‘No idea why am I so stupid I never thought of that. Which newspapers?’
‘O Wild Man of Kyushu,’ says Buntaro back at Shooting Star, ‘your eyes are a pair of piss-holes in the snow.’ My landlord is eating a blueberry-blooded ice lolly. On the video screen a man in a black suit walks through a desert. A bottleneck guitar swirls with the tumbleweed. The black suit needs a dry clean and the man needs a shave and a shower. ‘Morning. What’s the movie?’
‘Paris, Texas, by Wim Wenders.’ Buntaro piles in the last of the ice lolly before it collapses down his hand. I watch for a while longer. Not much happens in Paris, Texas. ‘Sort of slow, isn’t it?’
Buntaro licks his hand. ‘This, lad, is an existentialist classic. Man with no memory meets woman with huge hooters. So. How was your night? No memory or huge hooters? You can’t fool me, y’know. I was young myself, once. You are a quick worker, though, I got to grant you that. Two weeks in the big bad city and already chasing the more fragrant sex.’
‘I sort of ran into friends.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Speaking of friends, I saw a monster cockroach earlier.’
‘Take it up with my landlord.’
‘Seriously, I thought it was a hairless rat. Then it twitched its antlers. I tried to splat it, but it took off and flew up the stairs. Vanished under your door quicker than you could say “In the name of all that is holy, what is that thing?” Maybe your starving moggy ate it. Maybe it ate your starving moggy.’
‘I fed my starving moggy before I went out.’ Good to see Buntaro getting used to the idea of Cat living in my capsule.
‘Aha! So your tryst was planned!’
My head throbs. ‘Leave me alone,’ I beg. ‘Please.’
‘Was I knocking you? Empty what’s full, fill what’s empty, scratch what itches. The three keys to harmony. But what is that unidentified red patch covering your throat?’
Attack is defence. ‘Your trouser flies are way open.’
‘Who cares? The dead bird does not leave the nest.’
‘The bird can’t be that dead. Look at your wife.’
‘The bird is dead. Look at my wife.’
‘Huh?’
‘You’ll see what I mean one day, my boy.’
I’m about to go upstairs when three high-school boys march in. The leader asks me: ‘You got Virtua Sapiens ?’
‘Never heard of it,’ says Buntaro. ‘The sequel of Homo ?’
‘You what?’
‘It’s a video game,’ I explain. ‘Out last week.’
The second-in-command ignores me. ‘Got Broadsword of Zyqorum, then?’
‘No software. All videos.’
‘Told yer!’ says the leader, and they troop out.
‘You’re welcome, lads.’ Buntaro watches them go. ‘Y’know, Miyake, I have it on reliable authority – Baby and You, no less – that the average Japanese father spends seventeen minutes per day with his sprog. The average schoolboy spends ninety-five minutes per day inside video games. A new generation of electronic daddies. When Kodai is born, he is getting his bedtime stories from his parents, not from sicko druggo psycho freako programmers. I’m already getting my big fat “No” for when Kodai comes running for a video game machine thing.’
‘What if he comes running in tears because none of the kids in his class will talk to him because his daddy’s too mean to buy him a game system?’
‘I—’ Buntaro frowns. ‘I never thought of that. What did your dad do?’
‘He was in another part of the country.’
‘What about your mum, then?’
One little lie leads to another. ‘I had my soccer club. Anyway, I need to, uh, get cleaned up.’ I climb up to my capsule, shower – by the time I towel myself dry I am sweaty enough for another shower – and unroll my futon. Sleep is not coming. Ai Imajo keeps floating up. Her supple neck, her smile. She says my name. I get up and try to do some bottleneck guitar chords, but my fingers are rusty. I check the cockroach motel. Only one guest – a baby. Cockroach has spread the word about motel hospitality. Cat comes back and laps her water dish dry. I fill it up, but she laps that dry too.
Later I go out to buy the Tokyo Evening Mail. I take the submarine into Ueno, and find a quiet place in the park to fill out the classified ad box. I make several false starts – it is crucial that I don’t write anything that will provoke my stepmother or make it look like I want money. Finally I’m satisfied with Plan C: