Two-bit Whore in a $100,000 Kimono Part 3

Guest post by Brett Tompkins

I couldn't quite get a handle on my role as an English teacher at the Sakai Eigakuin. For one, the students' range in ages was vast. One moment, I'd be teaching a gaggle of giggling high school kids, and the next, a group of somber housewives.

One thing I knew, however, was that the Japanese girls (or women), no matter what age, were outrageously pretty; squeaky-clean and almost obsequiously polite. They were as opposite to my conception of females as I'd ever encountered. At least, that's the way it seemed to my then Japan-addled brain. In reality, there was extreme treachery lurking behind those beguiling masks.

I was very glad to get away from Lynn. The weekdays, however, were desolate; I went from the Rinkai to work, then back to the Rinkai. I'd pause in the evenings at the little convenience store near the station and buy a packet of spaghetti sauce, some pasta and maybe some milk, and head home in the train-thudding gloom. I warmed myself beneath the bare bulb above my bed, staring at the indecipherable images on the wall-hinged television while I waited for my pasta water to heat up in the Y400 saucepan, sipping sake from a porcelain cup lent to me by Hatusmi.

If I wanted to make a phone call, I had to leave the building and go to a booth downstairs next to the train tracks.

The atmosphere at the Rinkai was muted. It was a transient congerie, foreigners mired within the desperation of lonely travellers everywhere, interacting soulessly with the accompanying parasites from a host community that proﾞted from their solitude.

It rained often, cold and thin small drops that hardly warranted an umbrella yet were relentless enough to cause thoughts of aquacide. I watched incomprehensible game shows and heated foil-packaged spaghetti sauce on the small hotplate on the formica counter.

My nights usually ended with oblivion and the days usually opened with the taste of metal and the realisation that I was close to being late for work.

At first, the classes were fun. I'd make as much from the prescribed textbook as I could, trying to expand with vocabulary exercises or idiom practice. My English was good for a non-English major, and I took pride in my abilities to communicate my language without being boring or overly pedantic.

However, it soon became obvious to me that the extra effort was wasted. The morning group of housewives dutifully repeated the required sentences, but would come back the next day looking at the text as if for the first time.

The evening group of high school students mostly went through the motions, at first staring at me bug-eyed as I taught but quickly tagging upon being confronted by the alien runes I carved in the whiteboard with a magenta marker, and ﾞnally nodding off in their seats.

No matter how awkward the lessons were, my "free" time among the denizens of Sakai Eigakuin workers was worse.

The secretaries were vapid, almost exaggeratedly so. The word "robot" bobbed to the surface of consciousness continuously.

Dan, the owner, was sarcastically cordial. He had a collection of "jokes," which one was expected to laugh at. Either laugh, or shake your head with a forced smile, pretending to say "That Dan . . . such a kidder," under your breath. The atmosphere around him was tense. His comments were usually of the "We run a tight ship here" variety. I didn't listen very much.

It was an ordinary evening on the day of the incident that led to my firing from my first job in Japan.

I had been teaching yet another group of tired high school students and they were ﾞling out of the room. Turning off the light, I ushered the last girl out with a hand to her back (and accompanying mane of hair), with the comment "Nice hair."

In retrospect, this was not a very intelligent thing to do. In Japan, no one touches another without an extremely good reason. Fathers do not touch daughters. Mothers do not touch sons. No one touches each other in public, unless they are male co-workers on a bender.

I did not know this at the time, and for that, I was axed. The girl complained to her parents, who complained to the school. I was busy calling in sick one day after a particularly troublesome night of despair when, at the phone booth next to the train tracks, the secretary said "No, no, you can't call in sick. Dan wants to talk to you."

And that was that. They were having a grand teachers' meeting that day, and I dutifully ﾞled in, hungover as fuck. "What's with the drinking?" Dan asked me later, in his ready-room.

"I hate you, Dan, and I hate this fuckwad shit-hole you call a school, and I hate the scorpion-eyed housewives and the brain-dead high school students and I hate the zombie secretaries in this hovel you call an educational institution," wouldn't have washed. I had no explanation.

I was devastated. I had failed at my very first job in Japan.

Masako was unimpressed. "Many jobs," she said. "Just pick."

Now my three-month visa was in danger of running out. I pored over old cuttings of classified ads, looking at previously rejected jobs as new opportunities.

This time, I decided to take the easy way out: a job at the chain-school Vox Language Institute. They were huge. I'd seen their ads in the subway. They promised an instant visa and work beginning basically the next day. I called head ofﾞce and was talking to the boss within seconds.

Ellen sounded over the phone like a tough New Yorker. It was only later that I learned she was half-Japanese and had been born and raised in Japan.

I had a job, if I wanted it. Having not much choice, I went in to the head branch at Umeda for an interview.

It was a sprawling operation, from what I could see. There were at least 60 desks behind the main counter filled with bureaucratic types of every sort. Phones were constantly ringing and workers were bustling. The actual teaching portion of the vast room only occupied six booths, in the front section.

