Virtually True (21 page)

Aren’t you going to say something about my cock?

Reiner with hands on hips, top lip folded behind bottom teeth. Playfully pretending she’s shocked. Reiner acting coy. A side of her True wishes he’d missed.

I will tell you, Reiner, but only if you have dinner with me.

Is that so? But if you do not tell me, I will just ask someone else, dear.

Another heavy sigh. True can almost hear the man’s heart beating. What power is it that Reiner has over him? Morita launches into an official response, which includes numerous asides regarding the effort Japan’s politicians are undertaking to improve quality of life, the usual effluvium of pols the world over. Finally he rolls out a nugget True and Reiner can use.

There have been bills introduced to move the capital to Nagoya, another bill to relocate to Kyoto, another to Osaka and one more that would eliminate the concept of a capital all together. This is the bill sponsored by Takeshita-san. It is his feeling the country would benefit from the country’s representation being evenly distributed.

Is there any support to keep the capital in Tokyo?

Morita sputters.
Look around you, Reiner. That’s preposterous.

Any idea when these bills will get acted on?

There’s no hurry. There is more pressing business.
Morita takes Reiner’s hand.
I’m taking a big risk talking with you, holding your hand here in public. No aide should be so compromised.

Reiner pulls her hand from his and Morita’s left holding air. Walking away, she says over her shoulder,
I’ll call you.

“Reiner!”

She turns and Morita says softly, desperately,
I’ll be waiting.

Outside. True sees fires still smoldering far away.

“It’s not his fault.” Reiner skips down the capitol’s stone steps.

“What do you mean? You’re so irresistible Morita can’t help himself?”

“In a manner of speaking. I needed an inside governmental source, so I invited myself over and put on a hypnotic program on his home entertainment system. I slipped the suggestion in his mind that he love me.” She winces. “I know, I know, but what can I say? Men are weak? At least I didn’t sleep with him. He’s the biggest
chikan
in government.”

“What’s a chikan?”

“Somebody who grabs women’s asses.”

“What did he say about Takeshita, his boss? He’s pushing for decentralization? Why would a—I assume corrupt—pol push for that? What’s in it for him?”

“Think technology. He’s funded by the electronics giants, the ones who design the computers, software, and digital office work stations that would rake in the yen if decentralization took off.”

“I see.”

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Listen: The whole system is bullshit. They get their cut and then govern based on their own economic interests. The bureaucracy took control years ago, even after the Ministry of Finance almost drove the economy into the ground by subsidizing exports, manipulating the market, controlling who could have stocks by keeping stocks too high for most individual investors, the real estate fiascos, forcing banks to hold the stocks of other banks. The system was predicated on corruption, but not before manufacturers had positioned themselves in world markets. You can’t take anything at face value.”

“You don’t believe Morita?”

“I believe him because there’s money in what he says.”

“What about what Hot said?”

Reiner grinds her teeth. “What he said made sense, too. Just because Morita doesn’t know, doesn’t mean there isn’t pressure to keep the capital here. We have to keep digging.”

There’s a commotion by Reiner’s car. Someone trying to slip inside and drive off, but Dog snaps at his leg, growling bestially. The would-be car-jacker limps away.

Reiner races over, pulls out a biscuit. “Good girl, good girl. What a bargain!”

*          *          *

True stirs at first light, watches the sun stagger over the city. He suffered dreams, memories that may have been or never were; possibilities, impossibilities, and improbabilities, painful remembrances of his life separate from Eden. The skewed double-happiness kanji twists, contorts before his eyes, inky lines consumed by fire. His kanji—his character—splits, then shatters, while Eden’s remains resplendent, nonpareil. He needs to talk with her. Only this can save him from TV memories supplanting prior reality. Wonders why he hungers and thirsts so these days, begs for ganja, pines for lost love.

Children scrounge outside Eden’s office. Meanwhile, across the street, reconstruction in progress. Another combo dance club-hotel-casino. True, inside now, sees Eden in the flesh, lazing on the downward spiraling stairs. A familiar pose, Eden sitting on steps, her chin hammocked in her hands, her elbows in turn propped up by her knees. When she was troubled or in need of time to herself, she would sit like this, let her hair hang over her eyes to shield her.

He struggles with what to say, rejecting each thought as it arises. A few false starts, a few sideways steps, then, “I’ve missed you, Eden.”

She doesn’t move. Silence unfurls uncomfortably.

“Eden? Is that you?”

From somewhere under the hair: “Go away, True. I don’t want to see you.”

Watching this, not living it as if it were happening. Two actors doing their jobs, reading their lines, collecting pay credits, yearning for fame, fortune, and hot and cold running favors.

She looks up, tears magnifying her eyes’ hazel color and size; deep circles are scooped underneath. “I can’t, True. I wouldn’t be able to go through it again. You understand, don’t you?”

He does understand, just wishes he could remember what
it
is. “I’m sorry, so sorry, Eden. I fell out of this world and into another. But I’m back.” He’s amazed at his blubberings, aware that at some point he’d had this very same conversation with her.

