Chapter 4: Tenuchi's Story

by Miguel Ramos

Hideo’s voice rumbled from his chest with the soothing tones of a large diesel engine, a sound George had always found pleasant. It reminded him of his childhood home behind the train yards, listening to the giant engines warm up every morning before heading out with the day’s coal runs.

George took another drink of bourbon and tightened his stitches, listening to Hideo’s story, letting the warmth of the liquor relax his muscles.

“Tenuchi’s parents lived in the floating world, which exists as a shadow over this world. Tenuchi’s mother was named Akemi. She was a singer in a club owned by my oyabun, my boss, Takayama. The club’s name was – is – the Lucky Monkey.

Anyone who wanted to buy heroin in our territory came to the Lucky Monkey. But many came to hear Akemi sing…”

The downpour had finally stopped, but the dripping from the many eaves filled the streets with the sounds of raindrops. The ghost of rain. It was beginning to darken, and it was cold. Shijo turned his collar up against the chill and drew on his cigarette. The attaché case was heavy with heroin and yens. He carried a loaded .10mm pistol under his left arm, but he wasn’t worried about using it. Not in the Minato district. Takayama’s grip was iron hard here.

Shijo could smell the sea not far away, but it was faint, overpowered by the smells of rotten vegetables and human sweat. He ran a hand through his wet hair and cursed the weather, fantasizing for the twelfth time that day of retiring early to some warm island, Tahiti or maybe Fiji.

He stepped in a puddle, the cold water immediately drenching his left foot. Swearing out loud this time he pulled his foot out and shook it, then walked around the puddle. He could see the Lucky Monkey just ahead. Already the leather of his shoe was squeaking from the soaking.

As he neared the ornate, black wooden doors he could hear the thumping beat of the break box inside, the rhythm entwined around some sampled jazz trumpet wailing. He paused and listened. The breathy quality of the loop sounded like Miles. He smiled for the first time in hours. Akemi must be on stage.

Shijo paused to light another cigarette before stepping into the club. The sound enveloped him like a warm, wet blanket, heavy beats and Mingus chords chasing Miles’ trumpet from one side of the long, rectangular room to the other. Akemi, wearing a long silver dress, leaned into her mic, rapping her poetry and anger into the air. Kids with short, dayglo colored hair bounced on the floor around the stage.

Shijo walked to the bar and grabbed a beer before heading to the back of the club.

Chapter 3: Sam and the Firefly

By Allen Frost

The crash startled the fragile man into trembling spider-like motion, up off the daybed and across the creaking floor to the door. He hadn’t been sleeping, at least he didn’t think so, but maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him. He pushed the door open into the small room that served as kitchen and everything else in the apartment.
Not surprisingly, Sam had broken their new wooden radio. Crushed splinters of it, gray tin foil and mechanics, heaped smoking on the scarred floor. Out of it croaked a last crazy word or two more. It was still plugged in by a thick black wire. Then the heap crackled a spark, died.
“Sam,” he rasped, “Maybe you shouldn’t listen to the radio for a while…”
For a moment his gigantic roommate really became the super-villain of those B movies he starred in. That was the face Sam made when his submarine ran aground, whenever the Empire suffered a temporary loss.
“Relax Sam…That’s my advice to you, as your doctor.”
Sam’s big hand went into the radio rubble. Giving a huff, he caught the Firefly between his thumb and forefinger. He held it up to his gaze like a jeweler and a diamond.
A tiny voice appealed from it, “This is a possession of the United States of America. Any resultant felony and, or, breaking of applicable laws is punishable by law.”
Sam made it dust when he shut his fingers together.
“I feel the same way about the news,” the doctor said. He shook his head at the mess. “What a nightmare.”
Sam growled, “Why can’t they just play the music?”
“You know, I told you. That’s not the way they do things in this country, Sam. On radio you have to have commercials and news. I told you, just turn it off when that happens. The music always comes on afterwards.”
The words hissed out of Sam like pistons of a steam engine, “The Empire will not be defeated.”
“I know…I know…” the doctor held up his hands placating, then he noticed the wrist watch on his right arm. He raised it to see. A button started music out of a little warbling speaker. It hummed like a cricket on his arm.
“Cornelius Barter,” Sam nodded. The effect was immediate and soporific. Sam dropped back dreamily into a straw-backed Van Gogh chair.

