Memoirs of a Vending Machine

Memoirs of a Vending Machine Page 2

by James Pollard

Old Friends

  Mike was a lovely guy but over the last ten years of working in Japan he had become dumpy. Being short didn’t help but it didn’t stop him trying for the corporate look. These days, he wore cheap, Japanese salary man-priced black suits that he assumed was the mandatory uniform of the straight-jacketed society to which he aspired to belong. At the top of his game, he was working for one of the highest paying corporate training and translation companies in Japan. He split his time between being dispatched to companies to train staff in language and culture and doing simultaneous translation, Japanese to English.

  Mike and Miyako had just finished a corporate training session for the staff at the Hotel Granvia.

  "Well, I skipped lunch today and the ramen upstairs is pretty good… I am, after all, a bit of a RA…man but it is Starbucks and I do like to sit and look 'corporate' in my suit. So, which is it then? The Star or the Ra? Let's make Astro Boy choose?" suggested Mike.

  "Mike, are you still with me here?" joked Miyako. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Atomu to the right."

  "What?"

  "Up and right… Atomu the statue."

  "Oh, Astro Boy up there… the statue. I forgot we were at Kyoto station. Look, on second thoughts, I'm gonna take a rain check on the Star and the Ra."

  "Oh, was it something I said, then?"

  "Ha… like I give a damn what you say… especially after that Astro Boy thing. No, I've got some friends coming in from the States tomorrow and … you know, I'm just tired and want to get going, you know?"

  "Yeah, to tell you the truth, I'm pretty stuffed as well," conceded Mike. "But I was thinking of catching up with some old friends myself, tonight."

  "Oh, yeah, anyone I know?"

  "Just these guys."

  "Mike, stop nodding your head and pouting," demanded Miyako affectionately.

  "Oh, sorry," apologized Mike. " No, no… you wouldn't know them. They go way back… Back to the day I landed here for the first time. Wow, it's been such a long time."

  "No seriously, I mean stop this guilt-trip look you give me every time I am too busy to go somewhere with you. You’re a nice guy and all but I just don’t… Gotta go Mike. See you on Monday at Kiyobashi station."

  "Yeah, later," replied Mike.

  They parted ways at the top of the pedestrian walkway exit of Kyoto station not far from the entrance to the hotel. Miyako rode the escalator down to the JR central entrance to catch the Shinkansen Hikari and Mike walked back to the other side of the station via the pedestrian walkway to get to the Karasuma Subway. It was two stops to Shijo station. There, he could change to the Hankyu line at Karasuma Station then on to Umeda in Osaka, where he had a 2LDK apartment.

  Mike had been in touch with his old friend Mark recently and knew that he would be in town. Mark was coming back from Sydney sometime today, after finishing some marketing for his new online shopping venture. He wasn't sure, but Mike suspected he might be staying with Jon.

  The train carriage was almost empty, as peak hour had long since passed, but Mike still felt a twinge of guilt as he breached train etiquette, using a keitai denwa (cell phone) within earshot of other passengers.

  "Moshi moshi," answered Jon.

  "Hey mate, Mike here. I was going to text you but you know how it is… I mean with you and checking your messages and all. Up for a meeting of the brethren at The Cantaloupe?"

  "Need to confess do you?" joked Jon.

  "Yeah, yeah, me and everybody else. Is Mark coming?"

  "Well he's due at my house later on this afternoon but I haven't had a chance to put it to him yet," answered Jon. "Having said that, though… No?… To Happy Hour in Osaka? What are the chances he's changed that much?"

  It was Friday and Jon and Mike arranged to meet that evening at 6:00 pm precisely, in order to get as much from the hour as was possible. After finishing with Jon, Mike put his keitai in his coat pocket and picked up his copy of the Japan Times, the headline catching his attention.

  Japan's whale meat stockpile hit record last year: activists

  Tokyo - Japan's whale meat stocks likely hit a record level of more than 6,000 tons last year, conservationists were quoted as saying in a report Wednesday, suggesting it is becoming less popular with consumers.

  "Makes sense," thought Mike. "Haven't seen any kujira (whale) at the supa (supermarket) for ages." He scanned the article to keep abreast of the developing issue but quickly moved on to other news. Mike had found it prudent to avoid thinking and talking too much about kujira and iruka (dolphin) over the years. As an Australian living in Japan, the issue always ended up forcing him to either take the Australian side or prove his loyalty to his Japanese friends and associates. Eventually, finding himself reading the entertainment listings, Mike occupied himself with movie and band reviews, his mind wandering forward to the meeting at The Cantaloupe later that evening.

  The House

  Mark had arrived at Kansai airport at around 11:00 am. Customs had been a breeze and he had been able to catch the Nankai express to Tennoji then the Osaka loop line to Hachijo station. Dressed in dark denim jeans, a dark blue shirt and a black leather jacket, he towered over the twenty or so other people who rushed to alight ahead of him. Thankful that the morning peak hour had passed, he stood alone at the platform, positioned his sunglasses on top of his head then took a moment to check that he had all his baggage.

  As he bent over, a droplet of water from the roof of the platform hit the back of his freshly shaven neck and he became aware of the fact that he was outdoors. It was overcast and cold. He stopped momentarily and stared, bent over his luggage as feelings of regret and self-doubt began to emerge. Quickly though, he psyched himself back into a positive frame of mind. He wasn’t too worried about anything in particular––it was just that he didn’t really want to stay with Jon.

  Having spent the last six years in this country, he had really seen and done all the things that were to be seen and done. He was almost a local. For Mark, a single room in the more affluent north would be a more serene and restful way to spend the next three months. History had taught Mark that staying with Jon would be anything but serene or restful. Still, he felt obliged to stay, as it was the Tanaka family who had suggested he stay and he really owed a debt of gratitude to Kenichi, who actually owned the house.

  Mark knew the house well. It was the official ‘house of fun’ from the early days when Mark, Mike and Jon had first arrived in Japan. The house—if you could call it that—was small. It was located in a downtown area called Hachijo, not too far away from minami, the south and was just off the main shopping area of a shotengai (shopping street).

  Hachijo station was located on top of a fairly sizeable overpass with escalators and a lift that waited patiently to take the passengers to and from the shadowy area below. Underneath, a road ran on either side of an island made from the giant columns that supported the train line and the freeway. It had been a couple of years since Mark had descended into the local shadows and he hesitated a little before he boarded the escalator. Baggage in hand he began the long journey down to the dark concrete island.

  Although, technically now at ground level, there was a certain subterranean feel as he alighted from the escalator. Without looking back, he paused a couple of meters in front of it in order to orient himself. He looked left then right and reminisced as he gazed the length of the shotengai. Yet again he became dazzled by the hive of trading activity illuminated by coloured lights in overstocked window-displays full of cheap junk. He looked ahead, noticing the tinsel-town pachinko (Japanese pinball) parlor and saw a short man dressed in a casual trainer tracksuit, wearing fluffy women's slippers. Yakuza, Mark's intuition warned him. He turned instinctively in order to avoid making eye contact with the man. Others had told him, that as long as you kept your distance from the Yakuza, there was no need to worry about them.

  Mark stood much taller than the man and was at least three times larger, purely by muscle weight—and yet he
was intimidated. He cast his mind back to the early days and how confident his height and build had made him. The passage of time and the experiences lived, however, had qualified this raw confidence and he now knew that the real power was not just with one’s individual size.

  He had heard many stories from other gaijin (foreigners). In his early days of exploration, Mark had made the traditional pilgrimages to most of the bars and clubs frequented by other expats. There always seemed to be an older-looking, slightly built Yakuza man in residence at any one of the so called gaijin bars, ubiquitous to the major cities in Japan. Often drunk, a harem's worth of attractive foreign women would swoon around the man who sported a full skin canvas of irezumi (tattoos) and the persona of Charles Bronson. It wasn’t hard to strike up a conversation with other foreign men about the spectacle but the code name in English had become the 'Y'.

  According to the grapevine, it seemed that every now and again a foreign person would go missing, the disappearance being attributable to the 'Y’. Word was that this only happened if you got to know one of them and got in the way. If it happened, the police were predisposed to sweep it all under the carpet, particularly when it came to the disappearance of a foreigner, as it was not worth the risk of facing the Yakuza for the sake of gaijin, given the possible consequences.

  Having avoided drawing any attention to himself, Mark stared at the three-storey MacDonald's to the right of the pachinko parlor. The memories of a thousand late breakfasts leapt into his conscious thoughts. He contemplated a quick teriyaki burger for old time’s sake but he decided against it, as he was keen to see the old house and to reacquaint himself with Jon. The house was to the right, and it was necessary to cross traffic, over the concrete island and over to the other side. There was a break in the traffic so; rather than wait for the green ‘walk’ signal with the accompanying morbid minor-key walk-melody, he decided to scoot across without the wait. Passing a koban (police box) located on the island, he noticed a policeman sitting at a desk. He gave a fleeting glance then continued on to the other side.

  Mark's emotions were conflicted as he entered the familiar shotengai. He was happy to remember his humble beginnings in this wonderful country but felt confronted by the realization that he had grown considerably since he had lived in this area. He walked on, passing the Sanwa Bank, the store that sold kimonos, the tofu maker and yasai ya––the vegetable store where he first purchased his now favorite Japanese cabbage, Hakusai. He passed the izakaya, Mark's favorite Japanese pub of old. It was located opposite a side road a little to the left and Mark remembered that he should turn here.

  Hastening his pace, a quick right turn at the all-too-familiar jidouhanbaiki (vending machine) and he was on the home stretch. Memories of the many cans of Asahi Super Dry beer purchased at the eleventh hour at this very machine came flooding back and he quickened his pace, subconsciously trying to run away from his past.

  The street was far narrower and darker than he had remembered. The two-storey houses did not seem at all to be of a livable size and the electric wiring was perched precariously atop the second-storey balconies, twisted together like strands of liquorice. It contrasted with the crisp cleanliness of the futons hanging on second-storey clothes-lines. Together, they stole away the purifying rays of sun at the expense of the lower street area, forcing the inhabitants to live in shadow.

  He paused at the entrance, a powder-coated brown aluminum sliding door with frosted panes of glass. There was a doorbell with an intercom but he presumed that, after six years, it still didn’t work. He collected his thoughts for a moment then knocked and waited. After a short pause that seemed to Mark like an hour, he heard footsteps coming down the hall. The door slid open and an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, with a fashionable, short, red, elfin hairstyle appeared wearing tight black pants with a half-top that revealed a perfectly shaped stomach. Mark didn’t know her and was quite taken back by her enticing appearance. He stuttered a little as he tried to explain why he was here.

  "Um… J… J… Jon."

  The woman filled in the gap.

  "Why didn’t you use the doorbell, silly? Are you looking for Jon?" she asked in an English accent.

  Mark gave his head an imaginary shake from side to side in order to reboot his brain and focus back on the topic and away from her belly button. Recovering quickly, he enquired about Jon’s whereabouts.

  "Hi, I’m Mark, an old friend of Jon’s and I was wondering if he was at home?"

  "Oh you must be that Mark," she replied warmly. "I’ve heard so much about you. Jon says you might be staying for a few months. Come in… come in," she insisted. "I’m Kimberly."

  "Nice to meet you," replied Mark.

  His mind privately sidetracked as he recalled the countless Japanese language students that he had taught this exact adjacency pair to over the years in which he had taught the function of introductions, as an English language teacher.

  "Jon’s not home yet but he just called me to say he was about fifteen minutes away. He’s on his bicycle, silly git," she added with a cheeky smile.

  Mark accepted her warm proposal with just a little more than a spring in his step and followed Kimberly into the house. He took off his shoes in the genkan area, like any other long-term resident of this country would, and proceeded on to the kitchen area on the right. The hallway was particularly narrow and dark, allowing enough space for a body and one raised elbow, without space to swing a cat. Mark remembered that the shower was at the end of the hallway to the left and the laundry area to the right. The entrance to Jon’s room, between the two, no more than about six quick paces from the genkan.

