喪家 (Homeless)
KRISTEN VALENSKI
It was 2:13 a.m., four minutes before the next train on the Yamenote Line would screech into the station, when she saw the woman on the tracks. Elvis always told her to never talk to the crazies. He'd say, "livin’ on the street, we don't got time for them loose folk, gotta slip by, move on. All they do is steal them bags of cans you got to make them weird aluminum caps to contact their mothership or smooch pity from your coin purse."
It was obvious to Kai the woman was a bit off the second she noticed the cap of tussled, greasy hair bobbing across the platform on the tracks. No one was at this platform at Shinjuku Station this early, but Kai carried her sack anyway. In her sack she had stuffed a freshly dug hoard of shiny energy drinks she discovered behind the convenience store on 83rd along with an unsealed bento box and thermos cup. She was able to snag them while Haru, the manager, wasn't looking.
She knew he knew her well enough to recognize when her fingerless gloved hands were itching for a meal by the way her haggard appearance would slump further forward. She had caught glimpses of her reflection before in front of store windows in Harajuku Station when she hadn't eaten a true meal for over three days. Haru told her one evening, the first week the convenience store he owned became a regular stop for her along her dumpster diving rounds, her pale pink lips reminded him of the sakura blossoms that had been late to bloom that spring. Kai had found this strangely sweet and a little disturbing, so she snatched a bag of chips, two bottles of Ramune and a pack of cigarettes before returning to her large battered bag outside.
She stopped at the marked safety line at the edge of the platform, setting the bag beside her and peering to her right. She spotted a pale figure flitting back and forth between the metal beams separating the subway lanes. The woman was humming softly into her arms which were wrapped around a blanketed bundle. The small chirps that faintly echoed from the direction of the unbalanced woman reminded Kai of the tiny kitten she used to own as a child. Kai's chest grew heavy at the thought of the woman carrying such a small creature while on the tracks, endangering its life. She squatted down and called out to the woman, cupping her hands around her mouth.
"Oiiii, Okaa-san! Get off the tracks. You're not allowed down there."
The woman tripped over a buckled metal plank and stubbed her toe underneath it. She crumpled forward, clutching the bundle to her chest. Kai cried out, startled as the crying from the bundle erupted into boisterous wails. What is that woman carrying, she wondered.
Kai hopped off the ledge and stumbled over towards the woman, her lanky legs getting caught around her massive cargo pants that were five sizes too large. She stopped beside the woman not touching her still body as she quietly panicked. If word got out this woman had died the cops may blame her, she was a runaway, souka, a homeless person. Going to jail and disappearing off the streets is all they wanted.
Kai focused back on the woman as she groaned softly and nudged her elbow at Kai’s knee.
“Akachan,” the woman whispered, worming her way towards Kai along the rusty tracks and dirt. Kai helped the woman to her feet and began to guide her towards the edge of the platform. The crying had ceased from the dirty bundle stained from landing in a rusty cesspool of old engine oil. Kai peered at the blanket and noticed tiny star and rabbit patterns swirling along the soft fabric.
Kai leapt onto the ledge, checking the safety of her bag of valuables before she reached for the woman below. She yanked the hem of Kai’s coat until a tear erupted at the seams. Kai clutched at the woman’s firm grip as the blanket roll was thrust at her chest. The woman stared up at Kai fiercely as the reverberating tremors from an oncoming train began to shake the tracks.
“For me, take care. Please.”
Kai opened up the bundle, the woman’s grip still tight on her arm, keeping her in place at the edge of the platform. A set of rich brown eyes opened up, the baby awakened from its shallow sleep. The woman released Kai from her grasp. Kai stumbled to the ground cradling the squirming baby.
“What do you expect me to do with this? Watashi wa kore de nani—” Kai called after the woman and stopped as the rumbling from the tunnel crescendoed, the train’s lights flooding the tunnel and the woman still on the tracks. She stared at the oncoming train erupting from the tunnel’s mouth as she darted along the tracks and out of view. The subway’s brakes shrieked against the tracks.
Kai sat on the ground and watched as the doors slid open and the cool yellow fluorescent lights shone on her and her new kicking parcel. The automated voice from the train informed her the upcoming station would soon be Harajuku, her stop, but she barely noticed. Kai stared down at the baby. Its blubbering mouth and silky black tufts of hair peeked out from under the blanket. The voice called out one last time. Kai hurled her bag into the car and stumbled aboard.
Kai had never been a woman that attained a fondness for babies, but here she was clutching the swaddled cooing bundle against her chest like it was her own. She hid at the back of the subway car traveling to Harajuku Station and Meiji's pent. The tiny face was round, plump from its mother's milk and its small dark eyes watched Kai.
The train shuddered over a new set of tracks and launched Kai into the air several inches. The baby cried out excitedly and Kai shushed the baby with her finger, feeling its smooth skin. She poked its cheek, the baby giggling at her touch. Its round cheek bounced back, a small patch of pink and a sooty fingerprint from Kai's index finger imprinted on the baby's face.
