Ransom

by Jay McInerney

  Among the plastic models in the glass case beside the door of the restaurant was a mournful, inflated fugu, poison blowfish, an occasionally fatal delicacy which by law could only be prepared by licensed chefs.

  Ransom was shown to a table, and Rachel came in a few minutes later, breathless, trailing strands of her involvement with the world of commerce. She kissed Ransom and then dropped into her chair, her jacket flaring then subsiding around her like a parachute, attracting the attention of all of the blue-suited diners, the only woman in the restaurant and blond to boot.

  “Exchange rates are going wild,” she said.

  Ransom smiled. “I can hardly keep up.”

  “It’s exciting, now that all the currencies are floating, but life was probably a hell of a lot easier when they were fixed. Anyway, you’re looking very good.”

  “You too,” Ransom said.

  “What are you up to tonight?”

  “I teach a class. Then karate practice.”

  “I have tickets for the Stones.”

  “You and ten thousand Japanese teeny boppers. I met some of them the other day.”

  “Join me.”

  “No can do.”

  “Skip your practice.”

  He shook his head.

  “What’s so vital about one karate practice?”

  “This could be the night I break somebody’s nose. You wouldn’t want me to miss out on that.”

  “When are you going to get serious?”

  “About what?”

  She sighed, raised her hands as if to strangle him. “You know. I mean, about everything. About your life.”

  “Going to see the Stones is serious?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I thought you’d retired as my father’s agent.”

  “Forget your father. You’re my age, Chris. You’re bright as hell but pretty soon people are going to say, Well, Mr. Ransom, what’s this three-year gap in your résumé? Kung-fu and the Kyoto experience won’t open many doors.”

  “Karate,” Ransom said.

  “What’s the difference? There’s a lot going on here besides head-bashing. Listen, the business ideas of the next decade are going to come out of Japan. Why do you think I’m here? I requested this posting. The Japanese are starting to set the pace. Resource depletion, population density, miniaturization—an American who comes here with his eyes open is going to be in a position to learn. The new logos is right here. It’s beyond socialism and capitalism. We are talking the Tao of Capital. Jesus, Chris, the choice isn’t working in television or living like an impoverished monk in Japan. There are other options.”

  “All the world lies before me, eh?”

  She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I don’t know why you’re doing this romantic exile routine. What are you running from? Your father?”

  “I’m not running, Rachel.”

  “Why can’t you forgive him?”

  “Forgive him for what?”

  “That’s my question. What is it?”

  “I hate television.”

  “Very sophisticated, aren’t we? You blame him for your mother, don’t you?”

  “I blame him for thinking that he’s the director and other people are just players—Mom, me, all those promising young actresses. Other people aren’t real to him.”

  “No one was more devastated by your mother’s death—forgive me, but I mean this—than he was.”

  “The cleaning lady was more devastated.”

  “He’s not that bad, Chris.”

  “That Christmas scheme was typical. He’d rather dream up a bad plot than just ask me to come home.”

  “It was for a good cause.”

  “That’s what Nixon said after he got caught.”

  “He loves you.”

  “Did I ever tell you how he got me into Princeton? I told him I wouldn’t even apply unless he promised not to get his friends and fellow alums to pull strings. My junior year I find out, accidentally, from a friend in the records office—he thinks it’s a big joke, right?—that my old man donated a very considerable sum to the university the year I applied.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You got in because you were smart. Your father probably needed a tax write-off.”

  “Right.”

  “So he was trying to help. Sue him.”

  “Well, I don’t want his help, thanks. What pisses him off is that he can’t help me when I’m over here. Limits to his power and all that.”

  “He’s not young anymore, Chris. And you’re his only son.”

  “How do you feel about the blowfish sashimi?” Ransom said, seeing the waiter hovering.

  She sighed, looked down at the menu briefly and said, “Okay. Live dangerously.”

  After they had ordered he said, “Do you like your job?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “What do you like about it? I’m curious. You really seem enthusiastic. Are you in it for the money or is there something else?”

