Blue Light Yokohama

by Nicolas Obregon

“Hey, look who it is! Iwata, come join us.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “One thing at a time.” Moroto threw his darts.

  20.

  20.

  19.

  This drew ecstatic cheering from half of the men and swearing from Tatsuno and Yoshida. They threw down more money on the table.

  “Iwata, we’re playing Yamanote Killer.” Moroto winked. “Are you a betting man? ’Course you are.”

  Iwata was now at the edge of the group, smiles all fixed on him.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Let your hair down, Inspector. How about it? It’s fifty thousand to enter. What do you think? Think I’ll make it?”

  Before Iwata could reply, an arm was around his neck and he was being dragged down to the sofa by a powerful chokehold. The grunts sounded like Tatsuno. One of the yakuza soldiers, wearing cat-eye sunglasses and a half-open leather shirt, grinned as he flicked out a knife and pressed it to Iwata’s femoral vein. The vivid tattoo across his chest showed four dragons, openmouthed, converging on a woman about to be devoured. She was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, smiling.

  Moroto turned back to the dartboard.

  “The rules are very simple, Iwata. Three rounds, three shots. Each round, I have to get a higher score than the last and my final score has to be superior to that of my opponent. Yoshida here hit an impressive 174.”

  Double 11.

  Double 11.

  20.

  More cheering and cursing.

  “But I can’t deny it. I’m in a good run of form.”

  20.

  18.

  Triple 11.

  The group broke out into celebration, and he bowed. Horibe divvied up the bets, and Moroto sat down on the dirty vinyl chair across from Iwata. He smiled in the neon gloom.

  “Let him go.”

  Tatsuno reluctantly obliged. Air flooded back into Iwata’s lungs and black spots appeared over his vision. Cat Eyes kept his blade at Iwata’s thigh. Nobody from the other end of the arcade looked in their direction. Moroto drank half of his beer in two gulps, then slowly licked the foam from his lips like a kid messy with ice cream. His neck was a telephone pole and his eyes were curses.

  “Maybe this sounds a little strange but I have to say, it’s nice to see you again. You’ve been on my mind, Inspector Iwata.”

  Darts thudded into the board and there was more whooping behind them. Moroto waved his black and orange tie playfully in Iwata’s direction like a dirty tabby’s tail.

  “Do you like it? I’m thinking of wearing it next week. I want to look good for your disciplinary hearing.”

  “You’re the one that should be out of this job.” Iwata’s voice was a painful croak.

  Moroto’s large lips twisted into a smile. “You know you were right not to bet on Killer, Iwata. I don’t think it’s your game. You’d throw too high on your first round and then? Well, then you’d be stuck. Just like you are now.”

  “Ezawa didn’t kill anybody. But you knew he would kill himself, didn’t you? Or did you tell him to do it?”

  Cat Eyes tutted like a disapproving grandmother. Moroto touched his hand to his lips in mock offense.

  “Inspector.”

  “You’re a sickness, Moroto.”

  “And what’s so unfair about sickness? Is sunshine unfair? Any more than cholera? Maybe I am a sickness. But I’m not a god. I don’t create the Ezawas of this world. I just destroy them.”

  “You’re going to jail.”

  Moroto belly laughed.

  “Who do you think keeps the jail in fucking business? And anyway, I don’t like what you’re implying. Mr. Ezawa was resisting arrest and certain action had to be taken. He resisted arrest with you too, did he not? This violent perpetrator had form. We couldn’t afford to take any chances.”

  “Is that what you call beating a disabled kid with his hands handcuffed behind his back?”

  Moroto popped open another beer and drank with deep satisfaction. He looked at Tatsuno and rolled his eyes, as if taking an annoying phone call from a nagging wife.

  “You’re a real stickler for detail, you know that?”

  “Put your complaints against me—I don’t care. But I will ensure that you don’t get away with this.”

  “Will you, now?”

  “I swear it.”

  Moroto smiled again and ran a hand through his black buzz cut.

  “I don’t get you, Iwata. You’re just a few days away from being a civilian. What’s the point in fighting the battles of the dead?”

