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.
