The Gun

  I sat by myself in a chair in the smoking area inside the unfamiliar literature department building. Bored, I took the leather pouch out of my bag. There was no one around, maybe because lectures were in session. I was tempted to pull the gun from the pouch, but of course I restrained myself from doing so. I lit a cigarette, and thought about what to do next. I considered calling that girl I’d recently had sex with, but it was more trouble than it was worth.

  Just then, I thought about shooting the gun. This wasn’t the first time it had occurred to me, but lately I had been thinking about it frequently. The act of firing the gun had always existed within me, and now I realized that, as its presence intensified, my efforts to keep it under control were diminishing. Up until now, I had amused myself with simply the prospect of shooting the gun, but gradually it had taken on a tinge of reality, almost as if I had caused it to proliferate, and it was starting to worry me. Previously, the act of firing the gun had belonged to the potentially distant and uncertain future. Yet, since I had started carrying it around with me, I had the feeling that it was only a question of time. The fact of the matter was that I could use the gun at any time, and it loomed over me as a practical reality that the possibility mounted proportionately with each day. The sight of the gun, the feel of it, evoked a concrete image in my mind of me firing the gun, as if it threatened to break out from within the narrow confines of my fixed imagination, seeking a connection with an actual, physical sensation. The fact that someday I would shoot the gun—I had come to believe that this was an absolute certainty. Being in possession of the gun meant that each day was filled with the potential experience of actually discharging it, and without a doubt there would come a day when I would want to do so—that is to say, I was sure I would fire it. That conviction brought the once-distant future closer, almost as if it had taken on a life of its own, and would compel the first shot to happen. This clearly defined future outcome wanted me to make it materialize, and soon. This demand was gradually intensifying, to the point where it was making me deranged—it had a hold on me, and wouldn’t let go. I felt the necessity of it—that I needed to fire it, at least once. Otherwise, this same internal argument would go on forever, and I thought I might just lose my mind.

  I had the feeling that firing the gun had begun to shift from a conscious choice to a foregone conclusion without my noticing it. The progression made me a little anxious, and I attempted to think through it carefully, but it made my head hurt and I abandoned the idea. I felt like, regardless of what I came up with, it was already determined anyway. So I decided that it didn’t really matter.

  My cell phone rang: it was Yuko Yoshikawa. Feeling as though I had been saved, I answered in a cheerful voice. She told me that she had been asleep, going so far as to yawn loudly, but I didn’t believe her. In my mind, she had been with another guy. I thought about it for a moment, then said that it was no big deal, I had some time and just wondered if she wanted to get lunch together. She said that, now that she was awake, she would make her way to campus. She added that she would call when she got here, and then she hung up.

  I figured I might as well find a way to kill time while I waited for her. After running through various ideas, I thought I would go to the library and look at newspapers. The news on television was all about what was going on with the U.S. and Afghanistan, and information had dropped off about the dead man who had been found at the Arakawa River. I thought there might be something about it in the newspapers, and that I would be able to peruse several days’ worth at the library. And yet, I was a little surprised that this had only first occurred to me as a way of killing time. This ought to have been something I was focused on all along. I had realized as much back when I was in the bathroom at that girl’s apartment, and you would have thought that I would be more meticulous about it. For a while I sat there in the smoking area, vacant and motionless. The idea that I might actually be too distracted by the gun was slightly terrifying. I was finely attuned to the gun itself, but not so much to the environment around me. I took notice of a policeman coming my way, but I hadn’t thought to make any advance preparations or take preliminary measures. In a panic, I practically ran to the library. Even if the police had shifted their investigation and ruled the Arakawa death a suicide, there was no doubt they would still be trying to determine the whereabouts of the gun. And once the investigation moved in that direction, they would probably start to scrutinize all kinds of people.

  I put in a call to Yuko Yoshikawa to push back our plans by an hour, and she said okay. I scanned as many newspapers as I could, focusing on the smaller items while still paying attention to the big stories. The vast majority of the articles were completely irrelevant to me. Whether the Americans had dropped a bomb somewhere in Afghanistan, or whether their strategy would succeed—these kinds of things had nothing to do with me right now. What Japan’s reaction would be, or whether Japan would become entangled with it—such questions did not interest me at the moment either. A kid had died after being bullied, and his parents had sued the school and the bully. There was a fire somewhere, and it was difficult to say whether it had been arson or an accident. There was a festival. Funds were embezzled, and the culprit had fled. There was a scientific discovery. Two trucks had collided. Someone had been run over. An intellectual whose name I didn’t recognize gave his opinion about the United States, offering advice to the Japanese government. Politicians quarreled, talking earnestly about something or other. Two entertainers died. It seemed like the information I was looking for was not to be found in any of these newspapers. I continued to leaf through various broadsheets, my eyes intently devouring the words. Each day had been filled with news. Yet it seemed the dead man by the Arakawa River did not merit a mention. This project would take time. I kind of regretted not asking Yuko Yoshikawa for two hours instead of one. But I realized that if I did this every day, it wouldn’t take as long to stay on top of it. I began to tire from the effort of concentrating, half dragging myself through the task as I continued to scan the papers.

