Or, We Could Just Go Now

(January 2020)

I stood on my side of the door and tried to think about what a rational person would do. I was still in the same sweatpants and T-Shirt that I had slept in, and I hadn’t gotten a shower. I decided at that very moment that a rational person wouldn’t find himself in this situation on a Wednesday afternoon in Japan to begin with, so I was going to have to do what I always do and just wing it.

“What do you want?” I said through the door.

“Good afternoon Mr. Neal,” one of the men said. He could not have sounded more Russian if he had been cast in a Bond film.

I waited, imagining what life might be like for the Russian border guard, and whether these three gentlemen were planning on introducing me to it..

“We just wanted to have a little chat.”

I looked out the balcony into the overcast day. I think I mentioned that my room is on the 24th floor, right?

Crapola.

So I swung the door open.

All three of them were bigger than me.

One man was obviously in charge. His face lightened up with a smile that was more like he was laughing at me than that he was happy to see me. He stepped through the doorway without me asking. I mentally named them Chief Stodge, Goon 1, and Goon 2.

“Can I get you some coffee?” I said as Goons 1 and 2 followed the Chief.

The goons hung back, though, closing ranks as I shut the door.

“No thank you, Neal,” the man said. He turned, and put his hands on his hips. It was a smooth, confident movement I’m certain he undertook with the intent of making sure I saw the handgun he had pushed into his waistband.

Until that very moment I didn’t realize how much I liked the whole Japanese take on handguns—which is that they don’t do them. Even the cops, you know? Even the freaking SWAT teams or riot units in Japan work without firearms. There was a time when I was fine with the whole gun thing. I grew up with them around. I did a bit of hunting. I got it. I saw it both ways, though, and as I grew up I finally settled on a relationship with guns that figured that as long as they didn’t bother me I wouldn’t bother them. But I’ve seen them up close and pointing the wrong way now, and I’ll carry the scars from a bullet fired in anger with me for as long as I live, so I suppose I’ve earned my right to change my mind.

So regardless of what you might think on the subject of handguns on the whole, I hope you’ll be sympathetic to my position when I tell you I was very much, definitely, 100% against this specific gun this specific man had in his specific waistband.

“I’m thinking,” Chief Stodge said. “That you would be willing to put on some clothes and take a little ride with us, am I correct?”

“I thought we were having a chat?”

“The chat is to be with someone else.”

“So you’re just the retrievers?” I said, doing my best to keep my heart from jumping out my throat.

“Or,” he said without missing a beat. “We could just go now.”

A minute later I had on my jeans from last night and a pair of tennis shoes with no socks. I was still tucking the shirt tail into my pants as we left the room.

The car was a bit of a let-down. I mean, it was supposed to be a big, black monstrosity that would gleam in the clouded day. Instead, it was a white Honda with a blue interior, sitting at the end of an alley. At least it was clean. The three guided me forward and got me into the back seat. Then we drove, Goon 1 and Goon 2 in the front, Chief Stodge and his handgun in the back with me. The doors were locked, and it was obvious I had no way to unlock them.

It is the noontime lunch crowd and all the salmon in the world of Tokyo are on their spawning run. I swear I have never seen so many people in all my life. We waited for two lights before Goon 1 decided to just pull into the flow of traffic, and then … BANG! There is a thud and the car shudders up and down on its shocks.

We’ve hit something.

No.

We’ve hit someone. We’ve hit a person. Pulling out into the crowd, we’ve hit a man on a bike.

It takes me a moment to realize that man is none other than DK, who gathers himself up and stands at the front left of the car as if he’s made of nothing but springs. He’s wearing dark pants and a company shirt with a logo on the breast. It’s streaked with dirt and grime as if he’s been at work all morning. If so, he’s a better man than I.

He steps in front of the car, waving is hands to keep Goon 1 from driving over his mangled machine, which I now realize is bent over , with one wheel still spinning up in the air as if it’s a Ferris wheel at a half-pint carnival.

Goon 1 puts the car in Park, and gets out. They yell at each other, and DK does his best set of bows and nods, all the while trying to pick up his bike. I realize then that each time a wheel slips out of his hand or a wheel rolls away from him, he’s made it closer to the door.

By the time the Chief Stodge gets out the back door and strides around to do his “display the gun” move, Goon 1 has hemmed DK in, but DK is close enough that the swinging door catches him. He stumbles, back-end falling into the seat, catching himself by the door and rocking the entire car. Goon 2 yells something, and pushes DK to get him out of the car. DK goes flying, but not, I realize, before having miraculously hit the unlocking mechanism.

Let’s just say that my Mama never raised a boy who would pause to look a gift horse in the mouth. While Goon 2 was still occupied dislodging DK, I hit the lever, opened the door, and got out. I stayed low and ran. Within three steps I was nigh invisible, and within ten I knew the Ruski border guard was going to have an empty place on their calendar where once sat an entry that mighta read “torture the American baseball writer.”

Once I was far enough away from the car to be convinced I could, I straightened and commenced to running at top speed—something I was able to do for only an embarrassingly slim amount of time. It was long enough, though. Long enough to get through a lunch place, and into a dress place, and then out the back way to another street filled with people. It was only then that I slowed down, and realized that I was going to be safe.

Safe, at least, for the rest of the afternoon.