Tokio Whip (14 page)

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In another, during a reception with representatives of the nurse's union, she was apparently servicing herself under the tablecloth with a dildo made in the likeness of the long-nosed god Tengu; the apparent moans of satisfaction were naively reported as the result of pre-death-throe visions.

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ROUP 3:
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NIMAL.
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NOTHER THREE PERCENT ENTAIL ACTIONS IN WHICH ANIMALS (NON-HUMAN, THAT IS) ARE INCLUDED.
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GAIN, WE OFFER ONLY A BRIEF SELECTION.

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At Ueno Zoo, in front of the tiger cage and dressed in a tiger costume, and what looks like her howling (or so we assume from her contorted mouth); we see her being serviced by a man similarly dressed, the long and mighty member clearly visible. Apparently, for three days afterwards, the tigers kept the neighborhood awake with their anxious growls. They eventually had to be shot, and their meat was then given to the appropriate official agency where it was mixed with the local available fare (already questionable) and distributed to the needy.

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The next file, shows her after the tiger incident, grabbing a monkey and being serviced by him. (However, as a result of the intensity of their mutual pleasure, she broke the animal's intercostal clavicle, this last seeming to be the only act she ever regretted in her life). (This event occurred apparently on her third night in Tokyo, for newspaper photographs from the fourth day on always show her accompanied by a small tiger monkey. This type of monkey's thin pink penis was to become the principal amulet of those who later joined the Hazuko cult.)

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UBLIC

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A small number of files show her under the Yurakucho girders servicing GHQ personnel. (The aptly named Yuraku – “where pleasure can be had.”) In this, she showed herself to be a real “woman of the people” – though, for obvious reasons, she was unable to identify herself (one naturally wonders what would have happened had she been recognized and exposed – joining in with the Pam-Pam girls and their famous blow-jobs for a quarter ((or stockings, or cigarettes, Luckies or Chesterfield being favored by all.)) ) Apparently too, this is where she gained her pungent lingo (oh those GIs!), her favorite remark to anyone being, “kiss my ass.”

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ACRED

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On one occasion she spent the night at a Buddhist temple in Kamakura. (Driven in an ambulance? There seems to be no record of this journey.) While there, she asked the head monk how she might best please the infinitely merciful Kannon-sama. He told her that she could consider fellating him (the priest, that is). She duly obliged the wizened old man who achieved a state of spiritual transport more sweet, he later remarked, than even
satori
. Upon recovering from his ecstasy, he is said to have asked Hazuko if she experienced the same sweet delight that he had, and she answered – “Kiss my ass!” (which, we might add, being poor in English, he took as a “yes.”)

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The next evening she was back, but this time in the dormitory. (She had had, incidentally, her entire body painted in goldleaf and robed in gossamer – no explanation is given: was she posing as a Buddhist statue?) Finding her man – or boy, really – she thrust her ungilded pudendum upon the mouth of the youngest and most studious acolyte (asleep at the time), thrust her arm back to grab his erect member, and as he was initiated in the art of cunnilingus (he seems to have been a fast learner), she held him fast until the two, the semi-divine couple, simultaneously reached climax.

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That young man, upon receiving the tonsure, removed himself from the world to the shores of Shimoda. There he erected – it is the only word – a solid steel phallic image, so solid that the rushing, salt-sea waves are unable even to this day to wear it away. To this day too, pilgrims come to visit the image of the erect Avalokiteshvara – pilgrims, that is, who have problems with premature ejaculation. It is further said that from this acolyte's experience comes the contemporary practice of mother's masturbating or fellating their sons during the anxiety-filled time of their university entrance examinations.

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ISGUSTING.
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FULL TWELVE PERCENT OF THE FILES DEPICT FOUL ACTS THAT INCLUDE THE GROSSEST USE OF THE FULL RANGE OF BODILY FLUIDS AND SOLIDS.
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N RESPECT OF HUMAN DECENCY, ONLY TWO – TAME, COMPARED TO THOSE NOT DESCRIBED – ARE PRESENTED HERE.

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A photograph shows her urinating on a lover as he reaches climax.

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In another she is suspended mid-air and showering upon a unit of rope-bound soldiers (privates), while from above another unit (officers) is masturbating over her.

