Spark Page 6

  We set out walking to Maki’s apartment in Kami-Shakujii. I hadn’t done this in a long while, and it felt a little like a sentimental journey. In distance, though, it was a long haul, but Kamiya wasn’t interested in taking the bus. I have no problem walking around aimlessly for hours, but to trudge long distances as a matter of course like Kamiya did just seemed a little weird.

  A bicycle with no lights overtook us, and Kamiya called out, “Don’t forget your lights, sir. It’s dangerous without them.” The rider ignored him. Every time a bicycle without lights went by he repeated this, like a public service announcement. When I said “Forget it”, no one was listening, he didn’t need to say anything, he just acted like he didn’t hear me.

  By the time we reached Maki’s apartment, I could barely feel my feet. She opened the light-blue door and greeted us with a smile.

  “Tokunaga, how are you? Long time no see.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “sure has been a while.”

  “You’ll eat, won’t you?”

  Maki set about preparing hotpot. I felt a bit uncomfortable showing up like this, even though I’d been a regular guest here at one time. Kamiya was sitting in a different place now, facing me with the television to his right. Maki wore thick kitchen mitts when she brought in the hotpot. I offered to help, but she refused as she always did, and said, “Tokunaga, your job is to eat.” There were times when Kamiya and Maki acted like a regular married couple.

  We raised our beers in a toast and began the meal. When Maki went to replenish the hotpot, Kamiya got up and announced, “I’m taking a piss.” After he’d gone I saw why he had chosen to sit in a different place tonight. Behind his seat was a metal clothes rack with a pair of beige corduroy trousers. Damn, me and my big mouth. I went over and stood outside the toilet, thinking maybe to yell out an apology. I could hear nothing from inside, only the hotpot bubbling again in the kitchen.

  “It’s ready,” Maki said, as she emerged carrying the hotpot back to the table.

  When she saw my embarrassed face and where I was standing, she chuckled but said nothing and went back to the kitchen. Her instincts were uncanny.

  “Kamiya,” I called out.

  He too had pretty good instincts. “I got those trousers when I worked at a coffee shop in Osaka,” he yelled. “Had to wear a black apron with the name of the shop, and had to wear beige trousers.” His voice echoed inside the tiny unit bathroom.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t need your apology. I had to get beige trousers—that’s all. I’ve got several pairs besides the corduroy ones.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I needed a few pairs. But corduroy’s too hot in summer.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But seeing beige corduroy trousers again, I have to say they’re cool after all,” I said.

  “Done,” Kamiya said loudly, followed by the sound of water running.

  When he came out of the toilet, he put the beige corduroy trousers in a plastic shopping bag and handed them to me. “Here, you have them,” he said.

  As I was putting them in my backpack and Kamiya was poking at the hotpot, loud, brassy music began blaring from the television. It was the start of a programme featuring the latest popular young comedy duos. Without a word Maki changed the channel and said brightly, “What would you like to finish up with, rice or noodles?”

  “Rice,” said Kamiya, his mouth full of tofu. “And throw in any spare body parts you’ve got in the fridge. We’ll finish them up for you.”

  * * *

  Steam rose from the gyoza we’d bought at Iseya, mixing with the white breath escaping from our mouths. In the mild winter sunshine, the trees in Inokashira Park looked bleak, as if they needed all the warmth for themselves.

  “The season sure makes a difference to the atmosphere here,” Kamiya muttered.

  We bought cans of coffee and sat on a park bench looking out at the lake. This place had a good feel about it, as if all the accumulated toxins stored in our bodies could be filtered out just by being here. We both preferred the quiet flow of time in this park to Shinjuku or Shibuya.

  A young mother pushing a baby carriage sat on the bench next to us. The baby was wailing loudly, and the mother seemed tired and frustrated.

  Kamiya stood up and slowly approached the carriage. “Cute baby,” he said to the mother.

  She smiled sweetly at the infant, as if reporting Kamiya’s words, but it gave no indication of stopping crying.

