Coin Locker Babies (40 page)

“If these guys are really sailors, it’s not going to kill them to sleep in a little puke,” shouted one of the fishermen. The supervisor ignored the applause this drew from the other spectators and continued to press his point until finally someone yelled from the truck: “He’s right! We don’t give a shit about the clothes!” Just then, a gust of wind blew through, ripping the canopy off the truck and leaving the prisoners sitting in the rain and the glare of the spotlight. One of them, covered like the rest from head to toe with oil and worse, stood and faced the crowd.

“You think we want any fuckin’ thing from you?” The other inmates began to get to their feet, but the police immediately surrounded them, fingering their billy clubs. By this time, the rain had soaked the thin blankets, making them limp and heavy, and one man began to slam his on the bed of the truck.

“Fuck you cops! You don’t scare us!” he shouted. Several clubs came sliding out of their belt loops, though before things got really out of hand, people on both sides were told to simmer down.

The entrance to the warehouse, a gray building at one end of the harbor, was too low to pass through without bending over, yet the interior was the size of several gymnasiums. Most of the space, however, was stacked to the ceiling with bags of cement, leaving them only enough room in one corner, next to a row of forklifts, to spread some newspaper and lie down. As they settled in, Kiku noticed that Yamane was sweating heavily, and though his skin usually looked like a sheet of plastic, it was wrinkled with pain.

Lying on the floor, listening to the wind and rain which showed no sign of letting up, Kiku realized that the rocking of the ship’s hold had followed him to the warehouse. In the darkness of that enormous room, lit by just five candles, he felt his body sway with the lingering sea, his outer self still while his gut rocked on. After a while, the guards brought in some rice balls and hot tea, earning a cheer from everyone except Yamane who barely managed to sip a little tea. Kiku, on the other hand, practically inhaled his three rice balls.

“You know, seasickness is weird,” he said to Hayashi who nodded between bites.

“Doesn’t matter how sick you feel, you can still eat. Maybe getting some food in your gut helps calm it down,” Hayashi laughed.

“You better believe it,” said Nakakura, overhearing them. “If you stop eating, you’re done for.” But as he spoke they all found themselves casting worried looks at Yamane who was bent double, pressing his head in his hands.

With their stomachs full, the excitement of the storm seemed to come back to the group as a whole. There were various retellings of the flooding in the engine room, the puking in the hold, and the details of the rescue. Eventually, the captain joined them and was just beginning a more formal account of it all when the doors of the warehouse opened—not the child-sized door through which the prisoners had entered, but the main doors used by the forklifts, crane, and other machines—and the wind blew in, sweeping up the newspapers lining the floor and blowing out the candles. Then, right behind the wind, came a silver, windowless bus with a large light mounted on top. Kiku had seen this kind of bus before: it was just like the one that had been parked in the alley that snowy Christmas Eve. Flanking the bus were a dozen or so guards and as many more men in the yellow helmets and gaudy overalls of the Disaster Relief Squad, and from among this crowd appeared a man in a suit carrying a mike stand. Behind him was a battery of TV cameras. Someone who seemed to be a producer came over to talk to the prisoners’ supervisor.

“We’d like to tape an interview with the trainees who rescued the foreign fishermen,” he said, beginning to bluster a little, “and we already have permission from the Juvenile Detention Center back in Hakodate.”

As a result, the lights came on and the interior of the warehouse, which until then had been buried in shadow, rose into view. The men who had taken part in the rescue were made to sit with their backs to the cameras, so that only their numbers were showing. The man in the suit was on the air.

“We’re coming to you from a warehouse in the port of Ishinomaki. As we’ve been reporting, Typhoon No. 12 has made rapid northerly progress, causing extensive damage and injuries along the Pacific coast of central and northern Japan
and provoking criticism of overly optimistic forecasting by the National Weather Bureau. But in the midst of this emergency, we have a rather unusual, and heartwarming, human drama to report to you: a training ship for a Juvenile Detention Center on a practice cruise has rescued—or should we say ‘captured’—the crew of a sinking Thai fishing boat operating illegally. This evening we’re here to talk to the trainees themselves, who are still recovering from their ordeal with the storm and the perilous rescue at sea. But before we begin, we should explain that in order to protect the privacy of these men, their faces will be concealed and their voices altered, and we’ll be referring to each of them by number rather than name.

