Harajuku Sunday (11 page)

"So yeah, we can crash at Mayumi's parents' place, and Jon will be packing some tents just in case everything falls through.
 
If worst comes to worst, there is a sort of time-share place that will let us have rooms for 150, you know 1.5 mahn, that'll be fine."

Buzz on the telephone; Tucker's question.

"Yeah, no problem.
 
Just as long as you have a grill and keep it away from trees or whatever."

Confirmatory and conclusatory buzz.

"Great, thanks, good stuff.
 
See you in a bit."

It is the third weekend of October, the final gasp of that crazy summer that never ends. It is still warm enough to go to the beach, it is still hot enough indeed that a trip to Kamakura, two hours south of Tokyo, a half-thought out excursion that becomes the immediate It event from anyone who hears about it; and at 10am that morning, it seems the phone won't stop buzzing from last minute additions, not Jon, a somewhat awkward software engineer who was planning on celebrating his birthday with a beach picnic with Japanese colleagues; not Tucker, the new Soren faithful who now falls into my orbit; not Maggie, who just wants updates on Shan—which at that moment I presently lack.
 
Not until forty minutes later am I able to rise out of bed out of bed to prepare breakfast and pack the cooler full of ice in my Ueno apartment, but I am already being to sense the social lay of things, the lie of the land.

"So I'm trying to go up to Iwaki last month, but I think we miss the right stop--turns out there's another foreigner on the train with me, little blonde girl who I end up talking to, name of Charis.
 
Just arrived here in
Japan
, third week, finishing orientation in
Tokyo
before her group gets assigned to wherever.
 
But she'll be living in Kanagawa."

By the time we get on the highway to
Kamakura
, Tucker is explaining to me his prior weekend as we both wear sunglasses and stare out into the well-trafficked, but not jammed up roadway.
 
The windows are down and the fresh air is breezing in.

"And so she'll be coming out today?"

"Yeah.
 
She and her whole group I think."

"Cool, cool, good stuff."

We enter a tunnel with the highway noise-reflecting walls suddenly giving way to a first view of the sea, and the effect is of leaving behind
Japan
and coming into a tropical paradise.
 
The sun almost seems to leap up in intensity, and the building architecture seems suddenly changed, resorty and universally terraced, subtropical foilage pushing up against the street itself.
 
The dazzling light on the sea is not quite eclipsed by the almost pure white of the sand.
 
Simultaneously: "Ahhh!"

It takes about twenty minutes for us to find the surfer girl, Mayumi's, place, a little beach-style house tucked away two blocks inland from Enoshima.
 
She's in, already dressed in her wetsuit for surfing, and we greet her and her friends cheerily before making our way to the water to stake out a spot.
 
Crowds from all over begin to pile in, and it isn't long before Tokyo acquaintances start showing up, in couples or small groups, our knot of towels on the warm sand spreading out now to thirty or forty meters, and everyone a hive of activity, slopping on greasy sunscreen, passing out beers, catching up with people you haven't seen in weeks.

"Hello... hello... hello..."
 
Brad has lost half a centimeter of thumb in an accident with a papercutter; Satoko has just returned from north
Japan
.
 
An ultralight buzzes in the Indian summer air, the pilot easing out against a stiff shore breeze and then circling back inland.
 
But without much ado, we jump out into the water to swim and play, and then back to the sand to bake in the hot sun.
 
Only after lunch, a quick raid of coolers packed in trunks and the local convenience store, do the new NOVA teachers arrive, at first from a distance, a group of more foreigners who by their cupped hands and beeline for us, are merely clearly people from our group.

"Oh wait, Ritchie, this is the group I was telling you about.
 
Just arrived in country, working for NOVA, and going through orientation together."

Tucker goes out to greet the new arrivals, about six in number, three guys and three girls, one of whom is the small blonde Charis.
 
We introduce ourselves.

"So you've going to be based in
Fukushima
?"

"Yeah, know anything?"

"Hear there's good skiing."

“But far from
Tokyo
.”

“You can bullet-train it in two hours.”

It's strange; there's no reason for her to distinctly remember my name, but after the initial sitdown on the beach while everyone is getting to know each other, exchanging names, details, Charis comes over and sits down next to me, she definitely picks me out among the people already here as the person she wishes to talk to.

"So Ritchie, you've been here two years now?"

"Yeah, thereabouts.
 
How long you staying?"

"Maybe a year or two tops.
 
This country is just the first step, but your hand is still getting held here.
 
I want to go out to
China
or
Thailand
next."

“Wow, that's cool.”
 
We continue to talk for the next hour or so, watching people come and go, tossing around a frisbee or forming pair or triples to talk to young Japanese.
 
Through the shade of sunglasses, I perceive the strange familiarity of Charis' posture; a weird ease with each other that cannot be simulated.
 
If I were to make a human being have perfect conversational responses, they would probably be exactly everything Charis says, a display of adventure, femininity, and dazzling good 'cute-girl' looks.
 
