"You want to know the most honest moment?" Connor leaned over the pool table and broke the rack of balls, sinking the 7 and the 4 as Larry watched and took a pull off his Heineken. "Right before the plane took off. I remember going to the airport that day. I left Namba station, still thinking that maybe she would be there, though she didn't even know exactly when I was leaving. Still, that Monday morning after all of it happened..."
"The morning we refer to as the origin of the Sake Hangover?" Larry interrupted.
"That's the one, 3 ball in the corner," Connor leaned in and stroked the cue to lead the 3 ever closer to its destination, but not quite home. He let out a guttural groan and looked over to Larry, "You're up. Anyhow, that morning; I remember it all, man."
Larry leaned over and gestured to the 12 ball. He remembered most of it, too; Connor had retold pieces of all of this before. Still, Larry figured that whatever it took to bring his friend back to him from the Land of the Rising Sun, he'd be glad to do his part and listen.
"I sat there, drinking a cup of coffee or something, trying not to look like I was watching everyone, everything, and there was this huge board overhead that listed all the tracks for departure; kind of like in Penn Station, you know?" Larry nodded, he knew New York City well. "But," Connor paused for emphasis, "there dude, of course, it was all futuristic. There was this beautiful digital board and so when the track was listed to get me to the airport, there was no rattling of the changing signs, no drum roll of any kind, just a simple indicator, blinking saying, OK, game over, go away. Then, the train ride out…" Connor stopped and counted the balls remaining, shaking his head, it wasn't as if this story should have made things go more his way, but Larry wasn't helping. No bother, he thought, loser bought the next round and this quick game would only allow him to instigate an earlier refueling (and the numbness tended to help).
Larry clipped the rail with the 15 and let his head drop. "Wow, thought I might run them there."
"Why do I still insist on even playing this game against you?" Connor wondered aloud.
"Eh," Larry playfully called back with a predator's grin, "the bar is more convenient then therapy, you know? If not, you'd just call me as you left the shrink and we'd both have to go and meet at some corner dive anyhow. This way you just talk it out and we can drink while you go on with it. I'd say therapy would cost more than the bar tab too, but the way you shoot, Dart..."
"OK, easy there pal," Connor laughed out loud, tugged his beat-to-hell baseball hat down a little lower and shook his head as he gestured to the discrepancy between his solids and Larry's stripes which remained on the table. "Yeah, well I'd better get it all out then, if you insist on rushing the session forward."
"Granted," Larry went on, he was unrelenting when on a roll (and it wasn't often that he had Connor down), "a couch would be more comfortable than these barstools, but then, I mean I'm always standing at the table anyhow, so it's not my ass that's getting sore."
"Wow, he's on fire tonight ladies and gentlemen," Connor announced to no one in particular before turning back to Larry and flatly stating, "I'm not a difficult target, but still!" He and Larry both shot one another looks as Connor turned his hat backwards to get a better look and leaned down to line up his next shot. Initially this helped as he put one ball into the side and ran another the length of the table before missing on his 5.
"You're up," Connor returned to his stool along the wall before continuing. "So, I get to the airport, wait and check in, 'how was your stay sir?' Fine, I answered."
"That was it, right? That was the most honest moment?" Larry looked over to Connor who rolled his eyes, grimaced and shook his head.
"No, but then, after security," Connor continued, "they stamp your passport as you leave the country, right? They put it right next to the stamp from when you entered and man, that was hard. It was like an annulment. Like, 'OK, there you go sir, this never happened; just two stamps on a page.' Waiting for that plane to leave, I just stared at that page. All of this, I thought, goes between these two stamps? How, my God, how could it all fit between there? Anyhow, the flight boarded and I sat there in the air and then in Los Angeles when I re-entered the country…"
Larry started to laugh, "Sorry man, I just love this next part. Where was the lady from?"
