by Vann Chow
It petrified Misa that Masao was larger than ever. Some men could be stimulated by the strange, shameful, erotic nature of seeing a woman in distress.
Misa clamped her mouth as tightly shut as she could and closed her eyes.
There was nothing she could do now except to wish that this would be over soon.
She squeezed her labia tighter, and that sent a wave of excitement through Masao. It rippled through the end of every single nerve fiber in him. He pulled out just before climax and stuffed the exploding device into Misa's mouth.
31. Right and Wrong
“What are you doing?” Tatsu pried the phone from Smith's hand.
“I'm calling the police.” Smith typed 110 into the touch pad and was about the press on the green call button were it not forTatsu interfering. “I'm going to call, and you're going to tell them what happened. We'll find your sister,” Smith stood up so he could be out of the boy's reach. He had his cell phone clipped partially between his ears and his right shoulder so he could free up his hands to fend off Tatsu's feverish grapple.
“No, we cannot!” The boy dug his ankles deep into the bean bag so he could buttress himself higher. That compressed his wounds, and tiny red threads of blood started to seep through the layers of freshly replaced bandages around his chest. Despite that, he was bent on wrestling the phone away from Smith.
Smith's grip on the flat screen loosened under Tatsu's determined meddling. His reflex kicked in again just in time to let him swoop down to catch the falling phone with his hands, but wool socks on a waxed floor guaranteed less friction than it was needed to keep him on balance. His left foot skidded forward while the right skidded right. They twisted him in an impossible angle. He collapsed on the floor, cradling his cell phone with a paralyzing cramp on his lower back.
“Don't do it if you're Misa's friend! You're gonna get her arrested for enjo kosai (subsidized dating)! They will put her in a kankoku (prison). She’s getting paid. It’s her job. – A lousy, dirty, disgusting job!” Tatsu billowed.
Getting caught – Smith hadn't thought of that, but his wits caught up with his mouth quick enough. “There are many facilities that help girls like her.” Although making his point with unwavering conviction, Smith didn't really know whether they existed in Japan. He was speaking from his knowledge of American juvenile delinquency institutions. “And with some proper guidance, she can restart her life again soon enough. She's only, what, eighteen? If we don't do it now, soon it would be too late, you see?” He unlocked his phone trying to call the emergency number again.
“No! You don't understand!” Tatsu almost shouted, his hands flailing about to stop Smith. “Do you think it has never occurred to me that this might stop her? But I wish it’s that simple, old man.” He paused to give himself the courage to say what he had to say next.
“Just forget about what you just heard. Zenbu wasule de kudasai! Misa will come home when she’s finished work.”
“This is a civilized country. If her misconduct was misguided, there are ways to help her.”
Tatsu squeezed his eyes closed, as if in pain. “It's not the first time...” His lips started trembled as he uttered these words and he could not bring himself to elaborate further.
“What first time?” Smith asked.
A long pause followed while Tatsu made up his mind about the character of the man sitting in front of him, a complete stranger, with a trustworthy face. He let down his guard.
“Her mind is all fucked up,” Tatsu said. “She couldn't tell what's good and what's bad anymore.”
Smith could scarcely believe the Japanese boy knew the term ‘fucked up’.
“She has been re-i-pu (raped) !” Tatsu continued, his eyes bloodshot. He rested his right hand on the smeared bandages, bracing the pain that was deeper than the wounds that had ever been inflicted on him from any fight. “The konyaro (bastard) who did it was shakuhou (released)! He still makes money off of the bi-de-o (video) tapes, but the police said they couldn't find grounds to do anything to arrest and prosecute him!”
Although some of the words Tatsu said were in Japanese, Smith had understood it with no effort. Smith hadn't known that he possessed the vocabulary for such a theme, and he surely did not enjoy finding out.
“You want to see it? You want to see the man's face?” Tatsu asked as if to punish Smith for doubting what he said – even for a split second, only to preserve his withering hopes that there might be fairytale-happy people out there. – Why would Smith want to see something like that of Misa? Why would anyone? It was a torture itself to hear about it.