  “Because that’s what we do. That’s police. Have you forgotten?”

  Tatsuno chuckled. Moroto and Cat Eyes shared a smile.

  “Very sweet. Unfortunately for you, buddy, the TMPD needs a spring cleaning. Change is needed.”

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  Something deep and distant clicked for Iwata.

  “… It was you, wasn’t it? You leaked the Ohba story.”

  Moroto clapped and Tatsuno leaned forward and ruffled Iwata’s hair.

  “You know what I like about you, Iwata? You never let me finish before. What I like about you is that you’re too fucking stupid to realize you should fear me. And not because I can end your career. But because I know you, Iwata. I looked under your fucking rock. I know about you and about your fucking crazy American wife and your fucking dead half-breed kid. I know about your little sabbatical in rehab. And it wasn’t just the one monkey on your back, was it? What was your vintage? Drink and prescription pills? You seem the vanilla breakdown type.”

  Moroto leaned forward and tapped him on the kneecap gently, as if he were considering a purchase.

  “I know you, Iwata. And you know what will happen next week at the disciplinary? Your suitability will be discussed. You’ll be put in front of a psych evaluation. The doctor will say, ‘Hmmm … maybe the pressure has been getting to you. Understandable after what you’ve been through.’ Perhaps your history with alcohol will be discussed. Perhaps a link with your violent outbursts will be made. Such a shame, considering the talent of the investigator, but risk management is paramount. It’s all very unfortunate.”

  Iwata struggled but Tatsuno grabbed him again and Cat Eyes lifted the blade to his ear. Moroto’s smile was almost sad.

  “Do you know what I want from you, Iwata? I just want you to be honest with me. That’s it. Tell me the truth. You’re not a cop. You’re only here to fill a hole. To fill a void. To keep you off the drink. You’re not here to make a living, like us. I know you, Iwata. I know you have nothing else to live for. And do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take it all away from you. Your little girlfriend Sakai included.” Moroto walked his fingers like a small pair of legs up Iwata’s chest and pulled on his bottom lip. “Ah, don’t feel too bad, this would have happened sooner or later. Whatever the opposite of love at first sight is, that’s us. Your class and my class? We hate each other without needing a reason. Always have. It’s in the blood, I guess.”

  Moroto waved off his men and Iwata backed away from them. His balance was wavering, his vision swimming with bright colors.

  “You’re a long way from Disneyland now, Mickey Mouse. Tokyo is mine.”

  Iwata staggered away, swerving to avoid pool players. Moroto was standing on his chair now, his face pink with jubilation.

  “Hey, Inspector!” He raised his beer. “You have a real productive day!”

  * * *

  Iwata descended the stairs into a glum basement bar. At the back was the only real draw: five dirty penguins huddling on a small concrete shelf above a tank of murky water. Iwata had come here years ago—another lifetime—though he didn’t want to remember why. Disappointed American tourists avoided looking at the penguins as the waiter explained today’s specials in broken English. Iwata doubted today’s were any more special than yesterday’s.

  He sat at the bar and ordered a vodka tonic. At the other end, a young white-collar worker
laughed desperately at his client’s jokes, though the flush in his face conveyed embarrassment. Iwata drank three vodka tonics in a row, enjoying the warmth spreading through his head and chest. But the warmth scared him. Though it was an empty life, Iwata had at least attempted to start again—like a man walking away from a car crash, trying to thumb a ride with bloodied hands. But there was an angry addict inside him who did not want to start again. An angry drunk who could not be reasoned with. Like a great tide, the warmth would drag him under and toss him back somewhere else, far, far away, flotsam on the surface of an unwanted life.

  Iwata drank another three vodkas. His earlobes burned and his stomach knotted. He knew the drink would lighten him, would deaden him to consequences. It would make him look over the precipice, down into the smiling eye of his own world. He wanted to be engulfed by a cold so all-encompassing that it would obliterate all sensation.

