THE JOHATSU

“Don’t be nervous. They’re my best childhood friends. Remember to speak slowly. They don’t know much English.” Henry held my hand as the elevator doors opened, and we stepped into a carpeted room with a pink chandelier sparkling above the bar. A woman with a panda bear backpack and thigh-high socks flirted with a salaryman – one of those Tokyo office workers who commuted in from small towns like Hokkaido, working late so they could drink in places like this and later spend the night at a hotel with an escort, telling their wives back home they missed the last train.

“Gaijin.” They were talking about me. I smiled politely as Henry hugged his friends – four men in their late 20’s – all Henry’s age - and one woman. The tallest one showed us to the private booth he’d reserved. They laughed while looking at me, then looking at each other. The only words I could remember from the lessons I took back in New York were arigato and gomennasai – thank you and I’m sorry. “Gomennasai,” I said to everyone at the table. What I wanted to say next was I’m sorry for not being Japanese but my words fell to silence as the table laughed – at me? Or at the magician doing tricks on the stage? Henry put his hand on my knee. I poked at the ice in my drink, trying not to drink it but the temptation stared back at me in swirls of amber colored liquid. Henry had tried ordering only a ginger ale, but his friends had laughed and ordered for him. He’d quickly acquiesced and, now two drinks in, his cheeks were flushed and sweat droplets clung to the edges of his forehead. I wanted to throw both our drinks in his face but then I heard the words of my sponsor, Compassion cures more than condemnation.

A mix of Japanese and English words piled up around me. I imagined their conversation, reminiscing about life when they were all students at an elite school in the center of Tokyo. I continued smiling, as if I knew all about this school, all about these memories, though in reality Henry had never told me about any of it. I hid my surprise when they called him Hakaru.

“Henry is his American name just like you are his American girlfriend.” Sakura leaned over, whispering in my ear, making sure I could hear her words below the pop music. She smiled as if to try and hide the threat lurking in her voice. Her black hair was cut into a blunt bob that reminded me of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. She was smoking the same kind of cigarette as that infamous movie poster with her eyes cast downwards toward my dress, evaluating me, the plain, buttoned-to-my-chin ruffle neck blouse, which had felt trendy in my closet but now looked matronly. My shoes, black kitten heels slightly scuffed on the heel. My bag, a plain black baguette shape too small to put over my shoulder but too large to hold in my hand. Sakura finally looked up and smiled as she blew a puff of smoke past my right ear. Earlier there’d been some joke about her name meaning cherry blossoms like popped cherries and I wondered if Henry had slept with her when they were both in high school.  

“You like Japan?” Sakura asked.

“It’s really nice.” I smiled again, looking at the magician who had left the stage and was now going from table to table. I wondered if the magician could make me disappear from this table, disappear me back home to the hotel, back to the world where Henry was Henry and not Hakaru hiding his Japanese life from me.

“It is nice,” Sakura agreed, bringing my focus back to her, “But there’s darkness here. It’s all kawaii to visitors but most people are unhappy.” She took another drag of her cigarette and asked, “Have you been to the castle where Hakaru used to work?”

“Henry worked at a castle?” I could feel myself falling for her bait.

“It was a mock castle set on the fifth floor of a high rise. Hakaru played the role of an English butler serving women – mostly foreigners like you. Only flirting, no sex, but lots of fake flower bouquets. I went there once. It was weird to see Hakaru serving women tea, pretending to be British with a bad accent. He told lots of made-up stories about how many horses he had and what it was like to serve kings and queens. He told me the women loved confessing all kinds of things to him. Sometimes there were men too. People in Japan are lonely. They have to buy company. The castle was a secret place where people could disappear. Be someone else for a day. Have you ever wanted that? To disappear?” Without waiting for my answer, Sakaru abruptly stood up, walking toward the bathroom, her gold bag in hand. The leopard skin high heels she wore snaked across the room. She stopped to admire the fish tank at the bathroom entrance before disappearing inside the hot pink glow of the lights leading toward the restrooms.

“You okay?” Henry leaned toward me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before turning away without an answer. I wondered if he’d told his friends that we were both in AA. Did they even have AA in Japan? Did his friends know that being here having a drink was against what Henry and I had promised to our sponsors and each other? Just twenty-four hours ago we’d arrived to Japan on different flights from different countries to meet at the Granbell Hotel in the Shinjuku neighborhood. I’d been the first to arrive, the first to step into the manga covered walls of the hotel room – big eyes, bulging breasts, thigh skimming skirts and knee high stockings. I thought about changing into lingerie, my body offered across the bedspread like sashimi, but then I’d thought twice of it. Sashimi made me hungry for actual food. I’d waited for Henry, watching the tall skyscrapers and the twisting highways below them. I heard the key card beep and there he was - my Henry, disheveled and tired. The adrenaline from his Hong Kong meeting still coursing through him, practically bursting through his clothes. We passionately kissed but then I pulled away, the sharp taste of Vodka stinging my tongue.