  Kamiya peered at its face. “Two flies settled on a nun’s right eye,” he said to the baby.

  Huh? What was this? Before I could ask, he said in a hammy sing-song voice, “It’s some funny haiku about flies I thought up yesterday.”

  “That’s not going to make the baby laugh,” I said.

  His response was to keep staring at the baby. “Two flies sitting on the grave of a benefactor,” he said, smiling.

  Evidently he was completely serious about thinking his haiku could be calming, that is. The mother’s face began to stiffen in alarm.

  “You’ve got such a healthy baby here,” he said to her gently, then continued reciting his fly haiku. The ordinary kindness of his words only seemed to make the fly haiku more bizarre, even scary.

  “I am a fly, you are a cricket, that is the sea.”

  “The flies are the antithesis of Parisiennes.”

  “A melon from my mother covered in flies.”

  With each new haiku he recited, he’d cock his head enquiringly at the baby, as if gauging its reaction.

  “The baby doesn’t think your fly haiku are funny,” I said.

  He looked mystified. “You try,” he said coolly.

  I didn’t have any experience with babies, but I had a strong feeling that fly haiku were not the right approach. I felt self-conscious in front of Kamiya and the mother—I wished they weren’t watching—but I understood that it was silly to be embarrassed in front of a baby.

  “Peek-a-boo!” I said in my best baby talk.

  The baby kept crying. Kamiya eyed me frostily, but unfazed I tried a few more peek-a-boos.

  The mother edged away from me. She stooped down to pick up the baby, and in her arms the baby stopped crying at last. Kamiya did not seem pleased.

  “What’s with the fly haiku?” I said after the mother had wheeled the carriage away. “A baby’s not going to laugh at that.”

  “Your effort was so not funny,” he replied.

  “But that’s what people always say to babies. Funny doesn’t come into it.”

  “Nope. Definitely not funny.”

  Maybe Kamiya didn’t understand peek-a-boo. How many artists, no matter how pushy, no matter how brilliant, would insist on performing their work unabridged to an audience of one crying baby? Would the geniuses of the world have insisted, as Kamiya did, on entertaining a baby with a full-on performance of their own creation rather than peek-a-boo? I’d been experimenting with getting my ideas across, but Kamiya would never make concessions, whatever the audience. Seemed to me that was putting too much faith in the audience, but when I looked at how resolute Kamiya was in the quest to perfect his style, I felt like a lightweight.

  * * *

  Changes at the talent agency. Several comedy duos from another agency got signed with ours, and just like that, Yamashita and I turned into sempai, if only because we were older than some of the new guys. Those kids had it together. In no time they organized a small gig, which was highly successful, showing up Yamashita and me, who’d never organized anything, let alone a gig. All we did was show up at events co-sponsored by other agencies or by some theatre. We wouldn’t have known how to pull one off ourselves.

  Having these kids on the scene shook things up for me too. Before I knew it, they’d charmed the agency staff. They’d do cheeky things that got them scolded, they’d apologize and the staff would smile like indulgent parents. I’d never seen anything like it. During my few years at the agency, I stepped lightly around the staff, careful not to do
anything that’d get me on their wrong side. I never thought I could get them to like me or that I could learn anything from them. The staff seemed to appreciate the way the kids treated them, and really got into dispensing wisdom and all that. Anyway, thanks to these kohai, our comedy division got a shot in the arm. The agency started holding regular live gigs, and Sparks benefited too, of course, but it also meant that we were being compared for the first time.

  Up till then we could blame Sparks’s lack of success on the agency, or the fact that nobody knew about us. But in a battle between duos in the same agency, we were on a level playing field as far as name recognition went. At the first gig Yamashita and I did our usual routine, which I thought went all right, but the kohai who performed before us didn’t hold anything back. They got laughs that could be heard in the dressing room. Even during the fill-in patter at the end, when we were all onstage while votes from the audience were being counted, the new guys let loose and had the audience in stitches. Watching their antics up close, I was totally impressed.

