THERE WERE no shadows, no cool places to rest the eyes. There was not the slightest breeze and the air had been too long under the sun. It hissed and crackled in the ears. Tourists struggled up the slope, their sneakers sticking to the asphalt. Their cameras were heavy and their noses burned.
It looked like a West Texas oil derrick with red-lead girders and old-fashioned rivets as big as fists. The tourists clustered underneath and tried to hide from the sun. Trees in Shibakoen park leaned away from the artless tower and whispered behind its back. The oldest recalled a view of the sea, claiming it was less than a mile away. Saplings wrapped their roots around sewer pipes and looked up. They confused the sky with the sea, thinking the brown-yellow clouds were waves.
The girls were lagging behind but Manny didn’t slow down. It was too hot and he wanted to escape the crowded sidewalk. Today was an extravaganza, an outing for a man who now possessed a proper visa and a proper job. He’d asked May and Kiyomi to go with him to a tourist spot, a place where he could buy postcards for his daughters. They’d agreed but groaned at his choice.
Manny had no guidebook but his family in Olongapo did. Purchased at the expense of a bumpy Victory Liner trip to Manila, it was well-thumbed. They wanted to see this, and that, and everything. And if they couldn’t afford to go themselves, he had to go for them. And postcards, too, don’t forget the postcards.
It wasn’t much to ask, to see through his eyes. But the most important sights he could never convey. Springtime. He would always remember a welder’s black silhouette high in the beams. A purple twilight and sparks like a waterfall, silver and gold—tumbling down. A winter’s day. Sweating underground. Laying a foundation, listening to Christmas carols high above. And falling past shoppers, bundling past, his first snowflakes. If only a little, Manny had helped build the city. He’d already seen Tokyo from the bottom, today he wanted to climb to the top.
He heard a sound, angry and barren, like sandals crackling over dead leaves. A man approached carrying a briefcase and a head filled with noise. In old Edo, aristocrats had lopped off the heads of commoners to test their blades. Their descendants—all commoners now—bullied people on sidewalks. Japanese stepped aside, gaijins eventually resisted. They ended up with black and blue shoulders and victories at too high a price.
Manny sighed and moved out of the way. The salaryman plotted another collision course. He looked left and right—innocently up and away. Sidewalk bullies never made eye contact. They collided and Manny whacked him with his new plaster cast. The salaryman grunted and staggered forward. Weak under the sky, in spaces too open, he didn’t rub at the pain until reached the subway.
The girls caught up and they took the elevator to the tower’s viewing area. Manny bought postcards and joined May and Kiyomi at the rail. “I can’t believe you two have never been up here.”
May stopped fiddling with a coin-operated telescope. “This place is only for tourists.”
“But you can see the whole city.”
Kiyomi leaned on the rail and looked out. “Ugly.”
“It says here,” he waved a postcard, “that this is taller than the Eiffel Tower.”
“Totally ugly,” May repeated, and both girls laughed.
Manny left them at the rail and circled the platform. It was a waste of time, the view was the same from every direction. The horizon was hard to find. Concrete buildings merged with a dirty gray sky. Like weeds in a sidewalk, patches of green grew in cracks between neighborhoods and cities.
The girls were waiting on a bench drinking Cokes when he finished the circuit. “Well?” Kiyomi asked.
“It’s big.”
They nodded, unimpressed.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked Kiyomi.
“I’m fine.”
“The altitude doesn’t make your head hurt or anything?”
She smiled. “Only teachers make my head hurt.”
“I can’t even see the scar, your hair hides it.”
“Does it itch?” she asked.
“What?”
“Your arm. My scar is itchy.”
He glanced at the cast embellished with the names of his friends. “Sometimes.”
“It serves you right,” May admonished. “If you hadn’t fought back you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
The bosozoku had attacked the club twice. The first time they’d driven out the customers and destroyed May’s prized video games. Manny had been in the kitchen and May had thrown herself in front of Sam when he’d started after them. No one had been hurt and the games replaced. Nakazono had investigated the crime personally, promised action and had done nothing. Property agents scenting a kill had visited or called every day since.
The second attack, just a week ago, had resulted in serious injury. Jiro had jumped a college kid leaving the club late one evening. The rest of the gang had smashed the palm-tree sign and front window. Sam and Manny had stopped the beating but not before metal pipes had shattered Manny’s arm and Sam’s nose. An ambulance had taken away the student and the owner of the bicycle shop had driven Manny and Sam to the hospital in her van.
“Are they going to come back?” Kiyomi asked.
“I hope not,” he answered, certain they would. “Sam’s lawyer has filed a complaint against Nakazono.”
“That won’t do any good,” May said. “Nakazono’s crazy and the rest of the police don’t care. We should just sell the stupid building and go somewhere else.”
Manny looked at Kiyomi. She was as surprised as he. “I thought you said we should never give up?”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind,” she snapped. “I can do that, you know. I don’t want to stay here anymore if Helen’s going to leave.”
Another surprise. “Where’s she going? Back to Canada?”
“Almost. She said she’d moving to Shinjuku at the end of the month.”
“Why?”
May put her chin in her hands and stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”
“What about the band? Now that Kiyomi’s better I thought you guys were doing really well.”
Kiyomi laughed. “What a liar.”