“Well then, No. 3, could you tell us what you’re feeling like at the moment?”

“Tired,” said No. 3, who was Hayashi.

“And well you might!” gushed the announcer. “And No. 1, how about you?”

“Guess I’m pretty tired myself,” he said. “The adrenalin kept me going during the storm, but as soon as we got into port, I realized how whipped I was.”

“Spoken like a true sailor: he finds coming ashore more tiring than being at sea! Well then, No. 6, could you tell us if you knew right away that the vessel you were rescuing was a pirate fishing boat?” No. 6 was Kiku, who said nothing in reply. The bank of lights behind him was hot on his back, and the man holding the reflecting panel directly in front of him was chewing gum and staring at him. “… Well, it’s quite understandable that you’re at a bit of a loss for words after what you’ve been through. No. 5, how about it—could you tell right away?”

“What is this, some kind of quiz show?” muttered No. 5, slumping forward in embarrassment. The image in the sheet of
metal facing Kiku showed Yamane curled up on the floor hugging one of the cement bags. The supervisor had said there was no need to take him to a hospital, that he’d be fine if they just let him sleep peacefully, and after some aspirin he seemed to be doing just that. At least, that is, until one of the many thick camera cables snaking across the floor leapt up and slapped him lightly on the side of the head. First, both legs twitched spastically and his hands shot to his head as a low moan came from his throat. Then, shaking himself, he sat up, and as the moan rose to a karate squawk, he lunged at the bag of cement, using his hand like a bayonet. In the space of a few seconds, everyone—guards, TV crew, prisoners—was looking at Yamane, and even the lights swung around to focus on him as he stabbed at the bag in a series of thrusts.

“What the
fuck
?” said the gum-chewing technician. “What the hell you think you’re doing? We’re in the middle of a show here.” But Yamane paid no more attention to him than he did to the circle of guards who had closed in on him as he punched the bag to pieces. He now sat very still, hands on his chest, eyes shut tight, biting his lip as if fighting to control himself. Kiku alone knew he was probably trying to remember the sound of his son’s heartbeat.

“Hey, buddy, what’s the problem?” said one of the guards, an older man, laying his hand on Yamane’s shoulder. Yamane opened his eyes and, pressing his palms together as though in prayer, looked up at him.

“Please—be—quiet,” he said through clenched teeth, with that peculiar moan of his starting up again.

“Is he…?” said the producer, twirling his finger beside his head, just as a young guard went up behind Yamane and prodded his shoulder with his billy club.

“
Stop
that—please!” Yamane said, hands clasped to his chest while his head bounced about.

“Hey! Buddy!” said the guard, continuing to poke at him. “What’s with you? You’re bothering the TV people, so cut it out. You hear? Put a lid on it.” Kiku heard Yamane mumble “It’s no use,” but he had no clear picture of his movements after that; all he knew was they were fast. Apparently Yamane hopped lightly to his feet, did a spin in the air, and lashed out with the heel of his hand. A second later, anyway, the older guard was covered with cement dust and rolling on the floor with a broken jaw. Immediately, the other guard took a swing at Yamane with his club, but he dodged right and swept his leg around to land a kick at the back of the man’s neck. There was a sound of bone breaking. The guard stumbled forward, bumping into a light stand and sending it flying. The big light bulb burst, and the announcer sank to his knees moaning that he’d got some glass in his eyes, but as he crouched there rubbing at them Yamane kicked him under the chin, snapping his neck and sending him tumbling backward. At this, the TV people turned and fled without a word.

“Hit the floor! Now!!” one of the guards bellowed at the other prisoners and the TV crew, as they went for their guns. The man who gave this command, though plainly frightened, ran at Yamane with his own gun drawn, but he never got a shot off; Yamane had pounced forward, meeting him halfway and planting a finger in each of his eyes when they came together. The fingers made a squishy sound as they dug to the base of the sockets, and the gun went clattering to the floor. Just as it hit the ground, however, the thing went off, and by the time the bullet had buried itself in a sack of cement after ricocheting off the bus, every gun in the place was trained on Yamane.

