I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar Read Free Book Online Page B

I would like to have cried. Pale yellow blossoms fell from the bushes.
    Takeshi wasn’t the only one, was he.
    No. There was Yukiko too.
    Hm.
    Miyajima Yukiko.
    The lump in my throat thickened. That Monday I could say no more than her name.
51
    It looks like rain. He yawned.
    I followed his gesture towards the dreary pale sky.
    Tomorrow. What is it tomorrow? Right. Tuesday. The week has only just begun. If it rains ... he rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a card. His tongue pushed forward, he scribbled in big letters: MILES TO GO. A Jazz café. When it rains, he said, that’s where Iam.
    But.
    But what?
    I felt dizzy. The idea of walking past tables and chairs, across a sweaty room, sitting down, meeting the gaze of a waiter, sipping from a glass that God knows who had sipped out of before. Still trying to get used to the park and our friendship, this idea was beyond the bounds of possibility and my self-confidence.
    It’s just that. I stammered. Outside there’s more room between people.
    I understand. He stood up. Then until next time the sun shines. It was six o’clock. On the other side of the card I read his name, Ohara Tetsu, and his address. A business card. I am a coward, I thought. And: Another object which, in my room, in the drawer, under the age-old fossil. I did not complete the thought.
52
    Quick, quick. Through the foyer. Who was smiling there? The picture of the untaken trip to San Francisco hung on the wall, carefully straightened and dusted, as if I hadn’t turned it around. Father’s hand on my shoulder. Mother’s “cheese” cried out from the frame. Me, pimply, crooked cap, two fingers spread in a victory sign. A frozen moment. A grain of sand in the hourglass. Soon it would slip through the narrow waist. A few grains of sand later and I would shake off Father’s hand. Mother’s “cheese,” it would collapse. What’s the matter withhim, the boy. Let him be. It’s a phase. The truth is: They would rather not know. The truth is: I would rather not let them know. We had struck a pact: Better not to know anything about each other. And this pact is what holds families together for generations. We wore masks. Our faces no longer recognizable underneath, for our masks had grown onto us. It hurt to pull them off. It hurt so much that the pain of never meeting face to face was bearable, compared to the pain of showing your true face. Already this me in the photo knew that. It knew there’s no better place to hide than in a family, the ideal hiding place. It is the empty yellow-edged square that remains when you take a picture off the wall. I shoved it silently in the trash by the door. Crept back across the foyer into my room. Only after the door closed behind me did I ask myself whether my hikikomori identity, my complete indifference to the world, was also a masquerade. My answer: I am tired.
53
    Two days passed. Drumming raindrops. Through the gap in the curtains I saw that the sky was sewn up. No tear in the clouds to be seen. I ran to and fro. An animal in a cage dreaming of the wide open plain. Again and again I brushed against the cage bars, cold iron on the pelt of longing. On the third day I outwitted myself and broke out. The cage had just been in my head.
    The water smacked down from the overhanging roofs. I ran, the umbrella slanted in front of me, in wet shoes. MILES TO GO. I intended to walk past it at the very least. Past the flickering illuminated letters and perhaps catch a fleeting glimpse. Perhaps. With this Perhaps in my head I ranged like an escaped animal, a lion maybe, or apanther, through the wind and rain lashed streets.
    It must be up there. The Perhaps was in my chest and from there had penetrated to all parts of my body, pumped me on, up to the door, and past it, around the corner, around the block, and again: Past it, around the corner, around the block. I can’t say how many times. In my memory I walked for miles. When I finally touched the handle, cold iron