  “It’s challenging.” Rachel said without hesitating.

  “How?” Ransom said. “The way a crossword puzzle is challenging? Maybe I just don’t get it. When I got out of school, I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to do. There were options, but there weren’t any reasons.”

  “What are your goals?” Rachel challenged.

  Ransom thought about it. “I don’t know. I think maybe I want to become a blank slate. Forgive and forget.”

  The blowfish arrived, thin, salmon-colored wafers on a black lacquer tray. “I don’t know,” Ransom said, “whether it is more polite to offer it to you first or to test it myself.”

  Rachel snagged a piece with her chopsticks and deposited it on her tongue. Ransom followed suit. The chewy flesh slightly numbed his lips.

  Rachel explained rising interest and inflation rates to him. While she was in the Ladies’ Ransom paid the check, but she was so upset about it that he let her pay half.

  “Can I walk you somewhere?” he said, when they were outside.

  “I’ve got a meeting.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Why don’t you ever come to Tokyo?”

  “I don’t like Tokyo much.”

  “We’ll stay indoors.”

  “You could come to Kyoto. See the sights.”

  “Do you have a phone yet?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Out on the street, he flagged a cab for her. As it moved off into the traffic Ransom felt a twinge of sadness and wondered if they might have been more than friends under different circumstances.

  At five o’clock, after fruitless negotiations with Honda over the air-conditioner copy, Ransom was in a conference room on the fourteenth floor of the Mitsubishi Shoji office, looking out over the city. A receptionist brought him a hand towel and a cup of tea. The students entered in twos and threes, and he greeted them by name. Roughly Ransom’s age, they were all male, young sub-managers who might someday find themselves in New York or London on Mitsubishi business.

  When everyone was seated, Ransom opened his book and called out a page number. The students looked alarmed: jumping right into the lesson was a departure from the norm. Generally he opened class with an informal discussion. A standard question was: what did you do this weekend? The bachelors drank and played mah-jong with their buddies. The married men drank and played with their children. Wives didn’t rate a mention. Every once in a while, someone would visit a sick relative in Tokyo.

  Ransom was not pleased with them for complaining about his comments last week, so they could have it straight from the book this time. He slowly repeated the page number and they reluctantly opened their books, the cover of which featured a wavy-haired executive behind a Bauhaus desk and a blond secretary taking dictation, blouse buttoned up to the neck but showing a bit of knee. This was Level Two of the A-OK system. Adorning the cover of Level One was a prim, less attractive secretary taking dictation from a less commanding executive. Several students had asked him about the co
ver of Level Three, no doubt hoping to hear that the blonde had shed her clothing and crawled across the desk on her hands and knees.

  Ransom read: “Lesson Seven: Talking Business the American Way. Dialogue One: ‘Wanted, A Real Go-Getter.’” He anticipated the hands that shot up around the table. Mr. Hayashi asked, “What is go-getter?”

  Ransom’s father often employed the phrase as a term of great approbation, but his son knew he would have trouble explaining why to people who had been raised on self-effacement and group thinking. “Okay. A go-getter is someone who . . . is very aggressive. Who knows what he wants. And goes . . . and gets it.” He thought this last a nice touch.

  The faces around the table showed puzzlement tinged with alarm. Hayashi, class bird dog, raised his hand. “Is this a bad person?”

  Ransom pondered the inherent value judgments. This note of aggressiveness and self-assertion was disturbing to his students. “I think,” he said, “that in America, such a person would be considered a very good businessman.”

  More puzzlement. Proceed.

  “Okay. Hayashi, you start. You are Mr. Robinson. As we all know, Mr. Robinson is the Personnel Director of Vidco. Right?”

  Hayashi beamed, fingers spread, palms down on either side of his book, ready to assume executive responsibility.

  “Mr. Sato.” Sato jumped at the unmistakable syllables of his name, then slumped lower in his chair. Lazy and reluctant, Sato would make an intriguing go-getter. Ransom wondered briefly if it was Sato who had ratted on him, then realized that Sato would not have understood the conversation in question.