Chapter 2: Little Finger, Big Man

by Miguel Ramos

George Mariz opened his eyes. He didn’t know where he was. He slowly sat up and looked around him. Metal desk, two folding chairs, a long, padded examining table, no windows. His office. He could hear music coming through the thinly plastered old walls. The bodega must still be open.

George stood up from the floor where he had been laying. His body wasn’t too stiff, so he must not have been out for long, though he couldn’t recall clearly when he must have fallen asleep this time.

He could hear heavy footsteps walking down the hallway between his office and the bodega. They got louder as whoever it was approached his door, and finally stopped. After a few seconds, during which George stared at the door, his head bowed expectantly, a series of loud knocks rattled the door in its frame.

Only business used that door. Paying customers. No one else would venture down the hallway (lit with flickering, old fluorescent tubes that George refused to replace), past the stock room with its locked, iron-barred door (through which the smells of Mexico and South America wafted), past the janitor’s closet (its door long missing, with a wheeled bucket and stiff, dry mop the sole occupants), and finally to George’s unmarked door (which used to open into the manager’s office when the building had housed workers from the local textile mills and included a private bathroom, years of cigar smoke stains, and a hidden exit beside the bathroom sink (that George did not know about)).

George crossed to the door and opened it. The man who stood there clutching a bloody rag around his left hand towered over him. The top of his head disappeared above the door’s lintel. George backed up and motioned the giant man in. He had to turn sideways and duck his head to get through. He had solid, wide legs and a full stomach that pushed at the buttons of a red silk shirt he wore beneath an open, black sports coat. He had long, dark hair pulled back and tied into a ponytail, a gold hoop through his left ear, and a thin, long nose. He stared down at George through narrow, slanted eyes, looking angry, then took one step back and bowed.

“Mariz-san. My name is Hideo Nakata. Salvatore Contadino-san sent me to you. He said you could repair this.” He thrust out the hand covered with the blood stained rag. George picked up one corner and took a look. Hideo’s little finger was missing just below the first knuckle. It had been tied off with what looked like dental floss. George looked up at Hideo.

“Please, Mariz-san, I need to you repair this.” Hideo reached into his coat’s pocket with his right hand and pulled out an ice filled zip-lock baggie. The missing finger swam inside the pink tinged water. George saw that Hideo’s right hand was already missing the little finger.

“Go over to the table and sit down Hideo.” While the giant man sat George closed and locked his door. He then walked to his desk and opened up the top left drawer, pulling out a bottle of penicillin and one of Demerol, as well as two syringes. He also gathered a pair of latex gloves, a large pad of gauze, saline solution, forceps, suture and needle from the middle drawer. He then opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon and two glasses. George put everything on a tray and walked over to the table.

“Hideo, did Sal tell you how much this would cost?”

Hideo grunted and reached into an inside coat pocket, pulling out a roll of twenty dollar bills. He handed it over to George. George counted out $300 and gave the roll back to Hideo. He then poured them each a drink.

After they had each swallowed the bourbon George started working, injecting the Demerol and preparing to sew Hideo’s finger back on. He placed Hideo’s hand flat on top of a piece of gauze cleaned the wound with the saline. The cut was fresh and straight.

“It’s good that you used a sharp knife and came here right away. That will make it easier to sew your finger back on. I can’t guarantee that it will heal properly, though. If you’re lucky it will, but if you start to see any signs of infection you should come back and let me take it back off.”

Hideo, who was watching George work, nodded.

“I understand, Mariz-san, but it is very important to me that the finger heals well. I’ve already lost one finger. I would be very shamed to have missing fingers on both hands.”

“If it doesn’t heal properly I may be able to get you a prosthetic. Then it wouldn’t be as obvious.”

Hideo smiled and shook his head. “No, it must be my real finger. I feel that it will heal. I trust your work.”

George looked up from his sewing and stared at Hideo. “Why do you trust me? You don’t even know me.”

Hideo straightened his back. “You are wrong. I do know you. It is you who do not know me.”

“You know my son, don’t you?” asked George.

“No, Mariz-san, but I knew his parents. How is Tenuchi fairing?”

George turned back to Hideo’s finger, concentrating on the sutures. “The material I’m using for these stitches is called Dexon. It will dissolve in about three weeks, so if the finger is healing normally you won’t need to come back.”

“I am going to tell you a story, Mariz-san, of how I know your son’s parents, and why I am here in the United States. You continue working, and listen.”