"Pushy," Kai cooed to the baby, "pushy, pushy, pushy." She tickled its other cheek and the baby's arms unwrapped themselves from underneath the fleece blanket it had been cocooned in.
"Pusheen-chan," Kai whispered, holding the baby closer to her chest. Its lips smacked together, spittle wetting them. Its fleshy fingers pulled at her right breast.
"Eh! Eh! No, Pushy," Kai commanded.
The baby ignored her, demanding food. Kai would have to talk to Elvis about this. It’s not every day a stranger hands a souka an infant instead of the police.
The police, Kai thought. If they found out they could charge her with kidnapping. Would it really be considered kidnapping if it was given to her though? How is a souka supposed to take care of a child anyway?
The train barreled into Harajuku Station’s tunnel, then eased to a complete stop. Kai hoisted the bag over her shoulder and tucked Pusheen-chan underneath her coat, careful to use the one button still hanging on her coat flap to shield the baby from suspicious onlookers.
Kai had been living in an abandoned apartment stationed over a small local noodle shop beyond the busy shopping streets in Harajuku. A letter of condemnation had been sealed over the rotting door, describing the residence as a safety issue for the citizens of Japan. The perfect place for three cold and tired souka to crash.
Kai skipped up the steps. She kept away from the light leaking out from the noodle shop, away from the owner’s eyes. She slipped through the half broken doorframe into their pent. Elvis’s back was to her and his hips were shaking back and forth violently. His deep voice rumbled in his chest as he hummed “Jailhouse Rock.”
Kai lowered the bag to the ground carefully in hopes it wouldn’t make too much noise, but the cans rattled. Elvis stopped his gyrations.
“Kai, it’s late. Where you been? What’s under coat?”
Elvis pointed to the large swollen lump that was the baby underneath her coat. Kai, still hiding the baby, hoped if she didn’t talk about it maybe there wasn’t something strange about a homeless person raising a child. The baby hiccupped and giggled; its arms waved out from the top of her coat.
“You stole a baby?” Elvis asked as he kicked up the duct taped mic stand with his cheap flashy white boots. He gyrated his hips.
“Iie, no. Okaa-san gave Pusheen-chan to me.”
“Pusheen? Akachan has a name?” Elvis asked, wiggling his grimy fingers into his thick black beard, scratching at an unknown source around his chin. “Oba, you hear Kai? She got a baby,” Elvis yelled into the dark the room.
Kai hoped Oba would be out when she got back. He was not as relaxed when it came to their living situation as Elvis. Oba refused to sleep in the parks or huddle in cardboard boxes like an animal—he was too old for that. Abandoned buildings filled with asbestos and mold were the next best thing.
A small glimmer flickered from across the room and the wick of a candle lit, illuminating the face of an elderly man whose cheeks had begun to sag like the forgotten drapes hanging around the pent.
He ignored the two of them, stomping over towards the broken basin they used as their sink, fidgeting with some of the old pots and metal scraps flooding the broken porcelain’s rim.
“Oi, Oba you see new baby or not?” Elvis called again.
“There is no baby,” Oba muttered to the ground.
Elvis worked his greasy hands some more underneath his beard, saying, “Baby right here Oba, what do you mean?”
He spun around, hand gripping the edge of the sink, the thin robe draped around his skinny body twirling from a sudden breeze blasting from underneath the doorway. Kai took the green tarp from the ground and wrapped it around her back as she stationed herself in front of the drafty door, blocking the wind from entering.
“You want to be souka, there is no baby,” Oba said to Elvis, ignoring Kai.
“We can’t just leave her, Oba,” Kai said, gently rocking her back and forth. She remembered from back home how her mother had done that with her brother as an infant to help him sleep.
“You try to fit in with us,” Oba called from the sink, scrubbing at an old rusty pot he had been soaking with rainwater from the night before with a broken brush, “but you speak too much English. Too much, too much, everyone know you not Japanese.”
Kai sat curled up in the tarp, blocking the draft that leaked through the bottom of the rotting door. She found herself absentmindedly caressing the temple of Pusheen-chan calming both of their restlessness. Kai knew she couldn’t provide for Pusheen-chan, not in conditions like these, but bringing her to the police could get her involved in ways she’d rather not be.
Oba and Elvis began to banter back and forth about the ethics of homelessness etiquette and Elvis’s lack of participation in finding a new building to crash for the upcoming month. Pusheen-chan’s hand wrapped around Kai’s finger, pulling it towards her face where she nuzzled the finger before closing her eyes. Kai couldn’t help but smile. There had never been a fondness for children within her before; perhaps that was changing.
A swift slap on the back of Kai’s head knocked her to the side, bringing her attention back to Oba and Elvis. “You can’t keep baby. You make no money. We are homeless, souka. Unless you work for gang or Hajime no way we can help her,” Oba said. He crossed his arms, the dripping broken brush in one hand.