“Stop!” the captain yelled, running forward, but as Yamane
turned toward him, two guards fired at his legs, pitching him onto the floor clutching his thigh. Even then, though, he managed to wheel about and bring down two more light stands, one of which he used to fell incoming guards. The guards approached cautiously, crouching and making little skipping jumps to avoid the stand, while Yamane, still holding his wounded leg, was doing his best to get back on his feet.

“Don’t shoot!” the captain yelled again, but he had competition from one of the cameramen, who was shrieking “He’s fuckin’ crazy, kill the bastard!” from the top of the bus. Yamane, shivering and teeth clenched, was still trying to get up, using the light stand as a crutch. One of the guards got close enough to kick it out from under him, but just as he lost his balance and started to fall, he lurched forward and grabbed him by the belt. The man let out a scream that faded to a hiss as he brought the butt of his pistol down on Yamane’s face, but before he could land another blow, Yamane jabbed hard with his open palm at the other’s knee. The guard collapsed, covering Yamane with his body and briefly pinning him, giving the remaining guards the chance they needed.

“Shoot him in the arms,” someone ordered, and there were three shots almost simultaneously. One tore into Yamane’s right arm.

“You motherfuckers!” muttered Hayashi from where he lay on the floor. But Yamane was still trying to stand up. Kneeling on his left leg, which was bleeding heavily, he pulled himself up with his right leg and left arm. As he did so, some of the TV staff hiding nearby switched on the remaining lights and flooded the area around him. His hips twitched in a last effort to stand upright, but now a guard had got in close and every time he moved he was beaten down. Yamane didn’t so much as flinch at the blows. Eyes wide and chest heaving, the guard took a heavy swing at his neck
that landed on his shoulder. There was a thud, but Yamane merely stared at him without moving. When the man started beating him in earnest, Kiku couldn’t take it any more. He jumped to his feet. Fortunately, with all the lights trained on Yamane, the rest of the place was dark and no one noticed him until he was quite close. He grabbed the guard by the collar and threw him to the ground, and when someone behind him slammed him on the ear, Hayashi, Nakakura, and two more prisoners piled into the fight. As the fight spread, another guard standing on the sidelines pointed his pistol at the ceiling and fired, only to be tackled and brought down by Kiku. The two wrestled for the gun, but just as Kiku had managed to gain the upper hand, riding the fellow’s back, he found himself staring down the barrel of another service pistol. A shot rang out, and blood splattered on Kiku’s face: the guard who had been aiming at him clutched his leg and fell over backward. Out of the corner of his eye, Kiku noticed Nakakura had a gun, and almost before he could take this in, Nakakura had grabbed one of the television crew and shoved the barrel against his head.

“OK, folks, drop your guns,” he said.

The silver bus was driving through the storm, headed for Uranohama, with Nakakura at the wheel and Kiku and Hayashi alongside. Uranohama had been the last scheduled port of call for the
Yuyo Maru
, and Anemone would be waiting there. When they were still a couple of kilometers outside the town, they abandoned the bus. The rain had stopped, and after a short walk they found a red Landrover with “DATURA” painted on the side in the parking lot of a business hotel near the docks. They used the phone in the lobby to call Anemone who, when she appeared, briskly introduced herself to the other two as Kiku’s girlfriend,
then told them all to get into the car and drove off. Around the time the police had finished setting up roadblocks on all the roads in Miyagi Prefecture, the Landrover was a safe distance to the south.

By the following day, when Kiku, Hayashi, and Nakakura had made the most-wanted list and the cops were busy stopping cars on every major road in northern Japan and searching every hotel and inn, room by room, the foursome, clad in snow-white yachting clothes, had already made a refueling stop at Hachijo Island. Their Hatteras cruiser, powered by two 260-hp engines, was passing Oshima, heading for Garagi Island at full speed under the fiercely blue skies that follow a typhoon.