I went in to see Ellen, who turned out to be a rather vamplike 30-year old, and came out waving a contract.

Looking back, I can see reasons for my instant hiring. I was young, American, reasonably good-looking, eager, and full of shit.

My guitar was at Lynn's. It was being held hostage; I owed Lynn two months' rent. I missed my daily practice sessions, but Masako had an old shamisen, and I amused myself with that for the time being, even though the strings were all wrong.

From the Rinkai, infused with new hope, I plotted the future. In the local English-language monthly, Kansai Time Out, I had put an ad for a guitarist seeking a band, about a month before. I had received a couple of calls while at Lynn's, but had not acted on them. Now, I gave one of the numbers a ring, from the phone box next to the train tracks.

Yes, came the answer, there was a band looking for a foreign bass player. The fellow was British. I arranged to meet him on Dotonbori bridge at noon the next day.

The following day, I showed up as promised and met Nigel, a rangy Brit with a Northern accent. He was a guitarist, he explained, and would I care to meet the rest of the band? The rest of the band was eating greasy hamburgers nearby at yet another McDonald's-imitation joint.

THE BAND

Brian was the most obnoxious fuck I'd ever met. About 5 foot 10 and 200 pounds, he swung his weight around like a sumo wrestler, and obviously fancied himself as such.

"Hi, I'm Brett," I said, holding out my hand. He wore heavy gold chains, had the sides of his head shaved in a ridiculous attempt to look hip-hop, and capped it all off by wearing knee-length cowboy boots.

"We rented a room a couple blocks away," he said, ignoring my outstretched palm. "You a bass player, huh?" A whiny nasal New York accent completed the picture. "Well, you'd better be better than Nigel-he can't play worth shit." Nigel was standing next to me.

I disliked him immediately, and was about to head for the subway for a train to work. Nigel somehow managed to smooth things over and we all walked to the rehearsal space. It was a typical large room a couple of floors up with a few amps and a drum set.

I plugged in my bass and Nigel plugged in his guitar and the British guy, Terry, who I gathered to be the lead singer, set up his microphone.

It was a typically haphazard garage-type jam. "You know this?" followed by "Born to Be Wild" or some shit. Things all cover-band musicians would know.

One thing that was immediately apparent to me was that Nigel was awful. He couldn't string two chords together. Luckily, after about half an hour, he called it quits, having to go to work. I picked up the guitar, and the rest was history.

Terry was quite good, in a shrieking, flailing sort of way. Brian managed to keep a beat fairly well. But I didn't want to join this band.

As we packed up, our time expired, Brian began to hassle me. "So, you joining or what?"

I prevaricated. "Let me think about it. I'll get back to you later on in the week." I didn't like this fat fuck and his boundless arrogance.

He wouldn't accept that. With behaviour I'd later learn was Brian's hallmark, he hustled me relentlessly. "You'll never find a bunch of guys this motivated," he said, as he packed up his kit. "Either you're in or we start looking for another guitarist."

"Well, why don't you look around a bit," I said, looking for the exit, "and give me a call if you can't find anyone."

Brian stopped what he was doing. "Look, Nigel's shit. You're good. We can make good music. Either you agree to join right now or just forget the whole thing."

I just stared at him. I'd barely met these people an hour ago and this fat guy was giving me ultimatums.

"We've rented this space tomorrow, same time. Don't be an asshole. Join the band," Brian said. "Fuckin' A, Terry, we get the perfect guitar player and he doesn't want to join the fuckin' band," Brian called in a loud voice over his shoulder. Terry was silent as he wrapped up his microphone.

"What about Nigel?" I asked.

"Fuck Nigel," came the answer. "Forget about Nigel."

We parted company and I went to work. I didn't know it that day, but Brian was to be the gust that brought my whole house of cards in Japan tumbling to the ground. Drugs, sex, crime and other urban temptations were to become part of my hitherto-placid existence and would end up almost being my total undoing. However, the collapse was going to take three years.

NIGEL

I couldn't forget about Nigel. I met him the next day outside Big Man, the huge flatscreen TV at Umeda station. "I guess I'm playing with those guys," I said, trying not to be evasive.

He was surprisingly forgiving. "Listen," he said, "I hate to change the subject, but I have a place south of Tennoji and I need a roommate. Any interest?"

I was interested. Anything was better than the Rinkai.

I had a new home, a band, and a paycheck.

Masako was shocked when she came to help me move from the Rinkai. Her dainty fingers were soiled the moment she had to turn the handle of the door to my room. "It's so dirty," she said. "This is horrible." I said nothing. Her Japanese sensibilities were already too offended.

I effected the move in one day. That night, I was living with Nigel in a place called Suminoe, a spot on the map a few stops from the Abeno subway station on the JR line.

My new room was small, but far more of a welcoming place than the Rinkai. I was able to prop my computer up in a corner of my 6"Jo," or tatami-mat, bedroom. Nigel's was separated from mine by the ubiquitous cardboard sliding doors, or "fusuma."