“His name is Sa-a-ji . One, of these damn white gaijin like you!” Tatsu continued.
“Sergey?” A common French name, Smith, remarked.
“ Ser-ji Le-bi-ruu,” he said. Even in this dire time, the Japanese impossible enunciation of foreign words was getting in the way. “It was in the newspaper on n i-sen kui nan , san-gatasu, nijuuyokka. (March 24 th of 2009)”
That was about three years ago. Misa would only have been around fifteen at the time.
On his smartphone’s web browser app, Tatsu typed some keywords in Japanese on the search bar on the Yahoo! Japan page and clicked the image tab. The results loaded in a time too short for the boy to avert his eyes. Smith could see the disdain on his strained face straight away, trying to maintain composure while pushing the phone over to Smith. The results showed an array of photographs of a man at different events, taken at various media events, movie awards, film exhibitions et cetera.
“Who’s he?” Smith asked, rhetorically. Who was this man to elope punishment for such atrocious crimes? Tatsu said there were videos of it, shouldn’t that be evidence enough? He wanted to ask what was on the videos, but he thought better of it.
The young boy sitting opposite to him sucked in a deep breath and said, “nothing could touch a foreign man of this caliber, they say.” There were things on this earth, over which no matter how many times you have talked or contemplated, would still leave your mind unsettled. “Just couldn’t be helped. Misa and I. We were both garbage in the sewage. We’d always be the dirt on the underside of other people’s shoes,” he said, almost believing in these self-effacing words himself. Poor souls.
“Where are your parents?” Smith was reminded that parents usually know the best for their child. “I'm a gaijin as you said. I know nothing about how things work in Japan. Your parents will know what to do, huh? Give them a call.”
“She couldn't help us. She's just a normal housewife – one without a husband. What's the point of troubling her?” Tatsu said, his calm voice highlighted the suppressed frustration. “Moreover, this has been going on since we've come to Tokyo.” His voice trailed off. “It's all my fault.”
“How's this your fault?” Smith said understanding the origin of Tatsu's self-blame, but he refused to let the boy believed that someone understood him in that regard. “Get some rest. You've stressed yourself today.” He held the wounded boy by the arm to the bedroom, ignoring the numbness that was the results of straining his back – it would get worse by tomorrow, he knew – and helped the boy carefully on the bedding. “I'll wait in the living room for Misa if you don't mind, and I'll talk to her.” He found the light switch of the bedroom, flipped it and wobbled out of the room, hiding his uneasy gait from the boy by sliding the room divider into place behind him immediately.
Smith sat himself down on the bean bag in the living room, feeling drained. It had been years since he had sat on one. The sensation was bittersweet.
There, old and new memories crept up on him. He pushed the involuntary visualization of what could have happened to Misa in the past three years out of his head and concentrated on what he could do and say to her when she returned. She was his liability now, whether he wanted the liability or not. Perhaps God had answered his prayers to integrate into Japan in his unusual, mysterious way. After all, he had gotten what he wanted – a Japanese friend, and more. Who could contradict theological speculations, and with what?
None of us living would ever find proof that all of what befall us was not part of a greater plan.
That Saturday that he would never forget, Misa didn't dial his number by accident. He was her deliverance from evil, and that was where he fit into the picture.
Despite the hour, he called Aileen Martin who was the only one in Tokyo he could trust Misa with. If this were back home, he would have asked his wife for advice. But in this strange country, and the unfamiliar status of their relationship he had yet to come to terms with, the new Debbie could hardly offer the help he sought. The new him, stripped of his sheath of support, had been groping in the dark long enough like a newly blinded man. Perhaps it was about time to get himself a walking cane, and immerse himself completely in his new identity – a single, old man.