  “Mr. Sato, you are Jim Banks. You are applying for a job. Remember, you are a real go-getter. Self-assured. Aggressive. All right, go get ’em.”

  Hayashi cleared his throat, pressed his palms down hard on the table.

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Come right in, Jim. Have a sheet.” Ransom: “That’s seat.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Have a sit.”

  Sato/Banks: “Thank you.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Frankly, Jim, I’m quite impressed with your . . .”

  Ransom: “Résumé.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Your résumé. You seem to have a track record of proven sales performance. I see you decided fairly early on that sales was your bag.”

  Sato/Banks: “That’s true, Mr. Robinson.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Call me Flank.”

  Ransom: “Frank.”

  Sato/Banks: “Well, Flank, I believe I mentioned working my way through college with my own . . . perfumé. . .

  Ransom: “Perfume.”

  Sato looked up, his face expressing surprise and injury; he had correctly applied the pronunciation of “résumé” to a word that looked almost identical, only to be told he was wrong. He shook his head sadly and looked back at the book.

  Sato/Banks: “Perfume distributorship. On graduating I sold the business for a handsome profit.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Very enterprising. You seem to be a real go-getter, Jim. And I see you haven’t been idle since then.”

  Pause.

  Ransom: “Sato, you’re on.”

  Sato/Banks: “Doko? Okay, okay. Well, I joined the Unifax sales force three years ago and I’m now regional sales manager for an eight-state legion.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Unifax seems to have done really well by you.”

  Sato/Banks: “They have, but frankly, I’m looking for a new challenge. I think my talons could best be utilized in a national sales position with an aggressive, growth-oriented firm.”

  Hayashi/Robinson: “Well, Jim. The Vidco sales team could certainly use a prayer like you.”

  Utter bafflement. The clock over the door said 6:26. Another hour to go.

  10

  Night practice had an air of ceremony. Under the spotlight the parking lot took on the aspect of a stage or an altar. Men in white robes. The sprawl of the day was reduced to a circle of light.

  Ransom led calisthenics, taking care not to rush the stretching; there were enough ways to get hurt without pulling a muscle or popping a joint. They worked up the body—toes, Achilles tendons, ankles, knees, thighs. Facing him, the others moved as if they were shadows of a single figure, perfectly in sync. The sensei sat on the steps of the gym, smoking a cigarette. Ransom proceeded to drills: middle kicks, high kicks, right and left, fifty each. He watched the Monk and Yamada in the front row, tuning himself to their rhythm until it seemed to him that the kicks were not rising out of any volition of his own but as a manifestation of a collective effort.

  The sensei told them to pair off for drills, directing the Monk, Yamada and Ransom to work with the junior ranks. A motorcycle pulled into the lot as the sensei was demonstrating a three-kick combination. Ransom paired up with Udo, the bodybuilder. As they moved off to their spot, Ransom saw DeVito remove his helmet and lean back against the seat of his bike.

  He tried to ignore him, but found himself working Udo much harder than he might have. He was impatient with Udo’s offense; the flash of impulses in Udo’s eyes telegraphed his attacks, and the actual contact was an anticlimax. In such a mundane context Ransom was unable to show his abilities, and when he took the attack he pounded Udo back across the lot, knocking him over before he realized what he was doing.

  After fifteen minutes they changed drills and partners. Although Ransom didn’t look at DeVito, he knew he was there. Working with Tadashi, another undistinguished opponent, he wished that the sensei would give them something more interesting to do. Usually the sensei participated in the drills, but tonight he was slouching around the sidelines. He came over once and told Ransom to stop favoring his left leg. Several times he shouted admonitions at Yamada.

  After an hour of slogging through drills Ransom hoped for sparring, an occasion for performance. At the same time, his habitual anxiety about sparring was aggravated by DeVito’s gaze. By the time the sensei called them in from drills he was thoroughly disgusted with himself. If he couldn’t keep DeVito from clouding his mind, then he hadn’t learned anything.