Connor couldn't help himself from laughing too. Through a full grin, he continued, "Taiwan. Yeah, look, I thought she was Japanese maybe and she was looking at her customs declaration card in English, like, upside down, so I asked her if I could help. Like I spoke Japanese, but it seemed like the thing to do, people there were so kind." Larry fought back the laughter. Connor was an animated storyteller; more so since he'd met Maruko, though Larry didn't know that detail. "So yeah, I gesture to her, crazy dragon lady. I'm sure she was cute and tiny, but as I retell the story man, she has grown a horn and tails! So I gesture to her, 'Are you Japanese?' I asked her."
"And she yells," Larry couldn't hold it in any longer as he, without invitation, continued the story for Conner through laughter and a few tears, "I from Taiwan, but I have green card!" He erupted with laughter and wiped away the tears which had formed in the corners of his eyes. He raised his glass to Connor, "Welcome back to the U.S. of A., pal."
"That's it! It was like 'welcome back, kid.' God, clear as day, but hey, it's always nice to be home." Connor looked at Larry and shook his head again; the broad smile with which he'd enchanted his dancing flower two months before spread across his face.
"Classic man, classic, but c'mon, Connor," Larry addressed the table again, preparing to sink his final two stripes with a leave for the 8, "was that really the most honest part of all of this?"
"No." The grin vanished and Connor looked across the room, through the wall and many miles away. "No man, the flight. That was the most honest part of it all. Before I landed back in the U.S., I wasn't here or there. I must have looked at that passport a hundred more times. I was about to land in L.A., but I'd felt so much more home there. So much that I'd never paid enough attention to here made so much more sense there. But all of it, all that happened between those two stamps… Outside of them, I can't replicate it. I've come to realize that when they placed that arbitrary stamp on the page and dared me to figure out how it all fit between them, that was it. And you know what? That's still it, too. Because man, ever since, I'm still in between, I just can't shake it.
The game finished, and another after that. They sat and ordered some food before calling it a night. Larry was fine to drive. Connor wasn't, but he was the passenger anyhow. Larry reached over and gave his friend a nudge, "Ready to call it Dart? We don't get to start tomorrow any later, even if we stay longer tonight."
As they walked out to Larry's SUV, Connor looked over towards his friend, a man whom he hadn't needed as much in those invincible moments before his week in Osaka, but whom he was relieved to have now. "You sure you got me Larry?" He asked.
"Oh, for sure man. You are like in the very opposite direction of my place, but then we can't all afford to have the location or all of the space that you do." Larry regretted saying anything about Connor's free space as soon as he said it, but no harm had been done. Connor was already half asleep against the window of the passenger seat in Larry's car.
Connor stumbled in his door and fell fast asleep. The next morning did seem to come too soon, though Connor was not very much the worse for wear. He woke up and got showered and dressed. As he passed a mirror, he saw that his coat had some lint on it. He looked in the kitchen and closet for a lint roller, but there was none to be found. Audrey had been gone for a few weeks now, and with her most of their things. When she had left, when the long and slow death their relationship had endured finally ended, Connor had gone on a purge. He denied that his enthusiasm had been aided by what Audrey had indirectly cost him in Osaka, but either way he'd thrown out anything and everything that they had purchased together. Unfortunately, this occasionally included items which they had both used and which he still had a need for, like a lint roller, certain pots and pans, spoons and towels; it had been a thorough cleansing. Connor settled for some packing tape to remove the lint. That there was still plenty of and 'damn it, I did buy that,' he thought to himself. He cleaned off his jacket, locked the door to his home and drove downtown.
Conner walked the few blocks from the parking garage to the office past lifeless gargoyles that now stood to mock him. These stone jackals that had pushed him to succeed many times in the past now sat like vultures counting these, the last twenty thousand days until Connor would be buried beneath them.
Passing an Italian ristorante, he stopped to look inside. Though it wouldn't open until eleven o'clock, the kitchen was already ablaze with activity. Here, and in many other kitchens in this city, young Hispanic men sliced, diced and prepped while the more privileged adolescents of these United States slept off the previous night's hangover, or worse.
Inside, chefs ran in choreographed ellipses. In and out of the back rooms they dashed like men on an expedition. They showed a wonderful symmetry and efficiency with each movement. To the left, a younger chef was being instructed on a dicing technique while to the right a row of three men in white coats stood behind a grill, arms crossed as a black trail rose from an assortment of smoking peppers.