Hashi finished reading the poem aloud and then asked Neva what she thought, but she went on sketching designs for an angel’s costume without looking up. The angel she had in mind wasn’t Hashi but the baby in her belly.

“What do you think?” Hashi asked again, louder this time. When she still didn’t answer, he picked up a plate of potatoes and bacon left on the table and threw it at her. The plate, barely
missing her head, shattered on the wall, but the food came to rest in a greasy mess on her white blouse. After calmly picking it off and dropping it piece by piece in an ashtray, she went into the bedroom to change her blouse and finish cleaning up. Then, just as calmly, she pulled a new suitcase down from the closet—the one she’d bought to use on their honeymoon in Canada and Alaska—and began to fill it with underwear, dresses, cosmetics, and several books. While she was doing this, she caught a whiff of bacon grease on her neck, so she dabbed a little perfume behind her ears. She had combed her hair and was tying it in a scarf—the one with a design of deer stepping on some sparrows—when she caught sight of Hashi in the mirror. She smiled at his staring face, then, bag in hand, walked past him and out of the room without a word. That was the last he saw of her for several days.

At first, Hashi was happy she had gone. Without her around, he thought, the overwhelming urge to kill her might begin to go away. But he soon realized he was wrong, that the longer Neva was gone the more likely he was to do something the next time they met. He didn’t want to kill her; in fact, there was nothing he wanted less to do… yet that, he feared, was exactly why he had to do it. And fear was what seemed to control Hashi, not a run-of-the-mill fear of death or starvation, but a more basic, paralyzing one: the fear of time. It was something he knew instinctively, remembered in his cells, the way a baby does. Hashi had spent thirteen hours in that coin locker, thirteen summer hours. Thirteen hours of dogs barking, loudspeakers announcing the name of the station, bicycle bells, vending machines, a blind man tapping his cane, trash blowing about, music from a radio in the distance, children jumping in a pool somewhere, an old man’s cough, a bucket being filled from a faucet, brakes screaking, the chirp of birds building a nest, women scratching,
voices laughing… The feel of wood, plastic, steel, a woman’s soft skin, a dog’s tongue; the smell of blood, sweat, shit, medicine, perfume, oil; and every sensation linked to the next by fear, by fear alone. Hashi was listening to a voice his cells remembered. You are unwanted, it told him. Nobody needs you.

The black woman was giving D a massage on the roof of his building. The roof featured a tennis court carpeted in pink astroturf and a trellis covered with wisteria blossom, in whose shade D was lying. The bright sun as Hashi emerged from the elevator made him reel, and he quickly put on a pair of dark glasses—ones he had bought to send to Kuwayama. The sun and a few wispy clouds floating west turned the glass towers surrounding D’s place into long waterfalls of light. Hashi looked at the orange rim of the clouds, thinking that if Kuwayama were ever dragged out here, his eyes would be wrecked almost right away. He slipped under the arch of wisteria, not a drop of sweat on his pale, powdery skin, though a few seconds of sun had made it begin to tingle. Despite the heat, a man and woman dressed only in bathing suits were out on the tennis court hitting the ball back and forth.

“Hashi! You heard? That brother of yours has escaped, flown the coop. He’s nothing but trouble, that one,” said D, thumbing through the newspaper lying at his side. Hashi read only the parts written in bold type:
Desperate Escape, Whereabouts Still Unknown, Five Dead, Man Injured in Shootout Dies in Hospital, Were There Outside Accomplices?,
Well-Planned
Operation, Say Investigators.
“Go on, read it. You get a mention as brother of one of the escapers. Looks like we could sell some records thanks to your Kiku.”

“Why’d you call me?” asked Hashi.

“Why’d I call you?” He gave a hoot of disbelief. “What’s the matter with you?! Who do you think you are, putting off the recording sessions a month? And where are the songs you’re supposed to be writing? You got them?” The black woman wiped the sweat from his back with her long, thin fingers and sprinkled him with a gray powder before beginning the massage. The powder smelled of peppermint.