She's Texan, Republican, and Christian, but aside from that, or maybe precisely because of that, she’s totally confident, carefree, and distinctly flirtatious, the moment comes when she clearly is making some kind of move, though I smile, and keep my cool.
 
Some of the group decides to make a beer run; we'll tag along, but she'll walk with me, a traffic light will separate us from the others, and we'll let the gang go on ahead and follow just a block behind.

"They have these little love hotels here in
Tokyo
, right?” comments Charis, looking at an example of garish beach architecture. “For eighty bucks you get a place with groovy 60s furniture and flashing disco lights?"

"I think some are like that.
 
Or you can get a cowboy theme if that's what you want.
 
Bunch right in Shibuya, all clustered on one hill."

"I want to go to a love hotel sometime."

I look back at Charis with wide eyes until she realizes what she said.

"I mean," she says, blushing, "I just want to see what they look like."

High-noon passes into afternoon, and we throw around a frisbee in the surf, we bake in the sun, we talk to pretty Japanese girls with sunbleached hair and dark tans.
 
Jon's group, conservatively attired, almost awkward, yet never ridiculous, sit on their formally laid out beach towels and smile politely at attempts to talk to them; some of us who know him play this little game of pretending we're all here on account of him, and the uptight natives don't react as if anything is out of the ordinary; all you can detect is a sense of distinct Japanese conservatism.
 
A few more people dribble in even as our group dwindles, the sun starts to swing to the other side of the sky, and a beautiful sunset begins, achingly slow into the warm late summer waters.

"So what do you think of the Japanese judicial system?” asks somebody, and the crowd begins to fall into separate knots of conversations, heatedly debating the fairness of the Japanese judicial system, referring in particular to an English backpacker allegedly found with a suitcase full of pills.
 
Erik, who has a law degree, explicates some bizarre peculiarities of the Japanese system and we listen intently.
 
But, as the sun continues its descent, our conversation returns to more simple-minded things.

“Hey, dude, imagine if like the rest of the world disappeared and we all had to be stuck on this beach forever, kill wild pigs and just try to survive.
 
Wouldn't that be awesome?”

I glance over at the surfer dude who brings this up and listen as the conversation unfolds.

Charis: “If the whole world disappeared and we were in a survival situation, I know there are some people I'd have to take out.”

“Whoa, really?
 
Like who?”

Charis smirks.
 
“I don't have anybody in particular in mind.
 
But some people impose themselves on others in a way that's harmless so long as we're all in a functioning society, but in a desperate survival situation, would be a liability none of us could afford.”

“Wow, intense.
 
I figure as long as I got good ganja and good surf, party's on.”

It is the last weekend of a hyper summer.
 
This summer changes our lives, and many people, too many, have been sucked into its maelstrom logic.
 
But yet the seeds of the future are here as well; I remember, actually, now, that little Emma first shows us here, her easy-going irony something really nice and funny.
 
John,Sue, Mack, Michelle, Tanya; if this isn't their first time out, it's one of the earliest, in a sunlit space our paths to cross, carrying with it the promise of future great things.
 
No more crisis!
 
No more mad excursions of the heart!
 
Somewhere unconsciously my hands and Charis meet, as the sun finally sinks into the blaze of water, all eyes seaward.

Off to the side, conversation: “It's not so much the facts, if these even exist, as your attitude towards them.
 
Are expats people who just can't fit in at home, or are they the explorers of the world?
 
Why do we heroize Christopher Columbus, but not want to hear too much about our friend backpacking from
Timbuktu
to
Thailand
?”

“I met a girl who said travelers and non-travelers just can't be friends.
 
If you're sitting in an office back home waiting for the next promotion to come in three years, the last thing you want to hear about is your friend climbing
Machu Picchu
.”

“But the thing is that nobody ever heard of a traveler just ending up at home, a complete wreck and regretting ever taking off.
 
It bothers people that other people don't see the value of trying to become physically rich, when experiences are what count.”

Night begins its slow takeover.
 
We are down to a mere two dozen now; the thought of a beach fire is expressed but doesn't quite get underway.
 
“Plans for October...” “Career back home...” “Why do the Japanese do...” Snippets of conversation and longer, more involved ones, as darkness finally sets in.
 
To the right, hundreds of meters away, a pier juts out into the surf, and just barely, shadowy figures, night fisherman, can be seen, extending lines carefully.

“Dare me to go skinny-dip?”

Charis.

“Oh, no, you wouldn't.”
 
But a low murmur turns into a group cry as Charis gets up and starts walking to the surf, turning her head to smirk once, and then peeling off layer by layer.
 
Her bum is perfect; tight and firm.

“Go Charis!
 
Go Charis!”

We watch her, a pale figure, paddling out into the surf, and it's clear that the fishermen, now all facing our direction, have figured out what is going on.

“Somebody else!”