My Year of Meats (42 page)

And as soon as he said this, suddenly Akiko was surrounded by people offering her drumsticks and paper plates of potato salad and chips and pickles and drinks of soda, and Maurice, giving in to the demand of the crowd, had retreated to the head of the coach car, where, with an ear-splitting screech and clatter, he activated the train’s public address system. Clapping his hands and slapping his knees, he started the passengers chanting a background chorus,
chicken
bone
chicken bone
chicken bone
chicken bone ...
and then he joined in:

Akiko clapped her hands in time and looked around her at the long coach filled with singing people. This would never happen on the train in Hokkaido! For the second time since she left Japan, she shivered with excitement. She’d felt it at the dinner table at Thanksgiving, and now, again, even stronger—as if somehow she’d been absorbed into a massive body that had taken over the functions of her own, and now it was infusing her small heart with the superabundance of its feeling, teaching her taut belly to swell, stretching her rib cage, and pumping spurts of happy life into her fetus.

This is America!
she thought. She clapped her hands and then hugged herself with delight.

“Lara, pick up the other phone!”

Muffled, on the other end, I heard Lara call out, “Just a minute ... ,” and then her voice came through the receiver. “Hello?”

“I’ve got Jane Takagi on the line,” Dyann told her. “She wants to know if we’re still mad at her.”

“Oh,” said Lara.

This did not sound good. I had sent them the fax and the tape of their episode with the BEEF-EX commercials, but they’d never acknowledged either. Nor had I gotten any response to the Bunny and Rose tape. I don’t know why acquittal meant so much to me—from these ghosts, in particular.

“Well, are we?” Dyann said.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I dunno. I mean, it was a pretty lousy thing to do, tricking us into being
spokeswives
for the meat industry....”

It
was
lousy, but I’d admitted that already and apologized.

“Yeah, but look how subversive we got to be.” I thought I could detect a trace of amusement in Lara’s voice.

“I suppose ... but she could’ve told us, you know,” Dyann countered sternly. “Beforehand.”

It’s true. I agree. There’s no excuse.

“Yeah. But she did apologize.”

What else could I do? I was wrong.

“Yes, but was she
really
sincere?”
Dyann’s voice was warming up.

“Hard to say,” said Lara.

“Yeah, it’s that inscrutable Asian thing....” They were both laughing now.

“Excuse me,” I broke in. “When you guys get finished here, just let me know....” They only laughed harder. “I almost got fired trying to air your show,” I continued, somewhat indignantly. “I got in deep shit with the ad agency. ‘You can’t put vegetarian lesbians in our Saturday-morning family meat slotl’ That’s what they told me. It was hell.”

“Sorry, Jane. But you deserved it.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say it?”

“Basically, forever, I’d say. What do you think, Lara?”

“Yeah, forever should do it.”

“Fine.” I was relieved but edgy still, so I went straight to the point. “Did you see the other tape?”

The pitch of the conversation shifted, and silence filled the wires.

“The tape was remarkable,” said Lara, finally.

“Very fucked up,” said Dyann. “Very, very disturbing. It’s what convinced us you were really serious about being sorry.”

I sighed, partly with relief, I think. And contrition, and a lot of sadness, which just wouldn’t go away.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Dyann. “It’s going to be hard to get it shown, don’t you think? I mean, it’s pretty intense for TV....”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m still waiting to hear back from the woman, the mother. From Bunny.”

“Oh, good for you. You sent it to her
beforehand.”

“Dyann, lay off,” Lara chided.

“It’s all right,” I said.

“It must have been hard to make,” said Lara.

“It cost me everything,” I answered, without thinking. Then I realized I didn’t want to go into it. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing sometime. Listen, there’s something else. Remember I told you in my fax that the reason I wanted to broadcast your show was that I thought it was important, that it would make a difference in Japan?”

“Yeah ...” Dyann sounded apprehensive.

