Real World (6 page)

* * *

They found out Mom had ovarian cancer just when I entered junior high in April. She passed away in October of my third year in junior high, so it was like my whole junior high school days were occupied by my mom’s illness. Cancer takes a long time to kill you, so it’s really rough on your family. It wasn’t like she came to terms with it. There were some days when she did, I guess, seem calm about it, but other times she wailed about her fate like she was possessed by an evil spirit. She was only thirty-eight, and most of the time it was the latter. Dad was hardly ever at home—it made me think he might be having an affair—and Mom was so emotionally unstable that the rest of us didn’t know how to handle her. One day she’d suddenly hug me tight and apologize, the next she’d push me away. We had to deal with these violent mood swings. I recoiled from this. I was worn out and had no idea how to handle it. On top of this was my dawning realization that I was a lesbian. I realized my mom was too preoccupied with her illness to think about my troubles, and I grew lonely, sad, and totally depressed. After agonizing over it for a while, I finally decided to abandon her. I decided in my heart that the moment she became sick was the moment she died. The person in the bed was a living corpse and nothing else.
When my mother was close to death, my father came to get me, but I refused to come out of my room.
“Come on. Your mother wants to see you.”
“I’m not going,” I said.
I held Teddy to me and kept on shaking my head.
“I know you’re scared, but it’s okay. She’s dying and you should see her.”
Dad was almost in tears, but I wasn’t going to fall for that. Say I did go see her when she was dying and I had this phony smile like everything’s all right, would that be it? What about
my
feelings? All kinds of outrageous thoughts ran through my mind.
“But Mom will be sad,” Dad said.
“So what? Everybody’s sad.”
“Don’t you feel sorry for her that she’s dying? You’re her only daughter.”
Well, she’s my only mother, too, I wanted to tell him. I didn’t deserve this, either. I wasn’t aiming to get revenge, just to get my mother, at least in her final days, to think about her relationship with me. My father gave up and left the room, and soon after this I heard this
ping
at the window. There was a crack in the glass. A small pebble must have hit it. Teddy was frightened and was shivering. I opened the window and looked outside. The sun had long since set and the streetlights were lit. The street was deserted. Not long after this the phone rang with the news that my mother had died.

* * *

“So what you mean is that pebble was your mother?” this guy on the phone said after hearing my story.
“I don’t know. It sounds too much like a ghost story, so I never told anybody about it. You’re the first.”
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to. If I told them the truth, then—”
I stopped. Why in the world was I telling all this to some guy I’d never met?
“If you told the truth, then what? Tell me. I want to hear it.”
He’d told me his secrets, so maybe I should tell him mine. I searched for the right words.
“I thought my mother was blaming me,” I began. “That she hated me. When you hate someone like that, your spirit still hangs around and you can’t properly pass on. That’s when I started to get scared. Not scared of my mother or her ghost or anything. Scared of how strong the bonds between people can be. So when I decided I’d abandon my mother it felt like I’d murdered her.”
“I know what you mean,” the boy agreed. “It’s the same with me.”
“Did your mother really die?”
“I already told you,” he yelled, irritated.
“Tell me how it happened.”
“I’ll tell you after I’ve got it all straight in my head. It’s hard to explain—it was like it just—happened. But I do remember this one weird thing. When I grabbed my mother by the hair, I thought, Wow, her hair’s just like a woman’s. I really felt like, Hey, she’s a woman. But the person in front of me was just this crabby, complaining old bitch who was talking nonsense. It was like I thought, Shut the hell up! and pushed the off button on a machine.”
A chill shot up my spine. His voice sounded like it was filtering up from some dark whirlpool. Even if he didn’t kill her, I thought, I bet he beat up his mother.
He was ending our conversation. “The guy’s making his rounds of the park.”
“Where are you?”
“At Tachikawa Park.”
“Can you stay overnight there?”
“If I hide I can,” he said. “But the mosquitoes are terrible.”
