Tokyo Stirs: (Short Stories about Asia) Read online

  Tokyo Stirs

  A Collection of Short Stories

  By Harmon Cooper

  Copyright © 2015 by Harmon Cooper

  Copyright © 2015 Boycott Books

  Cover by White Comma

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  email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @_HarmonCooper

  All rights reserved. All rights preserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  If these names mean anything to you – Hunter S. Thompson, William Gibson, William S. Burroughs, David Mitchell, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Karen Russell, Donald Barthelme – then you may like my new series, Life is a Beautiful Thing. This series is weird, it’s fun, and it may be up your alley.

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  Stuffed Prey

  [1]Black contact lenses. Eyelashes fake, long like horse tails whipping in some sort of gritty zephyr. Hair pulled tight into choppy pigtails. Blush on her cheeks, raw red circles. Glitter. Eyebrows plucked perfect. Mascara elaborate, eyelids exaggerated fleshy pink.

  With one more application of lipstick, Megu is ready.

  Akihabara Electric Town. Dazzling arcades, maid cafes, seven-story sex shops and the swelling masses give this popular Tokyo destination a seizure-inducing sparkle. It’s overwhelming and vibrant, loquacious and blatant. A moveable neon feast. It’s here where Megu positions herself nightly beneath a thirty foot tall billboard of an anime character relaxing in a skimpy teal bikini. It’s here where Megu comes to work six days a week.

  The elevator travels down from the second story maid cafe. The metal door slides open and Japan’s inescapable humidity slinks in. Megu adjusts her tight, ruffled corset. She pulls down on the tips of her short skirt and up on the white leggings that cascade into two shiny black shoes. With her maid costume evenly distributed, she steps out into the steamy streets, ready to become someone’s fantasy.

  In the maid cafe above her, Japanese teenagers wearing French-styled maid outfits dance and flirt with patrons. They decorate food with ketchup and perform shoddy magic tricks after customers have ordered certain dishes. They parade their innocence, the ticking-time bombs of youth.

  A maid café isn’t a strip club, a brothel, a pink salon, or anything of the sort. It’s as innocuous as a restaurant where teenage girls wearing skimpy maid outfits can be. It’s a minor, slightly bizarre, highly functioning gear in Japan’s ever-expanding service industry.

  Megu prefers to hand out fliers rather than work upstairs. If she is lucky, she’ll convince someone right away to go to the maid cafe. She’ll walk them to the elevator, curtsy, blow them a kiss, and finally – a move Megu has practiced countless times in front of a mirror – she’ll tilt her head to the side, fill her mouth with air, and press her inflated cheeks together with both hands. Kawaii!

  As the elevator doors close, she’ll thank the new customers continuously with short, calculated bows. Her smile will sink into a grimace as soon as it’s shut. She’s not happy, but who is?

  At least she can monitor the arcade across the street when she’s on flier duty, the place where Megu spends the bulk of her measly salary. The claw machines are filled with stuffed animals and plastic trinkets. Stick a 100 yen coin in there and use the mechanical claw to grip the desired item and drop it into the slot. Take the prize, lose, or try again.

  In her family’s apartment, a quarter-mile walk from the Asakusa subway station, Megu has amassed an impressive collection of stuffed animals. They give the apartment an odd funhouse appeal – safe yet slightly disturbing. Fluffy things, Doraemon, strange chubby monsters, Pokémon rip-offs, Kiiroitori.

  The guys working at the arcade arrange the stuffed animals in a way that makes them appear as if they will be easy to win. They hang them halfway over the ledge, secretly using paperclips to secure the prizes to small slats over the drop slot. They pile the stuffed animals on top of one another to make it look possible, effortless even.

  Megu scolds them for doing this. Wearing her maid costume, she’ll playfully skip up to the machine like a living anime character. She’ll pout and tell the arcade workers that they’re cheating her, that she can see the paper clip. They’ll laugh and tell her to try for the middle of the stack, which they know is her strategy anyways. As always, she’ll mope until one of the guys offers to buy her a can of Boss coffee from the nearby Family Mart.

  Her first 1,000 yen, or ten turns, or about ten US dollars, is always spent moving the stuffed animals she doesn’t want out of the way. The next five turns are used dislodging the stuffed animal Megu desires from the pile of plush carcasses. Then, it’s between five and fifteen more turns to finally get the stuffed animal free from the stack.

  On a good night Megu will spend 2,000 yen, or twenty dollars, retrieving the stuffed animal of her choice. A bad night could cost her 4,000 yen. Once she was able to get an oversized Rilakkuma for 500 yen. Her worst night – a 7,000 yen loss.

  A sense of power, that’s what Megu feels every time the metal claw hovers over her chosen prize. One right pluck and she wins. Tug it the wrong way or lose her grip and she has to play again. It’s the only thing in her life she has complete control over.

  That split second, the second between the time the claw pinches the stuffed animal’s flesh and the moment her prize is lifted into the air feels like an eternity. She can almost see the fibers adhere to the cold metal, hear the subtle yelp as the plush doll is wrenched higher, smell victory or defeat in the screaming stink of Akihabara.

