An Untitled Story, Part 4: Burglar

The next Saturday morning.  Something was ringing somewhere, not too far away.  A phone?  A fire alarm?  Is it 8 now?  9?  This is a Saturday, for god's sake!

Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I slowly rose out of my futon, went to the entrance, slipped into my beach sandals, and opened the door.  I could tell from the brightness on the left, exposed west-end of the hallway where my apartment was located, and from above that it was another sunny weekend.  The noise seemed to be coming from one of the other tenants.  I went out the door, and slowly moved to the right along the hallway, toward the rusty stairs facing the road.  Then I saw bills and small change scattered on the concrete floor, in front of the door to a renter next door but one.  The door was slightly ajar, and the sound was obviously coming from inside the door.

I opened the door further, and, in the darkness of the room with the curtains all closed, saw a man lying flat face down on the tatami mat.  He was only wearing T-shirt and short pants.  On the entrance concrete floor, there was a black shoulder bag with its flap open, showing bills inside.  Several coins and a couple of bills were scattered around.  I ventured further into the room, pulled the ceiling light on, and found the source of the noise.  An alarm clock.

"Put a stop to it, please, pal," I said, squatted, and punched the top of the clock.  The ringing stopped.  The guy was moving, and lightly snoring.  I picked up the money both from the entrance floor and the hallway, and put them back into the bag.  I then placed the bag next to him.  

"You got to be careful, man.  I'm just being a nice guy here," I said to him.  He didn't respond.  I'd seen him a couple of times before, but we had never exchanged a word.

The black bag was familiar to me: it's the kind of bag I used to carry with me when I went out to collect monthly bills for newspapers I delivered back in college as a live-in newspaper boy.  It was an exhausing job, and I quit after one year, although the original plan called for me toiling through it for four full years of college.

So he was working the previous Friday night, I thought.  Maybe he then had a drink somewhere with his fellow newspapermen or women, got drunk, and somehow managed to get back home.  Feeling a sense of comradeship, I looked at his tired face one last time, pulled the light off, and went out to get my newspaper.

Just as I was about to make a right turn at the end of the hall and descend the stairs, I saw, down below, a man with sunglasses and a baseball cap speed past on what looked like a typical mom's city bike, with the front cage and all, at an amazing speed like mad, toward left along the road.  Then I heard a woman's cry for help.  I went down and out onto the road, and saw a woman standing and looking my way in front of one of the doors along the 2nd or 3rd floor of the condominium across from my apartment building.

"What happened?" I hollered to her.  "A thief!  The guy on the bike, he was the one!" she responded.  I walked closer to the condo.  As I saw her face more clearly, I recalled her pale face with big eyes.  The one with a ponytail.  This time her hair was not put in a ponytail but hanging around her shoulders.

"Hey, haven't I seen you?" I asked.

"What?  Oh, wow.  We've met before, haven't we?" she said, her eyebrows raised and her mouth agape in amazement. 

"Are you alright?" I said, looking up at her, now just a few meters away.

"Yes, I'm OK.  It's just that, that guy was in my room when I came back and opened the door.  He dashed out and ran away.  I just couldn't move for a while ... I thought I would be just a few minutes and didn't lock the door ..." she said, sounding scared.  "I'll call the police," I said.

I ran back home and called the police.  Soon a police car came, I explained the situation, and they went into the condo and began taking photos and what not.  Up there she seemed to be answering their questions diligently.  I described the guy I saw on a bike and the way he went on it.  It was around 11 when it was all over.

Later she came out in a pair of slim jeans and T-shirt, and we both stood on the road.  "That was tough, wasn't it?"  I said to her.  "Yes, it was.  Phew, I'm exhausted!" she said, holding her knees and looking down at the ground.

"How about we go have lunch together?"

"Good idea.  I'm practically starving!" she said, smiling.

We walked to a Doutor coffee shop near the station.

An Untitled Story, Part 3: Bike

I knew they were coming.  Two high-school girls, standing right behind the door to my old wooden apartment.  I was in futon in a 6-tatami-mat room, at night, the room being faintly lit with yellowish light, from a sole 60W incandescent lamp, perhaps.  The girls were talking to each other:

"Should we get in now?" one girl said.

"Yeah, let's do it!" said the other.

I became tense, and braced myself for the impending catastrophe.  I'm gonna yell at them "Kora ("Hey")!!" the moment they barged into my room, I thought.

One of the girls said, "OK.  On a count of three.  One, two, three!"

They flung open the door, dashed into the room with their shoes on, and slid into my futon, their legs first, as if they were a couple of baseball players somehow simultaneously trying to steal the home plate.

"Kora!" I said, loudly and forcefully, trying to scare them.

I heard my own voice reverberate in my head.  A grunting, rather.  Then I heard the chirping of birds, a couple of sparrows maybe.  My body was tensed up from head to toe.  I slowly opened my eyes, and saw the half-opened window letting in the morning sunlight.  It was all a dream.  My voice must have sounded pretty loud in the real world, too.  Did I scare people in the neighborhood?