“They’re not done yet, but I’m writing poetry,” said Hashi, taking a scrap of paper from his pocket and beginning to read.

“OK, OK, I get the idea,” said D, stopping him. Behind him, the couple on the tennis court snickered. The woman, who was a good deal taller than Hashi, wore her hair brushed perfectly smooth on her head. Her pointy breasts pushed up into a thin fiberglass bra.

“‘Eyeball stolen from my head…’ I mean, wow!” said the woman. Hashi noticed a little pool of sweat collecting in her navel. Still, it hurt to have her laugh at him, and when she stared in his direction he wanted to disappear, vanish—gold lamé shirt, gray corduroy pants, snakeskin boots and all. Her tennis partner brought her a glass of Perrier.

“Hashi, your contract’s up soon,” D was saying as the masseuse climbed on his back and began crawling around on her elbows and knees. Barely restrained by the shorts, her ass bounced high in the air, as sweat trickled from her thighs onto D’s hips. “I’ve been meaning to ask you what you’re going to do. Thinking of re-upping? I can tell you right now, without Neva you’re up shit creek.”

The building to the right of D’s cast a deep, oblong shadow across one side of the roof. Hashi suddenly forgot why he was standing on this blazing roof, with this couple in bathing suits, a black woman, and his boss, all talking apparently at random. For a moment, he was seized with the idea that the hot, flat square and the great towers beyond were just a mirage that had popped up before him, as if something from somewhere in his body—a tube in his inner ear, perhaps—had poked out of his eye and begun sucking in air, swelling up until this rooftop square had formed.

“Hashi! What the hell’s going on? I told you to bring a copy of the contract. Hey! You hear what I’m telling you? What are you doing here?”

Hashi reached for the glass of water sitting on the table. Lines of bubbles floated to the surface as he held the glass to his forehead and cheeks. It was only slightly cool, but he drank it down in one gulp.

“Hey!” said the man in the bathing suit, “—that’s mine.” Hashi had hardly had anything to eat, and the lukewarm water had a viscous, stringy feel as it ran down into his stomach. Suddenly he felt sick and clutched his hands to his throat. The glass fell and broke, the hot concrete sopping up the foaming liquid. Hashi caught the man and woman exchanging looks and it occurred to him that everyone must think he was a pain. He started muttering to himself.

“I may creep around like a stray but I’m not begging… No. I’m an embarrassment—they make it pretty obvious… That big black woman—bet the sweat under those arms is sour… I may never have had trendy drinks in high places without making a mess, or seen a play, or been to a museum or a stadium, but what’s wrong with that? Why does everybody look at me that way?…”

“Hashi! What’s the matter? Hashi!” D had wrapped a towel around himself and come over to give him a good shake.

“Oh, it’s you,” he mumbled. “D, tell me something: am I any use to you? Do you really need me?”

“What the hell are you talking about? Stop talking crap and get a grip on yourself.”

“But it’s important,” said Hashi. “I’ve got to know. Do you think anybody out there needs me? That they’re happy because of me? That’s all I want; I don’t need any of the rest of it, D, really—I don’t want the money, I just want people to smile. When I ride around in that big car Neva bought, everybody looks at me like they’re envious, but I’m really not that happy. D, why do you suppose people aren’t nice to me? I’m just trying to make them happy, but they all seem to be avoiding me. Neva’s gone off and left me, and Kiku too. Kuwayama’s turned into a bug; Matsuyama and Toru bugged out. Kazuyo’s dead, and the nuns have this sad look, and I seem to be nothing but a bother for everybody. I just want them to
like
me, that’s all. I want them to tell me they really enjoy just being with me. It’s not too much to ask. But I never had a chance—they threw me out at the very start, left me in this great big coin locker.”

Hashi was clinging to D, sweat pasted to parched skin.

“Let go of me!” said D. “You’re gross—let GO!” But Hashi held on, beginning to tremble.

“Somebody’s gone a bit screwy,” the woman in the swimsuit said to the masseuse with a you-know-who look.

