never bring knife.”

  “Have you ever kissed Dominique, Shan?”

  “No, never.”

  Apparently so much time has passed and the experience of a Japanese jail has been so traumatic, that Shan doesn't even remember any more that he kissed Dominique in my presence. But he is apparently so involved in his lie, the myth that he doesn't even know Dominique all that well, that he responds automatically and with a straight face. Now it's my turn to sigh.

  “Well, Shan, you know what? We'll see what we can do. But you do have to get your own place and find your own job. The ideal is for you to return to your studies, but if Waseda has kicked you out, that's that. Have you considered transferring to a Chinese university?”

  “No. That is impossible. I will not go back to China.”

  “Okay. But then if you would rather be a working person here rather than a university student in China, I think you have to commit to finding work commensurate with a high school degree. You have to work in a restaurant or something; I'm sure I know somebody who can help you.”

  Suddenly tears are brimming in Shan's eyes. “How did this happen, Litchie? I was getting top grades in WasedaUniversity. I always getting top marks.”

  I do sympathize. “I don't know. I almost feel like I am missing one important piece, that it's staring me right in front of my eyes. But I don't have unlimited resources, Shan. Money comes from somewhere.”

  Tucker agrees to help Shan with his one final request—to get a letter sent out to some British NGO that Shan found on the Internet—a non-profit committed to helping reform the Japanese legal system. It doesn't sound promising, but we're certainly not going to get that involved in Shan's problems—not with him lying through his teeth at people who gave him a place to stay, and not after we've seen some documents the Embassy has dug up about Shan stealing from his employer and installing illegal-access software on Waseda lab computers. He seems really rough-edged; really uncouth. And he did have a knife, somebody remembers—some U.S. Marine combat knife that he purchased on the Internet. God knows where it went.

  Shan gets out of jail—his first stint—roughly in May or June. Things now start to get far more complicated than before Shan does clearly go to jail, but given the efficiency with which everything is run in the country, as well as the politics of Sino-Japanese politics, it’s hard to imagine that he is actually tortured (as he claims) or that he endures prison violence in a country known for its ritualized displays of form rather than street-level thuggery. What’s clear is that from the beginning point, it’s going to be a battle of unequals. Shan is one simple half-coolie Chinese scholarship student; Commissioner Charles Henry Monroe LeFauve is the senior trade commissioner in the Division of International Trade, United States Embassy in Tokyo. The outcome is never in doubt—it's just things are going to be a little complex.

  Fresh out of jail, head shaven, an ugly scar on his cheek (“I cut it shaving.”), Shan Le leaps into action with all the restless energy of an over-talented under-prepared university student. The letter—several letters—go out to various non-profit groups, political officials, semi-tangentially related random organizations (a scam human-cloning company; two or three diploma mills), and somehow out of this Shan hits pay-dirt. Jury Trial, a British NGO of unknown background, decides to jump in; they already have an office in downtown Tokyo.

  “Did you know that 99% of people arrested by Japanese police are convicted, and that after one hundred forty years after exposure to modern jurisprudence, Japan still doesn’t have a trial-by-one’s-peers criminal court system?”

  Shan’s mail-a-lawyer, the London-trained barrister and smartly-cut corporate-attired individual with a mad, crazed gleam in her eye on a Thursday afternoon after Shan convinces me to attend his first meeting with the group starts lecturing me on Jury Trial's position. (He thinks he will have greater prestige with a Westerner accompanying him to his meeting. Jury Trial itself is nonplussed, neither positive nor negative.)

  “Simon Arner, a UK citizen, was convicted and sentenced to 38-years in prison because somebody hid a sachet of ecstasy pills in his luggage upon his arrival in Narita. A young promising university graduate who loses the rest of his life because he can’t even provide evidence in his defense to a group of fair-minded, community-oriented citizens!”

  I don’t know if I will ever understand these single-minded, single-issued crusaders who seem so absolutely certain about their one fixed idea that they approach it with such maniacal enthusiasm. Jury Trial also has another lawyer on staff, an older Jewish gentlemen with rheumy eyes and arthritic; he makes cynical little remarks and cracks jokes about Shan but otherwise remains silent; he is a social observer.

  “Shan, tell us what happened with this woman. Why is she coming after you?

  “You should see the university! They come in with four police officers, each carrying kendo stick! It is humiliation! In front of all my dormitory mates!”

  “That isn’t the question. What is your explanation for Dominique’s behavior?”

  “Dominique is hating me! She is liar and criminal!”

  This is the problem. This is the problem. For all his bluster, all his yelling and screaming, Shan is completely unable to come up with an explanation for why Dominique is behaving the way she is, whereas the other side is able to come up with if not compelling, at least consistent, series of events; they are able to come up with a story that even if unprovable a
nd relying on hearsay, assigns motivations to all parties involved. Claim: Shan and Dominique had coffee together. Claim: Shan and Dominique were going out. Claim: Shan pulled a knife out on Dominique. Fact: Dominique showed up crying and hysterical at the embassy. Who can poke a hole in this story? And so the lawyers meet; they nod their heads; all sides trade point for point, but theirs is the firmer narrative. Shan is a dork, beyond dorkiness. If he just says, 'look I pulled out a knife,' it's 30 days, maybe a letter in a file. People at Waseda are even trying to help him. But he's pig-headed, stubborn. He offers no explanation why Dominique would make up charges against him, although insists and insists and insists that she's making up everything out of whole cloth. LeFauve brings out “Rihanna Paciano,” a three-hundred pound pock-marked monstrosity, dispatched from Washington as special “Gender Affairs Officer” directly from the State Department.