  It was also the first time I’d ever felt a complete bonding with an audience. Everything felt distant and unreal; the audience’s laughter receded, and things around me blurred. The only thing real was the sound of blood pounding in my ears.

  Sparks had been in the business the longest of anyone onstage that night, but we came in sixth out of eight.

  Afterwards, the agency threw a party at a teppanyaki restaurant in Shibuya. This was another first, for them to be so generous and so enthusiastic. The restaurant’s weekend customers were young people who were coming and going, but better that than the restaurant being empty. I took a seat in the corner, and one of the women on the staff sat down opposite me.

  “Tokunaga,” she said, “I heard you got drafted for a football team in Osaka. That’s great. Why didn’t you go on with that?”

  This woman always smiled when dealing with us, but I bet she didn’t think we were funny at all. She didn’t care that I was at the agency. She probably thought I’d be better off playing football for some team in Osaka. And she wasn’t the only one. Problem was, when I was in my teens and thinking about my future, if I ever pictured a scene where I wasn’t doing manzai, I felt sick in my gut. So what was I supposed to do?

  Yamashita had been at the head of the table, talking with the production writer and stage manager. On his way back from the toilet, he leant over me. “Hey,” he whispered, “don’t drink in a corner by yourself. Go and talk to the big shots. Manager thinks you should.”

  I roused myself, beer in hand. It was always like this for me, staying on the fringes and having to force myself to be sociable.

  I made my way over to the group standing bunched around the production writer and stage manager, who was a good guy who liked Sparks. The kohai were casually saying just the right thing, putting everyone in a good mood. I was sure my presence would throw a damper on things, but people barely noticed me standing there with a smile pasted on my face. I was alone, not part of the circle. Who was I?

  It was Kamiya who zoomed to my rescue. In that moment, when I felt isolated, the odd man out, the thought of times hanging out with Kamiya came to mind. Kamiya always said that everyone is a manzai artist and the only difference is whether they’re aware of it or not. Even as I understood how crazy the idea was, somehow the thought of it made me feel better. In Kamiya’s company, with his guidance, I’d grown up a lot, but it all crumbled when I tried to fit in. I had nothing to say. I couldn’t change my facial expression. It was the nights I felt I was losing myself that I wanted to see Kamiya most.

  * * *

  Kamiya was unreachable. Several days in a row I sent him messages saying let’s do something—no response. Maybe he was busy. Then I tried ringing, but he didn’t pick up. Next day, finally he contacted me and asked me to meet him in Kichijoji. I set out happily, thinking of all the things I wanted to discuss with him. But when Kamiya turned up at two o’clock, his smile was thin and somehow he looked different.

  “Not what you thought, eh?” were his first words.

  “Huh? What’s up?”

  “Can you come get my stuff from Maki’s place with me?” he said looking down.

  “Sure, no problem. But did you two have a fight or something?” I’d often seen Kamiya hassle Maki when he was drunk, but never once did I see Maki get angry with him.

  “Maki… she… she got a new boyfriend.”

  “What? You’re joking!”

  I couldn’t believe it. From what I’d seen, Maki really loved Kamiya. Sure, he gave her a lot of crap, but he depended on her all the same. I always figured they’d get married one day.

  “I’m scared, man. You know that Maki works at a kind of cabaret hostess club in Kichijoji, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Well, that place is… you know, is for adult entertainment. When Maki first came to Tokyo, she got scouted by someone from this club. So she started working there. Had to dress up like some kind of sexy apparition to serve customers. That’s what she did for work… You know her, she can’t say no…”

  “No, she can’t,” I said, not knowing what to make of all this.

  “But, man, dressing up like a ghost to serve customers—do I need to hear that? I don’t want details. You start imagining things.” Kamiya looked pained. “I’m a selfish bastard,” he mumbled, “but my heart hurts. Really hurts. Maybe I liked her… I probably did.”