The front wall was no less captivating. Connor stood idly and studied a collection of paintings in a complementary array of colors. Quickly, he became lost in modern applications of oranges, blues and a bold forest green. Each work depicted faceless men and women in varying stages of celebration and recline. Cheeks broad, brows strong and with tiny chins; in each painting he saw Osaka. Here the sushi chef, there the Goth child in the square and in the background of each, the old man gratefully smoking his cigarette in his pin striped suit.
Maruko? She was there too. Her presence was obvious not only in each color and how it combined with the others, but also in the aspirations of the head chef, who dreamed at that moment that the people of this western metropolis would embrace a classic special that day. His dream that today he would witness the present embracing the treasures of days past, this was most certainly her, Connor thought.
Moving on, Connor came upon a young professional in a black suit shivering as he gulped down drags off of a cigarette in the crisp winter air. Again his thoughts drifted to the man enjoying an after-dinner smoke in Osaka. This boy did little more than fight to inhale his habit. There was no honor in how this child choked down this cigarette. Like a filthy addict in a bathroom, tearing at the thick chord around his bicep with his teeth, he crouched, hoping paradoxically that both no one and someone would see him in this, his ideal depiction of style. Ceremoniously there he stood, at the foot of a broad stairway leading to the door of yet another one of the modern cathedrals to the all-powerful plastic god of interest rates, sure that someday this would all be a distant memory – all the while unaware that this would actually be a time that, someday, would be reminisced over as one of the glory days.
A few nights before, Connor had bowed when thanking the cashier at a convenience store. It was hard to say if this courtesy was ingrained in him from his short time in Asia or if it was a code meant to find someone, anyone who understood the changes he'd undergone. In any event, at $5.65 an hour, the girl – Rachel – probably thought it more likely that Connor was having a muscle spasm than that he'd had a life-changing event in his recent past. Connor stopped himself. Two long months wasn't actually all that recent. But to him, it was an open wound which hadn't started to heal. Though, to be fair, Connor had done little to aid recovery and much to nurture small glimmers of hope.
In the days directly after Connor had left Osaka, he'd called Maruko's mobile number more than perhaps he should have. In any event, she had eventually answered. She was cold, numb and calculated. Still, he heard a pain in her that overwhelmed the hatred. In this torment, an emotion which represents the struggle between somewhere not yet reached and somewhere not yet left behind, Connor had seen a reason to believe. The path which she was trekking across may have been long, but he could sense a motion in Maruko that didn't allow him to relinquish hope. He thanked God that he had been wise enough to acknowledge that he had no right to speak to her at that time. But, he had asked if he could please at least give her an email address, just in case she was ever ready to talk.
The few months between then and now had passed like years, but Connor was sorting through his life at home anyhow. First, there had been the not-too-small order of calling a time of death on his and Audrey's relationship. As soon as he'd returned to L.A., Audrey and he had spoken. What was unexpected was that they hadn't just talked either; they had really, openly spoken and listened to one another. The issue wasn't Connor's inner-pain because her call had ruined his evening with Maruko. This was after all something he should have been more forthright with. He did have something unfinished at home when he'd left for Osaka and his inability to slow he and Maruko to a point where he could introduce these facts about his life made the fault certainly at least partially his. All in all, as Connor reflected on how Osaka had made him feel, it was just that: that he had felt it. This was what had been missing from he and Audrey's relationship and he now knew, through one week of joy and through the unnervingly raw pain which had followed, what it was to be alive. This new commitment to living would mean, and had already meant, being present to experience glory or ache.
Knowing what he now saw, he had told Audrey that he just couldn't fix whatever there was to mend if all that would do is revive something that had never felt right; something which had never had much feeling in it at all. He knew that she deserved to be happy, but so did he and for now, that meant the freedom and the space to be sad; very, very sad. Audrey hadn't put up much of a fight. For a few weeks they had tried to see if there was anything there and for another four she had said she would move out. As the ending came more into focus, this threat of her leaving had become a promise. Finally, like the last of ten million breaths, she had gone without much fanfare at all.