“We can’t just give her up, Oba. She has no mother.”
“Like you can be her new Okaa-san. You are souka. You choose how you are to live. Give up your life or get job, work for gang or Hajime. You want out of souka, here is chance.”
The baby went through the milk and diapers Kai had stolen faster than she anticipated. It had been several days and she had been unable to leave the pent to help Elvis and Oba scour dumpsters, lift from tourist’s pockets, or find a new place to sleep. Oba stopped talking to her after he had singed the tip of his long thin beard over the open flame on the stove while cooking noodles Elvis had borrowed from downstairs. He did not admit it, but she had seen him staring at her and Pusheen-chan from across the room, watching them angrily and it was this distraction that caused him to lose two inches of his beloved beard. Elvis had quit singing his “Hound Dog” cover since Pusheen-chan grew overly excited, squealing at his thick drawls mixed in with a strong Japanese accent.
Kai left the pent later that night after Oba had disappeared for the tunnels and Elvis had fallen asleep along the green tarp next to Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box crib. She wound her way through the alleys until she hit the main vein in Harajuku Station, Takeshita Street. The neon strobe lights were still flickering, beckoning tourists and fashion addicts to enter their store and sort through their wares. Beyond the hair salon and gothic Lolita store was a small convenience shop that sold minimal necessities.
Kai skirted the end of the aisles, her head lowered away from the cashier. She ducked into the row she needed and scooped several boxes of baby formula. The young girl was too busy flipping through a teen magazine to notice Kai slip back outside with the baby food. She was lucky it was not the girl’s mother there that night or she wouldn’t have been able to set foot in the shop.
Tucking the boxes beneath her coat, Kai turned the corner of the street to make her way back to the pent house when a man violently bumped into her. The boxes exploded from underneath her coat, landing around their feet.
“I didn’t know you had a kid, Kai. Congratulations,” Hajime said, grinning as he removed his sleek sunglasses from around his tan, slender face. This was the last person Kai had wanted to see.
“She’s not mine, I’m just taking care of her.” Kai dropped down to the ground, grabbing the boxes hurriedly, hoping Hajime had somewhere else to be.
“That’s good. Wouldn’t want to ruin that cute figure of yours.” Kai could imagine Hajime’s face at the moment, smirking down at her, imagining her in one of those outfits his girls wear every night. She could never sink low enough to sell herself like that; she’d rather be a souka the rest of her life.
Hajime’s hand lightly touched the top of Kai’s as he passed a box of the formula to her. His eyes reminded her of Pusheen-chan’s, soft brown, like the chocolate she used to eat before she ran away. She did not like thinking of her baby as being similar to Hajime. She lowered her eyes to the ground, searching for more stray boxes she had dropped.
“You know I can make sure you make enough money to support that kid of yours,” Hajime said, taking the last box of formula from the ground and holding it just out of Kai’s reach. She stood up from her knees, keeping her eyes to the ground and avoiding Hajime’s. Maybe if she ignored him long enough he’d leave her alone so she could get back to Pusheen-chan.
Hajime fingered the end of some of Kai’s hair, rubbing the course texture between his fingertips like he was testing its purity or potential for future cash.
“There is no point in dying your hair black to fit in, Hakujin. We all know you’re a Gaijin, an outsider here. Your English is too good, your figure and face too shallow and lean, and your hair too light. Why not use what makes you different,” Hajime took a step closer to Kai, pressing the box to her chest gently, “to make some money?”
Kai had known it would be pointless to disappear in a place so foreign to her and be treated like everyone else. But that did not mean she would be one of Hajime’s girls.
As if sensing Kai’s desperation to leave and her sudden possibility of flight, he slid his arm around hers, leading her away from the direction of their pent and Pusheen-chan and further down Takeshita Street.
“Why don’t I show you the place, it’s much nicer than you think. We treat all of our women with the greatest respect.” Kai was sure that the women would disagree but she did not pull away from him. Some part of her wanted to see what it was like to be a dancer.
A car was parked in front of a cigarette dispenser, the driver smoking, waiting for Hajime’s return. He opened the door for them and drove out of Harajuku towards Shinjuku district.
In the cramped vehicle, Kai caught whiffs of herself. She wondered how Hajime could stand her stench of garbage and baby formula or her greasy hair and frumpy clothes. He put his sunglasses back on, even though it was nighttime, and stared ahead. Kai hadn’t noticed the slim fitting suit he had been wearing and the sleek black shoes adorning his feet. They both cost more than the rent would have been at the pent house for over a year. But she didn’t want money from a business such as his, she reminded herself.
The car slowed to a halt in front of a black store, red lights flooding the street. A large red cushioned door opened for Hajime and Kai and a thick man greeted them, giving them permission to enter. The inside was dimly lit, small candles lighting the tables speckled across the room. Several women walked back and forth between tables before settling at one to join in conversation with elderly businessmen, their slinky dresses revealing just enough. But center stage was where the money was being made.