  The article occupied more space than I would have imagined. It gave me a little shock, literally seeming to suddenly leap out at me. I had gotten as far as the newspapers from the 22nd when there it was—the man who had been found near the Arakawa had been identified. His name was Keiichiro Ogiwara, he was 51 years old and had been the manager of an adult entertainment club—everything about him was written right there. Aware that my heart was starting to race, I read through the rest of the article. I could tell that the police were still viewing it as a homicide. The article implied that the club where he had worked was run by people who had ties with organized crime, and went on to suppose that there may have been some kind of financial trouble. In a different paper from the same day, there was another article that said basically the same thing. The only difference was this one said that it wasn’t an adult entertainment club; rather, it was a “fashion-health” massage parlor, and one with definite mob ties, that trafficked in prostitution. However, the story hadn’t been picked up by any other newspapers, and even in the two where it had run, there were no more articles about it from after that day. Relieved—for the time being, at least—I relocated to the smoking area and lit a cigarette. The cigarette tasted better than usual, and I had to laugh at myself for getting so worked up again.

  Nevertheless, I thought over my assumption that the man had killed himself. When I found him, the man’s left hand had been limply stretched up, with his right hand hanging down. And the gun had been lying by his right hand, which was likely his dominant hand. If the man had been shot by someone, would that person have left the gun behind? If the shooter was a gangster, wouldn’t that be all the more reason he would need the gun? Otherwise it became evidence, which to him would only be a disadvantage, right? I turned this over in my mind, spinning out conjectures. But it made sense that, not finding the gun at the scene, the police would have no choice but to rule it a homicide. Had they found a suicide note
at the man’s home? I thought about it but couldn’t recall seeing any kind of paper resembling that in the vicinity. It could have been stashed in his breast pocket or something, but then I realized that it must not have been, or the police wouldn’t be treating it as a murder. Considering all these things, I seemed to be the one closest to the truth. Obviously, I was the only person who knew that the gun had been at the scene, and that it could have been a suicide. The police were likely confused, and in their confusion, they had probably pared down their investigation. But, I doubted it would go that smoothly. I figured I should avoid making any rash decisions. And I needed to remain aware of these things at all times. I needed to constantly remind myself that this was the situation I was in.

  My cell phone rang—it was Yuko Yoshikawa. She mentioned she was hungry a few times, and that she was in the cafeteria, then quickly hung up. I headed for the cafeteria and looked for her, but she wasn’t there. For a moment I wondered what had happened, but gave up and just figured I would sit down somewhere. The cafeteria was remarkably empty, so I had no trouble finding a seat. I smoked a cigarette and contemplated the cause of death of the man from the Arakawa River, about gathering information from now on, and about what sort of danger I risked by neglecting to do so.

  Someone tapped me on the head, and I turned around to see Yuko Yoshikawa. I complained to her, asking why she always hit me on the head, but she said I deserved it. She had a surly look on her face as she looked back at me. For some reason, I suddenly felt annoyed.

  “Come on, you should have looked harder. You give up too easily. I hate that. It gets on my nerves.”

  “It gets on your nerves? Well, I just figured you must have gone to the bathroom or something. So I thought the best thing to do would be to sit near the door.”

  “Hmm, well, when you put it that way, I guess that sounds reasonable, but it still gets on my nerves,” she said, and then went on complaining for a while. She was persistent, and I went along with her but soon tired of it. According to her, I was lacking in something. Since I didn’t understand what she meant, I listened very closely to what she was saying. The way she saw it, I seemed rather cavalier toward her—apparently I didn’t take her seriously enough. I was a little surprised to hear this. I had invited her to lunch, I had gone to the place where we were meeting, and I was consistently talking to her at length. When I said as much to her, she looked me in the eye and made a face as if she were thinking about something.

  “You’re wrong—well, I guess since you’re not my boyfriend, I can’t really expect much more than that but—I don’t know how to say it, well, this may not come out right but—you’re probably like this with everyone. That’s how you are—um, I mean, I don’t know what it is you’re thinking.”

  “I guess I don’t really know either.”

  “Well, anyhow, I really hate being treated so dismissively,” she said. Then she sat down in a chair and lit a cigarette. “And because of you I’ve picked up this habit again,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but I figured she probably meant smoking, and I gave a little laugh. Then I was seized with the desire to say something clever. “But,” I said, “you’re probably right, maybe I can be cavalier, but not with you. It may sound strange, but I do act differently depending on who I’m with.”

  “You’re full of it. Isn’t that just how you manage to put one over on people?”

  “Fine, okay, it doesn’t matter.”

  With that, I cut off the conversation and randomly changed the subject. However, I had a hard time concentrating on anything. She took in what I said and replied in turn, but I wasn’t really listening. I thought about how the only way the police could know that I had anything to do with the man from the Arakawa River would be from an eyewitness account—I hadn’t seen anyone that night but they might have been there somewhere, and that was how they would know. And if that were the case, I would be in serious trouble. But then again, if that possibility actually existed, wouldn’t I already have been approached by the police? I thought about this during my conversation with Yuko. We had lunch, and I sat there with her until evening.