  He followed her in to the kitchen area without talking and noticed furniture that had not been there when had lived here. There was a flat-screen TV on the bench space that separated the kitchen area from the lounge area, with some speakers on the floor and a konro (portable gas cooker) placed on a glass-topped coffee table in front of the sofa sitting flush against the back wall. A phone was on the wall, surrounded by a thousand numbers, hand-written directly on the wall in different ink colors.

  Forcing the conversation a little, Mark enquired about Kimberly.

  "So you live here with Jon then?" he asked rhetorically.

  "Ya," she replied a little elusively, immediately looking to the side, away from Mark's gaze.

  Mark couldn’t help but notice the paucity of her responses and her body language, suspecting secret relationship issues between her and Jon.

  "Working as an English teacher?" he pushed.

  "Not exactly, I help out in the office at a private school and do a few 'privates' myself… you know."

  The conversation moved to perfunctory so Mark, losing interest, politely suggested that he sit down and wait for Jon. Kimberly was more than happy to accommodate. She motioned to the more than adequate supply of DVDs strewn across the shelf under the glass coffee table. Making her apologies, she told Mark he was welcome to wait but she was already a little late for work and needed to get going. He made no objection but thought it a little irresponsible that she would leave a virtual stranger alone in the house, wondering if she might just be keen to leave in a hurry for other reasons.

  The front door rattled and Mark recognized the familiar sound of the aluminum door sliding along the track coming to an abrupt halt as it crashed in to the end stop.

  "Taidaima, I’m home," chimed in Jon.

  Mark looked at Kimberly, their eyes meeting just in time for Mark to notice a hint of joy in her expression. Without speaking, Mark stood up, following Kimberly out of the kitchen door, and back in to the hall way.

  "Hello young man," said Jon jokingly, as he ritualistically attempted to prise his shoes off, toe to heel with much effort, no dexterity and minimal success.

  Without further elaboration of the standard salutation, he quickly switched his attention to Kimberly nodding his head and making eye contact with her to signal the transition. Giving up on prising his shoe off the traditional way,
Jon switched to leaning with one hand on the wall, while he raised his foot and began yanking the shoe off with the other.

  "How did you go with the rent?" she asked Jon.

  "Well it was difficult but what can I do? I mean… we had the money, I handed the envelope to them, so if they can’t remember getting all the fucking money what can I do? I’m not paying any extra."

  "So we don’t owe them anything?"

  "Well… they didn’t actually say that, but that’s the way it looks."

  Turning his attention to Mark after successfully taking his shoes off and stepping up from the genkan to the hallway, Jon explained what was going on.

  "The Tanaka’s… they think I’ve ripped them off… fuckers."

  Mark thought this to be pretty typical of Jon. Mark had been the controller of the house and the reliable one when he had lived here. He kept it to himself but filed the thought not too far back in his memory.

  "Ya," added Kimberly. "We all know that we gave the money to Jon and we saw him put it in the envelope. They’ve lost it if they think we could rip them off… fucking hell… I mean… what do they think?"

  Kimberly’s phone rudely demanded her attention. An old-style telephone bell ring tone was surprisingly low-key, considering what was available these days in Japan as far as keitai denwa technology went. She answered in English and immediately slunk away, climbing the narrow stairway leading off from the side of the hall way to one of the bedrooms on the second floor.

  Jon nodded towards the kitchen, virtually pushing Mark through the door as he made a beeline for his collection of pirated DVDs. It had been a while but Jon just continued on as if no time had elapsed since Mark had lived here. Swept up by the momentum, Mark followed the mood and just sat down on the sofa in front of the TV––just the way they used to.

  "What have you got?"he asked.

  "How about this one? Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It’s a corker," he noted, holding up the disk.

  "Put it on," demanded Mike.

  While Jon was powering up everything in his construction of recycled audio-visual devices, he continued with small talk.

  "So, how have you been, then?"

  There was no need to re-explain the return-to-Australia story, as they had been through this over the phone when Mark had organized to stay at the house. Without much more to add to this, Mark turned it back on Jon, asking him how things were.

  "Not bad, how about you?"

  "Well, I’d have to say, a little complicated," began Jon.

  "You mean with Alison?" asked Mark.

  "Yeah…it’s probably nothing but… well… I called her on Monday night and when she answered the phone she was breathing heavily."

  "So what? Did you think she’d just had sex or something?"

  "Well, yes… I… I… it was the way she was breathing. I asked her and she said she’d just run up some stairs to get to the phone… but she said it so quickly and she didn’t question me… It was just strange, I thought."

  Mark had met Alison about a year ago and was pretty sure that she wasn’t the type to cheat. She was a model from Mexico and came to Japan to strut her stuff. She had met Jon in a nightclub. Unfortunately, the modeling hadn’t worked out that well because her skin was a little blemished with freckles. It was cute and didn’t affect her employment prospects in any other country, other than the country in which Jon, most wished she could stay.

  "So, does she still do that stuff for Greenseas?" asked Mark.

  "Yeah, she's posted a shed-load of info on her blog and has a couple of links to some You Tube rants about the dolphin thing in Taiji."

  "Wow, she sure was pissed that she couldn't get much work here," suggested Mike.

  "That's not it at all," responded Jon defensively.

  "Oh, come on! You can't buy that sort of politically correct publicity. Tell me that's not why she's getting all that work in Sydney right now."

  "Nothing to do with it," said Jon, defending Alison's honor.

  "Still the same old Jon, never letting a beautiful girl with an altruistic and plausible motive get in the way of the truth," taunted Mark.

  "What truth?" questioned Jon angrily.

  "That no one in this country really gives a fuck about eating Moby Dick and his friend Flipper, except those fucking nationalists."

  Jon fell silent and Mark got the feeling that he might have overstepped the mark a little.

  "So, you're really worried about her, are you? Is it still on?"

  "I don’t know," said Jon with a hint of sadness about him.

  “We keep in touch, but recently her emails and texts are a bit cold… nothing in them… just, I did this and I did that… nothing close or ... you know... personal."

  "Ah, we're up," he interrupted, as, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels finished loading.

  They had been watching the movie a while and were at the part where the gangsters smash in on the dealers to take the money, when the real kitchen door swung open and in walked Kimberly. Without asking, Jon paused the DVD and looked at her.

  Paranoia

  "Yeah, it was Marley," she answered without being asked.

  Jon sprang to attention.

  "How was she?"

  "So fucking paranoid. I spent the whole time calming her down."

  "What… what… what?"

  Jon couldn’t quite form a sentence but Kimberly knew what he wanted to know.

  "She was after Peter and Michelle. She said she’d give them up to the police if anything more happened. I just talked and talked to get her off our backs."

  "What do you mean… does she want to take us down?" asked Jon, a quiver in his voice revealing his fear.

  Mark's ears pricked up. Both Kimberly and Jon stared at him, trying to gauge his reaction, while they continued their conversation.

  "Yeah kind of… but just leave it… I talked her down… she’s fine for now but she’s getting worse."

  Mark just couldn’t stay silent any longer.

  "Talk to me folks," he ordered.

  Jon and Kimberly stared at each other for a moment until Jon took the lead.

  "Look Mark, it’s a long story but if you’re going to stay here you need to know."

  Kimberly sat down next to Mark on the left, legs angled towards Mark’s direction while Jon turned a little, legs angled towards Mark from the right. Boxed in, Mark knew he was in for something.

  Jon proudly boasted that he would go out on Friday night and finish up on Sunday evening, crashing before work the next day, having not slept the entire weekend. He also said, matter-of–factly, that in order to say awake, he was living on speed but insisted that he could handle it. Kimberly pretty much matched Jon’s version of things action for action. They bounced off each other, telling stories and filling in each other’s conversational gaps.

  "Ok then," interrupted Mark. "So you’ve been busy destroying brain cells and avoiding sleep. You know me, too old and too used to eight hours a night sleep. So how is this going to be a problem?"

  "Ah… that’s just the thing," began Jon. "It’s not us."

  Kimberly nodded then looked to Jon for reassurance.

  "Not you?" echoed Mark. "Where does it go from here?"

  "Well," continued Jon. "About a year ago, we met Marley and Josh. They used to go clubbing a lot and we just got to know them as part of a circle of friends that we used to meet there every weekend."

  "So what?"

  "Yeah," interrupted Kimberly. "We used to get most of our 'E’s' from them… and our friends too."

  “They used to supply all of us and it started to get bigger and bigger," continued Jon.

  Mark was beginning to get the picture. Marley and Josh had started off pretty small, just getting 'E’s' for friends from some local supplier. But as things ballooned, they started making mystery trips to Tokyo to ensure that supply magically kept pace with demand.

  Jon and Kimberly explained that the two had started to wield a little power and influence,
first within the group of friends at the nightclub and then to a much wider group of foreigners as they started supplying to a wider group. At the same time, older men with tattoos accompanied by younger chimpira (young punks) were seen at the club in the company of both Marley and Josh.

  "So who were Marley and Josh?" asked Mark. 'What did they do other than… you know?"

  "They were just a couple of English language school teachers from a small school in Senri Chuo," explained Kimberly."

  "Nothing special really," added Jon.

  Mark started to become a little annoyed with the turn that things had taken but he pressed on.

  "Ok then, I get it so far. We’ve got a couple of English language teachers… they sell drugs… you buy them and they get to know the 'Y'. I’m almost scared to ask, but how bad does it get from here?"

  Jon and Kimberly started to shuffle a bit and again stared into each other’s eyes as Jon continued to explain.

  "Well, it got really bad a couple of days ago," continued Jon.

  Mark raised his eyebrows expressing alarm as he hung on to Jon’s every word.

  Jon explained that Marley and Josh had started to burn the candle at both ends, both supplying and using and working during the day; they had started to use a lot of speed just to keep up. Kimberly explained that what had started off as a once-in-a-while thing had turned into a couple-of-times-a-day habit and that this had affected Marley and Josh's personalities. They had started fudging time sheets and stealing things like iPod docks, small pieces of furniture, milk from the fridge––anything they could lay their hands on at the English Language company in Senri Chuo where they worked, in full view of other staff and without remorse. It turned out that no-one wanted to say anything because they had become powerful with their 'Y' connections and most of the staff had bought at least something from the two over the past couple of years.

  Mark was engrossed in the story, keen to see how it ended yet at the same time was becoming aware of a rising tide of panic festering in his stomach. He kept a straight face, continuing to nod, punctuating Jon’s narrative with occasional grunts of acknowledgement. As he listened, he questioned the wisdom that had led to his decision to spend the next three months here and he was already starting to bargain with himself, looking for a way out.

  "Ok then," said Mark with an audible quiver in his voice. "How is this connected to the phone call you just took, Kimberly?"

  "She's gone all loopy… paranoid."

  "Who…who's gone loopy?" demanded Mark.

  "Marley… she's paranoid… thinks we're all trying to put her away with Josh." "Put her away with Josh? What are you talking about?"

  "The police have his keitai," interrupted Jon. "They've got all his friend's numbers."

  The three fell silent, and Mark's gaze alternated between Jon and Kimberly. Mark didn't need to ask the question. Adrenaline surged through his veins as Kimberly answered.

  "We don't know if they have our numbers or if Josh managed to delete them."

  Keitai Friends

  Work was boring that day. The temperature was a constant 25 0C outside and a constant 25 0C inside. Staring out the window of the 18th floor from his teaching cubicle on the 18th floor, he could see that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The air was crisp and he could see clearly to the horizon. He became lost in the detail of the vast metropolis that rolled out in front of him. High-rise apartments, freeway overpasses and advertising billboards as far as the eye could see. It was only a morning shift today and a couple of students had cancelled their lessons, giving him some free time. Mrs Hashimoto, the doctor’s wife, had already been in for her dose of repetitive low-level, low-function English conversational practice and Yamamoto San, the alcoholic business man, had finished his usual 40-minute session of random language generation, booking several more lessons on the way out.

