(2005) In the Miso Soup (7 page)

For some reason this really pissed me off. I didn’t want to hear shit like that from someone like him.

“Watch
that
fellow.” Frank rolled his eyes toward the guy in training wear, two cages up. “He’s banging the heck out of ’em.”

This was true. The guy was nailing almost every pitch—at 120 kph—and lining them all toward center. His bat speed wasn’t something you see every day. I figured him for a pro of sorts, maybe employed as a ringer for a team in the early morning leagues. I’d heard you could find such specimens in Kabuki-cho: guys who, after starring on high-school or corporate teams, get into trouble with women or gambling or drugs and, not having any other way to make money, become paid secret weapons in the amateur leagues. They’re on a piecework basis—¥2000 for a home run, ¥500 for a hit, or what-ever—so they need to stay in practice.

“I’ve been watching you this whole time, Kenji. You haven’t hit the ball cleanly even once yet, and these pitches are a lot slower than his are.”

“I know that,” I said, a little more loudly than necessary. I took a huge swing at the next ball and missed. Frank groaned and shook his head.

“Oh my God, what was that? And such an easy pitch!”

That did it. I stepped away and took a few practice swings, trying to focus. Frank was back there muttering that it must be a curse, that even God had abandoned me, or something along those lines.

“Will you be quiet, please!” I shouted. “How am I supposed to concentrate with you talking like that?”

Frank sighed and shook his head again.

“Kenji, do you know the story about Jack Nicklaus? Very famous story. Jack had a long putt to decide some major tournament, you see, and he was standing over the ball concentrating so hard that he didn’t even notice it when the wind blew his hat off. Now
that’s
concentration.”

“Jack who?” I said. “Never heard of him. Just be quiet, all right? If you’ll just be quiet, I’ll hit that home run sign for you.”

“Hmph,” Frank snorted. Then, nodding slowly, his face a blank mask, he said: “Wanna bet?”

The way he said it really got to me. Maybe Frank pulled this kind of stunt all the time, I thought. Maybe all the needling had been calculated to lead up to that final line:
Hmph. Wanna bet?
Looking at that poker face of his I found
myself thinking he just might be the sort of scumbag who would stoop to something like that. But it was already too late.

“Fine with me.”

I was saying these words before I even realized it. That cool, clear judgment I pride myself on, so rare in a guy my age, got clouded by the rage Frank’s droopy, no-expression face triggered in me.

“Here’s what we’ll do, Kenji,” he said. “You get twenty balls, and if you hit even one home run out of the twenty, you win and I’ll pay you double your fee for tonight. But if you don’t hit a home run, I win and I don’t owe you anything.”

You’re on, I almost said, but stopped myself.

“Frank, that’s not fair.”

“Why not?”

“If you win, all my work this evening adds up to nothing. Zero. You don’t have a zero option, which means I’m risking more than you.”

“So how do you want it?”

“If you win you only have to pay half the fee, and if I win you pay double the fee. That’s logical, right?”

“Then if you win I pay you the ¥20,000 basic rate plus the ¥20,000 for two hours extra, that’s ¥40,000 times two, total of ¥80,000?”

That’s right, I said, a little taken aback that he’d remembered the payment system so accurately. He’s an American all right, I thought. Americans never forget the original agreement. No matter how drunk they get or how many naked ladies they get excited about, they always remember.

“Talk about not fair—that means if you win you’re ahead ¥40,000 but if I win I’m only ahead ¥20,000.” He stared into my eyes for a beat, then said: “You’re a cheapskate.”

I don’t know if this was meant as a challenge to sucker me in or what, but it worked.

“All right, the original conditions you stated,” I said, and Frank twisted his lips into a smile.

“I’ll pay for this one, Kenji,” he said. He took a coin purse from the inner breast pocket of his jacket and picked out three ¥100 coins. His fingernails were longish and jagged and not overly clean. I took the coins, thinking: If he had change, why didn’t he pull it out at the photo booth?

“How many balls do you get for ¥300?”

“Thirty,” I said.

“All right, then, the first ten will be just for practice, and the bet starts with ball number eleven.”

I was convinced that Frank had planned all this. It was becoming obvious what a crafty bastard he was. Maybe he’d been watching the probably semipro guy two cages down smashing them consistenty toward center and still never hitting the home run banner. When I first came up to Tokyo from Shizuoka I went to a prep school for about four months and had a part-time job delivering packages. Often, though, when the weather was nice and I had some time off, I’d go to a batting center alongside the Tama River, just a couple of train stops from my apartment. They had a home run sign, too, and if you hit it you’d win a prize—your choice of a teddy bear or vouchers for beer, as I recall. One day I hit more than a hundred balls, but I never did hit that sign, and only once did I ever see anyone else hit it. The sign, about the size of a small surfboard, was hung maybe fifteen meters up the netting and twenty meters from the batting box, and there was no way you could hit it with a line drive. The one ball I saw graze the sign at Tama River for a teddy bear was a blooping pop fly hit by some housewife.