Eden rubs away diamond tears. “People here have bigger problems than you.”

And didn’t bring them on themselves.
That’s what she would’ve said if she wanted to hurt him. He celebrates her compassion, but remembers an unstated thought is still a thought.

“I just want to talk.”

“Goodbye, True. Good, goodbye.”

She winds down the steps and True knows he’ll see her in his mind long after she’s vanished. He can’t bear to remain inside. Outside, he’s alone. Doesn’t know what life’s next step will be. Looks out over the dilapidation, the desperation.

Eden, through the revolving door and back, takes his arm. Says, “I have to think things through, then we’ll talk. But no promises.”

*          *          *

True’s out of Shibuya and in Ginza, following hastily constructed signs. He’s walking over a bridge that is, amazingly, still standing. Thousands of gas lanterns blot the landscape. True watches the moon climb over vaporous clouds.

Others are on the bridge, leaping off, long, elastic bungee cords pulling taut just prior to impact. He stops to watch. There are a dozen or so jumpers, tying cords around their ankles, tipping back flasks, tripping on drugs, performing double, even triple flips. Taking risks because there’s precious little else.

“Psssssst.” A woman in a jacket patched together from swatches of zaggy-colored Guatemalan fabrics. “
Gaijin
. Tie my legs, OK?”

She’s young, maybe 20, hair tied in scores of tight braids, her skin tanned, legs strong and lithe, her face oval and iridescent like the moon overhead.

He pulls the frayed ends of her cord. The other end is knotted around a pylon.

“Tighter.” Her voice is tequila-harsh.

He pulls tighter.

“More. I don’t want to end up like
okonomiyaki
, you know?”

“What’s that?” True’s muscles just about to give out. Ties a knot around her finger, which turns purple as he knots a second loop. She pulls it out.

“Japanese pizza. You never had it? It’s good. Try it.”

“I will.”

She checks his handiwork. Holds her thumb, finger to her lips.

True pats his pockets as other jumpers fly, about 50, 75 meters off the ground. He finds a Reiner J and hands it over.

She pockets it in stony joy. “All right,
gaijin
.” High-fives him, a message of gratitude. Then she wrists out a bowie knife lodged in her belt to trim bungee frays. True realizes the end around the pylon has to be retied after each jump, as the cord gets shorter each time she cuts herself down. She hops to the edge of the bridge, clenches the knife in her teeth, turns to face True, and jumps. He watches as she speeds to earth, her body flipping downward as the cord pulls taut. When she bounces back up, she waves, then falls. She hangs a couple of meters off the ground, pirouetting upside down, the city’s lantern lights leoparding her. Finally, she cuts the cord and somersaults onto a pile of cushions.

On terra firma she celebrates, accepts a bottle from another jumper. The sky has changed color, is less moonlit-gray than quake-paint orange now. Down the other side of the bridge is the international phone bank, the only telecommunications link with the outside world. True jumps in the line for journalists and foreign diplomats. From his vantage point he sees a festival in progress. The line is long, there being only three videophones designated for diplomat and journo use, and he spends his time thinking and watching the fertility festival.

After what seems an eternity, True takes his turn, swipes his debit card into the slot and punches in the number. Since there’s still too much static in the atmosphere for his wrist-top to tap into any satellite feeds, he’s forced to rely on barbaric cable connections. An endless stream of advertisements fills dead time: security systems, VR sex aids, a new and improved body condom, discounts on tasers, lasers, other light armaments.

He’s into WWTV’s library database. Patches his wrist-top into the phone jack, keys in the names
Kibayashi
,
Kyono
,
Kodera,
and
Sato
, requests background info on Japan’s business and real estate practices. The grating of a gas-powered engine. True urges on the data-transference with impatient body language. A double beep: Someone’s cut access. He must have tripped the security net. True disconnects and checks the data. A blaze of pictures and digital information fires on screen. The
Celebrity Stalker
and
Weekly Global Newsmaker
video-stories are inside. He fast-forwards through them. Reiner is wrong.

It’s not just any gas-powered vehicle coming for him. A motorcycle, groaning over the bridge. No time to contemplate. True sprints away from the grumbling howls of the Harley and races into the fertility festival, trying to raise Reiner on his wrist-top. But too much interference.

It’s a Buddhist celebration. In front of a temple, men in white
yukatas
trimmed with blue are chanting, “
Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi
”—“Out with the demons, in with good fortune.” True heard Reiner utter these words just this morning. Part of the ritual is to eat the same number of parched beans as your age, which, Reiner said, the Japanese believe promotes good health. A sumo wrestler scatters beans over the crowd. Many swig beer from bottles and sake from casks.

Festival-goers carry a portable shrine, and True runs alongside as it bobs, supported by an inebriated foursome weaving through the mob of worshippers. The motorcycle crashes through the revelers, who are slow to clear—probably think it’s part of the festivities. A gargantuan phallus, shouldered by stumbling men, snakes through the mob. Cut from gray stone, a flower attached to the tip, a face carved out of the front. A sumo wrestler, skin the color and texture of tapioca pudding, flings more beans, which people try to catch in their mouths.