At some point in the morning he fell asleep again. Waking up to a dirty bum sitting beside him cough and yowling some old song, buzzing out of his grotesque vocal cords. The man has a sour stench like wet shoes and rancid underwear. Noticing Furyo is awake the bum croaks some request in Japanese. Furyo scowls at him and turns over away from the noon sun, covering his face in a damp news paper. The bum howls off a list of insults until he gets to a word Furyo recognizes, 浮浪者 (Furōsha) meaning Bum, and 外人 (Gaijin). He remembers the Yakuza sneering that term at him last night. By instinct he guesses it means “foreigner” or American. The bum turns to the lake, taking out a little spoon from a soft pack of Camel cigarettes and a lighter. Furyo cant believe what he is seeing. In this beautiful place this asshole is going to fix. Melting the Heroin in the spoon, then begins the ritual of the syringe. Filling it with a tiny black spurt of darkness. Carefully loading it in his arm. Furyo knows the look, nirvana in the eyes and the bum immediately releases his bowls, sinking into the bench with piss streaming down his pants and a stupid smiles on his linty beard.
Furyo has no respect for junkies. All his childhood trauma came from his parent’s addiction, leaving him to fend for him self in foster homes and juvenile placements. It’s all he can do to not smash this bum in the mouth with his fists, beating him to death. Furyo’s time in prison came from kicking in the local dealers door, zip tying the family and stealing 10 grand. Little did he know the dealer was working for dirty cops, and the entire building was under heavy surveillance. Then with no ceremony, the bum stands and shakes a spray can, writing something dirty on the sidewalk and struts off. Furyo smiles. Just like home. Looking at the homeless man’s scrawl, he can’t read it. It’s in English characters but so poorly written, it seems like nonsense. It looks like it says, “Turdshave” but he cant be sure. Dashing off to catch up with the bum, the man turns around brandishing a box cutter when he hears Furyo’s heavy footfalls gaining on him.
The bum slashes the air like a samurai and seeing who is behind him, turns away uninterested in conflict. Furyo pummels him with questions in English. The bum snarls some dismissive quacks in Japanese, or maybe Korean that is intonated with snarls and hisses. Furyo loses his composure and spins the bum around but is caught off guard as the bum decks him in the nose. They mix it up but Furyo feels bad going full power so his punches only land at about 40% of what he could be throwing. The bum shrieks, ファックユー、ガイジン黒人“Fakkyu, kokujin! Fuck you, Gaijin Nigger!” Furyo is at a loss for words, how do you even respond to that? He isn’t black but he guesses this is the extent of the bum’s English. The bum’s nose exploded in a gout of blood, tears in his eyes and all the details of this mans pain become crystal clear. The yellow crust around his eyes, the stale drool stains all over his shirt, his sun greyed clothes and awful stench. Furyo has never been known as an empath but the torment of this mans life is all so clear. He feels tears in his own eyes and watches the man shamble out of the park and in to the city.
Furyo remembers the Stewardess’ note from the plane. He feels around his pockets, wet coins, note in shreds and miraculously the paper is still legible. Red marker smeared with an address that seems like it’s written in gibberish. He stumbles into the city, drawn by squawks of a cartoon girls, car horns and the metallic sound of rushing trains out of view. Seeing the city with out all the neon and busy night-time foot traffic is a stark difference. It’s so grey and every thing seems to be made of plastic, metal and glass. So clean in the bright daylight, spartan, integrated and orderly. The white and black buildings gleam, signs of alluring women peak out of dim voids in places only open at night. It’s tranquil if you don’t count the zooming traffic. No one is on the sidewalks, like exploring a school between the bells, every one is off in some cubicle or attending to some business like drawing manga or preparing noodles in sweltering kitchens.