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ISCELLANEOUS

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Another file tells of the time Hazuko was walking along the shores of the Sumida River. Spying a snake, she immediately grabbed it and thrust up inside herself. Not knowing where he was, the startled thing scurried about for cover. Equally surprised, Hazuko was at first quite happy, and then worried: she certainly didn't want to die of something so common as snakebite! Given her excellent muscle control, however, she managed to expel it from within herself. A curio peddler, chancing by, picked up the reptile, and some time later took it to a taxidermist who was able to preserve it. The two, amazed at what they'd gotten, were, within a few years able to sell the skin at the then astounding price of Â¥150,000 to a collector in Hong Kong. Why amazed? Because the snake had died with what believers claim is nothing less than a smile on its face! (The awe in which such objects are held reminds us of the early Meiji Period murderess Takahashi Oden, the “she-devil” subject of a Kabuki play, and whose sexual organs were preserved in the crime laboratory of the Tokyo Metorpolitan Police, as she was believed “to have been possessed of an extraordinary sexual drive.”)

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In a private visit to a tattooist in Fukugawa, Hazuko had these emblems engraved on her body: a red penis on her inner right thigh; another, this time the palest blue, just below her lower lip; and, in an intense yellow dye, a sun burst around her anus (almost lending a sacral air to her favorite riposte); and finally – and – again, we cannot help noticing – the sacral note: weaving across, encircling all, labia majora and minora, the
Nembutsu
.

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Numerous files show her body bound in ropes or wire or chains, suspended from ceilings, bound to trees, sunk into abysses (snake pits?). In a manner of speaking, these are the least interesting files of all, the national press showing greater creativity everyday in its regular pages of bound nudes.

The files continue, 288 in all.

The mystery of Hazuko Hata does not, however. In time – it was after all inevitable – the reporter, the editor, and the doctor discovered that they too – like the entire doleful metropolis – had been taken in. That is, they had each been played against the other. (What did the fools expect?!) After duly accusing one another of having “souls of eels, and brains of tarantulas” or being “foul botches of nature,” they made their way to Hazuko's hotel suite. There they found her surrounded by a circle of nuns and monks burning incense and reciting sutras. There was no way through this gathering. So, they devised their own publicity stunt, and arranged for a special international group of physicians – Doctors Emil Maximilian J. Egelhofer of Vienna, Dr. Oswald Wunsch of Prague, Dr. Felix Marachuffsky of Moscow, and Dr. Friedrich Kirchinweisser of Berlin – to give Hazuko one last examination, “so as to bequeath our sorrow-filled knowledge of her pain-wracked, thin, but-oh-so-very-brave body to the other suffering creatures of the world.” How could she refuse? A quick glance and Hazuko knew the game was up.

But she had one more card up her fertile sleeve. She had herself pronounced dead. (The Herr Doktors had been duly serviced, of course.) What could the newspapers do but print the story? The Japanese public bought the morning and then the afternoon souvenir editions, and then they mourned their “little country saint who'd only wanted a glimpse of the city lights.” Through the assistance of her ship's captain-lover, Hazuko made her way across the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. After some further exploits, she finally arrived in the City of Light, Paris.

(Those exploits, by the way, do not form a part of the Japanese files. Local authorities seem to have been more than amused by her. As for the Japanese authorities, they figured that well, no real or serious crime had been committed – putting one over on the public … hell, what had that damned war been anything but? – and too, Hazuko had provided the public a sentimental diversion in their time of strife. And then, they had all those photographs! Too, for all the pleasures she had indulged in, so that many were shared. She had shed a certain gay light when all was said and done. And, as mentioned at the beginning of this tale, it was a time of hysteria and fear and mass manias. Within a few months the “brave, little, country girl” was forgotten, and replaced with someone new, another victim, another actress or religious fanatic who could shoulder the nation's burdens.)

Yes, Hazuko Hata, had gotten what she'd wanted. And like many another Japanese woman who causes a scandal, she knew she could not live long in Japan where she would only become a comic figure. But in Paris things could be otherwise! There she opened a bar, “The Lair of the Lustful Monkey,” and entertained customers with
saké
and good cheer for four more decades – until she passed away, embracing her simian, and dressed in goldleaf and gossamer.

***

Coincidence is an extraordinary thing only because it is natural.

