Weeds in the Jungle

them? They had been picking on a friend, so he had had no choice. Anyway, underworld gangs had more rules than the average company - so called tough men who spent their days bowing to tougher men.

  ‘The world is a brutal place,’ he replied. ‘And you left me alone for a whole year. You should respect my wishes.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do that.’ Hiromi’s voice was strained but to Taro not fully convincing.

  Whether it meant she was willing to do anything he asked or just that this particular request was not such a stretch, he supposed would be lurking somewhere beneath the surface. He would explore the latter possibility first and if he was able to discount that conclusively, he would make every effort to set her up with Jun Hanagawa, the friend he had stood up for against the bosozoku gang. Jun had enrolled in a semi-prestigious university in Tokyo and had the temperament to do what a boss asked of him. That had already been put to the test when the boss of his part time job had put pubes into his drink and made him toast his loyalty. Taro had been shocked to hear this confession but not necessarily surprised. Dragging his feet around, his eyes never looking anywhere, it was not hard to see whatever meagre spirit Jun may have once possessed had been all but quashed. The young man that had been forged was burdened with a quiet, defeatist demeanour and a wariness to step out in public – traits unlikely to secure him a relationship anytime soon. And yet he was the type to cherish any relationship he happened to have. He would be the right kind of guy to be with Hiromi. He would keep to himself in the relationship, but at least he would keep himself together. Anyway, it wouldn’t be right for Taro to set them up if he suspected Hiromi of a duplicit nature. Taro snatched his shirt off the bed and slipped back into it.

  ‘It’s the only way,’ he said. ‘You’ll just have to accept it.’ He was fumbling over the buttons, all his force going into his voice. ‘I’ll cancel my shift on Saturday night. That’s when the bars are most active. You’d better be ready.’

  Hiromi remained hunched over in her towel.

  Taro could still feel pity, but if she made their Saturday night appointment after this, then likely poor old Jun’s loss would be another man’s gain.

  7

  Taro had never ridden his pizza delivery scooter quite so recklessly. Even Mr Hachikawa, the branch manager, was startled by the short duration between pickups. He was not the type to question anything that increased production so his displeasure remained solely for the ears of a long suffering cashier.

  Taro’s tension and aggression were as tightly coiled up inside him as his intestines. And they weren’t unwinding on the streets of Tokyo’s Nakano ward. Taro was knocking on his customers doors with all the ferocity of a debt collector, unloading his pizza’s like a suffocating submarine desperate to release its ballast.

  The crash that occurred a couple of hours into the shift was all but inevitable. It was Taro’s fault. A blind turn into a dark, narrow intersection sent an oncoming car braking and veering into a beverage vending machine. Taro couldn’t get out of the collision’s path in time, side swiping the car and bouncing off into a head on impact with a metal power pole. His jaw clunked together as he was scuttled across the bitumen. The pizza storage container at the rear of the scooter came open and the order he was transporting scattered all over the road.

  ‘You idiot! Are you trying to kill someone?!’

  The driver ofthe car was out on his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was a businessman, forty something, with an ugly square face and hateful eyes. Someone’s detested boss.

  Taro had to contain the rage brewing inside him by focussing his attention on his own affairs. He picked up a pizza that had miraculously stayed inside its box. He carefully reclosed the box, thinking that if the bike still went he might be able to make a delivery yet.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ cried the businessman. ‘I’m calling the police. Give me your name’

  This was no victim. This was just another tyrant expecting him to bow at the waist. Taro launched upon him furiously. His initial punch in the face was clean and knocked him to the ground. His follow up kicks at the body, however, were mostly fended off amidst a chorus of pathetic whimpers. Still, they softened the businessman up for what he really wanted to do. ‘Will a complimentary pizza make you feel better?’ Taro bashed him over the head with the box until the pizza fell out. Then he grabbed him by the hair and rubbed his face into it. ‘You like it? It’s seafood.’

  Taro finally stood up and wiped off his hands.

  ‘I’m going to take down your number plate,’ he said. ‘My father is a cop. You report this and you can expect another pizza delivery. That one, I guarantee you, will be with the lot.’

  He returned to his scooter. He realised his left knee was hurting more than it was bending. Kicking the businessman wouldn’t have helped. Apparently the businessman’s angry screams had scared off anyone who might have responded to the crash. Also in Taro’s favour was the fact that the buildings in the immediate vicinity, a day care centre, a community centre and a real estate agency were closed for the day and shrouded in darkness. No one was going to be clearly viewing the scene from the safety of a nearby apartment window.

  The scooter restarted with an admonishing high pitched rattle. It wouldn’t be half the reaction of the perpetually skulking Mr Hachikawa. Taro didn’t care. The move he had just pulled with the pizza on the beaten up salaryman had been rehearsed a hundred times over in his fantasies of finally putting Mr Hachikawa in his place.

  Its smooth transition into reality was an encouraging start.