“Her name is Pixie for her haircut. She’s one of our most popular girls,” Hajime told Kai next to the bar. He ordered a small clear drink and watched her perform on stage, dancing underneath the smoky lighting, the layers of her red and black dress gradually being shed.
“Pixie makes over 50,000 yen a night, and has a family,” Hajime continued. Kai had been sitting at one of the stools in front of the bar but slid off, walking away from the dancing woman and Hajime. Hajime opened up Kai’s coat and took the baby formula boxes out, lining them up on the counter in front of her.
He caught her arm, pulling her over to him. “I know this isn’t the line of work you want. It’s not what any of these girls want, not really. But it gets them by for now.” He released her and brushed some dirt away from her coat. “If you’re going to take care of that baby you need to start thinking of it before you. The souka life is no life for a child, here you can provide for it. Even if it’s temporary.” Kai wondered how Hajime had been able to drop his Japanese accent. He spoke in clear English then switched to Japanese and ordered one of the men to bring something from the back.
“Think about it. You don’t have to dance right away if you don’t want to. But it makes the most money and you’ll need cash to make a deposit if you’re gonna find a place to live. I can help you with that too.” He reached inside his suit pocket and handed her a personal business card. The name of his business was not etched in it, but had his home address along with his cellphone number scrawled in a romantic font. Kai couldn’t help but blush. She wondered why he would give her something as personal as his phone number and home address when he had only ever been interested in her working for him.
The man appeared from the back with a small shopping bag filled with tissue. Hajime slid the formula boxes into the already stuffed bag and handed it to Kai saying, “Here’s something in case you change your mind. You know how to contact me. If you or your baby ever needs anything, give me a call.”
Hajime escorted Kai back outside to the car. He opened her door once more and helped her inside. He did not join her in the ride back and she was grateful. She needed some time to think about what Hajime had said. She knew she could not raise Pusheen-chan alone, and homeless. There was no way to provide shelter, food and an education for her. But dancing for money? Kai thought. There must be something about her that made Hajime so desperate to have her work for him, and that would mean even more money, more than 50,000 yen a night— maybe enough to raise Pusheen-chan.
Kai shook the idea from her head. She was a souka, homeless, and there was no way out of her life. She chose it and now she had to figure something else out. She wouldn’t be able to make that much money a night anyway; she didn’t even know how to dance. At least she had Elvis and Oba, she wasn’t completely alone.
The car pulled in front of the noodle shop, its doors closed and barred for the night. Kai waved the man away, nervous as to how he knew where she was staying. Kai sluggishly climbed the steps thinking of how she should have ordered food while she was with Hajime, she hadn’t eaten anything since finding Pusheen-chan. Kai stopped her ascent as she heard shrill cries escaping from her pent. She dashed up the rest of the stairs, slamming the already open door to the side.
The condemned room was torn to pieces. The green tarp and Elvis’s belongings were gone. Oba’s pots and candles and slippers no longer occupied the kitchen. Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box was upturned. The baby lay on the cold dirty ground for who knows how long.
Kai picked up the baby, shushing her quietly, bouncing her up and down as she searched the apartment for Oba and Elvis. They were gone and so was her bag. They had left to find a new place to sleep while she had been with Hajime.
Kai could feel her chest tighten. Her heart grew heavy as she sat down on the broken couch. A plume of dust and dirt leaked out from where she sat and Pusheen-chan coughed, calming down as Kai continued to rock her. She had forgotten to get diapers. She was out of diapers.
Kai looked towards the name brand shopping bag Hajime had given to her. She lowered the baby onto the couch and removed the tissues and formula boxes to the ground. She pulled out another box, this one with a Japanese woman on the front and sleek light hair, and a piece of clothing that was deep red and much too short for her figure. She threw them back in the bag and paced the room, staring at Hajime’s business card.
It wasn’t safe for her to be here alone, not without Oba and Elvis, and she was not going to a shelter. Pusheen-chan sighed as she drifted back to sleep.
You have to think about the baby before yourself. But did she have to? She had lived on her own for a long time and had learned she was the most important person out there. Did a baby have to change that?
Kai looked back towards the shopping bag, reading the instructions on the back of the hair dye box she found tucked underneath the tissue.
Kai shifted the shopping bag uneasily in her hand, balancing the heavy baby in her other arm. She felt the smooth tips of her blonde hair, the natural color shining bright underneath the subway station’s lights. She had tucked it underneath a cap she had picked up from a newspaper stand, trying to keep attention away from the homeless girl with a baby and a designer shopping bag. She waited impatiently for the train to appear at Yamenote Station as Pusheen-chan slept underneath her coat. She pulled the business card out from her pocket again, memorizing Hajime’s address. He lived only a couple of stations away from Harajuku.
Kai flicked the card with her fingers down into the tunnel and looked ahead at the tracks imagining the cap of a woman’s head bobbing up and down along the tracks as she waited for the train to approach. She waited for the train to decide which stop would be her new home.