We agreed to meet the next day at the McDonald’s in Tachikawa Station. He hesitated a little, but I pushed him to agree. I had to hear the rest of his story.
I knew beforehand from Toshi’s phone call that what he said was true, but I’d felt right from the start that he was telling the truth. Otherwise, I never would have told him what I did.
When I actually met him the next day, he was sunburned, his red face all gloomy. He was skinny, too, like a string bean. His navy blue Nike T-shirt was kind of dirty, with bits of grass clinging to it. As he stood in the McDonald’s trying to find me, other people looked at him funny. ’Cause he stank. They’re gonna catch him any minute, I thought, and tried to think of how I could help him run far away.
“You’re just what I expected,” I told him. It was funny how Toshi’s description of him fit perfectly.
“What’d Toshi say?”
“She said you’re like a worm.”
“That’s awful!” He laughed. When he laughed, he was kind of cute.
“You smell bad,” I said. “You gotta change your clothes.”
“I’ve got only one change of clothes and don’t want to waste them. It’s so hot I thought I might as well just keep these on.”
“Makes sense.”
Worm didn’t seem to hear me. He was staring vacantly out the window. The sun was going down, but the asphalt was still scorching.
“Is it true you’re going to K High?”
Worm nodded, still gazing out the window.
“Aiming to get into Tokyo University?”
“I don’t think I can anymore.”
Don’t think you can anymore? You better believe it. They’re gonna run you through a ton of psychiatric tests, turn you into some guinea pig, then throw you into juvie. Society’s erased you from its board, pal. You can forget about entrance exams and Tokyo University. What a moron! Still, I felt sympathetic toward this guy who just didn’t get it.
“Have you got it all straight in your head now—about what happened?”
“Not yet,” he said, looking out the window again. “I haven’t really searched my conscience yet, so I guess I can’t.”
“Guess not.”
Worm startled me by suddenly bolting straight up in his chair.
“I gotta go. I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve got to hurry.”
“Where’re ya going?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere. I just feel like I have to go somewhere,
right now.
”
“Then you’d better go. Leave your bike, though. I gotta get it back to Toshi. You can take mine.”
I motioned with my chin toward my bike parked outside. Worm looked kind of embarrassed.
“You rode it all the way here for me?”
I brought out a brand-new cell phone and laid it on the narrow little McDonald’s table.
“You can have this, too,” I said. “But give me back Toshi’s.”
Worm pulled out Toshi’s phone from the pocket of his dirty jeans and tilted his head.
“Thanks. But why’re you doing this?”
I had no idea. I was just waiting, and hoping, that he’d get his head together and let me in on something important, something I had to know.
“You better get going,” I said.
Worm shoved the new cell phone, manual, and charger into his backpack and stood up. He turned his sulky narrow eyes to me. Birds of a feather, I thought, and waved to him. Worm clumsily made his way out of the place, bumping into the tiny tables as he left.
I sipped my iced coffee and gazed out the window. Worm went over to where my silver bike was, let out the side brake, sat down, then raised the seat. He sat down again and turned in my direction. His eyes were desperate.
I just feel like I have to go somewhere, right now.
“I understand totally. Just don’t get caught,” I muttered, then slurped down the rest of my coffee.
CHAPTER THREE

WORM

O
n TV once I saw this weird scene, a Japanese soldier getting pounded on the head with a hammer. He was getting completely worked over—besides the hammer, he was being stabbed with a sharpened stick and pummeled with flying kicks.
The people who were beating him up were an emaciated old Filipino man and woman, most likely taking revenge for what the Japanese had done to them during the war. Their positions reversed now, the old Filipino woman was whaling away at the soldier, putting everything she had into it like that was the only way she could get rid of the hatred inside her. The soldier had on a grubby T-shirt and a loincloth. Somehow he was still wearing his uniform cap. His hands were tied behind him and he stood there, staggering under the blazing sun. Whenever he was about to collapse, someone off-camera pulled on the rope that bound him, so he had to remain standing up straight.