  Two points, no restrictions, the sensei said. He called Yamada out first. Beginning with a schoolboy who had joined the dojo only a few weeks ago, Yamada fought five easy matches in order of rank, although his last opponent almost caught him with a middle kick and the sensei told him twice that he was looking sloppy. Then the Monk came in, quickly dispatched Sato, Ichii, and Minamoto, all of whom were competent, but looked scared and clumsy against Ito. Next was Suzuki, a thin high school student with a DA haircut and a good front kick. As soon as the sensei started the match, he threw himself at the Monk with a flurry of limbs and then crumpled, lying jackknifed on the asphalt, a clicking sound in his throat.

  The sensei hoisted him to his feet, held him by the ribs, and explained that his stance was too high. The Monk stood with his hands folded in front of his crotch, eyes half-closed. Once Suzuki recovered his wind, the sensei told him to try again. This time he attacked with his hands. The Monk stepped back and inserted a delicate front-thrust between Suzuki’s moving arms, pulling it just short of the forehead. The sensei called the point. Suzuki tilted his head and squinted at Ito’s fist, as if the outcome might look better from different angle. He bowed and retired with a fatalistic shake of the head.

  Now was Ransom’s turn. He stepped out to take Suzuki’s place, fixing his eyes on the Monk’s, holding the gaze through the bow. The Monk settled back, way down in cat stance, all of his weight back on the rear leg, folded nearly double, while the lead foot barely touched the pavement. He made an L with his forearms in front of his chest, the left vertical, the right horizontal. It seemed to Ransom that Ito’s eyes were like pools in which no fish were showing; he would have to throw out some bait. He kicked. The Monk swept the kick away with his forearm. Ransom threw another kick, two jabs, and got knocked sideways by a kick in the ribs.

  His breath was short and there was a dull pain in his ribs. The sensei told him to straighten up and fight. The ache in his ribs was either going to
slow him down or serve as his weapon. He straightened up, then lowered himself into a crouch facing the Monk. When he inhaled, he drew the ache into a fine, hot wire extending from his side up into his right arm. He aimed it at the Monk. He saw the wire pointing toward the Monk’s chest. When the Monk came at him he drove it home, feeling the impact of his knuckles against the Monk’s sternum travel back to its point of origin in his ribs. The pain dissipated and then it was gone, as if it had travelled from his own body into the Monk’s.

  The sensei called the point, the first time Ransom had ever scored on the Monk. He was trying to remember how he had done it, as they squared off, when the Monk kicked him in the chest for the match.

  When he remembered to look for DeVito, he was gone.

  After practice, as Ransom was folding up his gi, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  Very nice, said the Monk. I congratulate you.

  I was lucky, Ransom said.

  The Monk shook his head. All of your training was in that punch. Then he said something about focus.

  Ransom smiled foolishly. Ito, the Monk, smiled back. They stood this way, face to face, for a moment; Ransom vaguely anticipating a benediction, a word or gesture that would seal the transfer he felt had taken place. The Monk bowed, turned and walked off, his white gi slung over his shoulder, rolled and tied in the ragged black belt, plastic sandals flopping.

  Ransom drifted with the others across the street to the noodle shop where the toothless sobaya-san could not welcome them enough. Yamada was already sitting at the front table with a beer. When he saw Ransom he put down his glass and began to clap.

  Nice move, he said.

  Lucky move, the sensei called out from the counter.

  Yamada pulled out a chair for Ransom, poured a glass of beer and told him to drink it off. Ransom complied. Yamada ordered two more of the big half-liter bottles. Ransom thought about DeVito. Sizing him up. What he saw tonight would probably make him terribly confident. Ransom told himself that he didn’t care what DeVito thought, but his presence seemed to promise trouble.

  Yamada came back with beer. Time for sex crimes, he announced, and changed channels on the television. The room went quiet. The host and hostess of the show welcomed the home and studio audiences, then traded double entendres which the noodle shop audience thought hilarious. Most of them were over Ransom’s head.