  The cancellations meant that he could finish up early if he wanted to and on a day like today it was the only option expected of him. As he left the back part of the floor space inhabited by culturally iconic young men and women from America, England and Oceania, he brushed past a couple of middle-aged Japanese women who giggled like little girls then shied away with embarrassment, eyes to the ground. He smiled at them as he continued on. It was a routine that had started to become tedious because it reminded him that this was all just a set up to cater for a demand for cultural showpieces able to speak English and nothing to do with learning. It was easy—a gravy train—but lately, he was just finding it difficult to keep the faith, relying on his developing social life and widening circle of friends to keep him positive.

  Josh stuffed a jar of coffee he had taken from the staff room supply into his back pack, clocked out just after 2:00 pm, took the elevator to the first floor, walked out into the front foyer and headed out of the automatic glass sliding doors into the rest of the day.

  Life had been confusing recently and was in a stage of transition and re-evaluation. He had begun life in Japan as a starry-eyed, naive English language teacher but was now beginning to uncover a world that he didn’t know could even exist. He had more friends now than before in Australia, had each and every one of their numbers in his contact file on his keitai (mobile phone) and had a thriving business that was starting to eclipse his salary as a teacher.

  Although still young, he needed to pause on a small stairway to take a breath and shake off the tiredness that was starting to overtake him. The stairs led to a large shopping square that lay in the shadow between three large multi-storey buildings. Across the paved area in front of him and over to the left in a small alcove, Josh could see the toilet that had become a familiar stop-off for him on the way to the local underground train station. He walked over, quickly glancing behind as he walked in the toilet, choosing the western toilet cubicle. He shut the door behind him, put down the seat and without undoing his trousers, sat down, placing the backpack that he was carrying down on the floor in front of his knees.

  He unzipped the backpack and foraged around until he found the little zip-lock bag containing the tiny crystals and the straw he had saved from his last visit to Wendy’s to buy a vanilla shake. A quick but short burst of vacuum strength suction put things back into a new perspective. Recharged, Josh sat for a while, pondering nothing more than the thought that it was pretty cool to just to sit and ponder. After an inconsequential period of time, he packed up, zipped up and left the cubicle with an entirely new take on what was, after all, a perfectly ordinary setting on a perfectly ordinary day.

  Soon Josh was on his way to the station. With a little more energy and determination than he had before, he rode down the escalators towards the Osaka-bound entrance for the Midosuji line. Passing his favorite electronics store, he resisted the urge to go in and browse the latest in technology, but was sidetracked as he arrived at the entrance to Kinokuniya bookstore. He wanted a copy of the Kansai Break Out to read on the train as he headed to Tenoji where he was to meet a former student, prepared to purchase the little tablets he had in the other zip-lock bag in the pocket of his back pack.

  His mood was relaxed. He had conducted similar business transactions on many previous occasions and had become an old hand at it. His clients were the nervous ones —he was cool and collected. Without much thought, he slunk through the entrance of the bookstore and made a direct line towards the English language section. It had moved and was now tucked away in a far corner, no longer close to the exit that led immediately to the main meeting area at Hankyu station. He remembered some friends telling him that they thought the section had been moved as a lot of foreigners were stealing magazines and books and just walking them out the door.

  "Typical, blame the foreigners," he thought bitterly. "An interesting theory," but he was sure it was young Japanese students on limited budgets needing texts to study.

  Ten years as a cultural showpiece in this country was taking its toll on his perspective and he started to revisit a latent sense of injustice accumulated over time. Josh’s mi
nd started to question everything that had happened in his life recently, then moved to dwell on other bitter feelings. His mood darkened somewhat as he recalled countless conversations; police arresting foreigners on bicycles without reasonable cause, presuming the bikes to be stolen; English language teachers being ripped off by unscrupulous employers, only to be summarily sacked on a word of complaint to unions; foreign bodies turning up dead in apartments and no investigations being launched. "What would the police do if he were caught supplying? Yeah, I go to jail and the Japanese guy walks. Bloody Japanese," he muttered under his breath through clenched teeth.

  He had been so absorbed in his own bitter thoughts that he hadn’t noticed his arrival at the English language section. Having been to the store so many times, he was pretty much on autopilot. He snapped back to reality, noticing how close he was to the main sales counter. There were three people at the counter being served and two in front of him. He entered the appropriate roped-off opening labeled in English, ‘Enter’. The first person being served finished and the line continued on to be replaced by the next in line and then the next. The magazine he wanted was on the right hand edge of the counter, stacked one on top of the other near the line’s exit. The saleswoman at this position finished off counting the change for her customer who promptly thanked her with a respectful bow and a fictional smile then departed to her right. Next in line, Josh made eye contact with the sales woman, who made a polite gesture to indicate that he should wait. She then walked quickly to the back the counter and out the back exit, turned right and disappeared.

  On any other day, he wouldn’t have thought anything of this. It was usual behavior for sales staff in a busy store in Japan. However, for whatever reason, Josh decided it was insulting to have been kept waiting. So he went to the counter, picked up the magazine he wanted and started flicking through in an agitated manner—the noise attracting a modest amount of attention.

  The saleswoman hadn’t returned after what seemed to be an unacceptable amount of time. In reality it was no more than about a minute and half. In his agitated state, he began to feel he needed to make a stand against what he was beginning to perceive as discrimination against foreigners.

  "Who do they think they are? If I was Japanese they wouldn’t make me wait!"

  He looked around at other customers, lined up behind him. He was sure that they were laughing at him although they weren’t looking at him. No one was making eye contact but he felt he just knew what they were all thinking. He could tell they hated him, just because he was foreign. A racist diatribe began swirling and expanding in his mind. He hadn’t noticed that he had begun to flick the magazine pages with a force that was nearly tearing the pages. Thoughts kept darting through his head—bitter, angry and resentful thoughts. Frustration accumulated, begging him to act; to make a stand; to show these people how they had made him feel over the years.

  Josh’s mood snapped viciously and without warning. He broke away from the counter, still holding the magazine. Without thinking, he slipped the magazine into the inside pocket of his black leather jacket, continuing on, at pace, through the maze of aisles, bookshelves and people, towards the exit. Steaming with anger and wearing a serial-killer expression, he dodged and weaved through the last crowded walkway. A joyous sense of triumph grew in his mind as he approached the exit leading to the Hankyu station meeting area, where there would be a crowd of hundreds. He could blend in with all the other foreigners, escaping with the magazine and satisfying his sense of justice.

  His pace slowed as he crossed the boundary between the store and the exit. A sense of anticlimax took hold as he realized that no one had noticed nor cared. He walked out into the crowd and felt insignificant, his mood slipping down through a series of gears almost to a state of depression. No longer angry, he paused at a vending machine, staring at the cans—but really staring at nothing. He fished around in his right-hand pocket for some change and yanked out a handful, choosing a 100 and a 10-yen coin. Feeding in the coins, he waited until a red lamp flashed and he pressed it, releasing a small brown bottle of Dekavita—an energy drink. He hoped it would snap him out of the depressive mood that had taken him over. The thud as the drink hit the dispensing tray triggered a sense of the familiar, shifting his mood closer to equilibrium. He picked up the bottle, snapped the aluminum twist top and sculled a good third of the refreshing drink.

  Still facing the vending machine, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he turned slowly to face the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye he saw them coming in his direction and knew instantly that his number was up. There was no place to run in the underground world of the largest train station in Osaka. Umeda station was monitored by hundreds of cameras and he stood out as a foreigner in a homogenously Asian city.

  Defiantly, he put the bottle to his lips as the first officer grabbed his left arm, forcing him backwards into the vending machine. His head hit the glass panel as he dropped the bottle, spilling the contents over his jeans. The crowded train station didn’t miss a beat as uninterested passers-by continued on hurriedly to their destinations, unfazed by the heavy-handed arrest of a foreigner, intent on minding their own business.

  Restrained by two large and non-communicative enforcers, he waited as a short, stocky policeman walked up and stared at him. The policeman’s mouth was moving to form words, yet he was not uttering a sound—he was practicing. It was surreal as Josh began to interpret the words.

  "What is you name?" the policeman mimed. Silently, Josh corrected the policeman’s English. "What is your name? Your name," his inner voice repeated angrily.

  "JOSH," he answered out loud, leaving the moment hanging.

  The policeman, not sure of what was happening linguistically, took time to organize the next utterance.

  “Magazine, do you have magazine?” the policeman blurted in a heavily accented, abrupt voice. Josh was dazed now. Publicly humiliated, roughed up and unrepresented, he just couldn’t process his situation coherently.

  "Magazine, what bloody magazine?" he replied, shaking his head in defiance.

  The policeman did not respond immediately but made eye contact in succession with the policeman on the left and the policeman on the right. Still restrained, Josh leaned as far forward as he was able. Craning his neck, he moved his head as close to the policeman’s face as possible and one syllable at a time shouted. "NO - FU - CKING - MA - GA – ZINE."

  The policeman, expressionless and without moving his head, made eye contact with the other officers one more time, only this time with a more assertive and authoritative glare. The policeman on Josh’s right strengthened his grip, the one on the left taking a step forward, ripping Josh’s jacket open, shoving his hand in the inside pocket. He withdrew the magazine from Josh’s jacket as if withdrawing a katana (sword) from its saya (casing). Dangling the magazine in front of Josh’s face, he swung it from side to side to taunt him.

  "Resheeto wa ?" (Where is the receipt?) asked the policeman in Japanese with a rising and playful inflection in his voice.

  Josh said nothing. Full of contempt, he adopted a neutral facial expression and avoided eye contact. The police, sensing his declaration of non-cooperation, pushed him forward in the direction of a waiting police van, parked on the verge just outside the Hankyu station.

  In what seemed like a blur of images and sensations taking place in the space of several seconds, he was in the main holding cell at Sonezaki police station at Umeda. The cell door slammed shut, the sound of the electronic lock snapping in to place echoing through his head. The cell was painted white, was well lit and fitted with stainless steel benches on either side. He shuffled over to the right-hand side bench and collapsed into a sitting position. Leaning down, face in his hands, he groaned in a low voice, then fell silent.

  He remained like this for some time, listening to the muffled sounds of the traffic outside, the trains exiting and entering the subway system, people talking in Japanese, all of it unintelligible to him.

  Finally
, Josh sat up, more relaxed but feeling the weight of his backpack. In a flash he remembered: the drugs! ‘THE DRUGS’. Panicking, he looked from side to side quickly, realizing that there was no one in sight or within earshot. He wriggled as he took off the uncomfortable encumbrance, placing it on the floor in front of him. "Fuck," he cursed out loud. “What to do?” he thought.

  His mind quickly ran through a thousand scenarios in a split second, whirring through the possibilities and the penalties. He began to realize that in a closed holding cell, there were very few options available to him. He had to get rid of the drugs. He looked around the cell, there was no toilet, there were no holes in the concrete floor and only a tiny little porthole window. Swallowing the drugs would kill him. Stamping them into powder would just make a trail of pink powder on the floor. He sat, slowly deflating; his only solace was the thought that at least they weren’t on to him. He slowly realized how likely it was that he would soon be found out. His only option was to shove the stuff down his pants or into an orifice on his body but the bag… the pills… sharp corners… it all began to seem a bit impractical. He noticed a concealed security camera in the opposite corner of the cell and was thankful that he had not acted on any of his hasty and ill-conceived ideas, realizing that the police had been watching him the whole time.

  Josh sat for a moment and tried to work out what to say so that the police wouldn’t go near the bag. Before a plan had emerged, the lock on the door recoiled with a loud echoing flick of metal on metal. A short, slight, and nervous policeman opened the door and walked in.