“Well, apparently it did.” I didn’t know exactly where I was going from here. It wasn’t a situation like the Beaudroux family. Welcoming strangers into their home was a way of life, and an extra body was negligible. This was different. “Uh, I have something else I want to send you,” I concluded gracelessly.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” said Dyann. Her tone was ominous.

“She’s a young woman. Japanese. A fan ...” There was very little response from the other end. “She’s a friend ... of a friend ... sort of. She saw your show and then appeared on my doorstep, looking for you guys. She’s run away from her husband, who beat her up pretty badly, and raped her too. But the point is, she wants to meet you. You guys meant a lot to her. Gave her the courage to leave a really bad situation. She wants to come to Northampton....”

“Fine,” said Lara.

“Lara!” said Dyann.

“What?” said Lara. “We have a guest room. She can stay with us.”

“Oh, all right,” Dyann groaned. “How long is she coming for?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Now I was in real trouble. “You see, she’s pregnant....”

When she hung up the phone, Dyann tracked Lara down and cornered her by the extension in the kitchen.

“Do you really think that was wise?” she asked.

Lara leaned against the kitchen counter, cocked her head, and considered the question.

“Yes,” she concluded.

“Okay.” Dyann shrugged and sat down at the table. “You know, when Takagi calls, we should learn to be really on guard with her. She gets us into these damn situations.”

“Yes, she does,” Lara agreed.

“Weird, huh? How someone just drops into your life like that. I mean, there we were, minding our own business.... What did we do to deserve her?”

Lara shook her head and smiled. “I don’t know. But nothing really bad’s come of it so far, right?”

She crossed the room to the kitchen table and stood behind Dyann, putting her hands on her lover’s shoulders.

“I think Akiko’s story is touching,” she said, pulling Dyann gently to her stomach. “You should write about her. I mean, this woman has guts. Escaping from a husband who beat her, coming all the way here to America, to Northampton, Massachusetts, to have her baby, all because of us. No, because of you! What was it she wrote? ‘I feel such sadness for my lying life. So I now wish to ask you where can I go to live my happy life like her?’ That’s you, darling, your happy life she’s talking about. Makes me proud....”

Dyann caught Lara’s hand and kissed her palm. “Okay. You win. It is my happy life, truly it is.”

“Domo arigatoo gozaimashita,”
said Suzuki, bowing slightly. Oh did the same.

They were sitting on the floor of my apartment. We had just had dinner, then watched the tape. The boys were silent, and then when it was over, Oh shuddered and Suzuki turned to me.

“Thank you very much. I feel like I’ve filmed something very important. I am proud.”

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Oh.

“I don’t know....”

“You’ll never get it on TV, not in Japan, anyway. It’s much too... real.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s no different here.”

“It’s too bad. People ought to see this.”

“Yeah.”

 

 

We went down to Houston Street, to the Parkside Bar, an anachronistic tribute to a stretch of green long since tarred over. I told the boys I’d buy them drinks because I owed them for lying about the master tapes and saving them and risking getting fired. But they objected, saying they owed me for making a documentary they could feel proud of—and for really getting fired in doing so. And because I was dead broke, I gave in.

“I’m warning you guys,” I told them. “I’m not pregnant anymore. I’m serious about drinking tonight....”

We ordered a round of double shots of Jack and pints of Brooklyn Lager.

“Jane-chan
wa mada wakai ... ,” Suzuki said, toasting me decisively. “You’re still young. You can get pregnant again.”

Oh raised his glass, supporting this notion.

“I’m not so sure about that. I can’t do it on my own, you know.” Suzuki gave me a puzzled look. I laughed. “What, you thought it just happened? Like immaculate conception? I broke up with the guy I was seeing, the baby’s father.”

Suzuki puffed out his chest and leaned in close. “
Ja
, boku
wa?”
he said in a manly tone of voice. “Can I help?”

“Boku mo!”
said Oh, shoving Suzuki off his barstool and out of the way. “Me too!” he said eagerly. “You don’t need the Commissioner. We can do the job.”