  Iwata drank until floating was the same as sinking, all the while trying to drown out Cleo. Somewhere beyond or beneath, the black sun murmured at him.

  Hello?

  Are you there, Iwata?

  You can’t sleep here.

  Iwata opened his eyes and the neon around the ceiling was a blur.

  “Go home, pal. You can’t sleep here.” The barman said the phrase with fluency.

  The penguins had woken. A plastic bucket had been overturned, spilling shiny fish across the ledge. Silver and pink bodies slithered away from the beaks but the penguins languidly pecked at the guts. One of the penguins ignored the fish, climbed up to the highest point on the ledge and dived into the murky water instead, only to waddle out and repeat the process a few seconds later.

  Peck, peck, guzzle, splash. Peck, peck, guzzle, splash.

  Their black faces and white breasts were stained with filth and fish blood. A dog kennel painted with a smiling penguin’s face on its side stood empty and unused in the corner.

  Like a nightmare emerging, Iwata suddenly remembered why he knew this place. He had been here with Cleo, years ago, in his previous incarnation. They had come here for coffee and toast after a night drinking with friends.

  Who had those friends been?

  Iwata couldn’t remember. He just remembered Cleo had laughed at this stupid little place. She loved Tokyo’s gaudy details—cartoon silliness everywhere, despite the gray, expressionless reality of the city.

  Iwata was off his stool now, his money missing the bar-top—he had to get out, even though there was no such thing. He took one last look at the diving penguin, stuck on a loop, forever hoping to surface somewhere else.

  * * *

  In the backstreets of Ikebukuro, Iwata staggered away from his vomit puddle using the moss-covered walls for balance. He ambled south. Though his apartment was almost ten kilometers away, Iwata was beyond sensing distance or hours.

  He passed Gakushuin University, its old trees weeping over the road parallel to the subway. Blocking out a childhood memory of riding the Yamanote Line, he passed the huddle of smokers outside Takadanobaba Hospital. The vastness of Shinjuku Station came into view, almost done swallowing its daily diet of 3.5 million passengers.

  Iwata headed west and skyscrapers shot upward, tapering monuments to order and profit. Logos took on strange significance—two cats representing a courier company, an eagle advertising car tires, a red flower selling probiotic yogurt. Outside a luxury hotel, a row of beige and yellow taxis contained sleeping drivers, hoping to be woken by guests hungry for Tokyo’s flesh. Iwata walked south beneath the large ventricle of Metropolitan Expressway No. 4, traffic intermittently shushing over him. Looking up, he tried to see the stars but there were only skyscrapers and gray murk.

  Iwata arrived home at 1:30 A.M., vomited, and blacked out trying to picture Sakai naked.

  * * *

  Stars hang over Chōshi like a sheen of silver sweat. The ocean is timid and quiet tonight.

  Cleo is in the kitchen, waiting for Kosuke to come home. She doesn’t ask about the scuffed knuckles. She doesn’t ask about the stains. She does not answer the phone, even though it will only ever be her mother calling. If not her mother, it will be the silent one. Cleo hardly leaves the house now. She doesn’t think about what has become of her life. She prefers to think about the early days. In the distance, she hears the faint yearning of foghorns. She looks out of the window. The lighthouse blinks weakly. When he had first shown her the lighthouse, they had looked at it for a long time, a lonely quirk against the mulberry twilight. They make me feel sad, she had said. They care about you but all they do is tell you to stay away. Kosuke hadn’t replied.

  He is late again, and though it is a ridiculous time to prepare a dinner, she takes out vegetables from the refrigerator. She rolls up her sleeves, washes her hands, and begins to chop carrots. She does this slowly, to feel like his routine is something that she can be part of too.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Cleo stops and looks at the knife. She can hear Nina’s peaceful breathing over the baby monitor. Yet the sound of her child provokes nothing in Cleo. Nothing at all. That absence might have worried her, but at least it was better than the bad thoughts. The thoughts that could not be spoken about.

  Cleo closes her eyes and thinks about the past.

