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I was up the next morning early (July 20th, 2008) and on the train to Chiba. The Lions were at Chiba Marine Stadium for the last of a three game set on the coast and were closing in on a sweep. All that stood between them was the Chiba ace,
Shunsukue Watanabe who, despite playing in a cellar team, was having one of the best seasons of his life and had been already selected to represent Japan in the (then) upcoming Beijing Olympics. It was an hour and a half ride to Kaihin Makuhari station. And a 20 minute walk from there through a typical drab Chiba mallscape until I came out into a tree-lined causeway, where I could smell the ocean and see Colosseum-inspired stadium. The grounds are literally right on the water-front, which I hear can make for some very cold early/late-season conditions, but what it lacks in size, the ballpark certainly makes up in charm. Lately, I've been wishing I hadn't been so stuck in the Tokyo bubble for the last three summers.
When I arrived, they were giving Bobby Valentine some kind of lifetime achievement award (perhaps for somehow managing to stay relevant, or "best costume design"
by a manager) which took up some time. I found Tak and most of the other Blue Spirits crew in the bleachers about four rows from the back. Watanabe took the mound right as I sat down.
The first three pitches this guy threw, literally knocked me out of my seat. I could not f**king believe what I was seeing. It looked like he was bouncing the ball off the dirt-track leading up to the plate, like skipping stones in a lake. To my surprise and extreme chagrin, the Seibu batting lineup, instead of calmly watching it go by, was frantically swatting at everything for choppy ground balls. He retired the first three batters in a row. I was audibly freaking out and grabbing the shoulders of the people around me, 'What the f**k is going on!? That's illegal! He can't do that, can he? Why are they swinging? It's a ball!'
'What do you mean?' Tak said.
'Look! Watch!' I traced the parabolic course of the ball with my finger, clearly indicating where it had struck earth before sailing slowly into the bottom half of the strike zone.
'What, you've never seen that before?'
'No!'
'Byung-Hyun Kim, the
closer for Arizona in the world series, used to do that.'
'...'
'He played for Boston too.'
'...'
'He's just throwing it underhand. It's not touching the ground.'
I still didn't believe him. I had to walk down parallel to the foul line in the infield seating before I allowed myself to be convinced the ball was not bounding once before crossing the plate. I looked it up later, to discover that his release-point is measured at around 2" above the ground, giving him a "true" rising fastball, and breaking balls that travel upwards before falling down.
I wasn't the only one hypnotized by his bizarre style, apparently. The Lions, who were then the top batting team in the NPB that year, were held to 3 hits and no runs, effort, while their bullpen gave up 16. Watanabe threw a complete game.
The usually boisterous Blue Spirits (even in defeat) were frustrated to the point of silence after the game. Mr. Saitoh didn't even say goodbye. He just got in his car and left. Tak kept muttering to himself 「俺何をしに来た？」(Why did I even come here.) As lame as all that was, compared to the wac-ass crap I'd been
through the last two weeks, just getting out to the diamond felt like Christmas when you're ten. I tried to cheer him up.
「まあ、そりゃ、せやけど、俺は何をしにきたか、知っとる。俺の一番大事な友達と一緒に愛するチームを応援しにきた。それはどんな結果でも、俺にとって一番楽しいこちゃ。」
(Well, I don't know about you, but I came here to cheer on the team I love with my best friends in Japan. And for me, win or lose, that's the most fun thing there is. )
'You don't understand.' He muttered. 'I've been waiting for this for
four years. Last year we were the worst team in Japan. The
f**king Baystars were better than us last year. This is the year that we're finally supposed to win the Japan series after a four year hiatus, and we get
shutout- -16-nil!!- -by a weak team...after beating them
twice in a row in
their home...and
you're happy with that?
「野球はね、簡単なことです。」('Baseball is very simple.')
「- -簡単じゃねいよ。」('Baseball is
not simple.')