I had arrived.

Lynn began to thankfully fade from memory. The only thing I regretted was leaving my acoustic guitar at her place. Characteristically, she held it hostage, telling me that I'd get it when I showed up with back rent: 100,000 yen.

My first day at Vox was an eye-opener. I was at the head office in Umeda. It was a bizarre but stimulating place. Six or seven teachers hung around a central lounge area and were dispatched like stormtroopers from Central Command every 50 minutes to tackle another lesson, which lasted 40 minutes.

The students, who ranged from 12-year-old schoolchildren to elderly grandmothers, businessmen and office ladies, assembled quietly in the lounge area between lessons, blinking like sheep.

The teaching material was at least 10 years old, but they seemed to like it. There were housewives, salarymen, high school kids, retirees, insurance brokers, doctors, painters, engineers, manga artists and scuba divers. Sometimes you'd get three students in the same lesson who were completely different: a salaryman, a high school kid and a doctor.

There were seven lessons a day. When there were no-shows, you got a break. I studied Japanese. I enjoyed the lessons. I really wanted to find out what the Japanese were all about, and the vast spread of ages and experiences made for great anthropological studies.

The days blended together. I was kept at head ofﾞce for about a month. Work ended at 8:15 and I'd hop the subway back to Suminoe. I had to change to JR at Tennoji, and that was where I scored a couple of can chu-hais for the ﾞnal leg home.

Nigel worked at another school and had a different schedule, although we frequently found ourselves leaving and arriving at roughly the same time. I'd pick up a carton of sake at the train station, drop by the convenience store for sandwich materials and change into my yukata the moment I got in the door. There was no television, so if Nigel was there we usually sat around all evening desultorily discussing our day and listening to music.

Every Friday I'd pack a little extra in my work bag and prepare for a weekend at Masako's. I'd go to work, then race to the subway and catch the train, packed with purple-faced drunken salarymen and office ladies, and get off at Ten-roku. There would be an obligatory stop at the sake machine for a "One-Cup" and then it would be the ten-minute walk to Masako's apartment, stopping off at a fast food place called Mos Burger for a couple of chili dogs. They had good chili dogs. I would pack them up and bring them to Masako's, where I would change into sweats and pour some cold sake and eat microwaved chili dogs while Masako finished off some project.

Usually she'd have a sake and then become red-faced and giggly, and sex would usually be the result. She had a disturbing habit of using explicit language, hilariously incongrous utterances coming from that sweetly innocent face. "Fuck my tits," she would declare suddenly, eyes twinkling mischievously, removing her top.

It was a lesson I would learn over and over again in Japan: things were not as they seemed.

BRIAN

"This is where I like to sit and watch the musky minxes go by. Mwwaaah!" Brian chewed on a fast-food burger and gazed intently at the parading traffic of pedestrians a few feet in front of the car we were sitting in, near a shotengai in Shinsaibashi. Office ladies in short, tight skirts were mincing by in small flocks, and Brian was indulging in his favorite activity, next to stealing CDs from Tower Records.

I had now been in the band for three weeks, and already Brian had gigs. "20,000 yen each for two sets at the opening for a housing complex!" he crowed about the first one. I had no idea where he found these jobs, but $200 for playing for forty minutes was a very welcome addition to my language-school pay.

Our material was culled from a ragged democracy: there were tunes from vintage rock like Chuck Berry and the Who from Terry, the heavy-drinking Brit lead singer, and more modern stuff like the Police and Dire Straits from Brian and myself, with token metal-rockers from the longhair of the band, Japanese guitarist-thudbrain Itoh.

My days off from Vox began to be permanently spent with Brian. Today was such a day. "Oooh, check it out!" Brian warbled as a particularly juicy office lady sauntered by. "This is why I'll never leave Japan."

You'll never leave Japan because you'd never survive back in New York, you fat fuck, I said to myself. Sometimes Brian himself seemed to agree with me. "There's nothing for me back there, Brett. If I go back I'll just be another fat schmoe looking for a job. Here, I'm a king."

And I had no choice but to agree. Brian was that rarest of creatures outside of a federal prison: completely adaptable, opportunistic and without a shred of integrity. In my early dealings with him I observed that his interaction with the people around him, Japanese or not, was guided by a total disregard for rank, position or social standing. He strutted through most situations and bluffed his way through the rest.

Most of all, Brian liked to drink.

*****

About a month after I joined the band, Masako called me on the telephone, breathless with excitement. "You have an apartment!"

I was puzzled. "You're kidding. I always thought of this as a cubicle."

"No, I'm not kidding! I entered you in the public housing lottery and you have an apartment if you want it. It's in Bentencho."

I had well and truly been blessed. Masako, who lived in public housing herself (koudan), had entered my name into a public lottery for housing, and somehow I had been chosen. This was an incredible windfall for a foreigner.

However, there were a couple of catches: I wouldn't be able to see the place until the day I moved in, and the rent was 100,000 yen.