Walking until his legs felt stiff and useless he found a part of town that wasn’t so futuristic. Here there was a long drainage ditch along rows of small houses and apartment buildings. The drainage ditch was deep, over 12 feet and full of fish and turtles. The sides were stacked stone that reminded him of the walls of a samurai’s castle. Watching the water meander down the creek he sees toys floating in the water, paper hats and lost on a little island of grass a tiny silver kitten with gold eyes. He doesn’t feel like playing the hero, but the kitten enters the water and immediately starts struggling. Making Bonnie Tyler proud he leaps into the garbage and black water. It is far deeper than it looked. He plunges into the water over his head and is repulsed as the sour water goes in his nose. Its sewage! Panicking he forgets how to swim and ends up with a mouth full of brackish water.
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The sounds of frogs, buzzing insects and biting turtles surround him. Fish nip at his legs and still the pained cries of the kitten do not feel close. The current is taking him and each time his foot brushes a turtle shell or submerged bicycle it fills his heart with loathing. Reaching a mossy rock near the kitten, he rises from the black water totally covered in green moss and filth. He remembers the name of a Shaw Bros horror movie, “The Oily Maniac.” Yep that’s him, Swamp Thing up in this bitch. He hears annoyed elderly people yelling and pointing at the transgressive foreigner who dares to trespass in their open air toilet. The kitten has stopped moving, claws out and still in the murk, it has stopped convulsing. He picks up the still warm shape. He feels like shit. All this for nothing. Sitting there in the island in the drain, tears stream and he feels an emptiness in his heart. He squeezes the little chest and tries to breathe in the mouth in CPR. Coming to consciousness, the kitten struggles, opens its magical eyes slits of suspicion as water comes from her nose. He is amazed as the little eyes open and it meows at him. He feels so goofy, laughing like a madman.
Above him on a little bridge the local elderly have been cheering and lower a rope bridge. Several smiling old men with headbands and fishing hats come down and ushered him up. Clambering over the metal railing, a concerned old woman wraps the kitten in a blanket and a monk has come with a bell and incense. Even the local police have arrived but keep their distance as the shit smelling hero is too wet and troublesome for any police work. Before Furyo knows it, he is swept into a local house where he is stripped of his clothes, forced into a bathtub and dressed in dry clothing, next he is dragged into an empty restaurant where a full coarse meal is laid out for him and the same royal treatment for the cat, fussing with an old women chasing it with a hair dryer. The elderly community figured out he is American. They rush to get all the English speakers in the community and want to know about his life story.
Furyo doesn’t want to talk about prison, gangs and violence so he makes up some nonsense about being a reporter, artist and singer. Before he knows it he is painting a community mural project of fish climbing a stream on a long cement wall. Incorporating some graffiti letters, it’s pretty much finished by dusk. Some woman’s anglo husband drives him to Cynthia the stewardess’ address. He catches her returning from grocery shopping. She lives in a cramped little apartment, that has the bed and bathroom on different levels like a jungle gym. There is a panic when he realizes he left the cat but loses all thoughts of its wellbeing when Cynthia begins undressing and leads him to her cozy loft bed. Their lovemaking lasts until midnight when she can’t stay awake any more. Feeling strange in her little astronaut type bed space. Looking at the bizarre things she keeps there. Cartoon car alarm clock, pictures of vacations to Europe and esoteric pieces of Japanese spiritual life. He doesn’t want to wake her up with his heart racing, masterbating all night or trying to kiss her in her sleep.
He sets out on the streets to find some action. The elderly who lauded him as a hero, also packed his pockets with wads of money. He cant believe the huge denominations, 10,000 yen, 100,000 yen, stacks of them. Furyo wonders how they could spare such a massive wad of money. Finding a pocket of westerners he is quickly buying 100 yen beers and sampling the local sushi. The college kids and local executives don’t like his humor and escape to more polite haunts. Furyo wants to explore, finding record stores, little clothing shops and hole in the wall bars. He is drinking way too much but when he runs into his friends from the plane, he gets a second wind as they drag him into an anime themed hostess bar. Discovering the amazing quality of cheap ニッカブラックウイスキー (Nikka burakku uisukī, Nikka Black Whisky) and fruit drinks. He isn’t surprised when he awakens on a rooftop alone again, in a state of undress. Having somehow acquired a samurai sword and some kind of STD. His balls itch and he thinks he got the green drip. Thats not a way to start life on shores far away where only assholes and tourists look his way.