c.r. , Nico Nisen zen
I was flashing this green ticket the size of a credit card. It had the Chinese characters in large eighteen point bold that listed my start and stop trains. I was hoping the ticket guy couldn't read.
"WAIT-o.!. pu -ri- zu"
Damn. He got me.
I was fishing in my pocket for the last of my yen bills, making up the difference between the prepaid stop and the place I was now. They let ya pay at the end of the line. The problem being, that this could be two stops past your bottom dime. I was spent and still working it on empty.
"Damned nation of readers," I whispered this under my breath but got a glare anyway.
He issued a receipt that surely said: Thieving American Bastard Parading as Impoverished Student.
I noted the stroke order, the most trivial thing getting the attention of perfect penmanship. The ticket-master handed me my release and then there was quick bow as I dashed from the station.
Up at the corner, Karl was waiting with ramen bowl to his face slurping in the soup like a starved POW. He handed the bowl back to the soup maker then jerked a smile that said, "see I told ya I could eat it all".
"Hey Karl… umm what were them large chunks?"
He paused to wipe his mouth on his leather jacket. Alice Cooper had signed the back. Karl was an Armani model on tour.
"I dunno man-- (laughing) hell I really don't."
"Well, why'd ya order it then? It kinda looked like Spam. We figure they put Jimmy Hoffa in there man."
"Hoffa?"
I had to explain to the Brit who Hoffa was.
"Oooooo o ya. I heard of him. He was a mobster, ya?"
"Well…"
Before I could finish, Karl was chasing a skirt with red heels and a butt wag. I was about to yell to him that she was a working girl, but too late. He was already practicing his broken Japanese and feeling smooth. The ramen cart was steaming noodles, onions, and meats: pheromones of food sex hit my empty stomach and had me patting my pockets for coin. '500 yen.. come on…come on.'
The 5 spots were large like half dollars and the 100 yen were the size of quarter. I was sieving between lint, tie pins, pens, passport, and tissue packs. "shit"
"Kushyooooooooooo !" The pretty girl had a loud potty mouth and I turned to see the reason. Karl had tiptoed his hand on her upper thigh, but now was running in the direction of her stare. His sprint ended in the middle of the boulevard where a small cat had just met the wheel of a super charged Honda. Karl slid and scooped up the furry kitten. It was twitching and sputtering with good byes.
The crowd was a hen cackle. Dignified men in pin stripes and women with curls freshly rolled from the hair masseuses ran their mouths with vigor. I translated a few choice words speared to the driver. He was bowing and apologizing-- they were hitting with rock words, surrogating usefulness with contempt.
Karl held the kitty close.
I wasn't hungry anymore.
She twitched her final farewell-- Karl put his face to her bloodied clump and kissed her by the nose-- the peoples' police continued to berate the driver and the driver continued to bow.
He put the departed across the street at a small koen-park under a sakura-cherry blossom tree. Karl studied the final resting place for a few minutes, then I broke in.
"hey…. Um .. ya ready for porn?" I winced out the words.
Karl smiled and nodded inwardly. This was something the locals did when they sucked up the hurt. Karl was eating too much Ramen; he was going native.
I handed him the tissue pack and we walked. In Tokyo, capital of techno-speed, the city restrooms were slow to replace any form of towel. Karl wiped himself of red residue. He laced his Doc Boots tight and tossed his dark hair.
"Do I .. smell, yaa?"
I got homosexually close and inhaled. It was all Fahrenheit. Christian Dior was Karl's after shower spray-- spicy and crisp-- the onion of cologne hit my nose.
"You're good, man."
He grunted gratitude. I tugged at his rawhide sleeve toward the cheap dirty dives even as he was taking the turn for the money traps.
"hey I don't want them trashy girls mate… let's see some quality."
Quality? On my budget…. My budget of….hahahahh
"Karl baby, you're over indulging man… I'm telling ya the girls of Shibuya will be great….really.."
He paused. Karl was not convinced that one stage act of nude girls was as good as the next.
Up the street a gang of pamphleteers were hitting the pedestrians with club flyers and tissue packs that promised cheap phone rates. We watched the gang approach, both knowing that one would have the desired sordid details.
"KONNNNNNNNNNNBAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" happy fuck. The guy was pushing a gold flyer with cheap black and white copy into my hand. He was exercising his ABs with bow and pointing toward the high-rises a few blocks away. "good-o sutafu" (good shit) " you go, you go" Karl wanted to punch the porn pimp. Selecting male entertainment was a private matter.