「簡単や。球を投げる、球を受ける、球を打つ。たまに勝つ、たまに負ける、たまに雨が降る。」
(It's very simple. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.)
「深くない。」('That's not deep.') He grumbled. Apparently the reference was lost on him.
That's the problem with Seibu fans. In some regards, they're just like Giants fans. Pennant greedy.
20 League Championships and 13 Japan Series titles is not enough for them. It's difficult to swallow when you're not accustomed to failure. You get used to having it all the time, you go without it for too long, you start going nuts. Nonetheless, I was happy. Today wasn't all bad. It was gorgeous out. A little hot (91 degrees), but not a cloud in the sky. The Philly Cheesesteak they were serving at the concession booth was amazing. Hirao got a
new theme song today. That was pretty cool. I even got to meet the leader of the Ōendan on the train ride back home. He said he'd seen me at lots of games, liked my spirit. I had a paycheck coming up, I'd planned the greatest Japan-trip imaginable for me and my brother. I had everything a boy could want.
Except for her.
＊ ＊ ＊
As predicted, when I emailed and asked her where we should meet up to go to Yokohama, she told me not to come. She thought it would be weird. None of her friends knew me, and Japanese people aren't always accepting when you invite somebody random along...you know how it is, ne Teddo?
夕暮れ
rightI know. I'm random. I'm your random white boyfriend, who sits at home waiting for you all week, thinking the next call's prolly gonna be the last.
It was Sunday, so the Retro was closed. Yasū wouldn't open until after I left Japan. I didn't have the nerve to go back to Bar-R, or the Snack-bar where the Filipina waitress offered me her daughter, or the Snack-bar where I got punched out by the old man. I sat watching the TV, waiting for the highlights from around the league to come in. Something close to the philosophical dilemma of suicide was presented to me:
If I had the superegoistical sense to realize I was a bad person before, and the want to change, and that the specified change was demarcated only by a mental attitude capable by my volition (and mine a lone), then couldn't I merely
decide then and now, that I was henceforth a better person and deserved better than this? What was the necessity (no less the use) in feeling compelled to punish myself by waiting alone in my apartment for the girlfriend, who I was worried would not be able to keep me satisfied
indefinitely from the beginning, to reject me again and again, until I was thoroughly crushed.
Likely, because the superego views the id's desire for a hotter girlfriend as parcel to the whole skewed set of values that caused the conscious tear in the first place. You are considered by your higher analytical mechanism to be undeserving of anyone "better". The very notion "better" is the problem. She
is "better". Better than you. The superego is unable to pronounce the ego "decent" on account of the repeated offense of surrendering itself to the id despite clear knowledge of superego's astute censures. The perceived imbalance is caused by the lack of a stronger moral center, and could be conceivably corrected in the presence of one Soon-Mi Kim, whose constant verbal castigation strikes the ego as invariably veridical. Thus the id's desire is repressed while original desire for the object of affection is allowed to pass freely into consciousness, making waiting in vain seem the better alternative.
Plain english Doc? More simply put, you hate and distrust yourself, she makes you feel guilty, you like that.
Diagnosis? You're an idiot.
Prognosis? Incurable, by all known forms
of medicine. Nothing short of a miracle will save you.
Recommended course of action Herr Doktor? See how it goes.
She sent me another email just before 8.
I've been thinking about you all day. I don't think we should see each other anymore. I know I said I wanted to get back together yesterday too, but after all, I really don't think we're right for each other. I'm sorry. Things will be weird for a while, but we can probably be friends after this is over. I'm sorry again. —Soon-Mi A long time after this happened. She sent me the pictures that her friend took of that night to show me what I'd missed. Like almost everything that happened that night, I don't understand why she did it.
She phoned me around 10:30. The trains were all packed leaving Yokohama. It was impossible to get on. She couldn't get home. I didn't understand why she was phoning me. I asked her if the Yokohama line was full. She said she'd check. She called my back. It wasn't. I told her to go to Hachiōji and get back on
the Chuō line. She said she'd do that. I still couldn't figure out why she would phone me for transit advice. She called me an hour later when she got to Hachiōji. She said she was waiting for a train.