“You’ve been drinking.” I meant it as a statement but Henry took it as an accusation.

“No hello, nice to see you?” Henry abruptly dropped his luggage before heading toward the bathroom.

“You’re the one who told me you wanted to make it to two years.” I followed him, watching him brush his teeth – washing both the Vodka and my kiss from his tongue.

“You’re my girlfriend, not my sponsor. We’re on vacation, B. Look, everyone was drinking at the meeting. What am I supposed to do? Say that I’m sober? It doesn’t work like that here.” Henry spat into the sink and then exited the bathroom, walking past me.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I reached for his arm.

“You told me you’d be cool with this. Not bringing the past here.”

“But if I’m going to be part of your future don’t you think it’s fair for me to want the best for you?” I asked.

Henry exhaled his anger without answering. His face softened and he kissed the top of my head, “I won’t drink on the rest of the trip, I promise.”

*

“I love you,” Henry said, slurring his words as I struggled to support his stumbling body, trying to redirect him back toward our hotel.

“I didn’t drink my drink. You didn’t have to drink yours.”

Henry shrugged, “You’ave more disssicpline.” Something about the way he enunciated the ‘s’ made it feel like a whip striking against my skin. If only Henry knew I actually didn’t have real discipline. It started with those alcohol filled chocolates last Christmas and then it became sneaking sample sized Tito’s bottles in my purse, drinking them in the bathroom mixed with mouthwash to disguise the smell on my breath. I had it under control - just two a night, like a bedtime ritual.

Forty stumbling minutes later we were back in the hotel. Henry passed out, snoring loudly, as I took a pillow and made myself a bed on the couch, shivering into the cold of the skyscrapers beyond, wondering why addicts choose addicts, why we doom ourselves to the same fate over and over again.

*

“I need to sit down.” Henry found a stone bench. Once he was seated he held his head in his hands, rubbing his temples. I sat down next to him and looked out over the pond. Japanese black pine trees cast shadows over the edges of Shiba Park. A small burst of migrating birds flew across the sky.

“Why didn’t you tell me you worked as a butler at some fake fairytale castle.”

“Sakaru loves telling everyone that. It was just a summer job.”

“Did you have sex with your customers?”

“No! I was just there to listen, play a role.”

“You know I’m not some princess who needs rescuing.”

“Clearly not. You don’t need me at all. It wasn’t about rescuing anyone. It was about being someone else for a day.” Henry paused, “Haven’t you wished for that. To be someone else?”

“Not really.” I tossed a pebble toward the pond and watched as it skittered across the water’s surface.

“To have a drink, just one drink, and that’s it? There are people out there who never have to listen to that shouting voice demanding more every time alcohol shows up in a room. All my friends last night…” Henry’s words trailed off.

“They don’t know do they?”

“No,” Henry rubbed his forehead again, “No one talks about things like that here. I mean it’s even weird talking about it in the States, like being sober is an identity.”

“It is.”

“You know what I mean. I just wish I didn’t have to think about it anymore.”

“You should tell your family and friends. I thought you had already. I’m sure they’d support you. You know what they say in our program. You have to talk about it. It can’t be a secret that you’re sober.”

Henry shook his head, “I need to eat something.”

The yakitori spot Henry directed us to was sandwiched between a mini mart and a highway overpass. Wood tables and stools crowded around a conveyor belt as skewers of vegetables, meat, and tempura circled round and round. Henry reached for two plates of chicken skewers and sweet potato tempura. Across the way, a man poured sake for the people seated at his table. They raised their glasses up and shouted, “Kanpai.”

“Don’t even think about it,” I said, watching Henry watch these guys drinking their sake.

“You’re my girlfriend not my mother.” Henry snapped before shoving fried chicken heart into his mouth.

“If it’s hard to be here, seeing all this, then we shouldn’t have come.” I pushed the plate away, tired of poking at the breading on the sweet potatoes.

“Are you going to say something embarrassing to my family tomorrow?”

“Of course not. I want to make a good impression. I know it’s a big deal. I’m sure it’s not easy for them that you’re with a gaijin.”