  There was a meaningless exchange of glances between them before the policeman stood in front of Josh who was sitting, his bag at his feet. He looked over the shoulder of the policeman at the camera, concerned that the police would pick up on his nervous body language if he made any further eye contact with the policeman in the cell.

  There was an awkward silence until the policeman asked in controlled and heavily accented English, "Why did you steal a magazine?" Without thinking and grasping at straws, Josh surprised himself by responding in the emotion-laden, helpless voice of a victim.

  "I thought it was free," he pleaded.

  "No, no free," replied the policeman, patronizingly adopting the persona of an anime superhero, reaffirming the position any truly law-abiding citizen should take. "I made a "mistake," Josh declared, "I can pay."

  “You have money?" asked the policeman.

  "Yes, yes, I can pay," Josh reiterated. The gravity of his situation lifted as a way out of his situation came within reach.

  His eyebrows shifted horizontally as his expression changed to one of composure.

  "Why did you steal magazine, you have money?" continued the policeman. Shattered by the policeman’s logic, Josh sat silent and expressionless. The gig was up. He had the money, had just stated that he knew he had the money and he hadn’t used it to pay for the magazine. "Burden of proof discharged," he thought to himself.

  He didn’t answer the policeman, choosing to look randomly around the room while nervously rubbing his chin. His gaze rested on his bag in front of him until, in a flash of awareness, he realized he was drawing attention to it. He quickly jerked his gaze up to the ceiling, then fleetingly at the policeman. Josh realized the policeman had detected a change in body language and was now looking at the bag on the ground. Josh stopped gazing randomly, focusing on the far corner of the cell, not realizing that he had further confirmed the policeman’s suspicions that there was something in the bag.

  Without a word, the policeman walked out of the cell. Josh could hear him barking out what seemed to be orders to others, judging by the volume and curt nature of the words. He could understand that several other officers were responding. Hai, wakarimashita (Yes, I understand) reverberated in his ears like alarm bells, signaling imminent action that he quickly reasoned would involve the bag and then the drugs.

  Terror raced through his body; his life; his dreams; his job; his friends. He remembered that all his friend’s numbers were stored on his keitai. Instinctively he pulled his phone out and opened the address book. In a frantic yet concentrated effort, he selected delete and confirmed the action as fast as he could, one by one down the list. He became unaware of the call to arms developing in a conference room outside his cell as tears began to well in his eyes. He began to feel a sense of loss for each number deleted as if he was deleting a part of his life. He then felt despair as the phone was yanked out of his hands by a young policeman and his backpack was picked up by another.

  Josh had no idea how many of his friend’s numbers he had deleted and how many he hadn’t as the cell walls seemed to move closer and the ceiling became lower. Tears began to flow freely and anxiety pooled in his lower stomach as he realized that this day had been and was now ended—spent—never to be revisited or changed. Unable to look and too petrified to express emotion, his mind screamed insanely as he heard the excruciating sound of the zipper of his backpack being ripped open.

  Muzukashii

  "Look Mark, it's not as bad as you think," Jon said reassuringly.

  All of Mark's instincts were telling him to flee the house. Jon's reassurances meant nothing to him. Although he had not really spent any time with Mark since he had moved out of here five years ago, he knew Jon. It's why he decided to move out in the first place. Jon was stuck in a time warp. He still taught English in a Junior High School as an assistant language teacher. Translated, this meant that he turned up late, left early and had lots of holidays—all for a comfortable salary and no responsibility. He hadn't grown. Mark knew he couldn’t rely on Jon to make a responsible decision.

  "Look Jon, this is all a bit heavy for me, you know. I've got this new business going and any police involvement… my investors… you know… any hint of impropriety and they would just pull out."

  "We don't even know if the police have anything yet," said Kimberly.

  "What's with this Marley, then?" questioned Mark."

  "Well," said Jon. “OK then…good point, she is still eating speed for breakfast, so we don't know how paranoid she is going to get."

  "Or what she's going to do," added Kimberly.

  "You should've told me," complained Mark. "Kenichi," does he know?”

  "Not likely," replied Kimberly.

  "Good," said Mark. "I'm sure he doesn't deserve any of this—the police on his doorstep and drugs in his house."

  Jon and Kimberly fell silent again. They were looking at each other, exchanging cheeky grins. It was as if they were children being scolded by a parent, unrepentant and unable to argue back. Mark noticed the exchange and stopped mid-sentence; realizing that nothing he could say was going to change the way these two saw the situation.

  "Look, the best thing to do ... look… on second thoughts, is Kenichi still at the Tanaka’s?"

  "Yes, but you're not going to tell, are you?" implored Jon like a pleading child.

  "No, no… I just need a little space to think, that's all."

  Jon sensed that there might be a little bit more to it than just ‘space to think’. His mind raced as he tried to come up with a way to keep Mark away from Kenichi.

  "Oh yes, by the way, I've been in touch with Mike today."

  "Hey, Mike… yeah how's Mike?" asked Mark.

  "He's fine. He called a little earlier on and we've arranged to meet at The Cantaloupe for Happy Hour."

  The doorbell rang and Kimberly raced off to answer it.

  "Takyubin (delivery service) Mark, your suitcases have arrived," yelled Kimberly from the doorstop. "Come and sign, Mark," she continued in a singsong voice.

  Both Mark and Jon walked out of the living area towards the genkan and once in sight, Kimberly reminded them both that she had been on her way to work when Mark had arrived.

  "I'm off then," she yelled as she waved goodbye. "See you after, Mark." And without time to hear a reply, she was gone.

  Taking his cue, Mark signed for his luggage, hauled it over the genkan area and placed in
just next to the stairs in one movement. Still in the genkan area, he started wiggling his feet into his shoes.

  "Look Jon, The Cantaloupe sounds great. Can I leave my luggage here while I drop in on Kenichi? I'll ask him along to Happy Hour if you like and we'll all meet up at six?"

  "Sounds like a plan then," replied Jon reluctantly, as Mark slipped out of the front door and headed off to the Tanaka’s three-storey house about 600 meters down a road, that ran perpendicular to the shotengai.

  It was good to get out of those oppressive shadows, thought Mark as the shadow of the long roof of the shotengai gave way to the less oppressive diffusion of light from the grey clouds.

  The grey of the clouds did nothing to differentiate the concrete structures from the sky, but the road did seem to open up and widen. A sense of freedom and safety began to overcome Mark the closer he got to the Tanaka’s.

  He rang the doorbell at the concrete brick entrance and waited out on the street. A high-pitched, older female voice crackled through the intercom. "Hai, Dochira Sama desu ka?" (Yes, who is it?)

  "Long time, no see, this is Mark from Canada," replied Mark in Japanese.

  "Oh, Mark, long time, no see. Just a moment please."

  He heard the thumping of footsteps on wood descending a stairway as he anticipated being greeted by Okaasan, Tanaka San’s mother. The door opened slowly revealing a short woman dressed in slacks and a tartan top. She sported a sort of middle-aged woman's grey Afro and bowed politely many times before asking how Mark had been.

  “Genki desu," (I've been well) replied Mark reassuringly before being invited in.

  Mark prised his shoes off with skill and ease at the genkan then walked up on to the main floor, turning backwards skillfully and leaving his shoes pointing neatly towards the door as he stepped up. It had been years since Mark had been here but he immediately walked to the left and up the stairs to the second floor. Okaasan followed him up after rearranging his shoes in the genkan area. Standing in the kitchen area was Kenichi. They both smiled. Mark thought about giving him a huge hug but resisted his barbarian urge, smiling instead while bowing respectfully. Kenichi did the same.

  Kenji motioned to a room adjoining the kitchen with a balcony and a view out on to the street. The floor was covered with tatami mats and there was a big long table set low in the middle of it surrounded with cushions. Mark sat on the side with his back to the balcony and Kenichi sat opposite Mark. Although Mark was fluent, they rarely spoke in Japanese, preferring English.

  "You are surprise me Mark, I expect you next Monday."

  "Yeah, I just dropped in to see Jon and decided to come on over. Are you OK?"

  "Yes, yes… OK, OK," replied Kenichi, nodding and smiling reassuringly.

  Okaasan walked in with a tray and some warm mugichya. (barley tea)

  Both Kenichi and Mark were silent as they sat respectfully allowing Okaasan to ritualistically pour them tea. As their cups filled, they each in turn gave a respectful bow. Although a far cry from an authentic tea ceremony, she nevertheless reversed and kneeled as she exited. Placing the empty tray to the side of the open shoji, (Japanese sliding door) she closed it in front of her while gently bowing, allowing the two privacy. The sound of wood on wood as the door closed produced a sharp clap as Mark began to speak.

  Mark went over the business strategy that Kenichi had come up with to start up an online service to supply Japanese food to consumers in Australia. Kenichi was the rich son of a grocery chain mogul in Osaka. Recently, however, the Ebisu Shokuhin chain was experiencing a slump in sales and was desperate to increase revenue. Kenichi was put in charge of the online marketing project and Mark was the cultural in-between. The plan was simple. Start slow, with an Internet advertising assault in conjunction with a social networking blitz, and then move to more traditional marketing media as things picked up. They were planning on starting with a range of dried ingredients and some cooking implements, moving to the full range of products as the idea took hold. Public image was number one and Mark was to be 'the face' in Australia.

  "So… Sydney was good?" asked Kenji.

  "Well," began Mark. "There's a big market for this stuff down under. I spoke with some government people and they gave me a good lead in to some advertising and some local online sellers that we could work with. I was lucky enough to land an appearance on the Morning Sun."

  "What is this?" queried Kenichi.

  "You know, that free-to air TV show out of Sydney?"

  "What do they ask?"

  Mark's mind reeled back to the previous Wednesday morning. His Australian friend Shannon worked in publicity for Channel 12. They had a history dating back from her time teaching English in Japan and she knew Mark from the Tokyo days. He had called her up while he was shacked up in Bondi and things had been pretty cozy. She had the day off but drove him in, dropping him off at the main gate, leaning out the window and making sure his name was on the guard's list allowing him entry. She gave his tie a little adjustment as she kissed him gently on the lips before he got out.

  "See you in an hour," she’d said, as she flattened the accelerator and sped off.

  In the green room, Mark's thinning hair was given a quick brush and spray before his face was powdered. He soon found himself standing in the wings of the set, waiting for a break, before being led on to the set and sat down opposite the host, Reggie Post.

  Staff floating around the set told him to relax, wait for the cue and to try and not speak too fast as he was introduced to the host Reggie Post or Postie as he was affectionately known.

  "G’day, umm… Mark isn’t it?" asked Postie as he leaned over to shake Mark’s hand.

  "Yeah, umm Mark—Mark Barnes."

  "Good Mark, Look, I just want to do an overview of what you are intending to set up between Japan and Australia today, if that’s ok?"

  "Of course, sure, not a problem."

  "Good then. Look, there might be one or two sticky questions, but I can assure you that the rest will be standard, run-of-the-mill stuff'."

  Before Mark had time to respond, the cue was given and he was 'on air'.

  "Welcome back, folks," began Postie. "Our next guest has spent the best part of ten years living and working in Japan and is in Australia to promote his new business in the emerging market of on-line-shopping, a topic I know we are all interested in. Mark Barnes is the face of Nihon Online and I believe it is a joint venture between some Australian investors and some Japanese investors… is that right Mark?"

  "Why yes, Postie. It's a tie-up between some Aussie and Japanese investors who are interested in building on the emerging online shopping market to supply quality Japanese products at an affordable price, delivered safely to your door. All with the convenience that online shopping has to offer."

  The interview moved on through the types of product to be offered, the technical know-how involved and Mark's unique knowledge of Japanese culture and his ability with the language. Things progressed smoothly until, Postie, clearing his throat, interrupted the flow with the first of his sticky questions.

