I was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the hostess girls to come back. That’s what I did most nights. The English teachers were all in bed, the club kids were out being club kids, the rest – the winos, rhinos and lunatics – were OK to hang with but by that time of night were generally so strung out on whatever it was they were strung out on they weren’t up for a chat about the state of the world, so I’d just hang around and wait for the girls to come back.
Anyway, it was about 3, maybe 4, and gradually they all started rolling in. Polly worked at Rembrandts, one of the top hostess clubs in town and earned top dollar. Apparently she was one of the most in-demand hostesses and you can see why even if immediately you can’t see why because, Polly, she was just like that. All the other Rembrandt girls were blonde, blonde and busty. Now I’m not saying anything but maybe, just maybe, they weren’t adverse to doing a bit of freelance on the side, if you get my drift. I’m not passing judgement and each to their own and all that, but it was a thing. The girls who worked at Rembrandts were well-paid by the club because they made the salarymen who went to Rembrandts feel good and so they kept coming back. Everyone’s happy.
By the way, that’s what they’re called. Salarymen. Really. I don’t mean that’s what the girls called them, it’s what everyone calls them. Salarymen. It’s like being called a drone or a worker bee or something. And that’s what they looked like. Same dark blue suit, same crisp white shirt, same shiny black shoes, thick black hair cut short with a side parting.
Fucking place, Tokyo.
Polly wasn’t blonde or busty either in look or spirit. She was bright and smiling and sweet and… She was like this.
When the girls came back from the clubs, she didn’t come back with the other girls. Mostly they were in cabs, paid for by some whiskeyed-up salaryman who was so pissed he didn’t know what he was doing or what he was paying for. Polly arrived a little later. On her bicycle. The other girls looked wasted a bit on drink, but mostly on speed. Polly looked fresh-faced, almost rosy cheeked. The other girls fell into the kitchen, made coffee, rolled spliffs, and prepared for the come down. Polly had a bowl of muesli and some peppermint tea. That’s what Polly was like. The biggest fucking freak of all.
We both had that ‘stranger in a strange land’ thing about us. Neither of us really fitted in here, but we got away with it because…
“I’ll tell you why you get away with it,” said Brad one evening. “You’re not faking it. You’re not pretending to be John when really you’re Jack, you know. So many people round here are pretending to be something they’re not and you’re… It’s kinda cool that you’re just… I don’t even know what you’re just doing but whatever, you’re just doing it.”
I had no idea whether Brad was right or wrong. But, you know, if he was right it was because I had no fucking clue what I was anymore, whether I was John or Jack or fucking Janet. I’d also started swearing quite a lot which is bollocks and has to stop. Thing is, you can only pretend to be something if you are something else and right now I wasn’t something else. I was nothing. I was just here, just hanging around. I wasn’t doing anything, I had no purpose, no function. No moral centre. And that, I was beginning to realise, was an interesting place to be.
Me and Polly, we didn’t belong here, it wasn’t our world, but we could easily sit here for a while. Get lost in the world. I remember saying to her once it was going to see a film but actually taking part in it – OK, so I stole that idea from Purple Rose of Cairo, but it’s a good film and it’s a good idea so what the fuck. I knew what I saw in her. She was young and she was free and she was spirited, she was pure in an impure world… And she was fit as fuck and every bloke in the Palace fancied her.
“Anyway listen,” I said to her over a coffee in the café one morning or afternoon. “I’ve had a fantastic idea. I’m going to write a book where all the lead characters have the same names as the literary critics of the major papers and magazines. They’ll all be fantastically good looking, rich, charismatic… the beautiful people.”
Polly looked at me like I was mad. Actually Polly looked at me like she’d heard it all before.
“I know. But listen. Journalists, they’re all ego monsters. Believe me, it’s something I know about. All that “I think this” and “I think that.” The idea that they are paid to say what they think, how could they not be?