"hai domo" (yes thank you) [now fuck off man.. fuck off] Had I been with Karl another week, I would be whispering in my mental mouth to 'piss off…piss off'. The last pamphleteer was clingy for us to walk, just as I was clinging to my own forms of cursing. For language is a fashion and it must be worn just right.
"Is this quality , yaa?" Karl fumbled for Japanese words. 'ii desu ka?'
And the paper pimp swore with body, syllable and bow that the Appai Yama lounge was indeed among the best the city had to offer.
"Hey bud, I have a school trip to Kyoto this month. I don't want to pay a hundred bucks for some conversation girl." I said this even as I remembered how hard pressed I was for a five spot of ramen.
"ya ya.. no worries." Karl was like that. When I say 'like that' I don't mean that he was kind to animals and feeling sorry for his poor western cousin. What I mean, is that the bastard had a job… a good one… and I was sucking up peanuts as a student-- socially barred from working--
"hey Karl…
"ya?"
"I love you man"
he upturned his lips and showed me happy teeth.
"I love you like porn, mate" I said this real Hoffman like and we shared 2.5 seconds-- a moment, then moved on. The paper guy moved on too.
*
"Is this it?"
Karl had been reading a map. We agreed that he would deal with the English and I the Japanese in that the map was in English and I was feeling lazy.
"ya ya…think this is it"
we looked at the signage expecting a half dressed model to be back-lit with magnetic electricity and bilingual slogans: Gentleman's Club, Happy Titty, or Thigh High Club…. Something. The English translations never came out just right. Instead of the cityscape we had expected by the direction of the high rises, we were now among a shanty cove of building relics. I noted that even these simple lean-to's were worth tens of millions of dollars in real estate here. We were in the center of Shibuya, Tokyo district. The roads were laid out like labyrinth (historically to fool foreign invaders from finding the imperial palace) and I asked Karl if he was reading right.
"this Chizu is getting me dizzy."
I was silent.
'Chizu, I said that right, ya?"
I nodded and looked around. [ There was a large paper lamp with a symbol for woman and spring. ] I tried to think of other combinations of meaning. 'let's see woman/child symbols is pregnant… sword/man.. is warrior….umm.."
"what?"
I had been talking aloud. Karl didn't know that I wasn't yet an expert to Chinese character (kanji) though. No use disappointing him.
I looked around and noticed an unlighted door banner that read: 'A' followed by the symbol for mountain. (I remembered the pamphlet had said Appai Mountain, appai being breast)… then just as I was about to gamble on the English A.. Karl grabbed my arm and said, "come on."
"eh?"
"come on-- look at them happy blokes in suits. That's the place."
"ok"
We walked in and the inside was regal gothic [as the local version allowed.] There was actually an usher in a kimono (ritualized attire like our black ties). Karl passed a wad of high notes through the window and she bobbed her head in partial bow.
"come on… let's go" he was impatient now. The mystique of the surroundings, locals only, was more impetus than the ritzy row of the Ginza strip. Karl was still an explorer.
I followed through a purple curtain, smelling of recent dry clean. The velvet parted with ease and we plunged into the darkness.
*
There was a hand groping my crotch. Damn. She found my hand instead, and led me to a seat. Karl had been studying the audience. He noted how well dressed everyone was. The room afforded moustaches and ties (facial hair being a bad thing). All of the ushers and servers wore kimono. He slopped down next to me.
{you guessing large or small?}
I whispered. Most of the breasts to be seen were of proportional size to the petite women in the area. This lounge was entitled Breast Mountain, though.
{I dunno.. I don't really want to see a bunch of gaijin though}
A gaijin being a foreigner, Karl was already in the second phase of yellow fever. The symptoms can best be noted by choice of favorite actresses and a list of bedroom partners. The higher the ratio is for Asian women in the response, the more affected the victim is by Yellow Fever. Karl was involuntarily shaking.
I looked.
{hey man, your shaking. }
{I know. I can't help it}
pausing
{well ya need a beer or ya just excited about the show?}
He licked his lips and held onto his seat arms tight despite the shaking of his hands.
{I forgot that I'm allergic to cats mate}
{ooh}
{yaaa}
Just then, a spotlight from inside the stage jarred awake. A brilliant beam of white ions flushed the room in an upward skew… then a Beethoven Symphony wailed from the large speakers like an urban boom box. Out stepped a forty something…. In tights like a circus suit…. Chest hair… mustache… sparkly eyes.
'WHAT THE……" we shouted the whisper together as one….
The stage man stood erect…. Pivoting to welcome all corners of the room with an outstretched arm….