  "Now Mark, as you would be aware, there has been tension recently between Japan and the rest of the world—including Australia—in relation to, what most see, as the unnecessary killing and consumption of whales."

  Mark sat erect and shuffled to the front of his seat as he responded with a neutral "Ya," signaling to Postie that he had Mark's attention.

  "I am sure our viewers would like to know, is your company in any way at all connected with the sale of whale meat in Japan?"

  "Fuck," thought Mark, "that's a bit direct. One wrong turn here and the whole thing collapses. Are we?" he questioned himself.

  In the months of intense research, meetings, networking and technical set up, he hadn't once thought to ask Kenichi if the company had any connection with the trade. Knowing that even a slight flinch here would land him in the affirmative, Mark applied every pulse of brainpower into the search for an appropriate and speedy response.


  "No not at all Postie," he responded.

  "That's good to hear Mark. As you know there has been a lot said about the unnecessary slaughter of the whales in Australian waters, a topic dear to our hearts here in Australia."

  "Yes, I can understand how people must feel," Mark reflected.

  "Well thank you for your time and for appearing on the Morning Sun. We wish you well; and I believe you are back in Japan in the next couple of days?"

  "Yes, back in Osaka on Friday morning."

  "Nihon Online, folks––Mark Barnes."

  Mark's interview finished and Postie introduced the following 'info-mercial' segment to follow. Mark breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that he had gotten out of that one by the skin of his teeth and that he would have to make some subtle enquiries when he returned to Japan.

  Kenichi listened intently as Mark recounted his story about the interview on Sydney TV.

  "Well?" asked Mark. "Do we?"

  "Kenichi audibly drew breath as he considered his response. He picked up his cup and slowly drank some tea.

  "To tell you the truth," he began, "not any more."

  "Any more?"

  "Yes," responded Kenichi. "It is muzukashii (difficult). My father's business very old and during war and after, yes, he sold."

  "What about now?" asked Mark almost frantically.

  "Mmmm… again muzukashii. The government… I mean, not illegal… I start again".

  Kennichi carefully considered the rest of his response.

  "Two years ago… maybe… about two years ago there was many, sorry, much meat… so much meat… so, yes we sell at some supa. But not so popular… only in some store. So, saikin, Uumm recently, there is no one who buy, not popular. Japanese people do not know about whale meat. They don't want to eat whale meat."

  "So we don't sell it any more?" questioned Mark.

  "No, no whale," Kenichi responded emphatically.

  "Great," I am not a liar. "That's good to hear, then. So, by the way…. Uumm…what do you think?"

  "Think what?" responded Kenichi.

  "About whaling… you know… should Japan kill them… the whales?"

  "I think Japanese people don't need to kill whales. Why we need to eat whale? I don't eat whale. Most Japanese people don't know about whale. Let's have not whale," he said firmly.

  "I gotcha," said Mark sympathetically. "So what about Jon then?"

  Kenichi rocked forward towards the table, shaking his head from side to side.

  "Mmm, muzukashii. He did not pay… rent was not pay. This is strange. Jon is always pay. I don’t' need money but he say… no, no, I pay… but no… I know … he not pay. Mmm, muzukashii ne?"

  "I can't understand Jon," continued Mark. "Is he OK?"

  "Very strange, saikin… strange… he has a big change… strange talking… no money. I am worry about Jon," said Kenichi with a tone of paternal concern in his voice.

  Mark didn't want to burden Kenichi with any more stressful information, so he decided to skip the problem with Jon and Kimberly and the police. He didn't want to stay at Jon's any more, deciding to ask Mike if he could put him up for a couple of nights while he found a place. Kenichi wasn't too keen on the idea of going to The Cantaloupe so Mark said a fond goodbye to him and Okaasan, promising to be back in the next couple of days to talk over the business plan.

  The Cantaloupe

  The Hankyu train line was Mike's favorite. The green velvet seats and the powerful heaters made for a very comfortable journey. The train was just pulling in to Umeda station as Mike sent a quick last-minute text to Jon, asking if Mark was coming to Happy Hour. Within the minute, Jon had replied.

  "mark with ken now will cum 2nite cu at 6. J"

  The message flashed on to Mike's keitai screen, confirming the arrangement and that Mark would be there. Mike alighted with the masses and walked with the flow towards the exit as he had done many times before. He inserted his ticket into the slot of the kaisatsuguchi, (ticket gate) exited, and then proceeded on to the escalators leading down to the Hankyu station building and thousands of people.

  The not-too cryptic brush-off by Miyako was still playing on Mike’s mind. He was feeling alone in a big city and didn’t really want to go home to an empty apartment. He walked back towards Kinokuniya bookstore, veering to the left of the Huge Big Man screen, then down the stairs to the Hankyu San Ban Gai, the entrance to the elegant food hall below. Passing by 'Fountain Square', which emulates Milan in Italy, Mike was overcome with a sudden urge for pasta. A small wooden bridge over a small waterway with running water lead led to an authentic-looking Italian restaurant that was more than likely a Japanese-style Italian restaurant. It was good enough for Mike, though. He had skipped lunch and didn't want to do Happy Hour on an empty stomach, so he decided to spend a little money on looking after himself.

  Sat at the counter, alone, he thanked the waitress, opened out his Oshibori (hot hand-towel) and wiped his forehead before wiping his hands then the back of his neck. He threw the spent towel on to the counter, downed the water in the glass that had been placed next to the Oshibori, then picked up his menu. Taking a little time to decide, he finally settled on the gnocchi with a local-style tomato and basil sauce.

  While he waited, he picked up his keitai and tried texting Mark using the latest number he had stored.

  "Long x no c how was syd? ru cumin 2nite? J"

  His meal arrived quickly and with no one to talk to, he had consumed the lot in a matter of minutes. His developing beer belly was stretched to the limit as he sat contentedly, picking his teeth with the peppermint-tipped tsumayouji (tooth pick) that had accompanied his Oshibori and glass of water.

  Mike's keitai vibrated angrily on the counter as the screen lit up with Mark's reply.

  "At Jons CU soon wats Kaori chan up2"

  Kaori was an old colleague of Mike's who had transferred to another branch in Osaka about six months ago. Mark had met her about a year ago at a bonenkai (end of year party) that Mike had invited him to. Mike still kept in touch, as she was a good friend of Miyako's. Mark had skillfully acquired her telephone number at the bonenkai but had become so busy with the new business project that he hadn't had a chance to follow up.

  Mike knew via the grapevine that she had just finished up with some loser doctor from the local university hospital who turned out to be married, so he thought he might do them both a favor and invite her along for drinks. Still holding a torch for Miyako, he was sure that Mark and Kaori could be good for Mike and Miyako. He sent her a text.

  "Hi Kaori. Are you free? Do you want to come to the Cantaloupe at 6? My friend Mark is coming. Mike."

  Mike tended to use correctly phrased and spelt English with his Japanese friends to avoid errors of time and place, although most of them could compose a text in two languages before Mike could even say, "tsumayouji."

  "CU @ 6," came the reply in under 15 seconds.

  Mike decided to leave this as a surprise for Mark as he stood, collected the kanjo (the bill) and walked up to the register to pay.

  The Cantaloupe was on the other side of Umeda and would take a good half an hour to get there. It was about five in the afternoon now, so Mike decided to spend about thirty minutes browsing the magazines in Kinokuniya bookstore, as it was on the way. Walking up the stairs to exit from the Hankyu San Ban Gai, stairway, he turned left and walked in to Kinokuniya. Weaving through the aisles towards the English language section, Mike remembered some foreign colleagues telling him of an Australian guy who was detained for stealing a magazine then arrested for possession of drugs. He caught himself, shaking his head in judgment at such a stupid act and thanked the gods that he didn’t have friends like that. He browsed for a short time, made a mental note of what he might buy next time, then made his way back out of the store and on to The Cantaloupe.

  Mark had returned to Jon's place and had just entered the genkan. The door was open, so he didn't make any noise as he walked in. No one came to greet him and he could h
ear the sound of male voices, laughing and Japanese speech coming from the living area. He finished his special shoe trick, stepping up from the genkan—this time, however, no one was trailing him to correct the imperfections of the orientation of his shoes. Walking in through the door he was confronted by a confident looking Japanese man in his mid-thirties. He was sitting on the edge of the seat and was smoking a cigarette. He smiled, light instantly refracting from a number of gold-capped molars, but he didn't stand.

  Jon jumped to attention and introduced Tsubasa to Mark. Mark responded in Japanese.

  “Hajimemashite Marku desu, Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” (Nice to meet you, I am Mark.)

  "Oh, you speak very good Japanese," replied Tsubasa.

  Mark had encountered this many times before and knew that Tsubasa would insist on speaking English from now on, so he just switched over.

  "Yeah, thanks. Are you a friend of Jon's?" enquired Mark.

  Tsubasa began to draw breath, but Jon interrupted.

  "Yes, yes. We've been friends for a couple of years now."

  "Oh yes, for quite a long time,", added Tsubasa.

  Tsubasa was particularly well dressed in a fashionable Armani leather jacket, superior quality, well-fitted Armani casual outfit and leather shoes. A Rolex watch and chunky gold jeweler added to an appearance that placed him a little out of context in Jon's living room. Mark had already decided that this was about the drugs but decided to continue humoring their little routine.

  "Do you live nearby?" Mark continued.

  "No, I am from Kyoto. I am a businessman. I own many business in Kyoto and in Osaka."

  With Tsubasa volunteering so much information and so freely, Jon realized that it wouldn't be long before Mark got to the truth. He stood up and 'cut to the chase'.

  "We are thinking of doing some business together. Well… we are doing some business together."

  "Oh yeah, can't wait to hear this," said Mark.

  "Well, you might not be impressed but it's a little like your line of business… an Internet venture, in fact," Jon continued.

  "Don't tell me… it's porn," speculated Mark, half joking.

  Jon didn’t respond, nor did he smile.

  "Don't…don't tell me."

  Sensing Mark's morally judgemental attitude, Tsubasa stood up and smiled nervously.

  "Yes, Mr Mark, Jon is my man. We are business partners. He gets me the best foreign girls in Japan."

  He moved over to Jon and put his arm around his right shoulder, patting his left shoulder affectionately with his hand. Jon seemed to defer to Tsubasa, so Mark decided to skip the moral lecture, yet again deciding that Jon was just incapable of being reasoned with.

  "Well, good luck," Mark said.

  He had already decided to never talk to this man again, but knew that he might have to endure just a little more in order to get out of this house cleanly. Mark knew Jon was a wannabe, right from the start—the first day they met and got to know each other all those years ago, back at the karaoke bar. Mark was relieved that it wasn’t about the drugs, but to stoop so low…

  Mark shook off his concerns, reasoning that in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter because he had already decided to flee. Nevertheless, he was a little concerned for Jon and decided to interrogate him later at The Cantaloupe, while under the influence of alcohol, and try to talk him out of this madness.

  "Anyway Tsubasa, nice to have met you. It's getting late Jon, are we still making our way to Happy Hour?" asked Mark.

  " I have a new Mercedes," interrupted Tsubasa.

  "Yes, it’s brilliant and parking is no problem near The Cantaloupe," said Jon with a sense of childish enthusiasm.

  Mark was unable to come up with a half- decent excuse to avoid inviting Tsubasa that didn’t involve his telling him straight out that he was too creepy. They all left the house for Tsubasa's car, parked about a hundred meters up the road. Mark was not at all surprised as Tsubasa put on a pair of very dark sunglasses as they walked. He was, however, more than a little alarmed as they walked past the Yakuza guy he had seen in the shotengai earlier that day. He bowed low, deferring to Tsubasa, who gave no more than a short downwards nod of the head. They climbed in to the Mercedes, Mark in the back, and set off for Happy Hour in Umeda.

