Ransom by Jay McInerney Read Free Book Online

the dirt of the street and ate sweets all day.
    Konichiwa, Kaji-san
.
    Konichiwa, Ransom-san
. After two years of practice Kaji had mastered a fair imitation of his tenant’s name.
    Ransom said it was a fine day and Kaji agreed. He looked pleased with himself and clearly had more to say. Ransom asked after the kids—they were fine—and then Kaji said he had a little surprise. Not really a surprise; in fact, it was nothing at all, barely worth mentioning.
    What is it?
Ransom could see that he was excited.
    Slowly and with much gesticulation, Kaji explained that a friend of his could get him a very good deal on a hot water heater for Ransom’s apartment. It was just a kitchen model, of course; Ransom would still have to use the public bath.
    Ransom didn’t want to hurt Kaji’s feelings; neither did he want Kaji to spend money unnecessarily. He thanked Kaji for thinking of him, but the apartment was just fine the way it was.
    Was Ransom-san worried about the rent?
Kaji asked.
Not to worry. There would be no additional rent
.
    Ransom-san said that Kaji surely had more importantthings to spend his money on. He himself wanted for nothing, and his teaching salary was if anything generous.
    Think of the winter
, Kaji said.
Think of the cold
.
    It keeps me moving
, Ransom said.
    Kaji withdrew inside like a man defeated. Among the many reasons he had worried about renting to a gaijin was the primitive state of the family property. His old, prewar house was made of mud and lime, had tatami floors and minimal plumbing, and Americans, he knew, were used to all the latest of the modern conveniences. The newer homes and apartments in the city had these things. He tried to discourage his prospective gaijin tenant. Later, when Kaji had come to know him, he offered Ransom the black-and-white television when they had purchased a new color set. Kaji had feared the offer of the old set was a terrible insult to Ransom, and Ransom, knowing that his refusal of the gift would be taken as a rejection of an unworthy object, had thanked Kaji profusely. Later, under cover of night, he carried the set down to Buffalo Rome and gave it to an English friend, who would enjoy watching sumo wrestling on television.
    Ransom had not come to Japan to watch television. He knew when he arrived that American shows were among the staples of the local airwaves, but was surprised to discover that the local product was even trashier. Ransom had strong opinions on the American medium, his father being a director and producer. He started out as a playwright, and although Ransom was only three years old when his father’s last play was produced, he never quite forgave him for abandoning that vocation. A year ago, on Ransom’s twenty-fifth birthday, his father sent him themanuscript of that play, still revived from time to time, a tragedy about a New England family with skeletons in their closets; the play’s excellence had long been a matter of faith with Ransom, who used it as a point of reference against which to judge the situation comedies which had occupied his father since. Though a critical success, the play was commercially as modest as its predecessors, and Ransom’s father turned increasingly to script writing and doctoring. He began to direct commercials. When Ransom was five the family had moved from New York to Los Angeles, and for reasons having nothing to do with art or geography that relocation had come to symbolize for young Ransom a fall from grace. He started school, and hated it. His mother opposed the move. She liked New York, her family was in New England. And she wanted her husband to write plays, not television scripts. Ransom’s parents seldom fought, but he began seeing less and less of his father, who worked progressively later into the evening. His father stopped going to church—he had converted to Catholicism to marry Ransom’s mother. Materially, things got better and better, yet the widening