  When I returned home to my building, it was completely dark outside, and it had gotten quite chilly. I bought a can of hot coffee from a vending machine next to my building and shook it up as I walked the short distance to my apartment. In that time, I was mostly thinking about Yuko. Today she had again been wearing a short skirt, and when she leaned forward I had seen her pale breasts. I felt satisfied with the way I had behaved today. Tomorrow, I thought, I would ask her out for a drink. But then again, if we ended up doing it, I felt as if the fun would end for me there. I wanted to have sex with her, but once we had done it, I would probably get bored. In my experience so far, that had usually been what happened to me. The anticipation that it would happen again is what made me lose interest. And ultimately—eventually, I thought—it always happened that way, so I quit thinking about it. As I reminded myself, to think too hard about it made doing almost anything impossible. I had found that putting unnecessary emphasis on expectation or supposition rendered me useless. Thinking about all this, I gave a little laugh.

  When I had just reached my front door, I heard the sound of a child crying from the apartment next to me. Somehow or other, I was aware that there was a woman and boy of about kindergarten age living there. I often heard the child crying and I always found it annoying, but crying was what kids did, so there wasn’t much to be done about it. But now, the crying sounded a little different. This time, I could also hear a woman’s screaming coming from that airtight room.

  Once inside my own apartment, I could hear two distinct voices even more clearly. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could tell that the woman was laughing her head off, and the kid was crying his eyes out. The crying sounded like it poured out from deep within his belly, so loudly that it was a little creepy. I recalled that the boy was quite small, and such a loud cry seemed disproportionate to his size. Aside from the laughing woman, I could also hear a woman yelling, and I was confused. After a little while, though, I figured out that these two voices belonged to the same person.

  Eventually I got fed up and put on some music to drown out their voices. It called for something aggressive, so I picked a CD by the German band Rage. As I listened to it, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed hearing music played really loud. Then I took the gun out of the leather pouch, polished it, and carefully put it back in the satchel.

  8

  I thought about where to fire the gun, and decided on somewhere in the mountains. I figured that the area around the mountain that I could see from the window of the train on my way to university would not be dangerous. I didn’t know what the mountain was called, but there weren’t many houses nearby, and I supposed that, if I went further into the interior of the mountain, the sound wouldn’t reach even the ones that were there. Actually, it had occurred to me that, conversely, if I did it in a noisy place, people might not even notice, but I wanted to hear it for myself. The explosive sound the gun made when it discharged its bullets, the corresponding impact transmitted from hand to body, the smoke, the force—I wanted to experience all of these things fully. Thinking about it, I was filled with excitement mixed with nervous tension. I could hardly wait to shoot it, I thought to myself. It was a strange sensation, but it made me happy.

  In my lecture, a tall guy in a suit was going on and on about Islamic culture, and then about its history. He was very excited—more intense about it than usual. Come to think of it, I felt like I might have seen him on television once before. But I couldn’t be sure whether it had been him, after all, and it had nothing to do with me anyway.

  When I left the classroom, Keisuke was waiting for me outside. He was talking about girls and clothes and watches. He said that lately he had seen me with a girl a lot, and asked if she was my girlfriend. I figured he must have been talking about Yuko Yoshikawa. I t
old him no, but that I was working on it.

  “So, I guess you haven’t done it yet. But she seems cute. And quite a body too. You’ve got an eye for them, don’t you? You haven’t fallen for her, have you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just wonder if you’re in love with her or something. Cause if you are, I’d have to laugh—how great would it be if you had fallen for some girl? Come on, let’s go drinking. You can tell me about it.”

  “No, you’ve got the wrong idea. Well, I mean, maybe that’s it.”

  Keisuke seemed to be in a good mood, so I decided to play along with him. He laughed when I pretended to be self-conscious. He tried doggedly to get me to agree to go out drinking with him, but I refused. Today I had been thinking that I would go and scout out the mountain where I had decided to fire the gun. Pragmatically, it wasn’t necessary for me to do so, but there were various steps I wanted to put into place before actually shooting it, for the purpose of ensuring my own calm and composure. I had decided to investigate the area around the mountain, to seek out the optimal spot where I should fire it. I thought I would likely derive some pleasure from these preparations.

  My phone rang, the call was from my parents’ house. A little surprised, I told Keisuke that I had to talk to them. I stood there and answered the phone, then sat down on a nearby bench. Keisuke stayed a short distance away from me for some reason, fumbling to light a cigarette. It was my mother, and again I wondered why she hadn’t called the landline in my apartment. If she had something to talk to me about, it seemed like calling there and leaving a message on the machine would be easier. First she asked about my health, and I reassured her that there was nothing to worry about. My mother sounded a little strange—I had thought the same thing when she called the other day. At the time, it had occurred to me that parents and children pick up on these things from each other through the subtlest mannerism or impression. I figured something must have happened at home.