KRISTEN VALENSKI
It was 2:13 a.m., four minutes before the next train on the Yamenote Line would screech into the station, when she saw the woman on the tracks. Elvis always told her to never talk to the crazies. He'd say, "livin’ on the street, we don't got time for them loose folk, gotta slip by, move on. All they do is steal them bags of cans you got to make them weird aluminum caps to contact their mothership or smooch pity from your coin purse."
It was obvious to Kai the woman was a bit off the second she noticed the cap of tussled, greasy hair bobbing across the platform on the tracks. No one was at this platform at Shinjuku Station this early, but Kai carried her sack anyway. In her sack she had stuffed a freshly dug hoard of shiny energy drinks she discovered behind the convenience store on 83rd along with an unsealed bento box and thermos cup. She was able to snag them while Haru, the manager, wasn't looking.
She knew he knew her well enough to recognize when her fingerless gloved hands were itching for a meal by the way her haggard appearance would slump further forward. She had caught glimpses of her reflection before in front of store windows in Harajuku Station when she hadn't eaten a true meal for over three days. Haru told her one evening, the first week the convenience store he owned became a regular stop for her along her dumpster diving rounds, her pale pink lips reminded him of the sakura blossoms that had been late to bloom that spring. Kai had found this strangely sweet and a little disturbing, so she snatched a bag of chips, two bottles of Ramune and a pack of cigarettes before returning to her large battered bag outside.
She stopped at the marked safety line at the edge of the platform, setting the bag beside her and peering to her right. She spotted a pale figure flitting back and forth between the metal beams separating the subway lanes. The woman was humming softly into her arms which were wrapped around a blanketed bundle. The small chirps that faintly echoed from the direction of the unbalanced woman reminded Kai of the tiny kitten she used to own as a child. Kai's chest grew heavy at the thought of the woman carrying such a small creature while on the tracks, endangering its life. She squatted down and called out to the woman, cupping her hands around her mouth.
"Oiiii, Okaa-san! Get off the tracks. You're not allowed down there."
The woman tripped over a buckled metal plank and stubbed her toe underneath it. She crumpled forward, clutching the bundle to her chest. Kai cried out, startled as the crying from the bundle erupted into boisterous wails. What is that woman carrying, she wondered.
Kai hopped off the ledge and stumbled over towards the woman, her lanky legs getting caught around her massive cargo pants that were five sizes too large. She stopped beside the woman not touching her still body as she quietly panicked. If word got out this woman had died the cops may blame her, she was a runaway, souka, a homeless person. Going to jail and disappearing off the streets is all they wanted.
Kai focused back on the woman as she groaned softly and nudged her elbow at Kai’s knee.
“Akachan,” the woman whispered, worming her way towards Kai along the rusty tracks and dirt. Kai helped the woman to her feet and began to guide her towards the edge of the platform. The crying had ceased from the dirty bundle stained from landing in a rusty cesspool of old engine oil. Kai peered at the blanket and noticed tiny star and rabbit patterns swirling along the soft fabric.
Kai leapt onto the ledge, checking the safety of her bag of valuables before she reached for the woman below. She yanked the hem of Kai’s coat until a tear erupted at the seams. Kai clutched at the woman’s firm grip as the blanket roll was thrust at her chest. The woman stared up at Kai fiercely as the reverberating tremors from an oncoming train began to shake the tracks.
“For me, take care. Please.”
Kai opened up the bundle, the woman’s grip still tight on her arm, keeping her in place at the edge of the platform. A set of rich brown eyes opened up, the baby awakened from its shallow sleep. The woman released Kai from her grasp. Kai stumbled to the ground cradling the squirming baby.
“What do you expect me to do with this? Watashi wa kore de nani—” Kai called after the woman and stopped as the rumbling from the tunnel crescendoed, the train’s lights flooding the tunnel and the woman still on the tracks. She stared at the oncoming train erupting from the tunnel’s mouth as she darted along the tracks and out of view. The subway’s brakes shrieked against the tracks.
Kai sat on the ground and watched as the doors slid open and the cool yellow fluorescent lights shone on her and her new kicking parcel. The automated voice from the train informed her the upcoming station would soon be Harajuku, her stop, but she barely noticed. Kai stared down at the baby. Its blubbering mouth and silky black tufts of hair peeked out from under the blanket. The voice called out one last time. Kai hurled her bag into the car and stumbled aboard.
Kai had never been a woman that attained a fondness for babies, but here she was clutching the swaddled cooing bundle against her chest like it was her own. She hid at the back of the subway car traveling to Harajuku Station and Meiji's pent. The tiny face was round, plump from its mother's milk and its small dark eyes watched Kai.
The train shuddered over a new set of tracks and launched Kai into the air several inches. The baby cried out excitedly and Kai shushed the baby with her finger, feeling its smooth skin. She poked its cheek, the baby giggling at her touch. Its round cheek bounced back, a small patch of pink and a sooty fingerprint from Kai's index finger imprinted on the baby's face.