'So?'
'
So? So don't you want to see me tonight?'
'I thought you didn't want to see me.'
'I didn't. That's why I told you not to come.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm mad at you.'
'Why?'
'...I forgot.' She laughed. 'Don't you want to see me?'
Hang up the phone.
Hang up the phone.
Hang up the phone.
'Yes.' F**k.
'Come pick me up from Hino station in 20 minutes.'
'OK.'
'One thing though...'
'What?'
'If I get out at Hino, I'll miss the last train back to my house...'
'...You can stay at mine.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'I need to make this clear though. I'm going there as your friend. We can't sleep together. And we can't do anything dirty...'
.
.
.
'Fine. I'll sleep on the floor.'
'...Okay. See you soon.' *Click*
＊ ＊ ＊
She arrived at the train station earlier than I did. She was waiting outside. She looked beautiful in the streetlight. Like a little doll,
wrapped up in her Yukata. I hadn't felt this way looking at her since the night she'd first tried on the black dress. Entranced. Like she was the only girl I'd ever loved. I was still wearing my jimbei. I'd changed into it under the assumption I was going to join her that night. If you had seen us coming back form the train together, you would've thought we had gone together, on a date, and she was coming home with, at this late hour to make love and lie together in my restful bed.
We stopped halfway up the hill at the park they do the Bon-Odori festival in. It was empty. I had remembered the 550¥ firecrackers still in my pocket. I'd bought them at the 7-11 when I got home from the game, thinking they would be fun to light together after the fireworks show was done. They were the kind that you dangle from a thread and they spray gentle sparks down at your feet. You hold contests between friends (or lovers) to see whose can last the longest. I saw it in high school date-mangas back before I stopped reading them. We burned them smiling, as if nothing was wrong. Occasionally she scolded me for not doing it right. Around the time we ran out, another couple joined us in the park. They looked about 16 or 17. Probably Hinodai students. They talked for a while, eyeing us every so often. We did the same. He moved her over to another bench on the shade, I could hear frantic whispers over my own muted words every so often as I tried to keep a conversation going with my ex-girlfriend. The night was still. Soon-Mi said she was thirsty so I offered to buy her a soda and we started in the direction of home. As we were leaving I caught a glimpse of the smarmy little Tokyo pretty-boy with his hand down the opened lapels of her Yukata.
In all my four years removed from high school I had never seen anything that made me feel green-eyed envy of the care-free youths that by and by crossed my paths. But right then I was viciously jealous of that little long-haired sh*t and his pretty little girlfriend/playmate/whatever... I almost stopped at the Kouban on the way back to report them for public indecency. I settled for the soda machine next to it instead. Dr. Pepper...Texas? Gen... Cherry flavored cola always calms my nerves, ever since the South. That'll make sense much later.
We strode abreast, down the street we always do. I stared compulsively at the neatly-crossed pink fabric of her lapels, and the tight fold where they met under her obi. My heart started to race, as it usually does at this point in the walk. We crossed into the parking lot, and shuffled up the noisy metal stairs without so much as a word in between us. Neither of knew what was going to happen. She
must've thought this was as absurd as I did. We entered my dorm room and removed our shoes. She proceeded quietly down the hallway and sat on my bed. I sat on the floor below her and across the room, with my back propped against the mini-fridge. The sh*tty fluorescent light of my room flattened the red tones in her skin and her hair-dye, and dulled the white in the floral print of her yukata. She looked like one sad, continuous blur of pink, perched up on my bed, judging me. We were a strange couple, she and I.