My point is, at a moment like that, what is a person thinking? I was in elementary school when I saw this scene, and I found it incredible that the soldier looked so sleepy, like he was about to doze off. He had these vacant-looking eyes, half closed like he was going to fall asleep any minute, so you couldn’t tell if he was feeling any pain. If it’d been me, I’d have been scared to death and would have cried and begged for it to end.
I remembered this scene because right now I’m so sleepy I can barely stand it. Abnormally sleepy. All the time I’m pedaling my bike I’m about to doze off. Maybe it’s the weather, but it’s weird I’d feel this way as I pedal down the blazing asphalt of the highway, inches from trucks whizzing by. It’s not like I’m tired or anything. All I’ve been doing since yesterday is tooling around on a girl’s bike. It’s been an easy trip so far. Whenever I see a convenience store I stop in to cool off, drink some water, read some manga. So there’s no reason I should be so sleepy.
So maybe the situation I’m in now is like that of the Japanese soldier. Maybe I’m not aware of it, but my unconscious is trying to escape from reality. So I guess there’s something to be afraid of.
Mother-killer.
I never imagined I’d do something like that, but there it is. The shock of seeing that news program last night at the convenience store has started to make me jumpy. When I saw an article about it in the paper, I just thought, Hey, look at that! But TV is frightening.
What sort of ominous thing dwells in this suburban neighborhood? What happened to this boy who’s disappeared? Is the same darkness in this boy hidden in this seemingly quiet neighborhood?
The newscaster’s remarks were dumb, but when I saw this, it was the first time I realized what a mess I was in. Newspapers don’t count, but once something hits TV it’s all over. On news programs and talk shows people are endlessly analyzing this “darkness” in my heart. They’ll all join forces and drone on and on about my mental state—commentators and newscasters, all with these know-it-all looks on their faces, gabbing away like they know what they’re talking about. Isn’t that slander? Even if they say something about me that’s completely off the mark, though, I can’t just laugh it off. ’Cause it’s
me
they’re talking about.
Just like with Sakakibara and those other murderers, I’ll be in all the papers for days, and they’ll gather experts together to endlessly debate changing the juvenile statutes. There’ll be articles with my photo and the message I wrote in my grade school yearbook, some classmate will post my photo on the Internet, and all of it will be just more ammunition for the rumor mill. People who didn’t like me will say whatever they like: “He was kind of gloomy, but never stood out in class, so I don’t know much about him.” “He always said hello, but I heard rumors that he tortured cats in the neighborhood.”
When I think of being on the run all over Japan with everybody in the country trying to track me down, it feels like my fate is to keep on running forever. Not like there’s anyplace for me to run to. Like in Stephen King’s
The Running Man,
taxi drivers and convenience store clerks are going to phone the cops, telling them that that guy on TV was just here.
Speaking of Stephen King, I really like him.
The Running Man
and
Carrie.
I read
The Long Walk
twice.
Battle Royale
isn’t by King, but I read that twice, too. Most of the kids I know read only manga, but I prefer novels. Novels are closer to real life than manga, it’s like they show you the real world with one layer peeled away, a reality you can’t see otherwise. They’re deep, is what I’m saying. Which makes me sort of a weirdo in my class. The guys in my class see only the outer surface. Same with their parents. Guess they find that makes living easier, like that’s the smart way to approach life. What a bunch of assholes.
I have to keep doing something, I’m so sleepy. Half awake, I focus on the scenery passing by. Boring scenery along a main road. A pachinko place, a karaoke place, a used-car lot. A ramen shop, a family restaurant. All of them with their windows shut tight and the AC going full blast. A tin roof of a garage reflects the bright sun, hot as a frying pan.
But it’s like none of this is part of my world anymore. Ordinary scenery has transformed. Or I should say it’s
me
that’s changed. If I go into a pachinko place or a karaoke place, I know I won’t feel the way I used to about them. I’ll never feel the way I used to—ever again. Do you know what I mean? If somebody had told me all this before, I would have said, What the hell are you talking about? But there’s this gap now between my world and other people’s. And I’m totally alone.
