Free Lost Girls and Love Hotels by Catherine Hanrahan Page A

buildings are everywhere in Tokyo. Along all the main streets. They look like dingy office buildings, except for the neon and chaotic signage. In the elevator, I look at the backlit building guide. Forty-eight little bars and restaurants and karaoke places in one little six-story building on a street with hundreds of little buildings, in a city with hundreds of streets like this.
    “Japanese pancake,” Kazu says.
    “Huh?”
    He points to something written in kanji on the building guide. “For eating. Okonomiyaki restaurant.”
    “Oh, okay.”
    The hallways in these buildings are always dodgy. The various odors of all the bars and restaurants seeping into thecorridors. Melding into an aroma peculiar to these places—something like old cigar smoke and dirty underpants. Kazu’s mobile rings, and he nods at me in apology, holds his palm out to me like telling a dog to stay and wanders down a few feet away for privacy.
    I look at my watch. Almost nine. Dip one hip down an inch or two and sulk. A door flies open, and two salarymen carrying a third by his armpits stagger out. A wistful country song accompanies them. Then three Thai hostesses. Lurid pink lips. Soft hips compressed in spandex dresses. The salaryman being carried looks like he’s going to vomit. Everyone is yelping. Some money is exchanged. Some bowing is done.
    I walk to the end of the hall and duck out the fire escape for air. There is no air. The exterior of the building is tented by enormous vinyl sheeting, stretched over the frame of the fire escape, advertising beer and loan sharks and hairspray. I imagine a fire breaking out. The advertisements melting in the heat, suffocating the revelers in the building with toxic fumes. The fire spreading to the adjacent buildings, consuming city blocks, eating the city like a neon Dresden. The thought of it raises my pulse. A mixture of fear and morbid glee.
    I yank at the side of one of the vinyl sheets, pull it aside like a curtain, and peek out at the street. Three squat men in white uniforms carry an enormous fish as big as two of them put together. I can hear their grunts of effort over the noise of the street. They pass a group of Japanese hostesses. Puffy down jackets over their slinky dresses, calling out topassing salarymen. Pretty girls with pain in their faces. When the fish carriers pass, the girls call out to them, too. Gambarimasu ! Do your best.
    “Are you okay?” Kazu asks. He’s standing in the fire escape doorway. A look of real concern on his face. I watch him for a second. Behold this look . I don’t want Tokyo to burn down.
    “Yes,” I say and take his hand.
     
    The okonomiyaki place is full of wood and smells like smoke and onions. A few groups of three or four people are scattered in the booths that line the room. The comforting din of it relaxes me. We find a booth in the back. The center of the table is a griddle. Kazu switches it on and signals for the waiter.
    “Have you tried Japanese pancake?” Kazu asks.
    “Only from the konbini .”
    Kazu waves his hand. “Convenience-store kind is not so good.”
    The waiter plunks down a large bottle of beer and two squat glasses. He and Kazu speak to each other in clipped, guttural Japanese. The kind that men use together in comfortable situations. They share an abbreviated little laugh, and the waiter disappears.
    “Why did you come to Japan?” Kazu asks me.
    “International human friendship,” I say with a smile.
    “Serious answer,” Kazu says without a smile.
    “To be alone.”
    “In Japan? Alone?”
    “It’s an easy place to be alone.”
    Kazu watches me for a moment. Picks up the beer bottle and pours me some. After he puts it down, I reciprocate. The beer foams up a little and spills onto the table.
    “When I was a young man—sixteen, seventeen—” Kazu tells me, “I wanted to be a chef. I was apprentice at a big restaurant. Very high-level Japanese cooking. Every day I was in a small kitchen.” He makes a chopping