The pitching machine growled to life. I went through the first ten practice balls in what seemed like no time. I was trying to keep my shoulders and arms relaxed and to concentrate on hitting the ball cleanly. That’s what Dad used to tell me when he first taught me how to play baseball, when I was seven or eight. My father helped design machinery for public works projects and was sent overseas a lot, mostly to Southeast Asia. His health wasn’t that great, but he enjoyed both watching and playing sports. Keep your eye on the ball—that’s what he kept telling me when he’d bought me my first mitt
and took me outside to play catch.

I managed to really tag it on my first official swing, smashing a line drive up the middle, and heard Frank behind me go: “Whoa.” But the ball hit the netting about two meters below the home run sign. I connected well with the next one too, but it was even lower and banged against the steel mesh protecting the pitching machines. Every time I told myself to keep my eye on the ball, it conjured up a picture of Dad. I don’t remember him playing with me that much—he was out of town more often than not, and ended up spending most of his time in Malaysia, where he was helping build a big bridge. But even now I often dream that I’m playing catch with him.

On the third pitch I lined one that would have been good for extra bases, right down the third-base line and nowhere near the home run banner. On the fourth and fifth I hit grounders. After about ten of my twenty pitches, I was so focused on the ball that I’d forgotten all about Frank, but my head was full of my father. My mother seems to have considered him something of a playboy, but that sort of thing doesn’t matter to you when you’re a kid. “I have two regrets,” Dad said when he was dying of lung disease: “Not seeing that bridge completed, and not teaching Kenji how to swim.” Apparently when I was born he told himself that though he’d probably be too busy to play with his son much, at the very least he’d teach me the fundamentals of baseball and swimming. I sometimes think my desire to go to America may have a lot to do with him. He always looked so happy, after having come home for a brief stay, to be heading back to Malaysia. My mother says it was because he had a “local floozy” there, but I don’t think that could have been the only reason. Maybe he did have a woman, and I know he loved his work, but I also think there was something about Malaysia itself that excited him. It was sad when he left, of course, but my father was never more appealing to me than when he was saying “See ya!” and walking off with a suitcase in his hand. I’ve always thought that one of these days I’d like to fly off somewhere like that, with just a casual “See ya!”

I swung up from my heels on the fourteenth pitch, got under the ball, and
sent it up at a good angle. Frank shouted “
No!
” and I shouted “
Go!
” but the ball ended up in the netting a good meter below the target. From there on it was all downhill. My anxiety over the prospect of losing my entire evening’s wages destroyed my form, making me swing for the sky, and the best I could do on the remaining pitches was some useless grounders. When, on the seventeenth pitch, I whiffed again, I heard Frank stifle a laugh, and that made me lose my cool entirely. None of the last three balls even made it into fair territory.

“Boy, that was close! I thought I was done for, several times.”

Frank was feigning sympathy for me. I felt I needed to do something. There was no way I could accept having to work for this clown for free, even for one night. I came out of the cage, and before putting my jacket back on I held the bat out to him and said: “Your turn, Frank.”

Frank didn’t take the bat. He played dumb and said: “Whaddaya mean?”

“Your turn to try. Same bet.”

“Wait a minute, nobody said anything about that.”

“You used to play baseball, right? I already hit. Now you’re up.”

“Like I said before, I’m tired. Much too tired to swing a bat.”

I braced myself.

“You’re a liar,” I said.

Sure enough, this summoned up the Face. Little blue and red capillaries appeared on his cheeks, the light went out of his pupils, and the corners of his eyes and nose and lips began to quiver. This was the first time I’d seen the Face head-on and close up, so close I could almost feel Frank’s breath on me. He looked like he was either very, very angry or very, very frightened.

“What are you talking about?” he said, peering at me with those lightless eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re calling me a liar? Why? When have I ever lied to you?”

I looked down at my shoes. I didn’t want to look at the Face. Frank seemed to be trying to arrange it into a sad, hurt expression, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. I felt pathetic just being associated with a face like that.

“You said you used to play baseball when you were little. You told me that, in the waiting room at the peep show. You said you and your brothers didn’t have anything else to do so you played baseball all the time.”

“So how does that make me a liar?”

“For anybody who’s played it as a child, baseball is a sacred thing. Right?”