  Every time she loses her stuffed prey, Megu is reminded of the blue panda. It was the only stuffed animal that would ever get away. She had worked outside the maid cafe for a week before she saw it, a perfect balance of color and symmetry, of weight and proportion, of kawaii and quiet. It had pressed against the side of the machine to gaze out onto the busy street.

  The first night she ignored the blue panda. She’d seen a friend get obsessed over ubiquitous Tokyo arcades before. His obsession had been with one of the drumming games, and he went as far as bringing his own drumsticks to the arcade and wearing sweat-wicking Uniqlo shirts to combat the searing temperatures inside.

  The blue panda myster
iously changed positions the following day, and for her entire shift, Megu stared at it from across the street. It called out to her, beckoned her over. She continued to ignore the urge, but knew she would break soon. She wanted it, and it became more and more clear that it wanted her.

  The next night, Megu gave in and put her first 100 yen into the claw machine. Her first time. It was before her shift, and she figured she’d give it a shot. Just once. She lost, and for the rest of her shift she watched people play for it.

  After work, Megu spent 1,000 yen trying to get the blue panda – this was before she’d developed her doll retrieving strategies – and still, she walked away empty-handed.

  Undeterred, she spent another 1,000 yen trying to get the blue panda before her next shift. Again she failed, and as she sulked away, a small boy wearing a baseball cap with a Peanuts character on it walked up to the claw machine and deposited a single 100 yen coin.

  All that hard work down the drain; an earthquake under a glass house; the money in the bank suddenly gone. The maid cafe fliers scattered into the streets, bathing in the electric orchestra that illuminates Akihabara. The boy smiled up at Megu as he walked away clutching the blue panda. Her blue panda.

  She vowed to never lose again.

  Strategies were developed. Flicks of the wrist at just the right time, stacking techniques, gestures for success, recognizance. Megu monitored the arcade during her shift to see which machine would most likely give her the prize she desired. She always chose several stuffed animals, just in case one got away, just to make sure she wouldn’t disappoint herself. She never wanted to relive the blue panda experience, never wanted to come close to losing again.

  And she never did.

  She won nightly, stuffed animals small and large. Kumamon, Hikonyan, Anpanman. For variety, Megu would try for ninja toys or key chains shaped like sushi. Her parents would tell her to quit wasting her money at the arcade, to save for a car or for college. To appease them she’d stop, but she’d usually be back at it within a week.

  Even now, Megu still feels a tingling sensation when she uses the metal claw to carry the stuffed animal over to the drop slot. The flirt of hope, the writhe of anticipation. Still, it’s nothing like that first time she played. Her heart no longer skips, no longer flutters, no longer fills her body with a palpable eagerness. The only thing bad about virginity in any form is that it must be lost.

  Megu tries not to think about the money she has wasted. She tries to think only about the stuffed animals and strategies. The blue panda can only be lost once. Victory is a replicable trait, there’s always a reason to keep playing, to keep winning.

  Every two weeks, the arcade across from the maid cafe replenishes its supply. New stuffed animals come with cuter expressions and different textures. Chihayafuru, Domo, Hello Kitty. Subtle varieties make things appear more original than they really are.

  Megu will never readily accept this, not even the two or three times it has crossed her. Instead, she’ll drop a 100 yen coin into the claw machine and try for a sliver of stuffed happiness. Instead, she’ll play to win as everyone is trained to do. Instead, she’ll keep handing out fliers for the maid cafe in the buzzing streets of Akihabara to collect a paycheck.

  The stuffed animals pile up in the machines across from the maid cafe. They pile up in her home in Asakusa. Large, bulbous eyes and ironic facial expressions peak out from every nook and cranny of her parents’ home, watching and smiling.

  Still, it isn’t enough. Still, Megu wants more.

  The Sciatica Goblin and the International Motley Crew

  [2]‘Take me to any hotel under 500 rupees in Majnukatilla,’ I told the taxi driver.

  I heaved a trekker bag half my height and an overstuffed backpack into the taxi’s trunk. The tetchy sciatica goblin inside my leg, who had taken residence about a foot above my kneecap, momentarily stopped stabbing me with his serrated dagger. The goblin was relentless. I was his surrogate father, he was my parasite. His full name was sciatica nerve damage, but I referred to him as my sciatica goblin to keep the mood light.

  Like an idiot, I hadn’t booked a hotel for the night in Delhi, which is possibly one of the worst things one can do before heading off to India. This had seemed like a better idea before the sciatica goblin had decided he wanted to see India at my expense. Thomas Paine would have laughed.