"Pushy," Kai cooed to the baby, "pushy, pushy, pushy." She tickled its other cheek and the baby's arms unwrapped themselves from underneath the fleece blanket it had been cocooned in.
"Pusheen-chan," Kai whispered, holding the baby closer to her chest. Its lips smacked together, spittle wetting them. Its fleshy fingers pulled at her right breast.
"Eh! Eh! No, Pushy," Kai commanded.
The baby ignored her, demanding food. Kai would have to talk to Elvis about this. It’s not every day a stranger hands a souka an infant instead of the police.
The police, Kai thought. If they found out they could charge her with kidnapping. Would it really be considered kidnapping if it was given to her though? How is a souka supposed to take care of a child anyway?
The train barreled into Harajuku Station’s tunnel, then eased to a complete stop. Kai hoisted the bag over her shoulder and tucked Pusheen-chan underneath her coat, careful to use the one button still hanging on her coat flap to shield the baby from suspicious onlookers.
Kai had been living in an abandoned apartment stationed over a small local noodle shop beyond the busy shopping streets in Harajuku. A letter of condemnation had been sealed over the rotting door, describing the residence as a safety issue for the citizens of Japan. The perfect place for three cold and tired souka to crash.
Kai skipped up the steps. She kept away from the light leaking out from the noodle shop, away from the owner’s eyes. She slipped through the half broken doorframe into their pent. Elvis’s back was to her and his hips were shaking back and forth violently. His deep voice rumbled in his chest as he hummed “Jailhouse Rock.”
Kai lowered the bag to the ground carefully in hopes it wouldn’t make too much noise, but the cans rattled. Elvis stopped his gyrations.
“Kai, it’s late. Where you been? What’s under coat?”
Elvis pointed to the large swollen lump that was the baby underneath her coat. Kai, still hiding the baby, hoped if she didn’t talk about it maybe there wasn’t something strange about a homeless person raising a child. The baby hiccupped and giggled; its arms waved out from the top of her coat.
“You stole a baby?” Elvis asked as he kicked up the duct taped mic stand with his cheap flashy white boots. He gyrated his hips.
“Iie, no. Okaa-san gave Pusheen-chan to me.”
“Pusheen? Akachan has a name?” Elvis asked, wiggling his grimy fingers into his thick black beard, scratching at an unknown source around his chin. “Oba, you hear Kai? She got a baby,” Elvis yelled into the dark the room.
Kai hoped Oba would be out when she got back. He was not as relaxed when it came to their living situation as Elvis. Oba refused to sleep in the parks or huddle in cardboard boxes like an animal—he was too old for that. Abandoned buildings filled with asbestos and mold were the next best thing.
A small glimmer flickered from across the room and the wick of a candle lit, illuminating the face of an elderly man whose cheeks had begun to sag like the forgotten drapes hanging around the pent.
He ignored the two of them, stomping over towards the broken basin they used as their sink, fidgeting with some of the old pots and metal scraps flooding the broken porcelain’s rim.
“Oi, Oba you see new baby or not?” Elvis called again.
“There is no baby,” Oba muttered to the ground.
Elvis worked his greasy hands some more underneath his beard, saying, “Baby right here Oba, what do you mean?”
He spun around, hand gripping the edge of the sink, the thin robe draped around his skinny body twirling from a sudden breeze blasting from underneath the doorway. Kai took the green tarp from the ground and wrapped it around her back as she stationed herself in front of the drafty door, blocking the wind from entering.
“You want to be souka, there is no baby,” Oba said to Elvis, ignoring Kai.
“We can’t just leave her, Oba,” Kai said, gently rocking her back and forth. She remembered from back home how her mother had done that with her brother as an infant to help him sleep.
“You try to fit in with us,” Oba called from the sink, scrubbing at an old rusty pot he had been soaking with rainwater from the night before with a broken brush, “but you speak too much English. Too much, too much, everyone know you not Japanese.”
Kai sat curled up in the tarp, blocking the draft that leaked through the bottom of the rotting door. She found herself absentmindedly caressing the temple of Pusheen-chan calming both of their restlessness. Kai knew she couldn’t provide for Pusheen-chan, not in conditions like these, but bringing her to the police could get her involved in ways she’d rather not be.
Oba and Elvis began to banter back and forth about the ethics of homelessness etiquette and Elvis’s lack of participation in finding a new building to crash for the upcoming month. Pusheen-chan’s hand wrapped around Kai’s finger, pulling it towards her face where she nuzzled the finger before closing her eyes. Kai couldn’t help but smile. There had never been a fondness for children within her before; perhaps that was changing.
A swift slap on the back of Kai’s head knocked her to the side, bringing her attention back to Oba and Elvis. “You can’t keep baby. You make no money. We are homeless, souka. Unless you work for gang or Hajime no way we can help her,” Oba said. He crossed his arms, the dripping broken brush in one hand.
“We can’t just give her up, Oba. She has no mother.”