  Chin Chin

  Mike arrived pretty much on time, at about ten past six. He walked down the stairs looking around to see if anyone had arrived before him. The place was alive with foreigners, so he didn't have much chance of running straight into anyone he knew. Heading straight for the bar, he ordered a drink before scouting around. Mike wiggled out of the bar area and slunk on over to a high table that was free, making sure not to spill any of his 300-yen pitcher of Sapporo Black Label beer. Feeling conspicuously alone, he waited, drank and watched.

  In one corner there was a group of young foreign men in suits, drunk and flirting with a Japanese office lady (OL) with what appeared to be a modicum of success. At the table next to him were a group of Japanese men and women in their mid-thirties, happily engaged in conversation and alcohol consumption. Over at the bar were three cool-looking foreign couples keeping to themselves, sipping spirits and talking. He glanced around a little more, settling on the stairway in time to notice Mark, Jon and a Japanese guy walking down the steps.

  Mike waved from his table and caught Mark and Jon’s attention. They walked over to the bar before joining Mike at the table so Mike just waited, glancing at the stairway to catch the attention of whoever walked down next. The door opened and in walked Kimberly and Alison, Jon's model girlfriend. They weren't alone, as about four others walked in with them—two stunningly attractive slender women and two particularly handsome, square-jawed men with stubble and designer clothes. Mike’s gay radar immediately flashed red, before he was distracted by Mark, Jon and Tsubasa, who had come to sit at his table.

  Jon greeted Mike with his traditional salutation.

  "Hello young man."

  "Hey Jon, long time and all that shit…"

  He stood to shake Mark's hand, beaming as he clasped his right hand with both of his.

  "Good to see ya mate, it's been too long."

  "Fuckin’ aye," Mark replied, a private joke between the two from the old days. Mike's eyes moved to Tsubasa and Jon made the introduction.

  "A new friend of mine, Tsubasa."

  "Hajimemashite Maiku to moshimasu. Yoroshiku." (Hi, nice to meet you. I am Mike.) He gave a polite bow. Tsubasa responded and introduced himself in English without bowing, extending his arm in order to shake Mike’s hand.

  "I am Tsubasa… Yamamoto Tsubasa."

  Mike’s eyebrows rose slightly as he heard this familiar surname. He decided to check, just in case.

  "Are you related to Yamamoto Keita… the CEO of Kansai Shyokuhin, the grocery chain?" Mike asked.

  Mike had done training at most of the big companies in the Kansai region and knew his stuff. He was a little star struck when Tsubasa responded.

  "Yes, my father is Keita."

  Impressed, Mike could feel a networking moment developing and was a little frustrated as Mark tried to divert the opportunity.

  "So let's drink then shall we?" Mark suggested.

  Ignoring this, Mike continued.

  "A big supermarket chain, you must be a very rich man."

  Tsubasa played this down, portraying his involvement in his father's empire as minimal.

  "I only have small company, no supermarket."

  "That's your line of work, isn't it Mark?" Mark was trying hard to shut Mike down by glaring at him, but it was impossible to battle Mike's networking instincts.

  "I thought you were involved in the Internet business, Mark?" questioned Tsubasa.

  Not wanting to continue with the conversation, Mark also tried to play things down.

  "Just a small little venture," he chuckled, "nothing very big."

  "Nothing big, just the first ever online marketing operation for Nihon Shyoukuhin," exclaimed Mike.

>   "This is a big venture Mark. I know this company," said Tsubasa.

  "Online marketing to internationals? My father's company is also looking at this."

  At this point, both Mark and Tsubasa realised that with so much in common, it was probably not a good idea to be sharing company information, so the two left the conversation hanging. They both paused, smiling at each other, then just kind of turned away, politely snubbing each other and finishing the exchange.

  The group sat without a word, everyone taking a long drink while checking each other’s expressions. Mike was the first to speak, finally breaking the ice and changing the topic.

  "Well, here we are again, just like that first night. What was it?… Ah… yes… the Osaka Big Luck Snack."

  "Kinki karaoke," interjected Mark, chuckling. "There is a big beer somewhere. I want a girl." Mark was in stitches at Jon's expense.

  "Ok, OK," responded Jon. "We've all come a long way."

  "Some of us at least," said Mark, staring at Jon.

  "So, I know this place," said Tsubasa.

  "What… this place?" questioned Mark with a disrespectful smirk on his face, a beer held to his lips hiding the true degree of contempt in his expression.

  "No, Osaka Big Luck Snack." Mike and Mark froze, beers in hand, lost for words, eyes on each other. Jon just looked at a coaster sheepishly, then stretched and looked to the side to see what Alison and Kimberly were doing.

  "Oh really," Mike finally responded.

  "Yes, I have a business in this area."

  Mark and Mike were starting to feel more than a little uneasy about Tsubasa. Mark put on his detective cap and asked him a seemingly innocuous question.

  "So, do you have a business card then?" he asked with just a hint of suspicion in his voice.

  "Yes… please wait a moment," he answered obligingly.

  Tsubasa put his hand into his coat pocket and took out a business card, presenting it to Mark with a skillful flick of the wrist and fingers. Mark raised his eyebrows as he took the card. He looked it over for what seemed to be an appropriate period of time then, with a poker face, put it in the top pocket of his suit jacket. Mike, noticing Mark's expression, waited for some comment but Mark said no more as Alison, Kimberly and the other four made their way over to the table.

  There weren't enough spaces at the table, so the others began sitting at the next table. Tsubasa had already eyed off the two models and had said hello to Alison and Kimberly. Seizing the opportunity, he stood up, insisted they wait and began to move the table towards the other in order to join them together. Mark, Mike and Jon took his cue, stood and helped to organize the area, moving chairs and glasses. Kimberly pitched in and helped while the others stood back, chatting while things were organized.

  Once the tables were together, Tsubasa began herding the models, gently coercing them towards his side of the table, the others left to fend for themselves. He sat them down, along the long side of the newly enlarged rectangular table then placed himself at the smaller end, next to one of the most attractive of the girls, leaving the other two sides free. The rest just fell into a place that was most convenient. Alison sat next to Tsubasa, then Jon, Kimberly, Mike and Mark. That left the other small end free, Mike mentally reserving it for Kaori, if she eventually showed up.

  Tsubasa, obviously in his element, took the lead.

  "Let's all order some drinks," he suggested, looking directly at the female models. The guys––the male models––ordered water without hesitation and Tsubasa didn't bother to argue the toss. He indicated to the girls that they should order and they just looked at each other, undecided. "

  “OK, OK, OK, wakatta," (I've got it) Tsubasa said authoritatively.

  Taking the lead, he suggested they order Japanese Chu-Hai. The girls seemed impressed.

  He waved his hand in the air and caught the attention of a young waiter who no one else at the table had even seen. He raced over and stood next to Tsubasa. Wearing an apron and holding an electronic device, he took Tsubasa's order then looked to the rest. Alison ordered a semillion blanc while the others just ordered a beer.

  Drinks ordered, Tsubasa immediately turned his attention to the girls.

  "Where are you from?" he asked, as Mike and Mark, tuning out, turned to each other and sighed. Mike leaned forward.

  "What was on the card?" he asked quietly.

  "You're not going to believe this," replied Mark, turning his right shoulder in to Mike to avoid anyone noticing him taking it out of his pocket.

  "Remember the first night we arrived… you got lost…the card?"

  "Yeah, go on," urged Mike.

  Mark flashed the card at him.

  "Fuck," whispered Mike. "Daiichi Heights…the superintendent… the stuff that went on there… Is this Jon's mate? What the fuck is he into?"

  "NO FUCKING WAY," yelled Alison, stopping everyone in their tracks. Mike and Mark's heads swung around to see what had happened, as did everyone else at the table.

  "You can't just fucking kill them, you barbarians. They are intelligent, thinking, feeling mammals."

  Jon was doing his looking-around-the-room trick again, reluctant to defend his maiden's honor. The models were also politely looking around the room. Mark, Mike and Kimberly were just stalled, watching with fascination.

  "Why? You kill cows and sheep… and kangaroo, in Australia. What is different?" questioned Tsubasa in a controlled, yet slightly agitated, manner.

  "You can't tell me that's the same," screamed Alison.

  Tsubasa smiled, obviously attracted to her.

  "It is our tradition of the Japanese people."

  "BULLSHIT! It was just during the war… no one eats it any more," screamed Alison at an even higher pitch.

  Kimberly jumped in to calm the mood.

  "Look guys, people are staring. Let's just move on. I think we all know what we all think."

  Mark shook his head.

  "Not the fucking 'W' word again," he cursed to himself; it just won't leave me alone. The others looked around for guidance. Tsubasa, feeling a little wounded, didn't quite want to let it drop. Opening up the debate and surveying the faces of the others, he asked what they thought.

  "So, do you eat kujira?"

  The models, neither of whom had said a word for quite some time now, just shook their heads and looked down at the table. The others, one by one looking directly at Tsubasa, indicated in the negative by shaking their heads and not speaking.

  Quickly realising he did not have the numbers, Tsubasa changed tack as the drinks began to arrive.

  "Let's drink," he shouted with a smile, raising his glass. He clinked glasses with the model next to him. She was impressed to hear him use the European phrase 'chin chin' until Mark, overhearing the exchange, told her what it meant in Japanese.

  "It's a colloquial Japanese phrase meaning penis," he informed her with a childish snicker.

  She looked awkward as the others, including Tsubasa, burst out laughing. The ice broken, Mike clinked Mark’s glass, yelling 'chin chin' at the top of his voice, the others repeated this loudly and laughed as the great whale debate was forgotten, and Tsubasa moved his attention back to the models.

  The male models had well and truly finished off their water and were getting a little bored by now, as Mike tried to strike up a conversation. It quickly wound down however, as Mike knew nothing about protein drinks, fashion or working out. He tried hard but both teams conceded after only a few minutes of 'stop and start' topic searching that it really just wasn't going to fly. The taller of the two announced politely that he needed to get going because he had a shoot early in the morning and the others also made a move, possibly because they really didn't belong with this kind of group. This left Alison in conflict, as she was still technically ‘out’ with Jon.

  Tsubasa seemed a little disappointed but bowed politely as Mark, out of the corner of his eye, noticed Kaori walking down the stairway. He waved with joy as if guiding a 787 Dream Liner in for a landi
ng. She spotted him then beamed with joy as she quickened her pace down the stairs. Avoiding the bar, she came straight to Mark's end of the table.

  The models had begun shuffling out by now, as Alison stood and picked up her bag. She looked at Jon and had obviously made up her mind.

  "I'm sorry Jon. I jus… I just can't do this."

  Jon's expression changed to one of alarm as Alison turned dramatically and began walking out with the others passing by Kaori. Jon hesitated, not knowing what to do.

  "Go Jon, go and talk to her," urged Kimberly.

  Jon raced up the stairs as Alison walked out the door with the others. Jon followed.

  Mark, more interested in Kaori than Jon's train wreck of a life, paid no attention to Jon’s drama.

  "This has got to be your work, Mike."

  "Well, I might have had something to do with it."

  As Kaori arrived, Mark stood to greet her.

  "Ohisashiburi desu ne," (Long time no see) started Mark.

  "You haven't changed Mark, you still sound like a child when you speak Japanese," she said playfully. A glint in Mark's eye signaled that time had not diminished his romantic intentions.

  "You know I've missed you too," he retorted as Kaori laughed joyfully at what was, after all, a pretty lame response.

  "How are you Mike?"

  "I’m fine. Glad you could come. Umm… you didn’t happen to hear from Miyako, did you?"

  "Sorry, I think she’s meeting friends tonight but I’ll tell her I saw you."

  Subconsciously zoned out of other conversations, Mark ignored Mike’s sad and obvious denial of unrequited love, continuing to attempt humor with Kaori. She giggled, regardless of what he said. Mike too zoned out for a while, with no alternative other than to eavesdrop on other conversations.