She’d lasted three days on the drums, joyfully releasing energy stored up during her convalescence and creating a prodigious racket. May had loved the new sound but not the neighbors. Sam had walked into the club on the fourth day carrying a new electric bass. Kiyomi had switched instruments cheerfully, happy just to be part of the team.
“You’re not so bad,” he encouraged. “You’re hands are just a little bit too small. We have to wait until you grow some.”
May had to translate Manny’s comment and Kiyomi’s reply. “She said maybe Helen’s leaving because she plays the bass as badly as the drums.”
“That’s not it,” he said.
“That’s what I told her. Do you think it’s something I did?” May looked hurt, as if she actually believed such a thing possible.
Manny didn’t want to talk to May about Sam and Helen. She loved them both and would try hard not to take sides. But she was only thirteen. It seemed to much to ask; she deserved better. “If Helen leaves it won’t be because of anything you did,” he said. “I can promise you that.”
“How about Sam?” Kiyomi asked.
“What do you mean?” May’s voice rose sharply and people at the rail turned and stared. “Sam wouldn’t do anything bad to Helen. Anyway, they talk all the time.” She turned to Manny for reassurance. “I haven’t noticed anything different. Have you?”
Manny leaned over the counter as the band finished their last song of the evening. “Kiyomi sounds better tonight. I think she’s improving.”
Sam stopped fooling with the bandage on his nose. “She has to, she’s got nowhere to go but up.”
Three drunk gaijins shouted and Sam crossed the club to take their order. Emulating the Japanese, two had ties knotted rakishly around the foreheads. The third snapped his red suspenders and stretched, nearly falling out of his chair. He recovered and ordered another round.
“And do me a favor, will you bud?”
Sam stopped and turned. If the guy made another crack about his nose he’d strangle him with his suspenders. “What’s that?”
“Ask the blonde if she wants to join us for a drink.”
Not a chance. “You’d better ask her yourself,” he said, walking away. He wished they’d give him an excuse to throw them out. He’d been trying to think of a reason since Helen had stepped on stage. They hadn’t taken their eyes off her in the last hour. But he doubted if May or even Manny would consider thought crimes sufficient provocation to chuck them into the street.
He glanced at Helen. So many questions, one after another, each more crucial than the last. A month ago he could have asked. So easy, between friends, with nothing riding on the answers. Tonight, it was impossible. Brick by brick, the walls had gone up. The less they talked, the less they had to say. The less they trusted. Comments on the weather or the time of day seemed dangerous.
Helen had told him she’d be moving at the end of the month and had asked to get out of her lease. She wanted to get away from him, from his disappointment. He’d told himself it was for the best.
May hadn’t agreed. She’d cried and asked why. The truth, when examined through her eyes, left him vulnerable to accusation. Impatient, childish, selfish. He was all these things and more. Confused and afraid of being hurt, unwilling to try.
May’s mother was dead and now her friend would soon be gone. Sam’s cool logic—love me or leave—was driving her away, it could not be denied. Not that he was cruel or rude or even unfriendly. It was Helen’s decision to go, she was the one running away. He told himself this over and over, hoping repetition would make it true.
He watched the guy in red suspenders approach Helen at the other end of the bar. “She wants too much, she expects too much,” Sam whispered, and Manny looked up.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, just talking to myself.”
Helen stuck out her chin and walked stiffly across the room to join the three men at their table.
“Instead of talking, you should start doing,” Manny advised.
Sam ignored him. They’d argued when Manny had brought May back from Tokyo Tower yesterday. He doubted his explanation would sound any better tonight.
The three gaijins were leaning forward in their chairs, attending to her every desire. “You want me to wait on them?” Manny offered, trying to help.
“No. It’s my job, I’ll do it.”
Helen made introductions he didn’t want to hear. They were currency traders, she said. He didn’t listen as they recited their names, they didn’t listen when he mentioned his. They turned back to Helen, she stared at Sam. Her eyes were angry. “Why don’t you join us?”
“No thanks.”
Red suspenders emptied his glass. His natural rudeness was exacerbated by alcohol. He snapped his fingers at Sam. “Four more beers.”
Sam hesitated, trying to control his anger and growing jealously.
“You’re the waiter, aren’t you?”
Helen winced at the arrogance but remained silent. Sam walked away.
Manny had the order ready on the counter. Was she trying to hurt him? She’d never accepted a customer’s invitation before. Her distaste for the tribe of foreign financiers now plaguing Tokyo was well known. He wanted to shake her, to ask her what she was doing. Instead, he delivered the beer without a word and retreated to the counter.
Manny pushed a can of Budweiser across the bar. “Like I said, you should do something.”
“What?” Sam shouted, loud enough to turn heads in the corners of the club. He lowered his voice. “Exactly what would you have me do?”
“I don’t know. Almost anything would be better than sitting there looking like a wounded puppy.” He nodded in Helen’s direction. “Look at her.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you see?”
“I don’t know... Helen and three jerks?”
Manny shook his head. “You gotta learn to look better than that. I see Helen talking to three guys I know she doesn’t like. I see Helen trying to make something happen.”
“So what? All I see is a woman trying to make me feel bad and I’ve seen that before. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.”
Manny grabbed the beer out of his hand. He leaned down until their eyes were just inches apart. “You know, you can be a real ass sometimes. What makes you think you’ve got all the answers? How can you possibly know what she’s thinking when you haven’t even tried to understand her?”
