Масахико Симада - Death by Choice

“What hell did you raise?”

“Damned if I’m going to go plugging away at some stupid job, I thinks. I’m gonna have fun making money, and use it to debauch meself in fine style. I’m gonna get me a thousand lovers, says I, so out I go and pick up whatever woman comes to hand. Sold off all I got when I left the army, and used the money to hang out in the whorehouses. But I soon got sick of that, so I bought up some girls from the country and set up shop meself. So I was runnin’ the joint, and thought I was really somethin’ I can tell you, but hey, it always happens eh? Started steppin’ on other people’s turf, and not paying me dues to the lads, so pretty soon I’d fallen in with the yakuza . Ends up I exchange sake cups with the big boss and I’m into the gang. I’d slept with over five hundred girls by that time, but comes a time when you get sick of women. I’ll get me a wife and see what it feels like to live a normal life, thinks I, but I’d gotten old, and then along comes the anti-prostitution law. Just my luck not to have a buddy inside the police department, so they nabbed me. And on top o’ that, my trusted head clerk made off with the money, and the gambling debts were mountin’ up, and the whole thing’s goin’ ass over tits. And then a woman does the dirty on me. My first wife, she was. A real little worker, always lookin’ after people. Five years older than me, never married, but she was born in the downtown area and good with the customers. Ran a little restaurant down in Totsuka, did pretty well out of it too. Didn’t waste money. She had a million yen saved up when I married her. Well I quit work for a bit, got the others to do whatever needed doin’, hung around waitin’ for my lucky break. But then one of the girls went and got pregnant, it was my kid, so things got pretty sticky with the wife, she was really losin’ it, and right around then that head clerk that made off with the whorehouse takings gets run to earth down in Kawasaki. The bastard’d set hisself up runnin’ a massage parlor in Horinouchi, and he was rakin’ it in. I was a hot-headed young fool, I was. Well so I decide on the spot I’m gonna half kill this guy, but I got him on the wrong bit of the head, and didn’t just half kill the guy, I went the whole way. Got five years for it. When I gets out, the wife’s closed up shop an’ disappeared. The girl’d gotten rid of the kid and gone back home. Right, let’s start all over again, says I to meself, when I gets a call from the big boss, and he gives me the job of runnin’ a billiard joint in the old part of town by the gates of Ise Shrine and trainin’ up the retired cops who join the gang. When those guys come in with us they get a real good salary, see.”

The old man was feverishly summing up his life to his three young listeners, determined not to let them get a word in edgewise. He was obviously an old hand at talking, and it was easy to sit back and listen, but at this point the owner of the restaurant came over and said firmly, “Come on, Mr Naito, let’s leave it at that eh?”

“You’d be sick of hearing it all, but these youngsters don’t know the story.”

Mr Naito turned an ingratiating smile on the owner, but when this failed to work he sulkily picked up his sake cup, and turned a soulful gaze to Mitsuyo. She poured him a fresh helping of the top grade sake, and waved the bottle in front of his eyes .

“So did you chalk up the thousand lovers?”

In answer to her question, the old man gave a choking laugh, and nodded. “Finally got there just before I turned sixty. Yep, took me forty years.”

“And how old are you now?”

“Seventy-six.”

“I bet you’re past it now.”

“No way, I’m still up for it. You’ve got a nice little body there. If you’d care to spend the night with me tonight, you’d be my one thousand fiftieth.”

“I’ve had enough of dirty old men. I’d advise you to just settle down and await your Maker, at this stage.”

But Mitsuyo’s scolding went right past him, and he went blithely on with the talk about the thousand lovers.

“I’ve known girls from all over Japan, y’know. I’ve tasted ’em all the way through, from Wakkanai in northern Hokkaido to Miyakojima in southern Okinawa. You get the beauties in Akita, Niigata, Amami and Okinawa. My second wife was an Akita wench. Born back in the Taisho era, but she was a tall one even so, five feet six she was. A big girl, but sickly. She went through a lot. They say a beauty dies young, and sure enough, she died at thirty-five. After that I took to the road and had a wandering life all over, north and south, hawkin’ this and that. Spent some time doing it rough and sleepin’ out. But there’s a reason I never gave up goin’ after the girls. Women are what bring luck, good luck and bad, so nothin’s going ta happen unless you sleep with women, see. I can tell fortunes. Open up yer legs a bit and watch me. I’ll see if I can tell you what kinda guys you’ve been with. I’ve told the fortune of any number of actresses before – I can tell if they’ll sell or not, when their career’ll hit the skids, what kinda guy they should marry…”

It seemed there was no end to the old man’s boasting, but Kita was in a hurry to move on, so he stood up and went over to pay the bill. They left the premises with the old man’s gravelly voice still following them, “Hey, you guys’re still young, ya know. I ain’t finished talkin’ yet.”

Down the street, they came across a couple of black Mercedes Benzes parked in front of a shop selling dried fish. A bunch of gangsterish guys with tight punch perms, comb-backs and shaved heads were standing about inside, glaring at the dried fish and buying up big.

“Oh yeah, Hatayama the Third was crazy about dried mackerel, wasn’t he?” Kita remarked softly in a reminiscent tone.

“Eh?” said a strapping skinhead.

“The old guy in there says, why not drop in and say hello,” said Kita, pointing back to the restaurant they’d just left, and he walked out, with Zombie and Mitsuyo following a little behind, turning back to look at the shop as they left.

“Hey, those scary guys have all gone over to where the old man is,” Mitsuyo announced. Kita broke into a run, and grabbed a passing taxi. When the other two were settled in there with him, he asked the driver to take them to some hotel where they could take a rest.

“You don’t want to get yourself killed, eh?” laughed the driver.

“Right, he’s aiming to die peacefully. Says he wants to pass on without a fight. That’s why we want you to take us to some hotel that’ll give him some good memories to take to the grave. It’d be even better if it had a beauty spa and a nice big bath for us girls, and great food.”

There Mitsuyo went again, telling the whole world his story.

“You’re in the grip of nihilism, are you? It’s a popular thing these days, nihilism. Especially with youngsters. You don’t look exactly young, mind you.”

For an instant, the driver locked eyes with Kita in the rear view mirror. His eyes behind their black-rimmed glasses were two horizontal slits. His vacant face nevertheless had a foppish, girlish look to it. It somehow made Kita angry to have a face like this accusing him of nihilism.

“Sensitive kids get too easily attracted by nihilism, you know,” the driver went on. “I’ve got a girl in middle school myself, and I can’t bear the thought that she might fall for it without my knowing, and go and kill herself. They do say great souls suffer greatly, you know. But there’s no progress without overcoming suffering.”

“That’s enough of the talk. Just take us to a hotel where we can take a rest,” Kita repeated.

“Dangerous stuff, nihilism,” the driver muttered balefully. At this, Zombie suddenly gave a cry as though she’d remembered something. On impulse, Kita swung round to look behind him.