  "So, yeah, Marley is… loopy at the moment and no one knows what she's going to do next," Kimberly was explaining to Tsubasa.

  Mike thought nothing of this, as he had not yet been filled in on the topic. Not trusting Tsubasa, however, he continued to listen as he pretended to look around the room.

  "This is very big news," said Tsubasa looking down and avoiding eye contact. "If they have the keitai, they can find you and Jon––they can find me."

  "Yes, but nothing connects you with… you know…" She leaned a little closer to Tsubasa to finish. "The trade."

  Tsubasa said nothing more, starting into space and stroking his chin.

  Mike's eyes were darting from side to side and he knew he would give away his listening position if he couldn't seem to be involved in conversation with someone so he leaned over to Mark.

  "You have a face like a rabbit," he overheard Kaori saying to him. Mark just laughed and made carrot noises at her.

  Options

  When he was first arrested Josh had been allowed a phone call and had first called Marley, his partner. He assumed that she had let his folks back in Melbourne know, but he had no way of knowing for sure. It had been a week now and he was haggard. The small cell he was being kept in was tiny and it was difficult to get used to sleeping on a thin mattress on the tatami mat floor. Everyone around him spoke Japanese and he wasn't quite sure of what was happening from one moment to the next. His meals were barely adequate, consisting mainly of rice, and the early mornings and early evenings were getting to him. He was as agitated as hell but scared to question anything. He feared the guards. The way they looked at him—he could tell he was a target. Going 'cold turkey' was churning his stomach inside out and he was in a kind of daze now. He knew that back at home he was entitled to some form of representation but he didn’t know what to do here. Marley had said something about consular representation but he still hadn't heard anything.

  The cell door was opened and a prison officer greeted him.

  "Tate," (Stand) he ordered, saying nothing more.

  Josh was used to this order, so he stood and was cuffed by the officer, the cuffs pinching the skin around his wrists. He flinched a little but did not dare complain. The officer walked in and grabbed him by the wrist from behind, signaling for Josh to walk forward. He escorted him about two hundred meters or so to what appeared to be an interview room, then left him alone, sitting on an aluminum chair at the head of a rectangular table, facing the window.

  A Japanese man dressed in a suit walked in. He was thin and quite dark skinned and looked as though he was in his mid-forties. The man said nothing as he looked around. He walked straight for the chair next to Josh, picked it up and turned it so that the back faced Josh, then sat, legs either side and stared straight into Josh's eyes.

  "You have many friends," he said coolly, in accented English.

  He smiled. Josh looked down.

  "We know you use drugs, we tested your blood and we think you sell drugs. Do you sell to your friends? …to your keitai friends?"

  "You have to charge me with something," said Josh, as a rush of frustration took hold.

  "Ah… you know Japanese law," the detective asked playfully. "Is it the same as Australia? Did you know about twenty-three days without charge in Japan? Eh? Did you know?"

  "You have to let me see a lawyer," demanded Josh.

  "Ok… do you know one?" The detective laughed heartily as he saw Josh's will break. Josh fell silent.

  "The penalty for drug supply is severe. Do you have some spare time?" asked the detective. "Maybe… how about… 10 years, or maybe some more? You can stay here in Japan, for free?" The detective laughed at Josh. "Maybe you could teach us some English? We have confession in your interview at Sonezaki station. Look, you signed." He showed Josh an official looking piece of paper and Josh's signature.

  "It's about a refund for the bookstore. There was no confession when I read this," pleaded Josh.

  "But you signed," repeated the detective.

  "I didn’t write this," Josh protested.

  "You didn't have to, but you did. You are guilty of supplying drugs. You signed. You signed."

  Josh was defeated—a week without charge––the futility of any argument. He knew that they had him. He had done well so far, refusing to reveal any information that would incriminate his friends. "But where were they now?" he thought, as his mood darkened.

  The detective took out the keitai that was confiscated from Josh earlier at Sonezaki Police Station. Tossing it up and down in his right hand, he stared at Josh to gauge his reaction.

  "This is a very cheap keitai. Old model," said the detective. "You have many names and numbers. Penny, is she your friend? Do you sell her drugs?"

  Josh didn't react.

  "Who is Jaimie? What about Yutaka? Eh?"

  "They are nobody, they are my friends."

  "Honnmani, tomodachi dake ka?” the detective asked in the Osaka dialect. "Uso ya ro" he grumbled. (Bullshit, they are not friends)

  Josh didn't understand and stared silently at the floor. The detective turned on the phone. It beeped loudly, startling Josh. The detective noticed that Josh seemed to be rattled, so he continued on with his psychological assault, sensing that he was close to breaking him down.

  "Who is this gaijin, Jon? Many, many, many times he has sent a text. You have replied many, many times."

  "Just a friend," answered Josh. The detective noticed a change of tone in Josh's voice.

  "What is trade?" asked the detective, reading from one of the texts. "This is very common word. Can we trade today? Do we trade at six? Many, many times… trade?"

  "It's nothing, just another word for meet, you know to have drink… nothing."

  "Do you think Japanese police are stupid?" asked the detective politely.

  Before Josh had a chance to answer, however, the detective began to review his situation for him.

  "Josh San," he began. "If you tell me who the main person is that you sell to, we maybe can think about your time in jail." He had Josh's attention.

  "We can sometimes change jail time to deportation in the case of a foreigner. Maybe you can't come back to Japan but you can leave
here. You will not go to jail."

  Josh's mood lifted considerably, as he could now see that he had some options.

  Soro Soro

  Jon appeared at the top of the stairs looking very sad and depressed. All conversation stopped as he walked down slowly, one heavy footstep dragging the next. Finally, he sat. All eyes were on him as he confirmed everyone's suspicions.

  "Well, that was heartless," he said, almost on the verge of tears. "It wasn't the disagreement over the whales, if that's what anyone is thinking."

  "So, she's gone then?" asked Kimberly, rubbing his back affectionately in a wide circular motion.

  "Well, she just needs time to think," said Jon. "The argument… well, she was angry in a way. She said she can't respect anyone who sits on the fence over this issue."

  "She'll come 'round. Just give her some time to think… you know… on her own and all," said Kimberly reassuringly, now scrunching the back of his hair.

  Jon seemed reassured, the sadness in his eyes fading as he placed his hand on Kimberly's lap and squeezed.

  Mark and Kaori were now also in pretty close proximity, leaving Mike and Tsubasa in a conversational void. Mike stared into his pitcher of beer and began swirling the dregs to make a whirlpool of beer. He began thinking about how close to Tsubasa Jon had become. He now suspected that Jon was dealing in drugs and was working out how many years Jon must have been connected with those people down at Daiichi Heights. The card, that Tsubasa gave Mark—it irrefutably connected the guy with that apartment.

  His mind wandered back to that first day and his introduction to the apartments.

  "Paul…, Paul, Jackson." The name flashed into Mike's mind. That company guy… he introduced me to the superintendent. Did he introduce Jon, and Mark?”

  He put down his beer as he decided to do a little detective work himself. He made eye contact with Tsubasa, who was looking a little 'out of sorts'. Mike smiled and got one back, so he proceeded with his idea and put an innocent question to him.

  "So, did you and Jon meet up in Kyoto?" he asked across table.

  Although able to hear, Jon now had his elbows on the table, the palms of his hands supporting his face as he rubbed his eyes and Kimberly rubbed his shoulders. Jon, seemingly unwilling or unable to join in the conversation, said nothing as Tsubasa responded directly to Mike.

  "No, no. My other friend, Paul—he gave an introduction."

  The penny dropped as Mike realized that all those years back, Paul was not only greeting new arrivals but also scouting and recruiting for other, less legitimate activities in conjunction with the superintendent. He wondered why, after being given one of those cards, he was never contacted. And then he realized that he himself had never contacted any one with any of the numbers on the card. He had thrown it away years ago.

  "Who the hell would respond to a number on one of those cards," he thought to himself… then glanced over at Jon, answering his own question.

  "So now you and Jon are good friends," Mike said, looking directly at Jon.

  "Yes, of course," responded Tsubasa with very little emotion and a forced smile.

  This sent shivers running up Mike's spine and he resolved to take Jon aside sometime in the very near future and talk some sense into him, before he got himself into something he couldn't get out of.

  Things kind of ground to a halt after this and there was a long silence—perfectly acceptable in Japan, although awkward in any other country.

  "Soro soro,"(Well, it's time) said Tsubasa eventually, as he lightly slapped the table with his hands to support himself as he stood. The others took the 'cue' and also stood. Kaori began to bow but the others were a little too drunk to follow cultural etiquette, as they put on their jackets and began the ascent to the top of the stairs.

  With no conversation as they assembled in front of the exit door, Tsubasa noticed a restaurant entrance to the left and stood in front reading the menu. The others kind of milled around, rubbing their arms and shaking them to keep warm in anticipation of that final round of bows and goodbyes, so common in Japan. Tsubasa turned around to the others.

  "Hairo?" (Shall we go in?) he suggested.

  Kimberly, who was holding Jon's arm and rubbing it for warmth, was the first to accept.

  "Ya," she said. "I could do with a bite to eat."

  Jon agreed with a quick nod of the head. This made it difficult for the other three to say no. Mark and Mike just wanted to get the hell away from this guy, but Kaori, not knowing any of the history, thought it a reasonable suggestion and indicated in the affirmative.

  "Sou shiyou?" (Shall we?), she said, looking at Mark and then Mike for agreement. It was hard for them to say no. They looked at each other and realizing there was no way out, reluctantly agreed.

  "Just a quick meal," Mark added as they all followed Tsubasa into the restaurant.

  They were seated fairly quickly at a large square table in the middle of the restaurant. Again, Tsubasa raised his hand and the staff snapped to attention. He ordered drinks without asking this time, pausing momentarily to check with Kaori that she wanted beer. With no objection, the drinks were ordered. Everyone unwrapped their Oshibori and relaxed momentarily as they wiped away their discomforts and apprehensions. The drinks arrived in lightning time, the conversational dynamic repeating the previous pattern. Tsubasa picked up the menu and summoned another waitress. Mike wondered what he was ordering but couldn't hear him or see him as he held the menu up high in front of his face.

  Mike turned to Mark and Kaori. She was teaching Mark how to fold a chopstick holder with the paper chopstick wrapper.

  "Did you realize that Jon was probably dealing drugs," he whispered to Mark.

  "How did you… never mind, you don't know the half of it."

  "What do you know?" exclaimed Mike.

  "I know there is a guy in jail with a keitai, possibly with Jon and Kimberly's number in its memory."

  "Fuck," exclaimed Mike under his breath. "Probably got this guy's number too," he added, motioning to Tsubasa with a flick of the head.

  "Jon's just using though, isn’t he? Why do you think he's dealing?"

  "Later," said Mark. "Let's just eat then get the hell out of here."

  "I'm with you, buddy," agreed Mike.

  Karori had finished her beer and was happily humming random sounds into Mark's ear. She was pretending to be a spoilt little girl and demanded a video of Mark. She took out her keitai but just as she had set it to take video, the food started arriving.

  "No one remembered ordering but it didn't seem to matter as Tsubasa asked for another round of drinks. An army of waitresses placed large shallow earthenware pots supported by blackened cast iron frames with a chunk of what looked like paraffin wax placed underneath on a plate. The paraffin was lit as plates filled with meat, vegetables and condiments were placed around the flaming pots.

  Kaori took a video of Mark drinking from his pitcher and then panned to the food, making a sweep of the food then the others at the table. The others, drunk and mischievous, all made peace signs with their right hands while making faces.