“Like you can be her new Okaa-san. You are souka. You choose how you are to live. Give up your life or get job, work for gang or Hajime. You want out of souka, here is chance.”
The baby went through the milk and diapers Kai had stolen faster than she anticipated. It had been several days and she had been unable to leave the pent to help Elvis and Oba scour dumpsters, lift from tourist’s pockets, or find a new place to sleep. Oba stopped talking to her after he had singed the tip of his long thin beard over the open flame on the stove while cooking noodles Elvis had borrowed from downstairs. He did not admit it, but she had seen him staring at her and Pusheen-chan from across the room, watching them angrily and it was this distraction that caused him to lose two inches of his beloved beard. Elvis had quit singing his “Hound Dog” cover since Pusheen-chan grew overly excited, squealing at his thick drawls mixed in with a strong Japanese accent.
Kai left the pent later that night after Oba had disappeared for the tunnels and Elvis had fallen asleep along the green tarp next to Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box crib. She wound her way through the alleys until she hit the main vein in Harajuku Station, Takeshita Street. The neon strobe lights were still flickering, beckoning tourists and fashion addicts to enter their store and sort through their wares. Beyond the hair salon and gothic Lolita store was a small convenience shop that sold minimal necessities.
Kai skirted the end of the aisles, her head lowered away from the cashier. She ducked into the row she needed and scooped several boxes of baby formula. The young girl was too busy flipping through a teen magazine to notice Kai slip back outside with the baby food. She was lucky it was not the girl’s mother there that night or she wouldn’t have been able to set foot in the shop.
Tucking the boxes beneath her coat, Kai turned the corner of the street to make her way back to the pent house when a man violently bumped into her. The boxes exploded from underneath her coat, landing around their feet.
“I didn’t know you had a kid, Kai. Congratulations,” Hajime said, grinning as he removed his sleek sunglasses from around his tan, slender face. This was the last person Kai had wanted to see.
“She’s not mine, I’m just taking care of her.” Kai dropped down to the ground, grabbing the boxes hurriedly, hoping Hajime had somewhere else to be.
“That’s good. Wouldn’t want to ruin that cute figure of yours.” Kai could imagine Hajime’s face at the moment, smirking down at her, imagining her in one of those outfits his girls wear every night. She could never sink low enough to sell herself like that; she’d rather be a souka the rest of her life.
Hajime’s hand lightly touched the top of Kai’s as he passed a box of the formula to her. His eyes reminded her of Pusheen-chan’s, soft brown, like the chocolate she used to eat before she ran away. She did not like thinking of her baby as being similar to Hajime. She lowered her eyes to the ground, searching for more stray boxes she had dropped.
“You know I can make sure you make enough money to support that kid of yours,” Hajime said, taking the last box of formula from the ground and holding it just out of Kai’s reach. She stood up from her knees, keeping her eyes to the ground and avoiding Hajime’s. Maybe if she ignored him long enough he’d leave her alone so she could get back to Pusheen-chan.
Hajime fingered the end of some of Kai’s hair, rubbing the course texture between his fingertips like he was testing its purity or potential for future cash.
“There is no point in dying your hair black to fit in, Hakujin. We all know you’re a Gaijin, an outsider here. Your English is too good, your figure and face too shallow and lean, and your hair too light. Why not use what makes you different,” Hajime took a step closer to Kai, pressing the box to her chest gently, “to make some money?”
Kai had known it would be pointless to disappear in a place so foreign to her and be treated like everyone else. But that did not mean she would be one of Hajime’s girls.
As if sensing Kai’s desperation to leave and her sudden possibility of flight, he slid his arm around hers, leading her away from the direction of their pent and Pusheen-chan and further down Takeshita Street.
“Why don’t I show you the place, it’s much nicer than you think. We treat all of our women with the greatest respect.” Kai was sure that the women would disagree but she did not pull away from him. Some part of her wanted to see what it was like to be a dancer.
A car was parked in front of a cigarette dispenser, the driver smoking, waiting for Hajime’s return. He opened the door for them and drove out of Harajuku towards Shinjuku district.
In the cramped vehicle, Kai caught whiffs of herself. She wondered how Hajime could stand her stench of garbage and baby formula or her greasy hair and frumpy clothes. He put his sunglasses back on, even though it was nighttime, and stared ahead. Kai hadn’t noticed the slim fitting suit he had been wearing and the sleek black shoes adorning his feet. They both cost more than the rent would have been at the pent house for over a year. But she didn’t want money from a business such as his, she reminded herself.
The car slowed to a halt in front of a black store, red lights flooding the street. A large red cushioned door opened for Hajime and Kai and a thick man greeted them, giving them permission to enter. The inside was dimly lit, small candles lighting the tables speckled across the room. Several women walked back and forth between tables before settling at one to join in conversation with elderly businessmen, their slinky dresses revealing just enough. But center stage was where the money was being made.