Karl had stopped shaking. I was letting my thoughts meander to Japanese gay laws…didn't they have them? Everyone had them…. I couldn't be found here… there goes the ticket home…. Home in cuffs…. Oh shit, school….0h shit.. is that….is that……
The man on stage had fully risen. He made attention to this by swanning his arms up from his center to a high arc in the air.. his body rising on tip toe like a ballet dancer.
{looks kinda like them metal stick men that balance…hahah}
I laughed too. And Beethoven pounded himself….the crowd applauded reverently…..
Enter the woman.
She introduced herself with the same swan droops of arched arms and flutter. Her partner still stood on toe as she patty footed around, circling and wisping his backside. Then she fell.
Just before she hit the floor he caught her. He kissed her.
I stretched closer to see if there was tongue exchange. {damn professionals. No tongue is a waste}
Karl was oogling. I was oogling.
The man propped her up and spun her out by way of arms. Her satin shirt seemed to rip and spin without sound. Suddenly there was breast.
It wasn't a heaving bosom--give me a woody--let me smile, kinda moment. She paused at the end of his arm. Topless and angelic. Glitter shimmied from the ceiling and lulled down like reflecting skin flakes. She wore a braid in her long black hair that halved her scalp-- the man engulfed her center with an arm on bent knee. He swiveled up on half corkscrew and she figure-foured her legs and cut the air with her arms like a superman.
Beethoven shot blanks. The lights dimmed lazily from the stage and from an upper balcony. Then she went down.
{do it ..do it…}
Karl nicked me in the ribs.
The man took her hands and stood her up. She was not a servant-- she was a queen. He emptied his body of cloth with slow stamp to tune. She shielded her eyes in dramatic gesture … the sight of his nakedness a brightness….he stepping forward (again on tip toe with very high arc).. her head angled in expectation of another kiss…
Karl thought he was gripping the chair. Instead he was gripping my wrist with vice. Damn romantic.
Again he came to her. Again his arm at her waist and his body bent, bypassing her upturned lips….bending down….. dropping to the suitor's knee…dropping….left hand to buttocks…right hand to sash belt….
He pushed her away. She spun… slowly.
Off came the sash. Down fell the dancing frock. Her pubes broke from her paleness.
She feigned coldness and shivered with her shoulders. Her arms crossed over each other, a moment of death calm like the coffined corpse set to box, and then she let go….opened her arms, exposing herself…
Falling….forward..
{the nipples weren't hard man…it's not cold…}
I saw him grin quickly, he had noticed too.
She wasn't cold at all. And he had caught her and fell on his back… and she had mounted.
They screwed like artists.
They screwed like trapeze artists.
She used him as a dance pole. Swiveled around in every possible angle, contorting, gyrating, pushing….in. He humped and hacky-sacked her in somersault, pendulum, and roll.
They never separated once.
The symphony was long.
We had been dumfounded for ten minutes. Now we were indifferent. They could have choked each other in orgasmic murder and it wouldn't have been less foreign.
{I bet they do a lot stretching}
{ya mate, think that's right}
"so where ya going next on the tour"
"back to Taiwan"
"hmm" "getting bored yet?"
"well….
Karl was just getting started on the oddities and beauty of Taiwan when there was a wrestle of chairs next to us. I turned as Karl was handed a note by an awkward young guy in a tie that had missed a knot.
"what's it say?"
He unfolded, read and then handed.
:: BE SILENCE! :::
I looked back to the server door where the note had come. Karl looked forward. There were three youthful men with dictionaries apparently debating whether they had translated correctly.
We were silent then….. for 90 seconds.
Then we turned to face each other.
{what is this shit?}
{They must think porn is holy}
{nah…ya think?}
Karl shrugged at this and I was about to ask about Taiwan again. Suddenly the lights came on. Not just the stage lights, nor the lobby lights-- all the lights came on. The nude dancers had disengaged and some body fluid was still spackled to thighs and dripping. They faced us unashamedly. The crowd of suits rose from their chairs and faced us determinedly.
I noticed Karl was gritting his teeth. Karl had spent a long time defending a London McDonald's as a security guard. Now he made a wrestler's stance.
Ever seen a cock fight?
Cock one was myself. They saw me as Admiral Perry of old, stepping closer to greet me. The dancer's flag was half mast. I had been the guy that pointed a cannon at Japan 100 years before…'trade you will trade' Perry had force fed.
Cock two was at my side. Much taller than I and missing tobacco pipe and the specs… Karl was undoubtedly the famed General MacArthur… rewriting their constitution, dethroning an emperor, shortening their writing history with short play of pen.
A cock fight is a useless thing.
The cocks always lose and the men always win.
to forum