His courage to exercise his freedom of consulting a woman other than his wife on critical issues such as this had been rewarded. Aileen, although surprised at the hour of the call and the lateness of the much awaited call from Smith, had been kind to him. Misa and her brother's conditions in Tokyo and their dire financial need had moved Aileen. She did not need any prompt from him to get to the idea of finding Misa a more stable and suitable profession. She suggested a clerical position at the InterHRLA and gave an invitation to Smith to forward to Misa for an interview at her organization. Grateful beyond words, Smith complimented Aileen's compassion profusely over the phone. While his compliments gladly accepted, Aileen had only really been thinking about scoring more points in Smith's eyes. It was all the better if she did it by doing what she would normally do, which was to show compassion to underprivileged groups.
After he had hung up, he waited anxiously for Misa to come home. Behind the paper room divider, Tatsu laid awake.
In the well-kept Hayami's apartment, neither the boy nor the man had wanted to give way to Mister Sandman, yet sleep doused over their heads like the uninterrupted splashing of water in a Shintoism purification ritual. After an hour or less, repose fell upon them when the spirits that possessed them escaped temporarily from their bodies. They entered a pulling state of subconsciousness that was filled with remorse and sadness.
32. Witches' Candy Mix
Donbori candy, Nerunerunerune witches' mix, Ramen gummy set, Popin' Cookin's sushi candy set, Glico's giant Caplico ice-cream candy...Misa took each one of the candy packs in the AM-PM convenience store and scanned their colorful descriptions carefully. She had never indulged herself with one of these, and neither did her parents. Tonight she was determined to have the “ shiawase ” experience, a satisfying feeling that was uniquely captured perhaps only by the Japanese language. It was the feeling she had when her dad had taken them for the first time to snow sledding at the Hanazono, an hour south from where they lived. It was the feeling she had when her school choir was nominated to represent the Ishikari prefecture to compete at the National Choir Competition in Tokyo.
“Give me a pack of that!” A boy with long, gray hair styled like a Mohawk, wearing a red tartan shirt and ripped jeans had entered the store and barked at the cashier for a pack of Mild Seven cigarette. A girl in a green wig and Vocaloid Miku cosplay costume wriggled in his arm. The back of the girl somehow looked familiar.
“I like the pink one!” she said. Misa recognized her voice and the frivolous way she dressed immediately. It was Aiko.
Just, then the boy turned his head towards the row of drink refrigerators on the right, revealing a big monotone lotus tattooed on his neck. The lotus was broken in several places, a Yakuza symbol. The image sparked intuition in Misa.
Misa took a pack of candy from the rack and walked over to greet her friend, whom she, until this moment, didn't know had a boyfriend from one of the most aggressive clan of gangs in Tokyo.
That explained everything.
“Aiko-chan,” Misa said. The girl turned around to meet her caller. At that moment Misa's ripped open the green sachet and splashed all its content on Aiko's face. “You deserved this and more.”
Aiko could only stand there in shock, her face covered with sticky glucose powder. Some had gotten in her eyes and she was squeezing them shut in pain.
“What?” The boy next to her grunted, completely caught off guard.
“Keep the change,” Misa tossed ten thousand yen on the counter. The cashier, however, was too nervous to take the money in the presence of an agitated Yakuza. His legs trembled with the pack of Mild Seven in his hands. But before the boy could do anything, Misa had already disappeared through the automatic doors into the dark park.
“Oh.” Smith stepped into the convenient store a few seconds later, hoping to get something for breakfast. “Hmm...” He hummed, avoiding eye contact with the boy and his girlfriend who was covered in some sort of white powder, and walked into the snacks aisle.
Something crackled under his feet. He looked down and noticed the wrapper of Nerunerunerune witches' candy mix. From across the rack, he saw the girl covered in white powder was now scrubbing her face feverishly while screaming at the same time. The boy next to her was laughing unsympathetically besides her. In fact, he was laughing so hard he doubled over.
“It must be good,” Smith mumbled to himself and grabbed a pack of the same thing from the rack.