“Her name is Pixie for her haircut. She’s one of our most popular girls,” Hajime told Kai next to the bar. He ordered a small clear drink and watched her perform on stage, dancing underneath the smoky lighting, the layers of her red and black dress gradually being shed.
“Pixie makes over 50,000 yen a night, and has a family,” Hajime continued. Kai had been sitting at one of the stools in front of the bar but slid off, walking away from the dancing woman and Hajime. Hajime opened up Kai’s coat and took the baby formula boxes out, lining them up on the counter in front of her.
He caught her arm, pulling her over to him. “I know this isn’t the line of work you want. It’s not what any of these girls want, not really. But it gets them by for now.” He released her and brushed some dirt away from her coat. “If you’re going to take care of that baby you need to start thinking of it before you. The souka life is no life for a child, here you can provide for it. Even if it’s temporary.” Kai wondered how Hajime had been able to drop his Japanese accent. He spoke in clear English then switched to Japanese and ordered one of the men to bring something from the back.
“Think about it. You don’t have to dance right away if you don’t want to. But it makes the most money and you’ll need cash to make a deposit if you’re gonna find a place to live. I can help you with that too.” He reached inside his suit pocket and handed her a personal business card. The name of his business was not etched in it, but had his home address along with his cellphone number scrawled in a romantic font. Kai couldn’t help but blush. She wondered why he would give her something as personal as his phone number and home address when he had only ever been interested in her working for him.
The man appeared from the back with a small shopping bag filled with tissue. Hajime slid the formula boxes into the already stuffed bag and handed it to Kai saying, “Here’s something in case you change your mind. You know how to contact me. If you or your baby ever needs anything, give me a call.”
Hajime escorted Kai back outside to the car. He opened her door once more and helped her inside. He did not join her in the ride back and she was grateful. She needed some time to think about what Hajime had said. She knew she could not raise Pusheen-chan alone, and homeless. There was no way to provide shelter, food and an education for her. But dancing for money? Kai thought. There must be something about her that made Hajime so desperate to have her work for him, and that would mean even more money, more than 50,000 yen a night— maybe enough to raise Pusheen-chan.
Kai shook the idea from her head. She was a souka, homeless, and there was no way out of her life. She chose it and now she had to figure something else out. She wouldn’t be able to make that much money a night anyway; she didn’t even know how to dance. At least she had Elvis and Oba, she wasn’t completely alone.
The car pulled in front of the noodle shop, its doors closed and barred for the night. Kai waved the man away, nervous as to how he knew where she was staying. Kai sluggishly climbed the steps thinking of how she should have ordered food while she was with Hajime, she hadn’t eaten anything since finding Pusheen-chan. Kai stopped her ascent as she heard shrill cries escaping from her pent. She dashed up the rest of the stairs, slamming the already open door to the side.
The condemned room was torn to pieces. The green tarp and Elvis’s belongings were gone. Oba’s pots and candles and slippers no longer occupied the kitchen. Pusheen-chan’s cardboard box was upturned. The baby lay on the cold dirty ground for who knows how long.
Kai picked up the baby, shushing her quietly, bouncing her up and down as she searched the apartment for Oba and Elvis. They were gone and so was her bag. They had left to find a new place to sleep while she had been with Hajime.
Kai could feel her chest tighten. Her heart grew heavy as she sat down on the broken couch. A plume of dust and dirt leaked out from where she sat and Pusheen-chan coughed, calming down as Kai continued to rock her. She had forgotten to get diapers. She was out of diapers.
Kai looked towards the name brand shopping bag Hajime had given to her. She lowered the baby onto the couch and removed the tissues and formula boxes to the ground. She pulled out another box, this one with a Japanese woman on the front and sleek light hair, and a piece of clothing that was deep red and much too short for her figure. She threw them back in the bag and paced the room, staring at Hajime’s business card.
It wasn’t safe for her to be here alone, not without Oba and Elvis, and she was not going to a shelter. Pusheen-chan sighed as she drifted back to sleep.
You have to think about the baby before yourself. But did she have to? She had lived on her own for a long time and had learned she was the most important person out there. Did a baby have to change that?
Kai looked back towards the shopping bag, reading the instructions on the back of the hair dye box she found tucked underneath the tissue.
Kai shifted the shopping bag uneasily in her hand, balancing the heavy baby in her other arm. She felt the smooth tips of her blonde hair, the natural color shining bright underneath the subway station’s lights. She had tucked it underneath a cap she had picked up from a newspaper stand, trying to keep attention away from the homeless girl with a baby and a designer shopping bag. She waited impatiently for the train to appear at Yamenote Station as Pusheen-chan slept underneath her coat. She pulled the business card out from her pocket again, memorizing Hajime’s address. He lived only a couple of stations away from Harajuku.
Kai flicked the card with her fingers down into the tunnel and looked ahead at the tracks imagining the cap of a woman’s head bobbing up and down along the tracks as she waited for the train to approach. She waited for the train to decide which stop would be her new home.