GG was the darling old man who owned the bar. He played Spanish guitar for us and wears a scarf around his neck. He blinks a lot but not when he plays. When I likened his style to Django I think I secured my spot on his good side. Why do you know these things, old folks often ask me. And I laugh a little and sigh and shake my head, I don't know, I listen...? His music was so beautiful I could have cried. Or maybe I was just in a mood to be moved. It was Harumi who first took me there, it's one of her favorite spots. A tiny little wine bar in a basement of the 'pleasure district' of Shizuoka town. Her friend and new neighbor bar tends there and I took it as a compliment that she invited me into her real world. Harumi is my boss. We have been hanging out a little more lately and sharing secrets like actual friends do. I drank good wine for the first time in a long time and it tasted so damn good. Harumi held my hand while GG played for us. It was Multipulciano. Ever since Franny told me it was her favorite, I say it's my favorite too. I don't remember the end of the night exactly. But I woke up the next morning in my bed only half undressed. I had managed to take one contact out. And then I re-read my notes from the night before. They went something like this.
Everyone has sadness you know. Why should I ever think mine is special. The man sitting next to us hadn't seen his kids in years because of divorce and drank for distraction because he said his home was too empty and lonely. Divorce is particularly tragic here, there is no such thing as shared custody--if a marriage ends one parent (and therefore an entire side of the family) forever looses all contact with the children. The bartender looked tired and it really only took me one look into her yellowed eyes to see she carried a past though with a brave smile. And so then mine seemed so much less important. My petty pain.
Hidemaro is a retired dentist in his seventies, handsome for an old guy and fun to talk to. He has traveled quite a lot and I believe as a result is not oppressively old-man-Japanese to me. Sure he can be traditional but I wouldn't say he stands on ceremony. He's a relaxed dude and a self proclaimed "Lone Wolf." There is nothing not to like about this guy. I can level with him like a friend. He is polite and distinguished but not so much that he doesn't joke with me about nights he drinks too much and ends up on the sofa and in the doghouse with his wife or, delight in telling me about the ancient nudie cave drawings he recently saw in Liberia. He told me, cracking both us up, "It's porno!" He also talks very plainly to me about his experience as a child in Japan during the American occupation. He's told me about the days when Shizuoka was under attack, being bombed by American B-52's, how he fled with his family to underground tunnels in Sumpu Park and what happened here in the days and years that followed. I can ask him anything about Japan. He has taught me about the country's history, Buddhist and Shinto rituals, food, drinks, politics; I field all questions to Maro. He likes to tell me when I manage to exhibit the tiniest bit of knowledge, "Oh, you are really Japanese!" and that, "Oh, you know everything!" He pays for private lessons so it's just us and by now we are pretty good friends. We joke and laugh a lot in class. It makes little sense that he calls me sensi.
A couple weeks ago he took me out to celebrate the new year. We've gone out a couple times before and Harumi always joins us, which I think makes everyone more comfortable plus she also helps a bunch with translation. His English is not particularly amazing, especially after we both have a few drinks; he slows while I accelerate in English. Harumi mediates. She is really a classy broad. But, in the beginning it's always just the two of us for about an hour while manager finishes up at school and I believe now after much experience that she enjoys keeping people waiting because she usually does. This time he took me to a fancy, super traditional sukiyaki place where we had our own room with tatami mats and a little table on the floor and a host of little old ladies in kimonos at our disposal. Maro sat me in the guest seat which he explained was the one where my back was against the little altar, flowers, small doll and decor. I guess it's so you look the best when people look at you; you have the best background + you can see the door. Though your personal view is the least exciting. Such things make you the most important person, in a Japanese restaurant at least.
Anyway the point of this long introduction is to tell you that once the kimono lady came in to set the sukiyaki grill in the table I was stopped by the sound. Immediately I recognized, from somewhere, the slow, quiet sound of the charcoal cracking and hissing. It took me a moment to register the memory. But then I knew it unmistakeably. It's the way ice sounds when it melts. Like the way it sounds outside your bedroom window, after great storms have past and the sun has begun to shine again. At extreme hours. Hours on either end. A sound I know well and have perceived on many still mornings or hushed late nights. A sound, it seems that only presents itself when you are alone or at least very still with someone else. It's the sound of winter but also the sound of time passing. A sound that tells you, spring will come soon now and the world around you will as promised, be re-born. Your life will be new yet again; at the very moment when you thought perhaps it might not give. Whether or not you'd like it to. It's a bitter-sweet sound and also, at that moment I thought, a very romantic one. And then it occurred to me then that perhaps I am one of those cumulative type loves. The type that grows over time to be loved and with an increasing intensity, perpetually more rewarding. One of those loves that never stops getting better if you let her. I have friends like that. And i wondered, as I cheersed my old man host with hot sake, if I have the patience to be one of those types.
Sukiyaki is eaten with raw egg.
Later at the jazz bar drinking white wine with Harumi and Maro you pinned your hair up, flipped the collar of your oxford, put a little lipstick on and crossed your legs; skirt hiked just a touch. In your element. This is why I came to Japan. This is why I go anywhere. Quiet drinks in empty jazz bars. i.e. Exchanges. None here are exactly satisfied but none are dissatisfied either. Everyone is exactly where they are meant to be.
Memphis in June was playing. Not the Nina Simone version that I adore but the Ramsey Lewis Trio one. That'll do.
I guess I've lost a little weight recently because the Japanese are enjoying telling me that, "You've become smart."
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