Family, she couldn't lose, yet they hurt her so much that she wished she had the power to free them from her. Friends, she longed to have, yet once again she would rather not have any.
They had betrayed her, her friends, or those that assumed the appearances of friends. It seemed that eighteen years of experience with friendship had not made her an expert on this particular relationship. Had she confused something else for friendship? Not just once, but twice, three times? Misa curled up under her favorite oak tree and thought back to the day when Aiko had asked her about what she did to make so much money besides waitressing at the Thunderbird. She scrutinized her face in her memory and yet after the third time, she still could not find a hint of mean spirit on her then innocent face. Aiko's question had come out of impulsive curiosity, she was convinced on that day. Yet the outcome of Misa's confidence made what she did appear premeditated.
Viciousness.
I could be that.
If that was the essence of survival.
Shinu kakugo de yare. Kill or be killed.
I could be vicious, too.
Kore wa machigaemashita . No, this is wrong.
The warmth of tears surged up Misa's nasal cavity and blocked her breathing intermittently, but she refused to cry.
Her eyelids were heavy, but her heart was heavier.
What was there left to do? If it weren't for Tatsu, the sheer number of times she wished she could stop living would have put suicide to the top of her priority list. Some people died of old age, some people died of sickness. She belonged to the group that died off of foolishness.
May foolishness extinct itself after her, followed by honesty, integrity, kindness, hope, love and all its poisonous derivatives that plagued those that treasured them.
Misa had trusted her secret with Aiko. No doubt now Aiko had shared it with her boyfriend, a Kyokuto-kan low-ranking minion. A gangster, nonetheless. They thrived on these gossips. Street urchins with desperate ears for anything that could place them on the good side of their bosses, who in turn needed to impress their bosses up the ranks for all the investment they put in in maintaining a sizable group of men and women with no particular skills nor higher education on the payroll. The Kyokuto-kan dominated the market of sexual exchange in the East of Tokyo, and they would do anything to keep it this way. The leak had caused Misa her day job. It was a threat for her to stop running her own business with no agent.
“Agent,” she chuckled at the thought of it. Prostitution was a business more regulated and controlled than probably everything else in the world. Yet, everyone – almost everyone – wants to take a bite of that big, multi-layered fruit cake with egg custard fillings, including the government. Misa didn’t want an agent and probably would never get one, unless coerced in
to it, which was not an unlikely event at the rate she was going, dousing Aiko with sticky, gooey sweetener, for example.
Misa couldn’t care less. She didn’t really need the day job. The day job was only there to make her feel less lonely and more like a normal person, with a typical 8-hour workday, with a paycheck that could be cashed at regular intervals. It cheered up her immensely. However, it was unnecessary. She was never scared anymore either. There was nothing else men could do to her that she hadn’t expected.
Nobody and nothing could get to her, she thought to herself.
In the first light of dawn, Misa could see the flower stall owner emerging from the mini-truck that doubled as the man's home from its usual parking spot not far from the park entrance. As he lifted pot after pot of flowers from the back of his truck to the roadside, someone of unusual height with a suit jacket slung over his shoulder walked over to talk to him.
The flower seller was startled. He shook his head violently and returned once again to his work.
The tall figure sauntered carelessly into the park with his head down. Then he noticed that his shadow caressed a strangely shaped shadow on the brick pavement. He raised his head to find what he was looking for in front of him, uncurling herself from the bench.
He caught the gleam in Misa’s eyes. The reflection of colors from the neon signs that said Yamada Electronics gave the girl a wolfish look.
The protectiveness dissolved quickly away when Misa realized who he was.
There, they stared sympathetically at each other until the rising sun outlined the girl in pearly white light and they couldn't hold their gazes anymore.
Finally, Smith pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over to her.
“She might be able to help you.” It was Aileen Martin's phone number that was written on it. “This lady works for the InterHRLA. You might have heard of it. I've told her a little bit about you, that you speak a bit of English and all, and she said she might have a part-time job for you. She's a nice lady. Give her a call when you feel better.”