Henry scoffed, waving away the word, “If you say something about me having a drinking problem….” He let the words hang in the air, motioning for the bill, and then as he pulled his hand back to get his wallet from his pants pocket he knocked a bottle of soy sauce from the table. It fell over with a clang, spilling dark liquid all over his pants. He cursed in Japanese, jumping up and motioning for more napkins. I dumped the water from my glass onto a napkin and started helping him but he pushed my hands away. I blushed and sat back down, staring into my plate, remembering when Henry and I were first dating – late nights on the Bowery, stumbling from bar to bar, arms drunkenly slung around each other, as we sipped from tiny cocktail straws and ate tiny pickles and candied orange garnishes. When things got more serious between us it was like a light switched on and I wanted to shed that party girl, all those late nights, but Henry hadn’t given up that shadow and I could feel the distance between us growing bigger, like a chasm staring up at me, waiting for me to make a wrong turn and fall in.

“I got the Pocky you like,” Henry handed me the slim rectangular pack of matcha and white chocolate dipped sticks. I opened it while watching a group of students all wearing the same school uniform rush into the 7-Eleven.

“What else did you buy?” I gestured toward the plastic bag in Henry’s hand as my lips sucked on the Pocky like the cigarettes I used to smoke.

“Just something for the stain on my pants,” Henry started walking down the narrow street. I playfully poked at the bag trying to see inside.

“You bought a Sapporo?! Seriously?”

“I said it was for my pants and it is. The beer froth removes soy sauce stains.” Henry ripped the bag from me, switching it to his other hand.

“Bullshit. You should have purchased club soda. I can’t believe you’re lying to my face. What was your plan? To chug that in the hotel bathroom?” I moved my body in front of Henry’s so he couldn’t keep walking.

“B, this is crazy. I told you the beer is for my pants. My mom always gets stains out this way, which you wouldn’t understand because you’re not Japanese.” Henry pushed past me.

“So that’s what this is about, since I’m not Japanese I don’t understand what you need or who you are. Fine, Hakaru. It would have been nice if you’d ever been honest with me.”

Henry’s face turned red as I yelled. The students who had entered the 7-Eleven were now filming me and Henry with their cell phones. Henry put his head down and pulled me toward a corner of the street next to an arcade as he hissed, “Stop. You’re being too American.”

I swallowed back the tears, my eyes searching for some kind of distraction, when I saw the arcade, “Let’s play a game. I love these!” The chiming sounds of the flashing games hid the heartbreak in my voice. I clung to the role of relationship cheerleader, while motioning toward a claw crane game where the winning prize was a smiley face Pikachu toy. I wanted Henry to remember our first date out on Coney Island and the Luna Arcade. Henry played along, inserting the coins and patiently directing the claw toward the pile of toys, grabbing one as the crane lifted up. The toy wobbled but the claw held on as Henry directed it toward the chute. I clapped with excitement as it slid down and Henry presented it to me with hurt in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I held the toy in the same way I wanted to hold him. Henry shrugged, offered me a resigned smile. We both left the arcade in silence. Back in the hotel room, Henry went into the bathroom, leaving the door open, as he poured the beer on the stain. I looked away even though I knew he was keeping the door open for my benefit. I tried not to listen as he scrubbed and scrubbed.

“The stain isn’t coming out. I should have also bought detergent at the 7-Eleven. If I show up tomorrow in casual pants my mom will kill me.”

“There’s a laundromat next door.” I suggested, wanting to forge peace between us.

“If the hotel can’t launder them in time then I’ll do that. Thanks.” Henry kissed my cheek instead of my lips, the chasm growing bigger, shouting my name from its dark depths. After Henry left, I sat on the bed and suddenly felt incredibly tired. The arms of the manga walls pulled me towards them. When I woke up it was dark outside and I was still alone in the room. Henry’s cell phone blinked from the bedside table next to his disheveled suitcase.

“Henry?” I called his name even though the room was small and there was nowhere he could be that I wouldn’t already see.

“Henry?” I continued calling his name as I stepped into the hallway, into the elevator, through the lobby and onto the street. I entered the laundromat but the fly trapping buzz of the neon light flashing 24 hours was the only sound in the room. Part of me felt like I should panic before anger silenced that thought. I knew exactly where Henry was and if he could have a drink to escape then so could I.

I left the hotel, walking past batting cages, restaurants serving their last meal of the night and hourly hotels disguised as business offices. I wondered if any of them were castles or maybe themed rooms like subway cars, classrooms, or outer space – details of obscure and specific sexual fantasies. I went left and right, buoyed forward by drunk tourists shouting at each other as they stumbled into a convenience store ready to stuff their inebriated faces with fluffy white bread. Most bars were fully occupied, their seats spoken for hours ago. One glowing pink door spooked out from the night. Inside two female bartenders adorned in all white make-up and shoulder length orange hair served drinks and small bowls of peanuts.