“What’s the matter with you, man? You can’t hear what I’m saying to you?” said D, roughly pushing him away. As Hashi stumbled out into the sunlight, the bottle of sleeping pills fell from his pocket and rolled glinting across the roof before he caught it at the edge. His vision warped, the thirteen towers
seemed poised to fall on him, and he longed for somewhere to go home to. Dumping three pills into his hand, he shoved them in his mouth, but as he began to chew them, he coughed up a yellowish liquid that dribbled onto the hot concrete. He was vaguely aware that D and the tennis players were watching him. The black woman walked toward the elevator and disappeared inside.

“He’s completely nuts,” he could hear D saying.

I am not. He chewed the pills up and swallowed a mouthful of chalky spit. I am
not
nuts—just sad that everybody hates me.

The streets, crowded during the summer holidays, smelled of melting rubber in the heat, making Hashi feel as if heavy, glutinous strings were stretching out behind his feet—as if everyone he passed in this canyon of glass and steel and concrete was trailing these strings, weaving a great white chrysalis. The whole town was a shiny chrysalis, wrapped around the heat radiating from the earth, and slowly swelling; but when would the giant butterfly emerge? He knew at least that when it did, it would float up into the sky and there its belly would split open, releasing millions of flies with human faces that would bury the city. He could already hear the buzzing of their wings.

He was walking under a bridge painted red, just as a train passed overhead. The bridge seemed to wheeze from the weight and heat. Each breath left a film of steamy air on his throat. The faces of those he passed wobbled in the haze, and the road itself seethed like a river of slow-moving sludge. As he flopped down on a bench outside a tropical plant garden, the tramp sitting
cross-legged
at the other end asked if he had a cigarette. The man had bread crumbs in his beard and one eye was bloodshot. A milk bottle filled with whiskey hung by a cord from his belt, and
he wore mittens on his hands despite the heat. Hashi laid a ten thousand yen bill on the man’s gloved hand and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“I’d like you to suck me off and then let me hit you on the head with a brick. There’s another ten thousand in it for you when we’re done.” The tramp, looking down into his lap, began to nod and laugh.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, buddy, but first how about buying me some ice cream?” A few minutes later, he set out across the garden licking a green popsicle and beckoning Hashi to follow him. They entered a maze of alleys and made several quick turns, coming out at last on a street lined with bars and small night clubs, all of which were closed. Piles of moldering garbage lay on the sidewalk, empty kerosene cans full of fish heads with running eyes, overturned liquor bottles oozing nameless brown liquids. The tramp slipped into a tight passageway between two bars and, stopping in front of a tiny public toilet, pointed with a laugh at a pair of feet visible under the broken wooden door. A woman in a flesh-colored slip emerged and studied them for a moment before disappearing down the alley. They went in.

“Could you wait a second? I have to go find a brick to hit you with,” said Hashi, and he was just about to leave when the tramp grabbed him by the hair.

“What the fuck d’you mean? Brick? Your kind’s fucking filthy, man. Fucking vermin!” he said, shaking him about. “Repeat after me, ten times: ‘I’m filth.’ I want you to confess your sins right here in front of me. Your kind’s no better than dogs or pigs—disgusting! You know that?” Suddenly, Hashi was frightened as it dawned on him that this bearded guy was not at all like the one he’d met in that other toilet long ago,
was not conjured up out of air, not the reincarnation of some big, gentle dog. “The wrath of heaven be upon you!” the man was shouting. “The Flood is coming, and only those like myself who’ve got nothing to lose will be saved. Sinners like you will meet your doom in the wild, your skulls strewn across the earth for rats to nest in. You faggot filth!” Hashi tried to get away, but this time the man hit him hard in the stomach, banging him up against the wall, where he slid to the floor. The tramp then searched his pockets for money and took his shoes. “This, pigfucker, is your penance. I want you to thank me for it. You may still go straight to hell, but with my prayers you’ll at least be allowed to pluck out your own tongue, that
evil
thing. So pray, pervert! Shed your own blood and pray!” The tramp left the toilet counting ten thousand yen bills.

“Pray!” he yelled over his shoulder again before he vanished.