We’d received a rather cryptic order placed via cell phone. The customer was a woman apparently living in the Tanaka Higashi Haruna neighborhood. The drop-off point, she explained, was rather hard to find. I was to locate a small alleyway to the side of a dilapidated building and proceed all the way to the back.
I jotted down the order, hung up, and muttered to myself, “What on earth…?”
When I relayed the details to the owner, he briefly tilted his head to one side but proceeded to nimbly and diligently shape the small mounds of rice with his hands. Once the order was ready, I placed it on the scooter and zipped off in the direction of the neighborhood in question.
My thoughts were running wild about my mysterious destination. The far corner of a derelict building. It was like a ghost story. I was half certain I’d enter and find the room chock-full of haphazardly piled cardboard boxes and unidentifiable heaps of junk. Everything would be laden with a thick coat of dust. Somewhere near the back, I’d find an old-fashioned black telephone sitting on the bare floor, the handset and base polished to a lustrous sheen. A weak light would filter in through tattered, rotting curtains.
Next to the telephone, I’d spot a glass fishbowl containing the precise amount of cash needed to cover the order, sales tax included. I’d call out, “Hello? Sushi delivery!” But there would be no answer. And then, when I stooped down to scoop out the money, a pile of cardboard would come crashing down, and a pale, glowing skeleton would leap from the rubble and curl its arms about me. The last thing I’d see was the sushi spilled across the floor, crushed.
A new urban legend was about to be born: the tale of the sushi deliveryman who took an order to an abandoned building and never returned.
When I arrived at the designated building, the exterior was frighteningly similar to what I’d imagined. I would have never expected such an ominous structure could exist so close to home.
Boards were nailed across the front entrance, and the weeds at either side were tall and scraggly. I looked up to find the windows blocked out with thin sheets of cardboard. Several panes were cracked or missing. Honestly, the whole place was so eerie that if I’d spotted a grinning specter at one of those dark windows, I might have casually waved hello.
To the side of the condemned structure sat an old, two-story apartment building. And sure enough, a tiny alleyway ran between the two, just wide enough for a single determined individual to squeeze through. I headed toward the back as instructed, stepping over rain-swollen piles of old magazines and mud-caked bits of machinery that sought to hinder my way.
The dim alleyway emerged into a wide, sunny space that appeared to have once served as the courtyard for the condemned building. Run-down structures surrounded it on three sides, leaving only the eastern approach open.
The courtyard itself was lined with concrete slabs, among which sprouted stray clumps of weeds. In the center, I spotted a lone man, gripping his head and squatting weakly on the ground. A woman was leaning out from a second-story railing straight above, gesticulating wildly and hurling a barrage of satsuma mandarins at the pitiful, cowering man. One fruit pelted him square in the crown, arced back through the air, and tumbled along the ground, coming to rest near my feet. I stood dumbfounded, clutching the order of sushi to my chest.
A small group of young men and women milled about one corner of the courtyard not far from the alleyway exit. One was observing the torrent of satsumas through the lens of a large, antique-looking movie camera.
A woman in the group noticed me, grinned, and dashed in my direction.
“Thank you so much for coming all the way out here,” she said.
“Are you…shooting a film?” I ventured.
“Yeah. More or less.”
She gave an embarrassed smile and turned back toward the others.
“Sushi’s here!” she announced.
A man who had until then been staring fixedly at the actors, arms crossed proudly, turned to face me. My eyes locked on his pathetic excuse for a goatee. There was no way I could forget that ratty patch of whiskers. It was him. It was the man who had insulted me in front of Mizuo’s apartment and threatened to call the police.
He clearly recognized me as well, and we exchanged brief, derisive stares before resuming the facade of strangers.
“Great. Pay him,” he instructed the woman, placing several thousand-yen bills into her palm.
He strode off, uncurling a sheaf of paper that seemed to serve as their script. While busily penciling notes in the margins. his brows knit in consternation, as if to say, I’ve no time to fuss about with sushi. I’m creating art.
The woman who paid and accepted the delivery remained as bright and friendly as before. But from the moment I saw her accept the bills from the goateed-man’s hand, I pitied her. I could tell she revered him with all her heart.
Nothing good will come of worshipping that buffoon, I wanted to tell her. If anything, you’d be better off idolizing me.
But I held my tongue, deciding it wouldn’t do to forget my humility.
“Thank you for your business,” I chirped, my voice intentionally shrill. “We can’t wait to serve you again!”
And with that, I left the condemned building behind.
I rode back to the shop on the scooter, pondering this unfinished movie the man was obviously very proud of. It was probably one of those needlessly abstruse films, studded with cheap, disjointed dream sequences, its story incoherent. On the surface, it would appear deep, but a moment’s contemplation would reveal it to be as shallow as the Takase River along the Kiyamachi red-light district. I was sure of it. It was the kind of film that would have audiences shaking their heads at the director, saying, Who does this dolt think he is? The next Seijun Suzuki or Shuji Terayama?
Just to be clear, I don’t mean to insult Suzuki and Terayama. I wouldn’t want to give my dear readers the wrong impression. I’m making fun of the young minds that aspire to be like those legends of cinema and fail miserably, yet go on trying anyway. It’s embarrassing to watch.
When I returned, the sushi restaurant owner asked me, “So how was the place?”
I simply shook my head, one corner of my mouth curled wryly.