  Seeing Kamiya like this pained me. He was probably being vague to avoid getting real emotional in front of me.

  “Hey, Tokunaga, how come you’re crying?” Kamiya laughed.

  I didn’t know I was crying. But I knew I liked how Kamiya was with Maki.

  “It’s too early for crying! Save it! We can soak in it over drinks later.”

  “Don’t talk about it like we’re going to take a bath.”

  Oh, this hurt.

  “Don’t you know anything? You don’t jump in without warming up first.”

  “I said, don’t talk like this is a bath.”

  The pain was painful.

  “At least wash your privates before you get in, for crying out loud.”

  “That makes no sense. What’s washing my privates got to do with it?”

  The pain was beginning to sting.

  “You don’t know? Shall I put crying salts in the crying bath for you, for cryin’ sake? Make it a teary-coloured bath today?”

  “I don’t… I don’t get it.”

  Did we have to laugh at a time like this?

  “You can’t cry before I do. It wrecks my timing.”

  Kamiya was putting up a valiant front, but you could tell from his voice he was teetering on the edge.

  We walked slowly north up Kichijoji Avenue, as if we didn’t want to arrive anywhere. A group of smiling primary schoolchildren passed us and stared at me. Was the sight of a grown man crying that weird?

  “Hey, the old man with those kids gave me a very mean eye. Maybe he thinks I’m a mean fuckin’ bully, making you cry.” Kamiya had to try hard for that one. It wasn’t the sort of hahaha he usually went for.

  “Anyway,” he said, barely a few seconds later, “getting back to Maki’s new boyfriend, this guy is a customer at the hostess club. A regular. He decides he likes her, and he tells her that. Many times. Then she starts liking him. Apparently.”

  He said this with a blank expression, deadpan.

  Well, Maki is beautiful and kind. Lots of men would want to go out with her.

  “Kamiya,” I started, “all I know is what I see. And I see that Maki really likes you. Maybe she just wanted to get things clear, you know.”

  “If Maki found someone she likes, I can’t complain. She shouldn’t waste her life while I try to get my act together. If only I could’ve done something more for her… I never did. Too late now. What am I going to do, kick up shit? I guess she had no choice.”

  Kamiya walked slowly, hands deep in his pockets,
dragging his feet. We had to stop at almost every traffic light.

  “Are you getting all your stuff now?”

  “Nah, dunno where I’m going to live, so I can’t. I just wanna get a few things and my clothes for the theatre gig tomorrow. The main problem is the new boyfriend’s already moved in.”

  “What?!”

  “Maki told him I was just staying there, like a guest. Still, I don’t want to go there by myself with him there.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Probably the guy wasn’t totally clueless. He was probably thinking he was saving Maki from the scum who’d been sponging off her. Getting in there to keep her from going soft on Kamiya. Why else would he move in when someone else still lived there? Probably a part of Maki wanted the same thing.

  “If I went by myself and that guy said anything weird, I might kill him. That’s why I need you there.”

  “Because it’s easier for the two of us to kill him?”

  “Stop! Stop! STOP!”

  Kamiya’s voice was too loud. Strange, coming from the man who always said that unfunny things should get a low-key response.

  As we continued on our way to Kami-Shakujii, he said other things that were so shockingly unfunny it was clear he was unhinged. We passed a house with a nameplate in front, and he said, “Hey, the name is Tokunaga—is this your place?” We heard a siren, and he said, “I thought it was an ambulance, but it’s the police.” Yeah, hilarious.

  “Sorry, Tokunaga.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m scared about this.”

  “I can go by myself,” I said. “And if he says anything weird, then I’ll kill him.”

  I was prepared to do damage to any bastard who’d hurt Kamiya—even if they were in the right. More than anything, though, I wanted to avoid a scene that hurt Maki.

  “It’s OK, it’s OK,” Kamiya replied. “I’ll do it. Whatever he says, my lips are going to be zipped. But I need you to do me a favour—”