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So Eiji and and Chie are engaged now and living together. Got a new apartment, spacious with two stories, and I am looking forward to urban Maebashi and giving up my 2D (two bedrooms and a dining area) for the stereotypical rabbit hutch and that is no joke. Che! ("shit!") Where in the hell am I ever going to put all my things. Well maybe I'll luck out as I have hitherto and get placed in something more livable. I'm a homebody, like my space. And Eiji and Chie have invited us to their apatto-warming party (and what business do they have getting engaged and moving into a big place like that since Eiji just quit his hair-dressing job and the economy is sucking. It must be love.) and So Rika and I, and Tiny-Tim Witherow and Kumiko show up around 1:00 p.m. He can't have people over late because his neighbors are all old and this seems to have something to do with why he and she are able to afford the place although I never quite understood the finer points of his explanation because he'd already started drinking two hours prior. Upstairs, about seven Nihon-jin are gathered around a large fry pan and five or six other dishes: tako and maguro sashimi (octopus and tuna raw), ika gesso (fried squid legs), potato salad, cucumbers and asparagus, french-fries or (chips as Tim calls them), etc. We're introduced to the others. Ichi (nickname meaning numero uno) who I'd met a year before, when he'd been about twenty lbs. lighter and his hair and been short and mine pretty long. Now he divorced and I've got short hair 'cause I'm the good kid and had been looking for a job. His friend, whose name I keep forgetting, looks like Ray Davies of the Kinks and has that kinky mischievous leer like he's up to something, and you're not quite sure you even want to know the details. The other two, an unmarried couple with a baby on the way and the she is drinking and smoking with the boys, what an idiot, and I'm on the wagon now on my 27th day, having decided to dry out and Tim says my eyes no longer have that glassy look. Of course, the room is filled with smoke but I'm able to get a draft going by opening a window. The Olympics are on tv and I'm lying on my back in pain as a result of a back injury I sustained when I was sitting at my desk at school and turned my head to the left. Was moving very slowly after than for a week. Oh yeah, there's one other sallow-faced girl who hasn't said a word all evening. She has that terminally uninteresting look, but that doesn't stop Ichi from making obvious moves after drinking about half a fifth of Jack Daniels (black label) and I'm reflecting on how strange it is to watch all this comepletely sober. He's talking to her way too much and leaning over her in a drunken sway, until she gets up and goes downstairs. Ichi is excused by all, "because he is sad." Ichi has a short attention span and comes up with the idea that the next week he'll throw a monja-yaki party. "Can you come?" I'm hesitant, to accept as I don't like to make commitments so far in advance, but as I've got a teaching job on Saturday on the top floor of Ito-Yokoda Depatto (department store) working with kids ages 3-9 from 2:00 to 3:00, I'm unable to leave the prefecture, so I accept. Besides, after having been here for two almost years now and having morons still ask me if I've ever had sushi or if I can use ohashii (chopsticks), it's refreshing to have someone introduce me to something that I really don't about. Plans are made. "Is 5:00 Saturday alright?" "Yes, but what is monja-yaki?" I should know better than to ask him in his present state of mind. "Eto (uh) monja-yaki is like okonomiyaki, except it's very very different." Red faced Ray Davies chimes in something about it being "very water, very very water," and tries to pour me a whiskey for the up-teenth time, saying "You should drink! It's not good for health. Stress is very bad for health" as he puffs away on his Castors. Ichi asks me for a third time if 5:00 is okay, and I assure him I'll be there. He is completely out of his mind now, ask in Japanese where that girl went, and when Rika comes back up he challenges her to a wrestling match. So the food and plates are all quickly moved aside so no one gets hurt and the two of them are rolling around on the floor. I don't care as long as he doesn't smash her, (She's about 5'4") but in his present condition I figure she'll win anyway, (she doesn't) but afterwards he's expended the last of his energy and after confirming that we're on for next week "at five, ok "desuka," passes out on the floor. Eiji and I carry him into the bedroom. As we're dragging him in, he looks up at me and says "Oh. Dabido." Later he comes downstairs where we are having tea under the kotatsu (low table with a heat lamp mounted underneath) and he asks me once again for a confirmation of next week's party, then launches, once more, into a bleery eyed explanation of monja-yaki.
One Week Later:
So we're uh, going to Ichi's pad now. It's 5:00 and we're at his door. Rika and I, Tim and Kumiko. Ichi meets us at the door with an electric guitar in hand and Chie is already there, and Ray Davies, but Eiji won't show until 8:45, since he got a job at a hair-stylist's shop. The livingroom has been cleared of furniture if ever there was any to make room for a large electric furai-panu (fry-pan) and various small dishes around it. Ichi runs me through the whole process, but not before apologizing in fine English for his performance the week before. "I must apologize about last week. I became too drunk." "No, no," I assure. We were just enjoying ourselves." "Yes, but I'm afraid I was wrestling with your girlfriend on the floor." "Oh, yeah," I laugh, remembering. "I forgot all about that." Ichi is showing me how to make monja-yaki. It's seems to be mostly hokusai (white cabbage also used in okonomiyaki), batter, and assorted vegetables. Anything that happens to be around, basically. It's all thrown together and fried up, but still remains very watery and messy. It's popular among young people because it's cheap, so easy to make and you can throw almost anything into it. But folks grow out of it, think of it as childish, and that's the reason no one had ever shown it to me before. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd rate it a 6 or 7. But it was different. It might have tasted better had Ichi and his friend not been playing the most awful music imaginable. When I first had walked into the room, thinking, "What is this awful noise?" I'd glanced through the transparent plastic cover of the cd player and found to my horror that the random-mix included Damn Yankees, Boston's 4th album and Night Ranger. It's hard to enjoy anything listening to that, but Tim and I manage for a while. I guess Jack Daniel's can make anything sound good for some folks. Maybe my mistake was not drinking. Then I see what is certainly our salvation. A video tape of Brian May (Queen's guitarist) live. Well, that doesn't sound so good either but it's got to be a step up from this crap. But turns out to be about the same. Of course without Freddie around to push the right buttons, and keep him in rein, May was just another idiot with a guitar. Eiji arrived and began hitting the hard stuff. After two hours, I ransacked the cd collection and out of about forty cd found nothing. He had Hotel California, the first album I ever bought, but if you've heard it a thousand times you've heard it a million. I got completely desparate and demanded to hear KISS Destroyer! At least KISS had a sense of humor. I asked Ichi if he had any Seikimatsu (the Japanese KISS) but he didn't.
Two days later I get a phone call from Eiji. Ichi wants to have another party, but I decline telling him that I have plans to visit Mark Frank in Niigata, but the next day I remember that I'm supposed to go to Mr. Kamikura's wedding reception, so I'm stuck in Gunma a third weekend in a row. Arrgh! I say "Arrgh," because I really wanted to see Mark Frank in Niigata, especially since he was having a nabe party. (Nabe is vegetable and meat or fish soup cooked in a large kettle or these days at home in an electric nabe-cooker.) Well, if there's a party it'll be at my place or Tim's. No Night Ranger and the smokers are out in the cold.
February 1998
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