They are real people.
But these magazine girls have nothing real about them. They have magazine expressions, speak magazine words, and carrymagazine fashion accessories. They’ve chosen to become this. I don’t know whether or not to blame them. Getting scarred isn’t nice. But look! As shallow, and glossy, and identical, and throw-away, as magazines.
“You’re a bit uptight aren’t you? Been dumped by your girlfriend?” The leader leaned on the counter and swayed, just a few inches away from my face. I imagined her using that face in bars, in cars, in love hotels.
Her friend shrieked with laughter and pulled her away before I could think of a witty retort. They flocked back toward the door. “Told you!” one of them said. The third was still speaking into her pocket phone. “I dunno where we are. Some crappy place behind some crappy building. Where are you?”
“You coming?” the leader said to the one still staring into space, listening to Mal.
No
, I thought with all my might.
Say no, and stay with me in my space
.
“I said,” said the leader, “are—you—coming?”
Was she deaf?
“I guess so,” she said, in a real voice. A beautiful, real voice.
Look at me
, I willed.
Look at me. Please. Just once, look straight at me
.
As she left, she looked at me over her shoulder, my heart trampolined, and she followed the others into the street.
————
The cherry trees were budding. Maroon tips sprouted and swelled through the sealed bark. Pigeons ruffled and prilled. I wish I knew more about pigeons. Were they strutting about like that for mating purposes, or just because they were strutty birds? That would be useful knowledge for school syllabuses. None of this capital of Mongolia stuff. The air outside was warmer and damp. Being outside was like being in a tent. A jackhammer was pounding into concrete a few doors down. Takeshi said that yet another surf and ski shop was opening up. How many surfers and skiers are there in Tokyo?
I put on a Charlie Parker anthology, with the volume up loudto drown out the ringing of metal. Charlie Parker, molten and twisting, no stranger to cruelty. “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” “How Deep is the Ocean?,” “All the Things You Are,” “Out of Nowhere,” “A Night in Tunisia.”
I dressed the girl in calico, and she slipped away through a North African doorway.
Here, being as different as I am is punishable.
I was in Roppongi one time with Koji. He was on the pull and got talking to a couple of girls from Scotland. I just assumed they were English teachers at some crappy English school, but they turned out to be “exotic dancers.” Koji’s English is really good—he was always in the top class at school. English being a girl’s subject, I didn’t study it much, but when I found jazz I studied at home because I wanted to read the interviews with the great musicians, who are all American. Of course reading is one thing, but speaking is quite another. So Koji was mostly doing the translating. Anyway, these girls said that everyone where they come from actually
tries
to be different. They’ll dye their hair a color nobody else has, buy clothes nobody else is wearing, get into music nobody else knows. Weird. Then they asked why all girls here want to look the same. Koji answered, “Because they are girls! Why do all cops look the same? Because they’re cops, of course.” Then one of them asked why Japanese kids try to ape American kids. The clothes, the rap music, the skateboards, the hair. I wanted to say that it’s not America they’re aping, it’s the Japan of their parents that they’re rejecting. And since there’s no homegrown counterculture, they just take hold of the nearest one to hand, which happens to be American. But it’s not American culture exploiting us. It’s us exploiting it.
Koji got lost trying to translate the last bit.
I tried asking them about their inner places, because it seemed relevant. But I just got answers
But these magazine girls have nothing real about them. They have magazine expressions, speak magazine words, and carrymagazine fashion accessories. They’ve chosen to become this. I don’t know whether or not to blame them. Getting scarred isn’t nice. But look! As shallow, and glossy, and identical, and throw-away, as magazines.
“You’re a bit uptight aren’t you? Been dumped by your girlfriend?” The leader leaned on the counter and swayed, just a few inches away from my face. I imagined her using that face in bars, in cars, in love hotels.
Her friend shrieked with laughter and pulled her away before I could think of a witty retort. They flocked back toward the door. “Told you!” one of them said. The third was still speaking into her pocket phone. “I dunno where we are. Some crappy place behind some crappy building. Where are you?”
“You coming?” the leader said to the one still staring into space, listening to Mal.
No
, I thought with all my might.
Say no, and stay with me in my space
.
“I said,” said the leader, “are—you—coming?”
Was she deaf?
“I guess so,” she said, in a real voice. A beautiful, real voice.
Look at me
, I willed.
Look at me. Please. Just once, look straight at me
.
As she left, she looked at me over her shoulder, my heart trampolined, and she followed the others into the street.
————
The cherry trees were budding. Maroon tips sprouted and swelled through the sealed bark. Pigeons ruffled and prilled. I wish I knew more about pigeons. Were they strutting about like that for mating purposes, or just because they were strutty birds? That would be useful knowledge for school syllabuses. None of this capital of Mongolia stuff. The air outside was warmer and damp. Being outside was like being in a tent. A jackhammer was pounding into concrete a few doors down. Takeshi said that yet another surf and ski shop was opening up. How many surfers and skiers are there in Tokyo?
I put on a Charlie Parker anthology, with the volume up loudto drown out the ringing of metal. Charlie Parker, molten and twisting, no stranger to cruelty. “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” “How Deep is the Ocean?,” “All the Things You Are,” “Out of Nowhere,” “A Night in Tunisia.”
I dressed the girl in calico, and she slipped away through a North African doorway.
Here, being as different as I am is punishable.
I was in Roppongi one time with Koji. He was on the pull and got talking to a couple of girls from Scotland. I just assumed they were English teachers at some crappy English school, but they turned out to be “exotic dancers.” Koji’s English is really good—he was always in the top class at school. English being a girl’s subject, I didn’t study it much, but when I found jazz I studied at home because I wanted to read the interviews with the great musicians, who are all American. Of course reading is one thing, but speaking is quite another. So Koji was mostly doing the translating. Anyway, these girls said that everyone where they come from actually
tries
to be different. They’ll dye their hair a color nobody else has, buy clothes nobody else is wearing, get into music nobody else knows. Weird. Then they asked why all girls here want to look the same. Koji answered, “Because they are girls! Why do all cops look the same? Because they’re cops, of course.” Then one of them asked why Japanese kids try to ape American kids. The clothes, the rap music, the skateboards, the hair. I wanted to say that it’s not America they’re aping, it’s the Japan of their parents that they’re rejecting. And since there’s no homegrown counterculture, they just take hold of the nearest one to hand, which happens to be American. But it’s not American culture exploiting us. It’s us exploiting it.
Koji got lost trying to translate the last bit.
I tried asking them about their inner places, because it seemed relevant. But I just got answers
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