It was nearing 1AM, and I was all out of casual conversation. I only wanted to know why it was over and what she was doing here. She cut me off abruptly. Said she didn't know what she was doing here, seeing as I never really treated her very well anyhow. It was over now for the same reason it was over before. She couldn't trust me. I kept too many things from her. I wasn't considerate too her. And even when she had given me a second chance—which she shouldn't have—I'd blown it by trying to pick up a bar skank- -after she'd talked to me that night no less. Before I could defend myself she stopped me again.
'I never even liked you from the beginning you know.'
.
.
.
'I just felt sorry for you. You told me the story of Yuki- -by the way, I thought it was strange you talked about your ex-girlfriend so much.
And why would you ask me about my ex boyfriends? Why does that thing interest you? - -Anyways, I knew you were heartbroken. I didn't want to hurt you, so I said yes...'
.
.
.
'Why- -why did you let me kiss you then, on the night you left Calgary?' Is all I could think of asking.
'...I was confused. Nobody had ever been that direct with me before- -saying they liked me like that. I admit, it was very brave of you, and a little charming but it's not like it worked. I just figured...if I let this person kiss me, maybe it would be nice...—And it
was nice, you're a very good kisser, like I said before... - -and you're a fun person, and a great friend...I just think you're not a very good boyfriend, that's all...You don't have to get upset about it. We're just not...meant to be together I don't think.
.
.
.
I was fighting back tears at this point. She continued, 'When I got back to Japan, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out with you or not, so I talked to a lot of my friends, and they said you sounded "sweet" and that I should give you a chance. I decided it was okay for us to get to keep dating by phone, and I
did want to get to know you better truly...but the night you arrived things were off.'
I recalled the horrific and frustrating memories of our first awkward night together. Her hesitation to my offer that she stay over. The frightened tone in her voice when she asked me "Yaru?!". Her stiff acquiescence. Her reluctance to look me in the eye for days after that. Her expression of shock the first time I told her I loved her. Her weekly complaint thereafter that we were moving too fast for her. It was all so obvious to me now. I wanted to take it all back, but I no longer had control of anything. I leaked large tears onto my lap and sat paralyzed in wait for the next volley.
'You know I never found you charming in the least. When I first met you in the park last year, I thought you were one of those asshole foreigners who comes to Japan to f**k around during the summer, and doesn't care about anyone or anything. I know now that I was right. I
can't believe you asked me to have sex with you your very first night here! We barely knew each other! And then after that, even though you knew I didn't like it, you still wanted it every time I came over. That's why I stopped coming...I wasn't always busy you know. Sometimes I just said I was because I didn't want to see you.'
I started to get angry. My firsts clenches, and my eyes still watered. 'Why?' I said, 'Why did you let it go on this long, if you never even cared about me?'
'It's not as bad as you make it sound...' she said. 'It's not like I never cared for you at all. I was really moved...that you went to such great lengths to take care of us and make sure we had a good time when we went to Canada...I felt...special...when you told me you did it all for me. I didn't like you at first, but I started to like you after a while...'
.
.
.
'When?'
'It wasn't when we were in Montana together.'
I sobbed. '...Because of the night that I climbed into your bed...'
'No...I just thought you were drunk...it was a little funny actually,' she smile, 'and the next day you apologized right away- -and nothing bad happened so I wasn't mad...Actually, that night when you were driving back and we made eye contact in the store- -you looked away immediately, and you blushed...I knew then that you were really sorry for what happened. It was...kind of- -very cute. It was the same the night we left, when you confessed to me. You're ears were really red, kinda like they are now, and you were stuttering.'
I became horribly self conscious, at that moment. Aware that she was staring down on me, and that I must look at least half as bad on the outside as I felt on the inside. My mouth went dry, I was having difficulty swallowing my warm cherry cola.
'I knew you were trying really hard.'
'I kept drinking my beer too, during the middle of my speech. I couldn't calm down.' I said flatly. 'I felt like I was 14 again.'
'Actually, that seemed like it was fake to me. Like you were putting it on for some "effect" or something. It was wasn't it?'