“I don’t get you.”

“It’s sacred, more important than anything.”

“Okay, Kenji, hold on a minute. I think I’m beginning to see. I guess you’re saying that if what I said in the waiting room is true, then I should take a turn at the plate?”

“Exactly. Isn’t that what we did as kids? We always took turns batting.”

“All right,” Frank said. He took the bat and stepped into the cage. “Double or nothing, then?”

The guy in the training wear was packing up to leave. Except for the dozing attendant and the bum, we were the only ones on this bizarre concrete plateau in a canyon of love hotels.

“That’s right,” I said. “If you hit the home run target, my fee for tomorrow night also is zero. If you don’t hit it, you pay me the regular fee for both nights.”

Frank nodded, but before putting the coins in the slot, he hesitated and said: “Kenji, I don’t really understand how this happened. All I know is I’m stepping up to swing this bat because you’re in a bad mood. But I just want us to get along. You know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like I tried to get you mad so you’d take the bet and I wouldn’t have to pay you. I’m not that kind of person, Kenji. I was just playing around, feeling like a kid again. It’s not about money—I’ve got plenty of money. I guess I don’t look like a rich fellow, but that doesn’t mean I’m not one. You wanna look in my wallet?”

Before I could refuse, Frank pulled a wallet from his breast pocket. A different wallet from the one he’d taken out in the lingerie pub, which had
been made of imitation snakeskin. This one was of well-worn black leather, and inside was a thick wad of ¥10,000 notes and another of $100 bills. “See?” he said and smiled. What this was supposed to prove, I couldn’t tell you. Genuine rich guys never carry a lot of cash around, and I didn’t see any credit cards in there.

“That’s about 4000 bucks and 280,000 yen. Oh, I’ve got money, all right. You see that now?”

“Yeah, I see,” I said, and Frank strained to make the happiest face he was capable of. His cheeks twisted grotesquely, and he kept them like that until I grinned back at him. I felt goosebumps rise on the nape of my neck.

“All right, then. Here goes.”

Frank took ¥300 out of his coin purse and fed the machine. Then, instead of standing on the artificial turf of the batter’s box, he stepped onto the concrete and stood directly on top of the painted lines of home plate. I had no idea why he was doing that. If he didn’t move before the pitch came, he was going to get hit by the ball. The green light came on, and the machine began to stir. Still standing on home plate, Frank crouched down facing the machine and held the bat out in front of his chest. His grip was wrong too—his right hand below his left. I thought he was trying to be funny. I heard the spring’s final stretch and then the thump as it snapped back. Frank still wasn’t moving, and the ball grazed his ear at 100 kph. Well after the ball had hit the mat behind him, he swung for all he was worth—if you can call it a swing. He pounded the bat against the concrete, as if he were chopping wood, and let out an incomprehensible yowl. The metal bat slipped out of his grasp and bounced up in the air, ringing like a high-pitched gong. When the next pitch came whizzing at him Frank was standing sideways to the ball but still right on top of home plate. I was dumbfounded. I was watching an adult American male stand in the path of a speeding baseball with nothing in his hands. That familiar, everyday concept—the batter’s box—had been transformed into something alien. Frank’s pose had nothing to do with baseball, or any other sport. He squatted there with his head bowed and his fists still locked
in the position they were in when the bat flew off—one on top of the other, both pointing toward left field. It was as if he’d been instantaneously freeze-dried. The second ball grazed his back, and I called out to him: “Hey, Frank.” He didn’t even flinch. He was staring at the bluish white concrete floor. A scrap of paper rode a gust of wind through the chain-link fence and danced lazily in the air to the ancient pop song crackling over the loudspeakers. Frank wasn’t even blinking. It was as if rigor mortis had set in. I felt like I’d wandered into a nightmare. One ball after another brushed past Frank and slammed against the mat suspended behind him. The regular, muffled sound it made was like the ticking of time in some alternate world—strangely comical but also painfully real. The sixth ball hit Frank in the ass, but he still didn’t move except to bring his hands in front of his face and peer at them. It was a pose of sorrow and resignation, like someone who’d just confessed to a crime and was awaiting punishment. I began to feel I’d been bullying him and went into the cage to try and put a stop to it all. “This is dangerous, Frank,” I said and put my hand on his shoulder, which was as cold and hard to the touch as the metal bat had been. “It’s dangerous here,” I said again, shaking him. Frank finally looked up from his hands and nodded. His face was turned toward me, but his dead eyes were focused somewhere else, and as I led him from the cage he slipped on a stray ball and fell down. I apologized to him again and again. I felt like I’d crossed a line, done something unforgivable.