  In a short space of time, the fish stock in the pots began to boil and Tsubasa took the lead. He first placed the vegetables in the pot closest to him. Kaori had put down her phone by now and had taken over the food preparation at Mark and Mike's end of the table. She did the same as Tsubasa, then they both picked up some flesh with chopsticks—a marbled, red-and-white-looking meat that Mike and Mark recognized as wagyu (Japanese beef)—and placed it quickly in the pots with the vegetables. Leaving no time to overcook the food, Tsubasa and Kaori began serving the meal, placing vegetables and broiled beef in small bowls that were placed in front of each person at the table. With almost ravenous intensity, each person picked up some freshly cooked beef and vegetables from the bowl, dipped it in a sauce and then ate it. They all fell silent as the sounds of food being consumed echoed around the table, the intensity of it returning them to a state of near sobriety.

 
Tsubasa ordered more drinks as a few more clay pots of stew-like food arrived—only this time, they were pre-cooked. Kaori picked up her keitai again and began a new video. The others, on cue, did peace signs and made silly faces again while Mark hogged in into the second round of delicious food. This time it was fish, and Mark was still ravenous. Kaori continued her video, making commentary as the others around the table gorged themselves.

  She stopped taking video and began working with her keitai with intense concentration as the others continued consuming.

  "What now?" asked Mark.

  "Can you order a beer with a keitai in Japan now?"

  Dismissing Mark's silly remark, she explained that she was uploading the video to her blog on Mixi, so her friends could be jealous.

  "Mixi?" he asked, a little confused. "What is Mixi?"

  “It's like Japanese Facebook," she answered.

  "Wow," so Japanese people don't use Facebook?" he asked.

  "Oh, there is Facebook,” she explained “But 'Mixi' is better. It's in Japanese only," she added.

  "Hey Mike, did you hear that? Most people here use a thing called Mixi and not Facebook. Did you know?"

  "Huh?" replied Mike.

  No one had spoken to him for a few minutes and he appeared to have lapsed in to a catatonic state of contentment. The others had slowed and were looking spent and ready to roll home.

  "How was your meal?" enquired Tsubasa to the collective attention of the group.

  "Oishikatta," (It was delicious) said Jon.

  His keitai made a bubble sound and he quickly fished around in his coat pocket to check for messages. Mark, Mike and Kaori complimented Tsubasa on his Osusume (recommendation).

  "Was that wagyu?" asked Mike.

  "Yes," Tsubasa replied.

  "The best beef in the world."

  They all agreed, possibly in anticipation of Tsubasa picking up the tab.

  "That second one, though… the fish… I don't think I know that one. What was that?" asked Mike.

  "NO," exclaimed Jon. He was staring at the screen of his keitai.

  "What…what is it Jon?" asked Kimberly.

  "It's formal, then—she wants to split."

  "I am so sorry Jon," said Kimberly with an over- theatrically concerned expression.

  Mike winked at Mark, causing Mark to smirk. He quickly turned towards Kaori to hide his face. Kaori made a poker face but spoiled it by puffing up her cheeks. Mark nearly choked as he tried not to laugh. Jon appeared devastated and became quiet and introspective. Kimberly nestled her head on his shoulder and stroked his hair.

  Mark was on the verge of bursting out laughing again so he tried to change topics and reminded Tsubasa about the fish.

  "What was the fish, Tsubasa?" he yelled across the table.

  "It was not fish," he replied.

  Mark and Mike sat erect.

  "Not fish?" Mark questioned. He didn't want to ask but he had to know. "What was it then?"

  It was like slow motion as the word emerged. He felt like he was in some kind of Japanese anime and the words were coming out of Tsubasa's mouth as individual letters then fading and disappearing as the next letter emerged.

  "KU-JI-RA."

  Mark thought he had better check.

  "Kujira, you mean whale?" he asked, half expecting to be corrected.

  "Did you like it?" Tsubasa asked, smiling.

  Jon and Kimberly didn't react. Engrossed in Jon's emotional upheaval, Jon was looking quite sick now and Kimberly seemed to be making good progress. Not knowing what to say, Mike looked at Mark. Mark looked at Kaori, who repeated,

  "Kujira...whale."

  "You knew?" questioned Mark, surprised at her response.

  "Mmm,” she replied., "Kujira is whale. I don't like it."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Mark demanded.

  Feeling a little confronted, Kaori responded strongly."

  "You ate it and you didn't ask? I don't tell you what to eat. Are you a child? I didn't eat any? Don't get angry at me."

  The logic was hard to argue with, particularly as Mark had spent the last half an hour working out how he might get Kaori to let him stay at her house, in her bed. He quickly calmed down realizing that he had been a part of a second-hand payback joke.

  "Alison," he thought angrily. "She set up the argument, left the scene of the crime and then left us to bear the brunt of the wrath of the man she had offended."

  He turned to Mike, raised his eyebrows and stared him in the eyes.

  "I ate whale. Oh my God. I can't do that. The business! If this gets out..."

  Mark didn't want to think about the consequences for the business.

  "Look Mark, it was an innocent mistake on your part. No one could hold it against you and it's just us who know about this," said Mike reassuringly.

  They both looked at Kaori for reassurance, the word forming in their minds at the same time.

  "Mixi," they said simultaneously.

  Kaori stared back, ducked a little and waited for the verbal assault. Instead, Mark went straight for the bargaining stage, electing to skip the anger.

  "You can pull it down, can't you? Can't you?" he added a little frantically.

  The tension subsided as Kaori explained reassuringly that all she had to do was delete it. She already had the phone in her hand as she worked the necessary magic required to save Mark's arse.

  "There, did it," said Kaori with a self-satisfied smile, as she skillfully snapped shut her flip phone, still a popular style of keitai in Japan. Mark looked at her, beaming with respect, remembering why he had been so goddamn attracted to her in the first place.

  "Well, shit folks, I ate whale too," Mike reminded the two.

  The lovebirds failed to respond, preferring to continue the game of under-the table-drunk-couple-footsies in which they were engaged. Tsubasa stood.

  "Soro soro,", he said with no further consultation.

  Kimberly and Jon just fell into line. They both glanced at Mike, Mark and Kaori with a wounded expression, saying nothing and looking forlorn. Mark was contemplating how to tell Tsubasau that he could pick up the tab, then where he could shove the receipt. Resolving Mark's dilemma, Tsubasa walked straight over to the register and paid leaving Mark to imagine the rest. The others—still preparing to depart—said nothing, assuming it was all part of the natural order of things. Mike, unable to resist the urge to do the culturally appropriate thing, placed his hand in the inside of his coat pocket, pretending to take out his wallet but was quickly waved down by Tsubasa, who had already paid by now.

  Without a word, Tsubasa led the group out the door, past the top of the stairway then out the main exit. They all assembled in a circle outside the door in anticipation of a typically overextended exchange of ‘thank–yous’ and ‘goodbyes’ but were surprised as Tsubasa, raised his right hand, waved, and with no more to say than "Ja" (Well),

  he turned and walked to the right without turning back.

  Jon and Kimberly were a little surprised, as they had been expecting a lift home.

  "Moody fucker," exclaimed Jon.

  "Let's get a taxi then," suggested Kimberly.

  Mike explained that he lived quite close and could walk, while Mark and Kaori mentioned something about 'kicking on' at the nearest karaoke station. With a final goodbye, the group went on their separate ways, ending the night with a fizzle.

  The last day

  Mark woke up to sunlight streaming through a window straight into his eyes. His head throbbed as he realized there was a body clinging on to him from behind. Quickly remembering who it was, he placed his hand on Kaori's thigh and smiled. His first thought was to quench his enormous thirst, but he was always reluctant to drink any water from a tap in Osaka. He sat up, looking for something in a bottle and noticed that he wasn't at an apartment at all. The hotel room was a little cramped but there was a mini fridge under a writing desk. It was not quite in reach so he wiggled forward on the bed, taking half the futon with him. Kaori didn't
move. Opening the fridge, he found a small bottle of mineral water. He took it out and drank the lot, placing the empty bottle back on the writing desk and noticing that his keitai was full with messages and that it was now 11:30 am. His vision was fuzzy, so it took him a little time to notice the messages were all from Kenichi, his business partner. He selected the first and waited for it to load, noticing that it came with an attachment.

  "You made NHK news. We have to talk"

  Mark read it over a few times, too terrified to open the attachment. Realizing that it was a video file, he thought the worst as he opened the file and watched a You Tube video load. The caption was in Japanese and read: "Kujira o tabete iru gaijin" (Whale-eating foreigner) He played it reluctantly, terror racing through his veins as he watched himself gorging on whale meat, while laughing and drinking with Mike. The others came into view every now and then but Kaori's camera work was true, capturing her Mark kun in all his glory, with his finger in the pie for the entire world to see.

  He slunk to the bed and sat with his shoulders hunched over, the keitai held in two hands rested on his lap. He was naked but didn't give a damn. He opened the next text.

  "We have much trouble. We have to talk"

  And the next:

  "NHK want an interview. Mark"

  And the last:

  "Mark, where are you. This is very bad?"

  Mark shook Kaori gently on the shoulder.

  "Kaori, Kaori… I have to ask you."

  Kaori awoke. Puffy faced, she rubbed her eyes, stretched and groaned.

  "Nani?"(What?) she asked in a little-girl voice.

  "The video, did you delete it?"

  "Yes, of course. Why?" she asked.

  "It looks like it's gone viral."

  "Eh? Viral? What is viral?"

  "What?" said Kaori, shaking her head in disbelief.

  "Oh my god, how?"

  "Your blog, Mixi—you said you deleted it."

  "Well, I did, but I suppose someone could have downloaded while it was up. I think more than ten million people use it, so I guess it was popular."

  "Popular?"

  Mark pulled up Yahoo Japan on his keitai and did a search.

  "Gaijin Kujira" The very first hit was him, on You Tube.

  "Fuck, this is bad… this is very bad.”

  "The video was up to 550 000 hits already and it was only just past 11.30 am. Realizing the scale of the problem, Mark summoned the courage to call Kenichi on the hotel's landline.

  "Hai, Moshi Moshi, Tanaka desu.” (This is Mr Tanaka)

  "Kenichi, it's Mark here. Look I don't know what to say. I didn’t know about the kujira. I was drinking, you know… ahh…"

  Mark was lost for words as Kenichi intervened.

  "Mark, this is serious problem. Japanese TV, NHK—they want to talk. You are celebrity but… you must to be very careful."

  "Look, I just don't know what to do… I mean… umm should I do it… the interview I mean?… Is it in English?"

  "Come to my office," demanded Kenichi. "Where are you now?"

  "Where am I now?" Mark repeated, staring around the room.

  "Where the fuck am I?’" he whispered angrily to himself. He noticed stationery on the writing desk that read:

  Umeda OS hotel, Sonezaki Kita Ku Umeda.

  "Ahh, Umeda," he said loudly, almost yelling.

  "Ok, OK, it is nearby. Are you at train station, Mark?" asked Kenichi.

  "No, no, at a… a hotel… umm the Umeda OS Hotel."

  "Ah, I know it, it has good restaurant. I will change to you. We will have lunch," he stated, with no hint that this was merely a suggestion.

  Without questioning why he was there, or whom he was with, Kenichi asked that Mark wait there while he came to him.

  "How long will you be?' asked Mark, sitting naked, unshaven and in need of a shower and some sustenance.

  "I will walk. My office is about fifteen minutes away. What is room number?" he asked.

  Again Mark looked around, for a clue, finally putting his hand over the phone and asking Kaori.

  "505," she whispered gently, as Kenichi interrupted.

  "Ok… so doesn't matter. Just let's meet at restaurant Saizeria? Is next to the reception area, OK?"

  "Yup", replied Mark obediently. "In fifteen minutes, OK?" He hung up, leaving Mark holding an empty phone. Stopping in his tracks, Mark fell silent for a moment, looking perplexed.

  "So, why are we at this hotel?" he asked Kaori.

  "Too much karaoke… we missed the last train," she said with a cheeky giggle.

 

‹ Prev Next ›