Grotesque Read online

  “What are you looking at? This isn’t a circus, you know.”

  They quickly averted their eyes and acted innocent. One of the young women smirked, but I didn’t care. I pushed roughly past the high school student who was standing in line to use the toilet and walked out.

  The wind was blowing, rattling the tips of the trees as I trudged up Dogenzaka. A middle-aged man lugging a briefcase was a few feet ahead of me, by himself. I called out to him when I got closer.

  “Hey, there, how’d you like to have some fun?”

  The man glanced quickly into my face and kept walking as if he hadn’t heard me.

  “Come on. We don’t have to take long. And it won’t cost much.”

  The man pulled up abruptly and growled at me. “Get lost.”

  I stared at him as if I hadn’t understood.

  “Fuck off!” he spat, as he scurried away. What’s his problem? I felt my anger rising but managed to control it. A fiftyish man was headed my way, just your basic gloomy-looking nine-to-fiver.

  “Hey, mister, want to have some fun?”

  The man brushed roughly past me without bothering to answer. As I continued up the hill I propositioned one middle-aged man after another. Most of them just ignored me and went on their way. I even called out boldly to a man in his late twenties, but he glared at me, repulsed, and waved me away. Just then I felt something strike the side of my face and fall to the ground. I looked at the pavement; it was a balled-up tissue. When I glanced up, I saw a young man wearing jeans leaning on the guardrail beside the sidewalk blowing his nose. The man laughed and threw another wad of filthy tissue at me. I hurried away. There are a number of men who enjoy tormenting prostitutes, and it’s best just to try to avoid them. I dashed into a shop-lined alleyway and caught the sleeve of a salary man leaving a cheap tavern. His cuff was frayed. The man didn’t look like he had much money.

  “Hey, want to party?”

  He shouted at me, with breath reeking of booze, “Get the hell out of my face. I got a good buzz on and don’t want you ruining it.”

  The hawkers in front of the cabaret saw this and had a good laugh at my expense. They slapped each other on the shoulder and looked over at me, eyeing me derisively. “What a freaking monster!” one said to the other.

  What’s so monstrous about me? Confused, I continued to wander along the busy alley. Even though this is the exact same spot where Arai first propositioned me, and even though there are so many drunks around here now, and even though I’m so much prettier than I was then, why are the men so obnoxious when I call out to them?

  I came to the office building where the hotel escort agency I had worked for, Juicy Strawberry, was located. I wondered if they’d take me back. But then I remembered the conditions the dispatcher had laid down when he fired me and realized it was highly unlikely that they’d give me another chance. I stood there for a while looking up at the narrow stairway to the office and weighing my options.

  Just when I’d made up my mind and was starting up the stairs to the Juicy Strawberry office, the door opened and a man walked out, heading down the stairs. It wasn’t the owner or the dispatcher. This man was hugely overweight; his double chins were so massive, I could hardly see his face as he made his way down the stairs. The stairway was narrow, so no matter how thin I was, there was no way the fat man could squeeze past me. I headed back down the stairs and waited there impatiently for him to get out of the way. As he walked past me he held up his hand in greeting. “Sorry,” he said, staring at me, taking me in from head to toe. Clearly sizing me up.

  Without wasting a beat I trotted out my usual phrase: “No problem. But hey, you want to party?”

  “Are you hitting on me? You?”

  The man snickered. His voice was painfully offensive—as if the sounds he produced were drenched in grease. But still, it was somehow familiar. I cocked my head to the side, perplexed. Naturally, I did not forget to bring my finger up to my chin in an effort to make my gesture as charming as possible. It looked like the man had tilted his head to the side as well, though it was hard to tell under all that fat.

  “Have we met somewhere before?”

  “I was just now thinking the same thing.”

  Once the man had made it down the stairs, I could tell he was barely taller than I am. He peered at my face, staring rudely. His eyes were snakelike.

  “Maybe you’ve come by my business before? I know we’ve met.”

  As the man was speaking, I suddenly caught a glimmer of someone I’d known earlier. It was Takashi Kijima, no doubt about it. He was the boy I’d loved so much in high school that I’d sent him love letters. And here he was, the boy who had been as thin as a knife, buried under a mound of flesh.

  “Wait a minute! Are you the one who was friends with Yuriko’s older sister?” He thumped his head in annoyance, trying to remember my name. “You were a year ahead of me….”

  “I’m Kazue Sat.”

  I had to help him out or we’d have been there forever. Kijima let out a long sigh of relief. “Well, it’s certainly been a long time!” he said, in a surprisingly friendly tone. “I guess more than twenty years have passed since I left school.”

  I nodded with annoyance, making special note of Kijima’s clothing. He had on a camel-colored overcoat that looked like cashmere, a gold diamond-studded ring on his right hand, and a heavy-looking bracelet on his wrist. His permed hair was out of style, but even so it looked like he was doing really well. So why was he still pimping? And why the hell had I ever been attracted to him? The very thought made me laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just wondering why I was so crazy about you.”

  “I remember you sent me letters. They were really something.”

  “I wish you’d just forget that ever happened.” That had been the most humiliating event in my life. But I curbed my tongue and my anger and propositioned Kijima again.

  “Kijima-kun, what do you say we go party?”

  Kijima started fanning his hand in front of his face in a vigorous effort to end my question.

  “Not going to happen. I’m gay, and I’m out. So don’t even go there.”

  So that was it! What a fool I was. Far from lacking merit, what I had hoped for wasn’t even in the realm of possibility.

  “Yeah? Well, see you later then.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and walked away.

  Kijima pursued me, breathing heavily, and grabbed hold of my shoulder. “Kazue, wait. What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean, what happened to me?”

  “I mean you look completely different. Are you really turning tricks now? I heard you’d been hired by G Architecture and Engineering. What happened with that?”

  “Nothing happened with that.” I shook my shoulder free. “I’m still working there. I’m the assistant manager of the research office.”

  “Impressive! So you’re moonlighting at night? Women are lucky. They can earn money leading double lives.”

  I turned to look back at Kijima. “You look different too, you know. You’re so fat I hardly recognized you.”

  “Well then, I guess we’re both not what we used to be,” Kijima replied, with a short snort.

  That’s not true, I contradicted him silently. I was always thin and beautiful. Aloud, I said, “I ran into Yuriko the other day. She’s changed too.”

  “Yuriko? No kidding!”

  Kijima repeated Yuriko’s name over to himself several times, clearly full of emotion. “Yuriko. Was she well? I lost contact with her a while back and I’ve been wondering how she was doing.”

  “She’s a mess. She’s fat and ugly. I can’t believe someone so beautiful could have turned out to be so ugly. We used to be like night and day. Well, we still are! Only now I can’t understand how I could have felt so much jealousy and resentment for her.”

  Kijima nodded, silently mouthing his agreement.

  “She’s now standing on corners just like me. She sa