oldest living things in the eastern hemisphere. So how are you finding Tokyo, this difficult town?’
Tokyo, this difficult town. How cool is that? ‘Full of surprises. Sometimes lonely. Mostly weird. I can’t walk in a straight line. I keep bumping into people.’
‘You have to stop thinking about walking. Like catching food in your mouth – think about it, you miss. How do you know your relative passes by here?’
‘I don’t, really. I don’t even know what he looks like.’
‘Is he a distant relative?’
‘I wouldn’t want to bore you.’
‘Do I sound bored? Why not look in the telephone book?’
‘Dunno his name, even.’
Ai Imajo frowns. ‘And does he know your name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Place an ad in the personal columns. “Relatives of Eiji Miyake – please contact this PO box.” That kind of thing. Most Tokyoites read the same three or four newspapers. Your relative might not read it himself, but somebody else might. You’re looking dubious.’
I think hard.
Ai Imajo studies me. ‘What?’
Oh, I love being studied by Ai Imajo. ‘I have no idea.’
That smile again, mixed with confusion. ‘I have no idea what?’
‘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?’