*
‘There was a cat,’ Taro murmured contritely.
The banged up scooter’s arduous return to Hachikawa’s pizza shop had given him moment to pause. Beating up some guy and not feeling anything couldn’t have been right. Maybe there was something wrong with him. It might have explained why he was not fitting in anywhere. He needed to buy some time to think about it some more. He might not think about it. But he would have to buy the time to find out.
An unusually subdued Hackikawa was making it easier. He was not even frowning. Perhaps, he realised he was only a lion tamer: once the lion had stepped out of the cage, his whip would be rendered useless.
‘A cat?’ he murmured.
‘I swerved to avoid it and struck a pole. The order was ruined. And the front wheel is buckled, I think. But I am uninjured. If you provide me with another scooter, I can continue my shift.’
They were standing in the small garage at the back of the shop. There were three scooters ranked by the far wall, which wouldn’t be needed on a quiet night such as this. Hachikawa’s attention, however, remained with the damaged scooter. The buckled wheel was the one aspect of the crash that was clearly comprehensible and his eyes were held by it.
‘You will need to fill out an accident report form,’ he said. ‘Then go home. It would be against regulations to do anything else.’
Taro had missed out on a place at the only university he could afford by one measly percentage point. He had sworn that would be regulation’s final victory over his life. But, on the other hand, regulations only maimed, they never killed. Regulators were not murderers.
8
The following day Taro went to the fifth day of the Grand Sumo tournament in Ryogoku, Tokyo. He got a cheap seat in the back and waited for the program to work through the lower jonokuchi bouts until, with much ceremony and parading, it was time for the yokozuna wrestlers. As usual, the Mongolian wrestlers were highly fancied in the tournament, but that was not what Taro had come to see. Even from the back bleachers, he could smell the yakitori chicken being served up with sake in the expensive ringside seats. One hundred thousand yen per box of four seats and an additional one hundred thousand yen for the hospitality. Only large companies wishing to entertain important clients would outlay such considerable expenses and that’s why those seats were occupied by immaculately dressed, earnest looking businessmen.
For Taro, even the six thousand yen he had been forced to fork out for his seat was a serious blow to his finances. Especially after his contribution to the okonomiyaki restaurant and love hotel with Hiromi. So, had it been worth it coming here?
Taro thought so for two reasons. The first was he needed to draw out an old memory: going to the sumo with his father when he was five – a beautiful memory that had been sitting in his head like some kind of jewel. A moment in time he could be truly sentimental about. One of the very few. The second reason was to prod further the lack of feeling he had encountered while beating up the businessman. Studying those company executives in the box seats was the best way he could think of to do that. They had reached the pinnacle of success. Their companies deemed them worthy of such preferential treatment as ringside seats. Any of the ambitious feelings that would enable him to prosper would surely surface here. Hunger, envy, confidence, determination, their presence would indicate he had a chance of obtaining such a privileged position himself. Sadness, dejection, regret, timidity on the other hand would suggest he inwardly recognised his shortcomings and that it was time to move on.
But this nothingness that he couldn’t shake, that persisted even here, he could now confirm it was a sickness. The yakitori entering the executives mouths did not bring revulsion, the cool sake touching their lips did not elicit admiration. Was it a lifetime being treated like a product on a convenience store shelf that caused such malaise? Was it a mother who had been too good at making things just right? Was it a sister who had successfully substituted life experiences with Hello Kitty products?
Taro wasn’t going to be one of those nuts who butchered family members and kept their pieces in a refrigerator or bath tub. But the only way to fully identify the disease was
by trying to find a cure.
He stayed to watch the only wrestler who wasn’t as soft as the flab around his waist-line: Asashoryu. The Mongolian had lost most of his greatness since being forced by the Japan Sumo Association to apologise for playing a charity football match in favour of one of their meaningless post-season exhibition tournaments. Maybe it was sympathy that kept Taro in his hopelessly distant cheap seat – when sumo wrestlers appeared this small, hopeless was the only word for it.
As Asashoryu began throwing salt around the ring to ward off evil spirits in the pre-bout ritual, it became plain clear to Taro, even from this distant position, that he was merely going through the motions. He had succumbed to the whims of the regulators. To see such a giant have his spirit sucked away merely so that things could be as they should be, was disturbing. Taro realised that what Asoshoryu needed was an opponent so aggressive and low-down dirty it shook off his lethargy and reawakened the killer instinct the coddlers had been suffocating.
Taro was too small to do it himself. But he wasn’t too small for Japan. He set himself for the bout. He looked at the other spectators excitedly flapping their fans against the muggy breath in the giant metal lung that was the stadium and wanted them to be spectators for him, too.
9
Taro had gained more time for smoking his cigarettes at the train crossing. But he was missing the thrill of riding the delivery scooter fast through the Tokyo backstreets. The city was even harder to take when it slowed down.
Still, Taro knew things were going to heat up soon. Hiromi had agreed to meet him on Saturday night. She hadn’t said much in the process. But the lack of reluctance in her voice had been the most telling aspect of their brief conversation. She had an analytical mind. She was a star at mathematics. She formulated plans.
Smoking was best done on a mountain top in winter when there was the perfect contrast between the seedy smoke of tobacco and the pure air of nature. By the Friday afternoon, the sensation he was getting at the train crossing was just like that. The anticipation he was feeling for the next day was so bittersweet it must surely have been carcinogenic in its own right.
Taro was only halfway through his pack of Swisher Sweet cigarettes when his solitude was disturbed by a frowning man.
‘The Diet has voted down a bill to increase tax on tobacco to a level that matched other developed nations. They reason that if there was a price hike on cigarettes they would lose out on tax revenue - because punks like you wouldn’t be able to afford them.’
It was Daigo Kuroki, his brother-in-law. Tall and wiry, he was widely considered a success within the family, though Taro could not point to anything in particular that he had done that was successful. An assistant management position in a trading company and a wife who ran her household with unrelenting efficiency. These were considered noteworthy achievements for a man not yet thirty. A man worthy of being a sempai to the likes of Taro.
‘Why do you always come around on Friday nights?’ Taro darted back.
That needled Kuroki. There would be a reason, but that was with his wife and he had no doubt left it unquestioned.
‘Why aren’t you out delivery your pizzas?’ he fired back. ‘Who gets fired from a job like that?’
‘I quit.’
‘Why? So you can smoke cigarettes and watch trains go by?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Your sister asked me to check up on you. And I’d say she’s got reason to be concerned. Someone who spends so much of his time staring at trains must have some thought to jumping in front of one. Do you know the fine your mother will have to pay the railway company if you go through with it? She wouldn’t be able to afford it. Think about that carefully before you make any unwise decisions.’
Taro had heard the fine was three hundred thousand yen. But it
would not be that stopping him from such a drastic action. It would be the humiliation of the final defeat, of throwing himself under the feet of all those lifeless zombies in black suits.
‘I haven’t even thought about it,’ he said meekly.
‘Sure,’ replied Kuroki sarcastically. ‘Why would you? A guy that can’t even deliver a pizza has so much to live for. Don’t think about gassing yourself, either. You’d probably take out the hapless person who finds you. And hospitalise half the neighbourhood as well.’
‘I would never kill myself in a city. Cities are ugly places. So, to die in the city would be ugly, too.’
‘There’s a nice forest near Mt. Fuji for people who think like that. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t think like that. Sometimes when people don’t do anything particularly well, their death is the only opportunity for redemption.’
‘Sure.’
‘I hear your girlfriend is back from her working holiday in Canada. If you let her, she would make a good man of you. She would save you from yourself.’
A train roared by. An express. Taro flicked his cigarette at it.
Kurioki waited for it to pass before he spoke again. ‘We’re going out for tendon. Would you like to join us? I have been sent to invite you.’
Taro all too easily shook his head. ‘No thanks.’ If only he had known what was in