“It’s not that I don’t love your ideas, it’s just that… you have a lot of them. And they’re good ideas, and… Maybe if you did one of them…”
I ordered another coffee and smoked breakfast. The waitress – a student-type, the same girl you see in any café in any town in any country – brought over a plate with some toast. Around me in the cafe, people were sitting reading the papers. And the scene was the same as everywhere else in the world. They’re turned to the sports pages, checking to see how their boys have done.
The café looked exactly like a café. Glass windows looking out onto the street, tables and chairs, a counter where you ordered and an espresso machine, a cabinet thing where there’s pastries and stuff. A café. In that very Japanese way, it looked exactly how a café would look if you described a café to someone. The only thing it lacked was that thing that makes a good café good. Authenticity. It didn’t come from the heart, it came from a designer’s clipboard. But that’s the way the Japanese seem to go about things. They take someone else’s idea, stick a sheet of tracing paper over it, and draw an exact replica. An exact replica that lacks a bit of life. It’s all a bit Dolly the sheep.
There were a handful of people there and despite me looking in less than showroom condition, no one took any notice. It was just down the road from the Palace and the sight of strung out Westerners drinking and smoking and not eating their toast they’d ordered probably wasn’t a new one. If the worst I could say was that this lacked a bit of warmth, God knows what the worst they could say about me was.
“This bread… it’s something else,” I said to her. “It’s your worst white slice nightmare. It looks like a real loaf of bread but there’s nothing there. It’s air and water. Where’s the flour? Where’s the yeast? Where’s the…”
“The soul. Go on, say it. Where’s the soul? Then, when you say that, you can start on about how it’s a reflection of Japanese society. Looks good, contains nothing.”
“And bread is the food of life and… “
“Yeah yeah. Have we not had this conversation?” she said. “Did you order me a coffee?”
What was she doing with me? She looked lovely. Radiant, glowing, healthy, fit. Shiny hair and brushed teeth. Probably not only brushed but flossed too. Bit of bloody string running up and down between your teeth. I tried it once. Bled like a bitch. I rinsed my mouth out and it was like it was my mouth had just come on. What’s the point of that? Nah, floss bollocks. Still, she looked gorgeous.
“Of course I ordered you a coffee. You asked me to order coffee, so I ordered coffee.”
“Good”, said Polly. “I guess it’s that empty cup there.”
I smiled and she smiled. A familiar scene.
“If I order myself another one then you can have it. We’ll be quits then.”
“OK. So if you do that, I’ll order you another one and you’ll still owe me. You know I like it that way.”
We’d talked ourselves into a corner neither of us knew much about and neither of us cared about and there wasn’t anything to do but drink the coffee. Somehow on a day like this, that seemed a reasonable thing to do.
Polly looked at me and smiled.
Our coffees came and the relief they brought dried up the conversation. We drank and looked at the toast which seemed no more appealing now than it had when it was first brought over. The idea of food is better than the actual food. Maybe one day I’ll find a restaurant where you can order food and it doesn’t come and you don’t eat it and you don’t pay for it. You could order wild vegetable dishes or exotic and body distressing local specialities without having to endure the eating or the next day grief. And it will be cheap.
I had a column once about this idea, Jewgolos. Jewish gigolos. A Jewgolo is a bit like a gigolo, but Jewish. Listen. Basically, where your regular gigolo takes you for a drink and then upstairs for the jiggy stuff, your Jewgolo will take you out to eat and moan. I thought it was genius. Everyone thinks they like the jiggy stuff, but you do it once, it’s enough. What people really like doing is eating and moaning. You never get bored with that.
This is the thing. The older you get, your ideas change. When you’re younger you think the moaning that comes when you’re doing all that jiggy stuff is the good moaning. It’s really not. Maybe if you’re a kid, OK, but if you’re a grown-up by the time you get into bed all you want to do is have a sleep. “You carry on with all that. No, no, it’s fine. I’m just going to close my eyes.” No. The good moaning is actually just moaning. Sitting down, having something to eat and moaning.