People are part of the scenery, too. The truck driver talking on his CB as he passes me, the middle-aged guy stifling a yawn as he drives a white delivery van. The woman with a small child on the seat beside her, the elementary school pupil crossing the road. It’s like all these men and women—everybody—are in a different world from me. In
their
world, time just stretches on endlessly, today the same as yesterday, tomorrow the same as today, the future the same as tomorrow.
I feel like I’m racing alone through a desert on some distant planet, like Mars. Everything’s changed from two days ago. Everything’s divided now into
before
then and
after
then—
then
meaning the day I killed my mother. My actions created a turning point, a crossroads, in my own life. And now I finally understand the fear that Japanese soldier felt. People who experience this kind of a crossroads are afraid. And so sleepy they can’t stand it.
As these thoughts kept a lazy pace with my pedaling, I got so sleepy I really couldn’t stand it anymore. I wondered if I should stop my bike by the side of the road and take a nap. I looked around for a good place to sleep, but there wasn’t any, just cheap-looking houses and shops, not what I wanted—a bench or a small patch of grass. God, I’m so sleepy!
So sleepy.
I want to crawl into my own bed and sleep forever.
My room is a corner room on the southeast side of the house. An eight-mat room with wooden flooring, French bed, double mattress. Plus my own TV. It’s the biggest, best room in the house—not that I chose it myself or anything. Two years ago, when we moved in, when that trouble happened, Mom announced we were leaving the apartment building and moving here to a single-family home.
After we moved she said, “We’ll make Ryo’s room the sunniest one on the second floor.” She always says these “nice” things, taking care of her precious son.
Since that was already decided, my old man said he’d use the Japanese-style room on the second floor as his study. A study? Don’t make me laugh. All he’s got are dusty old sets of collected works. Those aren’t books—they’re
furniture.
And how about all those records he’s collected since college? He never listens to them.
Hello!
Ever heard of CDs? We got MP3s and DVDs, too, in case you didn’t know. And don’t give me all that crap about how great analog sounds, okay? You don’t know anything, yet all you do is brag, you clown. Where’d you learn all that useless stuff? From some bar hostess? Women aren’t falling all over doctors anymore. Okay, so you bought a computer, but do you ever use it? You’re just trying to look cool. Do you know that I sneak into your room, surf the Web, and play around on porn sites? As long as you don’t, there’s nothing you can do about it. Stop showing off, you jerk. Why can’t you see that I think you’re a total loser? You always brag about being a doctor, but you just work in a nothing little clinic. No better than some office worker. If you don’t like it, why don’t you become the head of a huge hospital and use your money to get me into Harvard? ’Cause you
can’t,
that’s why.
Mom doesn’t have her own room. She uses the parlor, but that’s different, that’s public space. Does this mean we have a public park in our house? A public restroom? I don’t need my own room, she said, because I have the “utility room.” Give me a break. “Utility”—what the hell’s that mean? “Identity” I know, but “utility”? What? You’re telling me to look it up in a dictionary? No way. I only want to use an electronic dictionary. And it has to be one that’s an unabridged dictionary and also has an encyclopedia. Don’t you get it? I’m telling you to buy me one!
When I said that, she ran right out and bought one for me. I was sick and tired of being with her. If you’ll give me anything, how about giving me your life? I wanted to say. I didn’t exactly ask to be your son, so give me your life. Did she know how much I despised her? The thought that I had to be with this old hag for the rest of my days depressed me, like my life was already over. You know what that feels like?
Total depression.
I feel relieved that my old lady’s no longer here, even though I’m the one who killed her. I still get angry when I think of her and it makes it hard to get sleepy. So thinking of her maybe is a good way to combat this sleepiness that’s come over me.
