Slow Boat

^{BOAT ONE} THE DIG

I’ve never made it out of Tokyo.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself if the boundary is real. Of course it’s real. And if you think I’m lying, you can come and see for yourself.

I’m working on the final plan today. For the last time.

The boundary isn’t a border. But just because you don’t need a passport doesn’t mean you can up and leave whenever you like. This is where I was born, and it’s where I’m going to die.

This is my botched Tokyo Exodus, the chronicle of my failures.

Three failures, to be exact. The Japanese language is nothing but lies. Or maybe just chaos. “What happens twice will happen again.” OK, I buy that. But how can that idea coexist with “Third time’s the charm”?

Farewell, mother tongue.

Still, I’m writing this in Japanese. It’s the best language I have for writing down my experiences (or the contents of my brain). No question. Language has its limits, but it’s all we’ve got. For understanding each other or misunderstanding each other or whatever. Besides, isn’t life all about limits?

At the end of the day, we’ve all got our limits. As living things, we’re bound to die.

Death.

Let me tell you about the Big Limit.

Tokyo, 2002 A.D.

Winter. K-1 kick-boxer Ernesto Hoost shouts: “I’m the three-time champion!” Good for you. I’ve failed to make it out of Tokyo three times. The first time, I guess I was ten or eleven. Not sure which. How old are you in the fifth grade? That old. My most recent fail was a little under two years ago.

Three tries, three girlfriends.

The losses don’t stop. The odds were always stacked against me. Sneaking onto some ship is probably my best hope to get out now.

Maybe you figured this out already—I don’t do well with people. Believe me, I tried. But we need to keep on fighting, right? Even if we’re just marching towards death.

No—that’s exactly why we need to stay in the ring.

It’s morning, 24th December. I’m at Hamarikyu Gardens, making a fist.

This is the last time. My final plan, ergo my ultimate plan. So I need to get a good read on things. I tell myself: dig, dig, dig. Think archaeologically.

Hamarikyu is between the Tsukiji Fish Market, Takeshiba Pier and Shiodome (where the Shiosite skyscrapers are going up as we speak). I’m looking at the moment that Tokyo Bay becomes the Sumida River. Wait. More like I’m watching the Sumida lose its name.

Time—so much time—flows by in a liquid state.

Thick, leaden liquid.

The water buses aren’t running.

Of course they aren’t. It’s 9.20 in the morning. First day after a long weekend. Christmas festivities will bring crowds later on, but there’s nobody here now. Just me and the dark clouds. Wait, was it supposed to rain today? Did I miss the forecast? The whole place is empty, but this bus terminal feels like a mortuary.

Thick, leaden sky.

I open the pamphlet I got at the ticket gate. Hamarikyu once belonged to the Tokugawa family. Property of the Shogunate. After the Meiji Restoration, it was an imperial villa. During the American Occupation, it lost its imperial standing. Just makes you wonder… who really owns Tokyo? I walk around. There are a couple of spots for duck-hunting, used even in the middle of the Pacific War. There’s a peony garden—not that peonies are in season. There’s Shiori Pond, the only saltwater pond in Tokyo. I see a lot of birds. Taking another look at the pamphlet, I can see that this place gets all sorts of avian visitors. Resident birds: wagtail, spot-billed duck, night heron, little grebe… Then the migratory birds: common pochard, northern shoveler, northern pintail, etc. But the bird you see the most makes no appearance in the garden’s official literature: the crow.

The jungle crow, to be specific. A very intelligent (and impudent) scavenger.

At this hour, the garden belongs to the crows. They fly around, hang upside-down from the pines, hop across the grass. There’s a party of crows by Shiori Pond, cawing and cawing. They’re making a racket, so I walk over to see what all the fuss is about.

They’re going at a carcass. Maybe it was a seagull.

And I was under the impression that eating in the garden was strictly prohibited.

Not that you’d know it from the pamphlet, but the crows make their nests high up in the trees. They swoop down and attack lesser birds. They take total advantage of all the nature Hamarikyu has to offer. They do what they want.

I feel a kind of love for this place, where crows can be crows.

But that fantasy doesn’t last long.

I hear something like screams. I follow my ears, off the path—off-limits. I walk up a low grassy hill, and there it is. A huge enclosure, boarded up to look like something legit. Clearly, they don’t want anyone to know what’s going on.

I peek between the cracks. About ten crows inside, alive, but very unhappy. What the hell is this?

There’s a sign on the boards: WILD CROW REGULATION INSTALLATION—PROPERTY OF METROPOLITAN TOKYO.

Meaning: Hands off.

For the peace of the citizens of Tokyo.

The captive crows thrash around. They’re frantic.

The screaming doesn’t stop:

Let us outta here! Let us outta here!

But this is necessary, to make Tokyo a better place for us to live.

Crows have no value to people, so we exterminate them.

Hands off.

If you can’t comply, then Tokyo has no need for you, either.

In that instant, I slip into a daydream. A fury. I fantasize about prying off the boards and busting the bars, freeing the crows. I want to find the other cages (this can’t be the only one) and destroy them, too. But my legs don’t move. And I know why. I’m not afraid of being caught by some cop or security guard with a nightstick. Like I could care. Here’s my problem: If a cop comes after me, do I have what it takes to fight back? Like, call him a STUPID DICKHEAD and lunge right at him? I don’t think so. And there’s only one reason for that. I’m not naïve enough to think I can free the crows. Not really. If someone like me breaks into the cage and lets the birds out, they’ll just step up security. They’ll have ten new crows in there, like, right away. And they’ll keep a closer watch on them. The incident would end up on the news, too, giving the citizens of Tokyo more reason to hate crows. And the cop trying to stop me, he doesn’t give a shit about the crows. He’s just doing his job. He doesn’t care about me or anything I have to say. Justice isn’t in the picture.

If the law forbids it, you can’t do it. That’s it. End of story.

The Holocaust was OK under Nazi German law.

That’s why my legs won’t move. Why I feel empty. Alone.

Dark clouds.

Christmas Eve in Hamarikyu, and no one is around.

Where’s the rain?

I wasn’t so weak when I was young. But I got old. Now I always think about consequences. Through my early twenties, when I was sure justice was on my side, justice was on my side.

Now I can barely utter the word “justice”.

There were times when I stood up and fought back. And I lost. Three times.

Days of failed escapes. When I was younger, and tougher.

When I was sure there was a way out.