I got up and out of bed, and looked outside the window.  A quiet, summer morning, clear blue sky, birds singing.  Peaceful.  My room was on the second floor of a two-story, wooden and mortar 30-year-old apartment house, accommodating a total of 10 tenants, each with the identical tatami-mat living room with a tiny kitchen.  The window looked out at a 5-story, recently built condominium, across quite a large vacant lot, maybe 30 to 40 meters wide.  They couldn't have heard my voice at this distance, I assured myself.

I went outside to the mailboxes, and retrieved my newspaper.  On my way back up the rusty iron starecase with holes here and there, I confirmed the absence of my bike in the small bike parking space down there.  It had been stolen the other day.  I was determined to find it myself, without the help of the police.  

It was a Saturday or Sunday in the summer of 1995.  August most likely.  It was very sunny, but not too hot, with a breeze blowing from time to time, refreshing the skin.  In the afternoon, I walked to the local public library.  At a small concrete floor adjacent to the entrance, I did some push-ups, as I often did when I went there.  As I was doing it, a thin, middle-aged bum came to me and said, "Stop doing that useless shit!  Stop, stop!"  I ignored him and kept doing for another 20 times or so.  "What a waste!  You think you're doing something meaningful?  Ha!", the hobo said.  I smiled a self-deprecating smile, stood up, and went into the library, where I borrowed a couple of books on economy and politics.

On my way home, I found my bike, a cheap silver mountain-bike look-alike I had bought at a Mujirushi Ryohin store recently, resting against the guardrail.  I liked the simplicity of it: No letters or designs on the frames, no basket in front.  It didn't even have a kickstand.  The bike was in front of a small "snack", which is a bar or a pub.  The door said they offered lunch sets.  I was hungry, so I went in.  I don't usually go to snacks, so I forced myself into the diner, a little bit scared and nervous.

Inside, several customers were eating whatever they were eating.  They looked like construction workers, mostly in their 50s, 60s, or older.  A couple of female staff wearing aprons were behind the counter.  They also looked like they were in their 50s.  One of them must have been quite pretty and attractive when she was younger, I thought.

"Hello," said the prettier one, apparently a "mama-san".  I said "hello," and took my seat at a bar stool, and set my books on the counter.  I ordered a lunch set of spaggetti, a bowl of salad, and a glass of iced coffee.  I exchanged a few words with mama-san as I ate the dish.  I noticed a peculiar accent or pitch in her voice; it turned out she was from my hometown of Hiroshima.  I instantaneously and almost automatically liked her, and I ate feeling much more relaxed and at home.  Then one of the guys sitting at the counter said, "Mama, you seem to be enjoying yourself very much talking with this young man, don't you?" in a rather sarcastic way.  He then said, after glancing at my books, "Are you an "intellectual"?"

"Well, I don't know..., I don't think so," I said.

"This is the first time I've seen someone carrying books in here," the guy said, his mouth twisting like that of a well-known Japanese politician.  

"Now, stop it.  You're scaring our customer," mama-san said.

I'm not argumentative by nature, and I don't think I have prejudice against blue-collar workers, but I had to ask him for simple curiosity:

"What do you mean by an "intellecutual"?"

He looked slightly taken aback, and then his face turned into a grimace.  "That's exactly what I mean by an "intellectual"," he said, and looked disgusted.

I didn't go any further.  I finished my lunch, paid the bill, and went outside.  I took my bike off the guardrail, and rode it back to my apartment.

An Untitled Story, Part 2: Pumps

The train was packed, as usual.  It was 8:10 a.m., the busiest time of a weekday: students, salaried workers, men, women, young and old, mingling together and hoping for an early end to this daily, unwanted, close human relationships.  A few are reading newspapers here and there.

Some people just don't care if the edge of their papers is on someone else's head.  I once had an experience like that: a man in his late 20's, wearing suits and ties, standing at the corner of the doors, facing the other passengers, as if he was the lord of the tiny bit of space there, looking down on the peasants in his manor or whatever. 

That's when I got on the train.  As I moved into the car, he didn't move his hands holding the paper, and the paper rubbed against the side of my head.  I lowered my head a little, hoping he would realize what his paper was doing to my head, which is in an increasingly accelerated process of losing hair.  I was scared of a negative impact the paper might have on it.  Anyway, I wriggled a little and secured my position at the door, the back of my head facing him.  I kept my head low for a little while, maybe 5 seconds, while the paper was on my head, but he just didn't care.  What does he think I am?  One of his slaves?  A lover? A pillar?

I couldn't stand it any longer.  I jerked up my head, pushing the paper up with the back of my head toward his face.  He didn't say or do anything.  The train just kept going, the passengers paying no attention to us whatsoever.  The next station came, some passengers got off, and I moved further into the car, and turned toward the doors.  He was still holding his paper, and didn't even look at me.  I stared hard at him, sending an invisible ray of pure hatred toward his eyes, willing it to penetrate deep into his brain and destroy what little nerve cells he might have had left in there.  He just didn't care.