I stayed silent.
'I thought so. That's your problem, you're so concerned with the display. You never say what's actually going on inside, you choose how you want to come off to other people and act a certain way...even if it feels wrong...Don't you?'
.
.
.
Of all the tangent thoughts swirling in my head—of the doubt and the self-hate, the self-pity, the regret, the anger, the disillusionment, the powerlessness and the shame—one stood out. I couldn't let her win. I couldn't let her break me here. That's what she came to do. To break me. To emasculate me with her insults and let my peevish reaction prove to her everything she already thought about me from the beginning. That I was no good. That I was worthless. That she did my a favor by letting me wait anxiously for her for two months. I resolved then and there, that I was going to make her cry tonight. I was going to make her feel how I felt now.
"Stop." My throat had been silently trembling for minutes now. I let my voice crack meekly, "Just stop." She opened her mouth, but it was my turn to speak. - -
- -And what did I say? I can barely remember now. Something about having loved her from the beginning—only wanting the chance...Happy just to be around her...Inspired...so beautiful...thought we were alike. Something artless and raw. The kind of thing I wouldn't remember because it wasn't contrived in the least. She tried to cut in twice, I wouldn't let her. I just built on her sentence fragments.
I recall the day with the usual clarity: the scenes, the order of the feelings, the notable quotes. Right there I can feel the heartbeat in my throat, and the heat in the room. I can picture her face, her draining color and expression, and the pores in her skin in the light. I can hear the air conditioner, and the stunning sound of silence after I was finished, but the only things I can't make out in the memory is my own voice.
I remember next either the light flickering or a moth flitting around above us for a few winding moments. Seeing her lips trembling and the shake move to her hair, and watching her turn from me to face the wall. She asked me to leave, so she could change. The weirdness of the situation came back to me. I instinctively went to my closet and found her a t-shirt and a pair of my boxers and tossed it on the bed next to her. I left, and closed the door behind me.
What did I say? Even then, I was already forgetting it. I could hear her unravelling her obi on the other side of my thin door. I listened to her slowly slide the fabric of her yukata down her naked shoulders. The electric vision of her slender unbound body, slipping my shirt over her head, and resting her back on my bed to slide the shorts up her legs, danced in the dark of the hallway somewhere tangibly between my temporal and occipital lobes of my brain. I felt tempted to search my shelves for a spare notepad and pen that I might write down the fading words, still half hot on my tongue, for when the time came to put this evening to words. I refrained. Thinking that I might want to forget it depending on how this all ended. That I might want to forget this night entirely, including what she said to me, but it was already etched deep in my conscience...What did I say?
I returned and put her yukata on a hanger up with my baseball jerseys. She asked me to turn out the lights, and crawled under my covers. I complied and crawled in with her. We lay parelell for moments and she began to shudder.
'What's the matter?' I said, feigning concern. I knew my words had had their attended effect.
'
Why didn't I realize it sooner?' She said. She kept repeating it to herself, sinking deeper and deeper. Until she finally burst into tears.
That's when I reached out to her. Drawing her near with me arms. My touch on made her cry more. 'Yes.' I thought. 'Let it out. Cry to your hearts content. Know what it feels to hate yourself in love.'
Every time she cried out in apology, I whispered something soothing in her ear. I dried her tears with my shirt, I told her she was forgiven. I knelt above her and kissed her softly sometimes, sometimes lying down on top of her in a simple embrace. I asked her what she wanted of me. She said she wanted to kiss. I'd kiss her and she'd cry more and tell me to stop. She cried and cried for four hours, until the morning twilight began to creep in through my curtains. I held her every minute of the way, half in love trying to take the pain away, half rejoicing every time she shuddered with the pangs of regret. I rolled into a divine slumber with her frail body clasped in my arms, she never returned it. When I awoke the next morning there she lay, back flat on the twin-size mattress, eyes wide open and bright red from a long night of tears.
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