  She thinks about the time when she and Kosuke lived naked in their nest, drunk on the warm glory of youth and love. They kissed hesitantly at first, nervous guests serving themselves at an unfamiliar table. They slept in snatches. Cleo spoke of the pastry shop windows she had looked through as a little girl. Of riding on the shoulders of her father like a king on an elephant. Kosuke liked those stories. They spoke as though everything before had existed only to transport them to this bed. The windows of Cleo’s old apartment would frost over with their breath and she would trace hearts on the glass. The apartment was near a church whose bells rang clanged for saints’ days and other irrelevancies. They smiled at the clangor—as you would at a drunk telling jokes. She would look down at the streets below, sand from the nearby beach blowing along the street. They would shed clothes for days at a time and eat like survivors in an abandoned city. Cleo’s body was a skein of geese rising up, silently bound for winter sun.

  They lived from each other, they nourished and shared each other. They went to all the places where true feelings hide—dark minerals cloistered under moss. Kosuke kissed her navel while she phoned in sick. Cleo kissed his knees while he recited poetry.

  Memories.

  Mourning.

  Motes.

  The door opens and Kosuke tosses his keys on the table.

  “Sorry,” he says, scratching his face.

  Cleo has stopped asking for reasons. She wonders if he knows what he’s apologizing for.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Don’t go to much trouble.”

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  “How was your day?” he says, smelling his own armpits.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  “Fine.” Cleo smiles.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  “How is Nina?” he asks without interest.

  “Fine.” She smiles. “She’s sleeping.”

  “Good.”

  “How is the case going?”

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  “Same.” He exhales. “You know how things are here.”

  Cleo does know.

  A lonely island populated by lonely people, obsessed with mountains and things that die.

  “Oh,” she says, washing the knife under the tap.

  Kosuke opens the fridge and seems to realize something.

  “Cleo?”

  Her heart is breaking with love and the truth and everything in her that ever was. She knows Kosuke is no longer who he was, she knows that what they had is dead, but even so, she still needs him. Needs him to tell her he loves her. Needs some
small souvenir of human feeling.

  Even if it’s a lie.

  “Y-yes?”

  “How do these green peppers look to you?”

  * * *

  Iwata jolted awake, screaming, surrounded by his own vomit. For a moment of horror, he was in the shadow of the lighthouse, the waves breaking around him, sounding like the rip rip rip of a child’s backpack. He ran to the kitchen, tearing open cabinets.

  No. No. No.

  He struggled into his shoes, threw on his raincoat, and rushed down to street level. Heavy rain soaked him instantly and he realized he was wearing no trousers under his coat. It didn’t matter to him. He ran toward the corner, and squinted as the automatic doors of FamilyMart gasped open for him. The clock read 3:04 A.M. The shop was empty. So was the soft ballad playing.

  Iwata kept his eyes low and snatched up a liter-bottle of vodka. At the counter, the cashier bagged the purchase, saying nothing. The price appeared on the register. Iwata fumbled for money. He would run for it if he had to but in the inside pocket of his coat he found an old credit card. The cashier ran it, and Iwata trembled as the card machine processed his credit.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Before she could bow, Iwata was out of the store. He was ripping off the cap and swallowing as though he had dragged himself through a desert for it. A ripple of fire through his guts, and then an unnatural twisting, but Iwata at last felt the calm.

  He crossed the road into a children’s playground. He lay back against the metal slide, which soaked his back. He drank more and looked up at the sky, rain pattering his face. He stayed there until dawn dribbled through the gray clouds.

  A woman was walking her dog at the other end of the park, trying not to look at him. There was dried vomit on his chest and his back hurt from the slide. Iwata pulled his raincoat around his body and walked. He found himself by Yoyogi-kōen Station, which was swallowing a steady stream of commuters now. It was 6:20 A.M. Iwata passed the level crossing, zigzagging through the cyclists waiting for the trains to clear. He passed under the gloomy overpass and ignored the usual left turn. Instead, he carried on down the narrow path that skirted the fenced-off train tracks. A few hundred meters along, hidden by bamboo, was a doorway. The sign above it read:

  SOAP