“Baka!”
I laughed and threw a handful of soggy pretzels at them. Then I realized what Oh had said.

“You knew about the Commissioner?”

“Do you really think we are stupid?” Suzuki asked. “How could we not notice an identical very tall man showing up week after week, in Nebraska, Texas, Oregon ... ? Please, give us some credit.”

“How come you never said anything?”

Suzuki looked at me, affronted. “You didn’t want us to know. We were being polite.”

“Oh,” I said.

“What happened, anyway?” Suzuki asked. “How come you broke up?”

“I think it was the miscarriage,” I said, tipping my head back and polishing off the shot. “But I don’t know for sure, because he’s dropped out of sight. I have no idea where he is. Won’t return my calls. Nothing.” I held the glass in the air.

“Oh.”

The bartender filled our shot glasses, and the three of us drank them off, then had another. When we left the bar, we were leaning on each other for support. We went up to Saint Mark’s Place for a bowl of
ramen
noodles, and then they walked me home. It was a weekend night and the streets were restless. People were on the prowl, humming with an edgy, inconsolable desire.

“It’s none of my business,” Suzuki said as we crossed Avenue A, “but the Sloan Rankin Band was playing at the Mercury Lounge last weekend.”

I stopped short. “How did you know that?”

“I read it in the
Village Voi
—”

“No. The Commissioner. How did you know he was Sloan Rankin?”

“Oh, really, Takagi,” he said, disgusted. “You have got to give us more credit. Sloan Rankin is a very popular indies star in Japan. He’s in the Suntory Dry Beer commercial. Playing his sax.”

 

 

The next day I called the Mercury Lounge. After a bit of a fight, the bartender put me through to the owner, who did the bookings. Rankin, he told me, was on tour with his band.

“They don’t usually tour like this, at this time of year,” he said.

“Do you know where they were headed?”

“Yeah, that was weird too. They were doing a Southern circuit. Smaller gigs. I was surprised.”

“Do you know where I can find them this weekend? Like tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I think he said they were heading down to Memphis.”

The first evening she was alone in her new apartment, she walked from room to room, perching for a moment on a windowsill, leaning against a bare wall, or crouching in a corner to gain a new perspective. Not that it was a big place. There was a kitchen with space enough for a table, a tiny bedroom, and a living room with a big, deep window seat that looked out onto the tree-lined street called Pleasant. Akiko liked that. In her old neighborhood in Japan, the streets were generally called by numbers.

Dyann and Lara had been wonderful. Lara had helped her find the apartment, and Dyann had introduced her to a woman doctor, who would help her have the baby. They had lent her pots and pans and a chair, and then taken her shopping for the futon mattress on a frame that folded into a couch, which was clever and very American. As she tiptoed from room to room, Akiko decided that, all in all, this certainly felt like the beginning of a happy life.

The window seat was her favorite spot. She’d bought a thick pillow to sit on and another one to lean against, intending to spend the next seven months perched right there, curled and ripening. It was a place where one could watch the first snow dust the skeletal branches of the maple out front, then deepen as the winter grew deep. Then, when the weather warmed, the snow would grow heavy and slide from the neighbor’s slate roof and splatter wetly to the ground, where it would melt, baring patches of dark, raw earth. Quickened by the fury of early spring, red spikes would spear the earth from underneath (as dark and sharp as anger or as loss), and one could watch that too, until finally the days grew long and mild and the tiny leaves unfurled into a dense green canopy. Just when the breezes blew warm through the window, it would be time to hoist oneself to one’s feet and trundle off to the bedroom to pack a bag, to go to the hospital, to have a baby.

She tested the window seat now, jumping up from time to time to fetch something that would make it even better: a blanket, a cup of tea, Shōnagon, and her own pillow book too, and finally a pen and some writing paper that she’d bought at the stationery store earlier that day. She leaned back and looked out the window into the darkness, then picked up her pen.