“Whiskey ginger?” It felt deviant and delightful to order a drink. The Japanese man next to me raised his glass and asked, “Where are you from?” When I said New York his eyes lit up.

“I love New York. I studied there.  NYU - it’s where I learned English. I’m Tokado. Traveling alone?”

“I’m here with my boyfriend but he’s off having a drink by himself.”

“Your boyfriend is Japanese?”

I nodded yes. Tokado took another sip of his drink, “Night is weird in Tokyo. I’ve been coming to this bar for years, always after work when I was a night mover. They call it yonige-ye.”
    
“What is that?” I asked, appreciating the distraction.

“Night moving companies that help people disappear. They call them the johatsu. People who have vanished into thin air. There’s an entire underground world that helps these people. I once moved a woman who had been trapped in a loveless marriage for thirty years. She waited until her kids were grown and then she hired us but on the night of the move she fainted. She lived in this huge house in the middle of the city and we had to carry her down all these stairs. It felt like rescuing a princess from an evil king. Another time it was a guy outrunning the gambling debts he’d racked up trying to pay for his grandfather’s funeral. The yakuza were after him. They own all the debt collectors. It’s not like in the States. Here if you don’t pay, you’re dead.” Tokado continued, “There is a book that tells people how to disappear. You can’t find it in regular bookstores but there is one place. It’s by the Shinjuku station. It sounds strange but sometimes people need to disappear. Sometimes they need to start a new life and escape their past.”

I finished my drink and gathered my coat and purse. “Tokadosan, it was nice to meet you,” I said before heading into the opaque darkness. I retraced my steps in dings, buzzes, clicks and snaps until the hotel room door shut behind me and all I could hear was my own breathing. No Henry. This time his phone and suitcase were also gone. I gasped, moving quickly around the room as I fell into the chasm that had been chasing me this entire time. A tsunami of tears blinded me, panic strangling my throat. Heart racing, I sat down on the bed and that’s when I saw it. On my pillow was a letter addressed to me. I wanted to read it. I didn’t want to read it. Finally, I picked it up. Henry’s formal sloped penmanship stared back at me.
 
Dear Beatrix,

I am a coward to leave like this. I’m sorry from the depths of my heart. Being back here made me realize that my life in the States is all messed up. I don’t know if I’ll ever be truly happy or sober but I want to be more than just someone who is labeled by these things. Here I am Hakaru and it feels like the fresh start I need. I paid for the hotel, stay as long as you like. Please don’t try to contact me. Just let me go.

Sincerely,

Henry

*

“Are you a princess lost in a foreign land?” A young woman asked as I approached the counter of the Ninja Kingdom Castle where Henry had worked that one summer. It was my last stop before leaving Tokyo. I nodded yes to her question, pulling my suitcase behind me, as the young woman motioned for me to follow her. She wore a fake jewel encrusted tiara and as she gestured at the rooms we passed, telling me that beyond these doors were the moat and stables. The long voluminous sleeves of her dress fluttered in the wind like trapped birds. We finally reached a dressing room where she motioned for me to put on a similar costume as what she was wearing. I let her help me attach a crown to my forehead. She took my hand, leading me into a room decorated with fake greenery twisted over a plastic arbor. Underneath was a plush loveseat. She quickly left as my ‘prince’ walked in with a fake flower bouquet in hand. He was young – like the Japanese kids I’d seen leaving the 7-Eleven. I guessed he was 18, a college student like Henry had been, his big eyes searching into mine, as I took the fake bouquet from him and then started crying. My tears became heaving sobs as I recounted every detail of my relationship with Henry. He handed me an embroidered handkerchief.

“I am sorry you are sad, beautiful princess.”

“Thank you,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Sometimes people need to disappear.” The gentle way he said it, echoing Tokadosan’s words from the other night made my tears stop and I nodded because I finally understood that I will never hear from Henry again and I will never try to contact him. I will eventually go back to Japan many years later with my husband and my daughter. We will go to Shiba Park and I will sit on that very same bench at the edge of the pond where Henry and I once sat, watching my daughter toss pebbles across the water’s surface. Sitting there, watching her, I will suddenly feel a chill travel through my body. It’s a feeling that I will attribute to the cold weather, but which the Japanese would call a johatsu, a spirit of someone who has disappeared coming back to thank the people who have let them disappear.