My mother was a total idiot. I don’t know when it was I realized this. Probably the year after I started cram school, around fifth grade. Every day she gave me a stupid sermon.
The most outstanding people in the world, she’d lecture me, aren’t just intelligent, but the ones who make an effort. It’s easy to substitute other words into this formula. Let’s try it—it’s fun. Not just intelligent, but those who make an effort. Not just stylish, but those who make an effort. Not just athletic, but those who make an effort. Not just those from a good family, but those who make an effort. Not just the rich, but people who make an effort. Not just the lucky, but people who make an effort. In other words, you first have to have the one good quality, and only then can you be considered outstanding.
Which raises the question of whether Mom herself is an outstanding person. When I was in fifth grade, I started to have my doubts whether she’d cleared any of the hurdles on the road to becoming outstanding. Let’s face it, she wasn’t especially smart or pretty. She had absolutely no sense of style. Zero athletic ability. And making an effort? Forget about it. So where did she get off lecturing me? Finally, though, I realized something. Mom was convinced she was an outstanding person. She was convinced she was smart, pretty, from a good family. And besides, she was married to a doctor, with a smart son, and worked hard every day. I was just a kid, but I was shocked all the same. She’s not playing with a full deck, this old lady.
Unbelievable.
“Fortunately, Ryo, you’re smart, so I want you to make more of an effort. It’s important to do your best.”
I don’t know how many times I heard this. Somewhere along the line, though, it hit me: I’m really not all that smart. This was soon after I got into K Junior High, which is considered one of the hardest private junior highs to get into. The first exam we had there, of the two hundred and fifty kids in my grade level, I wasn’t even in the top two hundred. That’s weird, I thought. But the next test turned out the same. And the one after that. The whole five years I’ve been in junior high and high school it’s been more of the same.
Mom panicked. I did, too, but she panicked first. You know why, right? ’Cause this smashed to bits the theory she kept pounding into my head. If I put this much effort into it and was never rewarded, then the premise of her theory had to be wrong. I wasn’t as smart as my mom and I had thought. If Mom had only realized how stupid she was herself, she would have understood much earlier that I wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box.
Which is why she blames me, because I’m dumb. One time she stared intently at me, those eyes behind her glasses, sizing me up like she’d never seen me before. Finally she managed this: “Ryo, are you popular with girls?” Are you serious? Since I entered an all-boys school, I haven’t spoken to any girls. Haven’t gotten a phone call from any girl, or a letter. I’m my old man and old lady’s kid, after all. The offspring of a hick and a hag. And wasn’t it my old lady who dumped me in a place where there aren’t any girls? Yet here she is asking if I’m a chick magnet.
She was asking this because she realized her education policy was a failure. She understood that I’m not very smart, not good-looking, and that maybe I won’t have such a happy life after all. What a dolt. Take a look in the mirror, I wanted to tell her. How about considering your own crummy life before you rag on me?
All these memories were getting me angry and upset, and completely got rid of my sleepiness. I saw a convenience store off to my left. Convenience stores are my stations. Can’t live without them. I happily stopped my bike and went inside.
After the blazing inferno outside, the cold air felt better than good—it totally revived me. The store was still new and was spacious. There was one middle-aged woman behind the register wearing a visor and a smock that didn’t suit her. She was glaring at the customers who were standing at the magazine rack leafing through the magazines. An old guy, probably the manager, was bent over some shelves, doing his best to straighten up the bento section. They didn’t look like they were used to the work. A convenience store veteran would never be so angry at people standing around reading magazines and manga for free.
In convenience stores, the entrance is the coolest spot, since they keep the AC at full blast there, shooting out dry, cold air to keep away the heat from outside. So I stood there at the entrance for a while, cooling off my overheated body. The cold air crystallized my sweat. I had the illusion that my whole skin was covered with a thin layer of glittering white salt. With my salt suit on, I was better than any other person around. I am a mother-killer, after all! And I’m on the run! Only a tiny percentage of mankind could do what I did. I can get away with