  As we pulled out of the Delhi airport, the driver asked, ‘Do you have any children?’ I told him that I didn’t and he proceeded to tell me about his. Considering it was midnight and I was going on three hours of sleep and a coming off a fifteen hour flight, my consciousness swerved in and out of our conversation. I asked him if he knew about Texas. He said no. I told him our governor shot wolves with laser-sighted pistols. He didn’t know what a wolf was. I explained that it was a large dog that attacked joggers. He didn’t laugh at my joke. As we drove through the warren city, I told myself to trust, to have faith that I would make it to a comfy bed cushioned with cumulus cloud pillows.

  Almost an hour into the ride, the scenery had evolved from nice hotels to an Indian wasteland. I was frightened as to where the driver might be taking me. I had a feeling that the nasty sciatica goblin residing above my kneecap would surely take the driver’s side in a fight. Just as I had given up hope on humanity, the driver stopped at the entrance to a desolate alley thrumming with garbage and shadows. A single light on at the end of the alley met my weary eyes. A beacon of hope.

  The original plan was to travel to McLeod Ganj, home of the His Holiness the Dalia Lama, the next morning. A twelve hour bus ride uphill. Veering around small ledges, speeding up sporadically, brakes screeching at every halt, a chain-smoking driver with pock marks in a small cabin surrounded by wiry Indian friends laughing loudly – Six Flags over Texas couldn’t have thought of a more terrifying ride.

  The beacon of hope turned out to be a beacon of insects. The hotel was out of clean rooms, and offered instead a room with a leaky toilet, the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos and flies. For hours I lay on the floor of my room between two beds. The only way to stand was to hoist myself up using the beds as leverage. Every movement caused tears. Pain swelled through my leg to my shoulder. Constant wincing. I pleaded with the sciatica goblin. I need to make it to Majnukatilla! I have a novel to finish! I offered him tithe, begged him for mercy, promised my first unborn child, promised I would change my political stance. The tyrannical goblin refused to hear my pleas, punished me with more pain. A merciless little devil. In Hindi – a dushtaatmaa.

  Each morning, I hobbled through the alleys of Majnukatilla in an attempt to recover. Tibetans and Indians stared at me as if I had gone crazy. Who is this man dragging his leg like a sack of potatoes? Who is this crazy white man grimacing as he staggers through our streets? Is America sending us their disabled twenty-somethings as retribution for stolen call center jobs?

  I passed two days like this, the throbbing relentless. On the following day, I booked the bus trip regardless of injury. I needed to get to my destination. I asked myself, how bad could a choleric sciatica goblin be on an overnight bus ride? I declined to answer the rhetorical question. I tried to forget the lumps in the road that lay ahead, tried to erase my memory of the previous year’s bus ride to the region. Maybe the Indian authorities had repaved the road? Fat chance.

  At around five that evening, a hotel clerk helped me board the bus. I sat next to a German man, a jeweler from Bonn with curly blond hair and small blue eyes. Red skin from a month in Jaipur, blue veins trickling up his forearm like the Ganges.

  The bus started, pulling away from the loading area and directly into the Delhi traffic. Rickshaw drivers circled us like clown cars, men slept in the dusty medians, horns honked, a horse drawn carriage moved to the left as the Tata truck driver blew past him, men riding bicycles talked on cell phones and swerved around street vendors, organized chaos, a woman wearing a pink salwar kameez blazed past us on a scooter, motorcycles, motorbikes, horns honked, exhaust pipes spit smoke like
seasoned gamblers, a man rode an elephant carrying straw in its trunk, yellow and black taxi cabs, pandemonium, small Ford vehicles, a Volkswagen, a public transportation bus stuffed full of Indians, a police officer wearing a pollution mask directed traffic, rusty white Jeeps with bearded aged Sikhs, horns honked. I placed my headphones on and tried to forget the bedlam outside the bus window.

  A few hours passed by slowly as night enveloped the continent. I relaxed further into my seat, lost in the music of Sigur Ros, happy that the sciatica goblin had momentarily fallen asleep.

  At around ten o’clock, one of the Indian men from the back of the bus shouted, ‘India won!’ in English. He was referring to India’s cricket match against Pakistan, the Super Bowl of the cricket world. The handful of Indians on the bus cheered. None of the foreigners gave a shit. We came upon a gigantic green and white circus tent, painted in bright fluorescent lights, surrounded by hundreds of vehicles. I looked at the tent and briefly wondered why so many Indians had converged in the middle of nowhere.

  Headlights and a smashing sound.

  I watched as the front window of the bus rippled. A piece of glass burst into the driver’s cabin; a large crack spread like spilt water from the top to the bottom of the window. The bus shook. A British woman sitting behind me screamed. My ears popped, waking the sciatica goblin. I suddenly became cognizant that the bus had been in a wreck. A Tibetan man sitting behind me yanked out his cell phone and began calling someone. The bus driver started yelling out his window at a man wearing a white turban. The man held his hand to his face, blood gushing through his fingers, his turban turning pink.

  ‘What’s happening?’ the British woman shouted.

  The driver rushed out of the bus, meeting a couple of men wearing turbans at the door. A brawl broke out. My sciatica goblin pulsed as I turned in my seat to watch the ensuing mayhem.