–
The Earrings of Mme. D. …
(Max Ophuls, 1953)

***

Ah, this city, kilometers of area to cover. Let's see. I like the boys in Aoyama, certainly. Nice clothes – that boy stuff, Batsu, Melrose, Lautréamont – of course they can't afford the more masculine Commes des Garçons and Ys – but then neither can I – and, oh, I'm tired of thinking, Hiromi admits, I have to get dressed, go out – what to wear? Sadistic Mika or Hysteric Glamor?

***

Why has no one wondered what happened to Virgil after he could go no further? What did he do?, feel – write? Did he really make it back, and was he able even to tell the others? I'd like to write a Borgesian piece, “Virgil: Author of the Divine Comedy.”

***

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You know, few people ever notice or much less remark on the real charms of the Yotsuya, and Shinjuku 3-chome areas.

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Yes, Lang?

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Well, look, the Park is unfairly associated with Prime Ministerial garden parties, 3-chome with the “gay area.” But Inez used to go to the park all the time with her kid, and I know straight men and women who feel perfectly comfortable in 3-chome's bars, as if it should matter.

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But feeling comfortable does matter.

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No, I meant as if one's sex should matter.

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Oh.

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There's delight too in the long broad streets, the clean sightlines evenly blended with the usual mazes, and some decent bars and restaurants.

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Such as?

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Well, Bé, for one; that second floor Jazz place with the long windows; that restaurant that charges whatever the day's yen rate is. And then, just to know that you're on the edge of Shinjuku, that you can see it beckoning, just over there – look!

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Roberta!

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Soon!

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And the choice is yours!

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Choice of what? – bar?, sex?

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Those too!

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What time to go home tonight?

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Or wherever.

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Whatever home.

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Whenever.

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Whichever clock.

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She was conceived in Kyoto, but born in Tokyo. He the reverse.

***

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As Brian said, “let's drink to the good and the evil.”

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Hurt me now, get it over.

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Later.

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As Minnie Pearl said of Hank Williams, “the most haunting and haunted eyes I'd ever looked into.”

***

SPANISH JOYS

Lyrics that seem to lie

flat on the page

unfurl and float legs

that curve and beckon

skeins of language.

(and)

JAPANESE SORROWS

The thick black line

describes an arc

a woman's mouth curves

and from out emerge –

the serpent.

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Toes shine in cowboy belts.

***

I saw this, a child lost in the Asakusa festival – what's the name of it?, Roberta remembers, and a hundred people converged around her – to console her, to find her parents, as if she were their own child – and in a way I guess she was. (I saw too, in Beijing, a child who had been naughty or disobedient in a way I had not seen. The father walked up behind the kid, and in one move, a single instant, tore its' toy out of its' hand, and smashed it on the sidewalk. The child immediately got into line.) The Asakusa mother finally turned up, mother and child reunited, the crowd dispersed, chuckling. All one happy family.

***

That endless, lolling boat ride out of Shanghai and across the open sea, then the long train ride up from Yokohama – and then, well, admit it, old boy, this half-dilapidated town, then confusing as anything but Alighieri's hell (but isn't that all order, in fact?), a horrid mess, really, all that sheer naked poverty, and yet the eyes were so alive, so bright – and I was home free. Sweet home Tokyo. Cafferty, old man, your bones will become ash here, become a part of the soil at last. A long long way from – from where? Like Orson Welles, I was conceived in one city, named in another, and born in a third. Young parents on the run. From? Towards? Only further into themselves. And I became a young kid on the run. Rejecting the hot-rods of the Midwest for Los Angeles and a bit of script doctoring, small bundles of cash, never even any sense of waste or disillusionment; call it Hollywood, call it New York, that other coast, the glamor mags, captions, copy, filligree, a manufactured poetry at most. So much for the homeland. Europe was a pleasant base for a time, but I needed to rid myself even of that, the “old world,” if I were to wholly reinvent myself. I needed something even more unknown, strange, welcome, whatever age, new and yet seeming ancient. Desperate, expectant, I was coming close to arrival. It was the hottest day of my life, never been another. The haze, the humidity, the sun so low you could almost reach out for it, such exhaustion after that boat ride, wondering why the hell I'd ever bothered to come to this country I'd never had any real interest in, and had only a head full of clichés. Never really wanted to come to Japan; oh, but once I got here, well. And I landed, sank to the balls. I once was lost, and then was found, ready now to discover whomever I might be – so here I am, and here I have.