The train arrived at Naka-Meguro Station.  The doors opened, and a mass exodus began.  I kept my eyes down, trying not to step on other people's feet.  As I was about to walk across the gap between the car and the platform ground, a shoe lying on the platform, just outside the doors, came into view.  A red, women's shoe: Are they called "pumps"?  I didn't think anything at all; I simply and naturally bent down and extended my right arm, picked up the shoe, and placed it beside the doors where it wouldn't be kicked away or stepped on by the other passengers.  I didn't even look up and try to find the owner.  I kept moving, or kept being pushed forward, rather, by the people stepping outside behind me.  It was a series of elegant, flawless, smooth movements, as I recalled later: Bending, picking, placing, and walking away.

Then I heard someone say, "Ah, thank you...,"  It was a woman's voice, sounding hesitant and shy.  I looked up and saw her.

"Oh, you're ... we've met at the station, haven't we?" I said, genuinly surprised.

"Yes.  What a coincidence!" she said.  She was the one who had dropped the 500-yen coin that I picked up the other day.  The pretty woman with a pony tail.

"It sure is.  It's been a couple of weeks, right?"

"Yes, I guess.  So you've helped me for the second time.  Thank you."

"Ah, I seem to be looking down on the ground all the time, don't I?"

"Haha, you're right!  And pick up something for me all the time," she said.

"(Chuckles) Well, be careful next time! Bye!" I said, and she said "Bye! And thanks!" as I walked away from her.

I didn't bump into anyone this time.

An Untitled Story, Part 1: Coin

I was walking down the steps of Tokyu Gakugei-Daigaku Station when I noticed something glinting on the ground, in front of one of the ticket gates.  It was around 6 p.m., and the station was beginning to get crowded with commuters on their way home, just like me.  As I moved closer to the gate, I realized the thing was a disc, or a coin, spinning on its end and about to die down.

I'm usually not the kind of guy who picks up what's on the ground; I would even pass a purse or what may seem like a wallet, fat with perhaps lots of bills in it.  But this time was different.  I walked straight toward the little silvery ballerina executing an unlikely pirouette, as if attracted by the magnetic energy of some kind the turning piece of metal generated, pulling on the iron in my blood.  I crouched and picked it up, which by that time had lain flat on the concrete floor.

I stood up, looked closely at the coin, and it was a 500-yen coin.  Then it occurred to me that since it was still spinning on the ground, it must have just been dropped from the hand or pocket of someone nearby.  I looked around, trying to find that someone, but nobody seemed to care, the wave of people, many looking tired and drained of any emotions, coming down the stairs and passing the gates.  

I'll hand this to the station employee, I thought.  I started toward the booth to my right, trying not to bump into the people.  Then I heared someone say, in a rather hesitating voice, "Excuse me...,"

I turned back, and there was a woman in her early 20's.  She wore a beige spring coat and a pair of pink-rimmed glasses.  Her hair, dyed slightly brownish, was bundled in a ponytail.

"Did you pick up a coin?" she asked.

"Ah, yes.  Is it yours?"

"I guess it is.  I was rummaging through my purse on my way down the stairs and it just dropped out and rolled down," she said with an embarrased smile on her fair-skinned face.  She was very pretty; the face of a certain young actress came into my mind's eye, but her name didn't come up.

"OK.  Here you are," I said, and extended my right arm with the coin resting on the fingers of my open hand, and gently dropped it onto her small, pale right hand.

"Thank you," she said.

"Oh, by the way, it was spinning on the ground, vertically, when I found it.  Believe it or not," I said.  

"Was it?  That's kind of unusual, isn't it?" she said, looking genuinely surprised.

"Yes, it is, I guess.  Well, anyway, be careful next time," I said.

"OK, I will.  Bye, then," she said.  "Bye!" I said, and walked out the gate first.  As I looked back one last time, I saw her smiling at me.  She waved her hand, and I waved mine, too, happy with the whole event.

Bump!  Suddently, the world around me became pitch-black.  It was as if I were thrown into the empty darkness of outer space, without even a countdown.

"What's wrong with you!?"  A man's voice, grumpy and irritated, said.  It was a guy, big, skin-headed with a goatee and wearing sunglasses, at this time of day, clad in black leather, pointed metal studs protruding from around his neck and wrists.  A heavy-metal aficionado?  If so, we could be friends.  A punk man?  I can try.  Or just someone undergoing apprenticeship as a bad-guy pro-wrestler?  Sorry, I'm not your type.

"Are you hearing-challenged?" he said.  Obviously, I bumped into him as I turned my head around after seeing her.

"Oh, I'm very sorry.  I wasn't looking," I said.

"Well, watch this!" he said, and I saw, clearly this time, his clenched fist coming my way, toward my face.  I barely ducked, and ran away into the shadows of dusk.

"Phew!  That was close..." I said to myself, and hurried home, remembering the face of the woman and the name of the actress: Mirei Kiritani...